I am the Vine, you are the branches. He that remains united to me, while I remain united to him--he bears fruit plentifully; for you can do nothing apart from me.
I in union with them and thou with me--that so they may be perfected in their union, and thus the world may know that thou hast sent me as thy Messenger, and that thou has loved them as thou hast loved me.
But now we are set free from the Law, because we are dead to that which once kept us under restraint; and so we serve under new, spiritual conditions, and not under old, written regulations.
But you, by your union with Christ Jesus, belong to God; and Christ, by God's will, became not only our Wisdom, but also our Righteousness, Holiness, and Deliverance,
I know a man in union with Christ, who, fourteen years ago-- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows-- was caught up (this man of whom I am speaking) to the third Heaven.
For ourselves, then, from this time forward, we refuse to regard any one from the world's standpoint. Even if we once thought of Christ from the standpoint of the world, yet now we do so no longer.
To proclaim that God, in Christ, was reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning men's offenses against them, and that he had entrusted us with the Message of this reconciliation.
For we are God's handiwork, created, by our union with Christ Jesus, for the good actions in doing which God had pre-arranged that we should spend our lives.
And in his human nature put an end to the cause of enmity between them--the Law with its injunctions and ordinances--in order to create, through union with himself, from Jew and Gentile, one New Man and thus make peace.