Union with Christ

Count the occurrences of “in Christ,” “in him,” and “in the Beloved” in the first fourteen verses of Ephesians and you will find roughly one per verse. This is not a verbal tic. For Paul, in Christ is the address at which every blessing is delivered: election, redemption, forgiveness, inheritance, sealing — “every spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3).

The hub, not a spoke

It is tempting to treat union with Christ as one benefit among many, a spoke on the wheel alongside justification and sanctification. The New Testament treats it as the hub. We are not given justification and union; we are justified because united to the Righteous One. We are not sanctified and united; we grow because branches share the life of the vine (John 15:4–5).

Calvin saw this clearly: as long as Christ remains outside of us, all that he has done remains useless to us.¹ The gospel events — cross and empty tomb — become mine only by union, and union is effected by the Spirit and received by faith.

Died with him, raised with him

Romans 6 pushes the doctrine into shocking territory: “we have been united with him in a death like his” (Romans 6:5). Paul does not say Christ died instead of me in a way that leaves me untouched; he says I died in him. Baptism dramatizes this co-burial and co-resurrection.

The practical payoff is Paul’s ethic in miniature: become what you are. The imperative “consider yourselves dead to sin” (Romans 6:11) rests entirely on the indicative of union. Christian obedience is not self-improvement but living out an accomplished identity — “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Adoption: union’s warmest name

Union with the Son makes sons and daughters. Adoption is union with Christ viewed from the angle of the family rather than the courtroom: sharers in his sonship, co-heirs of his inheritance, taught by his Spirit to say his word, Abba (Romans 8:15–17). If justification answers the guilty conscience, adoption answers the orphaned heart.

Reading on

This essay opens a short series on the order of salvation; the next, Justification by Faith Alone, examines the verdict rendered within this union. For the vine-and-branches imagery in its own context, see the commentary on John 15.

Footnotes

1. Calvin, Institutes, III.1.1 — the opening move of Book III, on how we receive the grace of Christ. ↩