"As a Reformed theologian I would argue that the gospel cannot be reduced to either justification or election. The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners by placing them in a right relationship to God through his substitutionary sacrifice on the cross and by engrafting them into the righteousness of Christ by the purifying work of his Spirit. This gospel needs to be received in faith and repentance and demonstrated in a life of lowly service, faith working through love. It also needs to be manifested in the practice of the spiritual gifts, which both build up the church and empower the church to reach the spiritually lost for the gospel. The life of the Christian should be one of unstinting devotion to Jesus Christ in the freedom that comes to us through the outpouring of the Spirit, whose generosity is evidenced in the proliferation of spiritual gifts and an abundance of fruits of love and obedience.
A theology firmly rooted in the mainstream Reformation will also insist that the Spirit establishes the believer in a mystical union with Jesus Christ through personal faith and repentance, sealed by the rite of baptism. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ's Sonship, not an immanent, all-pervasive World Spirit that abides in the inner recesses of nature and humanity. The Spirit calls us not to a life of unceasing introspection but to one of sacrificial service grounded in faith in the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not the core of the soul (as in an ahistorical mysticism) but the Son of God confronting us from without by his Spirit, engaging us in personal dialogue with him. We who appeal to the Bible and celebrate the Reformation affirm not a universal Spiritual Presence that can be tapped into by prescribed repetitions but a personal, living God who remains hidden until he makes himself known in Jesus Christ. We affirm not a God who is waiting to be discovered in the depths of our being but a God who takes the initiative by confronting us as Master and Teacher, Lord and Savior. We affirm a God who does not remain distant from us but who reaches out to us by his Spirit, calling us to mission in the world in the name and for the sake of Jesus."
- Donald G. Bloesch
from: http://www.amazon.com/The-Holy-Spirit-Christian-Foundations/dp/0830827552/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1364408096&sr=8-2&keywords=the+holy+spirit+donald+bloesch
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