From Bavinck
Reformed Dogmatics v.3
Religious Experience and the Truth Question
[431] The revivals, as noted above, triggered the rise of the new science that is called the psychology of religion and that sometimes seeks to replace all philosophy of religion and dogmatics. Now we assume there will probably be no disagreement over the possibility and legitimacy of examining religious phenomena from a psychological perspective, provided this is done with appropriate sensitivity and respect.
For although being (esse) and perception (percipi) are by no means coextensive, the world exists for us humans solely in and through our consciousness. The content of that consciousness can therefore be considered and studied objectively, in itself and for its own sake, but also subjectively, from a psychological angle. And this psychological study in a remarkable way supplements the former and sheds a striking light on the phenomena that it thus considers, as it were, from below. This is the case in art, science, philosophy, the study of society, and elsewhere and has now become evident in the study of religion as well. The distinctive features in the religious life of a child, a young man or woman, the adult, and the aged; the links between religious development and physical, psychological, and moral development; the connection between religious awakening and puberty; the clarification of conversion through recurring transformations of one’s consciousness; the operation of subliminal forces in the religious process—all that and much more broadens one’s vision, deepens one’s insight into the religious life, and produces valuable results for the theologian, pastor, homilist, missionary, teacher, and nurturer.
But the psychology of religion is still a young science and therefore at times bent on picking fruit before it is ripe. One may extend one’s survey ever so far, but it is still always limited to a few dozen or hundreds of persons. And what do these say over against the millions who remain outside the survey and the investigation of whom would totally upset the conclusion that conversion or awakening is a natural and necessary process of the years of puberty? Further, one may select the persons one studies with ever so much care and formulate the questions one puts to them ever so skillfully; the answers given in response—like all autobiographies, diaries, confessions, conversion stories, and descriptions of personal states and experiences of the soul—can only be used and processed for the purpose intended with extreme caution. Intentional insincerity need not be a factor; but in this area there is such a serious lack of self-knowledge, so much danger of self-deception, such a gap between being and consciousness that one can frequently base very little on those accounts. And when these religious experiences, which often attach very different meanings to the same word, then have to be statistically analyzed, reduced to a single formula, classified, and generalized into laws, the difficulties become so mountainous that people shy away from drawing any general conclusions. In the history of religions, as in sociology and history in general, the search for fixed laws up until now has not met with success. There exists a well-founded fear, therefore, that the psychology of religion will not see its labors bear fruit as speedily as some think.
For example, there is probably a connection between religion and love, between religious awakening and pubescence, but what the nature of that connection is remains obscure. The same is true of the relation between soul and body. Also, it is altogether certain that many religious awakenings occur in the years of puberty, but the number of those that occur before and after that period is not insignificant either. The rule is marked by numerous exceptions. Further, while sudden conversions occur quite frequently in Methodist circles—though certainly not universally—some large Christian churches have never promoted them and have a different view of the way they occur. Finally, it can hardly be denied that many people, when questioned about the religion of their youth, tend to speak more of loss than of gain. And aside from these folks, also Starbuck and Hall recognize that in the period of adolescence not only religious-ethical personalities but also criminals, sex addicts, and drunkards are formed. If in the face of all these facts, one still maintains that conversion is a necessary developmental element in the period of puberty, this can be done only by separating conversion from its entire content and equating it with every transformation of consciousness. For example, there is a kind of conversion without any God concept, as James says somewhere, but also one from virtue to sin as well as from sin to virtue. Detached from its content, hence viewed purely psychologically and as a transformation of consciousness, the two are entirely the same. The psychology of religion can up to a point teach us what conversion often means in the practice of life, under what circumstances it sometimes takes place, what is sometimes passed off as conversion and passes for it; and by the study of persons and testimonies it can still significantly expand our knowledge in this area, but by itself it cannot possibly tell us what the difference is between a true conversion and a pseudoconversion, between worldly grief and godly grief; why conversion takes place in the life of one person and not in the life of another who perhaps lives in much more favorable circumstances, for example, as a member of a pious family; why it occurs in one person’s life in this period, and in another person’s life in a much earlier or later period. The reason is that it has no criterion of its own, and of itself it does not know what conversion is—and has to be. God, in his revelation, alone tells us what it is, or else no one tells us. Most arrogant, accordingly, is the assertion of some psychologists of religion that only psychological factors are operative in conversion and that there is no room for a supernatural factor. It cannot and may not make any pronouncement on this subject, since it only observes the exterior of religious phenomena, and neither here nor anywhere else does it penetrate to the most basic and final ground of the phenomena. The point where the finite touches the infinite and rests in the infinite is everywhere undemonstrable; and what happens in the depths of a human soul, behind one’s consciousness and will, is a mystery even for the person in question, and all the more so for those who are on the outside and have to rely on phenomena. The psychology of religion itself demonstrates this when it links seemingly sudden conversions with impressions and experiences incurred much earlier, and thereby confirms the distinction assumed in Christian churches between regeneration and conversion.
