Union with Christ II: The Nature of Our Union

The Doctrine of Union with Christ and the Trinity

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and AC and I are looking again at the the doctrine of union with Christ, that central doctrine in the writings of Paul. When we think of the great truths of the New Covenant, at the foundation of all things is God, the hymn, H-I-M, of the phrase in hymn.

But we also need to understand in the application of this redemption and as well as the accomplishment of it, all that the New Covenant contains, how it was accomplished, how it's brought to bear on a Christian's life in the midst of every circumstance.

At the heart of that is the doctrine of union with Christ, every work of Christ being connected with that. So last week we talked about the hymn, Who is it to whom we are united? This week AC is going to lead us through just a kind of a survey of the reality of union with Christ, the nature of that union, how the Bible teaches us that, and some of the things that Paul in particular points out, saying these things exist because of union and they could not exist apart from union with him.

So AC, why don't you pick that up and walk us through? Yeah, so in thinking about just that word union in general, if we're gonna think rightly about it, think about union with Christ, we have to start with the Godhead.

We have to start with who Jesus of Nazareth, God the Son, second person of the Trinity, is himself united to persons before he's united to his people, to the church. So in that line of thought, we have to think about the Trinity.

The idea of union in the Trinity, it's not a foreign concept. It's not new to God. Union isn't something that just burst onto the scene with union in Christ. When we think about the Trinity, we think of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in union together before anything was called into existence from eternity.

The three members of the Godhead existing in perfect unity. We see that, you know, coming across on the pages of the Gospels when we see Jesus' baptism, we see Jesus' presence, the Spirit descends upon him and the voice from heaven, the Father, speaks.

We see at the Great Commission, same thing. Jesus commissions his disciples to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And getting into the ideas of union with Christ, Paul, in that great, big, wonderful, majestic sentence in Ephesians chapter 1, basically breaks down the ways in which the Father acts in redemption, the Son acts in redemption, and the Spirit acts in redemption.

So in thinking about union with Christ, we've got to, in a sense, take a step back and see that this all emanates, it all pours forth from God himself as Father, Son, and Spirit. That it's something that he, all three members of the Trinity, enjoyed in perfect love, and harmony, and fullness before they graciously stooped down to humanity and invited members of Adam's fallen race to be a part of their fellowship.

So we have to have that fundamental point to start with. But second, we have to move into the idea of union between all humanity and Adam. Adam, the first man, going back to the beginning of the Bible, in the Genesis account, he's created, and God sets him as the federal head, the representative of all humanity, for good or ill, in obedience or disobedience.

So, you know, whether we would like it or not, whether it would have been our first choice, doesn't matter. God gave him as our head in the beginning. And you think of Adam, who's created in perfection, the fullness of perfection, as much as a human being at that time could be created.

Minus deity, of course. So when we think of union, we have to think about our own union, all of us. Every person who ever came after Adam, up until this very second, has been united with him. We think of this from Paul's letter in Romans chapter 5, verses 12 through 21.

Paul contrasts the one man, Adam, and the one man, Jesus. And when he mentions Adam, he talks about how when Adam sinned, all humanity sinned in him. That is, when Adam sinned, he sinned as our representative, and we sinned in him, through his sin.

Paul closes out that section by saying that that one trespass led to the condemnation of all mankind. AC, that union with Adam, and then as you mentioned, Paul's application of that union with the, you know, the work of the last Adam, he calls him, you know, in 2nd Corinthians, that really is at the heart of what we're going to be looking at.

United with Adam, we would be either blessed or cursed by Adam's choices. And of course, we know that in a perfect environment, a perfect man and woman chose sin, and so the right and just and fair result of that, the paycheck of that sin, is death and separation from God.

And, you know, death in every form, spiritual, physical, you know, every aspect of death then becomes the unwanted companion of all humanity. That is, everyone who's united to Adam, and that's all humanity.

His sin imputed to us. But then Christ, the second Adam, the final Adam, he is the other representative, and Christ's obedience as our representative means that how Christ performs as our federal head or as our representative before God that God chose, if he obeys, then there are privileges and blessings that will come without end.

