God speaks to His people about their sin - "The people of Jerusalem turned away from Me without ever returning ..." (Jeremiah 8:5). He is not pleased with them. He is calling them to return to Him - "Change the way you live ..." (Jeremiah 7:3).
The life of Israel is “like the desert” (Jeremiah 9:12). This moral and
spiritual desert is described in Jeremiah 9:13-14 - “The Lord answered,
They’ve abandoned My teachings that I placed in front of them. They
didn’t obey Me, and they didn’t follow them, They followed their own
stubborn ways and other gods ...” This was a serious situation. These
words are very relevant to today’s Church and world. God is not being
taken seriously. His Word is being ignored. The situation goes from bad
to worse. God is speaking. Few people are listening. He speaks through
His Word. Few people are reading His Word. We must listen to what God
says and do what He tells us to do.
The question of universalism in Barth’s theology has been raised directly by J D Bettis in his article, “Is Karl Barth a Universalist?” (Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 20, No. 4, December 1967, pp. 423-436). This article requires to be carefully discussed not only for its significance as an interpretation of Barth’s thought but also because it presents a serious misrepresentation of Berkouwer’s criticism of Barth. Bettis writes, “Modern protestant theology has defined three basic answers to the question of the particularity of election: double predestination, Arminianism and universalism” (p. 423). By attempting to fit Berkouwer into “this structure of alternatives” (p. 423), he misrepresents completely Berkouwer’s criticism of Barth. According to Bettis, Brunner and Berkouwrer hold that “because Barth fails to accept either Brunner’s Arminianism or Berkouwer's double decree, he must be a universalist” (p. 426). There are two misrepresentations of Berkouwer here. (...
Comments
Post a Comment