New Life (Regeneration)
Since salvation belongs to God, it is he who grants us new life and true faith. As a consequence of the fall, all of Adam’s children (Rom 5:12–21) are, as Paul says, “dead in sins and trespasses” (Eph 2:1). The good news can be expressed in two words: “But God . . .” Paul explains:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:4–7)
The technical word for this making alive is regeneration. Sometimes it is called effectual calling. The Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the holy gospel (Rom 10:14–17) raises his people from spiritual death to spiritual life. Jesus called it being “born again” (John 3:3). When Jesus said that to Nicodemus, he was not speaking about an emotional experience, walking an aisle, or being slain in the Spirit. He was describing the sovereign, mysterious work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, mind, and will of a human being. As the man who was born blind said, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25).
Sometimes, in the providence of God, his people may live for a time in unbelief. In other cases, those who have been born into Christian homes, who are children of the covenant of grace, who were baptized, nurtured in the faith, catechized, and attending to the Lord’s Day, never know a day when they did not believe. This is a wonderful gift from God and not to be scorned for lack of a dramatic conversion story.
Faith Alone and Imputed Righteousness
As the Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ to his people, not only does he bless them with new life but, at the same time, he also grants them true faith. What is that? We say:
True faith is not only a certain knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word; but also a hearty trust, which the Holy Spirit works in me by the gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits. (Heidelberg Catechism [HC] 21)
This is the instrument through which God has always saved his people. Scripture says,
By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes according to faith. (Heb 11:7)
The sole instrument through which Noah was saved was faith. Genesis 15:6 tells us that Abraham “believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness” (Rom 4:3). It is not, as the Remonstrants said, that his faith was credited to him, but that his faith laid hold of Christ and Christ’s righteousness was credited to him. This is just how the apostle Paul interprets Genesis 15:6: “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom 4:3–5). It was not the quality of Abraham’s faith that made him righteous. It was the quality of the Savior that made Abraham righteous. He further explained,
But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Jesus accomplished our righteousness through his obedience for us (in our place), all his life, all the way to the cross (Phil 2:8). Everything he did was counted, reckoned, or imputed to us as if we ourselves had done it. We confess:
60. How are you righteous before God?
Only by true faith in Jesus Christ; that is, although my conscience accuse me, that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have never kept any of them, and am still prone always to all evil; yet God without any merit of mine, of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never committed nor had any sin, and had myself accomplished all the obedience which Christ has fulfilled for me; if only I accept such benefit with a believing heart. (HC 60)
The Medieval church taught (and the Roman Catholic church teaches) that we are justified on the basis of what happens inside of us. We confess and teach that the basis of our standing with God is what Christ did for us. The Holy Spirit surely works in us, but that is the consequence of what Christ did for us. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that we accrue merits in this life by grace and cooperation with grace and that God can only call righteous those who have become actually, inherently righteous. By contrast, we confess that God freely imputes to us sinners everything that Christ did for us. In the Reformation we declared that we are simultaneously righteous before God and sinners in this life (Rom 4:5). This was Paul’s confession in Romans chapter 7, where he recounts his (and our) struggle with sin in this life until we are glorified. That is why he declared in Romans 5:1, “Having therefore been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (my translation), and in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It is because Christ accomplished our righteousness and our salvation by his obedience, death, and resurrection that Paul said we are justified through faith alone: “We are justified by faith alone, apart from the works of the law.”1 This is our confidence: God accomplishes our salvation. He justifies us (Rom 8:33).
