Union with Christ

— How we leave the old and enter the new — Andrew Fountain: Oct 21, 2015

John & Anne Darwin

• A few years ago there is a report in the UK of a man called John Darwin
  • He drowned tragically in a canoe accident in 2002
  • Last December he was discovered living in Panama with his wife
  • Now in prison in England, being charged with numerous charges of fraud
• Dying is a very convenient was of getting out of all kinds of problems
  • Any prosecution against you will immediately be dropped
  • your debts get wiped out
  • your police record and driving record are wiped clean
  • you can no longer be called up for military service or any other kind of duty
  • no laws of the land even apply to you any more!
• Now being dead might not sound so good to you, but if you were immediately re-incarnated
  • as citizen of another country
  • maybe the heir of several billion dollars
  • that could solve a lot of problems, couldn’t it!
• (Actually the Bible does teach re-incarnation—only one time, but more of that in a minute)

Ephesians 2:1–10

1. And you being dead in your transgressions and sins, ²in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience,
3. among whom also we all once lived in the desires of our flesh doing the wishes of the flesh and of the thoughts, and we were by nature children of wrath as also the rest.
4. But God being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us,
   • ⁵even being dead as we were in transgressions,
   • made us alive with Christ—by grace you have been saved!—
   • ⁶and raised us up with him
   • and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7. that he might show in the ages to come the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.
8. For by the grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you , of God is the gift; ⁹it is not from works, so no one may boast.
10. For his work are we, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, that in them we might walk.

NET Bible

1. Notice the time: before and after, once and now
2. Notice this world vs age to come
3. We have actually been re-created as something new
4. Union with Christ

• We are JOINED to Christ.
  • Brothers and sisters, we are joined to him if we are Christians.
  • United. Inseperable. He in us and us in him.

• Ex of helicopter rescue from ship off Cornwall
  • moment is when man is joined to rope.
  • bury—raised
    • death—life
    • “Together with him” Paul has actually coined new words here
  • when someone was crucified, they would nail a list of their crimes to the cross
    • Our crimes were nailed to Jesus’s cross
    • Not transferred to him, as a separate entity
      • but he put his arms around us and said “let’s do this together” and then he did it all
• The core message of the gospel is union with Christ
  • Once I used to teach the Gospel in terms of scales
  • I once made a pair of scales to teach this to children
  • In one side goes our sin (heavy stone) and the other goes our good works (no substance)
    • Then we take the righteousness of Jesus and it balances it out
• However much truth there is in this image, it is not how Paul presents the Gospel
  • Not a cold, legal transaction with scales,
  • but union with a living person

Updated on 2015-10-20 by Andrew Fountain - loveintruth.com/teaching