Redemptive Salvation

The Wholistic Formation of New Life in Christ

The Father elects, redeems, and saves in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Union with Christ is the umbrella expression for the totality of our salvation. This union involves all aspects of our salvation. The wisdom of God—Jesus Christ in whom God is reconciling the world—is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30)

This union with Christ is both redemptive-historical and spiritual-mystical. Christ’s work is for us and with us as he identified with us through his incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection. Through the election of the Father, we are united to Christ in his death and resurrection so that his death and resurrection become ours. At the same time, our union with Christ is effected through the Spirit of God so that we constitute the living body of Christ. We are the embodiment of Jesus in the world as the divine presence resides in us through the indwelling Spirit. We participate in the reality of God’s kingdom through the Spirit of Christ who empowers us to be like Christ. United with Christ redemptively and pneumatically, we embody the presence of Jesus in the world for the sake of the world. Redeemed in Christ, we become the presence of Christ in the world.

The Scope of Salvation

Soteriology is personal, communal, and cosmic.

Much of Western theology has focused on the individual aspects of salvation, that is, “God saved me and Christ would have died for me even if I had been the only one who needed it.” Consequently, individual assurance, justification by faith, and perseverance in faith are most often stressed. This often means that salvation is reduced to the forgiveness of sin and going to heaven.

Surely God saves persons—God saves individual people. God saves me. God’s Spirit dwells in each of our bodies, calls each one of us to personal holiness, and the personal presence of the Spirit empowers each of us. God works in and through individuals and relates to us as persons. Communion between God and individuals is a personal relationship. Soteriology does not undermine individuality though it does not sanction individualism.

At the same time, God saves a people and gathers a people. God—the relational, communal reality of Father, Son, and Spirit—created a community (male and female), redeems a community, and will glorify a people. The Father called a people into existence named Israel and even now renews that same people by uniting Jews and Gentiles into one people of God. Soteriology includes ecclesiology. The renewed Israel, ultimately glorified in the kingdom, is the object of God’s saving work.

God also intends to redeem the whole creation. The telos of God is to reorder the cosmos under the rule of Jesus the Messiah (Ephesians 1:10) and reconcile everything in heaven and on earth to God through Christ (Colossians 1:20). God will liberate the creation itself (Romans 8:18-26).

Ultimately, salvation is not about me, or us, or the creation. The Father elects a people in Christ to become a holy presence in the creation by the power of the Spirit to the praise of God’s own glory. The glory of God is to rest with a redeemed people in a redeemed creation.

The Temporal Dimensions of Salvation

Applied soteriology is past, present, and future in the lives of believers. Believers have already been saved, are in the process of being saved, and will yet be saved. This is exactly how Paul uses the terms “save” or “salvation” in his letters. Salvation is something already accomplished (Romans 8:24; Ephesians 2:5, 8; Titus 3:5)—it is something that happened in their own existential past. Salvation is also something yet to be experienced in the future (Romans 5:9-10; 13:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:8-9; 2 Timothy 2:10)—we will be saved in the future. Salvation is also a process that we currently experience; it is a refining fire and pleasing smell (2 Corinthians 2:15)—we are in the process of being saved.

Romans 6:22 illustrates this redemptive-historical soteriological structure: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”

In the past God freed us from sin and enslaved us to righteousness—we have been freed (justified) from sin (Romans 6:7). Yet this saving reality continues in the present as we move toward holiness (sanctification) which is the fruit of having been set free from the guilt and power of sin. Further, our goal (end, telos) is eternal life (glorification). This single verse—and we can find this emphasis in many other places in Paul—summarizes the past-present-future soteriological structure of Pauline theology. Those who have been justified (set free) presently seek holiness (sanctification) in view of the goal of eternal life (glorification).

Systematic theologians, especially Protestant ones, have generally summarized the past, present, and future dimensions of salvation with the technical terms “justification” (past), “sanctification” (present), and “glorification” (future). This language is helpful as long as the temporal qualifier remains the significant point. The language is problematic when a term is strictly identified with a particular aspect of salvation (e.g., when justification becomes the essence of soteriology) or when biblical texts are made to conform to the theological language (e.g., when “righteousness” is forced into the mold of the technical meaning of justification in texts like Acts 10:35).

In fact, Paul uses the language of “justified” or “righteousness” (justification) to refer to past, present, and future soteriological realities. He does not limit “justification” (righteousness) to a past forensic declaration though he often refers to justification as a past event in the life of the believer (Romans 3:24; 5:1, 9). Rather, he calls believers to “pursue righteousness” (Romans 5:13, 16, 18, 19) in the present as obedient slaves of God. And, further, we will yet be justified in the future (Romans 2:6-10, 13) as we live even now in the “hope of righteousness” (Galatians 5:5).

