Thank you once again for your
welcome. It's a pleasure for us to be here, and I trust the
Lord will bless our worship together this afternoon. If you had to have a little look
at my notes here, you would see that my intention was, when I
stood up before you to read Ephesians chapter one, that this man read
it for me. I didn't ask him to, but he did
it just the same. So turn with me please to 2 Timothy
chapter 1. 2 Timothy chapter 1. It's nice when the Lord brings
our thoughts together in such ways. 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the will of God, according to the promise of life which
is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my dearly beloved
son, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus
our Lord. I thank God whom I serve from
my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance
of thee in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see
thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy.
When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee,
which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice, and
I am persuaded that in thee also. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance
that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the
putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the
spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God. who hath saved us and called
us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the
appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death
and hath brought life and immortality to light, through the gospel. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Let's pray together. Almighty God, we approach thee
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we dare not come
unto thee upon any other ground or footing. For we, by thy goodness
and grace towards us, have realized the unworthiness that is part
and parcel of our humanity and our nature, and we see in ourselves
a sinfulness and unworthiness to stand before thy presence. But we thank thee this afternoon
that thou hast given us cause and reason to be bold in thy
presence, and to present our petitions before thee, and to
bring our worship unto thee. For thou hast caused us by the
gift of faith, by the direction of thy word, by the application
of thy spirit, thou hast caused us to look unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. And we thank thee that in him
we see a way of approach not upon our own merits but upon
the merit of thy dear son and upon his blood and righteousness.
Therefore we thank thee for the confidence that is ours this
afternoon that we may approach thee and we may come waiting
for thy blessing and thy good upon us. We thank thee for the
promise of thy presence with us We thank thee that the Lord
Jesus Christ has promised to be closer to us even than a brother,
that the Holy Spirit is our constant comforter, that the very glory
of God dwells in the midst of his people. And we pray that
thou will be pleased this afternoon to encourage and comfort and
bless us. to open our spiritual eyes, to
give us a glimpse of the loveliness of the Saviour, and to show us
what it means to be united to Him. We pray that the reading
of Thy word, the singing of Thy praises, the prayers that ascend
unto Thee, and the meditation upon those things which Thou
hast said and done, might be to our spiritual nourishment
and growth, and that we may be brought afresh to praise Thy
holy name for the great things which thou hast accomplished.
In Jesus' name we ask this, for his sake, amen. It is my purpose this afternoon
and this early evening, if the Lord will allow, to bring a few
thoughts to you based upon the union that we have with the Lord
Jesus Christ. But I want in this earlier opportunity
to speak of our Saviour, to think about the meaning of our union
with Christ, where it originates and what it means. And later
on this afternoon, to think about the implications of that union
as far as our life upon this earth is concerned. This afternoon,
then, I want to take as my verse the ninth verse in the passage
that we read from 2 Timothy chapter 1, that this is the work of God
who has saved us and called us with unholy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. We shall never fully comprehend,
I dare say, even in eternity, the full and infinite wonder
of the love of God towards us. We will never be able to understand
its extent, its depth, its height, its breadth. I could spend the
next hour here this afternoon presenting before you all the
superlatives that I can imagine, and yet I would not begin to
embark upon a true meaning or explanation of the love of God
towards His people. In the United Kingdom, we have
a little chorus that the children sometimes sing in Sunday school. It goes like this, it says, Jesus'
love is very wonderful. It's so high that you can't get
over it. It's so low that you can't get
under it. It's so wide that you can't get
round it. O wonderful love. There's a poem that Francis Ridley
Havergill once wrote. It was called Everlasting Love. It goes like this. Yet there it stands, O love surpassing
thought, so bright, so grand, so clear, so true, so glorious. Love infinite, love tender, love
unsought, love changeless, love rejoicing, love victorious. And this great love for us in
boundless store, God's everlasting love, what would we more? And I think there's a loveliness
in the sentiments of that couplet. Here we see in the poet's phrase,
picture of the extensiveness and the wonder of the love of
God for his people. God's everlasting love. What would we more? God's love
for us is the origin and the source of our union with the
Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever we think of that great
work of salvation, we must trace it back to the love of God for
us. In the epistle to the Romans,
the Apostle Paul says, the fifth chapter, the eighth verse, God
commendeth his love towards us. The love of God is revealed to
us. The love that God has for his
people, God commendeth his love towards us. It has a practical
manifestation. It is demonstrated in time. It is revealed in the outworking
and outflowing of the purposes of God. God commendeth his love
towards us. In that, While we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. And that speaks to us of the
way in which the Lord Jesus Christ's sacrifice in the cross is the
manifestation of God's love to his people. We speak often of
