We receive from Christ a new holy frame and nature, by which we are enabled for a holy practice, by union and fellowship with him, in like manner
-as Christ lived in our nature by the Father (John 6:57);
-as we receive original sin and death propagated to us from the first Adam (Rom. 5:12,14,16,17);
-as the natural body receives sense, motion and nourishment from the head (Col. 2:19);
-as the branch receives its sap, juice and fructifying virtue from the vine (John 15:4,5);
-as the wife brings forth fruit by virtue of her conjugal union with her husband (Rom. 7:4);
-as stones become a holy temple by being guilt on the foundation, and joined with the chief corner-stone (1 Peter 2:4-6);
-as we receive the nourishing virtue of bread by eating it, and of wine by drinking it (John 6:51,55,57),
-which last resemblance is used to seal to us our communion with Christ in the Lord’s Supper.
-Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Chapter 3, Kindle Loc. 606-12 (Get a free copy for Kindle HERE).
The analogies are miraculous, covenantal, organic, and architectural:
- Miraculous: hypostatic union
- Covenantal: federal headship, marriage
- Organic: mind/body, vine/branch, body/food
- Architectural: cornerstone/foundation/building
All of these entail the idea of ‘indwelling.’
A few pages into Chapter 3, (pg 36 to be exact), the author says “Several learned men of late acknowledge no other union between Christ and believers than such as persons or things wholly separated my have by their mutual relations to each other; and accordingly they interpret the places of Scripture that speak of this union. When Christ is called the Head of the church, they account that a political head or governor is the thing meant. When Christ is said to be in His people, and they in Him, they think that the proper meaning is that Christ’s law, doctrine, grace, salvation, or that godliness is in them, and embraced by them, so that Christ here must not be taken for Christ Himself, but for some other thing wrought in them by Christ…” He goes on, with more examples of how people interpret the Christian life mistakenly as something that is NOT an experience of Christ Himself “indwelling,” but instead something more like moral virtue.
I think these earlier statements juxtaposed against the “true union and fellowship” you quoted above help emphasize dramatically just what is going on here.
That’s a great take-away. Modern evangelicals tend to be all about ‘Jesus in the heart.’ But the idea of Christ’s union with the believer as merely a matter of authority certainly applies to other branches of the church and, I think, applies to the ‘Lordship salvation’ debate that says that one can be saved by being under the Lordship of Christ (confessing Jesus as Lord) without having an intimate, personal relationship with him.
This is something very applicable in raising children. Children of Christian parents are brought up from infancy under the headship of Christ in the sense that he is Lord (by way of their parents and the church); but this is not the ultimate goal we should have for children – we want Christ to indwell them, and them to indwell Christ, by faith.