Chapter 13

3. Consequences of this Union as respects the Believer.We have seen that Christ's union with humanity, at the incarnation, involved him in all the legal liabilities of the race to which he united himself, and enabled him so to assume the penalty of its sin as to make for all men a full satisfaction to the divine justice, and to remove all external obstacles to man's return to God. An internal obstacle, however, still remains—the evil affections and will, and the consequent guilt, of the individual soul. This last obstacle also Christ removes, in the case of all his people, by uniting himself to them in a closer and more perfect manner than that in which he is united to humanity at large. As Christ's union with the race secures the objective reconciliation of the race to God, so Christ's union with believers secures the subjective reconciliation of believers to God.In Baird, Elohim Revealed, 607-610, in Owen, on Justification, chap. 8, in Boston, Covenant of Grace, chap. 2, and in Dale, Atonement, 265-440, the union of the believer with Christ is made to explain the bearing of our sins by Christ. As we have seen in our discussion of the Atonement, however (page 759), this explains the cause by the effect, and implies that Christ died only for the elect (see review of Dale, in Brit. Quar.[pg 803]Rev., Apr. 1876:221-225). It is not the union of Christ with the believer, but the union of Christ with humanity at large, that explains his taking upon him human guilt and penalty.Amnesty offered to a rebellious city may be complete, yet it may avail only for those who surrender. Pardon secured from a Governor, upon the ground of the services of an Advocate, may be effectual only when the convict accepts it,—there is no hope for him when he tears up the pardon. Dr. H. E. Robins:“The judicial declaration of acquittal on the ground of the death of Christ, which comes to all men (Rom. 5:18), and into the benefits of which they are introduced by natural birth, is inchoate justification, and will become perfected justification through the new birth of the Holy Spirit, unless the working of this divine agent is resisted by the personal moral action of those who are lost.”What Dr. Robins calls“inchoate justification”we prefer to call“ideal justification”or“attainable justification.”Humanity in Christ is justified, and every member of the race who joins himself to Christ by faith participates in Christ's justification. H. E. Dudley:“Adam's sin holds us all down just as gravity holds all, while Christ's righteousness, though secured for all and accessible to all, involves an effort of will in climbing and grasping which not all will make.”Justification in Christ is the birthright of humanity; but, in order to possess and enjoy it, each of us must claim and appropriate it by faith.R. W. Dale, Fellowship with Christ, 7—“When we were created in Christ, the fortunes of the human race for good or evil became his. The Incarnation revealed and fulfilled the relations which already existed between the Son of God and mankind. From the beginning Christ had entered into fellowship with us. When we sinned, he remained in fellowship with us still. Our miseries”[we would add: our guilt]“were his, by his own choice.... His fellowship with us is the foundation of our fellowship with him.... When I have discovered that by the very constitution of my nature I am to achieve perfection in the power of the life of Another—who is yet not Another, but the very ground of my being—it ceases to be incredible to me that Another—who is yet not Another—should be the Atonement for my sin, and that his relation to God should determine mine.”A tract entitled“The Seven Togethers”sums up the Scripture testimony with regard to the Consequences of the believer's Union with Christ: 1. Crucified together with Christ—Gal. 2:20—συνεσταύρωμαι. 2. Died together with Christ—Col. 2:20—ἀπεθάνετε. 3. Buried together with Christ—Rom. 6:4—συνετάφημεν. 4. Quickened together with Christ—Eph. 2:5—συνεζωοποίησεν. 5. Raised together with Christ—Col. 3:1—συνηγέρθητε. 6. Sufferers together with Christ—Rom. 8:17—συμπάσχομεν. 7. Glorified together with Christ—Rom. 8:17—συνδοξασθῶμεν. Union with Christ results in common sonship, relation to God, character, influence, and destiny.Imperfect apprehension of the believer's union with Christ works to the great injury of Christian doctrine. An experience of union with Christ first enables us to understand the death of sin and separation from God which has befallen the race sprung from the first Adam. The life and liberty of the children of God in Christ Jesus shows us by contrast how far astray we had gone. The vital and organic unity of the new race sprung from the second Adam reveals the depravity and disintegration which we had inherited from our first father. We see that as there is one source of spiritual life in Christ, so there was one source of corrupt life in Adam; and that as we are justified by reason of our oneness with the justified Christ, so we are condemned by reason of our oneness with the condemned Adam.A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 175—“If it is consistent with evolution that the physical and natural life of the race should be derived from a single source, then it is equally consistent with evolution that the moral and spiritual life of the race should be derived from a single source. Scripture is stating only scientific fact when it sets the second Adam, the head of redeemed humanity, over against the first Adam, the head of fallen humanity. We are told that evolution should give us many Christs. We reply that evolution has not given us many Adams. Evolution, as it assigns to the natural head of the race a supreme and unique position, must be consistent with itself, and must assign a supreme and unique position to Jesus Christ, the spiritual head of the race. As there was but one Adam from whom all the natural life of the race was derived, so that there can be but one Christ from whom all the spiritual life of the race is derived.”The consequences of union with Christ may be summarily stated as follows:[pg 804](a) Union with Christ involves a change in the dominant affection of the soul. Christ's entrance into the soul makes it a new creature, in the sense that the ruling disposition, which before was sinful, now becomes holy. This change we callRegeneration.Rom. 8:2—“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death”;2 Cor. 5:17—“if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature”(marg.—“there is a new creation”);Gal. 1:15, 16—“it was the good pleasure of God ... to reveal his Son in me”;Eph. 2:10—“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”As we derive our old nature from the first man Adam, by birth, so we derive a new nature from the second man Christ, by the new birth. Union with Christ is the true“transfusion of blood.”“The death-struck sinner, like the wan, anæmic, dying invalid, is saved by having poured into his veins the healthier blood of Christ”(Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World). God regenerates the soul by uniting it to Jesus Christ.In the Johnston Harvester Works at Batavia, when they paint their machinery, they do it by immersing part after part in a great tank of paint,—so the painting is instantaneous and complete. Our baptism into Christ is the outward picture of an inward immersion of the soul not only into his love and fellowship, but into his very life, so that in him we become new creatures (2 Cor. 5:17). As Miss Sullivan surrounded Helen Keller with the influence of her strong personality, by intelligence and sympathy and determination striving to awaken the blind and dumb soul and give it light and love, so Jesus envelops us. But his Spirit is more encompassing and more penetrating than any human influence however powerful, because his life is the very ground and principle of our being.Tennyson:“O for a man to arise in me, That the man that I am may cease to be!”Emerson:“Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew.”Religion is not the adding of a new department of activity as an adjunct to our own life or the grafting of a new method of manifestation upon the old. It is rather the grafting of our souls into Christ, so that his life dominates and manifests itself in all our activities. The magnet which left to itself can lift only a three pound weight, will lift three hundred when it is attached to the electric dynamo. Expositor's Greek Testament on1 Cor. 15:45, 46—“The action of Jesus in‘breathing’upon his disciples while he said,‘Receive the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22sq.) symbolized the vitalizing relationship which at this epoch he assumed towards mankind; this act raised to a higher potency the original‘breathing’of God by which‘man became a living soul’(Gen. 2:7).”(b) Union with Christ involves a new exercise of the soul's powers in repentance and faith; faith, indeed, is the act of the soul by which, under the operation of God, Christ is received. This new exercise of the soul's powers we callConversion(Repentance and Faith). It is the obverse or human side of Regeneration.Eph. 3:17—“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”;2 Tim. 3:15—“the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”Faith is the soul's laying hold of Christ as its only source of life, pardon, and salvation. And so we see what true religion is. It is not a moral life; it is not a determination to be religious; it is not faith, if by faith we mean an external trust that somehow Christ will save us; it is nothing less than the life of the soul in God, through Christ his Son. To Christ then we are to look for the origin, continuance and increase of our faith (Luke 17:5—“said unto the Lord, Increase our faith”). Our faith is but a part of“his fulness”of which“we all received, and grace for grace”(John 1:16).A. H. Strong, Sermon before the Baptist World Congress, London, 1905—“Christianity is summed up in the two facts: Christforus, and Christinus—Christforus upon the Cross, revealing the eternal opposition of holiness to sin, and yet, through God's eternal suffering for sin making objective atonement for us; and Christinus by his Spirit, renewing in us the lost image of God, and abiding in us as the all-sufficient source of purity and power. Here are the two foci of the Christian ellipse: Christforus, who redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us, and Christinus, the hope of glory, whom the apostle calls the mystery of the gospel.