Let the Wicked Return to the Lord

by Kevin D. Gardner

[Rev. Kevin D. Gardner is associate editor of Tabletalk magazine, resident adjunct professor at Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Fla., and a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on July 30, 2018.]

In the book of Isaiah, there is an abrupt transition at chapter 40. After many chapters of pronouncing judgment and the need for restoration, the prophet shifts gears: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (Isa. 40:1–2). So begins what has aptly been called the Book of Comfort or the Book of Consolation—Isaiah 40–66, a glorious recitation of God’s affection for His people and His promises of blessing for them.

In the midst of the Book of Comfort is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. Isaiah 55 begins with a plea from God: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (v. 1). The invitation—echoed later in Jesus’ words in John 4 and 6—is almost too good to be true. Who would believe that someone would offer food for free? And if someone did, surely the food would not be worth eating.

But no. God goes on to plead with His hearers to forsake their practice of pursuing food that does not satisfy: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” He then reveals the goodness of the food that He offers: “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live” (Isa. 55:2–3). The food is rich, and it is good. It is no earthly food; this food, the food that truly satisfies, is the Word of God. The one who listens to God will be filled.

This is not a call to abandon all other interests than the Lord but rather a call to recognize Him as the highest pursuit. Where are we ultimately finding satisfaction? In success, money, or power? Or in the One who made us, who knows us, and who calls us to Himself? The things of this world cannot ultimately satisfy, because they were not made to. We are called to forsake our empty, unfulfilling, self-focused endeavors and to come to God and be satisfied.

God offers this rich food to His people, the Israelites. The offer is in keeping with His promises to them in the past, as He notes by referencing His covenant with David in verses 3–4. The richness of the Word of God as revealed to Israel is so attractive that other nations will come to hear it (v. 5). For Israel, it is easy to hear this Word. But still, they are urged to “seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (v. 6).

But the call to seek the Lord, as hinted at in verse 5, does not go out only to Israel; it goes out to the nations as well. All nations and all peoples are called to seek the Lord. Moreover, “the wicked” are called to seek the Lord: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (v. 7). To the ancient Israelites, “the wicked” referred to those from the surrounding nations, the very people referred to in verse 5. They were the ones who did not know or serve the Creator of heaven and earth. And yet, here is a call for mercy, for pardon, for the very people who had oppressed God’s chosen nation.

Sometimes, we have a hard time thinking that God could ever reach a certain person. He is too bad or she is too far gone for God to reach, we think. This was how the Israelites thought of the gentile nations. Despite the fact that the call to minister to the nations was built into Israel’s very makeup (Gen. 12; 1 Kings 8), the Israelites had a hard time carrying out that mission. There was no way that God could reach those people. And furthermore, they didn’t deserve mercy. Their punishment was just. Right?

Wrong. God rebukes such thinking in the next verse. To those who think they know the way that God ought to operate, how He ought to dispense His mercy, God says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9).

This verse is often generalized to speak of God’s being something other than us. He is the Creator, and we are the creature. He is, by definition, higher than us, and we cannot access His thoughts. He has made Himself known to us, so to that extent, we can know the mind of God, and based on that, we can try to reason the way that He does—to think God’s thoughts after Him. But we cannot think in precisely the same way that He thinks.

While this verse can certainly be generalized legitimately, it’s important that we recognize the context in which it occurs. God is not speaking of His thoughts as generally higher than ours. He is speaking of His thoughts as higher than our thoughts specifically when it comes to how “the wicked” should be viewed—that is, “the wicked” are to be called to return to the Lord and to be welcomed.

This was likely a shock to the Israelites, and it can be shock to us, too. It’s easy to fall into the trap of dividing “us” from “them” and of thinking of “them” as unworthy. When we do that, we run the risk of placing our thoughts higher than God’s thoughts, thinking that we know better than He does.

But God delights to show mercy—and it’s a good thing for us that He does. While we’re busy dividing “us” from “them” or “the righteous” from “the wicked,” it’s easy to miss one simple fact: we are the wicked. The Israelites began to think that they were better than the nations, but they weren’t, and they should have known that (see Deut. 9:4–6). We also are not more righteous in ourselves than those who do not know Christ, yet God in His mercy has provided righteousness for us (Rom. 5:8; 2 Cor. 5:21).

The story of the Old Testament is God’s calling a wicked people to Himself and accomplishing His purposes in spite of their wickedness. God does this by means of His Word, the very same “rich food” we are called to eat in Isaiah 55:2. This Word in verses 10–12 is likened to the rain and snow that water the earth. As the rain causes plants to grow, so the Word of God makes things happen: “It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (v. 12).

This active, generative Word is God’s revelation in Scripture and especially in the person and work of Christ. The next verses tell us what the Word accomplishes: creation joins in song in praise of the Creator, and new life springs forth in a reversal of the curse of Genesis 3 (Isa. 55:12–13). This new life happens not only in the new heavens and new earth but also in the fallow ground of human hearts when they are regenerated by the Holy Spirit. For the sake of His own glory God does this: “It shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (v. 13).

Praise God that His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts, for He has brought us, the wicked, near to Him, that we might feast on His rich food. And praise Him for the power of His Word, which has brought us to new life. May our lives shine forth the glory of His name.

