| Turretin on Sanctification Christ is made to us of God righteousness and sanctification, the benefit of it immediately follows justification, it is connected to it but distinct from it. God delivers the man planted in Christ more and more from his native depravity and transforms him into his own image. Thus, with separation from the world, sin, and consecration to the service of God, it implies a renovation of his nature.
Sanctification does not consist in a change of morals alone
· Scripture extends sanctification not only to acts, but also to the renovation of the nature itself.
· It is expressed in scripture as “the giving of a new heart,” “new creation” and “putting on a new man,” these phrases demand not only the correction of life and of acts but on renovation of the whole nature.
· Just as sin affects the whole nature, so sanctification must affect the whole nature.
· God first makes us new creatures by regeneration, we prove our regeneration through obedience, in the actual laying aside of vices and correction of life and morals. Regeneration is the cause of sanctification and consists in the renovation of our corrupt nature and restoration into the image of God.
Sanctification distinguished from justification
Problems arise when the life long process of, us being transformed into the image of Christ is confused with instantaneous act of justification, when people think that justification is the life long process of transformation, and when it is achieved, become saved.
· Justification deals with the guilt of sin, sanctification the pollution of sin.
· Justification is a forensic judicial act concerning the remission of sins and the imputation of righteousness. Sanctification is the moral and physical act of internal renovation.
· Justification is done to us monergistically. Sanctification is done with us synergistically.
· Justification is given to us fully in this life and instantaneously. Sanctification is not completed in this life; it is not instant but continuous.
· Justification is accomplished through the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. We are made righteous by the righteous acts of another becoming ours. Sanctification is wrought in us, over time, by the working of the Spirit, which makes us more Christ like.
· Justification does not transform us into the image of Christ; this comes by sanctification, which is a change that happens in us that makes us more Christ like.
· Sanctification does not come through imputation, it is a work done in us and by us through the working of the Spirit. The Christ like image does not become ours by imputing the image of Christ on us.
· Only those who are justified are sanctified by the Spirit.
· Although these two are distinguished from each other they should not be separated, as if sanctification can happen without justification, it takes both to make salvation complete.
Christ sustains a twofold relation, as a surety and as a head
· As a surety, he justifies us, as a head, he sanctifies us.
· His death is the meritorious cause of justification, by this he is able to sanctify us.
· No one is justified by the merit of the surety who is not sanctified by the efficacy of Christ, after his image.
· It is not sufficient that Christ died for us unless he also mortifies the old man in us after the likeness of his own death and vivifies the new man so that what was done in the head is done in the members.
· The principal end of Christ's death is that being dead to sin, we should live no longer in it.
Sustained by the Spirit
· The Spirit of adoption seals our justification. The Spirit of sanctification begins and carries it forward.
By faith
· Faith is the instrument of justification for receiving the righteousness of Christ, so it is the root and principle cause of sanctification.
By sacraments
· These are administered to seal the benefits Christ brings to us. Baptism administered for the remission of sins and the Lords Supper whereby the body is broken and the blood poured out for the remission of sins.
The necessity of good works
· Good works do not contribute anything to salvation; still they are necessary in attaining it, so that no one can be saved without them.
· Being saved man is not now able to live according to how he pleases but has a responsibility to God.
· As to the covenant, it consists in the promise of salvation of the part of God and the stipulation of obedience on the part of man. God promises to be our God and we must promise to be his people.
· There is a threefold necessity of worship and obedience that arises that we may live worthily as the sons of God, members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit.
· Believers are to be a willing people compelled to good works not by necessity, but voluntarily out of gratitude for what God has done for us. They are not a debt that must be paid, but something done because we want to, we want to fulfill the desires of the Father, and his will becomes our will.
What are good works?
· Work is done in faith out of a renewed heart.
· It is done according to the prescription of the law and the will of God revealed in his word, which is the sole rule of faith and life.
· It is done internally as well as externally.
· It is to be done to the glory of God.
Works of believers are good
· They are done by an impulse of the Spirit, who excites them to good works.
· Such works please God and are therefore good. Good works done by the unregenerate do not please him because they are done for the benefit of the one doing them. Believers perform good works for the glory of God and are therefore pleasing to him.
· Even good works done to the glory of God are performed by fallen men and are not perfect but are accepted by him due to Christ. Turretin on Adoption The other part of justification is adoption or the bestowal of a right to life flowing from Christ’s righteousness, which acquired for us, not only deliverance from death, but also a right to life by the adoption with which he endows us.
· Adoption is not an act of nature, but of a gracious will which the Father wished to exercise towards us. He is said to have begotten us of his own will.
· Adoption implies voluntary and free disposition of God.
· By it, God transfer us, who were slaves of Satan, from the family of the old Adam and power of darkness, admits us into his own family and the kingdom of light, and gives us the dignity of sons.
· He bestows on us the glorious name of dearly beloved sons, and gives us a right to all his goods of grace and glory.
· This all comes under the name of inheritance as acquired not by any merit, but given by the mere grace of the Father to us in virtue of our adoption by him. We in return worship him.
· God by adopting changes the heart and gratuitously gives us the same right as sons. He also impresses upon us the mind and character of sons by the Spirit of adoption. This does not make us good but supposes us to be. God adopts us not because we are good but to make us good.
· It is the final and immutable will sealed in the scriptures and confirmed by the blood and death of Christ, by which he pronounced elect believers heirs.
· We are taken from a state in which we are slaves to sin, freed by the redemption price of Christ’s blood, and made sons of God and heirs with Christ by adoption. As slaves, we had no rights and were in bondage to sin, unable to free ourselves. God sent his son to purchase our redemption, with his blood, which freed us, and then the Father adopted us into his family, which brought with it all the rights and privileges of a real son born into the natural family.
· It is as if we were born into a family of slaves and condemned to a life of working in the fields without any chance of freedom and all the privileges that come with it. Then the son of the master of the house paid the price for our freedom and then the father adopted us into his family, giving us the same rights and privileges as his natural born son.
Christian liberty flows from adoption
· This in not immunity from all laws or a license to live according to our pleasure and indulge in the lust of the flesh, but it is a spiritual and mystical emancipation obtained for us by the blood of Christ.
· Freed from the spiritual bondage of the law, of sin of the world of Satan we are brought into the liberty of the sons of God and called into fellowship with him and with Christ as our brother. Through this, we obtain dominion over the creatures of the earth and become heirs of the kingdom of heaven.
