Paganism

Paganism... is also a sort of permanent and natural magnetic pole of religion, and in this sense a constant threat for every religion. Christianity demands unceasing effort, continual filling of its forms with content, self-testing, and a "trial of the spirit". Any divergence between form and content, or the emergence of form as a value and goal in itself, is paganism. It is a return to natural religion, to belief in form, ceremony, and sacred objects without regard to their content and spiritual meaning. In this sense even Christian rites and sacred objects may themselves become centers of pagan veneration and may overshadow what they solely exist for: the liberating force of truth.
Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy

A Good Bit of Ceremony

Last night I had the immense privilege of going to the Easter Vigil service at the local cathedral.

I really enjoyed it - it was a great service. Lots of incense and robes and powerful liturgy and a sermon that taught Scriptural truths well, and at the heart of it all the great affirmation that Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!)

And the fact I thought it was such a good service got me thinking again about the role of ceremony and so on. Normally, I prefer a fairly light liturgy; none of the churches I usually frequent uses robes very often, and I think if we have that sort of thing every week it is easy to get distracted from Jesus and from being forced to confront the truth for oneself by the ceremony. But ceremony can work very well on occasion, particularly when done on special occasions.

It's easy for evangelicals to reject all the ceremony, but we often overargue our case and end up seeming to say that the physical world doesn't matter and all that matters is feeding brains in jars with more information about God. (I'm a conservative evangelical - I'm allowed to say things like that about conservative evangelicals). But it isn't. We're human beings, with bodies and senses and minds that are not as rational as modernism likes to think they are.

So time for an Easter quote from Richard Hooker:

The end which is aimed at in setting down the outward form of all religious actions is the edification of the church. Now men are edified when either their understanding is taught somewhat whereof in such actions it behoveth all men to consider or when their hearts are moved with any affection suitable thereunto; when their minds are in any sort stirred up unto that reverence, devotion, attention and due regard which in those cases seemeth requisite. Because therefore unto this purpose not only speech but also sundry sensible means besides have always been thought necessary and especially those means which being object to the eye, the liveliest and most apprehensive sense of all other, have in that respect seemed the fittest to make a deep and a strong impression...

Corporate Incorporation and Baptism

These are my thoughts semi-spinning off a seminar held at Wycliffe with the (very intelligent and well-read) Dr Benno van den Torren. It's quite possible I've mangled the arguments beyond recognition – if I've done so it's my fault.

Who makes decisions?

It's very interesting that the credobaptist movement only really got going during the Enlightenment, because it assumes some ideas which don't seem to have existed in the same way before then.

One of them is the notion of individual autonomy. In the modern world, we tend to think that the fundamental decision-making unit of society is the individual person, which incidentally is part of the reason for family breakdown and so on. Interestingly, the Bible teaches individual responsibility a lot, but doesn't teach individual autonomy, though we often read it back in from our culture.

Even in our culture, if we look at what actually happens with decision-making, not all individuals are autonomous. Some married couples or best friends always make decisions as a couple. Some types of disability mean that people depend on others for their decisions. The same could be said of some elderly people, who no longer make decisions for themselves, and some children, who do not yet make decisions for themselves.

In other cultures, it's even stronger. Some tribal cultures, the tribal chief will decide everything that matters. In some cultures, the corporation makes many important decisions. Where there is slavery, often the slaves do not get to make decisions for themselves, which is part of the reason we in the West hate the idea so much, because we value our own autonomy so highly. We even tend to describe relationships where one person does not have as much decision-making ability as we would like as “abusive”, but abusive relationships exist too.

Children are a particularly interesting example. The process of growing up, with all the stresses and strains of that, can usually be described in the (post-)modern West as going from the child having zero autonomy – they don't decide what to wear or where to go or anything to full autonomy.

So even in the West, the situation is a lot more complex than simply being individuals making their own decisions. There are still some corporate decision-making units, and there are lots of shades of grey.

