Believers in Christ Across Old and New Testaments
Question: Are all believers in the Old and New Testament in Christ?
Believers exist in every era of biblical history, but not every believer is "in Christ" in the technical sense Paul develops. The phrase "in Christ" describes a particular kind of union and position associated with the revelation given in and around the New Testament era, not a general label for every saved individual from Genesis onward.
Believers Before and After Christ
There were genuine believers throughout the Old Testament: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, and many others. They believed what God had revealed up to their time. Early on this included promises of a coming Messiah; later, in the Gospels and early Acts, believers came to confess that Jesus is that promised Messiah.
Still later, with the revelation given to Paul concerning the dispensation of the grace of God, believers were called to place faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the basis of a gracious gift, apart from works. The content of belief changed through progressive revelation, though the object of trust (the God who speaks and keeps His word) remained the same.
The Phrase "In Christ" and Its Timing
A crucial text is:
"Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me."
Several observations:
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- Andronicus and Junia were "in Christ before" Paul, so being in Christ predates Paul’s own salvation, but not by centuries. They belong to that first-generation community of Jewish believers who recognized Jesus as the Christ.
- This shows that the status "in Christ" is not limited to Paul, but it also confines the phrase to the era when Jesus has been revealed and confessed as Christ.
The expression itself, in its technical Pauline sense, is not applied anywhere in Scripture to pre-messianic Old Testament saints. The line is earliest and clearest after Christ’s resurrection and the formation of the apostolic community.
Can Old Testament Saints Be Called "In Christ"?
Before the public manifestation of Jesus as the Christ, faithful Israelites trusted God’s promises and looked for the coming Messiah, but they did not know Him by name nor live in light of His accomplished death and resurrection. To label them "in Christ" risks flattening important distinctions.
Some passages speak of God being near or among His people, or of a future salvation "in the Lord":
"But Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end."
Such texts show covenant nearness and future salvation, not the specific union-with-Christ language Paul uses. Similarly, statements like:
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."
affirm the value and security of God’s people, but do not establish that Old Testament saints were already "in Christ" in the Pauline sense.
Without explicit biblical usage, extending "in Christ" backwards to all Old Testament believers becomes a speculative, fuzzy argument rather than a textual conclusion.
A Careful Distinction
It is helpful to distinguish:
- Believers in every age: Those who respond in faith to what God has revealed at their point in history.
- Those "in Christ": Believers in and after the era when Jesus is revealed as the Christ, particularly in the resurrection context, who share the specific positional and corporate union Paul describes.
From the resurrection onward, especially within the apostolic community, we can speak of believers being in Christ. Romans 16:7 confirms that some Jewish believers were in Christ prior to Paul’s conversion. But pushing the phrase all the way back through Old Testament history goes beyond what Scripture says.
Thus, not all believers in the Old and New Testaments are "in Christ" in the technical Pauline sense. All true believers are secure in God’s saving purposes, but the specific status of being "in Christ" belongs to those who come to faith in the era of Christ’s manifestation and the revelation associated with the New Testament.
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