Eternal Vital Union: This is not a subject matter most believers are familiar with, and I would suspect is generally found only among those who identify with the Old School Order of Predestinarian Baptists. For those who hold it, it is a well-loved consideration of grace, one that draws attention to the sovereignty of God, the everlasting love of Christ for His people, and the freeness of that grace which does not rest upon anything in man. In reflecting on these things, many have found comfort, joy, and a heart stirred in praise.
Before proceeding it may be helpful to share a little background, as it helps frame what follows. Over the years, I’ve never attached myself to any denominational label or particular group of believers, so that whilst I’ve been influenced and helped by various brethren, and still am, I’ve never seen myself as belonging to any one of them, but have remained, in a sense, outside those distinctions. For that reason, though I never considered myself much of a Baptist, I was, for a time, much helped by many of the Old School writings, particularly in their clear and steady emphasis on the free grace of Christ and the sovereignty of God.
It was in this context that I first began to think more seriously about these things. Men like Gilbert Beebe and Samuel Trott were especially influential to me. Along with these, I spent time in the writings of others such as Crisp, Richardson, Hussey, &c., and for many years, as a hobby, engaged in some desktop publishing, with the aim of bringing some of these writings back into view, as they had largely faded from sight and were known only to a few. At one period, as I was transcribing the writings of Samuel Trott from old microfilm copies of the Signs of the Times, I was introduced to a short book by W.M. Smoot entitled The Contest. Like myself, Smoot clearly loved the writings of men like Beebe and Trott, (“the memory of the just is blessed,” Proverbs 10:7,) and moved along similar lines of thought in seeking to set forth the truth of Christ, particularly in the way he took up the subject often referred to as eternal vital union.
As a side project, I republished this little book and circulated it among a few close friends. It was remarkable to see how it was received, one individual, (whom I loved in the bonds of Christ,) who had been among the Old School Baptists for decades, had never encountered it, yet immediately embraced the way those ideas were set forth in the book. So in some measure, I’ve had a part in bringing those thoughts back into view. I also held to aspects of that teaching myself, and even now can trace in the Scriptures how some of these thoughts are set forth, and something of how inexhaustible the wells of salvation truly are, though perhaps never embracing it in that way, or understanding it to the extent that others may have.
In this connection, there are places in the Scriptures which seem to give rise to such expressions. The language of seed, and the way our Lord speaks of His seed, does set forth something of that life which is found in Him. Galatians 3:16. And the figure of Eve being taken out of Adam, often brought forward in relation to Christ and His church, does present a striking and wonderful analogy. Ephesians 5:32. There is something in these things that is not to be dismissed, and I would not want to cast them aside. Yet they remain analogies and must not be pressed beyond what the Scriptures themselves plainly declare.
With all this in view, this is not something I approach from a distance. At the same time, I’m aware that some who may read these posts still embrace this understanding, or at least hold to certain elements of it, some of whom I greatly love and esteem. I have no desire to speak in a way that is unkind or self-assured. What follows reflects my present understanding, recognizing that others far more knowledgeable in the Scriptures may see these things more clearly than I do. I do not question their desire to exalt Christ, to safeguard sovereign grace, or to stand against the many conditional systems of men which make salvation hang upon something in the creature. In that, I desire to stand with them, ascribing all of salvation to the Lord.
Returning to the subject of eternal vital union, it seems fair to say that Smoot takes a line of thought already set forth by Beebe and Trott and brings it into a more central and defined place, making it something of a gathering point. In doing so, he develops this persuasion of the grace of God with greater clarity and structure, setting it forth in a clear and assertive way, while strongly opposing the notion of union beginning in time, salvation by faith, or anything tied to means or conditions. There is no wavering in the message, but rather a steady declaration of God’s sovereignty and the glory of Christ.
And yet, with all of that said, I have not been able to receive that way of speaking without some hesitation. My difficulty is not with the truth that God chose His people in Christ before the foundation of the world, nor with the truth that all life is in the Son, nor even with the truth that there is a real union between Christ and His people. These things are precious. But when that union is spoken of in such a way that the elect are viewed as existing in Christ as living beings from eternity, or that His fullness is, in some sense, bound up with the creature, it seems to press beyond what Scripture itself clearly sets forth.
