UNION WITH CHRIST

UNION WITH CHRIST

How or where a believer is united to Christ is a subject of the greatest importance and interest. For though, in the marvellous grace of God, the portion of the believer does not depend on the extent of his faith or his estimate of Christ, and though God has secured a portion for him according to the consummation of His own will in Christ, yet the believer only enjoys according to the extent of his faith, and his strength and ability to walk and to please God is necessarily according to his acquisition. Hence it is of all importance that we should by faith accurately enter into the portion which God has given us in His Son. Every ignorance connected with ^[p. 52] it has a corresponding weakness, as indeed every apprehension seen by faith, and made good by the power of the Holy Spirit, is followed by a corresponding strength. This of itself is surely sufficient to induce every saint earnestly to search the Scriptures, in order that he may obtain the divine idea about every blessing which is conferred on us; and our apprehension of every blessing must depend on the certainty, vigour, and vividness of our assured union with Christ. Hence the point for us now to ascertain and apprehend is, how and where we have been united to Christ.

There are three distinct periods in each one of which it is variously alleged we are united to Christ. First it is said that we are united to Him in His life on earth; secondly, in His death; thirdly, in His resurrection. First, then, let me ask, could I be united to Christ as He was down here on earth? He was the Holy One of God, holy in His nature, as well as in His walk. Could we, then, be united to Him — we who are more unholy within than even in our walk? How could union take place unless we had dropped our evil nature, and had His nature imparted to us? Could this have been during His life here below? If it could — if there could be union with Christ during His incarnation — then it must be before the sacrifice for sin had been made. If He has, as some have said, bridged over the chasm between man and God by His incarnation, where then is the judgment on the sinner? and what the need of a sacrifice and atonement? or where would it find a place? Is the sinner to receive of Christ’s holy and immaculate nature, without judgment being enacted for the sinner? Could God introduce the sinner into an entirely new nature, without executing the judgment under which the sinner lay? Where is the righteousness of God if this could be so — if He can set up a sinner in the highest condition, without any sacrifice, and only because His blessed Son came into the world in the likeness of sinful flesh? It could not be. No one believing ^[p. 53] in the atonement will for a moment assume or entertain the idea that we could be united to Christ in His incarnation.

But, secondly, it is said that we are united to Christ in His death. Now the Lord states in John 12 that unless the corn of wheat dies, it abides alone; thereby setting forth that He must undergo death, or He would abide alone; and if any could have been united to Him before His death, it would not be added, “but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit”. This the Lord said as descriptive of things relating to Himself; unless He died, He should abide alone. He was here on earth entirely unique, manifested in the flesh, capable of feeling and suffering anything which man, the creature, could suffer. He was here in the weakness of humanity, but in no sense chargeable or liable to the judgment resting on man either by birth or, as yet, vicariously; and hence He intimates, when His hour was come, that there remained but one way for Him to relieve man of the judgment resting on him, and that was by dying. If this could be accomplished only through His death, it could not have been through His incarnation, though His incarnation is the means thereto; that is to say, if He were not in the flesh, He could not have died, but then He must die, or He would abide alone; there could be no union with Him before His death. But here comes the question, are we united to Him in His death? Now union with Him in death would be subjecting us to all the severity of the judgment. It would be assuming that we could endure the wrath of God which fell on Him; and if this judgment had fallen on us who deserved it, how could we have escaped? If we were ever under the judgment of God we could not have escaped from it — that is, if the judgment had been carried out, which surely it was in the cross of Christ. And if we had to undergo it in company with Him, where is the substitution, in virtue of which we should escape judgment? If I am united to Christ in His death, I am sharing in all the sinner’s judgment inflicted by God on Christ, and as a sinner I could never escape; and if I did escape, it would be establishing the assumption that God could forgive after the judgment for sin had fallen on the sinner, after he had died under judgment. Again, if it could be so, it would be to say that I could be dragged out of the fire of judgment, because the Son of God bore me company in it. This would not be union, but partnership, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego (Daniel 3: 25). I should be a child of the first Adam, rescued from deserved destruction, and, like those three Israelites, in no wise changed as to nature or life, and only a rescued one, the first Adam state remaining just as it was. Certainly there is no union here. Union with any one is where I am a sharer of what that one is; partnership is where I only partake of benefits flowing from association. In union with Christ, I partake of what He is — “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”. If He be only a leader, like Moses or Gideon, I am not united to Him, I am only rescued by Him; and if so — if I am merely delivered by Him — He is only a more distinguished leader and victor than David or Gideon, and this effects no change in me from the nature and state of the first Adam; there is no oneness of spirit with the Son of God. Nay, more, if I am still in the nature and state of the first Adam, where is the righteousness of God against sin? and what has Christ died for? Is it only to conquer Satan, in order that his hold on man might be removed? This is true, but if it be all, where is the judgment of God on the first Adam, the judgment of sin which is death? The fact is, with such a notion, the death of Christ would be limited to a conflict with Satan in the power of death, and the salvation effected for man would be merely a deliverance from the power of Satan, the nature and the order of being remaining just as it was. So that if it be asserted that we are united to Christ in His death, it must either be that we bear the judgment ^[p. 55] of sin which Christ bore, and are released by God after the judgment — which is the doctrine of purgatory — or that we are only delivered by Christ from Satan’s power, and then there is no judgment of sin, but merely deliverance by the power of the mighty One. And, moreover, this deliverance is not union; because we remain the same as to nature and order as we were before we were delivered: all of which is untenable and impossible.

