by Arthur W. Pink

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1935 | Main Index

Studies in the Scriptures

by Arthur W. Pink

September, 1935

Union and Communion.
3. Mystical.

In the introductory article we pointed out that “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 any 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 parts of Christian doctrine. Hence it is our holy privilege to prayerfully study the same, looking unto the Holy Spirit to graciously enlighten us thereon.”

Having shown in the previous articles—very stumblingly and inadequately—how that a plurality of Persons in the Godhead made possible the Mediatorial union, we are now ready to consider how the Son of God taking upon Himself our nature made possible the union of the Church to Him. While orthodox theologians have written clearly upon the Divine union which exists between the three Persons in the Godhead, and while they have treated helpfully the nature of the Mediatorial union, the same can hardly be said of their discussion of the union which exists between God's elect and their glorious Head. Though not a little has been written thereon, most men have generalized far too much, failing to distinguish between the various aspects of that oneness which exists between Christ and His people. Not a few have jumbled together what needs to be considered apart, if a clear view is to be obtained thereof.

It is not to be expected that Arminians should have any clear grasp of the exceedingly precious subject which is now to engage our attention. Making man, rather than God, the centre of their system, they necessarily begin at the wrong place. They make the union of the believer with Christ to commence at his conversion, when faith lays hold of and makes Him ours. But this is to start at the middle, instead of at the beginning. They fail to recognize that there must be a vital union before there can be a fiducial one, that the soul must first be made alive spiritually before it is capacitated to trust savingly in Christ. One who is dead in trespasses and sins has no more ability to perform spiritual acts—and appropriating the Lord Jesus as our own is a spiritual act—than a corpse in the grave is qualified to perform physical acts. Life itself must be present before there can be any evidence and exercises of it.

Calvinists do not fall into the error just pointed out above. They perceive that the sinner must first be quickened before he can savingly believe the Gospel. They insist that the Holy Spirit must unite the soul vitally to Christ ere there can be any drawing from the fullness which is in Christ. We must be livingly united to Him before any of His benefits become ours. I must be a son before I can be an heir. So far so good. But at this point not a few modern Calvinists fail to trace the effect back to its proper source. It is not sufficient to point out that faith necessarily presupposes spiritual life, for that spiritual life itself presupposes something else prior to the communication of it. The Holy Spirit does not regenerate all. Who are the ones He brings from death unto life? Galatians 4:6 tells us, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts.” There is, then, a relation to God prior to regeneration.

Now a relation to God previous to regeneration necessarily presupposes a relation to Christ previous to regeneration, for we have no spiritual relation to God Himself apart from the Mediator. The elect are God's “sons” because united to His Son: “Behold I and the children which God hath given Me” (Heb. 2:13) is His own language. Before He came into this world it was said, “Thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21)—those who were to be saved by Him were “His people” before He became incarnate. They were one with Him by an indissoluble bond long ere the Lord of glory took upon Himself human nature. There was a mystical and eternal union subsisting between Christ and the Church, which formed the basis of that vital union which is effected by the Holy Spirit during a time state, the latter making manifest the former, the former being the ground upon which the latter is effected.

Not a few of the older Calvinists firmly adhered to this foundation truth of the mystical union subsisting between Christ and His Church, but it is to be regretted that they did not define more definitely the real nature of that mystical union, and distinguish between the different elements which composed it, or rather, the various aspects which it comprises. Some have narrowed it down to a mere legal or federal union, failing to see that this also presupposed a prior relationship. Some have confined the oneness between Christ and His people to that of the Surety and those whom He represented. Others have spoken of the covenant-union between Christ and His Church, without stating in detail of what that covenant-union consists. Still others, employed the expression “election-union,” which though coming nearer to the mark, still leaves the subject clouded in a certain vagueness.

The one writer who appears to have been blest with a clearer insight into this great mystery than most of his fellows was John Gill—to whom we are indebted for some of the leading thoughts in what follows—though he, in turn, received help, no doubt, from the writings of James Hussey, the high Calvinist of the seventeenth century. Those men rightly traced back the covenant and federal union which the Church has with its Head to the eternal love of the Triune God, which, operating by His everlasting decree, gave them an election-union with Christ. It needs to be pointed out that the eternal decree of Jehovah gave Christ—as the God-man Mediator—a real subsistence before Him before the foundation of the world, and a real subsistence unto the elect in Him, so that “before the mountains were settled . . . . while as yet He had not made the earth,” He could say “My delights were with the sons of men” (Prov. 8:25, 26, 31).

