Unity With Christ

Christian - Who Are You?

Too often, Christians settle for admiring the idea of being in Christ without ever stepping into its fullness. They regard it from a distance, admiring it like a painting in a gallery - beautiful, inspiring, but untouchable. Yet union with Christ is not merely a concept to admire; it is a living reality to experience. It is a truth that lives within you by the power of the Spirit. You are not simply wishing it were true or hoping someday that it will be true – it is true now! You are in Him, and He is in you. That reality transforms everything: your identity, your daily life, and the unshakable hope that sustains you through every trial.

I've been buried in a study lately — Union with Christ (sometimes called "being in Christ"). And honestly? It's been like opening one of those deceptively small birthday presents that turns out to be hiding something amazing inside.

Paul prayed in Ephesians 3:17-18 that believers would understand the vastness of God's love. And I think this doctrine is one of the ways God answers that prayer — because the deeper I've gone, the higher, deeper, longer and wider His love looks.

I think of it like a diamond. When you first see one in its raw form… It's just a cloudy little rock. Nothing that would make you gasp in a jewellery shop. But once it's cut, the light dances off it in a hundred different directions. Union with Christ is like that — full of beautiful facets….and I want to look at one facet—or maybe two. Time will tell. (I make no promises.)

Here's something interesting: Paul talks about being "in Christ" more than 80 times in the New Testament. But here's the problem — he never defines it. The early church just understood it.

Ready to discover what it means to be "in Christ"? Let's go on a treasure hunt through Scripture — grab your shovels and sieves, and let's dig up some genuine gold!

One of my favourites "in Christ" verses is 2 Corinthians 5:17:

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

Or Romans 8:1:

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

But today we're heading into Galatians — Paul's third letter.

Paul wrote Galatians because a group called the Judaizers were insisting Christians still had to follow Old Testament ceremonial laws — things like circumcision, special food rules, and certain festivals. Paul agreed the Ten Commandments were still a good moral guide, but those ceremonial rules….they were just signposts to Christ…and now the signs had served their purpose — you don't keep staring at the sign when you've arrived at the destination.

In Galatians 2:20, Paul says one of the most famous "identity statements" in the Bible:

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Paul's writing here isn't in perfect bullet-point order — which makes me feel better, because mine isn't either. It's a bit like telling your teenager, "I'll give you £20 if you pass your driving test," instead of the more logical, "If you pass your driving test, I'll give you £20. "…with me so far?

If we put Paul's thinking in neat steps, it might look like this:

1. The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me.

2. Because of that, I live by faith in the Son of God.

3. That means I have been crucified with Christ — yet I still live.

4. And not just that — Christ lives in me.

This is the framework for a Christ-saturated life.

Step One: Loved Into Union

Union with Christ isn't a concept or a good idea — it's a relationship. And at its core? Love.

Paul knew he was united to Christ for one reason: Jesus loved him.

Last week, my pastor mentioned how John called himself "the disciple Jesus loved." Now this wasn't because John thought Jesus loved him more than the others (Jesus had already shut down those "I'm greater than you" arguments among the disciples), but it was because John had finally realised Jesus loved him. It hit him like a ton of bricks — He loves me. It became his identity.

Paul was the same. Only, in his case, it was even more mind-blowing. He was the man who had been on a personal mission to destroy the church, who'd stood cheering at Stephen's stoning, who travelled with arrest warrants in his hand like a rottweiler on steroids. And yet… "The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me."

How do you measure that kind of love?

You measure love by the gap between the lover and the beloved — and the obstacles crossed to get there…cue well-known story of Cinderella.

Cinderella was a servant girl in rags. The prince (there's always a prince) had the whole kingdom at his feet. Yet he couldn't forget her. One night at the ball and a lost shoe later, we find the prince, who basically had every eligible lady in the kingdom to pick from, combing the land to find her.

That's love. Obstacles crushed. Distance crossed. Comfort abandoned.,

And Jesus went much further for Paul… and for you.

And I have a question for you right now …..just be honest with yourselves.

Are you a Christian who struggles with a lack of assurance of the love of God for you?

