The Reality of Union with Jesus Christ

In history there have been only two men who truly mattered, and your relationships to those two men are the only relationships that truly matter to you.

The first man was Adam. Adam mattered because in the providence of God and for the revelation of his glory in Christ Jesus, Adam fell into sin, condemnation, and death. Adam did not stand in the garden of Eden as a private person, but Adam was a federal head who represented the entire human race. Because of that legal connection with Adam, when Adam sinned, the whole human race sinned, is guilty in Adam, and in Adam is worthy of eternal condemnation. To put that bluntly, Adam sinned for you, so that Adam’s sin in the garden is your sin, and Adam’s guilt in the garden is your guilt. A man does not need to sin personally to go to hell, although by his own sin man daily increases his debt. Furthermore, there is an organic connection of the human race in Adam. All humans are born of one blood, and that blood is Adam’s. As a result of man’s guilt in Adam, Adam’s corruption is passed down upon the human race from parent to child like a hereditary disease is passed from parent to child. Thus the whole human race fell in Adam and in Adam became totally depraved. Adam mattered.

The second man who mattered was Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was the purpose for which Adam existed. Adam served Christ and the revelation of God’s grace in Christ Jesus. Adam was not a separate plan of God apart from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was not God’s repair work of a plan that failed because of Adam’s disobedience. Adam fell quickly in order that God might reveal his grace and his one great plan of redemption in Jesus Christ. In Adam all whom he represented became guilty and died. In Christ all whom he represented are declared righteous and shall be made alive. Christ mattered.

The essence of our salvation as totally depraved sinners in Adam is to be cut out of Adam and to be joined with Jesus Christ. United to Jesus Christ, we have communion with the triune God, our Father, and from him we receive our salvation and eternal life.

The necessity of union with Jesus Christ is because all salvation is stored in Jesus Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Jesus Christ was incarnated as the head of his elect people. They were chosen in him, and they are the fullness of him who fills all in all. They stood in the eternal decree of God as a single entity or corporation, and thus Christ came representing his people as the one who is responsible for them and for their sins. By his incarnation, lifelong obedience, and atoning suffering, Christ accomplished salvation for his elect people, so that their salvation is a reality in him.

It must always stand on the forefront of our minds that Jesus Christ accomplished all salvation and that this salvation is present in Christ and is inseparable from his person. He is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. It is entirely proper to say that justification and all the benefits of salvation preceded our union with Jesus Christ. They preceded that union as eternal realities in the counsel of God, where the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world as the head of his elect people. In the counsel of God, Christ and his elect people were a corporation, so that the elect were in Christ in election. In election they were also partakers of his saving work and all its benefits.

The benefits of salvation preceded union with Jesus Christ in the reality of the cross. Christ accomplished the whole will and counsel of God for our salvation. The presentation of scripture is always what God has done and what is a reality in Jesus Christ. The gospel is the worldwide proclamation of what is already true in Jesus Christ. We have been reconciled to God, and God does not impute our trespasses unto us. Christ was delivered on account of our offenses and was raised from the dead because he had accomplished our justification. Reconciliation, justification, forgiveness, and sanctification are not effected by faith, but they are realities that are completely secure in Christ and which he distributes at his pleasure. The benefits of salvation exist wholly and entirely in Christ and that before we were born or heard a syllable of the gospel. Who Christ is and what he has done according to God’s counsel and will are announced through the gospel in the world, and the elect are brought to believe it.

There is, then, no participation in or enjoyment of salvation in Christ apart from communion with his person. The benefits of the covenant of grace and thus of salvation are not like material gifts that can be distributed and then owned and enjoyed apart from the giver of those gifts. This is a very common error that views salvation as a series of gifts that God progressively bestows on his people, who then enjoy those gifts independently of the giver. Thus God’s people exist apart from Christ as saved sinners, as entities that Christ has created outside himself. The gifts of salvation and the benefits of the covenant of grace never exist independently of Christ’s person. In order to participate in the salvation of Christ, the elect must be united to Jesus Christ. There is no salvation except in communion with Jesus Christ. No one who perished in Adam is saved unless he is engrafted into and made one with Jesus Christ.

