Read
the words - ‘His Name’ shall ‘endure for ever’(Psalm 72:17) - and think
of Christ. His Name is ‘the Name above all other names’. He is ‘the
King of kings and Lord of lords’(Philippians 2:9-11; Revelation 19:16).
Read the words - ‘all nations call Him blessed’(Psalm 72:17) - , and
think of Christ. ‘From every tribe and language and people and nation’,
God’s people have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ
(Revelation 5:9). Read the words -‘May His glory fill the whole
earth!’(Psalm 72:19) - and think of Christ. In the ‘new heaven and new
earth’, ‘the holy city’ will shine with ‘the glory of God’. ‘Its
radiance’, ‘like a very precious jewel’, will be shining from this
‘lamp’: Jesus Christ, ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world’(Revelation 21:1-2,10-11,23; John 1:29).
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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