Eisegesis —allowing the presupposition of experience and personal opinion to cloud biblical interpretation
Exegesis —critical and objective explanation for biblical interpretation
“We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.”— R.C. Sproul
- We were dead (v. 1-3).
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”—Ephesians 2:1-3
“Let all the ‘free-will’ in the world do all it can with all its strength; it will never give rise to a single instance of ability to avoid being hardened if God does not give the Spirit, or of meriting mercy if it is left to its own strength.”—Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (p. 202)
“But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?”—Romans 9:20-24
“The greatest distortion in our thinking…is that God owes us mercy—that God is somehow obligated to be gracious to us. But think about that. The minute the idea comes in your head that God owes you mercy…let a bell go off in your brain that says ‘whoops, I’m confusing these concepts,’ because [mercy] by its very definition is voluntary. God is not required to be merciful. He reserves the right to be merciful to whom He will be merciful and to be gracious to whom He is gracious… Justice may be required but never, ever mercy.”—RC Sproul
- God made us alive (v. 4-10).
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”—Ephesians 2:4-10
“Reformed theology does not teach that God brings the elect “kicking and screaming, against their wills,” into his kingdom. It teaches that God so works in the hearts of the elect as to make them willing and pleased to come to Christ. They come to Christ because they want to. They want to because God has created in their hearts a desire for Christ.”—RC Sproul
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”—Hebrews 11:1
“And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”—Romans 8:30