We, the believers, are joined to God the Son because God has first shined Him into our hearts (2 Cor. 4:6). When we heard the gospel, not only did we hear some preaching or teaching, but even more we received a divine illumination. This illumination enables us to know the gospel of the glory of Christ, which illuminates, radiates, and shines in our hearts so that we may know the gospel, receive Christ, and have an organic union with Christ.
When God shines Christ into our heart, He brings Christ into us that we may believe and receive Him as our life and everything (John 1:12; Col. 2:6a). Thus, Christ enters into us, His believers, to be joined to us.
When we heard the gospel, believed, and received Christ, God then revealed His Son, Christ, in us (Gal. 1:16). God’s revealing of His Son to us, the believers, is in us, not outwardly but inwardly; not by an outward vision but by an inward seeing. This is not an objective revelation but a subjective one, that we may know Him, receive Him as our life, and have an organic union with Him.
The believers not only need to believe and receive Him; they also need to be baptized into Him (Gal. 3:27a; Rom. 6:3a). To believe is to believe into Christ, and to be baptized is to be baptized also into Christ. By both faith and baptism the believers have been brought into Christ and immersed into Him, having thus been deeply joined to Him.
As many as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27b). To put on Christ is to clothe ourselves with Christ. On the one hand, when we were baptized, we were baptized into Christ. On the other hand, when we were baptized, we also put on Christ. When we were baptized into Christ, we were baptized into Him as the Spirit. When we were baptized into Christ, spontaneously we put on Christ and were joined to Him as one.
We are joined to Christ because God has put us in Him (1 Cor. 1:30), transferring us from Adam into Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). This was accomplished through Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection (Gal. 2:20) and also through our faith and baptism (John 3:15; Gal. 3:26-28). “In Christ” indicates that the Triune God has passed through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to accomplish a complete and full salvation that He may bring His redeemed people into an organic union with Himself, thus causing them to share with Him the same life, nature, and daily walk.
Since the believers are persons who are in Christ, they have been identified with Him in His all-inclusive death (Rom. 6:3b, 6a; Gal. 2:20a; Col. 2:20a). In His all-inclusive death Christ has dealt with sin, sins, the flesh, the old man, the old creation, and all the ordinances and customs that cause separations among men. All that He has accomplished through His death on the cross has become the practical, subjective experience of the believers by their having been identified with Him in His death. Now the believers are growing together with Him in the likeness of His death.
The believers have been identified with Christ not only in His death but also in His burial (Rom. 6:4a; Col. 2:12a). In His burial Christ terminated our flesh, self, and everything belonging to the self. When we are identified with Him in His burial, we are delivered from our flesh, self, sin, and the world. Furthermore, we are delivered from everything of the old creation and of Satan as well as from everything outside of God.
The believers not only have been identified with Him in His death and burial, to die and be buried together with Him, but they also have been made alive together with Him (Eph. 2:5; Col. 2:13b). God made the believers alive by imparting His eternal life, which is Christ Himself (Col. 3:4), into their dead spirit through His Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). Thus He enlivened them that they might be identified with Christ in spirit.
We not only have been made alive together with Christ, but we also have been raised together with Him (Eph. 2:6a; Rom. 6:4b; Col. 2:12; 3:1a). To make us alive together with Christ is the initial step of God’s salvation in life. Following this, God raised us up together with Christ from the position of death. His resurrection was the germination of the new creation, that we who have believed in Him might become the sons of God (1 Pet. 1:3a; Heb. 2:10). His resurrection is proof that He has overcome death, including Satan, Hades, and the grave (Acts 2:24, 31; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 1:18). Since we have been raised together with Him, we triumph in Him.