UNION WITH CHRIST
[p. 113] UNION WITH CHRIST
I want to send you the enclosed paper. In it I confine my remarks altogether to the bride elect before union is known. Dear ———— in his letter travels to both sides — the Bridegroom’s side and the bride’s, and it is evident that the subject has furnished him with much interesting meditation. But I am in this paper confining my remarks to the time before union is known, and I have done so on purpose to discover the nature of the affection that one is advocating or seeking. The affection after I have conscious union must be of a very different order or nature to what it is before union is known. When union is known you can say, at any rate — I am His, and all His is mine, and His interests must be mine. Now the union of the church with Christ can never be typified according to its nature, though it is illustrated in Ephesians 5 by the relationship of man and wife. But no man and wife ever had the same spirit, and that is what the church has with Christ, and the Spirit is the Holy Ghost. It is not merely like nature or like life with Him, but I have the same Spirit. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Romans 8: 9).
The Lord bless you abundantly and keep you in the sense that He makes us to lie down in green pastures before He asks us to walk.
We need to know what the church is to Christ, and you cannot know that until you understand union with Christ. You may look at it from God’s side and see that in His purpose you are united to Christ, but there is also our side. You may see where the Epistle to the Ephesians puts the believer, and yet fail in the practice which God would produce in us by the knowledge of its teaching. The apostle prayed (chapter 1: 18), “that ye may know what is the hope of his calling”. He would not have prayed that they might know, if the Ephesians had known these things; and you may know the epistle well, and yet you may not have grasped the reality of [p. 114] what the church is to Christ. You cannot have suitability to the position if you do not understand it. The church is the fulness of Christ. The holy city, New Jerusalem, gives us an idea of the magnitude and magnificence of the church.
Paul’s gospel and the church came out together. If you do not know Paul’s gospel you do not know the mystery. Christ in heaven is Head to His body, the church. In order to reach Christ as Head you must get completely outside the present order of things, and come to a spot where Christ is all and in all. It is outside of man. You know union by the Holy Spirit; it is not the subject of Colossians, there it is more life; the prayer in Ephesians 1 is that you may know union. The Lord has brought me so close to Himself that I am part of Him; and He leaves His mark on each of those who know Him thus.
John does not speak of union, but he describes the holy city. It is descriptive of Christ. You must have divine power in order to be descriptive of the heavenly Man upon earth. The thought of a true wife is how she can make much of her husband, and as united to Christ you are descriptive of Him; His interests are yours. I am not now speaking of service, but of the wonderful nature of our union with Christ. Some of us know what we passed through before having peace. I do not think any soul ever got peace until he wanted it, and no one realises union until they are set for it; but you must first know that you are “accepted in the Beloved”, that you are of the same stock, “all of one”. We are made partakers of the divine nature.
Eve is the first type or illustration of the church which is given in scripture. God brought Eve to Adam. This will be fulfilled at the coronation day in Revelation 19. The marriage of the Lamb takes place when Babylon, the rival, has been set aside. God calls out the church apart from man’s city — Babylon, and He will shew her to the world as God’s city — New Jerusalem. There is no such joy as we find in chapter 19 when Babylon is judged, and the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready; that is, she has passed the judgment seat, and comes forth arrayed in fine linen, clean and white; “the fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints”. Abraham and other Old Testament saints will be there as guests. They are children of the bridechamber, but they are not united to Christ as the church is. The Spirit of God now brings us into the things which are set forth in the heavenly Jerusalem. We sometimes sing:
‘And see the Spirit’s power
Has ope’d the heavenly door.’ (74:5)
If you know that you belong to the blessed Lord up there in heaven, and have never been there in Spirit, you cannot be a happy man, nor can you act as a heavenly man down here. The Spirit of God conducts us to heaven. The same power that wrought in Christ works towards us. It is not merely that God has a purpose as to us, but He has quickened us together with Christ, and has raised us up together, and made us sit down together in the heavenly places in Christ.
The first thing that you learn when you know union is that you have a new interest. Christ is your interest. You know Christ first as your Saviour, then as your Priest, and in the assembly you learn what suits Him. His interests become paramount with you, and you come to understand what will further those interests. In Ephesians 3 we get the great and present endowments that belong to union. First, Christ dwells in your heart by faith. Secondly, You are able to survey the greatness of your property; you may not be able to take it all in, but you do know something of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Then in the last verse you have the result, “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end”. It goes on through the millennium to the eternal state.
The one unmistakable mark of being in conscious union with Christ is identity of interest with Him, simply because it is the consequence of relationship. Union, however, may be known and yet not enjoyed because there is not communion. This is what I so desire for the Lord’s people and what I seek to retain undisturbed myself. This it is that makes us suitable to Him down here. To [p. 116] be suitable to His immediate interest in our immediate circumstances is very blessed.
May each of us know the blessedness of conscious union with Christ so that we may be suitable to Him here. It is a great thing to get clearly before one’s soul that I am here for Christ.