“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (Rom 7:21).
God wants us to live holy lives, and we hopefully want to live holy lives, but we are opposed in that by the threefold enemy of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
“The world” isn’t the people around us. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12). DeYoung says, “The world stands for everything that opposes the will of God. In its simplest form, this means ‘the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions’ (1 John 2:16 mg.).” The world is the force that “makes sin look normal and righteousness look strange.”1
The scriptures repeatedly warn us against loving the world (eg, Matt 13:1-12, 1John 2:15). The world is very good at getting its hooks into us and, at best, rendering us useless to the work of the Kingdom. We must beware the “deceitfulness of wealth” (Matt 13:22) because, as the demons know, “prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it,’ while really it is finding its place in him.”2 The best defense against loving money is to give away as much of it as you can. Then give away a little more. As Lewis put it, “the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”3
We also must be on guard against all the other ways it can influence our thinking. By “renewing your mind” (Rom 12:2), by filling it with scripture, we can “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and ... take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2Cor 10:5). We have to choose carefully what we set before our eyes: “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness” (Luke 11:34-35).
The flesh is that evil we carry around with us, the fallen nature that is still a part of us. “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Rom 7:18-19). Even though we’re saved, we’re still plagued by lust, jealousy, anger, and everything else that we were tempted to before. As Wormwood put it, “All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour.”2
We have to make the daily (maybe hourly) decision to not follow those temptations: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:22-24). We put off our old self by, through the power of the Spirit, choosing to follow him instead of the flesh (Rom 8:1-13).
Also, how we deal with the world can affect our flesh. A common metaphor is that there are two dogs fighting within us, one on the side of sin and one righteousness. The one that wins is the one you feed. Flesh that is regularly fed by the world will have a stronger hold us. If we starve the flesh and feed the righteousness that wants to grow within us, the fight will go better for us.
Our third enemy is the devil. Some will scoff, “How can you believe in a literal devil in the 21st Century?!” I believe in the devil because Jesus does (eg, Luke 10:18). So did his apostles who warn us, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1Pet 5:8). We don’t believe he is really the guy in the red suit with the pitch fork. No, Satan “masquerades as an angel of light” (2Cor 11:14).
I doubt most of us have to deal with devils on a regular basis. The world and the flesh cause us enough trouble that demons aren’t required. But those who are serious about holiness and especially serious about doing the Lord’s work will probably find themselves under demonic attack. If you do, your first, second, and third steps should be prayer. The same Spirit who cast out demons in the 1st Century can certainly drive them away today; call on him. And “put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Eph 6:13-18).
Dealing with the world, the flesh, and the devil is hard. It requires that you make up your mind in advance that you will resist them. But that is not possible apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. “In this threefold conflict, there is nothing but defeat and failure in the path of the Christian should he not pursue the way of faith or dependence upon the Spirit of God. The child of God must ‘fight the good fight of the faith.’ His responsibility is not to war with his enemies in his own strength, but rather to maintain the ever triumphant attitude of faith.”4
For more on how the world, the flesh, and the devil attack us, I recommend CS Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.
1 Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in our Holiness
2 CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, emphasis in original
3 CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
5 Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith ... not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:8-10).
Do we have to earn our salvation or not? After the last entry, I worry that it would be easy to come away with the idea that you have to be good enough to be saved. Let’s look at two mistakes it’s far too easy to make.
On the one hand, it’s natural to think that you have to be good enough for God to accept you. Those tests in 1John like “if we keep his commandments” (2:3) or if we do not “continue to sin” (5:18) sure sound like we have to be obedient enough to merit salvation. And this is a strong urge of human nature.
But we are saved by grace through faith “not by works, so that no one can boast.” No one will be able to stand before God and talk of the deeds they did to warrant salvation, and no one will be able to compare themselves to anyone else because we will all appear before the King, not as high-achievers but as pardoned criminals.
For some it’s the fear of not being good enough. For others it’s about pride — they want to contribute to their salvation. Every other religion in the world tries to tell you how to earn salvation (of one kind or another), and it’s not unusual for this to creep into Christian thought — it’s part of our fallen nature. And there are those who try to wear their “good works” like a merit badge for all to see. This is legalism, “the attitude that the law is to be obeyed for its own sake”.1
To these people, Paul says, if righteousness could be gained through works, “Christ died for nothing” (Gal 2:21). Boice says, “We cannot be saved by grace and grace plus works all at the same time.”2 Works cannot save; do not trust in works, because if you are trusting in your good deeds, you are not trusting in Christ.
