In 2 Corinthians 5:17, the Apostle Paul said, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. What sets the Christian apart from the world is that he is a new creation, reborn by the working of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, applying the benefits of Jesus’ death on the cross, being made alive in the Savior. The teaching of being born again, the giving of new life, was conveyed by Jesus in the third chapter of John’s Gospel in a beautiful lesson presented to the Pharisee Nicodemus.
The Gospel of John is a great book that everyone would do well to read and make their own—to let it become manna to your minds. If you become masters of this Gospel, you will benefit from training your minds to think biblically—to have the mind of Christ to direct your thoughts—to see this world through the eyes of God.
What I want to discuss is a very important doctrine, a doctrine that is fundamental to your salvation, understanding what it means to identify as a Christian. It is the teaching of our union with God. The word “union” is not found in the Bible, but the teaching of your union with God is taught throughout the Bible and particularly in this teaching of being born again in the newness of spiritual life. So what should you understand about the doctrine of union? First, it is helpful to know what the word means. Union is the action of joining or being joined. Union is taking separate things and changing their relationship with each other so that they become one.
The Union Army at the time of the Civil War was called that because it was the armies of several states that were joined together to form one army. Marriage is the joining of a man and a woman in a holy union so that they become identified in one family. In the Bible, your union with God is the result of the action of the Holy Spirit that moves you from being at enmity with God to one who has been reconciled to God in Jesus Christ.
Salvation is the result of God’s determination to make you one of his chosen children and bring you into the family of God. This is often taught as the doctrine of adoption, whereby God places His name upon you through baptism. But think about how in John 3, Jesus said it was through new birth or being born again that you enter the Kingdom of God. How does God bring you into His family? Through a birth; not a physical birth but a spiritual birth.
Let us consider this idea under a Trinitarian outline. First, we will consider the Father’s Appointment. When we speak of God the Father, we most often understand Him as the person in the Godhead who primarily directed the creation of all things. You might view the Father as the one person of the Godhead most associated with the design or the responsibility for “what” was to be made.
Now bring that idea into how you think about your salvation. God the Father is the primary figure in the design or process of salvation. He is the One who determined who would be saved and how they would be saved. This is called the doctrine of election or God’s choosing who would be saved. In John 6:37, Jesus said, All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
It may be easier for you to understand this if you think about the fact that God is the Almighty or all-powerful One. This is what is meant when we call God sovereign. He does exactly what He has decided to do in the way He chooses to do it, and no one can stop Him. In creation, He wanted to show His love by creating a world where the gift of eternal life highlighted His love and mercy.
In salvation, God the Father determined to gather to Himself a chosen people, a family of believers before He created anything. Before the foundation of the world, He already had decided there would be a church. This church would be his family, and He chose who would be in it. While it is accurate to talk about your adoption, it is also right for the Christian to say God gave spiritual birth to me when He brought me into His family. And that is union, becoming one with God. But He also decided the means to get to this end. What end would that be? In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the first question asks: “What is the chief end of man?” The answer is: “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
The glory of God is the end not only of why God created everything but also of why God was determined to save sinners from eternal destruction. So God the Father set forth a plan of salvation where His only begotten Son would die for the sins of all those He had chosen to be saved, and the Holy Spirit would apply the benefit of spiritual life to those whom the Father had chosen and those for whom the Son had died. Jesus taught this in John 6:44, No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Second, we consider the Son’s Accomplishment. The Accomplishment of your salvation came through the finished work of Jesus in redeeming you or paying the penalty for your sins to purchase a place for you in heaven.
This is taught in John 3 in several places. In John 3:14-15, Jesus said, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. That picture teaches that when you look to Jesus’ death on the cross and have faith that He died for your sins, it is evidence of the gift of eternal life in you.
But this teaching of union is a teaching of union with Christ. The phrase “in Christ” appears 87 times in the New Testament. So while the word “union” does not appear, it is what is meant by the phrase “in Christ.” 1 Corinthians 6:15-17 is an example of this union. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
The imagery of the Lord’s Supper is a picture of your “union” with God. What happens when you eat the bread and drink the wine? Or food in general? It goes in your mouth, you eat it, and it becomes part of you. The Lord’s Supper teaches that in the same way the elements become part of who you are. So spiritually, when you are in Christ, you become one with Him by faith in feasting spiritually upon His body and blood.
Jesus willingly and joyfully took our human nature upon Himself so that He might identify with us, but also so that you might be identified with the people of God. Paul said in Galatians 4:6-7 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Likewise in Romans 8:14-17, he said, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
One of the most comforting verses in the Bible is Romans 8:1 where Paul exclaims, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Third, we consider the Spirit’s Application. Man’s sense of union or connectedness to God was lost when Adam and Eve first sinned. The Heidelberg Catechism explains that by their willful disobedience, Adam deprived himself and all his descendants of those divine gifts (Q&A 9). In other words, all Adam’s descendants inherit a depraved or sinful nature alienated from God.
What divine gifts then were lost? The divine gifts that make up our connectedness to God. What did Adam and Eve do after they sinned? They hid or sought to separate themselves from God.
How do you get this sense of connectedness back? Heidelberg Question 8 says you must be born again by the Spirit of God. The catechism affirms what Jesus taught Nicodemus: You must be born again by the Spirit of God. We all need new life for spiritual restoration. The work of the Holy Spirit is to go to those whom the Father chose and for whom the Son died and bring them into a restored communion with God through being born again. This makes all things new in the believer’s life.
Jesus pointed Nicodemus to that work in John 3:7-8 where Jesus said, Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
How do you know that you are born again by the Holy Spirit? Well, if the Holy Spirit is represented by the wind, you can’t see the wind but you know it is there because you feel it and see the trees moving. Similarly, you don’t see the Holy Spirit, but you can sense the force of the Spirit in your life. He changes you by breathing spiritual life into you, and your life becomes different from those who remain unconverted. This effect of the Holy Spirit is what John 3:18-21 is talking about. The one who receives new life through regeneration believes (v. 18) and he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God (v. 21).
Let us close by looking at Ephesians 1:3-6, which brings this all together. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
As a new year springs upon us, there is a benefit to considering how, through this new birth, we have been granted a new relationship with our God through His Son Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. In this, we remind ourselves that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17).
Rev. Hank Bowen
First Reformed Church
Aberdeen, SD
