UNION with CHRIST: Reformation Truths with Michael Reeves

The following teaching video is from the YouTube site, Ligonier Ministries.

“In this lesson, Dr. Reeves will examine a doctrine that is sometimes neglected in discussions about Reformation theology: union with Christ. This doctrine is at the very heart of the gospel. When sinners are joined to Jesus Christ, sharing in His death and resurrection, the vast riches of the gospel become theirs. Examining this crucial article of faith is an invitation to rejoice in a glorious Reformation truth.”

Overview [by this blogger]:

Opening lines of Reeves lecture:  “The grand story of the Bible is a romance, it is a tale about marriage culminating in the marriage supper of the Lamb, the New Jerusalem prepared as a bride adorned for her Husband

It is a tale about The Marriage; about Christ, the Bridegroom; and how He unites Himself with his bride, the church”

[After he explains several concepts, he comes back to the idea of marriage 12 minutes in.]

In closing, he notes that union with Christ changes our identity; that it must be something we contemplate for further understanding because if we forget that Christ is the source of our identity, we will then start defining our Christian life in terms of our performance: successes, failures…  …growing in pride, or experiencing defeat / despair…. [finding our identity in self].

Points, more specific than just highlights [bracketed statements, underscoring and emboldening are mine]:

• Reeves contrasts the Roman Catholic concept of ‘union with Christ’ to that of the reformers
• Medieval theologian Bernard of Clair Vaux 1090-1153 concept of union via his thoughts on Song of Songs; he saw growth in grace as an expansion of confidence involving the following
• We cast ourselves at Christs feet; weep before the Lord who made us; deploring the evil we’ve done; then we reach out for His hand; finally, when we shall have obtained these favors via many prayers and tears, we humbly dare to raise our eyes to His mouth to receive His Kiss
• He who is joined with Him in a holy kiss becomes, through His good pleasure, one spirit with Him
• Via the physicality of Bernard’s language, he expressed his desire for union with Christ
• For Bernard, union was a fluid state; it could vacillate from strong to weak…
• Mainstream Reformers [those who embraced doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, the 5 Solas…] views differed: they saw an important difference between union and communion with Christ
• Communion with Christ, the actual enjoyment of Him, fluctuated, was fluid
• Puritan Richard Sibbs, e.g., believed that union was the foundation of communion
• In reformed thought, union with Christ is an absolutely fixed and stable thing
• It is the solid foundation via which we can know lasting joy in Christ
• This difference stemmed from their strong belief in the centrality of Christ
• Calvin: it is indisputable, no one is loved by God apart from Christ: this is the beloved Son in whom dwells and rests the Father’s love; from Him it then pours itself upon us, just as Paul teaches ‘we receive grace in the Beloved, Ephesians 1:6
• Calvin’s point is that God does not have some quality of love He tries to spread around among the world’s believers… leaving us to think that we have to earn it via our performance…
• NO: God gives all the fullness of His love to His Son, and from Him, that fullness pours down upon us
• The difference: Bernard viewed the Christian life as striving forward in the passionate hope of attaining union with Christ; Calvin saw the Christian life beginning with union with Christ
• The biblical image of the Vine [John 15] was a key image with Calvin
• Christ’s love is the life force feeding the branches
• Apart from Him, we have no life [reread John 15 for more understanding]
• Calvin: as soon as the believer is engrafted in the Vine THROUGH FAITH, he/she has all the life and love He enjoys
• At that time, a believer is made a son of God, an heir of heaven, a partaker in Righteousness, a possessor of life
• AND you obtain, not the opportunity to gain merit, YOU GAIN ALL THE MERITS OF CHRIST
• Via union, they are communicated to you
• [To read a sample of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, of which Michael Reeves is referring, see below the video. I pasted in a section from ‘Book Third’ of 4, of the Institutes. It talks about the blessings of Christ to the one who believes by faith]
• Calvin believed that there is no gospel without union with Christ; this is the design of the gospel, that He might be ours and that we may be engrafted into His body
• Calvin and the reformers believed union with Christ was the radical solution we need, given the radical problem of sin
• Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—
• …in other words, the problem of our sin goes deeper than our individual acts of sin; it goes further back than our birth, to Adam, the fall
• We inherited the status and inclinations of Adam
• We must be born again of Christ and share in His status and inclinations…
• Those who are reborn in Christ and so united to Him can cry with Paul, Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me
• He noted in passing: a unity with Christ in His death and resurrection and cited 1 Timothy 3:16; Romans 4:25, accepted… [10 minute mark of lesson]
• That is how we can be justified [made positionally righteous; deemed righteous in God the Father’s heavenly courtroom…] through this union with Christ
• That idea of justification was quickly attacked by the Roman Catholic Church (RCC)
• He talked in passing about his childhood reservations, and the reservations of N T Wright
• Wright’s argument failed to consider ‘union’ with Christ as facilitating that transfer of righteousness from Christ to the believer – imputation
• Reeves explained the idea of imputation further, via an example of a rich husband’s benefits to his wife – they would become one, he would pay her debts… they share things from each other
• The reformer’s concepts were like a Copernican revolution in theology in that Christ was deemed the center of the universe, not the self, the individual
• In Christianity, we tend to assume it is all about how ‘I am doing’
• The Reformation, instead, placed Christ at the center and replaced ‘fretful anxiety’ based on ‘my own performance’
• Instead of asking, then, ‘How righteous am I?” we can ask, “How righteous is Christ” and smile
• Amid all of our ups and downs, He is still righteous; yesterday, today, forever
• Critics called this a doctrine of comfort; and claimed it provided no motivation to pursue holiness
• Calvin countered with – “wherever righteousness of faith is, there Christ is; where Christ is, there too is the Spirit of Holiness who regenerates the soul to newness of life
• Faith cannot lay hold of Christ for righteousness without the Spirit of Sanctification
• That is, we have not been united to Christ so we can get some other reward: heaven, righteousness, salvation, whatever
• Calvin put it, we do not seek in Christ something other than Christ Himself
• This doctrine of Christ does not permit us to ignore how we live
• Romans 6:4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life 
• In Christ, we receive His righteousness and son ship; His transforming life and Spirit
• He quoted from a sermon of Martin Luther’s Two Kinds of Righteousness regarding the above and quoted the following verse:
• 2 Corinthians 3:18  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord
• The biblical image that most clearly represents the above is that of the Vine and His branches in John 15
• In that passage, Jesus couldn’t have been clearer that union with Christ is a transformative thing
• That is, this union must affect believers via the new heart and Spirit within us
• But it is good for us to ponder our union with Christ, regularly and often; for all to easily, we can forget that Christ has become our identity and begin thinking ‘I am what I do’ and become proud and or despairing because our identity is performance-based

