in God's Grace...

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other." This prayer was first printed in a monthly bulletin of the Federal Council of Churches and has become enormously popular. It has been circulated in millions of copies.
 ~ Reinhold Niebuhr, American Protestant theologian 

"Grace is free sovereign favor to the ill-deserving." ~Benjamin B. Warfield American Clergyman & Educator

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see. (2) ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved; How precious did that grace appear The hour I first believed! (3) Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; ’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. (4) The Lord has promised good to me, His Word my hope secures; He will my Shield and Portion be, As long as life endures. (5) Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, And mortal life shall cease, I shall possess, within the veil, A life of joy and peace. (6) The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine; But God, Who called me here below, Will be forever mine. [(7) When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we’d first begun.]

John Newton ~ Minister and hymn-writer - Olney Hymns (London: W. Oliver, 1779).   Listen

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
                                                                                                    Ephesians 2:8-9
 
 

Beliefs from the EPC

The Westminster Confession of Faith

  CHAPTER 10 -  Of Effectual Calling

10.1  All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God,
taking away their heart and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.

10.2  This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

 

The Westminster Shorter Catechism
(three  of twelve  questions with reference to God's grace)

Q. 33. What is justification?
A. Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by
faith alone.

Q. 34. What is adoption?
A. Adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges, of the sons of God.


Q. 35. What is sanctification?
A. Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.

 

ESSENTIALS OF OUR  FAITH
from the EPC

     Being estranged from God and con-demned by our sinfulness, our salvation is wholly dependent upon the work of God's free grace. God credits His right-eousness to those who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation, thereby justifies them in His sight. Only such as are born of the Holy Spirit and receive Jesus Christ become children of God and heirs of eternal life. Essentials of our faith:
 

QUOTES
what others of today are saying...
 

 H. Wayne House ~ professor of biblical studies
Charts of Christian Theology and Doctrine,
Zondervan, 1992, p. 100

"In addition to the outward general call to salvation, which is made to everyone who hears the Gospel, the Holy Spirit extends to the elect a special inward call that inevitably brings them to salvation.  The external call (which is made to all without distinction) can be, and often is, rejected; whereas the internal call (which is made only to the elect) cannot be rejected; it always results in conversion.  By means of this special call the Spirit irresistibly draws sinners to Christ.  He is not limited in His work of applying salvation to man's will, nor is He dependent on man's cooperation for success.  The Spirit graciously causes the elect sinner to cooperate, to believe, to repent, to come freely and willingly to Christ.  God's grace, therefore, is invincible; it never fails to result in the salvation of those to whom it is extended."
 

 

Michael A. G. Haykin ~ Principal of The Toronto Baptist Seminary, Toronto, Ontario
 Key Passages Supporting "Grace Alone"
 

"`I contribute nothing to my salvation except the sin from which I need to be saved`(Acts 13:48, Matt. 11:25—30, John 6:63—65; 15:16, Rom. 9:14—24).

Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.

At the heart of the Reformation was one of the most fundamental questions of the Christian faith: How can I be saved from eternal damnation? The answer of all the leading Reformers was one and the same: only by God’s free and sovereign grace. As J. I. Packer and O. Raymond Johnston have pointed out, it is wrong to suppose that the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, that storm center of the Reformation, was the crucial question in the minds of such theologians as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin. This doctrine was important to the Reformers because it helped to express and to safeguard their answer to another, more vital, question, namely, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christ’s sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith."
 

 

 

God's
Riches
At
Christ's

Expense

 

 

 

 

 

  It is finished!

Sola gratia!

        Grace alone - Some view the means of salvation to be a mixture of reliance upon the grace of God, and confidence in the merits of one's own works, performed in love. But those from the reformed faith believe that salvation is entirely comprehended in God's gifts, (i.e. God's act of free grace) dispensed by the Holy Spirit according to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ alone.
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 © 2008 ~ DPC          In Essentials, Unity ~ In Non-essentials, Liberty ~ In All Things, Charity: Truth in Love