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Tag Archives: election

Adam, The Fall and The Belgic

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[The] Belgic Confession underlines the deliberate and willful nature of Adam’s transgression. Sometimes the word “fall” gives us the wrong impression. A fall is something tragic, a dreadful accident. A man might fall down the stairs, out of a tree or even off a tall building. Some falls can be very serious; others less so. But a fall is usually not deliberate. We tend to pity a man who falls as we see him with a broken leg or other injury. But Adam did not merely fall. He jumped! The Belgic Confession explains it this way: “man had thrown himself into temporal and eternal death.” The idea is of fatal plunge. When a man deliberately destroys himself, he is no longer to be pitied. He is to be condemned. Adam was not a victim of the deception of the serpent. Adam walked wide-eyed into death. God had warned him in unmistakable words: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Adam chose death therefore. Not even the devil could have forced Adam to sin against his own will. …Read More!

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Wiersbe on Calvinism

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Warren Wiersbe’s Commentaries are such a wealth of Biblical teaching broken down into simple mouth sized chunks that one can nibble on endlessly. Well, okay I really like them. Take for example when it comes to dealing with the doctrine of God’s Unconditional election:

This miracle [the new birth] all began with God: we were chosen by the Father (Eph. 1:3-4). This took place in the deep counsels of eternity, and we knew nothing about it until it was revealed to us in the Word of God. This election was not based on anything we had done, because we were not even on the scene. Nor was it based on anything God saw that we would be or do. God’s election was based wholly on His grace and love. We cannot explain it (Rom. 11:33-36), but we can rejoice in it.
‘Foreknowledge’ does not suggest that God merely knew ahead of time that we would believe, and therefore He chose us. This would raise the question.’Who or what made us decide for Christ?’ and would take our salvation completely out of God’s hands. In the Bible, ‘to foreknow’ means ‘to set on’s love upon a person pr persons in a personal way.’

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Election: And The Best Laid Plans of Men and Mice…

The common adage usually goes ‘the best laid plans of men and mice often go awry.’ This short clip on the contrary is about God’s Sovereign plans and in particular his choosing and calling of a sinner to salvation. It is about unconditional election or sometimes called predestination or fore-ordination.

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PREDESTINATION: GOD HAS A PLAN

Red to Blue. Now I wonder what will happen next?

It is unthinkable that a God of infinite wisdom and power would create a world without a definite plan for that world. And because God is thus infinite His plan must extend to every detail of the world’s existence. If we could see the world in all its relations, past, present, and future, we would see that it is following a predetermined course with exact precision. Among created things we may search where we will, as far as the microscope and the telescope will enable the eye to see, we find organization everywhere. Large forms resolve themselves into parts, and these parts in their turn are but organized of other parts down as far as we can see into infinity. There’s More