Theologians debate the Ordo Salutis, or ‘order’ of salvation. Describing it can get us into some of the deeper questions about how the Lord rescues us.
By ‘order’ I don’t mean the chronological order, what happened first and what happened second. Several of these events will have been concurrent with each other, and time and salvation are trickier than they first appear. Instead, I mean the logical order of the process. What had to happen first and who does what when.
I understand the order of salvation to look like this:
Election – (Atonement) – Calling – Regeneration – Faith – Justification – Sanctification – Glorification
Which might initially raise some questions if you’re familiar with the words but less familiar with this way of construing Jesus’ work on our behalf. The one that tends to catch people is placing regeneration (being born again) before faith. This is a view of salvation that’s often referred to as ‘Calvinism’ and occasionally (semi-erroneously) as being ‘Reformed.’ People argue about the names as much as the content. Which is because names deeply matter, of course.
What do I mean by each of these stages? Let me very briefly paint you a picture.
Election
The Lord God in heaven does as he pleases (Psalm 115), foreknew our plight (Romans 8) and ordained that the Son would be slain for us (Revelation 13) and who he would call to himself. God chooses who to save before he even created the world, and then he in his sovereign power causes the rest of these events to happen (Ephesians 1). And also everything else that there ever was.
We get squirly about this, partly because of our innate sense of fairness and partly because we think time is a linear progression from one thing to another (both of which are half-truths). I think it’s difficult to argue that the Bible doesn’t teach this, and I tried hard for years.
Atonement
The epoch changing pivot of the cosmos: the death and resurrection of Jesus for our sake. This is applied to us later in this sequence. It’s here, and in brackets above, because it happened in time after our election (though Revelation 13 might suggest that’s not the right way of thinking about it) and before we ourselves were saved.
Calling
This has two parts, an outward and an inward call. The outward call is where someone hears the gospel being preached to them (Romans 10). We hear that Christ died for sins and therefore we must repent and put our trust in him to be saved. You can do that right now reading this if you haven’t before.
The inward call is where this preaching of the gospel is applied by God to people’s hearts. As dead sinners (Romans 3) we can’t respond to the Lord without the breath of God—the Holy Spirit—calling us to do so. This brings about a willing response of faith by regenerating the person.
Regeneration
The Lord turns a heart of stone into a heart of flesh (Ezekial 36). He makes us alive and ‘saves’ us—though you could talk about ‘salvation’ for any one of these steps and more besides, this is what Christians usually mean when they say ‘saved.’ If you’re unclear when someone talks about salvation, do ask them to distinguish: saved can be a slippery word! Since we were dead in our sins, we had no desire to turn to God. That desire is placed in us by God.
Faith
The Bible is clear that salvation requires a response of faith (John 3). God creates this in us. This is our response to calling and regeneration (Ephesians 2). Faith is where we cast on Jesus our trust and hopes and believe that he has done it for us. Everything is a gift, even faith.
Justification
God dramatically changes our status because of our faith. We enter the covenant community and are declared righteous in his sight; he counts Jesus’ righteousness as though it were ours. Justification is a legal declaration that we are righteous, which means having right standing with God (Romans 3).
This can only not be travesty of justice because Jesus takes our guilty status and punishment, and we get his status as a son and heir. He did this for us on the cross (2 Corinthians 5).
Sanctification
This refers to us being made holy. The Church is declared holy by God and so that is what we are (1 Peter 2).
Christians usually use the word sanctification to describe us being made fitting with what God says that we are: holy and righteous. This is not a single step—we grow in likeness to Jesus over time through trial, through testing, through obedience, through discipline, and through the repeated habit of the sacraments (Romans 12, Philippians 2, Hebrews 12). It will be completed at Jesus’ return where we will truly be like him and will sin no more. We can (and should!) grow in holiness throughout life, but we will not become sinless.
Sanctification happens by grace, not by our efforts. It involves good works, but they are the fruit of changes God makes in our soul.
Perseverance
All who are truly born again will persevere to the end (John 8, 10, Romans 8). Only those who do persevere have been born again. Those who finally fall away may seem to be saved. This can induce a lot of worry: are you one of those who will persevere? While I follow how people get there, it’s supposed to give us hope that even one such as I can be saved. We’re told to make our election sure (2 Peter 1) with the good fruit of our lives, and the Bible’s warnings are there to make us persevere. Keep going and follow Jesus, the Lord will ensure his sheep persevere (John 10).
Glorification
One day we will be made like Christ (1 John 3). We will dwell with him on the new earth in new bodies and all of creation will be renewed (Revelation 21-22). This is the great hope that we are living for.
Accomplished by God
Every single step of this is done for us as a gift by the Lord Most High. He didn’t have to. No one twisted his arm. Some obscure law of his own creation didn’t require it. Instead—for the joy set before him (you!)—he gladly gave up his life to an agonising death to rescue his own. He did it because he loves you.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
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