If the psychology of religion nevertheless stands by its preconceived dogma and attempts to explain all religious phenomena in exclusively psychological terms, it will get to the point where, instead, it will destroy the object of its study by robbing it of its true character. Suppose, for example, that it examines the religious phenomenon of prayer. It will, then, immediately discover that prayer consistently and everywhere implies the belief that God exists as a personal God who hears and also answers prayer. Now if the psychology of religion does not wish to stop with the observation of this fact but also wants to, and thinks it can, explain it in psychological terms, then at that very moment it is guilty of denying the nature of prayer. Just as the idealism that is grounded in theoretical knowledge, by removing from observation the implied belief in the reality of the outside world, undermines human knowledge, so the psychology of religion, which denies to metaphysics its right to exist, dissolves religious phenomena into delusions.
From this, moreover, it becomes evident that by the road it has chosen to travel, the psychology of religion can never demonstrate the validity, truth, and value of religion. For as long as in religion, as in law, morality, aesthetics, and so on, we cannot hold everything to be true, good, and beautiful but also acknowledge the existence of abnormal and pathological phenomena, as James and others in fact also do, then, in order to make our judgments, we either have to introduce a norm from another area or attempt to derive such a norm from the religious phenomena themselves. This latter option is the one chosen by pragmatism, a school of philosophy that also counts James as one of its adherents. Not the “roots” but the “fruits” will be the standard for the truth and validity of religious phenomena. Religion, says James, belongs to the “sthenic affections”; it is a vital force, one of “the most important biological functions of mankind.” What matters in religion is not so much what God is as how he is used by us. “Not God, but life, more life … is the end of religion. God is not known, he is used” [James]. By being and exercising such a vital force, religion proves its truth and validity.
This is a remarkable standpoint insofar as James here takes a position directly opposed to that of Kant, with whom he otherwise closely aligns himself. For Kant tried to free virtue completely from all eudaemonism. But here religion and virtue are recommended to us precisely because they foster the general well-being: because of their social utility. Still even with this utilitarian norm, James fails to surmount the difficulty, for if “life force” is the sole criterion for deciding the truth and validity of religion, it remains a question—one that can never be answered by historical research—whether Islam or Buddhism is perhaps in a stronger position than Christianity and whether superstition, which survives in all religions among a large segment of their people, does not come out on top against a purified religion. But aside from that issue, also in the assessment of what “life force” and “the promotion of general well-being” is, one cannot dispense with a firm criterion. For what matters in this connection is not merely vigor, power, brute force, but content. If “value” is proof of “truth,” there must first of all be agreement about that “value.” Pragmatism, to be consistent, would now have to say that that “value” can only be argued by its “value” and so on ad infinitum. Since this is impossible, pragmatism dead-ends unless it turns around and argues the truth and validity of religion by a route other than “value.”