If he disobeys, then, you know, there's the curse. He obeys. He is in a very imperfect environment with enemies all around, and yet he perfectly does the will of the Father. Therefore, all that is done by him and all that is endured by him can be attributed to, or in a sense imputed, the righteousness of Jesus, imputed to his followers.

Everyone who he represents, every believer, you know, every one that God has astonishingly chosen in eternity past to be a vessel of mercy, and that is another great mystery. But let's not get hung up on the secondary mystery because that's not the biggest mystery.

The biggest mystery is this, that God would choose his Son, send him, unite him to humanity so that he could be identified with God's enemies and stand in the place of God's enemies, and every enemy that will hope in that will be treated as if they had done what he had done, the perfect obedience, God being satisfied in Christ.

So that union is, you know, at the heart of everything, and like you said, the second half of Romans 5 is where Paul really waxes eloquent on, you know, these fundamental facts. These are the facts that benefits come from.

But you mentioned, it's not always something that we like to hear, that, well, we are born with a sinful nature and we are born under the wrath of a offended law, a broken law, because of our union with Adam.

So what would you say to someone that says, well, that's not fair? I'd say a lot of things, but I think the first thing that I would say is, well, look at who God set over you as your first federal representative.

He was perfect, sinless, nothing wrong with him, but he did sin. So God gave you the perfect representative initially, but he had that ability to sin and fall. That was more than you deserved, okay? But then look at, like you'd said, look at what was lost with him.

Everything was lost in Adam. Paul says it in 1 Corinthians 15, for in Adam all die. If you aren't willing to come to grips with that and reckon with that and really settle that in your mind as reality, then you can't have the flip side of that either, which is what Paul says, just a phrase over in 1 Corinthians 15, but in Christ all are made alive.

If it's not fair that God gave Adam as your representative and he fell, then it's not fair that God give you Christ as your representative and he won to you everything that was necessary for fellowship and reconciliation with God.

Right, and that's, I think that's one place where our human pride, of course, shows up, that we argue the unfairness of being linked with the failure of Adam. We do not argue the unfairness. Now, it's kind, we admit it's kind, but we tend to think, well, actually, it's not even, it's not unfair, it's, we're entitled to the benefits that Christ won.

So how is one unfair and one fair? Well, only if you're viewing it from the perspective of what I feel that I deserve and what I want. So, yes, representation is at the heart of our relationship with God.

We either come to God wearing the name of the family of Adam or we come to God wearing the name of the family of Christ because we have embraced the other mediator, the other representative, and we have given ourselves to him and we find that he has done and suffered all for us.

Now, those are some of the unions in the Bible, but when we come to the union between Christ and the believer, Christ and his church, you know, we were talking earlier, a wonderful little book by John Murray from the last century called Redemption Accomplished and Applied.

It's a small book. You have it right there? I do. Yeah, it's a great book. The first half deals with how God accomplishes our redemption, so atoning, death of Christ. The second half of the book, how he applies it.

So that really is where the union with Christ kind of comes in so often, and he has a chapter on union with Christ, and he doesn't put it in any type of chronological or theological order. He throws it in toward the end and says, now why didn't I include union with Christ, you know, up near, you know, justification or adoption and faith and repentance?

Well, he said because union with Christ really is the atmosphere in which all of this is embraced, and so it's bigger than just one aspect of redemption. We've mentioned that last week, and he mentions that it is a mystical union and it is a spiritual union.

So when he says it's mystical, he's not talking about meditating on a mountaintop like a guru or maybe a Catholic mystic, you know, in contemplative prayer. The union with Christ is mystical, the theologians tell us.

What do they mean by that? They mean that it's, in a sense, a mystery. Yeah, it's not something that any theologian could say, well, I can fully explain what the nature of this union is, and God has not fully explained it to us.

