So Great a Salvation #4: The Cross and the Law Court

I wrote this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus... If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Romans 8:1, 31-35

Paul could hardly say it any more clearly. Read it again if you need to: ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’

And that little word ‘in’ is all-important.

What’s the central thought of Paul’s letters? Is it justification? Reconciliation? Adoption? As important as they are, what’s most central is Jesus. The prior, primary, foremost, fundamental reality for Paul is our union with Christ, being in Christ. And all the benefits of salvation flow from that union – our justification for sure, but also our adoption, redemption, sanctification, glorification, and our being joined to each other in the church, the body of Christ.

It’s on the basis of our union with Christ – in his death and resurrection – that we are declared right with God, free from the penalty of our law-breaking. As Paul has made clear earlier in his letter to the Roman Christians, what flows from being justified is ‘peace with God’ – not through anything we can bring to the table, but ‘through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (5:1).

Moreover, since God has declared us right in the present, that verdict will stand on the last day. We can look forward to the future with confidence, because it’s a future that Christ himself has secured for us. Being counted righteous in God’s sight, even now, brings hope as well as peace.

But more than a legal declaration of our status before God, justification takes us to the heart of the covenant relationship between God and his people. Like Abraham himself, all those who stand in right covenant relationship with God do so through faith, and on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross, whether they be Jew or Gentile. Here is how God makes good on the promises made to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him.

As if this was already not enough, at the bottom line of it all, and the ultimate basis of Paul’s confidence, is God’s love – not merely shown to us, but ‘poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit’ (Romans 5:5), a sign of his ongoing commitment to us. It’s a love, Paul says here, from which nothing can separate us.

If any of this was down to us, we’d have room for doubt. As it is, our assurance lies elsewhere. Peace, hope, blessing, love – and all through Christ.

In Christ Alone

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

Romans 5:17-19

As he does elsewhere, Paul places the account of salvation on a big stage – nothing less than the story stretching from the first Adam to the second Adam.

He puts it even more succinctly in 1 Corinthians 15:22: ‘For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive.’ It’s by virtue of our union with Adam that we die, and by virtue of our union with Christ that we’re made alive. God fulfils not merely his promise of descendants for Abraham, but creates a new humanity in Christ.

And that little word ‘in’ is all-important.

What’s the central thought of Paul’s letters? Is it justification? Reconciliation? Adoption? Those are certainly important to Paul. But what’s most central is Jesus. The prior, primary, central, fundamental reality for Paul is our union with Christ, being in Christ. And all the benefits of salvation flow from that union – our justification, adoption, redemption, sanctification, preservation and glorification, and our being joined to each other in the church, the body of Christ.

Knowing who we are in Christ has all sorts of implications, as Paul will go on to explain: ‘count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (6:11); ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (8:1); ‘in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others’ (12:5).

All this could sound ever so abstract were it not for our all-consuming interest in identity. Who am I, really? We can spend a lot of time wondering. For some of us, the answer depends to a large extent on what others think and say about us – our parents, our peers, our colleagues. What conclusions about me are reflected back in the way they treat me? Who am I – the joker, the trouble-maker, the failure, the helper?

In Christ, we can know who we are. I may be a son, a husband, a father, a colleague – those things make me who I am. And they are not suppressed, but gloriously redefined in the light of my being in Christ, as I bring that identity into my everyday work, my relationship with my spouse, my conversations with my children, my handling of money, my use of time.

In our union with Christ – and Christ alone – our humanity is not obliterated but restored.

Constantine Campbell on Union with Christ

This looks like a comprehensive and important work, just about to be released from Zondervan: Constantine R. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012).

Zondervan provide a pdf sample here, and the galleys of the whole volume are available for viewing by users of Netgalley.

In addition, Mike Bird links to a short video of Con introducing the book.