James himself felt this as well when at the end of his work, he poses the question whether and to what degree the psychology of religion proves the existence of a corresponding objective reality and thereby the truth and validity of religion. He answers the question by saying that mysticism with its appeal to immediate revelation and theology and metaphysics with its speculation are powerless to prove it. But humans not only possess an intellect; they also have a heart, feelings, will. By means of the intellect, we reach only the phenomena, “the symbols of reality,” but by the heart, we come into contact with true objective reality, the noumenal world, “with realities in the completest sense of the term.” The heart, accordingly, must be restored to a place of honor. More vigorously even than the intellect in the sciences does this emotional and volitional side of humanity assert itself in the practice of life. It takes us to another view of the world and life than science alone can furnish us. All evaluations, especially religious and ethical evaluations, depend on personal will and are rooted in the heart. “The heart has reasons that reason does not know.”
Actually, in saying this, James is returning to the mysticism he initially rejected. On the foundation of a positivistic science, he attempts to erect the building of an idealistic worldview. To that end he splits the human being into an entity of intellect and one of will, and the world into a phenomenal and a noumenal world, and then says that the two are related to each other as symbol and reality, as menu and dinner. With respect to the unconscious, James, like Myers in his Human Personality and many members of the Society for Psychical Research, adopted the mystical theory, despite the fact that it has been opposed on very strong grounds by Pierce, Jastrow, Hall, and others. Admittedly, James does not go so far as to say that he accepts the indwelling and interior working of all sorts of supernatural agents in the unconscious, the heart, or feelings. But he does say that reality reveals itself and is felt there, that hidden ideas and forces are at work there, that God’s grace works its way through “the subliminal door.” Not without reason, therefore, he calls himself a “supernaturalist,” be it in a highly modified sense.
But the knowledge that James obtains of the supersensual by this route, the route of Schleiermacher and Schopenhauer, is minimal. It comes down to the fact that the truth of religion is demonstrated by psychological study only to the extent that there proves to be “something more” than science, which investigates the phenomena, makes known to us. Objectively, this “something more” is the essence of all religions, just as the corresponding feeling in humans constitutes the core of subjective religion. Of course, no one is satisfied with this “something more” in religion; everyone dresses it up differently and interprets it in his or her own way. These descriptions and explanations form the content of the “overbeliefs” that, though “absolutely indispensable,” still cannot claim objective validity. Everyone, therefore, has and must have his or her own religion, his or her own God. “All ideals are matters of relation.” It is even a question whether religious experience in fact proves or demands the unity of God. For it does not need an absolute power or a being with absolute metaphysical attributes, such as independence, simplicity, personality, and so on. All such attributes are empty titles, stones in place of bread; they offer “a metaphysical monster to our worship.” Religion only needs a higher power. There is perhaps an important truth inherent in polytheism. The infinite diversity of the world comes more into its own in a polytheistic worldview.
With these research results, James himself furnishes proof that the psychology of religion, although it can make important contributions to a better understanding of the religious life, can never, not any more than can the history of religions, replace or make up for dogmatics, philosophy, or metaphysics. It does admittedly teach us, at least to some extent, what religion is, how it is rooted in and links up with human nature as a whole, but it does not say anything about its content, its truth, and its validity. It is a good thing, therefore, to understand that in the end James again moved back to metaphysical territory and took refuge in the mystical background of religious phenomena. We have to choose: either religious phenomena are merely psychological and therefore a delusion (Feuerbach), or they are grounded in a reality that lies behind them. Even modern theologians and philosophers (Biedermann, Pfleiderer, Hartmann, Drews, and others) still assume the existence of an ontological base. The infinite indwells humanity, working in and through it. But because there is no true revelation of God in word and deed, strictly speaking, we know nothing about him. We only feel him in our heart and interpret what we feel in our religious concepts, which have a merely symbolic value. Granted, the idea of revelation is a necessary product of religion, but there is no revelation that factually underlies religion. Hence also on this position all religious phenomena (ideas, sensations) have only a psychological value, and the reality of religion is only sought in a vague and undefinable “essence” of religion. Religion, with all its ideas, sensations, and actions, can only be maintained as reality when it rests in revelation; and then that revelation at once provides the criterion by which religious phenomena (conversion, faith, prayer, and so on) can be assessed.[1]
Only Revelation Yields Reality and Truth
[432] In distinction from the psychology of religion, a science that can give only an inadequate account of subjective piety, the task of dogmatics is to set forth what the order of salvation is according to the word and thought of God. Knowledge of the Christian life, in its origin and development, can undoubtedly be helpful in teaching the dogmatician to better understand the meaning of Holy Scripture, just as in general it is a requirement for him or her to be a spiritual person able to discern the things of the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:15). But this by no means relieves dogmaticians from—rather only equips them for—the task of reproducing, not their own ideas, nor of writing a conversion history of the sinner, but of putting on display the treasures of salvation that God has caused Christ to acquire for his church and distributes to it by the Holy Spirit. Now Scripture is very effusive in summing up and in describing those benefits. It frequently mentions the same benefits under other names or represents them under other images. In Matthew 4:17, Jesus appears on the scene with the message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” but in Mark 1:15, he says, “Repent, and believe in the good news,” and in John 3:3, 5, he speaks only of being born again as the way into the kingdom of God.
