Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

by Rankin Wilbourne

Union with Christ is how the Bible becomes a burning bush out of which God speaks. 16

Is the Bible inconsistent? Does the Bible teach an extravagant grace that asks nothing of us, or radical discipleship that demands everything from us? Which is it? We know that’s a false choice. But practically, we often don’t know how to hold these voices together. 17 And so we may tend to focus on one message and skim over the other, or as we saw in the last chapter, we may turn down the volume on one voice as we turn up the volume on another. (We might read the letter of James through the lens of Galatians, for example.) Or, back to where this chapter started, we give up trying to sort it out and push it all back into the closet. And close the door.

Only union with Christ allows us to read James not as a crushing burden but as an uplifting possibility. The letter of James is a litmus test—are you in Christ? If you are, then James becomes encouraging, even beautiful to you. You can persevere under trial (ch. 1), have a living faith (ch. 2), tame your tongue (ch. 3), rest in not knowing what tomorrow will bring (ch. 4), and love the poor (ch. 5), because you are married to Christ. James describes the life that Christ died to enable you to live.

we can read the story of Felicitas, a second-century martyr. Charles Williams (one of the Inklings, a literary discussion group comprised of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, among others) writes in his book on the history of the Holy Spirit in the church: Her name was Felicitas; she was a Carthaginian; she lay in prison; there she bore a child. In her pain she screamed. The jailers asked her how, if she shrieked at that, she expected to endure death by the beasts. She said: “Now I suffer what I suffer; then another will be in me who will suffer for me, as I shall suffer for him.” 11 This sense of another in me, says Williams, “in a sentence defined the Faith.” 12 And so from the pens of the theologians to the cries of the martyrs, we can see that union with the indwelling Christ was the sum and substance of the gospel in the early church.

Martin Luther (1483–1546) also relied on the New Testament imagery of marriage to affirm the reality of the believer’s union with Christ, stating: Faith … unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh (Eph. 5:31–32). And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage … it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. 17 Luther is famous for his formula simul iustus et pecator (“simultaneously righteous and sinner”), but while we remember the formula, we may forget that he grounds it here in union with Christ! The mystery of the marriage union between Christ and the soul is what allows sinful people to truly possess Christ’s righteousness and allows Christ to take upon himself our sin, death, and condemnation. 18

I was also not prepared for how much Calvin would write about union with Christ and the Holy Spirit. Here he is again: We must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us. Therefore, to share in what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us … for, as I have said, all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him … To sum up, the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself. 22

But in our effort to uphold this most important idea of the Reformation—justification by faith alone—is it fair to ask if we’ve lost hold of what was also important: a robust understanding and enjoyment of our union with Christ?

theologian and professor Robert Reymond, in his career-defining work, summarizes the idea: Union with Christ is the fountainhead from which flows the Christian’s every spiritual blessing—repentance and faith, pardon, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification. 32

Owen calls union with Christ “the greatest, most honorable, and glorious of all graces that we are made partakers of.” 33

the center of Jonathan Edwards’s theology is the idea that God’s own glory is the end for which God created the world and all things. Edwards says, “The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God and to God; and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair.” 36 Edwards biographer George Marsden says, “That last sentence encapsulated the central premise of [Edwards’s] entire thought … Perfect goodness, beauty and love radiate from God and draw creatures to ever increasingly share in the Godhead’s joy and delight.” 37 That’s a remarkable statement from one of Edwards’s best readers. But it distills why, for Edwards, God’s glory and human happiness are not two differentiated things. True human happiness cannot be found or experienced apart from God’s glory. “Therefore God’s glory and human flourishing are one and the same.” 38 It is a beautiful dance: our highest joy is found in God’s glory, and God is most glorified in us when we find our highest joy in him. And it is at the cross of Christ that we see God’s glory most clearly because the cross is our best picture of who God is: God providing from within his own life the gift of bringing us back into his life.

So pictures are exactly what the Bible gives us. Union with Christ—what is it? It’s like marriage (Eph. 5). It’s like the relationship of a human body to its head (1 Cor. 12) or stones to a building (1 Pet. 2). Even Jesus uses an extended metaphor of vine and branches to describe our union with him (John 15). The number of metaphors tells us how important this is; the variety tells us how far reaching. But the fact that metaphors must be used at all tells us there is no way to describe or explain union with Christ directly.