It remains then that the believer can be only united to Christ in His resurrection and there alone. The judgment on man is death — judicial death. If judicial death alone can satisfy the righteousness of God (”the wages of sin is death”: Romans 6: 23), then the first man must end in judgment. If judicial death is the judgment, and if righteousness is only satisfied in the exacting of this judgment, how could that man sentenced to a judicial death continue as an existence? If it were an ordinary death, the creature could be revived by sovereign power; but it being a judicial death, the life could not be revived, for if it were, the judgment would be foiled and righteousness unsatisfied. It is plain that judicial death can never righteously be terminated, nor forfeited life revived. If it could, where would be the judgment? for the judgment is the forfeiture of life. Remove the forfeiture and you remit the judgment; it is a simple question of righteousness. What then does God’s righteous judgment involve? It involves the end of the old man in judgment, and if man died this death himself, he would be eternally lost. But God’s Son comes into the world in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemns sin in the flesh, bears the judgment on man, but rises out of it. He is “put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit”, 1 Peter 3: 18. He does not revive that which was under judgment; but, having borne the judgment, He rises out of it in His own life — the one solitary stem, from henceforth, by whom and from whom alone life can be had. “As in Adam all die,

^[p. 56] even so in Christ shall all be made alive”. “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins”, 1 Corinthians 15. He “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification, Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. Hence the Lord on His resurrection stood in the midst of His disciples and proclaimed peace to them, for “he is our peace”. But more than this; He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. As risen, He is the last Adam, the life-giving Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is given to us to make known in our souls that “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. The eternal life that was with the Father is now mine in Christ. The Holy Spirit unites me to Him (Romans 8: 9) who is risen above all my shame and judgment, and on ground entirely new and well-pleasing to God. So that I can say, “I am crucified with Christ”: that is, I morally drop my old man in His cross, “nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”. I am united with Christ, as He says, “Because I live, ye shall live also”. There could be no greater union than communication by the Spirit of the same life. “In that day [the Holy Spirit’s day] ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”, John 14: 20. And thus, through His life, by the Spirit, we have fellowship with the Father and the Son; our joy is full.

It is thus evident that the believer is united to Christ in resurrection, where He has risen out of everything which checked or barred the love of God. We are now, through faith in Him, outside of the old man, so that we are free from that wherein we were held, and we are through grace “to be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead”, Romans 7: 4. “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ”, 2 Corinthians 5: 17. So that now we are of Him, and through Him, and by Him, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.