The New Testament

The same was true in the Roman world in which the events in the New Testament take place. Slavery was very much legal, though with a large number of freedmen – ex-slaves. Wives and children were legally property of the husband / father, to the point where Paul could say that the difference between a slave and a son is that the son will one day inherit.

Some slaves do seem to have made their own decisions – Onesimus being a good example, even if he is most famous for running away, but there was wide variation in terms of both the educational level and the degree of autonomy that slaves had. Some were effectively estate managers, others were effectively treated as machines. Likewise with some wives – there are several places where Christian wives of non-Christian husbands are addressed.

What is interesting when we come to consider baptism in the New Testament world is that sometime individuals were baptised (for example the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, who seems to have been a very powerful slave), and sometimes whole corporate units are baptised because the person in charge becomes a Christian.

Examples:

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us.
Acts 16:14-15, ESV

There's no evidence of individual faith there from anyone in the household except Lydia. The household of a trader of purple goods would probably have included quite a few slaves and so on. Were there children? I don't think it matters. There's baptism without any record of individual profession of faith here.

And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
Acts 16:29-34, ESV

Here, the whole household gets to hear, but only the jailer is recorded as believing, and the whole household gets baptised.

In that culture, it would have been very unusual for one of his slaves to refuse to go along with the master's beliefs. Which is why there's quite a bit in the New Testament about the difficult situation where a slave does become a Christian without the master doing so.

Other people who get baptised with their entire households: Crispus in Acts 18:8, Stephanas in 1 Corinthians 1:16. It's interesting that a decent fraction of all the baptisms we have recorded in the New Testament are baptising whole households. And whole households, not just everyone in the household except scullery maid number 3, who doesn't actually seem to have an individual faith.

The point is that baptism in the New Testament isn't just baptising people who believe; it also seems to be baptising anyone who is dependent on the believer for decision-making. They don't wait until the slaves profess individual faith or until they are free and so can believe without compulsion. If there were children in those households, would they have been baptised, or would they have waited? Waited for what? If slaves are being baptised, then children would be too.

The application to infant baptism today is obvious.

What they sung at the Last Supper

Sorry that I've been so poor at updating this blog recently. I'm doing a full-time course on the sacraments at the moment, and I've also got exams on various Biblical stuff later in the week.

The highlight of the sacraments course so far has been realising what hymn Jesus and the disciples were probably singing as they left the Last Supper.

I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD. The LORD has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! We bless you from the house of the LORD. The LORD is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar! You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you. Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!

Psalms 118:17-29, ESV

Ryle on Baptism

I thought it's worth posting the thoughts of J.C. Ryle, noted 19th century evangelical and Anglican Bishop of Liverpool on the question of infant baptism. These are taken from Knots Untied, chapter 5. I provide only an outline of his thought, and haven't changed the language where I'm quoting him directly. When he was writing, "man" was legitimately gender-inclusive.

What Baptism Is

• Baptism is an ordinance appointed by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the continual admission of fresh members into His visible Church.
• Baptism is an ordinance of great simplicity.
• Baptism is an ordinance on which we may confidently expect the highest blessings, when it is rightly used (which right usage includes faith and prayer).
• Baptism is an ordinance which is expressly named in the New Testament about 80 times.
• Baptism is an ordinance which, according to Scripture, a man may receive, and yet get no good from it.
• Baptism is an ordinance which in Apostolic times went together with the first beginnings of a man's religion.
• Baptism is an ordinance which a man may never receive, and yet be a true Christian and be saved. The essential baptism is baptism of the Holy Spirit, given to the heart.

The Mode of Baptism

Ryle argues that the Bible does not come down clearly on the side of either sprinkling or immersion, and the BCP clearly allows either. He points out that there are clearly some situations where not everyone could be baptised by immersion (e.g. during a drought), but baptism should still be practiced, and hence that baptism by sprinkling is valid. He also points out that the verb baptizo is used of washing before a meal in Luke 11:38.

To whom ought baptism to be administered?

Ryle argues that both adult converts and children of Christians ought to be baptised. He gives the following arguments for children of Christians.

• Children were admitted into the Old Testament Church by a formal ordinance.

The general tendency of the Gospel is to increase men's spiritual privileges and not to diminish them. Nothing, I believe, would astonish a Jewish convert so much as to tell him that his children could not be baptized! "If they are fit to receive circumcision," he would reply, "why are they not fit to receive baptism?" And my own firm conviction has long been that no Baptist could give him an answer... I never saw an argument against infant baptism that might not have been equally directed against infant circumcision.

• The baptism of children is nowhere forbidden in the New Testament. Ryle points out that with so many of the early Church being Jews, they would naturally have assumed their children could be baptised unless it was commanded otherwise.
• The baptism of households is specially mentioned in the New Testament, and children are not specifically excluded from that.
• The behaviour of our Lord Jesus to little children, as recorded in the Gospels, is very peculiar and full of meaning.
• Baptism of little children was a practice with which the Jews were perfectly familiar. When proselytes were received into the Jewish Church by baptism, before our Lord Jesus Christ came, their infants were received, and baptized with them, as a matter of course (ref Lightfoot).
• Infant baptism was uniformly practiced by all the early Christians (with the single exception of perhaps Tertullian).
• The vast majority of eminent Christians from the period of the Protestant Reformation down to the present day have maintained the rights of infants to be baptized.

Ryle then agrees that there is no specific command for infant baptism either, but in light of the above points it seems the more logical position for the early Church to hold without needing to be told. He gives the examples of admission of women to the Lord's Supper, which is nowhere commanded in the New Testament.

He then replies to the Baptist argument that only those who repent and believe should be baptized:

In reply to this argument, I ask to be shown a single text which says that nobody ought to be baptized until he repents and believes. I shall ask in vain... To assert that [the Biblical references to baptism] forbid anyone to be baptized unless he repents and believes is to put a meaning on the words that they were never meant to bear...

After all, will anyone tell us that an intelligent profession of repentance and faith is absolutely necessary to salvation? Would even the most rigid Baptist say that because infants cannot believe, all infants must be damned? ... Will any man dare to say that infants cannot receive grace and the Holy Ghost? John the Baptist, we know, was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb (Luke 1:15). Will anyone dare to tell us that infants cannot be elect - cannot be in the covenant - cannot have new hearts - cannot be born again - cannot go to heaven when they die? ... Yet surely those who may be members of the glorious Church above, may be admitted to the Church below! ... Those who can be capable of being baptized by the Holy Ghost, may surely be baptized with water!

What position baptism ought to hold in our religion

• Don't despise it
• Don't make an idol of it
• Baptism is frequently mentioned in the New Testament, but nowhere near as frequently as some other big topics. It is important, but not the main thing.
• Baptism is spoken of with deep reverence, and in close connection with the highest privileges and blessings.

Infant Baptism

A friend asked me to write down my thoughts on infant baptism. It's a difficult topic, as evident by the fact that there are so many Christians committed to the same high view of Scripture who disagree over it. It seems that those with a higher ecclesiology seem to be in favour of infant baptism, which suggests that the strongest arguments may well presuppose that the Church can decide on secondary issues. I'm going to try to ignore that argument and concentrate on some which are more traditionally evangelical in style (i.e. ignore all tradition since the Apostles). Even then, a lot of the classic arguments are rubbish. Overall, it's a tricky argument because it needs answers to other difficult questions.

Who should be baptised?

Baptism as such seems to start in the Bible with John the Baptist, but picks up on symbolism going a long way back. So in 1 Peter 3, Peter says that Noah being saved from the flood was a picture of baptism.

John the Baptist baptised people who wanted to change the way they were living (e.g. Mark 1:4-5). It didn't require a commitment to Jesus, because Jesus only really started his ministry once John was put into prison. In Acts 19:4, Paul links John's baptism to being told to follow Jesus, but not necessarily to follow Jesus.

Christians took baptism and used it differently – baptism was either in the name of Jesus (e.g. Acts 19:5) or in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (e.g. Matthew 28:19), and was seen as being different to John's baptism (as seen in Acts 19). It was seen as linked with repentance and with forgiveness (e.g. Acts 2:38) and with union with Christ (Romans 6:3).

