Union With Christ, #3

In this part of the sermon: Martin demonstrates that believers were intimately united with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and session, using compound 'with' verbs from the New Testament. He…

Martin uses the Greek preposition 'sun' (with) in compound verbs to illustrate the intimate, inseparable nature of believers' union 'with' Christ in His redemptive acts.

and verse 15. In fact, and I want to demonstrate this in specifics, there is no major redemptive activity of Christ in which His people were not in the most intimate union with Him and He with them. In all but one of the references I shall now quote, quote, you have a compound word, you have the word of God, you have the word of God, you have the word of God, you have the word of the little preposition sun, which means with, as you elementary Greek students know, those of you just beginning to take your Greek course, and it's a compound word all but in one instance where the sun is used separa...

12:41 - 13:24 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It is this glorious doctrine of union with Christ that opens up the cross and at least in some measure enables us to see its glory.

He describes Christ's willingness to drink the cup of divine wrath in Gethsemane not as stoical resolution, but as His 'thirst for your salvation and mine,' emphasizing the particularity of His suffering.

to be troubled and sore amazed. When the Father, as it were, took the cup full of divine wrath against the sins of His people and held it to the lips of His Son, and in all the integrity of a true humanity there was this recoiling from the anguish, from the bitterness of drinking that cup, and He cries, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass. Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done. O dear child of God, don't look upon that as some kind of stoical

15:35 - 16:14 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It is this glorious doctrine of union with Christ that opens up the cross and at least in some measure enables us to see its glory.

Martin vividly contrasts Christ as the 'upholder of the universe' with His being 'sustained by the umbilical cord of a little Hebrew maiden' to highlight the profound condescension of the incarnation for His people.

doctrine of union with Christ that opens up the cross and at least in some measure enables us to see its glory. He who took upon Him the seed of Abraham, in the virgin's womb. He who knew all of the unbounded liberty and glory of pre-incarnate worship and adoration of all intelligent beings in heaven. He who is willing to come to the confines of a virgin's womb, upholder of the universe, sustained by the umbilical cord of a little Hebrew maiden.

18:33 - 19:16 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not take the truth of union with Christ to an unwarranted, carnal, logical extreme, such as eternal justification.

Martin uses the analogy of the devil pushing believers down the 'other side of the hill' of truth to warn against taking biblical truths, like union with Christ, to unwarranted extremes, such as eternal justification.

Question 66, What is that union which the elect have with Christ? Answer, The union which the elect have with Christ is the work of God's grace, whereby they are spiritually and mystically yet really and inseparably joined to Christ as their head and husband which is done in their effectual calling. Now I must pause to underscore something at this point in order to set up a barrier to heresy. You see, if the devil cannot keep us from running up to the hill of any truth, he'll push us down the other side of the hill of that truth.

25:41 - 26:23 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section addresses the place of union with Christ in the consummation of redemption, focusing on death. Martin provides hope by asserting that believers die 'in union with…

He describes the grim reality of the undertaker, the casket, and the body's decay to starkly contrast the natural process of death with the glorious hope of union with Christ, which death cannot sever.

And my first consciousness will be as a departing spirit that I look upon the face of my Savior sinless. We join the company of the spirits of just men made perfect. What happens to the body? Well, the undertaker takes over and he puts you in his back room, takes the blood out of your veins, fixes you up, places you in a casket.

36:04 - 36:33 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But the worms and time and all the pressures of what we call the natural processes of decay and deterioration, they cannot sever a union which goes back to eternity and will issue in the world to come.

Martin shares a personal reflection on looking at his own hands and contemplating their future decay, using it to emphasize the profound consolation that death cannot sever his union with Christ.

Well, death cannot sever that union. And I know of nothing that gives me greater consolation. And in my own mind, as I meditated in the early hours of the morning, it filled me afresh with a sense of wonder and glory as I looked at my hands and said to myself, Albert, in a few more years, the worms will eat those fingers and they'll be done. But the worms and time and all the pressures of what we call the natural processes of decay and deterioration, they cannot sever a union which goes back to eternity and will issue in the world to come.

39:03 - 39:48 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains that believers are resurrected 'in union with Christ,' with continuity between the earthly and glorified body. He concludes that at Christ's return, the full…

He addresses the objection of bodies being consumed by sharks, asserting that such scenarios do not bother him because God is sovereign and capable of reassembling all atoms for the resurrection, illustrating God's power over physical dissolution.

Now you say, but don't you understand, Pastor Martin, people die and are eaten by sharks, and sharks digest the entirety of what they are, and then the shark is killed, and yes, I know all of that, and that doesn't bother me at all. Because it is God who does it work, my friends. Don't subject God to your little teacup mind. The problem for God to call together all of the atoms of any body at any point that He chooses to do so, He's God.

41:21 - 41:57 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains that believers are resurrected 'in union with Christ,' with continuity between the earthly and glorified body. He concludes that at Christ's return, the full…

Martin quotes someone calling God's people 'God's five-ranked army of descending human weakness' (the weak, foolish, things that are not, despised) to illustrate how the world perceives believers as ordinary, contrasting it with their true identity in Christ.

God takes the weak things of the world and the things that are not, and the things that are despised. What one man called God's five-ranked army of descending human weakness. That's what God's people are. The weak, the foolish, the things that are not, the things of no account.

43:40 - 43:55 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains that believers are resurrected 'in union with Christ,' with continuity between the earthly and glorified body. He concludes that at Christ's return, the full…

He uses the absence of a 'halo' or 'neon light' over believers' heads in public to illustrate that their union with Christ is not visibly apparent to the world, but will be manifested at Christ's return.

What does the world see? We go out and walk down the streets of Toronto. There's no halo hanging over our head. There's no neon light reflecting off our forehead.

43:55 - 44:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory in union with Christ, which changes the whole complexion of time and eternity.

Martin quotes Professor Murray to summarize the eternal scope of union with Christ, from election to glorification, emphasizing its broad and long perspective that changes the complexion of time and eternity.

Oh, child of God, the doctrine of union with Christ ought to fill you with great consolation as you think of the brevity of life and the certainty of death. And I close the lecture this morning by reading from Professor Murray, who, having given a survey similar to the one I've attempted to give this morning, said, We thus see that union with Christ has its source in the election of God the Father before the foundation of the world and has its fruition in the glorification of the sons of God. The perspective of God's people is not narrow. It is broad and it is long.

44:29 - 45:10 Read in full sermon