JOC Calvin 03

The third session on union with Christ was in the hands of the self-effacing Liverpudlian Paul Wells from Aix. It was not entirely easy to follow but here is the conclusion verbatim
In Calvin’s thought union with Christ is the gospel. The incarnation of Christ is the accomplishing focus of the work of the Trinitarian God in his acts of salvation and union with Christ is its operational focus. The Father is the author of life, of election, the one who justifies and adopts on the basis of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
In Christ we find the fountain of life, the mediator with whom we are united in his death and resurrection, issuing in newness of life. The Spirit seals the word of truth in our hearts, bears witness to Christ and is the abiding principle of communion with Christ. From day to day, the Spirit accompanies and mediates the grace of God in Christ to us.
Union with Christ is also central, as we have seen, because it is articulated in harmony with the double grace flowing from the work of Christ, justification and sanctification. The two graces make the potential benefits of Christ actual in the lives of believers. We possess nothing until we are “engrafted into” Christ, until we “put on Christ” and are made “one body” with him, becoming sons of the Father through the secret work of the Spirit. So “we come to enjoy Christ and all his benefits.”¹ None of the benefits of the ordo salutis is possible outside of union with Christ.

Union with Christ is spiritual and mystical, because of Calvin’s articulation of it in terms of participation, engrafting and adoption. However, it remains foreign to the mysticism or deification found in other traditions, because Christ alone is mediator between God and man and it is only in terms of his mediation that the union is construed. “Such a union is possible because Christ took on our human nature, filling it with his virtue. Union with Christ in his humanity is historical, ethical and personal, but not essential. We are not absorbed into Christ, not united to him in such a way that our human personalities are annulled even in the slightest degree.”
Finally, we are united to Christ not just as spirit to Spirit but also, mysteriously, in a bodily sense. As the fountain of life, the risen Christ is the source of present bodily life in the flesh. For Calvin, just as our bodies are animated by our souls, so the living Christ becomes the principle of our life, our bodies are “members of Christ”

“The spiritual union we have with Christ belongs not only to the soul, but also to the body, so much so that we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone (Ep 5.30). Otherwise the hope of the resurrection would be faint indeed were not our union what it is: namely complete and entire.”

Union with Christ is then a Spirit-forged reality by which we on earth are united to the living, risen, eternal Christ in heaven. This will be the governing perspective of Calvin’s sacramental theology, developed in the Institutes IV, which does not lie beyond the scope of this study, but which time has not allowed us to develop:
“This is the wonderful exchange, which, out of his measureless benevolence he has made with us: becoming Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God with him; by his descent to earth he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; accepting our weakness, he has strengthened us by his power; receiving our poverty for himself, he has transferred his wealth to us; taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself, he has clothed us with righteousness.”