MANY CHRISTIANS, in a revolt against the writings of the mystics which speak of the need to be “oned with God” and to achieve ‘personal divinity’, may hold back on their relationship with the Lord, not wanting at all to mimic the mystics. But one can then find oneself in a quagmire of scholasticism and adherence to doctrine in such a way that one’s real relationship with the Lord is quenched and one gets lost in a maze of words. For this reason, in the midst of a chapter exposing mysticism for what it really is, I want to emphasise the true nature of our relationship with Him which may surprise you — though I hope it surprises you with joy rather than bewilderment.

In a compelling section on “Union with Christ” in his Systematic Theology lectures, A.H. Strong (whose writings on this subject I admire) shows that the union of the believer with Christ is

“An organic union,— in which we become members of Christ and partakers of his humanity… A vital union,— in which Christ’s life becomes the dominating principle within us… A spiritual union,— that is, a union whose source and author is the Holy Spirit… An indissoluble union,— that is, a union which, consistently with Christ’s promise and grace, can never be dissolved (Matthew 28:20; John 10:28; Romans 8:5,39; 1 Thessalonians 4:14,17)… An inscrutable union,— mystical, however, only in the sense of surpassing in its intimacy and value any other union of souls which we know (Ephesians 5:32; Colossians 1:27) [Augustus H. Strong, Systematic Theology, Vol.3, Pickering Inglis, 1981, f.p.1907, pp.800-801].

The true nature of the union of the believer with God is brought out in numerous Scriptures which show that Christ, through His Spirit, indwells all true believers in order to bring about a radical transformation so that they can be “renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created [us]” (Colossians 3:10). This is a renewal in influence not in essence, as John reveals it to be an “anointing from the Holy One” (1 John 2:20), an act which comes from a transcendent God restoring us to the spiritual state in which we were at the beginning of history, only this time without the potential for a Fall (Psalm 37:23-24; 1 Peter 1:5). Such transformational work in believers is being undertaken so that they shall be once more in His likeness, having divine qualities, being “partakers of His holiness” (Hebrews 12:10), and renewed in the spirit of their minds, in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:23-24).

Having said all this, it is important to stress that a genuinely mystical change does take place at the most radical level within the person when he or she becomes united with Christ. It is an unfortunate fact that the erroneous writings and experiences of the mystics and charismatic sects throughout the history of the Church have tended to engender a knee-jerk reaction among many believers, leading to what can be a very superficial view of the indwelling Holy Spirit, so that this becomes little more than a benign influence in the life of the Christian. George Smeaton (another of the ‘greats’) beautifully highlights this reactionary problem when he writes:

“Divines sometimes hesitate to accept the idea of inhabitation [by the Spirit] in the full sense of the term, lest they should seem to fall into excess or to adopt the language of the enthusiasts. We are as fully [aware] as they can be to the duty of speaking with sobriety and caution, when we recall the language of the mystics of medieval times and the extravagances of the heady high-minded sects of the time of Cromwell, which produced a recoil from the Scripture doctrine of the Spirit, from which many have not recovered to this day. But we ought equally to be on our guard against the opposite extreme of erring by defect, lest we obscure or misrepresent the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit” [George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Banner of Truth, 1974, pp.231-232]. [I should add that the term “enthusiast” was used in former times to describe a person who had become fanatically addicted to subjective experience over against objective truth and claimed to have a multitude of special revelations].

So we must not let a reaction against the mystics — whether Montanist, medieval or modern charismatic — intimidate us into quenching the Spirit or lessening the intensity and immediacy of the relationship which the believer has with Christ. For, as A.H. Strong puts it in mighty powerful terms:

“It is this [union with Christ] and this only which constitutes him a Christian, and which makes possible a Christian church. We may, indeed, be thus united to Christ without being fully conscious of the real nature of our relation to him…Christ and the believer have the same life. They are not separate persons linked together by some temporary bond of friendship,—they are united by a tie as close and indissoluble as if the same blood ran in their veins. Yet the Christian may never have suspected how intimate a union he has with his Saviour; and the first understanding of this truth may be the gateway through which he passes into a holier and happier stage of the Christian life” [Augustus H. Strong, Systematic Theology, Pickering Inglis, 1981, f.p.1907, p.802].

Those wonderfully warm words from Augustus Strong, surprisingly in the midst of a work on systematic theology, should thrill you to the core of your being to think that you are “united by a tie [with Christ] as close and indissoluble as if the same blood” ran in your veins as in His. That really is a mindblowing thought and a thoroughly truthful one and it needs meditating on long and hard to be appreciated fully. To realise this for the first time leads one into a deeper closeness with Him than ever before and, for the sake of our perseverance, we should never forget it.

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[The above words are extracted from a chapter exposing mysticism in the upcoming second edition of my 1994 book, “The Serpent & the Cross”, which will hopefully be out in October].

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2025
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

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