“We need Christinus as well as Christforus. How shall I, how shall society, find healing and purification within? Let me answer by reminding you of what they did at Chicago. In all the world there was no river more stagnant and fetid than was Chicago River.[pg 805]Its sluggish stream received the sweepings of the watercraft and the offal of the city, and there was no current to carry the detritus away. There it settled, and bred miasma and fever. At last it was suggested that, by cutting through the low ridge between the city and the Desplaines River, the current could be set running in the opposite direction, and drainage could be secured into the Illinois River and the great Mississippi. At a cost of fifteen millions of dollars the cut was made, and now all the water of Lake Michigan can be relied upon to cleanse that turbid stream. What Chicago River could never do for itself, the great lake now does for it. So no human soul can purge itself of its sin; and what the individual cannot do, humanity at large is powerless to accomplish. Sin has dominion over us, and we are foul to the very depths of our being, until with the help of God we break through the barrier of our self-will, and let the floods of Christ's purifying life flow into us. Then, in an hour, more is done to renew, than all our efforts for years had effected. Thus humanity is saved, individual by individual, not by philosophy, or philanthropy, or self-development, or self-reformation, but simply by joining itself to Jesus Christ, and by being filled in Him with all the fulness of God.”(c) Union with Christ gives to the believer the legal standing and rights of Christ. As Christ's union with the race involves atonement, so the believer's union with Christ involvesJustification. The believer is entitled to take for his own all that Christ is, and all that Christ has done; and this because he has within him that new life of humanity which suffered in Christ's death and rose from the grave in Christ's resurrection,—in other words, because he is virtually one person with the Redeemer. In Christ the believer is prophet, priest, and king.Acts 13:39—“by him[lit.:‘in him’= in union with him]every one that believeth is justified”;Rom. 6:7, 8—“he that hath died is justified from sin ... we died with Christ”;7:4—“dead to the law through the body of Christ”;8:1—“no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus”;17—“heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ”;1 Cor. 1:30—“But of him ye are in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness[justification]”;3:21, 23—“all things are yours ... and ye are Christ's”;6:11—“ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God”;2 Cor. 5:14—“we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died”;21—“Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness[justification]of God in him”= God's justified persons, in union with Christ (see pages 760, 761).Gal. 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me”;Eph. 1:4, 6—“chose us in him ... to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved”;2:5, 6—“even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ ... made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus”;Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”;2 Tim. 2:11—“Faithful is the saying: For if we died with him, we shall also live with him.”Prophet:Luke 12:12—“the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say”;1 John 2:20—“ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”Priest:1 Pet. 2:5—“a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”;Rev. 20:6—“they shall be priests of God and of Christ”;1 Pet. 2:9—“a royal priesthood.”King:Rev. 3:21—“He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne”;5:10—“madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests.”The connection of justification and union with Christ delivers the former from the charge of being a mechanical and arbitrary procedure. As Jonathan Edwards has said:“The justification of the believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in, or participation of, this head and surety of all believers.”(d) Union with Christ secures to the believer the continuously transforming, assimilating power of Christ's life,—first, for the soul; secondly, for the body,—consecrating it in the present, and in the future raising it up in the likeness of Christ's glorified body. This continuous influence, so far as it is exerted in the present life, we callSanctification, the human side or aspect of which isPerseverance.For the soul:John 1:16—“of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace”—successive and increasing measures of grace, corresponding to the soul's successive and increasing needs;Rom. 8:10—“if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness”;[pg 806]1 Cor. 15:45—“The last Adam became a life-giving spirit”;Phil. 2:5—“Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”;1 John 3:2—“if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him.”“Can Christ let the believer fall out of his hands? No, for the believer is his hands.”For the body:1 Cor. 6:17-20—“he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit ... know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you ... glorify God therefore in your body”;Thess. 5:23—“And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”;Rom. 8:11—“shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you”;1 Cor. 15:49—“as we have borne the image of the earthy[man],we shall also bear the image of the heavenly[man]”;Phil. 3:20, 21—“For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself.”Is there a physical miracle wrought for the drunkard in his regeneration? Mr. Moody says, Yes; Mr. Gough says, No. We prefer to say that the change is a spiritual one; but that the“expulsive power of a new affection”indirectly affects the body, so that old appetites sometimes disappear in a moment; and that often, in the course of years, great changes take place even in the believer's body. Tennyson, Idylls:“Have ye looked at Edyrn? Have ye seen how nobly changed? This work of his is great and wonderful; His very face with change of heart is changed.”“Christ in the soul fashions the germinal man into his own likeness,—this is the embryology of the new life. The cardinal error in religious life is the attempt to live without proper environment”(see Drummond, Natural Law in Spiritual World, 253-284). Human life from Adam does not stand the test,—only divine-human life in Christ can secure us from falling. This is the work of Christ, now that he has ascended and taken to himself his power, namely, to give his life more and more fully to the church, until it shall grow up in all things into him, the Head, and shall fitly express his glory to the world.As the accomplished organist discloses unsuspected capabilities of his instrument, so Christ brings into activity all the latent powers of the human soul.“I was five years in the ministry,”said an American preacher,“before I realized that my Savior is alive.”Dr. R. W. Dale has left on record the almost unutterable feelings that stirred his soul when he first realized this truth; see Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, preface, v. Many have struggled in vain against sin until they have admitted Christ to their hearts,—then they could say:“this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith”(1 John 5:4).“Go out, God will go in; Die thou, and let him live; Be not, and he will be; Wait, and he'll all things give.”The best way to get air out of a vessel is to pour water in. Only in Christ can we find our pardon, peace, purity, and power. He is“made unto us wisdom from God, and justification and sanctification, and redemption”(1 Cor. 1:30). A medical man says:“The only radical remedy for dipsomania is religiomania”(quoted in William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 268). It is easy to break into an empty house; the spirit cast out returns, finds the house empty, brings seven others, and“the last state of that man becometh worse than the first”(Mat. 12:45). There is no safety in simply expelling sin; we need also to bring in Christ; in fact only he can enable us to expel not only actual sin but the love of it.Alexander McLaren:“If we are‘in Christ,’we are like a diver in his crystal bell, and have a solid though invisible wall around us, which keeps all sea-monsters off us, and communicates with the upper air, whence we draw the breath of calm life and can work in security though in the ocean depths.”John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 2:98—“How do we know that the life of God has not departed from nature? Because every spring we witness the annual miracle of nature's revival, every summer and autumn the waving corn. How do we know that Christ has not departed from the world? Because he imparts to the soul that trusts him a power, a purity, a peace, which are beyond all that nature can give.”(e) Union with Christ brings about a fellowship of Christ with the believer,—Christ takes part in all the labors, temptations, and sufferings of his people; a fellowship of the believer with Christ,—so that Christ's whole experience on earth is in some measure reproduced in him; a fellowship of all believers with one another,—furnishing a basis for the spiritual unity of Christ's people on earth, and for the eternal communion of heaven. The doctrine of Union with Christ is therefore the indispensable preparation forEcclesiology, and forEschatology.[pg 807]Fellowship of Christ with the believer:Phil. 4:13—“I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me”;Heb. 4:15—“For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities”;cf.Is. 63:9—“In all their affliction he was afflicted.”Heb. 2:18—“in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted”= are being tempted, are under temptation. Bp. Wordsworth:“By hispassionhe acquiredcompassion.”2 Cor. 2:14—“thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ”= Christ leads us in triumph, but his triumph is ours, even if it be a triumph over us. One with him, we participate in his joy and in his sovereignty.Rev. 3:21—“He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne.”W. F. Taylor onRom. 