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 at a point in time, then naturally these texts will strike us as a maze of contradictions. 

The Order of Salvation is for Ordering Our Attention to the God Who Saves

We have likely all heard the Latin expression ordo salutis. For those who haven’t, it simply means the “order of salvation.” Theologians will rightly caution us that this is about a logical order to the decree of God more than any chronological ordering. Now there is some chronology to be observed; but if chronology is the essence of this order for us, then two mistakes result. One is theological and the other soteriological. 

In theology proper (doctrine of God), to suppose that there is a chronological order in God’s decree itself is to imply that there is sequence and even change in the divine mind and will. This would actually begin to undermine all of the divine attributes, which would become evident the more we think about it.  

In soteriology (doctrine of salvation), to press the chronological priority of this order of salvation past its breaking point introduces a confusion about what causality actually is in its most basic essence. God is the ultimate cause of all. We call this primary cause. Such a cause is eternal, immutable, self-sufficient, and omnipotent, just to name a few relevant divine attributes. Chronology is essentially an order of a timeline. Any temporal cause is itself an effect. Such causes belong to the realm that we call secondary causes. These are the things used as means of God’s singular decree. 

One implication of this is that any aspect of salvation that undergoes change in time is subordinate to that saving decree of God himself. Another implication of this is admittedly difficult to think about, but it is nonetheless true.

God, as the fountain of all causality, does not depend on foresight when he purposes (decree) to fix ends (salvation) to fitting effects (faith). Nor does God’s causing of one thing (regeneration) with a priority over another (faith) depend on a measurable sequence in between the cause and the effect. We ought to be able to ascribe the whole work of regeneration and gift of faith to the Holy Spirit without tripping up over the consequent effect (faith) being instantaneously produced by its superior cause (regeneration). 

These are just two common mistakes we can avoid by ridding ourselves of the idea that the order of salvation is primarily chronological. Other more difficult errors that can be avoided involve being in perpetual mind-paralysis over “when” propitiation and justification occur, given the three incongruous “points” of God in eternity, Christ in the past, and our faith in the present. We see these in competition with each other because we have already assumed up front the reductionism of salvation to this or that part against the whole.

The Problem of Making Panaceas of Prooftexts

Paul says in Romans 10 that confession with the mouth and belief with the heart are the two requirements for salvation—“So there can be no others?” it is quickly asked. Can we tell what is wrong with this question? In fact we hear this especially about all kinds of narrative passages. The basic problem in simple terms is this: Such passages (whether narrative or otherwise) are not meant to communicate a whole soteriology or even a formula for evangelism or personal acceptance of Christ. Of course this problem is doubly compounded with narrative texts. This happens with the Gospels and with Acts.

A word about narrative purpose. The point is not that “you can’t take doctrine out of narrative.” Of course you can. Narrative is part of the storehouse of Scripture’s “data” for doctrine. They are truths that are relevant to all of life, not least to salvation. So avoid using that kind of restriction. On the other hand, there are right and wrong ways to do that. Narrative is what it is. It has a context that conditions the purposes of the details in particular scenes. Each scene fits a larger drama. That drama is theological, no doubt, but the way that the theology functions can only be discerned by noting the narrator’s total arch. 

In the case of Luke writing Acts, it has been said by many commentators that Acts 1:8 provides a massive clue. What is the book of Acts recounting but the realization, in narrative form, of that mission of the Holy Spirit through the witness of the early church—and that, with the true nature of the “kingdom” from 1:7 in view? In short, Acts is the story of the gospel kingdom going forth from “Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The details of “conversion accounts” (they are hardly even “conversion accounts”) are signs of that outward expanse.

And we do violence to the purpose of those details when we mine them for singular proof of “Jesus only” baptism, or baptism’s link to “believers only,” or to tongues as evidence of a “second work” of the Spirit—or, yes, especially to any formulaic list of prerequisites to salvation or to the order of the same. Such things are simply not what Luke is doing. 

Jews and “God Fearers” get saved at Pentecost. More get saved in droves throughout Judea. Then dirty Samaritans get included. Other outsiders multiply along the way. Then finally Paul takes things to the nations. That’s it. That’s what is being signified: that these outsiders were being included. Now that may not be a big deal to modern Americans, but it was a big deal in the world into which Christ came. The details—the “signs”—that we see in each account are simply there to point us forward on the road from Jerusalem, through Judea to Samaria, to the ends of the earth. What do we do? We turn these narratives into checklists to start new sects and even cults. More innocently, but just as incorrectly, we take them as hoops to jump through for assurance of our salvation. 

 

Some Rigorous Logic is Unavoidable in Sound Doctrine

As one moves through those texts in the New Testament, there is a discovery of all kinds of things that are “necessary” to be saved. We are in for some head-splitting trouble if we have no other categories but that these either cause salvation, or else are being presented for comparison to some state of perfection, or else against other saints who manifest these in different ways and degrees. There are several errors packed into this one larger error, but the root error behind the whole is a failure to distinguish between kinds of necessities.

So in various texts we find that it belongs to salvation—as a necessity—to be baptized, to repent, forgive others, follow Jesus, pick up our cross, suffer trials and persecution, do good works, bear good fruit, have affections for God, travel the narrow way, or not utter a careless word, much less a blasphemy against the Spirit, and even to cease from sin! What do we make of all of this?

Well, the first answer is that if we never get around to treating salvation as a holistic doctrine, what we do with all this is frankly to lose our minds, take the easy road of pitting one part against the others, and to never have any assurance with God.

Ironically we make peace with doctrine by agreeing to disagree with the whole enterprise and walk away in an anti-intellectual huff. Whatever peace this makes with books and reason and controversies, it is a false peace as far as one’s own assurance is concerned. The loose ends still nag at us. So, I would suggest an actual answer, a logically coherent and soul-satisfying answer. 

