Although we have now completed our study of the steps in the application of redemption, one other subject is so frequently mentioned in Scripture and so wide-ranging in its application to our lives that it deserves a separate treatment here. That is the concept of union with Christ. Every aspect of God’s relationship to believers is in some way connected to our relationship with Christ. From God’s counsels in eternity past before the world was created, to our fellowship with God in heaven in eternity future, and including every aspect of our relationship with God in this life, all has occurred in union with Christ.
We may define union with Christ as follows: Union with Christ is a phrase used to summarize several different relationships between believers and Christ, through which Christians receive every benefit of salvation. These relationships include the fact that we are in Christ, Christ is in us, we are like Christ, and we are with Christ.
As this definition indicates, four different aspects of our union with Christ may be specified from the biblical material. We will look at each of these four in turn:
- We are in Christ.
- Christ is in us.
- We are like Christ.
- We are with Christ.
We Are in Christ
The phrase “in Christ” does not have one single sense, but refers to a variety of relationships, as indicated below.
In God’s Eternal Plan. Ephesians 1:4 tells us that, God chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world.” It was “in Christ” that we were “destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory” (see Ephesians 1:11 – 12). Later he “saved us and called us” because of “his own purpose” and because of the grace which he gave us “in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (2 Timothy 1:9).
Since we did not exist before the foundation of the world, these verses indicate that God, looking into the future and knowing that we would exist, thought of us being in a special relationship with Christ. He did not first choose us and later decide to relate us to Christ. Rather, while choosing us, he at the same time thought about us as belonging to Christ in a special way, as being “in Christ.” Therefore, he thought about us as eventually having the right to share in the blessings of Christ’s work.
During Christ’s Life on Earth. Throughout Christ’s entire life on earth, from the time of his birth to the time of his ascension into heaven, God thought of us as being “in Christ.” That is, whatever Christ did as our representative, God counted it as being something we did, too. Of course, believers were not consciously present in Christ, since most believers did not even exist yet when Christ was on earth. Nor were believers present in Christ in some mysterious, spiritual way (as if, for example, the souls of thousands of believers were somehow present in Christ’s body during his earthly life). Rather, believers were present in Christ only in God’s thoughts. God thought of us as going through everything that Christ went through, because he was our representative.
When Jesus perfectly obeyed God for his whole life, God thought of us as having obeyed, too. “By one man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). So Christ is our source of righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30; Philippians 3:9).
Because God thought of us as being “in” Christ, he also could think of our sins as belonging to Christ: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). These were sins we had not yet committed, but God knew about them in advance, and thought of them as belonging to Christ. It was right that Christ should die for our sins. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24; see also Romans 4:25; 1 Corinthians 15:3; Colossians 2:14; Hebrews 9:28).
But it was not just our sins that God thought of as belonging to Christ: it was we ourselves. When Christ died, God thought of us as having died. Our old self was “crucified with him” (Romans 6:6). “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). “One has died for all; therefore all have died” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
In the same way, God thought of us as having been buried with Christ, raised with him, and taken up to heaven with him in glory. “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).
When Christ returned to heaven, therefore, all the blessings of salvation were earned for us. God thought of these blessings as being rightfully ours, just as if we had earned them ourselves. They were stored up for us in heaven, in God’s mind, actually, and in Christ, our representative, waiting to be applied to us personally (1 Peter 1:3-5; Colossians 3:3 – 4; Ephesians 1:3).
During Our Lives Now. Once we have been born and exist as real people in the world, our union with Christ can no longer be something just in God’s mind. We also must be brought into an actual relationship with Christ through which the benefits of salvation can be applied to our lives by the Holy Spirit. The richness of our present life in Christ can be viewed from four slightly different perspectives:
- We have died and been raised with Christ.
- We have new life in Christ.
- All our actions can be done in Christ.
- All Christians together are one body in Christ.
Dying and Rising with Christ: The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus now have real effects in our lives. “You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12). Here Paul’s references to baptism and faith indicate that our dying and rising with Christ occur in this present life, at the time we become Christians.
Paul sees this present death and resurrection with Christ as a way of describing and explaining the change that the Holy Spirit brings about in our character and personality when we become Christians. It is as if the Holy Spirit reproduces Jesus’ death and resurrection in our lives when we believe in Christ. We become so unresponsive to the pressures, demands and attractions of our previous, sinful way of life, that Paul can say we are “dead” to these influences, because we have died with Christ (Romans 7:6; Galatians 2:20; 5:24; 6:14; Colossians 2:20). On the other hand, we find ourselves wanting to serve God much more, and able to serve him with greater power and success, so much so that Paul says we are “alive” to God, because we have been raised up with Christ: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11; see also 1 Peter 1:3; 2:24). Because we died and rose with Christ, we have power to overcome personal sin more and more (Rom. 6:12 – 14, 19); we have come to “fullness of life” in Christ (Colossians 2:10 – 13); in fact, we have become a “new creation” in him (2 Corinthians 5:17), and should therefore set our minds on things that are above, where Christ is (Colossians 3:1 – 3).
