Union With Christ

Union with Christ

Introduction

The words In Christ: we see them all over Scripture and what do we do with that? Well

we allegorize it. The special words that stand at the center of our salvation have simply become

an allegory like it was the Chronicles of Narnia or the Screwtape Letters. In this paper I will

argue that we have an actual, real, ontological union with Christ that is the center of our

Salvation from which all salvific benefits come. As Gregory of Nazianzus says “The un-assumed

is the unhealed; what is united to God, that is also saved.” But before I begin my paper I must 1

say that to discuss this is to discuss something so “paradoxical that it is difficult to express in a

few words.” I seek to be as faithful to Scripture in understanding our union with Christ. In order 2

to argue my thesis I will first look at the nature of our union, the kind of union, how this union

affects justification, sanctification, the Church, and finally preaching and the Sacraments.

What is the nature of our union with Christ? What kind of union is it?

When discussing union with Christ John Murray has a good grasp on the mystery of this

union, he says that union with Christ “is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation

not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of

Christ.” Marcus Johnson came up with four areas that we must see our union in. 3

EP 101.5 (101.32) qtd in, John Behr, The Nicene Faith. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary, 2004. 405. Print. 1

Emphasis mine.

Donald Macpherson Baillie, 1887-. God Was in Christ: An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement. New York: 2

Scribner, 1955. Print.

John Murray. Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955. 161.Print.3

1

1. We must see our union with Christ in election. Ephesians 1:4 makes it clear that we were 4

chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. Our union extends past all time. We

have been included into the very person of Jesus Christ before the world was created. “In

the case of election we can speak of a kind of pre-temporal union with Christ-a union that

somehow exists before and above time.” 5

2. We must see our union with Christ as taking place in the Incarnation. Here we speak of

John 1:14. It is in the incarnation that Christ assumed all of who we truly are in 6

becoming human. It is here that we participate in his life, death, resurrection, and

ascension as we see in Romans 6:3. Hebrews 2:14 makes it very clear that he “partook 7 8

in the same things as us.” “The flesh and blood union of our humanity with Jesus Christ,

in his saving life, death, resurrection, and ascension, is the objective realization of our

union with Christ before the foundation of the world in election.” 9

3. We must see our union with Christ in our experience. 1 Corinthians 1:9 makes it clear 10

that we have been called into a fellowship with Jesus Christ. It is this koinonia that is a

“even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” 4

ESV.

Marcus Peter Johnson,. One with Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation. [S.l.]: Crossway, 2013. 30. Print. 5

Murray says in his book Redemption, (on union with Christ) that this “means that those who will be saved were not even contemplated by the Father in the ultimate counsel of his predestining love apart from union with Christ-they were chosen in Christ.”

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” ESV.6

“Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” ESV.7

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things,” ESV.8

Johnson, One with Christ, 33. 9

‘you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” ESV.10

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sharing or participating in him. As Johnson says “to experience fellowship with the Son is

to be made alive in Christ, justified in Christ, sanctified in Christ, seated in the heavenly

realms in Christ, built up into Christ, and given fullness in Christ. Those joined to Christ

are “members of Christ,” “crucified in Christ,” “included in Christ,” “baptized into

Christ,” and the “body of Christ.”” 11

4. We must see our union with Christ in consummation. There is an already not yet aspect to

our union with Him and it is in this we must pray “maranatha!-Come Lord Jesus! (1 Cor.

16:22). The Church does not await the return of Christ so that we may be united to Him;

rather, the church is united to Christ and so anxiously desires the consummation of this

union.” 12

When discussing what this union actually is we must begin with the Trinity. When we are

included into Jesus Christ as the scriptures have made very clear it thereby means that we are

included into the Trinitarian relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. In our union with the

Son we are included in the Father and Spirit through inter-Trinitarian union. Jonathan Edwards

makes the claim that “There was, [as] it were, an eternal society or family in the Godhead, in the

Trinity of persons. It seems to be God’s design to admit the church into the divine family as his

Son’s wife.” Because of Christ’s Homoousion with the Father and the hypostatic union of his 13

divinity and humanity we are included into the Father. We share in the inter-Trinitarian relations.