the particularity of the purpose of Christ's death on the cross. And sometimes people say, you
know, I understand that, I understand that there is a definiteness,
a distinctiveness, a particularity, even a limitation in the extent
of the work of Christ upon the cross. And I say, yes, that's
true. That is the biblical testimony
that the Lord Jesus Christ gave His life for the sheep. He did not pray for the whole
world. He did not die for the whole
world. He prayed for his people. He
died for his people. There is a particularity, a limitation
in the extent of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it
is for those that were chosen before time and committed into
his hands. But we see that sometimes when
people say, yes, I understand that, they go on to say, nevertheless,
there is a desire on the part of God to save everyone. Nevertheless,
there is a love of God for everyone. Notice Paul. God commendeth his
love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died
for us. You cannot hold a particularity,
you cannot hold a distinctiveness in the extent of the death of
Christ and yet hold a universality as far as the love of God is
concerned because the love of God is revealed in the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ for us. Those that God loved Christ
died for. Here we see the source of this
union that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ. The love of God
is strong It has a power that comes and accomplishes and achieves
the things that are desired. There is something in the part
of God, something that God has towards His people. He calls
it His love, and that love goes forth from Him in a powerful
and in an achieving and accomplishing purpose. Lord, God does not love
passively. It's not a universal, general
love which has a good feeling towards everyone. It is a go-getting
kind of love. It is a love that is active and
achieves its end. A love which reveals the passion
of God for His people. In Jeremiah chapter 31 verse
3 we read, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. This
is God's love from everlasting. I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. Therefore, With loving kindness
have I drawn thee. The love of God goes forth, the
everlasting love of God goes forth in the purposes of God
for the accomplishment and the end whereunto he sets it. And so the first point that I
want to make this afternoon as I think about this union of Christ
is that we are chosen in Christ by the love of God. The love
of God set upon His elect from everlasting, from before the
beginning of time, is that love which directs and dictates the
extent of the election of God. God chose whom He loved. God elected whom He loved. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2
and verse 13, we read these words, Brethren, beloved of the Lord,
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Here are these
two ideas locked together in this one verse. Here is the love
of God that directs his purpose, his purpose of choice, his purpose
of election revealed to us by the apostle. Brethren, beloved
of the Lord, God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Those who are chosen to salvation,
those who are the elect of God, are they who are the beloved
of the Lord. God's choice of certain individuals
from amongst the sons of men is based upon this everlasting
love which He has for them. His desire to do them good is
based upon His affection for them. His work in time His labours
in the great purposes of grace, His end in the everlasting covenant
which He established, is to do His people good because He loves
them. And out of that love, He has
this great desire to do them well. And so the writer Paul
to the Ephesians chapter 1 says, according as he hath chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, that he should
do us good. What is that good? He says that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love. That's the good that God for
His people. He would make us holy. He would
make us blameless and He would do so for the love that He has
towards us. That blamelessness is our justification
and that justification was the accomplishment of the Lord Jesus
Christ as He died upon the cross to fulfil the purpose of His
Father's love towards us. by this election in the Lord
Jesus Christ. God has joined His people, the
people of His love, His elect people, He has joined them together
with Christ. This union that we have with
the Lord Jesus Christ, we are chosen in Him. The love of God
is revealed in Him. He was sent in order to die,
that they might be redeemed, and they might be forever united
to God, united to Christ, that we might be made holy, fit, and
blameless before Him in love to stand in His presence eternally. And in our verse that we have
before us in chapter one, verse nine of 2 Timothy, we read that
he hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according
to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. God has
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. He has placed us in Christ. He has united us to Christ, that
that elective purpose might have its end, that we may be conformed
to the image of Christ, that we may be melded together with
Him, and we may be brought into the spiritual blessings of Christ's
union. We are as his people, we are
as his church, we are as those united to him in the eternal
purpose, elect, committed into the hands of Christ, committed
for safekeeping, committed for preservation, committed that
we would never be plucked out of his hands, that we may be
eternally safeguarded, that he, should, though we are fallen,
though we are sinful, deal with every problem, deal with every
sin, and bring us in Him to the Father as a pure and holy people. So Jude, in his little epistle
at the end of our New Testament, writes that it is he, Jude, who
writing, rights to them that are sanctified by God the Father
and preserved in Jesus Christ. and called, set apart by God
the Father, preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ, united to
the Lord Jesus Christ in the eternal election of God, that
we might stand before Him, a sanctified, holy, blameless people. and Christ undertook to fulfil
all the obligations of that deliverance. John 10 verse 28 says, I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of my hand. Why? Because I love them. Why? Because I have united them
to their safe guardian. Because I have committed them
into the care of my Son. Why shall they never perish?
