In the Story of Scripture, we see God’s plan of redemption culminating in Christ sacrificial death on the Cross. In this single redemptive act, Christ paid for our past, present, and future sins forever. Then Christ’s sinless righteousness was imputed to us. This is referred to as justification. We have been justified, or made right with God. Another way to understand this is the we are just as if we had never sinned. It doesn’t take Christians long after being saved to realize that sin still affects their heart and lives. Theologians call this tension the already but not yet. We are justified, but we still give in to sin.
Christians rightly see Christ as our savior, but he is also as our Lord. We are to obey and follow him. Christ saved us from the wrath our sins rightfully deserve but there is more to the Gospel message than this. He also lived a perfect sinless life that serves as our model to be imitated. Christ was like us in every way, yet without sin. He felt every emotion: love, hurt, pain, sadness, anger, weakness, hunger. He grew and matured as we did (Luke 2:52). He was tempted in every way (Heb 4:15). We look to Christ and we live in light of the Gospel. We are no longer slaves to sin and are called to become slaves to righteousness. This process of imitating Christ is referred to as sanctification. But how do we do this?
Before we can understand how to imitate Christ or how to become more like Christ, we need to understand a concept called union with Christ. For those who are in Christ, our identity in Christ is of utmost importance. Our identity is not found in our job, in our children, in our possessions, in our status in society, or any other false identity. We must find our Identity in Christ first and foremost.
Union with Christ is a mysterious union that flows from Christ’s union in the Trinity and is an expression of God’s love and unity. We see echoes of this unity in throughout Scripture: creation, marriage, the incarnation, our rebirth, the church, and in our ultimate transformation or glorification. The union with Christ is a necessary truth for us to understand the relevance of God’s redemptive plan. When we are saved, we are united with Christ in a spiritual rebirth. We become united with Christ and because of this union, we are fully justified, Christ has paid for our sinfulness upon the cross and imputed his righteousness on us. We are the bride of Christ and the Children of God. God is not mad at us, but loves us. One of my favorite verses is Zephaniah 3:17
The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
Fitzpatrick in her book Found in Him eloquently said of the importance of our identity in Christ “We will never know how found, loved, welcomed, and reconciled we are until we see how he has forever taken our nature to himself and has bound us to himself in enduring oneness” (p. 18).
Everything that I am or will be flows from my union with Christ. I do not have to earn my salvation through any effort on my own; it has freely been given to me. Though this is a free gift, it certainly is the most costly of gifts for it cost God his only son. Christ did this out of the abundance of his love and there is nothing that I could have done to earn this.
This is the starting place for our sanctification. If we misunderstand what Christ has done for us and who we are, we will misunderstand sanctification and growth in righteousness. If we do not understand what has been done for us, we may mistakenly believe that it is up to us to earn salvation or sanctification. That it is based on our effort and our obedience to the law. We miss the indicatives of Scripture and focus on the imperatives. Indicatives are what God has done, and imperatives are what we are empowered and motivated to do out of love for what God has done.
As we have seen Justification, Union with Christ, and Sanctification are all interdependent. When we live out these truths, we are living in light of the Gospel. The Gospel message of what Christ has done for us applies to the entire Christian life; the Gospel is not just about being saved (salvation). It is about right living and growing in our Christ-likeness.