Union With Christ, #4

Introduction: The Nature of Union with Christ

0:01 Those of you who were here last evening will remember, I trust, that on that occasion I announced that each of the series, the morning and the evening series, would be considerably independent of each other. Well, I'm having to retract that. I have not been able to move as rapidly through the material that I've been giving in the morning, not as rapidly as I had hoped. And so what I'm going to do tonight is to cover material that should have been covered in the morning, but I hope it will not be terribly disconnected from our study in the Word of God last night.

0:43 In fact, I'm convinced it is not. I was sharing with Dr. Adams on the way over, about two or three hours before the time to meet tonight. I was in great turmoil of mind and spirit, wondering just how to...

0:58 how to fit everything in and how to adjust it, and I feel God gave some help in sorting these things out. And what I want to do tonight is to move on, if we're talking in terms of the structure of the morning lectures, from the broad overview of the place of union with Christ in the plan of redemption, to a consideration of the nature of this union with Christ. So if you're thinking in terms of the structure of the morning, in the morning lectures, we have considered that first broad category, union with Christ in the plan of redemption. Now we move to the nature of that union with Christ.

1:41 If you're thinking of the structure of the evening lectures, last night we considered union with Christ in relationship to true religion. And we saw in our study of 2 Corinthians 5.17 that the very essence of true and saving religion is described by the Apostle as being in Christ. Well, if that's so, then you may well ask, what is the nature of that union with Christ, which is the very essence of saving religion?

2:13 So I hope without too much artificiality, we see that this lecture suits either series quite well. Now, by way of introduction, let me say two things as we approach this subject. The nature...

2:28 of union with Christ.

Warning Against Misuse of Truth and Defining Scope

2:32 The first thing I want to say has to relate to one of the unpleasant aspects of church history. And it is this, that there is no truth given by the Spirit of God and deposited in the Scriptures that is immune from the manipulation of the ignorant and the unstable. The Apostle Peter could say that there were words of a contemporary apostle, namely, the Apostle Paul, which the ignorant and the unstable rested, and that word in the original literally means to stretch out of shape, to put upon a torture rack. The ignorant and the unerring, they take the form of biblical words. They maintain the semblance of biblical language, but they stretch those words out of their God-intended meaning, and they stretch them into something, that is grotesque and far removed from the mind of the Spirit in those words. Now, the more precious or vital any revealed truth is, the more it is liable to be misused by the ignorant and the unstable. The more vital a truth is to the salvation and sanctification of the people of God,

3:57 the more it will be found under the vicious, attack of the prince of lies, the devil himself. Now, we have seen in our studies that there is no truth more central to the doctrine of salvation than the truth of union with Christ. Well, since it is such a central and a vital truth, it should not surprise us that the father of lies has continually sought to manipulate that truth into something other than that which God intended. It should be.

4:32 And so the manner in which we deal tonight with this area of concern, the nature of union with Christ, will reflect a desire on my part to point out what some of these errors have been and are in our present day in order that you may be immunized against those errors. And then the second thing I want to say by way of introduction is a word of explanation concerning the limited scope of union with Christ that is presently under consideration. I said that our subject for tonight is the nature of our union with Christ. Now, as we examine the nature of that union, we are thinking of that union only in terms of the vital experiential union of the believer with Christ. We are not seeking to analyze the nature of that union as it is stated, as it is stated in Ephesians 1.4 and 2 Timothy 1.9, our pre-temporal union, that union that has to do with God's electing grace.

5:43 Rather, we are thinking of the nature of that union that is found when a sinner in the embrace of divine and sovereign grace is quickened to life and embraces the offered Savior. We are thinking of that byline of the lateral union, the embrace of the sinner by God in sovereign arresting grace and the embrace of the Savior by faith from the heart of the quickened sinner. So those two words of introduction, I trust, will be helpful as we approach the subject. Well then, what is the precise nature of the union that a redeemed sinner sustains to Jesus? Well, I want to start with the negative. And I do this not for filler, but I do it that you may be immunized against all of the aberrations and deviations from the teaching of the word of God concerning this vital truth. And I have four negatives.

