I am conducting research for a presentation that I will make, Lord willing, the first week of April at the Association of Private Enterprise Education conference. Chafer’s 4^th volume discusses ecclesiology. Chapter 11 is about contrast between law and grace. I thought this quote discussing individual responsibility in the “Church Age” was interesting from the standpoint of classical liberalism.

This age is not the time of the salvation of society; that great undertaking is clearly in the purpose of God, but it is reserved for the age which is yet to come. The present age is characterized by a unique emphasis on the individual. The death of Christ contemplated above all else the need of the individual sinner. The gospel of grace, which the death of Christ made possible, is an appeal to the individual alone, and the very faith by which it is received is exercised only by the individual. The message of grace is of a personal faith, a personal salvation, a personal enduement of the Spirit, a personal gift for service, and a personal transformation into the image of Christ. The company of individuals thus redeemed and transformed, are to be in the ages to come the supreme manifestation the riches of God’s grace. Unto this eternal purpose the whole universe was created and all ages have been programmed by God. The glory of this dispensation is lost to a large extent when the reign of the law is intruded into this age which followed the death of Christ, or when the social order of the kingdom, promised for a future age, is expected before the return of the King. The Bible affords no basis for the supposition that the Lord will come to perfected social order. At His coming He will gather the saved to himself, but the wicked he will judge in righteousness. The transcendent glory of this age is that very grace which will have been either accepted or rejected by the individual.

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