Hi everyone and welcome to the Oak Hill podcast, Deep Roots, Conversations about Theology and
Ministry. Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Eric and I teach Old Testament here at Oak Hill
and I'm joined by my friends Matt and Natalie. Great to be here. I am Matt Bingham. I teach
Church History and Systematic Theology at Oak Hill College. And yes, Natalie, Natalie Brand.
Thank you for being with us here today. Thank you. It's privilege. Natalie, you've been with us this
past year as a visiting lecturer and you've been teaching some systematic theology, teaching on
reading Calvin's Institutes. And we're really pleased that you can do that for us. Thank you.
By way of introduction, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about where's your church home and
who is with you in the family and what do you do when you're not teaching doctrine in Calvin?
Yeah, thank you. Well, the teaching doctrine in Calvin is more of a hobby. I double in it.
Yeah, full-time mother at home, long school runs. We live kind of right in the middle of England.
Literally, there's a road around the corner called Heart of England Way, not far from where Henry
the Seventh was crowned. So there's some good history there, Battle of Fosworth. Yeah, so we're
living in the Midlands due to my husband's ministry, but we are both from the South with
Southerners. And that's important, even on a small island. Yeah, three girls, a dog, she was a COVID
lockdown by, that's been sanctifying. And yeah, just writing and teaching at different places,
London Seminary, Flourish Course, but mostly at home with the children.
Can you tell us just a little bit about your husband's ministry?
Yeah, so Tom is the Ministry Director of the EFCC, Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational
Churches. It sounds very steer. It basically is the Evangelical lot that didn't want to join the
URC, the Liberals in the 60s. So they kind of created this fellowship for Orthodoxy.
And it's about 120 odd churches in England, Wales and all the moment.
Okay, an important ministry. Yeah, he's pastoring pastors and placing pastors in churches. Some
of the churches haven't had pastors for 30 odd years. So he's encouraging churches to see that
church leadership pastors, teachers, they're a gift from the Lord, Ephesians 4, 11,
and to encourage them to get men in the pulpit. So he's doing a great work. So we're encouraging.
That's wonderful. That's wonderful. So tell us about the different places you studied in your
educational journey and what piqued your interest in theology and... Yeah, so I became a Christian,
well I was brought up in a Christian home, but I think it was the turn of the millennium, literally,
possibly even that night, where I just thought I've had enough of the world. And the Lord,
by his spirit, provoked in me a desire just to be in the Word, which I hadn't really had.
For a long time I was living kind of like the prodigal son and the pigs, but instead it was a
grotty flat in Bournemouth and the Word. And yeah, I just couldn't get enough, turned up that I ended
up going back to my parents and yeah, eating up the Word. And it was about a period of about
six months where the Lord called me to himself. And I just wanted to serve him after that. And so
ended up going to what is now a union school of theology and doing their BA, kind of in the desire
to do some kind of youth work, because that is kind of I'd been saved in that kind of way.
But just never left, did the BA, did the MA, did the PhD. And yeah, the Lord has been really good,
favoured me in many ways as I've sought to write. It wasn't necessarily something I sought to do,
but Dr. D, who was the principal back then, Dr. Ero Davis, he told me that I needed to
stay and do a PhD and he even wrote the proposal for me. So I just did what he told me to do and I
just stayed and did that. And he didn't give you many options if he knew that I loved the doctrine
of union with Christ. And I came across it in a very kind of every day kind of way. I was reading
a tiny book called Bites I Theology by Peter Jeffrey. It had a woman with with in front of
a computer, twoing her glasses on the front cover, I think is an old EP book. And I just was in the
first year and hadn't really heard of systematic theology. And it's just a really condensed
systematic like it's one page per doctrine. And when I came across union with Christ, I just felt
like I had goosebumps. And that was it. And so later on, Dr. D wrote the proposal for me to do
something on union with Christ, because he knew that I loved it. And yeah, that's where it's
so for those who don't know Dr. D's full name is Dr. Earl Davis. Okay, thank you. Wonderful.