Union is Not Pantheistic

6:51 And then when we come to the positives, there will be three positives and there is no significance that the sum total is seven. First of all, this union, this union is not a pantheistic union. Now, realizing we have a number of folk with us tonight who do not study theology in a formal way, let me just pause to define what is meant by pantheistic. It comes from two Greek words, pan, all, theistic, theos, God.

7:27 All is God and God is all is the essence of the doctrine of pantheism. Now, it occurs in many forms, but when you boil it down, wherever you have pantheism, you have the belief that everything is God and God is everything. Now, in the history of the church, there have been those who have seen the doctrine of union with Christ. And rather than understanding that doctrine in its biblical categories, they have imported into it the pagan notions of pantheism.

8:04 And let me say with as much zeal and conviction as I can possibly say it, that nothing, nothing could be further removed from the biblical teaching concerning the nature of our union with Christ than the pagan doctrine or concept of pantheism. In the deepest, in the most intimate dimensions of our union with Jesus Christ, he never, he never ceases to be the Son of God in all the integrity of his theanthropic person, the God-man, external to us, objective to us, the object of our faith. He never ceases to be all that he has been from the Incarnation. And we never cease to be all that we are in the full integrity of our redeemed humanity. We are still, still body-soul entities, quickened by the Spirit, vitally joined to Christ so that the language we are in him, he is in us, is legitimate language, but never, never in such a way as to blur the distinction between the Creator and the creature.

9:27 Never in such a way as to blur that line between the one who is God and those who are the creatures. And it's interesting that when we read the richest Union with Christ passages, this distinction is always boldly etched on the very face of the words describing that union. For instance, John 15. I am the vine.

9:57 I have an identity as the vine. Ye are the branches. You have an identity as branches. Vine is not branch.

10:08 Branch is not vine. Abide in me. You are still you. I am still me.

10:15 And I in you. I am still I. You are still you. As the branch, an entity, cannot bear fruit of itself, so neither can ye except ye, an entity.

10:32 Abide in me, another, and a separate entity. Now you see, the vine-branch imagery, is imagery which suggests the most intimate kind of shared life, but the identity of Christ and the identity of his people is never lost. There is no absorption of the redeemed into Christ. There is no diffusion of Christ into the redeemed.

11:01 Now you may think that's just a lot of theological gobbledygook, but it's more than that. It is of tremendous importance if we would think and act aright with respect to this great doctrine of union with Christ. You may want to take another passage that is very rich in the union with Christ teaching to see this distinction. I refer to Colossians chapter 3.

11:29 In the preceding verses he has spoken of our being dead with Christ. If ye died with Christ, verse 1 of chapter 3, it says, if then ye were raised together with Christ, there's the intimacy of the union, seek, now that's an activity you must do, seek the things that are above where Christ is. You've been raised with him, but you're still there as a specific entity and he is there as a specific and even a corporeal entity. There is a body somewhere in the universe of God, the body of the glorified Son of God. Set your mind, you still have a mind of your own, it has not been absorbed so that it is Christ's mind. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For ye died and your life is hid with Christ in God, but it's still your life.

12:40 Even in that most intimate language it is your life, absorbed by his in God. So you're still you and Christ is still Christ. Even in the intimacy of that relationship. So do you see the point I'm making and it's well established in these passages.

Union is Not Quietistic

13:02 We must never conceive of the nature of our union with Christ as in any way related to pantheism. And then in the second place it is not a quietistic union. Not pantheistic, not quietistic and I do not use the term homiletical effect. I believe it's the right term to use.

13:23 Now quietism as a formal system of thought has its roots in the thinking and the teaching of a man named de Molinos or de Molinot. Aspects of this teaching are found in some of the French mystics, Fenelon, Madame Guion. Quietism as a full-blown system of thought teaches that the height of spiritual attainment is that of complete passivity. The attainment of perfect rest in God.

13:58 A state in which all conscious motions of human personality are neutered. You see, assuming that the real problem with remaining sin in believers is that there is this activity of the believer's own will, his own emotions, his own thoughts. Those who espouse quietism would say that the highest reaches of spiritual attainment are found when the mind is totally passive to have as it were God himself stamp his own thoughts upon it. When the affections are utterly neutered so that they are only drawn forth by God and the will is totally passive and it is in a sense then seized upon by God's own will so that he feels and thinks and wills almost for us. If not for us, certainly through us. Now I've encountered very little full-blown quietism in our day. There are elements in it in the charismatic movement.

15:09 When you shift into neutral and just give yourself up to some power that will carry you along. But though there is little full-blown quietism in our day and though there are elements of it in radical charismatic circles, the leaven of this teaching pervades almost every form of so-called deeper life, higher life, abundant life, victorious life teaching. It is shopped through with the leaven of quietism. The ideas express something like this in these circles. Since we are united to Christ, and I do not speak from second-hand experience, I've heard this taught and I tried to live by it until I almost drove myself insane. Since Romans 6 says we were crucified with him, buried with him, raised with him, then all you need to do is reckon yourself dead. If you can just get your reckoner right and just get that one big something or other of a yieldedness, then Christ, and here's the favorite terminology, will live his life through you.

16:34 There's the key phrase. Christ living his life through you. I remember sitting through a series of lessons by Major Ian Thomas in which he took the text from Romans 5. If we were reconciled by the death of his son, if when we were enemies we were reconciled by the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life? And he's written a book on the saving life of Christ. And he pours into that text something utterly foreign to the text and to the context of this leaven of quietism. Christ living his life through us. And if we can only get so yielded that he will live through us, then to that degree there will be no more struggle, no more conscious conflict, no wrestling, no conscious effort.

17:34 In fact, I heard in my ears so many times, that's the trouble with some of you. You're struggling so hard to be holy. Aren't you weary of the struggle? And my spiritual mouth would water and I'd say, God, you know I'm weary of the struggle. Aren't you tired of that pull, of that contrary principle of remaining sin? And I would sit there and say, Lord, God, you know how tired I am. I think I'd give fingers off my hand if in so doing I could shed the remains of corruption within. And then they'd say, I have a wonderful message for you. If you'll simply yield and claim and then just trust him to live his life through you, then all the struggle will be over, all the agony, all the struggling, and the only way you'll ever go back into struggling and agony and conflict is if you cease to abide. Now, I am not giving a caricature. I have heard that teaching, I have read it, and I've tried desperately to believe it and live in the light of it. Well, you see, they take these passages of union with Christ and they press into them not the biblical significance, but the

18:59 leaven of quietistic theology. Now, I want to demonstrate, as I did with the previous point, that in the passages where the intimacy of our union is most emphatically taught, the role of the conscious endeavor of the believer in the most intense engagement of all of his faculties is most clearly asserted. Turn to the Colossians passage again, if you will. Here our union with Christ is eloquently set before us.

19:40 If then ye were raised together with Christ, simply reckon on that reality and do nothing. No. Notice the verbs of action. Seek the things that are above.

19:57 Furthermore, verse 2, set your mind on the things that are above. Seek, set, verse 5, for your members which are upon the earth. He doesn't say trust Christ to mortify your members. He said you put them to death. Furthermore, he goes on to say in this passage, verse 8, but now do ye also put them all could be more plain than are these. Set your mind on the things above. To death therefore put them all. Whatever the nature of our union with Christ is as described by the Apostle in this and in parallel passages, it is not a union which negates the conscious deliberate effort of the child of God in any department of his

21:04 redeemed humanity. His mind, his affections, his will are totally engaged in the implications of his union with Christ. Or we can take that passage in Philippians chapter 2, union with Christ is not explicit in this passage but it is implicit. Without union, what is asserted in this passage could not be true.