So, obviously, we don't need to understand everything about the nature of the union, but we do need to know that whatever the Scripture says, there is, in a sense, there is so much more. Perhaps if we could grasp it, you know, maybe in eternity we will understand fully or more fully, surely, the nature of that union, the richness of it, you know, the grace of it.

But the Bible also teaches that it's a spiritual union. Not that it's not real, like, you know, well, that's a spiritual concept rather than like a physical reality. Well, obviously, we're not physically united to Christ, but there is a union between the believer and his or her Redeemer that is unbreakable, that is at the heart of God's plan of redemption, and that God accomplishes in the person of the Spirit.

He is the one who initially places us in Christ. He is the one who holds us in Christ, who supplies every possible spiritual blessing. Paul says in Ephesians 1, he's the one that brings that to bear upon our lives from Christ, the great treasurer of heaven, and he's the one being sealed in Christ.

He's the one that keeps us in Christ until the end. But how does the Bible describe the union? It gives us more than just those two summary statements. It gives us a number of metaphors. So, you want to walk us through some of those metaphors and, you know, what they, you know, what does each metaphor kind of carry, a peculiar, you know, flavor, a different angle of the relationship is seen in the different metaphors?

Union with Christ in Eternity and in Salvation History

Yeah, so in thinking about union with Christ in the way that, I think, specifically Paul describes it, he, though I guess I'll say this before I kind of get into it, the wonderful thing about union with Christ is, first, realizing that it didn't just start in time and space.

It didn't just start with justification by faith alone. It started in eternity, actually. When we read Paul's description in Ephesians chapter 1, specifically verses 3 through 5, we start to read language that is wonderful.

It would seem almost too good to be true if Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, hadn't penned it for us. And he writes verses like this. To this group of Gentiles, he says, God chose you in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that you should be holy and blameless before Him.

And he goes on to say, in love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will. This great, boundless, eternal love that God pours forth upon His people didn't just start upon the, you know, the punctiliar moment, that moment when you came to faith in Christ.

It actually started in eternity, before you were ever born, before the earth was ever created, before creation came to be. God had set His love upon you and determined this person, these people, known as the church, they will be mine, and I will do all that is absolutely necessary to bring them to myself in initial and final salvation.

Yeah, so in the mind of God, the timeless determination to save by union with His Son, and we'll talk about this more in the weeks to come when we talk about the various aspects that Paul does give emphasis to, but that mysterious electing love, Murray points out in his book that the Father has never contemplated the Son in eternity past, if, you know, that's not really accurate way of saying it.

Eternity is timeless, but let's say everlasting past. The Father never contemplated the Son without a part from a people the Son would be united to, and the Father never looked down through, you know, the halls of time and contemplated us, the believer, apart from connection with Christ.

Always seeing the Son connected to a people, always seeing the believer connected to the Son, and that is mysterious, but it is a wonderful foundation since our devotion goes up and down. It's great to know His love is not a thing that starts and stops, doesn't go up and down.

So what are some of the metaphors for this eternal, you know, determination, this thing that God, in a sense, conceives in His heart and mind before time is measured? So with that eternal, timeless determination of God to save by union with His Son, the Bible does give us a number of, you know, metaphors, some very concrete ways for us to get our little minds around the nature of that union, and I'm going to run through them, and AC, I'll run through them, and one at a time, and you tell me, you know, what comes to your mind.

Again, you know, these are basic pictures, so we don't have to be, you know, Birkhoff theology. The average Christian, you know, in the first century, hearing these metaphors from Paul, even though they don't have a great theological library, something stuck with them when they heard the metaphors.

So in simple ways, each of these carry kind of a unique quality, a unique emphasis that helps us get a well-rounded picture of the union. So first, it is a union between, like the union between a husband and wife, and Paul explains this in Ephesians.

The great union between Christ and His people, that is the reality. That's the blueprint. Marriage, at its best, is the reflection of that kind of union. So when we talk about the union between a perfect husband and his everlasting wife, there ought to be something that kind of jumps out at us.

So what quality of that union comes to mind when you think husband-wife? What you'd said about Paul's statements in Ephesians 5, Christ is the one who lays down His life for His bride. Not just once, but once and for all time.

