1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 11.4 How Does God Justify Sinners? God Gives His Spirit

Table of Contents

• The Text
• The Chapter
• The Confession
  • God did from all eternity decree to justify all the elect
  • and Christ did in the fullness of time die for their sins, and rise again for their justification;
  • nevertheless, they are not justified personally, until the Holy Spirit in time does actually apply Christ to them.

The Text

Ephesians 1:4-6 (CSB) For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.

The Chapter

God did from all eternity decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did in the fullness of time die for their sins, and rise again for their justification; nevertheless, they are not justified personally, until the Holy Spirit doth in time due actually apply Christ unto them.

The Confession

God did from all eternity decree to justify all the elect

Galatians 3:8 (CSB) Now the Scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and proclaimed the gospel ahead of time to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed through you.

1 Peter 1:2 (CSB) according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

1 Timothy 2:6 (CSB) who gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time.

God's election of his people unto salvation is the glorification of his people eternal. Whatever that number of people is, God has chosen and will not lose one of them. If the number is 3 trillion and 1, the God has glorified 3 trillion and 1. Not 3 trillion and 2. Not 3 trillion.

His predestined is called is justified is glorified.

and Christ did in the fullness of time die for their sins, and rise again for their justification;

Romans 4:25 (CSB) He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

And that salvation of his people was on Good Friday--the day in history when Jesus of Nazareth was hung upon that tree.

nevertheless, they are not justified personally, until the Holy Spirit in time does actually apply Christ to them.

Colossians 1:21 (CSB) Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions.

Colossians 1:22 (CSB) But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him—

Titus 3:4–7 (CSB) But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.

And yet--this is the only yet you will here pertaining to the gospel--individual persons are not saved until the Spirit quickens them, the Father swaps out their dead hearts for his soft heart, and the Triune God dwells in them.

We are not saved by election alone. No person ever born or will ever be born, aside from Christ, can ever determine who is elect and not elect.

I know for a fact that there are churches who will have their churchgoers stand before a church board and the church will take one look at the member and declare them elect or not elect. That is blasphemous. They have put themselves in the place of God and have broken first, second, and third commandments against the Holy God.

Christ speaks this judgement who would be so blasphemously arrogant:

Matthew 23:13-15 (CSB) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you don’t go in, and you don’t allow those entering to go in. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to make one convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are!

You shut the door to heaven. A door you do not possess. Woe to you!

Furthermore:

Matthew 11:25-27 (CSB) At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, because this was your good pleasure. All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him.

Then Christ will turn to the rejected, the outcast, the disavowed:

Romans 9:25–26 (CSB) As it also says in Hosea, I will call Not my People, My People, and she who is Unloved, Beloved. And it will be in the place where they were told, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.

Come to Christ! All that are tired, weary, worn-out, oppressed, crushed, and broken. You come to Christ. If you are tapped out and you have nothing left to give? Come to Christ! Come to Christ. What does he have? More burden? More laws you cannot obey. More striving that you cannot keep up? Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is God, has none of that for you.

He has rest for your soul and he has balm for your broken heart.

That weight of sin you carry upon your back? That belongs to Christ. Give it to him. Right now. Give it him. Every day, give him the sin that he died for. He is the King of kings. Give him what he is due--your sins.

But Christ alone is good. He is good alone because he is God alone. He has something for you. Something that he carries. It is nothing like your sin that breaks your back and grinds your heart. His burden? It is his righteousness. It weighs nothing. It is light as air. It has to be--because it will carry you into the restful arms of your heavenly Father.

If you do not know God like this--come to him. Right now.

2 Corinthians 6:2 (CSB) For he says: At an acceptable time I listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. See, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation!

Right now is the day of salvation. Right now is the time to come to Christ. Come to Christ. Give him your sin--you cannot hope to even repent of your sins perfectly because you are not perfect. Christ knows. That is why he died. Come to him. Come rest in him. He is gentle and lowly. Come to him and finally come to rest forever.