Don’t worry about not being “good enough.” We shouldn’t be flippant about sin, but we’re never going to be good enough. Tozer says:
“How good it would be if we could learn that God is easy to live with. He remembers our frame and knows that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this He does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is.”3
The other natural error, called antinomianism, takes everything we’ve been taught about grace and how good deeds don’t save us and says, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (Rom 6:1). In other words, should we not worry about sin at all since we’re saved by grace? I like the way the KJV renders Paul’s response: “God forbid!” In Christ we have died to sin; we cannot live in it any longer (Rom 6:2). Even though we are not saved by good works, we are saved for them. We were “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Boice says, “This is stated in such strong language ... that if there are no works, the person involved is not justified.”2 But the good works are the fruit of justification, not the cause of it.
A form of this has become terribly common in recent decades. People believe God wants us to be “nice,” and beyond that he really doesn’t care what we do. “Nice,” of course, is watered down as much as possible: Don’t kill people, don’t steal anything big, give a dollar to the occasional homeless person, and God doesn’t care about your sex life, language, or self-absorption. God, in this view, just wants us to be happy.
God does want us to be happy, but he knows holiness is required for true happiness. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). And the scriptures warn us, “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14).
Good works cannot save. We cannot “clean ourselves up” enough to warrant salvation. God saves us just as we are. But he does not leave us just as we were. He saves us so we can be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29). Don’t fall into either trap. “Instead of living in fear that you might mess up and slip from God’s grasp, get on with loving and serving Him with all of your being, and He will minister assurance to your heart.”4
If you would like to spend some time meditating on the Christian road between legalism and antinomianism, I think Galatians 5 is the best one-stop shop. Just realize that “circumcision” stands in for any kind of works-righteousness.
1 Millard Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine
2 James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith
3 AW Tozer, The Root of the Righteous
4 Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28).
Can you lose your salvation?
It is important that believers feel secure in their salvation. The person who does not feel like their salvation is a settled issue will be looking for the next thing they need to do to keep God happy with them. The person who is sure of their salvation will be able to live a life of holiness out of love and gratitude rather than fear, so we need to get this straight.
Unfortunately, this is another place where there isn’t really a “mere evangelical” view. Though those who believe you can lose your salvation are in the minority, it’s a sizable minority. (Most who believe this think it requires serious sin. It is not lost by your next white lie or lustful thought.) I am going to make the case that you cannot lose your salvation. I believe in the security of the believer for several reasons.
First is Jesus’ words. Jesus said his sheep “shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.” As Tony Evans puts it, “No one includes every ‘someone’ in the universe.”1 Neither the Devil, nor his fallen angels, nor even you can take yourself out of Christ’s hand.
Second is the cross. “If any sin can undo a believer’s salvation ... then Christ’s death did not pay for that sin. But it did, Paul asserts.”2 Either the cross of Christ was sufficient for our sins or it wasn’t. There is no in-between.
Third is the very concept of grace. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith ... not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph 2:8-9). We cannot cease to merit salvation because we never merited in the first place.
Fourth is adoption. “If God in love has made Christians his children ... the family relationship must be an abiding one, lasting forever. Perfect parents do not cast off their children.”3
Finally, the doctrine of election. Whatever else it means, election means that God knows those who are his. “For those God foreknew he also predestined ... And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom 8:29-30). In God’s mind, not only our justification but our ultimate glorification were past tense before we were even born.
I believe this makes a solid case for eternal security. However, as important as this doctrine is, it also carries some danger. There are many who live like the devil believing they will go to heaven because “once saved, always saved.” Maybe they prayed the “sinner’s prayer” at church camp or signed a card in vacation Bible school decades ago. Whatever their reason, they think they’re set and can live however they want. So we need to look at the qualifications for having eternal security.
Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” How do you know if you’re one of Jesus’ sheep? You listen to him and follow him. It is not the following him that saves. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith....” But “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). Saving faith produces works. Jesus’ sheep want to be more like Jesus.
The Lord warned about the person who “hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.” And others will hear but “the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful” (Matt 13:20-22). So not everyone who “responds” to a gospel call truly believes.
So what do we do? “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith” (2Cor 13:5). How do we do that? I think the Lord has given us a wonderful tool for such a test in 1John. It ends with “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (5:13, emphasis added), but before you get there, you have gone through several statements of “We know that we have come to know him if ....” Norm Geisler4 provides a nice summary of John’s tests:
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If we keep his commandments (2:3)
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If we walk in love (2:5)
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If we love the brethren (ie, our fellow believers) (3:14)
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If we love in deed, not only in word (3:19)
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If we have the Holy Spirit within us (3:24)
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If we don’t continue in sin* (5:18)
Assurance of eternal security is for those who have tested themselves and found the evidence of saving faith described in the scriptures. For those who have not tested themselves to claim it is presumptuous (as some accuse all who claim it), but for those who have passed the test, it is not presumption to believe the promises of our Lord and Savior. We can and should trust that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6).
I encourage you to spend some time in 1John contemplating those conditional statements and his final encouragement for believers in 5:13-15.
* This refers to a practice of willful sin, not those times in which we fail, because “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1John 1:9).
1 Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On
2 Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology
3 JI Packer, Knowing God
4 Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Eph 1:3-4).
Election, aka predestination, is a hot topic among Protestant Christians today, so there really is no “mere evangelical” approach, yet it’s too important a topic to ignore, if only because it is such a hot topic. And besides the drama we create, the New Testament uses the language of election too frequently to ignore it.
The basic idea of election is that God chooses who will be saved. There are various ways people have tried to understand that concept and to reconcile it with other truths we see in scripture such as human responsibility. The Reformed view (of which Calvinism is a subset, even though that name is often used by non-adherents to refer to the entire umbrella of the Reformed perspective) says that God literally has a predetermined list of who will be given the ability to believe in Christ. The Arminian view is that God knows who will believe if given the opportunity and has made a list of those people beforehand.
Those are the extremes. In the middle are people who hold mostly to one view but not quite all the way (eg, “four-point Calvinists”) and people who freely mix and mingle the positions. The average modern Baptist is, in my experience, mostly Arminian with a little Calvinism mixed in. Then there are those who stake out alternative positions by applying Molinism (or “middle knowledge” — the idea that God knows what “would happen if ...”).
Finally there are those, like me, who simply refuse to try to reconcile the tension between God’s sovereignty and human will and responsibility. The scriptures teach both, so how they coexist is taken as a mystery — much like the Trinity or the dual natures of Christ — that human beings simply cannot understand, a mystery that we just need to make peace with.
Those are the “camps.” Now I want you to put all of that out of your mind, because it doesn’t matter. How salvation, how election, works is God’s business. We cannot know who is and who is not elect, nor does any understanding of election change the Great Commandments or the Great Commission.
So why does the Bible teach it? As my pastor in college put it, lo these many years ago, “election is about worship.” See how Paul treats it in Ephesians 1:3-6:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
This is one of my favorite passages of the Bible, largely because in the Greek the whole paragraph and the next are one long run-on sentence. Paul, normally so logical and eloquent, is tripping over himself to describe God’s magnificent and amazing love for us and the grace he has shown us. And it starts with this: “He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”
Election is not about figuring out who is going to be saved. Election is not about figuring out how salvation works. Election is about the glorious truth that, before the very foundation of the world, God looked through time and called you by name and said, “I want that one.”
He saw all the ways humans will rebel. He saw all of my sin. He saw all the blackest things I’m capable of. And he wanted me anyway. That is why we worship our electing, sovereign God.
Rather than recommend any particular books, my advice is, if you are inclined to study this topic, to read Calvinists on Calvinism and Arminians on Arminianism. A Calvinist’s explanation of Arminianism (or vice versa) will not be the strongest case for the view. Let each side present what they believe and why.
“You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1Cor 6:11).
Salvation is an event, a process, and a promise. How can it be all three? Whenever you see the word “salvation” in the Bible, ask “saved from what?”
We are saved in a moment from the penalty of our sins (ie, justification). We are saved over time from the power of sin (ie, sanctification). We will be saved from the presence of sin after this life ends (ie, glorification), and our salvation (ie, justification) will be made complete when we stand before the judgement seat of God. Here we will focus on sanctification.
The word “sanctify” is related to the idea of holiness and has the same dual meaning. When we are saved, we are sanctified — that is, we are set apart for God. Like the fine china your grandmother only used on special occasions, we are set aside for God’s special use.
The other meaning though, is to be morally pure, holy — “bearing an actual likeness to God.”1 That is a process.
