“To be found in Christ means you don’t have to prove yourself anymore. Your frantic attempts to find or craft an acceptable identity, or your tireless work to manage your own reputation—these are over and done. You can rest. In Christ. You don’t have to be intimidated by anyone, ever. Who are you? You are in Christ! And you no longer need to fear the judgment of God (1 John 4:18). When God looks at you, he sees you hidden in Christ. This is freedom. This is confidence. This is good, good news. ” Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ
Several weeks ago in chapel at NCCS, Blake Goss was speaking about what it looks like to truly walk in the freedom we have in Christ. He was making the point that the only way we can do that is if we truly understand union in Christ and then lean into communion with Christ. After chapel we were chatting further and he asked if I’d ever read Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God by Rankin Wilbourne as that book helped shape a lot of his thoughts in this area. I had not, but now I have.
I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…
- The soul never thinks without an image. Aristotle Location 111
- This book will require you to use your imagination because union with Christ is an enchanted reality. And we live in a disenchanted world. Location 119
- One way to think about the Christian life—not the only way, but a powerful and too-little-used way—is that believing the gospel means having your imagination taken captive and reshaped by a new story. Location 150
- Union with Christ tells you a new story about who you are. Location 167
- We may know what God has saved us from, but have we lost sight of what God has saved us for? Location 197
- is what Christ suffered for, “that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). As J. I. Packer put it in his classic Knowing God: What will make heaven to be heaven is the presence of Jesus, and of a reconciled divine father who loves us for Jesus’ sake no less than He loves Jesus Himself. To see, and know, and love, and be loved by, the Father and the Son, in company with the rest of God’s vast family, is the whole essence of the Christian hope.… If you are a believer … this prospect satisfies you completely. Location 203
- If you are united to Christ, you are a citizen of heaven (Phil. 3:20). Present tense. You have “every spiritual blessing” (Eph. 1:3). You participate in heavenly realities even as you walk around with both feet on the ground. Today we do this by faith in what is unseen. It requires our imagination. But one day it will be by sight, when we see him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12). Location 212
- Of all the good news the gospel brings, the greatest—and indeed the door to all the rest—is that you can be united to Christ. It’s really possible. Union with Christ is not an abstract idea. It is a powerful reality. And if Jesus has joined his life to yours, then you have been given everything you need for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). But unless you are united to him, all that he has done for you remains useless and of no value to you. Location 215
- The apostle Paul prays that “the eyes of your heart [would be] enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance” (Eph. 1:18). Paul prays for the eyes of your heart—what are they if not your imagination? My hope, then, is that with them you would see what is true, so that you may know God, and enjoy him, and be filled with hope. This glorious adventure begins in union with Christ. Location 234
- I want you to know that union with Christ is really possible. For you. You can press on, “further up and further in,” 22 to what is already yours in Christ. Apart from him you can do nothing (John 15:5). But united to him, you can drink the sweet waters of the far country, even as you wander in a dry and thirsty land. For Christ will “make it a place of springs” (Ps. 84:6), even rivers of living water. Location 417
- Faith is how union with Christ becomes operative and powerful in your life. Faith is a God-given gift that allows you to take hold of God’s having taken hold of you. If you are in Christ, this is now the defining truth of who you are. Your life, your story, becomes enfolded by another story—Another’s story. That’s one way to define faith: faith means finding your identity in Christ. Location 496
- To be found in Christ means you don’t have to prove yourself anymore. Your frantic attempts to find or craft an acceptable identity, or your tireless work to manage your own reputation—these are over and done. You can rest. In Christ. You don’t have to be intimidated by anyone, ever. Who are you? You are in Christ! And you no longer need to fear the judgment of God (1 John 4:18). When God looks at you, he sees you hidden in Christ. This is freedom. This is confidence. This is good, good news. Location 512
- To be united to Christ is to have the Spirit of Christ within you. The Spirit is the real, living bond between Jesus and us. If you do not have the Spirit, then you do not have Christ (Rom. 8:9). But if the Spirit dwells within you, consider what you do have. “Having the Spirit,” Sinclair Ferguson wrote, “is the equivalent, indeed the very mode, of having the incarnate, obedient, crucified, resurrected and exalted Christ indwelling us so that we are united to him as he is united to the Father.” Location 549
- Christ dwelling in us by his Spirit is a guarantee that we can and will change. We are adopted into God’s family, and not in name only. The Spirit in us now guides and forms us more and more into the family likeness. The same Christ who overcame every temptation and was perfectly obedient—that Jesus is in you now. The Jesus who had compassion on the crowds and who healed the sick—that Jesus is in you. The humble Jesus who led as a servant, who washed his disciples’ feet—he’s in you. The Jesus who repeatedly shattered racial barriers with his teachings and in his life—that Jesus is in you. The Jesus who suffered and loved to the end—he dwells in you. And the Jesus who was raised to new life—that Jesus is living in you right now! Location 563
- The goal is having a personal, vital, profoundly real relationship with God through Christ by the Holy Spirit. The goal is enjoying communion with God himself. Union with Christ is not an idea to be understood, but a new reality to be lived, through faith. Location 592
- When I base my Christian life on my Christian experience, I become locked in the labyrinth of my own performance. I am only as sure of God as my current emotions and obedience allow. My eyes are fixed on myself. Location 606
- Christ has wed himself to you. This is not just a declaration to agree with. It is an objective reality to live into. He has fully atoned for you, and he is now with you, assuring you that with him, you have the resources to overcome anything that threatens to overwhelm you. Location 630
- Extravagant grace and radical discipleship meet in the person of Jesus himself. Location 820
- Undiluted grace and uncompromising obedience meet in the person of Jesus. He is always full of both. Location 823
- Union with Christ is the song we need to recover and hear today as the heart of the gospel. The song of grace without union with Christ becomes impersonal, a cold calculus that can leave you cynical. The song of discipleship without union with Christ becomes joyless duty, a never-ending hill that can leave you exhausted. To the imposters, who are a million different people from one day to the next, to the frustrated idealists who can’t change their mold—that’s right, you can’t. But when the life of God comes into your life, he can, and he promises that he will (Rev. 21:5). Union with Christ holds together what so many of us are struggling to hold together. It allows us to sing of a grace that asks nothing of us to love us—amazing grace—but at the same time, demands everything from us—my soul, my life, my all. Location 913
- Sandra Richter, in The Epic of Eden, describes what she calls the “dysfunctional closet syndrome,” in which she compares the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, to a closet jam-packed with all kinds of stuff—clothes, shoes, books, games—but so disorganized you don’t know where to put things or how to find things when you need them. So we shut the door and tell ourselves that we’ll sort it all out someday. Sound familiar? 1 I’ve found that to be a helpful metaphor for how many people approach the Bible. You may pluck out an item here and there (such as a proverb, or a psalm, or a story like David and Goliath), but most of us are just not sure where everything fits. Richter suggests a better way. She says that we can best honor the biblical writers by appreciating the one story they were trying to tell. “We forget,” she writes, “that this book was cast upon the waters of history with one very specific, completely essential and desperately needed objective—to tell the epic tale of God’s ongoing quest to ransom his creation.” 2 The Bible is the truest and best of redemption stories. Location 945
- “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). Where are you? That may be the best three-word summary of the Bible in the Bible. The whole rest of the book is the unfolding narrative of God’s relentless pursuit to restore humanity, now banished from God’s presence by the presence of our sin, to God’s original intent—unbroken, unhindered communion with him and with one another and with all creation. Location 957
- The Bible is the grand story of God restoring our communion with him. Everything between the opening of Genesis and the end of Revelation is part of God’s plan for how that restoration will take place. God’s purposes have never changed. His original intent is his final intent: that the people of God might dwell in the place of God, enjoying the presence of God—this is the arc of the whole biblical story, from Genesis to Revelation. Location 968
- A lot of us approach God like the president: we assume he’s much too important and busy to care about little old me. But union with Christ tells you that you are united to the one who always has access and who lives to give you access to the executive office of the universe. This isn’t just about how to read the Bible; this is about living with a whole new frame of confidence. You are united to the enthroned king above all kings, “the ruler of kings on earth” (Rev. 1:5). Location 1010
- The Bible teaches us that we can be united to Christ, and our union with Christ, in turn, teaches us how to read the Bible. If you are united to Christ, then from him come both grace and demand, which together lead to a life of joy. Listen for the dynamics in Jesus’s own words: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. [You hear the grace in this.] If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. [You hear the demand following right after. And then you hear the consequence.] These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:9–11) Location 1117
- We must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us. Therefore, to share in what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us … for, as I have said, all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him … To sum up, the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself. Location 1257
- At the center of Jonathan Edwards’s theology is the idea that God’s own glory is the end for which God created the world and all things. Edwards says, “The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God and to God; and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair.” Location 1321
- Union with Christ says that Christ is not simply at the center of our lives; he is at the center of all creation and holds all things together, visible and invisible (Col. 1:16). He is “before all things” (v. 17), the creator of all things (John 1:3), the sustainer of all things (Heb. 1:3), and the one in whom all history finds its purpose (Eph. 1:10). This is the Christ to whom we are united! Location 1516
- Identity—Who am I? Destiny—Where am I headed? Purpose—What should I be doing? Hope—What can I hope for along the way? Location 1577
- Against the prevailing mindset of our day—you are what you make of yourself—union with Christ tells you that you can discover your real self only in relation to the One who made you. You are not, you cannot be, self-made. Union with Christ tells you that you can only understand who you are in communion with God and others. And that is a wildly countercultural claim. Location 1615
- Union with Christ gives us permission to rest. We don’t have to be burdened by the weight of the possible. We do have so many choices. But union with Christ says there is one choice more important than any other choice you will make: Thy will be done or my will be done? As long as your will is set on following Christ, you can rest in the choices you make. You don’t have to be frozen in fear because your life is no longer in your own hands. You can surrender your plans to Christ, who has joined his life to yours. Location 1713
- Union with Christ grounds us in a way no other mindset ever could. If you choose to find your identity in Christ, you will lose nothing of what makes life beautiful and free. You will move from searching for an identity to being found in Christ (Phil. 3:9). Location 1825
- Union is the secret to communion. Because only when you are absolutely “sure” and “certain” (see Heb. 11:1) that you are loved by God, that you are safe in Christ, will you want to pursue the one who already loves you best. Location 3005
- Union with Christ makes the art of abiding a duty of delight. Location 3026
- Union with Christ is cosmic in its scope. It stretches our horizons like nothing else. It adds “breadth and length and height and depth” (Eph. 3:18) to our daily lives. It rescues us from what sociologist Robert Bellah calls our “radical individualism” 1 and helps resolve some of the false choices that narrow our vision. Location 3190
- Over and against a shallow emotionalism that reduces the things of God only to how they impact us individually, but also over and against an arid intellectualism that reduces the things of God to abstract doctrines of cold assent, union with Christ brings together what we so desperately need today: the highest theology and the deepest spirituality. Union with Christ holds together God and life like nothing else can because it shows us that these are inseparable. Location 3416
- For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14–19 Location 3424
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