In the past few articles in this series we have viewed union with Christ through a particularly objective and Pauline lens. We have examined what the Bible, particularly Paul’s writings, have to say about our objective and covenantal union with Christ in His life, death, and resurrection and what this means for us today.
In this article we’re going to shift focus a little bit and consider the experiential aspect of our union with Christ, expressed by the Apostle John.
Paul speaks of union with Christ from a perspective of covenantal objectivity in the sense of our being objectively united to Him in His death and resurrection so that what Christ experiences He does so for us. And in Him, we experience it too. We have been crucified with Him, buried with Him, and raised to new life in Him (Rom. 6:3-6).
John does not deny this objective sense of our union but his focus is on the relational and experiential elements of our union with Christ. It would be wrong to conclude that these two authors are in disagreement or contradict each other. They simply view union with Christ from different points of reference and with different emphases. John does not deny the covenantal reality of union with Christ and Paul’s view of union with Christ is no less “living and breathing” as John’s.
Abiding in the Vine
John’s language for union with Christ is the language of “abiding”. This also brings out another difference in Paul and John’s perspectives. While Paul focuses on the indicative (what is true of the believer), John often highlights the imperative (the command for the believer). He records Jesus’ own command in John 15:4:
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:4-5, ESV
Here Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and branch to describe the relationship that His disciples ought to have with Him. It is to be one of complete reliance upon Him as the source of life and upon the Father as the “vinedresser” (v. 1). Andrew Murray once wrote, “The whole Christian life depends on the clear consciousness of our position in Christ. Most essential to the abiding in Christ is the daily renewal of our faith’s assurance, ‘I am in Christ Jesus’…[we need] not only remember our union to Christ, but specially that it is not our own doing, but the work of God Himself…If it is of God alone that I am in Christ, then God Himself, the Infinite One, becomes my security for all I can need or wish in seeking to abide in Christ.”¹
Here we see the beautiful marriage of Paul’s objective, indicative approach and John’s experiential, imperative approach. It is only because God unites us to Christ that we can abide in Him. We see the glorious complementarity of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. We look upon the perseverance of the saints as both a promise from the Father and an exhortation for believers.
This abiding in the vine speaks of restful staying. It is to make our home in Christ, to settle in Him. To abide in the vine is not a matter of plugging in overnight for a quick charge. It is to be deeply, intimately, and persistently rooted in Him. That is why we can say that union with Christ pervades the Gospel in both means and end. It is both the means of our salvation, as Paul’s writings so aptly express, and the end of our salvation as John highlights. We are saved by union with Christ and for union with Christ.
It is through this union that we bear fruit. God has not saved us and turned us loose to do our best on our own. He has saved us and is bearing fruit in our lives through His Spirit. We have life only through our union to the vine, Jesus. Indeed, the Gospel is integral to the life of faith, not just the moment of conversion.
Assurance of Abiding
We must not fall into the trap of thinking that our abiding in Christ can be put on auto-pilot. Nor should we assume that is the result of striving. Jesus clearly uses the metaphor of vine and branch with His disciples (and by extension us). A branch does not need to work feverishly to remain connected to the vine. The tree does not exhaust itself attempting to remain rooted. It is therefore not a burden on the Christian to strive to abide in Christ. It is, as Paul points out, an objective status afforded by God’s grace to be united to Christ. Our union with Christ is not transient or fragile.
John gives us marks of assurance throughout his first epistle:
- “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” (1 John 3:24)
- “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:12)
- “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” (1 John 4:13)
- “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:15-16)
He writes in 1 John 2:3 that we know we have come to know God “if we keep His commandments”. John views our love for God and others, in obedience to Jesus’ commandments, as the number one mark of assurance. After all, in John’s perspective, love is obedience and vice versa (John 15:12, 1 John 5:3). We show our love for God through obedience and the command which we are to obey is love for God and others.
Exhortations to Abide
As secure as our abiding in Christ is, John also gives us numerous exhortations to abide. It is not something we can put on auto-pilot. It is a command and a promise all at once. The epistle of 1 John is full of exhortations to persevere in the faith and in abiding in Christ. Andrew Murray writes of the strong security of the believer’s union with Christ: “It is as we see what Jesus is, and is to us, that the abiding in Him will become the natural and spontaneous result of our knowledge of Him.”²
And yet this abiding is natural in the same sense that our mortification of sin is presented as “natural” by Paul in the sixth chapter of Romans. It is not natural in our flesh. It is only natural for the born-again believer. And even then, we struggle so often with the flesh. To abide in Christ is to live in the Spirit, not the flesh.
Just as Paul exhorts the Romans to live according to the Spirit, so John exhorts believers to remain and abide in their vine, Christ Jesus. It is not as if there is any other way to walk the life of faith besides in the Spirit or any other root besides Christ that we could hope to abide in and bear fruit. But the New Testament writers remind us of the importance of the Spirit and our union with Christ for we are so often forgetful.
Footnotes
¹Andrew Murray, The Greatest Works of Andrew Murray, (The Vinedresser), 2021, p. 65.
²Ibid, p. 201.