1. We now continue to build the basic framework for a biblical ordu salutis. We are using Rom 8:28 30 to give us a foundational sequencing or arrangement. We are now identifying other blessings of salvation and inserting them into this basic structure to fill out the order of the blessings of our experience of being saved. Thus far we are constructed this order: calling - regeneration - repentance and faith - justification - glorification.

2. As we build what remains in the ordo, we will see the importance of faith in the Christian life. We will discover the truth of Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; but the righteous will live by his faith.

A. The Relationship between Faith and Justification

1. We must be careful not to confuse God's decree to justify, we locate in eternity past, with the act or blessing of justification which the Christian is given in this life. We must not confuse God's eternal will to act with the act itself. I'm warning you against what is commonly called "Hyper-Calvinism." "Hyper" means over, above. In other words, a truth which is characteristic of Calvinism, that God is sovereign and acts according to His eternal decree or will, is distorted and taken to an imbalanced extreme. The doctrine is stretched beyond or over the boundaries revealed in the Bible. You may meet up with Hyper-Calvinism when you read theologians who write about justification.

2. Hyper-Calvinism is a theological imbalance which overemphasizes God's decretive will and minimizes God's preceptive will; it so emphasizes the sovereign will of God that it ignores the necessity of creation and of history. The Bible begins with Creation and man as made in the image of God. We learn that God's sovereign purposes are worked out in history, but that history is significant and has moral meaning which God judges. Hyper-Calvinists give the impression that Final Judgment will be the revelation of God's secret sovereign purposes, but Scripture describes Final Judgment as God judging men according to their works, according to the moral and spiritual significance of the life they have lived, according to actual history.

3. But speaking of justification: to say that God decrees to justify is not to say that the elect are thereby justified. This is called "the doctrine of eternal justification." Some so emphasize election as though the main thing about Christianity is finding out if you are one of the elect. This is a dangerous distortion of the balanced arrangement seen in Scripture's ordu salutis. A biblical ordu does not connect justification with God's decree, but it is placed in relation to faith. Faith is a saving grace given to the elect, who have been regenerated. It is only when the regenerated sinner exercises faith that he is given the blessing of justification. Unless and until a person exercises faith, we cannot say if he has been regenerated nor can we presume that he is justified. Faith is the evidence of the new birth and the hand that receives the gift of justification.

4. If you have cooked a meal following a recipe, you know how important it is to get the right ingredients and to put them together in the right sequence. If you do not follow the recipe, you will cook a terrible meal, maybe even a poisonous meal! As pastors, we need to know the recipe that God follows when the Holy Spirit applies salvation to sinners. We will then be able to better discern God's dealings with ourselves and with men.

5. We will learn that the basis of justification is the objective work of Christ. The basis and substance of our justification is what Jesus has accomplished for us in His death and resurrection. We receive the gift of justification by faith, when we believe in Jesus as He is revealed to us in the gospel. Unless and until a man and believes, he is not justified. Justification is given to the believer.

6. Faith is seen to be the instrument by which justification is received.

i. Rom 1:17 For therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith (evk pi,stewj).
ii. Rom 3:22 even the righteousness of God through faith (dia. pi,stewj) in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction
iii. Rom 3:24,25 being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth (to be) a propitiation, through faith (dia. @th/j# pi,stewj), in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God;
iv. Rom 3:26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (to.n evk pi,stewj VIhsou/).
v. Rom 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith (dikaiou/sqai pi,stei) apart from works of the Law.
vi. Rom 3:30 since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith (evk pi,stewj) and the uncircumcised through faith (dia. th/j pi,stewj), is one.
vii. Rom 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith (dikaiwqe,ntej ou=n evk pi,stewj), we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
viii. Gal 3:8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith (evk pi,stewj), preached the gospel beforehand unto Abraham, (saying,) In thee shall all the nations be blessed.
ix. Gal 3:24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith ( evk pi,stewj dikaiwqw/men ).
x. Gal 2:16 yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith (dia. pi,stewj) in Jesus Christ, even we believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ (kai. h`mei/j eivj Cristo.n VIhsou/n evpisteu,samen [aorist active indicative] (i[na dikaiwqw/men [aorist passive subjunctive] evk pi,stewj Cristou/), and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

a. We believed in order to be justified.
b. The order is clear: faith precedes justification. We can also recognize a logical relationship in that faith is instrumentally related to receiving the blessing of justification.

xi. Phi 3:9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, (even) that which is of the law, but that which is through faith (dia. pi,stewj) in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith (evpi. th/| pi,stei):

7. Gen 15:6 Then [Abraham] believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

i. Faith precedes God reckoning. Reckoning is the language of justification.
ii. Our interest in the ordo salutis is satisfied in seeing that faith precedes justification.

8. Thus far we have the following arrangement: election, calling, repentance and faith, justification, and glorification.

