'I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them
as they were before. I will cleanse them from all the sin they have
committed against Me... Then this city will bring Me renown, joy,
praise, and honour before all nations on earth...'(Jeremiah 33:7-9).
What great blessing lay ahead of God’s people! God was pointing His
people to the place of blessing: Jesus Christ - ‘the righteous Branch
from David’s line’(Jeremiah 33:15-16). ‘In Christ’, we have ‘every
spiritual blessing’: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has
conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him’(Ephesians 1:3; 1
Corinthians 2:9). God has so much blessing to give to us. Come to Him
and receive His blessing: ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you; I will
show you wonderful and marvellous things that you know nothing
about’(Jeremiah 33:3).
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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