Hank's Bible Study Resources

If you read Paul’s letters with a pencil in your hand, you start noticing something. He cannot stop saying it.
In Christ. In Him. In Christ Jesus. In whom. In the Lord.
Some scholars have counted around 165 occurrences of this phrase or a close variant in Paul’s writings. That is more than once per chapter, on average, across thirteen letters. He uses it more than he uses grace. More than he uses faith. More than he uses justification. And yet most of us read right past it.
That is a problem, because the New Testament’s answer to almost every question you can ask about the Christian life lives inside those two small words.
How am I saved? In Christ.
Where is my righteousness? In Christ.
Where am I seated? In Christ.
Why am I not condemned? In Christ.
How do I have any victory at all? In Christ.
If we are going to talk honestly about the victorious Christian life, we have to talk about union with Christ. And if we are going to talk about union with Christ, we have to start with this phrase.
The Greek
The phrase Paul uses is en Christō (ἐν Χριστῷ).
En (ἐν) is the Greek preposition for in, the same little word that shows up in John 15 when Jesus says abide in Me. It is Strong’s G1722. The lexicons give a range of meanings. Position. Sphere. Instrument. Cause. Time. The word covers a lot of ground.
Christō is the dative form of Christos (Χριστός), the Anointed One, the Messiah. Strong’s G5547. The Greek translation of the Hebrew Mashiach.
Two words. En Christō. Inside the Anointed One.
The word does not mean near. It does not mean adjacent to. It does not mean a fan of or on the team of. It means in. The same way water is in a glass. The same way a branch is in a vine. The same way a son is in a family. The location language is the whole point.
Where Paul Lays It Out
If you want to see the doctrine of union laid out in one sustained burst, open Ephesians 1.
Read verses 3 through 14 in one breath. Or try to. It is one sentence in the Greek. Two hundred and two words running downhill. And Paul drops the phrase eleven times in that single sentence.
Verse Phrase
1:3 every spiritual blessing… in Christ
1:4 He chose us in Him
1:6 accepted in the Beloved
1:7 in Him we have redemption
1:9 which He purposed in Himself
1:10 gather together in one all things in Christ
1:11 in Him also we have obtained an inheritance
1:12 who first trusted in Christ
1:13 in Him you also trusted… and in Him you were sealed
You cannot read that paragraph and miss what Paul is doing. Every blessing he names is wrapped in this preposition. Every spiritual benefit you have as a believer is held in one place. In Him. Outside of Him you do not have these things. Inside of Him you have all of them.
This is not a poetic flourish. This is the architecture.
What Union Actually Means
The reformers used a phrase for this, unio mystica, the mystical union. The word mystical throws people off. It sounds like incense and candles and something happening on a different floor of reality. But all mystical meant in the older theological language was not visible to the natural eye. It is real, it is ontological, it is more solid than the chair you are sitting in. You just cannot photograph it.
What is union with Christ?
It is the New Testament’s claim that when a person is joined to Christ by faith, the Holy Spirit binds that person so deeply to Jesus that everything which is true of Jesus becomes the inheritance of the person who is in Him.
His death is your death. His burial is your burial. His resurrection is your resurrection. His standing before the Father is your standing before the Father. His Spirit is your Spirit. His Father is your Father. His future is your future.
You did not earn any of it. You cannot un-earn any of it. It is not a transaction at the surface of your life. It is a re-rooting at the center of it.
Paul has a hundred ways of saying this.
In Galatians 2:20 he says I have been crucified with Christ. Not I am trying to be like Christ. I have been crucified with Him.
In Romans 6:4 he says we were buried with Him.
In Ephesians 2:6 he says God raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Past tense. Already done.
In Colossians 3:3 he says your life is hidden with Christ in God. Not stored next to Him. Hidden in God, with Christ. Three concentric realities, and you are at the center.
That is union.
Why This Is the Foundation of Victory
Here is the practical line on all of this.
If victory is not something you produce but something Christ has won, then victory has to reach you somehow. It has to get from His finished work into your actual life. The bridge across that gap is not your effort. The bridge is union. You are in Him. What is true of Him becomes true of you, because you are inside of Him.
This is why Paul does not say try harder. He says reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 6:11). The reckoning is just naming what is already true because of where you are. In Him.
This is why Paul does not say hope you make it. He says who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Rom 8:35). Nothing can separate, because the love is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:39). Notice how the chapter ends. In Christ Jesus our Lord. The whole soaring crescendo of Romans 8 lands on those words.
This is why Paul does not say clean up first, then come. He says if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (2 Cor 5:17). The newness is the consequence of being in Him.
Take the phrase out of the New Testament and the whole theology collapses. The believer is left trying to perform a victory he could never produce. Put the phrase back in, and the believer rests in a victory already won, already given, already located, already his.
A Word to the Reader
If you have been a Christian for years and never thought much about union with Christ, you are not alone. The American church has not preached it well. We have preached decision and commitment and surrender and application. All of those have a place. None of them is the foundation. Union is the foundation.
I want to give you something to do this week.
Take a Bible and a pen. Open Ephesians 1. Read through verse 14 slowly. Underline every in Him, every in Christ, every in the Beloved. You will start to feel the weight of it. Then make a list, in your own handwriting, of every spiritual reality Paul attaches to one of those phrases. Chosen. Adopted. Accepted. Redeemed. Forgiven. Inherited. Sealed.
Look at that list. Then look at your name on the front of the Bible.
That list belongs to you. Not because of what you produced. Because of where you are.
In Him.
The next post goes to one of the most concrete pictures Paul gives us of what union with Christ actually does to a person. The old self has died. The new self has come. We are headed to Romans 6.