Abraham Kuyper...Let us not deceive ourselves and speak any longer of a glorious work of grace if the omnipotent God treats man mechanically, as a stock or block. Then there is no mystery for angels to look into, but an immediate work of omnipotence breaking down and creating anew. To admire the work of grace we should take it as it is revealed, i.e., as a complicated, unsearchable work by which, violating nothing, God adapts Himself to the delicate and manifold needs of man’s spiritual being; and reveals His divine omnipotence in the victory over the endless and gigantic obstacles which human nature puts in His way... Even the heart of God thirsts after love. His entire counsel may be reduced to one thought, viz., that in the end of the ages He may have a Church which shall understand His love and return it. But love can not be ordered, neither can it be forced in an unspiritual way. It can not be poured out in a man’s heart mechanically. To be warm, refreshing, and satisfying, love must be quickened, cultivated, and cherished. Hence God does not instil an ounce of love into His people’s hearts, in consequence of which they love Him, but He exhibits love to such an extent that He, who was from the beginning with God and was God, in unfathomable love dies for men on the cross. This would have been superfluous if man were a stock or block. Then God would only have had to create love in his heart, and men would have loved Him from sheer necessity, as a stove emits heat when the fire is lighted. But the love so warmly portrayed in Scripture is not superfluous, when God deals with spiritual creatures spiritually. Then the cross of Christ is a manifestation of divine love far surpassing all human conceptions; hence exercising such irresistible power upon all God’s elect. And that which is preeminently true and apparent in love is equally true of every part of the work of grace—in all its stages. In it God never denies Himself, nor the ordinance and plan after which man was created. Hence it is its glory that, while on the one hand God granted man the strongest means of resistance, on the other He overcame that resistance in a divine and kingly way by the omnipotence of redeeming grace. When the apostle testifies, “We pray you in Christ’s stead, as tho God did beseech you by us, be ye reconciled to God,” (2 Cor. v. 20) he reveals 206 such a depth of the mystery of love that finally the relations are literally reversed, and the holy God beseeches His rebellious creature, who instead should, cry to Him for mercy. Tradition speaks of the fascination of mysterious beings exerted upon travelers and mariners so irresistibly that the latter cast themselves willingly and yet against their will into destruction. In love’s revelation this tradition in a reversed and holy manner has become a reality. Here also is an almighty power of fascination, in the end irresistible to the condemned sinner; but allowing himself to be drawn unwillingly and yet willingly, eternal pity draws him not into destruction, but out of it. However, the wonderful workings of love can scarcely be analyzed. Lovers never know who has attracted and who has been attracted, nor how in the struggle of the affections love performed its drawings. Love’s being is too mysterious to reveal its various workings and how they succeed one another. And this applies in far greater measure to the love of God. Every saint knows by experience that at last it became irresistible, and prevailed. But how the victory was achieved can not be told. This divine work comes to us from such infinite heights and depths, it affects us so mysteriously, and in the beginning there was such utter lack of spiritual light that one can scarcely more than stammer of these things. Who comprehends the mystery of the natural birth? Who had knowledge when he was being curiously embroidered in the lowest parts of the earth? And if this took place without our consciousness, how can we understand our spiritual birth? Indeed, subjectively, i.e., depending upon our own experience, we know absolutely nothing of it; and all that ever was or can be said about it is taken exclusively from Scripture. It has pleased the Lord to lift only a corner of the veil covering this mystery—no more than the Holy Spirit deemed necessary for the support of our faith, for the glory of God and the benefit of others in the hour of their spiritual birth. Wherefore in this series of articles we will try only to systematize and explain what God has revealed for the spiritual direction of His children. Nothing is further from our minds than to exercise ourselves in things too high for us, or to penetrate into mysteries hid from our view. Where Scripture stops we shall stop; to the difficulties left unexplained, we shall not add what must be only the result of human folly. But where Scripture proclaims unmistakably Jehovah’s sovereign power in the work of grace, there neither the criticism nor the mockery of men will prevent us from demanding absolute submission to the divine sovereignty of God and giving glory to His Holy Name.....Dr. Abraham Kuyper
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 22:39:41 +0000
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