Elsewhere we are told that only the narrow gate and the hard road lead to life (Matt. 7:13), or that one must hate and leave behind everything to be his disciples (Matt. 10:37ff.). What in the Old Testament is called the “circumcision of the heart” agrees in substance with what in the New Testament is called “regeneration”; and this word, which in John is repeatedly found on the lips of Jesus, is mentioned only once in Paul (Titus 3:5). Hence the idea here is not, anymore than elsewhere in dogmatics, simply to put side by side the concepts occurring in Holy Scripture or to think that the words that dogmatics employs have precisely the same content they have in Holy Scripture. “Regeneration,” “faith,” “conversion,” “renewal,” and so on, after all, here frequently do not denote consecutive components on the road of salvation but sum up in a single word the whole transformation that takes place in humans. “Its expressions are, so to speak, collective concepts, which do not denote either the individual stages, levels, degrees, or phases of development, but rather the completed fact itself.”
For this reason repeated attempts at simplification were made in the order of salvation. Pietism started with this when it placed the “penitential struggle” (Busskampf) and “breakthrough” (Durchbruch) at the center, and Methodism followed suit when it began to speak almost exclusively of conversion and sanctification. Schleiermacher moved rebirth into the foreground, dividing it into conversion and justification, and Ritschl highlighted justification and reconciliation. To the degree that sin is located more in the head or more in the heart (the will), was experienced more as guilt than as a pollution (power), the emphasis falls on justification (reconciliation, forgiveness, “sonship”) or on regeneration (conversion, redemption). The one-sidedness of these two tendencies, therefore, again leads others to combine these benefits and to treat—in the order of salvation—both justification and regeneration. As soon as a people want to avoid one-sidedness, however, the simplification they strive for begins to consist more in name than in substance, for in fact they subsume under a smaller number of categories the same subjects that in the older dogmatics were divided over several chapters. Simplification was frequently also achieved by the mere device of transferring various topics, such as regeneration and conversion, to the domain of ethics or treating justification, regeneration, reconciliation, and election as part of the doctrine of the work of Christ, so that only faith was left for soteriology.252 Over against all these attempts at real or apparent simplification, it is the calling of the dogmatician to proclaim the full counsel of God and to disclose all the benefits that are included in the one splendid work of salvation. As in the doctrine of the Trinity and the person of Christ, dogmaticians will indeed be compelled to sometimes use words that do not occur in Scripture or to assign to them a broader or narrower meaning than they possess in some places there. But their duty is not to repeat Scripture literally word for word but to discover the ideas that are concealed in the words of Scripture and to explicate the relationships between them. The various words and images that the authors of the books of the Old and the New Testament employ all contribute to the disclosure of the pivotal issue from a variety of perspectives and in all its riches and fullness.
