Good morning. So this morning we are going to get back into the confession, chapter 27 of the London Baptist Confession of Faith, of the communion of saints. We are skipping chapter 26 on the church, and that's not because of some doctrinal disagreement with it. It's really long. If you look at chapter 26, I think 15 paragraphs, and I am not equipped to teach on it. We will get back to that because of an ordering of all the events going on in the church right now and the time we have available. We're going to jump forward to chapter 27, which is a very short chapter. It's been the next three weeks on it, so this week and the next two. And they are related to each other, though. Chapter 26 on the church is really the structure and the what is the church, right? Chapter 27 is really about the bond that all believers in the church have and what they are to do in light of that bond, what we are to do. So before we get started, I will start with a word of prayer. Father God, thank you for today, your day. Thank you for the teaching and the preaching of your word. Thank you for these truths that we have laid down for us in your word that we can discuss together and be encouraged by, that we can encourage one another. Give us ears to hear today. Let us be exhorted to good works and to trust in your Son alone for our salvation. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So like I said, chapter 27 of the Communion of Saints, you may recognize that phrase. It's in the Apostles' Creed, so it goes back a ways. It is about this bond we share as believers and what is our duty, what is our obligation in light of this bond. Like I said, it's only two paragraphs, so we'll cover it over the next three weeks. And let's look at paragraph one. It really divides up into two parts. So I'll read it aloud really quickly here. All saints that are united to Jesus Christ their head by his spirit and faith, although they are not made there by one person with him, have fellowship in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory. being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, in an orderly way, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man." So there's a lot going on in this Paragraph so I'm going to divide it up into two sections here, and we're really probably today only going to talk about the first one So this first section all saints that are united to Jesus Christ their head by his spirit and faith Although they are not made there by one person with him have fellowship in his graces sufferings death resurrection and glory This is the foundation of our communion together with one another What is this foundation? Christ. We are in Christ. Our union with Christ is the foundation of our communion with one another. So we could do a whole series just on that doctrine for months, easily. In fact, Sinclair Ferguson has one on Ligonier.org that I would highly recommend listening to. It's video, it's free. I used it in my preparation for this today. I am going to do a quick flyover of the doctrine of the union of Christ. It is a wonderful doctrine. It is encouraging, it is beautiful, and once you see it, you will see it everywhere. So, just as an example, can someone read for me Philippians 1, 1? Anybody? Yes, John. Philippians 1, verse 1. Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops, So this is an introduction, it's a sentence you would normally just go, okay, he's saying, hey guys, and he's gonna go into the letter. To all the saints, what was that? In Christ Jesus. I hope after today you start seeing those words a lot more frequently in your reading of scripture. It's easy to read past that word in, it's just a little preposition, but it carries a massive amount of meaning. Just some examples here of what theologians have said about this doctrine. John Calvin said that union with Christ has the highest degree of importance if we are to understand justification properly. John Murray wrote in Redemption Accomplished and Applied that union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. It is not simply a phase of the application of redemption. it underlies every aspect of redemption. And just, I don't really like the idea of using how many times something is mentioned in scripture as the way to know how important it is, but Paul refers to himself or to other believers as those in Christ, depending on how you understand in Christ, in the Lord, 160 times. As a counterexample, Christian, the word Christian, shows up in scripture maybe twice, and it's believed that it was used kind of as a pejorative, as an insult, you know, as many terms that refer to denominations and things like that end up doing. Paul thought of himself, first and foremost, his identity as a man in Christ. And when he wrote letters, he wrote to those in Christ. So have you ever been thinking about buying a car and you picked out the color you want, you got in your head what color you want, and then all of a sudden you're driving down the road and it's like, hey, that's the color I was thinking about getting, right? And all of a sudden, it seems like everybody is driving a car the color that you were thinking. Now, the day before that, you'd never noticed at all, right? You'd think, you know, I hardly ever see this color. But as soon as you decide, I think I want that one, now all of a sudden you see it everywhere. It was there all along, but you didn't notice it. Your awareness of it increased. I hope after today, if nothing else, that's what happens when you read or when you hear in Christ in Scripture, because it is everywhere in Scripture. And this union is such that the things that are done by those who are in Christ can be understood to also be done by Christ himself. That's how close this union is. So, as an example, in Acts 9, Paul is on the Damascus Road. Saul is on the Damascus Road. Jesus says to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he says, who are you, Lord? And then the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Did Paul ever even see Jesus? Not while he was alive, before he was resurrected. Every time Saul persecuted a Christian, Saul was persecuting Christ. Another example is in Matthew 25, when you have the sheep and the goats. And the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the king will answer and say to them, assuredly I say to you, in as much as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me. My brethren, you did it to me. That my brethren part often gets read over as if this text is about helping anybody in need. Point Christ is making is he is united to his people and that when you show kindness to them, you are showing kindness to him. So let's look at this paragraph. I'm gonna diagram it, break it down a little bit. I think it breaks down pretty easily into these concepts. So it starts with who. So again, this is just the first half of paragraph one on union with Christ. The who is all saints that are united to Jesus Christ, their head. How they are united to Christ is by his spirit and faith, And then there is a denial here, which is they are not made one person with him through this being united with Christ. We'll get into that. And then what do they get as a result of being united to Christ? They have fellowship in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory. So let's take these in turn. All saints. What is a saint? So this is where it would have been helpful if we could go through the chapter on the church first. The church, if you look at, if you turn back a page or two, chapter 26. Paragraph two of the London Confession says all persons throughout the world professing the faith of the gospel and obedience Unto God by Christ according to it unto it not destroying their own profession by any error averting the foundation or unholiness of conversation are and may be called visible saints and of such ought all particular congregations to be constituted That's what we mean when we say saints. We don't mean the Roman Catholic conception of saints, we mean believers. Believers who have a credible profession of faith that are obligated to join congregations. Continuing in this, all saints that are united to Jesus Christ, they're head. Jesus Christ, our head. Let's go to Romans 5, verse 12. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned, and I'm gonna skip down to verse 18. Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. So this is contrasting two heads, two forms of headship for mankind. Saints were in Adam, their head. Saints are now in Christ. Christ is our head. Jesus is the father of a new humanity. So let's contrast them. Adam sinned. Christ perfectly obeyed. Everything Adam lost for us in the fall, Christ gained it all back and then some. And because we are united with Christ, we receive things from him as our head. So when we were united with our federal head Adam, what did we get from him? Anybody? What did we get from Adam? Death. We got the judgment due to sin, which includes our physical bodies decaying and dying. What else? Condemnation. So we, through His headship, deserve eternal punishment for sin. We received a fallen nature. So we inherited it through being born of Adam, just by coming into the world. Yes, sir. Yes, it created a distance that created a need for reconciliation. And then as a result of our fallen nature that we inherited, what do we do? Hide. We sin. Not only do we inherit the penalty, the judgment due to everyone under Adam's line, it's not as if we then go, oh, we live a perfect life despite that. We sin right along with him. We imitate Adam. Now, contrast those with what we get from Christ. We are made sons of God. We are adopted. We get a new family. We get an inheritance. We get righteousness. It is imputed to us, Christ's perfect righteousness. We do not have to suffer the condemnation of our sins. Hebrews 2.9, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. The punishment Christ received on the cross, only he had to endure. and then we are sanctified. We, instead of doing what Adam did and sinning, we endeavor to live as Christ lived with a thankful heart that honors God and obeys him and does good works. So let's go to the how. How did we get to be in Adam? Kind of touched on this earlier. How'd that happen? What did we do? Or what happened? By nature. We really didn't do anything, did we? We were just born, right? Yeah. Yeah. We didn't say, well, I want to be born on this day in this place to this person. We didn't get to pick any of that. We were just born. It happened to us. Now, how do we get to be in Christ? Good Calvinist answer, election. Yes? Again, we didn't do that, right? There is a, but his spirit did something. This happened outside of us. Becoming a Christian is not just something even that happens inside of you. It is something that happens to you from outside. You are brought into a new world. The Holy Spirit regenerates our hearts. He sanctifies us. He preserves us. That is His work. We're adopted into this new family. You don't adopt yourself. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Now, that's not to say that there's nothing we do. And faith. Now, how do we get that faith? It's a gift, but we exercise that gift. It is the instrument that God uses to save us. So that faith is understanding the truth of the scripture, believing it, and trusting in God to save us. So Ephesians 2.8, for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. We're going to skip over the not part of this, I'll get to that in a minute, and talk about what we get as a result of this union with Christ. Can someone read for me Ephesians 1, verse 3? Thank you. Ephesians 1, 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places of Christ. Just as we... That's enough. Verse three. So, you can keep reading if you want on your own time. So, this is a really easy verse to read past. It's also a really good verse to just sink into. Listen to that. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Again, that color of that car, there it is again, in Christ. So Sam Waldron has a exposition of the London Baptist Confession where he says, everything Christ did and everything he now possesses as the mediator belongs to us. So what are these things that we have fellowship, that we share in? And how does this work? So there's a list here. Graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory. So let's go through those. Graces. It's a word we don't use it that way, right? Here's some graces, right? What are his graces? His graces are his active obedience. Christ's obedience is imputed to us. And So there's this what we receive, and then there's also this what we do. Both of these things are happening. We also obey Him by the power of His Spirit. Sufferings. We receive the benefits of Christ's sufferings. He was bruised for our transgressions. And we partake in Christ's sufferings. from 2 Corinthians, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. We suffer not salvificly, Christ did that on the cross, but we do suffer, and God uses that suffering, it sanctifies us, and it works for us an eternal way of glory. And again, like I mentioned earlier, when something happens to one of Christ's people, it happens to him. When we are being persecuted, Christ is being persecuted. John 15, 20, if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. 2 Timothy 3, verse 12, yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. 1 Peter 4, 13, but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. Why would we have joy in suffering? Because we are united with Christ. I had so many. I don't know, maybe. I didn't have it on the list here. Yeah, so that touches on a couple of them. The power of his resurrection. Yeah, and his suffering. So, going on to Christ's death. How are we united to Christ's death? What do we say, Pastor Steve, what do you say when you baptize someone? So baptism is a picture of this very thing. And when we are regenerated, we die and are brought back to life. And yet again, we will die and be raised in glory unless Christ comes first. Romans 14, 8, if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. First Thessalonians 4.16, the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Glory, we have fellowship in his glory. Colossians 3, 4, when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. This one's interesting. Ephesians 2, 6, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in Christ. This is present tense. We are now seated in heaven in Christ. And then in the golden chain of redemption, Romans 8.30 ends with, moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called, whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified. This is union with Christ. It, like I said earlier, underlies the entire order of salvation, from election all the way through to our glorification. Yes, sir? We participate in his ascension. He has brought us up to himself, I suppose. I don't know, that's an interesting kind of question. I suppose you'd have to say that. For us to be seated with him in the heavenly places, we had to get there. Which is a good lead-in to not. Because it would be easy in thinking about all this wording of, well, we're united to Christ and we partake in all of these things, including glory, to say, well, kind of where's the edge here? Where does Christ stop and I begin? Are we absorbed here into Christ? Are we mixed together? Yeah, Joby? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. So the question is, essentially, what does all saints mean? Who all does that include? That's why I started with referring to paragraph two of the previous chapter on the church, because there is a distinction to be made there about who are all saints. It's not people that are canonized. And it's also not everybody that says, oh yeah, I'm a Christian, right? They cannot have an error averting the foundation. They must believe and trust in Christ alone for their salvation. Now, does that mean they have to be a strict subscription 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith active member? They should be. But no, right? But yeah, that is a good one to call out. And actually, if you look at paragraph two of this chapter, it talks about who, in what places we are to exercise this communion. Because it's not just the local church. It is the local church, but it's not only the local church. And it's not even only fellow sister churches in our association. It's all believers everywhere who call on the name of the Lord. That we have communion with this people. We are all citizens of a new country. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. So let's talk about this not, not made thereby one person with him. Kind of went down a hole reading about this. So 17th century sects were interpreting union with Christ in this mystical, pantheistic sense. Kind of we all, it kind of has a, almost an Eastern religion feel to it of just we're all kind of, we all just become one with, God, you know, we're all God kind of thing, right? Paragraph three of the Westminster Confession actually has a lengthier section on this than ours. Ours is just basically they're not made there by one person with him, full stop. I like what it says here in the Westminster Confession, it expands on that a bit. This communion which the saints have with Christ doth not make them in any wise partakers of the substance of his Godhead or to be equal with Christ in any respect, whither of which to affirm is impious and blasphemous. Now, keep in mind, we're talking about doctrine of God here. The language is very specific. These words, substance of his Godhead, there's a lot of arguments in church history over things like the words substance, essence, nature, being, right? So we have to be very precise when we talk about this. The term that you might hear for being made one person with God, you might run into the term theosis, or deification, and you will find, pretty easily, people that believe it. It's not one of those things that people get accused of, and then they're like, no, no, no, no, no. You will pretty easily find groups that do hold to deification of some sort. And I just put these verses up as examples of how, again, if