If the revelation of
Jesus as the Son of God was yet another demonstration of the Creator God’s love
for His world, and if the manifestation of His glory, in and through the Christ,
was for the purpose of causing people to believe in Him (to acknowledge and
worship Him as Creator) so that eternal life (an entrance into the purpose that
the covenant God had always intended for those that He had created to bear His
image) could be experienced (rather than the continual perishing under the
reign of death that had been brought into the world and exacerbated by the
other sons---Adam, Israel, Solomon), then the idea of being “in Christ” takes
on an extreme importance.
Those that are in
union with the Christ (in Christ) are said to be brought into that union, with
such being demonstrated through the confession of Jesus as Lord of all (in both
word and deed), by the power that is somehow inherent in the preached Gospel
(Jesus is Lord). This power of the Gospel is understood to be somehow
transmitted by the activity of the Spirit of the Creator God, as one of the manifestations
of the very power that is said to have raised Jesus up from the dead, and which
is still at work in this world according to the plan and purpose of the Creator
God.
Additionally, those
that are in union with the Christ are said to have been crucified and
resurrected with Him, for the purpose of being kings and priests to the Most
High God, along with the responsibilities implied by those titles.
Indeed, to go beyond that, those that are in union with the Christ are identified
as sons of God.
Those in union with the
Christ are those that make up His church and are citizens of the kingdom of the
Creator God (kingdom of heaven, rule of God)---a renewed people of the Creator
(a new creation), charged with, among other things, reflecting the glory of their
God into the world through kingdom-oriented and Spirit-inspired actions.
Effectively, it could be said that those that are in union with the Christ are
called to be Solomon’s, Israel’s, and Adam’s for the world, doing so with the mysterious
power of the resurrection at their backs, as they speak and live the message of
the Gospel, orienting their thoughts and their lives around the fact that Jesus
is Lord.
This means that
Christians are called to live a life that is set apart and demonstrably
different in their engagement with the world. This does not mean that
Christians hide away, buried underneath the weight of what could very well be a
fruitless asceticism, withdrawn and distant from the world in a vain and
conceited striving for a pseudo-holiness that is nothing more than a
self-serving and selfish attempt to shrink back from the awesome
responsibilities that attend this glorious union and its weighty demands.
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