Chapter 6

1. God created humanity upright and perfect. He gave them a righteous law that would have led to life if they had kept it but threatened death if they broke it.(a)  Yet they did not remain for long in this position of honor. Satan used the craftiness of the serpent to seduce Eve, who then seduced Adam. Adam acted without anyone forcing him and deliberately transgressed the law of their creation and the command given to them by eating the forbidden fruit.(b) God was pleased, in keeping with his wise and holy counsel, to permit this act, because he had purposed to direct it for his own glory.

2. By this sin our first parents fell from their original righteousness and communion with God. All humanity fell in them, and through this, death came upon all.(c)  All became dead in sin(d) and completely defiled in all the capabilities and parts of soul and body.(e)

3. By God’s appointment, they were the root and the representatives of the whole human race. Because of this, the guilt of their sin was accounted, and their corrupt nature passed on, to all their offspring who descended from them by ordinary procreation.(f)  Their descendants are now conceived in sin(g) and are by nature children of wrath,(h) the servants of sin, and partakers of death(i) and all other miseries—spiritual, temporal, and eternal—unless the Lord Jesus sets them free.(j)

4. All actual transgressions arise from this first corruption.(k)  By it we are thoroughly biased against, and disabled and antagonistic toward all that is good, and we are completely inclined toward all that is evil.(l)

5. During this life, this corruption of nature remains in those who are regenerated.(m)  Even though it is pardoned and put to death through Christ, yet both this corruption of nature and all actions arising from it are truly and actually sin.(n)

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1. Though mankind is responsible to obey God as their Creator, the distance between God and mankind is so great that they could never have attained the reward of life except by God’s voluntary lowering of Himself. He has been pleased to express this relationship through a covenant framework.(a)

2. Since humanity brought itself under the curse of the law by its fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace.(b)  In this covenant he freely offers to sinners life and salvation through Jesus Christ. On their part he requires faith in him, that they may be saved,(c) and promises to give his Holy Spirit to all who are ordained to eternal life, to make them willing and able to believe(d)

3. This covenant is revealed in the gospel. It was revealed first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation through the seed of the woman.(e)  After that, it was revealed step by step until the full revelation of it was completed in the New Testament.(f)  This covenant is based on the eternal covenant transaction between the Father and the Son concerning the redemption of the elect.(g)  Only through the grace of this covenant have those saved from among the descendants of fallen Adam obtained life and blessed immortality. Humanity is now utterly incapable of being accepted by God on the same terms on which Adam was accepted in his state of innocence.(h)

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1. God was pleased, in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten Son, according to the covenant made between them, to be the mediator between God and humanity.(a)  God chose him to be prophet,(b) priest,(c) and king,(d) and to be head and savior of the church,(e) the heir of all things,(f) and judge of the world.(g)  From all eternity, God gave to the Son a people to be his offspring. In time these people would be redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified by him.(h)

2. The Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is truly and eternally God. He is the brightness of the Father’s glory, the same in substance and equal with him. He made the world and sustains and governs everything he has made. When the fullness of time came, he took upon himself human nature, with all the essential properties and common weaknesses of it(i) but without sin.(j)  He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The Holy Spirit came down upon her, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. Thus, he was born of a woman from the tribe of Judah, a descendant of Abraham and David in fulfillment of the Scriptures.(k)  Two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without converting one into the other or mixing them together to produce a different or blended nature. This person is truly God and truly man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and humanity.(l)

3. The Lord Jesus, in his human nature united in this way to the divine in the person of the Son, was sanctified and anointed with the Holy Spirit beyond measure.(m)  He had in himself all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.(n)  The Father was pleased to make all fullness dwell in him(o) so that—being holy, harmless, undefiled,(p) and full of grace and truth(q)—he was thoroughly qualified to carry out the office of mediator and guarantor.(r)  He did not take this office upon himself but was called to it by his Father,(s) who put all power and judgment in his hand and commanded him to carry them out.(t)

