A Book Review from Books At a Glance
by Ryan M. McGraw
The Christian life is grounded in Christian faith. While this should go without saying, Christians often miss how deeply meditative growth in holiness is. Making a list of things to do to overcome anxiety, lust, discouragement, and self-centeredness seems like the easiest path towards bringing lasting change in our lives. However, though seductive in its seeming ease, such pursuits often fail to deliver what they promise. The slower, yet more effective, way of growing in Christlikeness is reshaping our thoughts around our union with the Savior himself. Seeing him and becoming like him is the biblical way towards godly living (1 Jn. 3:1-3). Sinclair Ferguson intends this book to be “a first book” on union with Christ, serving as “a catalyst to a lifetime of reflection on it” (1). He executes his task well, showing readers how to become more preoccupied with the Savior himself, who is their life, than with themselves.
Ferguson opens each of his twelve chapters with a key Scripture text on union with Christ, offering his readers a deep dive into biblical reasoning about his subject. This carries the advantage of learning to root sound doctrine in the thought processes of the biblical authors themselves, resulting both in better Bible reading and forming new patterns of thought (2). The chapters include what it means to be “in Christ” (Eph. 1:3-14), “getting into Christ (Phil. 3:1-21), what union with Christ is like (2 Cor. 5:17), its foundations in Christ as the second Adam (Rom. 5:12-21), what it means to be reconciled in Christ (2 Cor. 5:9-21), the importance of biblical prepositions (Gal. 2:20), the implications of Christ’s death and resurrection for us (Rom. 6:1-14), the implications of the fact that the “old man” has died (Rom. 6:5-14), the “rhythm” of life resulting from union with Christ (Col. 3:1-17), how union with Christ transforms us (Col. 3:5-17), and the vine and the branches as a “picture of union” (Jn. 15:1-11). Chapter twelve breaks the pattern of one text per chapter, focusing on Colossians 1:24, 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, 2 Corinthians 4:7-12, and 1 Corinthians 13:2-4 to deepen readers’ view of union as a recurring biblical theme. Ferguson then concludes with a paraphrase of a beautiful section in Calvin’s Institutes connecting every stage of the Christian life to union with Christ (149).
Readers will notice at a glance that all of the chapters save chapter eleven zero in on passages from the Apostle Paul. This carries both strengths and weaknesses. Picking up clear patterns in Paul’s thought to reshape how we think about Christ and ourselves is a great strength. Readers will begin to grasp how to challenge the way that they currently think with the way that they ought to think, enabling them to profit more fully from Paul’s letters as well. Yet they might miss the same lines of reasoning in other New Testament authors who express the same realities through different vocabulary and metaphors. Additionally, Isaiah’s Servant Songs are, arguably, grounded in Christ’s union with his people, along with the first promise of the gospel in Genesis 3:15, and many things in between and after in the Old Testament. Hopefully, however, readers will begin to learn what to look for beyond the sample of texts that Ferguson offers them. In any case, this text is a great primer on a central wide-reaching theme in the biblical doctrine of salvation.
Put briefly, Ferguson shows how and why union with Christ lies at the heart of the biblical view of salvation. Readers will not merely learn what Scripture says about union with Christ, but how the biblical authors (especially Paul) think and how we can learn to think like them and with them. This may not be the book that readers are looking for to transform their lives radically and permanently, but it is likely the book that they need.
Ryan M. McGraw
Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary