by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
January, 1936
Union and Communion.
5. Vital.
In last month's article it was shown God established a legal or federal union between the Redeemer and those who were to be redeemed by Him, so that He became answerable for them to the Divine justice. But something more was necessary in order to their actual enjoyment of the benefits of Christ's representation. God not only determined that His Son should sustain the character of their Surety, but also that a vital and spiritual relation should take place between them, through which there should be conveyed to them the benefits of His purchase. God ordained that as Christ and the Church were one in the law, so also they should be one experimentally: that not only should His righteousness be imputed to His members, but that His very life should also be imparted to them.
Though the elect were federally united to Christ in the Everlasting Covenant, yet until they are regenerated they are personally and experimentally far from God and Christ, so far as their actual state is concerned. This is abundantly clear from, “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh . . . . that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:11, 12). But at the new birth, Christ unites them to Himself in a vital way: this He does by sending His Spirit to take possession of them and communicate to them a principle of spiritual life, namely, His own life, whereby they are made living members of His Body, the Church. Previously we were “in Christ” mystically (Eph. 1:4) and representatively (1 Cor. 15:22), now we are “in Christ” vitally (2 Cor. 5:17; 12:2; Rom. 16:7).
As we were not the actual possessors of Adam's guilt until we were conceived by our mothers and thereby united to him by carnal generation, neither are we the actual possessors of Christ's merits until we are quickened by His Spirit and thereby united to Him by regeneration. While there was a legal union between Adam and us in Eden, yet not until we are born into this world do we enter into personal communion with what his conduct entailed. In like manner, though there was a federal union between Christ and us when He served as our Sponsor, yet not until we are born again do we begin to enjoy that which the discharge of His Surety-engagement obtained for us. Though there was a mystical and federal union between Christ and His people, not until their regeneration can they have any communion with Him.
The human race was inseparably linked to Adam in a double way—federally and naturally, as he was both the legal representative and father of his posterity. So too the elect are related to Christ in a double way—federally and vitally, as He is both their legal Representative and their spiritual Quickener: “For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). Those whom Adam represented (the first “many”) were “made sinners” judicially the moment he fell, but they were only “made sinners” experimentally when they were “shapen in iniquity” (Psa. 51:5). Those whom Christ represented (the second “many,” which is not co-extensive with the first) were “made righteous” judicially when He rose again from the dead, but they are only “made righteous” experimentally when they are born again and believe.
This is only another way of saying that Christ's Headship is of a twofold character: He is unto His mystical Body both a Head of government and a Head of influence. The term “head” has a twofold extension in our common speech: it is that by which we name the highest part of our physical organism, and it is also that by which we describe the chief ruler, be he over a family, a corporation, or a nation. Such is its significance as applied to Christ: He is both the Life and the Lord of His people. Remarkably has God caused this to be adumbrated in the natural realm: sever the head from the physical organism, and all its members are at once reduced to a state of lifelessness. Likewise, if the brain were removed, the members become incapable of action—they are regulated and dominated by the mind.
In the natural body the head is the seat of sensation, and from it feelings and motions are communicated to all of its members by means of the nerves which have their origin in the brain. Here again the natural supplies an object-lesson of the spiritual. It is from Christ, the Head, there flows that life and grace by which the members of His mystical Body are enabled to perform the various functions of the Christian life. “May grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:15, 16). It is from the Head there proceeds that which causes “the effectual working in the measure of every part” of His Body.
The same blessed truth is set before us again in, “And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God” (Col. 2:19). Here the Apostle was setting forth the evil tendency of one of the errors of Gnosticism, which now occupies a prominent place in the vile system of Romanism. Under the pretense of honouring Christ and abasing man, the Gnostic taught that He was so far above us in the scale of being that access could only be obtained to Him via the angels (v. 18). In like manner, Romanism introduces various mediators between Christ and the sinner. But this is failing to hold fast the doctrine of the Head. It is only by immediate union and communion with Christ Himself that His members are nourished and strengthened.
Christ, then, is not only the Head of authority, the Lord and Ruler of His Church, but He is also the Head of influence—its Quickener and Nourisher. In God's appointed time, the Lord Jesus sends down the Holy Spirit into the hearts of His people when they are dead in trespasses and sins, imparting spiritual life to their souls, and thus making them one with Himself in a vital way; and this He does by virtue of the prior mystical and federal union existing between them. It is our eternal union with, interest in, and relation to the Person of Christ in the Everlasting Covenant, which is the foundation of the Spirit's work in our souls during the time-state. It is by communicating His own life into the members of His Body, the Church, that their mystical and legal union with Him is then made real and actual to them in their own experience.