Cyril of Alexandria makes it clear in saying that just as he is close to the Father “so also are we

Johnson, One with Christ. 33. 11

Ibid, 34. 12

Qtd in Brad Harper, and Paul Louis. Metzger. Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical 13

Introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2009. 37. Print. 3

[closely related] to him and he to us, in so far as he was made man. And through him as through

a mediator we are joined to the Father.” Torrance states “In Jesus Christ, God has embodied in 14

our human existence the mutual knowledge which the Father and the Son have of one another

and in the Holy Spirit he gives us communion in the mutual relation of the Father and the

Son…” 15

Not only is our union with Christ Trinitarian it is also personal and intimate. All too often

our salvation is boiled down to simply a signing of a legal document and a change of mind in

that God know see’s us differently and we lose the personal intimacy that is our salvation. Paul

describes Christ’s relationship to us as a husband and wife relationship. Imagine if marriages

were like that. They would fail and ultimately that is not the way the marriage union is to be.

““Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall

become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the

church.” We have now become “one flesh” with Christ. It is here that we see massive 16

implications for the importance of going to Church. Just as with a husband and wife, there have

been set aside special activities to grow in intimacy with each other, not to partake in these does

not make you less than ‘one flesh’, but to partake in this is to grow in intimacy with the one you

are united with. The same is with Christ and our “one fleshness” with him. We must continue to

consummate that and grow in our intimacy with him. “It is important that we go further and say

that God’s Triune relationality is the foundation for, the raison d’etre, of all human relational

Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, (Quoted in Fairbairn, Life in the Trinity, 138).14

T.F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith. N.p.: T. & T. Clark, 1988.55.Print.15

Ephesians 5:31-32. See also 1 Corinthians 6:15-17.16

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capacity and existence. And we are brought into this divine, relationship-constituting communion

when Jesus Christ joins us to himself.” 17

Our union with Christ is not only Trinitarian and personal it is also ‘life giving’. By this I

mean that we “are integral elements of a living wholeness.” Christ, in the incarnation, has so 18

united us to himself that he is now our source of life as a vine with its branches (John 15), He is

water and bread of life (John 4), he is eternal life in his own being (John 5), and it is as Paul says

in Galatians 2 “no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me.” 19

Finally our union with Christ is a mystery. To try to understand this is to discuss

something so “paradoxical that it is difficult to express in a few words.” Paul calls it the 20

mystery of the gospel (Eph 5). In claiming this as mystery we must be careful not to sacrifice the

reality of it. Thomas Boston says that

The Gospel is a doctrine of mysteries. The Head in heaven, the members on earth, yet

really united! Christ in the believer, living in him, walking in him: and the believer

dwelling in God, putting on the Lord Jesus, eating his flesh and drinking His blood! This

makes the saints a mystery to the world, yea, a mystery to themselves. 21

How does understanding union with Christ help us understand/clarify/correct/qualify the

doctrine of justification?

Johnson, One with Christ, 44.17

Ibid, 45.18

Ibid.19

Donald Macpherson Baillie, 1887-. God Was in Christ: An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement. New York: 20

Scribner, 1955. Print.

Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State (Banner of Truth Trust, 1964. Reprint 1989), 257.21

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When we see ourselves and our salvation as a real, life giving union with Jesus Christ

Justification is “that benefit of our union with Christ in his life, death, and resurrection, in which

God declares us to be righteous-through the forgiveness of our sins and the imputation of

Christ’s righteousness.” “Through this union, the believer comes to a possessio of Christ and 22

his benefits.” Justification is the answer to the problem that our sin causes for us. It is that 23

benefit through which we participate in the ‘Justified One’s’ life, death, and resurrection in which

he ‘condemned sin in the flesh.” (Rom 8:3) It was this condemnation of sin that put us in the

right with God. Our union gives us the ability to participate in this condemnation of sin and in

His righteousness so we can be right with God. Martin Luther tells us in his commentary on

Galatians that faith “justifies because it takes hold of and posses this treasure, the present

Christ…Therefore the Christ who is grasped by faith and who lives in the heart is the true

