Truth Unites - Union with Christ with Todd Billings (Crossover with Credo/Matthew Barrett)

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Matthew Barrett of the Credo Podcast and I join together to interview Todd Billings about union with Christ. Learn more about Credo: https://credomag.com/ See Todd's Union with Christ: https://www.amazon.com/Union-Christ-Reframing-Theology-Ministry/dp/0801039347/ See Todd's Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: https://www.amazon.com/Calvin-Participation-Gift-Historical-Systematic/dp/0199211876/ Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Whether I feel like it or not, whether I am deeply depressed or not, my life is hidden with God in Christ. The hidden part is really key because it does not look much of the time like the Christian life is a visible victory. I'm so grateful to be here with Matthew Barrett and Todd Billings. We're going to talk about the mysterious and wonderful doctrine of union with Christ. It was just saying to them that this is one of my favorite areas and all of theology to think about. one of the goals of the Credo podcast that Truth Unites also has as its goal is to celebrate historic Protestantism. And so we're thrilled to talk with Todd Billings, who's a leading reformed theologian, certain several helpful books. One of them is on union with Christ.

In fact, Matthew, maybe you want to just share. I know you have two books there. I'm going to put a link to these books in the video description. We'd love to encourage people to check them out. Do you want to just share maybe just a brief sentence or two about these two books? Yeah, I'd love to. you know, this is just a great opportunity. We're doing this crossover podcast. Todd, believe it or not, you're our first guest.

And on a topic like Union with Christ, so how exciting is that? But yeah, Todd's written some books that if you're watching this or listening to this and you're thinking, well, goodness, Union with Christ is completely brand new to me. I'd really recommend this one. This is a book that Todd's written called Union with Christ, Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church, published with Baker Academic. It's actually a short book. And as you can tell from the subtitle, Todd doesn't just give you the doctrine itself,

but really has thought through how does this influence then everything from the gospel to the Lord's supper to our ecclesiology or even our interaction with the world? Now, if you are coming to this conversation and you're ready to really chew on union with Christ and the bigger doctrine of participation, which we'll mention here in a minute, I can't recommend this next book enough. It's with Oxford, also published by Todd, called Calvin Participation and the Gift. And I think that the key is in the subtitle, the activity of believers in union with Christ. Again, this is with Oxford. If you're trying to think through, okay, what does it mean to affirm participation and with it, Union with Christ as a Protestant? And what are some of the characters or objections or challenges that are going to come at me? I can't recommend this book enough. Todd looks at Calvin in particular in order to show us that we actually, as Protestants, have a very rich heritage.

Yeah. So check out the links to those books. Viewers and listeners will make sure that you can have easy access to them. But Todd, maybe take us into this topic by just sharing with us a little bit about how did you first get interested in union with Christ? And maybe you can share just a little bit about what does that doctrine even mean? Yeah, thank you. It's so good to be with both of you. And I admire both of your work.

And great to be in conversation. I think that before I was interested in studying theology even, Union with Christ was a theme that came up when I was a teenager, or at least retrospectively, I can see that. Because growing up in the Midwest, in a context where we were very clear about what Christ did on our behalf, and, you know, the centrality of the cross and even the resurrection, and so forth. I was witnessing to non-Christian friends and, you know, seeking to grow deeper in my faith,

but I kept on getting stuck in a certain area. And that area of stuckness was something like this. Couldn't it be the case that Christ died for my sins and that he even rose again and that I believe that? but that I could still be in my sin. How does that apply to me today? Like I always thought of the gospel in those terms. And so it's affirming these things, which I would say are true things that we should affirm and confess, but affirming these things about Christ. And so if you affirm these things and then you are saved, you know, or your experience of salvation, you're part of the church and so on. And the part where I got stuck was, how does that work?

Like, couldn't it be the case that I'm still here? And that happened 2,000 years ago. And it was only years later when I was studying theology and particularly when I was at Harvard, where I had a few Protestant friends, I had a close Catholic friend, and then I was a TA for an Eastern Orthodox professor. And then there were a lot of like agnostic tending people. And I think one thing that that context brought out is how much in some sense I had in common with some of my non-proscent friends. but it was also a chance to rediscover some of this theme. And so the theme itself is one that relates certainly to Paul's language of being united to Christ in baptism in his death and resurrection.

