Chapter VII: Section II: The Application Of Christ’s Redemption In Its Actual (1)

Beginning.

Under this head we treat of Union with Christ, Regeneration, Conversion (embracing Repentance and Faith), and Justification. Much confusion and error have arisen from conceiving these as occurring in chronological order. The order is logical, not chronological. As it is only “in Christ” that man is “a new creature” (2 Cor. 5:17) or is “justified” (Acts 13:39), union with Christ logically precedes both regeneration and justification; and yet, chronologically, the moment of our union with Christ is also the moment when we are regenerated and justified. So, too, regeneration and conversion are but the divine and human sides or aspects of the same fact, although regeneration has logical precedence, and man turns only as God turns him.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 3:694 (Syst. Doct., 4:159), gives at this
point an account of the work of the Holy Spirit in general. The
Holy Spirit’s work, he says, presupposes the historical work of
Christ, and prepares the way for Christ’s return. “As the Holy
Spirit is the principle of union between the Father and the Son,
so he is the principle of union between God and man. Only through
the Holy Spirit does Christ secure for himself those who will love
him as distinct and free personalities.” Regeneration and
conversion are not chronologically separate. Which of the spokes
of a wheel starts first? The ray of light and the ray of heat
enter at the same moment. Sensation and perception are not
separated in time, although the former is the cause of the latter.

“Suppose a non‐elastic tube extending across the Atlantic. Suppose
that the tube is completely filled with an incompressible fluid.
Then there would be no interval of time between the impulse given
to the fluid at this end of the tube, and the effect upon the
fluid at the other end.” See Hazard, Causation and Freedom in
Willing, 33‐38, who argues that cause and effect are always
simultaneous; else, in the intervening time, there would be a
cause that had no effect; that is, a cause that caused nothing;
that is, a cause that that was not a cause. “A potential cause may
exist for an unlimited period without producing any effect, and of
course may precede its effect by any length of time. But actual,
effective cause being the exercise of a sufficient power, its
effect cannot be delayed; for, in that case, there would be the
exercise of a sufficient power to produce the effect, without
producing it,—involving the absurdity of its being both sufficient
and insufficient at the same time.

“A difficulty may here be suggested in regard to the flow or
progress of events in time, if they are all simultaneous with
their causes. This difficulty cannot arise as to intelligent
effort; for, in regard to it, periods of non‐action may
continually intervene; but if there are series of events and
material phenomena, each of which is in turn effect and cause, it
may be difficult to see how any time could elapse between the
first and the last of the series.... If, however, as I suppose,
these series of events, or material changes, are always effected
through the medium of motion, it need not trouble us, for there is
precisely the same difficulty in regard to our conception of the
motion of matter from point to point, there being no space or
length between any two consecutive points, and yet the body in
motion gets from one end of a long line to the other, and in this
case this difficulty just neutralizes the other.... So, even if we
cannot conceive how motion involves the idea of time, we may
perceive that, if it does so, it may be a means of conveying
events, which depend upon it, through time also.”

Martineau, Study, 1:148‐150—“Simultaneity does not exclude
duration,”—since each cause has duration and each effect has
duration also. Bowne, Metaphysics, 106—“In the system, the
complete ground of an event never lies in any one thing, but only
in a complex of things. If a single thing were the sufficient
ground of an effect, the effect would coëxist with the thing, and
all effects would be instantaneously given. Hence all events in
the system must be viewed as the result of the interaction of two
or more things.”

The first manifestation of life in an infant may be in the lungs
or heart or brain, but that which makes any and all of these
manifestations possible is the antecedent life. We may not be able
to tell which comes first, but having the life we have all the
rest. When the wheel goes, all the spokes will go. The soul that
is born again will show it in faith and hope and love and holy
living. Regeneration will involve repentance and faith and
justification and sanctification. But the one life which makes
regeneration and all these consequent blessings possible is the
life of Christ who joins himself to us in order that we may join
ourselves to him. Anne Reeve Aldrich, The Meaning: “I lost my life
in losing love. This blurred my spring and killed its dove. Along
my path the dying roses Fell, and disclosed the thorns thereof. I
found my life in finding God. In ecstasy I kiss the rod; For who
that wins the goal, but lightly Thinks of the thorns whereon he
trod?”

