Union With Christ
He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit
Christ initiates the way to union. He brings God to man in incarnation and man to God in glorification. Man is no longer at enmity with God. There is a reconciliation.
In Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ... reconciling both to God through the cross.
Christ gives life —more specifically, the divine life (zoe) —to address alienation from God’s life.
We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way.
The spiritual union begins by receiving Christ as the life-giving Spirit into our spirit. This union deepens as we walk on this new and living way. According to the flesh, we are in Adam, according to the spirit in union with Christ. The true meaning of the cross is applied personally and progressively to our soul-life. As we understand and embrace this way, there is a better state of union.
We are bought with a price and given the gift of the Spirit freely. But the Way may be costly, both in its initiation and its continuation. It involves counting all things as loss, to gain the excellency of Christ. Many such transactions occur in the course of our lives, deepening the union as we persevere and endure all things for His name. Divine fire burns away the dross, purifying the soul for this union.
Paul speaks of union with Christ—being "in Him." Through this spiritual union, the benefits of Christ's self-transcendence become available to human consciousness. Union implies: What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine. Union with Christ makes it possible to experience a state of being that we could not produce for ourselves. In Him, one can forgive enemies and find peace amid turmoil.
Deepening union brings awareness of the need for self-emptying (kenosis). The effectiveness of the death of Christ is applied to the Adamic nature.
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God.
Being in Christ produces a new creation—a fundamental shift that includes a new consciousness. One becomes a partaker of the divine nature as Peter described. Human consciousness expands to have consciousness of God and His nature.
Practical daily experience of union requires taking time ot set our attention on Him. Turning an inner gaze, calling upon his name, and offering short prayers of thankfulness and praise can bring us into awareness of the indwelling presence.
The interaction between two beings is initiated by an invitation.
"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me."
There is a door that must be opened for the Lord to come in and dine or dwell with us. The invitation is extended; our response creates the opening. A human being can know the divine being of God by speaking from within, by asking, by thanking, by praising, or simply by beholding.
How can we interact with the One who is invisible? It is not only God who is invisible, but our inner and true being (our spirit) is also invisible. The union is a union of two invisible beings. This is spirit-to-spirit communion, in which there is an inner witness and experience of divine love.
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
We present our bodies, set our mind with its attention, direct our inner speech to prayer, and our gaze to behold and follow Him. By offering our presence, we gain His presence. It is experienced as a loving presence to which we respond with our love. This hidden interaction between two invisible beings leads to progressive union.
The development of this interaction requires faith.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
By sensing the reality of God, we know that He dwells in our hearts. We become rooted and grounded in Him.
As you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith.
The union and communion constitute a state of mutual abiding.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
The language of abiding suggests continuous, conscious connection—mutual dwelling.
By sensing the reality of God, we know that He dwells in our hearts. Ephesians describes the progress of what the Greeks call epignosis, a deep, personal knowing of the surpassing love.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
The core practice is simple and accessible to all.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. The name represents the person. To call on the name, even silently, will invoke the presence.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. A simple declaration of our love for Him will shift our awareness.
When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” We behold Him by redirecting attention from external distractions or internal anxieties toward the indwelling presence.
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Brief expressions of thankfulness and praise are woven into our day. Praying without ceasing points to a continuous thread of communication. Inner speech directed to God can maintain awareness of the One who indwells us.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Remembrance of scripture phrases provides the vocabulary for union.
Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Gathering of the called-out ones, the ekklesia, brings a stronger sense of God’s presence.
The union is not only personal but also corporate. We are placed in the Body of Christ as members that are joined together, holding the Head, with each part functioning uniquely. That is how this new entity operates and grows.
This new consciousness dissolves separations, creating a fellowship of the Spirit. There is an intrinsic unity despite diverse expressions. All believers share the same ground of being in Him—given to drink of the one spirit, baptized into one body. Although members have diverse functions, their activities remain coordinated as they walk by the Spirit. Fellowship with one another is the result of walking in the light.
The Spirit adds divine consciousness, and our conduct follows from it. This new awareness, rooted in a spiritual union, forms the basis of both being and becoming. "That where I am, you also may be," a desire articulated by Christ, is realized through the conscious practice of this union. This includes Christ as the Head and the Body. The fullness of this union consists of both the personal and corporate.
Paul uses two key metaphors for indwelling and abiding. Believers become temples for God's Spirit, signifying divine presence. This metaphor emphasizes the sacred, intimate dwelling of God within the believer. Individuals are grafted into a cultivated olive tree, gaining access to its resources. This metaphor of grafting emphasizes both the gift of inclusion and the dependence on the root system. The tree provides everything; we receive and bear fruit unto God.
The union with Christ in spirit changes lived experience. The fruits of the Spirit are produced—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is freedom from guilt, shame, and condemnation.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
There is a renewal of the mind and a change of affections. We begin to love what God loves and desire what He desires. We begin to be conformed to Christ and transformed into the same image.
Our hearts are comforted, and we can comfort others.
God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.
Maturing happens by learning how to be in this relationship, moment by moment. We know how to be in this world as a human with an expanded consciousness and a self-transcending point of view. The development of this interaction, like any relationship, deepens through practice. We discover what it means to "walk by the Spirit", to maintain conscious awareness of the One who is always present, always available, always inviting us into deeper communion.
Some obstacles are encountered. The “old man” resists the movement towards being in the “new man.” Ingrained patterns of self-reliance, self-protection, and self-exaltation resist the self-emptying nature of union.
There is spiritual opposition. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world. Besetting sins require a coming forward by faith to receive forgiveness. We will find that His love does not take account of evil.
We desire union yet find ourselves distracted, resistant, forgetful. One must lay aside every weight.
A sense of longing is needed when God seems distant. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
The struggles show a need for conscious maintenance of this union.
Union with Christ is both instantaneous and progressive. We enter into this union when we come to know Christ and receive the gift of the Spirit. We progress into a deeper union throughout our lives by His appearing as we seek Him. We all, who with unveiled faces behold the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory.
Intimacy, knowledge, and fruitfulness grow through time and experience in this union with the Beloved.
Humanity's problem is alienation from God's life. The solution is to be made alive to God through His Spirit. Human consciousness may lack a sense of divine presence, and the Spirit adds this missing dimension, expanding awareness. The solution reaches precisely where the problem exists—in our hearts.
The Spirit's indwelling restores what was lost in the fall—conscious communion with God. The good news is the availability of this access to a new and living way, with the removal of barriers to union with God. Christ has accomplished that.
Christ becomes our abundant life in this union. Faith, love, and endurance of hope preserve us in this union. That the love you have for Me may be in them, and that I Myself may be in them. It is the fulfillment of a deep longing—for man to be united with the source of all life, love, and being.
The invitation is to live consciously in this union, to abide in the vine, to walk in the Spirit, to have our being in Him. The full knowledge of the Son brings us to maturity, the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