8:9—“The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.... if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”—“Christ dwells in us, says the apostle. But do we accept him as a resident, or as a ruler? England was first represented at King Thebau's court by her resident. This official could rebuke, and even threaten, but no more,—Thebau was sovereign. Burma knew no peace, till England ruled. So Christ does not consent to be represented by a mere resident. He must himself dwell within the soul, and he must reign.”Christina Rossetti, Thee Only:“Lord, we are rivers running to thy sea, Our waves and ripples all derived from thee; A nothing we should have, a nothing be, Except for thee. Sweet are the waters of thy shoreless sea; Make sweet our waters that make haste to thee; Pour in thy sweetness, that ourselves may be Sweetness to thee!”Of the believer with Christ:Phil. 3:10—“that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death”;Col. 1:24—“fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church”;1 Pet. 4:13—“partakers of Christ's sufferings.”The Christian reproduces Christ's life in miniature, and, in a true sense, lives it over again. Only upon the principle of union with Christ can we explain how the Christian instinctively applies to himself the prophecies and promises which originally and primarily were uttered with reference to Christ:“thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption”(Ps. 16:10, 11). This fellowship is the ground of the promises made to believing prayer:John 14:13—“whatsoever ye shall ask is my name, that will I do”; Westcott, Bib. Com.,in loco:“The meaning of the phrase [‘in my name’] is‘as being one with me even as I am revealed to you.’Its two correlatives are‘in me’and the Pauline‘in Christ’.”“All things are yours”(1 Cor. 3:21), because Christ is universal King, and all believers are exalted to fellowship with him. After the battle of Sedan, King William asked a wounded Prussian officer whether it were well with him.“All is well where your majesty leads!”was the reply.Phil. 1:21—“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”Paul indeed uses the words“Christ”and“church”as interchangeable terms:1 Cor. 12:12—“as the body is one, and hath many members, ... so also is Christ.”Denney, Studies in Theology, 171—“There is not in the N. T. from beginning to end, in the record of the original and genuine Christian life, a single word of despondency or gloom. It is the most buoyant, exhilarating and joyful book in the world.”This is due to the fact that the writers believe in a living and exalted Christ, and know themselves to be one with him. They descend crowned into the arena. In the Soudan, every morning for half an hour before General Gordon's tent there lay a white handkerchief. The most pressing message, even on matters of life and death, waited till that handkerchief was withdrawn. It was the signal that Christ and Gordon were in communion with each other.Of all believers with one another:John 17:21—“that they may all be one”;1 Cor. 10:17—“we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread”;Eph. 2:15—“create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace”;1 John 1:3—“that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”—here the word κοινωνία is used. Fellowship with each other is the effect and result of the fellowship of each with God in Christ. CompareJohn 10:16—“they shall become one flock, one shepherd”; Westcott, Bib. Com.,in loco:“The bond of fellowship is shown to lie in the common relation to one Lord.... Nothing is said of one‘fold’under the new dispensation.”Here is a unity, not of external organization, but of common life. Of this the visible church is the consequence and expression. But this communion is not limited to earth,—it is perpetuated beyond death:1 Thess. 4:17—“so shall we ever be with the Lord”;Heb. 12:23—“to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect”;Rev. 21and22—the city of God, the new Jerusalem, is the image of perfect society, as well as of intensity and fulness of life in Christ. The ordinances express the essence of Ecclesiology—union with Christ—for Baptism symbolizes the incorporation of the believer in Christ, while the Lord's Supper symbolizes the incorporation of Christ in the believer. Christianity is a social matter, and the true Christian feels the need of being with and among his brethren. The Romans could not understand why“this new sect”must be holding meetings all the time—even daily meetings. Why could they not go singly, or in families, to the temples, and make offerings to their God, and then come[pg 808]away, as the pagans did? It was this meeting together which exposed them to persecution and martyrdom. It was the natural and inevitable expression of their union with Christ and so of their union with one another.The consciousness of union with Christ gives assurance of salvation. It is a great stimulus to believing prayer and to patient labor. It is a duty to“know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe”(Eph. 1:18, 19). Christ's command,“Abide in me, and I in you”(John 15:4), implies that we are both to realize and to confirm this union, by active exertion of our own wills. We are to abide in him by an entire consecration, and to let him abide in us by an appropriating faith. We are to give ourselves to Christ, and to take in return the Christ who gives himself to us,—in other words, we are to believe Christ's promises and to act upon them. All sin consists in the sundering of man's life from God, and most systems of falsehood in religion are attempts to save man without merging his life in God's once more. The only religion that can save mankind is the religion that fills the whole heart and the whole life with God, and that aims to interpenetrate universal humanity with that same living Christ who has already made himself one with the believer. This consciousness of union with Christ gives“boldness”(παρρησία—Acts 4:13;1 John 5:14) toward men and toward God. The word belongs to the Greek democracies. Freemen are bold. Demosthenes boasts of his frankness. Christ frees us from the hidebound, introspective, self-conscious spirit. In him we become free, demonstrative, outspoken. So we find, in John's epistles, that boldness in prayer is spoken of as a virtue, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews urges us to“draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace”(Heb. 4:16). An engagement of marriage is not the same as marriage. The parties may be still distant from each other. Many Christians get just near enough to Christ to be engaged to him. This seems to be the experience of Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress. But our privilege is to have a present Christ, and to do our work not onlyforhim, butinhim.“Since Christ and we are one, Why should we doubt or fear?”“We two are so joined, He'll not be in heaven, And leave me behind.”We append a few statements with regard to this union and its consequences, from noted names in theology and the church. Luther:“By faith thou art so glued to Christ that of thee and him there becomes as it were one person, so that with confidence thou canst say:‘I am Christ,—that is, Christ's righteousness, victory,etc., are mine’; and Christ in turn can say:‘I am that sinner,—that is, his sins, his death,etc., are mine, because he clings to me and I to him, for we have been joined through faith into one flesh and bone.’”Calvin:“I attribute the highest importance to the connection between the head and the members; to the inhabitation of Christ in our hearts; in a word, to the mystical union by which we enjoy him, so that, being made ours, he makes us partakers of the blessings with which he is furnished.”John Bunyan:“The Lord led me into the knowledge of the mystery of union with Christ, that I was joined to him, that I was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. By this also my faith in him as my righteousness was the more confirmed; for if he and I were one, then his righteousness was mine, his merits mine, his victory also mine. Now could I see myself in heaven and on earth at once—in heaven by my Christ, my risen head, my righteousness and life, though on earth by my body or person.”Edwards:“Faith is the soul's active uniting with Christ. God sees fit that, in order to a union's being established between two intelligent active beings, there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive the other, as entirely joining themselves to one another.”Andrew Fuller:“I have no doubt that the imputation of Christ's righteousness presupposes a union with him; since there is no perceivable fitness in bestowing benefits on one for another's sake, where there is no union or relation between.”See Luther, quoted, with other references, in Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 3:325. See also Calvin, Institutes, 1:660; Edwards, Works, 4:66, 69, 70; Andrew Fuller, Works, 2:685; Pascal, Thoughts, Eng. trans., 429; Hooker, Eccl. Polity, book 5, ch. 56; Tillotson, Sermons, 3:307; Trench, Studies in Gospels, 284, and Christ the True Vine, in Hulsean Lectures; Schöberlein, in Studien und Kritiken, 1847:7-69; Caird, on Union with God, in Scotch Sermons, sermon 2; Godet, on the Ultimate Design of Man, in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880—the design is“God in man, and man in God”; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 590-617; Upham, Divine Union, Interior Life, Life of Madame Guyon and Fénelon; A. J. Gordon, In Christ; McDuff, In Christo; J. Denham Smith, Life-truths, 25-98; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 220-225; Bishop Hall's Treatise on The Church Mystical; Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ; Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 145, 174, 179; F. B. Meyer, Christian Living—essay on Appropriation of[pg 809]Christ,vs.mere imitation of Christ; Sanday, Epistle to the Romans, supplementary essay on the Mystic Union; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 531; J. M. Campbell, The Indwelling Christ.