Do you ever wonder if Christ really loves you?

Has someone close to you ever confided in you of such a struggle?

Perhaps you or someone you love is going through a tough and testing time. Are you or they going through a long run of illnesses, financial struggles, or relationship problems? Are you struggling and asking where the love of Christ is in your situation?

How can you be sure that Christ loves you… Sure, sure in such a way that enables you to say, "I am the disciple whom Jesus loved"?

Have you ever fallen under the spell of, well let's just call them less than honest bible teachers, those who have taught in such a way that the answer to that question would be … "well of course Christ loves me…look how well things are going in my life, look how much I am prospering….look at my wife…my husband, my house, my kids, my car, my business."

Here's the thing — if we only think "Christ loves me" when life is going well, we're in trouble. By that logic, Paul would've spent his ministry sitting pulling petals off a daisy saying, "He loves me… He loves me not," regardless of whether he was planting a church or shaking his shackles.

Fortunately for us, Scripture does not teach that Christ loves us because good things are happening in our lives, although things often do.

No, we believe that He loves us because we know that He gave Himself for us.

The providence of God, what we know as the governance of God, where God loves, cares for and controls all things, is not easy to read because we are not God.

We do not have access to the details of His plans. We cannot see the full picture. Our view is so restricted that it is not easy to understand.

So, where are we going to look? Where can we look? We can look to the place where God demonstrated and proved His love: the cross.

Our proof isn't in our circumstances. It's the cross.

Romans 8:32 says:

"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"

This is Paul's reasoning: If God has already done the hardest, most costly thing imaginable — giving up His own Son to death for us — then surely, He will do the easier things, like providing everything else we truly need for salvation and eternal life.

This isn't wishful thinking; it's grounded in an unchangeable fact: the cross happened.

As we look at the cross, dare we think as Martin Luther did, that it would not be misplaced self-importance to believe that God loves us as much as he loves His Son?

Why? Because he's dying in our place. He's given Himself for me, for you. If He didn't hold back His Son, there's no possibility He will suddenly become stingy with grace now. We must not imagine God's blessings as trickles we have to coax out of Him. Paul's point here is the opposite: the cross shows God is lavish, not reluctant. "All things" here doesn't mean every whim, but everything needed for life, godliness, endurance, joy, and final glory

Step Two: Faith Is the Link

Galatians 2:20 "The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God"

Faith isn't magic. Since the Reformation, it's been described in three parts:      

1. Knowledge, you need knowledge of Jesus — you can't intelligently believe in someone you don't know.

   
   

2. Belief and acceptance of the truth about Him— since you cannot respond positively to someone or something that your mind rejects, and then

   
   

3. Trust and faith in Him— personally relying on Him, without this, you cannot be united to Him.

   
   

But notice what Paul is not saying. It is not our faith as such that saves us, but its object, Jesus Christ Himself.

We are united to Jesus Christ by faith—we believe into Him. That's what defines our relationship with Him.

Faith is the link that unites us to Jesus. And while feelings come and go, that link doesn't. People often ask, "How is your relationship with Jesus?" We tend to answer that in any number of ways, from wonderfully positive to the daily struggle you're having because of circumstances weighing you down.

It's like marriage: if someone asks me about my relationship with my husband, I might share how I feel about him and those feelings are likely to change day by day, but the most important fact is, he is my husband. That's fixed.

In the same way, the most important thing about our relationship with Jesus isn't how we feel—it's this: We are united to Him. We are in Christ. That's not just a feeling; it's a fact.

Yes, our feelings of closeness to Jesus may change from day to day. But the reality of our union with Him does not. It's a constant, unchanging truth. Why? Because when we had knowledge of Jesus, when we believed in Him, when we trusted in Him, something irreversible happened. We were joined to Christ. Our identity changed forever.

Step Three: Crucified With Christ

Let's take a closer look at Paul's statement in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ." Because this is a compelling statement, and I'm sorry for those of us who hated English lessons at school, but regardless of whether you're a stickler or have a more relaxed approach, when it comes to this verse, grammar matters.

