Christ performed his once-for-all work of reconciliation on the cross and thus saved all creation. But this salvation must be mediated to and appropriated by man. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. This salvation is added to man as the reconciliation of guilt, as the presence of the living God himself. There is a duality of existence and salvation. Salvation is added to fallen existence and mixed with it. This is to be understood from the doctrine of justification. Justification is the declaration of being just on the basis of the once-for-all work of Christ. Therefore all christianity is in essence name-christianity.3.41Reality is not what it is in itself but what God says about it. With the appearance of the revelation of God in the world, existence is de-demonized and freed from its own character of being. It is filled with salvation and all creation is messianic. In other words all creation is broken into positive or negative signs of the coming kingdom. Creation is fulfilled with salvation and is therefore messianic, but this does not mean that in itself and as such reality is messianic in character. Reality becomes messianic by the prophetic judgment over it.3.42 ``Het koninkrijk poneert zichzelf kerugmatisch in de existentie.''3.43
Salvation in the present, in the modality of promise, is characterized by the tension that exists in the doctrine of justification. ``In de waarheid van de rechtvaardiging ligt zoo sterk de eschatologische kracht van het spreken Gods en het ontologisch-kritische gehalte van het werk van den Heiligen Geest, dat in haar het voltooide heil compleet geponeerd wordt. En in de waarheid van de wedergeboorte gaat dit heil, deze eschatologische realiteit zoo zeer in de existentie in en vereenigt en vermengt zich er dusdanig mee, dat de mensch, gegrepen door deze volkomenheid en er blijvend door geboeid, alleen maar in een duurzaam heen en weer, in het eeuwig wisselend spel zijner existentie, met haar worstelen kan.''3.44
Justification is to be understood as a synthetic, creative judgment of God. It is not an analytic judgment. In God's justifying judgment man and creation is what it is not in itself. In justification the guilt of man is reconciled. Justification is a moment in the appropriation of salvation and as such is a moment in sanctification. Justification also puts itself into effect in sanctification, which is the battle of the Spirit with the flesh.
We are completely saved in Christ but this salvation is concealed in the flesh. We have salvation in the modality of promise. Our salvation has not yet been revealed to us but is safely stored away with Christ in heaven. Therefore our salvation is not empirically verifiable but requires faith. We have already seen that this salvation must be appropriated by us and this is a dynamic process in which we come to know-, will- and act-with God. We are not replaced with salvation, but our guilt is reconciled and our salvation is a continual battle of the Spirit (what we are proclaimed to be, by God, in Christ - ie. justified) with the flesh (what we are in ourselves - ie. sinners). The essence of our salvation in the present, that is, of the regnum Christi is the battle of the Spirit and the flesh. Therefore the regnum Christi is essentially fragmentary and ambiguous.
Salvation is a miraculous act of God (wonderwerk van God) and through christianization reality is not what it is in itself, but is what God does with it. ``Omdat de gratia interna zoo over de heele linie gratia irresistibilis, wonderwerk van den Geest is, en niet uitloopt in een toestand van den mensch, maar de mensch omgekeerd met zijn heele existentie is prijsgegiven aan het werken van den Geest, daarom is de gratia interna analytisch-empirisch ook nooit ten volle en in haar eigenlijke substantie nooit te conctanteeren. En alles wat er van te constateeren is - in het hart, in het leven, in de prediking, in de sacrementen, in de politiek, in de cultuur -, is op een radikale en principieele wijze altijd volstrek dubieus.''3.45