The Spirit applies redemption

This week's questions

How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit.

Question 29

How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ? The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

Question 30

The catechism's teaching on the Redeemer has two halves. Questions 20 to 28 told of redemption accomplished, and last week followed Christ to the right hand of God. Questions 29 to 38 tell of redemption applied: how what he did on the cross and does from the throne reaches a person today. These two answers open that half.

Purchased by Christ, applied by his Spirit

Redemption had a price. Paul speaks of "the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28), and Peter reminds believers that they were redeemed not with silver or gold "but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot" (1 Peter 1:18-19). Yet a gift bought and not received is not yet ours. The first proof text of Question 29 shows both sides:

He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God

John 1:11-12

The next shows who brings the gift home:

He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Titus 3:5

That Spirit, Paul goes on, God "poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior" (Titus 3:6). The English minister Matthew Henry hears the whole Trinity in these verses: we are delivered "only by the mercy and free grace of God, the merit and sufferings of Christ, and the working of his Spirit" Matthew Henry. The catechism calls him "his Holy Spirit", Christ's own, for Jesus said of the Spirit, "He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you" (John 16:14). He brings no other gift than Christ's. The Larger Catechism calls this application "the work especially of God the Holy Ghost" Larger Catechism, Q. 58, and the word ‘effectual’ means that it does not stay an offer left hanging: redemption is "certainly applied, and effectually communicated" to those for whom Christ purchased it Q. 59.

Faith, and union with Christ

Question 30 says how. The Spirit first works faith in us: "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). Faith is something given, "granted to you on behalf of Christ" (Philippians 1:29). The first proof text of Question 30 says that those who believed "were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of our inheritance" (Ephesians 1:13-14). By faith he joins us to Christ, so that "Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith" (Ephesians 3:17), and God calls us "into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:9).

This union with Christ is the heart of the matter. John Calvin opens the third book of his Institutes with it: a Christ who stayed outside us, however much he suffered and did, would profit us nothing, and the Holy Spirit is the bond that binds us to him Calvin, Institutes 3.1.1. The Larger Catechism calls the union real and lasting: believers are "spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably, joined to Christ as their head and husband" Q. 66. The Heidelberg Catechism of the continental Reformed churches confesses that the Spirit "makes me by a true faith partaker of Christ and all his benefits" Q. 53. Everything the next weeks teach flows from this union in its order: calling, justification, adoption, sanctification and their fruits (Questions 31 to 38).

Every church confesses that the Spirit brings us to Christ; they describe how differently. The Reformed teach that he works faith by the Word and so unites us to Christ. Lutherans, who follow Martin Luther, confess that "by the Word and Sacraments, as by instruments, the Holy Spirit is given: who worketh faith, where and when it pleaseth God, in those that hear the Gospel" Augsburg Confession, art. 5, and read "the washing of new birth" as baptism (Titus 3:5). Wesleyan Christians teach that prevenient grace, going before every human choice, reaches every person and enables every hearer to respond Wesley, The Scripture Way of Salvation. The Catholic Church teaches that grace begins the work, unearned, that the will, moved by it, freely consents and works with it, and that in baptism justification renews the inner person Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, ch. 5 ch. 7. The Orthodox churches of the East speak of salvation as union with God, theosis, in which God's grace and the human will work together. The Spirit's work is taught at length in Who the Holy Spirit is, New birth and the indwelling Spirit and What the Holy Spirit does; see also Who is the Holy Spirit? and What does it mean to be saved?

To ponder this week

Christ's work is finished: is it applied to you, and do you rest in him by the faith his Spirit gives? The question is not a test of your feelings. Look away from yourself to the promise in Question 30's second proof text, "the one who comes to Me I will never drive away" (John 6:37), and ask the Spirit to join you to Christ more firmly. Each evening this week, thank God for one gift of Christ's that has become yours.

Practice