Paul's almost ubiquitous language of being in Christ and in the spirit, It relates to the language of justification and new life that we have in the epistles. But it also really relates to themes that are really strong in the Gospel of John, and I would say in various parts of the Old Testament, in terms of what is the nature of this covenantal connection that we have through which we receive the benefits of Christ or the benefits of the covenant. And I think that was kind of the missing gap when I was a teenager because I had the sense, a lot of my friends don't believe in Jesus. You know, they don't believe that the cross of Christ means anything and that he was resurrected, you know, just growing up in a public school

and with non-Christian friends. I want to try to convince them of this. But then I was like, how does this connect to me now? Like, how do I, how do I, receive those benefits? Is it just like kind of like a long lob of a Hail Mary pass or something like that? You receive the benefits from a distance? Or is it as as Paul suggests as the Gospel of John and Chapter 15 and the vine of the branches images like this with union with Christ? we are actually connected by the spirit to the living Christ. And in a very mysterious way, the life that we live is no longer our own life, but is in Christ. We belong body and soul to Jesus Christ.

And making those connections for me was really, really key for helping to understand. why I kept on heating the wall and explained to my both non-Christians why this mattered, but also my Christians, why not just have nominal Christianity? Like, okay, I've said, I've prayed the sinner's prayer, I believe this about Jesus, now I'm going to go live my own life. Well, if you want a really fulsome response to that, I think it would be hard to find a more effective way than a doctrine of union of Christ. It's awesome. And one of the things you're getting into there is kind of the experiential dimension of this. And I want to return to that toward the end. But let me just ask you a kind of follow up because you mentioned Paul's language of having died with Christ. One of the things I'd love to do is just read a couple short phrases from the New Testament from Paul's letters. And then just see if you kind of ask you a basic question based upon the verb tense of these sentences. So people listening along can listen for the verb tenses as well. So here's Colossians 3-1. Since then, you will.

have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is. Skipping down to verse 3, 4, you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Here's Ephesians 2-6. God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. I'll never forget. First thinking, about this phrase, how are we already past tense seated with Christ in the heavenlies? Ephesians 2.6. And that's like one little example of a verse that opens up this whole world to us. So the question I have is, what does it mean that Paul uses the past tense for our death and resurrection in Christ? It means a lot that the nature of our union with Christ is both very real. In fact, it's our true.

identity and yet in a number of those passages it's it's both a past tense but then it's an imperative therefore live into this you know so in in the same passage in romans six you know you have died to christ um sorry you have died to the old self in christ therefore put on the signs of this life in christ um and there's all sorts of ethical aspects of that and vocational aspects of it and first of all i think it's worth saying wow this is just super refreshing because um there are i mean i i guess i've i remember so many times when i would hear a sermon and it would be sort of the punchline would be, God has done this. What have you done now? You know, it's time to, it's time to try really hard. Show some gratitude. Come on, you know. And it's almost like the punchline was, come on, unite yourself to Jesus Christ. And there's a gifted character to what Paul is saying here where the most important thing is to be. And to be, you know, it's a gifted character to what Paul is saying here. where the most important thing is to be united to Christ.

And the Spirit has done that, therefore, live into that. And so you don't lose the imperative, but it's a totally different context for the imperative. It's if the imperative of the exhortation to live a Christian life or to, you know, live a path of godliness is do this so that God will love you. or do this so that you can be a good Christian or something like that. That is very different from one of my favorite ways to just briefly explain union with Christ with Paul is to use one of his favorite images of adoption, where he will say, yeah, at times it will be past tense. You know, you have been adopted into sonship as, you know,

and it's really meaning the son, as the inheritor and Jesus as the son. So we as sons and daughters have been adopted into Christ. And yet, the majority of the times that Paul uses this phrase, he uses it in the future tense. And gives us an imperative to live into that because we're aching and longing for this adoption that will only come to consummation on the final day, that will only, you know, come into fulfillment in the final day. But this is who we really are. So it's because you are adopted, live into this. And if anybody, you know, there's differences between adoption in the ancient world and today,

but there is one big similarity, and that is there's a legal element of it. You can't just go up to a person in the ancient world or today, and just say, oh, I'm going to be really friendly with you. Let's just act like you're my child. And let's just see how that goes. I'm an adoptive parent myself. And, I mean, there's a lot of paperwork. This is a legal arrangement.