· When we are freed from the fields of slavery, adopted by the master, and called to come live in his house, it is not an invitation to live as we please. There are rules that must be obeyed and we are expected to follow them. Freedom from slavery to sin is not a license to sin.
Justification by faith
· Faith is the organic and instrumental cause of our justification.
· The object of faith is our true righteousness before God.
· Faith itself is not our righteousness, but only an instrument to attain the righteousness, Christ is our righteousness and we obtain the righteousness of God in him.
· Faith itself does not save us, it is Christ that saves us, faith is the instrument that attaches us to Christ and applies his work to us making it our righteousness. His righteousness is credited to us through faith.
· Faith is not counted for righteousness because this would make faith the work that justifies us. Faith is credited as righteousness, Romans 4:3, Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Does faith alone justify?
· Man is justified by faith without works; therefore by faith alone. Rom. 3:28
· Because it alone apprehends the righteousness of Christ. Turretin on Justification Is justification forensic or moral?
· Properly in Greek and Latin the word is forensic. Meaning to absolve anyone in a trial or to hold and to declare just. This is opposed to the verb “to condemn,” and “to accuse,” apart from a trial it is used to acknowledge and to praise one as just.
· The Roman notion is that the word is not forensic but instead means to “make righteous” or to infuse righteousness. The person from that point on is said to be as righteous as Christ.
Proof that it is forensic
· The passages which treat of justification treat it as forensic: Job 9:2, Ps. 143:2, Rom. 3:28, 4:1-3…
· A judicial process is set forth and mention is made of an accusing “law” of “accused persons” who are guilty Rom 3:19, of divine justice demanding punishment Col 2:14, of sanctification and imputed righteousness Rom 4 & 5, of a throne of grace before which we are absolved Heb 4:16, of a judge pronouncing sentence Rom 3:20 and absolving sinners Rom. 4:5.
· Justification is opposed to condemnation. Rom. 8:33, 34.
· Accusation and condemnation occur only in a trial as does justification, or the declaring of one as not guilty.
· The phrases used to describe the justification imply that it is judicial, “not to come under judgment” Jn. 5:24, “not to be condemned” Jn. 3:18, “to remit sins,” “to impute righteousness” Rom. 4, “to be reconciled” Rom 5:10, 2 Cor. 5:19.
· It is certain that these verses do not speak of an “infusing” of righteousness or that the act involves making one righteous. In a court of law one in not made righteous or innocent but one can be declared righteous or innocent by a just judge.
· If it is said to be the infusion of righteousness then it can be confused with sanctification, which it often is. If one is infused with righteousness then one is expected to act or be righteous. If one is declared righteous, the internal state of a person is not changed, only their standing as regards the law and before the judge.
Proof that inherent, or infused, righteousness is not the cause of justification
It is imperfect
· No one could be justified by an imperfect righteousness. The judgment of God is according to truth and leaves not room for simply overlooking sin. God does not relax his standards of righteousness, the demand is still very high but it is met in Christ. His righteousness then becomes ours through imputation, not through infusion.
Works are excluded
· Our justification takes place without our works, so also without inherent righteousness. Once again, if we were infused with righteousness we would be expected to act righteous, it is our standing before God that has changed, our becoming righteous is taken care of through sanctification and is not completed in this life but only after we are glorified.
· The law is perfect but the law is made weak through human frailty and our inability to fulfill it. Thus it depended upon the righteousness of another for us to be seen as righteous. It is God, who came in the flesh and fulfilled the demands of the law for us, then his perfected work is imputed to us, we are made righteous only through imputation, not direct infusion. His righteousness is not put into us, we are clothed in his righteousness, we are seen as righteous based on the work he did, our salvation depends on the work wrought in another and we must put our faith in this. If we are seeking to one day become righteous based on our own works we will be sadly lacking come judgment day.
· The works of believers are those which follow justification, not the causes which precede it.
Because justification is free
· Our justification is free by the grace of God, through the redemption of Christ. Rom. 3:24.
· Grace is opposed to works and boasting.
· We are only justified by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, this excludes our works. If we are justified in another we cannot be justified in ourselves.
Justification consists of remission of sins
· Justification consists in the remission of sins. Rom. 4:8. Infused righteousness is not remission of sins. It implies that one now has the power to overcome sin in one’s own power and thus is required to do so. Infusion does nothing for one’s standing before a just judge. If anything it makes it harder, for the righteous one is expected to act righteous, and earn a good standing before the judge with his own power.
Justification is not by the law
· The person, who is made righteous, thorough infusion, now must follow the law, for he is now able to do so.
· Legal justification takes place in no other way than by inherent righteousness, whether actual or habitual; gospel justification is not to be sought in us, but in another.
· Philippians 3:9 “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
Salvation by one’s own works leads to boasting
· If we became righteous based on something we did then we earned our own salvation and have something to boast about. If it was based in Christ then we have nothing to boast of since it does not come from anything we did.
Infused righteousness does not take away guilt
· Remission of sins requires removal of guilt by the payment of the ransom due.
· Inherent righteousness can neither remove the offense to God or the guilt springing from it, nor do anything about our offense to God.
· It looks to the future for man’s righteousness; it does nothing for his past.
Is the righteousness and obedience of Christ imputed to us the meritorious cause and foundation of our justification?
· The Orthodox view is that justification is a forensic act of God who acts as a ruler and judge giving sentence concerning us at his bar.
· Justification is the act, not of a subordinate judge, who is bound to the formula of the law, but of a supreme magistrate and prince who, in virtue of his autocratic right, shows favor to the guilty.
· He cannot allow his laws to be violated with impunity and sin to go unpunished; he requires some satisfaction to be made to it.
· God cannot show favor nor justify anyone without perfect righteousness. He cannot pronounce anyone just who is not. He cannot simply over look sin there must be some payment.
· No man since the fall has righteousness in himself, it must be sought outside of him in another.
· God, as the sovereign Lord of all, cannot pardon the sinner unless a satisfaction is first made by which his justice may be satisfied and punishment taken of sin. This cannot come from the sinner, but must come from another who acts as a surety in our place by receiving upon himself the punishment for our sin.
