Union With Christ

What is the communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ?

Answer: The communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ, is their partaking of the virtue of his mediation, in their justification, adoption, sanctification, and: Whatever else, in this life, manifests their union with him.

No Union, No Justification

Because all acts of God‘s justification of us depend on union with Christ, on our having Him and being in Him, and thereby having a right to His righteousness, therefore, it should be the aim of a soul casting itself on Christ to have justification from Him also to have union with Him; it may and ought to cast itself on God and Christ, to be made one with Him.

There is as much a reason and occasion for such an act as for the former, for union with Him is as much a privilege to be obtained as justification. For though we were one in Christ before God in representation from all eternity, and when He was on the cross, and by a covenant secretly made between God and Him, yet there is an actual implanting and engrafting into Christ that we obtain upon believing, and not till then, which the apostle calls baptizing, planting into Christ, and being in Christ (Rom. 6:2; 2 Cor. 5:17, Gal. 3:27). Until they receive this engrafting, even those who are elect are said to be “without Christ in the world” (Eph. 2:12).

So a man may and ought at first to look at Christ as yet to be obtained, and so seek after that union with Him that is yet to be wrought— union upon which this justification that is yet to be attained depends.

Paul says, “We accounted all loss, that we might win Christ, and obtain an interest and a share in him” (Phil. 3:8); so if there is both a union with Christ and a justification that depends on that union yet to be obtained, there is a just ground and occasion for a man to cast himself on Christ to obtain them. This casting, out of spiritual apprehensions and affections, is the very act that both makes this union and brings us into a state of justification; therefore, seeing Christ and coming to Him are the acts of justifying faith (John 6:35, 40).

From The Object and Acts of Justifying Faith; Works 8:406 In “A Habitual Sight of Him” (p. 84)