It is one thing to realize we have been identified with Christ. It is far more powerful to realize he has identified with us. To be in Christ is wonderful and good, but something else is more astonishing and heart moving—and that is Christ has chosen to be identified with us. By the Father’s love for us, the Son’s obedience to the Father, and Christ’s own love for us, he chose to be identified with us. He chose to be identified with our humanity, with our person, and our sin. That is what gives us security and gratitude.
Identity with Christ means three things: he identifies with us, we are identified with him, and we have to choose to participate in this new life of identification.
What does it mean to be in Christ? First of all, the believer and Jesus Christ are identified with each other. We can see this in John 15:1-5:
- "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
- "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He lifts up; and every branch that bears fruit, He cleanses it, that it may bear more fruit.
- "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
- "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.
- "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.
We are joined to Christ as branches are joined to the vine. You cannot have a vine without branches, nor can you have branches without a vine. Together they constitute a whole.
Yet, the most wondrous reality is that out of love the Son of God identified with us!
