CHAPTER 11
The Believer’s Union in the Finished Work of Christ
Participation in Christ’s Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and Heavenly Life
Introduction
The Foundation of the Christian Life
The entire Christian life rests upon a single foundational reality: union with the Lord Jesus Christ. All spiritual blessings flow “in Christ,” as the apostle declares, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Every dimension of salvation—justification, sanctification, the salvation of the soul, priesthood, the firstborn inheritance, and ultimate glorification—depends wholly upon the believer’s union with the crucified, risen, and exalted Son. In the restoration of all things, this union is not an optional doctrine among many; it is the living root from which the whole tree grows, the axis around which the entire movement from Adamic ruin to final restoration turns.
What the Lord Jesus accomplished objectively in His finished work becomes subjectively real within the believer through the Spirit of grace. Union with Christ is both positional and experiential. It is positional in that God Himself places the believer “in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). In this position the believer shares the Lord’s righteousness, His acceptance before the Father, and His victory over sin, death, and the evil powers. It is experiential in that the same Christ who died and rose now dwells in His people by the Holy Spirit, reproducing His life within them and progressively transforming the soul through holiness, obedience, and divine empowerment (2 Corinthians 3:18; Galatians 2:20). The believer’s spirit is decisively joined to the Lord and made alive; the soul must be progressively saved in this present age; the body waits for resurrection and glorification.
Union with Christ is therefore not a mere figure of speech, nor a devotional metaphor. Scripture speaks of this union in terms of real participation and shared history. The believer died with Christ, was buried with Christ, was raised with Christ, and is seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Romans 6:4–6; Colossians 3:1; Ephesians 2:6). These are spiritual and covenantal realities that define the believer’s identity and destiny. They reach backward into the Lord’s once-for-all work on the cross and in the tomb; they reach upward into His present ascension and priestly ministry; they reach forward into the resurrection of life, celestial glory, and the final restoration of all things.
The mechanics of this union are not grounded in human will or religious striving but in the sovereign action of God through the Spirit of grace. The Father purposes union “in Christ” from before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), the Son accomplishes it through His death and resurrection, and the Spirit applies it in time. Faith is the God-given instrument by which the believer is joined to Christ; through faith the believer abandons confidence in the flesh and lays hold of Christ alone. Baptism, ordained by the Lord, serves as the outward sign and seal of this inward reality, portraying union with His death, burial, and resurrection. The Supper continually sets before the Church the same fellowship: participation in the body and blood of Christ, and therefore participation in His life, His sufferings, and His coming glory.
This union is not confined to one portion of the New Testament witness. It is anticipated in the Torah and the Prophets, revealed in fullness in the ministry of the Lord Jesus, and unfolded with clarity in the apostolic writings. The apostle Paul speaks repeatedly of believers being “in Christ,” “in Him,” and “with Christ,” language that presents the Lord Jesus as the new covenant Head and sphere of existence for the people of God. The apostle John speaks of “abiding” in Christ and Christ abiding in His people (John 15:4–7; 1 John 2:6), emphasizing the ongoing, relational, life-sharing character of this union. The apostle Peter declares that believers become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). This does not mean that they become what God is in His eternal essence, but that, through union with the Lord Jesus, they are truly made like Him as sons and daughters of God. They are destined to be conformed to His image and brought as many sons to glory (Romans 8:29; Hebrews 2:10), so that “when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). Through this same union, those who were once strangers and foreigners become fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, being built together into “a holy temple in the Lord… a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” where the Father and the Son make Their home (Ephesians 2:19–22; John 14:23). In this way God is preparing a company of glorified sons, fitted with celestial bodies and filled with the fullness of Christ, to be His living home and holy priestly body in the midst of the restored creation for the sake of the nations. In every strand of this witness, union with Christ is the inner reality; the varied language of sonship, likeness, fullness, and temple simply unfolds different aspects of the same mystery.
Within the Restoration Structure, union with Christ explains why the same resurrection that brings the faithful into the resurrection of life also brings the unfaithful and the ungodly into the resurrection of judgment. All rise because Christ, the Last Adam, has become the Head of a new humanity. All are raised under His lordship. Yet the experience of that resurrection differs according to the measure in which union with Christ has been allowed to transform the soul in this present age. Those who walk by the Spirit participate now in the life of the Age to Come and will inherit celestial glory in the Seventh Day. Those who sow to the flesh will be raised into the fiery wrath or discipline of Gehenna, where the Adamic soul is destroyed so that the spirit may be saved and ultimately restored under the same Head.
