The Believer’s Union with Christ According to Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians 1:3-14

Such is the broad swath of spiritual truths that are ours in Christ Jesus. So now, we turn our attention to unpack in greater detail the testimony of Paul in Ephesians concerning our union with Christ.

1. Christians are simultaneously both “in” a particular city and “in” Christ Jesus. “To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:1)

“To speak of Paul’s sense of ‘geography’ is an attempt to describe the ‘place’ where he thought Christians live. In Paul’s mind, just as these Christians live literally in the region near Ephesus, they also live in Christ. The terrain, climate, values, and history in which people grow up and live help to define who they are. As really as this region near Ephesus defines who they are, Christ defines who believers really are. He is the ‘sphere of influence’ or ‘power field’ in which they live and from which they benefit and are transformed. That is, his Spirit, values, character, history, and purposes shape their lives. People can live in other spheres (cf. 2:1-3), but Christians live in Christ. Jesus Christ must never be depersonalized by such language, but we will not understand Paul unless we learn to think of life as lived in Christ” (Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, NIV Application Commentary, 40).

Thus, there are two levels of experience for the believer, two kingdoms of which he/she is a citizen, two perspectives from which we may view life. For us today, we are in/at whatever city is your home. In a real sense, that is where we are. But it cannot and must not ever exhaust what we are. We are more than citizens of an earthly city or state or country. Bishop Handley Moule wrote the following of the same statement in Colossians 1. I have taken the liberty of replacing “Colossae” with “Ephesus”:

“They moved about Ephesus ‘in Christ.’ They worked, served, kept the house, followed the business, met the neighbors, entered into their sorrows and joys, . . . suffered their abuse and insults when such things came – all ‘in Christ.’ They carried about with them a private atmosphere, which was not of Asia but of heaven. To them Christ was the inner home, the dear invisible but real resting place. . . And what a rich gain for poor Ephesus, that they, being in Him, were in it” (28).

This concept of being “in” Christ Jesus has immense practical implications. No matter where you are geographically and physically, what you are spiritually will never change. You may be at work, at play, overseas, under the weather, out of money, but you are always and unchangeably in Christ! You may be down in the dumps, over the hill, or beside yourself, but you are always and unchangeably in Christ! You may be at paradise or in prison, at the movies or in Texas, but you are always and unchangeably in Christ! Your geographical, earthly, physical location has no effect on your spiritual identity.

But the reverse is different. It is precisely because you are in Christ that wherever you live and work and play, you make an impact, you carry an influence, you make a difference. Your spiritual identity as one in Christ must control and characterize how you live, wherever you live. And remember: it is in Texas or Oklahoma or New York that you are in Christ. They are true simultaneously. You do not live in Christ only while you are at church or in class or in a home group, then to return to being simply in Dallas or OKC, when you leave that more “holy” atmosphere. Your “in-Christ-ness” is not simply a heavenly reality that obtains only somewhere up there. You are “in Christ” even when you are “in sin”!

2. We are recipients of every spiritual blessing only if we are “in Christ” (Eph. 1:3).

Numerous suggestions have been made about the meaning of being “in” Christ in this text.

 Some say it is a concept carried over from the mystery religions of Paul’s day and refers to sacramental initiation and absorption into divinity, resulting in some sort of mystic identity, ecstatic experience; etc.

 Many contend for what can only be called a literal or local sense: the risen Christ is something of an ethereal, omnipresent spirit; as air is in us and we in it, so Christ is “in” us and we “in” him, in a somewhat quasi-physical sense (cf. Acts 17:28 – “in him we live, and move, and have our being”).

 Often this phrase has an instrumental sense and might be translated “through” Christ or “by means of” Christ, or even “because of” Christ.

 It may be that “in Christ” is simply a metaphor of personal communion with Christ via the indwelling Holy Spirit; an undefinable, mystical oneness or spiritual fellowship with the Lord.

 On occasion the phrase is used adjectivally and is simply synonymous with the word “believer” or “Christian” (see 2 Cor. 12:2).

 In some texts the phrase qualifies or limits an action, as in Eph. 6:1 where children are commanded to obey their parents “in the Lord”.

 Many argue for a corporate or covenant identification with Christ. What is true of him is true of us. As we were once “in Adam” in that he represented us, and what he did, we were reckoned to have done, so now we are “in Christ”. He represents us. What was said of Christ can now be said of believers.

 Snodgrass combines several of the ideas in the above list and says that “Christ is the ‘place’ where believers reside, the source in which they find God’s salvation and blessings, and the framework in which they live and work. . . . [However], just as Christ’s personhood is not lost, neither is the believer’s individuality lost. This is not some eastern religious thought of absorption into the deity. Rather, Christ and the believer are bound into a unity in which Christ sets the parameters for life and makes available God’s provisions for life” (47-8).

To be continued . . .