See A. A. Hodge, on the Ordo Salutis, in Princeton Rev., March,
1888:304‐321. Union with Christ, says Dr. Hodge, “is effected by
the Holy Ghost in effectual calling. Of this calling the parts are
two: (_a_) the offering of Christ to the sinner, _externally_ by
the gospel, and _internally_ by the illumination of the Holy
Ghost; (_b_) the reception of Christ, which on our part is both
passive and active. The passive reception is that whereby a
spiritual principle is ingenerated into the human will, whence
issues the active reception, which is an act of faith with which
repentance is always conjoined. The communion of benefits which
results from this union involves: (_a_) a change of state or
relation, called justification; and (_b_) a change of subjective
moral character, commenced in regeneration and completed through
sanctification.” See also Dr. Hodge’s Popular Lectures on
Theological Themes, 340, and Outlines of Theology, 333‐429.

H. B. Smith, however, in his System of Christian Theology, is more
clear in the putting of Union with Christ before Regeneration. On
page 502, he begins his treatment of the Application of Redemption
with the title: “The Union between Christ and the individual
believer as effected by the Holy Spirit. This embraces the
subjects of Justification, Regeneration, and Sanctification, with
the underlying topic which comes first to be considered,
Election.” He therefore treats Union with Christ (531‐539) before
Regeneration (553‐569). He says Calvin defines regeneration as
coming to us by participation in Christ, and apparently agrees
with this view (559).

“This union [with Christ] is at the ground of regeneration and
justification” (534). “The great difference of theological systems
comes out here. Since Christianity is redemption through Christ,
our mode of conceiving that will determine the character of our
whole theological system” (536). “The union with Christ is
mediated by his Spirit, whence we are both renewed and justified.
The great fact of objective Christianity is incarnation in order
to atonement; the great fact of subjective Christianity is union
with Christ, whereby we receive the atonement” (537). We may add
that this union with Christ, in view of which God elects and to
which God calls the sinner, is begun in regeneration, completed in
conversion, declared in justification, and proved in
sanctification and perseverance.

I. Union with Christ.

The Scriptures declare that, through the operation of God, there is constituted a union of the soul with Christ different in kind from God’s natural and providential concursus with all spirits, as well as from all unions of mere association or sympathy, moral likeness, or moral influence,—a union of life, in which the human spirit, while then most truly possessing its own individuality and personal distinctness, is interpenetrated and energized by the Spirit of Christ, is made inscrutably but indissolubly one with him, and so becomes a member and partaker of that regenerated, believing, and justified humanity of which he is the head.

Union with Christ is not union with a system of doctrine, nor with
external religious influences, nor with an organized church, nor
with an ideal man,—but rather, with a personal, risen, living,
omnipresent Lord (J. W. A. Stewart). Dr. J. W. Alexander well
calls this doctrine of the Union of the Believer with Christ “the
central truth of all theology and of all religion.” Yet it
receives little of formal recognition, either in dogmatic
treatises or in common religious experience. Quenstedt, 886‐912,
has devoted a section to it; A. A. Hodge gives to it a chapter, in
his Outlines of Theology, 369 sq., to which we are indebted for
valuable suggestions; H. B. Smith treats of it, not however as a
separate topic, but under the head of Justification (System,
531‐539).

The majority of printed systems of doctrine, however, contain no
chapter or section on Union with Christ, and the majority of
Christians much more frequently think of Christ as a Savior
outside of them, than as a Savior who dwells within. This
comparative neglect of the doctrine is doubtless a reaction from
the exaggerations of a false mysticism. But there is great need of
rescuing the doctrine from neglect. For this we rely wholly upon
Scripture. Doctrines which reason can neither discover nor prove
need large support from the Bible. It is a mark of divine wisdom
that the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is so inwoven with
the whole fabric of the New Testament, that the rejection of the
former is the virtual rejection of the latter. The doctrine of
Union with Christ, in like manner, is taught so variously and
abundantly, that to deny it is to deny inspiration itself. See
Kahnis, Luth. Dogmatik, 3:447‐450.

1. Scripture Representations of this Union.

A. Figurative teaching. It is illustrated:

(_a_) From the union of a building and its foundation.

_Eph. 2:20‐22_—“_being built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone;
in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into
a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together
for a habitation of God in the Spirit_”; _Col. 2:7_—“_builded up
in him_”—grounded in Christ as our foundation; _1 Pet. 2:4,
5_—“_unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but
with God elect, precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up
a spiritual house_”—each living stone in the Christian temple is
kept in proper relation to every other, and is made to do its part
in furnishing a habitation for God, only by being built upon and
permanently connected with Christ, the chief corner‐stone. _Cf._
_Ps. 118:22_—“_The stone which the builders rejected Is become the
head of the corner_”; _Is. 28:16_—“_Behold, I lay in Zion for a
foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner‐stone of sure
foundation: he that believeth shall not be in haste._”

(_b_) From the union between husband and wife.

_Rom. 7:4_—“_ye also were made dead to the law through the body of
Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even to him who was
raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto
God_”—here union with Christ is illustrated by the indissoluble
bond that connects husband and wife, and makes them legally and
organically one; _2 Cor. 11:2_—“_I am jealous over you with a
godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might
present you as a pure virgin to Christ_”; _Eph. 5:31, 32_—“_For
this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall
cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This
mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the
church_”—Meyer refers _verse 31_ wholly to Christ, and says that
Christ leaves father and mother (the right hand of God) and is
joined to the church as his wife, the two constituting thenceforth
one moral person. He makes the union future, however,—“_For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother_”—the consummation
is at Christ’s second coming. But the Fathers, as Chrysostom,
Theodoret, and Jerome, referred it more properly to the
incarnation.

_Rev. 19:7_—“_the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath
made herself ready_”; _22:17_—“_And the Spirit and the bride say,
Come_”; _cf._ _Is. 54:5_—“_For thy Maker is thine husband_”; _Jer.
3:20_—“_Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband,
so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith
Jehovah_”; _Hos. 2:2‐5_—“_for their mother hath played the
harlot_”—departure from God is adultery; the _Song of Solomon_, as
Jewish interpreters have always maintained, is an allegorical poem
describing, under the figure of marriage, the union between
Jehovah and his people: Paul only adopts the Old Testament figure,
and applies it more precisely to the union of God with the church
in Jesus Christ.

(_c_) From the union between the vine and its branches.

_John 15:1‐10_—“_I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that
abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for
apart from me ye can do nothing_”—as God’s natural life is in the
vine, that it may give life to its natural branches, so God’s
spiritual life is in the vine, Christ, that he may give life to
his spiritual branches. The roots of this new vine are planted in
heaven, not on earth; and into it the half‐withered branches of
the old humanity are to be grafted, that they may have life
divine. Yet our Lord does not say “I am the root.” The branch is
not something _outside_, which has to get nourishment _out of_ the
root,—it is rather a _part_ of the vine. _Rom. 6:5_—“_if we have
become united with him_ [σύμφυτοι—‘grown together’—used of the man
and horse in the Centaur, Xen., Cyrop., 4:3:18], _in the likeness
of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his
resurrection_”; _11:24_—“_thou wast cut out of that which is by
nature a wild olive tree, and wast grafted contrary to nature into
a good olive tree_”; _Col. 2:6, 7_—“_As therefore ye received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and builded up in
him_”—not only grounded in Christ as our foundation, but thrusting
down roots into him as the deep, rich, all‐sustaining soil. This
union with Christ is consistent with individuality: for the graft
brings forth fruit after its kind, though modified by the tree
into which it is grafted.

Bishop H. W. Warren, in S. S. Times, Oct. 17, 1891—“The lessons of
the vine are intimacy, likeness of nature, continuous impartation
of life, fruit. Between friends there is intimacy by means of
media, such as food, presents, care, words, soul looking from the
eyes. The mother gives her liquid flesh to the babe, but such
intimacy soon ceases. The mother is not rich enough in life
continuously to feed the ever‐enlarging nature of the growing man.
Not so with the vine. It continuously feeds. Its rivers crowd all
the banks. They burst out in leaf, blossom, clinging tendrils, and
fruit, everywhere. In nature a thorn grafted on a pear tree bears
only thorn. There is not pear‐life enough to compel change of its
nature. But a wild olive, typical of depraved nature, grafted on a
good olive tree finds, contrary to nature, that there is force
enough in the growing stock to change the nature of the wild
scion.”

(_d_) From the union between the members and the head of the body.

_1 Cor. 6:15, 19_—“_Know ye not that your bodies are members of
Christ?... know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God?_” _12:12_—“_For as
the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the
body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ_”—here Christ is
identified with the church of which he is the head; _Eph. 1:22,
23_—“_he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him
to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the
fulness of him that filleth all in all_”—as the members of the
human body are united to the head, the source of their activity
and the power that controls their movements, so all believers are
members of an invisible body whose head is Christ. Shall we tie a
string round the finger to keep for it its own blood? No, for all
the blood of the body is needed to nourish one finger. So Christ
is “_head over all things to_ [for the benefit of] _the church_”
(Tyler, Theol. Greek Poets, preface, ii). “The church is the
fulness (πλήρωμα) of Christ; as it was not good for the first man,
Adam, to be alone, no more was it good for the second man, Christ”
(C. H. M.). _Eph. 4:15, 16_—“_grow up in all things into him, who
is the head, even Christ; from whom all the body ... maketh the
increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love_”;
_5:29, 30_—“_for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth
and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church; because we are
members of his body._”

(_e_) From the union of the race with the source of its life in Adam.

