by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
November, 1935
Union and Communion.
3. Mystical (Completed).
In the previous two articles on this subject we pointed out that the everlasting love of the Triune God is the origin of the Church's union to Christ, and that election was the first and fundamental act of that love toward its members; that election giving them a super-creation subsistence in their glorious Head. In God's eternal thoughts and foreviews, the elect were conceived and contemplated in the Divine mind as real entities in a state of pure creaturehood, above and beyond any consideration of the Fall. Even then they were “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” and “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:3, 6). It is much to be deplored that this original dignity and loveliness of the Church, as anointed, graced, and blest in Christ before the foundation of the world, has almost entirely disappeared from the theology even of the “orthodox” during the past century. A glorious relationship was established between Christ and the Church in eternity past, which neither sin, Satan, nor death could sever. This alone provides the key to all of God's dealings with her in a time state.
We also pointed out that several things arise from and are branches of the everlasting love-union between Christ and the Church. First and chief of these is the marriage between them, marvelously and blessedly shadowed out in connection with our first parents before the Fall. We will now endeavour to point out that that marital union gave the Church communion with Christ in His honours and interests. A wide field—”hinted at in the Introductory article—”is here set before us, which, because of our spiritual feebleness, we are not able to fully explore. Christ admits His Church into fellowship with Himself in His names, titles, relations, grace, fullness, salvation, blessings, and benefits. As God in choosing the Church in Christ gave her a relation to His Person, giving her being in Him, so in accepting her in Him God gave Christ to her, so that she should live with Him, have communion with Him, and be like Him for ever, the everlasting object of His unchanging love.
See how this is exemplified in the Church's sharing of Christ's names and titles. As Christ is by His co-existence in the Godhead, the essential Son of God, so by predestination His brethren are the adopted sons of God, and by virtue of the marriage-union between Christ and them, they have His Father as their Father, and His God for their God (John 20:17). In Colossians 1:15 Christ, as God-man, is designated “the Firstborn of every creature,” while in Hebrews 12:23 His people are said to be “the Church of the Firstborn which are written in Heaven.” Is Christ the “Heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2), so believers are “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17). Is Christ denominated “the Stone of Israel” (Gen. 49:24), His people are also called “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5). Has Christ acquired “a name which no one knoweth but Himself” (Rev. 19:12), so also has the believer: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Rev. 2:17). So precious is this aspect of the truth that we take leave to copy from our introductory article:
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”!
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!
Having sought to show that the Church had a super-creation excellency, that before the foundation of the world its members were chosen in Christ, united to Christ, and blessed with all spiritual blessings; we must now point out that sin has drawn a veil which makes it very difficult for us to discern the original purity, dignity and glory of Christ's mystical Body and Bride. It is much easier for us to apprehend our ruin and misery, and our redemption from it by the incarnation, obedience and sacrifice of the Son of God, than it is to realise what the Church was in the purpose, counsel and mind of God before sin entered the world. It is only by receiving into the mind what is revealed thereon in the Scriptures of Truth and by mixing faith therewith, that we can in any measure obtain a conception of this transcendent and glorious mystery. It is only as the Holy Spirit is pleased to shine upon our understandings that we can see the light in His light.
As Eve was united to Adam in her virgin purity and became his wife before she ate of the forbidden fruit, so in the will and eternal counsels of God the Church was wedded to Christ, over and above any foreviews of the Fall. As Eve disobeyed the Divine prohibition and fell from her pristine uprightness, and lost her original beauty, so the Church shared in the defection of the whole human race when its federal head (Adam) apostatized from his Maker. In God's infinite prescience He foresaw the Fall, having predetermined to permit it, and upon the foresight of that Fall, He entered into an everlasting covenant with Christ, the spiritual Head of the elect, to raise them up from the ruins of the Fall, by the incarnation and finished work of Christ. In this the illustrious wisdom of God was discovered and displayed in a way which would serve to be the marvel of time and the admiration of saints in Heaven to all eternity.
In Adam, the Church was brought into this world by creation pure, holy and righteous. From that creature purity, holiness and righteousness, she fell by Adam's first act of transgression, and became in her own nature and person, simply considered (that is, viewed apart from her eternal standing and state in Christ), impure, unholy and unrighteous. Therefore do we read that the elect are “by nature the children of wrath even as others” (Eph. 2:3); that is, because of sin, their nature is repellent unto Divine holiness, and falls under the condemning sentence of Divine justice. It was to redeem or deliver the Church from the state of sin and misery, and in order to raise her up again to the enjoyment of her original state and glory, to which she was decreed or predestined, that her Head and Husband, her Lord and Saviour, became actually incarnate, taking upon Him humanity, tabernacling personally in the same, and having imputed to Him the transgressions of His people, with all the guilt thereof.
