As is so often the case, the past century of theology has seen theology moving slowly forward in the wake of biblical studies and the insights of exegesis. Although biblical studies have taken several different “turns”—eschatology, apocalypticism, new perspective, etc.—one of the fundamental principles that can be found in various iterations across the field is the idea of “union with Christ.”1 Scholars speak of “union” in varying ways, but the concept itself has become a constant in biblical studies. Noting the promise of “union,” theologians have tried to appropriate these insights and apply them across the differing loci to see how a new perspective on union may resolve or at least attenuate some of the intractable problems.

Of particular interest has been how union relates, specifically, to atonement theory. The work of Gustaf Aulén2 and others ignited renewed discussion on the models of atonement. As biblical studies began to move towards theology, some found recourse in “union” either as an aid for one of the main types or as a new model altogether.3 For many of these thinkers, the idea of “union” presents a more palatable vision of the atonement that is more in-line with patristic and not so beholden to legal or penal categories. Because of this, union is often contrasted with penal-substitution and upheld as the superior model. In this paper, I will look closely at “union” accounts of atonement, especially the “union account” that Oliver Crisp has recently put forward. My thesis is twofold. First, I will seek to show that Crisp’s union account does not provide a satisfactory alternative atonement mechanism because of difficult internal questions. Second, I will seek to show that there are models of union with Christ and penal substitutionary atonement that avoid charges of “legal fictions,” as well as the problems with Crisp’s model. To do this, I will survey recent proponents of “union” atonement—specifically T. F. Torrance and Kathryn Tanner—to set the stage. With context in mind, I will look more closely at Oliver Crisp’s “union account” of the atonement.4 After interacting with Crisp, I will try to resource John Owen as a model of how union and penal substitutionary atonement might cohere.

1. “Union” in Some Recent Proposals

T. F. Torrance towers in the field of systematic theology. Perhaps best known as the one who introduced Karl Barth to the English-speaking world, Torrance was himself an able and creative theologian who sought to integrate the best of patristic and Reformed theology with the insights of modern theology and science.5 In his project of retrieval, Torrance finds among the patristics an emphasis on union that moves him to consider more closely the nature of the atonement. In his exploration of Nicene Christianity, Torrance makes union the centerpiece of atonement theology: “Union with God in and through Jesus Christ who is one and the same being with God belongs to the inner heart of atonement.”6 Although careful not to affirm a physicalist atonement, Torrance nevertheless maintains “a realist approach” to union, in which Christ and man are truly united.7 By virtue of this real union, what is Christ’s is made man’s.

Torrance insists on this approach to union because salvific benefits simply flow from the hypostatic union. That is, for Torrance, the incarnation is fundamentally soteriological: “The incarnation of the Eternal Word and Son of God is to be understood, therefore, in an essentially soteriological way.”8 Torrance does not mean by this that soteriology can be reduced to Christ’s incarnation, but rather that all of Christ’s life and work must be understood within the confines of the hypostatic union.9 Nevertheless, union with Christ, both in terms of the hypostatic union with Christ, and man’s union with Christ, constitute the basic foundation of atonement for Torrance.10

The approach that Torrance began has been picked up and extended by Kathryn Tanner in Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity11 and Christ the Key. For Tanner, who uses “incarnation” as the more global term for “union,”12 the incarnation “enables one to revise traditional descriptions and explanations of the saving significance of the cross so as to do justice to the criticisms that feminist and womanist theologians rightly lodge against classical atonement theories.”13 The cross in the incarnational model now becomes an “effect” of God’s saving work, rather than “the means or mechanism by which God saves.”14 It is his humanity that serves as the most basic principle of our salvation: “The perfected humanity of Jesus is the means of our salvation; we are saved as we are united with him, perfected and glorified, in faith and love.”15

Tanner’s vision of atonement is deeply shaped by the concerns of feminist and womanist critiques of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA).16 A significant impetus for Tanner, then, is to recast atonement in explicitly non-legal/penal categories. Thus, the cross is no longer central, but instead only gives “salvation by way of incarnation its urgency.”17 And Christ’s substitution is not one of legal representation but instead is one of “incarnational identification.”18

Although others have attempted to integrate union, incarnation, and atonement, Torrance and Tanner in particular are helpful for contextualizing Crisp’s own reflections on what he calls his “union account of atonement.” Crisp has directly engaged with Torrance and Tanner in recent studies,19 and these two theologians inform Crisp’s own version of union and atonement.20

2. Oliver Crisp’s Atonement Model

For the past two decades, Crisp has made a career of highlighting minority reports and liminal places in Reformed theology. And while he seems to situate himself broadly in the Reformed tradition, he is an eclectic theologian who pulls from different voices and does not constrain himself to one avenue of thought. His work on the atonement models that impulse well. Crisp presents a novel account of the atonement that incorporates insights across the theological landscape. To summarize his atonement theory, it will be helpful to deal first with two background concerns that govern his views on atonement. The first is the question of legal fictions in classic Reformed theology; the second is what Crisp calls elsewhere a “consistent realism.” Since this paper is concerned with how “union” works specifically in the atonement, I will briefly interact with these two background issues before moving towards a closer look at Crisp’s atonement theory proper.