Paul’s soteriological language is rich with diversity as his language is not rigidly tied to temporal location. Sanctification (holiness) is also past (1 Corinthians 6:11—sometimes called definitive or positional sanctification), present (1 Thessalonians 4:3—sometimes called progressive sanctification) and future (1 Thessalonians 5:23—sometimes called entire sanctification). Glorification is both present (2 Corinthians 3:18) and future (Romans 8:17). And we could do the same with other language such as liberation, redemption, or spiritual. The point is that soteriology is comprehensive—it encompasses past, present, and future. To limit salvation to one temporal aspect is reductionistic.

Soteriology as Definitive and Participatory

Union with Christ is not only about the event of forgiveness but the process of participating in the life of Christ. Soteriology, then, is both declarative and participatory.

God saved us through a declarative act but also saves us through our participation in the life to which God calls us. We are declared “in the right” (acquitted) by a divine act of righteous imputation in what theologians have historically called “justification” (or definitive sanctification) but we also pursue and become righteous through participation in the holiness of God in what theologians have historically called “sanctification” (or progressive sanctification or impartation of righteousness).

The definitive is a divine act that we receive by faith, but we participate in the reality of the definitive act through becoming what we have been declared to be in God’s faithful act. The definitive is the indicative—it declares what God has done and stresses the saving act of God. God justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies. The participatory is the imperative—it calls us to live out the indicative as persons, in community, and with creation. Significantly, the indicative grounds and empowers the imperative.

This relationship between the indicative and imperative is common in Paul. Since we live in the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). Since God has demonstrated mercy toward us, let us be transformed by God rather than conformed to the world (Romans 12:1-2). Let us work out our salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who is at work in us (Philippians 2:12-13).

Believers do not simply receive the declaration of God’s justifying righteousness; they also pursue righteousness to become the righteousness of God (that is, the embodiment of God’s faithfulness in the world).

Believers are both passive and active in their salvation. They passively receive God's justifying declaration through a living faith as beggars with an open hand, but they also actively pursue righteousness (holiness, sanctification) by a faith that works through love (Galatians 5:5-6) while, at the same time, passively receiving the empowerment (indicative) of the Spirit that enables faithful works of love.

While I think Paul maintains this balance in clear ways, many have stressed the Pauline definitive to the virtual loss of the participatory. If Western theology had focused on the Gospels rather than Paul, perhaps the stress would lie on participation rather than definitiveness (much like the Eastern church in its concept of theosis). The call to discipleship in the kingdom of God in the Gospels emphasizes the participatory—we actively follow Jesus.

But it is not an either/or. Rather, it is a both/and. Salvation is both definitive and participatory. We accept God’s declaration by faith and we participate in God’s transforming work by pursuing righteousness, practicing kingdom life, and following Jesus. In this way we are both “justified by faith”—declared “in the right” by God’s righteous act in Jesus, and “justified by works” (doers of the law, Romans 2:13)—experience transformation through empowered right-living. The works (our "sanctification” empowered by the Spirit of God) evidence our standing (“justification”), embody our Christ-likeness, and bear witness to the reality of God’s kingdom in the world. By faith we are “in the right” (justified) and through good works (sanctification) we become what God has declared us to be.

We are declared “in the right” because we are united with Christ. United with Christ, we participate in the life of Christ as we become partakers of the divine nature (theosis). The theological goal of sanctification—our “entire sanctification” or glorification—is conformation to the image of God in Christ. We will become fully—in body and soul—like Christ in our future sanctification (resurrection).

The Triune Ground of Salvation

Faith is the means of justification, sanctification, and glorification—to use historical systematic terms. In justification, faith receives God’s extrinsic declaration. In sanctification, faith participates in the life of Christ through working in love (Galatians 5:6). In glorification, faith hopes in the future to come when believers will experience the fullness of God’s redemption.

But lying behind the imperative to believe (trust) is the ground of the divine indicative. The Father has justified us, continues to sanctify us, and will glorify us. The faithfulness of the Son grounds our justification, models our sanctification, and inaugurates a glorified humanity. The Spirit generates faith in us, transforms us, and will animate our bodies in the new heaven and new earth.

We are saved (justification) by grace (ground) through faith (means) unto good works (sanctification). This is God’s telos. God intends to redeem a people who will live as divine images (representatives) within the creation for the sake of the world and rest in God’s gracious, communing shalom.

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John Mark Hicks, a Professor of Theology, taught full-time in higher education among Churches of Christ from 1982-2023. He is currently retired and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He has taught in  40 states and 24 countries around the world. He has authored, co-authored, edited, or contributed to 48 books as well as contributing to both academic and popular journals. He is married to Jennifer and shares five living children and six grandchildren with her.