‘I
will exalt You, O Lord’(Psalm 30:1). God is not exalted because we exalt Him. We exalt Him because He is exalted.: ‘He is exalted, for ever
exalted, and I will praise His Name’(Mission Praise,217). How do
we come to the point where we say, ‘I will exalt You, O Lord’? We
realize our need of Him - ‘when You hid Your face, I was dismayed’(Psalm
30:7). We look to Him for mercy - ‘To You, O Lord, I called; to the
Lord, I cried for mercy’(Psalm 30:8). God hears and answers our prayer -
‘You turned my wailing into dancing; You removed my sackcloth and
clothed me with joy’(Psalm 30:11). God calls us to worship Him - ‘Sing
praises to the Lord, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy
Name’(Psalm 30:4). ‘The joy of the Lord’, His ‘unutterable and exalted
joy’, gives us ‘strength’(Nehemiah 8:10; 1 Peter 1:8). We worship God:
‘O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever’(Psalm 30:12).
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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