Sunday, August 23, 2015

Those who hold to the Truth of God's free and sovereign grace found in the Gospel must not back down

"This temptation, of course, must be decisively rejected. Error cannot be fought with error but only with the truth. The Reformation faith has always been characterized by a refusal to become reactionary. It has never allowed heresy to drive it into the opposite error. It will not engage in theology or preach out of fear. Steadfastly, it insists on being biblical.
The outstanding example of this is the Synod of Dordt. The Reformed churches were confronted with the false doctrine of man's salvation of himself by his free will. Basic to this error was the teaching that the preaching of the gospel is God's gracious effort to save every man. The Reformed fathers viewed this error as a perversion of the gospel, the destruction of the Reformed churches, and the robbery of the glory of God in his greatest work, the work of salvation.
The vehemence of their opposition to the Arminian heresy might have led the fathers to react by slighting the importance of the preaching of the gospel and by denying the serious call of God to everyone to whom the gospel comes. But such was not at all the case." - David J. Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel, Pg. 181-182

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