Quotes from GC Berkouwer

The confession of the authority of the Word of God can never be isolated from the saving content of the Word of God.

Every word about the God-breathed character of Scripture is meaningless if Holy Scripture is not understood as the witness concerning Christ.

In the New Testament, myth stands over against the truth of the history of Jesus Christ ... the decisive die has ... been already cast in the New Testament opposition to myth.

Scripture ... does not derive its authority from the fact that we use it, not even when we use Scripture in faith.

In Scripture the election of God ... does not come out of works but out of grace. God's electing plan prepares the way of salvation in which man learns that salvation is obtained only as a divine gift an never as an acquisiton because of good works.

The jubilation of God's salvation corresponds to man's very real condition of lostness ... In Scripture, there is never any mention of a relativizing of sin since any such relativizing of sin would also automatically relativize the unspeakably wonderful nature of salvation.

The perseverance of the saints is not primarily a theoretical problem but a confession of faith ... a song of praise to God's faithfulness and grace.

Salvation ... has its eternal foundation in the love of God.

Evil in man is radical, so much so that it cannot be overcome by human power.

In the Gospels, being a sinner means being lost ... There is no way for man to escape the condition of being lost ... The lost can only be sought and found.

We can hardly say that the Pharisees had an accurate 'knowledge' of man when they pointed to the sins (the real sins) of publicans and sinners. This judgment, which separated knowledge of man from self-knowledge, was as nothing in God's eyes. The Jew did not have a better understanding because he was able to judge the heathen. In the sphere of abstract morality this could possibly be said, but this is not Biblical morality - O man, who judgest others!

Man does not have the power to begin by himself any change in spiritual things ... There is no limit or boundary within human nature beyond which we can find some last human reserve untouched by sin.