Jesus Saves! But How? PART 8 Our Union With Christ

The adult Sunday School series on salvation, led by Andrew Grey, continues with part 8 - Our Union With Christ.

This is from Sunday 1st February 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

In adult Sunday school, what are we trying to do? There are areas of Christian learning and growing that are trickier to do, say, in preaching in gathered worship or in a midweek small group Bible study. And really the aim of Sunday school, both for big people like us, but also for our children and our young people, is to go through those areas of learning and discipleship. And at the minute we're going through a doctrine of salvation. So remember where we've been, we've we've headed this series, Jesus Saves, but how? And we thought about our need of a saviour, and then we spent a number of weeks thinking about salvation accomplished. So how is it that Christ, uh, in his life, death, resurrection, ascension, his heavenly rule, how has the Lord Jesus achieved redemption? And we're moving on, in a sense, from here on in to salvation applied, from accomplished to applied. That is, how can a person, a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, benefit from Christ's finished work? So, how is it that what Christ has done can be of any benefit to me or to you? And the big message today, it's a simple and a lovely one. The Christian is in union with Christ, a union that is, among other things, a little bit like a marriage. And you can imagine a marriage between a millionaire and a pauper, uh, whereby the pauper benefits from all that his or her beloved is and has done. So, with that in mind, let me pray, and then we'll get stuck in. Let's pray. Um, Almighty God, Heavenly Father, we bless you that you have blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. We pray that for these few minutes you would teach us and encourage us uh with the Lord Jesus, with his riches, and also your kindness and your power in joining Christian people to him. And we pray in his name. Amen. Amen. Let's think then about um approaching our union with Christ and beginning to wrap our heads and our hearts around it. At one level, it's quite a simple idea, but it's also something worth getting our teeth into, and genuinely we can spend the rest of our Christian lives understanding and then living out of our union with Christ. The key phrase in the Bible which speaks of our being joined to the Lord Jesus is one that's so small and simple, you may have missed it in Christ, in Christ, sometimes with Christ. It's so common in the New Testament, especially in the Apostle Paul's writings. And if you just looked at those opening verses in Ephesians 1, this outpouring of praise in the original language, it's one sentence all the way through, you'll have seen in Christ come again and again. Verse 3, we are blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing. And then he, the Apostle, he enumerates some of those blessings to us. So verse 4, we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Verse 7, we have redemption in Christ through the blood of Jesus. Verse 11, we have an inheritance in Christ. Verse 13, we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in Christ. Look over to chapter 2 and verse 5. We have been made alive together with Christ. And the simple point is this Christ possesses every blessing. They are his, and the Christian receives those blessings because we are in him. In fact, you and I, we are only Christian people because we are in Christ. So God the Father, he joins to the Lord Jesus Christ, those people he intends to save, and what the Saviour does determines our destiny. And he chooses graciously to give all of Christ's blessings to us. And actually, the best of all blessings, it is having fellowship with the triune God. So it's not just that we have Christ in us, uh it's not just us in Christ, it's also Christ in us. And because we have Christ, we also have the Father and the Spirit. And when we go through the Bible, we're given a whole bunch of different illustrations and pictures and analogies to help us understand this union. So just run through these with me. Uh imagine a building site, and we have stones in a building joined together with a cornerstone. So you've got Ephesians open still. Um, look at Ephesians 2 and verse 19. So then, you're no longer strangers and aliens, but you're fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. And then he comes to the building sites, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows. So it's a growing building, a holy building, the saints joined together on the apostles and the prophets, the Lord Jesus Christ being the cornerstone. Another illustration would be the vine and its branches, particularly John 15. You know, Jesus can say, I'm the vine, you're the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So imagining horticulture now. A vine, a fruitful vine, be joined to the vine. Also the head and the various members of the human body. That's another analogy we're given. So if you look over to Ephesians 4 and verse 15, Ephesians 4, 15, rather, speaking the truth in love, we have to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow. We've got a growing body with all of its different parts, joins to the head, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. Another analogy, and this is so important, it's runs through the whole Bible, Adam and the human race. I've listed the key texts there. We've talked about this a fair old bit before. There is a union given by God between Adam and humanity. He is our head. He is our covenant head. We're in union with Adam. That is, he is a type of Christ. And every single person is either in Adam or gloriously transferred to being in Christ. And what the head of that human race, that human family does, determines the destiny and the life of its members. There's also the union between the Father and the Son, God the Father and God the Son. This is astonishing. So Jesus says, In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you. He sort of parallels the relationship between the Father and the Son with the relationship between himself and his people. It's astonishing, isn't it? Maybe the Bible's most pervasive analogy for union with Christ is a husband and wife. See it in so many places, explicitly and implied. I mean, Jesus calls himself the bridegroom. He calls his people the bride. And look over to Ephesians 5 and verse 31. Just look over there, Ephesians 5, 31. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying it refers to Christ and the church. So God gave human marriage to be a window, illustration, mirror, analogy of the amazing, unbreakable, unshakable union between the Lord Jesus and the Church. Now, no single illustration or analogy can on its own do the job. Each of these is like our union with Christ in some way. It's not identical to, can't reduce union with Christ to just one of these pictures, but together the Bible gives them to us to paint a picture in our minds and our hearts of what it is like to be united to our Saviour. Now, let's think about the nature of our union. Just turn over to the second side. Firstly, it is a spiritual union. In the New Testament, the word spiritual refers to that which is of the Holy Spirit. So the Lord Jesus, he is risen, ascended, glorified, he has received the Spirit and He possesses him in a new and particular way, such that he can then be the one who blesses people with the Spirit. And he pours out his Holy Spirit on the church, and it is the Spirit which is the bond of union between Christ and His people. So 1 Corinthians 6, 17. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? It's a spiritual union. It is also a faith union. That is, faith is essential to being united to Christ. Just as we speak of spirit union, we should also speak and think of faith union, gluing us to the Saviour. Ephesians 3, 17, so that Christ may dwell in your heart. How? Through faith. Now we're going to talk more about faith, what that means in a later session. It's the work that God does in us by which he calls us to himself and then enables us to respond to him, to reach out and to receive from the Saviour. It is a mystical union. That's what it says in Ephesians 5.32. We just read when Paul's talking about marriage, but then he actually says he's talking about Christ and the church, and he says this is a mystery. Now, that does not mean it's unintelligible or vague or fluffy. In the Bible, a mystery is something we cannot work out on our own. We rely on revelation from God about it. We would never figure this out if it was left to us. But it is revealed to us. So the mystery is always opened, it's unfolded to the saints. And lastly, our union with Christ is real. Now, why say that? Just because we do not see something with our eyes does not mean it is not real. There is much more to God's universe than meets the eye. Part of that is the Christian's union with Christ. It's a union wrought by the Holy Spirit whom we cannot see. It's a union wrought through faith, which simply trusts what God has promised to us. But this union is real. And we can actually taste and see its effects. But it is as real as if there were a literal umbilical cord joining us to Christ. It's a rather strange thought, isn't it? Robert, I've always been captured by that, though. Robert Raymond used that in his systematic theology. Just imagine an umbilical cord joining every Christian to Christ, reaching from heaven to the believer on earth. It's a rather terrible image in some ways, but as real is the union between a mother and the child she is carrying. So real, life-giving, vital is the Christian's union with Christ. Let's go on. Think about the extent of our union. What does it entail? The Bible would say there are three dimensions to union with Christ. Not three different unions, but one union in which we can distinguish different dimensions. In eternity past. So Ephesians 1 again. Ephesians 1 and verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Now what does that mean? It means that those whom God will save, they are never considered in the mind of God outside of this union with Christ. He chose his people in Christ. So when we trace the story of salvation right back to its fountain, you know, in the purpose and the plans of God, we find union with Christ. It's there for all eternity. More next week on election and predestination. Second, at the cross. So we're not now in eternity past. We're in the events of Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension. And God's chosen people were in Christ when he gave his life as a ransom and when he was raised from the dead. Now, I would like you please to turn back a few pages to Romans, if you would. Romans chapter 6. Romans 6. Let me read a few verses. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin, for one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. It's a wonderful passage, that, isn't it? Being a Christian is not a small thing, is it? We died with Christ. That's what Paul says in verse 8. We died with Christ. So when the Lord Jesus suffered and died on the cross of Calvary, my old self was crucified with Christ. And because the Christian is joined with him in his death, well, so too united with him in his resurrection. It's wonderful. So when Christ was raised, the Christian was with him. So the full fruits of that union are yet to be seen. They won't be seen until the resurrection at the end of the age, but Christians died, Christians were raised with Christ. And this shows us something really wonderful and important about our Saviour. He is both our representative and our substitute. So substitute. So in this union, Christ took my sin and was punished instead of me. So it's really important that, isn't it? So in one respect, I am not with Christ on the cross. He bears my sins. He's my substitute. But he's also my representative. So within this union, in another respect, we were with Jesus as he hung upon the cross. And that really matters. Because what happened to him happens to me. There is a dying and there is a rising. My sinful nature killed off by the cross of Christ, freeing me from the rule of sin. So just summarize where we're at so far. In the mind of God, I'm united to Christ in his election, in his electing purposes. And in the mind of God as the Lord Jesus dies on the cross as the sin bearer. And that's not fictional, that is a real union. I am in Christ. Back in the councils of eternity as the Savior hangs on the cross. But thirdly, and this is really important, it's not until my lifetime and the moment of my conversion that salvation is actually applied to me. And that's what we want us to think about here. In our present experience, salvation is applied to us in Christ. We don't actually become partakers of Christ until redemption is applied to us, until God the Father calls a person into relationship with Christ and joins them to him. So we can say without application, redemption is not redemption. So think about the application of redemption. Somebody becoming a Christian. And forget about whether that's something that they are kind of cognizant of in their experience, or but this is just what happens for whoever it is comes to Christ. Righteousness. So I come to my Saviour with my debt and my bankruptcy, and I give to him my sins and my death and my damnation, and he gives to me righteousness. He imputes, he clothes upon me justification. And we'll think about that in much more detail in a few weeks. So Paul can say, Philippians 3, there is nothing more, nothing better than knowing Christ and gaining Christ. Because he gives to us righteousness through faith. New life. We die and we will rise in Christ. That is, our union with Christ is not broken by death. We believe that Jesus died and rose again. Even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. And the dead in Christ will rise first. We fall asleep in Christ. We will rise in Christ. Think about applying the doctrine of our union with Christ. Just a few sort of headline notes. The Bible takes our union with Christ and with it holds out sanctification or growing in holiness. It's in union with him that we receive the grace to grow in holiness. At any given moment, the Christian is and always will be in union with Christ. And part of that is the daily fight against Satan and sin and the world. And that daily fight to repent to Christ and trust. In him. The doctrine of our union with Christ urges us towards faith in Christ. I hope that's really blindingly obvious. So John Calvin said, so helpfully, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us. It makes sense, doesn't it? There is a treasure. That treasure is in Christ. To be joined to Christ, we must rest upon him and trust in him. And if we do not, then all he has done is useless to us. I think perhaps most of all, the doctrine of our union with Christ draws us towards Christ. That is, it holds up before us and it reminds us that we have an all-sufficient Saviour. We look at him. He's our spouse, he's our head, he's the cornerstone. We look at him. Just on the back of the handouts, I put down a lovely passage from Calvin. I'm just going to read this and then we'll take some time for discussion and questions. He wrote, We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus, and he saves, that it is of him. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in His anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in His dominion. If purity, in His conception, if gentleness, it appears in His birth. For by His birth He was made like us in all respects that He might learn to feel our pain. If we seek redemption, it lies in His passion, if acquittal in His condemnation, if remission of the curse, in His cross, if satisfaction in His sacrifice, if purification in His blood, if reconciliation in His descent into hell, if mortification of the flesh in His tomb, if newness of life in His resurrection, if immortality in the same, if inheritance of the heavenly kingdom in His entrance into heaven, if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings in His kingdom, if untroubled expectation of judgment in the power given to Him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of goods abounds in Him, let us drink our fill from this fountain and from no other. So on the left hand side of every sentence, there is what we need, isn't it? It's what we always need. Maybe today we feel acutely aware of one particular need. Maybe it's something in the fight against sin or the fight for hope against hopelessness. Well, the answer is always on the right hand bit of each sentence, isn't it? I.e., Christ possesses all of those treasures and he delights to pour them out to us. Can I encourage you, maybe turn to a neighbour and just take uh we'll say three or four minutes, share something that's encouraged you, uh, share any questions you've got, and then we'll allow ourselves some time just to ask and try and answer those questions. So please go for it. At the bottom of the third side of the handout, I listed some books. Um, Union with Christ, Sinclair Ferguson, Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray, um, which I'll be going to be using quite a lot for the next few sessions. Um, Matt Evans helpfully pointed out some really helpful mini talks on the Westminster Confession, and I'll I've indicated there where you'll find it. Anyone got any questions they'd like to ask? Questions, puzzles, come on, Vic. That's a great question. This seems very intangible. Life is often full of griefs and problems. I would also want to say life is very tangible. Life