Through
Christ our Saviour, we are led ‘in the way everlasting’: ‘God has given
us eternal life, and this life is in His Son’ (Psalm 139:24; 1 John
5:11). God’s great purpose of eternal salvation seems ‘too wonderful’ -
‘too good to be true’! ‘It is a thing most wonderful, almost too
wonderful to be, that God’s own Son should come from heaven and die to
save a child like me, and yet I know that it is true...’ (Psalm 139:6; Church Hymnary,
385). God has a glorious future planned for us. We can hardly even
begin to take it in: ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty
for me to attain’. We know that ‘no mind has conceived what God has
prepared for those who love Him’ yet we rejoice in this: ‘God has
revealed it to us by His Spirit’ (Psalm 139:6; 1 Corinthians 2:9-10).
‘Lead me in the way everlasting!’(Psalm 139:24).
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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