· The gospel teaches that what could not be found in us and was to be sought in another, is found in Christ. He is the God-man, who took upon himself the office of surety, and most fully satisfied the justice of God by his perfect obedience, and thus brought to us an everlasting righteousness by which alone we can be justified before God. Covered and clothed with the garment of Christ’s righteousness, by which alone we can be justified before God, we obtain the eternal blessings of the Father.
God binds us to Christ with a two-fold bond, one natural the other mystical. In this way, our sin is transferred to Christ and his righteousness is transferred over to us.
Natural
· Christ having assumed our flesh could receive our sins upon himself and have the right to redeem us.
Mystical
· Having been made by God a surety for us and made out head, he can communicate to us his righteousness and all its benefits.
· God made him who knew no sin, sin for us by the imputation of our sin to him, and we are made the righteousness of Christ by the imputation of his obedience. (2 Cor. 5:21)
· Christ imparts his blessing to us by forensic imputation that flows from Christ as surety and is the foundation of our justification.
· Christ as our head is the principle instrument of our sanctification.
Imputed righteousness the grounds for remission of sin and adoption
· God justifies us because the righteousness of our surety is imputed to us. Because of this, we are renewed because we derive the Spirit from our head, Christ, who renews us after the image of himself.
· Justification consists in two things, remission of sin, which removes punishment from the sinner and imputation of righteousness, which renders them worthy of life.
· God imputes righteousness to us and afterwards remits our sins.
· Christ was given as our surety and head; in virtue of this union whatever is done by him is reckoned as ours and done in our place.
· From the imputation of righteousness flow two things, removal of sins and adoption as sons.
· Imputation of righteousness is the foundation and meritorious cause of justification.
· Pardon of sins cannot be granted nor a right to life conferred, except on the grounds of imputed righteousness.
Remission of sins and adoption, two parts of justification
· The righteousness of the law cannot be obtained without the remission of sins, which liberates us from punishment. We have a right to life, which Christ acquired for us by his obedience.
· Sin established two things for us, guilt before God, which must be taken away by the remission of sins, and we were made enemies with him, which was reconciled by the death of Christ.
Does remission of sins consist in absolute removal of them? Are sins taken away completely, or is there still some need of punishment?
· Remission of sins does not consist in a removal of the corruption or depraved quality, but in a gratuitous pardon of the criminality and guilt arising from it.
· God the judge no longer considers sins, they are covered by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, and we are no longer seen as guilty.
· Remission is total and absolute with respect to guilt as well as punishment.
· Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (ESV)
· Remission is extended to all sins, whatever they may be, past, present, and future. Turretin on Faith God calls by his word and offers the promise of grace, man responds by faith and receives and applies to himself the offered promise.
Necessity of faith
· So great is the necessity of faith in the matter of salvation that as Christ alone is the cause of salvation so faith alone is the means and way to Christ. Faith is the bond of our union with Christ because he dwells in us by faith.
· Faith is the condition of the covenant of grace under which salvation is promised.
· Faith is the fruit of election, the instrument of justification, the principle of sanctification and the infallible means of salvation.
Kinds of faith
· It is distinguished into intellectual assent to known and revealed truth, which the devils have.
· Temporary faith, which brings delight and joy but does not come to fruition
· Faith that indicates an assent to some particular promise concerning a miraculous event.
· Finally, faith based on a strong trust in Christ and his benefits that lead to salvation.
Various acts of justifying faith
Must we do something to have faith?
Acts of faith
Knowledge, assent and trust are the most agreed upon conditions of faith.
· Knowledge of all things to be believed by us.
o Truth as revealed to us in the scriptures is the object of faith. This requires knowledge for its apprehension.
· Historical or theoretical assent.
o This has firmness and certainty because it is founded upon the divine infallible word of God.
· Fiducial and practical assent.
o A persuasion of the practical intellect by which we judge the gospel to be true, good and worthy of love and desire. It believes the promises to be certain that pertain to the remission of sins and the bestowal of salvation upon all believers and penitents and also upon the reader should they chose to believe. The promises are for all those who read and believe the gospel.
· Act of refuge.
o We seek in Christ a refuge from the sins the scriptures tells us we have and points to him as the solution. We seek in him pardon of sin for our salvation. All men feel the misery of sin and as a result want refuge from this. Help does not lie within, we must seek help outside of ourselves, the bible teaches us where this help can be found, it is faith that enables us to believe and trust what it says.
· Reception and union with Christ
o We not only seek Christ through a desire of the soul and fly to him, but understand, receive, embrace and apply him to ourselves and unite ourselves to him. God freely offers his own Son in the gospel to the sinful soul, burdened, cast down and broken by the sense of his own sins. Christ offers himself with all his benefits and the fullness of salvation residing in him. Resting on him as the sole redeemer and delivers and retains him. This is the formal act of justifying faith. Faith is sometimes described as an act of adhesion and binding closely by the strictest union, we are then said to be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh while Christ himself dwells in us and we in him. By the union of Christ comes participation in blessings which are justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification.
· Reflexive act
o This arises from the sense of faith by which the soul which has thus received Christ concludes that it believes and because it believes, (that Christ died for him and belongs to him with all his blessings), that Christ is his and he is Christ’s and that nothing can separate him from his love.
· Act of confidence and consolation
o Joy, confidence, peace and tranquility follow union with Christ. The believing soul leans on Christ and is conscious of its own most intimate union with him that comes through faith and is sure of its mutual communion with him. Because of this, we can take glory in adversity and be courageous during challenges despite all the enemies coming out against us. We are certain, in faith, that he who began a good work in us will infallibly carry it on to perfection.
Is faith assent without knowledge?
· Faith is not assent without knowledge nor is it simply blind assent to what is written in the bible.
· Faith does not believe without understanding. We do not believe in what we do not understand.
· Faith has degrees; it increases and grows both in knowledge and trust. As we gain more understanding, we begin to trust more.
· Faith includes knowledge in its conception, faith is not the same as knowledge and believing is not the same as understanding.
· Knowledge is included in faith. Faith is expressed in full assurance of understanding and knowledge of the truth.
· Where faith is there ought to be knowledge because the word cannot be believed or received unless it be known. There is not desire for or assent to what is unknown.
· Faith does not require complete understanding but we cannot assent to or believe in what we do not understand.
Is faith trust?