And the thing is, that's really important. Because that is, in Paul's analogy, part of the gifted character. You know, we don't become, sons and daughters because we deserve it or because we've done something first it's it's the gift of this that allows a gifted character as well to our whole Christian life or the life of sanctification the life of sanctification isn't trying really hard to do things on our own but it's actually of living and walking into spirit into this new identity as adopted children of the father

and adopted children in a household of people, the people of God, that we didn't choose, and probably isn't that cool much of the time. And in some ways, it takes away some of our hand-wringing and is able to allow both this gifted character, but then also the calling and vocally. to happen in a context where in some sense it's it's all God behind it and yet we are empowered by the spirit to live to be who we were truly created to be as we do that Todd people may have noticed and what you just said there's so much we we really want to explore and what you just said but before we do that people may have noticed you're using two different phrases or words. One is union, union with Christ, and the other one is participation.

And some may be sitting here thinking, wait a minute, I thought we're not supposed to talk about that word participation if we're Protestant. So let me just put the ball back in your court for a second. Here's a golden opportunity. There's all three of us, are sitting here saying we're all Protestant. And we also believe in this truth that we're calling participation. And here's Todd saying, this has a lot to do with union with Christ. So Todd, tell us what if you have to define participation, what exactly is it?

Because I know that sometimes is a hurdle. What is participation in the full Protestant sense? give it just give us the full Protestant sense of what it means yeah i mean i think that participation along with communion and union are ways of describing this reality that the spirit brings about that unites us to christ and to others that gives us this gift of for example oneness as a gift that we didn't come up with ourselves, the gift of in Christ of righteousness that we didn't come up with ourselves. So it's in some sense the overarching tent for this. And if I was described what I was talking about a few minutes ago with what I grew up with,

I think I had a pretty good sense of justification by faith, but I didn't have a tent into which this fit in sense of okay like I believe these things about Jesus and how do I know that does anything to me now so I think that some of the power of what particularly for me the reformed tradition has done and Calvin certainly was influential in my own work in addressing this is to seek to hold together to central and yet distinct images for salvation and for the Christian life. One of them is legal and forensic and relates to judgment and the final judgment. And I am absolutely committed to that. That is, I mean, I've had friends who have had a journey and they grew up with something that was more

forensic and at times they would say, oh, it's just transactional or that sort of thing. I'm going to move to something that is organic and process oriented and so forth. Well, I think it's a faults either or. Certainly with Calvin and I think even in certain, you have certain hints this direction, even in Luther, for example, when Luther was doctrine of justification by faith, he calls it the doctrine of good works. Like, why does he say that? Because Luther actually cares about the life of how the Christian can give to the poor, not in order to get themselves out of purgatory faster, but because they care about the poor, but because they care about their neighbor. There's something freeing that a forensic doctrine of justification can and does do for the whole

rest of our life. It's not just fiction. It's a very liberating context. And yet some of what is, I think, quite beautiful with what Calvin does when he connects it. to what he calls the double grace in union with Christ. He says these are double inseparable gifts of justification and sanctification, new life. You can't have one without the other, and yet they are distinct. So what that allows him to do is to pull in all sorts of other completely legitimate biblical and theological themes. and both Calvin and later aspects of the later parts of the reformed tradition are able to draw upon various patristic and medieval theologians, even various sort of like mystical theologians like Bernard of Clairvaux and so forth. as they develop these themes of slow transformation and of how this process of the Christian life is one of love and connection to God and others and so forth,

but without turning this into a terrible burden of, therefore, this is what you do without any assurance that what you've done is going to be sufficient for the final day. justification by faith, it's got to be forensic. I think both for biblical reasons, it's a biblical, you know, it's a Jewish law court imagery, but also there's something irreducible about the final judgment that is forensic. But you also have, in the both old and New Testament, these more transformational images, which can be completely embraced by,

by Calvin, just given this context of it, so both and not an either or. Yeah. Todd, if I can press into that a little bit further, since you've given us permission to talk about Calvin at this point, I know you've heard this. Maybe others have heard this too. There is this narrative out there, both at a popular level and then even in an academic level. And it goes something like this. You'll hear people say, well, the reformers had a deficient theology of participation.

