by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
January, 1935
Union and Communion
Introduction. The present writer has not a doubt in his mind that the subject of spiritual union is the most important, the most profound, and yes, the most blessed of any that is set forth in the sacred Scriptures; and yet, sad to say, there is hardly any which is now more generally neglected. The very expression “spiritual union” is unknown in most professing Christian circles, and even where it is employed it is given such a protracted meaning as to take in only a fragment of this precious truth. Probably its very profundity is the reason why it is so largely ignored in this superficial age. Yet there are still a few left who are anxious to enter into God's best and long for a fuller understanding of the deep things of the Spirit; and it is, principally, with these in mind that we take up this present series.
There are three principal unions revealed in the Scriptures which are the chief mysteries and form the foundation of our most holy faith. First, the union of three Divine Persons in one Godhead: having distinct personalities, being co-eternal and co-glorious, yet constituting one Jehovah. Second, the union of the Divine and human natures in one Person, Jesus Christ, Immanuel, being God and man. Third, the union of the Church to Christ, He being the Head, they the members, constituting one mystical body. Though we cannot form an exact idea of any of these unions in our imaginations, because the depth of such mysteries is beyond our comprehension, yet it is our bounden duty to believe them all, because they are clearly revealed in Scripture, and are the necessary foundation for other points of Christian doctrine. Hence it is our holy privilege to prayerfully study the same, looking unto the Holy Spirit to graciously enlighten us thereon.
The most wonderful thing of all, and yet the greatest mystery, in the natural world, is a union, namely, that conjunction which God has made between mind and matter, the soul and the body. What finite intelligence would or could have conceived of the joining together of an immaterial spirit and a clod of clay! What so little alike as the soul and an organized piece of earth! Who had ever imagined such a thing as animate and thinking dust! or that a spirit should be so linked with and tied to a carnal body that while that is preserved in health, it cannot free itself! And yet there is a union, a real union, a personal union, between the soul and the body. But that is only a natural mystery, and falls immeasurably below the sacred mystery of the union between human beings and the Lord of Glory.
The Scriptures have much to say upon the union which exists between Christ and His people. “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). “For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church” (Eph. 5:30, 32). What an astonishing thing it is that there should be a union between the Son of God and worms of the earth!—infinitely more so than if the king of Great Britain had married the poorest and ugliest woman in all his realm. How immeasurable is the distance between the Creator and the creature, between Deity and mortal man! How wonderful beyond words that sinful wretches should be made one with Him before whom the seraphim veil their faces and cry “holy, holy, holy!”
“The union of Christ to His people is an amazing subject. It is an eternal union; it is an union made known and enjoyed in time; it is an union which will be openly and manifestatively declared in all its glory and perfection in the latter day; it is a grace union; it is also a glory union. As it is the foundation of all the gracious actings of Christ towards His Church in a time state, so it is of all the glory He will put on His Church and communicate unto His people at the last day. I cannot but lament we are most of us so great strangers to these important and heavenly truths. Depend on it, we are great losers hereby. The people of God lose much because they neglect truths of the greatest importance. In the present day they are too neglectful of important truths. They are willingly ignorant of them.
“We treat the Scriptures in the present day as though the less we know of the deep things of God, so much the better. Alas! alas! this, let us think of it as we may, is to cast contempt on God Himself. Nor will it serve to say we do not so mean or intend. It is a matter of fact, we are too neglectful of those Divine Truths and doctrines which concern the glory of Christ. The ancient and glorious settlements of grace are too little in our thoughts. It is sensibly felt, and by some very expressively confessed and acknowledged, that the influences of the Holy Spirit are very greatly suspended. Yet the cause is overlooked. Most assuredly one grand reason why we have so little of His sacred presence with us, and His power and influence manifested amongst us may be laid to the account of neglecting to preach supernatural, spiritual truth, and the mysteries of the everlasting Gospel” (S.E. Pierce, 1812).
The vital importance of this subject of the union of the Church to Christ may be clearly seen from the place which it occupies in the High Priestly prayer of Christ. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee” (John 17:20, 21). Our Lord here began His prayer for the whole body of His people by speaking of the union which they had with Him and His Father in Him, and He spends the verses which follow in expressing the blessings which follow as the fruits thereof. We are not to conceive that Christ here prayed for an union to be brought about or obtained; no, for it was established from all eternity: rather was He praying that His beloved might be blest with the clear knowledge of it, so that they might enjoy all the benefits of the same in their own souls.
“And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one” (John 17:22). This subject of the union between Himself and the elect was truly sweet and blessed to the heart of Christ. He knew that the knowledge and use of it is of great value and service to His people, therefore did He speak of it again and again that His saints in all ages might receive the knowledge of it into their minds and enjoy in their hearts the blessings contained in it. And, my readers, if Christ Himself esteemed this truth of union with Himself as a foundation truth, we should learn to think of it so also. We should bring ourselves unto the closest and prayerful study of the same, for by it our faith and hope are sustained and kept in exercise on God our Saviour.
“And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one.” This petition is the very centre of Christ's prayer, expressing the supreme desire of the Saviour's mind towards His redeemed: it summed up the uttermost longing of His heart toward them. The union about which He prayed is such that thereby the Father and the Son dwell in us and we in Them. It is such that the elect are so joined unto God and His Christ that it is the very highest union which the elect are capable of. It is the chiefest and greatest of all blessings, being the foundation from which all others proceed.
