Posted on Sunday, April 26, 2015 by Samuel
Loraine Boettner:
Throughout the Bible, the laws of nature, the course of history, the varying fortunes of individuals, are ever attributed to God’s providential control. All things, both in heaven and earth, from the seraphim down to the tiny atom, are ordered by His never-failing providence. So intimate is His relationship with the whole creation that a careless reader might be led toward pantheistic conclusions. Yet individual personalities and second causes are fully recognized,—not as independent of God, but as having their proper place in His plan. And alongside of this doctrine of His Immanence, the Scripture writers also present the kindred doctrine of His Transcendence, in which God is distinctly set forth as entirely separate from and above the whole creation. (The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination)
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Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Loraine Boettner D.D., Providence, Sovereignty | Tagged: God’s providential control, Immanence, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, Transcendence | Comments Off on GOD’S PROVIDENTIAL CONTROL
Posted on Wednesday, April 15, 2015 by Samuel
:
“God’s works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.” (Shorter Catechism, answer to Question 11.) The Scriptures very clearly teach that all things outside of God owe not merely their original creation, but their continued existence, with all their properties and powers, to the will of God. He upholds all things by the word of His power, Heb. 1:3. He is before all things, and in Him all things consist, Col. 1:17. “Thou art Jehovah, even thou alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is in them, and thou preservest them all,” Neh. 9:6. “In Him we live, and move and have our being,” Acts 17:28. He is “over all, and through all, and in all,” Eph. 4:6. (The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination)
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Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Loraine Boettner D.D., Providence | Tagged: The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, Will of God | 2 Comments »
Posted on Thursday, April 2, 2015 by Samuel
Loraine Boettner:
The Christian knows that the day is certainly coming when, willingly or unwillingly, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. In the Scriptures, He is represented to us as God ALMIGHTY, who sits upon the throne of universal dominion. He knows the end from the beginning and the means to be used in attaining that end. He is able to do for us exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or even think. The category of the impossible has no existence for Him “with whom all things are possible,” Matt. 19:26; Mark 10:27. This, however, does not mean that God has power to do that which is contrary to His nature, or to work contradictions. It is impossible for God to lie, or to do anything which is morally wrong. He cannot make two and two equal five, nor can He make a wheel turn around and stand still at the same time. His omnipotence is as sure a guarantee that the course of the world will conform to His plan as is His holiness a guarantee that all His works will be right. (The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination)
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Filed under: Bible, Christianity, God, Loraine Boettner D.D., Providence, Sovereignty | Tagged: GOD ALMIGHTY, Omnipotence, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination | 2 Comments »
Posted on Friday, January 30, 2015 by Samuel
Loraine Boettner D.D.:
By virtue of the fact that God has created every thing which exists, He is the absolute Owner and final Disposer of all that He has made. He exerts not merely a general influence, but actually rules in the world which He has created. The nations of the earth, in their insignificance, are as the small dust of the balance when compared with His greatness; and far sooner might the sun be stopped in his course than God be hindered in His work or in His will. Amid all the apparent defeats and inconsistencies of life God actually moves on in undisturbed majesty. (The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination)
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Filed under: Christianity, God, Loraine Boettner D.D., Sovereignty, Theology | Tagged: Loraine Boettner D.D., Sovereignty of God, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination | 1 Comment »
Posted on Sunday, January 11, 2015 by Samuel
Loraine Boettner:
“This doctrine of total inability which declares that men are dead in sin does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that anyone is entirely destitute of virtue, nor that human nature is equal in itself, nor that man’s spirit in inactive, and much less does it mean that the body is dead. What is does mean is that since the fall, man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that he is wholly unable to love God, or to do anything meriting salvation. His corruption is extensive, but not necessarily intensive. It is in this sense that man, since the fall, is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, wholly inclined to all evil. He possesses a fixed bias of the will against God, and instinctively and willingly and turns to evil. He is an alien by birth, and a sinner by choice. The inability under which he labors is not an inability to exercise volition, but an inability to be willing to exercise holy volitions. And it is this phase of it which led Luther to declare that ‘free will’ is an empty term, whose reality is lost; and a lost liberty, according to my grammar, is no liberty at all.” (The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination)
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Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Grace, Loraine Boettner | Tagged: corruption, curse of sin, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, total inability | 5 Comments »