And they may even point to someone like Calvin. And they usually will reason this way. They'll say, well, the reformers, they were indebted to a voluntaristic, nominalistic understanding of God. in the world. And so the reformers only cared about the external. They only cared about the legal. They only cared about. And they'll say, you know, look at this doctrine of imputation, the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Well, that's a, that is a legal thing that occurs. And so isn't this proof? Todd, maybe you can help us out here. Maybe for some listeners are thinking, well, what is volunteerism, what is novelism? Why are the reformers getting painted that way? But maybe the bigger question,

too, is, is that fair? What do you think, Todd? Yeah, I think it's a great question. And I remember it was kind of a turning point for me when another student who was, who's Roman Catholic, again at Harvard, we're in the Divinity School Library. And he was, we were talking about, various topics related to the theologies of grace. And he said, well, the problem with Calvin is that he doesn't have a doctrine of participation and participation in God or participation in Christ. And in fact, he can't have one. And I was like, wow, I'm in a directed study right now with a professor.

and I'm finding this language all over the place. But this is a really, really smart guy who is telling me this to me. And so he's largely speaking from his own tradition about what they had learned about Calvin. And then some of how the theology of participation functioned in that particular tradition. And this is, I think, a quite dramatic misinterpretation of the reformed tradition, though I also want to say it's kind of understandable in some sense because although I think it's absolutely incorrect, I've continued to run up against some viewpoints that are like this because the theology participation becomes shorthand for something very, very specific that is not being

stated as I wrote the Calvin participation in the gift. some of what I was facing was a lot of theologians who, even if they read Calvin, they said, okay, well, Calvin talks all the time about participation and union with Christ and even participation in God, but it can't really mean it. And so some of it relates to some of the specific volunteerism discussions and nominalism where I think there's a number of problems with those categories, particularly for a figure like Calvin, who's quite ad hoc in the way in which he fits within these. And overall, you have an early reform tradition, which, particularly for people who had more

training and Thomas Twainest than Calvin, there's a strong tomistic Calvinist tradition that has a very thoroughgoing doctrine of participation. But if some of your condition for a doctrine of participation is that you can't have any forensic or imputational elements, then of course it's not going to be considered legitimate. But I think one of the most interesting aspects from a broad perspective of this too is that like the criticism that you've just given Matthew is one that is heavily indebted to a polarity that comes in basically late 19th century liberal Protestant historical theologians. And that was one that in some ways was sort of anti-eastern Orthodox.

It contrasted the East and the West saying that the East was more mystical, which is suspect, and the West was more legal and forensic. And originally that was seen as a way to kind of promote the West and, you know, cast suspicion on the East. Well, my friend Carl Mosier has documented, I think, quite well how when you have Russian immigrants and other Orthodox theologians, they come in, are looking for a voice in the West, and they basically accept that same paradigm, but flip it, so that the West is all about legal, as opposed to transformational and relational and communion. And that's arid and dry and, you know, problematic and then the East is truly mystical and, you know, all these different things.

The problem is that it just doesn't fit with the actual historical documents. Yeah, the key there is both and rather than either or, Todd. That's so well said. And I appreciate that so much because I, even in my own experience, I find folks feeling like they have to choose. They have to, even some of the stories you share that, like, they have to choose one or the other. So they may begin Protestant, but then they throw that off because then they feel like, well, if I really believe in participation, they have to go a more transformationalist route. But yeah, when you go back and you look at something like Calvin or John Owen and many others,

there is this reform tradition that is appropriating the best of that themistic background and metaphysic and theology. yet says we can hold both and actually bring it along in ways that are make Protestantism quite fruitful. I guess that leaves me just with another question here. You know, when you, Todd, when you look back at Calvin, some of the polemics he has with Roman Catholicism, he's holding on to both. He's got in one hand as he's thinking through participation and Union with Christ's got justification and he's also got sanctification he's holding on it both at the same time as he's

entering into these polemics he seems to say what and you almost i think said this earlier when you're talking about adoption when you're saying you know you got to do all this paperwork it's incredibly important because unless the legal is there then then the child never gets to enjoy all the familial benefits that come with being part of you know that family Would you say when you look back at Calvin, do you see that there too in which he's saying, listen, there has to be a logical priority or emphasis or whatever word you want to use on the legal? We don't need to be embarrassed about that. Otherwise, we can't quite get to this bigger discussion of the transformational and the internal. How would you phrase that, Todd? I know it's controversial in Calvin's studies just because it's ordered in different ways in the final edition of the institutes and so forth. But I think that conceptually speaking, or, as you said, logically speaking, there is certainly an order that gives a priorness and a priority to justification.

