Doctrines of Grace
Summaries of the doctrines of grace with scripture references.
Total Depravity/Radical Corruption
Description
ARTICLE 3
Therefore all men are conceived in sin, and are by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto; and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, or to dispose themselves to reformation.
ARTICLE 4
There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural understanding, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and shows some regard for virtue and for good outward behavior. But so far is this understanding of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God and to true conversion that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil. Nay further, this understanding, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted, and hinders in unrighteousness, by doing which he becomes inexcusable before God.
Scripture References
Resources
Unconditional Election
Description
3:3 By God’s decree, and for the demonstration of His glory, some human beings and angels are predestined (or foreordained) to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of His glorious grace.8 Others are left to live in their sin, leading to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice.
3:4 These predestined and foreordained angels and people are individually and unchangeably designated, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or decreased.
3:5 Those people who are predestined to life were chosen by God before the foundation of the world, according to His eternal and unchangeable purpose and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will. He chose them in Christ for eternal glory, purely as a result of His free grace and love, without anything else about them serving as a condition or cause moving Him to do so.12
3:6 Just as God has appointed the elect to glory, so He has by the eternal and completely free purpose of His will foreordained all the means. Therefore, those who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ14 and effectually called to faith in Christ by His Spirit working at the appropriate time. They are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith to salvation.16 None but the elect are redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved.
3:7 The doctrine of the high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care so that those heeding the will of God revealed in His Word and obeying Him may be assured of their eternal election by the certainty of their effectual calling. In this way this doctrine will give reasons for praise,19 reverence, and admiration of God, as well as humility, diligence and rich comfort to all who sincerely obey the gospel.21
5:6 God, as the righteous Judge, sometimes blinds and hardens wicked and ungodly people because of their sins. He withholds His grace from them, by which they could have been enlightened in their understanding and had their hearts renewed.18 Not only that, but sometimes He also takes away the gifts they already had and exposes them to situations that their corrupt natures turn into opportunities for sin.20 Moreover, He gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan, so that they harden themselves in response to the same influences that God uses to soften others.22
8:8 To all those for whom Christ has obtained eternal redemption, He certainly and effectually applies and imparts it. He intercedes for them, unites them to Himself by His Spirit, and reveals to them in and by His Word the mystery of salvation. He persuades them to believe and obey and governs their hearts by His Word and Spirit.40 He overcomes all their enemies by His almighty power and wisdom, using methods and ways that are perfectly consistent with His wonderful and unsearchable governance. All these things are by free and absolute grace, apart from any condition for obtaining it that is foreseen in them.42
9:4 When God converts sinners and transforms them into the state of grace, He frees them from their natural bondage to sin and by His grace alone enables them to will and to do freely what is spiritually good.8 Yet because of their remaining corruption, they do not perfectly nor exclusively will what is good but also will what is evil.
9:5 Only in the state of glory is the will made perfectly and unchangeably free toward good alone.
ARTICLE 6
That some receive the gift of faith from God, and others do not receive it, proceeds from God’s eternal decree. For known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world (Acts 15:18, A.V.). Who worketh all things after the counsel of his will (Eph. 1:11). According to which decree He graciously softens the hearts of the elect, however obstinate, and inclines them to believe; while He leaves the non-elect in His just judgment to their own wickedness and obduracy. And herein is especially displayed the profound, the merciful, and at the same time the righteous discrimination between men equally involved in ruin; or that decree of election and reprobation, revealed in the Word of God, which, though men of perverse, impure, and unstable minds wrest it to their own destruction, yet to holy and pious souls affords unspeakable consolation.
ARTICLE 7
Election is the unchangeable purpose of God, whereby, before the foundation of the world, He has out of mere grace, according to the sovereign good pleasure of His own will, chosen from the whole human race, which had fallen through their own fault from their primitive state of rectitude into sin and destruction, a certain number of persons to redemption in Christ, whom He from eternity appointed the Mediator and Head of the elect and the foundation of salvation. This elect number, though by nature neither better nor more deserving than others, but with them involved in one common misery, God has decreed to give to Christ to be saved by Him, and effectually to call and draw them to His communion by His Word and Spirit; to bestow upon them true faith, justification, and sanctification; and having powerfully preserved them in the fellowship of His Son, finally to glorify them for the demonstration of His mercy, and for the praise of the riches of His glorious grace; as it is written: Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved (Eph. 1:4, 5, 6). And elsewhere: Whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified (Rom. 8:30).
ARTICLE 9
This election was not founded upon foreseen faith and the obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality or disposition in man, as the prerequisite, cause, or condition on which it depended; but men are chosen to faith and to the obedience of faith, holiness, etc. Therefore election is the fountain of every saving good, from which proceed faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation, and finally eternal life itself, as its fruits and effects, according to the testimony of the apostle: He hath chosen us (not because we were, but) that we should be holy, and without blemish before him in love (Eph. 1:4).
ARTICLE 10
The good pleasure of God is the sole cause of this gracious election; which does not consist herein that out of all possible qualities and actions of men God has chosen some as a condition of salvation, but that He was pleased out of the common mass of sinners to adopt some certain persons as a peculiar people to Himself, as it is written: For the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, etc., it was said unto her (namely, to Rebekah), The elder shall serve the younger. Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Rom. 9:11, 12, 13). And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed (Acts 13:48).