G. Common Commitments: Union with Christ

Newman’s doctrine of divine presence, with its emphasis on participation in the life of God, may also be described in terms of union with Christ.904

Christ, in rising, raises His saints with Him to the right hand of power. They become instinct with His life, of one body with His flesh, divine sons, immortal kings, gods. He is in them, because He is in human nature; and He communicates to them that nature deified by becoming His, that them It may deify.905

We have noted how the concept of union with Christ comes to flower in Lecture VII, in which Newman develops the subject more fully, describing how “justification is the setting up of the Cross within us.”906 Newman explores the sanctifying capacity of justification in terms of the adherent presence of Christ in the human soul. But simply saying this much invites an additional question. “Again: if it be laid down that our justification consists in union with Christ, or reconciliation with God,” explores Newman, “this is an intelligible and fair answer; and then the question will arise, what is meant by union with Christ?”907

For Newman, this Christological union comes to one’s soul by the Holy Spirit, who properly imputes the righteousness of Christ by means of divine indwelling. Of the three divine persons, the Holy Spirit is identified as the proper agent of justification as a matter of his particular role in the economy of salvation, although not to the exclusion of the other persons.908 “This is really and truly our justification,” Newman asserts, “not faith, not holiness, not (much less) a mere imputation; but through God’s mercy, the very Presence of Christ.909

Newman’s doctrine bears a remarkable similarity to Vermigli at this point. In view of his Augustinian conviction that humanity is a massa perditionis,910 Vermigli reasons, “Unless [one’s heart] has been renewed by the Spirit,” there can be no justifying faith.911 He envisages this faith to grow out of the Spirit’s initial work, resulting in Christological union.912 “But now, delivered by the grace of God,” Vermigli concludes, “we are joined with Christ by the Spirit, to Christ himself being raised from the dead. By this union we may bring forth fruit to God, and no more death and damnation.”913 While Vermigli hardly uses the explicit terminology of “union with Christ,” the notion that one is accepted by God on account of being “joined with Christ by the Spirit” is posited as the necessary bond that liberates one from death and enables one to “bring forth fruit to God.”914

Union with Christ is for Newman and Vermigli the state in which one realizes spiritual deliverance from judgment and the fructifying work of the Spirit.915

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