This communion is properly called the covenant of grace, which is the relationship of fellowship and friendship between the triune God and his elect people in Jesus Christ. The covenant of grace is the sphere in which fellowship with the triune God is a reality. The covenant of grace is not first an activity of fellowshiping, but the covenant of grace is first the sphere, the place, of God’s fellowship. That sphere where God’s fellowship is found is exclusively Jesus Christ. When the elect are joined with Christ, they enter and enjoy fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who make themselves known to us. Each person of the Trinity promises to the elect their salvation, and the elect are assured that this is true. So the essence of the concept that we call the covenant of grace is also then union with Christ.

Heinrich Heppe gave the Reformed consensus regarding communion with Christ in the covenant when he wrote that

the merit which Christ acquired for himself by his humiliation and obedience is made effective for the elect and for them alone by their appropriation of the benefits and promises of the covenant of grace, namely Christ and his benefits, and by God’s institution in them thereby of real communion in the covenant of Christ.¹

God institutes in his people a real communion in the covenant of Christ. Christ really is synonymous with the covenant. God gave Christ as a covenant for his people. And to be included in Christ is to be included in the covenant of grace. To be excluded from Christ is to be excluded from the covenant of grace. We are included in Christ by election, and election demands and causes our organic union with Christ.

When we speak about union with Christ, we refer to the application of salvation to the elect children of God. There is a distinction that is often made between Christ’s accomplishment of salvation at the cross and the application of salvation to the elect by faith. But we do not need to speak about the application of salvation; we can speak simply of the salvation of God’s children. Salvation from beginning to end in time and eternity is wholly the work of the grace of God. The possession of salvation or the application of salvation to the elect children of God is their salvation. Salvation is of God. Salvation in its application is of God and excludes his elect children’s working and willing as much as their working and willing are excluded from their salvation in election and their salvation at the cross. Whatever working and willing God’s children perform are fruits—the infallible and inevitable fruits—of God’s act to save them.

The proof that the application or possession of salvation is salvation is that God gives to elect children of believers the full and complete possession of their salvation in Christ. Elect children are conceived and born in sin and are subject to all miseries, even to condemnation itself. By nature they are children of wrath who are born into the darkness of the world fallen in sin in Adam and lying under the curse, and that without a single deed on their part. As those children fell in Adam, so are they again received unto grace in Christ. They fell in Adam without a single act on their part, and they are received into grace in Christ without a single work on their part. At their children’s baptisms, godly parents confess that they believe that their elect children are sanctified in Christ. That phrase from the baptism form essentially means that elect infants are united with Christ, and they share in Christ’s righteousness and are partakers of all his riches and gifts.

Therefore, when we speak of the application of salvation to the elect, we do not refer to salvation in a different sense than when we speak of salvation in the eternal decree and salvation at the cross. Salvation is of the Lord.

All of salvation is of the Lord.

Always salvation is of the Lord.

Salvation is only of the Lord.

That salvation consists in the union of the elect with Jesus Christ.

The beginning of this union is not the moment in time when the elect are united with Jesus Christ. The origin and source of their union with Christ in time is their union with Christ in eternity. This cannot be characterized simply as a legal union. Christ and his people were a very real corporation, with Christ the head and each member in his place, in the counsel of God. The whole corporation of Christ and his people was before God from all eternity. Because of that union, the elect were dead with Christ at the cross, buried with Christ in his burial, and raised with Christ in his resurrection. As the cause and root, the elect’s union with Christ in eternity is effectual and bears fruit in their union with Christ in time when they are joined organically with Christ and thus receive all his benefits.

It is particularly this organic union—the gathering of the church and the realization of the corporation of Christ and his elect in time and into everlasting life—that is our present concern.

Heppe also gave the Reformed consensus on what this union with Christ is:

According to its real nature the calling of the elect is thus a grafting into Christ or union with Christ, a real, wholesome, spiritual, and indissoluble union of the person of the elect with the divine-human person of the Redeemer…The implanting of the elect into Christ is thus the beginning of all appropriation of salvation, of all fellowship in salvation and in glory.²

Heppe quoted the theologian Herman Witsius to explain that union with Christ is the basis of all appropriation or application of salvation to the elect:

It should be noted that not only has Christ in accordance with the eternal counsel of the Father promised all these things on behalf of the elect and fulfilled them in accordance with the promise, but also, before Christ’s righteousness is fulfilled to the elect for justification of life, they are so closely united to him by faith that they are one body, 1 Cor. 12:13, and, what is still more indivisible, one spirit with him, 1 Cor. 6:17; and not merely united to him but one with him, and that in such a unity, that in it in a sense there is a certain shadowing forth of that most single unity, in which the divine persons are a single entity among themselves.³

In summary, the essence of the salvation of the elect is that they are engrafted into Jesus Christ, are made members of his body and corporation, and thus are partakers of Christ and all his riches and gifts. This union is the basis of the entire reception of salvation by the elect.

Union with Christ is Faith

When we begin to define the union of the elect with Christ more sharply, then we are led to say that the essence of this union is faith. Faith is the bond through which the elect are united to Christ. Faith is union with Christ. Let me make that sharp and clear. It is not that faith is the fruit of union with Christ. Faith is the union with Christ.

This is being denied today. It is being denied in the interest of an Arminian conception of faith—faith as man’s act, not God’s act. But faith at rock bottom is union and communion with Jesus Christ. That that is being denied in the Protestant Reformed Churches is inexcusable, and it is refusal to hear the instruction of the denomination’s theological father, Herman Hoeksema. He was crystal clear when he wrote the following regarding faith:

Faith is really the bond whereby God’s people are united with Christ, the means whereby God ingrafts them into Christ and makes them one plant with him, so that they stand in living communion with him. All the benefits of salvation have not only been merited by Christ, but also are literally in him. He is their wisdom, righteousness, and complete redemption. From him and out of him they receive grace for grace. We must maintain that faith is God’s own work, the work of his free grace within his people, the spiritual means of God, the spiritual power (habitus), whereby God ingrafts them into Christ through the Holy Spirit, and whereby he causes all the blessings of salvation to flow out of Christ to them. It is the bond to Christ whereby their souls cleave unto him, live out of him, and receive and appropriate all his benefits.⁴

Herman Hoeksema taught that because the Reformed creeds teach that. Thus it is inexcusable for a Reformed theologian to deny that faith is union with Jesus Christ. The creeds are crystal clear on these two facts: first, salvation consists in union with Jesus Christ; second, union with Jesus Christ is faith.

The elect become partakers of Christ only by faith, and faith at its essence is union with Christ.

That this fact—that union with Christ is the bond of faith—has not always been so clearly communicated in Reformed theology and in some cases has been denied outright is inexcusable in light of the teaching of the Reformed creeds. This view of the essence of salvation as union and communion with Jesus Christ and the definition of this union as the bond of faith is creedal.

First, I must prove from the Reformed creeds that the essence of salvation consists in union with Christ.

The Form for the Administration of Baptism teaches that “as they [our children] are without their knowledge partakers of the condemnation in Adam, so are they again received into grace in Christ.” Our children were in Adam and partakers of his condemnation without their works. Our elect children are in Christ and partakers of his grace without their works. And the parents at baptism confess about their children that they “are subject to all miseries, yea to condemnation itself, yet that they are sanctified in Christ, and therefore, as members of his church, ought to be baptized” (Confessions and Church Order, 259, 260). The elect children are sanctified in Christ. They are members of Christ, or are one with Christ, and they receive all that belongs to Christ.

The Form for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper says that Christ by his death

hath taken away the cause of our eternal death and misery, namely, sin, and obtained for us the quickening Spirit, that we by the same (who dwelleth in Christ as in the head, and in us as His members) might have true communion with Him, and be made partakers of all His blessings, of life eternal, righteousness, and glory. (Confessions and Church Order, 271)

Salvation consists in union with Jesus Christ.

The Heidelberg Catechism in question and answer 70 of Lord’s Day 26 similarly speaks about baptism and the meaning of being washed by the blood and Spirit of Christ: “It is…to be renewed by the Holy Ghost, and sanctified to be members of Christ” (Confessions and Church Order, 109). And the Heidelberg Catechism in question and answer 76 of Lord’s Day 28 explains our eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s supper to mean that we

become more and more united to His sacred body by the Holy Ghost, who dwells both in Christ and in us; so that we, though Christ is in heaven and we on earth, are notwithstanding flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone; and that we live and are governed forever by one Spirit. (Confessions and Church Order, 113)

Zacharias Ursinus, commenting on the Christian’s only comfort of belonging to Jesus Christ, wrote,

