A Believer’s Union with Christ
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” - Galatians 2:20
When I was baptized at the age of 15, I began the journey of a lifetime to become a follower of Christ. The first book in the Bible I began to seriously study was Galatians. In my early stages of studying, God used Galatians 2:20 to give me a great desire to truly be crucified in my flesh to live by faith in Christ. This meant I had to pursue being in one union with Christ. But what exactly does a believer’s union with Christ look like?
Paul compared our union with Christ to that of a husband and wife. How this union works is a “profound mystery” as Paul says in Ephesians 5:32. Though it is a mystery, through the special revelation from God, believers can grasp this concept by a personal experience with their spouse. Millard Erickson describes three distinct characteristics when speaking of our unity with Christ:
Our unity with Christ is judicial in nature. God does not look upon us alone when he judges us before the law. Instead, he sees a believer who is in unity with Christ wherein he looks at both the believer and Christ together–as if they are one–as if the one flesh union of a husband and wife. Erickson made a compelling statement regarding judicial in nature, “All of the assets of each are now mutually possessed (Erickson, 2013, p881).” All of my sins Jesus has taken upon himself, all of his righteousness I have taken upon myself (1 Peter 2:24).
Christ and the believer have a spiritual union that is intact by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” The Holy Spirit is the glue to the union of the believer and Christ; he is who and what creates the oneness in unity. In addition to the Holy Spirit, we must learn to see the believer and Christ in a spiritual sense. Though a believer and Christ have a physical body, there is a deep bond that welds Christ and the spirit of the believer together.
As a believer, our union with Christ is vital. Christ’s life is literally embedded into our inner nature as he imparts spiritual strength to us; multiplies our fruit to be made more him. Paul makes this very claim in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” Jesus suggests this very concept in John 15:4 when (in summary) he states that a branch cannot bear fruit if it does not receive life from the vine. Christ is our lifeline as our flesh lay dead in the grave.
Erickson states on the one unity, “Now since Christ has designed and created our entire nature, including our psyches, it is not surprising that, dwelling within us in some way that we do not fully understand, he is able to affect our very thoughts and feelings (Erickson, 2013, p882).”
Let me put our unity in Christ plainly with an illustration I am going to borrow from a podcast I was listening to on the radio. A husband and wife were out on a date one night when another car crashed into them while driving. The car accident was so bad, both the husband and wife had to be rushed to the ICU. When the wife became conscious, she asked where her husband was and the nurse let her know he was in the room across from her. When the husband became conscious, he requested for his wife’s wellbeing. For days and hours the two were requesting the progress of each other. Soon enough, the nurses decided to put the husband and wife together in one ICU room. When the two were put together, their beds were put close enough to where they could embrace each other's hands. They never let go of one another...the clung to each other. One morning, the nurse came to check on the two and was saddened to give the husband the news that his wife passed away. But the husband was in disbelief and asked why his wife’s heartbeat was still showing a pulse. The nurse checked the wife’s pulse by her neck again and couldn’t find a pulse. However, the nurse realized the husband was still holding his wife’s hand and therefore his pulse ran through his deceased wife’s heart monitor.
When we receive salvation from Christ, our unity with him must be in the same manner as the husband and wife illustrated. We are the wife who is deceased, and Christ who holds us is the husband who gives us life. When God’s Word says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…” he means it literally. Christ was raised from the grave and defeated death so that we could live.
As I sit here in bed beside my husband, I ponder at my one flesh union with him and just can’t help but think how undeserving I am to receive a unity with Christ that is tenfold. I am of one mind, one body, and one soul with my husband; yet, Christ has made a covenant with me to be in one union not just for this lifetime, but for an eternity. Our unity in Christ has been justified through the blood of the Lamb of God, we are one through the Holy Spirit and without him we can have no spiritual vitals ushering us to pursue communion with God. Truly, I am nothing apart from my Yeshua.
It is no wonder why we who believe hear our Shepherd’s voice and know that it is him. He is the very voice that speaks from within to guide us so we can follow him into pursuing holiness. When my flesh says, “Turn around and sleep in anger”, the Word of God guides me to remain face to face and with a still small voice, "Pray for your husband." In the sense of all this, that is essentially what it is like to be in unity with Christ…to be formed in my heart by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, entering within to manifest himself to permeate radical grace and communion with him (Romans 8:10).
CY