According to the committee report before GA next week:

5. The view that “union with Christ” renders imputation redundant because it subsumes all of Christ’s benefits (including justification) under this doctrinal heading is contrary to the Westminster Standards.

Since it has now been made clear that no one believes imputation is redundant (see Joel Garver’s words quoted below), the question is whether or not it is wrong to see imputation under the doctrinal heading of the Westminster Standards.

Because, not to sound alarmist or anything, but union with Christ is being preached from our pulpits as the source and means of all Christ’s benefits. For example, consider this exposition of Colossians 2:

Remember that in Colossians chapter 2, especially in the first fifteen verses or so, the apostle Paul is wanting the Colossian Christians to understand the implications of their union with Christ. And in verses 11 and 12, he is talking with them about the implications of their union with Christ with regard to their fellowship in the death of Christ. In verses 11 and 12, Paul reminds Christians that they need to remember the specific benefits which flow from being in Christ with regard to the fellowship that they have in Christ’s death. That is the argument of 11, and 12 is connected to that. In 13 and 14, he wants them to consider that forgiveness flows from their being in Christ.

Or consider this from a sermon on the passage:

And that leads then to verses 11-15 where the Apostle Paul works out the specific benefits which flow from our being united with Christ. We have used that phrase a number of times, united to Christ. Paul is just talking about a doctrine called “union with Christ.” It is one of the most mysterious and glorious doctrines of the faith, that believers, by the Spirit, through faith, are united to Christ. I can’t tell you all that those words mean. But the scriptures speak of union with Christ with a variety of analogies.

Sometimes Christ illustrates what He means by talking about Him being the vine and us being the branches. Sometimes Paul talks about us being a building and each of us are the collected parts of the building and Christ is the cornerstone. And sometimes Paul uses the metaphor of marriage and speaks of our being united to Christ as a husband is to a wife. Sometimes Paul uses the metaphor of the body and Christ is the head and we are the body. Over and over, these images of being united to Christ are used in the scripture. Paul says in this passage that if we will understand what it is to be united to Christ, we will not fall prey to false teaching which professes to offer fullness and we will be grown in the faith.

What is it to be united with Christ? Well, it doesn’t mean to cease to be who you are. When you marry a person, you don’t cease to be who you are. You continue to be who you were. But you are united to them in a relationship, in an intimacy, in a closeness, that you have never had before. When we are united with Christ, we do not become Christ, Christ does not become us. We do not become God. But we enter into a covenantal relationship with Him whereby He is ours and we are His. And whereby all the benefits of His life and death flow to us. Paul is going to talk about some of those benefits in verses 11-15….

Notice in verses 13 and 14, he goes on to say the result of this union, the result of this fellowship which you have in union with Christ, this relationship, this covenantal relationship that you have with Christ, this union with Christ, the result of it is forgiveness of sin and freedom in Christ.

First of all, in verses 13 and 14 Paul speaks of the forgiveness that we have in Christ. “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”

Paul is saying that because of our sin, we were condemned. We were dead in sin and the moral law condemned us. As we looked at the law, we saw that we did not measure up and, therefore, Paul said we are judged. But Christ has died and so has nailed the certificate of guilt, the certificate of death, the bond which had placed against us because of our sin, He has nailed it to the tree, dying in our stead, and by dying for us, we have been made alive through the forgiveness of sin.

Paul says as you are united with Christ, you are forgiven of your sin because He paid the price so that you would not be called to account at the bar of God’s justice.

So forgiveness is a benefit that flows from union with Christ. And then there is this, explaining Romans 6:

He is talking about what happens when a person is united to Christ. Paul in this whole passage is talking about union with Christ. The reason the believer has died to sin is because he is united to Christ. In union with Christ, the believer dies to the penalty and the power of sin. Paul has been talking primarily about how the penalty of sin is broken to the believer up to this point [i.e Romans 3-5]. In Romans, chapter 6, it will be his concern to show you how the power of sin is broken to the believer through union with Christ.

Frankly, these are all very edifying statements and one can easily google the church page for many more like them.

It might be good to end with something about Rich Lusk. Joel Garver writes,

Lusk on Imputation

Analysis: The report, at several points, implies that FV proponents see imputation (or distinguishing any aspects of redemption) as “redundant.”

The report states that the Standards “view union with Christ as the umbrella category under which the individual aspects of Christ’s redemption fit. And yet, union with Christ does not make justification or the other benefits redundant” (2214:33-35). Later the report states, “the truly problematic claims of the Federal Vision proponents come when some suggest…that imputation is ‘redundant’ because it is subsumed in ‘union with Christ'” (2225:7-9).

These statements appear to derive from Rich Lusk when he states “my in-Christ-ness makes imputation redundant. I do not need the moral content of his life of righteousness transferred to me; what I need is a share in the forensic verdict passed over him at the resurrection” (2222:32-34, cited from Lusk’s “The Biblical Plan of Salvation” in The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros and Cons).

Before citing Lusk’s retraction, it is worth noting that even in this statement, “redundant” can be understood in two ways. It can mean something like “pleonastic,” that is, saying the same thing twice in different ways. Or it can mean something like “exessive” or “superfluous” that is, saying in itself more than is necessary or required.

What Lusk seems to be saying is that, through our union with the resurrected Christ by faith, God reckons to us the verdict he declared over Jesus’ life of faithfulness unto death. Thus believers are, in effect, forensically reckoned as having Jesus’ life in their account. Therefore, any additional imputation – in particular, some additional transfer of Jesus’ moral achievements, occurring outside of or in abstraction from union with Christ – would be giving us the same thing in another way.

I suspect, therefore, that Lusk meant “redundant” in the former sense, but the report seems to interpret him in the latter sense. I whole-heartedly agree we cannot jettison imputation as an unnecessary or superfluous concept in our doctrine of justification without running afoul of the Standards.

Whatever the case, the point is moot since Lusk has withdrawn this statement (which was peculiar to him at any rate).

In his first “Reply” (pdf) to the OPC report, Lusk writes:

I freely admit that the sentence from my colloquium essay, “My in-Christ-ness makes imputation redundant,” is open to misunderstanding. Indeed, I gladly withdraw that statement, and let the rest of the argument stand on its own… Again, in retrospect, I am happy to withdraw the offending sentence about the “redundancy” of imputation. My argument does not depend on that particular way of stating the matter, and perhaps overstates it. I wish now I had been even more explicit that it was specifically imputation-as-extrinsic-transfer…that I was critiquing. (22-21)

Earlier in the same reply, Lusk clarifies his position:

I have nowhere suggested that union with Christ solves every problem or swallows up every other doctrine. Indeed, when I concluded the section of the essay of mine that the [OPC] Report is quoting from, I cheerfully admitted that we may continue using imputation language if we desire, provided we understand imputation as a feature of union with Christ, rather than a piece of our salvation having a discrete structure of its own. So I am not opposed to imputation as a theological category as such. (2)

Given Lusk’s retraction and revision of his original statement and his futher clarification, it seems that the PCA report is misleading with regard to what the actual issues are in this discussion.

“…provided we understand imputation as a feature of union with Christ, rather than a piece of our salvation having a discrete structure of its own.” It sounds to me like a statement Lusk could have made after analyzing the sermons on union with Christ found at the First Pres Jackson website. That should surprise no one since the sermons are Confessional.

But the declaration does not seem to be. It seems designed to get someone in hot water for preaching in this very way–or for preaching in this way and having the wrong friends.

(More on Rich Lusk)