Herein we may behold not only the fathomless love and amazing condescension of Christ, but also the wondrous wisdom of God, who designed that there should be an accurate conformity of the Church to its Head, between the mystical Wife and her celestial Husband. By their fall in Adam, a veil was drawn over the elect, so that they cannot in their ruined state be known by themselves or by others, to be the Lord's. In their natural condition there is nothing to distinguish the elect from the non-elect: their “life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). They are born into this world the same as others, with no halo of glory around their heads to mark them out as the high favourites of Heaven, with nothing to show that they are the beloved Bride of Christ. Instead, according to human observation, there is everything to the contrary: they are shapen in iniquity, conceived in sin, and live in a way of open revolt from the Lord.
In like manner, a veil was drawn over Christ when He appeared on the earth. As the God-man, He had a glory with the Father “before the world was” (John 17:5), and lived a life of blessedness inconceivable by us; yet He laid aside that glory and took upon Him the form of a servant. When He was born into this world, it was not in a palace, but a cattle-shed. Ah, my reader, what was there about the Babe of Bethlehem, hanging upon His mother's breast, to indicate that He was the Maker of Heaven and earth? Witness the vile attempt upon His life and the consequent flight into Egypt, and what was there to show that He had previously been worshipped by all the hosts of Heaven? See Him later, in the lowly peasant-home of Joseph and Mary in Nazareth, and who among the companions of His boyhood dreamed He was the incarnate Son of God? View Him in early manhood, labouring at the carpenter's bench, and wherein did it appear that He was Jehovah's “Fellow”? Was not the Sun of Righteousness eclipsed for a season when He was in all things “made like unto His brethren” (Heb. 2:17)!
When the Lord of glory became incarnate, He came under a cloud, if we may so express it. He suspended the shinings forth of His essential glory, due to the dignity of His Person, and appeared in the likeness of sinful flesh, coming not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and give His life a ransom for many, that He might complete the work of redemption by which He was to redeem His spouse, and wash away her deformity and stains. In this lay the depths of Christ's humiliation: that the Father's co-equal should make Himself “of no reputation,” be made in the likeness of men, be made “under the law,” and so humble Himself as to be “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” In Him “dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” but for a season—”except when its beams darted forth on the Mount of Transfiguration—”the breakings forth thereof were withheld. Incomprehensible grace! such as will fill the saints in Heaven with astonishment through the ages of eternity. Alas, that our hearts are so feebly moved by it now.
Herein, then, we may perceive the conformity between Christ and the Church: each had a celestial glory before the foundation of the world: a veil was cast over that glory when each appeared on the earth. When the elect were brought forth into creature-existence and open being (having subsisted previously in the secret counsels of God), they were pure, holy, righteous, perfect in their natural head. Yet, being in Adam, not only by seminal union but by federal representation, when he broke the Covenant of Works and fell from God, the elect also fell in and with him into a state of sin, misery and alienation from the Lord. Therefore the Spouse of Christ became wholly unlike herself and unlike her Divine and Heavenly Bridegroom, so that she became in her natural head, and inherently in herself, altogether unholy and unrighteous, becoming sinful and impure, having undergone an eclipse of her glory, suffering the loss of the moral image of God, in which she was created: all of which is to be justly ascribed to the mutability of the creature's will—”proving that no creature has whereof to glory before God.
Estranged as the Church became in her affections and obedience to her Lord, by reason of her sunken and degraded condition through the Fall, yet the union existing between her and her celestial Husband remained the same. The very fall of the whole human race in Adam, by virtue of the mutability of the creature, only made more evident the absolute necessity of Christ's Headship, to the end that by Him the elect were so united to God by everlasting bonds as to be beyond the possibility of hazard or miscarriage or by finally falling from Him; having been blessed with super-creation grace, and that, that Christ might be the more honoured and magnified. It is His sole prerogative, as God-man, to have life in Himself: “For as the Father (the self-existent One) hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son (as Mediator) to have life in Himself” (John 5:26). No creature, either angel or man, “anointed cherub” or Adam when made “very good,” is able to stand one moment of himself. Those who have an eternal standing before God owe it alone to Christ.