We have seen that Christ's union with humanity, at the incarnation, involved him in all the legal liabilities of the race to which he united himself, and enabled him so to assume the penalty of its sin as to make for all men a full satisfaction to the divine justice, and to remove all external obstacles to man's return to God. An internal obstacle, however, still remains—the evil affections and will, and the consequent guilt, of the individual soul. This last obstacle also Christ removes, in the case of all his people, by uniting himself to them in a closer and more perfect manner than that in which he is united to humanity at large. As Christ's union with the race secures the objective reconciliation of the race to God, so Christ's union with believers secures the subjective reconciliation of believers to God.

In Baird, Elohim Revealed, 607-610, in Owen, on Justification, chap. 8, in Boston, Covenant of Grace, chap. 2, and in Dale, Atonement, 265-440, the union of the believer with Christ is made to explain the bearing of our sins by Christ. As we have seen in our discussion of the Atonement, however (page 759), this explains the cause by the effect, and implies that Christ died only for the elect (see review of Dale, in Brit. Quar.[pg 803]Rev., Apr. 1876:221-225). It is not the union of Christ with the believer, but the union of Christ with humanity at large, that explains his taking upon him human guilt and penalty.Amnesty offered to a rebellious city may be complete, yet it may avail only for those who surrender. Pardon secured from a Governor, upon the ground of the services of an Advocate, may be effectual only when the convict accepts it,—there is no hope for him when he tears up the pardon. Dr. H. E. Robins:“The judicial declaration of acquittal on the ground of the death of Christ, which comes to all men (Rom. 5:18), and into the benefits of which they are introduced by natural birth, is inchoate justification, and will become perfected justification through the new birth of the Holy Spirit, unless the working of this divine agent is resisted by the personal moral action of those who are lost.”What Dr. Robins calls“inchoate justification”we prefer to call“ideal justification”or“attainable justification.”Humanity in Christ is justified, and every member of the race who joins himself to Christ by faith participates in Christ's justification. H. E. Dudley:“Adam's sin holds us all down just as gravity holds all, while Christ's righteousness, though secured for all and accessible to all, involves an effort of will in climbing and grasping which not all will make.”Justification in Christ is the birthright of humanity; but, in order to possess and enjoy it, each of us must claim and appropriate it by faith.R. W. Dale, Fellowship with Christ, 7—“When we were created in Christ, the fortunes of the human race for good or evil became his. The Incarnation revealed and fulfilled the relations which already existed between the Son of God and mankind. From the beginning Christ had entered into fellowship with us. When we sinned, he remained in fellowship with us still. Our miseries”[we would add: our guilt]“were his, by his own choice.... His fellowship with us is the foundation of our fellowship with him.... When I have discovered that by the very constitution of my nature I am to achieve perfection in the power of the life of Another—who is yet not Another, but the very ground of my being—it ceases to be incredible to me that Another—who is yet not Another—should be the Atonement for my sin, and that his relation to God should determine mine.”A tract entitled“The Seven Togethers”sums up the Scripture testimony with regard to the Consequences of the believer's Union with Christ: 1. Crucified together with Christ—Gal. 2:20—συνεσταύρωμαι. 2. Died together with Christ—Col. 2:20—ἀπεθάνετε. 3. Buried together with Christ—Rom. 6:4—συνετάφημεν. 4. Quickened together with Christ—Eph. 2:5—συνεζωοποίησεν. 5. Raised together with Christ—Col. 3:1—συνηγέρθητε. 6. Sufferers together with Christ—Rom. 8:17—συμπάσχομεν. 7. Glorified together with Christ—Rom. 8:17—συνδοξασθῶμεν. Union with Christ results in common sonship, relation to God, character, influence, and destiny.Imperfect apprehension of the believer's union with Christ works to the great injury of Christian doctrine. An experience of union with Christ first enables us to understand the death of sin and separation from God which has befallen the race sprung from the first Adam. The life and liberty of the children of God in Christ Jesus shows us by contrast how far astray we had gone. The vital and organic unity of the new race sprung from the second Adam reveals the depravity and disintegration which we had inherited from our first father. We see that as there is one source of spiritual life in Christ, so there was one source of corrupt life in Adam; and that as we are justified by reason of our oneness with the justified Christ, so we are condemned by reason of our oneness with the condemned Adam.A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 175—“If it is consistent with evolution that the physical and natural life of the race should be derived from a single source, then it is equally consistent with evolution that the moral and spiritual life of the race should be derived from a single source. Scripture is stating only scientific fact when it sets the second Adam, the head of redeemed humanity, over against the first Adam, the head of fallen humanity. We are told that evolution should give us many Christs. We reply that evolution has not given us many Adams. Evolution, as it assigns to the natural head of the race a supreme and unique position, must be consistent with itself, and must assign a supreme and unique position to Jesus Christ, the spiritual head of the race. As there was but one Adam from whom all the natural life of the race was derived, so that there can be but one Christ from whom all the spiritual life of the race is derived.”

Amnesty offered to a rebellious city may be complete, yet it may avail only for those who surrender. Pardon secured from a Governor, upon the ground of the services of an Advocate, may be effectual only when the convict accepts it,—there is no hope for him when he tears up the pardon. Dr. H. E. Robins:“The judicial declaration of acquittal on the ground of the death of Christ, which comes to all men (Rom. 5:18), and into the benefits of which they are introduced by natural birth, is inchoate justification, and will become perfected justification through the new birth of the Holy Spirit, unless the working of this divine agent is resisted by the personal moral action of those who are lost.”What Dr. Robins calls“inchoate justification”we prefer to call“ideal justification”or“attainable justification.”Humanity in Christ is justified, and every member of the race who joins himself to Christ by faith participates in Christ's justification. H. E. Dudley:“Adam's sin holds us all down just as gravity holds all, while Christ's righteousness, though secured for all and accessible to all, involves an effort of will in climbing and grasping which not all will make.”Justification in Christ is the birthright of humanity; but, in order to possess and enjoy it, each of us must claim and appropriate it by faith.

R. W. Dale, Fellowship with Christ, 7—“When we were created in Christ, the fortunes of the human race for good or evil became his. The Incarnation revealed and fulfilled the relations which already existed between the Son of God and mankind. From the beginning Christ had entered into fellowship with us. When we sinned, he remained in fellowship with us still. Our miseries”[we would add: our guilt]“were his, by his own choice.... His fellowship with us is the foundation of our fellowship with him.... When I have discovered that by the very constitution of my nature I am to achieve perfection in the power of the life of Another—who is yet not Another, but the very ground of my being—it ceases to be incredible to me that Another—who is yet not Another—should be the Atonement for my sin, and that his relation to God should determine mine.”

A tract entitled“The Seven Togethers”sums up the Scripture testimony with regard to the Consequences of the believer's Union with Christ: 1. Crucified together with Christ—Gal. 2:20—συνεσταύρωμαι. 2. Died together with Christ—Col. 2:20—ἀπεθάνετε. 3. Buried together with Christ—Rom. 6:4—συνετάφημεν. 4. Quickened together with Christ—Eph. 2:5—συνεζωοποίησεν. 5. Raised together with Christ—Col. 3:1—συνηγέρθητε. 6. Sufferers together with Christ—Rom. 8:17—συμπάσχομεν. 7. Glorified together with Christ—Rom. 8:17—συνδοξασθῶμεν. Union with Christ results in common sonship, relation to God, character, influence, and destiny.

Imperfect apprehension of the believer's union with Christ works to the great injury of Christian doctrine. An experience of union with Christ first enables us to understand the death of sin and separation from God which has befallen the race sprung from the first Adam. The life and liberty of the children of God in Christ Jesus shows us by contrast how far astray we had gone. The vital and organic unity of the new race sprung from the second Adam reveals the depravity and disintegration which we had inherited from our first father. We see that as there is one source of spiritual life in Christ, so there was one source of corrupt life in Adam; and that as we are justified by reason of our oneness with the justified Christ, so we are condemned by reason of our oneness with the condemned Adam.

A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 175—“If it is consistent with evolution that the physical and natural life of the race should be derived from a single source, then it is equally consistent with evolution that the moral and spiritual life of the race should be derived from a single source. Scripture is stating only scientific fact when it sets the second Adam, the head of redeemed humanity, over against the first Adam, the head of fallen humanity. We are told that evolution should give us many Christs. We reply that evolution has not given us many Adams. Evolution, as it assigns to the natural head of the race a supreme and unique position, must be consistent with itself, and must assign a supreme and unique position to Jesus Christ, the spiritual head of the race. As there was but one Adam from whom all the natural life of the race was derived, so that there can be but one Christ from whom all the spiritual life of the race is derived.”

The consequences of union with Christ may be summarily stated as follows:

(a) Union with Christ involves a change in the dominant affection of the soul. Christ's entrance into the soul makes it a new creature, in the sense that the ruling disposition, which before was sinful, now becomes holy. This change we callRegeneration.

Rom. 8:2—“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death”;2 Cor. 5:17—“if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature”(marg.—“there is a new creation”);Gal. 1:15, 16—“it was the good pleasure of God ... to reveal his Son in me”;Eph. 2:10—“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”As we derive our old nature from the first man Adam, by birth, so we derive a new nature from the second man Christ, by the new birth. Union with Christ is the true“transfusion of blood.”“The death-struck sinner, like the wan, anæmic, dying invalid, is saved by having poured into his veins the healthier blood of Christ”(Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World). God regenerates the soul by uniting it to Jesus Christ.In the Johnston Harvester Works at Batavia, when they paint their machinery, they do it by immersing part after part in a great tank of paint,—so the painting is instantaneous and complete. Our baptism into Christ is the outward picture of an inward immersion of the soul not only into his love and fellowship, but into his very life, so that in him we become new creatures (2 Cor. 5:17). As Miss Sullivan surrounded Helen Keller with the influence of her strong personality, by intelligence and sympathy and determination striving to awaken the blind and dumb soul and give it light and love, so Jesus envelops us. But his Spirit is more encompassing and more penetrating than any human influence however powerful, because his life is the very ground and principle of our being.Tennyson:“O for a man to arise in me, That the man that I am may cease to be!”Emerson:“Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew.”Religion is not the adding of a new department of activity as an adjunct to our own life or the grafting of a new method of manifestation upon the old. It is rather the grafting of our souls into Christ, so that his life dominates and manifests itself in all our activities. The magnet which left to itself can lift only a three pound weight, will lift three hundred when it is attached to the electric dynamo. Expositor's Greek Testament on1 Cor. 15:45, 46—“The action of Jesus in‘breathing’upon his disciples while he said,‘Receive the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22sq.) symbolized the vitalizing relationship which at this epoch he assumed towards mankind; this act raised to a higher potency the original‘breathing’of God by which‘man became a living soul’(Gen. 2:7).”

In the Johnston Harvester Works at Batavia, when they paint their machinery, they do it by immersing part after part in a great tank of paint,—so the painting is instantaneous and complete. Our baptism into Christ is the outward picture of an inward immersion of the soul not only into his love and fellowship, but into his very life, so that in him we become new creatures (2 Cor. 5:17). As Miss Sullivan surrounded Helen Keller with the influence of her strong personality, by intelligence and sympathy and determination striving to awaken the blind and dumb soul and give it light and love, so Jesus envelops us. But his Spirit is more encompassing and more penetrating than any human influence however powerful, because his life is the very ground and principle of our being.

Tennyson:“O for a man to arise in me, That the man that I am may cease to be!”Emerson:“Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew.”Religion is not the adding of a new department of activity as an adjunct to our own life or the grafting of a new method of manifestation upon the old. It is rather the grafting of our souls into Christ, so that his life dominates and manifests itself in all our activities. The magnet which left to itself can lift only a three pound weight, will lift three hundred when it is attached to the electric dynamo. Expositor's Greek Testament on1 Cor. 15:45, 46—“The action of Jesus in‘breathing’upon his disciples while he said,‘Receive the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22sq.) symbolized the vitalizing relationship which at this epoch he assumed towards mankind; this act raised to a higher potency the original‘breathing’of God by which‘man became a living soul’(Gen. 2:7).”

(b) Union with Christ involves a new exercise of the soul's powers in repentance and faith; faith, indeed, is the act of the soul by which, under the operation of God, Christ is received. This new exercise of the soul's powers we callConversion(Repentance and Faith). It is the obverse or human side of Regeneration.

Eph. 3:17—“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”;2 Tim. 3:15—“the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”Faith is the soul's laying hold of Christ as its only source of life, pardon, and salvation. And so we see what true religion is. It is not a moral life; it is not a determination to be religious; it is not faith, if by faith we mean an external trust that somehow Christ will save us; it is nothing less than the life of the soul in God, through Christ his Son. To Christ then we are to look for the origin, continuance and increase of our faith (Luke 17:5—“said unto the Lord, Increase our faith”). Our faith is but a part of“his fulness”of which“we all received, and grace for grace”(John 1:16).A. H. Strong, Sermon before the Baptist World Congress, London, 1905—“Christianity is summed up in the two facts: Christforus, and Christinus—Christforus upon the Cross, revealing the eternal opposition of holiness to sin, and yet, through God's eternal suffering for sin making objective atonement for us; and Christinus by his Spirit, renewing in us the lost image of God, and abiding in us as the all-sufficient source of purity and power. Here are the two foci of the Christian ellipse: Christforus, who redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us, and Christinus, the hope of glory, whom the apostle calls the mystery of the gospel.“We need Christinus as well as Christforus. How shall I, how shall society, find healing and purification within? Let me answer by reminding you of what they did at Chicago. In all the world there was no river more stagnant and fetid than was Chicago River.[pg 805]Its sluggish stream received the sweepings of the watercraft and the offal of the city, and there was no current to carry the detritus away. There it settled, and bred miasma and fever. At last it was suggested that, by cutting through the low ridge between the city and the Desplaines River, the current could be set running in the opposite direction, and drainage could be secured into the Illinois River and the great Mississippi. At a cost of fifteen millions of dollars the cut was made, and now all the water of Lake Michigan can be relied upon to cleanse that turbid stream. What Chicago River could never do for itself, the great lake now does for it. So no human soul can purge itself of its sin; and what the individual cannot do, humanity at large is powerless to accomplish. Sin has dominion over us, and we are foul to the very depths of our being, until with the help of God we break through the barrier of our self-will, and let the floods of Christ's purifying life flow into us. Then, in an hour, more is done to renew, than all our efforts for years had effected. Thus humanity is saved, individual by individual, not by philosophy, or philanthropy, or self-development, or self-reformation, but simply by joining itself to Jesus Christ, and by being filled in Him with all the fulness of God.”

A. H. Strong, Sermon before the Baptist World Congress, London, 1905—“Christianity is summed up in the two facts: Christforus, and Christinus—Christforus upon the Cross, revealing the eternal opposition of holiness to sin, and yet, through God's eternal suffering for sin making objective atonement for us; and Christinus by his Spirit, renewing in us the lost image of God, and abiding in us as the all-sufficient source of purity and power. Here are the two foci of the Christian ellipse: Christforus, who redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us, and Christinus, the hope of glory, whom the apostle calls the mystery of the gospel.

“We need Christinus as well as Christforus. How shall I, how shall society, find healing and purification within? Let me answer by reminding you of what they did at Chicago. In all the world there was no river more stagnant and fetid than was Chicago River.[pg 805]Its sluggish stream received the sweepings of the watercraft and the offal of the city, and there was no current to carry the detritus away. There it settled, and bred miasma and fever. At last it was suggested that, by cutting through the low ridge between the city and the Desplaines River, the current could be set running in the opposite direction, and drainage could be secured into the Illinois River and the great Mississippi. At a cost of fifteen millions of dollars the cut was made, and now all the water of Lake Michigan can be relied upon to cleanse that turbid stream. What Chicago River could never do for itself, the great lake now does for it. So no human soul can purge itself of its sin; and what the individual cannot do, humanity at large is powerless to accomplish. Sin has dominion over us, and we are foul to the very depths of our being, until with the help of God we break through the barrier of our self-will, and let the floods of Christ's purifying life flow into us. Then, in an hour, more is done to renew, than all our efforts for years had effected. Thus humanity is saved, individual by individual, not by philosophy, or philanthropy, or self-development, or self-reformation, but simply by joining itself to Jesus Christ, and by being filled in Him with all the fulness of God.”

(c) Union with Christ gives to the believer the legal standing and rights of Christ. As Christ's union with the race involves atonement, so the believer's union with Christ involvesJustification. The believer is entitled to take for his own all that Christ is, and all that Christ has done; and this because he has within him that new life of humanity which suffered in Christ's death and rose from the grave in Christ's resurrection,—in other words, because he is virtually one person with the Redeemer. In Christ the believer is prophet, priest, and king.

