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Union with Christ: Salvation as Participation
The Christian's participatory union with Christ is a central element of salvation, both in Scripture and in the historic Christian tradition. In the early twentieth-century, however, this theme gradually began to diminish in its prominence within Lutheran theological writing. Due to a variety of philosophical and theological shifts, many Lutherans began to emphasize forensic justification to the exclusion of participationist motifs. That forensic exclusivism is challenged in this work. In this book, Jordan Cooper articulates an approach to union with Christ that is drawn from both Patristic theology, and the classical Lutheran tradition. Throughout this study, Cooper exposits union with Christ under three distinctive the objective union of God and man through the Incarnation, the formal union of faith in which the believer is united to Christ's person and work, and the mystical union through which the Triune God dwells in the hearts of Christians. This book is the sixth volume in a series titled A Contemporary Protestant Scholastic Theology.
- GenresTheology
246 pages, Paperback
Published July 26, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 20, 2024
Cooper shows how a mystical union between Christ and man is prevalent throughout the history of Lutheran dogma. This an excellent book in establishing a framework for how we are to understand sanctification and the Christian life. In my opinion, it is a must read for any pastor. Especially if we want to faithfully navigate and articulate Christian living in a post-antinomian synod.
January 19, 2024
This book was very helpful in understanding the doctrine of Union with Christ. Within modern Lutheranism, the primary, and sometimes only, understanding of salvation is forensic justification. Cooper points out that the church, Lutheran and Catholic, has understood salvation in more holistic ways. Cooper is good at being balanced as he does not throw away forensic justification for union, because both doctrines are found in the Lutheran Confessions. It has helped shape my own understanding of Lutheranism as he brings correction to current movements of Lutheranism while pointing the reader toward early Lutheran sources.
This book does not read like a typical systematic theology which I thought it would. Other systematics will state a doctrine and unpack it and show how it fits within a system of thought. Cooper spends most of his time reacting to other theologians. Despite my expectations, this did not disappoint as I am familiar with the works of those he reacted too (particularly the LCMS theologians). This does make this work target a niche audience. Because I fit that audience, it was helpful for me.
A few cons: I read a brand new paperback edition, and some of the pages fell out as I was reading. Also, I am no expert in bibliographic citations, but I do not think they were formatted correctly. The first line of the citations were indented, while the other lines were not. This makes it a tad harder to find certain authors within his bibliography.
Overall, this book targets a niche audience. But if you fit within a Lutheran theological audience formed by modern Lutheran scholarship, this book will challenge some of your understandings of Lutheran doctrine, while bringing correction to the ways in which Lutheranism has shifted from its earliest days.
This book does not read like a typical systematic theology which I thought it would. Other systematics will state a doctrine and unpack it and show how it fits within a system of thought. Cooper spends most of his time reacting to other theologians. Despite my expectations, this did not disappoint as I am familiar with the works of those he reacted too (particularly the LCMS theologians). This does make this work target a niche audience. Because I fit that audience, it was helpful for me.
A few cons: I read a brand new paperback edition, and some of the pages fell out as I was reading. Also, I am no expert in bibliographic citations, but I do not think they were formatted correctly. The first line of the citations were indented, while the other lines were not. This makes it a tad harder to find certain authors within his bibliography.
Overall, this book targets a niche audience. But if you fit within a Lutheran theological audience formed by modern Lutheran scholarship, this book will challenge some of your understandings of Lutheran doctrine, while bringing correction to the ways in which Lutheranism has shifted from its earliest days.
March 2, 2023
This book gave me a totally new perspective of salvation. I've always viewed it as only a legal transaction, but this book has revealed there is so much more to this life with Jesus.
I now seek to be united with Christ in a new way - to be joined with Him through the mystical union, so we can have all that He is.
My only critique of the book is the abundance of Latin phrases that I had to keep looking up.
I now seek to be united with Christ in a new way - to be joined with Him through the mystical union, so we can have all that He is.
My only critique of the book is the abundance of Latin phrases that I had to keep looking up.
January 16, 2023
Good book, written in a very scholastic way so it may be a little hard to read for some people. It's very well written and full of information on the union with Christ in the Lutheran tradition as well as looking into the reformed view on the issue.
December 23, 2025
Devoured it! My favorite work of Dr. Jordan Cooper by a longshot.
January 5, 2026
Union with Christ: Salvation as Participation by Jordan Cooper.
Like other books written by Cooper, this book is not like your typical systematic theology book. Cooper does not seek to show you how this theology is derived out from the Bible.
Instead, this book functions more like a historical theology book, which is very much Cooper himself. In his other books and YouTube videos, most of the content he produces are engaging with historical theology, leaving very little time for systematic theology.
