With contributions from a number of well-respected Reformed theologians and church leaders, this volume offers a comprehensive defense for the doctrine of limited atonement from historical, biblical, theological, and pastoral perspectives.
It's what we will sing on the last day as we gather with people from every tribe, language, and nation. And we will stand before the throne and sing salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb who sits on his throne. What the doctrines of grace do is they show us that God is still on his throne. He's still saving people. He's still giving his salvation to whomever he so pleases.
Jonny and his wife, Jackie, have four children. Some surprising facts about a time in history that changed the church forever. Does the Reformation Still Matter? Stephen J. We study the Reformation because of what we can learn. So, in seeking God, it is vital that you know who Jesus is. How do we become Christians?
The popular notion is that we do so by trying our best. Salvation is therefore a reward for our efforts. This simple illustration tells us so much we need to know about salvation. A workman needs three things — raw material to work from, tools to work with and a design to work to. I knew a man who was highly skilled and clever. He could do almost anything with a piece of wood, and his shed was full of all sorts of bits and pieces that he would never throwaway because they might come in handy one day.
There was one beautiful piece of teak that he always said he was keeping for a special job. It was so much better than the other wood he had and too good for most jobs. So with this workman, as with most, his raw material varied. Some was excellent, some not so good. It is all rubbish. The raw material of human nature is so twisted and warped by sin, so full of flaws and knots that it would take a workman of infinite skill to do anything with it. God is such a workman. There is no raw material that God cannot fashion into a thing of beauty.
That truth gives every sinner hope. As God begins to work on this raw material, his main tool is Scripture. As the Word is preached, the Holy Spirit begins the vital work of conviction. Another tool is circumstance. A sickness, a chance meeting, an unexpected happening can all be used to show the sinner his need of salvation. The design that God is working to is to make us like Jesus — to change our vile nature so that we radiate something of the beauty of Jesus.
Only God can do this. Only God can make a Christian. A Christian is not a patched-up sinner, he is a new creation. If you are searching for God, are you begin to despair of ever finding him?
Here is a great encouragement for you: it is not so much that you are seeking God, but that God is seeking you. Read the chapter, and notice at the end of each parable the great rejoicing when the lost is found. Are you beginning to see now how much value God places on the souls of men and women like you?
If you have read the pages of this little booklet with any understanding, you cannot doubt his love. There remains but one word from the gospel to bring to you.
It is a small word, a simple word, but it is of vital importance. Are you weary and burdened with the load and guilt of your sin? Then come to Christ! Then come! There is nothing you have to do, neither is there anything that God has to do, for Jesus has already done all that is necessary for your salvation.
A great preacher speaking on this verse once said: My text is such a precious one, that I cannot enter into the fulness of its freeness and sweetness. Remember, my dear friends, if you are willing to be saved, God requires nothing of you except that you will yield yourselve up to Christ. If you are willing to be saved, none can prevent, there is no obstacle. You are come where Jesus stands-stands with. And now will you refuse the invitation? Will you go this day and abuse the free mercy of God?
Shall his very mercy lead you into more sin? Will you be wicked enough to say, that because grace is free, therefore you will continue in sin year after year? Oh, do not do so; grieve not the Spirit of God: today is the accepted time; today is the day of salvation. In other words, you were saved through the instrument, the means of trust.
You just trusted God. We must understand salvation as a gift from God, not as a right, obligation, payment due us from God based upon our performance. Fourth , and this is very important for us to note that Paul goes on to emphasize that our salvation is not as the result of works in any way.
We are not saved by our self-effort or deeds or actions. You were not saved by your good works, but in order to do good works. You can be created for work. So by speaking of salvation as a work in which God creates us anew in Christ Jesus, Paul is affirming in the strongest possible way the divine sovereignty and monergism at work in our salvation.
Sixth and finally , lest we make the erroneous deduction that God looked into the future and foresaw our belief in Christ and our subsequent good works and thus based his salvation of us on foreseen faith and obedience, Paul tells us that God saved us by grace and created us in Christ not by our works but in order to do the works he had foreordained for us to do from eternity past! Paul is saying that even the good works we now do were prepared beforehand by our gracious God for us to do.
No, the message is far more glorious and comforting than that. Indeed, it is far more staggering, even mind-boggling than that. God created us to be his image, to be like him. That image was marred in our fall into sin. But these good deeds that we walk in far from being the cause of our salvation are instead its goal, its aim. Well, there you have it.
Six times in three little but hugely important! Your salvation is wholly due to his saving, forgiving, transforming, undeserved and unearned, power and favor.
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