D. Glenn Butner, Jr.
As part of a modern retrieval of trinitarian thought, much exegetical and theological work has sought to frame salvation in more explicitly trinitarian terms. While various atonement models and the ordo salutis are inevitably trinitarian to the extent that they describe the unfolding of the drama of redemption through the dramatis personae of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, much modern effort has gone into connecting the doctrine of redemption with the theological concepts of the doctrine of the Trinity. In particular, attention is given to the doctrine of perichoresis, the mutual interpenetration of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as in some sense comparable to the union of the believer with Christ. The parallel here is important. Yet, the analogy between trinitarian unity and union with Christ offers a robust trinitarian conceptualization of salvation only when the distinctions between perichoresis and union are properly mapped. This article will offer a brief attempt to outline the relationship and distinction between union and perichoresis with particular attention to the Reformed tradition.
The Exegetical Foundation
The term perichoresis is a technical term meant to elaborate the coinherence of the Father and the Son, particularly as seen in the Gospel of John. “I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” Jesus states in a fashion characteristic of the Johannine corpus (John 14:11 CSB; cf. 10:30, 14:8). T. F. Torrance defines perichoresis as
the dynamic Union and Communion of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with one another in one Being in such a way that they have their Being in each other and reciprocally contain one another, without any coalescing or commingling with one another and yet without any separation from one another, for they are completely equal and identical in Deity and Power.1
The union of the Father, Son, and Spirit in this manner is easily affirmed by Christians, though less easily understood. More puzzling, however, is the statement found later in John, when Christ prays, “may they all be one as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me” (17:21). In what sense are we in the Father and the Son, and how does this unity compare with the manner in which the Father is in the Son? Sadly, though John writes elsewhere of the unity of the faithful in God (see 1 John 4:12–13, 5:11–12), he never answers this question.
Where John is silent, many modern biblical scholars have sought to tease out the trinitarian dimensions of union with Christ, particularly as seen in Pauline theology. For example, Constantine Campbell explores a trinitarian aspect of union with Christ, explaining that “the same language used to depict the unity, participation, and identification of believers with Christ is also used with respect to the relationships between the Father, Son, and Spirit.”2 There is a mediatorial dimension to this union. God acts in Christ to reconcile (2 Cor. 5:19), and in Christ the Christian is raised to a new life to God (Rom. 6:11). More than mediation, Campbell notes that Paul’s union language also apparently supports “the extension of the concept of perichoresis beyond the inner life of the Trinity to envelop humanity,” though he later softens this claim by insisting on a difference between union and perichoresis.3 Several decades earlier, James Stewart wrote in a similar fashion, “The more any man comes to be ‘in Christ,’ the more he is ‘in God.’”4 In other words, our union with Christ entails a union with God because of Christ’s union with God. This is why Paul can write that we are “hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:2). Somehow, our salvation is trinitarian in nature, and therefore some connection with perichoresis must be explained.
Risks of Comparing Perichoresis and Union
Having noted the exegetical reasons to make a comparison between perichoresis and union, it should immediately be added that there are reasons for distinguishing between the two doctrines. Most obviously, if union meant full perichoresis, full equality in divinity and power through absolute coinherence, then the division between Creator and creature would be obliviated, as the faithful would find themselves full partakers of the divine nature and life. The Trinity would then cease to be one Being eternally existing as three Persons, as more and more human persons were joined with the divine. Historically Christians have consistently rejected such dramatic accounts of union with God when it surfaced in various forms, from the mysticism of Meister Eckhardt to various ancient mutations of Christian Platonism,5 and they did so on irreproachable dogmatic ground, for the Lord our God is One (Deut. 6:4), not only in unity but in unique stature, glory, and essence.
Perhaps with this risk in mind, Reformed theologians have at times noted the overlap between perichoresis and union, but in a manner that led to downplay and even dismissal of the comparison. Consider the words of the noted Reformed scholastic Francis Turretin:
And if believers are said to dwell in God and he in them (1 Jn. 3:24; Jn. 14:23) on account of the intimate presence of the Spirit (who is the strictest bond of their communion with God), does it not follow that such an emperichōrēsis can be attributed to them? There is the widest difference between the mystical union of believers with God and the divine union of the persons of the Trinity in nature, or of the human and divine natures in the person of Christ.6
Turretin sees the clear conceptual overlap, but merely dismisses this overlap due to the greater difference between union and perichoresis. More recently, John Murray notes an analogy between union and the unity of the Godhead, though “similitude here again does not mean identity.”7 Yet, Murray merely concludes that “the greatest mystery of creaturely relations” is union with Christ, which is “attested” by its comparison to that even greater mystery: “the unity of the Godhead.”8
The work of Reformed theologians and modern biblical scholars has left a need for theological clarification. Reformed theologians have noted similarities that are dismissed or remain in mystery, and in so doing they miss an opportunity to explore the trinitarian nature of salvation. Biblical scholars have noted exegetical warrant for comparisons between union and perichoresis, but without dogmatic analysis (which they reasonably avoid given their task) there is theological risk. With this in mind, I’d like to conclude with some preliminary reflections on the similarities and distinctions between perichoresis and union.
