Someone once said, “Pride was the sin that dug hell and damned the devil.”

The brothers at EPC are currently reading Terry Johnson’s book, “When Grace Comes Home.” This is  a wonderful treatise on the practical effects of the Doctrines of Grace upon the life of Christians.  This past week we read and discussed the how the doctrines of grace, when rightly understood and applied produce humility in the believer.  Johnson is right when he writes that not only is it contradictory to have a prideful Christian, it is even more worrisome to have a prideful Calvinist.  And yet we all know too often that this can be the case.  Johnson comments on the reason for this contradiction and I must say that my life has testified to the truth of his assessment.  He writes:

“When one comes to understand the doctrines of the total depravity of man and the total sovereignty of God, it can be (as it was for me) like a second conversion.  One’s new understanding changes one’s life.  These doctrines become very dear to one, and one becomes very zealous to promote their dissemination.  Converts to Calvinism will often look back with disdain on their former views, and when they hear others continuing to express them, they look with disdain upon them, and are quick to refute their every word.  In their zeal, they quickly forget how recent their own ‘conversion’ has been, and how long they continued in error.  They can appear to be arrogant and insensitive.  They strike others as ‘know-it-alls’, and are unpleasant to be around.  Understand this problem though we may, we still must say that this arrogance can only be a temporary aberration brought on by a convert’s zeal.  Quickly he should return to the normal state of mind, which is profound humility.  Here is why:  the doctrine of election.”

Someone who truly understands the Doctrines of Grace has nothing to be proud of.  He is not only humbled by the Cross of Christ, but even more so that the Cross of Christ has been effectually and irrevocably applied to him, and this apart from his own initiative or insistence.  Might we who hold to the sovereignty of God truly believe it and trust Him to do in others what he has so graciously and patiently done in me.