I grew up in a non-Christian family. When I first encountered Jesus and the gospel, I remember understanding early on what I needed to be saved from. Jesus’ death on the cross seemed central to that (rightly so). But it took me much longer to take hold of the love which compelled Jesus Christ to come down from heaven for us and for our salvation, to endure that cross. It took me much longer to understand what God desires to save people for and into.
By the blood of Christ, God has redeemed us, justified us, reconciled and forgiven us, and sanctified us. By the blood of Christ, God has freed us from our sins, brought us into his presence, purified and cleansed us, conquered death and the devil, and granted us the life of the age to come! Wonderfully, many verses in the New Testament make these explicit connections.
Nevertheless, people sometimes say to me that salvation can start sounding and feeling quite technical or even impersonal, quite transactional between God and us. I hope this article will help you if you sometimes feel that way.
First and foremost, salvation is all about a person – someone who sees and loves you first, and who moves heaven to earth to be with you. Salvation is all about Jesus, the Son, who unites you to himself by his Spirit, because of his unbreakable love for you. I’ve written more about that in a book called ONE.
Union with Christ
Here’s something we don’t always emphasise (but we should): Jesus’ death on the cross is central to how the Father unites you to his Son by the Spirit. It’s central to how the Father connects you to Christ. That already begins to make sense, because it is the Son’s freedom, the Son’s righteousness, the Son’s access to the Father, the Son’s holiness and love, the Son’s victory, and the Son’s life which Jesus already shares with you and me. Let’s dig into this some more.
Sooner or later, we realise that this world doesn’t have the stuff we really need to feed on to be properly alive. Right? In John 6, the day after Jesus has fed a crowd containing about 5000 men using just five loaves and two fish, the crowd come looking for more. Jesus says to them, in effect, ‘you need a kind of food, a kind of life, that’s actually going to satisfy and last’ (John 6:26-27, 35).
Then, without holding back, Jesus declares, ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6:36)! ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of it, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh’ (John 6:51).
Jesus is telling us that we need him, not stuff! We don’t even just need his benefits; we need him, personally. ‘I am the bread of life.’ We need to be connected to him, united to him. And so, the question you might ask is, ‘How?’
Jesus answers that question in John 6 with an invitation: believe in me (6:29, 35-36, 47); come to me (6:35, 37); look to me and trust me (6:40). Jesus’ words here are intensely relational and personal; he even says eat of me and feed on me (6:50-51). Jesus invites us to depend on him and to trust him, person-to-person. He wants us to know the relief of understanding that it all comes from him and that he’s more than willing to give himself to us.
Eternal life through the cross
Let’s take a deep dive into what Jesus says next. Two things:
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:54).
Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him (John 6:56).
What does it mean to feed on Jesus’ flesh and to drink his blood? It’s certainly striking language. The first of these verses is similar to what Jesus has said earlier (John 6:40), so feeding on Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood must be an important part of ‘looking on the Son and believing in him’. He’s talking here about trusting his death for you, depending on him and what he did for you on that cross. Jesus and his death for us (his ‘flesh’ given for the ‘life of the world’, John 6:51) are the very source of life.
Incidentally, Jesus is not talking here about participating in the Lord’s Supper itself. But this is the kind of faith through which you eat the Lord’s Supper as a means of grace.
Let’s recap a bit; trusting in Jesus and his death for you, person-to-person, is all that is needed for life. If you’re doing this today, you have eternal life (John 6:54). It’s through faith, from the Father, and by the Spirit.
Let’s look back now at the second verse above. You who feed on Christ in this way are already united to him! That means you are connected to him by the Spirit. This verse is an example of the ‘you-in-Me-and-Me-in-you’ language in John (John 6:56). It’s Jesus’ way of describing union or oneness with him. Jesus wants you to know that you have a closeness of loving relationship with him that is like his own fellowship with the Father (John 6:57; 10:14-15; 10:30, 38). You can’t get any closer than this ‘in-one-another’ kind of knowing and loving.
Notice the ‘whoever’ in that second verse, trusting in Jesus, person-to-person, and in his death for you is all that is needed. If you’re doing this today, you are united to Christ. It’s through faith, from the Father, and by the Spirit. Knowing Jesus in this way is the essence of the life of the age to come (John 17:3).
Occasionally, you might hear something like this: ‘Union with Christ is all about the relational, fluffy stuff; what’s needed is an emphasis on the cross and justification through faith.’ But what Jesus teaches us in John 6, and elsewhere, is that union with Christ is through faith and was won for us by Christ at the cross. All of salvation (including justification, adoption, and sanctification) is given to believers in him. You stand already in Christ, united to him, and so sharing in his righteousness, his sonship, and his holiness.
Christ saved you so that he and you might enjoy and delight in this unbreakable love, this intimacy and oneness, together with all believers. You in him and him in you, eternally. Take a moment to drink that in. It’s true on Monday morning when the week ahead looks like a harder one; it’s true when you feel impatient with yourself, but he isn’t; it’s true when you see more brokenness and weakness than anything else, but he knows you as his glorious bride; it’s true when you fail, and his embrace hasn’t changed.
God saved you for life in all its fullness, now and to come. He saved you into this kind of love.
