Union with Christ: The Umbrella Doctrine

Dane Ortlund in his book, Deeper, identifies 11 realities of our union with Christ, “…the umbrella doctrine within which every benefit of salvation is subsumed.”

• Justification—the law-court metaphor (Rom. 5:1; Titus 3:7) (no longer condemned)

• Sanctification—the cultic metaphor (1 Cor. 1:2; 1 Thess. 4:3) (no longer defiled)

• Adoption—the familial metaphor (Rom. 8:15; 1 John 3:1–2) (no longer orphaned)

• Reconciliation—the relational metaphor (Rom. 5:1–11; 2 Cor. 5:18–20) (no longer estranged)

• Washing—the physical-cleansing metaphor (1 Cor. 6:11; Titus 3:5) (no longer dirty)

• Redemption—the slave-market metaphor (Eph. 1:7; Rev. 14:3–4) (no longer enslaved)

• Purchase—the financial metaphor (1 Cor. 6:20; 2 Pet. 2:1) (no longer in debt)

• Liberation—the imprisonment metaphor (Gal. 5:1; Rev. 1:5) (no longer imprisoned)

• New birth—the physical-generation metaphor (John 3:3–7; 1 Pet. 1:3, 23) (no longer nonexistent)

• Illumination—the light metaphor (John 12:35–36; 2 Cor. 4:4–6) (no longer blind)

• Resurrection—the bodily metaphor (Eph. 2:6; Col. 3:1) (no longer dead)¹

1. Dane C. Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners, ed. Michael Reeves, Union (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 62–63. ↩