Baptism was seen as the first thing that happened to someone as a Christian – it was linked very closely to conversion. That means there were some examples where they baptised people who later turned out not to be Christians, for example Simon Magus in Acts 8:9ff. There doesn't seem to have been detailed examinations of belief before baptism.

1 Corinthians 10 gives a striking parallel with the Old Testament. Paul argues that the whole nation of Israel was baptised, though most of them didn't “keep going”.

For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.
1 Corinthians 10:1-6, ESV

Paul clearly saw parallels between those who had been baptised in the church in Corinth and those who were physical members of the covenant people of Israel.

Conclusion – baptism seems to have been used as an initiation into the Christian community. Sometimes people were baptised who didn't keep going as Christians. In other words, it seems sensible that we should say that Christians should be baptised, but to err on the side of baptising too many people rather than too few if we are to follow the pattern of the apostolic Church.

Who is a Christian?

Since the Reformation, the trend to try to define Christians by whether they believe a certain set of beliefs has been very strong. But it doesn't seem to be the way the Bible sees saving faith – the key question is not the intellectual content of the faith, but the object of the faith.

And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, "If I touch even his garments, I will be made well." And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my garments?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
Mark 5:25-34, ESV

Biblically, I'd suggest that saving faith seems to have been trusting that Jesus could save and that no-one else could. It doesn't require any level of intellectual sophistication, though it will have more intellectual sophistication in some people than in others. The woman with bleeding thought that just touching Jesus could heal her in what we would call a superstitious way. The centurion in Matthew 8 recognised that Jesus could heal at a distance by just saying a word. Both had saving faith.

Saving faith isn't about believing precisely the right things or being able to articulate them – it's about looking to Jesus for rescue and not looking to anyone else.

Baptising Children

So then, should we baptise children?

The obvious answer is “yes, if they are Christians”.

Are children Christians? This where the arguments against infant baptism really get tied up, with the question of what the minimum age for a child to be considered a Christian is (let alone the pastoral question of the death of children before they reach that age). The most common (and consistent) view is that the right age for baptism is whenever the child can articulate a faith of their own and request baptism, though some impose arbitrary age limits. There are however significant difficulties with either position.

My parents are (and were) Christians. I was baptised as an infant. I consciously identified myself as a Christian from at least the age of 4. I could and did articulate a faith of my own and requested to be confirmed, and was confirmed. I very much suspect that in a baptist church except for one with an arbitrary age limit over 15, I'd have been baptised. But the first time I realised my sinfulness and need of salvation and repented and meant it, rather that saying what I knew was the right answer was when I was 15, after baptism and confirmation.

One of the standard baptist arguments is that “God has no grandchildren”, which is true. And so they wait until the children of Christians make their own confession of faith rather than baptising them as infants. Given that, they'd have baptised me before many people would say I became a Christian (but they'd only say that retrospectively), which is exactly what their policy tries to avoid. How many 6-year old children of committed Christian parents fail to identify themselves as Christians?

Conversely, if they impose an arbitrary age limit, they are consciously refusing to baptise those who are able to confess faith and who may well be Christians by anyone's definition. I certainly know adults who are Christians today, and who say that, as far as they remember, they have always been Christians. Given that the apostles clearly erred on the side of baptising too many people rather than too few, and that baptism followed as soon as possible after conversion, can that policy be right?

Summary – Two Arguments

I think the following points are all obvious, and between them they constitute two strong arguments for baptising the infant children of committed Christians:

First Argument

• Committed Christians seek to raise their children to be Christians
• Young children understand more than they can articulate
• Young children trust their parents
• While of course they have to decide later whether to continue in the faith, children of committed Christian parents are almost invariably professing Christians at age 6, and have at no stage prior to that professed to be not Christian.
• The baptismal policy of the apostles was more likely to include too many people than too few, and to baptise early rather than late. There are no recorded cases of declining to baptise someone who was professing faith.

