Fellowship of Christ with the believer: Phil. 4:13—“I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me”; Heb. 4:15—“For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities”; cf. Is. 63:9—“In all their affliction he was afflicted.” Heb. 2:18—“in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted” = are being tempted, are under temptation. Bp. Wordsworth: “By his passion he acquired compassion.” 2 Cor. 2:14—“thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ” = Christ leads us in triumph, but his triumph is ours, even if it be a triumph over us. One with him, we participate in his joy and in his sovereignty. Rev. 3:21—“He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne.” W. F. Taylor on Rom. 8:9—“The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.... if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”—“Christ dwells in us, says the apostle. But do we accept him as a resident, or as a ruler? England was first represented at King Thebau's court by her resident. This official could rebuke, and even threaten, but no more,—Thebau was sovereign. Burma knew no peace, till England ruled. So Christ does not consent to be represented by a mere resident. He must himself dwell within the soul, and he must reign.” Christina Rossetti, Thee Only: “Lord, we are rivers running to thy sea, Our waves and ripples all derived from thee; A nothing we should have, a nothing be, Except for thee. Sweet are the waters of thy shoreless sea; Make sweet our waters that make haste to thee; Pour in thy sweetness, that ourselves may be Sweetness to thee!”
Of the believer with Christ: Phil. 3:10—“that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death”; Col. 1:24—“fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church”; 1 Pet. 4:13—“partakers of Christ's sufferings.” The Christian reproduces Christ's life in miniature, and, in a true sense, lives it over again. Only upon the principle of union with Christ can we explain how the Christian instinctively applies to himself the prophecies and promises which originally and primarily were uttered with reference to Christ: “thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption” (Ps. 16:10, 11). This fellowship is the ground of the promises made to believing prayer: John 14:13—“whatsoever ye shall ask is my name, that will I do”; Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco: “The meaning of the phrase [‘in my name’] is ‘as being one with me even as I am revealed to you.’ Its two correlatives are ‘in me’ and the Pauline ‘in Christ’.” “All things are yours” (1 Cor. 3:21), because Christ is universal King, and all believers are exalted to fellowship with him. After the battle of Sedan, King William asked a wounded Prussian officer whether it were well with him. “All is well where your majesty leads!” was the reply. Phil. 1:21—“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul indeed uses the words “Christ” and “church” as interchangeable terms: 1 Cor. 12:12—“as the body is one, and hath many members, ... so also is Christ.” Denney, Studies in Theology, 171—“There is not in the N. T. from beginning to end, in the record of the original and genuine Christian life, a single word of despondency or gloom. It is the most buoyant, exhilarating and joyful book in the world.” This is due to the fact that the writers believe in a living and exalted Christ, and know themselves to be one with him. They descend crowned into the arena. In the Soudan, every morning for half an hour before General Gordon's tent there lay a white handkerchief. The most pressing message, even on matters of life and death, waited till that handkerchief was withdrawn. It was the signal that Christ and Gordon were in communion with each other.
Of all believers with one another: John 17:21—“that they may all be one”; 1 Cor. 10:17—“we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread”; Eph. 2:15—“create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace”; 1 John 1:3—“that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”—here the word κοινωνία is used. Fellowship with each other is the effect and result of the fellowship of each with God in Christ. Compare John 10:16—“they shall become one flock, one shepherd”; Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco: “The bond of fellowship is shown to lie in the common relation to one Lord.... Nothing is said of one ‘fold’ under the new dispensation.” Here is a unity, not of external organization, but of common life. Of this the visible church is the consequence and expression. But this communion is not limited to earth,—it is perpetuated beyond death: 1 Thess. 4:17—“so shall we ever be with the Lord”; Heb. 12:23—“to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect”; Rev. 21and 22—the city of God, the new Jerusalem, is the image of perfect society, as well as of intensity and fulness of life in Christ. The ordinances express the essence of Ecclesiology—union with Christ—for Baptism symbolizes the incorporation of the believer in Christ, while the Lord's Supper symbolizes the incorporation of Christ in the believer. Christianity is a social matter, and the true Christian feels the need of being with and among his brethren. The Romans could not understand why “this new sect”must be holding meetings all the time—even daily meetings. Why could they not go singly, or in families, to the temples, and make offerings to their God, and then come [pg 808]away, as the pagans did? It was this meeting together which exposed them to persecution and martyrdom. It was the natural and inevitable expression of their union with Christ and so of their union with one another.
The consciousness of union with Christ gives assurance of salvation. It is a great stimulus to believing prayer and to patient labor. It is a duty to “know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe” (Eph. 1:18, 19). Christ's command, “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4), implies that we are both to realize and to confirm this union, by active exertion of our own wills. We are to abide in him by an entire consecration, and to let him abide in us by an appropriating faith. We are to give ourselves to Christ, and to take in return the Christ who gives himself to us,—in other words, we are to believe Christ's promises and to act upon them. All sin consists in the sundering of man's life from God, and most systems of falsehood in religion are attempts to save man without merging his life in God's once more. The only religion that can save mankind is the religion that fills the whole heart and the whole life with God, and that aims to interpenetrate universal humanity with that same living Christ who has already made himself one with the believer. This consciousness of union with Christ gives “boldness” (παρρησία—Acts 4:13; 1 John 5:14) toward men and toward God. The word belongs to the Greek democracies. Freemen are bold. Demosthenes boasts of his frankness. Christ frees us from the hidebound, introspective, self-conscious spirit. In him we become free, demonstrative, outspoken. So we find, in John's epistles, that boldness in prayer is spoken of as a virtue, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews urges us to “draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16). An engagement of marriage is not the same as marriage. The parties may be still distant from each other. Many Christians get just near enough to Christ to be engaged to him. This seems to be the experience of Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress. But our privilege is to have a present Christ, and to do our work not only for him, but in him. “Since Christ and we are one, Why should we doubt or fear?” “We two are so joined, He'll not be in heaven, And leave me behind.”
We append a few statements with regard to this union and its consequences, from noted names in theology and the church. Luther: “By faith thou art so glued to Christ that of thee and him there becomes as it were one person, so that with confidence thou canst say: ‘I am Christ,—that is, Christ's righteousness, victory, etc., are mine’; and Christ in turn can say: ‘I am that sinner,—that is, his sins, his death, etc., are mine, because he clings to me and I to him, for we have been joined through faith into one flesh and bone.’ ” Calvin: “I attribute the highest importance to the connection between the head and the members; to the inhabitation of Christ in our hearts; in a word, to the mystical union by which we enjoy him, so that, being made ours, he makes us partakers of the blessings with which he is furnished.” John Bunyan: “The Lord led me into the knowledge of the mystery of union with Christ, that I was joined to him, that I was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. By this also my faith in him as my righteousness was the more confirmed; for if he and I were one, then his righteousness was mine, his merits mine, his victory also mine. Now could I see myself in heaven and on earth at once—in heaven by my Christ, my risen head, my righteousness and life, though on earth by my body or person.” Edwards: “Faith is the soul's active uniting with Christ. God sees fit that, in order to a union's being established between two intelligent active beings, there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive the other, as entirely joining themselves to one another.” Andrew Fuller: “I have no doubt that the imputation of Christ's righteousness presupposes a union with him; since there is no perceivable fitness in bestowing benefits on one for another's sake, where there is no union or relation between.”
See Luther, quoted, with other references, in Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 3:325. See also Calvin, Institutes, 1:660; Edwards, Works, 4:66, 69, 70; Andrew Fuller, Works, 2:685; Pascal, Thoughts, Eng. trans., 429; Hooker, Eccl. Polity, book 5, ch. 56; Tillotson, Sermons, 3:307; Trench, Studies in Gospels, 284, and Christ the True Vine, in Hulsean Lectures; Schöberlein, in Studien und Kritiken, 1847:7-69; Caird, on Union with God, in Scotch Sermons, sermon 2; Godet, on the Ultimate Design of Man, in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880—the design is “God in man, and man in God”; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 590-617; Upham, Divine Union, Interior Life, Life of Madame Guyon and Fénelon; A. J. Gordon, In Christ; McDuff, In Christo; J. Denham Smith, Life-truths, 25-98; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 220-225; Bishop Hall's Treatise on The Church Mystical; Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ; Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 145, 174, 179; F. B. Meyer, Christian Living—essay on Appropriation of [pg 809]Christ, vs. mere imitation of Christ; Sanday, Epistle to the Romans, supplementary essay on the Mystic Union; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 531; J. M. Campbell, The Indwelling Christ.
II. Regeneration.
Regeneration is that act of God by which the governing disposition of the soul is made holy, and by which, through the truth as a means, the first holy exercise of this disposition is secured.
Regeneration, or the new birth, is the divine side of that change of heart which, viewed from the human side, we call conversion. It is God's turning the soul to himself,—conversion being the soul's turning itself to God, of which God's turning it is both the accompaniment and cause. It will be observed from the above definition, that there are two aspects of regeneration, in the first of which the soul is passive, in the second of which the soul is active. God changes the governing disposition,—in this change the soul is simply acted upon. God secures the initial exercise of this disposition in view of the truth,—in this change the soul itself acts. Yet these two parts of God's operation are simultaneous. At the same moment that he makes the soul sensitive, he pours in the light of his truth and induces the exercise of the holy disposition he has imparted.