Yeah. Wow. So union with Christ, you're exposed to this doctrine in a different way, a deeper way
while studying. And you say, I'm going to do a PhD on it now. How do you kind of narrow the field?
And what are some of the actually, maybe before we get into that, maybe just for all of us sake,
give us a kind of quick definition of union with Christ. I mean, we all have a feel for that maybe,
but how would you, how would you summarize it? Yeah. So obviously, Christ talks a lot in the
Gospel of John of being one with the Father. And how he in his high priestly prayer, for example,
he prays that the people will be one, like you are that I am one with you. And there's the vine
and the branches and also in John 17. So Christ speaks of union with Christ very heavily in
in John's Gospel. But Paul is obsessed with this formula of being in Christ, I mean, everything
is about being in Christ. And so the doctrine is this, it really is the Gospel. I mean,
Horton says it's the hub of the gospel is the hub of everything there in the middle as union
with Christ and and all of salvation cannot be applied to the believer unless we are in union
with him. And Calvin said, didn't he that famous quote that if we're outside of him, we have nothing,
we're apart from him, then we have nothing. So yeah, it's basically the truth that
if Jesus is our savior and our redeemer, and for his cross to mean anything for us in our
lives in the 21st century, in a different continent, in a different time, or whatever, if his work and
his person has to be applied to us in order for us to be crucified with him, resurrected with him,
then the Holy Spirit has to apply him, his person to us and his work to us. So,
and Luther said, the faith was the wedding ring, and the Holy Spirit takes the faith takes the
believer takes Christ and refuses them together. So it's that spiritual marriage between Christ
and the church. And it isn't just the means of how we're saved. It is our Christian life.
It's the center of salvation, but it's also the center of Christian living as well. It's everything.
Yeah, I already have quite many questions coming to mind. But before we get to all my questions,
could you just tell us your PhD? What was the particular angle you took? How did you approach
the question? What did you work on? I don't know if you find this, but it's a bit fuzzy, isn't it?
After a while, it was quite a while ago. So it was basically what I was doing is I was,
this was back in the day when we weren't talking about union with Christ. You're like, this was
10, 15 years ago when union with Christ now has so much more on our radar.
Radar, praise God. But back then we weren't talking about it. We weren't talking about
Calvin's corporate spirituality. So what I sought to do was talk about reform spirituality,
see the depth, the depth there of kind of experiential liveliness, like how we were being
characterized to be quite cerebral. Bring us back to a corporate lively experimental
spirituality based on union with Christ. But I did that from the kind of the unique angle was that
it was a woman scholar. And so I did it bringing in kind of reformed women. What does it mean to
be have a Calvinistic corporate biblical, authentic spirituality anchored in union with Christ,
but to be pastorally aware of women, how we can use women if we're enjoying shared union
as church siblings, if we're enjoying shared union, if we co-heirs with Christ, what does it mean
then to have a corporate spirituality or even church practice that is complementarian? How can
we use women in a way and even pastor women in a way that is centered upon union with Christ?
So yeah, it was multi-busted as all these things are. But basically union with Christ and reform
spirituality, looking particularly at reformed women. And kind of a, well back then it was kind
of a feminine, we've moved in the last 10, 15 years on gender language so much. It sounds awkward
now, but for example, I would look at Sarah Edwards and how she would express herself and her
spirituality from a kind of bridal state. And this idea of union with Christ, Christ being our spouse.
Faith Kirk is also another one who does that in her hymns and in her poems that she's taken from
Samuel Rutherford, she says, wrapped up with Christ, wrapped up in Christ by one desire. So
it was kind of trying to stir an enjoyment of Christ and union with Christ in the believer.
That's really interesting. Backing up a bit toward the front that you mentioned, you know,
this is, you said something like, this is one we weren't talking about union as much. It wasn't
emphasized. When you say we, are you talking about sort of evangelicals generally, evangelical
theologians, pastors from pulpits, reform circles, all of Christendom, who are the we,
do you think that was maybe not giving this doctrine the emphasis that?
Yeah, I think all of that, like that certainly in reform scholarly works were just coming out
as I was researching. So it was kind of funny because I'd written this proposal and thought,
yeah, this will be great. And then you see people writing books that you're writing and you're like,
oh no, oh my God. But also it was really encouraging because obviously people are having the same
conversation or having the same patterns that we needed to recentralize union with Christ.
And I think a lot of that has come out that we've seen a renewal in reform theology over the 10,
the last 10 years or so. Praise God. And it's perhaps come out of the new cavernist movement
from the States. But yeah, people are interested in doctrine. And now it's great. People used to
say to me 10 years ago, what do you mean union with Christ? And now everyone's using that.
And I really know, at least a basic understanding of what that is. So,
so yeah, I think Matthew, in a way, all of those things, we've in the renewal of reformed
doctrine and people's thirst, like the men, women in the pulpit are now interested and thirsty and
we're seeing, you know, catechisms coming out for children. And this is just very encouraging.
So yeah, I think, I think all of that does answer the question. You mentioned with regard to your
dissertation, there are a lot of different threads there, but corporate spirituality,
not just an individual union with Christ, but expressed and experienced corporately,
is that a fair way to say it? And even in church practice, what might a church practice differently
if they recover really robust theology of union with Christ, not just something we all go off and
do individually, but in terms of the corporate angle, how might church life look different?
I think treasuring, prizing the sacraments is really key, because I think in baptism and in
the Lord's Supper, that is when we literally feast and enjoy and cherish and revel even in our union
with Christ, but our corporate union with Christ, even in baptism, whether you're baptistic or
Peter Baptist and Lord's Supper, all those things are corporate in nature. And it's like the corporate
body is expressing and celebrating in shared union. So let them write some of this little book on the
Lord's Supper. It's so true that many of us tag on the Lord's Supper at the end, and certainly as a
woman, you know, you're like, oh no, the chicken's in the oven, it's burning, like how long it's going
to take. In our weakness, we have, we get impatient. As a kid, I would be like, oh no, it's the boring
bit. And even as a kid, I would watch everyone as they gave out the bread and the wine at the end
of the service, everybody would bow their heads and kind of go into a bubble. And it was very
individualistic kind of spirituality, whereas, you know, I think the New Testament model is
breaking a bread together as a corporate expression, as a corporate enjoyment. Obviously, we have this
idea of this agape feast. So I think looking at the body, looking at the diversity in the body,
looking at one another, celebrating together. So it was kind of pushing some of those ideas
of all these practices of individual enjoyment to something more corporate, where the body is
celebrating together the head, the Christ the head. And it's a richer experience for everyone.
And bringing everyone together in that. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating when you talk about it and
talk about all the different dimensions of Christian life and redemption that are connected to union.
And I think at one point you said, in a sense, it's just, it is the gospel, you know, Paul's
constantly in Christ, those who were in Christ, etc. So given the centrality of the doctrine,
and the sense that it has historically, perhaps in some of our own evangelical circles, been a
neglected doctrine, relatively, maybe underplayed under, and says, how do you, why might that happen?
Why might we overlook something that once you sort of see it, I think I remember reading someone's
comment was that, you know, it's the kind of thing where, yes, you can go to certain proof texts and
see it. You mentioned, you know, Text in John's Gospel, for example. But once you notice this theme,
it jumps off the page all over the place. So given that, I think that's right. Why do you think
what might be some factors that would cause folks to miss it or to underplay it or to not think
about it or maybe get caught up in something else or any thoughts on how does that work out?
Yeah, it's a really good question. I'm going to ask you a question back in a minute, but my first
thought was like, I don't know how to best answer that, but that we very quickly move
biblically from union with Christ participation in Christ. And I wonder whether different views,
perhaps from other traditions have confused that maybe theosis from like more orthodox views or
Tell us what theosis means for the ordinary listeners.
Well, obviously, this idea of participating in God, so through crisis, the way the truth in the
life. So but obviously, other traditions, more Eastern traditions push it further.