· Faith is necessarily trust. Faith that is simple assent to knowledge of the scriptures is not saving faith. Even the devils believe, and in fact know more about God than we ever could, but this is not faith that saves. Faith is trust in what the bible says about us, that we are dead in sin and incapable of helping ourselves, and about Christ, that he died for those sins and made us alive again. This kind of faith puts complete trust in what the bible says to the point where we actually believe with all our heart and mind that we really are saved from our sins and God’s wrath because of what Christ has done.
· It is like putting complete faith in a parachute, that when we jump from a plane it will save us and keep us from falling to our death. Simply having knowledge of how a parachute works won’t save us when falling. We must believe this to the point where we believe that if we do jump from the plain it will save us.
· Faith is the instrument God uses to apply salvation to us. It does not actually save; per se. God gives us faith after we are regenerated and as a result we believe and are justified.
· Food is necessary to keep us alive but walking up to a buffet table won’t get the food into our bodies. We must eat it to get it into our bodies. Eating involves chewing. Eating and chewing are necessary to get the food that keeps us alive into our bodies. Eating and chewing are the means of eating. This is like faith. Faith is the means God uses to apply Christ’s death to us. Therefore, it is Christ that saves us not faith but faith is what applies Christ’s death to us.
Object of faith
· Faith is not some mysterious force where if we have enough we will magically receive what we want. Faith is directed at something and that something is the bible, which is the word of God written down for us. Faith in the scriptures is faith in Christ. Faith in Christ means faith in what he said and believing what he said and what he said is written down in the scriptures.
· It is not faith that saves because that would constitute some work on our part. It is Christ that saves. There is not a certain amount we must attain before we can finally say we have achieved it. Faith as small as a mustard seed is enough because once again, it is not about us it is about Christ.
· Christ, the scriptures and everything they say are the object of our faith.
Can the true believer ever truly fall from faith?
There are two principle adjuncts of justifying faith-
Perseverance
· Perpetual duration and incapability of being lost so that the believer never completely falls from it.
Certainty
· This involves subjectivity. We should be certain that we will never ultimately fall from faith.
Perseverance of the saints
· Reformed doctrine is the only one that teaches perseverance of the saints. All others, Arminian, Catholic, Anabaptist, and Lutheran teach that it can be lost. God does not secure us in our salvation; it is up to us to remain faithful to the end.
· This concerns people who are unequivocally planted in Christ the Savior by true faith, adoption, justification and sanctification.
· No one denies that if it were left up to man and his own strength to remain faithful he would fall away, he would fail miserably. But is the person grounded in Christ in danger of losing their salvation? Is God going to, after saving them, leave them to their own devices to keep themselves in that state of faithfulness? Is perseverance to the end, glorification, up to man or God?
· Justified saints are going to sin. We are simul iustus et peccator, simultaneously justified and sinner. This sin is going to bring with it a sense of guilt because of our new nature. With guilt is going to come misery and a feeling like we have let God down and he thus has rejected us. Is this feeling proof that we have indeed lost our salvation? Is salvation based on a feeling? Does God base his faithfulness to us on how we feel on any given day? Can we be saved and lost several times in a week or even in a single day?
· Arminians would lead us to believe so. Thankfully we are not saved based on our faithfulness, but on God’s. We have been secured, in Christ, from the foundation of the world. We did nothing to affect our salvation so we can do nothing to lose our salvation. God is faithful to bring our salvation to complete fruition despite our constant inadvertent efforts to screw it up.
· Under their system we would need to be justified over and over again each time we sinned. Sin does not annul justification. Christ died for us when we were at enmity with him. Our sin does nothing to affect this.
· Arminians confuse justification and sanctification. We struggle with sin because we are saved and have a new nature. If we did not possess this new nature there would be no struggle. We would sin without remorse.
Foundation
· Perseverance founded in the election of the Father
o All those he has elected are going to be brought to faith and complete glorification Romans 8:28-30
· Perseverance is founded upon the Covenant of Grace
o This is founded upon God’s grace and not upon man’s obedience.
· From the merit and efficacy of Christ
o Christ has completely fulfilled the Law in man’s place and has died for man’s sins. He now intercedes in heaven on our behalf to the Father until our glorification is complete. He guards the believer continually by his grace, dwelling in them strengthening more and more the bond of union between us and him so that it will never be broken.
· From the guardianship of the Holy Spirit
o The Holy Spirit is promised to come to us, not leaving us without comfort. He dwells in us and is a seal of the promise that is to come, that the Father will save us.
· From the nature of the gifts
o These are given without repentance. Once given, God will not recall them.
· Proven by the nature of spiritual life
o This is generated in us by the Spirit. It is not liable to destruction or extinction. It is perpetual and eternal. Believers are said to already possess eternal life, if this is so, how could we then lose it?
Certainty of faith
Should we be certain of our salvation?
A twofold certainty is ascribed to faith
· Each believer knows and is certain that he has justifying faith. Part of saving faith is knowing that we are saved.
· The believer is certain that his own sins have been pardoned and thus he is a partaker of eternal life.
· This is in light of what was said concerning perseverance.
· Certainty is not grounded on anything in us, but on what it says in the Word and by the testimony of the Spirit in us. Calling by Tueetin What is calling and how many kinds are there?
Calling is an act of the free grace of God in Christ by which he calls men dead in sin and lost in Adam through the preaching of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit, to union with Christ and to the salvation obtained in him.
· We are called out of a state of sin, condemnation, darkness the world and the enslavement these things bring.
· By union with Christ we are called unto, holiness into the light and the kingdom of God and eternal life in Christ.
Why called?
· Man, being dead in sin and suffering the misery that entails, and his separation from God, he is called from this state back to God.
How called
· Through the gospel and the preaching of the Word through the Holy Spirit.
Calling is twofold, internal and external.
· These take place externally through the Word and sacraments, but are made effectual internally by the work of the Holy Spirit.
· The external call demands something from man but does not give him the power to do it. With the internal call comes the help of the Holy Spirit to make effective what is demanded by the gospel.
· The external call goes out to everyone but only the ones whom the Holy Spirit quickens come to repentance and faith. “Many are called but few are chosen.”
· The ones whom God elected from the foundation of the world are the ones the Spirit quickens. Others are capable of responding to the gospel call but are not willing, or able to come to true repentance and faith.
Calling of the reprobate
Does everyone who answers the outward call have the possibility of being saved? Does God call some falsely with no intention of saving them? Or is there some other reason why people who do not ultimately come to eternal life answer the call?
