Union with Christ: An Old Idea that Should Be Renewed Every Day
Old things matter. Old people (e.g. Our aging parents). Old buildings and structures (e.g. Conservation societies in towns and cities not to mention the Pyramids or the Roman Coliseum). Old documents (e.g. The Declaration of Independence or the Magna Carta). And even old ideas (e.g. Old Testament and New Testament theology). Not everything new is good. There was an article in the New York Times, October 20, 2024 by a guest essayist named Oren Cass. Cass identifies several “new” ideas that people, including many Americans, bought into years ago that went bust before the cultural implications could mature; for example Eugenics. Eugenics is the belief that human quality is genetically based. It was used to justify racial bias against unwanted groups like the Jews during Nazi Germany. For a while, even in the United States, progressive thinkers adopted a positive posture towards Eugenics. It’s horrifying to think of what would have happened had it actually taken root.
But one old idea I think we need to return to is what theologians called Union with Christ. I was getting ready for a wedding this fall in which part of the ceremony goes something like this, “Into this union (meaning marriage) so and so are now entering.” It got my attention! What is Union with Christ? And why is it so important now?
Union with Christ is taken from the idea that we are a new creation in Christ. We have a new identity. “We require,” as John Ortberg says, “a transcendent connection through which the inner unseen person—mind and will—can be nourished and sustained.” Our Union with Christ tells us a new story about who we are. God himself has called us into a new life, rooted in a history that predates us, anchored in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus (Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ pg. 21). It is the life we now have with God made possible on earth.
In the introduction to Wilbourne’s book, John Ortberg makes this startling observation about Christianity in America:
We think of heaven as a pleasure factory rather than life with God. We think a salvation as being able to avoid pain rather than being made right. We think of the gospel as the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven rather than the announcement that life with God is now possible on earth through Jesus. We think of faith as what we’re supposed to believe rather than a mental map about how things are that we carry with us inevitably live from.
Every year in January, people make all kinds of new year’s resolutions. This year, as we lead our churches into God’s preferable future, perhaps we should take a new look at an old idea! Invite people into a deep deep union with Christ through the gospel.
Think about it.