In our disenchanted world, the buffered self no longer needs to look beyond itself for meaning. It only needs to look within.

The late Stephen Jay Gould said that purely naturalistic answers to where we came from and why we are here are more than sufficient. “We may yearn for a higher answer,” Gould said, “but none exists. This explanation, though superficially troubling, if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating and exhilarating.” 12

As an odd sort of proof that no amount of scientific or technological advance can eradicate our sense of the supernatural, look at the number of movies and television shows today that contain supernatural or spiritual themes. No sooner does one area of our culture try to convince us nothing exists beyond the visible world than another stream rushes in to fill the void.

What was once seen as the deadliest of sins—pride—is now embraced and cherished as essential to human flourishing: embrace yourself, express yourself, promote yourself.

Illustrations of our self-centeredness abound, but here’s one of my favorites. In 2006, thousands of American college students filled out a survey. They weren’t told what it was, but it was actually the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), a psychological evaluation that asks for responses to statements such as “I am an extraordinary person,” “I am more capable than other people,” “Everybody likes to hear my stories,” and “If I ruled the world it would be a better place.” The NPI has been given to college students for several decades. By looking at the change in responses over time, a recent study shows a 30 percent increase in narcissism over the last thirty years. Even more striking, in the 1950s, 12 percent of teens agreed with the statement “I am an important person.” In the 1980s, just thirty years later, 80 percent of teens agreed with that same statement. 15 By our own reckoning, we live in an increasingly self-centered world.

J. I. Packer compares the Holy Spirit to a floodlight in front of a house. The floodlight exists not to draw attention to itself but to illuminate the house. In the same way, the Holy Spirit’s primary work is to shine light on Jesus and glorify God the Father. 18 This is why Dale Bruner calls him “the shy member of the trinity.” 19 But when this primary focus is lost, union with Christ will be lost as well.

Richard Lovelace says that all too often the Christian’s relationship to the Holy Spirit is “like that between the husband and wife in a bad marriage. They live under the same roof, and the husband makes constant use of his wife’s services, but he fails to communicate with her, recognize her presence and celebrate their relationship with her.”

As we communicate ideas today, simplicity is “in.” We like sound bites that we can possess quickly and digest easily, as opposed to nuance and depth that we must wrestle with at length. So we keep it simple. Give me your two-minute pitch or TED talk in under twenty. Say what you need to say in 140 characters. Better yet, just post a photo.

Even within the church, we seem to have developed an allergy to mystery. We prefer bullet points or fill in the blanks to parables that leave us scratching our heads.

This loss of mystery reveals itself in our pragmatically driven churches. See our tendency to want every sermon to “make it practical,” to give us action steps or things to do. See our prayer lives, too often narrowed to to-do lists for God. See the rise of church shopping, church hopping, worship wars, and other evidences of the language of commerce and ownership invading our spiritual lives.

Christ is not simply at the center of our lives; he is at the center of all creation and holds all things together, visible and invisible (Col. 1:16). He is “before all things” (v. 17), the creator of all things (John 1:3), the sustainer of all things (Heb. 1:3), and the one in whom all history finds its purpose (Eph. 1:10). This is the Christ to whom we are united!

On Pleasure Island, the puppet meets a boy named Lampwick, and together with the other boys on the island, they begin having the time of their lives, with no rules or authority to inhibit them. They don’t realize that the island harbors a terrible curse: the boys who go there become donkeys. That is, by exercising their autonomy, they literally make jackasses of themselves and become slaves. Lampwick turns into a donkey. And when the puppet sprouts ears and a tail, he realizes he’s made another grave mistake and decides it’s time to return home.

And it’s not just fairy tales. Ralph Ellison, author of the classic novel Invisible Man, was once asked, “Would you say that the search for identity is primarily an American theme?” He answered, “It is the American theme.” 1

The main idea of this chapter is simple but revolutionary. Union with Christ gives you a completely new self-understanding found outside of yourself in Christ. Union with Christ gives you a new identity. In fact, that’s one way to define the Christian faith: faith is finding your identity in Christ. 4 Against the prevailing mindset of our day—you are what you make of yourself—union with Christ tells you that you can discover your real self only in relation to the One who made you. You are not, you cannot be, self-made. Union with Christ tells you that you can only understand who you are in communion with God and others.

