COVID’s Gift: The Gem We Should Now See We Were Missing
I’m assuming you have read my previous article, Following Christ Together: Solitary Christianity is Not Genuine Christianity. What did you think of it? I envisioned two groups of people would read it. Some of you aren’t committed to a local church. You read the article, you saw the Scripture passages, and it all made sense. Something just isn’t clicking, though. Church would make your Christianity less authentic. That’s not really who you are. Many of you are committed to a local church. You nodded your head as you read, but the article didn’t exactly warm your heart. Except that you were glad to see someone going after all those Christians who haven’t been back to church since COVID. You would much more readily identify yourself by your profession or family name than as a member of the body of Christ. It wouldn’t be the first thing you would hold out to describe who you really are.
American Christianity does not love the church today. The church-diminishing effects of COVID-19 aren’t really a surprise to any of us. Lamentable, yes, but not a surprise. How many Christians do you know who are committed to their church? And, what about their church are they really committed to? Is it the church? Or is it the preaching (the slip-in-slip-out Christians)? Or the worship — whether traditional or trendy? Or the social opportunities? How many Christians go to church today simply because it’s the thing to do? And remember that the previous article didn’t call you to attend church. It called you to commit. To commit to a people. Messy people, ugly people, sinners. Through thick and thin. To submit to elders. To love in word and deed. To forgive. Who would jump at an opportunity to do that? Tolerate it, yes. But embrace it? No way!
Why don’t we love the church? Why does an article on the need to commit to the church sound like yesterday’s oatmeal warmed up again? There are many false paths you could take to stir up a love for the church. You could hold church-sponsored fellowship dinners or schedule services earlier “to encourage fellowship after the service.” You could start another men’s breakfast or a quilting group or put out a signup sheet to encourage young mothers to congregate with other mothers for play dates. You could include nice couches in your common spaces and refreshments after the morning service to keep people from rushing out. All of these will produce something external, but none of these will address the real problem.
The real problem is this: American Christians have no idea who they are. American Christianity is in the grip of an identity crisis. It may be as deep as the gender crisis that plagues the country. The reason for the crisis is that we have lost the doctrine of union with Christ. What is the center of New Testament theology is so absent from American Christianity that most Christians have never even heard of “union with Christ.” If I asked you to make a list of the ten two-word phrases most common in the New Testament, the phrase “in Christ” wouldn’t make it on most of our lists. Yet that phrase and its variants occur more times in the New Testament than the phrases “the cross,” “eternal life,” or even “Jesus Christ.” Have you noticed that phrase as you read your Bible? Does it bear any more significance to you than as a more pious way to say something? How many sermon series have you heard on union with Christ?
The New Testament depicts Christianity as entirely “in Christ.” Paul commonly labels Christians as “those who are in Christ.” Beyond that, the entire Christian life is begun, lived, and concluded in Christ. Christians are blessed in Christ, chosen in Christ, called in Christ, those who believe in Christ, are dead with Christ, buried with Christ, raised with Christ, alive in Christ, possessors of eternal life in Christ, new creations in Christ, not condemned in Christ, established in Christ, free in Christ, ascended with Christ, seated with Christ, reigning with Christ, glorified in Christ, justified in Christ, sanctified in Christ, sons of God in Christ, faithful in Christ, recipients of God’s kindness in Christ, brought near in Christ, forgiven by God in Christ, those who have every need supplied in Christ, rooted and built up in Christ, taught in Christ, guarded in Christ, loved by God in Christ, truth speakers in Christ, led in triumph in Christ, approved in Christ, given grace in Christ, wise in Christ, bold in Christ, redeemed in Christ. They have access to God in Christ and are found spotless in Christ. They are preserved in Christ, saved in Christ, perfected in Christ. They love in Christ, have joy in Christ, hope in Christ, manifest good behaviour in Christ, labor in Christ, suffer in Christ, sorrow in Christ, rejoice in Christ, speak in Christ, conquer in Christ, triumph in Christ, receive one another in Christ, submit in Christ. They are maturing in Christ, growing up into Christ, obedient in Christ, promised life in Christ, strengthened by grace in Christ, live godly lives in Christ, fall asleep in Christ, die in Christ, appear in Christ, and will reign in glory with Christ. All our ways are “in Christ Jesus.” We do all in the name of Christ (Col 3:17). Paul says every spiritual blessing we have from God has come to us in Christ (Eph 1:3). We are heirs of all things in Christ (Rm 8:17). Whatever we ask in Christ, we receive (Jn 16:23–24). All things are ours in Christ Jesus (Rm 8:32). What aspect of the Christian life is left out? Nothing! It is impossible to speak about any aspect of the Christian life without thinking of it as “in Christ.” The Christian life lived apart from union with Christ by faith is not Christ-ian. You, brothers and sisters, are in Christ! Yet, how many of us have given our union with Christ a thought today? How many of us could even define it?