The process begins when we are saved. We are saved by faith, but saving faith yields repentance. The saved do not want to live like they did before; they want to be like Jesus. A lack of that in a life is a warning sign that should be investigated. Boice says, “One of the early signs of the saving work of God is the life of an individual is dissatisfaction with sin and a striving for holiness. But neither dissatisfaction on the one hand nor striving on the other is the same as holiness itself. Holiness is a goal toward which we move.”2
The process will continue your whole life. Like so many aspects of the Christian Faith, it consists of two truths that must be held in tension.
On the one hand, sanctification is the work of God the Holy Spirit: “We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2Cor 3:18).
On the other hand, sanctification requires effort on our part: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self ... and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:22-24).
These verses do not contradict each other but supplement each other. Sanctification is the work of the human through the power of God in cooperation with the Spirit. “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed ... continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Phil 2:12-13).
Over time, we should become more and more like Jesus. But that process is never going to be complete in this life. And “sanctification does not progress in a steady line from the starting point of conversion until we are home in glory. For the most part, there is steady growth in the Christian life, but there are peaks and valleys.”3 We will still sin. But “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness'' (1John 1:9).
But we cannot just say, “I’m always going to sin, so why bother” because “if we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth” (1John 1:6). Struggling with sin is expected. Not struggling against their sin is a sign that a person has not been regenerated.
Some will object to this, saying that we’re “free from the law” (Rom 8:2), and we are, but that does not excuse us to live any way we please. There is no book of the NT that does not teach that we need to try to live up to God’s expectations. That’s part of our adoption:
“[W]hile it is certainly true that justification frees one forever from the need to keep the law, or try to, as the means of earning life, it is equally true that adoption lays on one the abiding obligation to keep the law, as the means of pleasing one’s newfound Father. Law-keeping is the family likeness of God’s children; Jesus fulfilled all righteousness, and God calls us to do likewise.”4
We are saved from our sins; we are saved for good works: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:10). His desire is that you go “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:16).
The scriptures frequently compare the Christian life to a race — and it’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s long, hard work. “Here is a principle that may encourage you as you work out your salvation and seek to live as the sanctified person you already are. The principle is that rate multiplied by time equals distance. ... You can [increase the rate] by devoting the time and energy and commitment it takes to obey Christ and walk with him in holiness.”5
The scriptures promise the true believer “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6). He is not content to leave us as he found us. He will make us like Jesus. It will be a more pleasant process, however, if you get on board with the program.
“Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2Cor 7:1).
This just barely scratches the surface of this topic. I recommend The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges.
1 Millard Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine
2 James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith
3 RC Sproul, Everyone’s a Theologian
4 JI Packer, Knowing God, emphasis in original
5 Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On
Image via Pixabay
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son ... to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5).
God saved us “so that we might receive adoption.” Yes, he also granted us forgiveness of sins and redeemed us, reconciled us to himself and saved us from hell, but all of that was a means to an end, namely adoption. God’s plan was for us “to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29). JI Packer says, if he had to sum the gospel up in three words, he would say it is “adoption through propitiation.”1 Because we are united with Christ, we too are children of God.
We talk about, even sing about, being children of God, but I’m not sure we always get just how amazing that is. We creatures rebelled against our creator. We didn’t just wander off but took every opportunity to spit in his face. God would have been just to have turned our ancestors to ash; instead he redeemed fallen humans from the consequences of their actions at the cost of his own Son. If a human king had that kind of mercy on rebels, it would be grace for him to make them the lowest slaves in his house. It would beggar the imagination for him to treat them as friends. What king would adopt these traitors as his own children? But that is what God has done.
According to Packer, in the ancient Roman world, adoption was the way in which the childless rich found heirs. They would adopt young men who were respectable and responsible and would carry on the family name well. “In this case, however, God adopts us out of free love not because our character and record show us worthy to bear his name, but despite the fact that they show the very opposite.”1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God'' (1John 3:1)!
But aren’t all human beings children of God? No. Paul, preaching in Athens, quoted a pagan philosopher to say that all are God’s “offspring” (Acts 17:28). But this same Paul emphasizes again and again that only God’s redeemed can call him “Father” (cf, Rom 8:12-17). As Boice says, God is creator of all and sustainer of all, so humans can be said to be God’s “offspring”, but “there are no privileges attached to this more general ‘fatherhood.’”2
What privileges do Christians have? First, we can call God “Father”:
“[Y]ou sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. ... For everything that Christ taught, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Father’ is the Christian name for God.”1
Because we are given the right to call God “Father”, we approach him in prayer not as supplicants but as children (Matt 6:9, Rom 8:15-16). And we are now “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:17) and have been given the Holy Spirit as a “guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Eph 1:13).
