Three Couches, One with Christ (Part 2)

Since the experience of that first couch, the Lord has taken me from a place of sin and rebellion, to a place of a deeper understanding of the truth of his Gospel and dependence on him for everything. It was my ignorance of the Union I share with Christ that lead me to sin, but it is that same Union that also led me to a place of grace and blessing. Later that Union helped as my family struggled with sickness and trial. Sinclair Ferguson, in his article in Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification says that, “we share one bundle of life with Christ in what he has done. All that he has accomplished for us in our human nature is, through union with him, true for us and, in a sense of us.” What this means is that my past, present, and future is tied not to my life but to Christ’s life in me.

Forgiveness of sin is always a hard concept to grasp. What I mean is that I say that I believe God forgives my sins, but I don’t really believe that he totally removes my sins from me. I think that in the back of my mind I still believe that somewhere, deep in the basement of hell there is a filing cabinet (or two or three….or more) that still holds the records of my sins. It is easy to imagine that God forgives sins, but is it somewhat harder to imagine that God forgets sins. My understanding of Romans 6 and similar passages has been fundamentally changed and my reading of it deepened by the certainty that my sin has been destroyed through union with Christ and his crucifixion. Romans 6:7 says that our sin has been “brought to nothing.” Our sin has been destroyed. That is a hard thing for me to grasp.

I tend to think of the process of sanctification as some sort of mighty self-help plan that God has for Christian to make them better, more well balanced people. Evidence of this is that we see growth as a function of addition. What can we add to our lives that will make God love us more? The person at church that is involved in the most is obviously more spiritually mature than the person who is only involved in only a few things. Michael Horton says that, “It is important to realize that Christ does not come to improve the old self, to guide and redirect it to a better life; he comes to kill us, in order to raise us to newness of life.” Colossians 2:11-12 says, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.” What is this circumcision of Christ, this putting off of the body of flesh? Murray says that it is the “transformation which occurs when we are actually united with Christ in the effectual operations of grace. It is the translation from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God's love that Paul has in mind.”

Let me give you a little more information surrounding couch number one. For about three years prior to that I had become tired of the Church. We were attending a United Methodist church in the suburbs and I just began to basically get bored with Christianity. I kind of felt like I had maxed out as far as my spiritual growth was concerned. I didn’t feel like our current church could take me any farther, any closer to God. Part of what I felt was legitimate. The Church I was in was very works – based and didn’t offer the deep level of Christian teaching I was longing for. The more significant part of what I felt, however, was from my own rebellion against God, and I used the valid issues with our Church as a rationalization for my rebellion. As my last year of college came to a close I met Melissa and we began the physical relationship that would eventually end up with the aforementioned conversation on the couch in Nashville, and ultimately ended with her decision to abort our baby.

The fundamental truth that I have learned through this very painful and tragic episode (even haunting) in my life can be summed up in the words of a Hymn: “My sin, oh the bliss of the glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord oh my soul!” Romans 6:14 says, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Because I have been united to Christ in his death my sin has been brought to nothing. Murray says of this passage, “Paul is dealing with the believer's death to sin. `We died to sin' thus is Paul's thesis. He is dealing with death to sin as an actual and practical fact; shall we not say existential fact? He brings within the scope of this statement not merely the guarantee or the promise of death to sin, but its realization in the life-history of the believer.” As a maturing believer, I am no longer a slave to my sin. This means not only the sin that I am tempted to do in the here and now, but the sin which I have done, no matter how egregious, cannot hinder me in my further walk with the Lord. This is a great promise!

As I sat in the chair after having received communion at my new church home and we sang the last stanza to It is Well With My Soul, I realized that the Lord’s forgiveness was mine and that my great sin was indeed crucified with Christ. It was well with my soul, “For the one who has died has been set free from sin.”

John Stott says that, “To be in Christ means much more than receiving a new status; it also means receiving a new life.” This freedom from the bondage of sin which is ours in Christ has given us a new life in growth and blessing in Christ. “If we are Christ',” Stott says, “God both redeems us through his Son and regenerates through his Spirit. He not only makes us his sons and daughters, he puts within us that Spirit of his Son, who begins to transform us in Christ's image.” This transformative power which is ours in the Spirit of Christ does not work to immediately remove from us our propensity to sin, but it gives us weapons for struggling against sin. Michael Horton says that because we have had the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, we have been seated with him in the heavenly places. This is true no matter our seniority in the kingdom if God. It is not some special reward reserved only for the spiritually mighty. It is a spiritual reality for all who are in Union with Christ. Because we are one with Christ, we have been adopted by the Father and are eligible to receive from him “every spiritual blessing” which is in Christ Jesus. In his book, Children of the Living God, Sinclair Ferguson says that the new birth we experience means that we “come to share in the risen life and power of Jesus Christ, and enter into vital fellowship with him.”