John Murray (1898–1975), a native of Scotland, taught systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) from 1930 until his retirement in 1965. He was ordained as an OPC minister by the Presbytery of New York and New England, of which he was a member until his death. For many decades, ministers (my father and I were both his students) and others in the OPC and beyond owed their first in-depth exposure to sound doctrine to their times in his classroom. His memorable lecturing radiated a profound love for God and the truth of his Word that made a decisively formative and lasting impression.

Murray also wrote extensively, his publications invariably marked by his characteristic clarity and precision of expression. Of these, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, the primary focus of this article, has proven to be the most widely read. Next year will mark the seventieth anniversary of its appearance, and a new edition is being published by Westminster Seminary Press. There is good reason for this enduring reception, for in this book Murray instructs a broad audience in a singularly valuable and edifying manner regarding matters that, as the title indicates, are at the heart of the gospel and so of paramount doctrinal concern, especially within the tradition of biblical and confessional Reformed orthodoxy in which he stands.[1]

What is the gospel, the good news it communicates? This is a question for which the church must always have a clear and robust answer because nothing less than its existence is staked in the answer. This demand is all the more pressing in times like the present when gospel continues to have a currency so broad and varied or so vague that often even among Christians its use is misinformed and misleading.

Scripture is replete with the requisite answer. Expressed most succinctly, the gospel is “the gospel of your salvation” (Eph. 1:13). The content of the gospel message is, in a word, salvation. So, the question about the gospel becomes the question about salvation or, used interchangeably, redemption (Luke 1:68–69).

It does not overstate, then, to say that the truth of the gospel stands or falls with the distinction, made and kept clear, between redemption accomplished and applied. Much error and confusion about the gospel stems from the failure to grasp or maintain this distinction properly. In this regard, it is worth highlighting that the distinction, as essential as it is, is irreversible. Clearly enough, simply from the terms employed, “accomplishment” has priority in the sense that it is the precondition and basis for any “application.” Without accomplishment there can be no application; the latter presupposes and depends upon the existence of the former. Application does not somehow constitute accomplishment. Nor is the truth of redemption and the gospel to be defined in terms of its application, by your or my experience of redemption.

But, with that noted, the necessity of application must not be slighted. The multiple benefits of the redemption accomplished by Christ are not “for Christ’s own private use” (Calvin’s arresting phrase). Rather, those benefits are saving benefits that have been acquired and are secured by him in order to be shared with others. Specifically, as Christ’s death, together with his resurrection, is “for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3–4), these saving benefits are for sinners; they are to be shared with needy sinners. In other words, for the accomplished redemption to be effective it must be applied. And that application must take place in the life, the actual life history, of the sinner. As it has been put succinctly, “Without application, redemption is not redemption.” The irreversible distinction between accomplishment and application involves their inseparable connection.

Inseparable Connection

Murray’s treatment manifests this truth in a most effective and satisfying fashion. In the preface he calls attention to the “difference . . . in the mode of treatment between Part I and Part II.” This disparity exists because, unlike the former (on redemption accomplished), the material in the latter (on its application) originated as a series of articles written for the readers of The Presbyterian Guardian. Also, this may explain in part why Part II is nearly twice as long as Part I. Nothing is said about the source of Part I with its slightly more academic tone, but as a former student I recognize the content as that offered in his treatment of the atonement in a required course on soteriology taught multiple times annually at WTS.

For Part I, its fourfold division—Necessity, Nature, Perfection, and Extent—facilitates an effective and instructive overall treatment of the atonement. Among other strengths is his treatment of the necessity of the atonement. With an eye to the Cur Deus Homo question (the reason for the incarnation), he focuses the issue in terms of the distinction between “hypothetical necessity” (held, he notes, by Augustine and Aquinas) and “consequent absolute necessity” (“the more classic Protestant position”).

Arguing emphatically for the latter enables him to make clear a crucially important reality that is not to be missed for a sound understanding of the atonement. On the one hand, given the fall, God was not compelled by an antecedent absolute necessity, however understood, to provide atonement for sin. However, consequent upon his entirely uncoerced and sovereignly free and loving determination to atone for sin, the incarnation of the Son culminating in his death on the cross is not a theoretical option but an absolute necessity. Given the immutable demands inherent in his person, only God can save sinners, but God only as God cannot save sinners. “He . . . did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. . . . by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:32, 3), and he did that because, given his free determination to redeem his “elect” (v. 33), he could not spare his Son. No other way to atone for sin was possible. In the words of the hymn “There Is a Green Hill Far Away” concerning the incarnate Son, “There was no other good enough / To pay the price of sin; / He only could unlock the gate / Of heav’n, and let us in.”

“But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom. 5:20 NKJV). This super-abounding truth is shown with admirable clarity in treating the nature of the atonement. The obedience, active and passive, of Christ is “generic . . . the unifying and integrating principle.” In light of the compounding and complicating exigencies created by our sin, four “specific categories” delineate the substitutionary obedience that removes these different liabilities. These are sacrifice, propitiation, reconciliation, and redemption. “Just as sacrifice is directed to the need created by our guilt, propitiation to the need that arises from the wrath of God, and reconciliation to the need arising from our alienation from God, so redemption is directed to the bondage to which our sin has consigned us” (my emphasis).

In discussing the extent of the atonement, Murray’s careful and compelling exegesis brings him to this conclusion: “The inference is inevitable that those for whom Christ died are those and those only who die to sin and live to righteousness.” And, “The conclusion is apparent—the death of Christ in its specific character as atonement was for those and those only who are in due time the partakers of the new life of which Christ’s resurrection is the pledge and pattern.”

