Pastor Andrew’s Reflections on Chapter Five and Six
“The Act of Union with Christ” (pp. 33-43)
Let’s rehearse. We have considered so far the Covenant of Redemption, the Basis of Union with Christ, the Nature of Union with Christ, and the Act of Union with Christ. All of these constitute the inward realities of union with Christ. Chapter five brings to us the segway to the more external realities of union with Christ, which are more explicitly developed in chapters six and seven, with chapter six being part of this week’s study.
It is on this segway, chapter five, that I would like to focus this week’s reflection. So let’s consider chapter five and the blessings of union with Christ, which are first internal and then necessarily external.
There are four blessings that are identified in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, which Flavel uses as the foundation for the blessings that are given to those who are in union with Christ.
And because of him [God] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
The first of those blessings is wisdom. John Calvin in his Institutes wrote, “Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves” (Institutes I.1.i). This is a keen observation and one with nearly unlimited practical and spiritual application. We might take a Pauline mode of logical progression and ask a series of questions:
How are we to have the blessings of God without the knowledge of God?
And how are we to have the knowledge of God without God revealing himself to us?
And how are we to receive the revelation of God without first remedying our blindness?
And how are we to remedy our blindness if we do not know we are blind?
As it is written, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).
So let it be shown that true wisdom comes from above. Both sides of wisdom – knowledge of ourselves and knowledge of God – are inextricably joined and are glorious blessings from God.
The second of the blessings set forward in 1 Cor. 1:30 is the blessing of righteousness. This has been mentioned previously but bears repeating. Yuille helpfully points out that righteousness and justification are here joined at the hip. So we ask the question, “What is justification?” As those who hold to the Westminster Standards of doctrine, we are in “luck” (see what I did there?). Question 70 of the Larger Catechism answers this question, “Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners, in which he pardons all their sins, accepts and accounts their persons as righteous in his sight; not for any thing wrought in the, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone.” That’s a lot, so read it again.
Question 71 fills this out a bit more by asking, “How is justification an act of God’s free grace?” and answering, “Although Christ, by his obedience and death, did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice in the behalf of them that are justified; yet inasmuch as God accepts the satisfaction from a surety, which he might have demanded of them, and did provide this surety, his own only Son, imputing his righteousness to them, and requiring nothing of them for their justification but faith, which also is his gift, their justification is to them of free grace.” What a marvel! What a joy! Those who are in union with Christ have as a free grace the righteousness of Christ as their own!
Thirdly, sanctification is a blessing of union with Christ. If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times “If your sanctification is fun then it probably isn’t sanctification.” Sanctification is difficult. It is painful. It is unpleasant to our flesh. It is exhausting. It is restorative. It is good. It is the greatest blessing that does not feel like a blessing.
Put this picture in your mind’s eye. The Merino breed of sheep can produce wool continuously without shedding. There was one particular Merino sheep named Baarack who got lost for somewhere between five and seven years. When he was found, he was carrying some 78 pounds of wool, nearly half his body weight. That wool made it nearly impossible for him to eat, move, or see. If he hadn’t been found and shorn, he certainly would have died.
So is our sin and so is our old fleshly self. It is a natural part of who we are. It grows from us, belongs to us, and will eventually kill us. It is a blessing of union with Christ that the wool is removed from our eyes and our whole person. It is a blessing that, sometimes in big chunks and other times in small, we are able to move and breath and see in the freedom of Christ. The sheep may kick and scream and there may even be a bit of blood when it is shorn, but when the trappings of this earthly life are lifted from it, it will go walking and leaping and praising God just like the lame beggar from Acts 3:8. (Please note that while wool shorn from a sheep has many profitable uses, sin mortified from man does not).
Finally, the fourth blessing of union with Christ is that of redemption. Flavel offers a marvelous perspective on redemption by drawing it in near-synonymous kinship with glorification. That is, since redemption is “buying back” it is also in a sense “returning to how it once was.” And since returning to what we once were means that we are enabled to sinlessly reveal the glory of the image of God, redemption is without any doubt part and parcel with our promised glorification.
In closing, think on these two faithful works, one a well-known hymn and the other a not-as-well-known treatise.
Fanny Crosby, physically blind but seeing clearer than most, penned these words in 1882:
Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it!
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;
Redeemed through His infinite mercy,
His child, and forever, I am.
Redeemed, redeemed,
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;
Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it!
His child, and forever, I am.
I think of my blessed Redeemer,
I think of Him all the day long;
I sing, for I cannot be silent;
His love is the theme of my song.
I know I shall see in His beauty
The King in whose law I delight,
Who lovingly guardeth my footsteps,
And giveth me songs in the night.
In a series of sermons that were intended to culminate in a book or series of books, Jonathan Edwards preached to his congregation on “The History of Redemption,” writing:
And never did there appear such an instance of love to men. Christ’s love to men, especially in going through his last sufferings, and offering up his life and soul under those sufferings, which was his greatest act of love, was far beyond all parallel. There have been very remarkable manifestations of love in some of the saints, as in the apostle Paul, the apostle John, and others; but the love to men that Christ showed when on earth, as much exceeded the love of all other men, as the ocean exceeds a small stream.
And it is to be observed, that all the virtues which appeared in Christ shone brightest in the close of his life, under the trials he met with then. Eminent virtue always shows brightest in the fire. Pure gold shows its purity chiefly in the furnace. It was chiefly under those trials which Christ underwent in the close of his life, that his love to God, his honour of God’s majesty, his regard to the honour of his law, his spirit of obedience, his humility, contempt of the world, his patience, meekness, and spirit of forgiveness towards men, appeared. Indeed every thing that Christ did to work out redemption for us appears mainly in the close of his life. Here mainly is his satisfaction for sin, and here chiefly is his merit of eternal life for sinners, and here chiefly appears the brightness of his example, which he hath set us for imitation.
May the King in whose law you delight guard your footsteps and give you songs in the night.
As ever,
Pastor Andrew