The Trinitarian Foundation of Salvation
The similarity between union and perichoresis is rooted in the fundamentally trinitarian nature of salvation. When I call salvation trinitarian, I mean to refer to the fact that salvation is a restoration of communion between a Christian and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (and through this communion into proper fellowship with one another, though this is a subsidiary matter for another article). For this reason, salvation can never be reduced to a change in forensic status through justification, nor to cleansing of human nature through sanctification, as indispensable as these biblical motifs are. For this reason, John Calvin can introduce his treatment of the ordo salutis with the following words: “So long as we are without Christ and separated from him, nothing which he suffered and did for the salvation of the human race is of the least benefit to us.” Calvin elaborates that all that is Christ’s is “nothing to us until we become one with him.”9 In other words, union with Christ is the necessary foundation of all the benefits of salvation, justification and sanctification included.
Were Calvin to stop with an affirmation of the necessity of union, he would have stated something profound, yet something still short of a fully trinitarian soteriology. Yet, Calvin expands on this initial point. Pointing to the biblical link between the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit in applying the benefits of salvation,10 Calvin also notes that “one of the highest commendations” of the person of the messiah is his unprecedented sending of the person of the Spirit.11 Neither the person nor the work of the Son can be divided from the person and work of the Spirit. This is a necessary consequence of trinitarian theology. The trinitarian persons are correlates, meaning that each person is related to matched opposites that are in turn related to that person. For example, the Son is the Son of the Father, and the Father is the Father of the Son. These relations are constitutive of the divine persons. Likewise, in classical theology the persons are said to work inseparably in all things (cf. John 5:17, 19). The persons and the works of the three are perichoretically united—each works in the others and finds identity in relation to the others in perfect reciprocity. Therefore, it is no surprise that Calvin can describe the Spirit as the “bond by which Christ effectually bonds us to himself.”12 The first benefit of comparing union and perichoresis is to show this trinitarian dimension of salvation—we are joined to Christ because we are indwelt with the Spirit, and we are reconciled to the Father because we are in Christ. If one is in us, we have access to and fellowship with all three.
A second facet of the comparison between union and perichoresis merits attention: the comparison helps us avoid an extrinsicist perspective on salvation. Too easily we can develop an understanding of salvation as something extrinsic to God—salvation is my entry ticket into heaven, a place of joy without suffering. The good news of the gospel is technically not news of eternal life as much as it is news of eternal life with God. Furthermore, Christians can overemphasize the alien nature of justification as imputation of a status that is not ours by nature without counterbalancing this biblical truth with the equally biblical claim that through salvation I am joined with Christ, thereby becoming holy as he is holy. This mistake results in a salvation that is external from me, a status without any real inward change. Union with Christ is comparable to perichoresis because it insists that God’s goodness and holiness is grafted into my nature through sanctification. That is to say, salvation is that state where “God remains in us” (1 John 4:12), where we are a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us (1 Cor. 3:16), and where we are “clothed with Christ” (Gal. 3:27). Yes, salvation is somehow akin to perichoresis because it entails the inseparable work of the eternally correlated divine persons taking what is theirs and sharing it with me, through the work of the divine persons within me, that my life might be transformed to mirror theirs. Yet, this clear trinitarian nature of salvation as revealed through comparisons of union and perichoresis demands immediate clarification.
Differences Between Perichoresis and Union
While there is an affinity between union and perichoresis that displays the trinitarian nature of salvation, it is crucially important to also map the differences between union and perichoresis. A number of differences come to mind, but I will explore only three.
1. A Difference in Duration
Perhaps the most obvious, and yet less significant than other distinctions, is the difference in duration between our participation in divine life through union in comparison with Christ’s divine life with the Father. We see this clearly in Christ’s high priestly prayer. Though he prays that the faithful may be in him and in the Father (John 17:21–23), he reserves for himself the claim that the Father’s life was his own “before the world existed” (17:5) or “before the world’s foundation” (17:25). Though a difference in duration is itself relatively insignificant, it does point in the direction of two rather larger distinctions that must be made.
2. The Extent of Sharing
Classically, Reformed theology has distinguished between the communicable and incommunicable attributes. As described by Petrus van Mastricht, only the former are said to have “vestiges… observed by analogy in the creatures.”13 These are vestiges insofar as they reflect their Creator in something like the imprint of a cause on an effect. God’s “invisible attributes” after all can be “understood through what he has made” (Rom. 1:20), one subset of this creation being creatures. Perhaps the trinitarian nature of salvation suggests that God’s attributes are displayed even more in what he has recreated, since the original creation remains marred by sin. Even here, though, one ought to heed Karl Barth’s famous warnings against trying to derive our doctrine of God from creation or reflections on humanity—it is far better to rather interpret redeemed humanity in light of God as revealed in Christ through the Spirit.
