All the genuine believers in Christ are organically joined to the Triune God in their spirit. Through believing into Christ we have been joined to Him in spirit, and now we are one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17).
Through baptism we have been cut off from the world, the past, and anything of the enemy and our organic union with God has been strengthened. Now in this organic union with Christ we enjoy all that Christ has and all that He has accomplished.
Noah and his family were the beneficiaries of what the ark has experienced by being in the ark. We enjoy and experience what Christ has and has accomplished by being in Christ. The matter of God putting us in Christ and we being in Christ is a secret that all the believers need to see, apply, and live out.
We don’t have to die for our own sins, even though the penalty for sin is death: we can now apply the precious blood of Christ to all our sins. By being in the organic union of our spirit with the Spirit we can enjoy the effectiveness of the death of Christ and the power of His resurrection.
Also, all the genuine believers in Christ are a new society, a new community, the church, where everyone lives in resurrection. In the church life all believers are those whose old man was buried in the waters of death, and now they live in the resurrection life of Christ. Hallelujah for the church life, a life in resurrection!
Being Organically Joined to God through Faith and Baptism
When the gospel was preached to us and we heard the good news, something in us rose up to believe into the Lord Jesus Christ, the most wonderful Person in the universe. Through this faith – which is Christ Himself coming into us to believe in us and for us – we were organically joined in spirit with the Triune God.
To become a Christian, a believer, is simply to be joined to the Triune God by faith in Him. In God’s eyes, we were all regenerated in the resurrection of Christ, since we were put in Christ by God (see 1 Pet. 1:3; 1 Cor. 1:30), but in time we were organically joined to the Triune God at different times.
When we were baptized, we were delivered from the old manner of life and from anything of the old man, making a public declaration that we choose Christ, the One we love and we are joined in spirit to. Our being put into water doesn’t “save us”. What saves us especially from the world so that we may be strengthened into our organic union with God is entering into the spiritual reality of the baptism.
The waters of the flood delivered Noah from that crooked and perverted generation, from the old manner of life, and from anything of the old age. In a similar manner, the Spirit applies Christ’s death to our being at the time of our baptism and we arise in the resurrection of Christ when we come out of the water.
Now after our baptism our daily walk should be in the Spirit of the resurrected Christ – a walk in which we live Christ in resurrection through the life power of His Spirit (see Rom. 6:4-5). Through our believing into Christ and being baptized in Him we are organically joined to God, and we now enjoy the Spirit’s application of all that Christ is and has done for us.
Christ’s death with its effectiveness is in the Spirit of resurrection, the life-giving Spirit. When we turn to our spirit every day we enjoy the application of the death of Christ to our being, we are free from sin, and we enjoy Christ living in us! This is all in our organic union with God, into which organic union we entered by faith and baptism!
We Experience Christ and His Processes by Being Joined to Christ
It is crucial that we see how God has put us in Christ, and everything that Christ went through is our experience today in our organic union with Him. It is of God that we are in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 1:30).
God chose us in Christ even before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). We know this, that our old man has been crucified with Him – we were crucified with Christ (see Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20). Christ, the One, has died for all, and by virtue of the fact that we were put in Christ by God, we all died (2 Cor. 5:14).
When Christ was resurrected, we also were raised together with Him, and God seated us together with Christ in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6). Now as we believe in Christ, we become children of God born not of the flesh or blood or the will of a man, but of God, and we enter into an organic union with Him (John 1:12-13; 1 Cor. 6:17).
When we are baptized, we are buried together with Christ and then we are raised together with Him through the faith of the operation of God who raised Jesus from the dead (Col. 2:12). Now we live a life in the resurrection of Christ, since we were raised together with Him (Col. 3:1).
You may say, “I didn’t die on the cross with Christ! I was never in death! I wasn’t resurrected from death! These things never happened to me – I can’t recall any of them!” Well, in God’s eyes, He put us in Christ as He went through all these processes, and His experience is now our history and biography.