The Free Offer of the Gospel

by Aaron L. Garriott

[Rev. Aaron L. Garriott is managing editor of Tabletalk magazine, resident adjunct professor at Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Fla., and a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on January 23, 2019.]

If we were to simulate an evangelistic conversation where you had forty-five seconds to explain the gospel to a person unfamiliar with the Bible, what would you say? Of course, you can’t say everything, so which components would you include, and which components would you omit? Grace? Love? Christ? The Trinity? The elements you choose to include and those you choose to omit tend to reveal what you regard to be the essential components of the gospel.

Would faith or repentance be among the elements you would choose to include? If these concepts would not be included in your presentation, perhaps it’s because faith and repentance are often categorized as responses to the gospel rather than as part of the content of the gospel. In one sense, this is an important distinction. Yet, it’s worth noting that Scripture rarely mentions the gospel apart from the appropriate response of the gospel.

Can you imagine what it would have been like for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus to learn Old Testament hermeneutics from Christ? I suspect not many of us, if given the opportunity, would miss Jesus’ lecture where He “[began] with Moses and all the Prophets, [interpreting] to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). What is it in the Old Testament that concerned Christ? Certainly, Christ and His work were foreshadowed throughout the pages of the Old Testament. Paul reminded the Corinthians “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). The death of Christ was according to the Old Testament Scriptures (see Ps. 22:15; Isa. 53; Dan. 9:26; Zech. 13:7). The resurrection of Christ was also according to the Old Testament Scriptures (see Ps. 16:10; Isa. 53:10; Hos. 6:2). It was in this regard that B.B. Warfield likened the Old Testament to a beautiful, unlit mansion where the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ turns the lights on so that we can more clearly see the beauty of what was always there. For instance, the book of Leviticus takes on a new sense of beauty when read with an eye cast forward on the new-covenant sacrificial Lamb and tabernacle of God.

Beginning to see the person and work of Christ in the pages of the Old Testament is an exhilarating adventure that often accompanies, or at least eventually flows from a conversion into Reformed theology. Yet, I suspect that even those of us who see Christ in all of Scripture often neglect to see a key component of the gospel foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Consider, for instance, Jesus’ words to the eleven after the Emmaus Road incident:

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:44–47)

Here again is Christ’s claim that the Old Testament long spoke of the atoning death and resurrection of the Messiah. What is more, Jesus also claims that the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness was likewise foretold in the Old Testament. It’s significant that repentance and forgiveness are Old Testament concepts as much as atonement and resurrection. They weren’t foreign to the Old Testament. In fact, Luke praises the Bereans not for their brilliance but for their unwillingness to accept any new teaching that did not accord with the Old Testament Scriptures (Acts 17:11). The Apostles weren’t teaching novel doctrine; rather, they were teaching things that were in step with the doctrine of God’s old covenant revelation. Thus, even the frequent call for faith and repentance was not a novel New Testament phenomenon. Rather, the object of faith just became clearer—that is, He became incarnate.

The presence of repentance for forgiveness in the Old Testament is clear, for example, in the Day of Atonement. On this one day of the calendar year, the high priest alone was allowed to enter the holiest place of the tabernacle in order to make atonement for the sins of the people. But contra classic Dispensational theology, although this offer of atonement was universal, its application was only to those in the camp who were the true seed of Abraham, those who “assembled” (Lev. 16:33) outside the tent and with faith trusted in the atonement offered by the high priest. The liturgy of the Day of Atonement taught Israel to repent of their sins and trust in the atoning sacrifice for forgiveness. Dozens of other passages could be noted, but it’s clear that the death and resurrection of the Messiah weren’t the only aspects of the gospel foretold in the Old Testament. The forgiveness of sins that is offered in His name is also foretold in the Old Testament.

It’s worth acknowledging that Calvinists have often been accused of practices that are said to be inconsistent with their doctrine. The allegation usually looks something like this: If you believe in limited (or definite) atonement, how can you truly offer the gospel to everyone? Now, we must concede that there have been hyper-Calvinists who agree with this allegation and frown on those who want to uphold the legitimacy of the free offer of the gospel. William Goold described this tendency: “To counteract the tendency of the religious mind when it proceeded in the direction of Arminianism, Calvinistic divines, naturally engrossed with the points in dispute, dwelt greatly on the workings of efficacious grace in election, regeneration, and conversion, if not to the exclusion of the free offer of the gospel, at least so as to cast somewhat into the shade the free justification offered in it.”[1] Yet, only the one who believes in the sovereignty of God can have confidence of any sort that his evangelistic efforts are not in vain. Only the Calvinist can truly trust Jesus’ words that the harvest is plentiful (Luke 10:2).

