Salvation Applied by the Spirit: Union with Christ

by Robert A. Peterson

Overview

The doctrine of believers’ union with Christ has undergone a renaissance in recent years. Evangelicals are rightly fascinated by this previously neglected doctrine—a doctrine with wide-ranging implications for the whole of Christian theology and the Christian life.

Drawing on his extensive teaching and research experience, theologian Robert Peterson has written one of the most comprehensive theological treatments of union with Christ to date, highlighting the Spirit’s crucial role in uniting God to his people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433532603
Publisher:	Crossway
Publication date:	11/30/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Robert A. Peterson (PhD, Drew University) is professor of systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including Salvation Accomplished by the Son, The Glory of God, and The Deity of Christ.

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CHAPTER 1

Foundations in the Old Testament

The Old Testament provides the foundation for every New Testament teaching, including union with Christ, because it tells so much of the biblical story. Both Testaments tell one story of God's creation, the fall, and his redemptive work in the world of saving a people for himself and ultimately recreating the cosmos. It follows, then, that the climactic movement of this redemptive story (the work of Christ) and its subsequent application (union with Christ) find their meaning in the context of God's unfolding work of redemption begun in Genesis.

Finding Christ in the Old Testament

Much has been made in recent years of "finding" Christ in the Old Testament. But what does that mean? The answer corresponds to the method used to find him. Using allegorical interpretation, some find Christ in the most unlikely places. However, we must tie our reading of the text to the concerns of the original author and audience. The original Old Testament authors and audiences predated Jesus by centuries. Thus, we must avoid the error of reading the Old Testament anachronistically, as though its writers had Romans open alongside the Torah.

Today we have the added benefit of reading the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. However, while our awareness of the Son's arrival on the scene should inform our interpretation of the Old Testament, it must not overwhelm the immediate circumstances in which the text was given. We should not read the Old Testament expecting Moses or Isaiah to articulate details of union with Christ. So what are we looking for? We are not looking for a clear explanation of union with Christ, an idea that would not come for centuries, but anticipations of that union. The New Testament is replete with Old Testament language and themes, as the Gospel of Matthew demonstrates. If the New Testament relies on the Old as the basis for its theological principles, then it makes sense that union with Christ does not emerge from a void but rather fills out concepts introduced in the Old Testament. Ultimately, if we are to avoid reading the Old Testament anachronistically, we must look for union with Christ foreshadowed in its stories and structures.

Union with Christ Foreshadowed

What qualifies as an Old Testament foreshadowing of union with Christ? It is no simple question. The primary conceptual criteria we will use are the concepts of identification, incorporation, and participation, all of which speak of a relationship between God and his people. Identification refers to God's identifying with his people through his presence and in this way giving them an identity. Incorporation refers to God's creating a people for himself. Participation refers to God's people sharing in the story and even the life of God by virtue of their own experiences in faithfully following him. The Old Testament foreshadows union with Christ through word and symbol. It shows God's commitment to be in personal covenantal relationship with his people — a relationship that climaxes in union with Christ. We will see how the Old Testament foreshadows union through these three main concepts fleshed out in texts:

• identification: God's covenantal presence with his people

• incorporation: membership in God's covenantal people

• participation: sharing in the covenantal story

Identification: God's Covenantal Presence with His People

From the very beginning God identifies with his people. He makes them in his image (Gen. 1:27), and the first question he asks guilt-ridden Adam after the fall, "Where are you?" (Gen. 3:9), shows God's ongoing desire to be present with his people despite their sin. God identifies himself with a particular family in choosing Abraham and establishing his covenant with him and his descendants. Throughout the Old Testament story God identifies with his people by being present with them. This theme becomes explicit as the story moves to God's establishing Israel as his special people.

Exodus 25:8–9

After God delivers the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, he establishes them as a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Ex. 19:6). He gives them his law and then this command: "Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst" (25:8). God commands the people to build him a sanctuary, the tabernacle, a tent where God's presence may dwell in their midst. God goes on to prescribe the specifications of the tabernacle. The attention to detail is noteworthy; after all, this is supposed to be God's royal palace, and the various curtains and barriers are meant to protect God's sinful people from his searing holiness. The purpose of the tabernacle is to be God's dwelling place in the midst of his people. It is a tangible demonstration of God's desire to identify with his people by being present with them.

