Herman Bavinck Quotes & Sayings

Whoever isolates himself from the church, i.e., from Christianity as a whole, from the history of dogma in its entirety, loses the truth of the Christian faith. That person becomes a branch that is torn from the tree and shrivels, an organ that is separated from the body and therefore doomed to die. Only within the communion of the saints can the length and the breadth, the depth and the height, of the love of Christ be comprehended. — Herman Bavinck

Faith and repentance are as much benefits of the covenant of grace as justification ... faith and repentance themselves ... are components of the gospel, not the workings or fruits of the law. — Herman Bavinck

The essence of Christianity consists therein: that the creation of the Father, destroyed by sin, is again restored in the death of the Son of God and recreated by the grace of the Holy Spirit to a Kingdom of God. — Herman Bavinck

And these two things, the love of God and Christ's satisfaction, had to and could go hand in hand because we were simultaneously the object of his love as his creatures and the object of his wrath as sinners. — Herman Bavinck

We can shed some light on the possibility of the fall, but the transition to the actuality of it remains shrouded in darkness. Scripture makes not so much a single effort to render this transition understandable — Herman Bavinck

A theologian is a person who makes bold to speak about God because he speaks out of God and through God. To profess theology is to do holy work. It is a priestly ministration in the house of the Lord. It is itself a service of worship, a consecration of mind and heart to the honour of His name. — Herman Bavinck

The gospel is the food of faith ... God saves by causing Himself to be known and enjoyed in Christ. — Herman Bavinck

The Gospel is temporary, but the law is eternal and is restored precisely through the Gospel. Freedom from the law consists, then, not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night. — Herman Bavinck

Gratitude & joy drove them to do good works before the thought that they had to do them even crossed their mind. — Herman Bavinck

In this simple but profound psychological way Scripture tells the history of the fall and of the origin of sin. In this way sin continues still to come into being. It begins with the darkening of the understanding, continues with the excitement of the imagination, stimulates desire in the heart, and culminates in an act of the will — Herman Bavinck

For it is not we who call God by these names. We do not invent them. On the contrary, if it depended on us, we would be silent about him, try to forget him, and disown all his names. We take no delight in the knowledge of his ways. We tend continually to oppose his names: his independence, sovereignty, righteousness, and love, and resist him in all his perfections. But it is God himself who reveals all his perfections and puts his names on our lips. It is he who gives himself these names and who, despite our opposition, maintains them. It is of little use to us to deny his righteousness: every day he demonstrates this quality in history. And so it is with all his attributes. He brings them out despite us. The final goal of all his ways is that his name will shine out in all his works and be written on everyone's forehead (Rev. 22:4). For that reason we have no choice but to name him with the many names his revelation furnishes us. — Herman Bavinck

God the Father has reconciled His created but fallen world through the death of His Son, and renews it into a Kingdom of God by His Spirit. — Herman Bavinck

One human nature is common to all the descendants of Adam, and it is, for all men, guilty and polluted — Herman Bavinck

Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics. — Herman Bavinck