The technical name by which the oneness between Christ and His people is designated by theologians is “mystical union.” This term has been employed—for want of a better—not because the union is vague or unreal, but because it far transcends all earthly analogies in its intimacy of fellowship and reciprocal partnership, both in the very nature of it, the power of its influence, and the excellency of its consequence. “On the one hand, this union does not involve any mysterious confusion of the Person of Christ with the persons of His people, and, on the other hand, it is not such a mere association of separate persons as exists in human societies” (A.A. Hodge). It is a relation far more intimate than any which may be formed by any external bonds. This union is presented to us in Scripture as a matter of fact, without any explanation, to be credited on the ground of Divine testimony.

But though the union between Christ and His Church far transcends all natural analogies, the Scriptures set forth its variety and fullness, element by element, by means of several partial analogies. Because this union is so high and and mysterious, it has pleased God to make use of various resemblances for the describing of it, that He might thereby make it more credible and intelligible to us. It is observable that the Holy Spirit has referred to various unions, natural, relative, and artificial, that He might by all of them more clearly and distinctly shadow out the grand union betwixt Christ and His saints. Yet let it be pointed out that useful as are these particular analogies as to the end designed, yet they all come short of the mystical union which they refer to. They may indeed illustrate it—so far as temporal and natural things can—but they cannot reach or equal it.

The first of these typical resemblances which may be mentioned is that of husband and wife. Upon the conjugal relation there is a very close and intimate conjunction. Now Christ and His people stand in this conjugal relation each to the other. He is their “Husband” (Isa. 54:5), they are His “Wife” (Rev. 19:7). They are “espoused” to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2), “married” to Christ (Rom. 7:4), “betrothed” to Him “for ever” (Hosea 2:19); their name is “Hephzibah” (“My delight is in her”) and “Beulah”—”Married” (Isa. 62:4). This marriage-union Paul applies to Christ and believers: “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church: for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (Eph. 5:28-30), to which the Apostle adds, “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (v. 32)—I am using this union between husband and wife to point to that higher and spiritual union which exists between Christ and His people: the husband and the wife are “one”; and Christ and the Church are so much more.

The second of these natural analogies is found in the physical head and members. In the human body there is a close conjunction between these two, for they are joined the one to the other, and together form one and the same organism. Thus it is with Christ and believers in the body mystical, to which the Holy Spirit has repeatedly applied the terms pertaining to this physical adumbration: Christ is the Head, they are the several members belonging to that Head. Of Christ it is said, God “gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body” (Eph. 1:22, 23), “and He is the Head of the Body, the Church” (Col. 1:18). Of the members it is said, “Now ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Cor. 12:27), and “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Rom. 12:5). As truly and as intimately as the head and members of the physical body are united, so truly and intimately are Christ and believers united also.

The third of these earthly adumbrations is found in that of the root and the branches growing out of the same. There is not only a connection between them, but a vital oneness, otherwise how should the one convey life, sap, growth to the other? So it is with Christ and His people: He is the Root, they are the tendrils issuing therefrom. “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:5). To this analogy the Holy Spirit frequently makes reference: “We have been planted together in the likeness of His death” (Rom. 6:5); “If the Root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree” (Rom. 11:16, 17); “Rooted and built up in Him” (Col. 2:7). Thus there is a blessed resemblance between Christ and His Church and the root and its branches, both in point of union and of influence: the root is united to the branches and they to it; the root conveys life, nourishment and fruitfulness to the branches; so does Christ to believers.

Another resemblance is found in the foundation and the building. Here again is union, for in a building all the stones and timbers are joined and fastened together upon the foundation, making but one entire structure. So it is with believers and Christ. This figure is also used in Scripture again and again. The Lord Himself likened the one who heard and obeyed His sayings to “a wise man, which built his house upon a rock” (Matt. 7:24). The Apostle Paul reminded the saints, “Ye are God's building” and added, “other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:9, 11); and again they are said to be “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph. 2:20). As a man builds upon the foundation, laying the weight of the whole building upon it, so the faith and confidence of the Christian is built upon that “sure Foundation which God has laid in Zion” (Isa. 28:16).

