John Flavel on Union with Christ

Last updated on: May 4, 2018 at 8:00 am by Coyle Neal

John Flavel on Union with Christ 2018-05-02T19:36:13-06:00 Coyle Neal

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I’ve been reading through a volume of John Flavel’s works–an exercise which I would encourage all of you to engage in from time to time. In addition to being a wonderfully rich writer, Flavel is one of the most accessible Puritans. It helps that he was, well, ‘exiled,’ to use his thoughts about the event, to a rural English community and forced to dumb down his highfalutin’ language for the farmers and sailors of his rural church. For what it’s worth, he eventually came to deeply love the place and congregation alike.

In a series of sermons on ‘the method of grace‘, Flavel gives us a side-by-side description of what ‘union with Christ’ is, and what it is not. (This is from the second sermon.)

Negatively, Union with Christ is not: 1) Mere external intellectual agreement;
“The saints union with Christ is not a mere mental union only in conceit or notion, but really exists extra mentem (outside the mind), whether we conceit it or not.” That is, we have a real union with Christ, rather than just an intellectual or even imaginary one. When we say union with Christ, we are not just saying that we agree with each other the same way that those who share the same philosophical ideas might agree with each other. 2) Physical;
“The saints union with Christ is not a physical union, such as is betwixt the members of a natural body and the head.” 3) Destructive of our individuality;
“Nor is it an essential union, or union with the divine nature so as our beings are thereby swallowed up and lost in the Divine being.” 4) Federal/covenantal–at first;
“The union I here speak of, is not a federal union, or a union by covenant only: such an union there is indeed betwixt Christ and believers, but that is consequential to and wholly dependent upon this.”
(In other words, there is a covenant/federal relationship between Christ and His people, but that structure is built on the foundation of an underlying mystical union with Christ.) 5) Merely moral/emotional;
“It is not a mere moral union by love and affection; thus we say, one soul is in two bodies, a friend is another self; the lover is in the person beloved; [these are all ways we might talk about ‘union’ between two people] such an union of hearts and affections there is also betwixt Christ and the saints, but this is of another nature; that [kind of union] we call a moral, this [kind of union] is a mystical union; that [kind] only knits our affections, but this [kind of union] our persons to Christ.”

Positively, Union with Christ is: 1. Mystical;
“Though this union neither makes us one person nor essence with Christ, yet it knits our persons most intimately and nearly to the person of Christ. The church is Christ’s body… not his natural, but his mystical body; that is to say, his body is a mystery, because it is to him as his natural body. The saints stand to Christ in the same relation that the natural members of the body stand to the head, and he stands in the same relation to them, that the head stands in to the natural members…” 2. Supernatural;
“wrought by the alone power of God… We can no more unite ourselves to Christ, than a branch can incorporate itself into another stock; it is of him, i.e. of God, his proper and alone work.” 3. ‘Immediate’, in the sense of being close or intimate;
immediate “as excluding degrees of nearness among the members of Christ’s mystical body. Every member, the smallest as well as the greatest, hath an immediate coalition with Christ.” 4. Fundamental;
“The saints mystical union with Christ is a fundamental union; it is fundamental by way of sustentation; all our fruits of obedience depend upon it… It is fundamental to all our privileges and comfortable claims… and it is fundamental to all our hopes and expectations of glory…” 5. Efficacious;
“for through this union the divine power flows into our souls, both to quicken us with the life of Christ, and to conserve and secure that life in us after it is so infused.” 6. Indissoluble;
“there is an everlasting tye [tie] betwixt Christ and the believer; and herein alos it is beyond all other unions in the world; death dissolves the dear union betwixt the husband and wife, friend and friend, yea, betwixt soul and body, but not betwixt Christ and the soul, the bands of this union rot not in the grave.” 7. Honorable;
“To be a servant of Christ is a dignity transcendent to the highest advancement among men; but to be a member of Christ, how matchless and singular is the glory thereof!” 8. Comfortable;
“yea, the ground of all solid comfort, both in life and death. Whatever troubles, wants, or distresses befal such, in this is abundant relief and support, Christ is mine, and I am his; what may not a good soul make out of that!… How comfortably may we repose ourselves, under that cheering consideration, upon him at all times and in all difficult cases!” 9. Fruitful:;
“All the fruit we bear before our ingrafture into Christ is worse than none; till the person be in Christ, the work cannot be evangelically good and acceptable to God… Christ is a fruitful root, and makes all the branches that live in him so too…” 10. Enriching;
“for by our union with his person, we are immediately interested in all his riches… How rich and great a person do the little arms of faith clasp and embrace!… All that Christ hath becomes ours, either by communication to us, or improvement for us: His Father, His promises, His providences, His glory. It is all ours by virtue of our union with him.”

Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO, where he doesn’t think nearly often enough about what union with Christ is or what it means.

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