Here in Ephesians, the Holy Spirit in and through Paul reveals what Jesus Christ did for every Believer in Christ Jesus.  Every faithful Believer has life only in Christ Jesus.  In Christ means that the Believer now lives and acts in the sphere of Christ Jesus.  The Believer has union with Christ, fellowship with Him, a relationship with Him, and is intimate with Him.  The Believer is in love with Christ Jesus and falling more in love with Him daily.

This union with Christ is the redeemed Christian’s new environment.  In Christ, Believers have conscious communion with their Lord.  In this relationship, the Believer’s life is seen as the life of Christ, living in the Believer. 

Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” 

Paul describes his relationship with Christ as a profound, personal attachment to and reliance on his Lord.  Those who have faith in Christ, live their lives in intimate union with their Lord, both in His death and in His resurrection.  All Believers have been crucified with Christ on the Cross.  They have died to the Law as a means of salvation and now live through Christ, for God.  Because of salvation in Christ, sin no longer has control over them. 

Romans 6:11 reads, “Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus.” 

This personal fellowship with Christ is the most important part in the Christian experience.  Union with Christ comes as a gift of God through faith.  God compares our new life in Christ with our old unregenerate life in Adam.  Whereas the old life is characterized by disobedience, sin, condemnation and death, our new life in Christ is characterized by salvation, life in the Spirit, abundant grace, righteousness, and eternal Life. 

In Ephesians 1:4-6 the Bible says, “Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.  For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will [because it pleased Him and was His kind intent].  [So that we might be] to the praise and the commendation of His glorious grace (favor and mercy), which He so freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” 

We are born of the life of God, so we have the God life. The God life is the life that overcomes the world, and we are no more bound by sin. We are free in Christ Jesus and the Believer now lives the God life that has overcome the world– we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus!

Willia M. Wesley is the Pastor of Victory Faith Fellowship and a member of the United Ministerial Alliance.