· The reprobates are definitely called through the gospel like the elect. However, God does not call them with the intention of saving them.
· The external call is extended to the reprobate as well as the elect but to each differently. Calling was instituted to collect the elect out of the world and bring them to eternal life in Christ and make them members of his body, or the church.
· The call goes out to all allowing all to respond but is not effectual for all.
o A fisherman casting a net catches both the fish he wants and fish he does not want. Rather than pinpointing just the fish he wants, he throws the net out for all, then when he gets all into the boat sifts through them for the fish he was really after, the rest he tosses back or destroys.
· Likewise, the call goes out to all men. All that respond are a part of the visible church. God then sifts through the ones who have responded for the ones he intends to save and brings them to repentance and faith, invisible church.
o Matthew 22:1-14, the parable of the wedding feast. The initial ones intended to come did not want to, so others were called and among them was one who was not clothed in the proper wedding garments so he was cast into outer darkness. 22:14, “Many are called but few are chosen.” Not all responded to the initial call and out of the ones who did respond if they were not clothed properly were punished severely.
God calls all because, as sinners who have violated God’s laws, all have a responsibility to come to Christ to have their sins remitted. God, out of his goodness, reveals to man the way of salvation. Also as a just judge he holds man responsible to follow his laws. When the gospel goes out part of what it does is convict the world of sin, with the help of the Spirit, John 16:8. Some respond but do not become saved. Some respond, believe and are saved. Some do not even respond.
· The Reformed view states that the ones who become saved are the elect chosen from the foundation of the world and the ones who do not respond are part of the reprobate, or the ones not chosen for salvation. However, some respond and do not become saved, God has some purpose in this but he does not give it to us.
· The Arminian view is that all are capable of responding because the death of Christ put all men back to the way Adam was before the fall and are now capable of believing. Some respond and others do not, this is ultimately up to man because he is no longer dead in sin and is now capable of responding, thus making man capable of resisting or responding to the call of God based on his free will.
The Word and the conviction of sin by the Spirit through the gospel call lets man know how he has offended God and what God demands of him as a result. The gospel also contains a promise to those who repent and believe in Christ alone for salvation. Either way all are made aware of what God demands of them are responsible and are without excuse come judgment day. In the end, everyone gets what they want. The elect repent, believe, come to faith, have their sins forgiven and enjoy a life with God. The reprobate get what they want, a life lived to please themselves and separated from God and his laws but ultimately pay the price for this choice. Because of the gospel call, and general revelation, all are without excuse for their disobedience. The fact that God does not save all is a great mystery one he chose not to reveal to us. This mystery, however mean it may sound, does not excuse us from believing or give a loophole to those who have never heard the gospel call in the traditional sense.
Sufficient Grace
Is grace sufficient to bring everyone to salvation?
View of Catholics and Arminians
· Sufficient grace is prepared to assist men in every way enabling them to come to God on their own for salvation should they chose to do so.
· Since the death of Christ, everyone is back to where Adam was, able to choose to follow God or to choose to follow their own selfish desires. Sin is taken care of for everyone. Man’s free will is now king.
· Catholics and Arminians believe that sufficient grace is given to all. God’s grace enables all to come to him. He is calling everyone.
· Theoretically, everyone can come to faith and be saved. The thing that is stopping them is man’s free will. Man must still choose to come. So it is man’s lack of desire, and the church not telling them or coming up with a convincing enough argument, that is keeping people out of heaven. It is not that God has not chosen all for salvation.
Reformed view
The Reformers deny that God is bound to bestow grace upon all and that he wills in fact to confer it and to impart to each. God bestows grace only on those whom he has chosen for his purpose.
· Grace is not extended beyond the decree.
· God has not decreed that all should be saved. He elected some to salvation and others he destined to wrath.
· He pities some and hardens others.
· Man’s destiny does not rise and fall according to man and his free will but on God and his will, or decree.
· External grace is not common to all, neither is internal grace that is sufficient to bring them to salvation.
· Grace and faith are not extended to all but only to God’s elect.
Both sides must deal with the issue of why everyone is not saved. The Arminians say it is because man, in his free will, has chosen not to believe. It is not that God does not love everyone, has died for them, draws them and desires for all men to be saved. The fault does not lie with God but with man. Man chooses not to follow God, not because he is dead in sin, but because he has not heard a good enough argument to convince him that he needs God.
The Reformers believed that all are not saved because God, in his wisdom and for his own glory, has chosen not to save all. It has nothing to do with man and everything to do with God and his infinite purposes. God just has not chosen to reveal to us why he chose not to save everyone.
Effectual Calling
Does effectual calling come from the call itself, or from an act of grace inwardly?
· Arminians say it comes from the outward event. Then man in his free will cooperates with it and comes to faith on his own. It is man and his will, which cooperates with God’s grace that makes grace effectual. If this is the case, it is free will that makes the difference between the believer and the unbeliever.
· Some say that God knows exactly what it would take to draw a person to him and the exact right time to do the drawing to effectually bring the person to faith. God may know, in his foreknowledge, what will happen but he does not affect the event itself. That is left up to chance, not God’s directing. Their intention is to put it squarely on man’s shoulders as to when and how will respond.
· One could say that God has arranged all these events in the person’s life so that he will come to faith exactly when and how God has decreed from eternity. ( Molinism or middle knowledge) In this case, God is working with means to get accomplished what he wants.
· Reformed theology rejects this view of God working so much with means because it puts the decision to choose or reject God in the will of man. God cannot act until man has decided what he is going to do. This places events in the realm of God and his foreknowledge and not God and what he has decreed to accomplish.
· God does not work by putting man in the right set of circumstances in order for him to decide on his own what God wants. God works with his Spirit through the means of his word to change the person inwardly. When man has decided to believe it is because God has regenerated him, not because man has finally decided of his own free will.
· God does not convert man by persuading him to make the right choices. He acts supernaturally on the heart of man and brings a dead sinner back to life by turning his heart of stone into a heart of flesh. He is in essence, reborn or born-again. It is strictly and completely of God. Man is only the recipient of God’s grace.
· If God worked though means to convert man, by putting him in the right circumstances so that he will make the right decisions, man could not be in a state where he is dead in sin. He would have to be able to believe, his mind not being clouded by sin and blinded by the devil. This goes along with the notion that everyone was reset after the death of Christ and we are all now able to believe. In this instance, salvation is not a miracle but a natural act. God does not convert people supernaturally but man decides to believe of his own free will.
