A. H. Strong, in Examiner, 1880: “Such is the nature of union with Christ,—such I mean, is the nature of every believer’s union with Christ. For, whether he knows it or not, every Christian has entered into just such a partnership as this. It is this 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. We may actually possess the kernel, while as yet we have regard only to the shell; we may seem to ourselves to be united to Christ only by an external bond, while after all it is an inward and spiritual bond that makes us his. God often reveals to the Christian the mystery of the gospel, which is Christ _in_ him the hope of glory, at the very time that he is seeking only some nearer access to a Redeemer outside of him. Trying to find a union of coöperation or of sympathy, he is amazed to learn that there is already established a union with Christ more glorious and blessed, namely, a union of life; and so, like the miners in the Rocky Mountains, while he is looking only for silver, he finds gold. 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 Savior; 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.” So the Way leads, through the Truth, to the Life (_John 14:6_). Apprehension of an external Savior prepares for the reception and experience of the internal Savior. Christ is first the Door of the sheep, but in him, after they have once entered in, they find pasture (_John 10:7‐9_). On the nature of this union, see H. B. Smith, System of Christian Theology, 531‐539; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 601; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 208‐272, and New Birth of Man’s Nature, 1‐30. _Per contra_, see Park, Discourses, 117‐136. 3. Consequences of this Union as respects the Believer.