Week one of the NFL has begun and so has the dropping of attendance in most Evangelical churches. Hey, do not get me wrong, I love to play and watch sports. Once upon a time my mind was utterly consumed with thoughts of my favorite sports teams - Denver Broncos, Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings - and just about every Muay Thai and MMA fight that was taking place. Then, unexpectedly, conviction came by the Holy Spirit. Praise God, I actually started to learn things about the Lord, memorize Scripture, and know what to say when confronted by seekers, pagans, and heathens. In short, though I still would compete in and watch sports, Jesus became more important to me than anything.

Oh, Christian, what are the things that consume your mind? Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (3:1-2). Believers are exhorted to always be seeking and thinking on things above. The imperative continuous present tense is used for seeking and thinking. But seek and think upon what? The context dictates that we are to think and devote our minds to heavenly things such as our union with Christ, forgiveness of our sins, and our progressive sanctification in receiving nourishment from Christ as the Head (2:19).

Let us take a few minutes of our chaotic, scatter-brained lives and consider just one of these wonderful mysteries of the faith: our union with Christ. In doing so, for the believer, this will naturally bring us to a place of magnifying our Savior for his amazing sovereign grace!

Thinking About Our Union With Christ and it’s Benefits

Paul revealed that it is God who has set apart sinners by his free grace. “But God…even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive” (Eph. 2:4-5). This converting grace that quickens man from the dead is clearly a product of God alone. “And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). This, my friends, is explicit monergism stated here! God does this because of the riches of his mercy, greatness of his love, and his free sovereign grace (Eph. 2:4-5).

At conversion people are not merely saved by grace but brought into union with Christ.[1] This is what Paul was referring to when he wrote, God “made us alive together with Christ” and that believers are “created in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:5, 10).[2] The renowned theologian John Murray (1898-1975 C.E.), in his classic work Redemption Accomplished and Applied, declared:

Nothing is more central or basic than union and communion with Christ. … Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ. Indeed the whole process of salvation has its origin in one phase of union with Christ and salvation has in view the realization of other phases of union with Christ.[3]

The implications of union with Christ are incredible. This is the root to which all the benefits of being in Christ grow out of - justification, regeneration, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. Due to the cross-work of Christ, redemption and all its benefits are applied to those who are given the gift of grace. John Calvin, one of the greatest biblical exegetes in the history of the church, also emphasized union with Christ. He wrote that “there is no sanctification without union with Christ.”[4]

Thinking About What God Has Done In Sanctification

Sanctification and union with Christ both take place by grace in a once and for all definitive act, at conversion. Think about the implications here in regards to modern day preachers who teach their flocks that you must “do something” to stay in union with Christ. Christ saves his own by grace and keeps them by that same grace! This initial sanctification, theologians refer to as definitive sanctification.

It is the Holy Spirit who definitively unites us to Christ (John 3:3-5; 1 Cor. 12:13). As Calvin says, “the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually binds us to himself.”[5] This is what Peter meant when he wrote, believers are “elect …according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood” (1 Pet. 1:1-2).

Paul also wrote about definitive sanctification. “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus.” (1 Cor. 1:2; c.f. Acts 20:32; 26:18; Rom. 12:1; 1 Cor. 6:11). The term “sanctified” is passive signifying it was God who did the sanctifying. This term is also in the perfect tense, meaning the effects, though in the past, continue on into the future.[6] When this is coupled with what Paul says later it becomes an airtight case for this teaching. He writes, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). Here “sanctified” is used in the aorist passive indicative which is speaking of an action that has occurred sometime in the past as a matter of fact!

We also see this asserted in Romans 6-8 where Paul argues that Christians have died to the life of sin and can no longer live in such a way (Rom. 6:1-2). In anticipating people to think that justification by grace alone (which is what Paul had been affirming in 3:20-5:21) would lead to recklessness (like many charismatic synergistic churches today teach), Paul declares that it is impossible for a believer to continue living a lifestyle of sin because of what God has done in salvation.

