THE UNION AND COMMUNION WITH CHRIST
By J.
C. Philpot
Chapter
Seven from the book Meditations on the Sacred Humanity of Our Blessed Redeemer
In our Meditations on the sacred humanity of
the adorable Redeemer we must never, even in thought, separate his human nature
from his divine. Even when his sacred body lay in the grave, and was thus for a
small space of time severed from his pure and holy soul by death and the tomb,
there was no separation of the two natures, for, as we have before shown, his
human soul, after he had once become incarnate in the womb of the Virgin, never
was parted from his Deity, but went into paradise in indissoluble union with
it. It is a fundamental article of our most holy faith that the human nature of
the Lord Jesus Christ had no existence independent of his divine. In the
Virgin’s womb, in the lowly manger, in the lonely wilderness, on the holy mount
of transfiguration, in the gloomy garden of Gethsemane, in Pilate’s judgment
hall, on the cross, and in the tomb, Jesus was still Immanuel, God with us. And
so ineffably close and intimate is the conjunction of the human nature with the
divine, that the actings of each nature, though separable, cannot and must not
be separated from each other. Thus, the human hands of Jesus broke the seven
loaves and the fishes; but it was God-man who multiplied them so as to feed
therewith four thousand men, besides women and children. #Mt 15:38. The human feet of Jesus walked on the sea of Galilee; but
it was the Son of God who came on the waves to the ship. #Mt 14:33. The human lips of Jesus uttered those words which are
"spirit and life;" #Joh
6:63; but it was the Son of
the living God who spake them. #Joh
6:69. The human hands and
feet of Jesus were nailed to the cross; but the blood shed by them was indeed
divine, for all the virtue and validity of Deity were stamped upon it. #Ac 20:28.
But there is another thought connected
with a believing view of the Lord Jesus Christ as Immanuel, God with us, and
that is, the union of the Church with him in all that he did and suffered for
her. He being the Head, all the members of his mystical body in covenant union
with him shared in his sufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, and
glorification. Thus Paul speaks of himself as crucified with Christ, #Ga 2:20, and of believers generally as dying with Christ; #Ro 6:8 2Ti 2:11; being buried with Christ; #Ro 6:4 Col 2:12; as rising with him, #Col 3:1, and sitting together with him in heavenly places. #Eph 2:6.
Now, as the Blessed Spirit is pleased to
guide us into an experimental knowledge of the Lord Jesus, and to give us a
measure of union and communion with his sacred Majesty, he leads us into a fellowship
with him in his sufferings, death, and resurrection. This is what the apostle
speaks of as typified by the ordinance of baptism as a standing figure and
permanent representation of the baptism of the Holy Ghost: "Know ye not
that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his
death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the
likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his
resurrection." #Ro 6:3-5. The ordinance of baptism is thus
represented as the figure of that higher, more sacred, and spiritual baptism
whereby, in living experience, believers are made one with Christ in his death,
burial, and resurrection. And here his humanity is indeed seen in its special
grace and distinguishing glory, for it is only as "members of his body, of
his flesh, and of his bones," #Eph 5:30, this
being the foundation of the union, that they are baptized into this spiritual
communion with him.
But this part of our subject may demand a
little further opening up. The Church, then, has a mystical, but not less real,
union with Christ, from his having taken the flesh and blood of the children
into union with his own divine Person. By virtue of this union with him, as
members with the head, she participated with him in all he did and suffered for
her sake. But this mystical union all the elect have, even those still
unregenerated or unborn. This union does not, therefore, of itself give
communion, though it is the foundation of it. Another kind of union, then, is
needed, which is peculiar to the regenerated, and which they have in exact
measure to their participation of the Spirit of Christ, for "if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his," that is, by inward or
outward manifestation. By being made partakers, then, of Christ’s Spirit, the
members of his mystical body have a living union with him, for "he that is
joined to the Lord is one spirit." #1Co 6:17. Being
thus baptized by the Blessed Spirit, they are made one spirit with the Lord,
and thus have a fellowship with him in his sufferings, death, and resurrection.