B. The Relationship Between Faith and Adoption

1. Scripture also locates the blessing of adoption after regeneration and faith. Adoption is closely aligned with justification. Older writers in the 18th and 19th century, did not differentiate the two.

i. Jn 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.

a. The verb tenses are crucial if we are to understand the ordo salutis. Received, gave, and become are each aorist, past tense verbs. Believe is a present active participle. The action, therefore, is something like this: those who are presently believing are doing so because they previously received Christ [by an initial act of faith]. When the initially believed, they were given the blessing of adoption. Consequently, those who are believing are seen as already having been adopted. As soon as they believed, they were adopted as sons God. You can see how adoption is closely aligned with justification which is also given when the sinner first believes.
b. Adoption is a legal blessing, similar to justification. John says it is a right (evxousi,an) with the authority to exercise that right. This right is not regeneration, but when we see faith, we can presume that the one believing has already been born again. Knowing that faith follows regeneration, we can also deduce that regeneration comes before adoption. Also, we would place justification before adoption sin God would not adopt one into His family whose sins He had not forgiven and who had not been accepted by Him as righteous. Here we see an order: regeneration, then faith, then justification and adoption.

ii. Whenever you read about out inheritance in Scripture, you are looking at the doctrine of adoption. Only sons are given an inheritance. Eph 1:13,14 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation - having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.

a. What sequence does Paul describe? First, hearing the message of the gospel (effectual call); then, believing; then being given the Holy Spirit as the down payment of our inheritance, which is to say with the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are made sons of God. We see that faith issues into adoption.

iii. Gal 3:26 For ye are all sons of God, through faith (dia. th/j pi,stewj), in Christ Jesus. Faith is the instrument by which the blessing of adoption is received. 

2. The order then is: calling, regeneration, faith and repentance, justification, adoption, glorification.

C. The Relationship Between Faith and Definitive Sanctification

1. We generally think of sanctification as the progressive, an ongoing process which characterizes the Christian life. But before we consider our growth and progress in holiness, we must recognize an aspect of sanctification which is also similar to justification and adoption: definitive sanctification. We are not only made holy in our persons, but we are positioned as holy. Perhaps the most frequent reference to our definitive sanctification is when the Biblical calls us saints. Here we are defined by the word "holy," or "sanctified," that is, we are definitively "saints."

2. We see a "once-for-all," definitive holiness in the following verses:

i. Acts 20:32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified (toi/j h`giasme,noij: perfect passive participle). Paul describes Christians as those who are in a state of having been sanctified. God has positioned them as holy, separated them unto Himself.
ii. Acts 26:18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me (evn toi/j h`giasme,noij pi,stei th/| eivj evme).'

a. The tense of sanctified is a perfect passive participle indicating a status, a standing, a position of sanctification.
b. Note as well how this positional holiness parallels the Christian's justification and adoption. The believer is established before God in Christ as legally righteous (justification), legally an heir (adoption), and legally holy - separated out from the world and positioned in relation to God (definitive sanctification) so as to be qualified to enter the Lord's temple to offer worship.

iii. 1 Cor 1:2 to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus (h`giasme,noij evn Cristw/| VIhsou/), saints by calling (klhtoi/j a`gi,oij), with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

a. The Christian's position is in Christ, a position into which he is called.
b. In that position, we stand sanctified and are defined, named, "saints."

iv. 1 Cor 6:11 And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

a. The verb tenses are all aorists which speak of a past completed action. The Corinthian Christians were definitively washed, sanctified, and justified. That the sanctification mentioned here is definitive is seen not only by virtue of the aorist tense, but also in that it is positioned before Paul mentions justification. We know that justification occurs at the outset of the Christian life and that progressive sanctification characterizes the Christian life itself. If Paul were speaking of progressive sanctification, we would expect him to mention justification first and then sanctification.
b. We will learn that regeneration is also a washing, a definitive cleansing which is also involved in our definitive sanctification. When God saves us, He makes us holy. Paul describes the Corinthians as having been washed (regenerated), definitively sanctified, and justified.

v. Eph 5:26 that He might sanctify (a,gash: subjunctive aorist active) her, having cleansed (kaqari,saj: aorist active participle) her by the washing of water with the word. Sanctify is in the subjunctive mood of potential and speaks of Christ's intent to make His bride, the church, holy. This refers to the progressive character of sanctification. But this progressive holiness is predicated upon a past completed cleansing, which speaks of definitive, positional sanctification

3. We see from this survey that definitive sanctification follows upon faith in Christ and must therefore be positioned in the ordo alongside of justification and adoption as further describing the change made in the believer's status in Christ, the change in the believer's relationship to God in union with Christ. Definitive sanctification precedes progressive sanctification as well and is established in regeneration. So there is an aspect of definitive sanctification which also concerns how God changes the believer. God not only changes our relationship to Him, but He changes us as well. The arrangement of saving blessings are now: calling, regeneration, faith and repentance, justification, definitive sanctification, adoption, glorification.