Quotes from GC Berkouwer

We must not get caught up in an emotional reaction against such phrases as 'believing on authority' ... Everything depends on the character of the authority and the character of believing.

Sanctification is not the humanly operated successor to the divinely worked justification.

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.

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

The authority of Scripture is never established by means of a rationalistic apologetic. It is established through the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of Biblical authority as not a conservative testimony in fear of facts, but … a conviction of faith.

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

Reality and symbolism in the sacraments ... Only if we reject false dilemmas ... it will be possible to delve deeper, to discern the sovereign manner in which God stoops down to us, taking up simple earthly elements and using them for the affirmation and strengthening of our faith.

I am of the opinion that … one can judge soundly of the scriptural doctrine of election only when one rejects this symmetry (i.e. the 'equal ultimacy' of election and reprobation) ... as an unbiblical distortion of the message of the Divine election.

Genuine sanctification has a 'continued orientation toward justification.

Faith involves a certain subjectivity, ... a subjectivity which has meaning only as it is bound to the gospel.

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.

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!