UNION WITH CHRIST | Eschatological.

[This series of posts titled "UNION WITH CHRIST" comprise sections of a whole paper written on the relationship between the doctrines of union with Christ and justification. Because it is written for a class, its content reflects academic an tone, style, and structure. And although theologically heavy, my hope is that it would be both challenging and beneficial to understanding atonement, salvation, and the gospel more clearly. Feel free to give feedback and ask questions.]

///// ESCHATOLOGICAL

Eschatological union is the culmination of the union between believers and Christ made wholly perfect at the end of time. It is the full realization of our past and present union with Christ, the final cancellation of dissonance for harmonization of our experience with objective reality. This takes place at the eschaton, the Final Day, the climax of history, the end of the world.

It is through our real and actual union with the faithful, righteous Christ in his incarnation purely by God’s unconditional grace that future justification is also ours.[1] If there is no actual union of Christ to our fallen humanity, there is no future final salvation for us. We have not been crucified. And so we will not be raised.[2]  If we have not been raised in him, we have not been justified and will not be justified by the Father.[3] John Calvin, in his work Institutes of the Christian Religion, writes:

First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us. Therefore, to share in what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and dwell within us …for, as I have said, all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him.[4]

The wrath of God has been satisfied, death has been conquered, and life has been given for any and all who participate in him. Unless we are truly and actually present in him in his incarnation—his earthly human life, death, and resurrection—the justification he receives from the Father has nothing to do with us, has not been spoken of us in actuality, and the justice of God against our personal wrath-invoking sin has not been satisfied. The justified One remains outside of us and we outside of him. This means that at the end of time, if we have not been brought into union with Christ, we are found separate from his saving person and will perish.

Christ has been justified. We are justified. We will be justified. So what is justification?

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[1] Bruce Demarest, The Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation (Foundations of Evangelical Theology), (Crossway, 1997) 333.

[2] Rom. 6:5-10

[3] Rom. 4:25

[4] Calvin, Institutes, 3.1.1. Although here Calvin is referring to what I would categorize as experiential union—that which takes place within the life experience of the believer—and not incarnational union, the principle transfers seamlessly.

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