The other day my three-year-old daughter walked past me, singing, “Don’t let them in, don’t let them see, be the good girl you always have to be.” But it was under her breath, like in a horror film. As she turned to the chorus, her voice grew louder and more assured: It’s time to see what I can do To test the limits and break through! No right, no wrong, no rules for me, I’m free! Let it go! Let it go! 7 Princess Elsa from the film Frozen has captured the modern secular Western mindset perfectly. Autonomy. Authenticity. Individuality. Freedom. If the dominant mindset we are living under today could be summed up, it would coalesce around these themes. David Brooks labels it “the Big Me.” 8 Philosopher Charles Taylor calls it “the culture of authenticity.” 9 Alternately named the iWorld, 10 Expressive Individualism, 11 or the Age of the Selfie, this mindset assumes we each have a true, authentic self hidden within us and the path to human flourishing involves discovering and expressing that true self. We must be free from any external authority or expectations that might constrain who we really are. Because, as Kanye West recently put it, “I’m nothing, if I can’t be me.” 12

Professor Barry Schwartz, in his popular TED talk “The Paradox of Choice,” calls this prizing of individual freedom and choice “the official dogma” of all Western industrial societies. “The official dogma runs like this,” he says. “If we are interested in maximizing the welfare of our citizens, the way to do that is to maximize individual freedom,” because freedom is considered to be good and valuable in and of itself, even essential to being human. 13 These assumptions are woven through the fabric of our society, from our advertising, “Be a rebel, make your own rules” (says J. C. Penney—even J. C. Penney!), to our legal discourse, “The heart of liberty,” our Supreme Court has declared, “is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

It’s empirically true that the incidence of anxiety and depression is higher today than it has ever been. After studying the history of depression, Ehrenberg concludes that the phenomenon is on the rise today because of increased feelings of “inadequacy,” arising from a social context in which “success is attributed to, and expected of, the autonomous individual.”

That’s an unrelenting pressure that no amount of success can relieve because the question is always, “Now, what will you do next?”

Take the film Frozen again for a moment (yes, I’ve seen it a few times). The irony of Princess Elsa’s chart-topping song “Let It Go” is that she is singing about her choice to exercise her power to be free, while (please notice) she is locking herself inside an ice prison of her own making! She sings, “I’m free!” while ensuring that she won’t be. From Frozen to Pinocchio, autonomy can’t break the curse. It only ends up imprisoning you in the labyrinth of your constantly shifting desires. And so the poet W. H. Auden wrote: Each in the cell of himself Is almost convinced of his freedom.

We may co-opt God into our plans, but we don’t want him making plans for us.

As long as your will is set on following Christ, you can rest in the choices you make. You don’t have to be frozen in fear because your life is no longer in your own hands. You can surrender your plans to Christ, who has joined his life to yours.

You no longer work for approval; you work from approval.

American Idol was one of the most popular television shows of all time, and for the contestants, one of the most nerve jangling. A single missed note could cost you the competition, but winning could change the course of your life. At the end of each season, when the competition was over and the winner had been crowned, she took up the microphone and sang one more time. But she was no longer singing to win; she was singing because she had won. It was no longer a contest. She had nothing more to prove or earn. Instead, the chosen and honored performer could sing with all her heart, delighting in her gifts for the benefit of others.

Which boundaries will set us free? Union with Christ tells you that Jesus is the center and circumference of authentic human existence. Jesus is the center—we can’t understand ourselves without understanding who he is and what he has done for us. And Jesus is the circumference—he sets the boundaries of what it means to be human. Your real identity, your real self, is waiting to be found in him.

Union with Christ says God is closer and more intimate than we ever imagined. He’s not a stagehand in the play you are writing and starring in. You are no longer the star of the show. It’s not about you. He displaces you from the center of your life. But this new role means you get to be part of something bigger than your own autobiography. You are invited into God’s story, the biggest and best story of them all.

marriage and adoption to describe how your union with Christ changes your identity. Both of these metaphors include a legal aspect and a relational one.

what turns a legal truth into a living one is living in that new relationship.

Union with Christ gives us a new identity, but to accept it requires leaving behind the life we have always known. Before Orphan Annie could allow herself to be adopted by Daddy Warbucks, she had to first give up hope of her parents coming back for her. In order for us to embrace the joy of “Christ … is your life” (Col. 3:4), we must face the terrifying vulnerability of our true condition—without him we can do nothing.

You can exercise your new identity as one who is united to Christ by reframing the conversation inside your head. The constant voice that narrates your life, that begins speaking to your soul when you wake up each morning, naturally talks in terms of “I”—What do I want to do? What does this mean for me? … I think I need to … I … I … I … But you can practice the truth that Christ has married his life to yours by including him as your constant conversation partner. What should we do? What are you trying to teach me?

If you choose to find your identity in Christ, you will lose nothing of what makes life beautiful and free.

Your destiny is not left for you to carve out or create for yourself, which is only a recipe for depression when you’ve failed, pride when you’ve succeeded, or exhaustion when you see all that’s left to do.

In his groundbreaking book, The Liberating Image, Richard Middleton shows that the term “image of god” was a familiar one in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. But the phrase had a specific meaning: the king was the “image of God” and no one else. The king was thought to be god’s representative on earth. So if you wanted to honor god, or the gods, you had better honor the king, the “image of god.” 6 Moreover, if a king reigned over larger regions than he could visit regularly, he would erect statues, images of himself, to represent his rule and reign to his subjects who could not see him in person. So in the ancient world, when a person heard the phrase “image of god,” that’s what came to mind—the king and his statues spread throughout his empire. 7 Do you see, then, how amazing, even revolutionary, the Bible sounded to those who heard it in this context? To those for whom the king, and only the king, was the “image of god,” to hear Genesis 1:27 say of all men, and women, “In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” must have been astounding. They would hear the Bible saying that every one of you is created to be royalty, walking images of the true God, all over the earth. You. Me. 8 Also in those ancient cultures, the king was often considered to be the sole mediator between the god(s) and the people. He had access. He was the priest. So the early readers would hear Genesis 1 saying not only are you royalty, you are royalty and you are a priest. You w...

George Saunders, a contemporary writer, recently gave a commencement speech that went viral. He asked the graduates of Syracuse University what he called “the million dollar question … What’s our problem?” Saunders said, Here’s what I think. Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian. These are: (1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really); (2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s us and then, out there, all that other junk—dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and (3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure—for you, but not for me). Saunders continued, We don’t really believe these things intellectually … we know better—but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving. 12

The only sculpture Michelangelo ever signed was the Pietà, his statue of Mary holding her crucified son. Installed in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome in 1500, the Pietà remained there, mostly undisturbed, until 1972, when a vandal broke past security and smashed it repeatedly with a hammer. The attack shattered Mary’s left arm and also resulted in severe damage to her nose, veil, and left eye. This treasure of Renaissance art became a marred masterpiece. Over the next year, a team of experts gathered up the shards and slivers of damaged marble and painstakingly pieced them back together. 13 As with the Pietà, an enemy has entered into our world and savagely attacked human beings, leaving us damaged and defaced. The image of God in us has not been completely lost or erased, but it has been marred and disfigured. Our enemy is not only outside of us. There is also an enemy within that threatens to undo us. George Saunders calls it “built-in confusions … somehow Darwinian.” The Bible refers to it by a simpler name: “sin.”

I suppose that was my impression as well, and why I wanted nothing to do with Christianity as a young adult. Then I encountered another masterpiece of medieval art, The Divine Comedy, by the Italian poet Dante. His poem is a classic of world literature. Deep into the story, a couplet caught my eye: Love is the seed in you of every virtue And of all acts deserving punishment. 14 It may not seem like much printed on this page, but those lines changed my life. Everything we do, Dante is saying, the good things or the bad things, every virtue or vice, we do for love. We are lovers. We are creatures of desire. It’s simply a question of where that desire is directed. Dante was the one who showed me that sin was not the breaking of rules so much as my misdirected love. My desire was not the problem, but I desired the wrong things. For Dante, sin is loving the wrong things, or to be more precise, loving the right things in the wrong way. 15

The caricatures of Christianity paint it as pessimistic and life denying. But in fact, Christianity is the true humanism. We are royal masterpieces, yet we are marred. The glorious image of God in us needs to be restored, and it is worth the effort of restoration.

Philosopher Peter Kreeft writes, “We are half-men, he is perfect man. We are inhuman humans, he is perfect humanity. We are alienated from ourselves, he is perfectly himself … He is more us than we are.”

Blaise Pascal once said, “Not only do we only know God through Jesus Christ, but we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ.”

To restore to us our created dignity, God became one of us. He became a man to restore what the first man lost. As the “last Adam,” he came to recover what the first Adam had squandered (1 Cor. 15:45).