Sunday, July 30, 2006

Why does God save anybody?

As I watch "Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism" I am pondering more and more the grace of God and how undeserved it is. Here are a quote from Charles Spurgeon and an article from the Canons of Dort that relates to grace. Give these things some thought. Expect to be reading more about grace and calvinism as I begin to get some of my thoughts together.

"Why did God love Jacob and hate Esau? I can tell you why God loved Jacob; it is soverein grace! There was nothing in Jacob that could make God love him; there was everything about him that might have made God hate him as much as He did Esau, and a great deal more. But it was because God is infinitely gracious that He loved Jacob and because He is sovereign in His dispensation of His grace that He chose Jacob as an object of that love. Jacob was loved by God simply on the footing of FREE GRACE.
Why did God hate Esau? Why does God hate any man? I defy anyone to give any answer but this... because that man DESERVES to be hated. No reply but that can be true. If God deals severely with any person, it is because that person deserves all that he gets."
- C.H. Spurgeon

Article 15: Responses to God's GraceGod does not owe this grace to anyone. For what could God owe to one who has nothing to give that can be paid back? Indeed, what could God owe to one who has nothing of one's own to give but sin and falsehood? Therefore the person who receives this grace owes and gives eternal thanks to God alone; the person who does not receive it either does not care at all about these spiritual things and is self-satisfied in this condition, or else in self-assurance foolishly boasts about having something which is lacking. Furthermore, following the example of the Apostles, we are to think and to speak in the most favorable way about those who outwardly profess their faith and better their lives, for the inner chambers of the heart are unknown to us. But for others who have not yet been called, we are to pray to the God who calls things that do not exist as though they did. In no way, however, are we to pride ourselves as better than they, as though we had distinguished ourselves from them.
- The Canons of Dort

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