Acts 13:39—“by him[lit.:‘in him’= in union with him]every one that believeth is justified”;Rom. 6:7, 8—“he that hath died is justified from sin ... we died with Christ”;7:4—“dead to the law through the body of Christ”;8:1—“no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus”;17—“heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ”;1 Cor. 1:30—“But of him ye are in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness[justification]”;3:21, 23—“all things are yours ... and ye are Christ's”;6:11—“ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God”;2 Cor. 5:14—“we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died”;21—“Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness[justification]of God in him”= God's justified persons, in union with Christ (see pages 760, 761).Gal. 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me”;Eph. 1:4, 6—“chose us in him ... to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved”;2:5, 6—“even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ ... made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus”;Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”;2 Tim. 2:11—“Faithful is the saying: For if we died with him, we shall also live with him.”Prophet:Luke 12:12—“the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say”;1 John 2:20—“ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”Priest:1 Pet. 2:5—“a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”;Rev. 20:6—“they shall be priests of God and of Christ”;1 Pet. 2:9—“a royal priesthood.”King:Rev. 3:21—“He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne”;5:10—“madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests.”The connection of justification and union with Christ delivers the former from the charge of being a mechanical and arbitrary procedure. As Jonathan Edwards has said:“The justification of the believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in, or participation of, this head and surety of all believers.”

Gal. 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me”;Eph. 1:4, 6—“chose us in him ... to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved”;2:5, 6—“even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ ... made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus”;Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”;2 Tim. 2:11—“Faithful is the saying: For if we died with him, we shall also live with him.”Prophet:Luke 12:12—“the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say”;1 John 2:20—“ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”Priest:1 Pet. 2:5—“a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”;Rev. 20:6—“they shall be priests of God and of Christ”;1 Pet. 2:9—“a royal priesthood.”King:Rev. 3:21—“He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne”;5:10—“madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests.”The connection of justification and union with Christ delivers the former from the charge of being a mechanical and arbitrary procedure. As Jonathan Edwards has said:“The justification of the believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in, or participation of, this head and surety of all believers.”

(d) Union with Christ secures to the believer the continuously transforming, assimilating power of Christ's life,—first, for the soul; secondly, for the body,—consecrating it in the present, and in the future raising it up in the likeness of Christ's glorified body. This continuous influence, so far as it is exerted in the present life, we callSanctification, the human side or aspect of which isPerseverance.

For the soul:John 1:16—“of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace”—successive and increasing measures of grace, corresponding to the soul's successive and increasing needs;Rom. 8:10—“if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness”;[pg 806]1 Cor. 15:45—“The last Adam became a life-giving spirit”;Phil. 2:5—“Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”;1 John 3:2—“if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him.”“Can Christ let the believer fall out of his hands? No, for the believer is his hands.”For the body:1 Cor. 6:17-20—“he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit ... know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you ... glorify God therefore in your body”;Thess. 5:23—“And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”;Rom. 8:11—“shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you”;1 Cor. 15:49—“as we have borne the image of the earthy[man],we shall also bear the image of the heavenly[man]”;Phil. 3:20, 21—“For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself.”Is there a physical miracle wrought for the drunkard in his regeneration? Mr. Moody says, Yes; Mr. Gough says, No. We prefer to say that the change is a spiritual one; but that the“expulsive power of a new affection”indirectly affects the body, so that old appetites sometimes disappear in a moment; and that often, in the course of years, great changes take place even in the believer's body. Tennyson, Idylls:“Have ye looked at Edyrn? Have ye seen how nobly changed? This work of his is great and wonderful; His very face with change of heart is changed.”“Christ in the soul fashions the germinal man into his own likeness,—this is the embryology of the new life. The cardinal error in religious life is the attempt to live without proper environment”(see Drummond, Natural Law in Spiritual World, 253-284). Human life from Adam does not stand the test,—only divine-human life in Christ can secure us from falling. This is the work of Christ, now that he has ascended and taken to himself his power, namely, to give his life more and more fully to the church, until it shall grow up in all things into him, the Head, and shall fitly express his glory to the world.As the accomplished organist discloses unsuspected capabilities of his instrument, so Christ brings into activity all the latent powers of the human soul.“I was five years in the ministry,”said an American preacher,“before I realized that my Savior is alive.”Dr. R. W. Dale has left on record the almost unutterable feelings that stirred his soul when he first realized this truth; see Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, preface, v. Many have struggled in vain against sin until they have admitted Christ to their hearts,—then they could say:“this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith”(1 John 5:4).“Go out, God will go in; Die thou, and let him live; Be not, and he will be; Wait, and he'll all things give.”The best way to get air out of a vessel is to pour water in. Only in Christ can we find our pardon, peace, purity, and power. He is“made unto us wisdom from God, and justification and sanctification, and redemption”(1 Cor. 1:30). A medical man says:“The only radical remedy for dipsomania is religiomania”(quoted in William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 268). It is easy to break into an empty house; the spirit cast out returns, finds the house empty, brings seven others, and“the last state of that man becometh worse than the first”(Mat. 12:45). There is no safety in simply expelling sin; we need also to bring in Christ; in fact only he can enable us to expel not only actual sin but the love of it.Alexander McLaren:“If we are‘in Christ,’we are like a diver in his crystal bell, and have a solid though invisible wall around us, which keeps all sea-monsters off us, and communicates with the upper air, whence we draw the breath of calm life and can work in security though in the ocean depths.”John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 2:98—“How do we know that the life of God has not departed from nature? Because every spring we witness the annual miracle of nature's revival, every summer and autumn the waving corn. How do we know that Christ has not departed from the world? Because he imparts to the soul that trusts him a power, a purity, a peace, which are beyond all that nature can give.”

For the body:1 Cor. 6:17-20—“he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit ... know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you ... glorify God therefore in your body”;Thess. 5:23—“And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”;Rom. 8:11—“shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you”;1 Cor. 15:49—“as we have borne the image of the earthy[man],we shall also bear the image of the heavenly[man]”;Phil. 3:20, 21—“For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself.”

Is there a physical miracle wrought for the drunkard in his regeneration? Mr. Moody says, Yes; Mr. Gough says, No. We prefer to say that the change is a spiritual one; but that the“expulsive power of a new affection”indirectly affects the body, so that old appetites sometimes disappear in a moment; and that often, in the course of years, great changes take place even in the believer's body. Tennyson, Idylls:“Have ye looked at Edyrn? Have ye seen how nobly changed? This work of his is great and wonderful; His very face with change of heart is changed.”“Christ in the soul fashions the germinal man into his own likeness,—this is the embryology of the new life. The cardinal error in religious life is the attempt to live without proper environment”(see Drummond, Natural Law in Spiritual World, 253-284). Human life from Adam does not stand the test,—only divine-human life in Christ can secure us from falling. This is the work of Christ, now that he has ascended and taken to himself his power, namely, to give his life more and more fully to the church, until it shall grow up in all things into him, the Head, and shall fitly express his glory to the world.

As the accomplished organist discloses unsuspected capabilities of his instrument, so Christ brings into activity all the latent powers of the human soul.“I was five years in the ministry,”said an American preacher,“before I realized that my Savior is alive.”Dr. R. W. Dale has left on record the almost unutterable feelings that stirred his soul when he first realized this truth; see Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, preface, v. Many have struggled in vain against sin until they have admitted Christ to their hearts,—then they could say:“this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith”(1 John 5:4).“Go out, God will go in; Die thou, and let him live; Be not, and he will be; Wait, and he'll all things give.”The best way to get air out of a vessel is to pour water in. Only in Christ can we find our pardon, peace, purity, and power. He is“made unto us wisdom from God, and justification and sanctification, and redemption”(1 Cor. 1:30). A medical man says:“The only radical remedy for dipsomania is religiomania”(quoted in William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 268). It is easy to break into an empty house; the spirit cast out returns, finds the house empty, brings seven others, and“the last state of that man becometh worse than the first”(Mat. 12:45). There is no safety in simply expelling sin; we need also to bring in Christ; in fact only he can enable us to expel not only actual sin but the love of it.

Alexander McLaren:“If we are‘in Christ,’we are like a diver in his crystal bell, and have a solid though invisible wall around us, which keeps all sea-monsters off us, and communicates with the upper air, whence we draw the breath of calm life and can work in security though in the ocean depths.”John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 2:98—“How do we know that the life of God has not departed from nature? Because every spring we witness the annual miracle of nature's revival, every summer and autumn the waving corn. How do we know that Christ has not departed from the world? Because he imparts to the soul that trusts him a power, a purity, a peace, which are beyond all that nature can give.”

