We can only love him because he first loved us

The Scriptures teach that God saves us not as puppets but as persons, and that we must therefore be active in our salvation. The Bible, in a way which is deeply mysterious, combines God’s sovereignty with our responsibility in the process of our salvation. But we can only love him because he first loved us. To him therefore must be all the praise.

– Anthony Hoekema, 
Saved By Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), xi.
Anthony Andrew Hoekema (1913, in Drachten – 17 October 1988)
was a Calvinist minister and theologian who served as professor of Systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, for twenty-one years.

Hoekema was born in the Netherlands but immigrated to the United States in 1923. He attended Calvin College (A.B.), the University of Michigan (M.A.), Calvin Theological Seminary (Th.B.) and Princeton Theological Seminary (Th.D., 1953). After pastoring several Christian Reformed churches (1944–56) he became Associate Professor of Bible at Calvin College (1956–58). From 1958 to 1979, when he retired, he was Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Professor Hoekema spent two sabbatical years in Cambridge, England (1965–66, 1973–74)

Among his best-known works are:

• The Four Major Cults: Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism (1963, ISBN 0-8028-0445-4)

• What about Tongue-Speaking? (1966)

• Holy Spirit Baptism (1972)

• Amillennialism (1977)

• The Bible and the Future (1979)

• Created in God's Image (1986)

• Saved by Grace (1989)