Dear Editor,

I write in response to the article entitled “Chanticleer” in the October 15, 2021 Letters Edition of Sword and Shield. At the outset, I would like to thank you for the article. I found it very helpful and insightful. However, I was left a bit confused by a couple statements made in this response to Professor Engelsma and therefore write seeking clarification.

In this article, the following teaching of Professor Engelsma (which he correctly asserts is also the teaching of the PRC) is condemned: “The PRC teach that repentance is the (God-given and God-worked) means unto the remission of sins. As means, repentance precedes remission of sins; as end, remission of sins follows repentance” (pg. 12).

However, while the article rejects the teaching that repentance is a means unto forgiveness, the article maintains as truth the teaching that, in time, repentance precedes forgiveness: “As to time, I know and everyone knows and no one is denying that faith precedes justification, that repentance precedes forgiveness, and all the rest” (pg. 12). “We are justified in the way of repentance? I will grant that, although now I am going to ask Professor Engelsma to explain that, because I see how corrupted that language has become. The phrase in the way of, which Hoeksema offered as a solution, is now being used to bring in a freight train load of false doctrine. And it is becoming increasingly clear that those who are doing it cannot stay with the phrase in the way of. They said previously, “in the way of,” wink, wink, and now they want to make sure that their audiences do not misunderstand. They are being forced to come out with what they believe, and what they believe is “means unto” and “because of” and “conditioned on.” We are justified by means of repentance? I absolutely deny that. That cannot be” (pg. 13).

In response to this article, I would like to make clear that I most certainly and unashamedly do deny that repentance precedes forgiveness in time. The whole point of my protest to the May 2020 meeting of Classis East, and a main contention of one of the protests to Synod 2020 and Synod 2021 was that repentance is not an activity of the believer that temporally precedes the blessing of experiencing the forgiveness of one’s sins 

Why do I so vehemently deny this?

I reject this teaching because such a temporal relationship denies the true, essential relationship between repentance and forgiveness. The teaching that repentance is before forgiveness in time denies the very essence of repentance as the fruit of faith and the very essence of forgiveness as the free gift of God in Christ through faith alone. The true, essential relationship between these two is that repentance is the fruit of knowing the forgiveness of sins through faith (that is, faith alone, apart from any repentance). One cannot maintain that repentance is the fruit of faith and maintain that repentance is before forgiveness in time without maintaining a contradiction. Such, I contend, is logical nonsense.

The Heidelberg Catechism teaches:

1. Repentance is “a sincere sorrow of heart that we have provoked God by our sins, and more and more to hate and flee from them” (HC QA 89).

2. As such, repentance “procede[s] from a true faith” (HC QA 91).

3. Faith is “an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart; that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits” (HC QA 21).

Therefore, that repentance is the fruit of faith means that repentance is the fruit of being assured of one’s forgiveness. In other words, the essential relationship between the two is that repentance is the fruit of experiencing forgiveness through faith. Such an essential relationship demands a certain temporal relationship because one’s experience in time cannot be different than reality. I readily grant that the actual time lapse between forgiveness and repentance is next to 0, which is why we understand the order of salvation to be a logical rather than a temporal order. Repentance is the immediate and inevitable fruit of having the love of God spread abroad in our hearts. It is as immediate as the product of a chemical reaction. The love of God forgiving our sins in Christ is shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit through the preaching of the gospel, and we repent before our infinitely gracious and merciful God. Thus, it is impossible that one know the forgiveness of sins and yet continue impenitent in sin. Nevertheless, there can be no repentance unless there is first the knowledge of the love of God in Christ freely forgiving all of our sins.

Furthermore, the temporal order must be first forgiveness and then repentance because God works in us as rational, moral creatures. As rational, moral creatures, we have a reason for everything we do. Why do we repent? We repent because we love God. Repentance is “a sincere sorrow of heart that we have provoked God by our sins, and more and more to hate and flee from them” (HC QA 89). Repentance, therefore, is an expression of our love for God and our hatred for sin. And why do we love God? We love God “because He first loved us” (I John 4:19). And how do we know the love of God? “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:9,10). The forgiveness of our sins in Christ is the reason why we repent. To repent for any other reason is not true repentance, but is a sorrow only for the consequences of sin. To repent for no reason at all but simply as a result of God commanding us to “Repent!” in His Word is to repent as a stock and block.

