faith for faith

When coming to Scripture, there are few phrases that have such weight and implication as does “Not All Israel belong to Israel” in Romans 9. It says first that there are essentially two Israels—one that is truly Israel and another that merely a shadow or a prefiguring. It says also that there has been a misunderstanding by some earlier interpreters of Scripture. These interpreters believed that it was the physical descendents of Jacob who were the children of God and that it was those who would inherit eternal life (cf. Mark 10:17). Jesus refutes this notion on several occasions, none more poignant than his refutation of the Pharisees:

They answered him, “Abraham is our father . . . We were not born of sexual immorality (i.e. like the Samaritans). We have one Father—even God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires” (John 8:39, 41-44).

The ultimate rejection of Christ’s words was not limited to the Pharisees for it was true of most of Israel, which prompts Paul, after his glorious declaration of the unfailing love of God in Christ at the end of Romans 8, to address the unbelieving, condemned state of Israel by looking at the nature of the Promise of God to Abraham.

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At certain times, there are a few things that I like to go to for encouragement when things that I say or write in truth and love are not received as truth or as in love. One is 1 Peter 4:12-19; another is Nobody Loves Me by Derek Webb. Luke 4:24 is also a great encouragement as is the entire life of Christ as revealed in the Gospels. Being that I could not write a post on the subject as well as Derek Webb composed a song on it, I will step aside and let the better speak:

Well I can always tell a liar, and I always know a thief
Well I know I’m like my family, because brother I’m the chief
Well I’m a dangerous crusader cause I need to tell the truth
So I’m turning over tables in my own living room

But I might nail indictments up on every door in town
Cause its not right or safe to let your conscience down
So I don’t care if

Nobody loves me
Nobody loves me
Nobody loves me…but You

Cause the truth is never sexy, so it’s not an easy sell
You can dress her like the culture, she’ll shock ‘em just as well

And she don’t need an apology for being who she is
And she don’t need your help making enemies
So I don’t care if…

So I’ll do whatever it takes
To fit us into this wedding gown
I’ll use words that rattle your nerves
words like ‘sin’ and ‘faith alone’ now…

Nobody loves me
Nobody loves me
Nobody loves me…but You.

~Nobody Loves Me by Derek Webb

This is certainly one of my favorite poems, and Gerard Manly Hopkins is quite possibly my favorite poet, though I do like to be smacked by John Donne every once in awhile. Enjoy some decent writing on this blog for a change.

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
……dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dáwn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
……Of the rólling level �ndernéath him steady áir, & stríding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
…… As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl & gliding
…… Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, — the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty & valour & act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
…… Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, o my chevalier!
…… No wónder of it: shéer plód makes plóugh down síllion
Shine, & blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
…… Fall, gáll themsélves, & gásh góld-vermílion.

~ The Windhover by Gerard Manly Hopkins

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments (Deut. 5:8-10).

I have an unusual conviction that likes to come out and be extensively trampled upon two times during the year, namely at Christmas and Easter. My conviction is this: any depiction–any visual representation of God, be it the Father, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit, is a breaking of the second of the ten commandments. So, whenever Christmas and Easter roll around, I have the great joy of beholding what I view as idols laying in feeding troughs and hanging to wooden crosses.

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Several members of my church, including some dear friends, are leaving today to go to Honduras to help the Church there. They are leaving today–the day after Christmas, while many are going shopping, sitting around their homes drinking hot chocolate, or simply relishing a couple days off of work. They go sacrificing vacation time or wages for this upcoming week, possibly jeopardizing their fiscal stability and comfort. They go also after months of foregoing various luxuries in order to raise the money needed to fund the trip. They do this–what many in the world and in the church might consider a careless use of money and a waste of time, because they desire to glorify Jesus Christ by regarding others in the world as better than themselves.

Some in the Church grumble in the background, “Why do we continue to send our people and our money to places in the world where the Gospel has already been preached?” Others have grumbled about the nature of some of the past trips to Honduras, namely those that were done for the purpose of building dwellings and structures for the Church in Honduras rather than being a concerted effort to preach the Gospel to those who had not heard.

