J.I. Packer’s 1-Point Calvinism: God Saves Sinners

Scott Thomas writes a helpful post pointing to J.I. Packer’s explanation of one-point Calvinism. An excerpt:

For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made…the point that God saves sinners.

“God – the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three
Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve
the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing.

“Saves – does everything, first to last, that is involved
in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and
communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies,
glorifies.

“Sinners – men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless,
powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their
spiritual lot. God saves sinners – and the force of this confession may
not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or
by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making
the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedalling the sinner’s
inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with
his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the
“five points” are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its
forms to deny: namely, that sinners to not save themselves in any sense
at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past,
present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen.”

Read the whole thing.