(e) Union with Christ brings about a fellowship of Christ with the believer,—Christ takes part in all the labors, temptations, and sufferings of his people; a fellowship of the believer with Christ,—so that Christ's whole experience on earth is in some measure reproduced in him; a fellowship of all believers with one another,—furnishing a basis for the spiritual unity of Christ's people on earth, and for the eternal communion of heaven. The doctrine of Union with Christ is therefore the indispensable preparation forEcclesiology, and forEschatology.

Fellowship of Christ with the believer:Phil. 4:13—“I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me”;Heb. 4:15—“For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities”;cf.Is. 63:9—“In all their affliction he was afflicted.”Heb. 2:18—“in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted”= are being tempted, are under temptation. Bp. Wordsworth:“By hispassionhe acquiredcompassion.”2 Cor. 2:14—“thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ”= Christ leads us in triumph, but his triumph is ours, even if it be a triumph over us. One with him, we participate in his joy and in his sovereignty.Rev. 3:21—“He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne.”W. F. Taylor onRom. 8:9—“The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.... if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”—“Christ dwells in us, says the apostle. But do we accept him as a resident, or as a ruler? England was first represented at King Thebau's court by her resident. This official could rebuke, and even threaten, but no more,—Thebau was sovereign. Burma knew no peace, till England ruled. So Christ does not consent to be represented by a mere resident. He must himself dwell within the soul, and he must reign.”Christina Rossetti, Thee Only:“Lord, we are rivers running to thy sea, Our waves and ripples all derived from thee; A nothing we should have, a nothing be, Except for thee. Sweet are the waters of thy shoreless sea; Make sweet our waters that make haste to thee; Pour in thy sweetness, that ourselves may be Sweetness to thee!”Of the believer with Christ:Phil. 3:10—“that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death”;Col. 1:24—“fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church”;1 Pet. 4:13—“partakers of Christ's sufferings.”The Christian reproduces Christ's life in miniature, and, in a true sense, lives it over again. Only upon the principle of union with Christ can we explain how the Christian instinctively applies to himself the prophecies and promises which originally and primarily were uttered with reference to Christ:“thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption”(Ps. 16:10, 11). This fellowship is the ground of the promises made to believing prayer:John 14:13—“whatsoever ye shall ask is my name, that will I do”; Westcott, Bib. Com.,in loco:“The meaning of the phrase [‘in my name’] is‘as being one with me even as I am revealed to you.’Its two correlatives are‘in me’and the Pauline‘in Christ’.”“All things are yours”(1 Cor. 3:21), because Christ is universal King, and all believers are exalted to fellowship with him. After the battle of Sedan, King William asked a wounded Prussian officer whether it were well with him.“All is well where your majesty leads!”was the reply.Phil. 1:21—“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”Paul indeed uses the words“Christ”and“church”as interchangeable terms:1 Cor. 12:12—“as the body is one, and hath many members, ... so also is Christ.”Denney, Studies in Theology, 171—“There is not in the N. T. from beginning to end, in the record of the original and genuine Christian life, a single word of despondency or gloom. It is the most buoyant, exhilarating and joyful book in the world.”This is due to the fact that the writers believe in a living and exalted Christ, and know themselves to be one with him. They descend crowned into the arena. In the Soudan, every morning for half an hour before General Gordon's tent there lay a white handkerchief. The most pressing message, even on matters of life and death, waited till that handkerchief was withdrawn. It was the signal that Christ and Gordon were in communion with each other.Of all believers with one another:John 17:21—“that they may all be one”;1 Cor. 10:17—“we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread”;Eph. 2:15—“create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace”;1 John 1:3—“that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”—here the word κοινωνία is used. Fellowship with each other is the effect and result of the fellowship of each with God in Christ. CompareJohn 10:16—“they shall become one flock, one shepherd”; Westcott, Bib. Com.,in loco:“The bond of fellowship is shown to lie in the common relation to one Lord.... Nothing is said of one‘fold’under the new dispensation.”Here is a unity, not of external organization, but of common life. Of this the visible church is the consequence and expression. But this communion is not limited to earth,—it is perpetuated beyond death:1 Thess. 4:17—“so shall we ever be with the Lord”;Heb. 12:23—“to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect”;Rev. 21and22—the city of God, the new Jerusalem, is the image of perfect society, as well as of intensity and fulness of life in Christ. The ordinances express the essence of Ecclesiology—union with Christ—for Baptism symbolizes the incorporation of the believer in Christ, while the Lord's Supper symbolizes the incorporation of Christ in the believer. Christianity is a social matter, and the true Christian feels the need of being with and among his brethren. The Romans could not understand why“this new sect”must be holding meetings all the time—even daily meetings. Why could they not go singly, or in families, to the temples, and make offerings to their God, and then come[pg 808]away, as the pagans did? It was this meeting together which exposed them to persecution and martyrdom. It was the natural and inevitable expression of their union with Christ and so of their union with one another.The consciousness of union with Christ gives assurance of salvation. It is a great stimulus to believing prayer and to patient labor. It is a duty to“know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe”(Eph. 1:18, 19). Christ's command,“Abide in me, and I in you”(John 15:4), implies that we are both to realize and to confirm this union, by active exertion of our own wills. We are to abide in him by an entire consecration, and to let him abide in us by an appropriating faith. We are to give ourselves to Christ, and to take in return the Christ who gives himself to us,—in other words, we are to believe Christ's promises and to act upon them. All sin consists in the sundering of man's life from God, and most systems of falsehood in religion are attempts to save man without merging his life in God's once more. The only religion that can save mankind is the religion that fills the whole heart and the whole life with God, and that aims to interpenetrate universal humanity with that same living Christ who has already made himself one with the believer. This consciousness of union with Christ gives“boldness”(παρρησία—Acts 4:13;1 John 5:14) toward men and toward God. The word belongs to the Greek democracies. Freemen are bold. Demosthenes boasts of his frankness. Christ frees us from the hidebound, introspective, self-conscious spirit. In him we become free, demonstrative, outspoken. So we find, in John's epistles, that boldness in prayer is spoken of as a virtue, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews urges us to“draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace”(Heb. 4:16). An engagement of marriage is not the same as marriage. The parties may be still distant from each other. Many Christians get just near enough to Christ to be engaged to him. This seems to be the experience of Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress. But our privilege is to have a present Christ, and to do our work not onlyforhim, butinhim.“Since Christ and we are one, Why should we doubt or fear?”“We two are so joined, He'll not be in heaven, And leave me behind.”We append a few statements with regard to this union and its consequences, from noted names in theology and the church. Luther:“By faith thou art so glued to Christ that of thee and him there becomes as it were one person, so that with confidence thou canst say:‘I am Christ,—that is, Christ's righteousness, victory,etc., are mine’; and Christ in turn can say:‘I am that sinner,—that is, his sins, his death,etc., are mine, because he clings to me and I to him, for we have been joined through faith into one flesh and bone.’”Calvin:“I attribute the highest importance to the connection between the head and the members; to the inhabitation of Christ in our hearts; in a word, to the mystical union by which we enjoy him, so that, being made ours, he makes us partakers of the blessings with which he is furnished.”John Bunyan:“The Lord led me into the knowledge of the mystery of union with Christ, that I was joined to him, that I was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. By this also my faith in him as my righteousness was the more confirmed; for if he and I were one, then his righteousness was mine, his merits mine, his victory also mine. Now could I see myself in heaven and on earth at once—in heaven by my Christ, my risen head, my righteousness and life, though on earth by my body or person.”Edwards:“Faith is the soul's active uniting with Christ. God sees fit that, in order to a union's being established between two intelligent active beings, there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive the other, as entirely joining themselves to one another.”Andrew Fuller:“I have no doubt that the imputation of Christ's righteousness presupposes a union with him; since there is no perceivable fitness in bestowing benefits on one for another's sake, where there is no union or relation between.”See Luther, quoted, with other references, in Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 3:325. See also Calvin, Institutes, 1:660; Edwards, Works, 4:66, 69, 70; Andrew Fuller, Works, 2:685; Pascal, Thoughts, Eng. trans., 429; Hooker, Eccl. Polity, book 5, ch. 56; Tillotson, Sermons, 3:307; Trench, Studies in Gospels, 284, and Christ the True Vine, in Hulsean Lectures; Schöberlein, in Studien und Kritiken, 1847:7-69; Caird, on Union with God, in Scotch Sermons, sermon 2; Godet, on the Ultimate Design of Man, in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880—the design is“God in man, and man in God”; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 590-617; Upham, Divine Union, Interior Life, Life of Madame Guyon and Fénelon; A. J. Gordon, In Christ; McDuff, In Christo; J. Denham Smith, Life-truths, 25-98; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 220-225; Bishop Hall's Treatise on The Church Mystical; Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ; Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 145, 174, 179; F. B. Meyer, Christian Living—essay on Appropriation of[pg 809]Christ,vs.mere imitation of Christ; Sanday, Epistle to the Romans, supplementary essay on the Mystic Union; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 531; J. M. Campbell, The Indwelling Christ.