Crisp makes very clear that his union account of atonement is driven, in part, by three distinct, but ultimately connected, concerns: (1) Christ receiving our punishment, though innocent; (2) the transfer of sin and guilt from Adam to his progeny; and (3) the question of “legal fiction.”21 Although these three can be parsed apart, they all rest on the problem of the legal transfer of sin/guilt to another person. For Crisp, this is the fundamental issue with any sort of imputation or representational theory of the atonement that posits a legal transfer of sin and/or guilt between Adam and his progeny and Christ and the elect.22 Here is where, according to Crisp, PSA falls short: it predicates union on the imputation of sin. Whether this is an accurate reflection of the strongest presentation of PSA must wait. The important piece to note in terms of Crisp’s impetus is the move away from representationalism as morally defensible.23 More will be said on this below.

This concern for “legal fictions” drives Crisp to reject representationalism and move towards realism. This is territory that has concerned Crisp for some time now. In one of his early books on William G. T. Shedd, Crisp argued for a modified Reformed realism over against federalism. In Crisp’s mind, Augustinian realism in terms of original sin, that sin is passed down from Adam and his progeny because the two are somehow one metaphysical entity, is immediately superior to the federal idea of Adamic headship.24 Without going into the details of how it works out philosophically, Crisp presents a chastened realism that works out of a “common nature argument”25 and an essentialist understanding of properties.26Although Shedd was adamant that union with Adam and union with Christ were fundamentally different,27 Crisp moves beyond Shedd and suggests in passing not just an Augustinian realism, which is restricted to Adam, but a “consistent realism,” which applies a similar logic to the relationship between the elect and Christ.28 I say “suggests in passing” because Crisp does not develop this idea, nor does he actually recommend it. He simply says, “I think a realist argument for the atonement is intriguing, despite the not inconsiderable obstacles it faces.”29 Later on, Crisp will use temporal parts theory to describe one possible way to think of consistent realism.30

Much more could be said about Crisp’s “consistent realism.” The point of the brief summary above was not to probe Crisp’s philosophical foundations nor to critique his realist framework. The point was to highlight the driving motivation—a motivation Crisp very much admits—that lay behind Crisp’s union account of atonement. I will reserve what I see are two important critiques after I interact with his view of atonement.

With those two issues brought to the fore—the concern for legal fictions and consistent realism—I will move to the atonement theory suggested by Crisp. First, I will discuss the general contours of his account. Second, I will probe more directly into the details of how union brings about reconciliation; that is, I will focus on the mechanism that Crisp has in mind. Some of what is presented below will be extensions of Crisp’s arguments. This is due, in part, to the relative dearth of sources available. Crisp has not yet offered a full treatment of his union theory of atonement, with most of his work being done in two recent books, The Word Enfleshed and Aproaching the Atonement. Both are more popular works and do not devote much space to the account itself. Therefore, I read and critique Crisp with the understanding that his account is not necessarily fully formed. The goal of this paper is to consider whether Crisp’s union account improves upon a robustly Reformed account of the atonement. To that end, after surveying Crisp and offering up my critiques, I will draw in the work of John Owen to see how he compares.31

As already noted, Crisp’s work on the atonement has been influenced, both directly and indirectly, by T. F. Torrance. One of the instincts they share is reappropriating, or better yet, repristinating patristic theology for modern audiences. Like Torrance as well, Crisp admits that his views of the atonement are largely an attempt to recover the theology of Athanasius.32 Here is how Crisp summarizes an Athanasian theory of the atonement: “Christ assumes a universal human nature, and heals it from the inside out so that what he changes with respect to the universal human nature will then affect all other instances of this universal human nature in fallen human beings.”33 This discussion of “universal human nature,” though, is problematic. Part of Crisp’s critique of Kathryn Tanner’s view on nature is the ambiguities that persist in speaking of a universal human nature. Whether conceived of in terms of a “property” or a “concrete particular,” a “universal human nature” does not necessarily exist apart from the individuals and their existence.34 Thus, Crisp hopes to ground Athanasius—along with Torrance, and possibly Tanner—on “firmer metaphysical footing.”35

Crisp’s union account of atonement relies on two “metaphysical entities”—Fallen Humanity and Redeemed Humanity.36 Within these two composites exist all of mankind, with Adam as the head of Fallen Humanity, and Christ the head of Redeemed Humanity. Here Crisp’s consistent realism is on full display—both Fallen and Redeemed Humanity are “real composite entit[ies]” in Crisp’s account, “as real as any other around us from rocks and trees to humans and angels.”37 Humans who are in Christ are really in Christ, but they can be simultaneously in Fallen Humanity and Redeemed Humanity. It is not exactly clear how someone can really be in two distinct, even exclusive, entities; Crisp only mentions this in passing. This will cause issues in coordinating the exact mechanism at work in Crisp’s account. Nevertheless, for Crisp, these two entities are real, extending through time. It also seems to be the case that, for Crisp, Redeemed Humanity exists somehow prior to Christ, as elect who lived before Christ are members of this new humanity. While Crisp maintains that members of Redeemed Humanity are united to Christ by the Holy Spirit, it is not exactly clear how members of Redeemed Humanity become members of Redeemed Humanity.38

