Union with Christ: A Zondervan Digital Short
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Derived from Michael Horton’s recently released The Christian Faith, this digital short presents a full theological investigation into the biblical concept of union with Christ. Horton covers the nature of this union, exegetical development of the concept, and both historical visions and contrasting paradigms of it. He also draws connections between a Christian’s ongoing union with his or her Savior and grace, ontology, essence and energies, and covenant—an altogether masterful sketch of a beautiful and mysterious spiritual reality.
Michael Horton
Michael Horton (PhD, University of Coventry and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford) is the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary in California. In addition to being the author of many popular and academic books, he is also the editor in chief of Modern Reformation magazine, a host of the White Horse Inn radio broadcast, and a minister in the United Reformed Churches.
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Union with Christ - Michael Horton
CONTENTS
Cover
Union with Christ
Copyright
Union with Christ
What a wondrous thing it is that even though Jesus Christ has been exalted to the throne of God, absent from us in the flesh, we may nevertheless only now be united to him in a manner far more intimate than the fellowship enjoyed by the disciples with Jesus during his earthly ministry. Having united himself to us in our flesh, in our sins, in our suffering and death, he now unites us to himself in his new-creation life by his Spirit.
Union with Christ is not to be understood as a moment
in the application of salvation to believers. Rather, it is a way of speaking about the way in which believers share in Christ in eternity (by election), in past history (by redemption), in the present (by effectual calling, justification, and sanctification), and in the future (by glorification). Nevertheless, our subjective inclusion in Christ occurs when the Spirit calls us effectually to Christ and gives us the faith to cling to him for all of his riches.
The intratrinitarian covenant of redemption made in eternity realizes itself through the mutual working of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, in that ordo salutis of Paul in Romans 8:30 — 31, which William Perkins aptly called the golden chain
: Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Behind all of the covenants in history lies the eternal purpose of election
to which Paul repeatedly refers (Ro 8:28; 9:11; Eph 1:4 — 5, 11; 3:11; 2Ti 1:9). First Peter is addressed to those who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood,
which explains the sense in which he can say, He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God
(1Pe 1:2, 20 — 21). Here the basis of all covenants was found in the eternal counsel of God,
writes Bavinck, "in a covenant between the very persons of the Trinity, the pactum salutis (counsel of salvation)."¹
I. THE NATURE OF THE UNION
The motif of mystical union has often been presented as an alternative to the forensic (legal) motifs of redemption, especially vicarious substitution and justification. Since Albert Schweitzer, the thesis has repeatedly been advanced, refuted, and then advanced again that justification is a subsidiary crater
in Paul, while the real central dogma is mystical union. Reginald Fuller notes, Attempts have been made to pinpoint some other center or focus for Pauline theology, such as ‘being in Christ’ (Schweitzer) or salvation history (Johannes Munck).
However, Romans, the most systematic exposition of Paul’s thought, clearly makes justification the center.
Not only in Paul but in the pre-Pauline creedal hymns we find this affirmation (2Ti 1:9 and Tit 3:4 – 5).²
Like Schweitzer, a variety of contemporary trends in Pauline studies as well as Reformation scholarship are driven by the presupposition that mystical participation in Christ stands over against a forensic emphasis on Christ’s alien righteousness imputed to believers.³ Through the interpretive lens of union with Christ we can move beyond the false choice of a legal, judicial, and passive salvation on one hand and a relational, mystical, and transformative participation in Christ on the other. Nevertheless, as I argued in relation to Christ’s atoning work, the integral unity of these motifs is possible only because the latter is grounded in the former. As Geerhardus Vos expressed it,
In our opinion Paul consciously and consistently subordinated the mystical aspect of the relation to Christ to the forensic one. Paul’s mind was to such an extent forensically oriented that he regarded the entire complex of subjective spiritual changes that take place in the believer and of subjective spiritual blessings enjoyed by the believer as the direct outcome of the forensic work of Christ applied in justification. The mystical is based on the forensic, not the forensic on the mystical.⁴
A. EXEGETICAL DEVELOPMENT
The doctrine of union with Christ may be gathered from various biblical sources. First, there is the covenantal theme that underlies the entire biblical narrative from creation to consummation. From the very beginning, the goal is to bring creatures into fellowship (koinōnia) with God and each other that is as close as humanly possible to that communion between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
From creation to the flood to the exodus all the way to the new creation, there is a close connection between the covenant and union with the covenant mediator, effected by the Spirit, through a separation of the waters of judgment so that his people may cross through to the other side on dry land (Ge 1:1 — 2, 9 — 10;