There is an intentional order to the article, but feel free to start wherever it looks most urgent for you. Many of you will want to skip the historical introduction because it is not as immediately relevant to the biblical questions. Please don’t feel that you have to read these short sections in any particular order. The sovereign Lion of Judah is the sweet Lamb of God. And along with strength is sweetness and tenderness beyond imagination. To know him in his sovereignty is to become like an oak tree in the wind of adversity and confusion.
God is a rock of strength in a world of quicksand. There can be many tears as we seek to put our ideas through the testing fires of God’s word.īut all the wrestling to understand what the Bible teaches about God is worth it. Even when we know things biblically and truly - things clear enough and precious enough to die for - we still see through a glass dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12). My own struggle makes me more patient with others who are on the way. But over the years - many years of struggle - I have deepened in my conviction that Calvinistic teachings on the five points are biblical and therefore true, and therefore a precious pathway into deeper experiences of God’s grace. I begin as a Bible-believing Christian who wants to put the Bible above all systems of thought. I do not begin as a Calvinist and defend a system. To experience God fully, we need to know not just how he acts in general, but specifically how he saves us - how did he save me? That is why these points are sometimes called the doctrines of grace. Not the power and sovereignty of God in general, but his power and sovereignty in the way he saves people. That is what the five points of Calvinism are about. And probably the most crucial kind of knowledge is the knowledge of what God is like in salvation. My experience is that clear knowledge of God from the Bible is the kindling that sustains the fires of affection for God. But we will not be stunned with joy, as when the fog clears and you find yourself on the brink of some vast precipice. If he remains a blurry, vague fog, we may be intrigued for a season. The great old catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” and answers, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Enjoying God is the way to glorify God, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.īut to enjoy him we must know him. Yes, the more you know him and love him and trust him, the more you long to know him. Then the frustrations of inadequate love will be over. That is what we long for: the very love the Father has for the Son filling us, enabling us to love the Son with the magnitude and purity of the love of the Father. That’s the way Jesus prays for us to his Father: “That the love with which you have loved me may be in them” (John 17:26). Satisfaction at the deepest levels breeds a holy longing for the time when we will have the very power of God to love God. The more you feast on his fellowship, the hungrier you are for deeper, richer communion. The more you know him, the more you want to know him. Wealth, sex, power, popularity, conquest, productivity, great achievement - nothing can compare with God. He is unchangeable - and that answers our longing for stability and security. He is eternal - and that answers our longing for permanence.
He is infinite - and that answers our longing for completeness. To know him, and be loved by him, and become like him is the end of our soul’s quest. We love the whole panorama of his perfections. One of the great old catechisms says, “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question Four). He is our great Treasure, and nothing can compare with him. What the Five Points Have Meant for Me: A Personal TestimonyĬhristians love God.This article is available in book form as Five Points: Towards a Deeper Experience of the Grace of God.