Because God himself in the person of the God-man has undertaken
to secure their every well-being and deliver them holy and blameless
before his Father's face. We are united to Christ in the
elective purpose of God. And we are united to Christ in
the relationship of love that he has for us. One of the finest
ways in which our union with the Lord Jesus Christ is presented,
one of the most personal ways, if you like, is the picture that
we have in Ephesians chapter 5. of that bride and conjugal
relationship that the Church of God has. Just turn with me
to Ephesians chapter 5, if you will. Look at verse 25. Let's read it together. Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. This is talking about the union
that we have with him. Just as a husband and a wife
are united in one flesh, Just as the two become one and are
seen before God as one flesh, so this is the picture that we
have in marriage. This is the picture that marriage
speaks of, the union that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ,
this conjugal, this bringing together, this bridal union that
we have with Him. It is to this end that he might
present us spotless and without blemish. So, says Paul in verse
28, ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that
loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hateth his
own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord
the church. For we are members of his body,
of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and be joined unto his wife, and they
too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the Church. You see, we have
a picture in marriage. The Bible speaks of the great
mystery of Christ's union with the Church. The honourable state
of marriage between a man and a woman is a picture of Christ's
union with his church and there is no closer union described,
there is no closer union in our world. That union is closer than
even the mother and child. It is closer even than the father
and son. It is a union which is forged
when a man leaves. his father and his mother, and
is joined together with his wife. There is a oneness of flesh. There is a oneness and a unity
in that picture that speaks to us of the unity that we have
with the Lord Jesus Christ as his church. Such is the strength,
such is that union together, that it is inextricable. That's why the Lord constantly
presents throughout scriptures his hatred for separation in
a divorce relationship or in a breach relationship. He says
he does not like that, he does not want that, for it is a picture
that is given to men of the union that we have with Jesus Christ. Marriage is God's picture to
the world of Christ's eternal union with his church, of Christ's
eternal union with you and with me. And I dare say that the devil
knows that too. And that is The reason why, from
the very beginning, Satan's ploy has been to undermine that conjugal
relationship. What was the very first thing
that Satan did in the garden? He got between the man and his
wife. That's the very first thing Satan
did. He came between Adam and Eve. He came to the woman. He selected
her. He tried to break up that relationship. We see that that has been his
plan all down through the ages, to play men and women off against
one another, to usurp the order, to come between those that God
has placed together. In our age, we are reflecting
upon the fact that marriage is under attack. Satan has used
so many devices to undermine marriage. He suggested that there's
no need for marriage at all, and we find that many live together
in an unmarried state. They seek to have all the benefits
of their physical union, they seek to have all the privileges
of marriage, but they deny the bond and the commitment that
there is to it. We have seen in the way that
same-sex marriage has been foisted upon our society, that really
it is an Christian activity, because it speaks about a breach
between the union that God has made between Christ and His church. If Satan can deface marriage,
then he can hide that significance of Christ's union with His church. The irony is that there are so
many Armenian free will groups at the moment contending for
the maintenance of the marriage union between a man and a woman
only. when the reality is that they
have no real understanding of the meaning of that union if
they cannot discern the particularity of God's choice from His heart
of love towards His elect of a people whom He has identified
as a bride for His Christ, for His Son, and joined together
with Christ and made them His bride. His people. That is what
the Word of God tells us. Our union with Christ is pictured,
prefigured, in the marriage relationship. The Lord Jesus Christ, as His
Father, has a love for that chosen people, so the Lord Jesus Christ
has an everlasting love for that people. We ought not to think
that the love that God has towards us is any more recent on the
part of Christ than it is on the part of the Father. We rightly
track back our election by God the Father to the love that God
the Father has to the elect. But Christ has that same love
towards the elect. It's not that God the Father
loved us first and showed us to Christ and Christ fell in
love with us also, as if to say that Christ's love was later
in time than the Father's. But rather the delights of that
people, the love of Christ for that people is ceterminous with
the fathers. It is an eternal love for them. And here in Proverbs chapter
8 verse 31 we read these words, My delights were with the sons
of men. Christ is eternally delighted
in the sons of men. He looks upon the sons of men
and he adores them. He looks upon these chosen vessels
and He loves them with a passion. Isaiah 54 verse 5 says, For thy
maker is thy husband, the Lord of hosts is His name, and thy
Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. The God of the whole earth shall
