“Believers are called into the fellowship of Christ and fellowship means communion. The life of faith is one of living union and communion with the exalted and ever-present Redeemer.
Faith is directed not only to a Redeemer who has come and completed once for all a work of redemption. It is directed to Him not merely as the one who died but as the one who rose again and who ever lives as our great high priest and advocate.
And because faith is directed to Him as living Saviour and Lord, fellowship reaches the zenith of its exercise.
There is no communion among men that is comparable to fellowship with Christ—He communes with His people and His people commune with Him in conscious reciprocal love.
‘Whom having not seen ye love,” wrote the apostle Peter, ‘in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory‘ (1 Peter 1:8).
The life of faith is the life of love, and the life of love is the life of fellowship, or mystic communion with Him who ever lives to make intercession for His people and who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
It is fellowship with Him who has an inexhaustible reservoir of sympathy with his people’s temptations, afflictions, and infirmities because He was tempted in all points like as they are, yet without sin.
The life of true faith cannot be that of cold metallic assent. It must have the passion and warmth of love and communion because communion with God is the crown and apex of true religion.
‘Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ‘ (1 John 1:3).
Union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation.
All to which the people of God have been predestined in the eternal election of God, all that has been secured and procured for them in the once-for-all accomplishment of redemption, all of which they become the actual partakers in the application of redemption, and all that by God’s grace they will become in the state of consummated bliss is embraced within the compass of union and communion with Christ.
As we found earlier in these studies, it is adoption into the family of God as sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty that accords to the people of God the apex of blessing and privilege.
But we cannot think of adoption apart from union with Christ.
It is significant that the election in Christ before the foundation of the world is election unto the adoption of sons. When Paul says that the Father chose a people in Christ before the foundation of the world that they should be holy he also adds that in love He predestinated them unto adoption through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:4, 5).
Apparently election to holiness is parallel to predestination to adoption—these are two ways of expressing the same great truth. They disclose to us the different facets which belong to the Father’s election.
Hence union with Christ and adoption are complementary aspects of this amazing grace. Union with Christ reaches its zenith in adoption and adoption has its orbit in union with Christ. The people of God are ‘heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ‘ (Rom. 8:17).
All things are theirs whether life or death or things present or things to come, all are theirs, because they are Christ’s and Christ is God’s (1 Cor. 3:22, 23). They are united to him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and they are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power.’
It is out of the measureless fullness of grace and truth, of wisdom and power, of goodness and love, of righteousness and faithfulness which resides in Him that God’s people draw for all their needs in this life and for the hope of the life to come.
There is no truth, therefore, more suited to impart confidence and strength, comfort and joy in the Lord than this one of union with Christ.
It also promotes sanctification, not only because all sanctifying grace is derived from Christ as the crucified and exalted Redeemer, but also because the recognition of fellowship with Christ and of the high privilege it entails incites to gratitude, obedience, and devotion.
Union means also communion and communion constrains a humble, reverent, loving walk with him who died and rose again that he might be our Lord:
‘But whoso keeps his word in him verily is the love of God perfected. By this we know that we are in him. He that says he abides in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked’ (1 John 2:5, 6). ‘Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me‘ (John 15:4).”
–John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1955/2024), 179-182.
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