One time, after I had preached a sermon from John touching on some of the main points of the Reformed faith, I found a copy of that week’s bulletin on which someone had scribbled his opinion of the message: “I’m sick of Calvinism in every sermon.”

The message did not particularly bother me. Notes like that seldom do. But I found it surprising that the person who wrote the note somehow regarded Calvinism as a system of thought that could well be dispensed with while, nevertheless, as he assumed, still preserving Christianity. In other words, this person, like many others, somehow regarded the doctrines that go by the name of Calvinism as at best an addition to the pure gospel and at the worst a system that is opposed to it. Is this true? Are the doctrines of grace wrong? One proof that they are not is seen in the verses to which we come in this chapter.

有一次，在我講完約翰觸及的關於改革宗信仰的一些要點的講道後，我發現了一份那周的公報，上面有人潦草地寫下了他對這一信息的看法：“我厭倦了加爾文主義每一次講道。”

這個消息並沒有特別困擾我。類似這樣的筆記很少見。但令我感到驚訝的是，寫這封信的人在某種程度上認為加爾文主義是一種完全可以被拋棄的思想體系，但正如他所假設的那樣，他仍然保留着基督教。換句話說，這個人和其他許多人一樣，在某種程度上認為加爾文主義的教義充其量是對純粹福音的補充，而最壞的是一個反對它的體系。這是真的？恩典的教義是錯誤的嗎？證明它們並非如此的一個證據可以從我們在本章中談到的經文中看到。