In Christ; Or, The Believer's Union with His Lord

O words of Scripture, if we except those, “God manifest in the flesh,” hold within themselves a deeper mystery than this simple formula of the Christian life,” in ChrisC

Indeed, God’s taking upon Himself humanity, and yet remaining God, is hardly more inexplicable to human thought than man’s becoming a “partaker of the divine nature,” and yet remaining man. Both are of those secret things that belong wholly unto God. Yet, great as is the mystery of these words, they are the key to the whole system of doctrinal mysteries. Like the famous Rosetta stone, itself a partial hieroglyph, and thereby furnishing the long-sought clew to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, these words, by their very mystery, unlock all mysteries of the divine life, letting us into secrets that were “hidden from ages and from generations.” True, we may not find in them an answer to the question, “How can these things be?” but we shall see clearly that they can be. For through this “Emmanuel knot of union,” as one has quaintly called it, those great facts of the Christian life, regeneration, justification, sanctification, and redemption, are drawn up from the realm of the human and the impossible, and made fast to Him with whom “all things are possible.” So that the question now becomes reversed, and we must ask, “How can it be otherwise?” If one is in Christ, he must have regeneration; for how can the Head be alive, and the members dead? If one is in Christ, he must be justified; for how can God approve the Head, and condemn the members? If one is in Christ, he must have sanctification; for how can the spotlessly Holy remain in vital connection with one that is unholy? If one is in Christ, he must have redemption; for how can the Son of God be in glory, while that which He has made a part of his body lies abandoned in the grave of eternal death?

And thus, through these two words, we get a profound insight into the divine method of salvation. God does not work upon the soul by itself; bringing to bear upon it, while yet in its alienation and isolation from Him, such discipline as shall gradually render it fit to be reunited to Him. He begins rather by reuniting it to Himself, that through this union He may communicate to it that divine life and energy, without which all discipline were utterly futile. The method of grace is precisely the reverse of the method of legalism. The latter is holiness in order to union with God; the former, union with God in order to holiness. Hence the Incarnation, as the starting-point and prime condition of reconciliation to God; since there can be, to use Hooker’s admirable statement, “no union of God with man, without that mean between both which is both.” And hence the necessity of incorporation upon Christ, that what htcdimQ possible through the Incarnation, may become actual and experimental m the individual soul through faith.

Nothing is more striking than the breadth ’ of application which this principle of union with Christ has in the gospel. Christianity obliterates no natural relationships, destroys no human obligations, makes void no moral or spiritual laws. But it lifts all these up into a new sphere, and puts upon them this seal and signature of the gospel, in Christ. So that while all things continue as they were from the beginning, all, by their readjustment to this divine character and person, become virtually new. Life is still of God, but it has this new dependency “in Christ.” “Of Him are ye /// Christ ycsns.” The obligation to labor remains unchanged, but a new motive and a new sanctity arc given to it by its relation to Christ. “Forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain /;/ the Lord!’ The marriage relation is stamped with this new signet,” Only vt the Lord!’ Filial obedience is exalted into direct connection with the Son of God. “Children obey your parents /;/ the Lord.” Daily life becomes “a good conversation iji Christ.” Joy and sorrow, triumph and suffering, are all in Christ. Even truth, as though needing a fresh baptism, is viewed henceforth “as it is in ycsus.” Death remains, but it is robbed of its sting and crowned with a beatitude, because in Christ. “Blessed are the dead who die /;/ the Lord.” Thus Christ, in taking man up into Himself, takes all that belongs to him. Instead m CHRIST. 13

of rending him away from his natural connections, He embraces all these with him in Himself, that He may sanctify them all. And not only is this true, but the opposite and far more wondrous fact, namely, that Christ, in raising man into union with Himself, raises him into all that belongs to Him, into his divine life, and into partnership with his divine work. So that he dies in his’ death; rises in his resurrection; ascends in his ascension; is seated with Him in his session at the Father’s right hand; and lives in his eternal life.

So marked is this latter fact, that it has led some to speak of the events of the Christian life as affording “a striking parallel to those of Christ’s.” But there is no parallel. Parallels never meet, while the very glory and mystery of the believer’s life is that it is one with the Saviour’s and inseparable from it. It is not a life running alongside his, and taking shape and direction from it. It is his life reenacted in his followers; the reproduction in them of those events which are immortal in energy and limitless in application.

Our Lord’s whole earthly career is one continuous and living sacrament, of which his disciples partake through faith. And if their eyes are not holden, they will discern, in each great event of that life, not only the earnest and symbol of what He works in them, but they will see that only by feeding upon this Bread, can they have any life dwelling in them. This — the blessed life and work of our Lord — is his “body given for us;” a “body of divinity” containing all doctrine, and nourishing with all life; and of every element of it — suffering, death, resurrection, and glory — we hear Him saying, “Take, eat.”

If we reflect upon the nature of that union into which these words which we are considering link us, we see that every possible condition and requirement of salvation are met and answered by it.

It is a union extending back of time. We find it clearly recognized in God’s eternal predestination. “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.” “In Him.” It would seem as though this were the focal point where alone the beams of the Father’s electing love met to bless and comfort, while all beyond it was darkness and death. So vital is the atonement, that the shadow of the cross is thrown

back into a past eternity, to cover and justify God’s choice of the sinner; and his very purpose of grace is wrapped up in Jesu? Christ.^

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