because there is this sense that while the images for sanctification, union, adoption, like living into this reality is indispensable. It can go off the tracks in an incredible way if it is not in context of Jesus Christ as our righteousness. And so one of the things I love about just reading Calvin is, for example, how he uses the term father in some of these passages with Unions Christ. Because they'll often set up a contrast. And ironically enough, the contrast can sound like what some people think Calvin's view of God is. But he says, you know, we're inclined to think that God is just a tyrant and that we just need to escape. escape wrath, you know, kind of like a theology of survival. Certainly Luther could compare, could relate to this. But what we see in Christ is that God is a gentle and gracious father. Who would not want to serve him as, you know, a son and daughter? Like there's, I think there's

a real concern about sort of poisoning the well that like, like, there ought to be the whole Christian life is one of gratitude of giftedness in this sense. And so if you take away the fact that it's out of our hands in some sense, this is some of what, it's about what Christ has done, not what I have done with imputation. If you compromise that, then you're calling into question whether this is really a good father. who we can serve in gratitude. And I think that this is not just an afterthought for Calvin. It's very much woven through, you know,

different parts of his theology. So, you know, for example, I love how he describes this in the garden before the fall, where he talks about the tree and, you know, well, why did God give the tree of knowledge of good and evil anyway? And Calvin says, well, union with God is not just a mystical feeling. It involves our bodies.

It involves our action. It involves our will. God wants us to, and Calvin uses, in most English translations, use this term, voluntarily obey him. Now, again, he would describe that state as being in union with God. So it's not voluntarily in the sense of a time. but precisely because to be human is to be in communion with God,

obedience and obedience to the law is part of how we were created. And so then, of course, when through the process, through justification by faith and the double grace, when we receive, and embrace this gift of Christ's righteousness, it's not just going to have any path. It's going to have a path of growing in love of God and neighbor, which is simultaneous with growing in Christ, which is simultaneous with growing in, you know, the Ten Commandments. He has, Calvin kind of has these different layers where it's like Christ is the definition of the law, then double command, and then Ten Commandments, and then everything sort of viewed from that standpoint of Christ. That's how you view the rest of the law. So then it can become a gift that Calvin says is actually a restoration of who we were created to be. This is where Calvin just contrasts.

You know, we're not to serve God as slaves, but as sons and daughters. Beautiful. So, so Todd, on this, you had a comment. a moment ago that was really helpful about union with God is more than just a mystical feeling. There's an exteriority to union with Christ. It's not something we're subjectively conjuring up. You know, I had a moment when I was about 15 years ago. I was reading a book by Richard Gaffin about the resurrection of Christ, and he talks about union with Christ and how Christ's resurrection was his justification. And therefore, our justification is by way of participation in Christ's resurrection.

It was kind of a mind-blowing thought for me. And would it help me, the thought that I had that maybe for someone who's watching this video might just help us, and then this will help me frame this question. But union with Christ is more than just a metaphor. Like what we might say about someone that we have a closed-off relationship with, we might say they're dead to me. Or if you're running a marathon and you suddenly get a burst of energy, you might say, I found new life. That's metaphorical language. Union with Christ is more than that.

It's talking about an exterior objective reality, spiritual reality. I am in some deep, fundamental, mysterious way connected to Christ, and even when I'm sleeping, even when I'm not paying attention to it, and that affects every aspect of my life. So maybe just to ask you about this in terms of the centrality of that then, because would this be a helpful metaphor to put it that when we think about the relationship of these different aspects of our salvation, we think of union with Christ as kind of an organizing center, almost like if you have a wheel, union with Christ would then be kind of like the hub and all the other spokes going out, justification, adoption, glorification, resurrection of our physical bodies, all those things

ultimately terminate in the fact that I am in Christ. Would you, I don't know what you'd think about this, but would you affirm that as a way to kind of try to capture the centrality of union with Christ? I think that is a quite good way to do that. And it occurs to me that perhaps something along the lines of what you said would have been even a better first explanation for participation in the sense of the other sort of really key sense is that participation in Christ and union with Christ means that we are not Christ. and yet we are united to Christ. And so I think in a really, really beautiful way, in a way that has doctrinal clarity, but just incredible amount of impact for the Christian life, we can say, Christ is the king.

