Saints have union in Christ through faith

Paul says that they, believers, are in Christ Jesus: to the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus. That is our third description of what it means to be a Christian; one who by grace is in union with Christ. You will find this expression in Christ all through Paul’s writings. But we have a tendency to minimize this union: Oh yeah, we have faith in Christ; our faith is directed towards Christ. But Paul means that we really need to maximize. We need to realize he is compacting in only a few words a great reality here: namely, union with Christ through faith.

By grace through faith, Christians enter into a saving relationship with Christ, by which we receive all the benefits of his redeeming work. Is that not a wonderful way of understanding it! We have union with him and all that is his becomes ours. All that he accomplished, he did for us. We enter into the same relationship. In Christ, we now have the same relationship with the Father that he has. I have always loved what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene on the day of the resurrection: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God (John 20:17). He is saying, my relationship with the Father is your relationship. Jesus did not say that you are going to have a relationship like my relationship. No, you are going to have my relationship. And when you believe, or you look at how God pours his love and his commitment, his devotion and his delight in Jesus, his Son, you are no less in that relationship with God, in Christ Jesus. In Matthew 3:17, when Jesus is being baptized—that incredible scene when the heavens break open and the voice of God is heard, saying “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased—in Christ Jesus, that is equally true of you. We are saved to all the benefits of all that Christ did for our salvation. And all that Christ has become by means of his death and resurrection has become ours through union with him.

John Calvin wrote, All things that belong to our salvation are accomplished in our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, salvation becomes ours as we have union with Christ through the bond of faith.¹

Dr Richard D. Phillips