“It is not faith that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ… It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. The saving power resides exclusively, not in the act of faith or the attitude of faith or in the nature of faith, but in the object of faith.”

– B. B. Warfield quoted by Sinclair Ferguson, In Christ Alone (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2007), 43.

*this hails from Of First Importance – daily dose of the Gospel.

The Introduction of the Theology of Adoption

The doctrine of adoption is one of, if not the most, overlooked doctrines within soteriology. In general, when expanding upon the doctrine of salvation, people easily include election, effectual calling, regeneration, faith, justification, assurance, sanctification, and finally glorification. Yet believers never mention the doctrine of adoption, or in many cases, many might not even know that the doctrine even exists as an essential component of salvation. The doctrine of adoption as stated in the Baptist Confession of faith is:

“All those that are justified, God vouchsafed, in and for the sake of his only Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption, by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God, have his name put upon them, receive the spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled to cry Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by him as by a Father, yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption, and inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation.”[1]

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Saints, consider these two excellent and short videos on 2 Peter 3:9:

2 Peter 3:9 Refutes Universal Salvation

Does 2 Peter 3:9 Overrule God’s Sovereign Predestination?

from ThinkMan 

Notice who or what is foreknown. Is it a decision? Is it a quality, such as faith? No! Rather, it is a person. An individual is known. Paul is making a relational statement. God foreknows persons, not merely events or decisions.

What we find in this passage is that those to whom Paul refers to as “the called” and those who Paul says were foreknown by God, are the same ones who were predestined by God. In each link of this golden chain, we have men portrayed as the passive recipients of God’s gracious action. God calls them. God predestines them. He justifies them, and He glorifies them. If every subsequent link in the chain demonstrates God’s activity and man’s passivity, why should we think that the very first link in the chain, God’s foreknowing, would portray precisely the opposite picture?

John Murray makes this point in His commentary on Romans:

 “This interpretation, furthermore, is in agreement with the efficient and determining action which is so conspicuous in every other link of the chain – it is God who predestinates, it is God who calls, it is God who justifies, and it is he who glorifies. Foresight of faith would be out of accord with the determinative action which is predicated of God in these other instances and would constitute a weakening of the total emphasis at the point where we should least expect it …. It is not the foresight of difference but the foreknowledge that makes difference exist, not a foresight that recognizes the existence but the foreknowledge that determines existence. It is a sovereign distinguishing love.” (4)

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by Nathan Williams

Excerpt:

“The list of qualifications for an elder is found in two places in Scripture, 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. Some of the characteristics overlap and some are only found in one location, but when combined these two lists make one list which gives us what God requires to be present in the life of an elder in His church. It is interesting to note that in both lists Paul says that these qualifications “must be” present in the life of a man before he can serve as an elder. These are not suggestions or optional. By providing these lists, Paul is giving an objective standard by which to judge whether a man is qualified to serve in that role.”

 

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by A.W. Pink

Quoting AW Pink . . .

The feverish urge of modern evangelism is not how to promote the glory of the triune Jehovah, but how to multiply conversions. The whole current of evangelical activity during the past fifty years has taken that direction. Losing sight of God’s end, the churches have devised means of their own. Bent on attaining a certain desired object, the energy of the flesh has been given free rein; and supposing that the object was right, evangelists have concluded that nothing could be wrong which contributed unto the securing of that end; and since their efforts appear to be eminently successful, only too many churches silently acquiesced, telling themselves “the end justified the means”.Instead of examining the plans proposed and the methods adopted by the light of Scripture, they were tacitly accepted on the ground of expediency. The evangelist was esteemed not for the soundness of his message, but by the visible “results” he secured. He was valued not according to how far his preaching honored God, but by how many souls were supposedly converted under it.

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by John Piper

“These ten points are my personal testimony to the effects of believing in the five points of Calvinism. I have just completed teaching a seminar on this topic and was asked by the class members to post these reflections so they could have access to them. I am happy to do so. They, of course, assume the content of the course, which is available online from Desiring God Ministries, but I will write them here in the hope that they might stir others to search, Berean-like, to see if the Bible teaches what I call “Calvinism.””

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“Some time ago in a religious magazine, one man who believes in an indefinite redemption made this statement, ‘The triune God has done, is doing, always will do all that triune God can do to save every man, woman, and child on this earth. What is hell? It is an infinite negation, it is infinite chaos and it is more than that, I tell you, and I say it with profound reverence, hell is a ghastly monument to the failure of the triune God to save the multitudes who are there. I say it reverently, I say it with every nerve in my body tense, sinners go to hell because God Almighty Himself cannot save them. He did all He could. He failed!’ Now most people who believe in an indefinite provisional redemption would never make a statement like that, but if they are logical, that is what they must say. God has done all that He can. He failed.”

Excerpted from this article…

by Frank B. Beck

(Read Ephesians, the First Chapter)

“It has been well said that in the doctrine of election a theologian takes his final examination” (Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, Vol. III, p. 503).

Man is totally depraved, and therefore deprived of any good toward God. That we have seen in the previous chapter. If any man is to be saved, then God Himself must choose to save that man. That very thing God has done, as we shall show in this chapter. How He has done it we shall show in the next three chapters.

“If the doctrine of Total Inability (Depravity) or Original Sin be admitted, the doctrine of Unconditional Election follows by the most inescapable logic. If, as the Scriptures and experience tell us, all men are by nature in a state of guilt and depravity from which they are wholly unable to deliver themselves and have no claim whatever on God for deliverance, it follows that if any are saved God must choose out those who shall be the objects of His grace” (Loraine Boettner, p. 95, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination).

The Examination of Unconditional Election

What Unconditional Election Is!

The word elect comes from the Latin electus, from eligo (e, out, with lego, choose & to choose out). Literally it signifies to pick out, choose, to gather out (Desk Standard Dictionary, Funk and Wagnalls; W. E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Vol. II, p. 21).

Unconditional means: Not to be limited to any conditions, or prerequisites whatsoever.

We mean, therefore, by this doctrine, that God, in eternity, chose or picked out of mankind whom He would save (by means of Christ’s death and the work of the Holy Spirit), for no other reason that His own wise, just, and gracious purpose.

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