Christian righteousness, on account of which God counts us as righteous and grants us eternal

life.” Johnson sums up Luther’s views by saying that “justification was more than a bare legal 24

declaration that took no account of a shared intimacy with Christ. It was rather a declaration of

forgiveness and righteousness that depended upon such intimacy.” It is important to note that 25

our justification is not a mere legal declaration of being right with God it is an inclusion into

Christ’s righteousness before God; although it does include legal elements it is more than simply

that. John Calvin defines justification as “the sinner received into communion with Christ, is

reconciled to God by his grace, while, cleansed by his blood, he obtains forgiveness of sins, and

Johnson, One with Christ. 91.22

Marcus P. Johnson, "Luther And Calvin On Union With Christ." Fides Et Historia 39.2 (2007): 59-77. ATLA 23

Religion Database with ATLASerials. Web. 3 May 2013.

Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians (1535), LW 26, 130.24

Johnson, One with Christ. 96.25

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clothes with Christ’s righteousness as if it were our own, he stands confident before the heavenly

judgment seat.” For both Luther and Calvin our justification is grounded completely in our 26

union with Christ and so bound to him it is inseparably from his person and work and relation

with his Father. Romans 8:1 tells us that there is now no more condemnation for those in Christ.

That is the point of justification, we are not condemned anymore. We have been made right

before God and we have been made right strictly because we are in Christ. The Westminster

Catechism describes our union as “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.” Jonathan Edwards 27

says it well that the “real union between Christ and his people, is the foundation of what is legal;

that is, it is something really in them, and between them, uniting them, that is the ground for

suitableness if their being accounted as one by the Judge.” Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 1, and 28

Philippians 3 all make it clear that “while justification most certainly must be understood in

forensic terms-a verdict of acquittal resulting from the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of

Christ’s righteousness-justification is founded upon, and has its cogency, only as we view it as

the result of being united to the One who himself secured our acquittal.” 29

How does understanding union with Christ help us understand/clarify/correct/illumine the

doctrine of sanctification?

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.17.8.26

"Westminster Larger Catechism." Westminster Larger Catechism. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2013.27

Jonathan Edwards. Justification by Faith Alone. Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2000. Print.28


7

As with justification our sanctification “is that benefit of our union with Christ in which

God, through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, delivers us from our depraved natures

by transforming us into the holy image of Jesus Christ through our participation in his death and

resurrection.” Too often in modern theology sanctification is described as a strictly progressive 30

legal aspect of something that happens because we are already saved. It is not seen as part of

what it means to be saved. Sanctification has been seen as simply being good moral people. 31

Sanctification, that is becoming holy, is not a “move from immorality to morality, from badness

to goodness” as Johnson says, “but a move from morality to grace. That is from our self

generated notions of moral goodness to God’s freely given love.” Sanctification is thus nothing 32

to do with being good moral people it has everything to do with living in light of our union with

Christ and being who we already are in Him.

1 Corinthians 1:30 is the best place to start in discussing this topic. We are told that

because of God in Christ “who became wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and

redemption.” It is through Christ that he became sanctification. One of the many blessing and 33

benefits of his becoming man and uniting us to himself he became our sanctification. This

suggests that Christ is “more than merely our sanctifier-he himself is our sanctification.” John 34

17:9 makes it very clear as well that Jesus sanctified himself so that we can also be sanctified in

truth. Jesus himself was sanctified so that in him we might share in that sanctification. T.F.

Ibid, 127.30

For more on this listen to Marcus Johnson lecture at Moody Bible Institute September 1, 2011 Presidents Chapel. 31

Ibid, 1:00-1:20 (time).32

ESV.33


8

Torrance says that “He sanctified himself in the human nature he took from us, that we might be

sanctified through the Word and truth of God incarnated in him.” And it is Paul that calls us the 35

“sanctified in Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:2) and he says it in many other ways all grounded in 36

union with Christ. It is as Hoekema says it “If Christ is indeed our sanctification, we can only be

sanctified in and through being one with him.” 37

John 15 gives us a very clear image of what it looks like to be sanctified. It is to be so

connected and one with Christ that he is the life source in us that produces fruit in and through

us. Apart from him there is no fruit bearing. Martin Luther summarizes this nicely by saying that

“Both He and I are of one nature and essence, and I bear fruit in Him and through Him. The fruit

is not mine; it is the Vine’s.” We must not and cannot look at sanctification as merely an 38

addition to our salvation or something that has to do with the quality of life we live for Him but it

must be seen as a direct result of our union with Him.

