We repeatedly hear today in evangelistic messages: “Christ died for you. What will you do for Him?” But do we ever find in the Bible that someone is told personally, “Christ died for you”? Rather, we find the work of Christ explained, followed by a call to everyone: “Repent and believe the gospel.” The message is not “Believe that Christ died for you” or “Believe that you are one of the elect.” It is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

Joel R. Beeke, Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, Loc. 1194.

How do we know whether we are God’s elect? We know it through faith, by having a vital relationship with Jesus Christ. In Christ and His promises in His Word, we find assurance of our election. As 1 John repeatedly tells us, when we possess Christ in His Word, desire Him for His own sake, know Him in our souls, yearn for Him in our walk of life, and love those who love Him, we know that we have passed from death to life as God’s elect. Ultimately, then, Christ is our assurance of election.

Joel R. Beeke, Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, Loc. 967.

The election of millions of brothers and sisters means that believers will share eternal glory in an incredibly diverse, large family. God’s vast election assures us that heaven will be a vast concourse of communication. Heaven will teem with relationships, first with Christ and the triune God, but also with fellow believers and the holy angels.

Joel R. Beeke, Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, Loc. 961.

Heaven will not be thinly populated. The living seed of Abraham will be as numerous as the sand on the seashores and the stars in the heavens (Gen. 15:5). Election declares the expansive generosity of God, not His stinginess.

Joel R. Beeke, Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, Loc. 955.

It is important to note that the five points do not summarize all of Calvinism; that would be a truncated view of the Reformed faith. One of the aims of this book is to show the panoramic grandeur of the Reformed faith’s worldview.

Joel R. Beeke, Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, Loc. 720.

The discussions of church fathers of some of textual differences shows that most of the important differences have been talked about over the last sixteen or seventeen centuries. It also shows that the existence of such differences was never a reason to give up trust in the Scriptures.

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-we-got-the-bible

The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed churches produced several families of orthodox confessions that promoted the Calvinist faith and differentiated it from Roman Catholicism and other groups of Protestant churches. The most well-known of these groups of confessions were the Swiss-Hungarian family, represented by the First and Second Helvetic Confessions (1536 and 1566) and the Helvetic Consensus Formula (1675); the Scottish-English family, represented by the Scots Confession (1560), the Thirty-nine Articles (1563), the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), and the Shorter (1648) and Larger (1648) Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly; and the Dutch-German family, represented by the Three Forms of Unity: the Belgic Confession of Faith (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), and the Canons of Dort (1618-1619). Of those Reformed confessions, the seven most diligently adhered to by various Reformed denominations today are the Three Forms of Unity, the Second Helvetic Confession, and the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. They can be called “living” doctrinal standards because they are sanctioned officially by numerous twenty-first century Reformed churches. . .

One cannot avoid being amazed at the remarkable unity of Calvinist theology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Joel R. Beeke, Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism , Loc. 384,498.

One of the striking features of early Calvinists was their dedication to making confessional statements. Those Calvinists and subsequent Reformed believers held that confessions have only a provisional character, since they reflect the limited insights of mere men. Their authority is derived and must always be subordinated to Scripture, which possesses intrinsic authority. Nevertheless, they recognized that confessions make a valuable contribution to the church’s primary tasks: worshiping (the doxological task), witnessing (the declarative task), teaching (the didactic task), and defending the faith (the disciplining task). Reformed confessions have been particularly effective in helping the church unitedly declare what it believes, what it is to be, and how it is to be an evangelical testimony to those outside of its fellowship.

Joel E. Beeke, Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, Loc. 376.

Q. 74. What is adoption?

A. Adoption is an act of the free grace of God, in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, whereby all those that are justified are received into the number of his children, have his name put upon them, the Spirit of his Son given to them, are under his fatherly care and dispensations, admitted to all the liberties and privileges of the sons of God, made heirs of all the promises, and fellow-heirs with Christ in glory.

Westminster Larger Catechism

Q. 34. What is adoption?

A. Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges, of the sons of God.

Westminster Shorter Catechism

God is good. He is a beneficial sovereign. He has established institutions among men for the good of man; and committed their administration to the hands of men. So far as they come up to the standard, these institutions, in their actual operation, exercise a salutary influence over all who subject themselves to their sway and direction. But God is also just — a righteous law-giver. The divine government gives no countenance to sin: it is ever against it. And, hence, the Most High has invested all his institutions with some kind and degree of restraining power; and has given them laws by which they are to be guided in the disciplinary or punitive department of their functions.

James M. Wilson, Civil Government: An Exposition on Romans XIII. 1-7 (Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1853), 69-70.