What do I do next with them? Drive them home? No, I do not take them home immediately, I am not in such a hurry. Before I drive them home, I take my paint pot, and I put my mark upon every one of my sheep.

If I fail to do this, in driving them home they might get mixed up with some other people’s sheep, and I should not know which were mine.

Alas! that is the way Christians do get mixed up with the people of the world, and often you cannot know the one from the other. It will not do for me to say I think I know that sheep to be mine by a leg mark, or by the turn of his ears, or by his horns: no, I must be sure of my own, and so I put my peculiar mark on each. Similarly, in giving the Holy Ghost, God puts His mark, clearly and distinctly, upon all His own.

But let me ask you this: Did the mark I put upon the sheep make it mine? You know it did not. I put the mark on it because it was mine, but it was the money I paid for it that made it mine.

So it is the work of Christ, the blood of Christ, that redeems, and saves, and brings the soul to God, and then the Holy Ghost is given to dwell in the believer as God’s seal upon him, and the earnest of the good things that belong to him, so that the believer is sure of glory; his heart is now put in possession of eternal things, and he enjoys them…

A Christian has thus actually begun his heaven down here on earth. People often say, “We shall be happy in eternity.” Why not be happy now? Why put it off? The Lord wants you to be happy down
here.

Oh, but, you say, I have seen a great many people who say they are Christians, and they are not happy. More’s the pity, they ought to be happy, if they are Christians. But perhaps these may not have been real Christians, still that does not prove there are no real ones.

Young men and women think they have found a reason for remaining unbelievers, because they have found some “Christians” who are not genuine. I ask then, When you get hold of a one hundred dollar bill, do you always put it in the fire, because now and then a bad hundred dollar bill has turned up? No — you know better, for what does a bad banknote prove? It confirms that there are plenty of good ones. So if I meet with a counterfeit saint, he only proves that there are real ones.

Now what is a Christian? He is a man clear of death and judgment, brought to God, his sins forgiven: one who has a new nature, who has received the Holy Ghost, and who has a new place before God in Christ, of whose body he is a member; one who knows he is a child of God, an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ; who has nothing but glory now before him, and is looking for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, to take him home to the rest and glory of the Father’s house. It is therefore a wonderful thing to be a Christian: an unspeakably blessed thing! — W.T.P. Wolston (1840-1917).

(Quoted in the 496-page book, His Victorious Indwelling, available from http://peterwade.com/go/his-victorious-indwelling/)

Today, as a believer, you are being lead “in triumph—as trophies of Christ’s victory” (Amplified). Moffatt has this insightful paraphrase, “Wherever I go, thank God, he makes my life a constant pageant of triumph in Christ…” Or for those who like the Message paraphrase, “In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade.” Are you getting the truth? God makes your life triumphant! When you woke up this morning you were already triumphant. Wherever you go or went today, you went as a triumphant conqueror.

This is not philosophy or psychiatry; this is reality! God said it, that settles it! Say it, “I am triumphant in Christ. I am not a victim of the world I see; I am a victor in Christ.”

And because I thank God daily for making my life victorious, others get a touch of “fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere”. Yes, “Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance” (Message). The fragrance is a sweet-smelling odor, a pleasant incense, and when people find out what God can do for them, they are drawn by this exquisite fragrance. No wonder Romans 2:4 says “the goodness of God leads to repentance”.

I’ve found the “Pearl of greatest price”,
My heart doth sing for joy,
And sing I must, for Christ I have—
Oh, what a Christ have I.”
A hymn possibly adapted from John Mason (1645-94).

In Deuteronomy 6:23 we read “And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers”. Out of Egypt and the wilderness, and into the Promised land, a beautiful picture of each of our individual journeys, because “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). The Message paraphrase says, “God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much.” In both of these verses God is doing the work!

“Out of” [ek] and “into” [eis] are two prepositions that describe movement. They clearly define the movement from one location to another. The preposition “in” speaks of location, “in Christ”, “in the family”, “in the kingdom”. So God takes us out of one location and places us in another. And note that he never leaves us straddling the fence. “Into” is used some 1700 times in the New Testament, and “it is related to Christ in more than 20 passages”, according to one writer.

Acts 14:23, 19:4 and 24:24 are good examples of “into Christ” as well as the verses that speak of being baptized “into His death”. As the Psalmist wrote: “He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:19). How much we thank God for the greatness of His work of delivering us from captivity into the freedom of the glory of the children of God!

David Spurbeck in The Christian “In Christ” continues…

• “The preposition eis describes how the believer is placed into Christ.
• The preposition en describes one’s location … with its position and possessions.
• The preposition sun describes the relationship between believers with one another and with the Head, Jesus Christ.

An understanding of each of these will help the believer live a spiritual life that will lead toward maturity.”

Eis is commonly translated “into”, en is mostly translated “in”, and sun is translated “with”. I would add ek, “out of”, as part of the process of the believer being translated from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son.