Before we can understand the nature of the Church, the priestly order the Lord Jesus forms, the inheritance He grants, or the ministries of the Seventh and Eighth Days, we must grasp the meaning of being “in Christ.” Every doctrine that follows in this work rests upon this truth. Union with Christ is the fountain from which the justification of the believer flows, the channel through which the soul is saved, the root of priestly calling, and the basis upon which God will reconcile and restore all things in the final consummation.
The Mystery Hidden for Ages: Union Revealed in Christ
Scripture describes union with Christ as part of a “mystery” once hidden but now revealed. The apostle speaks of “the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men” (Ephesians 3:4–5). In the Torah and the Prophets, God made known His purposes in shadows, patterns, and promises: Adam as the first man and head of the human race, Israel as God’s covenant son and priestly nation, the tabernacle and temple as dwelling places of His presence, and the promise of a new heart and Spirit given to His people (Ezekiel 36:26–27). Yet the full meaning of these patterns remained veiled.
In the appearing, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, this mystery is unveiled. The apostle summarizes it: “that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel” (Ephesians 3:6). The mystery is not merely that Gentiles are included alongside Israel; it is that Jew and Gentile alike are gathered into one new Man in union with the Lord Jesus as their Head. The Lord Jesus Himself is the mystery in whom “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and the apostolic proclamation is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).
This mystery has both an individual and a corporate dimension. Individually, it means that the believer’s hope of glory is not rooted in any inherent strength of the soul but in the indwelling Christ, who will one day bring many sons to glory and conform them to His image as the firstborn among many brethren (Hebrews 2:10; Romans 8:29). Corporately, it means that God is forming in Christ one new Man—a corporate Christ, Head and Body together—composed of those who are united to Him in this age as the church of the firstborn (Ephesians 2:15–16; Hebrews 12:23). These faithful sons will be glorified and become like the Lord Jesus, receiving celestial bodies conformed to His glorious body and serving as His priestly and kingly Body in the Heavenly Jerusalem (Philippians 3:21; 1 John 3:2). Through this one new Man, God will then bring the nations into ordered restoration in the Eighth Day. All things in heaven and on earth will be gathered together in Christ and brought under His headship (Ephesians 1:10), yet not all will become the bride or the Body of Christ; rather, the restored nations will walk in the light that proceeds from His dwelling, blessed through the ministry of the corporate Christ formed in this age. The Lord Jesus gathers up in Himself all that Adam, Israel, and the righteous remnant were called to be, and in union with Him the church of the firstborn shares that calling as His many brethren and priestly house, for the sake of the restored creation.
In Adam or in Christ: The Transfer of Headship
All humanity is born in Adam, sharing the corruption, mortality, and spiritual ruin introduced through his transgression. The Scripture declares, “By one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). Adam stands in the Torah not merely as the first individual but as the covenant head and root of the human race. In him the race turns from God; in him the race receives the sentence of death and exile; in him the powers of sin and corruption begin their reign. “In Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22).
The apostle expounds this with great care in Romans 5:12–21. Through the one man’s offense came judgment and condemnation to the many; through the one Man’s righteous act came the free gift and justification of life to the many. Through Adam’s disobedience “the many were made sinners;” through Christ’s obedience “the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). Here the verb “constituted” or “made” (kathistēmi, καθίστημι) signifies being appointed or established in a standing. Adam’s transgression places the human race under a regime of sin and death; Christ’s obedience establishes a new regime of grace and righteousness. Adam’s legacy is Adamic corruption and Adamic death; Christ’s legacy is righteousness, life, and the promise of restoration.
To be “in Adam” is therefore to be under the old headship: to belong to the old creation order, to carry within the soul the corruption that springs from Adam’s fall, and to be subject to the sentence of death that rests upon that corruption. This Adamic death is not only physical dissolution but a threefold reality: spiritual estrangement from God, the decay and disorder of the soul under sin’s dominion, and the eventual destruction of body and soul in judgment unless grace intervenes. The entire work of God in Christ is ordered toward the overthrow of this Adamic headship and the bringing in of a new headship under the Last Adam.
