The Central Secret of Union
by Norman Grubb
T he central secret of all history is the union of the creature and the Creator. Not just the Creator. Certainly not just the creature. But the union. We've found the whole meaning of life in time and eternity when we've found that.
It's probably beyond intelligible apprehension by the finite mind, as well as beyond description. But if our minds cannot completely compass this infinite glory, thank God our hearts can experience it.
And yet, if we think around it, to some extent our minds can compass this great fact of union. We know, for instance, that it is life. That is what eternal life is. There is only one eternal life, that of God. But God is three, dwelling in each other, which is union. So original life is not one person, or still less one thing; it's three living in each other and proceeding out from each other in their several offices.
Original life, then, is union. But not just union: unity. That which proceeds from union, in a balance which is so hard for us to apprehend, is a unity which still leaves us a separate person. There is such a union that there is never again a sense of division between myself and the living God. We've become one person, for "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit". Not two, but one. And yet within that mystery there is a unity that allows us to retain our individuality. That's where a major difficulty comes.
The Cry of the Ages
The first point that we need to get clearly in mind is the union - that we've become one person. We've got so used to the curse of the fall, which is separation, that it's a very long job for us to fully realize the fact of our union with God. And who of us does entirely attain to a continuous recognition of this union?
The great cry of the hearts of the saints of the ages was union. They expressed it in a certain terminology (which is impressive to some of us), describing the way to union as purgation, illumination, and finally union - three phases which to some extent resemble the little children, young men and fathers of John's first letter. It doesn't exactly correspond, but it's somewhere near.
If you read the lives of saints you always find that when they came to union they experienced liberation. As soon as they grasped union, out came a great humanity, a great love, a great power, a great service. They had found the liberating secret.
It is when a crisis comes to you and me - a sudden sorrow, a sudden disaster - that we realize how separatist we are in our thinking.
The usual thing we say when a crisis hits us is, "God permitted it". That means that God is up there and we are underneath. But God isn't up there at all! He is within. I never lift my eyes one single time to heaven to try to find Him up there, do you? I don't waste my breath, my sight, or anything else. Why should I waste my time trying to get a Person to come down when He lives within me? I can see Him where He is, in a common bit of human flesh redeemed in His precious blood, packed full of the Holy Spirit.
This makes my whole attitude to life different. Once I recognize that God is joined as one with me, I no longer try to find him or get him to come and rescue me.
A Shared Life
A crisis comes to me. No, no - it doesn't! It comes to us. Not to me, to us. And I'm a mighty little part in the us, while He's a mighty big part.
It comes to Him. And if it comes to Him, He doesn't just permit it, He means it to come. Well, if He means it to
is our life'. 'Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.' We 'have put off the old man with his deeds'.
Herein we encounter a problem. We see what the Bible plainly reveals as factthe death of the 'old man' with his deeds and our resurrection life in Christ as a 'new man'. But we question the reality of this in our own lives because we see too much of what looks like the 'old man' still around. How do we handle this enigma?
We need to remind ourselves of the basic key that reality begins in the realm of the spirit, in heaven, long before it is tangibly manifested in our earthly existence. There is a time-lag while the spiritreality is brought forth in our awareness.
It takes time for the death of the old man to be realized in experience. That is why we are told to 'put off the 'old man, which is corrupt according to the deceit
ful lusts' and to 'mortify the deeds of the body'. The victory has already been won, though not yet manifest.
It requires time 'until Christ be formed' in us, and until 'we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ'. Though the new man is already 'created in righteousness and true holiness', the putting on of the new man in this material world of appearances does not happen overnight.
Yet through the eyes of faith - accepting and confessing what God reveals as already true - we are to see ourselves as God sees us.
The Manifestation
It is not left up to us to bring the manifestation into being. Jesus Christ, as head of the church, has been given the responsibility of bringing everything to
pass in the physical realm that is already
reality in spirit. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith. What he has begun will be realized, for he must rule until he has put all enemies under his feet.
Once we understand who we really are, we stop identifying ourselves with the old vestigial remnant of the flesh - the 'old man' of sin. That is no longer who we are. When sin raises its ugly head, we can say with Paul, 'it is no more I that did it, but sin that dwells in me' (Rom. 7.20). The real you is the new you - Christ in you, living as you. This is an eternal FACT, unmistakably, unalterably, and indelibly imprinted in the heavenlies.
All things have already in God's timeless perspective been 'put under Christ's feet', The kingdom of this world has already become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. This we accept and confess in faith. And this faith absolutely guarantees the manifestation. El
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