Of the believer with Christ:Phil. 3:10—“that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death”;Col. 1:24—“fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church”;1 Pet. 4:13—“partakers of Christ's sufferings.”The Christian reproduces Christ's life in miniature, and, in a true sense, lives it over again. Only upon the principle of union with Christ can we explain how the Christian instinctively applies to himself the prophecies and promises which originally and primarily were uttered with reference to Christ:“thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption”(Ps. 16:10, 11). This fellowship is the ground of the promises made to believing prayer:John 14:13—“whatsoever ye shall ask is my name, that will I do”; Westcott, Bib. Com.,in loco:“The meaning of the phrase [‘in my name’] is‘as being one with me even as I am revealed to you.’Its two correlatives are‘in me’and the Pauline‘in Christ’.”“All things are yours”(1 Cor. 3:21), because Christ is universal King, and all believers are exalted to fellowship with him. After the battle of Sedan, King William asked a wounded Prussian officer whether it were well with him.“All is well where your majesty leads!”was the reply.Phil. 1:21—“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”Paul indeed uses the words“Christ”and“church”as interchangeable terms:1 Cor. 12:12—“as the body is one, and hath many members, ... so also is Christ.”Denney, Studies in Theology, 171—“There is not in the N. T. from beginning to end, in the record of the original and genuine Christian life, a single word of despondency or gloom. It is the most buoyant, exhilarating and joyful book in the world.”This is due to the fact that the writers believe in a living and exalted Christ, and know themselves to be one with him. They descend crowned into the arena. In the Soudan, every morning for half an hour before General Gordon's tent there lay a white handkerchief. The most pressing message, even on matters of life and death, waited till that handkerchief was withdrawn. It was the signal that Christ and Gordon were in communion with each other.

Of all believers with one another:John 17:21—“that they may all be one”;1 Cor. 10:17—“we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread”;Eph. 2:15—“create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace”;1 John 1:3—“that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”—here the word κοινωνία is used. Fellowship with each other is the effect and result of the fellowship of each with God in Christ. CompareJohn 10:16—“they shall become one flock, one shepherd”; Westcott, Bib. Com.,in loco:“The bond of fellowship is shown to lie in the common relation to one Lord.... Nothing is said of one‘fold’under the new dispensation.”Here is a unity, not of external organization, but of common life. Of this the visible church is the consequence and expression. But this communion is not limited to earth,—it is perpetuated beyond death:1 Thess. 4:17—“so shall we ever be with the Lord”;Heb. 12:23—“to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect”;Rev. 21and22—the city of God, the new Jerusalem, is the image of perfect society, as well as of intensity and fulness of life in Christ. The ordinances express the essence of Ecclesiology—union with Christ—for Baptism symbolizes the incorporation of the believer in Christ, while the Lord's Supper symbolizes the incorporation of Christ in the believer. Christianity is a social matter, and the true Christian feels the need of being with and among his brethren. The Romans could not understand why“this new sect”must be holding meetings all the time—even daily meetings. Why could they not go singly, or in families, to the temples, and make offerings to their God, and then come[pg 808]away, as the pagans did? It was this meeting together which exposed them to persecution and martyrdom. It was the natural and inevitable expression of their union with Christ and so of their union with one another.

The consciousness of union with Christ gives assurance of salvation. It is a great stimulus to believing prayer and to patient labor. It is a duty to“know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe”(Eph. 1:18, 19). Christ's command,“Abide in me, and I in you”(John 15:4), implies that we are both to realize and to confirm this union, by active exertion of our own wills. We are to abide in him by an entire consecration, and to let him abide in us by an appropriating faith. We are to give ourselves to Christ, and to take in return the Christ who gives himself to us,—in other words, we are to believe Christ's promises and to act upon them. All sin consists in the sundering of man's life from God, and most systems of falsehood in religion are attempts to save man without merging his life in God's once more. The only religion that can save mankind is the religion that fills the whole heart and the whole life with God, and that aims to interpenetrate universal humanity with that same living Christ who has already made himself one with the believer. This consciousness of union with Christ gives“boldness”(παρρησία—Acts 4:13;1 John 5:14) toward men and toward God. The word belongs to the Greek democracies. Freemen are bold. Demosthenes boasts of his frankness. Christ frees us from the hidebound, introspective, self-conscious spirit. In him we become free, demonstrative, outspoken. So we find, in John's epistles, that boldness in prayer is spoken of as a virtue, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews urges us to“draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace”(Heb. 4:16). An engagement of marriage is not the same as marriage. The parties may be still distant from each other. Many Christians get just near enough to Christ to be engaged to him. This seems to be the experience of Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress. But our privilege is to have a present Christ, and to do our work not onlyforhim, butinhim.“Since Christ and we are one, Why should we doubt or fear?”“We two are so joined, He'll not be in heaven, And leave me behind.”

We append a few statements with regard to this union and its consequences, from noted names in theology and the church. Luther:“By faith thou art so glued to Christ that of thee and him there becomes as it were one person, so that with confidence thou canst say:‘I am Christ,—that is, Christ's righteousness, victory,etc., are mine’; and Christ in turn can say:‘I am that sinner,—that is, his sins, his death,etc., are mine, because he clings to me and I to him, for we have been joined through faith into one flesh and bone.’”Calvin:“I attribute the highest importance to the connection between the head and the members; to the inhabitation of Christ in our hearts; in a word, to the mystical union by which we enjoy him, so that, being made ours, he makes us partakers of the blessings with which he is furnished.”John Bunyan:“The Lord led me into the knowledge of the mystery of union with Christ, that I was joined to him, that I was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. By this also my faith in him as my righteousness was the more confirmed; for if he and I were one, then his righteousness was mine, his merits mine, his victory also mine. Now could I see myself in heaven and on earth at once—in heaven by my Christ, my risen head, my righteousness and life, though on earth by my body or person.”Edwards:“Faith is the soul's active uniting with Christ. God sees fit that, in order to a union's being established between two intelligent active beings, there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive the other, as entirely joining themselves to one another.”Andrew Fuller:“I have no doubt that the imputation of Christ's righteousness presupposes a union with him; since there is no perceivable fitness in bestowing benefits on one for another's sake, where there is no union or relation between.”

See Luther, quoted, with other references, in Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 3:325. See also Calvin, Institutes, 1:660; Edwards, Works, 4:66, 69, 70; Andrew Fuller, Works, 2:685; Pascal, Thoughts, Eng. trans., 429; Hooker, Eccl. Polity, book 5, ch. 56; Tillotson, Sermons, 3:307; Trench, Studies in Gospels, 284, and Christ the True Vine, in Hulsean Lectures; Schöberlein, in Studien und Kritiken, 1847:7-69; Caird, on Union with God, in Scotch Sermons, sermon 2; Godet, on the Ultimate Design of Man, in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880—the design is“God in man, and man in God”; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 590-617; Upham, Divine Union, Interior Life, Life of Madame Guyon and Fénelon; A. J. Gordon, In Christ; McDuff, In Christo; J. Denham Smith, Life-truths, 25-98; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 220-225; Bishop Hall's Treatise on The Church Mystical; Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ; Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 145, 174, 179; F. B. Meyer, Christian Living—essay on Appropriation of[pg 809]Christ,vs.mere imitation of Christ; Sanday, Epistle to the Romans, supplementary essay on the Mystic Union; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 531; J. M. Campbell, The Indwelling Christ.

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