Why Everything has Changed: In Christ

Over 87 times the phrase "in Christ" appears throughout the New Testament.  I am glad that in recent years the Body of Christ has shown interest in the reality of being "in Christ".  What has once been words on a page (doctrinal position), the Holy Spirit is now makng a doorway into a whole new realm of living, being, and destiny.  The alternative to being "in Christ" is being "in Adam" which means that we are bound by this natural world with all of it's limits, rules, and laws.  The patriarchs of the faith would have understood the concept of being "in" meaning that your whole identity, family, and sense of destiny were connected to being "in".  If you are "in Adam" that means everything that is in the line of Adam comes down to you through your father and mother.  This includes sin, generational curses, propensities towards certain destructive sinful patterns, along with all the distortions in these families,the twisted original image of man (created in God's image), and finally death.  As I say these concepts each of us has personal experience with these realities in our life, the struggles with certain sin patterns and the disappointments that have been passed down through the generations.

In our Father's great love He needed to rescue us from more than our choices and actions, He needed to rescue us from the family that had been tainted and twisted by sin.  Father needed to put us in a new family without the continual influence of sin.  The plan of the Trinity in the beginning before the foundation of the earth was to bring us into the family of God.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are in a never ending relationship of honor, love, joy, eternal life, and intimacy.  Into this beautiful and magnificent family the Father decides to bring us in but the only way is when we are released from our old family that is bringing death.  I believe deep in the heart of the Trinity is when the plan to rescue all of humanity and bring us home to the heart of the Father as sons and daughters was conceived.  This would require a human, perfectly sinless under the Law who could be the fulfillment of the covenant.  Every other human representative in the covenant, Adam, Noah, David, and Moses could not completely fulfill their part of the covenant.  So a New Covenant was designed which would be between God the Father and God the Son as the human representative with the Holy Spirit given the role of revealing the covenant to those brought in.  This covenant does not depend on our performance, ability, or effort.

Through being "in Christ" I am brought into the beautiful dance of the Trinity in all their joy, intimacy, power, honor, and love.  Being "in Christ" means that I live as a son sharing in the affection of the Father toward the Son.  All reasons to not receive the unconditional love of the Father died with Christ on the cross.  Every negative, sin, all shame, guilt, lie or distortion, and inadequacy was summarily crucified with Jesus and the new man that came forth eternally united to Christ is learning to shine in greater measure.  Scripture says we are being transformed from "glory to glory" as we look in the face of Jesus, seeing all that He is for us and in us.  We are New Creations learning how to live out our union with Christ in everyday life.  Seeing everything from the perspective of being seated "in Christ" in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) means that everyone and everything is different from this new realm above.

Seeing the reality of being "in Christ",
Bret