In Exodus 20, we read "the Ten Commandments", and, straightaway, we may be on our guard against legalism. In Exodus 20:5, we read words that make us feel that we, sinners, can't possibly come into the presence of the God of perfect holiness: "I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me." As we read such words, we may wonder, "Is this all that God has to say to us?" As we read on to Exodus 20:6, we read something else, something that we could easily miss: "showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments." How wonderful it is that in the heart of the Law, there is this word of love! Is it still demanding of us something that is beyond us - loving God and keeping His commandments? Yes! That's what the Law says to us - but, still, there is this glimpse of God's love, which leads our thoughts beyond the broken Law and the jealous God. To see all that God is saying to us about His eternal love, we need to travel from Mount Sinai, the place where the Law was given, to Mount Calvary, the place where Jesus, God's beloved Son, "loved us and gave Himself for us" (Galatians 2:20). There, it becomes clearer to us - God loves us, and He will never stop loving us. As His love reaches and changes us, He will lift us out of our sin and guilt. He will give us the strength that we need - to love Him and walk with Him in the pathway of true holiness of life.
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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