In Christ

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:30

If justification was, for Lloyd-Jones, the heart of the gospel, union with Christ was the heart of the Christian life. He returned to it constantly. In his exposition of Romans 6, published as The New Man, he worked through it with great care. In his sermons on Ephesians he found it on almost every page. And in his evangelistic preaching he loved to tell his hearers that believing in Christ is not merely an intellectual matter but a joining — that the believer enters into a real, living union with Christ and begins to share in all that is His. The sermon Full Salvation, which can be read on Ochorus, makes exactly that point.

More than forgiveness

Many Christians, he observed, think of salvation almost entirely in terms of forgiveness. Christ died; my sins are pardoned; I shall go to heaven when I die. All of that is gloriously true. But it is not the whole truth, and a Christian who knows only that much is living far below his privileges. The New Testament’s great phrase for the Christian is not the forgiven man but the man in Christ.

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 5:17

To be in Christ means that everything that is true of Christ becomes, in a real sense, true of the believer. When Christ died, the believer died with Him. When Christ rose, the believer rose with Him. Christ is seated in the heavenly places, and the believer is seated there in Him. This is not poetry or mere metaphor. It is the plain teaching of Scripture about what has happened to every Christian.

Romans 6: the old man is dead

Lloyd-Jones gave particular attention to Romans 6, because he believed it was widely misunderstood. Paul says that our old man is crucified with Christ.

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. ROMANS 6:6

He argued, with characteristic precision, that the old man is not the sinful nature that remains in the believer, but the man we were in Adam — our old self, our old position, our old identity under the reign of sin. That man is dead. He died with Christ. He is never coming back. The Christian is not a divided person with an old man and a new man fighting inside him; he is a new man who still has to contend with sin remaining in his mortal body.

This was not hair-splitting. It had immense practical consequences. The Christian who thinks of his old self as still alive will struggle hopelessly against it. The Christian who knows that his old self died with Christ can reckon on that fact, and resist sin from a position of victory rather than defeat.

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ROMANS 6:11

He was careful, too, to insist that this reckoning is not a technique for producing an experience. It is the believer’s acceptance of what God says is already true. The facts come first; the reckoning follows; the experience grows out of both.

All things are yours

He loved the sweep of Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 3, where the apostle rebukes the church for boasting in human leaders.

Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s. 1 CORINTHIANS 3:21–23

In the sermon Full Salvation he draws out the implications. Because the believer is Christ’s, all things are his. The apostles and preachers are not his masters but his servants. The great minds of history are not to be trembled before but used. The world itself is not to be feared or worshipped, because it belongs to the believer’s Lord. And beyond all this, there is an inheritance reserved in heaven that the believer shares as a joint heir with Christ.

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. ROMANS 8:17

This was, for Lloyd-Jones, the answer to the small, anxious, defeated Christianity he saw all around him. Christians live like beggars though they are heirs, because they do not know who they are.

Life in Christ

In the years after the war Lloyd-Jones preached through the First Epistle of John, and the sermons were afterwards gathered under the title Life in Christ. There he showed that union with Christ is not only a status but a fellowship — a daily walking in the light, a daily communion with the Father and the Son.

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 1 JOHN 1:3

He was anxious that believers should not be content with knowing the doctrine of union. They should enjoy it. The New Testament speaks of joy, of assurance, of the love of God shed abroad in the heart. These are not extras for the spiritually advanced. They are the ordinary experience of the man in Christ, and a Christian who lacks them should ask why.

Where care is needed

Lloyd-Jones’s reading of the old man in Romans 6 is not accepted by all good interpreters, and some think he pressed the distinction between the old man and the remaining sinful nature further than the text requires. The reader need not settle that question to receive the main point, which is beyond dispute: the believer has been joined to Christ, has died and risen with Him, and is called to live in the light of that fact. Nor should the reader take union with Christ as a reason to think lightly of remaining sin. The man in Christ is still called to put sin to death daily. He does so not to become united to Christ, but because he already is.

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. COLOSSIANS 3:3

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Ephesians 1 and 2 and underline every occurrence of the phrases in Christ, in him and with Christ. Count them.

2. Ask whether you think of yourself chiefly as a forgiven sinner or as a man or woman in Christ. What difference would the second make today?

3. When you are next tempted, remind yourself deliberately: my old self died with Christ. I am not what I was.

4. Consider one thing or person that you have been fearing or idolising. Bring 1 Corinthians 3:21–23 to bear on it.

5. Spend time this week not asking God for anything, but simply enjoying fellowship with the Father and the Son.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, I thank You that I am not only forgiven but joined to You — that I died with You, rose with You, and am seated with You.

Forgive me for living like a beggar when You have made me an heir. Open my eyes to see who I am in You.

When sin presses upon me, teach me to reckon myself dead to it and alive to God.

And let me not only know this truth but enjoy it, in daily fellowship with the Father and with You. Amen.