Orthodox view of effectual calling
Calling comes from the supernatural power of grace and the divine motion of God, which so sweetly and powerfully affects man that he cannot help following God who calls brining him to conversion.
· It is in trying to explain how God works in man to convert that problems arise. Christ himself explains it like the wind, you don’t know where it is coming from or where it is going, you just see the effects of it.
· Conversion happens in such a way that it feels like we are doing it but in reality it is God working in us in such a way that it is imperceptible except for the fact that we are being converted to repentance and faith. God works in us and we decide, but it is only because God first moved us that we move to him. We, being dead in sin, do not possess this power on our own.
· Conversion takes place by the infusion of supernatural habits by the Spirit. Then we act upon this infusion which leads to the exercise of faith and repentance.
· Through the infusion of the Spirit man is regenerated and converted by God. Man then turns himself to God and repents and believes
· Regeneration is the act by which man is reformed after the image of his creator.
· Conversion is the act man performs in which he acts upon his new birth. The two can hardly be distinguished from each other. When God converts man it is never without man not turning to God. God does not believe for man and man does not believe without God.
· The first act of efficacious grace by which God regenerates the minds of the elect by an intimate operation and creates them as it anew by infusing his life giving Spirit. This Spirit moves into the inner recesses of the mind and heals its depraved inclinations, gives it strength and causes the person to want to perform good works on God’s behalf.
· This is the process of the New Birth from which faith in and love of God flow.
· These are supernatural acts of the Spirit. It is not something man can or wants to do without it.
· God not only gives man the power to believe, but gives him faith itself. God elicits the desire in man to do good for the glory of God and not for himself.
· God works about this change through the Spirit and the Word. Not by Word only as that would be the outward call, but by the Spirit and the Word. With the addition of the Spirit it makes the calling efficacious. The natural man who hears the Word without the Spirit working inwardly thinks it is foolish nonsense.
· If man’s mind was not converted by an inward working of the Spirit which convinces man to turn to God, it would be against man’s will and would be “cosmic rape” as some Arminians claim. It would be God forcing himself on man. The way in which God works, man is persuaded to follow God by a supernatural act of the Spirit. In the end man wants to follow God out of a love he has for him. He is changed from a state in which he hates God to one of loving him by the Spirit. He comes willingly not forcedly.
· Therefore, God’s grace is not resistible because God is not trying to persuade man to come to him, but it is always effective because God changes the heart and mind of the sinner thus making him come willingly.
Man must be acted upon because he is dead in sin
· The scriptures teach that man is dead in sin, his righteousness is a filthy minstrel rags, on his own man does nothing good, he does not seek after God. Man is not sick and in need of a physician but dead! He is blind to the truth, he is living in darkness, and he is a slave of sin and enemies of God. Because of this man needs to look outside of himself for salvation. He cannot look inward and find ultimate good nor can he rationalize his way out of a life of sin.
· A man who is dead cannot be brought back to life simply by talking to him about how wonderful it is to be alive and trying to convince him of such with a flowery well reasoned argument. Something inside of him must make him alive. It must bring life to his soul, light to his blind eyes, and sound to his deaf ears. A dead person also cannot bring life to himself, no matter how much he wills it.
· A person in this state cannot save himself, nor can talking to a person in this state bring him back to life. The talking (preaching of the Word) must work in conjunction with the Spirit to give life to the dead sinner.
It is of grace
· God chose to save man out of grace, not out of anything that he saw in man. God did not have to save any. He did not look on man’s heart and see something good and worth saving. He saved strictly because in his goodness, mercy and love he chose to do so.
Grace necessary for reception of the Word
· The scriptures talk of God opening the hearts, minds and ears of man so that he may hear the Word and hearing they may believe. Hearing in this sense meant, hearing with understanding. It is the hearing of the Word associated with the understanding that only comes when it is accompanied by the internal working of the Spirit.
Is the first movement of conversion passive or does mans will cooperate with the will of God?
Arminian view
· Every group except those of the actual Reformed faith hold on to the idea that man’s will cooperates in some way with the will of God in his own salvation.
· In this system salvation is a joint effort between man and God. God may help man in certain areas where man is incapable of going it alone but in the end it is up to man to make the final decision to trust God or to go his own way.
· Man does need grace in order to be saved, without it he is lost but for them grace is just the needed boost he needs to save himself.
In order for this system to work something must be done with sin. The bible is abundantly clear in saying that man is dead in sin and is not capable or willing to seek God and what he requires of man. The Pelagians come right out and deny original sin thereby making it possible for man to seek after God on his own since the only thing he needs is a guide to lead him to the right path.
The Arminians, or Semi-Pelagians, say that we are not dead but only sick and just need help where we are lacking. Christ’s death took care of sin for everyone so now we are all like Adam capable of choosing to follow God’s will or our own. After this point they are identical to the Pelagians in their view on salvation.
These views are very man centered. Man is the central focus of everything. God does not do anything that will violate the will of man. God waits for man to make the right choice, God puts things out there as helpers but ultimately the decision lies in man and not in God and what he wants done in the universe.
In these systems Christ came only to show the way to God, to provide a good moral example for man to follow he did not come to pay the penalty to buy man out of slavery to sin because man is not in slavery to sin. The belief that man is not dead in sin and deep down is good and therefore only needs a moral guide causes them to confuse justification with sanctification. They say justification is a lifelong act that ultimately ends with man ridding himself of all bad moral behavior and they think in this that God will then reward them for doing a good job by accepting the help he gave and by following the example of Christ. There really is no need for a savior in this system and if all man needs is a good moral guide you can insert anyone who leads a good moral life, Buddha, Gandhi or the Dali Lama, all serve the same purpose and can easily be inserted in the place of Christ.
Reformed View
This is built up on four principle parts:
· The first is the greatness of man’s corruption, which excludes all cooperation on our part. We are by nature sinners and children of wrath, nothing but flesh whose imagination is evil even from infancy. We cannot even think anything good by ourselves because we are dead in sin and have a heart of stone. Because of our depraved nature we can neither cooperate with God nor start the process of conversion with out the Spirit of God leading us.