Keeping this in mind, one must in the first place note that all the benefits that Christ acquired and distributes to his church are benefits of the covenant of grace. This covenant, though first revealed in the gospel in time, has its foundation in eternity: it is grounded in the good pleasure of God, the counsel of God. Christ was designated from eternity to be the mediator of that covenant and could therefore vicariously atone for his own in time. Hence already in eternity an imputation of Christ to his own and of the church to Christ took place. Between them an exchange occurred, and a mystical union was formed that underlies their realization in history, indeed produces and leads them. In the controversy with neonomianism, some Reformed theologians therefore began to speak of an “eternal justification” or of a “justification from eternity.” The concept that these theologians wanted to express by these terms is recognized by all of them, for Christ indeed from eternity offered himself as surety for his people, took their guilt upon himself, and imputed his righteousness to them in the counsel of peace. But the name they chose for this matter always elicited criticism from many. For not only did they accord to justification a very different meaning than that which it had from ancient times, but they also lost sight of the difference between the decree and its execution, between the “immanent” and the “objectivizing” act. Furthermore, even when it is considered in the decree, the satisfaction of Christ for his own is undoubtedly logically anterior to the forgiveness of their sins and the imputation of the right to eternal life. After all, those who reversed this order would in fact make Christ’s satisfaction superfluous and go down the road of antinomianism. The Reformed were always on their guard against this error as much as they were against that of nomism. Even those among Reformed theologians who accepted a kind of eternal justification never claimed that the exchange between Christ and his church in the pact of redemption already constituted full justification. But they considered it its first component and expressly stated that this justification had to be repeated, continued, and completed in the resurrection of Christ, in the gospel, in the calling, in the testimony of the Holy Spirit by faith and from its works, and finally in the last judgment. Accordingly, not one of them treated or completed [the doctrine of] justification in the locus of the counsel of God or the covenant of redemption, but they all brought it up in the order of salvation, sometimes as active justification before and as passive justification after faith, or also completely after faith. It is of the greatest importance, nevertheless, to hold onto the Reformed idea that all the benefits of the covenant of grace are firmly established in eternity. It is God’s electing love, more specifically, it is the Father’s good pleasure, out of which all these benefits flow to the church.
In the second place, on the Christian position there can be no doubt that all the benefits of grace have been completely and solely acquired by Christ; hence, they are included in his person and lie prepared for his church in him. Nothing needs to be added to them from the side of humankind, for all is finished. And since these benefits are all covenant benefits, were acquired in the way of the covenant, and are distributed in the same covenantal way, there is no participation in those benefits except by communion with the person of Christ, who acquired and applies them as the mediator of the covenant. The covenant of grace, the mystical union, the imputation of Christ to his church and of the church to Christ, all of which are rooted in eternity, are first of all objectively realized in time in the person of Christ, who was crucified, buried, raised, and glorified for and with his church. The bestowal of Christ on the church, therefore, also in this sense precedes the church’s acceptance of Christ by faith. How else could we receive the Holy Spirit, the grace of regeneration, and the gift of faith, all of which after all were acquired by Christ and are his possession? It is therefore not the case that we first repent or are reborn by the Holy Spirit and receive faith without Christ, in order then to go with them to Christ, to accept his righteousness, and are thus justified by Christ. But just as all the benefits of grace come to us from the good pleasure of the Father, so they now proceed from the fullness of Christ. Yet, just as earlier we made a distinction between the decree and its fulfillment, so here we must distinguish between the acquisition and the application of salvation. Kaftan is admittedly correct when he remarks that the doctrines of objective and subjective salvation may not be split up. But, aside from the fact that distinction is something very different from separation, this comment of Kaftan arises from a peculiar view of the benefits of grace. Justification (here equated with atonement) and regeneration (equated with redemption) are viewed by him not as specific moments in the spiritual life of a Christian but as “the saving act of God in Christ, which brings about the whole of Christianity.” The doctrine of the saving work of Christ must first of all be developed as the doctrine of regeneration, justification, and election. What is given in the person of Christ, specifically in his death and resurrection, is not merely an objective presupposition of salvation but is itself the saving act of regeneration and justification. This salvation in Christ is now effected wherever the word of Christ produces and finds faith. By that faith we are, according to God’s will, justified and saved before him. Consequently, all the benefits of salvation are discussed under the rubric of the work of Christ, and only faith is left for the order of salvation. Kaftan, therefore, equates redemption or regeneration with the resurrection,254 and justification or atonement with Christ’s surrender to death. Neither one is actually acquired by Christ, therefore, but is revealed in his death and resurrection,256 and now, in the word, becomes our possession by faith. Now, though it is perfectly correct to posit a most intimate connection between the work of Christ and the benefits of salvation and not to separate them even for a moment or at any point, there is definitely a distinction between what Christ did for us with God and what he now does for us with God, between the work he did in the state of humiliation and the work he does in the state of exaltation, between the acquisition and the application of salvation.
