Expressing Christ 2/8

Expressing Christ in Everyday Life
Part 2 of 8

We are in Christ!

The news that Christ is in us is great. However, just as some TV ads from a few decades ago exclaimed, “but wait, there’s more!” Not only is Christ in us, but we are also in Christ. We are baptized into Him. We are immersed in Christ.

We see our immersion into Him in Galatians 3:26–27, which informs us that “in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (NIV)

We were immersed into Christ and now we are clothed with Christ. This is a very interesting statement. It brings to mind God’s action on behalf of Adam and Eve when they had discovered their nakedness. God atoned, or covered, their nakedness, or sin, with the skins of animals. Now, all who agree to be reconciled to God are enwrapped in Christ, sealed in God.

This happened by the Spirit of God according to 1 Corinthians 12:12–13, which tells us that “just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” (NIV)

Importantly, Romans 6:3 asks, “don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (NIV) It’s important that we understand that we were baptized into the death of the Lord Jesus. It is this aspect of the work He has done for us that lets us know that we can ignore the thoughts that tempt us toward ungodly attitudes and actions. Instead of viewing them from the perspective of powerless victims, we can see them for the thinly veiled lies they are and rest in the certain knowledge that we are free to live as we were designed to live. After all, as Romans 6:7 tells us, the one who has died is freed from sin.