Order of Salvation and Evangelism

The Order of Salvation

Just as the ultimate goal of salvation is the magnification of God’s grace (we were chosen in Christ “to the praise of the glory of his grace,” Eph. 1:6), so the ultimate origin of salvation is the grace of God. Scripture consistently traces salvation back, not to “works done by us in righteousness,” but to “his own mercy” (Titus 3:5). Moved by mercy, God the Father put forth Christ Jesus as a propitiation; those who by faith receive this redemption in Christ are “justified by his grace as a gift.” (Rom. 3:23-25)

Individual salvation hinges on being “in Christ,” on being connected to the propitiation of the death of Christ, in order to receive all the blessings connected with it: chiefly adoption, the indwelling Spirit, and resurrection. In the work of atonement, Christ laid hold of human nature itself and reoriented it back toward God: he is the new Adam. In that sense, the atonement is universal and not particular or limited. What Christ accomplishes for human nature, however, must be applied and completed by the work of the Holy Spirit in each human person. Thus the Son and Spirit together bring about reconciliation to the Father in all who are saved.

The order of salvation, then, presupposes God’s prevenient grace working behind every move the unconverted person makes toward God: “all the drawings of the Father; the desires after God, which, if we yield to them, increase more and more; –all the light wherewith the Son of God ‘enlighteneth every one that cometh into the world;’ showing every man ‘to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God’; –all the convictions which His Spirit, from time to time, works in every child of man” (Wesley, sermon 43, “The Scripture Way of Salvation”).

Whatever complex spiritual history a person may have, and however they may have been awakened to their sinfulness (there is enormous diversity here in individual experience), the key moment is hearing the gospel message with understanding, and responding with faith and repentance. Faith and repentance are two sides of one reality, and cannot be separated. Together they constitute a new orientation, simultaneously turning toward God and away from sin. The Holy Spirit brings this conversion about.

When a person receives the gospel message by faith, he is justified and born again at the same time. These two gifts are simultaneous, yet logically distinct: justification is a change in status relative to God, but regeneration is a change in nature. In fact, they are logically sequential, because the turning away of God’s wrath is prior to the Spirit’s working within our heart to bring a renewal of character. Regeneration is actually the initial work of sanctification, the first and epochal instance of God not only reckoning us to be righteous (that is justification) but then on that basis causing us to become righteous by his power of renewal: “He breaks the power of cancelled sin.” So while justification and sanctification are logically distinct and are in fact different divine works, they arrive together as a consequence of union with Christ. Having begun his renewing work in regeneration, the Spirit continues it in progressive sanctification, until the work is completed.

The Extent of the Atonement

Beliefs about the extent of the atonement—whether it is universal or particular—should not affect our approach to missions. For those who believe that the atonement is universal, or applicable to humanity as such, it is self-evident that the gospel ought to be preached widely and offered freely to all.

The main danger on this side would be the temptation to slide over from universal atonement to universal salvation, that is, to affirming universalism. But only rarely in the history of the church has the error of universalism ever actually arisen from some kind of overblown atonement theology.

The real root of universalism is usually elsewhere: in a low estimate of the sinfulness of sin, made possible by a low estimate of the holiness of God; or in a sentimental apprehension of God’s kindness; or in an embarrassment about the hard doctrines of punishment and sacrifice; and usually with some way of relativizing the witness of Scripture to irrevocable alienation from the life of God.

Among those who believe in particular redemption or limited atonement, the vast majority have also affirmed that the external call can be given to all, and that it is backed up by a genuine, or well-meant, offer of salvation. In J.I. Packer’s influential book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, he affirms that “whatever we may believe about election and, for that matter, about the extent of the atonement, the fact remains that God in the gospel really does offer Christ and promise justification and life to ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.’”

Non-Calvinists may look on these discussions as overly-complex work-arounds made necessary by previous missteps. But the well-meant offer is so well-attested in the Reformed tradition that it should be respected as the classic, or ordinary, Reformed position. Perhaps it would be rude for a non-Calvinist to say how Calvinists ought to argue, but it seems to me they ought to avoid arguing directly from archetypal theology of the eternal decrees to implications for mission. And they usually have avoided this.

But the differences do sometimes surface in interesting ways. Specifically, we may present the gospel the same way, but if we then ask ourselves how an unconverted person can be expected to respond to the offer of the gospel, we give very different answers.

One of the classic Reformed answers is that when the gospel goes out and is received, the person who accepts it shows thereby that God has already regenerated them. It is in fact the new person within them, made alive by the Spirit, who is able to hear the good news as good. On this view, it is the born again person who repents and has faith; the unregenerate person by definition cannot behave as God’s friend by believing God’s promise. The evangelist confronts some listeners who are already born again and just waiting for the external call to draw them out.

