Introduction to Union with Christ

In this part of the sermon: Building on the broad overview, Martin introduces the sermon's focus: the precise 'how' of God's transformative method. He uses an analogy of a transformed community to illustrate…

An analogy of visiting a run-down community that has been transformed into a prosperous one. It illustrates the difference between a general answer about the cause of change (philanthropist, builder, administrators) and a detailed explanation of 'how' the change occurred, mirroring the sermon's progression from a broad overview to a detailed explanation of God's method.

how does he do it? It's as though you visited a place where the last time you went, there was nothing but filth and squalor and run down buildings. And now when you visit it, you see that there is a relative degree of materialism. You see that there is material prosperity. You see nice homes. You see clean yards. You

7:17 - 7:36 Read in full sermon

Driving home: it is the covenant union of Christ with his people that is the foundation and womb out of which comes the experimental union of his people with him

A vivid depiction of Christ in Gethsemane, contemplating the cup of God's wrath, which contained the abandonment, curse, and pain of separation from the Father. It illustrates the depth of Christ's suffering and His faithfulness to His covenant commitments, explaining why His people's salvation required Him to drink the cup fully.

into the garden the father held as it were the cup before him and said my son if you are to be faithful to your own covenant commitments this is the cup you must drink in my son you must drink every last drop of it and as the son gazed upon that cup he saw nothing but abandonment nothing but the accursedness of the cross nothing but the agony of the pain of separation from his father he saw mirrored in that cup all of the inflexible purity of the father's holy law the law that said this do and thou shalt live this fail to do and thou shalt die and he saw that the only way his people

33:50 - 34:35 Read in full sermon

Driving home: it is the covenant union of Christ with his people that is the foundation and womb out of which comes the experimental union of his people with him

The metaphor of Christ bringing a 'bundle of new humanity' out of the tomb on Easter morning. It illustrates that the conversion of every Christian is an 'opening up' of this bundle, signifying that believers were in Christ in God's reckoning when He conquered death.

that bitter cup love drank it up now blessings draft for me how is it that we are quickened with Christ in time raised with Christ in time seated with Christ in time it's because we were given to Christ in eternity we were given we were redeemed by Christ when he went into the jaws of death when he came out of the tomb and brought with him in his bosom the whole new humanity and there's a sense in which the conversion of every single individual Christian is just another opening up of the bundle of new humanity that the son of God brought with him when he came out that first Easter morning

35:19 - 36:01 Read in full sermon