Closer Than CloseSample

“In the Flesh: Christ’s Union with Us”

So, how exactly are we united to God?

Our union with God is made possible by Christ’s union with us in and through the Incarnation. The “becoming flesh” of the eternal Son of God in the person of Jesus Christ is the quintessential proof that God is willing to unite the fullness of himself with humanity, and that humanity is capable of being united to the fullness of God. If this were not so, the Incarnation of the Son of God could not have happened and salvation would not be possible.

Salvation not possible, you ask? I thought salvation was by grace through faith?

It is. Salvation is only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ—the one who fully united humanity and divinity within himself.

You see, in order for human sin to be forgiven, an actual human (flesh and blood person) had to die. God’s justice demanded this since it was humans who sinned and not God himself. And yet, only absolute divinity could atone for sin! Therefore, Christ had to serve as the atonement (at-one-ment), uniting divinity and humanity within his one person. If not, then humanity’s sin could not be divinely forgiven. For in the famous words of Gregory Nazianzen, “That which he [Christ] has not fully assumed cannot be fully healed.”

In other words, when God the Son fully assumed our humanity into his divinity, our humanity (what makes us human) was fully healed. And how could it not? Does darkness overcome and push back light, or does light envelop and overcome darkness? In this way, when God the Son, as the “light of the world,” united himself with our humanity, the darkness and brokenness of our humanity was instantly healed in Christ, “so that by his death he [Christ] might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb.2.14-15).

Instead of human beings only having the ability to have a “close relationship” with God, we, through the Incarnation, have already been made perfectly one with God literally in the living person of Jesus Christ! Now, that is closer than close!

So how can you and I share in the divine healing of Christ’s saving person? How do we participate in and benefit from what is his by nature (eternal life, righteousness, holiness)? If salvation is in Christ Jesus, how can you and I be joined to Christ in such a way that what is his by nature becomes ours by grace?

See you tomorrow.

Do you think divinity and humanity, the material and the spiritual, are compatible or incompatible? Explain.

How does the reality of God becoming flesh provide hope and comfort for you today?