Exodus 33

But why is God's presence, and therefore his identification, so important for God's people? After the incident of the golden calf, God tells Moses that the people may go on to the Promised Land, but without God's presence: "Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people" (Ex. 33:3). How do God's people react? "When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments" (v. 4). Then Moses intercedes before the Lord on behalf of the people: "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?" (vv. 15–16).

Note the basis of Moses's intercession: the people need God's presence because it is his very presence that makes them who they are. Their identity as God's distinct people is based on the presence of the Lord with them. The primary way that God identifies with his people, uniting himself to them, is by his commitment to be present with them.

Leviticus 26:11–13

Perhaps the most explicit articulation of the concept we have been illustrating appears in Leviticus 26:11–13:

I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

The oft-ignored book of Leviticus pinpoints the essential problem for God's desire to be present with his people: their sinfulness. How can a perfect, holy God unite himself and be present with a sinful people? How can a holy God "walk among" them and declare, "I will be your God, and you shall be my people"? Leviticus offers a number of answers.

First, it is in God's character to be holy and just as well as gracious and loving. God is holy, but he also forgives his people's transgression and through the sacrificial system makes a way for them to receive forgiveness and cleansing from sin.

Second, God is committed to his covenant relationships. God promises as part of the covenant to be "among" his people, to "walk among" them, and to "be [their] God." All three images — dwelling, walking, and being their God — speak of relationship, especially God's being Israel's God and Israel's being his people. Thus, even in the Pentateuch there is a clear sense that God desires to be united to his people in covenant relationship, a relationship characterized by God's identifying self-presence with them.

Third, Leviticus establishes that God's presence with his people is a form of union. Paul quotes this passage to make the point that God's people should not unite themselves to unclean things because they are the temple of God: "What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, 'I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people'" (2 Cor. 6:16). Paul applies the concept of union with Christ to the Corinthians to tell them not to join in religious union with unbelievers, and the underlying logic is that God has united himself with his people by his presence with them.

Isaiah 7:10–14

The LORD spoke to Ahaz, "Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven." But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test." And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the LORD himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

Fast-forwarding in the biblical story, Isaiah 7 gives a glimpse as to how this concept of God's presence will play out in the future. Isaiah prophesies to King Ahaz, who has looked for deliverance from sources outside the Lord, and tells him that the ultimate deliverance for Israel will come from the "LORD himself" (v. 14), who will provide a son from the house of David as a sign. But a sign of what? God's presence: he shall be called "Immanuel" or "God with us." Matthew 1:22–23 says that these verses point to the arrival of Jesus as Israel's Messiah. The Old Testament, then, foreshadows the apex of the ongoing theme of identification-by-presence in pointing to the coming Messiah called "Immanuel."

Ezekiel 37:24–28

My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.

After the passage of the "two sticks," in which God promises to reunite Judah and Israel (Ezek. 37:15–23), we have more magnificent promises. David, one of several Old Testament covenant mediators, prefigures the greater David, the Messiah, who will be Israel's shepherd-king forever in the land. Unlike in their previous history, God's people will truly obey him. He will make an everlasting covenant of peace with them and cause them to multiply. He, the Sanctifier, will put his sanctuary in the midst of them and their descendants forever. In fulfillment of covenant promises, God will dwell with them, he will be their God, and they will be his people. When all this happens, the nations will know that he is the Lord.

I interpret this as a prophecy of spiritual Israel, the people of God, obeying him and his Christ, the King, the true Mediator, in the new earth forever. God will give them peace, sanctify them, and dwell among them in complete fulfillment of his previous covenant promises. Therefore, God's presence with his people is eschatological as well, pointing forward to a future when God's presence with his people is established eternally.

Many other passages could be cited, but the point has been made. God's commitment to unite himself to his people by his identifying presence is fulfilled ultimately in his identification with them by becoming one of them, sending his Son in the likeness of human flesh (Phil. 2:7). In Christ's incarnation God dwells (tabernacles) among them (John 1:14) and reaffirms his commitment to be with them always, to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). And when Christ sends the Spirit at Pentecost to be with New Testament believers and to unite them to himself, he gives them this identity — they are "in Christ" as God's people.