As, then, he died under the curse of the law and the guilt and burden of sin,
and yet by death died unto the law and unto sin, being by death freed from the
curse of the law and the penalty of sin, so the believer dies under the curse
of the law and the burden of guilt and sin in his conscience; and yet by virtue
of his union with Christ as a member of his body, and of communion with him as
baptized by his Spirit, he dies also unto the law and unto sin, no more to
suffer the penalty of the one or to live under the power of the other. But
though thus delivered, yet to the end of his days, as mourning and groaning
under sin, as suffering from the hidings of God’s countenance, as tempted and
assailed by Satan, as hated and persecuted by the world, and often forsaken by
followers and friends, he is crucified with Christ, and has fellowship with him
in his sufferings and death. His sorrows, his trials, his temptations, and his
sufferings, all, as sanctified to his soul’s good, lead him to the cross of his
suffering Lord, to get life from his death, pardon and peace from his atoning
blood, justification from his divine obedience, and resignation to the will of
God from his holy example. Here the world is crucified to him, and he to the
world; #Ga 6:14; here sin is mortified, #Ro 6:6 8:13, and its reigning power dethroned; #Ro 6:12; the old man crucified and put off. #Ro 6:6 Eph 4:22, and the new man put on. Thus, having a
spiritual union with his suffering, dying Lord, the heaven-taught believer
suffers and dies with him, and by this fellowship of his sufferings and death
becomes here below conformed to his suffering image, #Ro 8:17,29 2Ti 2:12, and is made conformable to his death. #Php 3:10.
This is no mere doctrine, an article only
of a sound creed, but a fountain of life to every believer’s soul in proportion
to the measure of the Spirit whereby he is baptized into the death of Jesus.
But for the most part it is only through a long series of afflictions,
bereavements, disappointments, vexations, illnesses, pains of body and mind,
hot furnaces, and deep waters, as sanctified to his soul’s profit by the Holy
Spirit, that the child of God comes into this part of Christian experience.
These things are indeed death to the
flesh, and are meant to be so, that it may be crucified and mortified; and are
killing blows to all schemes of earthly joy, worldly happiness, and temporal
prosperity and pleasure, as well as to all legal hopes and pharisaic
righteousness; but they are, in the Spirit’s hand, the very life of the
believing soul. For "by these things men live, and in all these things is
the life of their spirit." #Isa 38:16.
Crucifixion is a long, painful, lingering death. Nature dies hard, and
struggles, but struggles in vain, against the firm but blessed hand that nails
it to the cross of Christ; but grace, cleaving all the more closely to him who
suffered and bled there, draws life and power from his blood and love. This
experience made the apostle say of himself, "Always bearing about in the
body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made
manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for
Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal
flesh." #2Co 4:10,11. Here was the secret of all his strength,
of all his holiness, and all his happiness. This inward experience of the power
and blessedness of the cross inspired him with a firm and holy determination to
know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and him crucified; and this made him
say, as the grand distinguishing test of the lost and of the saved, "For
the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us
which are saved it is the power of God." #1Cor 1:18.
For this was not Paul’s experience only, a
hidden secret of which he alone was made by grace the happy partaker. All who
are taught by the same Spirit, and have the same union and communion with a
crucified Lord, whether Jew or Greek, know him to be the power of God and the
wisdom of God. #1Co 1:24. We read of believers being "trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified," #Isa 61:3, and this planting is a being planted into Christ so as to
have that union and communion with him which the living branch has with the
vine. The apostle therefore speaks of our being "planted together in the
likeness of his death." #Ro
6:5. What the vine is, the
branches are. Where the vine is, there will the branches be. The vine was once
prostrate on the ground; the branches were prostrate with it. The vine rose
from earth to heaven; the branches rise with it. As then a tree planted into
good soil drinks of its juices, or rather as a grafted scion becomes so
incorporated with the stock as to be one with it, not merely in outward
strength and firmness of union, but so one with it as to draw virtue, sap, and
fruitfulness out of it, so the true believer, being planted into the likeness
of Christ’s death, draws supplies of grace and strength out of his fulness.
Here, then, we see the blessedness of the bleeding,
suffering, dying humanity of our adorable Redeemer. By virtue of his suffering
humanity he has union with a suffering people, and by virtue of being baptized
with his Spirit they have union and communion with a suffering Lord. He died
that they might live, bore the curse of the law that it might not light on
them, and suffered "the just for the unjust" that they having
fellowship with him in his sufferings and death might have every gracious
motive communicated, and the supply of all spiritual strength imparted, to crucify
them to sin, to the world, and to self.
Please direct your comments to Mike
Krall.