In Christ Alone: Perspectives on Union with Christ edited by Stephen Clark & Matthew Evans

Affinity/Mentor, 2016, 283pp 

This volume gathers together the papers presented at the 2015 Affinity Theological Studies Conference. I was present for that event and very much appreciated reading the various papers and discussing the issues raised by them with fellow conference members. 

The doctrine of union with Christ has rightly received renewed attention in Evangelical circles in recent decades. Few themes are so central to our understanding and appreciation of the work of Jesus on our behalf and how we come to benefit from what he has done for us. 

The chapters explore union with Christ from a variety of perspectives, biblical, historical and theological. Welcome attention is given to the writings of John and Paul, where union with Christ is explored most fully in the New Testament. The Reformer John Calvin and the Puritan John Owen placed union with Christ at the core of their presentation of salvation accomplished and applied. Much may be learned from their insights as teased out by Robert Letham and John Fesko. Papers are also devoted to the relationship between union with Christ and justification and sanctification respectively. 

In a final chapter Stephen Clark endeavors sum things up the heading, 'Union with Christ': Towards a Biblical and Systematic Theological Framework for Practical Living. This essay was not one of the papers written for the 2015 conference. Clark seeks to make good some aspects of the doctrine not covered by the six papers, reflecting on union with Christ in the Old Testament and the Synoptic Gospels. Especially helpful is his discussion of the union and the ordo salutis. Christ was united to his people in eternity, before the foundation of the world. Historically speaking they were crucified and raised with him. But they were only united to Christ existentially when drawn to him by faith that they might enjoy the benefits of his saving work on their behalf. (See Ephesians 1:4, Romans 6:4, 16:7).

A certain order applies even when it comes to the existential aspect of union with Christ. Logically, the sinner needs to be made spiritually alive in order to believe and so be justified by faith. Yet regeneration is not the grounds of justification. Rather God justifies the ungodly simply on the basis of Christ's obedience, blood and resurrection. Those who have been united to Christ for justification have also been united to him for progressive sanctification, having died with Christ to the old life of sin and been raised with him to a new life of holiness. 

The Christian life is not about trying to conform to a bunch of arbitrary rules laid down by the church designed to suck as much pleasure out of life as possible. It's about living out of the fullness of our union with Christ as justified sinners whom God is conforming to the image of his Son by the power of the Spirit. It is in Christ we live, suffer and die. And it is in Christ we shall be raised to everlasting glory. 

Some of Clark's lengthy footnotes are worth reading, especially the ones on time and eternity, and the interpretation of the Song of Solomon. 

I'm glad that these essays are now available to a wider audience. The authors' attention to the biblical texts offer surprising (if not always convincing) exegetical insights. At least I wasn't convinced by Cornelis Benema on John 14:1-6. Robert Letham provocatively advocates Calvin's view of the Lord's Supper in relation to union with Christ. The chapter on John Owen reminds us that unlike Lutheranism, Reformed theology is not overly based on the teaching of a single Reformer. And a good thing too. 

Theology students, pastors and serious Christian readers will find much to help them here as we seek to understand that which is beyond full human comprehension; the believer's mystical union with Christ. This work serves as a good companion piece to the 2007 Affinity Theological Study Conference papers on the person of Christ, published under the title, The Forgotten Christ: exploring the mystery and majesty of God incarnate. 

Christ and the Decree by Richard A. Muller

Baker Academic, 2008, 240pp 

Why should a busy pastor give time to studying a work of historical theology like this? Surely we'd be better off reading a how-to manual on sermon illustrations, counselling, leadership, or what have you. If we must read theology, let it be an entry level piece, or a nice little primer that won't overload our poor little minds. A work of in-depth scholarship about what people from hundreds of years ago used to think about stuff, what's the point in that?

Well, because we might learn something and gain valuable insights into God's word and ways. Also, those insights may provide us with resources to help resolve some of the theological controversies that are raging in contemporary evangelical circles. Arguments over the eternal submission of the Son, for example. 