The substance of [our only] comfort consists in this, that we are ingrafted unto Christ by faith, that through him we are reconciled to, and beloved of God, that thus he may care for and save us eternally.⁵

Fred Klooster wrote the following regarding the importance in the Catechism of the teaching of union with Christ:

An examination of these—that is the passages in the Catechism that teach union with Christ— shows that the teaching of union with Christ is very important within the catechism; it may well be the key to the catechism’s soteriology.⁶

Union with Christ is the key to the Catechism’s soteriology and its explanation of the Christian’s comfort of belonging to Jesus Christ. We not only belong to Christ as his possessions, but we also belong to Christ as members of his body—as those who are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone—who through that union are partakers of Christ and all his riches and gifts. Apart from that union, there is no salvation.

Second, I must prove from the Reformed creeds that the essence of the spiritual union of the elect sinner with Christ is faith—faith understood as a bond. Although the Reformed fathers, one and all, recognized that union with Christ is the essence of salvation, they did not agree always that faith is that bond. This is incredible in light of the clear teaching of the Reformed creeds.

The Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 7 teaches that faith is the bond with Christ.

Q. 20. Are all men then, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ?

A. No, only those who are ingrafted into Him, and receive all His benefits, by a true faith. (Confessions and Church Order, 90)

A literal rendering of the German of answer 20 would read, “No, only those who through true faith are grafted into him and accept all his blessings.” The question and answer clearly identify salvation with union with Christ. And they identify that union with faith. Faith is the instrument of our union with Christ. Faith is that union. The meaning cannot be that we have union, and then we have faith as the fruit of that union. We have union, and the identity of that union is faith.

The Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 20 teaches the same thing:

Q. 53. What dost thou believe concerning the Holy Ghost?

A. First, that He is true and co-eternal God with the Father and the Son; secondly, that He is also given me, to make me, by a true faith, partaker of Christ and all His benefits, that He may comfort me and abide with me forever. (Confessions and Church Order, 103)

Here again is taught that faith is the instrument whereby the elect child of God is a partaker of Christ and all his benefits. Faith is the instrument of the elect’s union with Christ.

The Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 24 teaches the same truth:

Q. 64. But doth not this doctrine [justification by faith alone] make men careless and profane?

A. By no means; for it is impossible that those who are implanted into Christ by a true faith should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness. (Confessions and Church Order, 107)

We are implanted into Christ by a true faith. Faith is our union with Jesus Christ and that by which we become one plant with him.

Article 22 of the Belgic Confession teaches the same truth that faith is the bond with Jesus Christ: “Faith is an instrument that keeps us in communion with Him in all His benefits, which, when become ours, are more than sufficient to acquit us of our sins” (Confessions and Church Order, 50). Faith keeps the elect in communion with Christ. The idea is that by faith the elect have that communion, so that they have an abiding and indissoluble union with Christ and his benefits.

No one can be taken seriously who teaches that the Reformed creeds do not teach that faith is the definition of union with Jesus Christ. Faith is a bond, and by that bond the elect are united to Christ and kept in communion with him and all his blessings.

Union and the Holy Spirit

This union is the work of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ Jesus. By this I mean, first, that the Holy Spirit is the worker or author of the elect’s union with Christ. It is the particular office and work of the Spirit to create communion and union. You might say that it is the Spirit’s favorite work to create communion and union. It is the Spirit’s work because that is who the Spirit is. That this union is the work of the Holy Spirit means, second, that the Holy Ghost is the personal union of the elect with Christ. They are united to Christ by one Spirit and become one Spirit with Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. As his name indicates, the Holy Spirit is the personal bond of fellowship in the Trinity between the Father and the Son. Holy, the first part of the Spirit’s name, indicates that he is the personal consecration or intimate union between the Father and the Son. Spirit, the second part of his name, indicates that he is the divine breath of God. The Holy Spirit’s unique, personal property is to be the intimate union between the Father and the Son. The Father breathes the Spirit to the Son, and the Son receives the Spirit of the Father and breathes the Spirit back to the Father. By the Holy Spirit the Father is in his Son, and the Son is in his Father. This is the lively picture that the Holy Spirit gives of himself and gives of the life of God in the Trinity. In John 1:8 the Spirit lets us peer through the window of scripture into the very life of God in covenant with himself. John wrote by the inspiration of the Spirit, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” The Son is nestled in the lap of his Father. In that picture the Spirit is not left out, but he identifies himself with his favorite word: “in.” The Holy Spirit is personally—as his unique personal property that distinguishes him as God from the Father and the Son—the inness of the Son with his Father and the Father with his Son.

The Spirit as God is active in all God’s works. By his Spirit and Word, God created and upholds and governs the world. The Spirit in the Old Testament brought and distributed gifts to the officebearers, and without him they could not function. The Spirit sent the prophets and was the power of their words. Christ was conceived by the Spirit and did all his work in the power of the Spirit. As the reward for Christ’s work of salvation, the ascended Jesus Christ received the promise of the Spirit, so that Christ is rightly said to become that life-giving and quickening Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit becomes the Spirit of Jesus Christ, then the Son pours out the Spirit, and he dwells with us. It is the Spirit who speaks in the churches, so that we hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The Spirit does not speak of himself, but he speaks of Christ and brings Christ to his people. All believers are members of Christ and partakers of his anointing Spirit and thus are prophets, priests, and kings under Christ by the power of that same Spirit. By the power of the Spirit, they receive the word of the Spirit. All who reject his word reveal that they have not the Spirit at all. By the power of the Spirit, Christ’s people understand spiritual things spiritually, and they receive spontaneously the things of the Spirit. Christ’s people are exalted in the Spirit above all human judgments, and they themselves judge all things. By the Spirit they are sealed against the day of redemption. They are assured of their union with Christ by the Spirit. By that Spirit Christ is in his people, and they are in Christ. It is not inaccurate at all to call the Spirit himself their bond with Jesus Christ. As the Spirit is the personal bond between the Father and the Son, so also the Spirit is the personal bond between Christ and his people. They are one Spirit with Christ. To be in the Spirit is the same as being in Christ, and being in Christ takes place in no other way than by his Spirit.

When God’s people receive the Spirit, they instantaneously and spontaneously receive all the things of the Spirit. God’s people become new, spiritual people formed in Christ. They walk according to the Spirit. They live and act in the Spirit. They set their minds on the things of the Spirit, pray in the Spirit, sing in the Spirit, speak in the Spirit, rejoice in the Spirit, live under the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, and are led by the Spirit. They are assured of their adoption, of the love of God, of peace with God through Jesus Christ, and of their future perfection in glory by the Spirit. The Spirit is Christ in them. And the Spirit is ultimately God in them, for by the Spirit the Father himself takes his abode with his people. And the Spirit is thus the personal realization of God’s covenant with his people. The promise of God in the covenant is simply this: “I will pour out my Spirit. By that Spirit I will give to my people a new heart, write my law on their hearts, and make them partakers of Christ, so that Christ is in them and they are in Christ and they are one Spirit with Christ.” That union of the elect with Christ by his Spirit will be made perfect when corruption gives way to incorruption, when weakness gives way to power, when the natural body gives way to the spiritual body and they are made like unto the glorious body of Christ, and when the whole body of Christ will be made perfect in the Spirit, both body and soul.

That the Spirit himself is our personal bond with Jesus Christ has implications for the doctrine of faith. Many ridicule our doctrine of faith when we say that faith is Christ in us. They mock this and say, “But God does not believe for you. You believe.” We may be said to believe only to emphasize that we are rational, moral creatures upon whom the grace of God works. Faith as such is the work of God. Specifically, faith is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the author of faith. The man is a God-robber who says that faith is not God’s act but man’s act. In the juxtaposition of these two statements is found the pride of man. Faith is God’s act. Faith is God’s work. Faith is God’s gift. And our activities are strictly the fruits of God’s work.

Since faith is our bond with Christ, this means that faith in every aspect is the continual operation of the Spirit of Christ in us. The Spirit is the author of our faith, and he is then also the author of our union with Jesus Christ. Thus also the Spirit is personally responsible to apply Christ and all Christ’s benefits to his people. The Spirit is the Spirit of our regeneration, calling, faith, justification, sanctification, and glorification, for they are all his work. In short, the Spirit is himself personally the gift of Jesus Christ to us to make us members of Christ and to make us like unto Christ himself.

We are simply the Spirit’s workmanship, a new people, created in Christ Jesus by the working of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. There is nothing that we have from Christ and in Christ that we have not received by the working of the Spirit.