He be called. He is the husband of his people. He is the one who loves his bride. He is the one who delights in
her and has done from all eternity. See the way in which the love
of God and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be magnified,
is to be recognized as being powerful, as being active, as
achieving and accomplishing the end to which it is sent. This
is no general love. This is no universal love, which
cannot accomplish that which it desires. This is not a failed
love, which says, I love you, I love you, I love you, and I
only wish that you would come to me. This is the love which
goes and gets. This is a love that finds that
bride, though she be naked, though she be covered in sin, though
she be covered in blood, though she should be lying in her own
filth and says, I love you and I will cleanse you. I will redeem
you. I will save you. I will bring
you to myself. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
great husband of the bride, as the great lover of his people,
delights in them. from all eternity. We are united
to Christ in the elective purpose of God, and we are united to
Christ in this conjugal relationship, as He, loving us, calls us His
own, desires us as His eternal companion, and sees us and identifies
us as the bride of His choice. In the book of Revelation, we
see John, John, that one whom Jesus loved, being called by
the angel. Come hither, come and see this. Come on, let's have a look and
see this bride. Come hither, I will show thee
the bride, the Lamb's wife. This is lovely. You know, you're
not supposed to see this. You're not supposed to see the
bride before the wedding day. You're not supposed to see the
dress before the wedding day. You're not supposed to see how
she's all decked out in her finery and her beauty. All the planning,
all the work, all the labor that has gone into the presentation
of the bride at that moment on her wedding day when she is revealed
to the witnesses and she is revealed to the spouse, her bridegroom,
and she comes out in all of her beauty. That's the moment when
we see her. Come on, I'll give you a quick
look. Come on, see her now. Come and see her. Come hither.
I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he showed me
that great city, that holy Jerusalem. descending out of heaven from
God. The church, the bride, the love
of Christ's life, the people for whom he gave everything,
that he might redeem them and he might gather them to himself. Ephesians 1.4 again, we touched
upon it. according as he hath chosen us
in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. The reason why traditionally
the bride has been bedecked in white was to speak of her purity,
to speak of her holiness, to speak of her perfectness, her
undefiled state, her virgin condition. And here we see the holiness
of the Church being presented to us. Here we see the loveliness
that Christ has made his church, that Christ has secured for his
church, bedecking his bride as she comes in holiness and blamelessness
and purity and perfection out from the very presence of God
to be united and joined to him. Isaiah 61 verse 10 says, I will
greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my
God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He
hath covered me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom
decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself
with her jewels. This is what Christ has accomplished
for us. we see the union that we have
with him in this conjugal relationship that is presented to us in Scripture. That union that we have with
Christ is spoken of as a union forged God's elective choice
of a people for himself, a union that is described in its intensity
in the conjugal relationship that exists between the bridegroom
and his bride, Christ and his church. And it is explained to
us also in the context of a body. Again, we read this in Corinthians,
that we are united to Christ as his body. He is the head and
we are the members. It speaks to us of this union
that we have with him. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12,
verse 12, we read, for as the body is one and hath many members,
and all the members of that one body being members, sorry, being
many, are one body, so also is Christ. We are united as the
church. We are united as the individuals
that we are in this world to Christ as one body. We sometimes
speak of that as the federal headship. It's the idea that
there is one that is at the head and there are many members which
unite together under that one head and make one total body. I guess you know a little bit
about that in your political structures here in Australia. You have the states and you have
the head government and the States all fall under the authority
of the head. That's the picture that we have
with our relationship with Christ. We have been united to him. We
don't stand alone. We stand in him. We don't stand
as one part and someone as another part and someone as another,
but united together, we are pictured in him, in his entirety. Christ, the head of the body,
And as Christ is the head, so he carries the authority, he
carries the responsibility, he carries the obligations for the
whole body. He has the responsibility for
all the members of the body. He is contracted to fulfill all
the obligations for each individual. We call it a contract or we call
it a covenant. It's the same idea. And this
covenant was entered into by God the Father and God the Son
for the benefit of those who were united to Christ. He undertook to protect them. to safeguard them and to deliver
them. He undertook to provide for all
their needs. There is a sufficiency in Him
because He is the head of the body. God looks and He says,
this is what I require. Who does He require it from?