New Life in Christ: These last verses suggest a second perspective on our being “in Christ?’ We can think not only in terms of Christ’s past work of redemption, but also in terms of his present life in heaven, and his continuing possession of all the spiritual resources we need to live the Christian life. Since every spiritual blessing was earned by him and belongs to him, the New Testament can say that these blessings are “in him.” They are available only to those who are “in Christ,” and if we are in Christ, these blessings are ours.
John writes, “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11), and Paul speaks of “the promise of the life which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:1). We read that “in Christ” are “faith and love” (1 Timothy 1:14; 2 Timothy 1:13), “grace” (2 Timothy 2:1), “salvation” (2 Timothy 2:10), “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and God’s “riches in glory” (Philippians 4:19). Paul says that it is because of God’s work that Christians are “in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30), and that “God… has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).
In fact, every stage of the application of redemption is given to us because we are “in Christ.” It is “in Christ” that we are called to salvation (1 Corinthians 7:22), regenerated (Ephesians 1:3; 2:10), and justified (Romans 8:1; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 2:17; Ephesians 1:7; Philippians 3:9; Colossians 1:14). “In Christ” we die (1 Thessalonians 4:16; Revelations 14:13) and “in him” our bodies will be raised up again (1 Corinthians 15:22). These passages suggest that because our lives are inseparably connected to Christ himself, the Holy Spirit gives us all the blessings that Christ has earned.
All Our Actions Can Be Done in Christ: The foregoing changes within our individual lives are accompanied by a dramatic change in the realm in which we live. To become a Christian is to enter the newness of the age to come, and to experience to some degree the new powers of the kingdom of God affecting every part of our lives. To be “in Christ” is to be in that new realm that Christ controls.
This means that every action in our lives can be done “in Christ,” if it is done in the power of his kingdom and in a way that brings honor to him. Paul speaks the truth “in Christ” (Romans 9:1; 2 Corinthians 2:17; 12:19), is proud of his work “in Christ” (Romans 15:17; 1 Corinthians 15:31), reminds the Corinthians of his ways “in Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:17), hopes “in the Lord Jesus” to send Timothy to Philippi (Philippians 2:19), rejoices greatly “in the Lord” (Philippians 4:10), and “in the Lord” commands, beseeches, and exhorts other Christians (1 Thessalonians 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:12; Philemon 8). He says, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
One Body in Christ: We are not simply in Christ as isolated individual persons. Since Christ is the head of the body, which is the church (Ephesians 5:23), all who are in union with Christ are also related to one another in his body. This joining together makes us “one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 10:17; 12:12-27). “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26). The ties of fellowship are so strong that Christians may only marry “in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39). In this body of Christ old hostilities disappear, sinful divisions among people are broken down, and worldly criteria of status no longer apply, for “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
Because we are one body in Christ, entire churches can be “in Christ” (Galatians 1:22; 1 Thessalonians 2:14). And the church universal, the church made up of all true believers, is collectively united to Christ as a husband is united to his wife (Ephesians 5:31-32; 1 Corinthians 6:17). Christ’s purpose is to perfect and cleanse and purify the church, so that it might more completely reflect what he is like and thereby bring glory to him (Ephesians 5:25-27).
Christ Is in Us
Jesus spoke of a second kind of relationship when he said, “He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5). It is not only true that we are in Christ; he is also in us, to give us power to live the Christian life. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). The factor that determines whether someone is a Christian is whether Christ is in him (Romans 8:10; 2 Corinthians 13:5; Revelation 3:20). God’s wise plan, hidden as a mystery for generations, was to save Gentiles as well as Jews. Therefore, Paul can tell his Gentile readers that God’s mystery is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).
It is important to maintain, on the basis of these verses, that there is a real, personal dwelling of Christ in us, and that this does not mean that we merely agree with Christ or that his ideas are in us. Rather, he is in us and remains in us through faith (Ephesians 3:17; 2 Corinthians 13:5). To overlook this truth would be to neglect the great source of spiritual strength that we have within us (1 John 4:4). To remember it destroys our pride, gives us a constant feeling of deep dependence on Christ, and gives us great confidence, not in self, but in Christ working in us (Galatians 2:20; Romans 15:18; Philippians 4:13).
