Thoughts on Union with Christ

I’ve been doing some study on the Sacraments lately — particularly on John Calvin’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper — and the often spoken-of concept of “union with Christ” keeps coming up. Most of the times that I’ve heard and read about union with Christ, it’s in one of two senses: either that union that comes when one comes to believe the Gospel (ie: “being saved” or “salvific union”), or that final and full union that believers will experience at Christ’s return and eternally thereafter (“eschatological union”).

Seems to me, though, that there’s a third sense — distinct from, but closely related to, the first — of “union with Christ” that’s rarely spoken of (at least in those terms): that union with Christ that comes by being united to a local church. That union can start at a number of points in one’s life. For some, it begins at infancy when their parents raise them in the church. (And for those of us in the Reformed tradition, that union is signified and sealed at a child’s baptism.) For others, it begins after they’ve been connected to a church through regular participation with them and have formed good relationships with and within that body, whether or not they yet believe. (There’s something to be said for “belonging before believing.”) For still others, it could begin after they’ve already come to faith in Christ (through a parachurch organization or having the Gospel proclaimed to them by a friend), and then they find a church to be a part of.

It’s interesting to me that, in all three of the above examples, this sense of union with Christ is wholly independent of whether or not an individual has yet (or will ever) come to believe the Gospel. If that’s the case, is it really union with Christ?

I’d say “yes.” Union with Christ’s people is indeed true union with Christ. No, it’s not salvific union, just as salvific union isn’t the same as eschatological union… but it’s true union with Christ nonetheless. Maybe it’s a difference of degree — or something like the difference between dating, engagement, and marriage. (Not a perfect analogy, I know.)

Just some scattered thoughts. Am I out to lunch? Is it too confusing to use the term in this way? What do you think?