Historic Calvinism

The verses I have in mind are those in which the Lord Jesus Christ spoke plainly to his enemies, saying that those who do not believe on him do not believe because they are not his sheep, that those who are his sheep believe and follow, that this is true because they are given to him by the Father, that these who are given to him by the Father inevitably come to him and, finally, that these who come will never be lost. This is a message of man’s complete ruin in sin and God’s perfect remedy in Christ, and it can be expressed in the distinctive points of Calvinistic theology. Before we look at these points in detail, however, we should see that far from being an aberration or addition to the gospel, these truths have always belonged to the core of the Christian proclamation and have been characteristic of the church at its greatest periods.

歷史上的加爾文主義

我想到的經文是主耶穌基督對他的仇敵直言不諱地說，那些不信他的人之所以不信，是因為他們不是他的羊，那些屬於他的羊的人相信並跟從，這是真的，因為他們是天父賜給祂的，那些天父賜給他的人必然會來到他那裡，最後，那些來的人永遠不會失落。這是人類在罪中徹底毀滅以及神在基督里完美拯救的信息，它可以用加爾文主義神學的獨特觀點來表達。然而，在我們詳細研究這些要點之前，我們應該看到，這些真理絕不是福音的偏差或補充，而是一直屬於基督教宣講的核心，並且是教會在其最偉大時期的特徵。