Therefore, it being clear that children of committed Christian parents trust Jesus (or think they trust Jesus) before they can profess it, and that they pretty much invariably profess faith early, it seems only sensible to baptise them at the earliest opportunity.

Second Argument

• The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares/Weeds teaches that “the evil is always intermingled with the good” - that there are people visibly in the Church who are not “saved”, and that it will stay that way until the judgement.
• While theologically, the significance of baptism is linked to inclusion in the group of those who are “saved”, practically it seems that baptism was rather inclusion into the visible Church (as seen from the example of Simon the Sorcerer).
• Examining the apostolic practice of baptism, it is clear that both the Wheat and the Tares were baptised.
• Infants of Christian couples are part of the visible Church

Hence they should be baptised.

Further considerations

I haven't discussed verses like 1 Corinthians 7:14, which says that the children of Christian couples are made holy by their parents. I think that actually works along the lines of my second argument.

There's also the question of rebaptism. If Simon had come back to faith, would the apostles have rebaptised him? My gut answer is “yes”; the policy of the C of E is “no”, and I think the usual Biblical argument for the “no” position – saying there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 5:4) doesn't work. In context that verse means that we should respect and accept the baptisms done by other Christian groups – I accept that people baptised by the Roman Catholics have been baptised and so on. It just isn't addressing the question of whether people who have been baptised, have backslidden to the point they were no longer part of the Church, and then come back to faith should be baptised again or not. On the other hand, the C of E is quite clear in its policy, and I'm happy to abide by that bit of church discipline.

The most important thing in all this, though, is for Christians to love one another, and respect that other Christians may disagree with us, that by and large they don't disagree because they're evil, but because they're genuinely trying to follow God and submit to the teaching of the Bible just as much as we are.

Calvin - Sacraments

God did not establish the sacraments so that if men strove to keep them they would obtain some virtue which would count for righteousness. Rather, he did it so to teach them that they need to find righteousness in him.

...

What do I mean? Well, baptism teaches us that we are full of filth and corruption within. Why else do we wash hands, face and body, but because we desire to wash off the dirt? We are told that baptism is our washing; therefore it follows that when we come to be baptised, and when we bring our children, we are declaring that from the mother's womb our children are already lost and condemned....

Secondly, when we receive the Lord's Supper, what is it we are doing? Are we there to acquire some merit in God's eyes? No, we are there to confess that we are like dead men who have come to seek for life outside of ourselves. The flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ must be our meat, and his blood our drink, for in him we find all that we need. Thus, the sacraments should not make us swollen with vain pride, but they should make us walk in humility, so that, empty of pride, we only seek the provision that God has made out of his infinite bounty, and that he would bestow upon us the treasures of his grace according to our need.

John Calvin, Sermon on Galatians 2:14-16

Procedural Questions

Maybe someone could enlighten me.

• Why in communion services (when using rails for administration) do the people administering (almost) always go from the congregation's left to their right?
• I get the laying hands on people when praying for them. But what's with the vague stretching out of hands towards them? Are you expecting to be able to throw lightning bolts, as with the Emperor in Star Wars? Or is it a telekinesis thing? Or a telepneumatological thing? In which case why does it need the hand?
• I'm sure there was something else, but I can't remember right now.

Zwingli again

This morning, I was visiting a church which some friends go to, and it was communion.

The church was a Baptist church, and I was very encouraged that they allowed me to receive communion - there are some baptist churches which exclude me for reasons that seem spurious and unbiblical to say the least.

I was slightly less encouraged by the following:

Jesus took bread, and after breaking it, he gave you thanks and said "Take, eat, this is a symbol of my body, which is given for you."

It saddens me when evangelicals change what the Bible says to fit their preconceptions about communion (or anything else, for that matter!). It also saddens me at the huge loss in symbolism by using the word "symbol". If the bread is just a symbol, then we are not really participating in Jesus' sacrifice for us on the cross. If the wine is just a symbol of his blood, then how are we purified? It needs the sprinkling of blood....

