Continued on the Redemptive Restoration of Fallen Man. The Participation of the Entire Holy Trinity in Our Salvation. The Order in Which God’s Spirit Awakens Good Feelings in the One Being Saved. The Participation of the Person Himself in This Work. Zeal for Salvation as the First Condition for Attaining It

I continue. The Only-begotten Son of God, who became incarnate for our sake, satisfied the justice of God through His death on the Cross, reconciling us with God; and having ascended to heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father, He continually intercedes for us with His reconciling intercession. But together with this, He is for us the source of truly human life. What man ought to be—He revealed this in His own humanity, and all believers, when they receive the new birth, receive the seed of a Christ-like life. Those who are baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). This is accomplished in believers by the grace of the Holy Spirit. So what exactly happens in us under the action of grace?

But first I will ask you always to hold this thought: when it is said that the Son of God did and does one thing, and the Holy Spirit another, one must not on that account separate Their restorative action in us. It proceeds undividedly from God, worshipped in the Trinity. This is why the holy Peter, expressing his good-will greeting to those to whom he wrote his epistle, says: ”According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: grace to you” and so forth (1 Pet. 1:2), while the holy Paul closes his epistle to the Corinthians with a similar good wish: ”The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:13). The restorative action of God—worshipped in the Trinity—in us is His communion with our spirit. And this communion comes not from a single Person, but from God undivided in three Persons. Hence it is said that both the Son and the Holy Spirit and the Father enter into communion with us. The Lord the Savior, though He sits at the right hand of God the Father, is with us, according to His own promise, ”all the days” (Mt. 28:20)—and this not outwardly, but inwardly; for He says: ”If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (Jn. 14:23). So God the Father and God the Son dwell in us and live through faith and love expressed in the keeping of the commandments. And as for the Holy Spirit dwelling in believers and those who keep God’s commandments, I already cited the testimony of Scripture on this last time: ”Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). How great and ineffable is God’s mercy toward us! The Triune God dwells in us, if we are faithful to the conditions under which this occurs!

But the actualization of communion with God is accomplished by the grace of the Holy Spirit. He prepares in us a dwelling place and, together with God the Father and God the Son, takes up abode in us. So how is this dwelling place prepared?

The Spirit of God acts secretly upon our spirit and sets it in motion. Our spirit, once set in motion, reawakens within itself its natural knowledge of God—that God exists, sustains all things, and is the Rewarder. Awareness of this reawakens the sense of total dependence upon God and enlivens the fear of God. Both together stir the conscience—the witness and judge of our deeds and feelings, among which one rarely encounters anything that God would look upon with approval. A troubled conscience, together with the fear of God and the sense of total dependence upon God, places a person in a feeling of being cornered with no way out: ”Where shall I go… where shall I flee?” (Ps. 138:7). But there is nowhere to flee: one is caught and in the hands of God—the Judge and Rewarder. One feels ”the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all… unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18).

But then the good news of the Gospel arrives and leads one out of this predicament. Without the Gospel, such an awakening of our spirit would be ruinous, for it would inevitably plunge one into despair. But God’s goodness arranges things so that the true awakening of the spirit is both accomplished and accompanied by the Gospel. To the one in whom, as a result of the spirit’s awakening, there has formed the cry: ”Where shall I go… where shall I flee?” — the Gospel proclaims: “Where and why flee? Come under the shadow of the Cross—and you will be saved. The Son of God, having become incarnate, died on the Cross for the cleansing of our sins. Believe this—and you will receive forgiveness and will meet with God’s mercy.” The apostles always acted this way in preaching the Gospel. They would trouble people’s hearts, and then say: “Believe in the crucified Lord—and you will be saved.” Thus, the holy Peter in his first sermon, on the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit, troubled and frightened the Jews to the point that they began to cry out: “What shall we do now? Where shall we turn?” He then proclaimed the good news to them: ”Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus… for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). The holy Apostle Paul arranged his Epistle to the Romans in the same way: he first frightened everyone, saying, ”The wrath of God… is being revealed” (Rom. 1:18), and then pointed everyone to the refuge—faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:22 and following).

When a person is in extreme distress and an indication of a way out and a refuge is found, with what fervor he seizes upon it. So also our spirit, having heeded the good news of salvation in the Lord, grasps it with all its strength, with hope and readiness to do everything, if only it might become a partaker of the blessings of the Gospel. Such a disposition of our spirit makes it ready for communion with God, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, which had until now been working from without, arousing the spirit, takes up its abode within—not immediately, but through the intermediary of the sacrament. The believer repents, is baptized, and receives ”the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). This is the action of communion with God—living and effective. This action manifested itself so tangibly during the initial preaching of the holy apostles; it manifested itself after them as well, and continues to manifest itself to this day, when everything on our part is fulfilled as it ought to be.

The Spirit of God does not do everything alone. Something is also required from us, and this something is not insignificant. The Spirit of God arouses; the good news points to what must be seized. This is from God. But having done this, God pauses and waits for our will. By His first actions, God seems to ask: “Do you want to escape from your predicament? Here is what you must do.” This is the most important moment. Whoever inclines toward the indication opens the way for further actions of grace, which then leads him into the company of the saved. Whoever does not incline cuts off the further actions of grace, and such a one remains among the perishing. The Apostle Paul preaches in the Areopagus. After the sermon, the holy Dionysius and someone else follow him and are baptized, while some of the rest say: “What is this babbler trying to say?” and others say: “Come back another time and we will hear you.” God compels no one to be saved, but makes an offer of choice and saves only the one who chooses salvation. If our will were not required, God would in an instant have made everyone saved, for He ”wills all… to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4). And then there would be no perishing ones at all. But our will is not always reasonable; it stubbornly resists and does not heed even God Himself. And so we perish.

So please take note of this moment. It must always be present in every spirit of one who stands on the side of the saved. It is composed of the following acts: after grace has awakened the sense of the extremity of one’s position, and the good news has indicated the way out of it, one must add to the sense of one’s predicament the recognition that one is entirely to blame for it oneself, and repent of this; believe in the effectiveness of the way of salvation being offered; desire to be saved precisely by this way and to hold hope in it; and declare a full readiness to zealously do everything that will be indicated as the condition of salvation. When all this has taken place in our spirit, it only remains to approach the sacraments—and communion with God will be accomplished. To summarize: one has repented, desired salvation in the Lord, and held hope in it—these are settled actions, occurring inwardly and satisfied by their inward manifestation. But the last action—the readiness to do everything that will be required—is the real active force toward salvation, insofar as salvation depends on us; it is the source of salvific activity and the saved life. This readiness, while expressed by us alone, tends to be weak, but when the grace of God takes up abode within, it becomes all-powerful, knowing no obstacles, overcoming everything. It is an insatiable zeal for pleasing God and for the most fervent fulfillment of God’s will, together with total faith in the Lord and hope of salvation in Him alone. It fulfills the eternal decree of God ”that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love” (Eph. 1:4), for which purpose the Lord makes us zealous for good works (Tit. 2:14).

I deliberately draw your attention to this zeal so that you might become zealous for it. For when it is present on our part, the grace of God, on its part, will not fail to do everything in superabundance, so that when this zeal is present—in the realm of faith and the seeking of salvation—everything else is present too, and the working out of our salvation is undoubtedly in motion and moving toward its end; but when it is absent, then nothing else is present either: one who lacks zeal for salvation has no part in salvation.

What a long detour I have made to bring you to this point. But all of that was general discussion. Now let us reason together about you yourselves.