After Adam and Eve had sinned, things went from bad to worse. These were very dark days (Genesis 6:5-7). Then, we read these wonderful words, "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (Genesis 6:8). There was to be a flood - but there would also be an ark. The flood speaks of God's judgment (Genesis 6:17). The ark speaks of God's salvation (Genesis 6:18-20). In our generation, we see so much sin. It's all around us. It's within us. Is this all that we see? No! We also see the God of our salvation. The God of grace is reaching out to us. He's calling us back from the brink. He's calling us to make a new beginning with Him.
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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