Here is a quote that I completely agree with! I had no idea till today that Mr. Austin-Sparks wrote this in his book, Union with Christ. The Lord has shown me that Christ is the center of all; He supersedes and excels beyond all. He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end and everything in between. He is all. He confirmed it to me today by having me find that He also revealed it to Mr. Austin-Sparks as well.

Union With Christ
T. Austin-Sparks

Union with Christ is the heart or centre of all that has been revealed of God's thought concerning man and of mans' relationship to God. Union with Christ is like the hub of a mighty wheel. There are many spokes to that wheel ¬ election, creation, redemption, salvation, sanctification, glorification; and then, like a series of subsidiary spokes ¬ repentance, faith, justification, conversion, regeneration, and so on. These are the spokes of the wheel, but they all centre in Christ and radiate from Christ and reach the rim, which is God. They unite us in Christ with God.

To give all this its true and full value, it is necessary to contemplate or have revealed to us the meaning of Christ, to see what an immense thing has taken place by the Son of God becoming the Son of man, by God becoming incarnate. It is a question of our being taken, not into Godhead or Deity, but into God's Son incarnate.

Now, the first preachers of the Christ evangel preached Christ. They did not, in the first place, preach salvation or sanctification or forgiveness, or judgment or heaven. That does not mean that they did not preach those things: they did; but not in the first place. They preached Christ, and all those things were included in the preaching of Christ; Christ as inclusive of all and as transcending all; for, after all, such things as salvation and sanctification, forgiveness, justification, are subsidiaries, they come afterward. Christ was before them all and Christ will be after them all. They are inside of Christ, but He vastly outstrips them all.

From: Union with Christ.


Mr. Austin-Sparks writes it more eloquently than I can, but we are in complete agreement. Without union there can be no salvation or justification or sanctification. All these lose their perspective and become nonsense without union with Christ. Without Christ there cannot be salvation or justification or sanctification or eternal life. It is our spiritual joining with Christ that makes all this possible. If a bride is not married to her husband she will not be able to share his name or possessions. She is a stranger, even a foreigner to him. If she becomes married to him, then what he has, she has, who he is she can share that as well. Our spouse has authority over all creation and we will judge angels. Now this is making more sense to me, hopefully to you as well.

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. –Matthew 28:18

Christ is first and foremost, and the fruit of our union with Him is salvation, eternal life, justification, sanctification, peace, joy, etc. The fruit of the union is very plentiful indeed!

What this means for the believer is that we have all these gifts (fruits) now, presently, we do not need to seek them, or ask for them or try to earn them. They are ours now for our taking.

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. –John 15:4

Union is necessary for there to be fruit. There cannot be fruit without union. All of us who are born again have this union now. We do not need to seek the union, if Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior and you have submitted your life to Him, then you are enjoying the union now. There is nothing left for you to do, He did it and now are job is to only become more aware of who we are in this wonderful, marvelous, unbelievable blessing of union!

We are the vessels and He is the Treasure contained within.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.. -2 Corinthians 4:7

All this imagery is interwoven. The Lord is infinite in His wisdom. This brings us to reflect upon the Marriage Feast spoken of in Revelations. Marriage, union, fruit, the Creator and the created joined spiritually for all eternity. Humankind returned to the state it enjoyed in the Garden. What a loaded statement was that when Christ said, “It is finished.” The immenseness of this concept is far greater than probably any of us mere mortals will be able to comprehend on earth. It will take an infinite mind to show us all that this means…