Wesleyans, on the other hand, while agreeing that fallen man is at enmity with God and that the unregenerate person cannot be expected to greet God’s word as good news, believe that they are never encountering fallen, unregenerate humanity in an unassisted state. Grace, purchased by the atonement of Christ, has always gone before to boost the listener’s fallen faculties and give them a real opportunity to respond to the call. On this view, the evangelist confronts some listeners who have been the object of God’s preparatory work in numerous ways, whether specifiable or unguessed.

Whether regeneration comes before or after faith and repentance, therefore, evangelism happens in much the same way. Neither order of salvation lets us ignore our obligation to speak clearly and sensitively. And neither lets us imagine ourselves as the prime movers causing someone’s conversion. On the other hand, it may be that evangelists with different orders of salvation in the backs of their minds may be equipped to see different opportunities for communication of the gospel as they emerge. Perhaps the Calvinist will have more patience, based on quiet confidence that the miracle has already happened if it’s to happen at all; and perhaps the Wesleyan will have a keener ear for the story of God’s work in the life of the unbeliever and a greater ability to draw out latent connections. And perhaps, just perhaps, evangelists can learn from each other’s practice even when they disagree on the theory.

Compromise and Cooperation

One of the main things Christians disagree about is what it’s okay to disagree about. So behind any question about differences in the theology of salvation is a prior question about how churches and affiliated ministries approach the issue of putting up with differences of any kind. If an evangelical Calvinist and an evangelical Wesleyan have come to an understanding about their differences, and are satisfied that their interlocutors (Friends? Opponents? Friendly opponents? Oppositional friends?) hold their positions for biblical reasons and with a good conscience, then they can agree to work together on a very wide field of ministry. What is crucial is the qualifier “evangelical.”

Unevangelical Calvinists tend to grow rigidly deterministic or limply latitudinarian; only the gospel delivers their theology from these evils. Unevangelical Arminians tend to exalt human potential or deny every uncomfortable doctrine; only the gospel leads them out of these temptations. Centered on the gospel, and agreeing about its character, people with disagreements about particular sections of the order of salvation can cooperate without compromise.

On the question of whether, in the order of salvation, regeneration precedes or follows faith, there is another famous alternative to consider: the Roman Catholic argument that what comes first of all is a sacramental or baptismal infusion of sanctifying grace, which implants the principle of grace whereby God moves the will to do meritorious works that sanctify and finally justify the believer. Contrasted to this view, the Calvinist and Wesleyan views look very similar to each other indeed. And of course they are: they have Protestant soteriology in common, which is an important distinction further back in the decision tree. Their difference from each other is minor enough to permit vast cooperation; their divergence from Catholicism vast enough to permit only minor cooperation with it. And with modernist liberalism, as J. Gresham Machen famously pointed out, all three have even less in common.

Partnership Amidst Disagreement

If the disagreement about soteriology is too sharp, then the resulting views of salvation will diverge too much to permit any kind of partnership in ministry. In my opinion, though, the divergence between evangelical Calvinists and evangelical Wesleyans is not that large. That is why I believe that Christians at various places along the spectrum of disagreement on these issues can collaborate in many kinds of ministry. Evangelism and mission in particular are ministries where they will not be likely to find any serious obstacles.

As they seek to disciple new believers, bringing them to a mature theological understanding and biblical comprehension, the doctrinal differences are bound to arise. Even in a fairly deep catechesis, however, there is no absolute need for the breaking of fellowship. It is not always a sign of weak conviction to teach that there are two or three different views of a subject, especially if the subject is as complex, detailed, and ingrained in a web of inferences as the order of salvation is. A church could exist that did not need to break fellowship at all along the Calvinist-Wesleyan fault line; sharing full communion and membership with diverse positions on these issues.

This is of course a judgment call, and not an uncontroversial one. I’m a happy member of the Evangelical Free Church of America, a denomination with a tradition of remaining significantly silent on some of these very points of divergence. If I were theologically convinced that I should be not only non-Calvinist but actually anti-Calvinist, or if on the contrary I wanted to fellowship in an explicitly and confessionally Reformed congregation, then I couldn’t continue membership in such a denomination. Of course I could still seek cooperation with other churches, but I would do so knowing that we were cooperating across an important dividing line.

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This was published at Christianity Today online in 2014 under Ed Stetzer’s blog in two parts. Links are preserved at the Internet Archive here and here.