Seeking a More Perfect Union
My wife texted me this morning. Here is how the exchange went,
The question has spawned for me some meditation regarding how we function in the Christian life and common errors in our thinking about being pleasing to our God. Consider what others have said regarding the centrality of our union with Christ.
Union with Christ, and abiding in Christ, what do they not secure? Peace, perfect peace; rest, constant rest; answers to all our prayers; victory over all our foes; pure, holy living; ever increasing fruitfulness, All of these are the glad outcome of abiding in Christ. — Hudson Taylor
Union with Christ is the central privilege of the Christian faith. – CS Lewis in Mere Christianity
Being in Christ, and united to Him, is the fundamental constitution of a Christian. –Thomas Goodwin
To live by grace is to live solely by the merit of Jesus Christ. To live by grace is to base my entire relationship with God, including my acceptance and standing with Him, on my union with Christ. – Jerry Bridges
We cannot have communion with Christ til we are in union with Him. –Charles H. Spurgeon
Let us be patient in the days of darkness, if we know anything of a vital union with Christ. –JC Ryle
Union with Christ is the distinctive blessing of the gospel dispensation in which every other is comprised—justification, sanctification, adoption, and the future glorifying of our bodies; all these are but different aspects of the one great truth, that the Christian is one with Christ._–Edward Arthur Litton
The value of the individual does not lie in him. He receives it by union with Christ. – CS Lewis.
Why am I a Christian?
The Calvinist will say it is because God called me. The Arminian might say that it is to flee the wrath to come. But my question regards what is in my mind, what is my motivation. There are a lot of different reasons, but the main point of being a Christian is being united with my Savior. Everything that happens at conversion is pointed toward that goal, and everything that happens as a result of conversion is a result of that condition.
Every true believer is in union with Christ.
That is why Paul says “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We receive the blessing of union with Christ through no merit of our own. We look to Him in faith and are joined with Him. Without this union, we can do nothing of spiritual value. Jesus said,
I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. John 15:5
Every true believer must make the vitality of that union their primary focus.
Our union with Christ is not perfect in this age. Believers sin, they stray, they wander from fellowship. It is the perfect union that accompanies full sanctification that makes the prospect of heaven so appealing.
It is so easy to get off focus. We so desperately want victory over specific sins, to accomplish ministerial tasks, be successful, parent effectively, have good marriages, and so much more. All of these things are noble in their own right, but if they rise to the place of ultimate prominence in our spiritual priorities, we will ultimately fail.
Everything of value in the Christian life, including what we should view as success, flows out of the vitality of our union with Christ. This is what Paul was talking about in Philippians 3
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let’s press for a more perfect union.
Book referenced in this article: Rosaria Butterfield, Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age.
Audio version of this post: Seeking a More Perfect Union