21:35 Philippians 2, verse 12, So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That is, with the whole souled engagement of your entire redeemed humanity under the conviction of the tremendous gravity of the issues at stake. This is no kid's game. This is serious business, being holy in an unholy world.

22:12 Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, not the fear and trembling of the guilty slave who is afraid that his capricious master will come and whip him. No, no. But with the fear and trembling that is born of that consciousness on the one hand of the glory of God's grace and on the other, the awesome responsibility of bearing his name in a wicked world. Now, what's the basis of that exhortation?

22:44 For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Well, if he's working in me to will and to work, then does not that mean that I should sit back and let him work? No. His working comes to manifestation in my working, not apart from it nor independent of it. You see, in the economy of grace, God's working in me and my working out are not opposites. They are concurrent realities and independent necessities. I will never work out unless God is working in, for without him I can do nothing. But I have no reason to believe he's working anything in unless I'm working it out. That's

23:42 the teaching of this passage. So whatever the nature of our union with Christ is, it must never be conceived of as in any way giving room for a quietistic concept of this union. Now, some of you again may think that's getting excited about nothing, but if you're a sensitive soul, sooner or later you're going to be very attracted to deeper life, higher life teaching. You will be attracted to it. But if you take it seriously, one of two things will happen. You'll either end up totally frustrated and begin to doubt everything you ever believed, or you'll end up self-deceived, and you'll no longer call sin what God calls sin, because you've claimed victory, and you've claimed to enter into rest, and lo and behold it isn't long before your conscious, indwelling sin is still at work, but you've been told no, no, as long as I'm resting it's not there, and you begin to live in a fool's paradise. Beware of higher life, victorious life, deeper life teaching. That is based upon the perversion of the doctrine of union with Christ.

24:57 Now may I underscore as lovingly and gently as I can, I am not, I am not questioning the genuineness of the love to Christ expressed in the ministries or lives of men such as Ian Thomas, Watchman Nee, Norman Grubb, and those who are known as quote deeper life teachers. Don't anyone go out please and say that brash young man, he just cut hip and thigh, this one. Friend don't say that. You're lying and bearing false witness. I did not cast any aspersions upon the Christian character of those who espouse this teaching. I said not one word about their character. Now don't bear false witness to me, or concerning me. God will hold you accountable for that. I've examined the

25:53 teaching which they've committed to print, and the teaching which I've heard with my ears in the light of the word of God. And that teaching stands under the censure of the word of God. Well, I must hurry on or we won't get beyond the negatives. Union must not be conceived of A, as pantheistic. B, as quietistic. Thirdly, it must not be conceived of as a mere external union. Some have seen the errors of quietism, and the errors of the pantheistic mystic approach to union with Christ, and they have overreacted. I shall never forget when a young seminary student said one of the most philosophically sound things I've ever heard a young seminarian say in my hearing many years ago.

Union is Not Merely External or Materialistic

26:52 He said, you know, pastor, I've been thinking. The pendulum moves swiftest through the center of its arc and is stationary at both extremes. Isn't that exactly what happens with the pendulum? The point of the middle of the arc is where it moves swiftest, and then there comes the point where it is arrested and it is stationary at both extremes.

27:18 And we went on to discuss that tendency of the human heart to move swiftest through the center of the arc. That is where we are holding in proper biblical tension the whole of God's revelation. Now what has happened is people have seen this extreme of the doctrine of union with Christ, quietism, mysticism, and they've set a plague on the mystic's house. We want nothing to do with that kind of ephemeral, that kind of woozy, undefinable union with Christ. And they would lead us to believe that all of the terminology of the Bible in Christ, Christ in us, Christ living in us, that that is just strained metaphor and poetic license. That the relationship to Christ as far as union is concerned is not materially different from the relationship that the Red Guard had to Mao back when he was alive. There is a union, a sympathy of political theory, a union, a sympathy of revolutionary concern and commitment but that's all. They would say it's merely an external union, or the union that exists