Herman Witsius exclaimed:

Let it be remembered, that it is not as elect or non-elect, but as guilty and perishing, that men are invited to receive Christ and his blessings; and that the invitation is by no means restricted to those who are awakened and convinced. That the Gospel contains a free and full exhibition of Christ and his benefits to sinners of every class and of every character, is an important truth, clearly founded in the sacred oracles, intimately connected with the glory of the grace of God and with the honor of Christ. . . . The doctrine of a free and universal exhibition of Christ and his righteousness and blessings to men as sinners, is by no means a distinctive badge of any one denomination of Christians, but a tenet conscientiously maintained in common by enlightened and faithful men of various persuasions—men who are anxious to guard, with equal scrupulosity, against Arminian and Antinomian errors.[2]

Not only are the sovereignty of God and the free offer of the gospel compatible, but the free offer of the gospel is an integral outflow of the work of Christ. The death and resurrection are only part of the story. The other part is the call to repentance and the announcement of a free forgiveness for all: “Come. Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isa. 55:1). The free offer of the gospel is an inevitable and essential consequence of the work of Christ. Our evangelism ought to include this dual proclamation of the historical data and the call to repentance for the forgiveness of sins found in Christ. Without the call to repent and believe, we’ve delivered only half of the gospel.

Notes

1. The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, n.d.), 5:2. 
2. Herman Witsius and Donald Fraser, Sacred Dissertations, on What Is Commonly Called the Apostles’ Creed, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: A. Fullarton & Co., 1823), 390. 

Evangelism as God’s Work

by Andrew Miller

[Rev. Andrew J. Miller is a Regional Home Missionary in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and coauthor of Glorifying and Enjoying God: 52 Devotions through the Westminster Shorter Catechism. He is on X at @AndrewMillerOPC.]

It is both freeing and empowering to know that God is working ahead of us. Our evangelism joins the harvest that God has already begun. Whenever a person converts to Christ, God has already been working in that person’s heart. The groundwork has already been laid; thus, an evangelist can’t really take credit for conversion. Sometimes all an evangelist does is nudge the last domino. As in the parable of the sower, God has been tilling the soil.

This is important because one reason Christians struggle to evangelize is that we forget that God is out ahead of us. We think we’re alone. We think that people’s response depends on us and our presentation. But as A.W. Pink points out, “When God calls any of his people to go to a place, they may rest assured that he has fully provided for them in his foredetermined purpose.”[1] God’s servant Elijah, for example, went to the brook Cherith with God’s promise: “You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there” (1 Kings 17:4). He went to the widow of Zarephath with God’s promise, “Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you” (1 Kings 17:9). It’s the same in the New Testament; in Acts 18:9–10, God tells the Apostle Paul, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”

God is ahead of us: this is a liberating truth for Christians in the great privilege of sharing the gospel. God has already been at work. You don’t know how God will use your witness in a person’s life. It may be at the beginning of God’s work, the planting of seed. It might be at the end of God’s work—the harvest. It might be during God’s work—the watering. But God gives the growth; He gets the glory. We see this very clearly in 1 Corinthians 3:5–9:

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God’s building.

Every stage matters. This means that what you are doing is important and that its effectiveness belongs to the Lord.

Jesus declared in John 10:27–28 that people’s response of faith to His Word is rooted in His first making people His own. He said: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27–28). While “Calvinism” unfortunately gets dismissed by many Christians as being deterministic and anti-evangelism, you can’t get around the logic of Jesus’s statement: something makes a person Jesus’ sheep before they believe. The theological term for this is election.

Adolf Schlatter, who managed to hold influential scholarly posts in Germany and produce massively popular devotional material as an evangelical in the days when theological liberalism was taking hold, put it this way in his landmark biblical-theological study Faith in the New Testament: “Faith is preceded by an original relationship to God, which reaches its active conclusion and fruitful result in faith.”[2]

God creates a relationship of love and favor with His sheep, who will in time hear His voice—often through the feeble voices of messengers proclaiming His Word. Long before you or I ever share the gospel with someone, long before we’ve even met them, God has set His love upon them. After saying that God elects some to eternal life “out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works,” the Westminster Confession of Faith says that God has also ordained the means by which they will hear the gospel and be saved:

As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power, through faith, unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. (WCF 3.6)

In other words, God’s Spirit makes the gospel “effectual.” God’s Spirit must do this: “Convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel” (Westminster Shorter Catechism 31). Whenever you share the gospel, God is at work behind the scenes.

This means that when a person converts and trusts in Christ, credit is not due to the one who shared the gospel.[3] This also answers the objection that people raise to election: that it saps evangelism. I was recently asked why I would church plant knowing that God has not chosen many people in my area. The response is simple: I don’t know whom God has chosen or how many. I know He has chosen some, and He not only chooses people, but He sends out messengers to herald the good news. My responsibility is faithfulness; God will produce fruitfulness. Sean McGever helpfully likens evangelists to mail-carriers’ bringing a great message to people.[4] When you receive a great gift in the mail, you credit the sender, not the mailperson![5] We don’t blame the postal service for delivering bills to us. Yet “in modern evangelism we celebrate, study, and idolize far too many messengers while minimizing the sender.”[6] As two Old Testament figures put it, are we in the place of God (Gen. 30:2; 50:19)? He is the Giver of life.