Just as Noah and his family was in the ark, and they didn’t “swim to escape the flood” but enjoyed being in the ark as the ark passed through the flood, so we don’t have to taste God’s judgement but have the death of Christ applied to us by the Spirit.
In our organic union with Christ, the Spirit applies the death of Christ with its effectiveness to our being, putting to death anything natural and of Satan. As we abide in Christ and are joined to Him in spirit, the Spirit strengthens us within with the power of Christ’s resurrection so that we may cooperate with God’s organic salvation daily.
Oh, that we may see how sweet and how crucial our organic union with the Lord is! May we abide in Him, stay in Him, and never get out of this organic union with the Triune God! It is here, in the touch and mingling of the two spirits, that we can enjoy Christ, His death, His resurrection, the effectiveness of His death, the power of His resurrection, His ascension, and His enthronement.
With Christ right now we have been seated in the heavenlies – we are not only destined to reign with Christ, but in our mingled spirit we reign with Christ (Rom. 5:17). Hallelujah!
Living In Resurrection in the Church Life, the New Community Life
The church of God today is composed of all those who experience Christ’s death and His resurrection, and who now live in Christ’s resurrection.
Noah and his family went through death (the waters of the flood) and entered into resurrection (the ark rested on the mountains and later they got out into a new creation). Their living in the new world is a type of the church life today.
Christ released us and buried the old manner of life, the old community, the old society with all its customs, habits, vain manner of life, and ungodly things. Now we have a new community, a new society, and a new life with a new living.
Through our faith in Christ and our baptism into Christ we have entered into a new age and a new life with a new living: we are now in the church life! We are saved, separated unto God, resurrected with Christ, and ushered into a new living, a living in resurrection.
Don’t you love the church life? Don’t you love the brothers and the sisters? Though we are different outwardly and dispositionally, we are one in Christ, and our living is in resurrection. We now have a new community life in a new society, where we live Christ in resurrection and we enjoy Him corporately with all the brothers and the sisters. Hallelujah for the church life!
Lord Jesus, thank You for joining us with You in spirit through our believing into You! Thank You for burying the old man, the past, and anything of our old manner of life in the waters of baptism. Lord, thank You for bringing us into the church life, our new community life in resurrection. Keep us one spirit with You. Apply all that You have and have experienced to our being as we live one spirit with You. Thank You, Lord, we are here, in this organic union with God! Hallelujah! Praise You, Lord, for what You have done for us and for what You are continually doing in us as we abide in the organic union with Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration (besides the Word of God and my Christian experience): bro. Ron Kangas’ speaking in this message and portions from, Life-study of Genesis (pag. 425-426), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization Study of Genesis (1), week / msg 12, A Seed of the Church Life and a Shadow of the Kingdom.
- Further reading on this topic:
# Life-study of 1 Peter (see pp. 225-226).
# 1 Pet. 3:20-21 and footnotes in the Recovery Version concerning baptism (very helpful).
# Truth Lessons — Level Two, vol. 1, lsn. 3; Truth Lessons—Level Two, vol. 2, lsn. 17. - Hymns on this topic:
# Oh! I’m saved organic’ly, growing to maturity. / Now from sin, the world and the self I’m free / In the Spirit who is sanctifying me. / Oh His nature in me sanctifies thoroughly; / Now from sin, the world and the self I’m free / In the Spirit who is sanctifying me.
# Oh, what a life! Oh, what a peace! / The Christ who’s all within me lives. / With Him I have been crucified; / This glorious fact to me He gives. / Now it’s no longer I that live, / But Christ the Lord within me lives.
# Oh what a joy! Christ now lives in us; / No longer I—how glorious! / He’s daily growing within us / Till He is formed in us. / We live and walk by the Spirit, / Enjoy the fruit of the Spirit; / To Him our whole lives we commit; / All else is vanity.
# We’re churching in the Spirit / On the church’s local ground; / We’re churching with our brothers, / Our family we have found. / Oh, yes, we’re churching with the churches, / And we’ll make the earth resound / With hallelujahs for Christ our land!
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