28:39 between disciples and their master, or the union between subjects and a beloved king. Not only has this been the teaching of some who've reacted against the quietistic and mystical abuse of the doctrine, but it is of course the position taken by the anti-supernaturalists, those who deny the true and essential deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because they're smart enough to know if the union is a vital life union, no mere man can impart his life to multitudes of fellow creatures throughout the centuries. If he's just a man, then you see there can be no union of life. It must be a union that is not materially different from any union existing among men. Well, we know this cannot be so because the scriptures tell us that this union is the result of the new creation. If any man be in Christ, a new creation. Ephesians 2

29:48 10, we are created anew in union with Christ. And it is true that Christ in us is the hope of glory. And it is true, according to Colossians 3, that Christ is actually constituted our life. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye be manifested with him in glory.

30:14 So, we must never conceive of this union as a merely external union. And may I say I fear the leaven of this has pervaded much of the shallow evangelical thought in our day. Because programs and success and activism are central, you find few people willing to ponder the glory of their union with Christ. And they become attached to the church by a walk down an aisle, by conformity to some external norms and patterns of behavior. They've been programmed into busyness. And there is little if any of that deep awareness of intimate union and communion with Christ. And some of the externalistic mentality of this union, I fear, marks even the best of our evangelical churches. But then in the fourth place, we must not conceive of this union as a materialistic union.

31:22 And I must touch upon this because though you may not be aware of it, the rank and file of you, it is something that concerns you. This teaching would be found, for the most part, in the church of Rome. And to simplify it, it goes something like this. Grace is a commodity that God can deposit in his church.

31:45 And all the grace that is ultimately in Christ is deposited in Christ's church. Now how do you get it out of Christ through the church? Well, the channels are the sacraments. So if you get the water on you, you get united to Christ, at least so far as to get original sin washed away.

32:06 And then if you take the wafer, now they even give the cup, you see, in some circles. Then you're actually feeding upon Christ's flesh and Christ's blood, and therefore you enter into saving union with Christ. It is a crassly materialistic concept of union with Christ. No, Jesus said, my words are spirit and they are life.

32:33 And I don't want to be unkind, but cannibalism will never bring a person into union with Christ. Eating away from and drinking the fruit of the vine that in some magical way has become the actual body and blood of Christ under the form of bread and the fruit of the vine can in no way incorporate me into Jesus Christ. Cannibalism is no medium of conveying this blessed union. Well, we could go into other areas, but it would not be to your edification. This has been unpleasant. It's not been pleasant for me. I would have much rather just stayed with the positive. But I can't divorce myself from pastoral concerns simply because I'm here giving lectures.

33:20 Or I should say, I'm just preaching. I don't give lectures. I don't know how to give lectures. That's my problem, why I can't get through the material.

Union is a Spiritual Union

33:29 I'll never make it as a lecturer. What then is this union? If it is not these things, what is it? Well, time will not permit me to give the three points that I'd hoped to give. Let me just give one then, all right? And then we'll pick up there tomorrow morning, God willing. Take my time. All right. I do have a conscience. Really, I do. It seems my reputation goes before me about speaking for a long time, but if there are strictures put upon me, I do honor them, and I was trying to honor this one. But since that stricture's been removed, you may sit to regret it.

34:20 All right then. This union must be conceived of as, first of all, a spiritual union. A spiritual union. As Professor Murray, in treating this subject, has accurately stated, and I quote now, few words are more grossly misunderstood than is the word spiritual.

34:42 End quote. In the New Testament, the word spiritual has reference to that which is of, the Holy Spirit. The third person of the triune Godhead. And a spiritual man or woman, according to the New Testament, is the man or woman who is indwelt by this person.