God not only elects people to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, but He also sends those who proclaim it (e.g., Luke 1:19). The very word apostle means “sent one.” God is a sending God, who sends His Son, His Spirit, His angels, His Word, and His people. As Pink points out, “When God works he always works at both ends of the line.”[7] He elaborates, in reference to God’s providence over the widow of Zarephath being in the right place at the right time:

If Jacob sends his sons down into Egypt seeking food in time of famine, Joseph is moved to give it unto them. If Israel’s spies enter Jericho, there is a Rahab raised up the shelter them. If Mordecai is begging the Lord to come to the deliverance of his threatened people, King Ahasuerus is rendered sleepless, made to search the state records and befriend Mordecai and his fellows. If the Ethiopian eunuch is desirous of an understanding of God’s word, Philip is sent to expound it to him. . . . Elijah had received no intimation as to where this widow resided, but divine providence timed her steps so that she encountered him at the entrance to the city. What encouragements to faith are these![8]

I would add, what encouragements to evangelism are these! The opportunities that we have for gospel conversations are not just because God put us in the right place at the right time, but because He also put others in the right place at the right time. We’re not alone in evangelism: God is out ahead of us.

This should be especially encouraging for pastors who proclaim the gospel each and every Lord’s Day. Your preaching hits home not because of its particular elegance—which might be entirely lacking—but because God’s Spirit worked in your preparation and delivery and because He worked in the hearers, not only during your sermon, but before. Moreover, God’s Spirit will work after your sermon is over. I can still remember hearing sermons that God particularly used in my life though they were probably long forgotten by the preachers who delivered them.

These truths should encourage all of us, pastor or not, to join God’s bountiful harvest by sharing our hope with the lost (Matt. 9:37–38). We share God’s Word, knowing that His activity goes before us and will continue after us. After all, the great gospel commission of Matthew 28 sandwiches the commission in between Jesus’ pledges of His power and presence:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:18–20, emphasis added)

Notes

1. A.W. Pink, The Life of Elijah (Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 2024), 46.
2. Adolf Schlatter, Faith in the New Testament: A Study in Biblical Theology (Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Academic, 2022), 158.
3. McGever points out that we often fall into “a logical and theological fallacy: correlation is causation.” Sean McGever, Evangelism: For the Care of Souls (Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham, 2023), 9–10.
4. “The core of evangelism is being a messenger. The message is not ours, and the effectiveness of the message is not ours.” McGever, Evangelism, 59.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Pink, Elijah, 54.
8. Ibid.

Union with Christ and Mission

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on union with Christ and was originally published July 7, 2019.]

We have been exploring the great biblical truth of the believer’s union with Christ. We’ve seen that union with Christ defines our identity, creates a community, and produces a spirituality. There is a kind of progression involved here. We have communion with God as we are in Christ by the Spirit. Our new identity places us in a new community in the context of which we practice a new spirituality. Our purpose in this final article is to show that the end of our union with Christ does not rest on us, or even on the church. The goal of union with Christ moves from each of us toward others in the formation of Christ’s new community, the church, and on outward once again toward the world in mission as we seek to draw others into communion with God. To be united to Christ is to be sent into the world as the agents of the triune God, who gathers worshipers from the ends of the earth.

The Doxology of Union with Christ

As we think about union with Christ and mission, it will be wise to consider first the doxological purpose of union with Christ. Union with Christ is about the glory of God. This is nowhere more clearly seen than in Ephesians 1:3–14. Paul surveys the whole landscape of salvation from eternity in the electing purposes of God the Father, through history at the cross of Jesus Christ, into our experience when we believed the gospel. Each phase is explained as an aspect of the Christian’s union with Christ. We are chosen in Christ. We are redeemed by the cross in Christ. We believe into Christ. But let’s be sure to notice the goal of God in our union with Christ. What is God after in uniting sinners to His Son by the Holy Spirit? He is working that all might be “to the praise of his glorious grace” (v. 6), and that we ourselves might “be to the praise of his glory” (v. 12, 14).

What is God after when He predestines and applies to sinners their union with His Son? He is pursuing His own glory. Or, to put it another way, union with Christ is about doxology. It is about worship. It is about the exaltation of the triune Lord—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the one God, who is blessed forever. Ephesians 1 makes the same point Paul makes again in Romans 11:33–36. In the first ten chapters of his letter, he surveys the wonder of free salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, the great mystery of election, and the global plan of God to bring that gospel to the ends of the earth by means of preaching the Word. After all this, it seems that Paul can’t contain himself any more. He bursts into doxology: “Oh the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” What are we for? Why are we united to Christ, brought together in Him into a new community and given access to the throne of glory in authentic spirituality? What is God doing? He is working to display His glory. He is unveiling to the whole created universe the excellence of His wisdom, mercy, and grace.

And that is vital to see as we begin to think about mission because it puts the breaks on unconstrained pragmatism. There is a bigger consideration that must be brought to bear on all our efforts to serve Jesus beyond the question of whether it’s popular or attractive or whether it “works.” We need to ask, Is God being honored? Does it glorify the God who has revealed Himself in Christ by the Scriptures? Is it man-centered, or is it God-centered? The goal of union with Christ, individually and together in churches, is doxology. It is making much of God in Christ through the gospel.

