Creation and Covenantal Participation through Union with Christ (PCG 4/4)
Contemporary theology has increasingly engaged the question of participation (methexis, μέθεξις)—the manner in which believers are united to God in salvation. Hans Boersma’s (Anglican) retrieval of “sacramental ontology” and Michael Horton’s (Reformed) covenantal-participation alternative represent two markedly different accounts of this union, differing not merely in emphasis but in their underlying metaphysical and methodological commitments. This article examines Horton’s covenantal-participatory model, his use of Speech-Act theory in its defense, and his resulting critique of Boersma’s ontological participation.
I. Two Competing Ontologies of Salvation
Boersma’s Sacramental Ontology
Boersma argues that “created being is simply of the borrowed kind; created being is being only because by grace it participates in the being of God.”1Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation, p. 73Drawing on the Neoplatonic tradition, which holds that a hierarchy of beings emerges because things possess differing capacities to participate in divine reality, Boersma regards this hierarchy as an ontological anchor that prevents the world from collapsing into meaningless materialism. His “sacramental participation” thus conceives of creation as sharing in the being of God in varying degrees. Salvation is understood as an intensification of this participation, in which humans are drawn upward into the divine life (theosis).
Horton’s Covenantal Alternative
Michael Horton discusses salvation within the framework of Speech-Act theory and covenant theology. God speaks a sovereign word of promise, and that word creates a new reality. God meets humanity not to offer the creature a share in his essence but as the Covenant Lord who communicates his grace through Word and Sacrament. Participation is therefore covenantal and relational rather than ontological. Instead of an ontological union with the divine, Horton emphasizes a covenantal, mystical union forged by the Holy Spirit through the Word. Believers are not infused with God’s substance; they are legally adopted and relationally renewed through their union with Christ.
Horton’s covenantal participation draws on the theological legacy of Karl Barth and Herman Bavinck. Barth famously wrote that “Creation is the external basis of the covenant…The covenant is the internal basis of creation.” Two claims follow from this.1. Creation is the external basis of the covenant. God created the physical universe as the stage on which to offer humanity a covenantal relationship, while the covenant provides the goal and inner meaning of creation. Creation thus supplies the physical framework and necessary precondition for covenantal fellowship to unfold. 2. The covenant is the internal basis of creation. The covenant provides the goal, meaning, and substance of creation; it is not an afterthought but the purpose for which the universe was made. In short, although creation comes first in time, the covenant comes first in priority: God formed the world so that he could enter into a covenant of love with his creatures.2Barth writes, “[God] does not will to be alone in His glory… Because God loves the creature, its creation and continuance and preservation point beyond themselves to an exercise and fulfilment of His love.” Barth explains: “If creation was the external basis of the covenant, the latter was the internal basis of the former. If creation was the formal presupposition of the covenant, the latter was the material presupposition of the former. If creation takes precedence historically, the covenant does so in substance.” [Barth CD.3.1.230-232; 94-95]
The covenant is the ground of the divine-human relationship, and creation is the stage for God’s unfolding drama of creation and salvation. Covenant ontology highlights that humans are dependent beings who derive their finite existence from dependent fellowship with God. Humanity is made in the image of God precisely for communion with him. “The renewal of the image of God comes through Christ. human participation in this image is mediated by the Son in the Spirit; it is not an immediate participation in God’s deity.” [CS278] Humans find their ultimate fulfillment in union with Christ, enjoying a glorified eschatological existence as they are drawn into his resurrected life of righteousness and holiness.3Horton adds a caveat: “The Son is God’s image, Calvin writes, not only according to his deity but according to his humanity…Instead of fusing the believer’s essence with Christ’s (and therefore God’s), Calvin recognized the Spirit as the bond of union…the notion of in God…is eschatologically oriented, with vertical descents of the Son and the Spirit moving redemptive history forward to the consummation.” [CS277-278]
II. From Methexis to Koinonia
The Distinction between Two Models of Participation
A central feature of Horton’s proposal is his distinction between two models of participation.
The first is the Christian-Platonic model of methexis (ontological participation), in which salvation is conceived as overcoming estrangement through an ascent into the divine life. Horton argues that some forms of medieval mysticism and Eastern Orthodox accounts of theosis risk blurring the Creator-creature distinction by portraying salvation in primarily ontological terms.
In contrast, Horton advocates a covenantal model of koinonia (communion or fellowship). Union with Christ is not a participation in the divine essence but a covenantally established fellowship with the incarnate Mediator. God and the believer remain distinct, yet they are joined in a real and intimate relationship through God’s covenant promise. Horton cites Francis Turretin, for whom beholding the face of God in righteousness involves no effusion of deity onto the souls of believers. What is shared with the creature is “the image of all his perfections,” not his essence itself. Thus, “redemption does not make humans something more than human, nor does it simply restore them to the original status of being innocent image-bearers; rather, it transforms them into the state of glorified image-bearers.” [CS281] Horton elaborates, “It is not the essence of the historical person of Christ, either his deity or humanity, that is communicated to us, but his energies: life, glory, righteousness, power, light—and the communion that he has with the Father and the Spirit.” [CS285]
Covenantal Participation
Horton does not reject participation language; rather, he relocates it within the framework of covenant theology. In Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ, the second part is entitled “Covenant and Participation,” indicating that participation in Christ is inseparable from covenant union. This covenantal participation is personal, legal, and relational. Drawing analogies from marriage and treaty covenants, Horton argues that union with Christ is established by God’s oath and mediated by the Holy Spirit through the Word of promise. Believers are covenantally united to Christ and therefore share in the benefits secured by his historical obedience, death, and resurrection. The Creator-creature distinction remains fully intact: participation involves not the communication of divine essence but the sharing of Christ’s covenantal blessings.
III. The Inseparability and Coherence of the Forensic and the Transformative
Holding Together Two Dimensions of Salvation
Horton nevertheless refuses to separate the forensic and participatory aspects of salvation. For him, the covenant provides the framework within which both dimensions are held together. “Charged by its forensic core, union with Christ encompasses not only justification, but also the organic, transformative, and moral aspects as well. In fact, it is possible to say that covenant theology is a theology of participation (koinōnia)… a forensic-covenantal ontology can yield a more satisfying scheme of participation.” [CS153]
Justification and adoption are forensic realities. Believers are declared righteous on the basis of Christ’s substitutionary atonement, justified by faith and accepted before God because they are united to Christ, the covenant representative who fulfilled the requirements of the covenant of works on their behalf. Sanctification and glorification flow from this same union. For Horton, justification and union with Christ are at once legal and relational, declarative and transformative. Because believers are united to Christ, they participate in his life and are progressively conformed to his image by the Holy Spirit.
Transformation without Mystical Absorption
Horton agrees that covenantal union is genuinely transformative. Yet this transformation does not occur through the infusion of divine qualities or habits of grace into the soul. Rather, the Holy Spirit applies Christ’s accomplished salvation through the gospel, producing the virtues of Christ and the fruit of the Spirit. For this reason, Horton rejects the Roman Catholic (and Andreas Osiander’s) notion of infused grace as an unnecessary ontological category that risks confusing justification and sanctification and thereby undermining assurance of salvation. Spiritual rebirth and renewal are real, but they proceed from God’s justifying verdict rather than contributing to it.
IV. Speech-Act Theory and the Defense of Covenantal Participation
The Framework of Divine Speech
Horton employs Speech-Act theory to explain how believers genuinely participate in Christ without appealing to the metaphysical categories associated with the Christian-Platonic idea of participation or with certain versions of theosis. Rather than conceiving of salvation as participation in the divine essence, Horton argues that believers participate in Christ through a covenant relationship established by God’s declarative and efficacious Word. God addresses sinners with his promise of salvation, and through the work of the Holy Spirit they respond in faith and confession. This covenant dialogue creates a real relationship between God and his people. Revelation is therefore not merely the communication of information but a divine act that establishes covenant communion.
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Excursus: Speech-Act Theory and Divine Action
Drawing on Speech-Act theory, Horton argues that God’s words are actions: divine speech does not merely describe reality but brings about the reality it declares. Speech-Act theory distinguishes three dimensions of communication:
• Locutionary act: the content of what is said (e.g., “I will be your God”).
• Illocutionary act: the act performed in speaking. God’s covenant promises are not mere statements but performative acts. When God declares forgiveness, he actually forgives. Analogy: The illocutionary act creates reality. For example, a marriage becomes a reality with the minister’s pronouncement, “I pronounce you husband and wife.”
• Perlocutionary act: the effect produced in the hearer, such as faith, assurance, repentance, and communion with God.
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Horton emphasizes the illocutionary force of divine speech. God’s Word is not passive description but active covenant-making. Just as God spoke creation into existence, he brings about the reality of salvation through the proclamation of the gospel. His promises establish covenant bonds and create fellowship between himself and his people.
