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The lesson library / Lesson 27

Union with Christ

Explain participation in Christ’s saving benefits through living union with Him, without confusing believers with His divine person.

The application of salvation

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Romans 5:12-21 · Romans 6:1-23 · John 15:1-17 · Colossians 3:1-17

The New Testament repeatedly describes believers as being in Christ. That expression is easy to pass over because it appears so often. But it gathers together how salvation is received. Christ’s benefits are not detached items handed out independently of Christ Himself. The believer belongs to Him, shares in the results of His death and resurrection, and lives by dependence on Him.

Read Romans 5:12-21

12 Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death passed to all men because all sinned.
13 For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not charged when there is no law.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those whose sins weren’t like Adam’s disobedience, who is a foreshadowing of him who was to come.
15 But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
16 The gift is not as through one who sinned; for the judgment came by one to condemnation, but the free gift followed many trespasses to justification.
17 For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.
18 So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life.
19 For as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous.
20 The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly,
21 that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul describes consequences flowing from the actions of representative heads. Being in Adam is not merely having copied a bad example, and being in Christ is not merely admiring a better one. The relationship includes a standing and a destiny. Christ’s obedience matters for those He represents. That is why salvation cannot be reduced to an independent moral improvement project. The sinner needs to belong to the second Adam, whose righteousness and life answer what the first Adam brought.

Read Romans 6:1-14

1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4 We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection;
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him,
9 knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him!
10 For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God.
11 Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13 Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

Paul answers the suggestion that grace encourages sin by pointing to union with Christ. Believers have died to sin’s dominion and are to live accordingly. The commands remain active: do not present your members to sin, but to God. The identity does not eliminate effort; it gives effort a new basis. A Christian resists sin as someone who belongs to a different Master. The old ruler has no rightful claim simply because its voice remains familiar.

Union with Christ also connects benefits that are sometimes discussed as separate purchases. The believer does not obtain forgiveness from one source, spiritual life from another, and final hope from a third. They are received in the Savior. That prevents the search for some additional spiritual status supposedly available only through a special teacher or experience. There is room for growth, fuller understanding, and the Spirit’s gifts, but not for a second Christ who completes the first. Growth means drawing more faithfully on the life already received in Him. The person becomes more dependent on Christ, not more qualified to function independently of Him.

Read John 15:1-17

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
2 Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.
5 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
6 If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you.
8 “In this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples.
9 Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love.
10 If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.
11 I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
16 You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17 “I command these things to you, that you may love one another.

The vine image is not permission to become passive. Jesus speaks of His words remaining, prayer, commands, and love. Dependence is active trust in the source of life. The warning about fruitless branches should be heard as a real summons to remain in Christ, not explained away because it complicates a theological system. Within the Reformed understanding, such warnings are among the means God uses to preserve His people. The safe response is to abide, not to speculate about how little attachment might still be sufficient.

Read Colossians 3:1-17

1 If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.
3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.
5 Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
6 For these things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience.
7 You also once walked in those, when you lived in them,
8 but now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth.
9 Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings,
10 and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,
11 where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, or free person; but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance;
13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do.
14 Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.
17 Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

The life hidden with Christ is followed by commands about anger, speech, desire, and forgiveness. That is the sort of connection abstract discussions can overlook. Union with Christ belongs at the kitchen table and in an argument, not just in a doctrinal chart. Other believers also belong to Him. Treating them as disposable contradicts the shared life being confessed. The doctrine makes conduct matter more precisely because salvation is more than an external label.

Ask whether your approach to Christian growth has quietly become independent of Christ. Use the means He gives, obey His word, and seek His help. A branch does not prove its maturity by becoming less dependent on the vine. Its life and fruit continue to depend on the same source.

Consider your perspective

Union with Christ makes Christian living more than copying a distant example. Believers receive His saving benefits and depend on Him for life, while remaining responsible persons called to active obedience and shared fellowship.

Put it into practice

Identify a duty you have approached as a purely solitary effort. Pray in dependence on Christ and seek appropriate help from another believer rather than confusing dependence with doing nothing.

Reflect and respond

  • What does union add to the idea of following an example?
  • Where does active dependence differ from passivity?
  • How should shared belonging change a strained relationship?

Passages and further study

Scripture quotations are from the public-domain World English Bible (WEB). Historical confessions are study aids, subordinate to Scripture. This independent lesson is not an official denominational statement.