The Missiology of Union with Christ

Now that we have seen the doxological purpose of God in electing, calling, converting, and sanctifying sinners, we are in a place to consider the missiological mandate of union with Christ. If the goal of union with Christ is doxology, we need to ask how that plays out. How do we achieve that goal? We began to answer that question in the previous article when we talked about spirituality. We were thinking about worship, about communing with the Trinity through the means of grace, individually and together as a church. That’s part of the answer. But another part of the answer has to do with missions.

You may know the now famous statement with which John Piper begins Let the Nations Be Glad!, his excellent book on missions. He says: “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Mission exists because worship doesn’t.”[1] We will worship forever. But we won’t do evangelism forever. We will be engaged in unceasing doxology when we come face-to-face with our exalted Savior. But there will be no more missions, no need to share the gospel. There will be no one to bring to Christ because when the new creation comes, everyone who lives there will know Him even as they are known. So, why do we engage in missions here? Because there are still men, women, boys, and girls around the world who do not know Him and do not worship Him. So, then, if the purpose of union with Christ is doxology, and the purpose of mission is doxology, there must be an intimate connection between missions and union with Christ. They both have the same goal, the same purpose.

Second Corinthians 5:14–6:1 is one place where Paul spells out the link between his missionary work and the doctrine of union with Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, he reminds us that we are new creatures in union with Christ, and in 2 Corinthians 5:18–19 that we are reconciled to God because of our union with Christ. The implication of that for Paul’s own ministry is clear:

Therefore,” he says—since we are united to Christ like this in the gospel—“we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain (5:20–6:1).

We represent Christ, Paul explains, because we are united to Him. We speak on His behalf to the world, pleading with everyone to be reconciled to God. Indeed, we work together with Him. God Himself makes His appeal through us. That is an electrifying thought. Whether from the pulpit on a Sunday, or in a coffee shop over a muffin, when those who are united to Christ plead with the lost to be reconciled to God, God Himself makes His appeal through them. Do you see the connection between union with Christ and missions and evangelism? Because we are in Christ, Christ speaks through us, and uses us, even as we represent Him.

What are the implications of that for us? There are many, but I will mention three. First, there is boldness. Because we are in Christ and He is in us, we’re not left to our best wisdom. We don’t need to have all the answers or know all the words. We need to share the gospel simply, clearly, and lovingly, even if fearfully and tremblingly. And the power to raise the dead, and make the deaf hear, and the blind see—the saving power—lies in Christ, who will use us, despite our failings, for His glory. Fight fear with the knowledge that you are in Christ, and therefore you are His ambassador. He makes His appeal through you.

Second there is joy. Evangelism is about doxology. We are in Christ, and we get to display Christ to the world, to make much of Christ and to show the nations that life apart from Him is a dull threadbare fabric, and life in union with Him is a rich tapestry.

Third, there is vision. Mission has to be at the heart of a healthy church because the church is the community of disciples united to Jesus. Union with Christ leads to community and results in mission to the glory of God. A church is not worthy of the name if it is not working to bring men and women, boys and girls to faith in Jesus Christ and to enfold them into the life of the congregation. Union with Christ compels mission. It demands it. We betray the Savior who joined us to Himself if we keep Him to ourselves. That’s why our church’s vision is to glorify God by making disciples on the North State Street corridor, the greater Jackson area, and around the world. If we are in Christ together, we must be in Christ together for the world. To be in Christ as a church means we are a church for our neighbors and our friends and our colleagues who don’t know Jesus yet. Insularity and union with Christ are incompatible. To grow up into Him who is the Head means, in part, to go out into the world to make disciples.

Notes

1. John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1993), 11. 

Union with Christ in 3-D

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on union with Christ.]

I must confess that I am not a fan of 3-D movies. To this Scotsman at least, it feels like a gimmick designed mainly to part me from my money. Invariably, I leave with a headache. Sometimes I find the effect singularly unconvincing. But my children are less cynical. They find the experience captivating. The sense of entering the world on screen lends depth and dimension to the whole experience. As we explore the doctrine of union with Christ, it is important that we see the three dimensions in which the New Testament describes it. Seeing this doctrine in 3-D will bring color and depth to every other aspect of our Christian lives.

The first dimension to be explored, albeit very briefly here, is our union with Christ in the eternal plan of God, that is, union with Christ in election. Ephesians 1:3–6 reminds us that God “chose us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” In a beautiful passage, John Calvin explains Paul’s meaning:

When Paul teaches that we were chosen in Christ “before the creation of the world” [Eph. 1:4a], he takes away all consideration of real worth on our part, for it is just as if he said: since among all the offspring of Adam, the Heavenly Father found nothing worthy of his election, he turned his eyes upon his Anointed, to choose from that body as members those whom he was to take into the fellowship of life. Let this reasoning then prevail among believers: we were adopted in Christ into the eternal inheritance because in ourselves we were not capable of such great excellence. (Institutes, 3.22.1)

The Father elects damnable sinners in Christ. It is not that God saw that we would obey or believe of our own free will and then chose us because of our foreseen faith. Rather, it is that God saw—indeed, ordained—that Christ would obey, bleed, die, and rise again for us. God chose sinners for salvation based on the merit and atonement of Christ, His promised sacrifice. We are in Christ in eternity.

