‘Exalt
the Lord our God... Make a joyful noise to the Lord’(Psalm 99:5,9;
Psalm 98:4,6; Psalm 100:1). We are to worship the Lord with joy. We are
to glorify God. We are to enjoy Him. In our worship, we must never
forget the holiness of God: ‘He is holy!... The Lord our God is holy!’(Psalm 99:5,9). In our worship, we rejoice in the love of
God: ‘His steadfast love endures for ever... He has done marvellous
things!’(Psalm 100:5; Psalm 98:1). The God of ‘awesome purity’ loves us
with the most perfect love of all: ‘No earthly father loves like
Thee...’. Let us worship Him with holy fear and heartfelt love: ‘O how I
fear Thee, living God, with deepest, tenderest fears... with trembling
hope and penitential tears! Yet I may love Thee too, O Lord, Almighty as
Thou art, for Thou hast stooped to ask of me the love of my poor
heart’(Church Hymnary, 356).
In this post, I will draw comparisons between Arminius and Berkouwer. * Bangs points out that the historical situation in Holland was not a simple one - Calvinism coming in, Arminius nearly ruining it and the Synod of Dort restoring it: “The earliest Dutch Reformed leaders don’t seem to be Calvinists at all. They rise out of the soil, here and there, nurtured by the old Dutch biblical piety, not seized by dogmatic insights, but steadily pressing toward a purified life of faith according to Scripture” (p. 21). This emphasis is similar to Berkouwer’s insistence that election is not a special gnosis for the theological elite. Rather, it is a confession of faith, arising from the hearts of those who have come to know the grace of God ( Divine Election (DE), p. 216). * Bangs observes that Arminius’ theological method is “practical and through faith”: “For the Theology which belongs to this world, is practical and through faith: Theoretical Theology belongs to the o...
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