 

 

This message is from Michael Reeves’ 8-part teaching series Reformation Truths. Learn more: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/series…

Ligonier Ministries video-page link: https://www.youtube.com/@LigonierMinistries/videos

BRIEF EXCERPT FROM CALVIN’S INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION:

[Book third has 25 chapters covering such topics as the following: Benefits of Christ made available to us by the Holy Spirit; Faith; Regeneration by faith; Repentance; Bearing the cross; Meditating on the future life; justification by faith; Election…; The last resurrection.

Prior to chapter 1, there is an overview page for the whole of Book Third; each chapter has a list of points covered in that chapter, that is what is pasted in below, you will also be able to read what he says about points 1 & 2.]

[I divided the excerpts into smaller paragraphs for ease of reading]

SECTIONS

1. The Holy Spirit the bond which unites us with Christ. This the result of faith produced by the secret operation of the Holy Spirit. This obvious from Scripture.
2. In Christ the Mediator the gifts of the Holy Spirit are to be seen in all their fullness. To what end. Why the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the Father and the Son.
3. Titles of the Spirit— 1. The Spirit of adoption. 2. An earnest and seal. 3. Water. 4. Life. 5. Oil and unction. 6. Fire. 7. A fountain. 8. The word of God. Use of these titles.
4. Faith being the special work of the Holy Spirit, the power and efficacy of the Holy Spirit usually ascribed to it.
5. We must now see in what way we become possessed of the blessings which God has bestowed on his only begotten Son, not for private use, but to enrich the poor and needy.