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We, the Church, find ourselves in dangerous territory when we have to use unbiblical definitions and analogies to describe our doctrines. This is especially true when we speak concerning the doctrine of the Gospel, for error on this doctrine places us and those whom we teach on precarious ground concerning our salvation. Other branches of doctrine, like the Particular Redemption of Christ, though weighty and magnificent in their own right, their imperativeness for orthodoxy pales in comparison to that for the Gospel.

In spite of this, there is great confusion concerning the Gospel. Evidence of this is seen in the disconnect between biblical uses of the Gospel and the Church�s use of the Gospel. For example, when Christ is said to be preaching the Gospel of Kingdom, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” we are confused, because we certainly do not mention the Kingdom of God when we preach our gospel, and we scarcely preach repentance. Also, we know well that the first four books of the New Testament are labeled by Church history, “the Gospels,” but few in the Church could tell you why they are labeled this way save that they contain the Gospel events.

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I am growing weary of those who call themselves Christians. If I have to hear one more Christian cry about Obama and the undeserving poor who are taking “deserving” people’s precious tax dollars while they themselves are living it up on the world’s pleasures and by their lavish lifestyles are actively neglecting those poor, I really think that I am going to lose it.

I am growing weary of Evangelicals who think the Gospel is a “Get Out of Hell Free” card and that Christ died “to fund their vanity purchase.”* I am sick of Christians who think that they can honor Christ and the Gospel’s demands while they live in a big house with fancy furniture and stainless steel everything and think it is okay just as long as they host “church” functions from time to time.

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For those who know me well, you know that it takes a lot to get me excited, and I am excited. Friday morning of this past week while driving to work, I listened to Lecrae’s new album Rebel for this first time. I could not stop smiling, and I barely held back the tears that were fighting to flood over my eyelids. “I praise you, Lord, for I have seen the root of your Revival!” is a more poetic semblance of the prayer of my heart when I first heard those Christ-saturated lyrics. Oh, and it is Rap.

Now I am even more convinced that a revival is upon us, because, unbeknownst to me, there is, as a friend informed me, a significant movement of this music. I am still fairly ignorant of the greater scope of this movement, and I presently only have two new albums that I am listening to as often as I can: Rebel by Lecrae and The Atonement by Shai Linne. I have been extremely blessed, convicted, edified, and challenged thus far, and I am sure that you would be as well, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

As for the genre, I would challenge you to place aside your presuppositions if you are skeptical. Yes, the world has used the genre to laud the most heinous, wicked, and despicable acts and lifestyles that the world knows, but if Christ can cause tax collectors and prostitutes to turn and repent to the praise of his glorious grace, he can certainly turn a type of music around for his name’s sake. As for the merits of the genre itself, it, unlike any other, has the high potential to be prophetic. And when I say, “prophetic,” do not think of the term’s misuse but of its biblical use, i.e. the bold and unabashed proclamation of God’s Word and his will. If you listen to any one song of the aforementioned artists, you will understand what I am talking about.

I would also encourage you to embrace this movement and to pray that God will flood our nation and its inner-cities with this glorious music. A new Reformation is upon us; don’t miss out on God’s work.

This piece was originally titled “On the Scope of Adam’s Universal Condemnation and Its Implications on the Doctrine of “The Age of Accountability” and can be found here. I believe its content is pertinent to the subject at hand.

Though Romans 7:14-25 does not deal directly with original sin and the imputation of Adam’s guilt to his offspring, it does offer clarification as to the scope of Adam’s sin and its punishment. Romans 5:12-21, like our present text, is a very difficult passage of Scripture with regard to its subject and its complexity. In it, the Apostle deals with the very difficult subject of original sin and the universal condemnation afforded by that sin. The Apostle complicates the passage exponentially by introducing Jesus Christ as the Second Adam and by comparing and contrasting the two God-ordained heads of the human race. The passage is complicated further by the Apostle’s seemingly free use of universal and particular language, making it seem at one point that Christ is the universal head of the human race and at another, the head of a particular race. Thus the passage reads:

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 5:15-21, emphasis mine).

