John Newton
The union of a believer with Christ is so intimate, so impossible to alter, so rich in privilege, so powerful in influence, that it cannot be fully represented by any description or comparison taken from earthly things. The mind, like our sight, cannot grasp a great object without viewing it on different sides. To help our weakness, the nature of this union is illustrated in Scripture by four comparisons, each throwing additional light on the subject, yet all falling short.
(1.) In our natural state, we are tossed about by the changing winds of opinion and the waves of trouble, which every hour disturb and threaten us on the uncertain sea of human life. But faith, uniting us to Christ, fixes us on a sure foundation, the Rock of Ages, where we stand immovable, though storms and floods unite their force against us.
(2.) By nature we are separated from the divine life, as branches broken off, withered and fruitless. But grace, through faith, unites us to Christ, the living Vine, from whom, as the root of all fulness, a constant supply of sap and influence flows into each of His mystical branches, enabling them to bring forth fruit unto God, and to persevere and abound in doing so.
(3.) By nature we are abominable in the sight of a holy God, and full of enmity and hatred towards each other. By faith, uniting us to Christ, we have fellowship with the Father and the Son, and joint communion among ourselves – even as the members of the same body have each of them union, communion and sympathy with the head, and with their fellow-members.
(4.) In our natural state, we were cast out naked and destitute, without pity and without help (Ezek 16); but faith, by uniting us to Christ, gives us an in-‘Letter to a Christian friend; taken, with editing, from Newton’s Works, vol 1 (1985 reprint).
terest in His righteousness, His riches and His honours. Our Redeemer is our husband; our debts are paid, our settlements secured and our names changed.
Thus the Lord Jesus, in declaring Himself the foundation, root, head and husband of His people, takes in all the ideas we can frame of an intimate, vital and inseparable union. Yet all these fall short of truth, and He has given us one further similitude, of which we can by no means form a proper conception till we shall be brought to see Him as He is in His kingdom: “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).
Well may we say, What hath God wrought! How inviolable is the security, how inestimable the privilege, how inexpressible the happiness of a believer! How greatly is he indebted to grace! He was once afar off, but he is brought nigh to God by the blood of Christ; he was once a child of wrath, but is now an heir of everlasting life. How strong then are his obligations to walk worthy of God, who has called him to His kingdom and glory!