Truly, it is God’s gift of faith that changes our attitude toward God and sin. Truly, we repent by faith. That is, we repent out of the assured confidence that our sins are forgiven, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits. How, then, can it possibly be true and something not to be denied that “repentance precedes forgiveness” in the order of salvation? Furthermore, what exactly is the correct understanding of “we are justified in the way of repentance?”

Again, I appreciate the article, but am compelled to respond because I definitely have denied, and remain convinced that I must deny, the teaching “that repentance precedes forgiveness.” May God use all of our discussions for the establishment of His truth among us to the end “that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:” (Eph. 4:14, 15).

Sincerely in Christ,

Sara Doezema 

REPLY

Introduction

I appreciate this letter. It gives an opportunity to address on the pages of Sword and Shield the matter of the order of salvation—in Latin, the ordo salutis.

The order of salvation may be defined as the order in which the Holy Ghost applies to the elect the benefits of salvation merited by Christ the mediator and ordained for them by God the Father.

The order of salvation has always been the subject of debate, not only among the Reformed but also among the Reformed and the Lutherans and others. I think that much of the debate is useless wrangling about words or an attempt to justify one’s own pet ideas about salvation or to introduce false doctrine in the churches. It is especially the last point that bears repeating at this time. At the present time in the Protestant Reformed Churches, the idea of the order of salvation is being corrupted in the interest of justifying false doctrine in the churches.

I am not willing to throw out the order of salvation yet, but if it keeps producing the kind of worthless and ultimately deceptive and misleading theological debate that it has, then I do not need to talk about an order anymore. I can explain the truth of salvation without speaking of an order, and I have always regarded the order of salvation as more of a theological convenience than a theological necessity. The order of salvation is a useful theological construction to explain the various benefits of the covenant of grace and of union with Christ. But the order is not the be-all and the end-all of theology or soteriology.

Besides, Reformed theologians have made a hobby of coming up with different orders. And off the top of my head, I can come up with four or five different orders of salvation that I can defend for one reason or another and depending on how finely I want to parse the various works of salvation. The order could be faith, regeneration, calling, faith, conversion, justification, sanctification, and glorification. Or the order could be regeneration, calling, faith, justification, conversion, sanctification, and glorification. Or the order could be calling, faith, regeneration, calling, faith, conversion, justification, and glorification. You get the picture.

Since the concept of the order of salvation belongs to Reformed theology and has a long history in Reformed theology, we must understand the order and talk about it.

Arguing the Same Way

About the letter in general, I do not agree with the logic of Sara’s letter and with her conclusions, in the main. She uses undefined terms or defines terms for her own purposes. For instance, she uses the language “essential relationship.” She ends up with the following order of salvation: regeneration, calling, faith, justification, and conversion; although I do not fault her for that, and in some ways I find that order appealing.

Almost every theologian who has ever touched the order of salvation has added to it, taken away from it, or rearranged it as he sees fit.

In the end I find that the letter proceeds from the same mistaken view of the order of salvation that it ostensibly seeks to combat. This view is that the order is about time and what happens in time and in man’s experience and that the main thing with the order of salvation is the order.

Sara betrays that this is her understanding of the order when she says, “Such an essential relationship demands a certain temporal relationship because one’s experience in time cannot be different than reality.”

I do not know exactly what she means, but what she makes clear is that the essential relationship of the order of salvation demands a certain temporal relationship. With that I disagree. As proof I cite the logical relationship between the order of God’s decrees and the temporal unfolding of the decrees. The order of the decrees is Christ, predestination, the fall, and creation; but the temporal order of the unfolding of those decrees is the very opposite. So I disagree with Sara’s point that “an essential relationship” demands “a certain temporal relationship.”

She also says, “I readily grant that the actual time lapse between forgiveness and repentance is next to 0, which is why we understand the order of salvation to be a logical rather than a temporal order.” Her concern is time. The time is next to zero or basically simultaneous. Thus she says that is the reason we call the order logical. But we do not call the order of salvation logical because the time among the elements is virtually zero. For instance, that we are regenerated a split second before we are converted; or, in her example, that we are justified a split second before we repent.