Between Adam and Fallen Humanity and Christ and Redeemed Humanity exists a metaphysical bond. This apparently moves beyond “relations” and into something organic. Crisp draws the notion of a “real union” with Christ from a comment by Jonathan Edwards.39 By being bound up in this new metaphysical entity, people in Christ are redeemed as he undergoes the penal consequences of the elect. Thus, Crisp revises the standard understanding of imputation in a metaphysical direction. To do this, he appeals to mereology, the study of composite parts. Those who are in Christ may rightfully be called “righteous” not because they themselves are righteous but because they are members of a composite properly called “righteous.” Crisp uses the example of Tibbles, the ginger cat.40 Even though not all the parts of Tibbles are ginger, they may be called ginger because of their membership in Tibbles. In a similar way, members of Redeemed Humanity may be likewise designated righteous, not because of anything inherent but rather by virtue of their incorporation into Christ.

There are two things to note here about Crisp’s move. First, the metaphysical union renders imputation superfluous.41 Sins are not imputed to Christ because he really is the head of a metaphysical entity comprised of sinful human beings. Crisp sees no “legal fiction” at work here. Second, representation likewise becomes a moot point.42 Christ does not merely represent us; he really is one of us and stands—logically or metaphysically—at the head of the elect. The two aspects of imputation and representation are closely connected and harken back to Crisp’s overarching concern of the legal fiction, specifically the legal transfer of sin from one individual to another, as seen above.

In summary, the union account put forward by Crisp relies on three pillars: (1) the metaphysical reality of a composite entity called Redeemed Humanity of whom Christ is the head, (2) who suffers the penal consequences of Redeemed Humanity, (3) which in turn participates in Christ’s new life by virtue of the Spirit.43 Each of these could be explored in-depth, but I want to focus on four primary problems in Crisp’s account, problems that make the union account less than satisfying for those seeking a new account of atonement.

The first problem concerns the nature of incorporation into Redeemed Humanity. As already mentioned, Crisp allows that the Holy Spirit unites believers to Christ, but in Crisp’s mind these believers seem to be members of Redeemed Humanity already. Earlier, Crisp says that one may exist in Fallen Humanity and Redeemed Humanity simultaneously, even though both are real metaphysical entities. The problem exists on two fronts. First, how are believers made members of Redeemed Humanity before they are united to Christ by the Holy Spirit? For older views of imputation and representation, this does not pose a problem. Crisp’s realist account, though, faces some serious issues when trying to describe the transition from one entity to another.44 Second, how can a person be a real member of two different metaphysical entities at the same time? Crisp boils this down to election, but that does not evade the problem of metaphysical union. There is also the moral question: simultaneous membership in both Fallen Humanity and Redeemed Humanity seems to cut against Paul’s logic in Romans 5.

The second problem is related to the first. The important piece in Crisp’s account is the transfer of penal consequences from members of Redeemed Humanity to Christ.45 As already seen, though, members of Redeemed Humanity are members of Redeemed Humanity even prior to Christ. Thus, on what basis are penal consequences distributed to Christ? Why must Christ, as the head of the metaphysical entity, Redeemed Humanity, suffer penal consequence at all, if they are already a part of him? Tim Bayne and Greg Restall, for example, see clearly the implications of a participatory model: “The moral debt we owe to God is not punished or forgiven, nor is satisfaction or reparation made for it. Instead, it is dealt with by changing the identity of the sinner: in the sense which matters, the person who is in the wrong before God no longer exists.”46 Would this not be the case for Crisp, even more so given his consistent realism? Now, perhaps Crisp would respond by appeals to retributive justice.47 Still, in Crisp’s terms, the identity of the members of the elect, when compared to Tibbles the Ginger Cat, is that of Redeemed Humanity. On what basis, then, must their penal consequences be transferred to Christ? There seems to be an inherent contradiction that members of Redeemed Humanity must, in some way or another, still be redeemed.

The third problem I see in Crisp’s union account is the idea of composite entities. As already discussed, his consistent realism presents two metaphysical beings—fallen and redeemed humanity. Although there are ways of coordinating wholes to their parts, it is difficult to understand morality in terms of a composite entity. For instance, returning to Tibbles, to call him a ginger cat despite his constituent parts not being ginger is not in itself a moral claim. It concerns inert matter and an animal. However, that logic is difficult to reconcile with a moral entity composed of moral agents.