The Lord Jesus is presented in the apostolic witness as “the last Adam” and “the second Man” (1 Corinthians 15:45–47). As the Last Adam, He stands as the covenant Head of the new creation Man, the corporate Christ—Head and Body together—formed in this age from those who are united to Him as the church of the firstborn. As the second Man, He is also appointed Heir and Lord over all things, so that the whole created order, and all humanity within it, will ultimately be brought into ordered subjection under His royal headship. Under this headship, the nations themselves are His inheritance, and, by participation, the inheritance of the many sons who are joined to Him as joint heirs and members of His Body. In His death He bears the full weight of Adamic condemnation; in His resurrection He breaks the dominion of death; in His ascension He takes His place as the Head of a new creation. God’s purpose is that all things should be summed up in Him. Ultimately, every human being will stand in relation to Christ as Head: the faithful as members of His own Body and sharers in His firstborn inheritance, the rest of humanity as restored subjects under His rule in the renewed creation. The universal resurrection at His appearing is grounded in this universal lordship. Yet only those who are joined to Him now in faith and obedience will share His celestial inheritance in the resurrection of life; those who remain governed by Adamic corruption will enter the resurrection of judgment and the fiery discipline of the Seventh Day.
This transfer from Adam to Christ occurs in personal experience when true faith is born in the heart and God, by the Spirit of grace, unites the believer to His Son. “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:30). The believer does not climb out of Adam by moral effort; God Himself places the believer into Christ. This is the same act the apostle describes when he gives thanks to the Father, “who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:12–14). In that moment a real transfer of headship takes place: no longer under Adam, but under Christ; no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit; no longer under condemnation, but under the regime of grace and life. Nevertheless, the Adamic soul is not instantly eradicated. Its legal dominion is broken, but its dispositions and habits must be put off through the ongoing work of the salvation of the in this present age. If this work is resisted, the same Adamic corruption will be brought under destructive judgment in Gehenna in the Age to Come, so that nothing of Adam may remain in the restored creation.
Union with Christ therefore places the believer into a new creation order even while he still walks in the present evil age. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The believer’s spirit is made alive and joined to the Lord; his life is now hidden with Christ in God; he belongs to the coming age even while he suffers in this one. The entire process of transformation, the salvation of the soul, and preparation for the celestial inheritance flows from this transfer of headship. The question that remains is how this union with Christ is effected and maintained in the believer’s experience.
The Nature and Means of Union With Christ
Union with Christ is a divine work that engages the whole Trinity and involves the whole human person. The Father is the One who purposes and elects “us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). The Son is the One in whom this purpose is accomplished, for He is the incarnate Head, the crucified and risen Lord, in whom all the fullness of God dwells. The Holy Spirit is the One who brings sinners into living participation in Christ’s death and life, taking what He has accomplished once for all and making it a transforming and experiential reality within them. To understand the nature and means of union with Christ, we must therefore speak of faith, the Spirit of grace, and the God-given acts, especially baptism and the Lord’s Supper, by which this union is confessed and sealed.
Faith is the instrument by which union with Christ is received. It is not a human achievement that earns union, but the hand of the heart by which the soul is opened to Christ and His saving work. The gospel declares what God has done in His Son; the Spirit bears witness to Christ; and faith arises as a response to this witness. In believing, the sinner turns from trust in self, law, and flesh, and casts himself upon Christ alone. In that turning, the Spirit joins the believer’s spirit to the Lord. “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Corinthians 6:17). Faith, then, is not a bare acknowledgement of truths; it is a living attachment to the person of Christ, by which the believer is grafted into Him as a branch into a vine.
The Holy Spirit is the agent of union. The Spirit of grace unites the believer to Christ, indwells the believer as the life of Christ, and continues to work within the soul to conform it to the image of the Son. “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Romans 8:9). The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in the believer, giving life to his mortal body and empowering him to put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:11, 13). Union with Christ is therefore inseparable from the indwelling Spirit. To be “in Christ” is to be “in the Spirit,” and to be “in the Spirit” is to live under the government, power, and presence of the risen Christ mediated by the Spirit of grace. The Spirit safeguards the believer’s positional union even when the soul is weak, and He labors unceasingly to bring the believer into experiential conformity with that union.
