In Christ Christ in you
In Christ, Christ in You
A study in Romans
Introduction
Two short phrases run through the New Testament, and most believers have heard both many times: in Christ and Christ in you. They sound almost the same. They are not the same, and a great deal of confusion in the Christian life comes from treating them as one thing, or from knowing only one of them.
This book is about seeing both, and about seeing how they fit together.
Two sides of one salvation
In Christ is the juridical, representative side. God placed you into Christ by faith, so that what happened to Him is counted as having happened to you. When He obeyed, you obeyed in Him. When He died, you died in Him. When He was raised, you were raised in Him (Romans 6:3-5; Ephesians 2:6). You did not feel any of this at the time. It was reckoned to you because you were put in Him. It is complete, finished, and does not rise and fall with your moods.
Christ in you is the vital, living side. In John 15 the branch is in the vine, but the life of the vine is also in the branch. Paul calls it "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27) and says, "Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). This is more than a verdict. It is a living Person giving His own nature, desires, and power through the Spirit, moment by moment.
One side is juridical: your standing before God. The other is substantial: the real life of Christ at work in you.
What goes wrong when you only have one
If you know only that you are in Christ, you can end up with a correct but distant fact. You are forgiven and secure, yet you do not know how to live, and the verdict has so little power in daily life because the substantial side is missing.
If you know only that Christ is in you, you can drift into trying to measure His life by how you feel today. When you feel weak, you wonder whether anything is there. Nothing settled lies under it, so everything depends on your experience.
The New Testament does not give us a choice between the two. It gives us both, and each one shows the other for what it is.
Why Romans
Romans lays these out in order. In chapter 5, Paul puts two heads side by side, Adam and Christ, and shows that you are in one or the other. In chapter 6, the history of Christ becomes your history: baptized into His death, raised to walk in new life. In chapter 7, he describes what happens when someone tries to live out that verdict by personal effort, and it is a fog, not a victory. Then chapter 8 opens with no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, and goes on to say that Christ is in you, and that the Spirit gives life.
The truth was never missing. In chapter 7 something was in the way. In chapter 8 the fog is gone, and what was already there can be seen clearly. That is the sense in which each part of this book sheds light on the others: nothing new is added. What was hidden becomes clear.
How to read this book
This book stays inside the New Testament, and mainly inside Romans. Scripture follows the World English Bible (the USA Lord edition on The Logos of Jesus), and the chapters follow the order Paul himself gives:
- Two heads (Romans 5): in Adam, or in Christ.
- His history, your history (Romans 6): united with Him in death and resurrection.
- The fog (Romans 7): why effort cannot carry the verdict.
- No condemnation (Romans 8:1-8): the standing settled, and the law of the Spirit of life.
- Christ in you (Romans 8:9-17): the life that is supplied.
- Where it leads (Romans 8:28-39): conformed to His image, and held fast.
Read slowly, and read each passage twice if you can. The goal is not to collect new ideas. It is to see what has been true all along, and to find that the One who put you in Himself is also the One who lives in you.
Chapter 1: Two Heads
Romans 5:12-21
Every person stands under one of two heads, Adam or Christ, and Romans 5 is where Paul puts them side by side. Before we can talk about Christ in you, we have to see what it means to be in someone at all.
One man, and what he did for everyone
Paul says sin entered the world through one man, and death came through sin, so death spread to all (5:12). He does not say each person invented sin and earned death on his own. He says one man acted, and everyone was affected by what he did.
That is the idea of a representative. Adam did not act only for himself. What he did counted for all who were in him, whether they were there to agree or not.
The one who was to come
In 5:14 Paul calls Adam a pattern of the one who was to come. Adam was the first head, and he points ahead to the second. Paul then builds the whole passage on the match and the contrast between them.
The match: one man acts, and many are affected. The contrast: the gift is not like the trespass. One act of disobedience led to condemnation. One act of righteousness leads to justification and life (5:18). One man's disobedience made many sinners, and one man's obedience makes many righteous (5:19).
Not a feeling, but a position
Notice what Paul does not say. He does not ask how Adam's people feel, or how well they have tried. He does not ask how Christ's people feel either. He speaks of where a person stands, and who stands for him.
You were born in Adam. You did not choose it, and you could not undo it by effort. You are placed in Christ by faith, and you did not earn that either. In both cases the head acts, and what he does is counted to those in him.
"Much more"
Three times in this passage Paul says "much more" (5:15, 5:17, 5:20). Christ's side is not equal to Adam's. It is greater. Where sin increased, grace overflowed, so that as sin reigned in death, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life (5:20-21).