Finally, there is a more global problem to Crisp’s account, which is his worries over legal fictions. That is, worries that sin and guilt can be transferred from one party to another purely on legal, rather than metaphysical, grounds. For Crisp, this is the great danger of the standard penal substitutionary account and any mechanism of atonement that works off representation. I began a review of Crisp’s union account by noting this as one of his overarching concerns. It seems that, if one were able to at least suggest a viable and just way forward in terms of representation, then it would largely obviate most of Crisp’s revisions.

For Crisp, substitution (i.e., forensic representationalism) carries with it irresolvable issues that sully the justice of God and leave substitution, specifically penal substitution, morally indefensible. The primary issue with a representationalist/substitutionary model according to Crisp is that it too easily transfers the legal guilt of the guilty party to an innocent party. Personal guilt cannot become legal guilt that is paid by someone else.48 The issue with Crisp’s critique of penal substitution, as I see it, is twofold. First, it assumes a certain type of metaphysics that restricts the significance of legal/forensic relations in ways that seem foreign to biblical modes of thinking (cf. Neh. 9). The second issue is that it presents a strawman of some PSA accounts. Such a critique abstracts Christ’s suffering from a broader view of Christ’s mediation which the stronger proponents of PSA have fleshed out. Christ does not receive our penalty in a vacuum; his mediation is contextualized by a prior legal relationship as the surety.

Even in today’s legal context, certain types of arrangements allow for this very thing. Although the debts of a deceased person are generally paid out of the person’s estate, there are types of community property that, in the case of an estate being unable to pay debts, are left on other persons to remunerate. In some instances of community property laws, property purchased with funds earned in a marriage but owned, legally, by only one party is subject to these community property laws. Say John and Jill are married, both earning reasonable incomes. John, without telling Jill, takes some of that money earned and purchases a house, putting only his name on the deed of that house. Personally, John is responsible for this mortgage on the house and is required to pay it. However, that house, being purchased with money earned after the marriage, becomes Jill’s legal responsibility in the wake of John’s death. Admittedly, not every state has community property laws, but they do exist. Given their existence, it is possible to conceive of Christ’s legal responsibility as akin to the mechanics of community property laws.49 This is not the only way to conceive of Christ’s legal guilt, rather than personal guilt. However, it is one option, even one that accords with modern legal theory.

3. John Owen on Union and the Atonement

In response to some of the issues brought up by Crisp’s union account, I will now turn my attention, briefly, to John Owen, to see how he may provide a helpful antidote to the problems inherent to Crisp’s account as well as assuage some of Crisp’s concerns over “legal fictions.” Thus, I will focus primarily on the four points of concern laid out above. Before doing that, though, I would like to make a brief note on why Owen serves as a suitable foil, given his socio-historical distance from Crisp.

John Owen (1616–1683) stands as one of the towering intellects in English Puritan theology, if not in theology more generally. Although largely neglected in historical theology, a recent revival of Owen interest has come about, providing a spate of secondary literature on the man.50 Of particular interest, especially among confessional conservatives, is Owen’s atonement theology, specifically the strident defense of particular redemption in The Death of Death and the Death of Christ.51 However, Owen’s theology is anything but simplistic. Among the governing concepts in his atonement theology are both trinitarian theology and union with Christ.52 Owen does not represent a novel strain of Puritan theology but stands in the main of classical orthodoxy. In this way, Owen stands as a suitable conversation partner with Crisp—his emphasis on union and his status as a general representative of one prominent vein of Reformed theology.

Contrary to Crisp, Owen seems more concerned about the imputation of righteousness to sinners rather than sin to Christ.53 For Crisp, the union account avoids the charge of legal fiction because Christ is truly the head of a group of sinful people known as Redeemed Humanity. This transfer, it would seem, happens after Christ and Redeemed Humanity are united (although apparently before Redeemed Humanity is united to Christ). Owen sees it differently. In Owen’s account of justification, a legal union precedes and grounds the imputation of sin, but a real (spiritual) transfer from Adam to Christ occurs through faith, which grounds the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Imputation of sin from the sinner to Christ happens before any real union between the believer and Christ: “The imputation of sin unto Christ was antecedent unto any real union between him and sinners, whereon he took their sin on him as he would, and for what ends he would.”54 The reason Owen makes this distinction is to make clear that Christ’s reception of imputed sin and our reception of his imputed righteousness are fundamentally asymmetrical. The way Christ receives our sin is not the same as the way we receive the righteousness of Christ. Owen continues, “The imputation of his righteousness unto believers is consequential in order of nature unto their union with him, whereby it becomes theirs in a peculiar manner: so as that there is not a parity of reason that he should be esteemed a sinner, as that they should be accounted righteous.”55 There are two things to note here. First, when Owen says, “real union,” he does not mean any sort of metaphysical union, but instead a spiritual union, instigated by the Holy Spirit. Although it is not a matter of ontology for Owen, it is nonetheless real.56 Second, while this sort of union with Christ is an important category for Owen, it is not the controlling category.57 Does this, then, leave Owen open to the charge of a legal fiction, since sin is imputed to Christ without any metaphysical foundation?