Yes, turning from sin is necessary in that same sense of all of the other things that follow the new birth as a consequence—not as its cause. Hence this necessity belongs to sanctification, not justification. In other words, our turning from sin does not contribute one ounce to God’s declaration that we are righteous or that he forgives us. That comes through faith alone (i.e. that is justification). The life of conquering sin belongs to that part of salvation called sanctification, and its role is to evidence grace, to glorify God, to overcome the allure and habit of sin, to strengthen our brethren, and to conform us to the image of Christ.

The “All of Grace” Test

Grace is God’s unmerited favor. When it comes to the relationship between grace and faith, it is precisely because salvation must be by grace that (1) faith is such a fitting instrument, as it looks outside of itself toward the performance of God (cf. Rom. 3:25-28, 4:16) and that (2) faith turns out to be a gift as well (cf. Eph. 2:8-9, Phi. 1:29). 

It may be asked, “If we are saved by grace through faith, how come the Bible speaks of no immoral person inheriting the kingdom?” Here is the straightest road to an answer. One truth addresses the cause of salvation (by grace), and the other addresses the end (for good works). Ephesians 2:8-10 begins in the cause of grace and ends in the design of good works.

Considering that God always makes holy those he justifies, then the end always follows the cause and means he uses. So when we expand the scope, we should not be surprised to find that God also makes holy those he chooses from eternity: “as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4).

About any of these things on the timeline of salvation, we must ask the question that is really an acid test—Is it by grace? Or would this thing that I am conceiving as necessary nullify grace? Would this action of mine contribute to the cause of God’s decree in eternity? Would it add to the scales of justice in his courtroom? Did this make the Holy Spirit respond with the new birth, rather than He causing this as a response in me? In other words, does this thing earn God’s love? Does it secure my salvation such that I am doing the decisive work? If the answer to any of those questions is “Yes,” then what we have on our hands is another gospel, which, as Paul labored to show the Galatians, is no gospel at all.

The Past, Present, and Future Tenses of Salvation

It is not enough to realize that the ordo salutis is a set of logical distinctions first, and only then issues forth into some chronology in the salvation experience. Once we have that straight, we need to expand the board from left to right to make a full account of that chronology. In fact, we need to recognize the breadth of salvation where God is saving us “as far as the curse is found.” 

It is one thing to discover insufficiencies in our own actions, such as faith and repentance, good works and spiritual affections; but it is another thing when we suspect an insufficiency in God’s part. One main way this happens is when we come across passages speaking of God saving us either in eternity, in time past, in time present, or in the future. Each will be referred to as a saving act, and yet we understand that God’s work of salvation is perfect.  

A few examples may be helpful. Peter speaks of us “who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5); or we might think of where it says, “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb. 9:28). So one might ask, “But if he dealt with sin on the cross, why is he still saving us when he comes again?”

Another kind of “timeline” stumbling block can add to it some conceptual baggage where we have not formed a flexible enough notion of perfection or completion, and so we are left with an insufficient notion of sufficiency. So Paul says to the Colossians that, “in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (1:24). What! How can Christ’s afflictions be “lacking”? And how could Paul or anyone else “fill” in that void?

This cluster of stumbling block texts reveals another category we are lacking (the insufficiency the reader should really address first). This is a doctrinal ignorance behind all of our bewilderment over how there is still sin in the Christian, or why there is still sickness or death, if it is true that “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet. 2:24), or in other words, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:2). Here in this void, the cross is seen as “perfect” in the reduced sense of a perfection at a point in time only, but one which pays no mind to God’s own stated plan of perfection. What if God dealt a mortal blow to Satan, sin, and death, in his courtroom at the cross, but that He has ordained the moral and experiential conquest of sin to be carried out in between the First and Second Advents? In fact He has.

“Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:24-26).

But the key is that the legal-versus-moral distinction to be observed in soteriology is a reality that finds a parallel working out in eschatology. We may have no interest in such doctrinal relationships, but we are impoverished in our capacity to understand very practical answers to “why” questions if we refuse such resources.

What is happening in all of this confusion? Well, several things that may be more diverse in each stumbling block, but ultimately there is one underlying category mistake: God has not reduced salvation to a point in time. Since sin is not confined to a “point in time,” neither is God only saving us from such a point.

We are being saved from the totality of what sin is—its legal and moral dimensions, its past and present dimensions, its internal and external dimensions, its individual and corporate dimensions, its personal and impersonal dimensions, its invisible and visible dimensions. It turns out, sin is actually a big mess, and so the field of salvation is as wide as the whole drama of time and space.  

There is not the slightest contradiction in saying that we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. These have regard to distinct dimensions of salvation’s march through time. There is no insufficiency in God’s activity. If you doubt that one link on the chain will stay connected to another because you have just now started to think about that second link, this is no argument against the sturdiness of that chain, but against the capacities of our attention spans. We need to be saved tomorrow as much as we needed to be saved today. We will have sinned by then, but God has not moved. He remains unchanging and his promises remain sealed in the blood of His Son. 

The Value of Knowing Salvation as a Whole Doctrine

At the end of the Heidelberg Catechism’s treatment of the basics of salvation, including a breakdown of the Nicene Creed, Question 59 asks, “What good does it do you, however, to believe all this? The answer is short and sweet: “In Christ I am righteous before God and heir to life everlasting.”

Too short, in fact, we might think! But consider that twofold division. 

There is what God does to secure our redemption in Christ, and then there is the application of that redemption on our personal “need to know” basis. And here is the thing about that: God knows what we need to know. We do not. Not at first. 

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. The doctrine of salvation is the unpacking of that good news.