Friday, March 4, 2011

Salvation Accomplished!

What a beautiful picture of the Trinity is seen in my own salvation! As the Father, Son, and Spirit are three and yet one, similarly, as a type of Him who saved me, my salvation is one but three. 
I have been saved once...at three times. 
Firstly, I was saved once, before the foundation of the world, when the Father foreknew and predestined me to be His own, inscribing my name into the Book of Life. This Divine decree cannot be thwarted. According to His grace granted to me, not because of anything I’ve done, but according to the counsel of His own will, He ordained my salvation, declaring my adoption. My salvation was accomplished here. 
Secondly, I was saved once about two thousand years ago, when Jesus Christ, the eternally begotten Son, bought me, sealed my pardon, appeased God’s wrath toward me that my sin warranted, imputing His righteousness to my account. Jesus Christ drank the full cup of God’s wrath, giving me liberty from my inherited sinful nature. It was finished! My salvation was accomplished at the cross.
Finally, I was saved when I received the Holy Spirit, that moment when I came to accept that Christ’s sacrifice applied to me. I was dead in my sin, but this Spirit made me alive in Christ, causing me to walk in the good works that the Father prepared for me. This Spirit of God sanctifies me by convicting me of sin, making me more like Christ, daily bringing me to repentance; this Spirit disciplines me, as a loving father to a rebellious child, because He loves me; this Spirit humbles me, showing me the chasm between a Holy Father and sinful men, He will not let me become an idol to myself; this Spirit conforms my will to His so that I can act according to His good pleasure; this Spirit seals me, in Christ’s blood, until the day of redemption. This Holy Spirit of God accomplished my salvation and keeps me in it.
It is evident that every part of the Trinity is at work in bringing such a fallen creature, such as I, back into proper fellowship with God. We see the Father’s decree, fulfilled in the Son, and carried out through the Spirit. 
A once-for-all salvation, yet mysteriously three-fold. Oh the delicacy in which the Godhead is revealed in His creation!