The Law and Grace and Love of God

An excerpt from Rt. Rev. Dennis Campbell’s sermon “God’s Law is Love.”  It has some helpful and insightful remarks on the commonly misunderstood law/gospel distinction. 

“We are so used to hearing Law and Grace used as antonyms that we sometimes forget they are both part of the same love of God freely given to us in Christ.  They are only opposites when used to describe the way we are made acceptable, unto God.  Law then becomes our attempt to cancel out our sins by being ‘good’ while grace means being made acceptable by the free gift of God. In this sense, the two are completely opposite. But...”  continue reading.

Election

Steve Galt has published a short but great post on “Objections to the Doctrine of Election.” The following is a paragraph that I found to be quite insightful.

“Many people object to the idea of election. Some object that election is fatalistic. In this they fail to understand the difference between fatalism and determinism. Fatalism is deterministic, but determinism does not have to be fatalistic. The reason for this is that fatalism is inherently meaningless. Determinism need not be meaningless. God’s election is purposeful, not capricious. God is understood to have sovereignly decreed all that will come to pass. This includes the election of some to salvation. But this is not something that is without meaning. God’s purpose in this is His own glory.”

I recommend reading the rest. Steve follows this post up with another great survey of various views of the atonement of Christ’s cross-work.