What Is the Christian Religion If You Subtract Our Union with Christ?
Theological Emphasis
Some time ago we sent an email to our church family asking what sort of topics they’d like to hear teaching on, or which parts of Scripture and theology they felt hadn’t been given enough airtime. I’m glad we did so. We were able to identify some prominent pastoral needs across the congregation and plan our teaching program with that in mind. But it can be a mixed blessing to send out such a survey. Not every aspect of Christian theology is equally crucial. And while every verse of the Bible is equally true, not all are equally weighty. So whatever responses people may submit, some things should always be given more emphasis.
But it served to remind me of how many focal points exist in a typical church family. The Christian world is full of options of things to make central to our churches. We are not short of hobbyhorses, special interests, and theological eccentricities, all of which lobby for more and more prominence in our thinking and church life. Because of this, a certain amount of any pastor’s time is spent letting people down gently—disappointing them at a rate they can absorb, as one older pastor friend put it. So it is common for people to want particular theological truths or cultural matters to be put front and center.
One with My Lord
Sam Allberry
Brief, compelling devotionals by Sam Allberry help believers understand what it means to be “in Christ” and how unity with Jesus shapes their daily lives.
All of this can make it difficult, therefore, when we are presented with a theological issue that genuinely is of crucial importance. The doctrine of our union with Christ is a case in point. To say so is not to force into the center something that deserves to be kept at the side. It truly does matter this much.
The simple fact is this: without our union with Christ, Christianity is nothing. We’re not left with a diminished Christianity; we’re left with no Christianity at all. It’s not the difference between original Coke and Diet Coke but between any Coke and no drink at all. This becomes clear when we consider this doctrine’s prominence, importance, and significance.
1. Prominence
Even a cursory glance through the pages of the New Testament reveals a startling truth: its main way of talking about a follower of Jesus is different to ours. Our default term is “Christian” and sometimes “disciple” or “follower of Jesus.” These are all terms we can find in the Bible, but the overwhelming descriptor of what we mean when we talk about being Christians is the phrase “in Christ” and “in him.” Front and center isn’t just our relationship with Jesus but the particular shape that relationship takes. We do indeed follow him and are disciples of him, but more fundamentally we are united to him—so closely that we can be said to be in him (and he in us). Paul can write that “he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1 Cor. 6:17). Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5). Faith in Jesus unites us to him. We are one with him such that we now abide in him and live in him. This relationship is so all-encompassing of our Christian lives that the terminology of being united to Jesus comes up a staggering amount in the New Testament. In contrast, the word “Christian” is found only three times. This alone should make us consider what we might be missing if Scripture’s main way of talking about those who belong to Jesus is different to ours.
2. Importance
It is not just that the language of union with Christ is ubiquitous in the New Testament; it is theologically pivotal too. Consider the following texts:
- 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. (Eph. 1:3)
- Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Cor. 5:17)
- For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)
- For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. (Phil. 3:8–9)
- For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ. (Rom. 12:4–5)
All of us ache for deep friendship and connection which no human relationship can ever fully provide. We have it in Christ.
If Christian theology is an ecosystem, union with Christ is like a vital keystone species; if it is a house, union with Christ is a load-bearing wall. There are no blessings to be received from Jesus without being one with him. No union, no blessings. Not a one. With that union, we have all blessings, missing nothing. Through union with Christ we have justification. Apart from it, the righteousness of God would be forever beyond our reach and hope. But in Christ, what is his can properly become ours, just as in marriage what belongs to one properly belongs to the other.
3. Significance
In addition to its theological importance of union with Christ is its practical and pastoral significance. I can think of no other doctrine that has been such a powerful balm for my soul.
All of us ache for deep friendship and connection which no human relationship can ever fully provide. We have it in Christ. We can enfold ourselves in him. He will never let us down or fail to be enough for us. He will never tire of us or be too preoccupied to notice us. We each have his full attention all of the time. His union with us is how he fulfills the promise, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). All of us make pledges to those near and dear to us to “always be with them.” But we can never truly live up to those words. I can’t be there fully for anyone, however much I mean to or try to. But Christ can be. We need not experience any moment of life apart from his presence. And the more we get to know his goodness, the more that presence means to us.
Sam Allberry is the author of One with My Lord: The Life-Changing Reality of Being in Christ .
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