Placed Into Christ

"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." (Galatians 3: 26,37)

"For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—(Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit." (I Corinthians 12: 13 - English Standard Version)

The word translated "baptize" literally means to "place within," or to "immerse into." Christians are spiritually baptized by Christ (Matt. 3:11), and "in one Spirit," and finally "into one body," that is, we were placed within, or immersed into, the body of Christ, into the realm of salvation and spiritual life.

When one is placed into Christ, he leaves one place to go to another. The heart moves its residence, metaphorically speaking. The person who has believed on Christ, has become God's "child," and has had his heart and soul "translated" from out of the "kingdom of darkness" and into the "kingdom of God's dear Son." (Collosians 1: 13)

Believers were first "placed into" Christ in the mind of God, in eternity past, through his decree of election. Christians are saved, not by accident, but on purpose. "According as he has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and guiltless." (Ephesians 1:4)

We are placed into Christ by this act of God's sovereign will. The salvation of every believer is the result of this act "before the world began." This is not when any were actually placed into Christ, for none are actually placed "into Christ" until he or she is "born again," when he or she comes to Christ in a true conversion experience.

Baptism symbolizes this unseen placement or burial into Christ. It is not the actual placing of the believer into the body of Christ, but is the figure and memorial of it.

There is the idea of a change of environment in this language. A person enters a new realm of living when he comes to Christ, enters into him.

Christ enters the believer, in being "born again," and the believer enters into Christ in the same experience. Both these actions are symbolized in the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper (or Eucharist).

Friend, is Christ living in you? Have you entered into Christ and dwell now in him? Have you believed and been baptized into Christ?