Also, he disciplines us (Heb 12:5-11). That may seem like an odd privilege, but heirs are raised with discipline; it is the illegitimate son that the king would spoil. Heirs undergo extra training to forge them into the rulers they will need to be; so it is with God’s adopted children.
We should live out the Christian life in light of this adoption. Like loving children, we should seek to imitate our Father. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). “Follow God’s example ... as dearly loved children” (Eph 5:1). “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (1Pet 1:14-16). We should do this to honor our Father: “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:16).
And we should see our fellow believers as brothers and sisters. “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1John 4:20-21).
So, as Packer says, our Father wants us to “act up to our position as royal children by manifesting the family likeness (conforming to Christ), furthering the family welfare (loving the brethren) and maintaining the family honor (seeking God’s glory). This is his work of sanctification.”1 (A topic we’ll return to.)
If you only read one thing I recommend, make it JI Packer’s writing on adoption, “Sons of God” in Knowing God.
1 JI Packer, Knowing God
2 James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith
“To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27).
What do we gain in Christ? What does it mean to “be saved?”
The immediate benefit of salvation is union with Christ. We are connected to Christ. We draw life from him; he is the vine, and we are the branches (John 15:4-5). Rankin Wilbourne talks about the difference between Batman and Spider-Man. Batman is a superhero because of his magnificent brain and incredible discipline — not to mention his fabulous wealth. Spider-Man is a superhero because he was bitten by a radioactive spider. We’re like Spider-Man: “Something alien to you, from outside of you, has entered into you and changed your nature. You now have power that you did not have before.”1
This union produces “a new spiritual vitality within the human.”2 Again, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2Cor 5:17). We are given a new heart, a new nature that can desire God’s will (Rom 7-8). And “[s]ince we are united to Christ, we must eventually be like him. Since we can never be separated from him, we will always be with him (1 Jn 3:2).”3 Because we are united with him, everything he has is also ours, and we are already seated with him in the heavenly realms (Eph 2:6).
As a result of our union with Christ, we receive forgiveness of sins. Because of what Christ did on the cross, the penalty for our sins can be counted as paid (2Cor 5:21). And this is not a grudging forgiveness. God does not simply say, “I’ll try not to mention this again.” No! “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). It’s always struck me that it doesn’t say “as far as the north is from the south.” David may not have known, but the Holy Spirit did — the north is 12,430 miles from the south. East and west, however, are infinitely far apart. God has removed our sins from us completely and hurled them “into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). Our debt is paid; it will not burden us again. And God no longer sees us as sinners.
Because of this, we are redeemed. Redemption is the terminology of setting slaves free. We have been bought by the blood of the Lamb. We were captives to sin and the dark powers, but God “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:13-14). According to Tony Evans, “we have been redeemed in such a way that nobody can ever enslave us again. It means we are redeemed completely and permanently.”4 We are now free from bondage to sin. It has no power over us that we do not give it.
Finally, because we are united to Christ and the forgiveness that brings, we are reconciled to God. “Reconciliation is that work of God made possible through the death of Christ, by which sinners are brought from hostility toward God into a state of spiritual fellowship and harmony with Him. It is a movement from alienation to restoration.”4 We were in a state of enmity against God, but now “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1). We can lay down our arms; the war can be over. We were going to lose anyway.
Because we have been reconciled to God, good things are in store for us. “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Rom 5:10). Evans says the idea is that “if you put your trust in Christ’s death to save you, now that He’s risen from the dead you haven’t seen anything yet.” Read the rest in Tony’s yelling voice:
“If Christ can save you and reconcile you to God by His blood, wait until you see what He has in store for you now that He is alive forevermore. If He can take you from hell to heaven by dying, what more can He do for you by rising from the dead? If He can forgive you for all your sins and deliver you from judgment by His death, imagine the power that is at work on your behalf now that He lives!”4
Being united to Christ gives us more than we ever could have imagined. The Father’s love for his Son now envelops us. We are not second-class citizens of heaven. We are loved like the Son because we are in him.
Do you approach God like a beggar with your hat in your hand? Do you approach him like an employee asking a volatile boss for a raise? Live like you are in Christ: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb 4:16).
I encourage you to read Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God by Rankin Wilbourne!
1 Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ
2 Millard Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine
3 James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith
4 Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On, emphasis in original