_Rom. 5:12, 21_—“_as through one man sin entered into the world,
and death through sin.... that, as sin reigned in death, even so
might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord_”; _1 Cor. 15:22, 45, 49_—“_as in Adam all
die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.... The first man
Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life‐giving
Spirit.... as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also
bear the image of the heavenly_”—as the whole race is one with the
first man Adam, in whom it fell and from whom it has derived a
corrupted and guilty nature, so the whole race of believers
constitutes a new and restored humanity, whose justified and
purified nature is derived from Christ, the second Adam. _Cf._
_Gen. 2:23_—“_This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh:
she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man_”—here
C. H. M. remarks that, as man is first created and then woman is
viewed in and formed out of him, so it is with Christ and the
church. “We are members of Christ’s body, because in Christ we
have the principle of our origin; from him our life arose, just as
the life of Eve was derived from Adam.... The church is Christ’s
helpmeet, formed out of Christ in his deep sleep of death, as Eve
out of Adam.... The church will be nearest to Christ, as Eve was
to Adam.” Because Christ is the source of all spiritual life for
his people, he is called, in _Is. 9:6_, “_Everlasting Father,_”
and it is said, in _Is. 53:10_, that “_he shall see his seed_”
(see page 680).

B. Direct statements.

(_a_) The believer is said to be in Christ.

Lest we should regard the figures mentioned above as merely
Oriental metaphors, the fact of the believer’s union with Christ
is asserted in the most direct and prosaic manner. _John
14:20_—“_ye in me_”; _Rom. 6:11_—“_alive unto God in Christ
Jesus_”; _8:1_—“_no condemnation to them that are in Christ
Jesus_”; _2 Cor. 5:17_—“_if any man is in Christ, he is a new
creature_”; _Eph. 1:4_—“_chose us in him before the foundation of
the world_”; _2:13_—“_now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far
off are made nigh in the blood of Christ._” Thus the believer is
said to be “_in Christ_,” as the element or atmosphere which
surrounds him with its perpetual presence and which constitutes
his vital breath; in fact, this phrase “_in Christ_,” always
meaning “in union with Christ,” is the very key to Paul’s
epistles, and to the whole New Testament. The fact that the
believer is in Christ is symbolized in baptism: we are “_baptized
into Christ_” (_Gal. 3:27_).

(_b_) Christ is said to be in the believer.

_John 14:20_—“_I in you_”; _Rom. 8:9_—“_ye are not in the flesh
but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in
you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
his_”—that this Spirit of Christ is Christ himself, is shown from
_verse 10_—“_And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of
sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness_”; _Gal.
2:20_—“_I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I
that live, but Christ liveth in me_”—here Christ is said to be in
the believer, and so to live his life within the believer, that
the latter can point to this as the dominating fact of his
experience,—it is not so much he that lives, as it is Christ that
lives in him. The fact that Christ is in the believer is
symbolized in the Lord’s supper: “_The bread which we break, is it
not a participation in the body of Christ?_” (_1 Cor. 10:16_).

(_c_) The Father and the Son dwell in the believer.

_John 14:23_—“_If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our
abode with him_”; _cf._ _10_—“_Believest thou not that I am in the
Father, and the Father in me? the words that I say unto you I
speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his
works_”—the Father and the Son dwell in the believer; for where
the Son is, there always the Father must be also. If the union
between the believer and Christ in _John 14:23_ is to be
interpreted as one of mere moral influence, then the union of
Christ and the Father in _John 14:10_ must also be interpreted as
a union of mere moral influence. _Eph. 3:17_—“_that Christ may
dwell in your hearts through faith_”; _1 John 4:16_—“_he that
abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him._”

(_d_) The believer has life by partaking of Christ, as Christ has life by partaking of the Father.

