"The Manifestation of God's Love" -- Article Two, First Head of Doctrine, Canons of Dort

Article 2: The Manifestation of God's Love

But this is how God showed his love: he sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (1 John 4:9; John 3:16).

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In the opening articles, the authors of the Canons are careful to explain that any possible deliverance from our sinful condition (guilt, condemnation and the inability to do anything to save ourselves) arises from something good in God--specifically his love for his rebellious creatures--and not because there is something “good” in us which God sees and which motivates him to act to save us.

Because of our guilt and sinfulness, God is under no obligation to save anyone. As Article One makes clear, the entire human race is already under God’s just judgment and sentence of death (Romans 5:12, 18; 6:23). But as we see in Article Two, it is because of his great love for his people that God sends Jesus Christ to secure for us our redemption from the guilt and power of sin (Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:10).

Jesus told the lost multitudes who followed him that the purpose of his messianic mission was that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). It therefore follows that it is God who seeks sinners, not sinners who seek God. How often we get this wrong!

Most forms of American evangelicalism understand the manifestation of God’s love in Christ as in some sense a response to the goodness and worth that God sees within sinful men and women. But what is there in us that is good in God’s sight? The Scripture says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). We do not seek God, we do not understand the things of God, and every aspect of our nature is tainted, stained, and ruined by sin (Romans 3:9-20). Indeed, the prophet Habakkuk declares about God, “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (Habakkuk 1:13).

In the opening articles, the Canons establish why we must realize that the very essence of God’s saving grace is simply that it is entirely gracious. Such grace originates in him and is manifest in his acts to redeem us. As one Puritan divine puts it, “there is no reason to be given for grace but grace.” The only place to look for an answer to our questions about sin and grace is in the biblical teaching about God’s justice, love, and mercy, not in the supposed "goodness" of sinful humanity.

This is why God sent his Son into this world, not because we are worthy, but because he is gracious. And his love is most clearly visible in this—"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).

Yes, the Canons of Dort actually quote John 3:16 in the second article! Imagine that . . .