“I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one” (v. 23). A great variety of blessings are set before us in the Gospel. Salvation is an unspeakable one, yet not so great as our union to the Person of Christ. If we had not been united to Christ, He had not been our Saviour: it was because we stood eternally related to Him that He was most graciously pleased to undertake for us. The grace of justification is an unspeakable blessing, yet not so great as that of union, because the effect can never be equal to the cause which produces it. To be in Christ must exceed all the blessings which flow from Him which we have or ever shall partake of, either on earth or in Heaven. Communion with Christ is unspeakably blessed, yet not so great as union, for our union is the foundation of all communion. It is the greatest of all those super-creation “spiritual blessings” (Eph. 1:3) which the Father bestowed on the Church before sin entered the universe. It is the fruit of God's eternal love to His people.
Union with Christ is the foundation of all spiritual blessings, so that if there had been no connection with Him, there could be no regeneration, no justification, no sanctification, no glorification. It is so in the natural world—adumbrating the spiritual: sever one of the members from my physical body, and it is dead; only by its union with my person does it partake of life. “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9): the word “fellowship” signifies such a co-partnership between persons that they have a joint interest in one and the same enjoyment which is common between them. Now this fellowship or communion with Christ is entirely dependent upon our union with Him, even as much as the branch's participation of the sap and juice is dependent upon its union and coalition with the stock of the tree. Take away union, and there can neither be communion nor communication.
As it is for Christ's sake that God bestows upon His people all the blessings of salvation, so according to His eternal constitution those blessings could only be enjoyed in a state of communion with Him. The varied character of that communion it will be our joy to unfold, as the blessed Spirit is pleased to enable us, in the articles which follow. But the foundation of that vital, spiritual, and experimental union which the saints have with their Beloved in a time state and which they will enjoy forever in Heaven, was laid by God in that mystical union which He established between the Mediator and His elect before the foundation of the world, when He appointed Him to be the Head and they the members of His body: when God gave Christ to them and gave them to Christ in everlasting marriage.
In consequence of God's having given the Church to Christ in marriage before the foundation of the world, He says to His people, “I will betroth thee unto Me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies” (Hosea 2:19); “thy Maker is thine Husband” (Isa. 54:5). And therefore does the Church exclaim, “My Beloved is mine, and I am His” (Song. 2:16). “Consider the closeness and intimacy of the union between Him and them, and let this encourage thee to lean and live on Him by faith. It is far more intimate and dear than the union between husband and wife among men, for they are indeed 'one flesh,' but He is 'one body' and 'one spirit' (1 Cor. 6:20) with His spouse; He is in them, and they are in Him. And by virtue of this intimate union, thou hast a title to Him and to His whole purchase (Eben. Erskine, 1775).
In consequence of this eternal marriage-union between Christ and His Church there is a communion of names. In Jeremiah 23:6 we read, “And this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and in Jeremiah 33:16 we are told, “And this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness”—this by virtue of her oneness with Him. So again in 1 Corinthians 12:12 the Church is actually designated “the Christ,” while in Galatians 3:16 and Colossians 1:24 the Head and His Church forming one body are conjointly referred to as “Christ”; hence when Saul of Tarsus was assaulting the Church, its Head protested, “Why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 9:4). But what is yet more remarkable, we find the Lord Jesus given the name of His people: in Galatians 6:16 the Church is denominated, “the Israel of God,” while in Isaiah 49:3 we hear God saying to the Mediator “Thou art My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified”!
Unspeakably precious is this aspect of our wonderful subject. In Colossians 3:12 Christians are exhorted to “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies.” Each of those titles are given to the saints because of their union with Christ. They are “the elect of God” because He is God's “Elect” (Isa. 42:1); they are “holy” because conjoined to God's “Holy One” (Psa. 16:10); they are “beloved” because married to Him of whom the Father says, “This is My Beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17). Again, we are told that God “hath made us kings and priests” (Rev. 1:5), which is only because we are united to Him who is “the King of kings” and the “great High Priest.” Is Christ called “the Sun of righteousness” (Mal. 4:2)? so we are told, “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43)! Does the Redeemer declare “I am the rose of Sharon” (Song. 2:1)? then He promises of the redeemed “The desert (their fruitless state by nature) shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isa. 35:1)—the only two occasions the “rose” is mentioned in Holy Writ!
The union between Christ and His Church is so real, so vital, so intimate that God has never viewed the one apart from the other. There is such an indissoluble oneness between the Redeemer and the redeemed, such an absolute identification of interest between them, that the Father of mercies never saw them apart: He never saw Christ as “Christ” without seeing His mystical body; He never saw the Church apart from its Head. Therefore the Holy Spirit has delighted to emphasise this wondrous and glorious fact in many Scriptures. In connection with Christ's birth we read, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same” (Heb. 2:14). Further, we are told, “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” (Col. 2:11)—His actual circumcision was our mystical circumcision. At His baptism Christ was “numbered with the transgressors,” and hence, speaking as the Representative of the entire election of grace, He said, “Thus it becometh us (not simply “Me”) to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15).
We are told that when the Saviour was nailed to the tree “our old man was crucified with Him” (Rom. 6:6). We are told that when He expired at Calvary “if One died for all, then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14). We are told that when He was revived, we were “quickened together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5). He did not rise again as a single and private person, but as the Head of His Church: “ye then be risen with Christ” (Col. 3:1). Nor is that all: in Ephesians 2:6 we are told, “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” O how surpassingly wonderful is the Christian's oneness with Christ: “Because as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). When Christ appears in glory it will not be alone: “Then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4).—A.W.P.
“One in the tomb; one when He rose;
One when He triumph'd o'er His foes;
One in Heaven He took His seat,
While seraphs sang all Hell's defeat.
With Him, their Head, they stand or fall,
Their Life, their Surety, and their All.”
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