Spiritual Union and Communion - 5. Federal Union, 6. Vital Union and 7. Saving Union

Extract

Spiritual Union and Communion

5. Federal Union,
6. Vital Union and
7. Saving Union

A. W. Pink

5. Federal Union.

Once more we would point out that the origin of that union which subsists between the Church and Christ was the everlasting love of God: this it was which cemented Head and members together. The loving purpose of God gave the Church an election-union to Christ, which (for the want of a better term) we have styled the “mystical.” Inseparably connected with the election-standing of the Church before God, was its marriage to Christ, and upon that marital relationship we have dwelt at length. We are now to consider further what branched out of the mystical union in view of the Church’s fall in its nature-head. Having in His high sovereignty predetermined the apostasy of Adam, upon His foreviews of the same, God engaged in an everlasting covenant with Christ, the spiritual Head of the elect, to raise them up from the ruins of their fall. What that involved and included it will now be our joy to consider.

In contemplating the Covenant of Grace [the Everlasting Covenant] which was made between God and the Mediator, it is very necessary to recognise that Christ acted therein as the Head of the Church. This it is which determined the title of “federal union.” The elect had not only a mystical union with Christ in the womb of God’s decrees, but they had an actual oneness together in the sight of the Divine Law. That oneness has been variously designated by different writers: “covenant union,” “legal union,” “representative union,” “federal union,” all which signify much the same. The grand point to be apprehended here is, that Christ and His people were one in Divine election, He the Head and they the members of the mystical Body, and so likewise they are to be regarded in the Everlasting Covenant. The Covenant was made with Christ, not as a single person, but as a common Head, representing all the elect who …