The distinction between the communicable and incommunicable attributes suggests that though something of God’s becomes ours in salvation—after all, only God is truly good or holy, for example, so our goodness and holiness must be derived from his own graciously shared—it is not the entirety of the triune life that it ours. Nowhere is it suggested that the faithful become omnipotent, nowhere that they create worlds. In contrast, all things were created through the Son (John 1:3), and all authority is his (Matt. 28:17). Union is not as extensive as perichoresis in extent, as we share in part of the divine life, but not all.
3. The Ontological Basis for Sharing
Finally, and most significantly, we must address the different ontological basis for sharing in the divine life by union as opposed to unity through perichoresis. This has also been a clear teaching of reformed theology. Consider William Ames, who grants that certain divine attributes can be communicated to human beings from God, yet “not in the same mode nor with the same meaning.”14 By what mode do we share in the communicable attributes as creatures, and how are they restored, elevated, or glorified in the believer who is united with Christ? Here the difference between union and perichoresis is most clear. Recall Torrance’s definition of perichoresis, an apt summary of the tradition and its emphasis on dynamic overlap “in one Being.” Union with Christ precludes such unity of being. Technically speaking, our union is with Christ’s humanity, which by virtue of the incarnation is hypostatically joined with the divine nature in the person of the Son. Yet, Chalcedon is clear (and sound theology demands!) that the divine nature and human nature are joined “unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.” There is no mixture between God and humans. Where the Spirit may baptize us into Christ (Rom. 6:3), it is clear that his humanity is in mind, since we are baptized into his death, a function of the human nature, not the divine. Yet, because this human nature has been joined to divine in the person of the Son, our union with Christ’s humanity does lead to our sharing in the divine life by grace, not by nature. We are in the Son because we have been welcomed in. The Son is in the Father because he shares the same single, simply divine essence.
This is clear throughout the various images for union used in the New Testament. Where we are “coheirs with Christ” (8:17), we are so by the “Spirit of adoption” (8:16), where adopted children do not descend from the biological nature of their adopted parents. Where we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4 ESV), it has been “granted” (1:4) and “given” (1:3). Of course, this logically follows from the duration of our share in the communicable attributes, which union with Christ has made more fully our own, even to the hope where we can anticipate a share in glory once Christ returns. Yet, this share follows regeneration and conversion, so cannot be ours by nature, but is rather received as gift.
Hid with Christ in God, not as God
With some theological effort, we now have a clearer connection between the trinitarian nature of salvation, while also having laid some groundwork to ensure that the Creator/creature distinction is maintained. Salvation is never apart from the Trinity, but it also never incorporates the believer into the Trinity. We are hid with Christ in God, yet not as God. Instead, we shall eternally remain God’s creatures, beneficiaries of his boundless grace whereby we share analogically in the triune life by communicated attributes more fully shared through union, and in this we have a taste of something analogous to the infinite perichoretic life of God.
D. Glenn Butner, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Theology and Christian Ministry at Sterling College in Sterling, KS. He is the author of The Son Who Learned Obedience: A Theological Case Against the Eternal Submission of the Son (Pickwick, 2018).
Image: Paul Gleditsch, The Baptism of Christ; Saint John the Baptist at right and Christ at left with his hands held together, the Holy Dove above, angels in the background, after Reni
- Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons. London: T & T Clark, 1996, 170.[↩]
- Constantine R. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012.[↩]
- Ibid., 364.[↩]
- James S. Stewart, A Man in Christ: The Vital Elements of St. Paul’s Religion (New York: Harper & Row, n.d.), 170.[↩]
- Note that orthodox varieties of Christian Platonism also abound.[↩]
- Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 3, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 1997), III.23.13.[↩]
- John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: 168.[↩]
- Ibid., 169.[↩]
- John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Theology, trans. Henry Beveridge (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 3.1.1.[↩]
- Here Calvin cites 1 Peter 1:2 and 1 Corinthians 6:11 as examples. Ibid.[↩]
- Calvin cites Joel 2:28, Romans 8:9, 11, John 7:37, Ephesians 4:7, 1 Corinthians 15:45, and Romans 5:5 as evidence. Ibid., 3.1.2.[↩]
- Ibid., 3.1.1.[↩]
- Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, Vol. 2 – Faith in the Triune God, trans. Todd M. Rester and Michael T. Spangler, ed. Joel R. Beeke and Michael T. Spangler (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2019), 1.2.5.x.[↩]
- William Ames, The Marrow of Theology, trans. John Dykstra Eusden (Durham, NC: Labyrinth, 1983), 4.30.[↩]