This indwelling of Christ affects our response to those in need. Whatever we do to help a Christian brother or sister, we do to Christ (Matthew 25:40). Keeping Jesus’ commandments is an indication that he is in us, and the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us that Christ is in us (1 John 3:24).
We Are Like Christ
A third aspect of union with Christ is our imitation of him. “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” writes Paul (1 Corinthians 11:1). John reminds us, “He who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). So union with Christ implies that we should imitate Christ. Our lives ought so to reflect what his life was like that we bring honor to him in everything we do (Philippians 1:20).
The New Testament pictures the Christian life as one of striving to imitate Christ in all our actions. “Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you” (Romans 15:7). “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25). “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13). “He laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). Throughout our lives, we are to run the race before us, “looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 13:2). By contrast, disobedience to Christ holds him up in contempt (Hebrews 6:6).
Our imitation of Christ is especially evident in suffering. Christians are called to take suffering patiently, “because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Paul’s goal is to “share his [Christ’s] sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10).
Our suffering is connected with sharing in Christ’s glory when he returns: “we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17). This is probably because it is through suffering and difficulty that God makes us more Christ-like and causes us to grow to maturity in Christ (James 1:2 – 4; Hebrews 5:8-9). Also, since Christ perfectly obeyed his Father even in the face of great suffering, so our obedience, trust, and patience in suffering more fully portray what Christ was like, and so bring more honor to him. It gives us great comfort to know that we are only experiencing what he has already experienced, and that he therefore understands what we are going through, and listens sympathetically to our prayers (Hebrews 2:18; 4:15-16; 12:11). As the outcome of a life of obedience, we are able to share in Christ’s glory: “He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:21).
Our imitation of Christ should not be thought of as a mere mimicking of Jesus’ actions, however. The far deeper purpose is that in imitating him we are becoming more and more like him: when we act like Christ we become like Christ. We grow up to maturity in Christ (Ephesians 4:13, 15) as we are “being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). The final result is that we shall become perfectly like Christ, for God has predestined us “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:49), and “when he appears, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). When this happens, Christ will be fully glorified in us (2 Thessalonians 1:10-12; John 17:10).
Yet in all of this we never lose our individual personhood. We become perfectly like Christ, but we do not become Christ, and we are not absorbed into Christ or lost forever as individuals. Rather, it is we as real individuals who shall still know as we are known (1 Corinthians 13:12); it is we who shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2); it is we who shall worship him, and see his face, and have his name on our foreheads, and reign with him for ever and ever (Revelation 22:3-5).
We Are with Christ
Personal Fellowship with Christ. Another aspect of union with Christ concerns our personal fellowship with him. It makes little difference whether we say that we are with Christ or that Christ is with us, for both phrases represent the same truth. Christ promised, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20), and, “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Once again, since Jesus’ human body ascended to heaven (John 16:7; 17:11; Acts 1:9 – 11), these verses must speak of his divine nature being present with us. Yet it is still a very personal presence, in which we work together with Christ (2 Corinthians 6:1), we know him (Philippians 3:8, 10), we are comforted by him (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17), we are taught by him (Matthew 11:29), and we live our whole lives in his presence (2 Corinthians 2:10; 1 Timothy 5:21; 6:13-14; 2 Timothy 4:1). To become a Christian is to be “called into the fellowship of [God’s] Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9). Yet this fellowship can vary in intensity, since Paul’s benediction on Christians, “The Lord be with you all” (2 Thessalonians 3:16) can only express a hope for still closer fellowship with Christ and a deeper awareness of his presence.
Our fellowship with Christ brings us into fellowship with each other. John writes, “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).
Union with the Father and With the Holy Spirit. This last verse suggests a final aspect of union with Christ. Because we are in union with Christ in these several relationships, we also are brought into union with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. We are in the Father (John 17:21; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 1 John 2:24; 4:15-16; 5:20) and in the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19; 2 Timothy 1:14). The Father is in us (John 14:23) and the Holy Spirit is in us (Romans 8:9, 11), We are like the Father (Matthew 5:44 – 45, 48; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:10; 1 Peter 1:15 – 16) and like the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:4 – 6; Galatians 5:22-23; John 16:13). We have fellowship with the Father (1 John 1:3; Matthew 6:9; 2 Corinthians 6:16-18) and with the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:16; Acts 15:28; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 4:30).
These additional relationships are not blurred into a distinctionless, mystical ecstasy, however. Both now and in eternity we relate to the Father in his distinct role as our heavenly Father, to the Son in his distinct role as our Savior and Lord, and to the Holy Spirit in his distinct role as the Spirit who empowers us and continually applies to us all the benefits of our salvation.