But there is a second dimension to our union with Christ. We are in Christ, we might say, redemptive-historically (i.e., in what God actually did for us in time in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ). Paul always describes a Christian as having died with Christ, having been buried with Him, and having been raised with Him. It is by virtue of His obedience that we are counted righteous (Rom. 5:19). It is by virtue of our union with Him in His death and resurrection that we are spiritually alive to God (Eph. 2:4–6). It is “in him” that we have “redemption through his blood” (1:7). When Christ acted during the days of His earthly ministry, He acted for His people as our representative and our substitute. Thus, when Satan tempted Him in the wilderness, it was not merely to provide an example for us of how to deal with temptation. He was obeying God in the face of temptation, as His only begotten Son, in the wilderness of a fallen creation. Adam, the son of God (Luke 3:38), failed to obey in the garden of an unfallen creation. Israel, God’s son (Ex. 4:23), failed to obey in the wilderness of Sinai. But Christ obeyed. This obedience He accomplished not only for Himself but for all whom He represented, for all who were “in him” according to the electing purpose of God.

Then there is a third dimension to our union with Christ, which rests firmly on the first two. It finds its source in the eternal covenant and plan of God, electing sinners in union with Christ. It is founded on the obedient life and death of Christ as the representative of His people in history. But it erupts into the hearts and lives of Christians in their present experience through the work of the Holy Spirit. We might call this experiential or existential union with Christ. It takes all that Christ accomplished in history on our behalf and makes it ours presently, vitally, really. It brings to fulfillment the eternal counsel of the covenant of redemption, purposed before the stars were hung in their places. Ephesians 2:4–10 is a classic statement of this very point. Though were dead in our sin,

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

We are given new life in Christ by the gracious gift of God, which includes the faith in the gospel that He grants to us. We become new creatures in Christ. The bond of our union with the risen Christ is the Spirit of Christ. As Jesus taught His disciples in John 14:16–18: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” The way Christ comes to us is by the Spirit of truth, whom Jesus styles “another Helper,” or, more literally, “another Helper like the One they now have” in Jesus. The Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of sonship, communicates to us not only the benefits of our redemption but Christ Himself. He comes to us. We are in Him and know Him and commune with Him. His righteousness is ours. Our life is resurrection life. Our sanctification makes us resemble Him. Our adoption is sonship in the Son. Our glorification is entry into His glorious presence, reflecting His radiance and delighting in His reward. All this we have in union with Jesus. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).

May God help us to see our Christian lives in 3-D, united to Christ in eternity, in history, and in experience. When we see our Christian lives that way, it’s like discovering a new landscape full of wonder and beauty where we find security and rest forever, where we are satisfied.

What Is Real Spirituality?

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on union with Christ and was previously published February 8, 2019.]

Union with Christ is, as we have begun to see, one of those architectonic principles that shapes the fabric of the Christian life. In this article, I want to highlight a few of the implications of our union with Christ for our spirituality. To be sure, spirituality is fascinating to people today. Usually when we run across the idea, it suggests the pursuit of subjective spiritual experience, often linked to mental and emotional well-being, sometimes suggesting practices like Eastern meditation and mindfulness. But true Christian spirituality has little in common with that way of thinking. And the fundamental point of difference has to do with the center—the object, the focal point. In the models of spirituality common in our culture, the self is the focal point. We pursue spiritual experience for the sake of experience, or possibly for the sense of well-being it is alleged to promise. But in authentically Christian spirituality, experience—though present and vital, rich and real—isn’t the goal and the self isn’t the focus. In Christian spirituality, God in Christ by the Holy Spirit is the focus. Knowing Him and delighting in Him are our objectives. Insofar as thoughts of self have a place in Christian spirituality at all, it is a small one. This view of spirituality helps us see ourselves truly only insofar as we come to know God truly.

For our purposes, I am defining “spirituality” as the pursuit, by means of scriptural disciplines, of an ever-growing, deeply felt communion with the triune God. My argument is that the doctrine of union with Christ is at the very heart of all our fellowship with God and every discipline or habit of grace by which that fellowship may be cultivated.

Union Leads to Communion

In John 14:16, Jesus promised the disciples that He would ask the Father to give them another Helper, whom He identifies as the Spirit of truth. The phrase “another Helper” means another of the same kind. Jesus was departing to the Father, by way of the cross, but He would send another helper of the same character as Himself. This Helper is the Holy Spirit, who would dwell with the disciples and be in them. But in verses 18–19, we learn that the link between Christ and the Spirit is far more profound than we might first think. Jesus says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me” (emphasis added). Jesus, though departing, would come to His disciples. This isn’t a reference to the resurrection or to the second coming of Jesus at the end of the age. This is a reference to the coming of the Holy Spirit. There is a union between Christ and the Spirit such that the Spirit communicates to us the presence of Christ. Jesus comes to us and indwells us by the Spirit. When Jesus says, “Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you” (vv. 19–20), He is telling us the consequence of the Spirit’s mighty work. In the Spirit, we are united to Jesus Christ.