35:05 Turn, please, to Romans chapter 9, and this is a, Romans chapter 8, and this is a pivotal passage in seeking to come to grips with the biblical concept of the nature of our union with Christ. In Romans 8 and verse 9, the Apostle says, But ye are not in the flesh, that is, your existence is not in the realm of the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. When the Spirit comes to indwell us, and that comes to pass in that whole complex of effectual calling, when God seizes us in grace, and we seize Him by faith, in that complex of divine activity and human response, the Spirit is always given as the seal, as the earnest of our inheritance. We had it read for us tonight from Ephesians 1 verses 13 and 14. Now the moment that happens, the Apostle says, the person who receives the Spirit is constituted a spiritual man. He is now in the realm of the Spirit.

36:31 And it is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that is the bond of our union with Christ. And the Apostle makes that very plain in this very passage. Notice the progression now, beginning with verse 9 and moving on to verse 10. We are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.

36:57 If so be, now notice the designation, the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Now is that a different Spirit? And believe it or not, I actually heard a man who built a whole system of doctrine on the different designation in this passage.

37:22 Spirit of God, that's what everyone has appointed and saved. Spirit of Christ, that's what those have who get the second work. Now he built a whole system of a doctrine of the Holy Spirit on this different designation. And he missed the whole point of the passage.

37:38 Let's read on. Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, now and if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. And where the Spirit of Christ is found, Christ himself is present.

38:08 So the indwelling of Christ is the indwelling of Christ by and in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit that rests upon him as the head is the Spirit that he poured forth so that in pouring forth of that Spirit he himself comes to take up his abode in the hearts of his people. That's the teaching, repeated teaching, of John 14, John 15, and John 16. I must go away, but I'm going to come again.

38:44 But the Comforter is coming, but in his coming I come, and where I come, the Father comes as well. You see, you cannot divide the Triune Godhead, and though there is in what we call the economy of redemption a specific designation of certain functions to the various members of the Godhead, it is the incarnate Word who dies upon the cross. It is not the Father who dies. It is not the Spirit who dies. And yet the writer to Hebrews says, he through the eternal Spirit offered himself up without spot unto God. And so we must recognize when we come to deal with these subjects the indivisibility of the divine essence. And so he tells us that this union is a spiritual union, one that is brought to pass by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit himself. And then the passage to which I've referred several times in the course of these lectures, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and verse 15,

40:00 Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? They have been taken into union with Christ? His union with you and yours with him involves the totality of your redeemed humanity? Will I take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? God forbid.

40:23 Or know ye not that he that is joined to a harlot is one body? For the twain said he shall become one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. How is our union with Christ effected? It is effected by our participating in the one spirit, the spirit of Christ, the indwelling spirit in the heart, in the redeemed humanity of the believing child of God. Or we might take 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 13 for a little shift of emphasis. You see, these things are so big that we can't lock them up to one dimension. They are like a diamond with many facets. The diamond is

41:11 one subsistence. But you look at it from different angles and there are different highlights. Well, the truth of union with Christ is like that. And here we have it approached from a little different perspective. 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 13. For in one spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and were all made to drink of one spirit. Christ is the head. We are the members.

41:49 How is this organic living union established? By the spirit who implants us into the body and himself becomes the bond that knits us to the head, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if we recognize that the nature of this union is precisely this. It is a spiritual union.

42:15 A union wrought by the indwelling spirit. It will guard us from two cardinal errors. Number one, the error of a sensual, carnal conception of union with Christ. We do not have a bodily union with Christ.

42:34 It is a spiritual union. But it will keep us, on the other hand, from the error of a sentimental, notional conception of union with Christ. It is not just an idea. It is not an empty term. There is a real union, as real as the third person of the Godhead rested upon him and was given to him without measure. As surely a spirit is a person, and that spirit indwells us, making this boss and Christ the union is a real union. That's why many of the old writers call it a vital union. There is the pulse of divine life.