As Adam is the root of generation, so Christ is the root of regeneration; note “His seed” and “the travail of His soul” in Isaiah 53:10, 11. If we had not been in Adam by Divine creation, we would not have been produced from him by generation; and had we not been given a super-creation being in Christ by Divine election, we had never been manifested in Him by regeneration. Had there been no oneness with Christ, there could be no life from Him; and if no life, then no justification, salvation, or glorification. And in order to our having life from Christ, we must receive His Spirit; for as our physical bodies are lifeless without the natural spirit (James 2:26), so the soul is spiritually dead without the Spirit of God. At regeneration the Holy Spirit becomes to the soul—though in a far more excellent manner—what the soul is to the body with respect to its animal and rational life.
The vital union which is effected between Christ and His people is a work of God by which His elect are made spiritually one with their Head, for the same Spirit which indwells Him now takes up His abode within them. Herein we may perceive how each Person in the Holy Trinity is distinctively honoured, and endeared unto us. God the Father gave us a mystical union to Christ when He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. God the Son gave us a legal union to Himself when He took upon Him the office of Surety. And God the Spirit gives us a vital union to Christ by imparting to us His life and making us living members of His Church. It is only by means of this third union that the first and second are made manifest to us: “Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit” (1 John 4:13).
This union has also been variously designated by different writers. It has been called the “new-creation” union, because it is effected by our being born again. It has been called the “influential” union, because only through it do we receive the virtues of the mystical and federal unions. It has been called the “manifestive” union, because by it is revealed to us our eternal oneness with Christ. We have called it the “vital” union because it is that which gives us a living relation with Christ. This it is which capacitates the Christian to know Christ, to receive Him, to have communion with Him, to live upon and enjoy Him. The Spirit unites us to Christ at the very first moment the “good work” of God is “begun” (Phil. 1:6) in the heart. Then it is that we are “delivered from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of God's dear Son” (Col. 1:13), so that we are brought into open and actual fellowship with Him.
Then also it is that we are “made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12). It was Christ's work for us which secured our title to the heavenly inheritance, but it is the Spirit's work in us which supplies the fitness or capacity to enjoy the same. This is confirmed by what we read in 2 Corinthians 5:5: “Now He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” The context here is also speaking of the heavenly inheritance of the saints, when “mortality shall be swallowed up of life.” And “for” that inheritance (the “selfsame thing”) God hath “wrought us” or fashioned and fitted us, for we are “His workmanship created in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:10). In addition to the evidence which His work in our souls gives us, that we are vessels of mercy “prepared unto glory,” the Spirit Himself indwells us as an earnest or guaranty of our future bliss.
Christ has a threefold union with the Church, and the Church has a threefold union with Him. First, He had a mystical union, when God elected Him to be the Head of His Church. Second, He had a legal union, when He agreed to serve as our Representative and Sponsor. Third, this began to be openly effected when He became incarnate, entering into a natural union with us by being made flesh. In like manner, our mystical and federal union with Christ becomes manifest and efficacious when we are vitally joined to Him by the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. The entrance of Christ into our nature capacitated Him to discharge His office-work of Surety, and fitted Him to be a merciful High Priest who could be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. The communication of Christ's nature unto us qualifies us for communion with Him and fits unto the discharge of our Christian duties “he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17).
As in our natural bodies, the members receive life (the animal spirits) from their head, so in the mystical Body of Christ the members receive the life-giving Spirit from their Head. This, we believe, is the meaning of John 1:16, “And of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.” What is signified here by Christ's “fullness?” Let it be noted that in John 1:16 Christ is not presented absolutely as the second Person in the Godhead, but as incarnate (v. 14), as the God-man Mediator, as the next verse shows. What then, was His “fullness” as Mediator, furnishing Him for the discharge of that office? Was it not His being “anointed with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 10:38)? Is not the key to this word “fullness” in John 1:16 found in John 3:34, “For God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him”?—Christ as God-man was capacitated to receive the Spirit without “measure,” to receive Him in all His fullness.