We call the order logical because there is no time in the order at all. It is not a temporal order at all. So I will agree with Sara in her proposed order, but then I will say that the order itself is not the point of the order of salvation either. Sara is concerned that we experience forgiveness before we repent or that we know our justification before we repent. I leave it to God what experience he will give man and in what order.

God held the Philippian jailor—he is a common theme these days—over hell, and the man in desperation cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” I do not find Sara’s order of salvation in that story, and neither do I think the correct order in which the jailor experienced things is or ought to be the main point of scripture in that passage.

Reverend Koole used considerations about the order—first regeneration, then calling, then repentance, then faith—to justify his Arminian explanation of that passage and his calling Reverend Hoeksema’s exegesis of the passage nonsense. The whole Protestant Reformed denomination is awash in the view that the order of salvation is about time, and that understanding of the order is being used to bring in false doctrine and to call the gospel nonsense.

The Lord gives to this one and to that one their own experiences.

Luther was troubled with terrible guilt for many years, so that Luther said that he even loathed the thought of God until Romans 1:17—“Therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith”—was opened up to him, and the blessed gospel of justification shown its light into his darkened soul. I do not find the letter’s order of salvation there either.

It appears to me that Sara argues the same way as those whom she opposes. The view of the order of salvation that she seeks to combat is that there are God-wrought activities (or experiences) of man that precede blessings of God. The order that she proposes in replacement is simply a reorganization of the order in a way that she supposes eliminates activities (or experiences) of man that precede works of God. In short, she proposes an arrangement in which she supposes that experiences line up with the theology of the order.

But the principle both of the order that she rejects and the order that she proposes is the same. The principle is that the order is mainly about man—his experience and his activities—and about explaining man’s experience in a theologically correct manner by an appeal to or by the creation of a correct order of salvation.

That principle is mistaken. The order is not about man’s activities or the correct order of man’s experience. The order is not even mainly about an order. I am not willing yet to throw out the idea that there is an order of salvation and that the order is logical, but the order—the precise, definite order—of the application of salvation is not the point. Surely then, the order may not be pressed into providing a theological rationale for man’s experience and man’s activities. For that reason when someone argues about experience strictly on the ground of the order, I will concede the point. So you want to say that repentance precedes justification; fine. You want to say that the order is justification, then conversion; that is fine. You had better define your terms, but I can see both orders.

The classic Reformed order of salvation, if we may use the word classic in connection with the order of salvation, is regeneration, calling, faith, conversion, justification, sanctification, preservation, and glorification.

What the Order Is

In that light and for the sake of Sara and others, I take up a broader explanation of the order of salvation. Over against the Protestant Reformed position on the order of salvation that there are God-wrought activities that precede God-wrought blessings and that there are God-wrought activities that are means unto the acquisition of other God-given blessings, I reject that position as a fundamental corruption of the order of salvation. To those who would contend against the Protestant Reformed position, I caution them not to contend for a novel order but to insist that the Protestant Reformed Churches have corrupted the order of salvation in order to carve out a place for man in his salvation. Contending against that corruption, I say that the order of salvation is not about where man’s activities—God-wrought or not—are included, so that by doing them man brings about the next installment of his salvation or the next blessing. And over against Sara’s view of the order of salvation, the order is not about what man experiences first and then second or about providing the correct theological framework for that experience by developing a new order of salvation.

Turning to the issue of the order of salvation, there are some profitable things that we can say about it.

I have said before and will say again that at the point of union with Christ and regeneration, the elect child of God receives all of salvation as a complete whole, or what scripture calls the gift of the Holy Spirit or the earnest of our inheritance. Salvation is one complete, organic whole, not a series of steps or stages along which man advances. We receive complete salvation in our union with Christ and according to God’s eternal appointment.

The ground for this truth is Canons 1.17: “Godly parents have no reason to doubt of the election and salvation of their children whom it pleaseth God to call out of this life in their infancy” (Confessions and Church Order, 159). Salvation here is union with Christ and the reception of every benefit of salvation in that union as determined by God’s decree. Without a single activity on their part, these elect children have all of those benefits at the point they are called to glory. As little as their activities have to do with receiving the benefits of salvation, so little do adult activities have to do with receiving this or that benefit of salvation. The activities of self-conscious members of Christ are not means unto receiving the next installment of salvation’s benefits. The activities are fruits of the benefits given.

