Friday, August 25, 2006

Salvation is Divine

More from Iain H. Murray: "... the salvation of souls ... is not finally determined by our efforts." (Pentecost - Today? p. 11)

Yes, Murray is a Calvinist, but he's not a hyper one. He recognizes that Scripture clearly says followers of Christ have a responsibility to share the good news. But while hyper-Calvinists make one mistake, others, let's call them hyper-evangelists, make another. They basically reduce the salvation of souls to a rote process of cause and effect -- if believers do this and that, then revival will invariably come. It doesn't. Murray deals with this well, citing both Scripture and general experience.

Murray quotes Theodore L. Cuyler: "God always means to be God. He bestows spiritual blessings when he pleases, how he pleases, and where he pleases. We may labour, we may pray, we may 'plant', but we must not dictate." (p. 12)

I'm not a Calvinist, but I sure love the importance they place on the sovereignty of God.

We should work, pray and plant; but we should always remember that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to save. There is no magic formula that we can concoct to produce one salvation, much less a revival.

In short, salvation is divine, in more ways than one.

1 Comments:

Blogger ferrell1955 said...

Murray's got some good stuff on the altar call. When I can find the book again, I'll post it.

1:04 PM  

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