Baptism stands as the God-given sign and seal of union with Christ. The apostle asks, “Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” (Romans 6:3). To be baptized into Christ is to be publicly identified with His death, burial, and resurrection. Going down into the water signifies participation in His death and burial; rising from the water signifies participation in His resurrection and newness of life (Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12). Baptism does not mechanically create union, as though water by itself could join a soul to Christ. Yet, according to God’s appointment, it is the ordained act in which the believer confesses and seals that union, and in which the Spirit often works powerfully to make the meaning of union real in the conscience and affections.
This same reality of union is expressed in the Lord’s own language of abiding and in the apostolic language of the one Body. The Lord Jesus, on the night before His death, spoke of Himself as the true Vine and His disciples as the branches: “Abide in Me, and I in you” (John 15:4). Here the stress falls on the ongoing, organic character of union. Just as the branch draws life from the vine and bears fruit only as it remains in that vital connection, so the believer lives and bears fruit only as he abides in Christ through faith, obedience, and dependence. The apostle Paul, using another image, speaks of the Church as “one body in Christ” and of believers as members of that one body (Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:12–13). Individual union with Christ inevitably carries a corporate dimension; to be joined to the Head is to be joined to His Body.
Finally, the apostle Peter’s phrase, “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), must be read in the light of this union and this destiny. Through the promises of God fulfilled in Christ and applied by the Spirit, believers come to share in God’s own life and moral likeness as they are conformed to the image of the Son and brought as many sons to glory. They escape the corruption that is in the world through lust and are prepared to be a fit dwelling place of God in the Spirit, members of the holy temple and household in which the Father and the Son make Their home. Yet this participation is always creaturely and mediated; it is union with Christ, the incarnate Son, not absorption into the divine essence. It is precisely this filial and temple-shaped participation that underlies the salvation of the soul in this age and prepares the faithful to receive celestial bodies and to share in Christ’s priestly and kingly ministry on behalf of the restored nations in the Age to Come.
Thus the nature and means of union with Christ can be summarized in this way: the Father purposes it, the Son accomplishes it, the Spirit of grace applies it; faith receives it, baptism seals it, abiding sustains it, and corporate life in the one Body manifests it. Upon this living union the apostle will now build, showing what it means to be united with Christ in His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, and His present heavenly life.
United With Christ in His Death: The End of the Adamic Man
Union with Christ begins with union in His death. Scripture declares, “Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Romans 6:6). The “old man” (palaios anthrōpos, παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος) is the Adamic man, the corrupted inner person as formed under Adamic headship. It is the soul shaped by self-will, disordered desire, and the darkening power of sin. When the apostle says that this old man “was crucified with” Christ, he uses a compounded verb that denotes a real inclusion in Christ’s crucifixion. God has taken the whole Adamic man, Adam as the covenant head, along with the corrupted inner nature that flows from him, and brought this entire order under the sentence of the cross through the death of the Lord Jesus.
This crucifixion is first a judicial reality. The cross is God’s verdict on Adamic humanity. In the death of His Son, God passes sentence on the whole Adamic order. The Lord Jesus, though personally sinless, stands as the Last Adam, bearing the guilt and consequences of Adam’s race. When He dies, the regime of sin and death is judged. The believer, united to Christ by the Spirit of grace, is therefore included in this verdict. God does not merely forgive the sins of the believer; He pronounces the entire Adamic man to be condemned and crucified in Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ,” Paul testifies; “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
Romans 6 makes this connection explicit. Believers have been “baptized into Christ Jesus” and thus “baptized into His death” (Romans 6:3). To be “baptized into” Christ is to be united to Him in such a way that His death counts as their death. The apostle then draws out the implication: “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” (Romans 6:2). Death to sin here does not mean that sin has ceased to exist or that the believer no longer feels temptation; it means that sin’s dominion as a ruling power has been broken. Sin remains present, but it no longer reigns as lord. The old man under sin’s rule has been crucified; a new man under grace’s rule has been brought forth.
In this light, we must distinguish the “old man” from “the flesh” (sarx, σάρξ) and from “the body of sin” (sōma tēs hamartias, σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας). The old man refers to the Adamic person as a whole under the rule of sin. The flesh describes the ongoing inclination of the fallen human nature, the tendency toward self-gratification and independence from God that remains even in the believer. The “body of sin” is the whole embodied life as it has been organized under sin’s dominion, the instruments of the body yielded to unrighteousness. In Christ’s death, the old man is crucified once for all; in the believer’s daily experience, the flesh must be resisted and the “members” of the body must be presented to God as instruments of righteousness (Romans 6:13; Romans 8:13).