“This,” he then adds, “is another reminder that the death and resurrection of Christ are inseparable.” This observation prompts the further reminder—too often insufficiently appreciated—that Christ’s resurrection is as integral and necessary for the once-for-all accomplishment of redemption as is his obedience unto death. The precious and undeniable “it-is-finished” efficacy of the cross in removing death as the just wages of sin is only realized and revealed in the resurrection and not before, not until then. Minus his resurrection, the accomplishment of redemption remains not only incomplete but in fact unachieved. “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17; Rom. 4:25: he was “raised for our justification”).

Part II, on the application of salvation, deals with what is termed the ordo salutis (order of salvation); the two—application and the ordo—are often and fairly viewed as virtually equivalent and used interchangeably. This ordo, Murray shows convincingly, has in view (1) that the application of the salvation accomplished by Christ has a fullness marked by multiple elements or aspects, and (2) that these are not received by sinners in an arbitrary or confused fashion but in an ordered pattern with fixed connections among them. The failure to recognize the existence of this ordering with its interrelationships runs the risk of ignoring or misrepresenting individual aspects or acts and so distorting the work of Christ applied as a whole.

Union with Christ

Especially noteworthy in Part II is the chapter on “Union with Christ.” Though occurring in this part dealing with the application of redemption, Murray shows that in its scope this union is not limited to application. Rather, from beginning to end, from its pretemporal plan to its eternal consummation, “Union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation.” With edifying clarity he demonstrates conclusively from Scripture that “All to which the people of God have been predestined in the eternal election of God, all that has been secured and procured for them in the once-for-all accomplishment of redemption, and all that by God’s grace they will become in the state of consummated bliss is embraced within the compass of union and communion with Christ.”

Accordingly, concerning its place and function within the application of redemption specifically, union is plainly not subsumable within the ordo salutis as one coordinate component in series with others. Rather, it is the central and radiating benefit from which all the others—like regeneration, faith and repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification—flow. Murray’s understanding of the role of union with Christ in the application of redemption is clearly akin to that expressed by Calvin in the opening words of Book Three of the Institutes: “First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.”

No more important words, I’m inclined to say, have been written about the nature as well as the necessity of the application of redemption. The heart of the ordo salutis is union with Christ, sharing with him by faith created by the Spirit in all the benefits of salvation he has secured. Westminster Larger Catechism (WLC) 69 reflects this truth: “. . . justification, adoption, sanctification, and whatever else, in this life, manifests their union with him.”

It is worth noting that Murray’s thinking about union with Christ apparently underwent some development or clarification subsequent to the publication of Redemption Accomplished and Applied. For instance, several years later in treating the ordo salutis in the course he taught on soteriology mentioned earlier, union was dealt with immediately following effectual calling and before the other elements in the ordo. This contrasts with the book, where the chapter on union is next to last. This repositioning in the course, with union presented as the initial result of effectual calling (“called into the fellowship of his Son,” 1 Cor. 1:9), enables a clearer and more effective focus on the centrality of union and how it is antecedent in the sense that justification, adoption, sanctification, and other benefits of application flow from union, as WLC 69 indicates.

A further observation may be made about union with Christ in relation to sanctification. The chapter in the book provides a helpful and incisive treatment of sanctification seen largely as ongoing, as a never complete, lifelong process. However, while the rudiments, the initial indications, are certainly present, missing is a clear and explicit presentation of the definitive, as distinct from the progressive, aspect of sanctification, a definitive reality that Murray cogently delineated in articles published about a decade later (reprinted in volume 2 of his Collected Writings). In these articles he shows, with a focus on Romans 6 and related passages, that being irrevocably united with Christ as crucified and resurrected entails a definitive, once-for-all breach with the dominion of sin. As a consequence of that union, although a struggle with indwelling sin is an ongoing reality for believers, they are no longer in overwhelming bondage to sin, but, having been set free from its controlling power, they are now permanently enslaved to righteousness and able to freely serve Christ as Lord.

This definitive aspect of sanctification—the necessary basis for its progressive aspect and without which growth in holiness is impossible and the all-too-real struggle with indwelling sin is hopeless—also finds a particularly rich and illuminating expression subsequent to Redemption Accomplished and Applied in the chapter, “The Dynamic of the Biblical Ethic,” in his Principles of Conduct.

In providing a jacket endorsement for Geerhardus Vos’s Biblical Theology, Murray wrote, “Dr. Vos is in my judgment, the most penetrating exegete it has been my privilege to know and, I believe, the most incisive exegete that has appeared in the English-speaking world in this century.” Such high and unalloyed praise reflects Murray’s controlling conviction that, with due attention to the help provided by the history of doctrine, sound exegesis is the lifeblood of systematic theology that would be true to Scripture in its doctrinal formulations. One of the notable strengths of this volume, as of Murray’s work as a whole, is that it reflects in such an exemplary fashion exegesis informed by biblical theology, the importance of which he learned from Vos, his former Princeton professor.

In the preface, particularly with “Redemption Accomplished” in view, Murray writes: “It is with some misgiving that I have ventured to offer for publication the following attempt to deal with an aspect of divine revelation that has been explored to such an extent. This present study cannot pretend to be in the same class as many of the superb contributions of both the more remote and the more recent past.” How thankful we should be that Murray did not allow these self-effacing misgivings to keep him from venturing as he has in this volume. For the result, quite contrary to his depreciating assessment, makes an indeed superb contribution, one that will continue to be, as it already has proven to be, for the enduring well-being of the church.

Endnote

[1] A bibliography of Murray’s publications is in volume 4 of his Collected Writings; missing there is his important article “Structural Strands in New Testament Eschatology,” available here.

The author, an OP minister, taught at Westminster Theological Seminary from 1965 to 2010. New Horizons, October 2024.