Straw,
I use to believe in justification from eternity. Now I believe that justification occurs only once. However there was an eternal decree to save ONLY the elect.

William


Quote
straw said:

As to the matter of what preceeds regeneration; surely there might well be a state where the elect not yet made alive would be considered as saved in a nominal sense, namely that there names are written in the Lamb's book of life but they are not conscious of this not yet having been brought to God the Son by God the Father ? (Excuse my abundance of rather awkward corners.)

Sincerely,
The Straw.


Article of the Month
Dr. Joel R. Beeke

(the Relation of Faith to Justification)



Quote
We must also firmly reject Antinomian or hyper-Calvinistic tendencies which adhere to a justification from eternity that negates the need for actual justification in time by becoming personal partakers of Christ by faith.51 For example, Abraham Kuyper went beyond the Synod of Dort in describing justification by faith as merely "becoming conscious" of the fact that we were already justified by God from eternity and in the resurrection of Christ. William Gadsby, J. C. Philpot and most of the Strict Baptists speak similarly by affirming that the believer is justified in time only with respect to his own conscience by the Sprit's witness. This erroneous view already exited in Puritan times among those with Antinomian tendencies, as Thomas Goodwin's apt response to it reveals: "It is vain to say I am justified only in respect to the court of mine own conscience. The faith that Paul and the other apostles were justified by, was their believing on Christ that they might be justified (Galatians 2:15, 16), and not a believing they were justified already."


.