He requires it from Christ because Christ is the head and we are
united to Him as His body. The covenant of grace is made
with Christ, it is not made with us. Christ undertakes as the
head of the body to represent us as we, his people, are united
to him. Lord Jesus Christ, because of
the love that he had for that bride, because of the love that
he had for that chosen people of God, covenanted with the Father
and with the Spirit to represent and preserve his elect whom God,
upon the basis of that promise that Christ made, committed into
his hand. So the covenant was made with
Christ, and Christ undertook as the federal head of his people
to represent them in every need that they had before God. Do
you see the significance of that? If the Lord Jesus Christ has
accomplished everything, if the Lord Jesus Christ is all, if
everything is completed, then there is nothing left to do.
There is no obligation that falls upon the hands or the feet or
the knees or the hips or the arms because the head, the body
united has taken and undertaken every obligation and fulfilled
it. Christ the Federal Head has accomplished
everything for those that are united to Him. It is as though
The Lord Jesus Christ, when he accomplished all that was required
of him, accomplished it for his people, and they were regarded
as having accomplished it also in him. It was as though God
dealt with the single man. and all of His church in that
single man. When the Lord Jesus Christ died
on the cross, we died in Him. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
raised from the dead, we were raised in Him. When the Lord
Jesus Christ was ascended into His Father's presence, we ascended
in Him. Therefore, says Paul to the Ephesians,
we are seated in heavenly places in Him. All blessings are ours
in Him. And we think, well, we're here
in the world. Yes, we are. But we are seated together in
heavenly places in Christ. And what is yet to come will
be the entering into the fullness of that union. It will be the
consummation of that union which already exists. The marriage
feast of the Lamb has yet to take place. but we are betrothed
to him and he has accomplished everything that is needful as
our federal head for the deliverance and salvation of his people. Psalm 89 verse 2 says, for I
have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever. Thy faithfulness
shalt thou establish in the very heavens. I have made a covenant
with my chosen. God the Father has made a covenant
with his Son. I have made a covenant with my
chosen. I have sworn unto David my servant. Thy seed will I establish for
ever and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah. the covenant that God made with
The Son, the Father made with the Son, is an old covenant. It was a covenant established
before the world began. It is a covenant which assured,
before the world began, the deliverance of that chosen people. That people
who were loved before time. That people of whom it was said
there would be a blamelessness and a holiness secured for them
in time. as the Lord Jesus Christ undertook
as their federal head to fulfil every obligation on their part. That is why we sometimes speak
of these blessings being ours from eternity. The Church is
blessed with an eternal holiness in Christ. The Church is blessed
with an eternal sanctification in Christ. The people of God
are blessed with an eternal justification in Christ. We stand in Christ
and as Christ stood and represented us in the eternal presence of
his Father and said, I will accomplish all that is needful, So his people
were regarded in him, united to him, as having already accomplished
everything that was needful. Micah 5 verse 2 says this, But
thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands
of Judah, Yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is
to be ruler in Israel, that is the spiritual Israel, the ruler
in Israel, his people, his church, whose goings forth have been
from old, from everlasting. He is the ruler of his people
from everlasting. We are eternally united to Christ. Titus 1 verse 2 says, In hope
of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the
world began. Promised to us? No, promised
to his son. and we in him are the beneficiaries
of that promise that God has made. The blessings of the people
of God, the blessings of the church are secure in the hands
of our federal head. Nothing can harm us, nothing
can touch us, nothing can remove us out of his hand because we
are united to him. Isaiah 54 verse 10 says, the
mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness
shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace
be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. To Timothy
1 verse 9 is our verse, who hath saved us and called us with an
holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his
own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. We are united to Christ in the
eternal election of God. We are united to Christ in the
betrothal that we have in that relationship of joining where
God placed us in his Son. We are united to him in that
federal headship as he takes upon himself every obligation
on our behalf. And we are united to him, finally
and in closing, we are united to him as he has become surety
for us. There is a legal dimension to
this that God in his holiness honours and upholds. In the covenant of grace we see