_John 6:53, 56, 57_—“_Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man
and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves .... He that
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him.
As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so
he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me_”—the believer
has life by partaking of Christ in a way that may not
inappropriately be compared with Christ’s having life by partaking
of the Father. _1 Cor. 10:16, 17_—“_the cup of blessing which we
bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread
which we break, is it not a communion of the body of
Christ?_”—here it is intimated that the Lord’s Supper sets forth,
in the language of symbol, the soul’s actual participation in the
life of Christ; and the margin properly translates the word
κοινωνία, not “communion,” but “_participation_.” _Cf._ _1 John
1:3_—“_our fellowship (κοινωνία) is with the Father, and with his
Son Jesus Christ._” Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 216—“In
_John 6_, the phrases call to mind the ancient form of sacrifice,
and the participation therein by the offerer at the sacrificial
meal,—as at the Passover.”

(_e_) All believers are one in Christ.

_John 17:21‐23_—“_that they may all be one; even as thou, Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the
world may believe that thou didst send me. And the glory which
thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one,
even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
perfected into one_”—all believers are one in Christ, to whom they
are severally and collectively united, as Christ himself is one
with God.

(_f_) The believer is made partaker of the divine nature.

_2 Pet. 1:4_—“_that through these_ [promises] _ye may become
partakers of the divine nature_”—not by having the essence of your
humanity changed into the essence of divinity, but by having
Christ the divine Savior continually dwelling within, and
indissolubly joined to, your human souls.

(_g_) The believer is made one spirit with the Lord.

_1 Cor. 6:17_—“_he that is joined unto the Lord is one
spirit_”—human nature is so interpenetrated and energized by the
divine, that the two move and act as one; _cf._ _19_—“_know ye not
that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you,
which ye have from God?_” _Rom. 8:26_—“_the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the
Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered_”—the Spirit is so near to us, and so one with
us, that our prayer is called his, or rather, his prayer becomes
ours. Weiss, in his Life of Jesus, says that, in the view of
Scripture, human greatness does not consist in a man’s producing
everything in a natural way out of himself, but in possessing
perfect receptivity for God’s greatest gift. Therefore God’s Son
receives the Spirit without measure; and we may add that the
believer in like manner receives Christ.

2. Nature of this Union.

We have here to do not only with a fact of life, but with a unique relation between the finite and the infinite. Our descriptions must therefore be inadequate. Yet in many respects we know what this union is not; in certain respects we can positively characterize it.

It should not surprise us if we find it far more difficult to give
a scientific definition of this union, than to determine the fact
of its existence. It is a fact of life with which we have to deal;
and the secret of life, even in its lowest forms, no philosopher
has ever yet discovered. The tiniest flower witnesses to two
facts: first, that of its own relative independence, as an
individual organism; and secondly, that of its ultimate dependence
upon a life and power not its own. So every human soul has its
proper powers of intellect, affection, and will; yet it lives,
moves, and has its being in God (_Acts 17:28_).

Starting out from the truth of God’s omnipresence, it might seem
as if God’s indwelling in the granite boulder was the last limit
of his union with the finite. But we see the divine intelligence
and goodness drawing nearer to us, by successive stages, in
vegetable life, in the animal creation, and in the moral nature of
man. And yet there are two stages beyond all these: first, in
Christ’s union with the believer; and secondly, in God’s union
with Christ. If this union of God with the believer be only one of
several approximations of God to his finite creation, the fact
that it is, equally with the others, not wholly comprehensible to
reason, should not blind us either to its truth or to its
importance.

It is easier to‐day than at any other previous period of history
to believe in the union of the believer with Christ. That God is
immanent in the universe, and that there is a divine element in
man, is familiar to our generation. All men are naturally one with
Christ, the immanent God, and this natural union prepares the way
for that spiritual union in which Christ joins himself to our
faith. Campbell, The Indwelling Christ, 131—“In the immanence of
Christ in nature we find the ground of his immanence in human
nature.... A man may be out of Christ, but Christ is never out of
him. Those who banish him he does not abandon.” John Caird, Fund.
Ideas of Christianity, 2:233‐256—“God is united with nature, in
the atoms, in the trees, in the planets. Science is seeing nature
full of the life of God. God is united to man in body and soul.
The beating of his heart and the voice of conscience witness to
God within. God sleeps in the stone, dreams in the animal, wakes
in man.”

A. Negatively.—It is not:

(_a_) A merely natural union, like that of God with all human spirits,—as held by rationalists.

In our physical life we are conscious of another life within us
which is not subject to our wills: the heart beats involuntarily,
whether we sleep or wake. But in our spiritual life we are still
more conscious of a life within our life. Even the heathen said:
“Est Deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo,” and the Egyptians
held to the identification of the departed with Osiris (Renouf,
Hibbert Lectures, 185). But Paul urges us to work out our
salvation, upon the very ground that “_it is God that worketh_” in
us, “_both to will and to work, for his good pleasure_” (_Phil.
2:12, 13_). This life of God in the soul is the life of Christ.