The ground for my assertion that we receive all of salvation at the point of union with Christ is also the Reformed baptismal form, which calls the elect infants of believers “sanctified in Christ” (Confessions and Church Order, 260). These infants have not believed, have performed no activity, have obeyed no commandment, and have not even heard the gospel, and they are sanctified. They are sanctified as infants and without their activity. “Sanctified” in this instance is not a reference to one particular benefit of salvation but is a summary of the whole of their salvation in their union with Christ their savior. You could without any injustice or without doing any violence to the meaning of the phrase “sanctified in Christ” translate it as union with Christ. The elect infants of believers are one with Christ, and so they are regenerated, are called, have faith, are justified unto eternal glory, and are sanctified as saints.

There is the question, then, why even speak about an order of salvation? Is not salvation accomplished and perfect in Christ? The answer is that when we speak about the order of salvation, we are not speaking about the accomplishment of salvation at the cross but are speaking about the application of salvation to the elect in their hearts and lives. The salvation in Christ must come into their possession. The Holy Ghost applies salvation to them. This application of salvation is what is treated in the order of salvation.

Then do we not receive all of salvation completely at the moment of our union with Christ? Yes. Yet that whole salvation is like a diamond into which one beam of light is refracted into its many colors. There are many benefits that scripture teaches us belong to our salvation. It is in this connection that we speak about an order of salvation. The purpose of the order is to explain the different benefits of salvation.

Herman Bavinck explained the reason that theology regarded an order as necessary: “Inasmuch as all these benefits of Christ are not an accidental aggregate but organically connected, the Holy Spirit distributes them in a certain order.”¹

Exactly what Bavinck meant by “accidental aggregate” is not clear. I think what he meant has to be understood in light of the task of the preacher and the dogmatician. All the benefits of Christ are an aggregate. They are one organic whole called salvation. Yet these benefits are not simply heaped together. There is a relationship among them. Bavinck described that relationship as “organically connected,” and I like that description. Stop thinking about the order of salvation as linear. It is organic, as a vine and its branches. Christ is the root, and out of him all blessings flow. The order is logical, and the logic that governs the order is the logic that says that God must be glorified in Jesus Christ in everything.

The Minister’s Task

That aggregate of salvation has many benefits, all interconnected. It is the task of the dogmatician and the preacher not merely to say the word salvation or even to repeat over and over that salvation is all of grace or that salvation is all of the Lord. But it is the task of the preacher and the dogmatician to explain with each blessing of salvation and in the interconnectedness of the various benefits of salvation how salvation is of the Lord and to show forth and declare the glory of God and the excellence of his grace in Christ. The order of salvation is about salvation and that salvation is of the Lord, and that logic must govern every explanation of the various benefits of salvation and also the explanation of the interconnectedness of those benefits. For example, in connection with conversion, the task of the dogmatician is not to explain that now man becomes active in order next to be justified. In connection with justification by faith alone, the task of the dogmatician is not to show how man is active in faith in order to be forgiven. The task is to show the glory of the grace of God in the work of man’s conversion. In connection with justification by faith alone, the task is to show how justification by faith alone makes justification wholly without man’s works. The dogmatician is to be a minister of the glory of God and not a false prophet for the glory of man.

Regarding the relationships among the various benefits of salvation, the minister’s task is to unfold those relationships so as to magnify God and his grace. For example, man is dead in trespasses and sins, and he must be made alive in order to hear the call. God must make man alive, and making him alive God must call man; so the logical order is regeneration and calling. He is the God who calls the things that are not as though they were and who raises the dead. Without faith no man can repent or be justified; so the logical order is faith, conversion, justification. God works faith, God converts, God justifies. Without being freed from the guilt of sin, no one has the right to be freed from the bondage and pollution of sin; so the order is justification and sanctification, and the mercy and justice of God is magnified. There is an internal beauty and harmony in the whole work of salvation that reveals the glory of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

When theologians and ministers make it their business to use the order of salvation to explain how man must do this in order to get that or that God makes man active in order that man can then receive something from God, that is a base and nefarious corruption of the order of salvation.

