Read: Ephesians 2:11-22
In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (v. 22)
As soon as we are born we cling to our parents. We desire relationship, belonging, and community. Today, our mobile lives, broken homes, and questions of personal identity fragment and disconnect us. But God offers the togetherness of relationship and more.
God gives us the gift of life and fellowship through his Son and Spirit. According to Ephesians 2, Christians are “in Christ,” a term used 164 times in the New Testament; “with Christ”; “by/through Christ”; and a “dwelling place” for God. Paul exclaims: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Christ and his people are vine and branches (John 15:5), head and body (Eph. 4:15-16), and husband and wife (Eph. 5:23, 31-32).
This is what the Reformers called the believers spiritual union with Christ. John Calvin put it this way: “By the same grace and energy of the Spirit we become his members, so that he keeps us under him, and we in our turn possess him” (Institutes 3.1.3). This union is not a New Age or Eastern mysticism—there is no confusion of substance or lost personality; nor is it merely a symbolic union or partnership. It is the life-giving reality that Christ actually, not metaphorically, lives within his people through the Holy Spirit! We not only have a relationship with Christ, we have union with him.
As you pray, thank God for our spiritual union with Christ, and for the gift of belonging to God.
Michael Andres is a professor of religion at Northwestern College. He first met his wife Joan in a History of the Reformation class at Arizona State University.