This matters for what comes next. If we were only put back to zero, we would still need something to carry us forward. Paul describes more than a return: he describes a reign of grace, and he means a living one.
What this sheds light on
This chapter does not explain the whole book, but it sheds light on every chapter after it. Without two heads, "in Christ" sounds like a nice phrase. With them, it is a real address. You are in one family line or the other, and your history follows your head.
The next question is how someone moves from one head to the other. That is where Paul goes in Romans 6, and it is where we go next.
Chapter 2: His History, Your History
Romans 6:1-14
Chapter 1 showed that you start under one head or the other. Romans 6 shows how a person is moved from Adam's history into Christ's, and what that move changes. This chapter is mostly juridical: it describes where you now stand, and it points ahead to what must be substantial.
The question that starts it (6:1-2)
Paul asks whether we should keep on sinning so that grace may increase. He answers with a flat no, and then gives the reason: we died to sin, so how can we still live in it?
Notice the tense. He does not say we ought to die to sin. He says we died. The answer is a fact about what happened, not an instruction about what to try.
Placed into His death (6:3-5)
Paul says all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death (6:3). We were buried with Him, so that as Christ was raised, we also might walk in newness of life (6:4). Christians differ on how much Paul has water baptism in view here and how much he means the real placing into Christ it pictures, but the point is clear either way: you were joined to Him, and His death became yours.
This is the other head acting for you. When He died, you died in Him. This is the juridical side at its fullest.
The old man crucified (6:6-7)
Paul says our old man was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be done away with and we would no longer be slaves to sin (6:6). The "old man" is who we were in Adam. That story has been brought to an end in Christ's death.
The purpose is substantial: no longer slaves. But it begins with a juridical fact. Whoever has died has been set free from sin's claim (6:7), the way a death settles a person's accounts.
Count it true (6:8-11)
Christ, raised from the dead, does not die again, and death no longer rules over Him (6:9). He died to sin once for all, and the life He lives, He lives to God (6:10). So Paul says: in the same way, count yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (6:11).
The word is about counting. Paul is not asking you to feel dead or to produce an experience. He is asking you to take the juridical fact as true, because in Christ it is true.
Why this is not yet the whole answer (6:12-14)
Then Paul turns to what you should do. Do not let sin reign in your mortal body, and do not offer your members to it. Offer yourselves to God as people alive from the dead (6:12-13). Sin will not be your master, because you are not under law but under grace (6:14).
The commands are real, but they raise a question. If the juridical side is finished, where does the power come from to obey? If you answer with your own effort, you are already on your way to the fog of chapter 7.
What this sheds light on
Chapter 6 shows that in Christ, His history is yours: you died with Him, you were raised with Him, and the old man's story is over. That is complete and does not depend on how you feel on any given day.
But Paul is also pointing at something he has not yet explained. The old master has been dethroned, and a new life must now be lived. That life is not yours to produce. It has to come from Christ in you, and that is where chapters 7 and 8 take us.
Chapter 3: The Fog
Romans 7:1-25
Chapter 6 left a question open: if the juridical side is finished, where does the power to live it come from? Romans 7 is Paul's answer by showing what happens without it. It is not a new teaching. It is the same truth, seen through fog.
Released from the law (7:1-6)
Paul begins with a picture from marriage. A woman is bound to her husband while he lives, but if he dies she is free to belong to another (7:2-3). In the same way, you died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to Another, the One raised from the dead, and bear fruit to God (7:4).
This is still juridical: a death has changed your standing. And Paul names the goal that is substantial: that we serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter (7:6).
The law is not the problem (7:7-12)
Paul asks whether the law is sin, and says no. The law shows what sin is. Sin took the commandment as an opportunity, deceived him, and killed him through it (7:8-11), so that the law itself is holy and the commandment holy, righteous, and good (7:12).
The law does not fail. It is a true witness to what God requires. What it cannot do is give the life it asks for.
The struggle (7:13-23)
Then Paul describes a person who wants what is good and cannot do it. He does what he hates and does not do what he wants (7:15). He agrees that the law is good (7:16), and he says it is no longer he who does it, but sin that dwells in him (7:17).
Here is the point from earlier: the problem is sin dwelling in us, not Adam. Paul finds that nothing good dwells in his flesh (7:18), and that another law in his members fights against the law of his mind (7:23). Christians have long disagreed about who this person is, whether Paul before Christ, a believer in struggle, or anyone trying to live under law. The text itself keeps the focus on the pattern: knowing what is right, wanting it, and being unable to carry it out.
