And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. 

1 Corinthians 1:30

The apostle is clear. It was by God’s doing (“because of him”) that the Corinthians were “in Christ Jesus”—that is, they were united with him in his death and resurrection. Salvation is all of God. We are in union with Christ and set apart because of his grace.

A few verses prior to the one we read today, Jesus is called “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:24). Another New Testament letter reveals that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” are hidden in Christ (Col. 2:3). Three fruits grow from our spiritual union with him.

In Christ, you received righteousness. You need the gift of righteousness because no one possesses any righteousness of their own according to God’s holy standard. Yes, compared to other sinners, you may appear to possess a degree of righteousness or goodness, but compared to God “all [your] righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isa. 64:6). You have no righteousness to offer God to atone for your sin.

The good news is that when you turned to Jesus in repentant faith, you “receive[d] the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17). When you stop trying to work for salvation and instead rest in the finished work of Jesus, your “faith is counted as righteousness” (4:5). This means your spiritual account is credited with Christ’s righteousness, which he alone is qualified to give to you because he alone fulfilled the requirements of God’s law (see 8:3–4).

In Christ, you received sanctification. You are a saint by calling. God already set you apart as holy and cleansed you by the blood of Jesus. This sanctified position is so sure and complete that it provides hope for every kind of sinner, no matter their sin. The members of the church at Corinth had been fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, practitioners of homosexuality, swindlers, and drunkards (see 1 Cor. 6:9–10). Yet they were not forever stuck. They were set free. This is true of you too.

In Christ, you received redemption. God purchased you from the slave market of sin with the precious blood of his Son (see 1 Peter 1:18–19) so that you might be delivered from the kingdom of darkness (see Col. 1:13–14). This is your certainty, since Jesus entered the holy place “by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” for you (Heb. 9:12).

Why did God do all this for you and me? So that we would boast in him but not before him. So that, by our testimony, it would be evident that God chooses “what is foolish in the world to shame the wise” and “what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor. 1:27). As the apostle delivers this truth to our ears, he echoes the voice of the Lord through the mouth of Jeremiah: “Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord” (Jer. 9:24).

— Paul Tautges, author, Remade