The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us. ~ C.S. Lewis
Dr. Thomas Ascol – All of life is grace: that we live, we breathe; we do what we do because God enables us to be that way and to live that way.
Rev. Walter Bowie – The major problem with a grace that operates prior to salvation, it makes man the final determiner in his own salvation. And so salvation is a matter of man and God working together, so man has some grounds whereby he can boast.
Rev. Walter J. Chantry – It would be right of God to destroy all of us for our sins and if He would have mercy on some He has the right to do that.
Dr. George Grant – In God’s good providence the plan of salvation was a tangible and effective plan of salvation. God set out to accomplish the mission of redeeming His own.
Dr. D. James Kennedy – Augustine said that man today is born dead in trespasses and sin. He needs to be resurrected; that we are totally incapable of doing.
Dr. Stephen Mansfield – The reality is, in Scripture, God goes after people. He has sovereignly chosen. He has chosen Paul, knocks him off of the horse and says, “I’ve chosen you for this purpose, get busy.” It’s a sovereign God in operation, not a lonely old man hoping people will follow Him.
Dr. Joe Morecraft III – The greatest world mission enterprises have all been initiated in the past by men who believe these great doctrines that we’ve been talking about with the Reformed faith.
Dr. Roger Schultz – We believe that our salvation is by grace; that even the faith that we have comes as a gift from God. There is nothing that we can lay claim to, nothing that which we can boast. Our salvation entirely comes from the Lord.
Dr. Thomas Nettles – God, command what You will, and give what You command. In other words, we are dependent upon the grace You give us to accomplish in us Your own commands.
Dr. R.C. Sproul – The most significant issue that any human being will ever face is the question, “How can I escape the judgment of God?”
Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr. – In order for the “good news” to be good it has to not just be
abstract. It has to have the capacity to affect a change in us.
Dr. Kenneth Talbot – The doctrine of Calvinism has never been defeated because it is the true exposition of Scripture.
Hello, my name is Eric Holmberg and I’ll be your host for Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism. What follows is a three-part presentation that asks, and hopefully answers, one of the most important questions the human mind can contemplate: How exactly is a fallen, fallible and finite human – a sinner – redeemed before an infinitely just and holy God?
Interviewer – How can a sinner be saved from the judgment of God?
• By the grace of God. Through the sacrifice for sins that was offered upon the cross.
• Well, I think the answer to that is really what makes Christianity unique among world religions. Because with any other system of belief, systems that understand that there is a fundamental problem with man, what we would call sin, there is also a system of works by which the practitioner needs to either prove himself or redeem himself through his works, his actions. And Christianity alone is the one that basically says that there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re too far gone and only God can save us at that point.
• The apostle Paul probably laid it out best in Ephesians when he stated that it’s by grace through faith that we’re saved and that it’s not by ourselves, that its Christ who did it. He paid the price so that no man should boast in the works that are done.
Interviewer – OK, but how does that work? How exactly does a person get saved?
• You have to believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. In other words, that He was crucified on the cross and rose again and paid the price for our sins and by acknowledging Him as Lord.
• Well, Jesus died for everyone’s sins. He paid the full price to redeem us from the judgment that awaits our disobedience, which is hell. He extends the hand of salvation to everyone and all we need to do is take it. Many don’t, but many do. And those that do are saved.
• You know, to answer that, I like what our pastor teaches on that. He says that salvation is like a legal declaration, that God is the judge and He’s the one that declares us righteous before Him. Satan is like the accusing attorney, Jesus is the defense attorney. Not only does Jesus defend us, but he also posts the bail and pays the fine. So we’re like the jury in that respect and we, depending on who we choose, will determine our eternal destiny.
Dr. R.C. Sproul – The most significant issue that any human being will ever face is the question, “How can I escape the judgment of God?”
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ~ Acts 16:30
Dr. R.C. Sproul – If Jesus taught anything, he taught that each one of us will be brought before God in a final judgment and we will be exposed to His wrath and exposed to His judgment. And that would be the supreme calamity from which to be delivered or to be rescued, which is what the Bible means by “being saved.” And so, if it is true, that we will have to face God; and if it is true that there is a judgment, then the question, “How can I escape that judgment?” becomes the most important question that we will ever have to deal with.
All of this raises another related question: “Who gets the glory in this process of redeeming man from his sins and pardoning him from the judgment those sins deserve?”
• 100% God.
• It’s God and God alone.
• Who else but God? Jesus is the only way. He’s the only sacrifice for sins.
If we were to survey the over one billion people in the world who call themselves
Christians, when we got down to the nitty-gritty of their beliefs concerning these two vital questions, we’d likely find more than a little confusion. And while most would probably answer the second question correctly, that God alone gets the glory, more often than not this response wouldn’t be theologically consistent with the details of their first answer.