43:24 Christ liveth in me. And may I pause in a little aside to say you won't find one verse in the Bible that says he lives through me. That's what broke the back of higher life teaching for me. I got down my Greek concordance and I scoured the New Testament and the only reference to Christ through us is where the apostle says I will not dare to speak of the things that Christ has wrought through me by mighty signs and wonders. There's not one verse in the New Testament that says Christ diah, Christ through me. It's Christ in, not through. And that's not playing with words. For in the one there would be the bypassing of all the faculties of my redeemed humanity.

44:16 If it were simply Christ for me, union would not be clear. But because it is Christ in me, the union is real. It is genuine. But it is not a union that negates the full exercise of all my redeemed humanity.

Implications for Christian Life and Ministry

44:34 Christ in me by the Spirit working in his mysterious way in the hidden springs of my redeemed humanity so that I'm fully conscious of the exercise of all my faculties and yet wonder of wonders when they've been exercised in a way pleasing to God and in conscious communion with his Son. It is my joy to fall upon my face and say blessed Lord, I am what I am and I've done what I've done by the grace of God. And this has so many implications. May I just touch upon a couple of them. They're not in my notes but they're so vital. It enters into your whole theory of preaching. In preaching, what ought a man to be conscious of? He ought to be conscious of the intensest engagement of all of his redeemed faculties.

45:29 His mind should be raised to its highest of intense thought. His spirit articulates. He ought to preach with his entire Before he preaches, he's prostrate before his God knowing that he cannot preach unless God is pleased by the Spirit in the hidden springs of his redeemed humanity to give life to the truth so that his own soul feeds upon it while he preaches. You preachers know what I'm talking about. The joy that comes when you feed upon the very bread of life that you're holding out to others. And there's a sense in which you wouldn't care if the entire congregation vaporized. You're getting so blessed by the very truth that you're articulating. And you know that that's nothing you can create.

46:26 You know that. You're conscious that it's in the virtue of your union with Christ the head shedding fresh and copious supplies of his spirit upon a member of his body that is doing what? Just passively standing up there hoping that Christ will somehow preach through him. No!

46:44 Who gives himself to the spiritual agony of whole engagement in the ministry of the word of God and yet does so in dependence upon Christ and if he's been unable to do that he prostrates himself when he's done and says, Oh Lord thank you for the aid of your spirit. Thank you. For the grace of your son. Well it's a spiritual union.

47:12 Therefore it is vital. It is dynamic. It is real. And I really do think that's enough. Though you've given me permission to go more I really feel we might spoil it if we go too much because you've been concentrating you've been hanging in there and I don't want to tempt the Lord in terms of going beyond what might be in the best interest of your clarification. So I believe we'll stop here and those of you who can't be here tomorrow morning I'll tell you what I had hoped to cover anyway. Alright? Two more points.

47:45 It is not only a spiritual union the nature of this union in a positive way is to be understood in the term mystical. Not mystic as the mystics but mystical. That is a union that is hidden in the mind and purpose of God revealed in time and then proclaimed in preaching. That's gospel mystery.

48:08 And it is an indissoluble union. Who shall separate us from the love of God that is where? In Christ Jesus our Lord. Thank God for the reality of this union which as we considered this morning assures us that even when the undertaker takes over this union will not be dissolved.

48:30 We'll die in Christ and these bodies will be buried in union with Christ and as the spirit enters the realm of the just men made perfect and by the virtue of Christ and the power of Christ is made fit to dwell with him to know that the hour will come when the head will be manifested in glory but not without his body. He will be no disembodied redeemer at his return. We shall be manifested with him in the glorified state is the language of Colossians. Oh dear people if that doesn't at least put a shout in your heart if not on your lips I wonder, I wonder if you have any interest in these things.

49:14 Blessed be God for such a savior and for such a method of salvation that does not simply juggle the record books of heaven and I don't mean to be irreverent when I say that but takes us up into the most personal intimate relationship of union and communion with the blessed son of God. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ. The language with which old Flavel closes many of his sermons particularly in the first and second volumes where he is setting out the glory of God in the face of Christ and he closes again and again. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ. Amen.