This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. Colossians sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 28, 1989.

That God would want you to be a Christian. And the answer to that question was this. The second group, the investigators with respect to assurance, had to do with the question of what is the ground. a major mansion along the detour route an expansive edifice called union with Christ.

So expansive that even repentance and faith formally considered cannot really be considered a right apart from this doctrine. Union with Christ so important, so neglected, so often forgot. Even a great theologian, like John Murray, must admit it. If you read through his classic work, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, the next to the last chapter, the one before the chapter on glorification, is the chapter on union with Christ.

And it’s almost as if Murray’s making an apology at that point. Suggesting to his readers, oh, I should have started here. Rather than ending. A prior basic consideration. Union with Christ. And, you see, I think that the tip-off comes, as we consider it’s important, just in a review of the letters of Paul. We pointed this out last week, did we not? Just surveying Ephesians 1 and 2. How many times, how many times in those two chapters does Paul use the phrase, in Christ, in Christ?

Now that isn’t incidental vocabulary. He isn’t just filling out the page. He isn’t being wordy or being especially pious as he throws those words around. You see, there’s content, substance, as he speaks in that fashion. He needs to be taken seriously in Christ. Union with Christ. Union with Christ has gotten a bad rap in the church generally. Let me explain. Before the Reformation, medieval times, any discussion of the subject of union with Christ invariably took off.

In directions that were completely unacceptable and manifestly unbiblical. There was a rampant mysticism, for instance, that took hold of the church in the Middle Ages. That coupled with its opposite a bold, bare, and blank rationalism, but there was the mysticism as well. And the spirit at work in that mystical pursuit was one that was trying to overcome the distance between the creature and the creator. destroying the distance between creature and creator, so that the creature was taken up into the being of the Creator.

So you had the medieval mystics who would sit and contemplate and try by their meditations, by their activities, to overcome that distance between themselves and heaven, between themselves and God. and be brought, as it were, right into the being of God. Well, does that sound familiar? Do you know anything about Eastern Mythicism? Do you know anything about the religions of the East? What is at work, for instance, in Zen? than Buddhism.

A mysticism, again, that is determined to overcome distances that exist invariably, ordained distances that exist between the creature and the creator. So that, although there is that proper mystical line that we find running through the epistles of Paul, through biblical literature.

There is that doctrine of union with Christ, being in Christ. We come to the Middle Ages and it is sadly perverted and distorted so as to give us no direction at all, seemingly. But then comes the Reformation. and one might think that we would be wonderfully helped by the Reformation, and yes, we are, because if the Reformation does nothing else but get rid of this unfortunate approach to union with Christ, it has done a service. But here comes the Reformation. And the focus, you see, of the Reformation is not specifically on that doctrine of union with Christ, as it is upon the question, how can the sinner stand before a holy God? And the subject of justification rises to the fore. Necessarily, it rises to the fore and takes precedent.

So, as the reformers, for instance, read the New Testament, are they looking for the phrase in Christ or for the doctrine union with Christ? Are they concentrating on those portions of Scripture where those things arise, those things present themselves? They rather are concentrating on those sections of Scripture, those portions that speak most eloquently about the doctrine of justification. How can a sinner stand before a holy God?

That’s the focus. And thus you have this wonderful rediscovery of the epistles of Romans and Galatians. It is electrifying. It is revolutionary. It literally turns the world on its head, and the church too. But you see, Paul just didn’t write Romans and Galatians. He wrote Ephesians and Colossians. And such is the way of the land when you come to Ephesians and Colossians that you are pushed to even a prior question than that of justification. You are driven with those officials.

To see things even more deeply and more fundamentally. For the Reformation and the children of the Reformation have been pushed and forced by various pressures over the last four hundred years to come to grips. With the full range of Paul’s teaching and instruction. How was it forced on the church, the reformed church, even unwillingly? Well, first of all, there came those in the last century that suggested that Paul didn’t even like Ephesians and Colossians. And what was the result of that? Children of the Reformation true children of the Reformation were forced then again to take another look. And as they started looking and studying and reflecting, they began to realize that undergirding the question of justification was a more fundamental consideration. And if there was to be any right relationship for us before a holy God, sinners that we are, it had to be in Christ, because of our union with Him.

And the thought that began to occur to people was this. Justification is not an act out here, something that I experience separated from Christ. No, my justification is something that I experience in Him. He is justified, and therefore I am. And that becomes the unshakable ground, mediating even a better confidence than that that could be spoken of by Calvin and Luther, as great as they were. Before you are justified, Jesus is justified. Your justification is an entry into his justification. His justification is certain and sure and unmovable. And that is why yours is. Now I can go through every aspect of the order of salvation, and make precisely the same comment, and that’s why no aspect of that order of salvation, whether I’m talking about justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification, any aspect of that order of salvation, no one of those can become the foundation upon which the Christian Church is built. Every one of those aspects of the order of salvation is grounded in Christ. and becomes ours through union with Him. Your sanctification is preceded by His. He has been sanctified and you are in Him.

How is it possible for Paul to speak about your sanctification in the past tense? He can go even further. You remember Romans 8? He can speak about your glorification in the past tense. You have been glorified. Why? Because Christ has been glorified and you are bounded to Him. You are united to Him. Union with Christ. Now you see.

It isn’t as if the Apostle was short-sighted when he wrote Romans and Galatians. You get the point? Even though there was that concentration in Romans and Galatians on the question of justification, it wasn’t as if, you see, the Apostle was short-sighted, because even there he was speaking about union with Christ. Do you remember Romans 6? Have you been crucified with him? Have you been raised with him? Do you remember… It’s hard to say there’s the greatest passage in the Bible, but…

Do you remember Galatians 2.20?

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, for the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. union with Christ.

Undoubtedly, it can go off in that perverse direction of the medieval mystics, but at the same time, a grand, wonderful, fundamental doctrine for our consideration. Now, in order to fill this out a bit, and I’ll do this briefly, hopefully. My children don’t believe me when I say things like that. Let me present to you here in summary form The scriptural development of two corollary lines that appear in Scripture, and as we move through them, I think you understand how they complement each other and how each is indispensable. Both of these, part of our confessional reflection, part of our assessment of the matters that pertain to our faith.

There is, as you read through Scripture now, that approach wherein God is seen as here, and you are seen as here. Now, this is the God-with-you doctrine, the God-with-us doctrine. You can go through the entirety of Scripture and trace that out. Now that’s where the emphasis invariably falls, as people are doing their exegesis, as they’re approaching the text and interpreting it, as they’re doing their preaching, etc. That’s where the emphasis usually ends up, on this God with us. God is present with us. He’s here, and we are here. But, you know, we see the difference, the division, the separation. He is God, we are the creature.

And it’s important to remember that as you move through Scripture, for we must never transgress upon the realm of the Creator. We never want to assume to ourselves His being become, as it were, one with Him. Now, this line is apparent to us from Genesis, God present with man, and then that presence disrupted and separation and alienation coming into play, man driven out from the garden and separated from man driven out from the garden and separated from the presence of God.

Then you have God graciously renewing his presence with his people, his chosen line, and you have that specifically spelled out for you in those figures like Noah. and Abraham, the patriarchs generally, then Moses, the children of Israel, then through Israel, through the prophets, the presence of God, and finally, of course, in Jesus Christ, who is described as Emmanuel, God with us. Now, along this line of approach to Scripture, you have God presented to you as He stands over against you as your example. You are being conformed to Him. Also, you have presented for you the fact that this One is going to do things for you that you cannot do for yourself.

It is not only God with us, but God for us, accomplishing things that we cannot accomplish for ourselves. is a true and proper and viable line of interpretation in Scripture from beginning to end, and that is the one that we invariably concentrate upon. But there is another line, you see, that is running through Scripture that gets short shrift, and that’s the one that needs new emphasis, new understanding, new study. Not only, then, God with us. but God in us. Not only God with us and us with God, but God in us and us in God.

Now you might draw back invariably. You see, the reaction is we step back. We’re not sure of the territory here. We’re not really certain that this is the direction we want to go. But do you hear what’s being said in the Old Testament? It’s not just that line of God with us. It is also this other line. God in us, or us in God. Where does that language come out? Where does that consideration arise? Do you know the rock language of the Old Testament? Do you know the rock language of the Old Testament? Do you remember Deuteronomy 32, the song of Moses, where God describes himself as a rock? Now why is he calling himself a rock?

Simply because he wants to compare himself to something that’s substantial? Relatively unmovable? Maybe great size? No, you see, when he says he’s the rock, he’s speaking of himself as if he were a dwelling place. A dwelling place. A habitation. A crag. A cave. Something into which you enter.

The language is expanded in the psalms, where he called himself a refuge, a fortress. The rock is refuge, fortress, a dwelling place into which you can enter. The emphasis there, of course, is upon protection, but also arising out of this is the fact that God is a blessed dwelling place, one in which grace and mercy abound and favor is found. You remember, Psalm 90, Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place. Moses is being quite bold there, is he not? Thou hast been our dwelling place. The beauty, the beauty of the Corollary Psalm, Psalm 91, he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shelter of the Almighty. It is not just us with God. It is us in God. As he himself has become a dwelling place. Now do you understand all the abide language in the gospel of John? What is Jesus telling us in that?

Abide in me, I in you. You see, it’s language about dwelling place. You have to come here. You have to abide here. Now you have all of the language of Paul in his epistles. You have to be in Christ, as if Christ were a dwelling place. He’s a dwelling place. It’s like he’s a house, a temple, a sanctuary, into which you enter. and you abide in him. In this respect then, you see, as far as salvation is concerned, there has been an exchange of environments.

You used to be in the world, but now you are in Christ. If any man is in Christ, he is new creation. He is new creation. All things have passed away, and all things are made new. I have been crucified to the world and the world to me. In Christ, I die. I’m dead to the world. But in Christ now, I’m alive to God.

Now, the glorious message that Paul wants to proclaim to the churches that he writes, to which he writes, including the Church of Philosophy, is this. We’re not talking about a future event here. It’s not that you will be in Christ. It’s that you are in the present. And that’s what makes all the difference. If you are ill, how ought you to walk? How ought you to behave? Well, I’ll let you answer this question.

Let’s play. our father we are grateful for truly through this doctrine of union with Christ our inability our lostness is made all the more apparent for apart from him how could we do anything yet in him are we not taught we can do all things through Him who strengthens us. Father, we ask that we might rally the energies of our minds and souls to think afresh about the matter of union with our Savior. And that as we do, there would be the wonderful, wonderful expression within us of those realities which are insalubly true, as they are found in Him, the One in whom we dwell. Be an encouragement, Father, to each of the worshipers here today. May they know you, and the glory that are found in Jesus alone. payment.

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