“In Christ I have an identity.
In Christ He is all my dignity.
In Christ is my only integrity.
In Christ He assures my eternity.”

The point of all this is that we should be aware of the enormous impact of little words and the big theological words will hopefully become clearer.

I have in my library the research of one man on the use of the article “a” and “the” in the Greek text! Then I discovered “Figures of Speech” by E.W. Bullinger and he opened up this whole field. Let me give just two examples: Many-Ands and No-Ands. The biblical text is very precise on its usage. When no “ands” are used in a list, we are not to stop and consider the particulars but to hasten on the grand climax. When many “ands” are used there is not climax and we should stop at each point, weight each matter that is presented and consider each particular that is emphasized. (Based on page 208, Figures of Speech by E.W. Bullinger, a book of 1100 pages!).

Bullinger gives many examples, and you’ll need an essentially literal translation to often see these in English. Take Luke 14 where both appear. In verse 13-14a we have no ands: “But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed…” Here we are not encouraged to consider the plight of those listed but to hurry on to the conclusion “and you will be blessed!”

Later in verse 21 Jesus is giving a story about applying the truth of verse 13. The master of the house arranges a banquet and no one comes. So he says to his servant, “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame…” Here we need to stop and think about each of the people mentioned and how we can minister to them.

And who said the Bible was a dull book!

As it related to “in Christ” teaching, I was referring to the fact that if you get the wrong or incomplete truth about salvation, you will be wrong everywhere else in the Christian faith. The truth that you are “in Christ” and that “Christ is in you” is at the very foundation of the work of God on your behalf (see our site http://www.inchristclassics.com for quotations from the great teachers of the past about these truths).

Yet what do we see today? Church people are running off to conferences to get more of God, or to get an anointing, or for a host of other reasons or imagined needs. There is little stability in their Christian lives, mainly because they haven’t grasped the basic truth or realized that their God is really greater than Satan.

No wonder Williams translates this verse “you actually need someone to teach you over and over again”! And that’s the purpose of this blog and our other sites. You can never learn enough of the power of your position “in Christ” and the power of His presence “in you”. When you get a reasonable grasp of it, then the true rest of the believer that Jesus promised in Matthew 11:28 becomes effective in your life.

“A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text” (Dr. Carson). So we need to see the setting for this statement. There is a series of contrasts in verses 3 and 4:
v.3b He is not weak … but is powerful
v.4a He was crucified in weakness … but lives by the power of God
v.4b We also are weak in him … but… we will live with him by the power of God.

Christ’s crucifixion appeared to be in weakness, yet in God’s plan it was just a step going forward to when “he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:20-21). “We also [appear to be] weak in him” or as the Message Bible has it, “We weren’t much to look at, either, when we were humiliated among you”! Yet in a New Creation reality “we live in him and have God’s power” (NLT).

Let’s look at the whole phrase again, this time from the Amplified Bible, “And though we too are weak in Him [as He was humanly weak], yet in dealing with you [we shall show ourselves] alive and strong in [fellowship with] Him by the power of God.” Now that’s more like it!

It was so much easier when I became a Christian. Choices were limited to the King James Version, overwhelmingly the most used translation, and perhaps the Revised Standard or the novelty of Moffatt’s translation. Of course, as an evangelical, it was King James only! We did not have study editions of the Bible for men, women, teenagers, mothers, dog lovers, you name it! It was either Scofield’s Reference Bible, Thompson’s Chain Reference Bible, or the little known Companion Bible.

Then came J.B. Phillips’ paraphrase, then the Revised Standard (Per)version and the New English Bible, and the floodgates were open. Now we have a confusing array of so-called “literal” translations and paraphrased versions, and even one that can’t decide what it is, which I affectionately know as the Not Inspired Version! (Excuse my sense of humor!). Two major attempts were made to produce a translation not influenced by the theology of the translators: Grant’s Numerical Bible and the Concordant Literal N.T., neither of which caught on but did have their devoted followers.

And what do I use? I preferred the New King James Version for many years, and in the last three or so years I’ve used the English Standard Version… but I admit to still thinking in King James’ terms since I had memorized so much of it.

[Added}

Download a free copy of Choosing a Bible by Leland Ryken, for a good explanation of why I prefer an essentially literal translation.

Coming to grips with this paradox is perhaps the most important thing we can do as Christian believers. You probably have no doubt where you are right now as read this as far as physical location is concerned, but are you convinced that you are “in Christ Jesus” at this very moment too?

In an article reprinted in In Christ: The Classics [inchristclassics.com] Andrew Murray says that if we doubt this truth we should “let your first thought be to say, Now, at this moment, I do abide in Jesus… The feeblest can, each single moment, say, as he consents to occupy his place as a branch in the vine, “Yes, I do abide in Christ.”