you're not being precise in your language and how you're understanding things, and you're not comparing scripture with scripture, and you have a preacher that knows how to play fast and loose with God's word, you might be like, huh, maybe we are made one with God. 2 Peter 1.4, we are partakers of the divine nature. Colossians 2.9, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and you have been filled in him. So you've got the fullness of deity in Christ and look at that, you've been filled. We're both filled. And then I heard this one in the Word of Faith church that I grew up in. Psalm 82.6, you are gods and all of you are children of the Most High. It's a lowercase, and they would say that there's a lowercase g, but it's still God. What do you make of that? It does not say we become divine. But you can see how somebody would say, take that word partakers, and depending on how you understand it, they would say, well, maybe we, part of his nature, We get that nature. And then what does it mean that the being of God and our being are now somehow woven or mixed together? It's not what this verse is saying at all. But I just want to show a few just to give you an idea. You may encounter this, and I don't want you to be shocked that the Bible says in Psalm, you are gods. I'm not gonna get into breaking down what that's about today, but I just wanted to show it to you so you could think about it, read about it on your own after this. I wanna take this guy's commentary on the topic and just read it, because it's so good. And I dare anybody but Pastor Steve to pronounce his last name. Anybody know how to say that name? All right, go ahead. John Cahoon. John Cahoon. So this is a Scottish minister from the 1800s named John Cahoon and he gave a series of sermons on various doctrines and one he gave on union with Christ and dedicated a couple of paragraphs to this topic. So I'll just read it because I think it's very helpful. He gives two reasons, or two kinds of unions, that our union with Christ is not. In the first place, it is not an essential union. The union of the Father and Holy Spirit to the person of the Son is an essential union, but the union of believers to the Son is not so. The person of the eternal father and that of the adorable spirit are so united to the person of Christ as to be one with him by an essential union or a union of substance or essence. The persons of believers are so united to him as also to be one with him, but it is not by an essential union, else they should be gods, possessed of every divine attribute of which he is possessed. Although Christ and believers are one, and he and the Father are one, yet this is not to be understood with respect to the kind of union, but with regard only to the resemblance between the one kind and the other. God has an essence, because he is an essence. We do not gain Christ's or God's essence in our union with Christ. Neither is it a personal union. Think about the person of Christ, the persons of the Trinity. It is indeed a union of persons, but it is not a personal union. The union of the divine and human natures in Christ is personal. His person still continues to be but one. Whereas believers, though they are united to Christ, make not one person with Him, they only constitute one mystical body." We are the body of Christ. "...of which He is the head." An apostle says to the believers at Corinth, now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular. If the union of Christ with believers were personal, if they and he together made but one person, they might, in that case, consider themselves joint mediators with him and equally entitled to the honor of meriting eternal life. If I could say me and Christ are literally the same person, then that means I don't need him anymore. I don't need his work because it's my work already, right? I don't need him to stand before God on my behalf because I'm standing before God on my behalf. This sublime expression, which he uttered in ancient prophecy, would no longer be true. I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me. But to suppose this would be blasphemous. That's a reference to Isaiah 63, which prophesies Christ's work for us, which he does alone. Now, who would dare identify themselves as a joint mediator with Christ? A few people. So I had to dig a little bit to find what was going on in the 1500s, 1600s, where people might say these sort of things. And I found this, this is called a broadsheet, a catalog of the several sects and opinions in England and other nations with a brief rehearsal of their false and dangerous tenets. This is from 1647. And you can see there's pictures here. They just sort of lump them all together, like here's all the bad folks, right? Here's all the weirdo Christian sects that are running around, and they have interesting pictures of them. The one at the top with all the words above it is a Welsh blasphemer. There's a Jesuit next to him, an Armenian, an Aryan, an Adamite who's naked. I didn't look them up to know what's going on with that, but apparently there was some kind of nudist sect. A Libertine, which I really like that one. Can you tell what he's doing? Yeah, so he's taking a pickax to the Ten Commandments. An anti-scripturian, I don't know what those are, a soul sleeper, and it says this one, he did lay such spirits were foretold to rise in the later days. The one at the top says, one Welsh man was, he laid, he was Christ, so he said he was Christ, false Christ. Then you got the Anabaptists, And then next to them, the familists. And then the seekers and the divorcers were the guys literally like beating his wife. So clearly this is not meant to be a list you want to be on, right? And if you look at English history, you don't want to be on a list of the the nonconformists that are problematic, right? And in fact, our confession was in part written as an apologetic to say, we're not like these people, right? Don't lump us in with them, especially the Anabaptists. And the familists were associated with, often associated with the Anabaptists. And in 1580 Queen Elizabeth issued a proclamation condemning them and their writings and they actually undertook an effort to eliminate them So it was a dangerous thing to be on a list like this now the family's really quickly the family of love Founded in 1540 by Henrik Niklaes and According to the global Mennonite encyclopedia. He saw himself as sent by God to be a new mediator to continue the work of Christ. He believed that his followers should become one with Christ by imitating his life and spiritually experiencing his death on the cross. Being successful in this meant to become deified and perfect. This group eventually sort of merged or disappeared into the Quakers. But this is the sort of thing that was going on around the time our confession was written that they were dealing with. What do we have today? Who says today that they are one person with Christ? Yes, so the Mormons, so I guess there's a couple of categories I would break this into. One would be the ones where they would very simply deny that they become the same being as God. They would just say they become their own God, right? And Mormons are like that, right? That assuming that they do everything they're supposed to do, that they could maybe get their own planet or things like that. I don't know Mormon theology that well, but it definitely has that, And that's why they have celestial marriage and all these other things. Transubstantiation, well that's, so transubstantiation is the body and the blood turning to literal body and blood. Yeah, so there's a re-sacrifice happening there. I don't know, I don't know Roman Catholic theology enough to say that that would imply some mixture of essence or person. But they definitely, I mean, this is where you get the church mouse, eats the bite, and do they get sanctified? You know, like, there's definitely a sort of magical quality to it that does, it has a mystical tendency. But I don't know that I'd go that far with it, I'm not sure. So another, just real quickly, because we're running out of time. Eastern Orthodoxy. believes in theosis. It is a more mystical, not Western, sort of rigorous doctrinal theology. It is more mystical and does have this idea that we are, in our sanctification, becoming more like God. And I don't just mean more holy, I mean more God. And this is not like, I think if I had one sitting on the front row, they'd be like, yes. This is not like misrepresenting. I mentioned earlier the word of faith movement, the little God's doctrine. If you think about these terms, name it and claim it, decree and declare, God created with his words. And a Pentecostal word of faith believer would say, we can too. We can use our words and use this substance of faith to decree, right? And so there is an idea that we are in some way essentially getting some of those incommunicable attributes, those attributes of God that are not given to us, those parts that are His being alone, One other example is the modern evangelical church. Sometimes you'll run into this idea of like, well, I just need to decrease, Christ needs to increase, which is from the Bible, but the idea of like, I sort of disappear and Christ becomes everything. And so I just become completely passive as Christ becomes completely active, right? So example text that gets used for this, Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Again, twist scripture this way, you can understand it in a way that, oh, I'm not even here anymore. What does the Bible say about this? One is Isaiah 42.8, I am the Lord. That is my name and my glory. I will not give to another nor my praise to carved images. He does not share. His glory is his alone. There is one God and we are not him. We must maintain this distinction. As we look at the doctrine of the union of Christ as wonderful and beautiful as it is, we must understand that there is a limit to this union, and it ends where there is a creator and there is a creature. God has attributes that are his alone. He is unchangeable. He's impassable. He's simple. He is self-existent. And really, if you think about it, this whole impassibility debate was really about making God more like us by giving him emotions. But God is not like us. The confession in chapter 7 of God's covenant, the distance between God and the creature is so great. I think there's another good one to think through is in Romans 1, it talks about the order. and man worshiping the creeping things. And I found this quote from Dr. Dolezal. He said, to deny the distinction between the creature and the creator would seem to lead inevitably toward either a partial or a complete identification of God with the creaturely order, something that Romans 1, 22 to 25, would judge to be idolatrous. Because if we became God, then we could worship ourselves, and we would be worshiping the creature rather than the creator. So we are not absorbed, we do not lose our identity, we do not cease to have obligations and do good works. A lot of people want to believe this. I suppose you could break that down several ways, but one way of thinking about it is we know we are sinners. We know judgment is coming. and we fear standing before God all by ourselves and being condemned. So what's the way out? Well, maybe we just become one with Him, and then it's kind of a shell game where now we don't have to stand on our own anymore. But that's not what Scripture teaches. Now, Satan wants us to despair by telling us that we're gonna stand there before God in our own sins, in Adam. But my confidence is that I will grow and be sanctified, and it rests not in myself, but that I am a man in Christ. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the encouragement of knowing that we are found, not in ourselves, not in Adam, but in Christ. And that your spirit has worked in our hearts, has made us a new creation, given us a new family, and that we can trust wholly in you. Thank you for giving us the gift of your son. Thank you for his work, which he does for us even now. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.