Remember that even that which has been given by God can, if separated from its given purpose, become an occasion for stumbling-or worse. The Jews committed such an error when they separated the Law from the Christ therein revealed. He came to establish. The bronze snake had started out as a revelation of the Gospel but had become the object of perverted attention. So too, I fear, has the Scripture truth of election been twisted into an abstract proposition that has become for some an object of adoration and worship.
Every regenerate person believes the gospel.
It is not possible for a regenerate person to confess a false gospel. In the same issue, he declares with absolute confidence that among those burning in hell are John Wesley and Charles Spurgeon. This sort of thinking is the terminal stop for those who replace the Christ of the covenant and the covenant of the Christ with election. Not one link in the chain of actual Redemption is of our forging. It is nowhere presented in such a way as to lead us to believe that God would have us make it the center of our system.