Incorporation: Membership in God's Covenantal People

The Old Testament foreshadows union not only through God's identification with his people but also through his joining them together into the body of his people. When God makes his covenant with people in the Old Testament, he does so corporately, not merely individually. Often when we conceive of union, we think in individualistic terms: I am personally united to Christ. While this is true, it can overlook the reality that God relates to his people not only as individuals but also as a whole. In the Old Testament the dual emphasis of individual and corporate relationships with God is embodied in the structure of God's covenant with his people.

Covenantal Structures

When God makes a covenant with his people, he does so primarily through a specific individual who represents the whole corporate people. Thus, when God makes a covenant with Adam (and later Noah), Adam (and then Noah) represents all of humanity. Later, when God makes a covenant with Abraham, Abraham represents not only himself but also his entire family, including his descendants.

Subsequent covenants made with Moses and David follow suit, as Moses and David represent God's people, the nation of Israel. My colleague Jack Collins sketches a helpful diagram to describe the structure of God's covenants with his people. In figure 1, God makes a covenant with an individual (covenant mediator) who is the representative of the larger body of the covenant people. This arrangement is sometimes described as federal headship, where the federal head (covenant mediator) represents a group of people in a federation or covenant.

How does this covenant structure pertain to union with Christ? The New Testament portrays Christ as a covenant Mediator: "There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5). The identification of Jesus as the Messiah from the house of David names him as a covenant Mediator in the line of other Old Testament covenant mediators, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Paul affirms the relationship between Old Testament covenant mediators and Christ in Romans 5 when he explains how Adam and Christ are individuals who represent a corporate whole. If part of union with Christ is being joined to his body, the church, then God's covenantal relationship in the Old Testament sheds light on what it means to be incorporated into God's people and therefore connected to God himself.

Covenant Mediators

Jesus is the "mediator of a new covenant" (Heb. 9:15), but this unique Mediator is preceded by Old Testament covenant mediators, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David.

Adam. The first man represents humanity in the covenant of creation (or covenant of works). He and Eve are stewards of the earth on behalf of God their Lord; under his dominion they exercise dominion over the other creatures (Gen. 1:26–28). Adam, the first covenant mediator, plunges the human race into condemnation and death (Rom. 5:12–19; 1 Cor. 15:22). His fall also subjects the creation to "futility" and "bondage to corruption" (Rom. 8:20–21). Paul juxtaposes Adam, the first covenant mediator, with Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant. As Adam has brought guilt and corruption to his race, so Christ brings justification and eternal life to those who "receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness" (5:17).

Noah. Noah appears in the biblical story as a sort of second Adam. Even as the first man is the father of all living, so Noah is the father of the seven other souls spared by God in the great flood. To Noah and his sons God repeats the Edenic command to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Gen. 9:1; cf. 9:7). As God made the covenant of creation with Adam, so he makes a covenant with Noah, his sons, and the nonhuman creatures spared in the flood. To them God promises, "I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth" (v. 11). God places the rainbow in the sky as the "sign of the covenant" (v. 12). Noah thus takes up the mantle of covenant mediator to represent all of humanity in its relationship with God. Noah's role as covenant mediator to a restored world foreshadows Christ's role as the covenant Mediator through and for whom the entire cosmos will be remade.

Abraham. While Adam and Noah represent all of humanity in their covenants with God, Abraham represents a more specific group: God's people. God calls Abraham:

Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I willbless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Gen. 12:1–3)

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Salvation Applied by The Spirit"
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Copyright © 2015 Robert A. Peterson.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments,
Introduction,
Part One: Union with Christ in Scripture,
1 Foundations in the Old Testament,
2 Foundations in the Synoptic Gospels,
3 Foundations in Acts,
4 Union with Christ in John's Gospel,
5 Union with Christ in Romans,
6 Union with Christ in 1 Corinthians,
7 Union with Christ in 2 Corinthians,
8 Union with Christ in Galatians,
9 Union with Christ in Ephesians,
10 Union with Christ in Philippians,
11 Union with Christ in Colossians,
12 Union with Christ in 1–2 Thessalonians,
13 Union with Christ in the Pastoral Epistles,
14 Union with Christ in Philemon,
15 A Summary of Union with Christ in Paul's Letters (1),
16 A Summary of Union with Christ in Paul's Letters (2),
17 Union with Christ in Hebrews,
18 Union with Christ in 1–2 Peter,
19 Union with Christ in 1 John,
20 Union with Christ in Revelation,
Part Two: Union with Christ in Theology,
21 Union with Christ and the Biblical Story,
22 The Holy Spirit Who Unites Us to Christ:,
His Personality and Deity,
23 The Works of the Holy Spirit,
24 The Most Important Work of the Holy Spirit,
25 The Christ to Whom We Are United,
26 Union with Christ in the Church,
27 Union with Christ in the Sacraments,
28 Union with Christ in the Christian Life,
Bibliography,
General Index,
Scripture Index,
Acknowledgments,

