Union With Christ by Dr. T. L. Cuyler

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Nov 26, 1903

Union With Christ

By Dr. T. L. Cuyler

JOINING the church is one thing, but joining the Lord Jesus is quite another thing; and only those who have done the second have any clear right to do the first. The main cause of inconsistency and failure in the life of too many professors of religion is that they make a formal union with the church without any heart-union to Christ. Almost their solitary act of loyalty was their standing up to respond to a church covenant before the pulpit. From that time onward their divine Master had no more of them than their idle name on the roll of his followers. They enlisted; they entered their names on the record and straightway are heard of no more. They made no tie to anything but an organized body of professed Christians; they did not knit their souls to the Saviour.

“But am I not to join the church?” inquires some one who is indulging a hope of pardon and of the new birth. Yes, friend, join the church, provided that you have already joined Jesus. If you unite yourself to nothing stronger than to a company of frail, fallible fellow creatures, and expect them to tow you along by the power of their fellowship and prayers, then you have but a poor chance of reaching the ‘desired haven.’ But genuine conversion unites your heart in clinging faith to the Friend of sinners. When you take the step of confessing this faith before men, you literally and truly join the Lord. You join your weakness to his strength; you join your ignorance to his wisdom, your unworthiness to his merits, your frailty to his enduring might, and your poverty to his boundless wealth. The fair peasant girl who married an emperor of Russia became a sharer of his palace and his crown. When you wed your heart and hand to Jesus, you become a sharer in his kingdom and crown, a joint heir with Christ! The joint heir has the promise of the Father’s love, of the indwelling of the Spirit, of the peace of God, of pleasures forevermore, and of the society of all the just made perfect throughout eternity! ‘Where I am, there ye may be also.’

What a glorious thought this is! What a different conception it is from that of merely “joining a church” of fellow creatures. You really join Christ. Your heart joins his heart. Your life is knit by hidden links to his; because he lives, you shall live also. Your destiny is bound to his; and you shall be kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation. If you have a real faith, however feeble, confess it. If you have renounced sin and self and come to Jesus, then “join yourself to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.”—Dr. T. L. Cuyler.