One with Christ

An Evangelical Theology of Salvation

Marcus Peter Johnson

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781433531521
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christliche Theologie

Regeneration, justification, sanctification. These are the primary words that come to mind when talking about the theology of salvation. However, the Bible teaches that each of these concepts is firmly rooted in something more foundational: our union with Christ. In this accessible book, Johnson introduces us to this neglected doctrine, arguing that it is the dominant organizing concept for salvation in the New Testament. In eight thought-provoking chapters, Johnson shows how a believer's position "in Christ" is the lens through which other all other facets of salvation should be understood. Interacting extensively with the biblical text and drawing on lessons from church history, Johnson presents a compelling case for the unique importance of this beautiful, biblical doctrine.

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SIN AND THE INCARNATION

For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

ROMANS 5:19

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:22

For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 CORINTHIANS 5:21

Just as salvation makes sense only in the context of sin, sin can be understood only in the context of salvation. To speak of sin without grace not only makes sin incomprehensible but also belittles the redemptive work of God in the world. “But to speak of grace without sin,” writes Cornelius Plantinga, “is surely no better. To do this is to trivialize the cross of Jesus Christ. . . . What had we thought all the ripping and writhing on Golgotha were all about?”1 A loss of consciousness about the devastating nature of sin makes the “ripping and writhing” of the Son of God—the blood, sweat, spit, and ridicule—incomprehensible and merely grotesque. A failure to take sin seriously enough also renders the incarnation, faithful life, and resurrection of Jesus superfluous or incidental. “The sober truth is that without full disclosure on sin, the gospel of grace becomes impertinent, unnecessary, and finally uninteresting.”2

Space will not allow for a full disclosure on sin here, but some context is essential to the chapters that follow. This chapter is about the contexts in which a helpful discussion of soteriology must be couched. The previous chapter described the nature of salvation in terms of our being united to Christ. But we must pause to ask, why do we need to be united to Christ? Why is it pertinent, necessary, or finally interesting? These questions can be answered—and, thus, the chapters that follow can make sense—only if we first have a grasp of the nature of sin and its effects.

As it turns out, sin and salvation have a mutually reciprocating, albeit highly paradoxical, relationship. The darkness of sin is exposed in the light of Jesus Christ, and the effulgence of Jesus Christ is magnified by the darkness of sin: “The light shines in the darkness” (John 1:5a). Along these lines, this chapter will shed light on how our understanding of salvation (soteriology) ought to simultaneously determine and be determined by our understanding of sin (hamartiology); that is, how the nature of salvation reflects the nature of sin. The apostle Paul tells us that humans exist in one of two states: we are either “in Adam” or “in Christ.” The former is a depraved, condemned, death-dealing existence. The latter is a sanctified, justified, life-giving existence. We are united either to Adam in death or to Christ in life. We will explore how union with Christ helps us to see what it means to be united to Adam.

The chapter concludes with reflection on the soteriological significance of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the last Adam. Along with sin, the incarnation provides a necessary context in which salvation must be understood. Evangelical theology has often neglected the incarnation and needs to recover it so that the theo-logic of salvation is not obscured.3 The “enfleshing” of the eternal Word of God needs to be viewed as much more than a perfunctory step that allowed for the crucifixion. Not only was Jesus’s entire existence in the flesh a saving existence, but his incarnation demonstrates that God’s purpose in salvation is to join us to himself through his Son.

The Problem of Original Sin4

The transmission of Adam’s sin to his posterity remains a complex and thorny issue in Christian theology. Among Reformed theologians, where conversation on this issue has been most lively, there is still no general consensus on the central question involved: How exactly have Adam’s guilt and corruption been transmitted to his descendants? The fact that humanity has sinned in Adam, and that the guilt and corruption of his sin has been transmitted to us, has not historically been in dispute; neither do most deny the mysterious nature of the question. Romans 5:12–19, the crucial text in this discussion, is both the source of the doctrine and the source of the mystery. Paul there affirms the fallen estate of humanity in and through Adam, but he does not specifically explain the nature of the relationship.

The doctrine of the transmission of original sin in the Reformed tradition seeks to describe the results of Adam’s sin for his posterity. It typically includes two aspects: original guilt and original pollution. Original guilt refers to the state of condemnation human beings incur on account of Adam’s transgression of God’s commandment; it is legal in nature. Original pollution refers to the corruption of human nature that people inherit from Adam, which corruption produces actual sins; this is a moral concept.5 Given these categories, any view that seeks to explain the transmission of original sin must grapple with at least three interrelated questions: (1) How do we, the descendants of Adam, become guilty of his sin? (2) How do we inherit his polluted nature? (3) What is the relationship between the declaration of our guilt (condemnation) and the corruption of our nature (depravity)?

Heretofore, two viewpoints have dominated Reformed hamartiology: federalism and realism.6 In the pages that follow, I will briefly expound both views and note their attendant strengths and weaknesses. I will then advance a third position, one I call “christological realism,” which, without jettisoning the truths of the other views, develops and seeks to correct them by drawing heavily on the rich and pervasive Pauline theme of union with Christ. This theme is implied in Romans 5 and developed elsewhere in the Pauline corpus. The position draws on the implied parallel in Romans 5 between the condition humanity inherits “in Adam” and that which the redeemed enjoy “in Christ”—but Paul elaborates only on the latter in a substantive way so as to give us true, though limited, insight into what is ultimately a mystery. Christological realism represents a step forward in answering the three interrelated questions involved in the doctrine of original sin.

FEDERALISM

As to the first question regarding the transmission of original sin—How do we become guilty of Adam’s sin?—the federalist position holds that Adam was divinely constituted as the federal head of humankind, representing his posterity in his actions. Adam thus stood in the place of humanity when he sinned, and the guilt and condemnation of his transgression is therefore accounted to all his descendants. The relationship between Adam and subsequent humanity is typically framed in forensic terms, such that humanity is declared guilty on account of Adam’s sin by virtue of his legal headship.7 The guilt and condemnation that accrues to humanity from Adam’s sin is said to be immediately imputed (or, perhaps better, “directly imputed”8) insofar as the declaration of guilt is unmediated by any intervening factor (such as our ungodliness). Because Adam acted as our federal representative, his transgression of God’s commandment serves as the judicial ground for the condemnation of those united to him.

As to the second question—How have we inherited Adam’s polluted nature?—federalists maintain that, in addition to directly imputed guilt, humanity also inherits a corrupt nature by reason of its solidarity with Adam. This transmission of a corrupted condition is typically thought to be biological in nature as opposed to legal. In other words, Adam’s depraved condition is propagated rather than directly imputed. On this point, many federalists stress that they do not reject in total the realist position, which may account best for the transmission of Adam’s corrupt nature.9 Thus, while the guilt of Adam’s sin has relation to his federal headship, the transmission of his corruption is related to his natural or “seminal” headship. It should be said, however, that federalists are not of one accord regarding the transmission of corruption, and some of their conceptions are not altogether clear.

As to the third question—What is the relationship between the declaration of guilt and the transmission of corruption?—again, federalists do not appear to have reached a consensus. Some, such as John Murray, appeal to two kinds of union with Adam to relate the two aspects of original sin: the guilt/condemnation of Adam’s primal sin is said to be imputed by virtue of his representative headship, and the corruption of his nature is said to be transmitted by virtue of his natural or seminal headship. Others, curiously, hold that innate corruption is the result of the direct imputation of Adam’s guilt. Corruption is viewed as part of the penalty of legal involvement in Adam’s guilt.10 Still other federalists, such as Anthony Hoekema, conflate the two positions. They hold that corruption is linked both to the direct imputation of Adam’s guilt and to a mediated transmission through propagation.11

Despite the valuable contributions of federalism, this brief account reveals some salient weaknesses. The first concerns the problem of peccatum alienum (“alien sin”) and the justice of God: How is it just that God imputes the sin of Adam to those who did not personally commit his sin? Federalism posits what Oliver Crisp calls a “rather peculiar state of affairs wherein God ordains that one person represents everybody else, and commits a sin that everybody has to suffer for.”12 The difficulty, as even some federalists recognize, lies in the fact that Adam’s descendants are accounted guilty of a sin for which they were not personally present and in which they were not volitionally involved—thus, the imputation of an “alien sin.”13 On this view, Adam’s posterity are removed, by quite some distance, from actual participation in his sin, except by way of divine, legal fiat. Typically, advocates of federalism appeal to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness in justification as a plausible solution: just as Christ acts as the representative head of those “in him” in such a way that his righteousness is imputed to them, even though they are not themselves actually righteous, so Adam’s guilt is imputed to those who did not themselves commit his trespass.14 This solution may not be as convincing as it first appears, perhaps running the danger of justifying one “legal fiction” by appeal to what some regard as another. The question of injustice is not necessarily rectified by an appeal to a merely extrinsic notion of imputation, whether of Adam’s guilt or Christ’s righteousness, unless of course this imputation is grounded in a logically antecedent and realistic union with the first or last Adam (there is more on this to follow).

The second weakness pertains to the federalist position that the direct imputation of guilt leads to, or has as its consequence, the corruption of our nature.15 Those who hold this position have not made clear, in my view, why a forensic declaration of guilt/condemnation necessarily or theo-logically entails a corruption of nature, unless it is by divine ordination (which is difficult to sustain biblically). Guilt and corruption may both be real consequences of original sin, but it is not obvious that they are related by way of cause and effect. The legal declaration of guilt associated with Adam’s sin is a judicial reckoning; therefore, to contend that this legal declaration results in an actual transformation of nature does violence to the forensic metaphor. It is not at all transparent that Adam’s depraved nature came about as a consequence of his first sin; does his primal sinning not imply that he was already spiritually compromised?16 In defense of the view that the imputation of guilt leads to sinful corruption, federalists are prone to appeal again to the parallel with the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, which leads to the moral transformation of the sinner. In other words, as justification leads to sanctification “in Christ,” so guilt leads to corruption “in Adam.”17 I will challenge this construal below.

REALISM

Realism constitutes the other main Reformed option for addressing the question of the transmission of original sin. With regard to the imputation of Adam’s guilt, Augustus H. Strong writes: “(Realism) holds that God imputes the sin of Adam to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam’s transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity wa...