Q29. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ?

A. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit.

Salvation is a broad term including the entire activity of the triune God to rescue sinners from the judgment of God and from the many distortions that sin brings. It involves the Father's election, the Son's redemption, and the Spirit’s regenerating work. One reason why it is important to see the broad scope of salvation is because of all of the ways that one part of salvation is often pit against others. We discover a text that speaks of fruit necessarily following conversion, or about God not forgiving those who do not forgive others, or about rewards in heaven, or simply the calls to repentance and faith. And if we have never advanced past the infant use of the term “saved” as a catch-all for some monolithic experience in time, then naturally these texts will strike us as a maze of contradictions. 

The bulk of what is meant by the ordo salutis (order of salvation) focuses on the work of the Spirit in the salvation experience of the individual. Of course all of this begins in eternity with predestination, but then flowing down into history with the work of Christ—the cross and empty tomb—but all that makes it ours, as individuals, in the change from being under the domain of darkness to being found in Christ, this is what we ordinarily mean by the language of “being saved.” There may be a kingdom and a salvation coming into history, but Jesus says, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3). 

Redemption—Accomplished versus Applied

This language is derived from the title to a modern classic of Reformed theology, namely John Murray’s work Redemption Accomplished and Applied (1955). In distinguishing between the accomplishment of redemption and the application of redemption, there is not a hint of insufficiency in what was accomplished. It is rather to distinguish between the objective matter of salvation and the subjective inclusion of the real people God saves. A cross without a new heart is no strike against the cross. Calvin put it in this way,

“that so long as we are without Christ and separated from him, nothing which he suffered and did for the salvation of the human race is of the least benefit to us. To communicate to us the blessings which he received from the Father, he must become ours and dwell with us … if the shedding of his sacred blood is not to be in vain, our souls must be washed in it by the secret cleansing of the Holy Spirit … The whole comes to this that the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually binds us to himself.”1 

This is difficult to think about in our age because the tendency of modern Evangelical religion has been to either internalize Christ—e.g. “Ask Jesus into my heart” or in some other way, to conceive of a personal relationship with Jesus in a way that pushes the Father or the Spirit into the backdrop—or else, in more Pentecostal-Charismatic circles, to think of the Holy Spirit’s work as an utterly separate resource of experiential power. In this way, the missions of the Son and of the Spirit are divorced from each other in the life of modern Christians. 

Just as we saw with the Father’s work and the Son’s work, the same that the Father elected, these same are those whom the Son redeemed. Now just in the same way, all that the Father elected and the Son redeemed, so these same are those whom the Spirit applies the work of the Son to their hearts.

The Holy Spirit According to His Mission

In our examination of the doctrine of the Trinity, we will recall that a distinction was made between the processions and the missions of the Persons. These have to do with the Son and the Spirit since the Father neither proceeds, nor is he sent by any; whereas the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds eternally, and in the context of redemptive history, the Son is sent and the Spirit is sent. The word “mission” comes from the Latin for “I send” (missio). Consequently, the Holy Spirit is communicated to us largely in the context of what he does in the application of redemption. 

Murray explains,

“When we think about the application of redemption we must not think of it as one simple and indivisible act. It comprises a series of acts and processes. To mention some, we have calling, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification. These are all distinct, and not one of these can be defined in terms of the other. Each has its own distinct meaning, function, and purpose in the action and grace of God.”2

Without yet getting into the specifics of what the renewal of the Holy Spirit is, we have to at least introduce the division between the redeemed and the not-redeemed, or to put it in terms of the difference between Christianity and liberalism, we do not all begin as children of God. Paul had said that we were all “children of wrath like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3). So at the beginning of John’s Gospel, we are told,

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:12-13).

So in other words, redemption accomplished by Christ in the eyes of the natural man, Paul calls “folly” (1 Cor. 1:18). A chapter later he says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). This is no deficiency on the work of Christ. It is a deadness in the natural man that requires now a distinct, supernatural work of the Spirit. Yes, you must follow Christ. Yes, you must put your trust in Christ. Yes, you must turn from your sins. But, no, you cannot do that on your own.

So to apply the work of redemption means to, in the most literal and real sense of the word—to realize it in our hearts. Listen to the words of Paul to Titus, speaking about Christ coming as an “appearance,” and yet in the next breath he must speak of a personal once-per-person kind of saving:

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Ti. 3:5-6).

Both the objective work of Christ outside of us and the subjective work of the Spirit inside of us, are both necessary—not because either are lacking but because 1. what Christ is for me and 2. my own experience of it are not the same thing and yet need to be joined.  

This Application is Divinely Effectual

All that the Holy Spirit does in the course of redemption applied is invincible. It will work because it is a divine work. Not only does this follow from the omnipotent decree, but the Spirit Himself, being divine, is omnipotent. He cannot fail to regenerate the heart, to seal the believer as God’s own, or to sanctify unto the image of Christ. A crucial passage for the invincible character of this work is where Paul says,

“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:13-14).

All of this has implications for the way of assurance. There is a “need to know” dimension of this work of the Spirit. But when we do sense the need to know, the Spirit’s work will be an application of the work of the Son. In other words, the Spirit will not make us know our knowing more. He will not give us a shinier mirror into our own performance, but a larger, clearer window out to Christ’s performance in our place. The assurance we want and the assurance the Holy Spirit gives us is a gospel assurance—all window, no mirror. This is at the heart of the Spirit’s mission to glorify the Son rather than himself. Jesus said, “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn. 16:14). 

At the close of his opening chapter on the application of redemption, Murray offers this summary,

“With all these considerations in view, the order in the application of redemption is found to be, calling, regeneration, faith and repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, glorification. When this order is carefully weighed we find that there is a logic which evinces and brings into clear focus the governing principle of salvation in all of its aspects, the grace of God in its sovereignty and efficacy. Salvation is of the Lord in its application as well as in its conception and accomplishment.”3

Knowing these doctrines gives us not only a greater glimpse into the gospel that saves, but it gives us a greater chance of experiencing the assurance of our own salvation. God promises us assurance by the internal witness of the Holy Spirit in places like Romans 8:16 and Galatians 4:6. But God always uses means. In this case, the means he uses is the power of that very good news (Rom. 1:16) so that we can fix all of our hope on God. In this way, the study of the doctrine of salvation is a means by which we can gain a clearer view into the treasures of God’s love for us.

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1. Calvin, Institutes, III.1.1

2. John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 79-80.

3. Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, 87.