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Peterson offers readers a marvelous survey of the union-with-Christ theme by exploring the concept in every major portion of Scripture. Having carefully placed this important theological subject within the overall biblical story, Peterson helps readers understand the rich meaning and wide-ranging implications of this important theme for the church and the Christian life. It is a privilege to commend this carefully organized and well-written volume. Joyful, uplifting, and doxological.”
—David S. Dockery, Distinguished Professor of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

“This book is a wonderful gift to God’s people as it recovers the significant biblical doctrine of union with Christ. To be saved is to be united with Christ, and Peterson’s treatment of this truth is exegetically and systematically exemplary.”
—Bruce Riley Ashford, Professor of Theology and Culture, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; coauthor, The Gospel of Our King

“This is a welcome addition to recent literature on the theme of union with Christ. Peterson pursues the theme through the whole of Scripture, reflects on the theological connections and implications of our union with Christ, and draws pastoral applications for the sake of the church. The result is an accessible, penetrating, and full-orbed contribution that will be of theological and spiritual benefit to all its readers.”
—Constantine R. Campbell, Senior Vice President of Global Content, Our Daily Bread

“From the surprising Old Testament foundation of Salvation Applied by the Spirit, to the powerful concluding application to our lives today, Robert Peterson applies a lifetime of mature and loving scholarship to the ‘simultaneously wonderful and bewildering’ realities of our union with Christ by the work of the Spirit.”
—Bryan Chapell, Pastor Emeritus, Grace Presbyterian Church, Peoria, Illinois

“Peterson presents the work of the Spirit in uniting us to Christ—first by exegeting central Bible passages on our union with Christ, and second by relating this teaching to other biblical doctrines, such as the nature of the Spirit himself, the church, the sacraments, and the Christian life. Understanding our union with Christ is a major need of Christians today. Peterson’s account is accurate and profound. It can be a great blessing to our minds, hearts, and lives.”
—John M. Frame, Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy Emeritus, Reformed Theological Seminary

“Peterson does an excellent job explaining union with Christ biblically, theologically, and practically. His treatment of union with Christ in the whole biblical story is especially helpful. I recommend this volume to theologians, pastors, and serious lay persons wanting a clear and challenging treatment of life in Christ.”
—Paul R. House, Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School; author, Old Testament Theology  

“This is a thorough, comprehensive discussion of the biblical teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit in effecting union with Christ, together with an exploration of the theological issues connected with these immense matters. Teachers of theology, ministers, students, and many others will consult Peterson’s impressive work repeatedly. He has made a significant contribution to the church.”
—Robert Letham, Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, Union School of Theology

“In this valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on the theme of union with Christ, Robert Peterson skillfully navigates the relevant biblical materials. His focus on the work of the Holy Spirit is illuminating and salutary.”
—William B. Evans, Younts Professor of Bible and Religion, Erskine College; author, Imputation and Impartation and A Companion to the Mercersburg Theology

“Robert Peterson’s panoramic biblical theology of union with Christ is a gift to Christ’s bride. It rightfully and worshipfully locates the heart of salvation in the church’s union with her Savior, calling us to joyful recognition and appreciation of the astounding reality that we are really and truly joined to Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. Skillfully surveying the Scriptures, Peterson demonstrates what is most basic to a faithful historic, Protestant understanding of the gospel: union with the Savior who is the living reality of the good news.”
—Marcus Peter Johnson, Assistant Professor of Theology, Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, Illinois

“Warmly written, carefully conceived, and pastorally applied, Salvation Applied by the Spirit ably unpacks how what Jesus has done for us is applied to us through our union with Christ. It is an outstanding contribution to a magnificent theme, even the most thorough exegetical and theological treatment on union with Christ to date.”
—Christopher W. Morgan, Dean of the School of Christian Ministries and Professor of Theology, California Baptist University