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TRINITY IN SALVATION

Salvation is the work of God; this affirms that the work of salvation is the work of the Trinity. It is the work of the one God who exists as three Persons or three Hypostases; to speak of the Trinity is to speak of the Tri-Unity (see: God is Tri-Unity). And in the accomplishment of salvation each Person in the Godhead fulfills an operation. Such can only be known by Revelation.

In the actual work of salvation there is not the neat division among the three Persons as the divisions assigned by theological formulation. The divisions of theology are more for the purpose of our understanding and for the purpose of inculcating the dimensions of salvation to the mind of one who has experienced and is experiencing God’s salvation. An emphasis on planning, accomplishing, and application are more for the believer than a profound reflection on the transaction itself. God is one and the work of salvation is one. Theology attempts to assist reflection for the purpose of comprehension, rather than claiming that it offers a precise description of the work according to a separation of duties.

God the Father is the cause of our salvation; His is the election, an election that determines that all that will be given to the individual will be given because of Christ; the Father is the Initiator and manifests His grace toward those He has chosen.

God the Son is the means of our salvation, which is to affirm that our salvation is in and through the Person and Work of Christ; it is the Son who humbled Himself and became obedient, even unto death; Incarnation applies to the Son.

God the Holy Spirit causes salvation to become reality in the life, that is, He comes to the individual applying the fullness of Christ to the individual, joining the individual to Christ, teaching the individual of Christ, and causing the individual to pursue Christ-likeness.

While the above statements can be supported exegetically, they are more for the purpose of giving prominence or attention to various aspects of the work, rather than to argue that the process of salvation can be neatly catalogued according to certain acts and then can be applied to specific Persons of the Trinity. Reference, however, to each of the Persons does serve to highlight the fullness of God’s work for man.

The Father saves the sinner in the Person and Work of Christ through the work of God the Spirit in the life. Likewise it is proper to associate the Spirit’s work in the life of Christ as contributing to the purchase of salvation, so the Spirit is vital to the actual accomplishment of salvation in the Person and Work of Christ. The point is that the various aspects of the work of salvation are intricately connected: the work is one and it is the work of God.

There is an order in the operation of salvation (for example: the Father sent the Son), but there is no distinction in the natures of the Persons involved in salvation—inferiority in regard to essence, is not a consideration. The work of salvation is the work of God; it is not the work of one of the Persons more that the work of the other two. Together, the Persons effect salvation; therefore, it is proper to affirm again that the work is one and it is the work of God.


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