Every believer is in an unbreakable union with Christ from the moment they first believe to receive His eternal life in them. “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” 1 Corinthians 6:17 (KJV) Christ’s “Spirit of life” came into our “spirit of man” and we became one with Christ.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: ⁹ Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV)

More than several places in Scripture refer to believers being “in Christ” (Philippians 1:1; Romans 8:1). Colossians 3:3, this gives a little more insight: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

When we humbly come to Christ as broken sinners, He exchanges our sin for His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Through repentance and acceptance of Jesus’ death on our behalf, we are even called His children (Galatians 3:26). God no longer sees our imperfections; He sees the righteousness of His own Son instead (Ephesians 2:13; Hebrews 8:12). Because we are “in Christ,” God sees Christ’s righteousness covering us.

Only by being “in Christ” is our sin debt cancelled, our relationship with God restored.

In Christ, God sees me as a new creation: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Thereby we have peace with God and are counted as righteous before Him (verses 17–21). Rather than seeing my sin, God the Father sees the righteousness of His Son. He sees me as justified (Rom. 5:1), redeemed, sanctified, even glorified (cf. Romans 8:30).

In Ephesians 1:3–14 we learn some of the ways God sees us in Christ. God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (verse 3). We are equipped with all we need. We are chosen to “be holy and blameless before [God]” (verse 4). We are seen as holy and blameless because we are “in Christ” (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18).

Ephesians 1:5 tells us that, in Christ, we have been predestined “for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.” This means God sees me as His child. This is “to the praise of [God’s] glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6).

In Christ God sees me in love, and He lavishes upon me His abundant gifts and the “riches of his grace” (verses 7–8).

God sees me in Christ as an inheritor of heavenly riches (Ephesians 1:11; cf. Romans 8:17). God sees me as His own, forever. He has “sealed” me “with the Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13) as a “guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13–14).

God sees believers as His handiwork (Psalm 139:13–16; cf. Ephesians 2:10); as His friend; and as a chosen one, “holy and beloved” (Colossians 3:12). He sees me as “dead to sin” (Romans 6:11) and “raised with Christ” (Colossians 3:1); and as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Still, to all this good news some downtrodden believer might say, “Great, but I know I don’t live a righteous life.” Such an oppressed believer must come to understand that we are a work of God that is still ‘in process’ and this work of God in us won’t end until we meet Him in heaven. Thus we cling by faith to the truth of God;

“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13 (KJV)

“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” Philippians 1:6 (KJV)