So you have that picture of one who is sacrificial, one who leads in that sacrifice, but you have with the bride as well, one who submits and does so gladly. So you have those two pictures of sacrificial leadership, the glad assumption of sacrificial leadership, and then also there's a glad assumption of submission.

So there's a laying down of life in order that life can go forth and flourish. Yeah, and Paul points that out, you know, Christ gives Himself for His church, and that's the pattern for a husband living with the wife.

But now if I get on the phone and I call Chelsea and say, Chelsea, we're in the middle of a podcast, but we're gonna put you, you know, we're gonna put you on speakerphone. If you think of a husband and wife, what do you think that metaphor conveys?

Will she say, oh, dying sacrifice for the good of the spouse. I mean, there's something more fundamental. There's love. And, you know, and we can take that for granted. God loved the world and gave His Son for it, you know, and we don't want to reduce those words just because in other places, you know, more specifics are given.

That's not meant to reduce that statement. Christ loved His church and gave Himself for her. So there is that, you know, there is this voluntary love on behalf of God that seeks a people. And then the response, like you said, of submission, of trusting love, obedient love, embracing the, you know, the proposal to come to Him and to find in Him everything we need.

So yeah, a relational union, not just legal that we're going to talk about, not just organic. It's relational. It's voluntary. It's rooted in love. But there are other aspects of the union. Let's think of branch and vine.

So when you think of a branch and a vine, that union, what jumps out in your mind? Life. The branch has to be vitally united to the vine or it won't have any life. Yeah. And there, I mean, it's, you know, it's so simple, but it's significant.

It's not just a relationship of love, like a husband and a wife. It's something more. There is a connection that is, like you said, vital, life-giving. If it can be severed, there's no more life. It doesn't matter how much we love each other.

It doesn't matter how much Christ promises and no matter how much He, you know, declares His love even for His enemy. It doesn't matter how much we say we love Him. If we are not connected, if we are not in a living connection with Him, like a branch to its vine, then we have no supply.

So it's vital. It's living. How about body to head? The church is the body, but we are connected, Paul says, in more than one place to a living head. I think that this has more than one application. So give us the first one.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the head leads. So where the head leads, that's where the body goes. And if you've got a smart head, you know, a diligent, well-thought-out head, then the body is going to benefit from that.

If you don't have that, the body is going to be suffering for it. Yeah, and not just the head on a body leading, but there's governmental. A governmental head. So God, we already explained, God has chosen Christ as the federal head, as the representative head of a covenant, the new covenant.

And this great covenant of grace, it provides for us not just forgiveness, not just enduring supply, not just love and care and life, but a King. And He is our head. He is our governing, ruling head. And that has to play into the dynamic of living with Him, in Him, and by Him.

We cannot explain away the importance of obedience by saying, well, it's all of grace. And His obedience is all that matters to the Father. Well, that's not true because you've been made united to a governing head, as well as a living connection.

There is a, you know, there is a governmental connection, a ruling connection, and it matters to Him, how we respond to Him. But then there's the, you know, the other aspect of head to body, the living connection, life flowing in a sense from head to body.

You know, Paul says in Ephesians, you know, every Christian is a part of the body. So we benefit each other. We serve each other and we become vehicles or channels of the kindness and the grace of God and the strengthening help of God.

We become part of that channel, but only as long as we are directly connected to the head. You know, so we have to be directly connected in a living connection with this head, like the vine and the branch.

And that's how we become a help to others. Let me give you one last one for today. Cornerstone. Christ is the cornerstone, Paul says, or the capstone, and we are the stones that are being fitted together in this one great living building of a temple for God.

What comes to mind with cornerstone? The cornerstone, it sets in line how the building is going to be built. If the cornerstone is off, the rest of the building is going to be off. Yeah, so there is a determining quality to this union.

We are united with one who is the moral standard. He's not just bringing life to us like a branch to a vine, like a head to a body. He's not just governing us. He's not just lovingly providing for us, even at the cost to himself, a husband to a wife.