The fog, not bad eyes
The person in 7:14-25 is not blind to the truth. He agrees with the law, he wants God's will, and he is even told he has died to the law (7:4). He knows the juridical facts and cannot make them work.
That is the fog. Nothing is wrong with his eyes. Something is in the way: he is trying to produce the substantial by his own effort, when it can only be supplied by another. Effort cannot clear the fog, because effort is part of what is causing it.
The cry and the answer (7:24-25)
The chapter ends in a cry: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" (7:24). Notice the question. It asks who, not how. The answer is a Person: thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord (7:25).
Paul does not give a method here. He gives a name. The fog begins to lift when the person stops asking what he must do and sees Who is already there.
What this sheds light on
Chapter 7 sheds light on chapter 6 from the other side. If the juridical truth is only known and not supplied with Christ's life, you will see what is right and not be able to do it. It also prepares chapter 8: the answer is not more effort, but Christ Himself.
The next chapter opens with no condemnation, and moves on to the One who lives in you.
Chapter 4: No Condemnation
Romans 8:1-8
Romans 8 opens where chapter 7 left off, with a cry for deliverance and the name of the One who delivers. Both sides of the book come into view here in the first two verses: one juridical, one substantial.
The verdict reversed (8:1)
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. This answers chapter 5 directly. There, one man's trespass led to condemnation for all who were in him (5:16, 5:18). Here, for those in the second head, there is none.
This is juridical, and it is complete. The verdict does not depend on how well you did yesterday, or whether you are in the fog today.
In the WEB text, verse 1 goes on to describe these people as ones who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. That describes who they are: the ones in Christ Jesus. It is not a condition they must meet to keep the verdict in place. The condemnation is removed by being in Him, and the walking comes from His life in them, as verse 4 shows.
The stronger law (8:2)
Paul gives the reason: the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. This is substantial. It is not a change of verdict, but a change of what is operating in you.
Sin and death worked like a law, a system that kept running. Paul does not say it was argued out of existence. He says a stronger law, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, set you free from it. Freedom here comes from something that has taken over.
What the law could not do (8:3-4)
The law was weak because the flesh could not carry it out (8:3). So God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, and condemned sin in the flesh. The verdict that sin deserved was carried out in Christ, and not on us.
The result is that the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (8:4). Paul does not say we fulfill it by effort. He says it is fulfilled in us, which is the opposite of chapter 7.
Two minds (8:5-8)
The mind set on the flesh leads to death, and the mind set on the Spirit leads to life and peace (8:6). The mind of the flesh cannot submit to God's law, and cannot please Him (8:7-8).
This explains the fog of chapter 7. The flesh is not a slow student who will improve with practice. It is hostile to God's law and cannot obey it. That is why the answer cannot be more effort in the same place.
What this sheds light on
Chapter 8 begins with the verdict, and then gives the reason you can live. Chapter 5 gave the verdict in Adam, chapter 6 gave the death with Christ, and chapter 7 gave the fog. Now verse 1 clears the verdict, and verse 2 introduces what will clear the fog: the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
The next chapter follows Paul as he says where this life lives, and whose it is.
Chapter 5: Christ in You
Romans 8:9-17
Up to this point, "in Christ" has carried most of the weight. In Romans 8:9-11, Paul turns to the other half, and puts both halves in a single sentence.
In the Spirit, and the Spirit in you (8:9)
Paul tells the Romans they are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in them. He adds that anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.
Both sides are here. "In the Spirit" speaks of where you are, and "dwells in you" speaks of what is within you. The juridical and the substantial run side by side in one verse.
Christ in you (8:10)
Paul continues: if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. Interpreters differ on whether "spirit" means the human spirit or the Holy Spirit, and the point stands either way. Christ is in you, and where He is, there is life.
Now compare this with chapter 7. There, Paul said sin dwells in him (7:17). Here, Christ is in you. The one who dwells has changed, and that is why the fog can lift.
Life for the mortal body (8:11)
The Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, and He will give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit. The same power that raised Christ is present in you. Paul describes a life at work now in the very place where chapter 7 found only weakness.
Led, not driven (8:12-14)
We are debtors, but not to the flesh (8:12). If you live by the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live (8:13). Those led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (8:14).
The words are "put to death by the Spirit" and "led." This is not self-improvement, and it is not passive either. It is the vine and the branch again: the life is His, and the branch lives from it.
Sons and heirs (8:15-17)
The Spirit you received is not one of slavery leading back to fear, but of adoption, by whom we cry, "Abba, Father" (8:15). The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are God's children (8:16). If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him (8:17).
