From
the majestic perfection of God and the privileged responsibility of
humanity, we now move to the evil subtlety of Satan. An intruder has
sneaked into the privileged place between God the Creator and mankind.
His creation. Genesis 2 ends with the absence of shame. Genesis 3 begins
with the presence of Satan. The work of Satan, successfully executed,
ensures that Genesis 3 ends rather differently from Genesis 2 - "the
Lord God sent the man out of the Garden of Eden" (Genesis 3:23). This was
"Paradise Lost." Was there a way to "Paradise Regained"? There are two
answers to this question: 'No' and 'Yes.' Taking ourselves as the
starting-point, the answer is 'No' - God will not permit us to take
salvation into our own hands (Genesis 3:24). Starting with God, we answer, 'Yes' -
this is the answer of Genesis 3:15 - Christ (the woman's descendant) will be
crucified (the bruising of His heel), but the outcome of this will be
the defeat of Satan (the crushing of his head).
A response to a comment by G. R. Osborne on Berkouwer’s understanding of the doctrine of final perseverance
In his contribution to Clark Pinnock (editor), Grace Unlimited (1975), G. R. Osborne states that Berkouwer, in Faith and Perseverance, pp. 9-10, “speaks of the time less ness of the doctrine of final perseverance, founded on ‘the richness and abidingness of salvation” (p. 188, emphasis mine). This single-sentence comment on Berkouwer’s view hardly gives a fair indication of the type of thinking found in Chapter 1 of Berkouwer’s Faith and Perseverance - “Time li ness and Relevance” (pp. 9-14, emphasis mine). Berkouwer insists that “the living preaching of the Scriptures, which offer no metaphysical and theoretical views about … ‘permanency’ as an independent theme in itself, does nothing to encourage ‘a continuity which is … opposed in any way to the living nature of faith” (p. 13). Berkouwer stresses that “The perseverance of the saints is not primarily a theoretical problem but a confession of faith” (p. 14) and that “The perseverance of the saints is unbreakably connected wi...
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