12/12- Union with Christ a Foretaste of the Resurrection

(Communion icon, united with Christ)
Devotional using scripture, quote from John Calvin and thoughts for the day each day- on the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth.

12/12/09- Union with Christ as a foretaste of the resurrection.

8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

Calvin abridged: None but Plato recognized our highest good as union with God, and he only saw it dimly…On this earthly pilgrimage we know this [union with God] as the sole and perfect happiness. But this happiness kindles our hearts more and more each day to desire the full fruition . So we who desire union with Christ should raise our thoughts toward our resurrection.

Thought: For Calvin, the goal of this life is to glorify God. But a spiritual goal is to seek to be united with Christ. This union he learned in part from Bernard of Clairvaux’s writing on spirituality. We are to seek to be close to Christ so that our will becomes his will (Thy will be done). We actually get close to Christ when we long for Him. We long for His presence in our lives now, and long for His presence with us in heaven. This seems so foreign to secular thinking which longs for more of the world, and holds onto life with all our might as if it was the highest, eternal good. Some have said that if we focus on heaven we become no earthly good. C.S. Lewis once wrote that those who focused on heaven most did some of the most good for our world because we want to make this world like th next (thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven). Yet, right now we have an opportunity to have a taste of heaven by being united with Christ by recognizing we are his children (adoption), by joining with him in baptism, by uniting with him in communion, and living for him (his will becoming our will), facing our crosses with him (Gal. 2:20), and being finally united with him in death. We are clothed in him now, and he connects us to the Father as the high priest. My daughter, Rebekah, says we are united with Christ in appreciation. If a policeman jumps in front of us and takes a bullet meant for us, we want to know about that policeman's life, and are forever grateful. So Christ has died for us. In heaven we will be fully united to Him.

Prayer: May we draw closer to you this advent season, Lord, as you drew close to us. May we be so united to you that your thoughts become our thoughts, your will our will, your goals our dreams.

Calvin and Justification

February 11

Calvin and Justification by Faith

“For it has by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8,9)
“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:5)

Calvin: I confess that we are made partakers of Jesus Christ, and of all his blessings, by the faith which we have in the gospel, that is, when we are truly and surely persuaded that the promises comprehended in it belong to us. But since this altogether surpasses’, our capacity, I acknowledge that faith is obtained by us, only through the Spirit of God, and so is a peculiar gift which is given to the elect alone, whom God, before the foundation of the world, without regard to any worthiness or virtue in them, freely predestinated to the inheritance of salvation. I confess that we are justified by faith, inasmuch as by it we apprehend Jesus Christ the Mediator given us by the Father, and lean on the promises of the gospel, by which God declares that we are regarded as righteous, and free from every stain, because our sins have been washed away by the blood of his Son. Wherefore I detest the ravings of those who endeavor to persuade us that the essential righteousness of God exists in
us, and are not satisfied with the free imputation in which alone Scripture orders us to acquiesce. (Calvin’s Brief Form of a Confession of Faith)

Justification by Faith is widely regarded as “the central doctrine of the Reformation” (McGrath “A Life of Calvin” 1990 p. 165). Everyone knows that justification by faith really was the key to Luther’s theology. Calvin regarded Luther as the apostle of the Reformation. Calvin said that justification by faith was “the principal article of the Christian religion” (III.9.1). Calvin placed his teaching on predestination in his Institutes (1559) after his teaching on justification- though in progress and order of time (the “ordo de saludis”) predestination came first. Why is justification so important?
If we know we are saved by God’s grace and not by our works (that is the practical definition of justification by faith), then we don’t have to live in fear of doing. Luther, before his awakening was always confessing his sins, and was aware that there were other sins he was leaving out. Calvin was deeply aware of the sinfulness of human beings that we sin in our best deeds as well as our worst, and that sin permeates everything, even our ability to see it in ourselves.
But Calvin gave another reason why it was so important, that we sometimes miss. Justification is the way we are awakened (regenerated) to God. We are dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1) with little hope of getting out of the state of being dead, blind, and deaf to God. When justification happens we are not only made aware of God (this knowledge of God that Calvin talks about as so important (I.1.1), but we also are united with Christ.
“Through faith, the believer is united with Jesus Christ in a spiritual union , in such a way that we are ‘not only partakers of his benefits, but also of himself” (McGrath ibid., III.2.24). The union with Christ is not by eating his body and blood in communion as by faith in his body and blood. The union with Christ is not by uniting with him in being good, but by uniting with him in belief and trust. The above quote from his brief confession affirms this: “we are made partakers of Jesus Christ, and of all his blessings, by the faith which we have in the gospel.” In some sense this is a recognition that justification, regeneration, and adoption all happen at once. By faith we are awakened to God and then included into the family with all the inheritance rights (blessings) of that family. Justification is how we are accepted into the family.
I have been impressed by how much the little overlooked phrase “in Christ” (eis Xpisto) is used in the New Testament. It is used hundreds of times. We have our blessings “in Christ.” We are saved, “in Christ.” We are part of the family “in Christ.” We are predestined "in Christ." We are united “in Christ.” We are included “in Christ.” William Barclay once pointed out that for those who believe (are justified) we are in Christ much like we are in the air. The air is inside us and we are inside the air. Every cell of our body is dependent on the air. McGrath says that Calvin submits justification and sanctification to the believer’s union in Christ. If this is so, then I have downplayed way too much my teaching about our union in Christ. Thank you God for your including those who believe- accepting us, welcoming us! Thank you too, that by your grace you give us our belief!

(Picture today is of International Memorial to the Reformation in Geneva made in 1916. L-r: Farel, Calvin, Beze, Knox)