4. The Lord Jesus most willingly undertook this office.(u)  To discharge it, he was born under the law(v) and perfectly fulfilled it. He also experienced the punishment that we deserved and that we should have endured and suffered.(w)  He was made sin and a curse for us.(x)  He  endured extremely heavy sorrows in his soul and extremely painful sufferings in his body.(y)  He was crucified and died and remained in a state of death, yet his body did not decay.(z)  On the third day he arose from the dead(aa) with the same body in which he suffered.(bb)  In this body he also ascended into heaven,(cc) where he sits at the right hand of his Father, interceding.(dd)  He will return to judge men and angels at the end of the age.(ee)    

5. The Lord Jesus has fully satisfied the justice of God, obtained reconciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those given to him by the Father.(ff)  He has accomplished these things by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he once for all offered up to God through the eternal Spirit.(gg)

6. The price of redemption was not actually paid by Christ till after his incarnation. Yet the virtue, efficacy, and benefit of it was imparted to the elect in every age since the beginning of the world, in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices that revealed him and pointed to him as the seed that would bruise the serpent’s head(hh) and the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.(ii)  He is the same yesterday and today and forever.(jj)

7. In his work of mediation, Christ acts according to both natures, by each nature doing what is appropriate to itself. Even so, because of the unity of the person, that which is appropriate to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person under the designation of the other nature.(kk)

8. To all those for whom Christ has obtained eternal redemption, he certainly and effectually applies and imparts it. He intercedes for them,(ll) unites them to himself by his Spirit, and reveals to them in and by his Word the mystery of salvation. He persuades them to believe and obey(mm) and governs their hearts by his Word and Spirit.(nn)  He overcomes all their enemies by his almighty power and wisdom,(oo) using methods and ways that are perfectly consistent with his wonderful and unsearchable governance. All these things are by free and absolute grace, apart from any condition for obtaining it that is foreseen in them.(pp)

9. This office of mediator between God and humanity is appropriate for Christ alone, who is the prophet, priest, and king of the church of God. This office may not be transferred from him to anyone else, either in whole or in part.(qq)

10. The number and character of these offices is essential. Because we are ignorant, we need his prophetic office.(rr)  Because we are alienated from God and imperfect in the best of our service, we need his priestly office to reconcile us and present us to God as acceptable.(ss)  Because we are hostile and utterly unable to return to God, and so that we can be rescued and made secure from our spiritual enemies, we need his kingly office to convince, subdue, draw, sustain, deliver, and preserve us for his heavenly kingdom.(tt)

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1. God has endowed human will with natural liberty and power to act on choices so that it is neither forced nor inherently bound by nature to do good or evil.(a)

2. Humanity in the state of innocence had freedom and power to will and to do what was good and well-pleasing to God.(b)  Yet this condition was unstable, so that humanity could fall from it.(c)

3. Humanity, by falling into a state of sin, has completely lost all ability to choose any spiritual good that accompanies salvation.(d)  Thus, people in their natural state are absolutely opposed to spiritual good and dead in sin,(e) so that they cannot convert themselves by their own strength or prepare themselves for conversion.(f)

4. When God converts sinners and transforms them into the state of grace, he frees them from their natural bondage to sin(g) and by his grace alone enables them to will and to do freely what is spiritually good.(h)  Yet because of their remaining corruption, they do not perfectly nor exclusively will what is good but also will what is evil.(i)

5. Only in the state of glory is the will made perfectly and unchangeably free toward good alone.(j)

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1. In God’s appointed and acceptable time, he is pleased to call effectually,(a) by his Word and Spirit, those he has predestined to life. He calls them out of their natural state of sin and death to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.(b)  He enlightens their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God.(c) He takes away their heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh.(d)  He renews their wills and by his almighty power turns them to good and effectually draws them to Jesus Christ.(e)  Yet he does all this in such a way that they come completely freely, since they are made willing by his grace.(f)

2. This effectual call flows from God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in those called. Neither does the call arise from any power or action on their part;(g) they are totally passive in it. They are dead in sins and trespasses until they are made alive and renewed by the Holy Spirit.(h)  By this they are enabled to answer this call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it. This response is enabled by a power that is no less than that which raised Christ from the dead.(i)

3. Those who are not elected will not and cannot truly come to Christ and therefore will not be saved, because they are not effectually drawn by the Father.(j) They may even be called by the ministry of the Word and may receive some ordinary working of the Spirit without being saved.(k)  Much less can any be saved who do not receive the Christian religion, no matter how diligently they live their lives according to the light of nature and the teachings of the religion they profess.(l)

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