"Salvation is the work of the three Persons in the blessed Holy Trinity. It is primarily that of the Father — the gospel of God concerning His Son. The Father first! It is the Father's plan; it is the Father's purpose; it is the Father who initiates it; it is the Father who gave the first promise concerning it to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and, oh! we must be clear about this. We must not go on to consider what the Son has done, what the Holy Spirit has done and still does, until we are absolutely clear about the primacy of the Father, and the origin of it all in the Father Himself. ...
"I could go on quoting Paul at great length, but there is always this emphasis on God the Father. And yet this is forgotten by so many; they are Christo-centric, if I may say so, and they forget the Father Himself from whom it all comes. You will find in their prayers; they always pray to the Lord Jesus, not to the Father. They are entirely centred on the Son. But this, my friends, is wrong if you make Him [Jesus] the centre, because He is not the centre. The centre is the Father. You remember how the Apostle Peter puts that; he says, 'Christ suffered for our sins'. For what reason? Well, 'to bring us to God, to the Father' [1 Pt 3.18]. The whole purpose of the work of the son is to bring us to God the Father. Take His definition of eternal life: 'This is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent'. Always that order; He never varies it. He had come to glorify the Father. He knew that everything starts with the Father and comes from the Father, so that the author of salvation is God the eternal Father." [D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Gospel of God, p. 62-64.]
Is that a little jarring? It is a bold statement, but it seems to me that L-J is right.
Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
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