It is of the utmost importance that we see sanctification as definitive and progressive. All

too often we have made sanctification simply a progressive thing. It is simply that which we try

to be so we can be good people. This has happened to distinguish sanctification from justification

but as John Calvin says trying to separate sanctification from justification is like trying to

separate the Sun from its light “although we may distinguish between them, Christ contains them

Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ. Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009. 386. Print.35

“faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:1), the “saints in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:1), “sanctified in the name of the Lord 36

Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor 6:11).

Anthony A. Hoekema, Saved by Grace. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1989. Print.37

Luther, LW 24, 226.38

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inseparably in himself.” We have to make sure that we see sanctification as both definitive and 39

progressive. We see it this way because we see it in light of our union with Christ. If

sanctification is that work Christ completed within himself then sanctification must already be

accomplished. This means that “believers, therefore, should see themselves and each other as

persons who are genuinely new, though not yet totally new.” This is why Christ can say “Be 40

holy for I am holy.” This is who we already are and are becoming. Thus in this light

sanctification is no longer about becoming moral people and following a list of rules but it is

about reflecting the image of God. “Sanctification is not a matter of constructing ethical systems

for the improvement of ourselves or society; it is our participation in the holiness of Jesus Christ,

who is the “exact imprint” of God’s nature.” Sanctification is the process of God remaking us 41

into his perfect image because we are already found in Christ who is that perfect image. We must

live in light of our union with Christ. “God calls us and commands us to participate in this

astonishing, image-restoring, re-creative work by exercising our newfound freedom, power and

humanity in Christ.” 42

How does understanding union with Christ help us understand/clarify/illumine the way we

understand the nature of the church?

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.11.6-3.16.1.39

Anthony A. Hoekema, Saved by Grace. 205.40


Ibid, 157.42

10

So if we are truly united to Christ and Paul describes us as the body of Christ what could

he possibly be meaning. Apart from our union with Christ there is no such thing as the Church. It

is all too often that this phrase “body of Christ” just gets thrown into the metaphor category

without anymore thought. It is this category that Johnson would say is a correct category to call

“body of Christ” a metaphor but the real question is “how far into the realm of being the 43

metaphor extends.” If we are not careful with how we view this we run into the danger of 44

cutting the church apart from the live giving vine that is Christ, its life source. The Church as the

body of Christ is a reality.

There are several reasons to see that Paul was talking in a literal way when writing this

passage of scripture. We saw early in this paper that Paul saw our union with Christ as intimate

and personal. A literal union with our Savior. We as the church are participating literally in Christ

and his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Not only does Paul see our union as intimate and

personal but he says that we have become “one flesh” (Eph 5) with Christ. We see this language

used of a married couple becoming “one flesh” through the physical act of sexual intercourse. It

is in that moment of complete ecstasy that the couple is brought into each other and are giving

themselves completely to their partner. It is the same with our salvation. Christ first aroused us

into a desire of him. Once we are drawn to him (John 6) he penetrates us with his spirit to create

new life within us. After this we continually grow in intimacy with him through the

consummation of our relationship by going to Church and participating in the sacraments of

preached word, baptism, and the Eucharist and reach a place of satisfaction and that ultimate

See Johnson, One with Christ, 217.43

Gary D. Badcock, The House Where God Lives: The Doctrine of the Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009. 44

Print. 11

satisfaction will come in the eschaton: in glorification. We begin to take this as purely

metaphorical and do not apprehend the mystery of it; after all the incarnation is a complete

mystery as well but we do not question the reality of that.

Paul uses a completely real term to describe our relationship with Christ (who mind you

is incarnated actual human). In 1 Corinthians 6:15 Paul says that our bodies are “members” of

Christ himself. The other reason that our union with Christ is real and the church is actually the

body of Christ is because of the mystery of the incarnation. Robert Letham tells us that “the basis

for our union with Christ is Christ’s union with us in the incarnation. We can become one with

him because he first became one with us. By taking human nature into personal union, the Son of

God has joined himself to humanity. He now has a human body and soul, which he will never

jettison.” It is not possible to read Paul and not read a ton of this type of language of our being 45

“one flesh” with Christ and the church is his body.