Communion

Part of the reason I'm writing some of this stuff is as a "way-marker" - so that when I come out of theological college, I (and others) have got a reference to know where I was at when I went in.

An increasing number of evangelicals these days seem to be adopting what I believe is called the Zwinglian model of Communion - that when we share the bread and the wine, it is only a reminder of what Jesus did for us. Some of them would then go on to say that it therefore is only something secondary in the life of the Church. Of course, I disagree with both of those.

Communion - What is Going On?

I think the passage which most easily stops the Zwinglian view of communion is this one:

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?
1 Corinthians 10:16-18, ESV

I've never come across a satisfactory Zwinglian treatment of that. When we share communion, it is a participation in the body and blood of Christ.

That fits perfectly the sacrificial symbolism in Jesus' death as well. He is the perfect sacrifice for our sins. And how did the Israelites participate in the sacrifice? By eating the body of the sacrifice. How do we participate in Jesus' sacrifice for us? By eating his body and drinking his blood.

Drinking the blood of sacrifices was of course forbidden in the Old Testament - blood was used for external sprinkling to purify things. But we drink it - it is a better participation in the sacrifice than was possible under the Old Covenant, and it is internal in its effects, not just external.

That isn't to say, of course, that Jesus is re-sacrificed at Communion. That's a horrible idea and totally against what the Bible says. Jesus died once for all, on the cross, at Calvary, 2000-odd years ago. Sharing the bread and wine now is a timebound participation in Jesus' eternal, once-for-all, sacrifice.

What about the bread and wine?

The Roman idea of transsubstantiaton seems to be based on an Aristotelian idea that there is a distinction between the "accident" of something (what it looks like, what it's made of) and the "substance" of something (what it really is). They'd then say that the "accident" of the bread and wine stays the same, but that the "substance" changes into body and blood. I think that's bunk, for the simple reason that it seems to have abosorbed far too much bad philosophy.

I think what Jesus meant when he said "This is my body" was quite clear - that by eating it, the effect was as if they had eaten Jesus' body and participated in the sacrifice. So there is a Real Presence, but it is not a Real Physical Presence. The bread and the wine, while it should be treated with reverence, is not Jesus. It is bread and wine. But it is a means by which we receive Jesus.

Who can preside?

I'm happy to abide by Church discipline on this one, but as far as I can tell, God is the one who acts at Communion. It should be a Christian presiding, and they should be a recognised leader within the Church. Does it matter if they've been ordained or not? Not to me.

Union with Christ

Introduction

A couple of things recently have been prompting me to write something about what it means for us to be united with Christ. For my part, I think it is one of the key doctrines of the New Testament – I'd say an understanding of union with Christ is essential to an understanding of justification; it's fundamental. It also seems to be a poorly understood doctrine. That's not to say I do fully understand it; I don't, of course I don't. But I think that, by God's grace, I am starting to have a faint idea of some of what it means. So I'll try and write about that. I'm writing for Christians, but others are free to read it.

What Does "Union with Christ" Mean?

The best place to start is probably Romans 6:1-13

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
Romans 6:1-13, ESV

What, according to Paul does it mean for us to be “baptised into Christ” and into his death?

Paul says that our baptism into Christ means that we somehow share in Christ's death – we are crucified with him (v6), we died with him (v5) and are buried with him (v4). Therefore we have been raised in him (v13) and live in him (v11).

Note that Paul doesn't write here that Christ was crucified for us and therefore that we should give our lives for him. Nor does he say that we are compelled not to sin because of what Jesus has done for us, which is what I imagine many of us would say in answer to the question of verse 1. Paul writes that we have been united with Christ in his death and in his resurrection – that because he has died, we have died and because he has been raised, we have been raised, therefore we should be living like it. Christ is not just the pattern for us to follow; he is the template in which we live.

Paul uses the same idea in Colossians 2:20

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations...?
Colossians 2:20, ESV

"In Christ"

We see the same idea especially in Paul's use of the phrase “in Christ”. I used to think that it was just a throwaway phrase Paul used because it sounded nice, but it isn't; it's fundamental to what Paul is saying and in my opinion is the key to most of Paul's theology.