The movement of the electric car cannot be explained simply from
the working of its own motor apparatus. The electric current
throbbing through the wire, and the dynamo from which that energy
proceeds, are needed to explain the result. In like manner we need
a spiritual Christ to explain the spiritual activity of the
Christian. A. H. Strong, Sermon before the Baptist World Congress
in London, 1905—“We had in America some years ago a steam engine
all whose working parts were made of glass. The steam came from
without, but, being hot enough to move machinery, this steam was
itself invisible, and there was presented the curious spectacle of
an engine, transparent, moving, and doing important work, while
yet no cause for this activity was perceptible. So the church,
humanity, the universe, are all in constant and progressive
movement, but the Christ who moves them is invisible. Faith comes
to believe where it cannot see. It joins itself to this invisible
Christ, and knows him as its very life.”

(_b_) A merely moral union, or union of love and sympathy, like that between teacher and scholar, friend and friend,—as held by Socinians and Arminians.

There is a moral union between different souls: _1 Sam.
18:1_—“_the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and
Jonathan loved him as his own soul_”—here the Vulgate has: “Anima
Jonathæ agglutinata Davidi.” Aristotle calls friends “one soul.”
So in a higher sense, in _Acts 4:32_, the early believers are said
to have been “_of one heart and soul_.” But in _John 17:21, 26_,
Christ’s union with his people is distinguished from any mere
union of love and sympathy: “_that they may all be one; even as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in
us;... that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and
I in them_.” Jesus’ aim, in the whole of his last discourse, is to
show that no mere union of love and sympathy will be sufficient:
“_apart from me_,” he says, “_ye can do nothing_” (_John 15:5_).
That his disciples may be vitally joined to himself, is therefore
the subject of his last prayer.

Dorner says well, that Arminianism (and with this doctrine Roman
Catholics and the advocates of New School views substantially
agree) makes man a mere tangent to the circle of the divine
nature. It has no idea of the interpenetration of the one by the
other. But the Lutheran Formula of Concord says much more
correctly: “Damnamus sententiam quod non Deus ipse, sed dona Dei
duntaxat, in credentibus habitent.”

Ritschl presents to us a historical Christ, and Pfleiderer
presents to us an ideal Christ, but neither one gives us the
living Christ who is the present spiritual life of the believer.
Wendt, in his Teaching of Jesus, 2:310, comes equally far short of
a serious interpretation of our Lord’s promise, when he says:
“This union to his person, as to its contents, is nothing else
than adherence to the message of the kingdom of God brought by
him.” It is not enough for me to be merely _in touch_ with Christ.
He must come to be “not so far as even to be near.” Tennyson, The
Higher Pantheism: “Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than
hands or feet.” William Watson, The Unknown God: “Yea, in my flesh
his Spirit doth flow, Too near, too far, for me to know.”

(_c_) A union of essence, which destroys the distinct personality and subsistence of either Christ or the human spirit,—as held by many of the mystics.

Many of the mystics, as Schwenkfeld, Weigel, Sebastian Frank, held
to an _essential_ union between Christ and the believer. One of
Weigel’s followers, therefore, could say to another: “I am Christ
Jesus, the living Word of God; I have redeemed thee by my sinless
sufferings.” We are ever to remember that the indwelling of Christ
only puts the believer more completely in possession of himself,
and makes him more conscious of his own personality and power.
Union with Christ must be taken in connection with the other truth
of the personality and activity of the Christian; otherwise it
tends to pantheism. Martineau, Study, 2:190—“In nature it is God’s
immanent life, in morals it is God’s transcendent life, with which
we commune.”

Angelus Silesius, a German philosophical poet (1624‐1677),
audaciously wrote: “I know God cannot live an instant without me;
He must give up the ghost, if I should cease to be.” Lowde, a
disciple of Malebranche, used the phrase “Godded with God, and
Christed with Christ,” and Jonathan Edwards, in his Religious
Affections, quotes it with disapprobation, saying that “the saints
do not become actually partakers of the divine essence, as would
be inferred from this abominable and blasphemous language of
heretics” (Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 224). “Self is not a mode of
the divine: it is a principle of isolation. In order to religion,
I must have a will to surrender.... ‘Our wills are ours, to make
them thine.’... Though the self is, in _knowledge_, a principle of
unification; in _existence_, or metaphysically, it is a principle
of isolation” (Seth).

