Quotes from Louis Berkhof

Justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares, on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that all the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner.

This general revelation never has been exclusively natural, but always contained an admixture of the supernatural. Even before the fall God revealed Himself to man supernaturally in the covenant of works. And in the course of the history of revelation God frequently revealed Himself in a supernatural way outside of the sphere of special revelation, Gen. 20:3 ff.; 40: 5 ff ; 41:1 ff.; Judg. 7:13; Dan. 2:1 ff.

The covenant of redemption may be defined as the agreement between the Father, giving the Son as Head and Redeemer of the elect, and the Son, voluntarily taking the place of those whom the Father had given Him.

The use of both elements enabled Christ to give a vivid representation of the idea that His body was broken, that flesh and blood were separated, and that the sacrament both nourishes and quickens the soul.

While the meritorious cause of both lies in the merits of Christ, there is a difference in the efficient cause. Speaking economically, God the Father declares the sinner righteous, and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies him.

Tertullian was the first to use the term "Trinity" and to formulate the doctrine, but his formulation was deficient, since it involved an unwarranted subordination of the Son to the Father.

Dr. Vos is of the opinion that Jesus probably preferred the name, because it stood farthest removed from every possible Jewish prostitution of the Messianic office. By calling Himself the Son of Man, Jesus imparted to the Messiahship His own heaven-centered spirit.

The covenant of redemption may be defined as the agreement between the Father, giving the Son as Head and Redeemer of the elect, and the Son, voluntarily taking the place of those whom the Father had given Him.

The miracles of Scripture, too, culminate in the incarnation, which is the greatest and most central miracle of all. In Christ, who is the absolute miracle, all things are restored and creation is brought back to its pristine beauty, Acts 3:21.

There is a constant coming of God to man in theophany, prophecy, and miracle, and this coming reaches its highest point in the incarnation of the Son of God and in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

Subjectively, the union between Christ and believers is effected by the Holy Spirit in a mysterious and supernatural way, and for that reason is generally designated as the unio mystica or mystical union.

Religion is concerned with man's relation to God, and man has no right to determine the nature of this relation. It is God's prerogative to specify how man should be related to Him, and He does this in His divine Word.

Civilization without regeneration, without a supernatural change of the heart, will never bring in a millennium, an effective and glorious rule of Jesus Christ.

To the glorious message of redemption there is an answering faith on the part of man, consisting in a childlike trust in Jesus Christ, and becoming at the same time a fountain of love to God and His service.

The establishment of the covenant with Abraham marked the beginning of an institutional Church. In pre-Abrahamic times there was what may be called "the church in the house." There were families in which the true religion found expression, and undoubtedly also gatherings of believers, but there was no definitely marked body of believers, separated from the world, that might be called the Church.

repeated sinful deeds lead to the establishment of sinful habits.

Sin separates man from God, and that means death, for it is only in communion with the living God that man can truly live.

Finally, we must not lose sight of the fact that the stage of the Old Testament covenant revelation which is most normative for us in the New Testament dispensation, is not that of the Sinaitic covenant, but that of the covenant established with Abraham.

The Sinaitic covenant is an interlude, covering a period in which the real character of the covenant of grace, that is, its free and gracious character, is somewhat eclipsed by all kinds of external ceremonies and forms which, in connection with the theocratic life of Israel, placed the demands of the law prominently in the foreground, cf. Gal. 3. In the covenant with Abraham, on the other hand, the promise and the faith that responds to the promise are made emphatic.

The law served a twofold purpose in connection with the covenant of grace: (1) to increase the consciousness of sin, Rom. 3:20; 4:15; Gal. 3:19; and (2) to be a tutor unto Christ, Gal. 3:24.

But it is more in harmony with Scripture to say that the good pleasure of God to save sinners by a substitutionary atonement was founded in the love and justice of God.

claimed that God by virtue of His absolute power

The knowledge of faith consists in a positive recognition of the truth, in which man accepts as true whatsoever God says in His Word, and especially what He says respecting the deep depravity of man and the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

that perfection of God whereby He applies His knowledge to the attainment of His ends in a way which glorifies Him most.