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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Wayne Grudem
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March 15 - December 27, 2021
faith is the one attitude of heart that is the exact opposite of depending on ourselves.
GOOD WORKS GIVE EVIDENCE OF JUSTIFICATION, BUT THEY ARE NOT THE BASIS OF JUSTIFICATION
Are you confident that God has declared you “not guilty” forever in his sight? Do you know when that happened in your own life? Did you do or think anything that resulted in God’s justifying of you? Did you do anything to deserve justification?
Do you think the difference between the Roman Catholic and Protestant understanding of justification is an important one?
Have you ever wondered if God is still continuing to punish you from time to time for sins you have done in the past, even long ago? How does the doctrine of justification help you deal with those feelings?
Adoption (Membership in God’s Family)
adoption is an act of God whereby he makes us members of his family.
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
ADOPTION FOLLOWS CONVERSION AND IS AN OUTCOME OF SAVING FAITH
“In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal. 3:26).
(1) being able to speak to God and relate to him as a good and loving Father.
God gives us an internal witness from the Holy Spirit that causes us instinctively to call God our Father. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:15–16).
(2) shows very clearly that he loves us (1 John 3:1),
(3) shows that he understands us
(4) shows that he takes care of our needs (“For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all” [Matt. 6:32]).
(5) God gives us many good gifts: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:11).
(6) gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit to comfort us and to empower us for ministry and for living th...
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he also (7) gives us a great inheritance in heaven,
(8) angels are even now sent to minister to us and serve us (Heb. 1:14).
“Our Father in heaven . . . forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matt. 6:9–12, author’s translation).
The privilege of (9) being led by the Holy Spirit is also a benefit of adoption.
“All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14),
(10) God disciplines us as his children.
we have (11) the privilege of sharing both in his sufferings and in his subsequent glory.
“If children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17).
(12) we are all members of one family.
(13) we are to imitate our Father in heaven in all our conduct. Paul says, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5:1).
(14) by our obedience we honor our heavenly Father and bring glory to him.
a consistent pattern of moral conduct is also evidence that we are truly children of God.
“By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10).
Sanctification (Growth in Likeness to Christ) How do we grow in Christian maturity? What are the blessings of Christian growth?
sanctification is a progressive work of God and believers that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.
Justification Sanctification Legal standing Internal condition Once for all time Continuous throughout life Entirely God’s work We cooperate
Perfect in this life Not perfect in this life The same in all Christians Greater in some than in others
1. Sanctification Has a Definite Beginning at Regeneration
“washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Once we have been born again we cannot continue to sin as a habit or a pattern of life (1 John 3:9) because the power of new spiritual life within us keeps us from yielding to a life of sin.
“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9),
“Everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning” (1 John 5:18).
he does not say that there will be no sin in the Christian’s life, but he simply tells the believers not to let sin “reign” in their bodies nor to “present” their members to sin (Rom. 6:12–13).
Christians grow in maturity, the kinds of sin that remain in their lives are often not so much sins of words or deeds that are outwardly noticeable to others, but inward sins of attitudes and motives of the heart—desires such as pride and selfishness, lack of courage or faith, laziness, lack of zeal in loving God with our whole hearts and our neighbors as ourselves, and failure to fully trust God for all that he promises in every situation.
GOD AND BELIEVERS COOPERATE IN SANCTIFICATION
an active one in which we strive to obey God and take steps that will increase our sanctification.
“Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life” (Rom. 6:13; cf. v. 19),
Paul realizes that we are dependent on the Holy Spirit’s work to grow in sanctification, because he says, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).
SANCTIFICATION AFFECTS THE WHOLE PERSON
We see that sanctification affects our intellect and our knowledge when Paul says that we have put on the new nature “which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10).
(Phil. 1:9).
(Rom. 12:2).
sanctification will affect our emotions. We will see increasingly in our lives emotions such as “love, joy, peace, patience” (Gal. 5:22).
Peter’s command “to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11).
