7. Grace and union: Christ in you

The lead text begins with God, and with the dead. "But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:4-7). Every verb of rescue has God as its subject: He made alive, He raised, He seated. The state acted upon is death through trespasses. The place of the rescue is stated three times in three verses: with Christ, in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus. Then the ground is named and the alternative is excluded: "for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast" (Eph 2:8-9). Works enter the passage only after the rescue, and as God's preparation, not as man's contribution: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them" (Eph 2:10).

The confirmation texts draw the same line as a definition. "And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work" (Rom 11:6). Grace and works are set as mutually exclusive grounds; the mixing of the two destroys the first. And the justification itself is described in one clause: "being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom 3:24). The adverb is "freely." The channel is "through the redemption." The location is "in Christ Jesus."

From the ground the texts move to the indwelling, and they state it as the dividing line of belonging. "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his" (Rom 8:9). The test of ownership is not profession but presence: Christ's Spirit within, or the man is not His. Paul states the same union from inside his own life: "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me" (Gal 2:20). The mystery hidden and then disclosed is named in one phrase: God was pleased "to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27). And the self-examination commanded at Corinth turns on the same fact: "Examine your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves. Or don't you know about your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified" (2 Cor 13:5). In all four texts the indwelling is not an attainment laid over salvation. It is the substance by which salvation is recognized.

The communion that follows from this union is God's keeping before it is man's abiding, and its ground is not human effort. The question put to the Galatians stands as the texts' own commentary on every scheme of completion by performance: "Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh?" (Gal 3:3). What the Spirit began, the flesh does not finish.

Yet the commands to abide stand in the same Scriptures, unsoftened. The vine discourse commands remaining: "Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can't bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If a man doesn't remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you. In this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples. Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love" (John 15:4-10). The continuation in the faith is written as a condition of the standing already described: "if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard" (Col 1:23). The command to self-keeping stands beside the looking for mercy: "Keep yourselves in God's love, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life" (Jude 21). And the partaking is stated with its condition attached: "For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end" (Heb 3:14).

The keeping texts stand beside the commands without canceling them, and they assign the keeping to God. "Being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil 1:6). The beginner and the completer are the same subject. The doxology of Jude names the ability directly: "Now to him who is able to keep them from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory in great joy" (Jude 24). Peter states the guard and its instrument together: the heirs are those "who by the power of God are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pet 1:5). The guard is God's power. The path of the guarding is faith.

One text joins the two columns in a single breath, and it is the only joint the outline makes. "So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil 2:12-13). The imperative of verse 12 is not explained by the believer's strength. It is explained, by the "for" of verse 13, by God's working — and God's working is specified at the deepest point: both to will and to work. The willing itself is inside the gift.

The departing are placed last, and the last text interprets the departure without revising anything above it. "They went out from us, but they didn't belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have continued with us. But they left, that they might be revealed that none of them belong to us" (1 John 2:19). The going out does not describe a union possessed and then lost. It reveals a belonging that never was. The continuation commanded in the texts above and the departure recorded here are left standing side by side, each in its own words.