Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

by Rankin Wilbourne

New Testament letters associated with the apostle Paul use the phrase in Christ around 165 times.

It is our salvation. Salvation is not mostly a matter of relocation; it is a matter of transformation. It does not consist primarily of ending up in the right place, but being made into the right person.

Union with Christ tells you a new story about who you are. If you are “in Christ,” you too have been given a new identity. God has called you into a new life, rooted in a history that predates you, anchored in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. You discover who you are “in Christ,” and you are given the DNA to prove it, the Holy Spirit. You once were lost, but now you are “found in him” (Phil. 3:9).

As our understanding and appreciation of union with Christ has diminished, so too has our sense of what salvation means. We may know what God has saved us from, but have we lost sight of what God has saved us for?

Union with Christ means the reality of knowing God and living in communion with him doesn’t begin when you die. Eternal life begins in this life when Christ joins his life to yours (John 17:3).

had seen enough of Jesus to spoil my enjoyment of the world but not enough to be content with Jesus alone. And I didn’t know how to move forward.

It’s been said, “The longest journey a man will ever make is the journey from his head to his heart.” This book is about that journey and the unparalleled power of our union with Christ to help us along the way.

“Union with Christ is theological shorthand for the gospel itself.” 13

Our neglect of union with Christ explains the gaps between our faith and our lives. When the work of Christ for us becomes abstracted from the person of Christ within us, is it any wonder there is a chasm between our heads and our hearts or between our beliefs and our experiences? Is it surprising that we feel frustrated and cynical or tossed to and fro?

Everything that was supposed to hit us, even the judgment of God for our sins, hit Jesus. He blazed a path against hostile forces, seen and unseen. He made a way to glory.

To be “in Christ” means that Christ represents his people. Scholars sometimes refer to this under the heading of a “corporate personality,” 3 a leader who represents a people or a group.

In the same way, Christ represents those who place their faith in him. If we are united to Christ, then we are united to him in all that he has done for us.

When we are in Christ, every part of Christ’s life, not only his death, has significance for us. We share in his life and obedience, his death and his resurrection, even his ascension! We participate in another’s victory. All that is his becomes ours. 4

“I have been crucified with Christ.” Notice the verb tense “have been” is present perfect—something that happened in the past with continuing present effect. If you are in Christ, then you are united to him in his death and crucifixion. When he died, you now share in that death.

“It is no longer I who live.” The person I was before I knew Christ is no longer the person that I am. The Christian life is not a self-improvement project. It’s not about reforming the old self. We are talking about a new self.

Faith is how union with Christ becomes operative and powerful in your life. Faith is a God-given gift that allows you to take hold of God’s having taken hold of you. If you are in Christ, this is now the defining truth of who you are. Your life, your story, becomes enfolded by another story—Another’s story. That’s one way to define faith: faith means finding your identity in Christ.

This is another way to picture what it means for you to be in Christ. You are completely safe, hidden in him. He represents you before the Father. He covers you—your sin, your shame, your weakness.

You are alive in him, moving with him through this world, clothed in all his benefits and blessings. You are in Christ.

The only thing that could be better than having Jesus with you, beside you, would be having Jesus within you, wherever you are and wherever you go. And that is what we have, those of us who are united to Christ.

During his earthly life, Jesus’s presence was localized to his physical body. He experienced our frustration of being only in one place at one time. But now that he dwells within his disciples by his Spirit, his ministry—his power

But it is true—Christ Jesus now dwells within his followers. Christ’s power and life enter into our lives to transform us, not only to deal with (atone for) our past, but also now to liberate us with a strength and power and dignity unlike any other.

Christ dwelling in us by his Spirit is a guarantee that we can and will change. We are adopted into God’s family, and not in name only. The Spirit in us now guides and forms us more and more into the family likeness. The same Christ who overcame every temptation and was perfectly obedient—that Jesus is in you now.

Christ in us now labors to make us more human, not less, and that’s a good thing. Something has changed, and is changing, in us.

Christ in you makes you more like Spider-Man than Batman. Something alien to you, from outside of you, has entered into you and changed your nature. You now have power that you did not have before. The trouble with this analogy is that Spider-Man became something more than human, while we instead are being restored to our full humanity. We are becoming more like Christ.

You are more and most yourself when united to Christ. He covers you, he shields you, he represents you before the Father. He also fills you, illuminates you, and animates you, making you more yourself and more human than you could ever be on your own.

Being a Christian is not about absorbing certain doctrines about God. Nor is it about being a better or different kind of person. The goal is having a personal, vital, profoundly real relationship with God through Christ by the Holy Spirit. The goal is enjoying communion with God himself. Union with Christ is not an idea to be understood, but a new reality to be lived, through faith.