Although Owen does not ground imputation in “any real” union, he avoids the charge of legal fiction simpliciter. This is because the imputation of sin is grounded in a different kind of union—the union that exists between Christ and the church as surety.58 This union in Christ as surety, though not “real,” is nevertheless mystical and rooted in the covenant of redemption, “that eternal compact that was between the Father and the Son concerning the recovery and salvation of fallen mankind.”59 It is difficult to follow exactly Owen’s logic here, but he strives to distinguish the union attained in the covenant of redemption “from all other unions or relations whatever.”60 On the one hand, imputation of sin precedes any real union; on the other hand, Owen writes that “the foundation of the imputation of the sins of the church unto Christ” are “that he and it are one person.”61 This mystical union should be construed neither naturally (à la realism) nor politically/legally (à la federalism). Instead this union is enacted by “the uniting efficacy of the Holy Spirit,” and so binds believers to Christ that “what he did is imputed to unto them, as if done by them” and “what they deserved on the account of sin was charged upon him.”62 In this way, Owen is simply reiterating, if perhaps intensifying, the notion of threefold union, common to the Reformed orthodox.63 Our union with Christ as our surety, although not identical to the union we share with him by faith, is nevertheless a reality—a reality that is not ontological or metaphysical but mystical.

By grounding imputation in union, Owen nimbly evades the charge of “legal fiction” that Crisp throws at advocates of PSA. On top of that, while Crisp wants to make imputation obsolete, Owen is completely happy to see imputation as a particular aspect/mechanism of union. The two are not mutually exclusive. Imputation does not attenuate union, nor does union make imputation superfluous. Instead, as Christ is the surety to whom the elect are bound, imputation becomes the means of exchange. Imputation is a strong category for Owen and leads him to say things that, excised from their context, sound almost like real union akin to what Crisp suggests. For instance, at the end of his Dissertation on Divine Justice, he makes the startling claim that, “[God] might punish the elect either in their own persons, or in their surety standing in their room and stead; and when he is punished, they also are punished: for in this point of view the federal head and those represented by him are not considered as distinct, but as one.”64 Although Crisp mentions this as a realist-like conception of the atonement, it is very clear that for Owen the mechanism is one of spiritual and mystical incorporation rather than realistic or even federal.65

The covenant of redemption establishes Christ as the surety of the elect. This suretyship of Christ unites him, mystically, to the elect in a manner distinct from that union which comes by faith. However, the federal relationship, analogically understood, creates a certain type of bond, similar to the notion of common property laws, whereby Christ becomes legally, not personally, responsible for the debt accrued by the elect. When understood this way, rather than in a naked representationalism, the vesper of a legal fiction recedes into the background. And if the concern of legal fiction is resolvable by Owen’s vision of union, then Crisp’s “union account” does not necessarily add anything not already available from a robust vision of PSA within the bounds of Trinitarian theology.

The issue of legal fiction is the primary matter of contention for Crisp. However, above I noted three main areas of concern with Crisp’s union account. In order to understand why Owen’s account of union is preferable to Crisp’s, it is worthwhile to briefly show how Owen’s doctrine of union may avoid these problems as well.

First, I highlight how members of Christ transitioned from Fallen Humanity to Redeemed Humanity in Crisp’s account. A subordinate issue is how someone could be part of two exclusive metaphysical entities. In Owen’s model of union and atonement, the question of transition is moot because there are not two “natural” entities, but only federal relationships. Thus, one transitions to Christ only by means of faith. In terms of election, the elect are united to Christ mystically, but in terms of the application of redemption, they remain officially in Adam until faith comes. By speaking in terms of mystical or spiritual union, one does not face the same quandaries that a realist account presents. Thus, one may be in Christ via election and remain in Adam.

The second issue concerns the foundation for penal consequences if members of Christ are already incorporated into Redeemed Humanity. Like the previous point, no such issue presents itself for a model like Owen’s primarily because (1) the significance of the union is grounded specifically in the relation that Christ bears as surety, and (2) imputation of sin to Christ and the imputation of righteousness to the elect are fundamentally asymmetrical actions. Thus, Christ bears our penalty because that is the nature of his relationship to us. If he stands at the head of a real metaphysical entity, it is difficult to conceive of why he must suffer the penal consequences of real Redeemed Humanity. However, if Christ exists as our surety, then what is deserved by us falls on him as a necessary condition of our union. Similarly, whereas for Crisp the imputation of sin and the transfer of righteousness seem to occur simultaneously—which on a real account causes one to wonder how exactly they are members of Redeemed Humanity apart from transfer—for Owen these are two distinct and disproportionate actions. A true transfer happens whereby the sin of sinful people, not Redeemed Humanity, is imputed to Christ.

Finally, there is the question of composite parts and moral agents. In Crisp’s account, the composition of moral agents makes up the two metaphysical entities of Fallen Humanity and Redeemed Humanity. However, it is not clear how disparate moral agents can make up a singular metaphysical entity. Again, union in line with Owen avoids this problem by resorting to mystical rather than real union.

