'In' Christ Jesus

[dwight92070]

Another aspect of abiding in Him is meditating on and obeying the Sermon on the Mount.

I heard it said that God spoke His Law from Mount Sinai, with thunder, lightning, a trumpet blast, and a terrifying voice.

And God in the flesh, Jesus spoke His Law (the law of Christ) from a mountain as well, but with gracious, yet authoritative commandments by which we can abide in Him.

The Sermon on the Mount was not for nonbelievers, but for disciples. We don't see "faith" mentioned here. It appears to be commands to do a lot of works. That's because it was for those of us who are already saved, to direct us to be zealous for good deeds, to bear much fruit, and so glorify our Father.

Jesus said that if we're wise, we'll build our house on a rock by hearing the words of this sermon, and then doing them.
If we're foolish, we'll build our house on the sand by hearing the words of this sermon, and then NOT doing them.

 

[Duane]

Be careful some may think you are taling about being saved by works lol. wink wink

Then I'll lay this one on them.

When you bear (produce) much fruit, My Father is honored and glorified, and you show and prove yourselves to be true followers of Mine.
John 15:8.

Good works do not produce salvation. Good works are the product of salvation. Jesus said to His followers, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God’s goal in saving us was not only to rescue us from hell, but also that we would reflect His character and goodness to the world.

 

[praise_yeshua]

Then I'll lay this one on them.

When you bear (produce) much fruit, My Father is honored and glorified, and you show and prove yourselves to be true followers of Mine.
John 15:8.

Good works do not produce salvation. Good works are the product of salvation. Jesus said to His followers, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God’s goal in saving us was not only to rescue us from hell, but also that we would reflect His character and goodness to the world.

Do you mind if I challenge this?

Take the "fruit" referenced. What is this "fruit"? I can give a very clear example. Let the Scriptures define it....

Heb 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

What is better. What "fruit" tastes better to God?

Every plant gives fruit or it dies. In fact. "Fruiting" produces death. Fruit contains seeds........ I love Tomatoes. I can tell you that the best tasting tomatoes are extremely difficult to grow. The better they taste the harder it seems for them to survive. The best tasting are broken. They don't often appear to be of much value. They look tattered and torn. Broken at times. You don't get many fruits from them but they sure do taste the best.

So what "fruit" is better. Just a few from the vine that taste perfect? Or a millions fruits on one vine that taste like cardboard?

God has chosen the broken things of this world to confound the wise. The wisdom of this world demands an abundance of fruit. The wisdom of God is looking for the best......

Which is best? Praise from the lips of broken sinners or the fruit that says "I thank God I'm not like those other sinners"?

The brightest light..... is that light we reflect in speaking of the greatness of Jesus Christ alone. After all. How do sinners recognize all "these light sources" people expect in this world from this theology everyone seems to have.....

The truth of the matter is.....There is ONLY One light. We reflect that light or what does it matter?

 

[jeremiah1five]

abide, abide, abide...

If you live in Me [abide vitally united to Jesus] and My words remain in you and continue to live in your hearts, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.
John 15:7.

When we abide in Christ, our prayers are effective , we glorify God in our fruit bearing , we demonstrate our discipleship , and our joy becomes full through experiencing Christ’s own joy within us

True.

One who is truly born-again may not always be "in Christ" ("anointing") if for some reason their walk is not according to obedience. In other words, to always be walking in obedience and in the Spirit (Christ) is impossible. Sometimes God allows sin or sins to be committed once, twice, or consistently in which case one who is in a backslidden state and out of fellowship cannot be truly "in Christ" (in the Spirit) if they are committing sin or sins. We cannot always be in a 'mountaintop' experience in our Christian walk. The valley beckons us from time to time and is a place where we receive the most training and admonition in our affliction(s.) Else, there would never be no prodigals.

 

[Jim]

The following has been taken from an appendix to the James B. Coffman commentary on Romans. I thought it was interesting.

In Christ Jesus​

The redemption that is in Christ ...
The expression "in Christ" is, in some ways, the most important in all the Pauline writings, where this expression, or its equivalent, "in whom," "in him," etc., is used no less than 169 times.

What does it mean to be "in Christ"? It means to be in his spiritual body, called the church, the body of which Christ is the head, of which he is declared to be the Savior, and which means having a spiritual relationship to Christ, a relationship of intimate union and identification with him. Redemption is not in faith, or baptism, or in anything else except being "in Christ." Right here is that device contrived by God himself by which a man might truly and legitimately be justified; and it might be looked upon as a divine entity.

This writer is indebted to John Mackay, former President of Princeton Theological Seminary, for this concept of a divine corporation. He wrote:

Which God designated to give historical fulfillment to the "plan of the mystery." That organ is a community, the community of the "chosen in Christ," of "the destined in love." In the Epistle of the Ephesians, which is supremely interested in the corporate side of Christianity, "The People of God" occupy a central place. In the Old Testament they formed the "Commonwealth of Israel" in the New Testament the Christian Church, "the Body of Christ."

Being In Christ Jesus

Inherent in the very fact of Christ's having a spiritual body is the concept of its being extra-literal. What kind of body is it? That it is a community of believers on earth is implicit in the fact that the Corinthians had "by one Spirit" all been baptized "into it" (1 Corinthians 12:13). That, in the last analysis, it includes more than the church is plainly set forth in Ephesians where "every family" in heaven and upon earth are a part of it. All the saved of all ages are in it, because only in Christ has salvation ever been possible for anyone. The wonder of this body is that it is truly spoken of as a person, like any other organization, being, in fact, a fully legal person; hence the propriety of saying that one is "in Christ."