He is the one that we are being mortared to, and the angles of that man's life, that is the angle of the building. And anytime we are out of angle, we're out of step with the holiness and the righteousness and the moral beauty of Christ, then, you know, then the spirit of God, in a sense, comes like the, you know, like the bricklayer, like the stonemason, and adjusts us.

One of my favorite quotes by Rutherford is, he was talking about how many times the Christian goes through difficulties, and we get so surprised. We think, but I'm a child of God. Why is life so difficult now?

And he said, think of the stones, you know, out in the fields of Scotland, these big stones. He said, the common stones of the field, they never receive any blows by the mason's hammer and chisel. But the stones chosen for a temple, for a building, where they're gathered, they're brought in, and then they receive many blows before they are fit, you know, to be a part of this building, this living temple.

And God does do that. He constantly is adjusting us and chiseling so that we look like Christ. We must match the moral angles, the determining angles of the cornerstone. Well, those are great metaphors.

Union with Christ in Death, Resurrection, and Inheritance

Can you run us through what we're going to be looking at in the next weeks, AC? That just the basic categories of how Paul says, when you understand union with Christ, you have to understand that all of these are coming to us, are real because of that union.

Yeah. Well, as I'd mentioned, being elected in Christ is the starting point. But moving out of eternity into time and space, we have to think of our union with Christ in regard to his death, his resurrection, his exaltation.

We have to think about it in regard to the new birth, our being brought from death to life. We have to think about it in regard to holiness, our being progressively brought from one degree of glory to another, from one degree of Christ likeness to another.

But we also have to think about it in regard to death. Even in death, some might think, especially in death, I'm united to Christ. Not even death can separate me from him or him from me. It's a river, like John Bunyan mentions in Pilgrim's Progress, that I cross, but I don't cross it alone.

I cross it with Christ hand in hand. So it's union with Christ in relation to our death, but it's also in relation to our resurrection, our literal, physical resurrection that's coming, where we will be brought out of the grave in Christ, and then we'll be glorified in Christ.

And then in that time frame, we will be in Christ receiving an inheritance. That's down payment of the spirit that we received upon the new birth in all of its fullness, in unimaginable, unfathomable ways.

When we receive that great inheritance on that great day, it won't be in any other atmosphere or territory than in Christ. So those are the categories we'll be looking at this in the next few weeks, as I hope the Lord helps us to uncover something of this great and wonderful mystery that is union with Christ.

Yeah. We were talking before we filmed today, it is for any student of the Bible, it is a shocking expression of divine friendship, that there are real facts or real events behind this real union that we can have with the God-man.

It's not just a fine concept that rises above, you know, other philosophies. There are the actual events of an incarnation, of an obedient life, you know, of a crucifixion and a resurrection that 500 plus people saw over 40 days.

The sending of the spirit at Pentecost, the visible demonstration of that so that those men would know He has not just returned, we saw Him ascend, but He is enthroned and as a gift to the church, the Father and Son have sent the spirit.

You know, all those actual historical events are the foundation of this union. It's not just a fine myth that we sweeten the bitterness of life with and say, well, you know, just think of things in this way.

It's historical. But then also that we, that AC or John or Teddy or any believer listening, could actually participate that, that the unbeliever who still holds God at arm's length and prefers to use God rather than embrace God for all that He is, you know, that the gospel still goes to you and says, not I will give you a package of forgiveness and a package of comfort and a package of strength, but I will give you myself.

I will be your God. You will be my people. And in a way that is mysterious, I will unite you to myself in the person of my son. So that's amazing. And then it's amazing that we're commanded to take these truths to people who need them.

And it's not, you know, it's not empty hope. It's reality. And we are allowed to talk about how the eternal God has made it possible for this speck, this life that's a speck in time and a speck in the universe and has rejected that God to turn and to find peace and life in Him.

So wonderful grace there. And we'll talk about that in the coming weeks. What are the specific ways, AC already mentioned that Paul says union with Christ is at the heart of this as well.