And some orthodox and many orthodox do let them Athanasias, many talk about us participating
in God. And this idea of what theologians call dayification, the believer. So I don't know,
that was just a guess that maybe we confuse that how how much do we participate in God. And I don't
know, that was just a thought that maybe that's where people don't know whether the orthodox and
they're kind of more mystical. I don't know what your thoughts, Matthew, you help me out here.
Yeah, I mean, I would, I don't know, I think there's one one thing that might be in play,
you know, just historically is that amongst some some, you know, sort of mainstream New
Testament scholarship has sometimes I think historically played union with Christ at odds,
maybe with with justification by faith alone. You know, so you think someone like Albert Schweitzer
early 20th century talks about, you know, Paul's doctrine of justification is sort of a subsidiary
crater, I think is the language he uses, you know, and the main thing is union and the synthesis on
renovative categories and participatory categories, and and sort of moving away from the sort of
forensic declaration of forgiveness and imputed righteousness, you know, that is as certain
aspects of New Testament scholarship have kind of wanted to move away from that,
and emphasize these renovative participatory categories like union. I wonder if sometimes
evangelicals hearing that sort of in a sense, by that reading in a sense of well, I have to pick
one or the other I can emphasize this one, but it's a zero sum game. And to the extent that I
emphasize union, it means I'm not a justification by faith alone person. And of course, that's not
that's not true at all. And I mean, you talk about Calvin, and this is double grace, that union as a
context in which we enjoy all the benefits that Christ offers us. But yeah, I do wonder about
that. And maybe just I mean, what does that well, that that's interesting, because about 10 or 15
years ago, I started to sort of wake up to the doctrine of union with Christ or read Robert
Lethams book and others. And what drove me toward it was trying to make sense better sense out of
justification by faith, and saying, how does God apply Christ's righteousness to me?
And trying to get away from a sort of distance, sort of he just kind of throws it at me or just
says something, and then that's the end. But but to say that God unites me to his son by faith,
so that my sin is his and his righteousness is mine. I found it very helpful to plug in the
unite verb to make sense out of how the righteousness of a man who lived 2000 years ago and 1000 miles
away is actually mine in God's sight. I had to use the category of union to make sense out of that.
So I sort of came to it from it was precisely because I couldn't see any distinction between
justification and union, that union became more of a real category, much in contrast to Schweitzer,
which I know you would agree with. But I guess I came at it from a slightly different angle. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that seems and I think I think just in a sense, I think because it's such a pervasive
concept in the way the New Testament talks about redemption applied, you know, and maybe it can
almost get get lost in the mix, you know, it's submerged, but it's everywhere in the New Testament,
right? And there's multiple kinds of as you already said, multiple kinds of language of,
you know, the son being in the father and Paul's language and John's language of remaining and
things like that are being wrapped up in Christ or clothes and there's multiple ways you can express
it. So if I read the New Testament for a number of years without a healthy, you know, live doctrine
of union, I kind of just didn't see the language. But once other theologians help me, I started
to say, Well, it really is everywhere. And maybe that's another reason why it can be easy to miss.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even if you look at the redemptive arc of creation for redemption,
consummation, you know, why does he why does he even save us to make a people for himself?
And how does he do that? But to bring us into union. So it really is the way he does,
he the way he saves us, the way he saves us through Christ, but the way it is our future,
it is our heavenly truth that is where we're headed for eternity that will be
enjoying union with the Holy Trinity, like Gregorio Nassiaz, this is my Trinity. The only
reason we can call the Holy Trinity that God had my Trinity is because of union with Christ.
That's what it means that he is the way the truth in the life. And that's our eternity.
You know, and so to say it really is the center, even that is an under under. Yeah.
And part of the reason this is exciting to me is that I think union with Christ in the New
Testament in a way, no other religion and no other philosophy is able to it speaks of the
deepest desire of the human heart that at some level, even if we're not able to articulate it,
we know we are incomplete in ourselves. We want something to find ourselves then and be united
to and and the doctrine of union of Christ is the best, fullest, most satisfied, most
gloriously unspeakably glorious answer to that. But tell me if you both would agree, it seems to me
there are secular versions of union that try to meet that need and always fail.
