Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

by Rankin Wilbourne

To love Christ means that you love his body, the church.

On the one hand, the gospel is news to be announced.

Yet, at the same time, precisely because Christ is at the center—like a stone dropped into a pond—the effects of his gospel must ripple out to include what we were saved for.

We are Christ’s ambassadors, called to represent his rule and reign in every sphere of creation. “You will be my witnesses,” Jesus says

Union with Christ gives us much-needed breadth to understanding the church’s mission. 13 It says that grace and justice, the cross of Christ and the kingdom of God, can no more be separated than Christ himself can be torn in two.

Union with Christ is about being united to the heart of Christ. Accordingly, we must be both the declaration community and the demonstration community. If Christ cares about both, shouldn’t his church? If we are united to him who is full of both grace and justice, how could we choose just one?

Union with Christ connects you to a history far longer than you could ever trace on a family tree. It stretches from eternity past to eternity future and puts everything in between into a fresh perspective.

When the twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth was asked, “When were you saved?” he famously answered, “It happened one afternoon in AD 34 when Jesus died on the cross.”

Every trial, every suffering, every gift, and every blessing—everything that happens to us takes place within this canvas. In every problem we face or mystery we confront, Christ is the clue who alone can make sense of our lives. “In him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17), and not just for us individually.

only in Christ can all things work together for good (Rom. 8:28) and find not only a resolution but also a joyful ending.

Union with Christ gives you a new perspective, one that enables you to say, “But this I know, Christ is still ruling in the midst of this. And he will use even this terrible thing for his Father’s glory and for the good of those who love him.”

“This is the devil’s greatest trick, convincing people he doesn’t exist.”

The cross of Christ is the victory of God (oh, strange victory!) over all the powers of this world that pretend to be absolute.

It is only because God the Father loved us first, while we were yet his enemies, that he was willing to deliver up his only Son for us

Our communion with God the Father is made possible by the grace of our Lord Jesus, who is our mediator (1 Tim. 2:5) and who never grows tired of us or weary of dispensing his grace.

The Spirit subjectively assures us of what is objectively true.

This is what it means to be saved—to be united to him who is grace and truth, justice and peace.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

On this journey, we walk along the narrow road, taking the hard, uphill way. Yet we do not labor under the threat or suspicion that God is disappointed in us or that we must arrive before he will embrace us. He is near, closer to us than any other relationship we have, closer than we can imagine.

Paul isn’t praying for Christ to be present with you. If you are a Christian, Christ already is. He is praying for you to know of yourself “I am one in whom Christ Jesus dwells.” He is praying for your awareness of your union with Christ. He is praying that you would know what you know—for the gap to be narrowed—until the day when faith becomes sight and we see him, face to face, who has already, all this time, been there beside us.

For while it is beyond our understanding (it “surpasses knowledge,” Paul says), it is not beyond our possessing.