Most of the book is spent fleshing out the views of various parties and reacting to their views. Long story short: his thesis is to show that this Union with Christ theology is consistent with the confessional Lutheran tradition as a whole and even has basis with the church fathers and some common ground with Reformed theology.
People he dialogues with in this book are the Finnish school Lutherans, Neo-Kantian philosophers, Luther Renaissance theologians, Radical Lutheranism theologians, TF Torrence, Reformed Theologians, Church Fathers, Medieval Theologians, and a lot of other in house Lutheran theologians, commentators, and devotional authors. Cooper also has an excellent section explaining realism philosophies in relation to Christian theology, especially Platonism, Neoplatonism, and Aristotelianism.
If you are very much interested in historical theology especially the in house debates of Lutheranism, then you will likely enjoy this book. I skimped through a lot of the Lutheran in house debates, because I'm not a Lutheran myself.
However, I'm very much interested in the theological concepts. I enjoy seeing how it differs from the typical Reformed understanding, and how this also tightly relates to baptismal regeneration. Thank you Lutherans, for shaking my chains off from the bondage of Zwinglianism (they only see baptism as just a symbol) and making me much more sacramental in my baptism theology.
Anyway, to summarize the theology of this book,
Salvation is basically consists of both Legal and Participatory.
And there are 3 types of unions:
1. Objective Union - where Christ unites himself to every individual human beings through the INCARNATION. This is the basis for all ordo salutis. Incarnation is super duper important here!!
2. Formal Union of Faith - where the believer is united to Christ by faith to receive justification.
3. Mystical Union of Faith - after being justified, the Triune God now indwells in the believer which then will cause sanctification.
As a reformed person, this helps me to understand the Patristic theology better, that yes, it seems like the church fathers are more aligned with Lutherans in this respect. Although I still hold to Limited Atonement and Covenant Theology, this book helps me to think and understand the difference between Union with Christ objectively in eternity and subjectively in time as appropriated by faith of the believer.
If you are not a Lutheran, just read those parts that focus more on the theology and general important figures for some historical info instead of reading every page.
3 stars because of Cooper's writing style which is more reactionary and dry rather than systematic and conceptual and also because there's too much in house Lutheran debates.
Like other books written by Cooper, this book is not like your typical systematic theology book. Cooper does not seek to show you how this theology is derived out from the Bible.
Instead, this book functions more like a historical theology book, which is very much Cooper himself. In his other books and YouTube videos, most of the content he produces are engaging with historical theology, leaving very little time for systematic theology.
Most of the book is spent fleshing out the views of various parties and reacting to their views. Long story short: his thesis is to show that this Union with Christ theology is consistent with the confessional Lutheran tradition as a whole and even has basis with the church fathers and some common ground with Reformed theology.
People he dialogues with in this book are the Finnish school Lutherans, Neo-Kantian philosophers, Luther Renaissance theologians, Radical Lutheranism theologians, TF Torrence, Reformed Theologians, Church Fathers, Medieval Theologians, and a lot of other in house Lutheran theologians, commentators, and devotional authors. Cooper also has an excellent section explaining realism philosophies in relation to Christian theology, especially Platonism, Neoplatonism, and Aristotelianism.
If you are very much interested in historical theology especially the in house debates of Lutheranism, then you will likely enjoy this book. I skimped through a lot of the Lutheran in house debates, because I'm not a Lutheran myself.
However, I'm very much interested in the theological concepts. I enjoy seeing how it differs from the typical Reformed understanding, and how this also tightly relates to baptismal regeneration. Thank you Lutherans, for shaking my chains off from the bondage of Zwinglianism (they only see baptism as just a symbol) and making me much more sacramental in my baptism theology.
Anyway, to summarize the theology of this book,
Salvation is basically consists of both Legal and Participatory.
And there are 3 types of unions:
1. Objective Union - where Christ unites himself to every individual human beings through the INCARNATION. This is the basis for all ordo salutis. Incarnation is super duper important here!!
2. Formal Union of Faith - where the believer is united to Christ by faith to receive justification.
3. Mystical Union of Faith - after being justified, the Triune God now indwells in the believer which then will cause sanctification.
As a reformed person, this helps me to understand the Patristic theology better, that yes, it seems like the church fathers are more aligned with Lutherans in this respect. Although I still hold to Limited Atonement and Covenant Theology, this book helps me to think and understand the difference between Union with Christ objectively in eternity and subjectively in time as appropriated by faith of the believer.
If you are not a Lutheran, just read those parts that focus more on the theology and general important figures for some historical info instead of reading every page.
3 stars because of Cooper's writing style which is more reactionary and dry rather than systematic and conceptual and also because there's too much in house Lutheran debates.
August 10, 2024
Seriously scoped scholarship.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews