3. The Formation and Nature of Spiritual Union
Rev I D MacDonald
4. Spiritual union. This phase of the union may be considered as Christ the Bridegroom coming to espouse His bride to Himself, forming the marriage union between them and securing her consent to that union, thus making it mutual. This aspect of union is bound up directly with the application of redemption. God appointed the means of sinners coming to possess the benefits of the redemption purchased by Christ; it was to be through the formation of a spiritual union between them and Christ. The Shorter Catechism teaches this in clear terms: “The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling”. It is only through union with Christ’s Person that His benefits can be possessed and enjoyed.
Boston points out that sinners are not to think that they will partake of the benefits of Christ’s death without coming to be united to Christ Himself.
1The previous part, last month, of this Theological Conference paper dealt with the third phase of union with Christ – that formed when He assumed human nature and worked out a righteousness in that nature.
His benefits cannot be separated from Himself. Thus the sinner comes to partake of the redemption purchased by Christ “as the poor widow drowned in debt, by marrying the rich man, is interested in his substance. It is with Christ Himself that all saving benefits are given (Rom 8:32).”
Since this aspect of spiritual union with Christ is the “crowning aspect” of union with Christ, more detail will be entered into as to its formation, nature, and necessity.
1. The formation of spiritual union. If we take a closer look at the spiritual union itself, it is a mutual union formed by the Holy Spirit on Christ’s side and saving faith on the sinner’s side. Thus the Saviour speaks of it as “ye in Me, and I in you” (Jn 14:20), and speaking of its formation in the soul of a sinner Christ says, “I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with Me”.
(1.) It is formed in regeneration by their effectual calling. Christ is first in the union, “I in you”. In answer to His intercession for one of His elect, the Holy Spirit is sent forth to begin the union between Christ and the sinner. This is like Christ stretching out His hand to take a grip of the sinner, apprehending him. The Spirit does this by calling the sinner effectually so that he comes to be regenerated. The same Spirit that dwells in the exalted Redeemer without measure comes to dwell in a measure in the now-regenerated sinner, joining him to Christ so that he becomes one spirit with Him; as we read in 1 Corinthians 6:17, “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit”.
In the moment of regeneration, Christ Himself can be said to have come into the soul by His Holy Spirit, by virtue of the unity of the Three Persons in the Godhead. And because the Spirit proceeds from, and is sent by, the Son, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit amounts to the same thing as Christ dwelling in the heart of the believer.
The Holy Spirit is therefore the bond of the spiritual union between Christ and His people. This aspect of union with Christ is symbolised in the sacrament of baptism, where the sprinkling of water signifies not only the cleansing away of the filth of sin in regeneration, by the Holy Spirit, but its effect in uniting the sinner to Christ: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death” (Rom 6:3,4). Some divines, such as James Fisher, call this aspect of the formation of spiritual union “union”.
(2.) Saving faith completes the union and makes it mutual. When Christ takes hold of the sinner by the Holy Spirit to initiate the union, the regenerated sinner is then persuaded and enabled to complete the union by stretching out the hand of saving faith to embrace Him. The sinner, first apprehended by Christ, now apprehends Him and His righteousness, and the spiritual union is complete. Scripture describes this aspect of the union in Ephesians 3:17
as Christ dwelling in the heart by faith. Thus saving faith is the second bond of spiritual union between Christ and His people.
(3.) The external call of the gospel is necessary to the formation of this union. It is only where the external call of the gospel reaches the sinner that effectual calling takes place and spiritual union is formed. In the gospel offer, Christ is held forth as the Bridegroom, to whom sinners must be united if they are to have the blessings of salvation. “Wilt thou go with this man?” is the question pressed upon sinners under the gospel. Wilt thou consent to be in spiritual union with Him?
Where effectual calling takes place under the external call, sinners are brought to say, “I will go”, and are now found asking “the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten” (Jer 50:5). Sinners are not only given an “offer” of Christ, but they are invited, exhorted, and even commanded, to close in with Him in that offer, as we find it for example in Psalm 45: “Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him” (vv 10,11). It is under the power of such offers and invitations that the sinner is persuaded and enabled to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered in the gospel. This term “embracing”, used in The Shorter Catechism, is most suitable to describe the sinner’s act of faith as a closing in with Christ to form a spiritual union with Him.
(4.) On the formation of spiritual union, the union with Adam in the covenant of works is broken. In the formation of spiritual union with Christ, the sinner is, to quote Boston, “cut off from the natural stock, the first Adam, and grafted into the true vine, the Lord Jesus Christ”. This is the same thing as to say that he is taken out from under the covenant of works and placed under the covenant of grace. Boston says that the preaching of the law is the knife which is used by the Holy Spirit to cut off the sinner from his cleaving to the covenant of works.
2. The nature of spiritual union. This spiritual union is, to begin with, to be distinguished from federal union and the union formed when Christ assumed human nature. The same Holy Spirit which dwells in the humanity of Christ comes to reside in them, so that “he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor 6:17). The gracious dispositions formed in the soul of the believer through this union are a reflection of those which are in the heart of the Saviour Himself. All the grace they receive resides originally and radically in Him.
It is also a mystical union because it is formed and maintained by the Holy Spirit in a mysterious and supernatural way and because it is full of
mysteries such as Christ dwelling, living and walking in the believer, and the believer dwelling in Him (Jn 17:23, Gal 2:20, 2 Cor 6:16); and the believer dwelling in God, eating Christ’s flesh, and drinking His blood (1 Jn 4:16, Jn 6:56). Though mystical, it is also a real union. Believers are as really united to Christ, as the members of the body to the head: “For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (Eph 5:30). The vast physical distance between Christ in heaven and His people on earth does not hinder this union. The Spirit, who is the bond of the union, is omnipresent, so that believers on earth are as really united to Christ as the saints in glory.
It is also an intimate union. Christ and believers, says Thomas Boston, “are joined as those things that are glued together . . . they are united as the meat with the body, which is incorporated into it”. The intimacy is so great that it is even compared to that highest of all unions, even the union of the persons of the Godhead in the Trinity. Believers are said to be one in the Father and the Son, as the Father is in Christ and Christ in the Father: “That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us” (Jn 17:21). The union is indissoluble; death cannot break it; all the devils in hell cannot break it; God has purposed not to break it, and even the sins of believers cannot break it (Rom 8:38-39). Both soul and body are united to Christ, and even when the soul and body separate at death, neither are separated from Christ. Finally, the union is vital, or living, like that of the branch in the vine. The spiritual life of believers is sustained by the life of Christ, as a well of living water within them springing up to everlasting life.
There are numerous Scriptural illustrations of spiritual union. It is comparable to the marriage union between husband and wife, as it involves mutual love and delight. It is comparable to the union of a building with its foundation or corner stone since all the support and strength of the whole invisible Church is dependent upon Christ, and since individual believers have a union with one another. It is comparable to the union of a tree and its branches (Jn 15:1, Rom 11:16,17), bringing out the living aspect of the union whereby believers continually draw by faith upon the fullness of grace in Christ. Finally, it is comparable to the union between our head and other members of our body (Eph 4:15,16) inasmuch as all who are united to Christ receive their spiritual growth and increase of grace from Christ their Head for their respective spheres of usefulness.
It is worth quoting John Owen on this particular illustration: “If a man could be imagined so big and tall as that his feet should stand upon the earth, and his head reach the starry heavens, yet, having but one soul, he is still but one man. As, then, one living soul makes the natural head and members to
be one, one body; so one quickening Spirit, dwelling in Christ and His members, gives them their union, and makes them one Christ, one body.”