Christ works out our salvation within the fabric of His own person. The Christian life is Jesus, and therefore the Christian life is not something lived for Christ; it is something lived by Christ. This is the ultimate conclusion of the vicarious humanity of Jesus. The word “vicarious” describes the nature of a substitute who acts as us on our behalf.
Immediately after Paul’s conversion, he spent some years isolated while God downloaded the gospel of grace into his life. In Galatians 1:16, Paul said that during that time, God “was pleased to unveil His Son in me.” Paul did not say that God unveiled His Son to him; instead, Jesus was unveiled “in” him. This unveiling of Jesus in him as his life became the foundation of Paul’s message wherever he went. The unveiling of Christ in us opens our eyes to the realization that the whole Christian life is an act of grace by God on our behalf through Christ. There is an amazing verse in 1 Peter that speaks to this,
“Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to being brought to you at the unveiling of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:13
A continuing unveiling of our union with Christ results in a hope-filled Christian life because the burden is no longer on us. Instead, we become people with a hope that is fixed completely on the grace of God in Christ. Christians lose hope when they are bent towards themselves, trusting in themselves to handle things and to work things out, but when you know that you have been fused into the very life of Christ, then the free gift (grace) of the activity of God in your life through Christ bends you towards grace with a “confident expectation” (that is the definition of biblical hope) and frees you from control, fear and anxiety. Living from Christ is effortless rest on the inside. Living for Christ is exhausting busyness. Jesus came to set us free, not just from sin’s penalty, but from independent self’s relentless struggle.