Some christians seem to find it very hard to receive what scripture says about the union of Christ and the church. The subject has not occupied their thoughts much; and when it is brought before them by others, they not only feel ignorant of the scriptures connected with it, but puzzled by the hard things the doctrine seems to present. If you quote them such blessed sayings as these, “Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1: 3); “Hath quickened us together with Christ.... and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2: 5, 6): they admit the truth of the scriptures, but explain away their simple meaning. “How can we,” say they, “be in heaven in Christ and at the same time down here on earth? and how can we have been raised up from the grave in Christ at all? and much more impossible is it for us to have been raised up together with him, and made sit together in heavenly places with him who experienced all these things 1800 years before we were born. To be in heaven and on earth at one and the same moment (they say), and to have had things thus wrought upon us years before our existence, are impossibilities, and therefore the passages must be explained in some other than a literal way.” And then they proceed to explain away these truths, by confounding them with other blessings widely different from them. The being in heavenly places in Christ, they confound with the blessed truth that faith can look into heaven and see heavenly things; and the other passages they interpret as if they had been thus written, raised up in the likeness of, &c., instead of raised up together with, &c. Now, most blessed as is the truth that, while in the midst of the furnace of affliction here, we can look not at things which are seen, but at things which are not seen (yea, into all the treasures of heaven); this is not at all the same thing as our sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And again, though it is true that the Spirit does make us like Jesus, this is not the same thing as being quickened together, raised together, and made sit together with him in heavenly places.
The cause of this difficulty of understanding these and similar passages connected with the union of Christ and the church, and the blessings flowing out of it, is in many cases a very simple one. It consists in an erroneous view of regeneration.
The erroneous view to which I refer is this, that regeneration consists only in the affections of the heart and the desires of the mind being again restored perfectly to God, so as for him again to become to the poor sinner the supreme end and object of his being. Now if this were the meaning I attached to regeneration, I confess I could not understand the passages in question. But is regeneration ever so explained in scripture? I believe not. These things are, I thankfully acknowledge, inseparably connected with regeneration; but they are the results of it, not the thing itself. I should be sorry to be misunderstood upon so important a subject; and therefore I repeat it again—Perfect restoration of the original moral beauty of man is inseparable from regeneration; and I do not teach that regeneration is separable from perfect restoration of the heart, mind, soul, and body to God. What I do say, however, is, that this restoration is the result of regeneration, and not the same thing as it. If you turn to the 3rd of John you will find it is shown very plainly that regeneration consists of the communication of a new nature. It is not the bettering of the old, but the implanting of a new nature, capable to overcome the old, surely, but altogether new. The expression in verse 3 is, “born again,” not reformed, but, born again; and the meaning of this is made very plain by its being said (verse 9),
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” All that a man has by nature is born of the flesh, and is flesh; but when he is born from above, he is born of the Spirit, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And then the Lord proceeds to show how this new, this “divine nature” (2 Peter 1: 4) is altogether above the ken and understanding of the old nature, and how flesh cannot understand spirit: “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
Now if regeneration consists in the giving to us of something new, but something which was in the Lard Jesus when he rose from the dead and ascended up to heaven, then I can understand easily enough how all those who have this new thing in them are spoken of as having experienced that which the Lord Jesus Christ experienced in his resurrection and ascension, and in the glory which was then given to him; just as God might have said to Eve, “ I put you into the garden of Eden to dress it and to till it;” or, as he might have said to Cain and Abel, “Did I not tell you in the garden of Eden that my favor depended upon obedience?” For neither Eve nor the children were personally there, both the one and the other were there in Adam. Now just as all that which by the divine workmanship was formed into Eve was taken out of Adam, so that which, through divine grace and power makes poor sinners to be saints, or will constitute the church, comes out of the Lord Jesus Christ. And just as Cain and Abel derived their natural existence from Adam as a head, so the saints derive their spiritual existence from Christ Jesus. At some future time we may examine the scriptures and see the vast range of testimony which they give to various points connected with this new nature: at present I would only remark that those who deny it must suppose that our old nature can receive God’s testimony and profit from it. Now upon this, the Holy Ghost is most distinct in 1 Corinthians 2: 11, “What man (or who) knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” Observe this little word, “the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” Who would think of presenting to a horse or to an elephant a watch or the beauty of a well-ordered family, as a matter of interest to it? Well, it is quite as unsound for the saints to suppose that their knowledge of the things of God is to be attributed to the powers of nature; for the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God; and again (verse 12), “Now we have received.... the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
The reference I made to Eve, as having been formed out of Adam’s ribs, is a beautiful illustration of this subject, and is so used by the Holy Ghost in Ephesians v, where (verse 31), while enforcing the mutual duties of husband and wife, he quotes from Genesis 2, “and they two shall be one flesh,” and then instantly adds, “ This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the Church;” by which he shows us, as indeed elsewhere, that Adam and Eve were types of Christ and the Church; and to this we must now look. It is written (1 Corinthians 15: 45), “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” This is the point of moment in connection with the question of the union of Christ and the Church, even the glory of the Lord as the quickening or (life-giving) Spirit. The blessed Lord is “I AM,” and has this glory, that the knowledge of him is eternal life. Wherever he is received, there must be quickening. This is his essential, intrinsic glory.
For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.... Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live; for as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself” (John v). And again (John 11: 25, 26),” I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”
It is, therefore, impossible to know Jesus, and not to have been quickened-not to have received life from out of him. There is quickening power in him, giving life to all that to which it comes. See how beautifully Paul knew this (2 Corinthians 4: 6),
“ God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” “ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” This, beloved, is the foundation of all our hopes. The nail on which the whole burden hangs its weight, is this deep glory of tilt Lord of Life, whom we know; he is the quickening Spirit; out of his fullness have we all received-so this quickening power in him at first wrought in us: “ We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3: 17, 18), so continuously is the work carried on in us. Not, I need hardly say, that either the thing communicated to us, or any after development of it, ever becomes the ground on which we rest. No; life there is in us, eternal life received from Christ into these earthen vessels, and the powers of this are continuously being unfolded; but the fountain head of this life, the fullness of it, is Christ the head, and upon that we rest, even upon the fullness in him. Yea, and every manifestation and action of it in us is in vital, and therefore inseparable, union with Christ the head. I add, to avoid being misunderstood, that I have purposely passed by the mode of the communication of this life: viz., the preaching of the word of the gospel, which, through the presence of the blessed Spirit with it, is a quickening word to those that receive it, “being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter 1: 23, 25).
Now, when the blessed Lord was raised from the dead, and made sit in heavenly places, and blessed with all spiritual blessings, then these things were done to him; not as to a private individual, but to him as the quickening Spirit. And all the life which the Church has, yea, which constitutes her the Church, she has received out of him, by being brought into fellowship with him who was so raised, honored and blessed of God the Father. And all that she will be hereafter, will be wrought out in the same way, “who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself” (Philippians 3: 21).
My object has not been to enter upon the question of the union between Christ and the Church, in any of its many blessed parts—but to call attention to what seems to constitute the root of the difficulty in many minds, to receiving the testimony of scripture upon this subject in simplicity. They are so engrossed with the thought of what man originally was made far: viz., to love God with alt his heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, and with the desirableness of being restored to it, that they actually overlook (too many of them) the remedy provide& by God for the effecting of this purpose.