There are several terms to note when trying to understand this passage. First is the persons over whom Christ is head. At some points in the passage, Christ is said to be the head of “the many” and at other points, “all men.” Second is the grace afforded to those over whom Christ is head. For the many is the “abundance of grace” (vv. 5:15, 17, 20), and for all men, the “grace of God” (v. 5:15). Third is the state of those over whom Christ is head. For the many, is the state of “righteousness” (v. 5:17, 19, 21), and for all men, “justification” (v.
5:16, 18). Fourth is the life granted to those over whom Christ is head. For the many is “eternal life” (v. 5:21), and for all men, “life” (v. 5:18).

Through this passage alone, we can deduce that Christ’s headship and the grace that God gives through Christ is universal in one respect and particular in another. What is not so clear however is the scope of the condemnation (whether it be temporal or eternal death) of Adam’s sin imputed to all of his offspring. For this, Romans 7 offers a clearer insight. In v. 7:9, the Apostle writes, “I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.” In this verse, the Apostle clarifies what can be deduced in Romans 5:12-21, viz. that the death afforded by Adam is strictly temporal in nature, viz. that the punishment afforded to all men through Adam is physical death. For in v. 7:9, the speaker, being a descendent of Adam, is already condemned to physical death and yet is said to die when he encounters the law and transgresses it. Therefore, it can be said that spiritual death comes to the speaker when he first comprehends the law of God and transgresses against that law (cf. v. 1:20). The experience of the speaker of Romans 7 is identical to the experience of Adam, for God said to Adam, “On the day that you eat of the tree, you shall surely die,” and yet Adam remained physically alive after he ate. God’s word did not fail, for Adam, like the speaker of Romans 7, died spiritually the moment that he transgressed the commandment though he did not die physically until much later.

Was not the sin of Adam sufficient for both the physical and spiritual death of his offspring? It was indeed, but we see even from Genesis 3 the promised coming of the second Adam who would crush the head of the serpent and who granted Adam and his offspring, even prior to his coming, the grace of physical life though they deserved immediate, physical death. Paul puts it this way in Romans 3:23-25, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” This divine forbearance that allowed God to pass over the sins of the human race and not to commit the race immediately to the judgment of physical death did not come without a price, but it came through the very blood of his Son, Jesus Christ. Here we see clearly how Christ is the universal head of all men and is also the particular head of the many. Christ is head of all men insofar as God through his death grants to all men a measure of physical life. Christ was offered up as a propitiation for the human race—a temporal turning aside of the wrath of God so that all men are temporarily justified in the sight of God so that they will not immediately bear the physical condemnation of Adam’s sin or their own transgressions. This is indeed a grace of God afforded by Christ for all men, for apart from this universal grace no man would live.

This grace of physical life that God grants to all men through Christ, the second Adam, has an even greater purpose, of which the Apostle speaks in Romans 9:20-24 when objections are made against the purpose of God:

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

In this weighty passage of Scripture we see that God not only withholds his wrath from all men so that those who would believe in Christ would come to him in faith but also so that those who would be vessels of the abundance of God’s mercy would comprehend the riches of the grace of God granted to them through Christ. Christ’s universal headship that withholds the hand of God’s judgment exists ultimately to bring glory to his name through the realization of his great and particular mercy that he has shown to those over whom Christ is their particular head in the abundance of grace. Of this abundance of grace, the saints of God will sing forever, witnessing how God has sovereignly called them out of the world of common grace and into the fold of particular and abundant grace.

Going back to the testimony of Romans 7:9, the justification that Christ grants to all men is justification of the original sin of Adam that brings eternal condemnation. Though those who have not sinned after the likeness of the offense of Adam might fall under the physical curse and die without comprehending and volitionally transgressing a law (e.g. infants, mentally handicapped, etc.), their condemnation is not eternal death, for where there is no comprehension of the law there is no imputation of sin (v. 5:13). Thus it can be said that those who are children of Adam who have not comprehended the law of God, be it the Mosaic law or Natural law, are spiritually alive until they reach a point of comprehension of God’s law. This fact is clearly seen in v. 7:9 where the speaker says, “I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive, and I died.” The sin that came alive in the speaker, viz. covetousness from the command, “You shall not covet,” was sufficient enough to kill the speaker spiritually thereby affording him enslavement to sin and eternal damnation. And though Christ is the speaker’s universal head, who relieves him from original sin’s eternal condemnation, the curse of original sin, that which indwells the speaker and remains dormant until cognition of the law of God, is such that it is certain to kill the speaker the very moment that recognition of the law of God occurs.

All this is to say that Christ’s universal headship is such that it justifies eternally those who have died apart from comprehension of the law of God, be it the Mosaic law or Natural law. This doctrine is commonly expressed as the “age of accountability,” but until studying Romans 5:12-21 in light of Romans 7:9, I have never encountered Scriptural warrant for the doctrine. Indeed, I was quite on the fence, as it were, with regard to the salvation of those who died apart from volitionally transgressing the law, for I have always heard it argued from texts that were never meant to express that truth. This doctrine, expressed from Romans 5:12-21 and Romans 7:9, places the salvation of those who have not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s offense in its proper light, viz. in the grace of God afforded by the work of Christ. For apart from Christ even those who have never comprehended the law of God are under the condemnation of Adam which is both temporal and eternal death. However, Christ’s work as the Second Adam has placed all men under his headship, justifying them from the eternal condemnation of Adam sin. All men are relieved of this judgment of eternal condemnation until they comprehend the law of God, which brings with it certain rebellion and death because of the sin that indwells all men and remains dead until the time of that cognition.

Therefore, the doctrine that is known as the “age of accountability” would be better named the “state of accountability,” for it is not a certain age that makes one accountable to God, but it is a state of comprehension. For the very moment that a person, no matter his age, comprehends a command of God and by his sinful nature rebels against it and thereby rebels against God, he dies spiritually, becomes enslaved to sin, and is condemned in the sight of God. This rebellion against the commandments of God can indeed come at a young age, therefore making the declaration of the Gospel to children of great import. No parent should withhold from his child the teaching of the Gospel, especially if he sees in his child the evidences of rebellion. The first thing that a child should learn from his parent is that his rebellion has a much weightier consequence than a rod on the back—condemnation in the sight of a holy God. Every spanking of a child for his rebellion must then be used as an opportunity for the Gospel, so that through that discipline a parent might save his child from eternal damnation (cf. Proverbs 23:14).

In the past two posts, we have looked at the Universal aspects of Christ’s death on the cross for humanity, viz. its propitiatory and gift-giving aspects. Though today’s post on the particular aspect of his death will likely be the last on the subject, this is not to say that Christ’s work is even limited to these three aspects. We could, for example, look at how Christ’s death is the source of eschatological regeneration for the whole Creation as is seen in Romans 8:19-22. The work of Christ is clearly bigger than men and extends beyond them, but it finds its greatest glory and declaration in the redemption of the elect.

As I noted in the introduction, when we speak of Particular Redemption or Limited Atonement, we are not placing a value on the death of Christ but intention. In other words, Christ’s death is not limited because of the nature of his sacrifice, but it is limited in its design and its redemptive application. This is to say that when Christ died on the cross that there was a particular people that he was redeeming and buying out of bondage to be the sons of God.

This idea of Christ’s decisive and particular work of redemption is seen throughout Scripture and is tied intimately to the nature of his Coming. It is for this reason the Angel declares before Christ’s birth when he speaks to Joseph, “[Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). And the Prophet Isaiah declares concerning the work of Christ:

He poured out his soul to death
…and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
…and makes intercession for the transgressors (v. 53:12).

These declarations and numerous others demonstrate that Christ died to save sinners not to possibly save sinners.

Indeed this is main thrust of the doctrine of Particular Redemption, viz. that when Christ died on the cross he accomplished the salvation of his people. Most Christians today do not believe this concerning the death of Christ. They instead believe in a “Christ meets you half-way” doctrine of salvation. No, they will not use these exact words, but they will mean precisely that. Their belief manifests itself in such sayings as, “Christ died for your sins, but you must exercise your faith to receive his gift of salvation for which he has paid.” The emphasis is on the word exercise. Though the above sentence sounds orthodox, it subtly makes faith a work. It says in essence, “Christ has done his part on the cross; you must do your part and believe.”

This is not to say at all that Scripture does not declare to sinners, “Believe and repent,” but it is to say that we have misunderstood the source of our faith. We, in our ignorance, think that our faith is our own doing and then form doctrines on the Gospel and atonement according to our misconceptions rather than go to Scripture and learn from it. For Scripture declares, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8), and elsewhere, “For the righteousness of God has been revealed from faith for faith; [namely], the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for those who have faith” (Rom. 1:17; 3:22, translation mine). Furthermore, the Apostle declares in his letter to the Hebrews that Christ is the “Author and Finisher of our faith” (v. 12:2).