As I see people in North America and in Britain, there are bigger
celebrities or sports teams or politicians or movements that they are trying to find themselves
in in a way that redeems their own existence, you know, but my life is better. So whatever is
lacking in me is covered over because I'm a member of this political party or this movement or my
sports team one. It's amazing how people, I know sports analogies are overused, but when your
sports team loses, like you feel almost a sense of shame because you are, I mean, it doesn't matter
at all. But but there is something feels like it does, but it feels like it does because you are,
you are in some way in a relationship with that team and their victory is your victory,
their loss is your loss in some sense. It's that seems like a fated twisted,
unsatisfying version of union. What am I completely off base, as I say this sort?
No, yeah, yeah. And I think I think so that is a desire for community and belonging and identity.
And we find that in shared union with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we find that in the church
and not the church as in what we see on Sunday morning when we rock up, but the invisible church,
the the elect through history all the way to eternity in heaven. And so, yeah, I think that
desire is is our God given need for brothers and sisters in Christ and that we that the gospel
and Christianity is a corporate reality. You know, this is not about individuals. This is
a corporate reality. The New Testament is a corporate document. Well, the whole of the
I should have got an old testament scholar here. So I should be careful when I say the whole
by amen, preach it, preach it. And so, yeah, so isn't that desire for teams, whether it's sports or,
you know, crafts or whatever people find and that their people, they find their people is that
that's truly expressed and even eternally expressed in the invisible church.
Hmm. And even the kind of relationships we have with these figures or even cosplaying
where people go to, you know, you better explain that. I don't know what that is.
So, oh, okay, for once, I'm the one who knows more about pop culture. This is a very strange
experience for me. But people will go, I think they call them comms, that that's short for something
I can't remember what it is, but they will dress up as their favorite video game character or
character from a movie or Lord of the Rings or Star Wars or whatever. Sometimes in very elaborate
costumes and, you know, they have contests and they can recognize each other. And it's all
sort of fun. And I don't think it's bad in and of itself. And yet there's something about my guess,
I've never done that myself, but my guess is that is satisfying for the people who do that because
it completes their existence in some way. There's something that they're lacking that is given them
when they are in a way vicariously united with this other character, even if it's a fictional
character. It seems to me like that's a kind of parody of union or at least speaks to the same
need in a way that redeems their existence. That may be too abstract. I don't know. I suspect that we
see the desire for union and the corporate elements of it and the mechanics of it, the kind
of relationship you have with something bigger than yourself that you find yourself in that redeems
your I expect we human beings are enacting those dynamics all the time, whether in un-christian
ways or in the real way and with union with your divine husband. I wonder, is it so the common
commonality that we find, like Lewis said about the whole Me Too thing, friendship is based on
Me Too. So I know that you're a big Tolkien fan, Me Too. And do you just find that if you meet
somebody who loves Tolkien, you just want to be friends with them? And if they get why it's so good,
then you just, but that's just a shadow of when you meet a fellow sibling in Christ and you see
Christ in them and you see the love and their eyes are literally burning for love for Christ.
And you're like, Me Too, and you're suddenly the most I want to be your friend. And so maybe it is
all those belongings and all that camaraderie is actually just about belonging to Christ and seeing
other people who also belong to Christ. Yeah. It's interesting how a theme in this
conversation, union with Christ is always corporate. It always involves relationships with other human
beings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Natalie, you've mentioned different authors and theologians
or in this, I mentioned some church fathers like Grigory of Naziansus came up and Calvin. Who might
be some figures either throughout Christian history or even contemporary figures who you've found have
written in a really helpful, interesting way on this theme, explored this theme.
The theme of union with Christ. Calvin is the most obvious one and Luther's
little book on the freedom of a Christian is really great.