Co-crucifixion with Christ is therefore God’s act before it is the believer’s experience. The believer does not crucify his own old man; God has done this in Christ. The call to the believer is to reckon this divine act to be true. “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:11). Reckoning is not pretending; it is faith’s agreement with God’s verdict. When the believer, by the Spirit of grace, counts himself dead to sin and alive to God, he steps into the freedom that Christ has already won. Sin’s demands no longer carry the same authority; the believer is free to refuse.
At the same time, this reckoning must express itself in the mortification of the flesh. The Adamic man has been crucified legally; yet the affections, habits, and thought-patterns formed under that old regime linger in the soul. They are to be put to death. “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). This daily putting to death is the believer’s cooperation with the once-for-all co-crucifixion accomplished in Christ. Whenever the believer consents to the Spirit’s work in putting away bitterness, lust, pride, and self-will, he is allowing the cross to penetrate deeper into his soul, and the old man gives way to the life of the new.
The connection to the Restoration Structure is vital. In this age, the Spirit of grace invites the believer to consent to the destruction of the Adamic soul under the gentle severity of sanctifying discipline. Those who accept this invitation and allow the cross to do its work will find that much of the painful judgment that would otherwise await them has already been borne in fellowship with Christ. Those who refuse, clinging to the flesh and sowing to corruption, will face the resurrection of judgment. They will be raised in mortal bodies and subjected to the fiery discipline of Gehenna in the Seventh Day, where body and soul are brought under destructive judgment so that all that is Adamic may be burned away. In either case, the old man must die. The question is whether this death is embraced now in union with Christ, or endured later under the severity of corrective fire.
United With Christ in His Burial: Separation From the Old Creation
Union with Christ includes not only death but burial. “We were buried with Him through baptism into death” (Romans 6:4). Burial signifies removal, closure, and separation. When the Lord Jesus was laid in the tomb, His body was placed out of sight; His death was sealed and attested. In the same way, to be buried with Christ is to be removed from the realm and order of the old creation. The believer is not merely a forgiven Adamic person; he is a person who has, in Christ, passed out of Adamic existence and into a new creation sphere.
Baptism portrays this burial vividly. The believer is taken down into the water, as into a grave, and then lifted up. The apostle connects this movement directly to burial and resurrection: “Buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God” (Colossians 2:12). The burial aspect emphasizes that what belonged to the old life is to be left behind. The dominion of sin has been broken; the believer is no longer under the law as a covenant of condemnation; the entire structure of life in Adam has been closed off as a ruling reality.
This burial reality was foreshadowed in the passage of Israel through the Red Sea. Israel, enslaved under Pharaoh, passed through the waters while their enemies pursued. The waters returned and covered the Egyptians, but Israel emerged on the other side as a free people (Exodus 14–15). The apostle calls this event a kind of baptism: “All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:2). The old tyrant and the old house of bondage were left behind in the waters; a new journey began on the other side. In the same way, burial with Christ signifies the believer’s departure from the tyranny of sin and the powers of this age.
Burial also introduces the theme of hiddenness. Having been buried with Christ, the believer’s life is now hidden with Christ in God. “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). The world sees only a weak, mortal, often afflicted person; the reality of the believer’s new life is concealed. This hiddenness is temporary. “When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). Burial with Christ thus anticipates the future unveiling of the faithful in celestial glory when the Lord appears. What is now buried and hidden will then be manifested and clothed with an immortal, heavenly body.
Within the Restoration order, this burial union marks the decisive transfer from the old creation order under Adam to the new creation order under Christ, even though the believer still walks in a fallen world. The faithful who live out this separation in holiness and obedience will, at the universal resurrection, be openly distinguished in the resurrection of life and taken into the Heavenly Jerusalem. Those who continue to live as though they still belonged to the old order will find that the separation signified in their baptism must be enforced in the resurrection of judgment by the burning away of their attachments and the destruction of their Adamic soul in Gehenna.
United With Christ in His Resurrection: Participation in Newness of Life
Union with Christ includes participation in His resurrection. The apostle links burial and resurrection in a single movement: “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is not only an event once enacted in His own body; it is a source of new life that flows into all who are united to Him. The risen Christ is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). His resurrection life is the prototype and fountain of every future resurrection and of the present spiritual renewal of His people.
The phrase “newness of life” uses the term kainotēs (καινότης), indicating not merely a life that has been improved, but a life that belongs to a different order. The life the believer receives in union with Christ is not simply an extension of the old Adamic existence; it is the life of the Age to Come, the life of the new creation already present in seed-form. The New Testament often distinguishes this life with the word zōē (ζωή), which in many contexts emphasizes life as fellowship with God, as opposed to mere biological existence. To have resurrection life is to share in the living fellowship of the Son with the Father by the Spirit.
This resurrection life is communicated by the Spirit of grace. “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). The same Spirit who raised the Lord Jesus now animates the believer’s inner life, enabling him to walk in a new way. This is why the apostle can say, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is” (Colossians 3:1), and again, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:6). Resurrection union produces a new set of desires, a new orientation of the mind, and a new capacity for holiness, so that the believer’s walk increasingly reflects the life of the risen Christ.
Walking in this resurrection life is closely connected to walking in the Spirit. The believer is called to “walk in the Spirit” so as not to fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). The resurrection life within and the Spirit’s empowering presence are two aspects of the same reality: the risen Christ living in and through His people. As the believer yields to the Spirit, the fruit of this resurrection life appears: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are not natural virtues; they are the outworking of the life of Christ in the soul.
The resurrection life present in the faithful now is the very life that will clothe them with celestial glory in the resurrection of life. There is a deep continuity between present experience and future transformation. “As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man” (1 Corinthians 15:49). The more the soul is conformed to Christ’s image in this age, the more fitting it becomes for the celestial body that will be given in the Age to Come. The resurrection body does not create likeness to Christ’s character; it manifests and completes the likeness that the Spirit has been forming in the soul.
In the universal resurrection at the Lord’s appearing, all will rise in mortal bodies. The faithful will then be separated into the resurrection of life and clothed with immortal, celestial bodies suited for the Heavenly Jerusalem. The unfaithful and the ungodly will enter the resurrection of judgment and remain in mortal bodies subject to suffering and the destructive fire of Gehenna until the Adamic corruption in them has been destroyed. The difference between these two paths lies in the present response to resurrection life. Those who receive and walk in this life now, allowing the Spirit to save their souls, will enter rest and glory in the Seventh Day. Those who resist, clinging to the flesh and its works, will discover that the resurrection life they refused now confronts them as purifying judgment.
United With Christ in His Ascension: Seated in the Heavenly Places
The believer is not only united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, but also in His ascension. After His resurrection, the Lord Jesus was exalted to the right hand of the Father, fulfilling the words, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool’” (Psalm 110:1). Daniel saw in vision “One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven,” who came to the Ancient of Days and was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom (Daniel 7:13–14). The New Testament declares that this enthronement has taken place, and that in a real though hidden way, believers share in it.
God “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). This is positional language, yet it describes a genuine spiritual reality. The believer’s true life is no longer rooted in the earth but in the heavens. To be seated with Christ is to share in His favor with the Father, to have access to the Heavenly Sanctuary, and to participate, in measure, in His kingly authority. “Having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus,” believers may now draw near “with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:19, 22).
Ascension union reorients the believer’s mind and affections. Those who are raised with Christ are commanded to “set [their] mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). This does not mean neglecting earthly responsibilities, but viewing them from a heavenly standpoint. The believer learns to see history under the lordship of Christ, suffering under the sovereignty of Christ, and service as participation in the ministry of Christ. Earthly life becomes the arena in which heavenly realities are lived out under the eye of the enthroned Lord.
This ascension union also foreshadows the believer’s future participation in the heavenly court and the Heavenly Jerusalem. At the Lord’s appearing, the faithful will be caught up to meet Him and will enter openly into the heavenly realm that they have already shared in by faith. There the heavenly court will sit, the tares will be judged, and the faithful will enter His rest as celestial sons, sharing in the heavenly oversight of the judgments carried out on the earth below and awaiting their open priestly ministry in the Eighth Day. The ascension life they have known inwardly will become their manifest environment. Their service in the Seventh Day will flow from the same union with the enthroned Christ that has sustained them in weakness during this age.
For those who neglect this heavenly calling, ascension union remains largely unrealized. They are in Christ and seated with Him in principle, but they live as though their citizenship were still in this world. Their affections are set on earthly things; their energies are consumed with temporal gain; their lives bear little witness to the reality of the Heavenly Sanctuary. For such, the resurrection of judgment will involve not only the burning away of corruption but the painful exposure of a life lived below its true calling. Yet even this exposure is ordered toward restoration, as the soul learns, through judgment, the worth of the heavenly things it once despised.
United With Christ in His Heavenly Life: Sharing His Present Reign
The Lord Jesus does not sit in heaven in passive repose. He lives and ministers as the Great High Priest and King in the presence of the Father. He “always lives to make intercession” for those who come to God through Him (Hebrews 7:25). He rules in the midst of His enemies, extending the scepter of His strength from Zion (Psalm 110:2). Through union with Him, believers share in His heavenly life even now.
Paul’s testimony, “Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), points to this reality. The risen and ascended Christ dwells in His people by the Spirit. This indwelling life forms His character in them, conforming them to His image (Romans 8:29). As believers yield to this life, they learn to think with the mind of Christ, to love with His love, to endure suffering with His patience, and to serve with His meek authority. The Spirit of grace takes the things that are Christ’s and makes them known in the believer’s inner experience.
Sharing Christ’s heavenly life also means sharing His path of suffering and endurance in this present age. The Lord Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered; His faithful now learn obedience in the same school. They carry about in the body “the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested” in them (2 Corinthians 4:10). Fellowship with His life is inseparable from fellowship with His sufferings. Yet these sufferings are not signs of abandonment; they are the appointed means by which the soul is weaned from earthly hopes and anchored in the unseen heavenly reality.
This present fellowship with Christ’s heavenly life is training for future priestly and kingly service. In the Seventh Day, the faithful will serve as celestial sons in the Heavenly Jerusalem, entering God’s rest and sharing in the heavenly oversight of the judgments carried out on the earth below. In the Eighth Day, when the nations are fully restored and the creation is renewed, they will openly exercise their royal priesthood as the corporate Christ, ministering light, order, and blessing to the immortal nations. The life they live now, in union with Christ amid weakness and conflict, is the same life that will be revealed in glory. There will be no break in continuity, only an intensification and enlargement. What is now hidden within will then be manifest without.
For unfaithful believers, union with Christ’s heavenly life is largely quenched or grieved. The life is present, for Christ does not deny Himself, but its expression is hindered by unbelief, disobedience, and attachment to the world. Such believers may have tasted of the heavenly gift and of the powers of the age to come, yet draw back from the path of cross-bearing. For them, the resurrection of judgment will be a severe schooling, as the life they resisted becomes the fire that consumes what is incompatible with it. Yet even here, the aim is that Christ’s life might finally reign unhindered in the restored soul.
The Fruits of Union With Christ
Union with Christ is not an theological doctrine; it bears genuine fruits in the believer’s status, transformation, relationships, and destiny. These fruits unfold in this age and in the ages to come.
First, union with Christ is the ground of justification. God justifies sinners not in isolation from Christ but in Him. “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). The believer is counted righteous because he is united to the Righteous One. On the cross, Christ was “made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Justification is thus a forensic declaration rooted in covenant union: God declares the believer to be righteous because he shares the standing of the Son in whom He is well pleased. This justification will never be revoked. Even those who enter the resurrection of judgment do so as justified persons; the judgment they undergo is not to determine their eternal belonging to Christ, but to destroy the corruption that has clung to that belonging.
Second, union with Christ is the source of the salvation of the soul. The believer’s spirit is saved and joined to Christ instantly when he is united to Him; the soul is saved progressively as Christ’s life displaces Adamic corruption. “Receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9) describes this ongoing process. Through union with Christ, the believer puts off the old man and his deeds, is renewed in the spirit of his mind, and puts on the new man which was created according to God in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:22–24). The word of God, the discipline of the Father, the fellowship of the saints, and the trials of life all become instruments in the hand of the Spirit of grace to conform the soul to Christ.
If this salvation of the soul is embraced in this age, the believer will enter the Seventh Day in rest and glory. If it is resisted, the work will be completed in the resurrection of judgment. Those who have sown to the flesh will reap corruption; yet this corruption is not the final word. In Gehenna, the soul will be destroyed in its Adamic form so that it may be restored under Christ’s headship. The severity of this process will correspond to the degree to which the soul clung to the flesh in this age. Union with Christ ensures that even this fiery discipline is ultimately restorative, but it does not remove its reality or its necessity.
Third, union with Christ creates and sustains the corporate Body of Christ. Individually, believers are joined to Christ; corporately, they are joined to one another as members of one Body. “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12). The apostle can even speak of the whole Body under the single name “Christ,” so intimate is the union between Head and members. Believers are “individually members of one another” because all are joined to the same Head (Romans 12:5).
This corporate union will be explored more fully in the following chapter, but its roots lie here. The Church is not a voluntary association of individuals who share ideas and values; it is a living organism, a new humanity in Christ, in which the life of the Head flows through the members. Spiritual gifts, ministries, and offices are all expressions of this one life distributed according to the will of the Spirit. As this life grows and matures the Body in love, it prepares the Church for her roles in the Seventh and Eighth Days: as the assembly of firstborn sons in the Heavenly Jerusalem, and as the royal priesthood serving God among the restored nations.
Fourth, union with Christ determines the believer’s future glory. Those who are faithful to their union in this age, walking by the Spirit and allowing the cross to do its work in their souls, will be counted worthy of the resurrection of life. They will receive celestial bodies, bear the image of the heavenly Man, and be manifested as the sons of God in the Heavenly Jerusalem. Their union with Christ will be displayed in open likeness to Him and in shared participation in His priestly and kingly ministry.
Those who are unfaithful, yet truly in Christ, will be raised into the resurrection of judgment. Their spirits will remain united to Christ, but their souls will be subjected to severe correction in Gehenna until all that is contrary to Christ has been burned away. They will ultimately be restored and receive an inheritance suited to their cleansed but different state, participating in the terrestrial order of the renewed creation. The ungodly, who rejected the light they had, will likewise be raised into judgment, endure the wrath appropriate to their deeds, and after destruction of their Adamic soul be restored under Christ’s universal headship when the Eighth Day dawns and the resurrection of the end occurs.
In the Eighth Day, when death itself has been abolished and God is all in all, the fruits of union with Christ will be seen in fullness. Celestial sons will shine in the likeness of the Son, ministering as priests and kings. Terrestrial nations will walk in the light they mediate, enjoying immortal life on a renewed earth. All things in heaven and on earth will be harmonized under Christ, and the purpose of God in creating and redeeming humanity will be fulfilled.
Conclusion
Union as the Heart of Restoration
Union with Christ is the heart of the Restoration Structure. In His death, the Lord Jesus brings the Adamic man under judicial sentence and opens the way for the destruction of Adamic corruption. In His burial, He removes His people from the realm of the old creation and hides their life with Himself in God. In His resurrection, He imparts the life of the new creation, enabling His people to walk in newness of life and preparing them for celestial glory. In His ascension, He seats them with Himself in the heavenly places, granting access to the Heavenly Sanctuary and calling them to live from their true citizenship. In His heavenly life, He dwells in them by the Spirit of grace, forming His character within them and training them for their future roles as royal-priestly sons.
This union is both a gift and a calling. It is a gift because God grants it freely by grace, uniting sinners to His Son apart from their works. It is a calling because those who are united to Christ are summoned to live in a manner worthy of that union. They are to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God, to set their minds on things above, to abide in Christ and bear much fruit, to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Faithful response to this calling in the present age will mean rest and glory in the resurrection of life and participation in the inner-court priesthood of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Neglect or resistance will mean severe correction in the resurrection of judgment, yet even this will serve the ultimate purpose of conforming all things to Christ.
Everything the Lord Jesus achieved becomes the believer’s inheritance through union with Him. Everything the believer is called to become flows from this same union. Justification, the salvation of the soul, sanctification, spiritual gifts, priestly calling, the firstborn inheritance, participation in the Seventh Day kingdom, and eternal joy in the Eighth Day all spring from being “in Christ.” To misunderstand or minimize this union is to undermine the entire structure of the Christian life and the whole movement of God’s restorative purpose.
The next chapter will turn from the individual to the corporate, from the believer’s union with Christ to the Church’s existence as His Body. The Lord Jesus is not only the Head of redeemed individuals; He is the Builder of a living Temple, composed of many “living stones” hewn in the quarry of this present age. As we move forward, we will see how the same union that binds the believer to Christ binds the believers to one another, forming a spiritual house and a holy priesthood that will be manifested in glory in the ages to come.
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