Bavinck also pointed out the necessity of defining our terms dogmatically versus simply transferring scriptural terms into our discussions. I would add that this holds sometimes for the creeds too. Sometimes, the creeds use the word regeneration to refer to what we call conversion or sanctification, for example in Belgic Confession 24. So Bavinck said,

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. (589)

And quoting W. Schmidt, Bavinck wrote,

Its [scripture’s] expressions are, so to speak, collective concepts, which do not denote either the individual states, levels, degrees, or phases of development, but the completed fact itself. (589)

In other words, when scripture, for example, uses the word regeneration, it does not necessarily mean what dogmatics calls regeneration, but scripture sometimes uses the word regeneration as a one-word summary of the whole of salvation. Or if the text is focusing on faith, as far as scripture is concerned, when God bestows faith that man is saved from hell and death and is delivered into heaven. And the same can be said for the other benefits of salvation, for example the calling. Being called, a man is saved. He is saved completely in that calling, and that calling is really a one-word summary of his whole salvation. So 1 Peter 2:9 says, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

Bavinck continued,

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…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. (590)

The point of the order of salvation then is twofold. First, it is to disclose all the benefits in the work of salvation. Second, it is to explain the relationships among the various benefits. In the order of salvation, there is distinguishing that takes place within the whole work of salvation, wherein each benefit is examined, and there is an exploration of the relationships among these various benefits.

The order is not temporal at all. Whatever happens in time, whatever the temporal order of the experience of salvation may be, that is not the business of the order of salvation. It is concerned with the benefits as such and with the relationships of those benefits to the others; and in all of those explanations, both of the benefits and of the relationships, the order is concerned to show the glory of God and Jesus Christ his Son.

Non-Negotiable

In discussing the order of salvation, there are a number of inflexible propositions.

First, it is a God-glorifying order. It is properly theological. It teaches from beginning to end and at every point in between that salvation is of the Lord and through the Lord and to the Lord, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Second, the source of all salvation treated in the order of salvation is election. What is given in the order of salvation was decreed for and given to the elect in eternity in God’s counsel. In eternity the elect are saved. So in the order of salvation we are not studying what man does to be saved but what God gave to his elect in eternity.

Third, the benefits are completely and solely acquired by Christ. All that is applied to the elect was acquired first by Christ at his cross. There is nothing that is given that was not first acquired. For example, Christ acquired for his elect the right to believe, the will to believe, and the believing itself. The salvation that is applied was merited for the elect wholly at the cross. At the cross the elect were saved without any activity of theirs. In the order we study what is perfect in Christ and what from him is applied to his elect without their works or activities, but with all works or activities being fruits of that application. The activity is to be connected backward with the gift of salvation, of which the activity is the fruit, and not to be connected forward as a condition or a prerequisite or the means unto the benefit that is discussed afterward.

Fourth, the worker of salvation is the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ saves in unfolding God’s decrees and in applying unto the elect the benefits of Christ’s cross. We might say that the personal agent in the application of salvation is the Spirit of Jesus.

It is wicked in the study of the order of salvation to make that order about what man does and which by doing man brings about the next installment of salvation. The study of the order of salvation is in a very real way a special study of the work of the Spirit of Christ. He may not be dishonored in his work of salvation, as though his role were to make man active so that man can receive the next benefit of salvation. The Spirit of Christ regenerates, he calls, he converts, he works faith, he justifies, he sanctifies, and he glorifies.

Fifth, the beginning of this order is union with Christ and inclusion in the covenant of grace. That union with Christ is before all. The elect are joined with him and are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. In that union the whole Christ is theirs; and in the order of salvation, we are explaining what becomes theirs in Christ with that union.

Sixth, the order is strictly logical. It is as strictly logical as the order of God’s decrees. Time is not a consideration. We speak in the ordering of the decrees of first, second, and third, and time is strictly excluded. Likewise, there is no time in the order of salvation at all. The moment the elect are united to Christ they participate in all of his salvation. The order of salvation is to explain that salvation. The logic of the order is the logic of Romans 11:36: “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”