‘I
was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the House of the Lord”’
(Psalm 122:2). Why do we go to the House of the Lord? We go ‘to give
thanks to the Name of the Lord’ (Psalm 122:4). We seek His mercy for our
past sins: ‘Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us!’ (Psalm 123:3).
We seek
His help for our future temptations: ‘Our help is in the Name of the
Lord...’ (Psalm 124:8). As we receive mercy and help from the Lord, we
worship Him: ‘Blessed be the Lord’ (Psalm 124:6). In our worship, we
‘look to the Lord our God’, drawing encouragement from His Word: ‘The
Lord is on our side’ - In Him we have the victory (Psalm 123:2; Psalm 124:1-5). Rejoicing in God’s blessing, we pray for others: ‘May they prosper who love You’ (Psalm 122:6).
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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