Christ's absolute righteousness cannot be separated from himself and conferred or imputed to others, true righteousness being non-transferable; but it is possible, thanks to the wise provision of God in forming the body of those "in Christ," for all who will to enter that body, becoming one with Christ, fully identifiable with him, and being in fact "in him." All such then share Christ's righteousness. It is truly theirs. This is what Paul means by "redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

The result of being in Christ is the righteousness of Christ. In Christ is a bank of all the righteousness ever accredited to people. All spiritual blessings are categorically said to be in this body, "in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3). This means that there are no spiritual blessings anywhere except in Christ.

Who are those who make up Christ's spiritual body, thus being "in Christ"? The New Testament gives the following clues to their identity:

They are those who have been born again. Christ's spiritual body, also called by Christ "the kingdom," cannot be entered except by the new birth (John 3:3-5). They are those who are the "new" creatures. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature" (2 Corinthians 5:17). And, like every other official body, being in Jesus Christ has a seal. Paul wrote to the Ephesians:

In whom (that is, in Christ), having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13).

Thus, the members of the body of Jesus Christ are those who have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. They are also the saved, for the author of Acts declared that

The Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved (Acts 2:47).

The true members of body of Jesus Christ are the saved, the sealed with the Holy Spirit, the new born, the new creatures. In a word, they are baptized believers in Christ. The reception of the Holy Spirit of promise, in the first sermon of the gospel age, was made contingent upon the repentance and baptism of those who believed (Acts 2:38), and Paul's mentioning "of promise" in Eph. 1:13, above, shows that he had that in mind. Baptism is an essential element in the new birth, though not the whole of it; and the "newness of life" which belongs to every person "in Christ" follows his being baptized into Christ (Romans 6:4). There can be no marvel, therefore, at the fact of baptism's being mentioned three times in the New Testament as an act of obedience that results in the believer's having a new status, that of being "in Christ." "Baptized into Christ" is found in Rom. 6:3 and Gal. 3:27; and, in 1 Corinthians, it is written: "For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body" (12:13).

From these Holy Scriptures, there comes the certain conclusion, then, that faith is not the sum and all of salvation; it was not even so in the case of Christ whose faith and perfect obedience wrought salvation for all; nor can it be supposed that "faith alone," defined by James as "dead" (James 2:17f), can ever avail anything except the eternal disappointment of them that trust in it.

In that all have sinned, a fact Paul was at great labor to prove, there resides the absolute necessity for every man to die as the penalty of sin, that penalty to be understood not merely as mortal but as eternal death; and God's justice will require that every man ever born on earth pay it, unless exempted through being in Christ. Thus, in the final judgment, only those who are truly "in Christ," members of that entity called the spiritual body, can truly be exempted, and that not upon the basis of their faith alone, but upon the basis that Christ actually died for them, and that they died "in the person of Christ." That is the thrust of Paul's thought that Christians have been "baptized into his death" (Romans 6:3).

The body of Jesus Christ is established through purchase by the blood of Christ (Acts 20:28), the device God had planned before all time, and the mystery hidden before times eternal, and now made "known through the church" (Ephesians 3:10), and called the "mystery of the gospel" (Ephesians 6:19).

These thoughts are offered in the prayerful hope that people may forsake human theories of salvation, that they might believe and be baptized, as Christ commanded, and give glory to God "in the church" as directed by an apostle (Ephesians 3:21).

Like every figure of speech used to convey eternal truth, this one also results in certain distortions, as, for example, above where Christ is spoken of as being alone entitled to salvation. Of course, he was never lost; but the inheritance of the saints is scripturally noted as that which they shall receive as joint-heirs with Christ. Thus, subject to the limitation of all metaphor, this one is conceived of as a vehicle for vital truth, taught abstractly, throughout the New Testament; and, it is hoped, made a little plainer in this comparison.

Thus, only the righteous, the perfect, the truly faithful and obedient shall be saved; and there will be no basis for any man to boast of having anything such as that, because such is not in man; but it is in Christ, and those in Christ may through absolute identification with Christ truly say that they are perfect, etc. That is what Paul meant when he wrote: "That we may present every man perfect in Christ" (Colossians 1:28).

Thus, it will not be an imparted righteousness, but rather an imputed righteousness procured, by grace through faith, by a real, actual righteousness wrought by Christ, that can save such a one as sinful man, and then only if he will die to himself and become utterly one with Christ in Christ. As Paul said of himself:

It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).

Before leaving Rom. 3:24, the seeming paradox of how God's grace is free and at the same time all people do not receive it, should be observed. Paul wrote Titus:

For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world (Titus 2:11,12).

From this, it is plain that God's grace having appeared, and salvation having been brought to all people, refer to the availability of that grace and salvation, and not to their being unconditionally bestowed. From the farmer who reaps down his fields to the fishermen off the Grand Banks, all men receive God's gifts conditionally, and never unconditionally. Thus, it is no surprise that God's grace and salvation came "instructing men," with the necessary deduction that rejection of the instructions was automatically rejection of the grace and salvation. Failure to comply with divinely imposed conditions is forfeiture of all benefits conditionally given.

 

[mikesw]

I'm not fully settled on the concept I am about to share, but the point might be found in these verses:
Rom 8:1-2 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,

Basically the concept is that a person is basically in Christ when walking according to the Spirit but not in Christ if walking according to the flesh. I've not settled on whether Paul is emphasizing how being in Christ involves us living by the Spirit or whether a Christian can be in Christ at one moment and outside of Christ in other moments. The latter does not appear to match with the recognition that we are secure as followers of Christ.