Union, Adoption, and Sanctification
In the second sentence of book 3 of his 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin wrote,
First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us. For this reason, he is called “our Head” [Eph 4:15], and “the first-born among many brethren” [Rom 8:29]. We also, in turn, are said to be “engrafted into him” [Rom 11:17], and to “put on Christ” [Gal 3:27]; for, as I have said, all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him. It is true that we obtain this by faith. Yet since we see that not all indiscriminately embrace that communion with Christ which is offered through the gospel, reason itself teaches us to climb higher and to examine into the secret energy of the Spirit, by which we come to enjoy Christ and all his benefits.2
When the Holy Spirit gives us new life and true faith, through that faith he bestows wonderful benefits on us. We have already looked at the first, justification, but there are three others: union with Christ, adoption, and sanctification. In justification we are thinking about Christ’s work for us, but in these benefits we are thinking about Christ’s work in us. What do we mean by “union with Christ”? In HC 55 we speak of believers as “members of the Lord Jesus Christ.” What does that mean?
It means not only to embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, and thereby to obtain the forgiveness of sins and life eternal but moreover also, to be so united more and more to his sacred body by the Holy Spirit, who dwells both in Christ and in us, that, although he is in heaven and we on earth, we are nevertheless flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, and live and are governed forever by one Spirit, as members of the same body are by one soul. (HC 76)
The apostle Paul uses conjugal language in Ephesians 5:30–32: “because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ [Gen 2:24]. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” The union between Christ and his church, between Christ and his believer is as mysterious and wonderful as the union between man and wife. By grace alone, through the secret work of God the Holy Spirit, we are bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. In Acts 2:28, Paul said to the Ephesian elders, “In him we live and move and have our being.” That is union with Christ.
This is how Paul thinks about our sanctification in Romans 6. By virtue of our mystical union with Christ we have “died to sin” (Rom 6:2). Our baptism is a witness to this union with Christ. It is an outward identification with his death (Rom 6:3). Though baptism does not itself accomplish this union, it testifies to what is true of us who are united to Christ. This means that our “old self” (Rom 6:6) has been crucified with Christ. Therefore, we are “no longer enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:7). Just as death no longer has dominion over Christ, who was raised from the dead and who broke death’s bondage, we who are united to Christ are able to fight sin, the flesh, and the devil. We no longer have to present our members to sin, but rather we are free to present ourselves to God “as those who have been brought from death to life” (Rom 6:13) because we are no longer under sin but under grace (Rom 6:14).
Not only do we enjoy mystical union with Christ but, according to Paul, we are “sons of God” (Rom 8:14). In HC 33 we confess, “Christ alone is the eternal, natural Son of God; but we are children of God by adoption, through grace, for His sake.” By grace, we have not only been elected but we have also been adopted (Eph 1:4). We have the Holy Spirit of adoption (Rom 8:15). That is why we cry out to God in prayer, “Abba, Father!” (Rom 8:15). The Holy Spirit, who has applied Christ’s work to us, even “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:16–17. See also Gal 4:5–6).
The pastor who wrote to the Jewish Christians considering going back to Moses and to the types and shadows reminded them that they are sons (Heb 12:5) and that our heavenly Father treats us as sons, which means that out of love he sometimes even chastises us (Heb 12:6). Hebrews says that in this God is treating us as sons (Heb 12:7). Any father who loves his children, which is what we are, in Christ, disciplines them. It is an unloving father who never corrects his children (Heb 12:8–9).
The Reformed confession of free salvation is a cause for great joy. We who believe have been loved by God, in Christ, for all eternity (Eph 1:4–5). Not only has he saved us from the wrath to come but he has given us new life and true faith. He has declared that we are righteous before him. More than that, he united us to himself so that we have the most intimate communion with him. And yet the benefits are more than that. He has made us all, male and female, sons and heirs. Paul says, “So that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7). In Christ we are “heirs of the promise” (Heb 6:17). We have been chosen to be “rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom” (Jas 2:5). On top of all this he is gradually and graciously conforming us to himself, and out of that grace, because of that grace, in faith, in union with Christ, we seek to respond appropriately by seeking to obey his will to the glory of his name and the encouragement of his church.
Notes
- This is the translation of Romans 3:28 that Martin Luther published in his German translation of the Bible in 1521 and the translation the Reformed churches confess in Belgic Confession 22.
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1 & 2, The Library of Christian Classics (Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 3.1.1.
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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