Our Union with Christ and All His Benefits

Evangelicals don't talk about our union with Christ. I think that is because it sounds very Catholic. However, it is a completely biblical doctrine, and of great use to the believer. We deprive ourselves by avoiding the subject.

We find the principle described in Scripture in several places, but the best one is Galatians 2:20: "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." By faith, the believer is united with Jesus spiritually, so that all that He is and did becomes ours, and all that we are and did becomes His. This is the basis of the doctrine of double imputation. In the Bible, it is described mystically as becoming His members: "We are members of His body" (Ephesians 5:30; see also I Corinthians 6:15). We hear this and think of "members" in the sense of "members of an organization," such as the PTA. However, that is not at all the meaning of "members" here. Rather, it is an analogy to "members" in the sense of "body parts" (see Romans 12:4-5). We are incorporated mystically into the spiritual body of Christ!

Of what benefit is that union? We think quickly, of course, of the imputation of His righteousness (II Corinthians 5:21), as I mentioned above. That is the basis of our justification, so it is certainly a wondrous benefit! But we receive so much more, as is symbolized by communion. As the bread and wine sustain our physical bodies, we are sustained spiritually by means of our union with Him, receiving all of the grace and other benefits which He purchased for us on the cross. "United to Christ, we receive two classes of benefits - inward and outward; the inward all included under the generic name of 'repentance,' and appertaining to the entire destruction of sin and the complete restoration of the image of God; the outward having reference to all those benefits which affect our relations to God as a Ruler and Judge. Both classes of blessings are equally the promise of the covenant. Both are treasured up in the Lord Jesus Christ. We obtain both by being in Him, and as we are in Him only by faith, faith must be the exclusive condition of the covenant" (James Henley Thornwell, "Theology as a Life in Individuals and in the Church").