Jesus helps us see the wonder of that union in verse 20: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you.” Jesus and the Father are one. There is a union and communion between the Father and the Son in the fellowship of the blessed Trinity. The Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, communicates to us, mediates to us, our union and communion with Christ, who is one with the Father. The Spirit’s ministry will be to help us know, experience, and enjoy the fact that Christ is in the Father and that we are in Christ and Christ is in us.

That is what the Apostle John meant when he said in 1 John 1:3 that his purpose in preaching Christ was “so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” What is the full glory of the fellowship we have with the Apostolic church when we come to believe the gospel John preached? It’s not just that we enjoy fellowship with one another, but rather, with one another we have fellowship with the Father and with the Son. That is stunning in its scope and glory. When the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ when we believe the gospel, we are swept up into communion with the triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As Ephesians 2:18 puts it, “For through him [Jesus] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” The Spirit brings us to Jesus, plants us into Christ, and in Christ we have access to the Father.

I’m making a plea for an experiential, felt Christianity. I’m making a plea for a felt Christ. It is the work of the Spirit always to lead us into deeper and more soul-nourishing communion with Christ. We are not rationalists. We are supernaturalists. We believe in the Holy Spirit who brings us into real communication and communion and fellowship with the risen and exalted Christ Himself, and, in Christ, with the Father. If that makes us uncomfortable, if our theology is satisfied with doctrines and practices only and knows nothing of spiritual intimacy with God, it may be that we are still not yet converted.

Union, Communion, and the Ordinary Means of Grace

But how do we grow into a deepening experience and understanding of communion with the triune God? Is it just something that comes over you, like a chill, when you’re not expecting it? Is it some eerie, spooky mumbo-jumbo that only the super-spiritual can know, the fruit perhaps of some second blessing? Or at the other end of the spectrum, is a deepening communion with God the product of the right application of technique? Can spiritual experience be manufactured? Can you produce an experience of God with the right ambience, with maybe a few candles and the right aesthetic?

Westminster Larger Catechism 154 asks, “What are the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation?” Having described our union with Christ, our question now is, How do we enjoy the benefits Christ has won for us? Now that we are “in Him,” how do we commune with Him? Listen to the catechism’s answer: “The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to his church the benefits of his mediation, are all his ordinances; especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for their salvation.”

All the ordinances, all the disciplines and practices ordained by Christ in His Word are the outward and ordinary means. Then it lists the three central and primary means, of which all the others are derivative. Christ communicates His benefits to us by the Word, the sacraments, and prayer.

But, before we go much further, we need to recognize that the means of grace fall into two broad categories. There are private means of grace, and there are corporate means of grace. Strictly speaking, they are not two separate sets of disciplines, but they are different applications of the same three means: the Word, the sacraments, and prayer.

Christ has ordained the public (and private) use of the Word and prayer, and the corporate use of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, that by the diligent, believing use of them the fact of our union with Christ might be enjoyed in growing communion with Him. If we are longing for a deepening experience of Jesus, if we want more of the felt presence of Christ in our Christian lives, we do not need to attend special meetings. We do not need to undergo some kind of spiritual catharsis or any kind of second blessing. We need to go to corporate worship. We need to sit under the faithful exposition of the Word week in and week out. We need to open our Bibles at home and drink in its truth. We need to cry to God for the work of the Spirit in our hearts. We must not neglect the Lord’s Table; rather, we must join with our brothers and sisters in eating the bread and the wine.

By such means Christ has promised to strengthen our faith, to kill our sin, to comfort our hearts, and to deepen our assurance that we are indeed in Him and He in us. May God help us use the means of grace with faith and expectation that we might enjoy the glories of our union with Christ to the praise of His great name!

The Church Is Not Optional

by David Strain

[Dr. David Strain is senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. He is author of Expository Preaching and a commentary on Ruth and Esther in the Focus on the Bible commentary series.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on union with Christ and was originally published on January 28, 2019.]

In the last article, we considered how union with Christ transforms how we think about and form our identity. This time, we’ll consider how union with Christ produces new community. In a 2014 article in The Atlantic, Julie Beck recounts the findings of a study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior that examined the phenomenon of oversharing online, especially on Facebook. Her conclusion is that oversharing is an attempt to project to our friends and acquaintances something about us that we wish were better appreciated. However, the desired results—inclusion and acceptance—are rarely achieved:

Posters sought attention and a feeling of inclusion, but were seemingly less interested in expressing caring for others. They treated Facebook like a drive-thru window, seeking a quick and easy dollar-menu pick-me-up.

And it seems their friends could tell.

“Those who express the true self do not receive more wall posts from others in response to their greater expressiveness,” the study reads. “Their self-oriented motives may be apparent to their Facebook friends, causing them to not respond in kind.”

The study also acknowledges another, sadder possibility: “Alternatively, there could be a disconnect between the levels of self-disclosure with which these users and their friends are comfortable.” Oversharers might just be reaching out for a human connection, and we slap their hands away because we’re uncomfortable with their need.[1]

That last line, I suspect, speaks to something very common in the experience of most of us. Here it is again: “Oversharers might just be reaching out for a human connection, and we slap their hands away because we’re uncomfortable with their need.” It’s poignant, isn’t it? People want to belong. I want to belong. You want to belong. But we don’t do it very well. It’s not that easy to find community, to find our people, among whom we just seem to fit. We crave it, but we don’t know where to turn to find it. To be sure, social media offers one type of community, but it is necessarily superficial and illusory, and it is ultimately profoundly unsatisfying. John Stott once said:

The modern technocratic society, which destroys transcendence and significance, is destructive of community also. We are living in an era of social disintegration. People are finding it increasingly difficult to relate to one another. So we go on seeking the very thing which eludes us—love in a loveless world.[2]

Deep down, we know we were made for face-to-face, life-on-life, loving community.

