Engrafted into Christ

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. JOHN 15:5

Calvin’s third book begins with a question that is easy to skip and impossible to overstate. Christ has done everything necessary for our salvation. He has obeyed, suffered, died and risen. But how does what He did become ours? How do His benefits reach us? Calvin’s answer, at the head of Institutes 3.1, is one of the most important sentences he ever wrote. As long as Christ remains outside us, and we are separated from Him, all that He suffered and did for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us. To share with us what He has received from the Father, He had to become ours and dwell within us.

Union with Christ

This is the doctrine of union with Christ, and many students of Calvin have come to see it as the key to his whole account of salvation. Christ is not a distant benefactor who hands us gifts from afar. He gives Himself, and all His gifts come with Him. We are engrafted into Him, as a branch into a tree, so that His life flows into us.

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. GALATIANS 3:27

Calvin says this is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to Himself. The Son of God is in heaven; we are on earth; the Spirit joins what distance would separate. And the Spirit does it chiefly by giving faith, which Calvin calls the principal work of the Spirit (Institutes 3.1.4).

But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 1 CORINTHIANS 6:17

The same truth runs through the sermons in the Ochorus library. In The Mystery of Godliness Calvin says: “We have no faith, if we know not that our Lord Jesus Christ is joined to us, that we may become his members.” And he adds that Christ “was pleased to join himself to us, that we might be partakers of his substance.” In God Will Have All Men to Be Saved he describes the moment of calling in the same language: God touches us with His Holy Spirit, and we are grafted, as it were, into the body of our Lord Jesus Christ; and this, he says, is the true earnest of our adoption.

The double grace

From union with Christ flow two great gifts, which Calvin calls a double grace (Institutes 3.11.1). By partaking of Christ we receive, first, that we are reconciled to God through His blamelessness, so that we have in heaven a gracious Father instead of a judge. And second, that we are sanctified by His Spirit, so that we may cultivate blamelessness and purity of life.

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:30

The first gift is justification: God counts us righteous for Christ’s sake. The second is sanctification: God makes us holy by His Spirit. The two are distinct, and Calvin will not allow them to be confused. We are not justified because we are being made holy; we are justified freely, by grace, for the sake of Christ alone. But neither will he allow them to be separated. You cannot have Christ for justification without having Him for sanctification. He is not divided.

In a striking image, Calvin compares the two to the light and heat of the sun (Institutes 3.11.6). The sun warms the earth by its heat and lights it by its brightness. The two are inseparable, yet the light is not the heat, and the heat is not the light. So it is with the double grace.

Why the order matters

Calvin made a surprising choice in arranging the Institutes. Before he writes about justification by faith, the great doctrine of the Reformation, he writes at length about repentance and the Christian life. Only afterwards does he turn to justification. Some readers have been puzzled by this. Why not begin with the forgiveness of sins?

Calvin explains his reasons himself (Institutes 3.11.1). He wanted to show from the outset that the faith by which we are freely justified is never idle or empty of good works. Rome accused the Reformers of teaching that faith alone makes holiness unnecessary. Calvin answers by showing, before anything else, that those united to Christ are always being changed by Him.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17

The order of the chapters that follow in this book, like the order of the Institutes, is meant to teach the same lesson. We will look at faith, then at repentance and the Christian life, and only then at justification itself. But all of it is the gift of one Christ, received in one union.

Christ for us and Christ in us

The beauty of this teaching is that it keeps Christ at the centre of everything. It is not that Christ earns forgiveness for us and then leaves us to do the rest. He Himself is our righteousness and our holiness. He is both for us and in us.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. GALATIANS 2:20

It also guards against two opposite errors. One is the error of those who think they can have forgiveness without change, who would take Christ as Saviour but not as Lord. Calvin says that is to tear Christ in pieces. The other is the error of those who make their own holiness the ground of their peace with God, and are then either proud or terrified. Calvin says that is to forget that our righteousness is outside us, in Christ, perfect and complete.

In the sermon God Will Have All Men to Be Saved Calvin draws the pastoral comfort from it. When by faith we are made one with Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, God takes and holds us for His children. Everything that belongs to the Son by right comes to us by grace, because we are in Him.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. ROMANS 8:16–17

A word of care

The language of union with Christ can be misused. Some in Calvin’s day, notably the Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander, taught that we are justified by Christ’s divine nature being poured into us, so that we are made righteous in essence. Calvin opposed him at length (Institutes 3.11.5–12). Our union with Christ, he said, is real and intimate, but it is spiritual; we do not become divine, and our justification rests on Christ’s obedience counted to us, not on His essence mixed with ours. It is a reminder that the most precious truths need the most careful handling.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read John 15:1–11 and ask what it would mean today to abide in Christ rather than simply to believe things about Him.

2. Consider whether you have been treating Christ as a distant benefactor. Begin to pray to Him as One who dwells in you by His Spirit.

3. Examine your life for the double grace. Are you resting in God’s forgiveness? Are you growing in holiness? Where is one missing?

4. If you are anxious about your standing with God, remind yourself that your righteousness is in Christ, not in your progress.

5. If you have been content with forgiveness but careless of holiness, confess that you have tried to tear Christ in pieces.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, all that You did and suffered would be nothing to me if You stayed outside me. Come and dwell in me by Your Spirit.

Graft me into Yourself, as a branch into the vine, and let Your life flow into mine.

Be my righteousness before the Father, and my holiness in the world. Let me never try to have one without the other.

Thank You that in You I am a child of God and an heir of all You have. Amen.