Three things to note:                                                                              

1.        Paul refers to a past event: We have been crucified—it is finished, not ongoing or future. This completed action has enduring consequences for us today.

 2.        Paul makes it clear this wasn't something he did himself—it was done to him. He was joined to Christ in His crucifixion, and that union completely transformed Paul's identity. Elsewhere in Galatians (5:24), Paul speaks of believers actively putting sin to death. Still, here in Galatians 2:20, Paul focuses on our old selves being crucified with Christ as an act performed upon us.

3.        This is a statement of fact. Paul is not telling us to crucify ourselves or to work toward this reality—it already happened when we came to faith in Christ. We were joined to Him and now share in His death and life.

So, three things to remember from being crucified with Christ – It happened in the past, it was not something we did to ourselves, it is a statement of fact…it happened.

What we need to know is that as Christians, we've been crucified with Christ. That means we've died with Him - to sin, to the old world, to its demands, its obligations.

Think back to Cinderella after her rescue by the prince. She's no longer in rags, scrubbing floors for her stepmother—she's living in the palace now. Her stepmother and sisters can call her name, but she doesn't answer to them anymore. That's us in Christ. We've been moved out of sin's kingdom and into His, and we don't owe sin anything.

When Paul says in Romans 6:3, "Do you not know?" it's like he's saying, "Come on, guys—think this through! Remember who you are! He's not just trying to stir emotions—he's switching on the light in our minds. Living a holy life isn't about becoming someone new; it's about knowing you already are.

Sometimes, under the pressures and trials of life, we can forget who we are but if you asked Paul who he was, his answer would be: "I am a man in Christ, I am someone who has been crucified with Christ - and yet I live - but of course, I live by faith in Christ the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me".

I'm not sure how many Christians today think about themselves this way….and yet this is a vital truth. It is, he says, that we have died to the dominion of sin. And while we are not yet free from the presence of sin, we no longer live in the kingdom of sin, and we are no longer under its authority.

What is one of the most worrying things about today? About the way people, especially young people, think about themselves?

They don't know who they are. We live in a world so confused about identity that the only answer for some is to invent their own identity, to become whoever or whatever they feel like.

When I get up in the morning, I want to be able to say the same thing, just as Paul did.

If we were to wake up each morning and ask, “Who am I?” Paul reminds us that the answer is the same every single day: I am a man or woman in Christ: by faith I am united to Christ, who was crucified and raised. In union with Him, I too was crucified and raised. The old has gone. The new has come."

"Who are you, as a Christian?" That's one of the most important questions you can ask—and the gospel gives us a clear, life-changing answer. This truth is central to our identity as Christians. Understanding who we are in Christ changes how we see ourselves and how we live.

If someone asks, "Who are you as a Christian?" or "What is your identity?" we can say that as a Christian, "I am somebody who has been crucified with Christ, and yet I live. I have come to share in His death, His resurrection, His ascension, His heavenly session – that's His position at the right hand of the Father as he intercedes for us - and, because I am united to Him by faith, I know that when He appears in glory, I will appear with Him! (John 17) He has given me an entirely new and glorious identity."

Do you want stability, balance, and clarity in a non-Christian world? Well, here it is!

Paul's point is …….live like it's true — because it is.

Step Four: Christ Lives in Me

Union with Christ is mutual: we are in Him, and He is in us. Paul calls this "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

These two truths are inseparable. Because we are in Christ, He now dwells in us.

His presence transforms us from the inside out. This is why the Christian life is so extraordinary, even for the most "ordinary" of believers. The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead lives in us and is restoring us into the image of God.   

Day by day, we grow in holiness and become more like Christ - not to earn our salvation, but because this is now who we truly are.

It means we're not defined by our past, our failures, or even our achievements. We're defined by the One who lives in us.

And here's the joy — every believer you meet, no matter how "ordinary," is indwelt by the same Christ by one and the same Spirit. No wonder Christians love to be together we find joy in being together.

So, Christian, do you know who you are? Can you say with Paul:

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

There is no closer, deeper, or more lasting union than this.