As Told to Jessica Hanewinckel
I’ve often talked about being a follower of Jesus. That’s a biblical concept, but it can sometimes imply that Jesus is a dot on the horizon I’m trying to keep up with and can never quite reach—Being in Christ reminds me that we are close to him and he is close to us. I can’t be more in him than I am now. This is how he keeps his promise that he will be with us to the very end of the age. There’s reassurance and comfort in that.
Being a Christian is not just my spiritual affiliation. The New Testament’s main way of talking about being a Christian is about being in Christ, which is very different from our way of talking about it. There’s something there we’re not tapping into, but once you start to see the doctrine of being in Christ, you can’t unsee it. It’s everywhere, and it starts to shape your Christian life.
It helps people understand the cross. It could certainly sound as if Jesus is some unrelated third party who got punished for something I did, and that doesn’t feel right. The late atheist Christopher Hitchens made that very point, that the idea of substitutionary atonement was the most abhorrent Christian doctrine there was. But communion with Christ helps us with that. It helps us understand how Jesus could die for us. What is his can rightfully become ours, and what is ours can rightfully become his, all because he is one with us.
It helps unify the church as well. Individually, we are men and women in Christ, but corporately, we are one with each other and need to be more conscious of that and live that out. That’s part of our calling and vocation as his church. So as I see a Christian who may land in different places than me on political and cultural issues, I might be tempted to be irritated. But I’m to think, No, no, this is still a brother or a sister in Christ. If I’m one with Jesus and they’re one with Jesus, I don’t get to demean them or distance myself. However we’re interacting, I need to express the fact that we’re in the same family.
I wish I had come across this concept much earlier. It’s brought coherence and clarity to so much of my Christian life, because we’re meant to see the Christian life through the lens of being in Christ. Union with Christ is like the Christmas stocking that all the other gifts come in. Once we understand that, we understand all the other things and how they fit together much more clearly. It’s an invitation, and a clearer way of seeing the New Testament and the Christian walk as a whole. We’re missing out if we don’t get in on this.