Why aren’t we talking about this today? Some would contend that it is too much to expect Christians, especially new believers, to understand these ideas. We have discarded it because it is too deep. Yet, Paul writes his epistles to new believers, some of whom are slaves with no education, and his letters are full of this theology. It’s the foundation from which he works to every solution. This theological idea was the center of Christianity in bygone eras. We can’t see it in our Bibles today because our Western individualism has blinded us to its presence and significance. If we recovered this doctrine and gave it the dominant emphasis that the New Testament does — namely, as the foundation of every aspect of our Christianity so that as Christians, it was impossible for us to call ourselves Christians without this idea leaping boldly and persistently into our minds to shape everything we think and do — what would it do to our Christianity, particularly our apathetic posture towards the local church?
What is union with Christ? There are two sides to union with Christ in the New Testament. We encounter this idea first in the incarnation. God in Christ descended into this world in human form to work out salvation for his people. “God was in Christ,” Paul tells us, “reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19). In Jesus’ person and work, God was active, accomplishing salvation “in Christ” (2 Tim 2:10). As ministers proclaim the Gospel, and as God opens blind eyes so that men respond to the message in faith, God joins them to Christ (1 Cor 1:30). This is the second side of union with Christ. The Spirit is the coupler to span the distance between Christ and his people (Jn 14:16–20). As a result of God’s work to join us to Christ, every believer receives the salvation God has accomplished in Christ. All the benefits of his redemption become ours. Christianity is living in union with Christ.
This doctrine must infect at least two matters in modern American Christianity. First, it must infect our proclamation of the Gospel. The Gospel is not that Christ suffered so God could bring us something (eternal life) but that he suffered to bring us to God (1 Pt 3:18). The shape of salvation shows that its chief blessing is God himself. God was in Christ, reconciling — reuniting — the world to himself. In other words, it is impossible for us to be saved apart from a vital, living, Spirit-wrought union with Christ and, in him, with the Godhead itself. That means that salvation is not primarily something God pours out upon individuals but the inclusion of individuals in the community of love shared amongst the members of the Trinity.
If we began to preach the Gospel this way, would this not fundamentally reconfigure our mental picture of the church? Union with Christ creates the body of Christ. Union with Christ is union with his people. When union with Christ shapes our understanding of the Gospel, we begin to think less in terms of a retail transaction between man and God and more in terms of … union and communion. With God and with his people. Wouldn’t that shift in thinking address the two proverbial needs in the American church: unity and communion? How do you get a church to move beyond conversations about football and all the petty matters that create disunity to genuine spiritual union and communion amongst saints? The answer is that you preach the Gospel as the apostles conceived of it—union with Christ that creates the body of Christ.
What could bind a church together so tightly that even COVID can’t disturb it? Persecution is coming, and that’s a lot more stressful than COVID. I’m concerned that without this foundation, the American church will fall apart. The shape of the Gospel we preach has dramatic implications for the shape of the Christian life that the Gospel begins. The shape of our Gospel shapes our Christian lives. If you preach a Gospel that is a personal retail transaction between you and God, who gives you eternal life in exchange for your faith, you will produce an individualistic, consumeristic Christianity that doesn’t need the local church. Who goes home from Walmart and gathers with all the other people who purchased doghouses on Black Friday? Christianity is union with Christ from start to finish. That’s who you are as a Christian — a member of Christ’s body. So, if that’s the shape of your salvation, if that’s who you are, what do you think would be the best way to spend your Sunday morning this week?
David Minnick is the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in South Brisbane, Australia.