It is sometimes claimed that the theologians who followed Calvin and the early Reformers regressed into scholasticism. Not quite arguing over angels on a pin head, but as near as. They moved away from the biblical simplicity of Calvin and Bucer and began to employ hair splitting theological definitions, and developed elaborate theological systems. Those systems used Calvin's teaching on predestination as the axiom from which they deduced their doctrines. 

As Muller demonstrates, however, Calvin was not averse to using the apparatus of scholastic theology in giving expression to his thought. Reformed orthodoxy that followed in his wake continued where he left off. Both in terms of methodology and as they developed key Reformation doctrines. When it came to predestination, it was not the axiom from which they deduced their doctrinal systems by logical extension. 

Predestination underlined the Reformed emphasis on salvation by grace alone. But the decree was discussed in relation to  higher order doctrines, with a concentration on trinitarian ground of decree and its Christological focus. Christ and the decree was the point where the infinite and finite, the eternal and historical met. Christ was seen in relation to the decree in three ways: he is the electing God together with the Father and Holy Spirit; the Elect One, chosen to become the divine/human mediator; and the one in whom sinners were chosen for salvation. 

When it comes to Christology, the Reformed were fully in line with the teaching of the Definition of Chalcedon in confessing that Christ was a divine person with a human nature. But their preoccupation was on Christ as mediator, acting as prophet, priest and king to redeem his people from sin. Close attention was given to Christ's mediatorial work in both his state of humiliation, from his incarnation to the cross, and exaltation, from his resurrection to eternity. That the incarnate Son was and remained fully God when he became man was safeguarded by the so-called extra Calvinisticum. He who was held in his mother's arms as a baby also upheld the universe by his power as the Son of God.

As I say, there has been a lot of rather heated discussion in recent days over whether we may rightly speak of the eternal submission of the Son to the Father. In a way the phrase sounds right because the New Testament bears witness to the fact that the Son was sent into the world by the Father. And that arrangement was made in eternity. In another way, we might feel a bit queasy over the idea that the Son stood in a relationship of eternal submission to the Father. Do we not confess that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are homoousios, of the same divine being? The fullness of that divine being is in all three persons, ruling out any notion of subordination.

Calvin taught that concerning his divine nature, Christ was God in himself, autotheos, but concerning his person he was of the Father. The Reformer acknowledged that there is an order of persons in the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but insisted that all three persons were equally God, with one divine being and will. Muller brings out that Calvin and his theological heirs successors grasped this point very well when it came to discussing predestination. They saw that Christ was not simply the Elect One, or the means by which the decree was executed. He was also, together with the Father and the Spirit, author of the decree to save. In that sense, the Son was self-designated to act as mediator, willingly submitting to be sent into the world by the Father. 

Reformed thinkers accepted the Partristic insight that in their external actions the three persons of the Trinity act as one, but not in the same way. All things are of the Father, by the Son and through the Spirit. This entails no hint of ontological subordination on the part of the Son as God, but recognises that it was singularly appropriate due to the order of persons that it was the Second Person of the Trinity who became incarnate. 

Talk of the eternal submission of Son to Father is therefore inappropriate. At least it needs to be highly qualified. Better to speak of the Son submitting to the will of God that he be sent into the world by the Father.  But it must be underlined that by 'God' we mean one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We may, indeed then say that the Son is the Electing God, the Elect one, and the one in whom we are elected for salvation. It is partly because we seem to have forgotten that the Son is himself the Electing God that we are having such trouble over the language of eternal submission with its subordinationist overtones. See here for more on Calvin, Beza on this theme. 

Muller expertly traces lines of development from Calvin through to Polanus and Perkins by way of Beza, Ursinus, Zanchi and others. He corrects the notion that Calvin was the gold standard of Reformed theology and that the slightest doctrinal development should be viewed as a deviation. The whole 'Calvin and the Calvinists' thing popularised by R. T. Kendall is shown to be baseless. 