In the third place, it is only in this manner that justice can be done to the work of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of humans. It is remarkable and at the same time most understandable that in the work of Kaftan the person and the work of the Holy Spirit have almost completely dropped out of the order of salvation. It is only stated that the Spirit of God or Christ, by his vital presence in history and the Word, thus inwardly impacts us. The Spirit of Christ comes even less into his own in Herrmann and all who, with Ritschl, are averse to mysticism in religion. According to Herrmann, it is the image of Jesus that must directly affect people inwardly to arouse faith in them. Others tend to focus more on historical “mediations” in upbringing, preaching, church, sacraments, and so on and regard faith more as the fruit of the activity of the Holy Spirit in the church than as the effect that proceeds from the image of the historical Jesus in Scripture. In this connection we further encounter the question whether the Holy Spirit works only historically and mediately through the Word, the sacrament, and so on or also immediately and directly in the human heart.259 Connected with all this, finally, is the fundamental question whether the Holy Spirit is a force, a mind-set, a principle of the new life that proceeds from God, was manifest in the person of Jesus, and presently continues his work in the church, hence whether he is identical with the communal spirit of the church (Schleiermacher), with love (Lombard), with the new and holy life present in believers, or is, with the Father and the Son, the one true God to be praised in all eternity. If the latter is the case, as the Christian church on the basis of Scripture confesses against all Pneumatomachians, we still face the question whether the Holy Spirit always works in the human heart directly and immediately without the Word (Anabaptists), or only by the Word (Lutherans), or exclusively by the sacrament (Rome), or as a rule in connection with the Word. Depending on the answer given to all these questions and points of difference, the order of salvation acquires another character that manifests itself more or less in all subjects (calling, regeneration, and so on).
Reformed theology delineates itself as follows. Along with the whole Christian church, it accepted the Holy Spirit’s consubstantiality with, and personal distinction from, the Father and the Son; but from this position, in keeping with the scriptural data, it deduced that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, who, on the one hand, takes everything from Christ and freely binds himself to his Word but who, on the other hand, since the day of Pentecost, dwells personally in the church and in each of its members and fills them with all the fullness of God. All the benefits of salvation that the Father has awarded to the church from eternity and the Son acquired in time are at the same time gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thus Christ by the Spirit, and the Father himself by Christ, incorporates all his children into most intimate fellowship with himself.
In the fourth place, inasmuch as all these benefits of Christ are not an accidental aggregate but organically interconnected, the Holy Spirit distributed them in a certain order. Those who believe will be saved. Regeneration is necessary for us to enter the kingdom of God. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Without holiness no one will see God. Those who persevere to the end will be saved. One cannot obtain the ensuing benefits without having received the preceding ones. Calling, the preaching of the gospel, therefore, precedes all other benefits, for as a rule the Holy Spirit binds himself to the Word. That calling, however, serves not only at the start to invite nonbelievers to faith and repentance but also to admonish and warn, to teach and lead believers permanently. The proclamation of the Word continues without ceasing and to the end of life continues to insist on the mortification of the old and the putting on of the new “man.” It therefore differs depending on the persons to whom and the circumstances in which it addresses them. Peter spoke differently to his hearers on the day of Pentecost, and Paul spoke differently to the Athenians than either of them wrote in his letters to the churches. There is a distinction between mission preaching and church-oriented preaching. Even the administration of the Word in the midst of the congregation now highlights one truth and then another. Sometimes the staff of consolation has to be used, at other times the rod of chastisement. Sometimes one must build; at other times one must break down. The comfort of the promises of the covenant of grace must sometimes alternate from serious exhortation to self-examination. But it is always the same bountiful Word, which the Spirit employs to make the church grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. The Spirit even employs that Word not only in its public administration in the church but also in the family, the school, in public address, and in reading, in upbringing and education. And this calling (external and internal), with the corresponding acts of faith and repentance (arising from regeneration in the restricted sense), are, as it were, the initiatory benefits by which one obtains those that follow.