Thinking About What We Do As A Result Of Our Sanctification

Though there is a definite breaking with the old sinful nature which God accomplishes sola gratia, there is an aspect that involves the believer’s active involvement. This involvement is the natural result of our definitive sanctification and is referred to as progressive sanctification.

There really is no argument against the fact that man must do something to make progress in sanctification. We are told to “walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25), to work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12-13), and to “put to death therefore what is earthly” in us (Col. 3:5). The problem is that some misunderstand these verses and believe man is the sole active agent or that man’s works bring God’s favor in sanctification.

God is definitely involved in the process of progressive sanctification as well. To say otherwise is to separate the twin graces of justification and sanctification, to misunderstand union with Christ, and to eclipse God out of the process that he started by grace. The cooperation of the saint is simply the evidence of the grace of God in definitive sanctification.

Progress in our sanctification comes only by the strength and grace of the Holy Spirit. Believers are able to “live by the Spirit” and “put to death what is earthly” because as the apostle John so tenderly put it, “we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). John is assured that because of the new birth by the Holy Spirit the Christian will become like Christ. After essentially declaring definitive sanctification, “we are God’s children now”, and connecting it to future glory, “we know…we will be like him”, he speaks of progressive sanctification in the next verse. The apostle John writes, “And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). The child of God hopes in Christ and “purifies” himself. Since it is in the present active indicative mood, it denotes a continuous action, in progress, in the present time.

Adopted children of God, i.e. those in union with Christ, will purify themselves because of his grace. Adoption is rooted in grace and all sanctification is within adoption. In other words, progressive sanctification, though cooperative, is by grace and naturally flows out of definitive monergistic sanctification. This is an amazing truth that the believer can rejoice in! The very same grace that saves a person is the same grace that sanctifies that person.

Thinking About Pastoral Implications On “Thinking Things Above”

Some pastors have never even attempted to teach their congregations to think, let alone to think on this wonderful truth. It is an outrage to withhold such a glorious reality from the people of God. This is a doctrine, when considered and meditated on, brings hope in times of despair, and strength in times of weakness. In addition, to know and teach about our union with Christ is to encourage believers to depend upon our gracious Savior for nourishment for the purpose of good works.

There are many remodeled Galatian heresies out there that explicitly teach that you must do works to stay in a right standing before God. To them Paul’s rhetorical questions are still applicable:

Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:2-3).

But there are those who implicitly teach the same thing by stressing community and love at the expense of sound biblical doctrine. Others redefine “gospel ministry” and leave out the preaching, teaching, and proclaiming of the gospel of grace. Biblical Christianity, and those pastors who teach, preach, and proclaim it, will not trade in their pulpits and teaching ministries. In fact, they will exhort their churches to grow as they unpack the whole counsel of God faithfully, and bring a sense of the reality of God’s presence in their preaching. Think about what the Evangelical church needs. We need pastors who will be faithful to equip and edify the sheep, and to teach them the riches of God’s grace in seeking and thinking on things above - these glorious mysteries of the faith.

Soli Deo Gloria

Mike Sarkissian

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[1]The New Testament is replete with passages that speak of the doctrine of union with Christ. The following verses indicate that believers are now in Christ (Eph. 1:3-4; 1 Cor. 1:4-5; 2 Cor. 5:17; Phil. 3:8-9; 1 Thes. 4:16). There are also verses that say that Christ lives in believers as well (John 6:56; 15:4-5; 2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27).

[2] Two other times in this section the apostle Paul speaks of believers being “in Christ” (2:6-7). “In Christ” is a common phrase that speaks of union with Christ.

[3] John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans, 1955), 161.

[4] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John McNeill. Trans. By Lewis Ford Battles (Philadelphia, PA.: Westminster, 1960), 3.14.4.

[5] Ibid., 3.1.1

[6] The Greek word is a perfect passive participle.