Inge, Christian Mysticism, 30—“Some of the mystics went astray by
teaching a real _substitution_ of the divine for human nature,
thus depersonalizing man—a fatal mistake, for without human
personality we cannot conceive of divine personality.” Lyman
Abbott: “In Christ, God and man are united, not as the river is
united with the sea, losing its personality therein, but as the
child is united with the father, or the wife with the husband,
whose personality and individuality are strengthened and increased
by the union.” Here Dr. Abbott’s view comes as far short of the
truth as that of the mystics goes beyond the truth. As we shall
see, the union of the believer with Christ is a vital union,
surpassing in its intimacy any union of souls that we know. The
union of child with father, or of wife with husband, is only a
pointer which hints very imperfectly at the interpenetrating and
energizing of the human spirit by the divine.

(_d_) A union mediated and conditioned by participation of the sacraments of the church,—as held by Romanists, Lutherans, and High‐Church Episcopalians.

Perhaps the most pernicious misinterpretation of the nature of
this union is that which conceives of it as a physical and
material one, and which rears upon this basis the fabric of a
sacramental and external Christianity. It is sufficient here to
say that this union cannot be mediated by sacraments, since
sacraments presuppose it as already existing; both Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper are designed only for believers. Only faith receives
and retains Christ; and faith is the act of the soul grasping what
is purely invisible and supersensible: not the act of the body,
submitting to Baptism or partaking of the Supper.

William Lincoln: “The only way for the believer, if he wants to go
rightly, is to remember that truth is always two‐sided. If there
is any truth that the Holy Spirit has specially pressed upon your
heart, if you do not want to push it to the extreme, ask what is
the counter‐truth, and lean a little of your weight upon that;
otherwise, if you bear so very much on one side of the truth,
there is a danger of pushing it into a heresy. Heresy means
selected truth; it does not mean error; heresy and error are very
different things. Heresy is truth, but truth pushed into undue
importance, to the disparagement of the truth upon the other
side.” Heresy (αἵρεσις) = an act of choice, the picking and
choosing of a part, instead of comprehensively embracing the whole
of truth. Sacramentarians substitute the symbol for the thing
symbolized.

B. Positively.—It is:

(_a_) An organic union,—in which we become members of Christ and partakers of his humanity.

Kant defines an organism, as that whose parts are reciprocally
means and end. The body is an organism; since the limbs exist for
the heart, and the heart for the limbs. So each member of Christ’s
body lives for him who is the head; and Christ the head equally
lives for his members: _Eph. 5:29, 30_—“_no man ever hated his own
flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, __ even as Christ also
the church; because we are members of his body_.” The train‐
despatcher is a symbol of the concentration of energy; the
switchmen and conductors who receive his orders are symbols of the
localization of force; but it is all one organic system.

(_b_) A vital union,—in which Christ’s life becomes the dominating principle within us.

This union is a vital one, in distinction from any union of mere
juxtaposition or external influence. Christ does not work upon us
from without, as one separated from us, but from within, as the
very heart from which the life‐blood of our spirits flows. See
_Gal. 2:20_—“_it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in
me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith,
the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
himself up for me;_” _Col 3:3, 4_—“_For ye died, and your life is
hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be
manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory._”
Christ’s life is not corrupted by the corruption of his members,
any more than the ray of light is defiled by the filth with which
it comes in contact. We may be unconscious of this union with
Christ, as we often are of the circulation of the blood, yet it
may be the very source and condition of our life.

(_c_) A spiritual union,—that is, a union whose source and author is the Holy Spirit.

By a spiritual union we mean a union not of body but of spirit,—a
union, therefore, which only the Holy Spirit originates and
maintains. _Rom. 8:9, 10_—“_ye are not in the flesh but in the
Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if
any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if
Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit
is life because of righteousness._” The indwelling of Christ
involves a continual exercise of efficient power. In _Eph. 3:16,
17_, “_strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward
man_” is immediately followed by “_that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith_.”

(_d_) An indissoluble union,—that is, a union which, consistently with Christ’s promise and grace, can never be dissolved.

_Mat. 28:20_—“_lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world_”; _John 10:28_—“_they shall never perish, and no one shall
snatch them out of my hand_”; _Rom. 8:35, 39_—“_Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ?... nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord_”; _1 Thess. 4:14, 17_—“_them
also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him ...
then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be
caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall
we ever be with the Lord._”

Christ’s omnipresence makes it possible for him to be united to,
and to be present in, each believer, as perfectly and fully as if
that believer were the only one to receive Christ’s fulness. As
Christ’s omnipresence makes the whole Christ present in every
place, each believer has the whole Christ with him, as his source
of strength, purity, life; so that each may say: Christ gives all
his time and wisdom and care to me. Such a union as this lacks
every element of instability. Once formed, the union is
indissoluble. Many of the ties of earth are rudely broken,—not so
with our union with Christ,—that endures forever.

