Clive Bowsher. <i>Life in the Son: Exploring Participation and Union with Christ in John’s Gospel and Letters</i>

The theme of “union with Christ” and/or “participation in Christ” has garnered enormous attention over the last few decades of New Testament scholarship, especially in Pauline Studies. However, with a few exceptions, such as the work of Grant Macaskill and Michael Gorman, there has been comparatively little attention devoted to the theme of union with Christ in the Johannine literature. Clive Bowsher’s recent volume in the “New Studies in Biblical Theology” series thus represents a needed and insightful exegetical contribution.The central proposal of Bowsher’s study is that “Johannine union with Christ consists of a oneness/in-one-anotherness with Christ—a relational intimacy with the Son, participating in his life, work, character and love, both now and in the future. As with any binding relationship, Johannine union with Christ, or in-one-anotherness, is both a state of affairs and an active participation . . . [and] in-one-another relationship with the Son and ‘life’ closely overlap in the Johannine Gospel and epistles” (pp. 7–8).Chapter 2 demonstrates that “in the fourth Gospel, if someone experiences in-one-another relationship with Jesus, that persons experiences the life of the age to come and vice versa. . . . In-one-another relationship with Jesus and zōe aiōnios are practically coextensive” (p. 54). Chapter 3 similarly argues that in the Johannine epistles, “in-one-anotherness . . . with God . . . is an enduring relationship of mutual (or reciprocal) and presence between Father-Son and those in the fellowship . . . to be a child, begotten of God by the Spirit, is to experience life-giving in-one-anotherness with God . . . [which is] practically coextensive with zōe aiōnios” (p. 79). Chapter 4 briefly summarizes and synthesizes the prior two chapters.Chapter 5 is perhaps the strongest of the book, showing that “as Jesus’ journey reaches its end, it involves his glorification through his suffering and death on behalf of others, after which he ‘takes up’ his life again and returns to the Father. The children of God follow on the same journey” (p. 116). Chapter 6 is a series of close readings of 1 Jn 5:18, 2:6–8, 2:29–3:10, 4:17, where Bowsher argues that “although the journey of Jesus is not as prominent in 1 John as in the Fourth Gospel, the exegetical evidence confirms that the writer of the epistle views the believer’s journey as strikingly similar to the journey of Jesus, with which he is familiar” (pp. 124–25). Bowsher here suggests “filiation” is a more useful term to use than “theosis” for describing participation in Christ in order to mitigate unintended confusion about the uniqueness of God (127).Chapter 7 is the most daring of the book, boldly claiming:While the prior chapters are more exegetical in nature, this chapter is the most overtly biblico-theological, beginning with a brief but wide-ranging overview of the theme of “covenant” throughout the entire Old Testament (see Bowsher’s summary of what constitutes a covenant on pp. 135–37), before attempting to suggest that John’s vision of in-one-another sharing in Jesus’s story represents a quasi-covenantal kind of relationship. Methodologically, such a procedure is not illicit within the discourse of biblical theology, where a working definition of “covenant” is arrived at canonically, before attempting to demonstrate that all of the essential features of that definition of covenant are present in how the Johannine literature describes union with Christ. However, Bowsher’s execution of that method raises a few questions. If “covenant” is indeed an important component in the relationship Jesus establishes with believers, why did John’s gospel and John’s epistles decline to spell this out, in distinction from the priority placed upon explicitly covenantal language used to describe our relationship with Jesus found in Paul, or Luke’s gospel, or Hebrews, and more? It is possible that a concept might be operative in a text that is not explicitly named, such as covenant. Nonetheless, is it not, at least rhetorically, if not also theologically, significant that John found other language and imagery more suitable for describing union with Christ than the register of “covenant”? What ancient parallels are there in the Greco-Roman world and Second Temple Judaism to the actual language John does use to describe “in-one-anotherness”? For instance, is John similar or different from Teresa Morgan’s encheiristic reading of union with Christ in Paul, where she argues that Paul’s being “in Christ” language is comparable to being “in the hands of” another person in ancient Greek literature? Bowsher offers appreciation for Michael Horton’s claim that “union with Christ and the covenant of grace are not simply related themes, but are different ways of talking about one and the same reality”; with Bowsher, I am sympathetic to the kind of covenantal theology found in Westminster Confession chapter 7 (p. 132). But is it indeed an exposition of John’s gospel and John’s epistles to find as a central concept of union with Christ something that the gospel and epistles do not explicitly talk about—or, are broader notions of covenant from elsewhere in the canon being superimposed on how John uniquely testifies to union with Christ?Chapter 8 then summarizes the work as a whole, with a few appendices. Appendix 1 is quite brief but notable, which attempts to succinctly compare union with Christ in Paul with union with Christ in the Johannine Literature. Bowsher is right, that “there is a coherent NT theology of ‘union with Christ’ in which relationship with Christ brings the believer into the life of the age to come” (p. 154). But greater precision is needed than the bare conclusion that “an eschatological and relational understanding may properly underpin the formulation, not only of Johannine union with Christ . . . but also of a Pauline and NT theology of union” (p. 155). Undoubtedly, there are similarities between “in Christ” language in Paul and the language of “abide in me” in John chapter 15; I am hermeneutically more inclined to find coherence than incoherence among the symphonic theological testimonies in the canon of Holy Scripture. But Paul also describes union with Christ in a staggeringly diverse, kaleidoscopic range of different images and metaphors: temple, Body, nuptial union, co-crucifixion, co-burial, co-resurrection, being seated with the ascended Christ in heaven, etc. On eschatology, for instance, Paul does not slot Christ into an antecedent two-ages temporal framework; Paul learns what time itself is in Christ, and reimagines time christologically, as Ann Jervis has shown. While that is not irreconcilable with how John speaks about time, are there not different textures or facets to how “time” is described in John’s gospel and letters? I am deeply grateful Clive Bowsher wrote this insightful study of union with Christ in John’s gospel and letters that prompted these and other questions; his book should serve as a significant conversation partner in future exploration of union with Christ in the New Testament.