United to Christ, through Faith, by His Spirit | 1 John 3:24

Lord's Day: June 1, 2025  Preacher: Carlos Montijo  Series: First John  Topic: Union with Christ  Scripture: 1 John 3:22–24; Genesis 15:5; 1 Peter 1:13; Ephesians 1:3–6, 2:13–22; Romans 5:8–10, 8:32

²⁴And the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He gave us. 1 John 3:24

• Our union with Christ, by faith in Him, being accepted as individuals through Him and in Him, and abiding in the anointing of His Spirit and of the truth, makes our good works pleasing in God’s sight—despite the reality that they may be “accompanied by many weaknesses and imperfections”—because “He looks upon them in his Son” (2LBCF 16.6).

I.  Union with Christ

• We are united to Christ in a, not universal, as in all men, but a corporate sense, as in, all the people of God

II. The doctrine of Union with Christ can be complex, lots of facets, parts, pieces

• Big picture doctrine that encompasses many other doctrines, much like covenant theology
• The phrase “in Christ” in Scripture, in Him, through Him, with Him—Union
• “Union with Christ is not to be understood as a moment in the application of salvation to believers. Rather, it is…the way in which believers share in Christ in eternity [past] (by election), in past history [just history, includes OT saints] (by redemption), in the present (by effectual calling, justification, and sanctification), and in the future (glorification).”[1]

III. Our Union with Christ was established “before the foundation of the world”

• Ephesians 1:3-6
• Elective or Decretal Union (Predestinarian)
• “Biblical analogies include the union of a vine and its branches, the head and members of the body, a husband and wife within the bond of marriage, and the foundation and cornerstone of a building. Dabney noted that Scripture also compares the union of Christ and his people to the bond between the Father and the Son. Yet this analogy does not infer the deification of believers.”[2]

IV.  We must get the biblical foundational priorities straight, properly ordered

• The legal and logical priority that grounds all of our benefits in our personal union with Christ is Christ Himself—His life and death, His active and passive obedience, and is what grounds our Union with Him, and is the foundation for everything we receive in Him
• Ephesians 2:13-22

V.  Some claim that there is no priority between any of the salvific benefits that we receive in Christ

• Romans 5:8-10

VI. The subjective (our experience) is based on the objective (God’s truth), not the other way around

• The best definition of Union with Christ fully embraces and encompasses everything that it means, all of its doctrines, because it’s really a shorthand that encompasses the entire doctrinal system and order of salvation (ordo salutis), and more—regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification, etc.

We meet on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

• ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
  4712 Montana Ave
  El Paso, Texas 79903

Contact us at:

• web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
  call/text: (915) 843-8088
  email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com

[1] Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Zondervan Academic, 2011), p. 590.

[2] Qtd. in Bruce A. Demarest, The Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation, Foundations of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1997), 325.