Grace, Faith & Life

There are also terms such as “in me”, “in Christ”, “in the Father”.

Sometimes it is just an object of belief, other times it is a spiritual identity kind of like DNA is a physical identity.

This new spiritual identity is called being born-again, so it is not just a commitment to a cause like “Semper Fi”. It is an actual spiritual indwelling of God into “us”. So, spiritually we are also “in God”. Rom 8:11

This is the essence of the “new covenant”, which is called a “new and living way”. We now walk in this “new and living way” rather than by written laws and commandments or our own conscience. John 6:63 2Cor 3:6

Christ taught under the law and explained the “new way” which was coming. The Apostles did not understand that part of what He was teaching until the Pentecost.

Many people still do not understand this “new way”, because they may have been taught according to the “Flesh” rather than according to the “Spirit”. (Motivational teaching always speaks to the flesh. Much of Scripture may also speak to the “Flesh” if it is not studied with an understanding of the New covenant.) So, they live according to a mixture of “law” and “grace”. For some, it is easier to grasp rules and try to live those than it is to understand the freedom of Grace and live because you really know what it means to be “in Christ”.

A few scripture references:

Colossians 3:3 (ESV)
3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

1 John 4:15 (ESV)
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

1 John 4:16 (ESV)
16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

John 14:11 (NASB)
11 “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.

1 John 2:24 (NASB)
24 As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NASB)
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

2 Corinthians 5:19 (NASB)
19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Romans 8:2 (NKJV)
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

John 14:20 (NASB)
20 “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

John 15:4 (NASB)
4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

John 15:5 (NASB)
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

John 17:21 (NASB)
21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

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