‘You,
O Lord, are exalted for ever... The Lord reigns, He is robed in
majesty...’(Psalm 92:8; Psalm 93:1-2). The Lord is ‘exalted’. We are to
exalt Him in our worship. He is not exalted because we exalt Him. We
exalt Him because He is exalted. He is ‘exalted far above all gods’.
That is why we sing, ‘I exalt Thee, O Lord’. ‘He is exalted, the King is
exalted on high’- This is the truth concerning the Lord. ‘I will praise
Him’- This is our response to His truth. We sing, ‘Jesus, we enthrone
You, we proclaim You our King’. This is our response to the eternal
truth concerning our Saviour: ‘The Lord is enthroned as King for ever’.
‘From all eternity’ the Lord is ‘robed in majesty’. Let us respond to
His majesty. Let us ‘magnify’ the Lord - ‘O Lord our God, how majestic
is Thy Name’(Psalm 97:9; Psalm 29:10; Mission Praise, 158,217,388,507).
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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