Undoubtedly, Christians are not perfect. However, this does not tell the whole story of what God’s saving grace in Christ grants them in this life. It accents one of the principal blessings of Christ’s saving work—forgiveness. But it leaves unmentioned several inseparable blessings that are also imparted to believers who are united to Christ by faith.
Though readers of Tabletalk are not likely to glean their theology from bumper stickers, undoubtedly many of you have noticed the one that reads, “I am not perfect, just forgiven!” While this bumper sticker purports to capture the truth about our state as sinners who are saved through God’s gracious forgiveness in Christ, it falls short of the mark.
Undoubtedly, Christians are not perfect. However, this does not tell the whole story of what God’s saving grace in Christ grants them in this life. It accents one of the principal blessings of Christ’s saving work—forgiveness. But it leaves unmentioned several inseparable blessings that are also imparted to believers who are united to Christ by faith. When Christ by His Spirit and Word imparts the manifold blessings of His saving work as Mediator, these blessings include not only forgiveness but also deliverance from the dominion of sin and renewal by the sanctifying power of His Spirit.
To use the language of Human Nature in Its Fourfold State by the great Scottish Puritan Thomas Boston, when God saves lost sinners through the work of Christ and the ministry of the Spirit, He does not leave them powerless in the face of the tyranny of the devil, their own sinful flesh, and the world under the dominion of sin. He brings them out of their lost estate in Adam and into their new state of grace in Christ. Whereas all fallen sinners are unable not to sin (non posse non peccare), redeemed sinners are able not to sin (posse non peccare). Believers are graciously enabled by the Spirit of Christ to begin to conform to God’s will in true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. This beginning may be “small,” but it is a beginning of “perfect obedience,” as the Heidelberg Catechism so nicely puts it. Believers in union with Christ are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” who guarantees their inheritance until they take full possession of it (Eph. 1:13–14). They experience the beginnings of eternal life in fellowship with God, and these beginnings are a kind of firstfruits of the fullness of life they will enjoy in the new heavens and earth.
Through the ministry of the Spirit and Word of Christ, believers are brought into fellowship with Christ and begin to enjoy the spiritual blessings that are theirs in Him.
Union with Christ and the Order of Salvation
To appreciate the richness of the spiritual blessings granted to believers in the state of grace, we need to remember that Christ imparts these benefits through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. John Calvin uses a lovely phrase to capture the relation between what Christ has accomplished for His people and how the Spirit works to unite them to Christ so that they participate in all the benefits of His saving work. The Holy Spirit, Calvin says, is the “minister of Christ’s liberality.” Through the Spirit, Christ freely and lavishly grants to His people the blessings He has obtained for them. So intimate is the relation between the Spirit and Christ that the Apostle Paul can say that “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17) or that He has “become a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). As Calvin puts it, the Spirit is the “bond of communion” between Christ and His elect bride. He communicates to believers the riches of their inheritance in Christ.
In recent discussions of salvation through union with Christ, much has been said on the question of how this union is related to the spiritual blessings that are enumerated in the so-called order of salvation (ordo salutis) in the state of grace. These discussions have sometimes generated more heat than light. Nonetheless, it is generally agreed that the order of salvation provides a biblical account of all the spiritual blessings granted to believers who are united to Christ. Through the ministry of the Spirit and Word of God, believers are brought into fellowship with Christ and begin to enjoy the spiritual blessings that are theirs in Him. The order of salvation seeks to provide a biblical account of these blessings as distinct, yet inseparable, aspects of the one great work of the Spirit in the salvation of sinners.
Perhaps the clearest biblical witness to the rudiments of the order of salvation is Romans 8:29–30. In this passage, we find what is often called the golden chain of salvation:
For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
This passage is important not because it provides a complete order of salvation but because it provides a clear account of the way God’s gracious purpose of election is linked to the effectual call of the gospel, which draws lost sinners to Christ in the way of faith and repentance, grants the blessing of justification, and ensures the believer’s glorification. When taken with other Scriptural testimony to the work of God’s grace in the salvation of the elect, this passage is a touchstone for a more complete formulation of the order of salvation.
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