That’s why at the heart of the Christian gospel is the promise not just of a new life or a new identity but of a new humanity. What Jesus brings is never solely a private, individualistic thing. It is also a corporate salvation, a salvation known and enjoyed in the fellowship of the church. When we get Jesus, we get a fellowship, a koinōnia, a communion and a community. When we get Jesus, we get all those who get Jesus too. That’s why the Westminster Confession of Faith makes the staggering claim, first articulated by Cyprian of Carthage in the third century, that “outside of the visible Church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.”[3] It’s why Calvin, in an equally famous statement speaking of the church as a mother, said:

There is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly unless she keep us under her care and guidance until, putting off mortal flesh, we become like the angels. Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all our lives. Furthermore away from her bosom one cannot hope for any forgiveness of sins or any salvation.[4]

The church, the community of Christ, isn’t incidental to the gospel. We don’t get a personal salvation if by personal we mean individualistic and private. We are grafted into the church when we are grafted into Christ.

One fruitful way to see how the New Testament makes that point is to consider the major metaphors it uses for our union with Christ. None of them are individualistic. They all focus on a community of people who are united in Him. So, for example, in John 15, Jesus uses the image of the vine and the branches. He is the true vine, He says. We are the branches. We must abide in the vine and so bear fruit. If we abide in the vine, we will be pruned by the vinedresser, God the Father, who will train and discipline us by His Word and Spirit and in His sovereign providence. If we do not abide in the vine, we will be cut out, thrown away, and burned. It’s a sobering picture, but we miss essential truth if we miss the fact that this image was used with the disciples, who are “branches” together united to one common vine. The sap of the vine, the same life, the life of Christ, flows from the vine to each of the branches.

Another image of our union with Christ is the temple. Jesus said, in speaking about His death and resurrection, that He is the true tabernacle, which if it were destroyed would be rebuilt in three days (John 2:19). He is the true temple where God came down to meet with us. The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2 adapted the metaphor. Christ is the stone the builders rejected that God makes the capstone. We are living stones, and as we come to Him we are being built up into a spiritual house. The heart of the image is the doctrine of union with Christ. We are stones fitted into Him, finding our dimensions in reference to Him. But we are all being fitted to one another as well, as we are made to fit into Christ. So, the whole edifice, this temple that God is building, is the church—not the physical church building, but the lives joined together into Christ, a dwelling place for God by His Spirit.

Or, try another key metaphor for union with Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses the image of the body:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. (vv. 12–14)

In union with Christ, by the Spirit, the church is one body with many members. When Paul develops the image, he describes two absurdities. The first is the absurdity of one body part ruling itself out, declaring, “I don’t belong, because I’m not a hand, or I’m not an eye” (vv. 14–19). The second absurdity is each body part denying a place to the others because the others are different (vv. 21–26). A body that is all ear or all foot would be absurd. There is diversity and pluriformity and complexity—a place for all sorts of people with all sorts of gifts and personalities and backgrounds in the body of Christ. Paul concludes his argument in verse 27: “ Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” We are the body of Christ. We are one, and we belong together in Christ, only because we are in Christ.

We could go on piling up New Testament images and expressions that highlight our union with Christ and with one another, but the basic point is clear. If we come to know Jesus, the Bible cannot conceive of us as refusing to belong to His church, which, of course, is one important reason that refusing to join a local church is so wrong. We don’t get to say Jesus: “I love you—but the church? Not so much!” To be sure, the church is a messy place, full of screw-ups and failures. It will often let us down, it’s true. But isn’t it clear that Jesus loves that church? This Jesus whom we say we love and want to follow, haven’t we seen in the Scriptures how committed He is to His messy, sinful, compromised church? He loves His church and calls her His bride. He gave Himself up on the cross for her (Eph. 5:22–32). It’s really not possible to say we are committed followers of Jesus Christ and not to be committed members of the church for which He lived and bled and died and rose again.

To be united to Christ is to be united to the whole church, on earth and in heaven. It is to be called into fellowship with Jesus and in Him with all His people. We are to love and be patient with the church, all her faults and failures notwithstanding, knowing that we ourselves belong to her, and Christ, who loves His bride, is patient with us. Union with Christ creates true community, and this doctrine calls us to love the church.

Notes

1. Julie Beck, “Study: People Who Overshare on Facebook Just Want to Belong,” The Atlantic, June 16, 2014, accessed September 6, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/study-people-who-overshare-on-facebook-just-want-to-belong/372834/. 
2. John R.W. Stott, The Contemporary Christian, (Leicester, England: IVP, 1992), 232–33. 
3. Westminster Confession of Faith 25.2. 
4. John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 4.1.4. ↩︎