Hence this glorious, apostolic word should no longer be used in pantheistic sense. As
it is unlawful to say that we are the essential children of God, but must humbly confess,
through Christ, to be His adopted children, so it is not lawful to say that by faith we become
in ourselves bearers of the divine nature; but we must be satisfied with the confession that
through the fellowship of love, God makes us partakers of the vital emotions of the divine
nature, so far as our human capacities are able to experience them.
This brings us back to the unio mystica with Christ, which, altho a great and impenetrable
mystery, ought to be sufficiently defined to keep us from falling into error. We mention,
therefore, its vital points and thus embody our confession concerning it:
1st. The first point is, that the Lord Jesus does not require us to be purified and sanctified
in order to be united to His Person.
Jesus is a Savior not of the righteous, but of sinners. And for this reason He has adopted
the human nature: not as the Baptist teaches, by receiving from heaven a newly created
body, like the Paradise body of Adam, but by becoming partaker, as the little children, of
our flesh and blood. And the same is true of His union with believers. He does not wait
until they are pure and holy, then to be spiritually betrothed unto them; but He betroths
Himself unto them that they may become pure and holy. He is the rich Bridegroom, and
the soul the poverty-stricken bride. In the shining robes of His righteousness He comes and,
finding her black, unsightly, and in her native defilement, He says not, “Get thyself clean,
wise, and rich, and as a rich bride I will betroth thee unto Me”; but, “I take thee just as thou
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art. I say unto thee, in thy blood, Live. Tho thou art poor, betrothing thee, I will make thee
partaker of Myself and of My treasure. But a treasure of thine own thou shalt never possess.”
This point should be firmly established. The Lord Jesus unites unto Himself not the
righteous, but sinners. He marries not the pure and the spotless, but the polluted and the
unclean.
When the holy apostle Paul speaks of a bride whom he will present without spot or
wrinkle, he has reference to something entirely different not to His betrothal with the indi-
vidual, but to the marriage of the Lord Jesus with His Church as a whole. So long as the
Church continues in the earth, separated from Him, she is His bride, until in the fulness of
time, the separation ended, He will introduce her to the rich and full communion of the
united life in glory.
2d. The second point to which we call attention is the time when this union begins.
To say that this unio mystica is the result of faith alone is only partly correct. For
Scripture teaches very distinctly that we were already in the Lord Jesus when He died on
Calvary, and when He arose from the dead; that we ascended with Him unto heaven; and
that for eighteen centuries we have been seated with Him at the right hand of God. Hence
XXVI. The Mystical Union with Immanuel