Being in Christ is bigger than we supposed. Instead of being within the sphere of influence of a historical figure, who faintly and indirectly operates on us as any other historical figure, perhaps a little more vividly and vitally, we are beginning to see that to be in Him is to be in ultimate reality. To be in Him is to have the roots of our being in reality. To be in Him is to have the sum total of reality behind us, sustaining us and giving us cosmic backing.
Isaiah 49:16 says: “Behold, I have graven you on the palms of my hands.” We are not chalked on God’s hands, nor painted on; we are graven. If we were chalked or painted on His hands, He could wash His hands of us. If we are graven on His hands, however, as a sculptor engraves a name in granite, then we are literally on His hands forever. The name of Jesus is not chalked or painted on the facts of history or nature; it is graven — ineffaceably graven into the nature of reality. As one writer puts it: “The Name of Jesus is not written on history — it is plowed into it.”
To be in Christ is to live life according to the grain of the universe, not against it. In the San Francisco airport is this sign: “As you slide down the banister of life, may all the splinters be turned the other way.” Well, if you slide down the banister of life without Christ, then all the splinters are turned the wrong way. You get hurt. You cannot revolt against Him without revolting against yourself. “He who spits against the wind spits in his own face.” We often think that the alternative is: To be His, or to be my own? If you are not His, however, you are not your own. If you lose Life, you lose life. You are like the child who beats his head against the wall to punish his mother — and finds it a losing game.
To be in Christ is to be in life, to be out of Christ is to be out of life. He is Life. All else is anti-life.
“That Which Has Been Made Was Life In Him”
We are beginning to see that to be in Him is to be in something. That something is turning out to be Something, and the Something is turning out to be Everything.
The writer of the Fourth Gospel put it: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:4). In him was life — outside Him was not-life, decay, death. Is that a religious platitude, or is it just plain fact? The plain fact is that all life is a commentary on it. Life works, that way. In Him life experiences Life, out of Him life experiences death.
The marginal reading of the above verse is even more striking: “That which has been made was life in him.” “That which has been made” — all created things, man and material, when put into Him by decision and dedication become life in Him. Existence turns to life when it is put into Him by surrender. If you put yourself, your talents, your time, and your material goods into Him by dedication, then immediately they become alive — so alive that they become life itself. I have seen dead personalities turn into living personalities the moment they are put in Him. They glory, they shine, they scintillate — they exude life. Vice versa, I have seen radiant persons in Him step out of Him and in a moment they were rotting persons — decay had set in. Any talent that isn’t used for Him is buried in the earth” and begins to decay.
I spoke to a group of young people who were volunteering for service abroad. They were radiant, but one girl was miserable. She confessed her dilemma: “How can I sacrifice my music to serve people abroad?” Like the rich young ruler, she went away sorrowful. She had already sacrificed her music — the music within her had died. When she took her talent and herself out of Him and put them into herself, immediately both the self and the talent died. She became a discord trying to be musical. That which had been made became death out of Him.
In And Out of Christ — Two Worlds
In and out of Christ represent two worlds — the world of heaven and the world of hell, the world of creation and the world of decay, the world of life and the world of death.
Take, for example, the disciples: As long as they stayed in Christ, obeyed His will, caught His ways, and showed His spirit they were happy, constructive, and creative. The moment they stepped out of Him even in thought and attitude they became unhappy, destructive, and non-creative. They departed from His spirit and began to quarrel over first places — immediately they were unhappy, destructive, and fruitless. They forbade other disciples to cast out demons because “they followed not us,” and immediately faces, life, and work were clouded. They asked for permission to call down fire from heaven to consume Samaritans, and lo, relationships with themselves and others were as black as midnight. Later other disciples preached the gospel of love and redemption to those same Samaritans and lo, “there was much joy in that city.”
Peter, walking with Jesus and catching His spirit, was an exuberant, creative man; but Peter, succumbing to the hard pressure, denied he had ever known Him. Result? “He went out and wept bitterly.” Judas was the trusted treasurer of the most significant movement of the world, but Judas stepping out of that trust into treachery “went and hanged himself.” A prominent pastor of a great city church was creative, helping innumerable people into new life through his preaching and especially his personal counseling. He stepped out of that great church, turned his back on his lovely wife and children, and disappeared with a young woman. He reappeared months later as a seller of cemetery lots in a distant city. When his landlady unlocked his apartment in his absence she found nine empty vodka bottles. In Christ he was constructive and creative; out of Christ, selling cemetery lots (suggestive!) and taking refuge from himself in vodka!
The Center is Self, The Margin is Disorder
Everything which is transferred from the kingdom of self to the kingdom of God has life in it — eternal life. It has security in eternal security. Everything transferred from the kingdom of God to the kingdom of self has death in it — eternal death.
Yesterday we saw a pastor dramatically step from life to death, but here is a pastor’s wife who, though less dramatically, just as certainly stepped from life to death by stepping out of Christ into herself. She pulled me aside into the pastor’s study and said: “Most of my life I’ve tried to charm people to myself. I’ve been the center of all I’ve done. Now everyone has found me out. Everything has tumbled around me. Even my little boy has found me out, and I’ve lost my influence with him.” Her self taken out of Christ and made the center became insecure — automatically.
