Status Updates From Union with Christ: In Scrip...

It is Christ who justifies, not our faith, nor anything in us, even if that is due to the work of the Spirit. It is by our union with Christ that we benefit from his righteousness; and it is exclusively through faith, which looks away from ourselves to Christ, that we receive it.

Because of the union established between Christ and his elect people, the wrongs done by the guilty parties have become Christ's as well. In turn, the righteousness of the One who bears the punishment actually belongs to the other, since both are regarded as one.

Since we are united to Christ, God regards us in the identical way he does Christ. The Father treats us in exactly the same way as he does his own eternal and beloved Son.

Faith is effective not in itself but because it unites us to Christ. Justification is by faith alone not because of what faith merits or achieves but because of what it receives.

The basis of our union with Christ is Christ's union with us in the incarnation. We can become one with him because he first became one with us. By taking human nature into personal union, the Son of God has joined himself to humanity. He now has a human body and soul, which he will never jettison.

Until we are united with Christ what he has achieved for us helps us no more than an electricity mains supply that passes our house but is not connected to it.