Salvation is a process, having its roots in the timeless eternity of God’s existence and bearing fruit throughout history and into the unending eternity of the heavenly existence of God’s saints. At various points in time, God has brought to pass various aspects of His grand work of the salvation of His people.
Some of the aspects of God’s salvation have double and multiple fulfillments. For example, regeneration may be a singular event, but conversion is a life-long process of transforming and renewing the mind (way of thinking). Even redemption is a multifaceted event. The payment of the redemption price was made once for all by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. But redemption involves more than merely paying a price; it also involves taking possession of the redeemed property. Therefore, it would be entirely appropriate to consider the Spirit’s call by the gospel to be an act of redemption, for in such a call God takes possession of the redeemed property. Such a call is also part and parcel of our redemption in as much as it is the actual loosing of the bonds of slavery to the law, sin and death. But there is even more to redemption than this, for in Romans 8 Paul speaks of our being delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, which he calls our adoption and the redemption of our bodies.
And what of justification? It might suit our desire for a neat and orderly theology to assume that justification is a singular event, but such a thought does not square with the Scriptures, for they speak of justification as happening on many occasions. To justify means to declare righteous. Since justification is by God, it is as eternal as He is. Justification is also the experience of each of the elect of God when he first believes the gospel, and it is also his experience on every occasion when his sin is brought to his attention, and he pleads the blood of Christ upon it. Furthermore, every one of the Lord’s elect shall be justified in that great day when God’s appointed day of judgment by Jesus Christ arrives and all his elect are declared righteous in His sight.
Many needless heresies, quarrels and controversies can be avoided by remembering that God’s grace has many facets, and each glorious facet appears in its own time. It is much more enjoyable to sit and gaze on the “manifold wisdom of God” in the various workings of grace than to sit in judgment on such works as to whether they fit well into our apprehension of the form they should take or schedule by which they should arrive.
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