Assurance

I John 5:20; A Devotional

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But we also know that the Son of God is now here and has given us acuity so that we learn the truth and so that we are in the truth; in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. -MGV

The beginning of the verse differs from verses 18 and 19 with the addition of the conjunction ‘de’. ‘de’ is most often translated ‘but’, and here I translate it as ‘but also’ to link it to the two proceeding verses. This indicates that this is the principle point that John has been building up to through 18 and 19. Using ‘but’ instead of ‘therefore’ shows that this thought doesn’t flow out of the proceeding thoughts, but takes the context of the proceeding thoughts and goes far beyond it to something greater.

So let us look at this line of thought:

  1. We know we are protected
  2. We know that the world is dominated by evil
  3. But we also know that Jesus is here now

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I John 5:19; A Devotional

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I John 5:19: We fully know that we are from God and that the world is laid out along the ground by evil. -MGV

Starting in the same way as verse 18, verse 19 speaks of something that we fully and completely know, being in the perfect tense. This verse is also carrying the same though as verse 18, for when is says “from God” or more literally “out of God”, it is referring to us being born of God, the quality that verse 18 is talking about. However, while that verse is talking about how we are protected by God, here it is talking about how the rest of the world is not.

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The Biblical Doctrines of Grace (Part Two)

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For the Calvinist, the “doctrines of grace” is a synonym for TULIP theology. So, do the Biblical Doctrines of Grace of Arminianism also follow a system, such as TULIP? Arminianism proper has not historically employed an acronym as the one used for nearly four centuries by Calvinists.

Let it be stated, however, that if it had not been for the followers of Arminius (the Remonstrants) presenting their five arguments to the state to be approved as orthodox consent, then the TULIP would have never been constructed. And the original order of the Remonstrants was Conditional Election (to those in Christ), Unlimited Atonement, Total Depravity, Resistible Grace, and Conditional Perseverance.

If the Calvinists had strictly followed the Arminian system, it would have spelled ULTIP, which is a bad acronym, considering Ultip is not a word. Worse off, the Arminian acronym would have been CUTRC. The best sense which we could make out of that construct is TRUCC, also not a word.

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