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#5.
"In Christ Jesus."
"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden;
and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads" (Gen. 2: 10).
pp. 183 - 185
The Fountain of all being and all blessing is God, but in such overwhelming power
that nothing but destruction would be the result of immediate contact with Him. In the
person of Christ, infinite Power and Wisdom are mediated, and, thus, are found to be full
of blessing. No man can look upon the face of GOD and live, yet to see the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ is life. This therefore is our theme.
Over and over again in the epistles, we meet with such expressions as "in Christ", "in
the Lord", "in Jesus Christ our Lord", "in Christ Jesus" and other variations of the same
blessed truth. These are the "heads" into which the river of life is "parted" for our sakes.
Taking the epistles in the canonical order in which they are found in the N.T., the first
occurrence of the phrase "in Christ Jesus" is in Rom. 3: 24, where we read
"Redemption that is in Christ Jesus". The phrase does not recur until we come to
Rom. 8: There it occurs three times: "No condemnation in Christ Jesus", "The law of
the spirit of life in Christ Jesus" and the blessed fact that nothing can separate us "from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8: 1, 2 and 39).
The phrase "in Christ Jesus" is found in Ephesians (R.V.) seven times, and is
associated with Paul's apostleship (Eph. 1: 1), and "the faithful" (Eph. 1: 1). The peculiar
privilege, granted alone to the church of the mystery, of being "seated together in
heavenly places" is also "in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2: 6). In the ages to come this favour is
to be intensified, for "exceeding riches of grace in His kindness" are to be shown toward
us "in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2: 7), while we are declared to be "His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus" in Eph. 2: 10. Those who were the recipients of such overwhelming
grace however, were, by nature, "far off" sinners of the Gentiles, but are "made nigh" in
Christ Jesus (Eph. 2: 13). The title "Christ Jesus" is limited to the doctrinal section of
Ephesians, the last occurrence being Eph. 3: 21, where the prayer ends in the doxology,
"Unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age
of the ages. Amen".
These aspects of truth "in Christ Jesus" lie at the root of the revelation of the mystery
but no attempt can be made here to expand their teaching: at the moment all we insist
upon is that they are ours only "in Christ Jesus". Passing over the remainder of Paul's
epistles, we come to II Timothy, where the phrase "in Christ Jesus" occurs seven times.
The teaching associated with these seven occurrences will be more appreciated if the
passages are seen together. Accordingly we throw them into an alternate correspondence.