Because of this reality we can confess extra ecclesiam nulla salus. This phrase ‘outside 46

the church is no salvation” has been under fire from evangelicals because of our views of what

the Church is in ontology. If Church is simply a place where believers gather to sing to God and

not the actual coming together of His literal body then this phrase is heretical. But if we see the

church properly as the inclusion of all believers into his very body (which is the very act of

salvation) then this phrase holds completely true and we would be foolish to state otherwise.

Martin Luther makes the point that the church “certainly has Christ in their midst, for outside of

Robert Letham, Union with Christ: In Scripture, History and Theology (Phillipsburg, N.J.:P&R, 2011), 21.45

There is not salvation outside the Church. 46

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the Christian church there is no truth, no Christ, no salvation.” John Calvin says that “away 47

from the churches bosom one cannot hope for any forgiveness of sins or any salvation…” and 48

finally the Westminster confession of Faith (Chapter 25, 2) says “The visible church…consists of

all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children and is the

kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary

possibility of salvation.” It has been common church tradition to affirm this idea that outside the

church is no salvation. We must not and cannot separate our ecclesiology from our soteriology.

For it is by our union with Christ and being united to his literal body that the church even exists.

T.F. Torrance reminds us that the doctrine of the Church is of the utmost necessity to evangelical

doctrine by saying,

In the Apostles’ Creed the church is given a place within the articles of faith under faith in

the Holy Spirit, and is bracketed together with the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of

the body, and the life everlasting. The doctrine of the church belongs to the doctrines of

saving faith. It does not belong to the periphery of the faith, to some marginal are which

is not important and where differences of opinion do not matter very much. On the

contrary, it is essentially evangelical doctrine inseparably bound up with faith in the holy

Trinity and with the saving operation of Christ through the Holy Spirit. 49

It is precisely because the church by nature is the union of man into Christ becoming one body

that salvation is found nowhere but within the church. Our union with Christ helps us understand

this because the church exists only because he loved us so to unite us into “one flesh” with

himself. As Christ says himself in John 17 “The glory you have given me I have given to them,

LW 52, 39-40 (“The Gospel for the Early Christmas Service” Luke 2: [15-20]).47

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.1.1.48

T.F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, 358.49

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that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become

perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved

me.” This is the church. To share in the inter-Trinitarian relations between Father, Son, and

Spirit.

How does our union with Christ help us understand/clarify/correct/illumine preaching and the

Sacraments (the audible and visible gospel)?

Part of being in the Church is our participation in what we call the sacraments, including

the Lord’s Supper, baptism and some even include the preached word. In order to understand

how our union with Christ helps us understand the sacraments I want to define sacrament.

“Following Augustine, the Reformers believed that a sacrament was a ‘visible sign of an

invisible reality’." At this point in the paper we have seen that we must make a move away 50

from mere metaphors and symbols of something that is not a reality. Our union with Christ must

move us away from a merely memorialistic view of the sacraments including preaching, and now

move towards and a view that sees them as our active, physical participation in Christ.

First I want to discuss Christ’s true presence in the preached word. Preaching has become

simply a teaching time in which we get to know more about God instead of knowing God truly

and intimately and really through the preaching of the word. Johnson tells us that it is the

sacraments that “make clear to us visibly what has been offered to us audibly; or, to put it another

way, the sacraments “exegete” the preached word just as the preached word “exegetes” the


14

sacraments-and what is offered and received in both is Christ.” Calvin gives us the best 51

explanation of what takes place in the preaching of the word.

In the preaching of the word, the external minister holds forth the vocal word and it is

received by the ears. The internal minister the Holy Spirit truly communicates the thing

proclaimed through the Word, that is Christ, to the souls of all who will, so that it is not

necessary that Christ or for that matter his Word be received through the organs of the

body, but the Holy Spirit effects this union by secret virtue, by creating faith in us by

which he makes us living members of Christ, true God and true man. 52

It is in the preaching of scripture that Christ truly is present to us and is conforming us to his

image through the power of the Holy Spirit. Preaching is the audible gospel. It is the gospel that

is spoken that brings us closer in intimacy with Christ himself through our union with Him.