To put it another way, the faithfulness of God is not dependent on the strength of your faith.

When I base my Christian life on my Christian experience, I become locked in the labyrinth of my own performance. I am only as sure of God as my current emotions and obedience allow. My eyes are fixed on myself.

The wonder of our union with Christ is not reducible to our experience or understanding of it.

So, as we explore the wonder and mystery of union with Christ together, let us always remember that the Christ we experience is always greater and more marvelous than our experience of him.

Whatever is true of Jesus in God’s eyes is now true of you. That’s union with Christ. Union with Christ means you are in Christ. And Christ himself prays for us to know we are hidden in him—and

You are not striving to attain it. You are striving to lay hold of what is already yours. You are growing up into it.

Christians are supposed to be set apart by their love for one another and the world, but it’s fair to say that’s not what Christians are known for today (1 John 3:14). 2

In the main, there are two dominant voices on offer today—one we will call the way of extravagant grace, “just believe,” and the other we’ll call the way of radical discipleship, “just obey.”

The prodigal son breaks the rules while the elder brother keeps them all (“I never disobeyed your command,” Luke 15:29), but both are running from the Father to get control of their lives. The two sons represent the two different audiences listening to Jesus’s story: the moral failures gathering around Jesus (“the tax collectors and sinners” of Luke 15:1) and the morally upstanding (“the Pharisees and the scribes” of Luke 15:2), whose very virtue keeps them from seeing how much they too need the grace of God. “So [Jesus] told them [both audiences] this parable” (Luke 15:3) about two different ways of running from God. No matter your story, you can find yourself in this story.

If only we could see how much God desires our good, then we would never choose against God’s will for our lives.

Obey your Lord, because the cost of not following him is in every sense greater than the cost of discipleship that Jesus demands.

Obey Jesus. Come and die.

the gospel of extravagant grace that requires nothing from us and the gospel of radical discipleship that demands everything of us. Which is it: come and rest or come and die?

As we have emphasized, becoming a Christian means more than believing Christ did certain things for you long ago. It means that Christ joins his life to yours in such an intimate and comprehensive way that the prevailing metaphor for this union in the Bible is marriage (Eph. 5:32).

And because of your union with Christ, these songs of “Extravagant Grace” and “Radical Discipleship” can no more be separated in your life than Christ himself can be torn in two. 22 These two melodies meet in harmony in him in whom they have always met.

The problem with either “just believe the gospel … more” or “just obey your Lord … more” is that alone, they leave us focusing on ourselves as the real agent of change.

But union with Christ displaces us from the center of our own lives. It tells us we can discover who God created us to be only through living in vital union with his Son. It tells us the work of Christ for us cannot be separated from the person of Christ in us. Otherwise, we run the risk of loving his benefits more than we love the Benefactor. 23

By living in union with him, we receive what John Calvin calls “a double grace.” By double grace, he means (to use the Bible’s own words) that both justification and sanctification flow out of our union with Christ (1 Cor. 1:30).

The gap doesn’t defeat Paul. But it doesn’t lead him to passivity either. It inspires him to pursue Christ, who has already taken hold of him.

When you feel defeated and ensnared, like you are never going to get over this particular sin, habit, or hang-up; when your enemy accuses you, and your heart tells you to retreat in shame, you can rehearse and remember, “I am in Christ. I am one for whom he died.” The work of Christ sets you free from sin’s penalty. So rather than turning away from God, you can turn toward Christ precisely when you might be tempted to hide from him. You can boldly approach his throne with confidence because you remember you are completely covered by Christ’s righteousness. Only those who believe can obey.

Sandra Richter, in The Epic of Eden, describes what she calls the “dysfunctional closet syndrome,” in which she compares the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, to a closet jam-packed with all kinds of stuff—clothes, shoes, books, games—but so disorganized you don’t know where to put things or how to find things when you need them. So we shut the door and tell ourselves that we’ll sort it all out someday. Sound familiar? 1 I’ve found

Where are you? That may be the best three-word summary of the Bible in the Bible. The whole rest of the book is the unfolding narrative of God’s relentless pursuit to restore humanity, now banished from God’s presence by the presence of our sin, to God’s original intent—unbroken, unhindered communion with him and with one another and with all creation.

So, what is the Bible all about? The Bible is the grand story of God restoring our communion with him. Everything between the opening of Genesis and the end of Revelation is part of God’s plan for how that restoration will take place. God’s purposes have never changed. His original intent is his final intent: that the people of God might dwell in the place of God, enjoying the presence of God—this is the arc of the whole biblical story, from Genesis to Revelation.

Jesus is the one who holds the whole story of the Bible together.