The UPS driver caught me right as I ventured into the cold afternoon to fetch the mail. As he parked on the street he handed me a gem. After carefully unpacking the box there emerged Robert Letham’s newest work entitled Union with Christ: In Scripture, History, and Theology. The book contains 141 pages. While giving a general perusal, I noticed Letham touches on the relationship between union with Christ and baptism (138) while interacting briefly with Romans 6 and its unending influence on the Reformational baptismal debates.
I am and have always been a fan of acknowledgments. I never go directly to chapter one without reading through what influenced the author in the book-writing process. Notably, Richard Gaffin–a statue of the Westminsterian tradition and now professor emeritus–will likely leave his mark in this sacred study (Gaffin writes that this is a “high-quality contribution” to the study of Union with Christ; Gaffin himself having done significant work already on this topic). For Letham, union with Christ “lies right at the heart of biblical soteriology (ix).” To be united to Jesus is to be partaker of his divine nature. Indeed union with Christ is the umbrella of soteriology; everything else submits to its inescapable presence.