Owen’s conception of union presents a way forward that avoids the issues of metaphysical union characteristic of Crisp’s account and includes PSA, rather than simply penal consequences. While Owen’s doctrine will not satisfy every critic, he nevertheless offers a robust account of atonement that works fundamentally on union, affirms double imputation, and does not fall prey to charges of “legal fictions.” For those seeking to reconfigure the atonement in terms of union, John Owen stands as a model of careful reasoning for how to put those pieces together.

4. Conclusion

Recent attempts to incorporate union as central to atonement tend to go in the direction of realism, either by way of nature or some other metaphysics.66 This essay seeks to examine Oliver Crisp’s union account, especially how it connects to penal substitutionary atonement. As shown above, the metaphysical unity that Crisp develops comes up against insuperable problems that make it unsatisfactory as a new alternative. Opposed to Crisp, I turned to John Owen as a possible model for holding both union and penal substitutionary atonement. By placing penal substitutionary atonement in the context of union, Owen locates union in the center of atonement theology and develop an account of double imputation that is not a “legal fiction.”

For both Owen and Crisp, union with Christ is atonement in one way of speaking, because in union is the means by which believers are bound up in God’s redemptive plan. However, Owen is able to bring more specificity to the nature of this union in a way that maintains the integrity of the entire economy of Christ’s life. Crisp’s account, as already suggested, struggles to make sense of union considering other facts of redemption. Because Owen’s account is rooted in certain unfashionable theological concepts such as the pactum salutis, many will miss the promise that, I believe, Owen offers for modern theological reflection. This is unfortunate. Torrance, Tanner, and now Crisp, among others, are right to emphasize union with Christ. But the tradition offers insights that illuminate unexpected avenues out of dead ends. In the case of union and atonement, Owen shows one such way.

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[1] In modern biblical studies, the idea of “union” was made popular by history-of-religions school, especially Adolf Deissmann (St. Paul: A Study in Social and Religous History [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1912]), and Albert Schweitzer (The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle [New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1931]). Deissman argued that the “in Christ” language of Paul characterized the chief concern of the apostle. Schweitzer spoke of union as a “Christ-mysticism.” Schweitzer’s mysticism was predicated on a certain type of realist/materialist notion of union, where believers are incorporated into Christ by virtue of baptism. Although not many followed Schweitzer in the details, this notion of “Christ-mysticism” proved to be massively important for the future of NT studies. At this point, “union,” especially “real” union, has become a common trope across the discipline. See, for instance, W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 86–110; E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion, 40th anniversary ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2017); Morna D. Hooker, From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 13–69. For a short survey of the status of “union with Christ,” see Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “From ‘Blessed in Christ’ to ‘Being in Christ’: The State of Union and the Place of Participation in Paul’s Discourse, New Testament Exegesis, and Systematic Theology Today,” in “In Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation, ed. Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and Constantine R. Campbell, WUNT 2/384 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 3–33.[2] Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement (New York: MacMillan, 1969).

[3] Kathryn Tanner for example, uses union or “incarnation” as further support for a type of Christus Victor (Christ the Key, Current Issues in Theology [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010]). On the other hand, Michael J. Gorman (The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant: The [Not-so] New Model of the Atonement [Cambridge: James Clarke, 2014]) approaches the atonement through the lens of union to construct a novel vision of a “new covenant” atonement theory. For other attempts at integrating union and atonement, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 384–403, and Tim Bayne and Greg Restall, “A Participatory Model of Atonement,” in New Waves in Philosophy of Religion, ed. Yujin Nagasawa and Erik J. Wielenberg, New Waves in Philosophy (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2009), 150–66.

[4] Oliver Crisp, The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 119–44; Oliver Crisp, Approaching the Atonement: The Reconciling Work of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 163–79.

[5] See especially, Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976).

[6] Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 159.

[7] Torrance, Trinitarian Faith, 161.

[8] Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 144.

[9] “Since in Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God became man without ceasing to be God, the atoning reconciliation of man to God must be regarded as falling within the incarnate life of the Mediator in who one person the hypostatic union and atoning union interpenetrate one another” (Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, 144). In his lectures, Torrance restated this same idea slightly differently: “It is because atonement is the person of Christ atoning that it is atonement” (Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008], 108).

[10] For a more thorough treatment of Torrance’s theology of atonement, see Elmer M. Colyer, “The Incarnate Saviour: T. F. Torrance on the Atonement,” in An Introduction to Torrance Theology: Discovering the Incarnate Saviour, ed. Gerrit Scott Dawson (London: T&T Clark, 2007).

[11] Kathryn Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001).

[12] See also Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, 155–56.

[13] Tanner, Christ the Key, 247.

[14] Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity, 29. See also, Christ the Key, 252: “Incarnation becomes the primary mechanism of atonement. Such a mechanism replaces altogether vicarious satisfaction and penal substitution, with their obvious problems from both feminist and non-feminist points of view; and provides a different underpinning than usual for the Christus Victor and happy exchange models.”

[15] Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity, 30.

[16] Tanner demurs from the feminist critique of redemptive suffering. While she does not see anything inherent in suffering that is redemptive, she nevertheless maintains the importance of suffering in her incarnational schema: “Contrary to a great deal of feminist and womanist theology, there is something saving about the cross here, but there is nothing saving about suffering, death, or victimhood, in and of itself. All those cruel and bloody features of the cross that feminists and womanists worry atonement theories positively evaluate are here identified in no uncertain terms with the world from which one needs to be saved” (Christ the Key, 261).

[17] Tanner, Christ the Key, 262.

[18] Tanner, Christ the Key, 258.

[19] Oliver Crisp gives an extensive review and critique of Tanner in Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011), 111–35. His work on Torrance has been more recent, but he engages with Torrance throughout his corpus; see, e.g., Oliver D. Crisp, “T. F. Torrance on Theosis and Universal Salvation,” SJT 74 (2021): 12–25.

[20] Crisp admits that his “theological formation owes much to the theological sensibility of Torrance’s theology,” and he refers to Torrance as a “model” (“T. F. Torrance on Theosis and Universal Salvation,” 13).

[21] Crisp, Approaching the Atonement, 164.

[22] In a previous article, Crisp defended the notion of original sin without original guilt; see Oliver D. Crisp, “Sin,” in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic, ed. Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 194–215.

[23] Crisp levels this same critique against Kathryn Tanner’s incarnation account. The problem, for Crisp, is that Tanner does not disambiguate the question of “nature” and therefore cannot give an adequate account of union that moves beyond a kind of representationalism and imputation (Revisioning Christology, 128).

[24] Oliver Crisp, An American Augustinian: Sin and Salvation in the Dogmatic Theology of William G .T. Shedd (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007), 36–55.

[25] Crisp, An American Augustinian, 155.

[26] See Oliver D. Crisp, “Scholastic Theology, Augustinian Realism, and Original Guilt,” EuroJTh 13 (2004): 17–28.

[27] “The imputation of Adam’s sin rests upon a different kind of union from that upon which the imputation of Christ’s righteousness rests. The former is founded upon natural union: a union of constitutional nature and substance…. There is no race-unity in redemption. All men were in Adam, and inherit his sin. No man is propagated from Christ, or inherits his righteousness. Apostasy starts with the race. Redemption starts with the individual. All men fall. Some men are redeemed. Union in Adam is substantial and physical; in Christ, is spiritual and mystical (L.C. 66); in Adam, is natural; in Christ, is representative; in Adam, is with man as a species; in Christ, is with man as an individual; in Adam, is universal; in Christ, is particular and by election.” William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1888), 2:188.

[28] Crisp, An American Augustinian, 98–114, esp. 111–14.

[29] Crisp, An American Augustinian, 113.

[30] Crisp, The Word Enfleshed, 134–35.

[31] Although this paper is largely comparative, I still hope to attend to some of the modern questions that drive atonement theology. For some, my lack of scripture may be problematic. While I assume the authority of Scripture, the issue at hand is not necessarily any given text, but rather how best to interpret the principles behind a cluster of biblical texts on union, atonement, etc.

[32] Torrance is reported to have responded to accusations of his theology with, “I am an Athanasian!” Regardless of the veracity of that statement, Athanasius figures heavily in Torrance’s theology. One must only read Torrance on the atonement for a few pages to get a sense of how much Torrance owed Athanasius. See, e.g., The Trinitarian Faith, 146–91. See Crisp, Approaching the Atonement, 165.

[33] Crisp, Approaching the Atonement, 165. For a fuller summary, see Approaching the Atonement, 40–45.

[34] Crisp gives an extensive treatment of this idea in Revisioning Christology, 124–29. He divides nature as a “property” into a “kind-essence” and an “individual essence,” a typology he borrows from Thomas V. Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), esp. 22–24, 38–46.

[35] Crisp, Approaching the Atonement, 166.

[36] Crisp, The Word Enfleshed, 136–37. “Metaphysical entity” is Crisp’s own term.

[37] Crisp, Approaching the Atonement, 168.

[38] Crisp writes, “Through union with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, members of redeemed humanity begin a process of transformation into the likeness of God, becoming partakers of the divine nature,” (Approaching the Atonement, 175).

[39] Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1734–1738, ed. M. X. Lesser, The Works of Jonathan Edwards 19 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 158. Ironically, it is not clear that Edwards means the exact same thing by “real” as Crisp does. For Edwards, the “real” union refers to “the mutual act of both, that each should receive the other, as actively joining themselves to one another.” Believers and Christ are united to Christ as “two intelligent active beings or persons.” It is on account of this “active” union that believers receive the legal benefits of Christ: “God in requiring this in order to an union with Christ as one of his people, treats men as reasonable creatures, capable of act, and choice; and hence sees it fit that they only, that are one with Christ by their own act, should be looked upon as one in law: what is real in the union between Christ and his people, is the foundation of what is legal.” Although Crisp improvises on Edwards, Edwards is not far off from a standard Reformed view of union and imputation, as will be shown below.

[40] Crisp, Approaching the Atonement, 169. Crisp uses similar feline illustrations in “Scholastic Theology, Augustinian Realism, and Original Guilt.”

[41] Crisp, The Word Enfleshed, 137.

[42] Crisp, The Word Enfleshed, 139.

[43] Crisp gives thirteen theses laying out in more detail his union approach in Approaching the Atonement, 174–75.

[44] My thanks to Dr. Ronald Feenstra for drawing this problem to my attention.

[45] A more basic question concerns the validity of the distinction between “penal consequences” and a penalty proper, either integrated into a realistic account or simply by itself. In fact, one wonders what penalties there are other than “penal consequences.” Crisp himself can often slip into confusing the terms, at times referring to penal consequences as “punishment due for the sin of the derivatively elect” (The Word Enfleshed, 137).

[46] Bayne and Restall, “A Participatory Model of Atonement,” 160.

[47] This issue is a major point of departure between Tanner and Crisp. Whereas Tanner assumes justice is restorative, Crisp maintains that justice requires a retributive aspect. See Revisioning Christology, 129–31.

[48] Crisp gives a fuller critique of penal substitution in Approaching the Atonement, 100–112.

[49] For summaries of community property laws, see Betsy Simmons Hannibal, “Marriage and Property Ownership: Who Owns What?,” Nolo, https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-property-ownership-who-owns-what-29841.html, and Sarah O’Brien, “Here’s How Unpaid Debt Is Handled When a Person Dies,” CNBC, 28 May 2020, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/28/heres-how-unpaid-debts-are-handled-when-a-person-passes-away.html.

[50] See, for example, Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987); David Wai-Sing Wong, “The Covenant Theology of John Owen” (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1998); Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle, PA: Paternoster, 1998); Sebastian Rehnman, Divine Discourse: The Theological Methodology of John Owen, Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002); Henry M. Knapp, “Understanding the Mind of God: John Owen and Seventeenth-Century Exegetical Methodology” (PhD diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2002); Carl R. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, Great Theologians Series (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007); Ryan M. McGraw, A Heavenly Directory: Trinitarian Piety, Public Worship and a Reassessment of John Owen’s Theology, Reformed Historical Theology 29 (Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014); Crawford Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism: Experiences of Defeat (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); John W. Tweeddale, John Owen and Hebrews: The Foundation of Biblical Interpretation, T&T Clark Studies in English Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2019). These are only a sampling of monographs from the last three decades or so; not included are a large number of journal articles, compilations, and chapters devoted to Owen’s theology.

[51] For more on Owen’s views of atonement, see Hans Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn: Richard Baxter’s Doctrine of Justification in Its Seventeenth-Century Context of Controversy (Zoetermeer: Uitgeverij Boekencentrum, 1993), 103–8; Trueman, John Owen, 101–21; Carl R. Trueman, “Atonement and the Covenant of Redemption: John Owen on the Nature of Christ’s Satisfaction,” in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, ed. David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 201–23; Matthew Barrett and Michael A. G. Haykin, Owen on the Christian Life: Living for the Glory of God in Christ, Theologians on the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 121–44.

[52] J. V. Fesko, “John Owen on Union with Christ and Justification,” Themelios 37 (2012): 7–19; J. V. Fesko, Beyond Calvin: Union with Christ and Justification in Early Modern Reformed Theology (1517–1700), Reformed Historical Theology 20 (Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 286–300; George Hunsinger, “Justification and Mystical Union with Christ: Where Does Owen Stand?,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2012), 199–211; T. Robert Baylor, “‘One with Him in Spirit’: Mystical Union and the Humanity of Christ in the Theology of John Owen,” in “In Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation, ed. Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and Constantine R. Campbell, WUNT 2/384 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 427–52.

[53] Hunsinger, “Justification and Mystical Union with Christ,” 204.

[54] John Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, ed. William H. Goold, The Works of John Owen 5 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 354.

[55] Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, 354.

[56] Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, 178.

[57] Fesko, Beyond Calvin, 296; contra Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2012), 499.

[58] Owen’s argument for the case a union with Christ as surety comes from his study of the Hebrew word. He writes, “ערב originally signifies to mingle, or a mixture of any things or persons; and thence, from the conjunction and mixture that is between a surety and him for whom he is a surety, whereby they coalesce into one person, as unto the ends of that suretyship, it is used for a surety, or to give surety,” The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, 181.

[59] Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, 179.

[60] Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, 179.

[61] Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, 178.

[62] Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, 176.

[63] Beeke and Jones, A Puritan Theology, 481–89.

[64] Owen, “A Dissertation on Divine Justice,” in The Death of Christ, The Works of John Owen 10:598.

[65] Crisp, An American Augustinian, 101–2. Crisp admits that Owen is only “realist-sounding,” but then says that “John Owen, often taken to be a paradigm of consistent representationalism, is not unambiguously representationalist on the matter of the atonement.”

[66] There have been others who have not gone in realist directions, e.g., Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1987).

 

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