What Riches are Ours through Union with Christ

November 13, 2024 / by Pastor Scott Boerckel

Our salvation in Christ Jesus is such a wondrous salvation. We will spend eternity marveling over it.

Most of us are familiar with some of the questions that our salvation answers, but there is one that I think merits more thoughtfulness than we usually give it.

Some might think that this question might be: Given the depravity of the human heart, why do people accept salvation? The answer, of course, is God’s election. He chose us; we did not choose Him. However, that is not the question I’m thinking about.
Others might think that this question might be: How do people accept salvation? Indeed, this is such an important question that an individual’s eternal destiny hangs on the answer. Here, we see regeneration, conversion, and justification in all their fullness. God imparts new life; we repent and believe in Jesus Christ; and God takes our sin and places it on Christ and takes Christ’s righteousness and imputes it to us. But, once again, that is not the question I’m thinking about.

Are you ready for the question? Here it is: When people receive salvation, what exactly is it that they receive? Isn’t that a great question? Let me answer the question very briefly and then take the rest of my article to explain the short answer:

When we receive salvation, we receive union with Christ.

1. Being united with Christ is the most amazing, most precious, most surprising gift that any of us could ever receive. The scriptures speak plainly about the FACT of our union with Christ when we trust Him as our Savior:

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

John 17:23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

1 Corinthians 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Romans 6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Colossians 2:6-7 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

2. The scriptures give many illustrations to explain the mystery of our union with Christ. Here are some of them:

—We are the building with Christ as the foundation.
Ephesians 2:20-22 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

—We are the bride with Christ as the husband.
Romans 7:1-4 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

—We are living beings with Christ as our food.
John 6:51-56 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

—We are branches with Christ as the vine.
John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

—We are a body with Christ as our head.
Ephesians 1:22-23 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

3. How does the Bible describe our union with Christ?

—Union with Christ is supernatural.
John 14:23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

—Union with Christ is absolutely necessary.
1 John 5:11-12 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

—Union with Christ creates oneness with Christ.
1 Cor. 6:15-17 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

—Union with Christ creates an inseparable union.
Romans 8:38-39 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

—Union with Christ is profoundly mysterious
Ephesians 5:31-32 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

4. What does union with Christ do for us? The believer’s union with Christ is the single most important relationship that we will have for all eternity. It begins at salvation and will continue forever. Union with Christ secures for us a complete identification with Christ.

A. We have been crucified with Christ.
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

B. We have died with Christ.
Colossians 2:20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?

C. We have been buried with Christ.
Romans 6:4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

D. We have been made alive with Christ.
Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.

E. We have been raised up with Christ and seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.
Ephesians 2:6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

F. Our life is hidden with Christ.
Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

G. We will appear with Christ in glory.
Colossians 3:4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Here is a good poem by Timothy Laurence that expresses our union with Christ:

Praise God who’s made me one with Christ, his Son
Well loved, I stand as heaven’s holy one!
I’m called the branch and Jesus is the vine
I’m joined to Christ and all that’s his is mine.

We died from sin, but only he was nailed-
We shared a tomb, but only I had failed-
We share new life that only he could earn-
We share a love that only I must learn.

I bring my debts, but he’s God’s treasury;
I’ve earned God’s wrath, but find his pleasure free:
All loss is lost in countless riches drowned-
I’m heir with Christ, for sinless glory crowned.

You’ve won me Lord! Your coming home is mine-
Our feast draws near – my water soon is wine!
Clothed in your robes and white as snow, your bride
Loves you unseen, but soon she’ll know your side.

As you reflect upon the affairs of this troubled world, do not lose heart, dear Christian. Union with Christ is ours!

Pastor Scott

 

Scott loves being a pastor and teaching God’s Word. Before he was a pastor, he worked as a ceramic engineer (and bonus points for anyone who actually knows what that is). He sometimes uses the training that he received at the University of Illinois (Go Illini!), Grace Theological Seminary, and Jerusalem University College. Scott’s wife, Carol, is an awesome watercolor artist who really knows how to think Christianly about the arts. Scott likes cycling with friends, enjoying his ever growing family, and learning from the community of God’s people at East White Oak.