Monday, April 11, 2005

Bavinck on Sanctification.

I'm going to be busy this week (and hopefully still diligent in light of looming scholastic deadlines?), so posts might be a bit sporadic.

Nevertheless, I start off the week with some quotes from Herman Bavinck's Our Reasonable Faith, from the reading that I did recently on sanctification.

  • “The life of the Christian is not a quiet growth, but a continuous struggle” (492)

  • “Because sanctification, like the whole of salvation, is the work of God, we are admonished, obliged, to a new obedience, and we are also qualified for it. He grants abundant grace not that we should instantly or suddenly be holy and continue to rest in this holiness, but that we should persevere in the struggle and remain standing. He hears our prayers but does it in accordance with the law and order which He has fixed for the spiritual life. Hence we are always of good course, for He who has begun a good work in us will finish it until the day of Jesus Christ. The believers can and they will become holy because in Christ they are holy” (502-3).

1 comment:

Pilgrim in Progress said...

Isn't Bavinck good? I am sitting here right now reading his chapter on the Work of Christ in His Humiliation, and its excellent. I think Bavinck has got to be my favorite "theological discovery" this year...rich stuff!