I think John Murray's Redemption Accomplished and Applied is probably the book that is my
go to. I think that's a great book. I'm constantly recommending that book. Yeah. Me too. Lots of
women come and say, I want to do theology. Where do I start? And I say John Murray.
So yeah, that's just a gem. Like actually, yeah. Yeah. So these are, yeah, I mean,
everybody's talking about it now. So it's great because you can, you know, people are writing
about it and I'm not, I don't even know who they are. But I think the way it pervades Calvin's thought
and the way he, everything hangs on it and Calvin's got that from Paul. So yeah.
Yeah. The Murray book, I think is really helpful because it's focused on, you know, very much
ordo salutis, ordo salvation, categories, justification, sanctification, glorification.
And then the union chapter, as I recall, Kurt Miffenbrunn, I think he puts it at the,
toward the back, right? And then he kind of says, look, because this actually isn't an element in
the ordo salutis. This is actually the matrix in which the whole thing plays out. And it's,
it's really fascinating. It is. And I like the way he, the first part of the book is the atonement.
So what happens? Yeah. Redemption accomplished. Right. And now how do we apply it? Yeah.
Yeah. And he's such a clear writer I find in that book. Is that book you would recommend to people
who you, I think you did say this, if I haven't read a lot of theology, systematics, but I'm
interested in kind of getting into this, would that be a good place to start? Absolutely. Absolutely.
John Murray. Yeah. And they, is it Banas? I mean, it's just on a new edition that's,
that's pretty beautiful. Yeah, I don't know if I have the old, really old paperback that I don't
think even have some front cover, but there are some nice new editions of that book. Yeah.
Natalie, as we come to close, could you maybe tell us one thing you've enjoyed about teaching
Eddokill this year? Yeah. And maybe you could tell us one way we could be, we, and people listening
could be praying for you and for your family. Oh, that's kind. Yeah. Eddokill has been such a
blast. I'm so grateful to have been asked to come teach. I found the students just, we, we just had
such a great time. It was fun. Our brains ached. We were led to worship. It was a great time. I
really felt quite emotional. In my last lecture, we took a photo of one of the groups I've done
systematics with. And because I really felt we journeyed like together through this stuff. And,
and yeah, there were times where it was just so rewarding, like we're talking about the incarnation
and the Holy Spirit overshadowing the womb of Mary. And there were people in the, in the group
who are like, I've never really comprehended just how miraculous that is that, and, and, and they
were just seeing the incarnation and just a whole other way. So that has been so rewarding.
And seeing people's excitement for reading, say, Athanasius on the incarnation or, or, or whatever
it may be, getting into the Heidelberg and the pastoral language and the warmth and, and bavink.
I mean, love bavink. So it's been incredibly rewarding. I've learned, I think just as much
as they have. We've had some really great discussions. So yeah, I think the classroom
time is just has been, it's really precious. Yeah, I think we, when we're there, we're doing
theology, we're not just learning it, we're, we're doing it ourselves and we're understanding
something more, pushing harder into the mysteries and the wonder that is our God.
Wonderful. And praying for us. Yeah, I, I think praying for the churches in the UK, as Tom
spends time, there are lots of the churches that we work with are very small, perhaps obscure,
some are struggling places in places of obscurity. Yeah, I'm aware that the scene here in the UK is,
is not an easy one. And there's lots of people in ministry who are plotting on, and I think post
COVID congregations have diminished in number. Yeah, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to the
Gospel Coalition Women's Conference in Indy. And I'm just aware that that is very different to some
of these tiny churches that we're pastoring like 10, 20 people max. So praying for those people
who are committed to church families in obscure places, and they're not seeing growth, perhaps the
church is dying out, pray that they would not be very weary of doing good and they will press on.
Yeah, that's hard, I think. There are a lot of unsung heroes out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, not known
to us, but very precious to the Lord Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Natalie, thank you so much for joining us.
This has been wonderful. Yeah. And thank you for teaching for O'Kill this year. Thank you. Thank you.
And for everyone watching, thank you so much. Hope this was a blessing to you. Thank you for joining us.