is very colourful, and volume is high, isn't it? And this doesn't, this may not seem so colourful or loud. So what do you do to sort of, I guess, you know, dial up something like this? There's there is a I mean there is a a limit to how much we can dial things up. That is to say, we're called to live by faith, not by sight. There is there is an aspect of life under the sun and life even with Christ, this side of heaven, which I think is unavoidably frustrating. We want more than we have. But what then does it mean, I guess, to live a life of faith? How can we ring out of the Lord or receive from him all he wants us to receive? Well, just a few thoughts. Faith comes by hearing, uh, Romans 10. So we all have those wobbles of faith. And you sit up in the middle of the night or whenever it is, and you think, oh, have I fooled myself? I mean, that's not that's not a that's not a faithless thing to say we have wobbles. Um, and we're not powerless in that. Yeah, there are means of grace that God gives us to help us and to help us help one another. So, yes, the the word of God. I mean, it's as simple as uh faith comes by hearing. What can we do to strengthen our faith in things that are intangible? Well, we're in the Bibles and in our Bibles and the Spirit uses that. He gives us each other, the fellowship of the saints, he gives us worship, he also gives us certain things that are tangible. I guess particularly here, I'm thinking of the sacraments. So when, as two weeks ago, someone is baptized, or when, as you know, this morning we share the Lord's Supper, we are kindly given by the Lord physical things. And these are really the only physical things that the Lord gives us, and it's not we're not to sort of go off and invent you know idols or icons or whatever. I mean, therein lies the way to faithlessness and idolatry, but he he knows what we're like, he knows our natures. Uh, we are bodily creatures and we're weak creatures. And he's you know, take communion today, he's given us something we can quite literally get our teeth into and taste and touch and see. And that's something to, I think, make use of and try and understand better. And I guess with just with gathered worship in particular, pray that each of us individually, but all of us corporately, would you know, ring out of that particular means of grace, which I think is so central, to ring out of it all that we possibly can. Um probably more to be said on that. Let's go, uh, Will, then.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Just if I can add to that, I find it really helpful that Jesus' last words were, I am with you to the end of the age. So I know we've heard a lot from Paul's writings, and that voice inside my head goes, Did Paul just make it up? So it's very helpful that Jesus said that stuff about the branch and the vine. So Jesus' own words was, I am with you. And then I think one Peter is really helpful because Peter himself acknowledges that this is going to be a problem. He says, Though you have not seen him, you rejoice. Um, and I think it's quite helpful that Peter saw Jesus come back from the dead. He's convinced, but he knows that people he's writing to haven't seen it, and he goes, Well, even though you've not seen him, you rejoice because of what I'm telling you. So I think the Bible like acknowledges up front that we might find this hard because we haven't experienced it firsthand.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Yeah. We are given wonderful people like um Dowson Thomas, don't we, at the end of John's Gospel? Not as a commendable model, but a very realistic and honest model. Go on, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Yeah, well, funnily enough, I was saying something not a million miles away to um Mark as well when we were chatting, and I think what you both said is super helpful. Um perhaps another thought that I've just shared with Mark was perhaps sometimes I am more influenced by our therapeutic kind of sort of the culture around us, our kind of kind of we want it's your culture wants an experience perhaps more than I suppose it we live in a world that is a world of sort of sight rather than faith. And and I wonder if part as well as thinking, well, easily, you know, we we union with Christ is something we experience by faith, also conscious that the culture we live in perhaps approaches experience in a different way to scripture. Do you know what I mean? Yes, so just it's not just another little piece of the puzzle, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Yeah, that's really helpful. I think in the light of scripture, I think it's helpful to distinguish union with Christ from our communion with him. And I guess what what I mean by that is we have an unshakable union with Christ, you know, through the Spirit and by faith. Our experience of that, if you like, our lived out communion with Christ, it does feel like it goes like that, doesn't it? I guess just acknowledging both of those realities, and you don't you don't want to get completely so stuck down in the subjective that you forget what is always and ever true. But I do think we the Bible does also want us to cultivate our communion with the Lord, you know, be in the means of grace and uh yes, seek to grow our walk with him. And I think over the course of our lives we can expect that, um albeit with plenty of uh bumps along the way. Um we've gone quite a past, so I think we probably ought to uh pause there. Let me pray and then go and collect children if you need to. Um Father, we thank you for uh your grace and mercy to us in our blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus. And we thank you for his kindness and mercy and his power. We pray that today, in all of its parts, in your worship, in the fellowship of the saints, you would use these things to strengthen our communion with him. And we ask that for his name's sake. Amen.