· By the nature of regeneration. This is a change or renovation of our nature and is the work of God alone, not of man. Just as children cannot birth themselves but are inactive participants, so in supernatural regeneration man cannot birth himself but is only an inactive participant.
· By the infinity of power that is required to bring regeneration about. It is a work of divine omnipotence, which belongs to God alone and cannot be ascribed to finite human will as its initial cause.
· If it was an act of cooperation between man and God man would have something to boast about but if it is an act of God alone man is just lucky enough to be selected by God for salvation.
Can man resist to the point of keeping grace from being ineffectual in his own heart?
· The Arminians seem to grant all things to grace and confess that free will can do nothing of itself. When they come to an explanation of how grace works, they say that it works in such a way that man can cooperate or chose to refuse the grace of God, making it resistible. If the grace of God is offered to two people, one denies it the other accepts it, the difference is not to be found in grace, which is offered identically to each, but in the person receiving. It is completely up to man to decide for himself if he will accept God’s offer of salvation. God will not force it on anyone.
· The crux of this question lies in, is man capable and willing to muster up the strength needed, on his own and of his own free will, to seek after God? Are all men seeking after God and when the right argument presents itself able to believe based on his own free will and the goodness that ultimately lies within him?
· The reformed view says that not only is man capable of resisting grace, but without the inward drawing of God, can do no other. It is a difference in being dead in sin and, on our own, incapable of helping ourselves especially in seeking after God, and having good within us that just needs a little touch of grace that enables it to make the right decision.
· Does the answer to all our problems ultimately lie within us, either in making ourselves morally perfect or in rationalizing our way to God? Can a blind man restore his own sight if he wills it hard enough? Can a deaf man will himself to hear again? Can a person with a heart as cold as ice and as hard as stone will himself or rationalize himself back from his pit of despair? Or does he need something outside of himself, more powerful than he to bring sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf or soften the hard heart? This is the ultimate difference between Calvinism and Arminianism. The former being the more biblical the later being what man wants to believe of himself.
· It is a difference between an inward call and an outward call. The inward call is irresistible; it is only given to those whom God intends to bring to complete salvation. The outward call goes out to all this can be resisted by all and indeed is unless aided by the inward call of the Spirit. The Arminians do not believe in the difference in calls but say there is only one call and since may resist this, claim then that the “call” of God is resistible.
· God does not call people against their will by forcing them to believe in him as some claim Calvinism teaches. He makes the unwilling, willing by working within them, giving them a new heart, restoring sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. God does this in such a way that man thinks that he is the one doing it, thus leading him to believe that he is capable of believing on his own and that he only needed help from God.
· If after all the operations of the grace of God the will of man is only left in equilibrium, then the ultimate decision of whether man is saved lies in man and his free will. This makes man the principle cause of salvation and not God. God can only sit back and hope that man makes the right decision. This makes conversion not an act of God’s free grace but an act of man and his will. In this system, God is not necessarily needed only man, his free will and a good argument. God is not to be thanked or praised but man can glory in himself on how smart he was in turning himself around and deciding to follow God. The Covenant of Grace and its Twofold Economy in the Old and New Testaments The plan of God concerning salvation comes to us in the form of a covenant. One that God makes with man that states that God will not leave him in his sin, but made an oath against himself, that if he was not faithful to save man, the consequences would be on him.
Idea of a covenant is proved from the constant use of the worddiatheke in reference to it.
It is sometimes used for a law, disposition, or arrangement in general, where the elements of a covenant strictly speaking are absent, yet there can be no doubt that according to its prevailing usage in the Old Testament, it means a mutual contract between two or more parties. It is very often used of compacts between individuals, and especially between kings and rulers.
The term or at least the concept was used repeatedly in the Old Testament in agreements between two people.
There is therefore no room to doubt that the word berit when used of transactions between man and man means a mutual compact.
The meaning of the word diatheke in the Greek Scriptures is just as certain and uniform. It is derived from the verb that means to arrange, and, therefore, in ordinary Greek is used for any arrangement, or disposition.
In the Scriptures, it is almost uniformly used in the sense of a covenant.
The plan of salvation is presented in the Bible under the form of a covenant and is proved from the fact that the elements of a covenant are included in this plan.
The Two Natures of the Covenant of Grace
God condescended to have a relationship with man whom he had created. God first entered into a legal covenant with man that stated upon condition of obedience, man could obtain eternal life. This was the Covenant of Works made with Adam, the representative head of all humanity. Man in his pride fell. God could have given Adam and Eve the punishment they deserved right then, but God in his goodness made a second covenant which stated that he would fulfill the obligations of the covenant that Adam was supposed to, and take the punishment that was meant for man upon himself. This is the Covenant of Grace.
What is the Covenant of Grace?
Gratuitous pact entered into, in Christ, between God offended, and man offending.
God promises remission of sins and salvation to man because of Christ; man must however, promise faith and obedience.
God its Author
God is the author of the covenant.
He made it freely, based on his goodness.
God being supreme ruler and the creator of man could have punished man at his point of disobedience.
Man in his now fallen state of sin, could not help himself and does not want to, God alone has the power to save man from his sins.
God did not move to save man based on anything in man, but it only represents God’s true nature.
It is only the good will and loving nature of God that saves us.
Each person in the Trinity has a role in the Covenant of Grace.
The Father elects, the Son redeems, the Spirit applies and sanctifies.
Contracting Parties
God offended, man offending and Christ the mediator between the two.
God Offended
Sin abolished the natural communion man had with God.
God in his mercy has to condescend to man in his sinfulness.
Man Offending
· Man was disobedient to the original covenant God made with him. Man is now dead in sin, helpless, a child of wrath, alienated from God and smitten with a sense of guilt over his offence.
Christ the Mediator
· He reconciles offending man with the offended God.
· The Covenant of Works had no need of a mediator, since no one was offended.
· In order for there to be a Covenant of Grace, there needed to be a mediator between the two parties.
· God, due to his justice could not endure guilty man, and man because of sinfulness could not approach a holy God.
The mediator needed to be both God and man.
· He needed to be man so that he could suffer and die. Only though suffering and death could man be brought back into good graces with God. The mediator took the punishment meant for man the offending party.
· He needed to be God so that his death would have infinite value.
· As mediator, Christ stood between the two parties at variance, and acts with both.
· On the part of man with God, he fulfilled what was required of man to God.