Now as there is nothing in this natural world which more sweetly and securely knits souls together than love, so the cementing bond which unites Christ and the Church must be traced back to the love of God. If love can be so effectual among men in binding one heart to another, how infinitely more powerful must love in the heart of God attract and unite the objects of it to Himself, giving them a nearness to Him such as finite minds are quite incapable of fully comprehending. This is the bond of union of saints one to another, for their hearts are “knit together in love” (Col. 2:2), and therefore is love called “the bond of perfectness” (Col. 3:14). Love, then, the everlasting love of the Father, Son, and Spirit, is the origin of the Church's union with Christ. “This is that cement which will never loosen, that union-knot which can never be untied, that bond which can never be dissolved, from whence there can be no separation” (John Gill).

Now election was the first and fundamental act of God's love toward His people, giving them a subsistence in Christ from everlasting, “according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). God does not love His people because He elected them, rather did He elect them because He had set His heart upon them. The Divine order is plainly intimated in 2 Thessalonians 2:13, “Brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation.” The same precious truth is brought out again in Ephesians 1: “In love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (vv. 4, 5). This was the supreme act and instance of everlasting love, by which the elect were considered in Christ and one with Him, He being chosen as the Head, they as His members—obviously we could not be in Christ without being one with Him.

“He is the Head of the body, the Church: who is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence” (Col. 1:18). Yes, Christ was “the beginning” even in connection with election: there too He had “the preeminence.”

“Be Thou My first elect He said,
Then chose the Church in Christ its Head.”

Next, God was pleased to decree that an elect number of Adam's race should be united to Christ and be for His glory. As the man Christ Jesus was Jehovah's “Elect” in whom His soul “delighteth” (Isa. 42:1), and as He was (by infinite grace) taken to be Jehovah's “Fellow” (Zech. 13:7), so those who were elected in Christ became His “delight” (Prov. 8:31) and were to be His “fellows” (Psa. 45:7), to be everlastingly glorified in and with Him. Though in the order of time Christ and His Church were elected together, to form one complete mystical Body, yet in the order of God's counsels Christ was elected first, and then His people were chosen in Him. “Christ was the Head of election, and of the elect of God; and so in order of nature elected first, though in order of time we were elected with Him. In the womb of election, He, the Head, came out first, and then we the members. He is therefore said in predestination to be the Firstborn of all His brethren—see Romans 8:29” (Thomas Goodwin). This is a profound depth, yet a most important truth, and needing further amplification.

“God in the act of election looked not at us apart and singly as in ourselves, so as by one act to choose us, and by another act to give us to Christ. But as of the soul it is by one and the same act of God's both created and infused into the body, as so subsists not one moment apart; likewise God in the act of choosing us gave us to Christ, and in giving us to Christ He chose us. And thus, He never considering us apart, but as members of Christ and given to Him in the very act of choosing, hence our very choice itself is said to be 'in Him.' And so, on the other side, in the first view and purpose God took up concerning Christ, and in electing Him, He looked not at Him apart as a single Person in Himself, but as a Head to us His body, chosen in Him and with Him. So it is not that Jesus Christ was chosen by one act to be man, and then to be a Common Person by another; but at the very same instant that He was chosen the one, He was chosen the other, under that very consideration to be a Common Person.

“It was in this as in the creation of Adam, Christ's shadow; who when he was first made, was not made as a single man, he was made 'a living soul' (1 Cor. 15:45). What is that? To be a public person, to convey life to others as well as to have life personally in himself. That is the meaning, as appears by the following words, 'The last Adam,' that is, Christ 'was made a quickening spirit,' that is, not for Himself, but to others. So that the very first view that God in election took of Christ, was not of Him only as a single Person considered, but as a Common Person. In a word, as in the womb head and members are not conceived apart, but together, as having relation each to other, so were we in Christ, as making up one mystical body unto God, formed together in that eternal womb of election. So that God's choice did completely terminate itself on Him and us; us with Him, and yet us in Him; He having the priority to be constituted a Common Person and root to us” (Thomas Goodwin).

Now God's eternal decree gave His elect a super-creation subsistence before Him, so that they were capable of being “loved” (Jer. 31:3) and of receiving a grant of grace: “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Tim. 1:9)— note well, it was not simply that God purposed to give His chosen people grace, but that grace “was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” If, then, grace was actually “given us in Christ” ere time commenced, then we must have a real subsistence in Him before God from everlasting. This too, is above our powers to fully comprehend, yet is it a truth to be held fast on the ground of the Divine testimony. 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 the consideration of the Fall.—A.W.P.

1935 | Main Index

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