Prayer is the natural out-gushing of a soul in communion with Jesus. Just as the leaf and the fruit will come out of the vine-branch without any conscious effort on the part of the branch, but simply because of its living union with the stem, so prayer buds, and blossoms, and fruits out of souls abiding in Jesus.” – Charles Spurgeon, Encouraged to Pray: Classic Sermons on Prayer
In the previous post, we saw the biblical foundation and theological roots of our union with Christ. Every blessing we enjoy in the Christian life comes from this reality. And our union with Christ is not a feeling or something we hope for with uncertainty; rather, for those of us who have trusted fully in Jesus, our union with Him is a declared fact.
Christ is our Head. The apostle Paul tells us that He is the Head of the Church, from whom all the body (the Church) gets its life. A body, apart from its head, has no life in itself. If it is disconnected from its head, it can do nothing. It’s dead. The same is true for us Christians. We, the Church, do not have life in ourselves. We get our life from our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. He it is who has given us eternal life, and who lives in and through us each day, making us alive through His Holy Spirit. What did Paul say in Galatians 2:20?
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
The great Puritan theologian John Owen wrote,
(Union with Christ) is the cause of all other graces that we are made partakers of; they are all communicated to us by virtue of our union with Christ. Hence is our adoption, our justification, our sanctification, our fruitfulness, our perseverance, our resurrection, our glory. Paul teaches that we are chosen “in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4), called (1 Cor. 7:22), made alive (Eph. 2:5), justified (Gal. 2:17), created “for good works” (Eph. 2:10), sanctified (1 Cor. 1:2), enriched “with all speech and all knowledge” (1 Cor. 1:5), and assured of the resurrection (Rom. 6:5). The apostle says that in Christ alone we have redemption (Rom. 3:24), eternal life (Rom. 6:23), righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30), wisdom (1 Cor. 4:10), freedom from the law (Gal. 2:4), and every spiritual blessing (Eph. 1:3)
Just as the benefits of our union with Christ apply to each believer individually, they also apply to the entire Church corporately. Remember: we are not islands. No Christian lives in complete solitude and isolation. We are the temple of God, living stones in close proximity to one another.
The whole Church was included in Him as her Head. In an objective sense she was crucified with Christ, she died with Him, she arose in Him from the dead, and was made to sit with Him in the heavenly places. All the blessings of saving grace lie ready for the Church in Christ; man can add nothing to them; and they now only await their subjective application by the operation of the Holy Spirit, which is also merited by Christ and is sure of progressive realization in the course of history.[1]
Of primary importance is that because of our union with Christ, we have been adopted as sons and daughters of God. The apostle Paul wrote,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption
as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise
of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. – Ephesians 1:3-6
What an amazing truth. Now, look at the logical outflow of what this promise means for you and me: if we who are in Christ have been adopted as sons and daughters by the Father, what does that make us? Brothers and sisters. We are family. All of us in Christ are the family of God.
This reality is one of the big implications of our union with Christ—we are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, the family of the triune God. Paul again writes,
Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. – Ephesians 4:4-6
So, what does this mean for you and me? One, it means that as Christians we are family. We are to love one another. You know how Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13 that if we understand all doctrine and theology, yet don’t have love, we’re nothing? That’s so true and so important for us to understand. Our union with Christ is everything, and so if we’re treating one another poorly, we’re missing one of the foundational aspects of the Gospel. It means we don’t really believe our fellow Christians are part of God’s family.
Also, it means we rightly understand the legal implications of our justification. The very righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us by the Father, and we’ve been declared righteous by Him.
And once in the family we are forever part of the Body of Christ. God is our Father, and our fellow Christians are our brothers and sisters. It is clear how our salvation, our union with Christ, has profound implications on the way we relate to and treat one another.
“A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
[1] Berkhof, L. (1938). Systematic theology (pp. 448–449). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co.