Union with Christ

Lane G. Tipton

Reviewed by: Danny E. Olinger

Union with Christ: The Benefits of His Suffering and Glory, by Lane G. Tipton. Reformed Forum, 2025. Paperback, 130 pages, $16.99. Reviewed by New Horizons editor, Danny E. Olinger.

Lane Tipton states that, although Union with Christ is a stand-alone book, it advances the thesis of his earlier book Foundations of Covenant Theology. In that volume, he argues that the glory of the triune God forms the key subject matter of Scripture. When God created the heavens and the earth, his glory-presence sanctified the invisible heaven as a temple-dwelling. The covenant of works (Gen. 2:7–18) put before Adam the hope of full communion with God in this Spirit-filled realm upon successful completion of the probation, but Adam transgressed God’s word. Standing guilty before God because of his sin, Adam’s hope was tied to a second covenant in the form of a covenant of grace that promised life and salvation by faith in a Messiah. Jesus is the promised seed who will crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15), clothe his people with his image (Gen. 3:21), and pass under the sword of judgment to ascend the mountain of the Lord (Gen. 3:24).

In Union with Christ, Tipton builds upon the significance of Jesus as the second and last Adam who, by his obedience to the point of death and his resurrection from the dead, has attained the heavenly goal forfeited by the first Adam’s sin. In ten short chapters, Tipton moves from Christ’s humiliation and exaltation in “redemption accomplished” (historia salutis) to the believer’s union with Christ in his humiliation and exaltation in “redemption applied” (ordo salutis). A Spirit-worked faith union with the crucified and ascended Savior brings his benefits—including justification, sanctification, and adoption—to the believer.

Each chapter has systematic, biblical-theological, and confessional elements. Systematically, Tipton gives great weight to the dogmatic insights of Geerhardus Vos and John Calvin. One example of this is Tipton’s use of Vos and Calvin to establish that union with Christ by faith is a legal union. Tipton appeals to Vos to support the biblical teaching that the righteousness of Christ in his suffering and exaltation supplies a judicial feature to the union bond and that the bond lies in being reckoned in Christ by the judgment of God. Tipton then turns to Calvin to support Vos’s claim that the legal fellowship given in union with Christ is not found in the believer, but in the objective righteousness of Christ. He quotes Calvin,

We do not, therefore, contemplate [Christ] outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body—in short, because he deigns to make us one with him. For this reason, we glory that we have fellowship of righteousness with him. (59–60)

In terms of biblical-theology, Tipton leans heavily on Vos again and adds the insights of Richard Gaffin Jr., Herman Ridderbos, and John Murray. One example here is the discussion of sanctification in Christ as an irreversible and ongoing condition. In exegeting Romans 6, Gaffin and Ridderbos speak of the indicative, the irreversible condition of being dead to sin and alive to God in union with Christ, and the imperative, the ongoing growth in death to sin and life to God in union with Christ. Tipton notes that Murray makes the same point with his teaching that there is a definitive aspect to sanctification and a progressive aspect to sanctification. The exhortation of Romans 6:12, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions,” is that since you are dead to sin in Christ (irreversible condition), continue to be dead to sin and do not let it reign.

Confessionally, Tipton references Westminster Shorter Catechism 23–28 extensively in the discussion on redemption accomplished and 30–35 in the discussion on redemption applied and declares that Westminster Larger Catechism 65, 66, and 69 present the classical Reformed view of the nature of union with Christ in relation to the benefits of that union.

Tipton argues in closing that the suffering and glory of Jesus Christ is at the heart of the church’s greatest practical benefits. “Jesus abides with his church in her suffering, heals her with his cross, raises her with his life, and comforts her with the comfort he himself has received” (111).