I am not the king. And yet, there's sense in which we are, kings and queens but not in the sense that we point to ourselves but that we bear witness to christ the king but we do participate in his kingship but not as the kings so there's something about oh wow we are daughters and sons of the father but not we're adopted and even israel is spoken of as adopted were not the eternal son and strangely enough i think it's something that american christians often get confused with like i i'm personally um i don't know we all have our own little theological pet peeves and i try to if i'm in you know a worship um and singing a song oh you know i

won't like wave people down and no i don't like this song or something but um it's it's common at times to talk about how we are the hands and feet of Christ in the world or you are the only Christ that you know somebody may ever meet and I mean it's a little bit it's it's kind of odd because Protestants historically have been very hesitant about this language there are certain Catholics that might be okay with that and with the idea that the church is sort of almost an ongoing incarnation. And even that, you know, a careful Catholic doctrine would not affirm it in, you know, those very rough terms. But I think just the fact that that is so, such common parlance gives us a sense that we need a more fulsome doctrine of participation

where, and uni with Christ, where we simultaneously hold together, I am not, Christ, you are not Christ, I do not embody and limit the presence of God in the world. And yet, we have been invited and engrafted in as adopted sons and daughters. We have the ministry of reconciliation, the ministry of witness in the world to point people and, you know, both welcome people into this oneness in Christ and to grow into maturity in Christ. But for me, at least, some of what can be helpful about the language of participation is that it's a differentiated union. So it's a way of saying, yes, whether I feel like it or not, whether I am deeply depressed or not, my life is hidden with God in Christ.

And I think like in the Colossians, like the hidden part is really key because it does not look much of the time like the Christian life is a visible victory. And so it's really important that our lives are in Christ whether we feel like it or not. Todd, when you are thinking about this big doctrine of union with Christ, and you are trying to talk to Protestants in particular in the context of the local church, there can be this, maybe you've experienced this too at times, this odd disconnect in which here we are committed to union with Christ. but then as Protestants then approach the Lord's table, they sometimes don't really have any sense of the presence of Christ. Sometimes Protestants even get a reputation for being anti-sacramental. How should a theology of participation and union with Christ, how does that inform how we come to the bread? to the wine to eat and to drink of the body and blood of Christ. I think this is a really important way in which the doctrine of union with Christ

has direct implications for the people of God, for the church today and our regular practice. And there's all sorts of ways in which it has implications. But union with Christ, I think, I mean, it's interesting because sometimes I pull together panels of Eastern Orthodox priests and a Roman Catholic priest and a number of different Protestants. And it's not hard to get a pretty broad agreement that whatever is happening at the table, Union with Christ is central, even with all of the differences. But there's, I think that embracing this as a gift is a task for a lot of us. And I want to say just directly that I'm not talking about, I mean, I'm in a reformed Presbyterian tradition, but this is not about baptism. There have been Baptists for centuries who have embraced a reformed account of communion with Christ at the table.

And on our side, there have been a lot of Presbyterians who have not been very good at all at living into the actual state of theology, which is more than simply a mental act of remembrance, but a sense that there is a gift being received in the celebration. So one way to think of it would be this. If we move back just a second to what I had said earlier about Calvin and the garden with the law in the garden, Calvin also thought that there were sacraments in the garden. Now some of you are like, oh, my goodness, good grief. What kind of, you know, speculative theologian is Calvin here.

But distract with me a little bit. Again, some of the question is, like, well, why would God provide, for example, the tree of life for nourishment in the garden? But Calvin is also thinking through what does it mean to be in covenantal relationship with God? And Calvin says, look, we are physical creatures that part of the. of what it means for us to trust is to have physical signs and tokens of God's love and to enact them and to receive them. He basically says, we're not going to be really convinced deep down that we belong to God and Christ and be nourished with that unless we have physical signs of this. reality and of this gift. And so just as you have a growth in obedience to the law in Christ,

but in a way that is not legalistic or law-oriented in the sense of getting into this adopted relationship with God. So also for Calvin, the Lord's Supper is certainly about obedience. He cares a lot about the New Testament and the New Testament commands, but it's not just about obedience. It's about nourishment. It's that we are hungry and we need nourishment. And so this is one reason why Calvin was an advocate of such a frequent participation at the supper. He would have preferred to have at least once a week in Geneva. He didn't have his way.