Luther says “Again, I preach the gospel of Christ, and with my bodily voice I bring Christ into

your heart, so that you may form him within yourself. If now you truly believe, so that your heart

lays hold of the word and holds fast within it that voice, tell me, what have you in your heart?

You must answer that you have the true Christ.” Through the sacraments we take hold of Christ 53

really.

The next sacrament I want to talk about is baptism and the Lords supper. We saw that

preaching was the audible gospel it is baptism and the Lord’s Supper that are the visible gospels.

Baptism is our physical participation in our union with Christ in his death and resurrection. It is

baptism that is the “living picture” of the realities of our salvation. Baptism is “God’s pledge to 54

Ibid, 240.51

Calvin, Theological Treatises, 173. 52

Qtd in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood-Against the Fanatics in Martin Luther’s basic Theological Wirings. 53

Ed. By Timothy F. Lull (Minneapolis, MN; Fortress Press 1989), 319.

See Johnson, One with Christ, 249.54

15

us, in the visible sign and seal of water, of our incorporation into the death and resurrection of

Christ, the cleansing of our sins, and our inclusion into Christ’s body, the church, by the power of

the Holy Spirit and through faith.” It is baptism that gives us a clear picture of what it means to 55

be saved. Union with Christ affects how we view and understand baptism because baptism is

what gives us the clearest gospel picture of what our union and salvation actually is. Vander Zee

tells us that it is the “baptismal font becomes our coffin.” Baptism is the picture that we have 56

been mortified and vivified in our union with Christ.

The last thing to discuss in this paper is the Lord’s Supper. It too “is a visible, tangible-

and in this case, edible-sign of the invisible reality of our union with Christ.” We see in 1 57

Corinthians 10 that the Lord’s Supper is a “participation in his body and blood”. It is a visible

painted picture of the gospel. It is our participation, through our union with Christ, in the very

life and death of Christ. It is the Supper that God graciously presents to us himself “in a visible,

tangible, edible form of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” It is through the Supper that we are brought 58

into a deeper intimacy with Christ as we share visibly in his death through our union with him.

The supper “seals in our consciences the promises contained in the gospel concerning our being

made partakers of his body and blood.” 59

Ibid.55

Leonard J. Vanderzee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper: Recovering the Sacraments for Evangelical 56

Worship. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004.108. Print.


Ibid, 259.58

Qtd in Ibid, 260.59

16

In conclusion the sacraments are the gift from God that visibly picture and give us a way in

which to physically participate in the realities of our salvation. And it is “the Lords supper is

God’s assurance to us that we really belong to Christ in the fullness of his saving person; that we

really do share in the One who is flesh and blood is our justification, sanctification, and

redemption.” 60

Works Cited Badcock, Gary D. The House Where God Lives: The Doctrine of the Church. Grand Rapids, MI:

Eerdmans, 2009. Print.

Baillie, Donald Macpherson .1887-. God Was in Christ: An Essay on Incarnation and

Atonement. NewYork: Scribner, 1955. Print.

Calvin, John. The Institutes of Christian Religion. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987.

Print.

Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, (Quoted in Fairbairn, Life in the Trinity, 138).

Edwards, Jonathan. Justification by Faith Alone. Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications,

2000. Print.

Gregory of Nazzianzus, EP 101.5 (101.32) qtd in, John Behr, The Nicene Faith. Crestwood, NY:

St. Vladimir's Seminary, 2004.Print. Emphasis mine.

Harper, Brad and Paul Louis. Metzger. Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical

Ibid, 266.60

17

Introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2009. Print.

Hoekema, Anthony A. Saved by Grace. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1989. Print.

Johnson, Marcus Peter. One with Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation. [S.l.]: Crossway,

2013.Print.

…………………"Luther And Calvin On Union With Christ." Fides Et Historia 39.2 (2007): 59

77.

ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. Web. 3 May 2013.

…………. lecture at Moody Bible Institute September 1, 2011 Presidents Chapel.

Letham, Robert. Union with Christ: In Scripture, History and Theology (Phillipsburg, N.J.:P&R,

2011)

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