This losing of God and self amid religious surroundings is depicted:
Cry aloud, spare not… declare to my people their transgression… Yet they see me daily, and delight to know my ways… they delight to draw near to God. “Why have we fasted, and thou seest it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and thou takest no knowledge of it?” Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and fight (Isaiah 58:1-4).
Here a very religious people had inwardly stepped out of God into themselves — “You seek your own pleasure.” Therefore the heavens were brass, and religion turned into a vast futility. The futility turned to fight. Out of sorts with God, they became out of sorts with themselves and others — “You fast only to quarrel and fight.” The center was self and the circumference disorder.
Who Alone Has Immortality?
We are considering the passage: “That which has been made was life in Him” — the created thing has only existence until it is placed in Christ by surrender. Then it has life, eternal life.
This is far-reaching in its consequences. All coming to Jesus has the feeling of a home-coming upon it. All going away from Him has the sense of sadness upon it; sadness, for the life forces out of Him begin to decay and crumble. We say of a man who steps out of Christ, “That man is going to pieces.” He literally is going to pieces. Life has no inner cement to hold it together, so he is disintegrating. Suppose this process of disintegration continued beyond the borders of this life as we see it taking place here, would the personality finally snuff itself out, be unfit to survive? John 3:16 says: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Do those who continuously and persistently live outside of, apart from, and against Life “perish”? Do they “perish” by their own attitudes and actions ?
In I Timothy we read of “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality” (6:15-16.) Does Jesus Christ alone have immortality? It says so. Then do we have immortality only as we surrender our mortal selves and become in Him, who alone has immortality? The Scriptures and the processes of decay when we are out of Him both say yes.
Would grace follow that man through this life and beyond the borders of this life, and if he finally rejected that grace and the light flickered and went out, would there be a teardrop on the cheek of grace and a sigh: “You would not”? That would fit into the character of God as seen in the face of Jesus, and it would fit into the observed processes taking place now. Apart from Him life disintegrates, and if kept up long enough, would “perish.”
Life and Life Abundantly
We have looked at the tragic results of being out of Christ, and now we will turn to the triumphant results of being “in Christ.” There are both sides, and if we listen only to one side we become half persons, listening only to the half facts. In Europe the joyous smaller bells ring out the quarter hours while the deep-toned solemn bells sound out the hours. Life holds both the joyous silver bells and the deep-toned serious and solemn bells. In Jesus the joyous predominate — the solemn are an undertone, the joyous, the overtone. The Christian faith proclaims life — only its absence is death. “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”
Life is ours the very moment our life is put by surrender in Christ. The moment the little boy transferred the ownership of the five loaves and two fishes from himself to Jesus, those loaves and fishes were under the law of multiplication — under the law of life. Anything in His hands has life. It has security for time and eternity. The business of a silk manufacturer was ruined by the coming in of rayon and nylon. When I saw him he was running the elevator in a Y.M.C.A., and doing it joyously, a happy, integrated man. He had given a pipe organ worth fifty thousand dollars to his church. It was the only thing he saved — the thing he gave! He delighted to go to the church and play the organ, and he delighted to run the elevator. Out of the wreck of outer fortune he saved two things: his soul and his organ. He gave them both to Christ, and then they were secure — eternally secure. I touched that man for just a few moments at the close of a meeting, but his victory has become a part of my victory. He had life, and he passed it on to me. He wiped his hands on his apron, for he had been on kitchen duty when I saw him, but when I took his hand, I knew that I held the hand of a real king — the greatest of them all.
This is My Meat and Drink”
A Hindu sadhu, “a holy man,” pulled out a New Testament from his saffron robe and said, “This is my meat and drink.”
Is humanity more and more pulling from the folds of its heart the New Testament out of sheer necessity? Are our deep down needs taking us by the hand and leading us to Him? Yes, increasingly so.
Jesus shut within a Book
Is hardly worth a passing look;
Jesus shut within a creed
Is a fruitless Lord indeed.
But Jesus in the hearts of men
Shows His tenderness again.
— Gordon Grooms
“Jesus in the hearts of men? Yes, He is there in need — increasingly there as the fulfillment of a need. What is man’s greatest need? I have one unhesitating answer: Redemption!
This verse in Romans, the beginning letter of Paul, expresses that need: “They are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (3:24.) “Redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” What is redemption?” asked a modern girl wistfully. Literally it means “to buy back” — picture a man, woman, or child about to be sold into slavery; then someone comes along, pays the ransom price, and sets the slave free. Someone objects that the situation of the slave market is gone, therefore the idea of redemption is gone with it. Is it? Outer slaveries are going, but inner slaveries are increasing. We speak of being tied up,” “tied in knots,” all balled up, mixed up,” “confused” — revealing a bondage, an inner slavery far worse than the outer slavery ever was or could be. An outer slave could be free inwardly — he could escape within — but one who is in bondage within has no escape. To try to escape into the without only increases his inner tangles. He is caught. He needs redemption. And Jesus is the only open door.
GREAT NEWS! The book “In Christ” by E. Stanley Jones, from which this extract is taken, is again in print after a break of many years. 365 daily devotions on the phrase “In Christ”… and you can start any time or read right through the book. Get your copy now!
This page Copyright © 2000 Peter Wade. The Bible text in this publication, except where otherwise indicated, is from the King James Version. This article appears on the site: http://peterwade.com/.
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