Justification as a Performative Divine Verdict
Horton applies this framework most decisively to justification. When God declares a sinner righteous through the gospel, the declaration is not merely informative but performative: the divine verdict actually establishes the sinner’s righteous status before God.
This understanding helps Horton defend justification against the charge that forensic righteousness is a legal fiction. Because God’s speech is effective, justification is not God pretending that sinners are righteous (legal fiction). Rather, his judicial declaration truly constitutes their new standing before the covenant God. The verdict accomplishes what it announces.
For Horton, the believer’s participation in salvation begins with receiving this powerful verdict. Imputed righteousness is therefore not a theoretical concept of soteriological accounting but an effective divine act that creates a new legal and relational reality.
Covenantal Participation versus Metaphysical Fusion
Horton uses Speech-Act theory to distinguish covenantal participation from the metaphysical accounts he finds problematic. He rejects the notion that participation requires an ontological melding of divine and human essence. Instead, biblical participation is koinonia—communion and fellowship established by covenant. “To put it simply, the one [paradigm of participation] promises enlightenment and an elevation of nature beyond itself; the other [covenantal] promises a rescue extra nos and a liberation of nature from its bondage to sin and death.” [CS155] Following Bavinck, Horton emphasizes that grace restores and perfects nature rather than abolishing it: “In other words, grace does not elevate nature, but liberates it from its bondage to sin and death.” [CS193]
Believers participate in Christ by being incorporated into a covenant relationship through God’s promise and their Spirit-enabled response of faith. The relationship is personal and intimate, yet the Creator-creature distinction remains intact. Horton argues that covenantal bonds are more concrete and secure than mystical notions of participation, since adoption, justification, and union with Christ are established by God’s sovereign oath and effective Word.
Participation and Theosis
Although Horton criticizes metaphysical models of participation, he does not reject participation language altogether. He acknowledges that believers genuinely share in Christ’s life and are progressively transformed into his likeness, and in this sense he can affirm aspects of Eastern Christianity’s emphasis on deification. However, he insists that participation must rest upon the prior forensic reality of justification. “While union with Christ and the sanctification that results from that union are more than forensic, they are the consequences of God’s forensic declaration. Both justification (“Let there be . . . !”) and inner renewal (“Let the earth bring forth . . . !”) are the result of the speaking God: Father, Son, and Spirit…When God externally declares the wicked to be righteous only for the sake of Christ, he also inwardly declares those dead in sins to be alive in Christ by the Spirit. It is that double declaration that then issues in the actual transformation of a person from unbelief and rebellion to faith and repentance. No wedge can be legitimately driven between speech and action. God’s speaking is active; the Word itself has the power, in the Spirit, to bring about its intended effect within creaturely reality without violating creaturely integrity.” [CS242]
The believer’s transformation is thus grounded in God’s legal declaration and covenant promise: a change of status before God precedes and enables the transformation of life.
V. Horton’s Critique of Boersma’s Ontological Participation
Drawing on his Reformed covenant theology and his appropriation of Speech-Act theory, Horton critiques Boersma’s model of ontological participation on three grounds.
1. Ontological Participation Risks Blurring the Creator–Creature Distinction
Horton’s most fundamental concern is that ontological participation fails to preserve the infinite distinction between the necessary being of the Creator and the contingent being of the creature. He worries that participation conceived primarily in terms of shared being, or participation in the divine essence, blurs this distinction and moves sacramental theology toward panentheistic tendencies. “In the covenant theology of Scripture, however, there are two distinct kinds of reality: divine and nondivine. Horton stresses, “This is the only ontological dualism that is finally decisive for Christian theology.”4 Horton quotes Colin Gunton, “If the world is truly to be the world, it needs to be “outside” of God, not in such a relationship according to which it is in some way enclosed within God. For this reason, panentheism cannot finally be distinguished from pantheism, because it does not allow the other space to be itself. . . . It tends to generate an idea of creation out of God rather than out of nothing. Similarly, those doctrines which in some way make time eternal, or read our temporality and spatiality up into God’s eternity and infinity, confuse the creature with the creator.” CS164
Horton argues that believers do not become united to God by sharing in or absorbing the divine essence. Rather, they are brought into communion with God through a covenantal relationship established by his Word and promise. In Horton’s view, a covenantal bond grounded in God’s oath and efficacious speech is more secure, personal, and intimate than any notion of metaphysical participation (methexis). God remains absolutely transcendent and sovereign, yet genuinely present to his people through covenant fellowship (koinonia). He relates to humanity not by merging his being with ours but by fulfilling his promises, which create personal communion.
