we must carefully distinguish between the five stages in which the union with Immanuel
unfolds itself:
The firstof these five stages lies in the decree of God. From the very moment that the
Father gave us to the Son, we were really His own, and a relation was established between
Him and us, not weak and feeble, but so deep and extensive that all subsequent relations
with Immanuel spring from this fundamental root-relation alone.
The second stage is in the Incarnation, when, adopting our flesh, entering into our
nature, He made that preexisting, essential relation actual; when the bond of union passed
from the divine will, i.e.,from the decree, into actual existence. Christ in the flesh carries
all believers in the loins of His grace, as Adam carried all the children of men in the loins
of his flesh. Hence, not figuratively nor metaphorically, but in the proper sense, Scripture
teaches that when Jesus died and arose we died and arose with Him and in Him.
336The third stage begins when we ourselves appear not in our birth, but in our regenera-
tion; when the Lord God begins to work supernaturally in our souls; when in love’s hour
Eternal Love conceives in us the child of God. Until then the mystic union was hid in the
decree and in the Mediator; but in and by regeneration the person appears with whom the
Lord Jesus will establish it. However, not regeneration first and then something new; viz.,
union with Christ, but in the very moment of completed regeneration that union becomes
an internally accomplished fact.
This third stage must be carefully distinguished from the fourth, which begins not with
the quickening, but with the first conscious exercise of faith. For, altho in regeneration the
faculty of faith was implanted, it may for a long time remain inactive; and only when the
Holy Spirit causes it to act, producing genuine faith and conversion in us, is the union with
Christ established subjectively.
This union is notthe subsequent fruit of a higher degree of holiness, but coincides with
the first exercise of faith. Faith which does not live in Christ is no faith, but its counterfeit.
Genuine faith is wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, and all that He imparts to us He draws
from Christ. Hence there may be an apparent or pretended faith without the union with
Christ, but not a real faith. Wherefore it is an assured fact that the first sigh of the soul, in
its first exercise of faith, is the result of the wonderful union of the soul with its Surety.
We do not deny, however, that there is a gradual increase of the conscious realization,
of the lively feeling, and of the free enjoyment of this union. A child possesses its mother
from the first moment of its existence: but the sensible enjoyment of its mother’s love
gradually awakens and increases with the years, until he fully knows what a treasure God
has given him in his mother. And thus the consciousness and enjoyment of what we have
in our Savior becomes graduallyclearer and deeper, until there comes a moment when we
fully realize how rich God has made us in Jesus. And by this many are led to think that their
union with Christ dates from that moment. This is only apparently so. Altho then they be-
XXVI. The Mystical Union with Immanuel