And the first thing to be attended to is, that so long as we are without Christ and separated from him, nothing which he suffered and did for the salvation of the human race is of the least benefit to us.

To communicate to us the blessings which he received from the Father, he must become ours and dwell in us. Accordingly, he is called our Head, and the first-born among many brethren, while, on the other hand, we are said to be engrafted into him and clothed with him,

1 all which he possesses being, as I have said, nothing to us until we become one with him. And although it is true that we obtain this by faith, yet since we see that all do not indiscriminately embrace the offer of Christ which is made by the gospel, the very nature of the case teaches us to ascend higher, and inquire into the secret efficacy of the Spirit, to which it is owing that we enjoy Christ and all his blessings.

I have already treated of the eternal essence and divinity of the Spirit (Book 1 c. 13 s. 14, 15); let us at present attend to the special point, that Christ came by water and blood, as the Spirit testifies concerning him, that we might not lose the benefits of the salvation which he has purchased. For as there are said to be three witnesses in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, so there are also three on the earth, namely, water, blood, and Spirit.

It is not without cause that the testimony of the Spirit is twice mentioned, a testimony which is engraved on our hearts by way of seal, and thus seals the cleansing and sacrifice of Christ. For which reason, also, Peter says, that believers are “elect” “through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:2).

By these words he reminds us, that if the shedding of his sacred blood is not to be in vain, our souls must be washed in it by the secret cleansing of the Holy Spirit. For which reason, also, Paul, speaking of cleansing and purification, says, “but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11).

The whole comes to this that the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually binds us to himself. Here we may refer to what was said in the last book concerning his anointing.

2. But in order to have a clearer view of this most important subject we must remember that Christ came provided with the Holy Spirit after a peculiar manner, namely, that he might separate us from the world, and unite us in the hope of an eternal inheritance.

Hence the Spirit is called the Spirit of sanctification, because he quickens and cherishes us, not merely by the general energy which is seen in the human race, as well as other animals, but because he is the seed and root of heavenly life in us.

Accordingly, one of the highest commendations which the prophets give to the kingdom of Christ is, that under it the Spirit would be poured out in richer abundance. One of the most remarkable passages is that of Joel, “It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28). For although the prophet seems to confine the gifts of the Spirit to the office of prophesying, he yet intimates, under a figure, that God will, by the illumination of his Spirit, provide himself with disciples who had previously been altogether ignorant of heavenly doctrine.

Moreover, as it is for the sake of his Son that God bestows the Holy Spirit upon us, and yet has deposited him in all his fullness with the Son, to be the minister and dispenser of his liberality, he is called at one time the Spirit of the Father, at another the Spirit of the Son: “Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom 8:9); and hence he encourages us to hope for complete renovation: “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom 8:11). There is no inconsistency in ascribing the glory of those gifts to the Father, inasmuch as he is the author of them, and, at the same time, ascribing them to Christ, with whom they have been deposited, that he may bestow them on his people.

Hence he invites all the thirsty to come unto him and drink (John 7:37). And Paul teaches, that “unto every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the gift of Christ” (Eph 4:7). And we must remember, that the Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ, not only inasmuch as the eternal Word of God is with the Father united with the Spirit, but also in respect of his office of Mediator; because, had he not been endued with the energy of the Spirit, he had come to us in vain.

In this sense he is called the “last Adam,” and said to have been sent from heaven “a quickening Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45), where Paul contrasts the special life which Christ breathes into his people, that they may be one with him with the animal life which is common even to the reprobate. In like manner, when he prays that believers may have “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,” he at the same time adds, “the communion of the Holy Ghost,” without which no man shall ever taste the paternal favor of God, or the benefits of Christ.

Thus, also, in another passage he says, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us” (Rom5:5).

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion (p. 130). Hendrickson Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[End of point 2; end of excerpt]

TO PURCHASE CALVIN’S BOOK, SEE THE NEXT POST WITH A VIDEO ON CALVIN BY PASTOR MATTHEW EVERHARD, HE PROVIDED NUMEROUS LINKS AND AN EXCELLENT ASSESSMENT OF THE BELIEVER’S BENEFITS IN STUDYING CALVIN.