Scripture declares elsewhere that our state is so dire and severe that we have no ability to believe in the Gospel on our own accord. We are said to be blind to the glory of God, deaf to the Gospel call, and dead in our trespasses, and there is nothing in us that would cause us to believe in the Gospel on our own accord. The Apostle writes:

If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. . . . For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor. 4:3, 4, 6).

Here the Apostle declares that our salvation and our faith is as much a work of God as was the calling forth of light by the power of his Word at Creation’s beginning.

This is all to say that faith is a fruit of the Spirit rather than a work by which we receive the benefits of Christ’s work. In actuality the reverse is true, viz. Christ’s work on the cross is what afforded the Spirit the power for regeneration that opened our eyes to the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ that caused us to cry out, “I believe!”

Since faith is not the means by which we meet God half-way for our salvation, Christ’s death was not a mere opportunity for all who would simply believe to come and receive the potential saving power of the work of Christ. For faith is not simple, it is impossible without God’s prevenient work. God must be the Initiator and the Accomplisher of our salvation and our faith. Thus the Lord declares to Isaiah concerning his preaching of the Gospel, “Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (vv 6:9, 10). For this reason also the Lord declared to Jeremiah that he would preach to an obstinate Israel and to Jonah that he would preach to a repentant Nineveh.

On the other hand, faith is simple in a way. After being born again by the will of the Spirit, the act of faith is as natural and simple to the child of God as crying is to a baby at his birth.

Our misconception of the source of our faith has also manifested itself in our practices. Instead of believing that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, we believe that it is a simple decision that anyone can make, just like deciding to make a sandwich for lunch instead of going out to eat. Therefore, instead of finding those who boldly preach the Gospel and its demands, we find those who use their cunning and the wisdom of men to trick people into praying a prayer for salvation. But, I digress.

Coming back to Christ’s work on the cross, we must look at the intentions and goals of his work. Did Christ intend to bear the guilt and eternal consequences of every person who had ever lived, even those to whom he did not grant the gift of faith? If you say that he did, there will be some serious questions come Judgment Day. Scripture clearly declares that all men outside of Christ will be judged and damned according to their deeds, but if Christ died for those deeds, why then are they being condemned? You might say, “They are condemned because they must believe that Christ bore their sins in order for Christ to have born their sins.” But then, are you not making faith a work? Are you not making yourself your savior rather than Jesus Christ?

We are taught in Scripture that imputation does not happen by choice but by headship. In Romans 5 we are taught by the Apostle that humanity has had two heads—Adam and the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Through the first Adam all men, having him as their father, were imputed his deed of disobedience and were thereby condemned (hence the necessity of the virgin birth, but I digress again). Jesus Christ came into the world as a second head, one who imputed to us who are in him his righteousness. The Apostle writes, “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ” (v. 5:17).

Faith as a gift and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness both point to the doctrine of election, which by its nature demands a particular redemption, for God, having ordained the Fall of Adam before the foundation of the world and the subsequent need of a Redeemer, predestined some for glory and some for condemnation. God’s predestination of those who are vessels for glory and his forbearance of sins is based totally in the work of Christ, for we who are saved were not merely chosen before the foundation of the world, but we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. The Apostle writes:

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph. 1:4-10).

All these are good and glorious things that God grants to his children through the special and particular work of Christ on their behalf.

You might ask, “Even if this is true, what is the practical benefit of this doctrine? For those who are in Christ, this doctrine has great benefit. First, it helps us understand the ways of God and his purposes in Creation. Second, it encourages us to preach the Gospel with great boldness knowing that God will save his people from their sins. Thirdly and most importantly, it will cause us to glorify God more for his particular and unmerited mercy toward us. Through our election and redemption and our witnessing the wicked’s condemnation, God will make known to us, his vessels of mercy, the riches of his glory and grace (cf. Rom. 9:23).

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
…or who has been his counselor?”
Or who has given a gift to him
…that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen (Rom. 11:33-36).

Next: Concerning Particular Redemption, Part V. The Work of Christ for the Infantile