Since there is now an unchangeable and divine element in us, our
salvation depends no longer upon our unstable wills, but upon
Christ’s purpose and power. By temporary declension from duty, or
by our causeless unbelief, we may banish Christ to the barest and
most remote room of the soul’s house; but he does not suffer us
wholly to exclude him; and when we are willing to unbar the doors,
he is still there, ready to fill the whole mansion with his light
and love.

(_e_) An inscrutable union,—mystical, however, only in the sense of surpassing in its intimacy and value any other union of souls which we know.

This union is inscrutable, indeed; but it is not mystical, in the
sense of being unintelligible to the Christian or beyond the reach
of his experience. If we call it mystical at all, it should be
only because, in the intimacy of its communion and in the
transforming power of its influence, it surpasses any other union
of souls that we know, and so cannot be fully described or
understood by earthly analogies. _Eph. 5:32_—“_This mystery is
great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church_”; _Col.
1:27_—“_the riches of the glory of this mystery among the
Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory._”

See Diman, Theistic Argument, 380—“As physical science has brought
us to the conclusion that back of all the phenomena of the
material universe there lies an invisible universe of forces, and
that these forces may ultimately be reduced to one all‐pervading
force in which the unity of the physical universe consists; and as
philosophy has advanced the rational conjecture that this ultimate
all‐pervading force is simply will‐force; so the great Teacher
holds up to us the spiritual universe as pervaded by one
omnipotent life—a life which was revealed in him as its highest
manifestation, but which is shared by all who by faith become
partakers of his nature. He was Son of God: they too had power to
become sons of God. The incarnation is wholly within the natural
course and tendency of things. It was prepared for, it came, in
the fulness of times. Christ’s life is not something sporadic and
individual, having its source in the personal conviction of each
disciple; it implies a real connection with Christ, the head.
Behind all nature there is one force; behind all varieties of
Christian life and character there is one spiritual power. All
nature is not inert matter,—it is pervaded by a living presence.
So all the body of believers live by virtue of the all‐working
Spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost.” An epitaph at Silton, in
Dorsetshire, reads: “Here lies a piece of Christ—a star in dust, A
vein of gold, a china dish, that must Be used in heaven when God
shall feed the just.”

A. H. Strong, in Examiner, 1880: “Such is the nature of union with
Christ,—such I mean, is the nature of every believer’s union with
Christ. For, whether he knows it or not, every Christian has
entered into just such a partnership as this. It is this and this
only which constitutes him a Christian, and which makes possible a
Christian church. We may, indeed, be thus united to Christ,
without being fully conscious of the real nature of our relation
to him. We may actually possess the kernel, while as yet we have
regard only to the shell; we may seem to ourselves to be united to
Christ only by an external bond, while after all it is an inward
and spiritual bond that makes us his. God often reveals to the
Christian the mystery of the gospel, which is Christ _in_ him the
hope of glory, at the very time that he is seeking only some
nearer access to a Redeemer outside of him. Trying to find a union
of coöperation or of sympathy, he is amazed to learn that there is
already established a union with Christ more glorious and blessed,
namely, a union of life; and so, like the miners in the Rocky
Mountains, while he is looking only for silver, he finds gold.
Christ and the believer have the same life. They are not separate
persons linked together by some temporary bond of friendship,—they
are united by a tie as close and indissoluble as if the same blood
ran in their veins. Yet the Christian may never have suspected how
intimate a union he has with his Savior; and the first
understanding of this truth may be the gateway through which he
passes into a holier and happier stage of the Christian life.”

So the Way leads, through the Truth, to the Life (_John 14:6_).
Apprehension of an external Savior prepares for the reception and
experience of the internal Savior. Christ is first the Door of the
sheep, but in him, after they have once entered in, they find
pasture (_John 10:7‐9_). On the nature of this union, see H. B.
Smith, System of Christian Theology, 531‐539; Baird, Elohim
Revealed, 601; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 208‐272, and New Birth of
Man’s Nature, 1‐30. _Per contra_, see Park, Discourses, 117‐136.

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. 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:

(_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 call _Regeneration_.

_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.