· On the part of God to man, he made sure all the things promised to man were fulfilled.
· He satisfied the offended God by making satisfaction for the sins of the offending, and interceding for man with the Father. He paid the ransom owed by the offending to the offended.
Stipulations of the Covenant
· A two-fold pact was attended to here. The Father and the Son made an agreement to carry out the work of redemption. God made an agreement in his Son to save his elect upon condition of faith and repentance.
· Christ is the surety and head for the salvation of the elect.
· The pact contains, the will of the Father giving his Son, the Son offering himself as a sponsor to affect the redemption of the elect.
· The Father promised the Son as an inheritance, the people for whom he died, and a name above every other name, under the condition of his obedience.
What is required of man? Is the Covenant of Grace conditional?
· Because of Christ stepping in and taking upon himself the punishment that was due man, man is required to have faith in God and repent of sins.
· Faith embraces the promises, repentance fulfills the commands
· We are also commanded to worship God alone.
· In gratitude, we are to do our part to advance his kingdom, spread the truth and defend his cause.
· Although these are commanded and required of God, he offers them to us as gifts.
· The things required us of by God are not in our power to perform due to our sin nature. God grants us what he requires because of the Cross of Christ, his requirements are gifts to us, we use them in gratitude for him saving us.
· The covenant does not rest upon anything that is in us, but upon the grace of God and his faithfulness in fulfilling his covenant to save man.
How do the Covenants of Works and Grace differ from each other?
· God is the author of both covenants but is viewed in different relations. In the first, he is creator and Lord; in the second, he is redeemer and Father. In the first, he is impelled by love and benevolence, in the second by special mercy and grace.
· In the first, there were only two parties, God and man. In the second, a mediator was required to reconcile man back to God.
· The first covenant was founded upon man’s obedience, the second upon Christ and his.
· In the first, life was promised for obedience; in the second, it is a gift of God.
· Works is the condition of the first, faith the second.
· The first was universal and affected all men; the second only affected the elect.
· The first would have given honor to man and would have been earned had Adam been obedient, the second is completely of grace and is not earned but given mercifully.
Was faith in Christ for salvation understood in the Old Testament?
· The question is not whether people in the Old Testament were saved, or had their sins for given, or whether they had hope of eternal life, and had a promise of a Messiah. The question is, were they saved by looking ahead to Christ and his sacrifice. Were they given enough clear evidence to be able to discern the truth or was all this shrouded in mystery?
Reformed View
· The scriptures teach that the Covenant of Grace is the same as the covenant made with Abraham. The scriptures teach of God coming to redeem his people.
· The covenant was repeatedly given to each succession of Abraham’s descendants in the Mosaic and Davidic covenants.
· There is a mediator who is the foundation of the covenant.
· Jesus and the Apostles taught from what was written in the Old Testament and explained from them how Jesus was the Messiah and how they predicted of his coming.
· People of both testaments are saved in the same way, justification through faith. The people of the Old Testament and New Testament had their sins forgiven based on the death of Christ. The scriptures speak of Christ’s death being from the foundation of the world; it was because of this sacrifice that God was able to create anything. Man was going to bring sin upon himself, and rather than leave man in it or give him his just punishment at that time, he already had a plan set up to take care of man’s disobedience, a sacrifice which took care of those sins. Faith in God justified the believer based on that sacrifice for sins, whether or not the sacrifice had taken place in time yet or not. All the names of the people who are to be redeemed have their names written in the “Book of Life” from the foundation of the world. Their names are in there because of the death of the sacrificial lamb, Christ.
Extent of the Covenant of Grace
Non-Reformed View
· The people who hold to the idea that man is not dead in sin, but only fallen and in need of help, maintain that the Covenant of Grace was made for everyone, Christ died for everyone, giving everyone a chance at salvation.
· They say Christ, by his death, reconciled the entire human race back to God.
· Because of this reconciliation, God has now made a Covenant of Grace with everyone.
· God is calling everyone to himself so they can be saved.
· They take the verses that seem to suggest that God is calling everyone and telling man if he will only obey, literally. They take this to mean that if God commands it, we have the power to do it.
· This is considered Universal Grace.
Reformed View
· They believe that these calls are particularly for the elect.
· Christ’s death was only for the elect, and only they have a real chance at salvation.
· However, they do believe in Common Grace, which is experienced because of the goodness of God to all humanity, this is what the non-elect are experiencing and what is confused with true salvation.
· There are two calls, internal and external.
· The external call goes out to everyone; these do not become saved, though they do experience the effects of Common Grace.
· The internal, only the elect can hear and respond to, these are the only ones who become saved.
The Twofold Economy of the Covenant of Grace
· The covenant is played out in both the Old and New Testament.
· The covenants between God and man in the OT are one in unity and find their fulfillment in the NT.
The Old Testament stretches from Adam to Christ
· The OT can be considered in three stages, Adam to Abraham, Abraham to Moses, Moses to Christ.
· The OT starts with the promise of salvation in Genesis shortly after the Fall and includes a promise of a Seed that would come from the woman. This referred to Christ.
· In the time from Abraham to Moses, God chose Abraham from all the people of the earth, renewed his covenant of salvation to him, and promised him a land and a people through whom the promise would play out.
· In Abraham all the families of the earth would be blessed, and through him comes the ultimate fulfillment of God’s plan to redeem man.
· This blessing of a people was also for his Seed, which was Christ.
· From Moses to Christ, or from the giving of the Law to the manifestation of the Messiah.
· In this period, with the giving of the Law, came guilt for sin and with guilt came a need for recompense, which was the sacrifice of animals or the shedding of blood.
· In this period were all the types and shadows that were designed to lead the people to:
· Hopelessness in sin, by the Law.
· A need to make payment for the sin in the sacrifices and offerings.
· These were designed to set them up for the need for something better, the need for a better sacrifice, which was going to be Christ.
The New Testament consists in:
· The fulfillment of these types and shadows from the OT with the coming of and death of the Messiah.
· The fulfilling of the Law by the Messiah.
· The giving of the Holy Spirit, made possible because of the death of the Messiah, which made payment for sins.
· Calling all nations to Christ.
· Adoption of people of all races into God’s family.
· Freedom from the Law, ceremonies and sacrifices.
· Sanctification, which is the formation of the redeemed sinner into the image of Christ.
· The giving of eternal life to all those who believe in Christ and are justified.
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