He wasn't in charge of Geneva. But I think there is something quite compelling. And I think for a lot of congregations, that's the pivot point. obedience completely on board. That's true. We need to care about teaching the New Testament. We need to care about this as obedience. But is this simply a pledge of our obedience? Or is there a gift to be received? Is there nourishment to be received? And I can see the case for us having the danger of having the Lord's Supper too often, perhaps, if it's just like a pledge of our obedience. But it's a little. bit harder to make the case, yeah, you're eating supper too often, you know, like having the Lord's supper once every four months or something. That's just, you know, that's just hoarding or something. No, I don't think so. But you can't just make that argument as an abstraction. It has to do with functionally, what do you really think is happening here? Is this a nourishment of our life in Christ?

by the spirit, or is it largely a matter of us stepping forward testifying to the once-for-all sacrifice, which is absolutely good and true, but where we don't expect, in a sense, to be formed and shaped and to actually receive a gift that brings us deeper into Christ. It's really helpful. You know, we're talking right now at our church about increasing our frequency of participation in the Lord's Supper. So you've given me a great talking point of how frequently do we want to be nourished? Because if you use the nourishment as the category, it's hard to think of being nourished too frequently. So that's really helpful. But Todd, let me just say thank you for your wonderful work on this topic. I know Matt and I both appreciate

you, your writings, everything that you do. And if I could ask one final question, kind of on the practical value of union with Christ. We kind of got into this a little bit at the beginning, but in my own life, I found that union with Christ is what I cling to in moments of temptation or struggle the most. The simple words, that's not who I am anymore, are powerful words to be able to speak against darkness or fear or whatever it might be coming at you.

And in the gospel, that's gloriously true, that when we place our faith in Christ, that isn't who we are anymore. And so maybe you could just share a little bit with us from your personal experience. How has the doctrine of union with Christ affected your own personal life and your own relationship with Jesus? Yeah, it's hard to know where to start. But it's, I think it's profoundly grounding in that whether there are good days or bad days, whether it seems like I'm pursuing things that are being blessed or I'm not.

There's this sense that I belong, body and soul, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. This is the indicative. And so the calling within the imperative and even the gift of new life that I'm called to, it just becomes more pleasant and more sweet because sometimes we just don't have the energy to keep on pulling up our bootstraps. And that's okay. Like, in a sense, we need to dwell in this reality

that we are in Christ and then even receive the gift of, you know, resisting temptation and thus living into the new. into the new self. I mean, in some sense, that can sound like a ton of work. And I'm not sure I'm always up to it. But what if it's not about a ton of work? What if it's about aligning and redirecting, about realizing and admitting to God, hey, I'm not the Savior. I'm not the center of the universe. In fact, I as a Christian, I still need a Savior. It wasn't like 10 years ago or 30 years ago, I became a Christian that I needed to say, I need a savior right now. And there's something

freeing about that then so that rather than think that I am going to go do great things for God or I am going to be the great savior. And then if it goes bad, you know, I'm super depressed and things like that it's much more modest but fruitful it's much more like a tree that grows over a long period of time and it it bears fruit that didn't even come from a lot of tight fists but just living into this new reality of being a son or daughter of the king and of the father and living into the reality of this new household of God that I've been given. And it's, you know, like I said earlier, it's not the coolest people. It's not necessarily like who I would choose. But there's this horizontal element of union with Christ connected to the people of God that really subverts and

undermines a lot of the voluntaristic ways that we think about church in terms of, oh, it's about just my own needs or about me choosing, you know, my favorite music or things like this. Like you've been, you've been brought into the family. These are your family. And so, but it's also just less exhausting. I mean, so often in counseling friends and other, other Christians involved in ministry, I come back to union with Christ for people facing burnout. Because, you know, there's only so far that we can go and trying to do great things for God. And so often that direction can be self-destructive. So it's one thing to say that.

Well, what's the alternative? I think the alternative is union with Christ and living into that in a day-by-day way. Awesome. But thank you. That's fantastic. And I know that will be nourishing to use that word again for our viewers. And I want to again encourage them to check out your books on this topic. Matt also love the work that we're able to do together now a little bit in collaborating like this. We'll do some more collaborations I know. So people can keep their ears peeled for future episodes that we'll do together. Do you have any final words, Matt, before we sign off? No, just that. Thank you, Todd, so much. I just love hearing from your personal experience how union with Christ has really changed your life. And yeah, these are the type of conversations that Gavin and I are teaming up so that we can have these and encourage others in this great doctrine of participation in union with Christ. Awesome. Well, thanks for watching everybody. We'll see you next time.