“In Christ” is a phrase that is frequently used in Scripture, especially in Paul’s writing as he labors to communicate the intimacy and permanency of the bond created between Jesus and redeemed humanity. However, it is so often repeated in Christian circles that familiarity has dimmed the glorious reality of our “in Christ-ness”. We don’t stop to meditate on what it really means that Jesus is the Head of His Body, the Church.
Evangelical Christianity has taught us to think of Jesus, our Head, as “up there,” “over there” or “out there”; completely separated from His Body, the Church. Hearing these phrases, I get a mental picture of the Great Wizard in the Emerald City of Oz; a huge disembodied head on the throne, issuing commands he is powerless to carry out.
If that imagery were true, then earthly Christians would be helplessly impotent; incapable of completing the ministry that Jesus began during His time on earth. A decapitated body has no direction or energy because it’s dead! And a head with no body is also lifeless and ineffective.
In a plan existent beyond all boundaries of time, through a design that our finite understanding cannot fully grasp, God accomplished His intent to eternally fuse redeemed humankind together with His Son. (Ephesians 4:16) Because God cannot die, it was necessary for Jesus to completely take on our human nature and physicality to be able to give His life for our sin. Jesus came to earth a fully human baby; lived a fully human life and died fully human to redeem fallen humanity from the power of sin and death. When He burst out of the tomb, He ascended the Throne of the universe in His immortal human body. He is eternally joined to the redeemed human race. (Ephesians 4:15; Colossians 1:18-20; 2:19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13). Jesus, Last Adam, is forever the Head of His Body of redeemed humanity, just as First Adam was the head of the fallen human race. It is in Jesus Christ that we live, move and enjoy existence and personhood (Acts 17:28).
We’ve learned to think erroneously that “someday- by-and-by-in-the-sky-when-I-die-all-ofthis- will-apply.” This produces a version of Christianity so weak that the day-to-day life experience of many believers is nearly identical to that of the unsaved world. If we believe we will “someday” be joined to Jesus, we’ll struggle to do the best we can now, since apparently we’re “separated” from Him untilHe“comesback.” Consequently,God’sgreat power in us lies dormant as we feebly await the grand, glorious future when we will “someday”inherit the Kingdom. This is a travesty of the of the great truth revealed in Scripture: “God has put all things under the feet of Jesus, and has appointed Him the universal Head of the Church, which is His Body—the fullness of Him Who makes everything complete and fills everything everywhere with Himself.” (Ephesians1:22-23 Amplified)) Our misconception of where Jesus is becomes evident in statements like, “God showed up”; “I know He’s always there… ”; “Whenever I need help, I go to God.” If we believe any distance at all exists between a believer and Jesus, we “decapitate” Him in our thinking; living as though He, our Head, is separated from us, His Body. The result is that we live powerless and defeated even though the separation exists only in our imagination.
We are eternally joined to Jesus by His indwelling Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:17, 19-20 NASU): “The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him…Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? You have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
Infinite Grace Ministries teaches abundant living by focusing on the limitless love and mercy of God. Visit infinitegrace.com or call 580-774-2884.