2. Ontological Participation Reflects a Platonic Rather Than Biblical Covenantal Framework
Horton further argues that Boersma’s participatory theology is shaped by a broadly Christian-Platonic framework in which creatures ascend a hierarchy of being toward eternal realities through participation. Such a model tends to portray salvation as movement from the temporal realm toward a higher ontological order.
By contrast, Horton interprets Scripture through the lens of covenant history. Redemptive history is not primarily humanity’s ascent to God but God’s descent to humanity. Redemption unfolds through God’s historical interventions, culminating in the incarnation, atoning death, and resurrection of Christ. For Horton, salvation is neither a generic rescue mission nor a mystical absorption into God; it is the legal fulfillment and relational restoration of a broken treaty. Salvation is therefore rooted in God’s covenantal actions within history rather than in an ontological ascent beyond history.
3. Ontological Participation Understates the Problem of Sin
Horton also contends that participatory models often give insufficient weight to the biblical diagnosis of the human predicament. In his view, the fundamental problem facing humanity is not ontological deficiency but sin, guilt, and covenantal rebellion against God. The solution, accordingly, is covenantal and historical rather than ontological.
Consequently, salvation cannot be understood primarily as a mystical merging with the divine essence. It is a personal encounter with the transcendent God, who takes the initiative to address humanity’s legal and moral estrangement from him (“meeting the stranger rather than overcoming estrangement”, Horton is adapting the idea from Paul Tillich). “Implicit in a covenantal account of anything is the presupposition that otherness is not something to be overcome, but to be accepted and welcomed.” [CS154]
For Horton, the decisive solution is Christ’s substitutionary atonement, through which guilt is removed and divine justice satisfied. Justification secures acquittal before God’s judgment, while regeneration (the process of inward renewal) and union with Christ bring spiritual renewal and new life. Salvation is thus fundamentally redemptive before it is transformative: participation in Christ flows from reconciliation with God rather than serving as its basis.
Conclusion
Horton’s covenantal participation model re-centers union with Christ as the comprehensive framework of salvation while grounding it firmly in the covenant of grace. Union with Christ is neither an ontological merger with God nor merely a legal fiction. It is a covenantal communion in which believers are united to the person of Christ and thereby receive all the benefits that come with that union. Horton adds: “We can still affirm that we participate ontologically in the person as well as the benefits of Christ, but a covenantal ontology suggests that this is more like the relation of a commonwealth and its monarch or a husband and wife or parents and children in a family than a fusion of essences, personalities, or even wills. To be sure, this union is not merely legal or even relational, but spiritual, mystical, and real—since the Spirit accomplishes a more vital koinōnia than any natural community. Nevertheless, unity in covenant (even the covenant of grace) is different from unity in essence, and the essence of generic humanity is different from the essence of a specific historical person.” [CS202]
In this framework, justification and sanctification, forensic status and spiritual transformation, are inseparable yet distinct. The heart of union with Christ is not the communication of Christ’s divine substance but participation in his covenantally secured life, righteousness, and inheritance through faith.
Horton’s use of Speech-Act theory serves a larger theological purpose: demonstrating that God’s words are creative deeds. He cites Bruce McCormack: “God’s declaration, in other words, is itself constitutive of that which is declared…the declarative act of God in the justification of the ungodly is constitutive.” [CS201] Divine speech creates covenant realities, establishes legal relationships, and brings sinners into communion with Christ. For this reason, Horton regards covenant as a more comprehensive category than participation alone. Covenant preserves God’s transcendence, grounds God’s relationship with humanity in historical acts of promise and fulfillment, and provides the framework for genuine participation in Christ.
In sum, Horton argues that covenant is a more biblical and comprehensive framework than ontological participation for understanding salvation. The believer’s relationship with God rests not on participation in the divine essence but on God’s covenantal promise, fulfilled through union with Christ. Christian salvation is therefore personal, relational, and covenantal. Believers are not absorbed into God’s being; they are reconciled to God, justified through Christ, and brought into genuine fellowship with him. In Horton’s framework, union with Christ and communion with God are secured by covenantal participation of God’s grace rather than by ontological participation.
References
Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics, vol. 3, The Doctrine of Creation. T & T Clark, 1958. [CD]
Boersma, Hans. Heavenly Participation. Eerdsman, 2011.
Horton, Michael. Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ. Westminster John Knox, 2007. [CS]
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