Paul uses “in Christ” as a way of referring to Christians (e.g. Romans 16:7), but far more often in connection with the blessings we have received. For example:

“the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”
Romans 3:24

“no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Romans 8:1

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”
2 Corinthians 5:17

“In him we have redemption through his blood”
Ephesians 1:7

“In him we have obtained an inheritance”
Ephesians 1:11

“In him you.... were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit”
Ephesians 1:17

“God... made us alive together with Christ ... raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 2:4-6

Where do we have to be to receive God's blessings? In Christ. How do we receive God's blessings? In Christ. Where do God's blessings lead? Into Christ.

“speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ”
Ephesians 4:15, ESV

Or see 1 Peter 1:8, where the Christians to whom Peter is writing are said to believe into (εις) him.

Tenses

This brings us back to the idea that our union with Christ is something which is ongoing – it is true in the past, present and future. We have been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20), therefore we should be dying to ourselves (Colossians 3:5), and we will one day die in Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:16), unless he returns first. We have been raised with Christ (Ephesians 2:5-6), we are being raised in Christ (2 Corinthians 4:10) and we will be raised in Christ (Romans 8:11).

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:

We are ... always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
2 Corinthians 4:10-11, ESV

This is then wonderful grounds for our assurance. We are in Christ, who lives forever. So when (and if) we finally die, we remain in Christ and so still live. That means that we have a sure and certain hope of the resurrection, because Jesus has been raised and we are in him, as Paul argues in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 “the dead in Christ will rise first.” (cf 1 Corinthians 15:17).

Jesus and Union

But it is not just Paul and Peter. Jesus also speaks about it at length in John 14 and 15, where we see that it is all intertwined with what it means to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and with the relationship between the members of the Trinity.

“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
John 14:20, ESV

At the start of John 15, we also see that being in Jesus is the key to being able to bear fruit, and that those who do not abide in him are ultimately thrown into the fire and burned (John 15:6).

Colossians 3:3 - "Hidden in Christ"

So, to come back to one of the questions that prompted this, what does Colossians 3:3 mean when it says “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”?

This whole idea of dying with Jesus and rising with Jesus is a big theme in Colossians 2 (e.g. v12-13). Paul goes on to apply it in 2:20 – that because we have died to the “elemental spirits of this world”, we shouldn't be living worldly lives (in this case submitting to silly rules). Instead (3:1), Paul tells them they have been raised with Christ, and therefore should be setting their mind where Christ is.

That's the context for 3:3, so in context Paul is telling them that their primary identity is in Christ. After all, they have died in him, and have been raised in him. They are only really alive in him. Christ is where they are, so that's where they should be focusing.

The “hidden” refers forwards to v4 - “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Their new, risen, in Christ, selves are not obvious. It will only become clear who we really are when Christ appears, and us with him (cf Romans 8:19). For the time being, what is in Christ is hidden.

1 Corinthians 6 and Sex

Another application of this is in 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul links the idea of our union with Christ with the idea that sex is an expression of and brings about union between man and woman. Paul therefore argues that for someone who is united with Christ to be united with a prostitute is crazy. Of course, the linking of union with Christ and union in sex both point forwards to the perfect consummation of the union between Christ and his bride the Church that awaits us in heaven.

Summary

Union with Christ is the means of our salvation – God counts us as righteous because and only because we are in Christ. We are raised from the dead both spiritually and physically only because Christ has been raised from the dead and we are united with him.

Union with Christ is the goal of our salvation. We are growing up corporately into him, and one day we will be perfectly united with him. This means our current union with Christ gives us a sure and certain hope for the future, because we know that what happens to Christ will also happen to us, just as what happened to Christ in his incarnation, rejection, suffering, crucifixion, resurrection and glorification is also happening to us.

Union with Christ gives us our identity - if we are in Christ, we are who we are in Christ, and nothing else.