Thankful Thursday

I’m thankful that my cupboards and fridge and freezer are full, and for the variety of fresh fruits and vegetables available to me even during the winter months. I’m thankful that God provides all these things. 

I’m thankful for an afternoon with my youngest daughter. I’m thankful that she was able to get into a dentist quickly for a root canal on her abscessed tooth. I’m thankful that she is pain free now and the tooth is saved. I’m thankful for gentle and competent dentists. 

Now that I think about it, I saw all my kids at one time or another today. I’m thankful that they all live nearby, at least for now. It makes my life a little crazy sometimes, with all the coming and going, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

I’m thankful (again) for clear skies and warm winter weather. I’m thankful for the sliver moon in the twilight sky. I’m thankful for the God-created beauty that surrounds me. 

I’m thankful for all the benefits of salvation. I’m thankful that God who begins a good work will complete it.

What about you? What are you thankful for?

Ordo Salutis

This is a redo of a post from 2005. I want to link it from the ordo salutis theological term page, but it needed a thorough clean up first.

Ordo salutis (also called order of salvation) refers to the order in which benefits of salvation are applied to those who are being saved. It’s important to keep in mind that the order of an ordo salutis is logical or causal. Some of the benefits are applied in a single instant and cannot be separated time-wise; yet one is the logical cause of the other.

There is disagreement among different groups within Christianity as to the exact order of salvation. Here are some examples of orders of salvation from various sources.

From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem:

1. Election (God’s choice of people to be saved)
2. The gospel call (proclaiming the message of the gospel
3. Regeneration (being born again)
4. Conversion (faith and repentence)
5. Justification (right legal standing)
6. Adoption (membership in God’s family)
7. Sanctification (right conduct of life)
8. Perseverance (remaining a Christian)
9. Death (going to be with the Lord)
10. Glorification (receiving a resurrection body)

(This order of salvation graphic from Tim Challies is the same as Grudem’s except that it does not include death.)

From A.A. Hodge:

1. Regeneration
2. Faith
3. Justification

These two lists would be orders of salvation from a reformed or calvinistic perspective, and while they are different in how many steps they include on the list, the order is similar.

An evangelical noncalvinist ordo salutis would be something like this:

1. Prevenient Grace
2. Calling
3. Conversion
4. Regeneration
5. Justification
6. Adoption
7. Sanctification
8. Glorification

In Grudem’s list, items 3-6 would occur at a single point in time, but the logical and causal order would be as given, because regeneration produces conversion, justification is on condition of the faith that comes from regeneration, and it’s justification that paves the way for adoption.

In Hodge’s list, all three items would be instantaneous, but regeneration produces faith and justification is on condition of faith. Once again, it’s logical, not temporal, order.

In the noncalvinistic list, items 3-6 would occur as one event. Notice how similar these are to items 3-6 on Grudem’s list, differing only in the order of items 3 and 4. In a calvinistic system, regeneration is seen as the cause of conversion, and in a noncalvinistic one, conversion is seen as the cause of regeneration.  

Finally, from Romans 8, an ordo salutis given to us in the Bible:

1. Foreknowledge
2. Predestination
3. Calling
4. Justification
5. Glorification

Somewhat Unnerving Company

From the chapter on holiness in 18 Words: The Most Important Words You Will Ever Know by J. I. Packer:

A holy person’s life will not centre on things: instead, a certain frugality will mark it, an eschewing of luxury and display, a sense of stewardship of all possessions, and a readiness to let them go if need be for the Lord’s sake. Holy people do not undervalue this world’s good things, as if God did not make or provide them…, but they refuse to be enslaved to them. Nor do they squint sideways to compare their material showing with that of others; they know that keeping up with the Joneses is not holiness, even if Jones goes to their church or is in orbit in some Christian celebrity circuit. The holy person lives free from the passion for possessions, just as he does from other forms of self-seeking and self-indulgence. His treasure is with God, and his heart too…. The cheerfulness of his disregard of the world’s scale of values, and the straightforward, single-minded, spontaneous ardour of his love for God may make him somewhat unnerving company, though if so it is because he is so much more honest and human than we who watch him, not because he is odd and we are normal.

This is just one of the marks of the holiness to which God calls his people. Packer sums of the positive side of holiness as “the maintaining of loyalty to God and the living of a life which shows forth to others the qualities of faithfulness, gentleness, goodwill, kindness, forbearance, and uprightness, on the model of God’s own display of these qualities in His gracious dealings with us.”