The moment a repentant sinner puts his faith in the atoning blood of the crucified Christ, that moment he steps out of life “in Adam” and enters into life “in Christ.” Forever after, he is ensphered and environed by the Lord of glory. He is “in Christ Jesus” and will be through the ages upon the ages to come. All that he is and has, he is and has “in Christ.” In God’s reckoning, the believer has no life apart from His Son. Christ is the ground in which he is rooted and planted. Through the new birth, the believer became a new creation with a new nature that demanded a new environment, a new atmosphere, as it were, where the new life could mature into an ever-deepening conformity to the image of Jesus Christ. This new environment is “in Christ.”

Let us read a few passages out of scores in the Bible in which this expression “in Christ” is used to show that from the eternity of the past through our present life on into the eternity of the future, God thinks of those who have accepted Christ as Savior only in this relationship to His Son.

Ephesians 1:4

“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.”

Ephesians 1:6

“To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

Ephesians 2:13

“But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”

1 John 2:6

“He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”

Philippians 3:9

“And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”

Romans 16:10

“Salute Apelles approved in Christ.”

Colossians 2:7

“Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.”

2 Corinthians 5:17

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

2 Corinthians 2:14

“Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.”

1 Corinthians 1:2

“Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.

Colossians 2:9-10

“For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.

Colossians 1:28

“Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

So that every reader of this book might be led into a clearer apprehension of this marvelous truth, I would commend the reading of the late Dr. A. T. Pierson’s book In Christ. To whet the appetite for it, I would quote the following from the introduction:

“A very small key may open a very complex lock and a very large door and that door may itself lead into a vast building with priceless stores of wealth and beauty. This brief phrase ‘In Christ,’ a preposition followed by a proper name, is the key to the whole New Testament. Those three short words, ‘In Christ Jesus’ are without doubt the most important ever written, even by an inspired pen, to express the mutual relation of the believer and Christ. They occur with their equivalents over one hundred and thirty times. Such repetition and variety must have some intense meaning. When, in the Word of God a phrase like this occurs so often and with such manifold applications, it cannot be a matter of accident; there is a deep design. These two words unlock and interpret every separate book in the New Testament. Here is God’s own key whereby we may open all the various doors and enter all the glorious rooms in this Palace Beautiful and explore all the apartments in the house of the heavenly Interpreter from Matthew to the Apocalypse, when the door is opened into Heaven.”

The believer’s relationship with the Lord Jesus determines his position, privileges, and possessions. To be in Christ is to be where He is, to be what He is, and to share what He has.

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

What grace have we found in Christ Jesus? Our new relationship with the Lord has changed everything.