In the fifth place, these following benefits can be divided into three groups. Sin is guilt, pollution, and misery: a breach of the covenant of works, a loss of the image of God, and submission to the domination of corruption. Christ redeemed us from all three: by his suffering, by his fulfillment of the law, and by his conquest of death. Thus Christ’s benefits consist in the following: (1) he restores our right relation to God and all creatures (the forgiveness of sins, justification, the purification of our conscience, acceptance as children, peace with God, Christian liberty, and so on); (2) he renews us after God’s image (regeneration in the broad sense, renewal, re-creation, sanctification); (3) he preserves us for our heavenly inheritance and will some day free us from all suffering and death and grant us eternal blessedness (preservation, perseverance, glorification). The first group of benefits is given us by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, is accepted on our part by faith, changes our consciousness, and makes our conscience free. The second group of benefits is conferred on us by the regenerative activity of the Holy Spirit, renews our very being, and redeems us from the power of sin. The third group of benefits is communicated to us by the preserving, guiding, and sealing activity of the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of our complete redemption and wrenches us free in soul and body from the domination of misery and death. The first group of benefits is that which again anoints us as prophets, the second as priests, the third as kings. In the first, our eye is especially directed toward the past, to the historic Christ, to the cross of Golgotha, where our sin was atoned. In the second, our gaze is directed upward to the living Lord in heaven, where he is seated as high priest at the right hand of God’s majesty. In the third, we look forward to Christ’s future, a future in which he will have put all his enemies under his feet and deliver the kingdom to God the Father. These benefits, though distinct, are not separate. Like faith, hope, and love, they form a threefold cord that cannot be broken. It is Christ himself, the crucified and glorified Lord, who by his Word directs our faith to his sacrifice, by his Spirit incorporates us into his fellowship, and by both Word and Spirit prepares and preserves us for heavenly blessedness.
In the sixth place, by way of summary, we must treat four groups of benefits in the order of salvation: calling (with regeneration in a restricted sense, faith, and repentance); justification; sanctification; and glorification. Although the last usually is treated only at the conclusion of dogmatics, in the doctrine of the last things, it nevertheless actually belongs to the way of salvation (via salutis) and is inseparably bound up with the preceding ones. The four groups correspond to what Paul says of Christ (1 Cor. 1:30), “who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” In Romans 8:30, the apostle lists three benefits in which God’s foreknowledge is realized, namely, calling, justification, and glorification. All these benefits are temporal. Similarly, the phrase “he glorified” (ἐδοξασεν) does not refer—at least not exclusively and in the first place—to the glorification that awaits believers after death or after the day of judgment but, as is evident from the aorist, to the glorification that believers, by the renewal of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:2, 10; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 3:16), already experience on earth and that is fully unfolded at their resurrection on the last day (1 Cor. 15:53; Phil. 3:21). Hence the phrase ἐδοξασεν includes both sanctification and glorification. And therefore here, too, we encounter four main benefits that Christ acquired for and communicates to his own. Corresponding to these benefits are also the activities of the Holy Spirit and the operations of grace. In calling, the Holy Spirit primarily engages his convicting and teaching role and grants us preparatory, prevenient, and effecting grace. In justification, the comforting role of the Spirit and his illuminating grace are prominent. In sanctification, the Holy Spirit fulfills his sanctifying role and renews us day by day by his cooperating grace. And in the glorification that already begins in this life (2 Cor. 3:18), he fulfills his sealing role and totally restores us by his conserving and perfecting grace to the image of Christ in order that Christ may be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29).[2]
[1] Bavinck, H., Bolt, J., & Vriend, J. (2006). Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ (584–588). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
[2] Bavinck, H., Bolt, J., & Vriend, J. (2006). Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ (589–595). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