Of Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf (1561-1610) and William Perkins (1558-1602) Muller writes,

In their thought we perceived at last the convergence of parallel lines of christological and predestinarian doctrinal development, the convergence of which can only occur in the infinite depth of the Trinity. And when the lines do converge in the realisation that the Son considered as God is the source, while considered as mediator in union with the human nature, self-determined executor of the decree, then on this infinite scale we also perceive the ultimate doctrinal "arch" of which not predestination but the trinitarian ground of all theology is the keystone. This structure had developed from Calvin, reaching fruition at the end of the century in the codification of early orthodoxy.

Muller's work also teases out the pastoral implications of the orthodox Reformed treatment of Christ and the decree. How are poor sinners meant to know whether they are among the elect? The decree in itself lies hidden in God. But the God who decrees is no deus nudus absconditus, an inaccessibly hidden deity. Muller explains, "There can be no deus nudus absconditus because the Christ who redeems is, according to his divinity, the God who decrees." The trinitarian foundation and Christological focus of the decree means that the believer can be sure they are elect because the Father has drawn them into saving union with Christ by the Spirit. We are in him by faith because we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. Christ, as Calvin put it is "the mirror of our election." 

Affinity Theological Studies Conference 2015 Report

Last Wednesday to Friday I attended the Affinity Theological Studies Conference. Many conferences aimed at Ministers and theological students take place annually. The Affinity one is biennial, which kind of makes it seem special. But that is not its only distinction. Most conferences involve very little actual conferring aside from general chit chat at meal times, or coffee-fueled late night conversations with friends. Confer-ences they are not. And even when panel-led discussions are laid on in an attempt to facilitate interaction they don't really work. It's a bit like BBC Question Time with Dimbleby on rambling form and no one especially interesting or controversial on the panel to liven things up. Plus tiresome and predictable questions from the audience. 'Why can't we all be Presbyterians?' and the like. 

The Affinity event is different, however. It's a proper conference with discussion at its heart. Papers are circulated to delegates beforehand. At the conference authors don't deliver their papers in full, but briefly introduce them in preparation for the discussion sessions.

This year's theme was Union with Christ. See here for a breakdown of the papers and their authors. I'm not going to attempt to summarise them here, as they will be published in due course in Affinity's online theological journal, Foundations. Suffice to say that all were of excellent quality as to content. Most were of reasonable length, which was handy as I hadn't managed much reading before the event and had to get through the papers during free time. A mammoth 36-pager defeated my best attempts at speed reading late on Thursday night, but I managed to get through most of it. One lacuna was the eschatological aspect of union with Christ. Most papers hinted at this dimension, but none were entirely devoted to it. Perhaps the next conference can make good by looking at biblical eschatology? We can always hope.

As far as discussion is concerned delegates were grouped into six groups of around eight people, each with its own chair. Our group gelled well, with lots of good quality theological discussion and reflection on how to apply the teaching of the various papers in our ministries. Speakers are divided up one per group, meaning each group gets to grill a one in turn. Ours was Bob Leatham whose paper on John Calvin and union with Christ prompted in-depth discussion on the Lord's Supper and theosis. 

After the group discussions delegates come together for plenary sessions. A panel discussion brought the conference to a close. Unusually, even that worked well. When David Dimbleby eventually retires the BBC should get Stephen Clark to chair Question Time. 

Several people were kind enough to mention that they read this blog, which I've rather neglected of late. Pastoral commitments, school governor work and family stuff have left me with little time for posting displaced fragments. But taking the wife to a hospital outpatients appointment meant I was able to snatch a few spare moments in the waiting room to begin composing this piece on my mobile. 

Given the conference theme I must admit to a twinge of disappointment that on Sunday I was due to preach on Nehemiah 11, rather than John 15 or Colossians 3, say. But on the other hand, I reflected, how could I preach that chapter meaningfully to the New Testament people of God apart from the interrelated themes of the covenant of grace and union with Christ that make the Old Testament Scriptures applicable to today's church? 

I left the conference with an enriched sense of the wonder of the believers' union with Christ and the blessings that flow to us in and through the Saviour, Ephesians 1:3.