Required reading
My summary
This week Edwards keeps teaching us about efficacious grace including how:
(i) God disposes of virtue (including wisdom);
(ii) we are called to be saints;
(iii) God's power is displayed;
(iv) God's will is mysterious;
(v) sincerity comes from God;
(vi) grace is compatible with freedom.
What grabbed me
I liked Edwards description of the roles in conversion:
'In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some, and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, and we act all. For that is what he produces, viz. our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are, in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active.
In the Scriptures the same things are represented as from God and from us. God is said to convert, and men are said to convert and turn. God makes a new heart, and we are commanded to make us a new heart. God circumcises the heart, and we are commanded to circumcise our own hearts; not merely because we must use the means in order to the effect, but the effect itself is our act and our duty. These things are agreeable to that text, “God worketh in you both to will and to do.'
Conversion is all of God. But also all of man.
Next week's reading
Conclude Chapter IV 'Concerning Efficacious Grace'.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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