This, too, has both sides. Sonship is a standing, which is juridical. The Spirit crying out within us is substantial. You are not only counted a child. You are given the life of one.
What this sheds light on
The whole book has been moving toward this. In Christ gives you His history, and Christ in you gives you His life. Neither replaces the other. The first is finished, and the second is lived, moment by moment, as the vine's life flows in the branch.
What remains is to see where it all leads, and why nothing can undo it.
Chapter 6: Where It Leads
Romans 8:28-39
The end of Romans 8 is where the two sides finish together. Paul shows that the juridical side cannot be overturned, and that the substantial side is heading to a goal that cannot be missed.
One chain (8:28-30)
Paul says those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that Christ would be the firstborn among many brothers (8:29). Those He predestined, He called. Those He called, He justified. Those He justified, He also glorified (8:30).
Look at the links. "Justified" is juridical: a verdict about standing. "Conformed to the image of His Son" and "glorified" are substantial: a change in the person, and finally in the body. Paul puts them in a single unbroken chain, and he writes "glorified" in the past tense, as already sure. Christians differ on how to understand foreknowledge and predestination, but the point of this passage is not the debate. The point is that no link in the chain fails.
The court is closed (8:31-34)
Paul asks: if God is for us, who can be against us? The God who did not spare His own Son will surely give us all things with Him (8:31-32). Then he uses courtroom words: who will bring a charge against God's chosen? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? (8:33-34).
This is chapter 5 turned around. There, the verdict came from one man's act and ended in condemnation. Here, the Judge Himself has justified, and no accuser has a case.
Christ appears twice in this court scene. He died, and was raised, and is at God's right hand, which is the juridical answer. And He is interceding for us (8:34), which means He is alive and active now, which is the substantial side. The same Person stands behind both.
Nothing can separate (8:35-39)
Then Paul asks who can separate us from the love of Christ. He lists hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and sword (8:35). In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (8:37).
He is convinced that neither death nor life, angels nor rulers, things present nor things to come, height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (8:38-39). Notice how the chapter ends. It closes with "in Christ Jesus," the place it started from in 8:1.
The body still waits
There is one more detail from earlier in the chapter that belongs here. Paul says we ourselves groan inside while we wait for the redemption of our bodies (8:23). Christ in you already gives life to your mortal body (8:11), but its full redemption is still ahead.
That is why both sides are needed all the way to the end. The juridical side is already finished. The substantial side is real now and still unfinished, and it will be completed when we are fully like Him.
What this sheds light on
Romans 8 ends with a verdict no one can reverse and a life no one can cut off. That sheds light on everything before it: Adam's verdict answered in chapter 5, Christ's history made ours in chapter 6, the fog of chapter 7 cleared, and the life of chapter 8 given.
In Christ, you share His history. Christ in you, He shares His life. The first is finished, the second is under way, and Paul says nothing can break the chain between them and the glory at its end.
Conclusion
Two phrases opened this book: in Christ and Christ in you. By the end of Romans 8, they have become two sides of one salvation. One is juridical: you were placed into Christ, and His history is yours. The other is substantial: Christ lives in you, and His life is at work in you now.
What we saw
In Romans 5, there are two heads, and the verdict that fell through Adam is answered by Christ. In Romans 6, you died with Him, and the old man's story is finished. In Romans 7, we saw what happens when someone tries to live out a verdict by effort: a fog, not a failure of sight. In Romans 8, the verdict is lifted, and the life of Christ replaces sin and death as the power at work in you. At the end, nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
How to live it
There are two things to hold, and each guards the other.
- Rest in the juridical. It is finished, and it does not move with your feelings. On days when you fail, or when you feel nothing, the verdict stands.
- Live from the substantial. Do not try to produce what only Christ can supply. Like a branch in the vine, you receive His life, moment by moment, and the fruit grows from that.
If you hold only the first, you may know you are right with God and not know how to live. If you hold only the second, you may measure everything by how you feel and have nothing settled underneath. Together, they are what Paul describes.
The last word
Galatians 2:20 holds both in a single verse. "I have been crucified with Christ" is the juridical side: His death is mine. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" is the substantial side: His life is at work in me. Paul does not choose between them. He holds them side by side, and the whole of Romans 5 to 8 sheds light on why.
The truth was never missing. The fog was in the way, and when it clears, you see what has always been true: you are in Him, and He is in you.
Appendix
A. Reading key: juridical and substantial in Romans 5 to 8
A passage is labeled J when it changes standing before God, S when it changes the person, the life, or the body, and J+S when it does both together.
Comments
Post a Comment