Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

by Rankin Wilbourne

Why is remembering that you are “in Christ” so crucial to navigating suffering? Horatio Spafford was a prominent Chicago lawyer and follower of Christ in the mid-1800s. After his four daughters drowned in an Atlantic shipwreck, he wrote the now-famous hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.” When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well with my soul.” My sin—O the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part, but the whole, Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more; Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul! 6 Why, in his grief, does Spafford call to mind his own sin being “nailed to the cross”? In his book Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Timothy Keller asks: What has that got to do with his four little girls who are dead? Everything! Do you know why? When things go wrong, one of the ways you lose your peace is that you think maybe you are being punished. But look at the cross! All the punishment fell on Jesus. [Or] you may think … maybe God doesn’t care. But look at the cross! 7 The only way it can be “well with your soul” in the midst of agonizing personal trauma is if you know and are assured that you are covered “in Christ.” This is why Spafford, as he processed his own grief, calls to mind the complete sufficiency of Christ’s cross to bear the penalty of all his sins. This is how he doesn’t succumb to the torment of thinking he is being punished or co...