This conviction of a reality that is not of nature, a spiritual reality (if we do not object to the term), a reality apart from the flesh, distinct from what we know as materiality, this conviction Paul always had with him. He finds that it existed even under the law, and draws an allegory from the Old Testament, from the incident of Isaac and Ishmael. It is worth while to read the passage, it indicates so clearly the difference between the phenomenal appearance that we call real, and actual reality.
"Tell me you who want to be subject to the law,—well, why do you not listen to the law? It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave girl and one by the free woman. But whereas the child by the slave girl had an ordinary birth (birth by nature) the child of the free woman was born in fulfilment of God's promise. All this is allegorical, for the women represent two covenants. One originates on Mount Sinai, and bears children destined for slavery. This is Hagar, for the name "Hagar" stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, which is in bondage, together with her children. (How hopeless it was in Paul's time to think that the promise of endless seed to Abraham could be fulfilled.) The Jerusalem which is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written: Rejoice, thou barren woman that bearest not; break forth into a joyful cry, thou that dost not travail; for the desolate woman has many children, more than she who has a husband." Gal. 4:21–7.
Can anything be stronger than that? Can anything be more explicit?
One thing must already have been most noticeable in all Paul has had to tell us, and that is the phrase "in Christ," always with us, like some haunting motif in music. What does it signify? It has a very special meaning and a very special usage with Paul. The phrase "in Christ" is used over 150 times in his letters. If we include cognate phrases, like "in his blood," it is used over 200 times. If we include contrasting phrases we can more than double that number. Now that phrase "en Christo," in Chirse, Deissmann says, is really a technical term with Paul. At any rate we can see that it has a peculiarly intimate meaning. It does not refer to the historical Jesus. It denotes a continuing relationship with the Christ present in the heart. It is what we call a personal relationship but it is more than that. It is a functional relationship, the relationship of a functioning member of the body to the totality of the body and to the integrating principle which is the life and soul of the body. Thus faith, with Paul, does not mean, as it means with us, trust or belief in Jesus, or Christ, but it means the kind of faith which results from a life in fellowshhip with Christ. It is an "in-Christ" faith. Faith in somebody is another word, "epi" in Greek, faith in God. By an in-Christ (en Christo) faith we are able to have faith in (epi) God.
Read over Paul's letters with that idea in mind. It gives a wealth of meaning. In Eph. 2:12, it is pointed out that apart from Christ we have no hope in the world, we are without God. Eph. 3:12: "In Christ we have boldness and access with confidence to the throne of grace." A most interesting chapter, the meaning of which is ordinarily missed, is the fifth chapter of the Romans, where Paul points out just what that "in-Christ" faith is. First, in a state of innocence we have as normal creatures the normal faith in God. Under the law, however, this faith was impossible because we are ruled by the law; but in Christ we can have this faith—an "in-Christ" faith in (epi) God.
This adjectival use of the phrase is shown very clearly in the third chapter of Romans again, verse 24: "Being justified (acquitted) freely by God's grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." It is very interesting to look at the different English translations of the Bible, and see how they have boggled over that phrase, sometimes getting its meaning, sometimes not. I set a very high value on Weymouth's translation but he slips here. He translates it, not "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." but "through the ransom given in Christ Jesus." The Greek does not say that at all. It says an "in-Christ-Jesus redemption," the emancipation that results from being in that state which Paul calls "in Christ Jesus." It is the freeing from sin which results from a life in Christ. There is no idea in Paul of the human Jesus being the ransom or sacrifice whom God put forward to save us. In this passage we have the well-known reference to Jesus as a mercy-seat through "faith in his blood." Do you think that Paul thought that meant believing in the efficacy of the shed blood? No, it did not mean that at all. Most of us, I think, are revolted by the phrase "washed in the blood of the Lamb"; and with Paul it was exactly the same. That is what they did in the mystery religions. They put the initiate under the bull, and slaughtered it, and washed the initiate in his blood; and that was called the taurobolium. But Paul did not mean anything of that kind; he did not import that into his religion. Faith "in his blood" means faith in God that results from a relationship to Christ so close that it can only be symbolized by the intermingling of blood. Paul refers to our blood relationship with the living Christ, not to the shedding of Christ's blood. I have already pointed out, Paul no more thought that the crucifixion effected his redemption than he thought that his Damascus vision effected it.