Christ's obligations applied to him in strict accordance to
God's holiness and justice. Christ has taken upon himself
our obligations as his obligations. He is legally bound in the terms
of the covenant of grace to provide all that is demanded of us. The law looked upon Christ, our
surety, and He accomplished everything that was required of it. We,
as one with Him, are united to Him in that eternal union, as
He has become substitute and surety for His own. That suretyship of Christ, that
relationship that He has entered into, means that He is our substitute,
He is our Redeemer, and He is our Saviour. He has become the
bondsman for the debtor. We incurred the debt. He took
that debt to himself. We transgressed the law. He paid
that price in his own body. He took the sin that we had committed
and it was placed upon his shoulders, placed upon his account and he
paid the price as our surety. He stands for us and we in Him,
we are bound together in union with Him. For love, for love,
the Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily undertook to be liable for every
requirement of His chosen people. that God had of them. For every last detail, for every
small iota, for everything that could ever be required of them,
by a holy God, by his holy law, by everything in time and in
eternity, Christ stood for them and said, I will be their surety. I will provide everything that
they require. And in the covenant of grace,
God agreed to accept that offer that Christ made. That's the
great work of the suretyship of Christ. That's the great effect
of the union that we have with Him. Upon that basis, Christ
was bound to pay for every sin that we committed. Christ was
bound to make satisfaction for every debt that we incurred. He takes the sins of His people
to Himself by imputation. He bestows His righteousness
to them by imputation. That great transfer takes place. Have His people sinned? Has the
church betrayed her calling? Has his people sinned against
the law of God? Then Christ takes that obligation,
takes that sin, takes that transgression, and he becomes subject to the
curse for them. This is our suretyship union
in Christ. Everything Christ suffered, everything
he endured, everything he bore on that tree was for them. How then can we talk about a
universal atonement? How then can we talk about a
universal love? How can we talk about a universal
redemption? How can we say that Jesus Christ
died for everyone if he took every last sin upon himself there
on the cross and stood as surety in that union that he made with
his people? He died there for his bride. He died there for the people
that had been committed into his hand. He undertook to deliver
everyone of his elect, everyone that comprised that body of his
bride. He died for them, not for others,
but for those who were in eternal union with him at God's choice
and behest. that's his people, that's his
sheep. Those are they for whom he died,
his bride, his church, his own dearly beloved. And they and
they alone are united to him in the covenant of eternal grace. Our blessings as his church,
as his people, do not begin at our conversion. They don't begin at our regeneration. They don't begin when we are
first preserved or secured in even the days of They begin in the eternal purpose
of God to save us and to unite us with his Son. Paul writes
to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30, But of him that
is of God the Father are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made
unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption. That is our state. That is our
position. Christ is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification and redemption. We don't make
our own wisdom, our own righteousness, our own redemption or our own
sanctification. Christ is made unto us all of
these graces and has eternally been so as we have been united
together with Him. is the eternal union we have
in Him. for eternity past, throughout
time, and for eternity future, if we in our weakness can even
consider it in those terms. There is a continuity in this.
We are united with Him forever and forever. We can have comfort,
we can have hope, we can see upon the footing and foundation
of this great union with Christ, our confidence being secure,
and our every hope and faith in Him having a good and proper
end. This is the source of our comfort
in these days, that we are united to Him and He has accomplished
everything for our deliverance and for our salvation. May the
Lord be pleased to bless these spots to us. We're going to have something
to eat. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank Thee
for the great union that has been established between Christ
and His Church in the eternal covenant and purposes of the
Godhead. We thank Thee that we are the
beneficiaries of every good and perfect gift that comes from
on high to Thy Church and people through the Lord Jesus Christ
and His representation of us. We thank Thee for that eternal
choice. We thank Thee for that great
work of betrothal. We thank Thee for the fact that
we are united to Him as His body and that He stands as legal surety
for us. And we thank Thee most of all
for the love that put us there. We pray that we will have confidence
and comfort in that love and it will be the great consolation
of our souls. Everlasting love, wonderful love,
victorious love, the love of God, the everlasting love, what
seek we more? Amen.