The fall of the elect of mankind (in the decree of Jehovah) was subordinated to the glory of Christ, it being thereby contrived to show forth and exalt His wondrous perfections. To mention here only one: consider Christ's love for the Church. Christ had a view of the Church in the glass of God's decrees before the world began. He saw her as graced in Himself, and destined to eternal glory. He saw her as presented to Himself by the Father as His love gift. This drew out His heart to her. He saw her as “the King's Daughter all glorious within” (Psa. 45:13). She was given to Him: they were made one by marriage-union in the everlasting settlements of Heaven. The Father blest her in Christ with all spiritual blessings. Hear Him speak as God-man before time began: “Then I was by Him, as One brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and My delights were with the sons of men” (Prov. 8:30, 31).
Certainly Christ's “delights” were not with “the sons of men” regarded as fallen creatures. No, He was there contemplating them in their supralapsarian state, in their original purity and beauty. Oh how vastly different must the Church have next appeared in His eyes, when He viewed her as fallen, depraved and filthy! Yet so knit was His heart to her, such was His affection for her, that it neither destroyed nor abated the same by the foreviews He took of her apostasy in Adam. Yea, as He viewed the members of His body in their debased and vile condition, His heart was drawn out in pity and compassion toward them. Therefore was He willing to be their Surety, assume all their liabilities, fully discharge their debts, and make a complete atonement for them. Their fall in Adam occasioned an opportunity for their eternal Lover to display the changelessness of His infinite love for and to them.
“It is among the mysteries of grace, such as belong to the deep things of God, that the elect, though they fell from God by reason of sin, through the fall of the first man, by means of their union to him and interest in him; from whence they received and partook of the same equal corruption and total ruin of their natures by the infection of sin, with the rest of mankind—”having in themselves the same fountain and principle of sin which the very reprobate hath: yet they fell not from the grace of personal election, nor from the everlasting favour of God; nor did they lose their interest in their Heavenly Father's love thereby.
“Their union and relation to the person of Christ, their eternal Head, and interest in Him, were not dissolved nor impaired hereby; nor did they cease to be the beloved of Immanuel's soul. Though they, by the Fall, lost all that was given them, in Adam as their nature-head, and nature-root, yet, the grace of election still continued the same as ever; and Jesus Christ, their ever-living Head, in whom is their spiritual, everlasting life, happiness, and glory, was Alpha and Omega to them; their beginning, their eternal spring, who, as such, broke forth towards them in their fallen state, and still continues His kindness in dispensing all grace to them, to whom it will be continued with all its glorious fruits and blessings by Him to eternity” (S.E. Pierce).
Christ was first the “Head” and then the “Saviour” of the Church (Eph. 5:23). All is eternally secured in the Person of the Lord Jesus. When God permitted the fall of all mankind in Adam, the elect fell in him; yet they fell not from the heart and arms of Christ. They lost in Adam the creature blessings of purity, holiness and righteousness, which as their natural head he should have conveyed to them, and received from him instead an impure and sinful nature, the fruits of which are as justly deserving of Divine wrath as are the sins of the non-elect. In that state they are, in themselves, without hope and help. This it is which made way for their need of redemption, to be delivered out of it, and which provided an occasion for their Husband to become their Redeemer, which He engaged to be before the foundation of the world. “On His head are many crowns” (Rev. 19:12), each representing a separate and distinctive glory, which it is the joy of saints to separately contemplate.
“The elect lost their all that was given unto them and bestowed upon them in their nature-head. But they lost not their interest in the grace of election in the Person of Christ, in the supernatural spiritual blessings which had been bestowed upon them in Christ their eternal Head; and this secured them from everlasting ruin and misery. The love of God to His elect in Christ was not weakened, nor the union-knot between Christ and His Church loosed, by all which befell them and came upon them by the Fall. Christ being the Head of the Church, the life, light, grace, holiness, righteousness, glory, and blessings in Christ, could not undergo any hazard or damage by the Fall.
“The Body being defiled with sin, the glorious Head and Husband who had loved His Spouse as Himself, having viewed her as the object of His Father's complacency and delight, descended from Heaven, by His mysterious incarnation, to fulfill His covenant stipulations on her behalf, and act a part of Redeemer and Saviour” (From “Christ's love to His Church” by S.E. Pierce, to whom we gladly own our indebtedness for much in this article).—”A.W.P.
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