‘Deliver
me, O Lord, from lying lips’ (Psalm 120:2). God calls us to ‘believe
the truth’, ‘love the truth’ and ‘follow the truth’. We are to be people
who ‘do what is true’ (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11; 3 John 3-4; John 3:21).
How can we be such people? We must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. He is
‘the Truth’ (Hebrews 12:2; John 14:6). When we are tempted to turn away
from the pathway of truth, we must remember this: ‘My help comes from
the Lord’. We must remember God’s promise: ‘The Lord is your
Keeper...The Lord will keep you from all evil’. God’s promise is not
only for ‘this time’. It’s ‘for evermore’(Psalm 121:2,5,7-8). This gives
us glorious hope as we keep on looking to Christ,‘eagerly awaiting’ His
Return ( Hebrews 9:28).
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...
Comments
Post a Comment