Therefore it is that Christ is represented as “He that hath the seven Spirits of God” (Rev. 3:1), that is, the Spirit in His plenitude or fullness—cf. that sevenfold reference to the Spirit as given in Isaiah 11:1, 2! Thus Christ's Mediatorial “fullness” is the Holy Spirit indwelling Him without “measure.” But let it be observed that Christ received the Spirit not for Himself alone, but also for and in order to communicate Him to His people. This is clear from Acts 2:33, “having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath shed forth this (at Pentecost), which ye now see and hear.” Thus “out of (Greek) His fullness have all we received” signifies that Christ has communicated to us the same Spirit He received—called “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9) and “the Spirit of His Son” (Gal 4:6). A beautiful illustration of this is found in John 20:22, “He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit.”
Perhaps a word should be given upon the last clause of John 1:16, for we have never seen any interpretation of it which quite satisfied us: “and grace for grace.” Just as the same life which is in the vine is in each of its branches producing “after its own kind,” so the same “grace” (the same in nature, though not in degree) which the Spirit produced in Christ (see Luke 2:40 and 52!) He reproduces in His people. Was the lovely “fruit” of Galatians 5:22, 23 found in it fullness in Christ?—then the Spirit works the same in us in measure. “Grace for grace,” then, means grace answerable to grace: the same spiritual excellency which abides in the Head, is communicated to the members of His Body; and thus are they being “conformed” unto His “image.”
“The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). It is as such that He sends forth the Holy Spirit into the hearts of His own. “He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour” (Titus 3:5, 6). “But ye have an Unction from the Holy One” (1 John 2:20): the “Unction” (the Greek word for which is rendered “anointing” in 2 Cor. 1:21 and 1 John 2:27) is the Holy Spirit and He comes to us from “the Holy One,” that is, Christ (Psa. 16:10, Mark 1:24). A blessed type of this is seen in Psalm 133:2, “The precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments.” Here we behold the high priest of Israel anointed unto his holy office, and the “precious ointment”—emblem of the Holy Spirit—proceeding from his head to that part of his vestments which touched the earth!
“There is one Body, and one Spirit” (Eph. 4:4) which animates it: “For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). As the soul and body of man are so united as to form one entire person, so God's elect and their Head are so united as to form one mystical and spiritual Body, the Church. Just as the human soul gives a living union between the most widely separated members—the head and the feet—so the Divine Spirit livingly unites together the Head in Heaven and His members on earth. “If a man were never so tall that his head should reach the stars, yet having but one soul, he would be but one man still. Though Christ in His nature be exceedingly distanced from us, yet there being but one and the selfsame Spirit in Him and in us, we are one mystical Christ” (John Owen).
The distance between Christ in Heaven and believers on earth is no obstacle to their vital union, for being God, the Spirit is Omni-present, and therefore does He indwell both Head and members. A very striking proof of the Spirit's being the living bond of union between Christ and the Church is found in Romans 8:11: “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” The saints will not be raised from the dead by the naked power of God without them, but by virtue of their risen Head sending forth the quickening influences of His Spirit within their bodies. This is wonderfully adumbrated in the natural: when awakening out of sleep, the animal spirits arouse the head first, and then the senses are awakened throughout the whole body!
A real living union is effected between Christ and His members, not (as it were) by soldering two souls together, but by the Spirit anointing and indwelling both, for He being infinite is able to conjoin those who, in themselves, are so far apart. The whole person of the Christian (1 Cor. 6:15) is united to the whole Person of Christ: “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). The same Spirit who lives in our exalted Redeemer, lives in His people on earth. By this spiritual union a far more blessed relation is established than which obtains between a king and his subjects, or even between a husband and wife: the tie connecting Him with His people is so intimate that He indwells them—”Christ liveth in me” (Gal 2:20).
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). Let it be duly noted that as “grace” is predicated of Christ and “love” of God (the Father), so “communion” is as expressly ascribed to the Holy Spirit; and, as we said so often in the earlier articles of this series, there can be no “communion” unless there first be union. It is by the Spirit there is union and communion between Christ and the Church. “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom. 8:9), that is, he is not yet grafted as a living member into His mystical Body. Let it be pointed out in conclusion that, blessed and glorious as is this vital union, yet it falls far below the “Mediatorial union: that was two distinct natures (the Divine and the human) forming together one Person; this is of different persons being joined together so as to make one Body, the Church.—A.W.P.
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