Before going further, it may be helpful to say that I do not deny eternal union with Christ. That the church was chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, and that all life is found in Him, is a truth clearly set forth in Scripture. That is a precious truth. At the same time, there seems to be a difference between how some have spoken of that union. Earlier writers, like Gill, tended to speak of it in terms of God’s purpose and covenant, while later expressions have sometimes spoken of it as a real union, and, in a sense, as existing as a living reality from eternity. I only desire to tread carefully here and not speak beyond what Scripture allows. Union is real and vital, but Christ is complete in Himself. The creature adds nothing to Him, supplies nothing to Him, and completes nothing in Him. “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him.” Colossians 2:9-10. That is the order of things. We are complete in Him; He is not completed by us. However near, precious, and blessed this union is, it must never be expressed in a way that blurs the distinction between the fullness of the Son and the utter dependence of those saved by His grace.
Another thought that arises here is that the comfort of the believer is not found in eternal union, considered as a bare concept, but in the finished work of Christ. Our peace does not arise from trying to reason ourselves back into some supposed eternal existence in Him, but from the gospel testimony that He came into the world to save sinners, that He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and that has obtained eternal redemption for His people. Whatever may be said about union, election, and eternity, our hope must rest in what Christ has actually accomplished. Hebrews 10:14.
Yes, God chose His people in Christ before the world, and yes, all life and union are in Him, but the elect did not eternally exist in Him as living beings; life is given in time, union is covenantal, and salvation rests entirely in the finished work of Christ, not in any eternalized identity. Life is given in time by the sovereign operation of God. We were by nature children of wrath, even as others. We were dead in trespasses and sins. Whatever may be said of God’s purpose, decree, and covenant, the language of Scripture concerning our personal condition is not that we were always living in Christ consciously or actually, but that life was bestowed by Him who quickeneth the dead, given in time, even to those who were chosen in Christ before time.
It is here that a point worth considering begins to arise. When the language of union is carried into eternity in such a way that the elect are spoken of as having some kind of real, personal existence in Christ before they are ever brought forth in time, the line between the Creator and the creature begins to blur, rather than remaining as clearly distinguished as Scripture keeps it. God alone inhabits eternity. I Timothy 6:16. He alone is from everlasting. Isaiah 57:15. Whatever is brought into being, no matter how loved, chosen, or purposed in Christ, remains His creation and not an extension of His own eternal being. Romans 11:36.
The Scriptures speak plainly: “He is before all things.” Colossians 1:17. And again, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” Revelation 22:13. Whatever else we may say about God’s purpose, His counsel, and His election, we must not speak in a way that places the creature alongside Him in eternity, even in the most refined or spiritualized sense. To do so, even unintentionally, risks turning what is meant to magnify grace into something that begins to resemble necessity, as though the people of God were always there in Him in such a way that their salvation becomes less an act of mercy and more an unfolding of what simply had to be.
But the testimony of Scripture brings us another way. It shows us a people chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, yet brought forth in time as sinners, dead, without life, without strength, and then made alive by the sovereign work of God. “You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” Ephesians 2:1. That language is not describing the awakening of something that was already living in us from eternity, but the giving of life where there was none. Whatever life we now have, we have it because it has been given. I John 5:11.
This also helps preserve the glory of grace. For if life, union, and salvation are all spoken of as something we already possessed in some eternal sense, then the wonder of God’s mercy toward those who had nothing begins to lose its edge. But when we see that we were, in ourselves, without life, without righteousness, without hope, and that God, according to His own purpose in Christ, has given us all things, then grace stands in its proper light. It is not the unveiling of what we always were, but the giving of what we never had. Romans 8:32.
The question is not so much when life is given, but where life is found. Life is in Christ Himself and made known through the gospel. Ephesians 1:13. Whatever union there is, it is known in Him. I Corinthians 1:9. Whatever election there is, it is secured in Him. Ephesians 1:4. Whatever life there is, it is found in Him alone; and whatever hope we have before God stands not in what we may suppose about ourselves in eternity, or in some hidden eternal structure we attempt to define, but to the clear testimony of what Christ accomplished in time.
And here our hope is found, not in trying to grasp eternity, but in Christ Himself, who is our hope, as He is made known in the testimony given of Him. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” I John 5:11. In the end, when all our efforts to define these things have settled, what remains is this, that our hope is not in trying to trace out some hidden mode of existence before time, but rather in the plain and glorious testimony that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” I Timothy 1:15. MPJ