Discover for Yourself What It Means to Be “in Christ”

Today’s post is from Morris Proctor, certified and authorized trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris, who has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos seminars, provides many training materials.

I remember years ago as a young believer hearing about the doctrine of our identification with Christ. Learning about the truth of being in Jesus radically changed my understanding of the Christian life. I discovered this doctrine is paramount in Paul’s writings.

I also observed Paul used various phrases to describe this relationship including:

  • in Christ
  • in Christ Jesus
  • in Him
  • in the Lord
  • in the Beloved
  • in Whom
  • in Himself

With just a Strong’s concordance at my disposal, I quickly realized finding all these in Jesus passages was a hill too steep to climb.

You’ll be happy to know, though, by combining a few elements in a Logos search, we can almost instantly list Paul’s “identification with Christ” verses regardless of the phrase he uses.

Try this powerful search:

  • Open an English Bible with the interlinear option such as the ESV, NASB, LEB, or NKJV
  • Navigate to a Pauline passage in which he mentions our identification with Christ such as Romans 8:1 (A)
  • Right click on the word in (B)
  • Select from the right side of the context menu the Greek lemma (C)
  • Select from the left side of the context menu Search this resource (D)

1

  • Notice a Search panel opens which has located the Greek lemma en (regardless of how it has been translated) throughout the New Testament (E)
  • Change the display to Aligned (F)

2

  • Change the verse range to Pauline Epistles (G)

3

  • Type ANDEQUALS in after the query in the search box (this query will locate the Greek lemma en only when it is translated in throughout Paul’s letters) (H)

4

  • Enclose that entire search query within parentheses ( ) (I)

5

  • Type this text exactly as you see it here after the parenthesis: BEFORE 1 word <Person Jesus> (J)

6

  • Press the Enter key to generate the results (K)

7

Here are the details of this search:

  • The query within the parenthesis is looking for the Greek lemma en only when it is translated in
  • We then want the lemma en, when it is translated in, to appear one word, before any word, referencing the person Jesus, such as Christ, Him, Lord, etc.

As you look down the list of verses notice the variety of phrases Paul uses to describe our identification with Christ! Of course, not all of these verses are referring to the doctrine of our union with Christ, but most are. Now you can study those phrases in context to understand what Paul meant when he used them.

I hope you can see with a little thought and creativity, you can set up search queries which locate most anything in Scripture.

***

For more detailed training, check out the Camp Logos 2 video training .

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Written by
Morris Proctor

Morris Proctor (1961–2023) was a certified trainer for Logos Bible Software and founder of MP Seminars. Morris trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos seminars, and his team continues to provide many training materials.

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