“Now we shall have a proper definition of faith if we say it is a steady and certain knowledge of the Divine benevolence toward us, which being founded upon the truth of the gratuitous promise in Christ is both revealed to our minds and sealed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”
–John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Library of Christian Classics, XX–XXI (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1960), III.2.vii.
“There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”
–Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Sermons and Discourses: 1739-1742, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 22, Ed. Harry S. Stout (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 405. Preached in Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741.
“Anyone who reads even a smattering of Paul’s writings recognizes early on that his devotion to Christ was the foremost reality and passion of his life. What he said in one of his later letters serves as a kind of motto for his entire Christian life: ‘For me to live is Christ; to die is [to] gain [Christ]‘ (Phil 1:21). Christ is the beginning and goal of everything for Paul and thus is the single great reality along the way.”
–Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 1.
“Again Paul returns to thanksgiving, that he may take this opportunity of enumerating the blessings which had been conferred upon them through Christ, and thus he enters upon a full delineation of Christ. For this was the only remedy for fortifying the Colossians against all the snares, by which the false Apostles endeavored to entrap them– to understand accurately who Christ was. For how comes it that we are carried about with so many strange doctrines, but because the excellence of Christ is not perceived by us?
For Christ alone makes all other things suddenly vanish. Hence there is nothing that Satan so much endeavors to accomplish as to bring on mists with the view of obscuring Christ, because he knows, that by this means the way is opened up for every kind of falsehood. This, therefore, is the only means of retaining, as well as restoring pure doctrine: to place Christ before the view such as He is with all His blessings, that His excellence may be truly perceived.”
–John Calvin, commenting on Colossians 1:12 in Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, trans. William Pringle (repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 145-146.
“Where a person or a group is not spreading the gospel, they are losing their grasp on what it actually is.”
–John Piper, “The Gospel: Spread It or Lose It” as cited on http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1900_the_gospel_spread_it_or_lose_it/ (accessed July 7, 2009).
“Here is Love”
By William Rees, 1876 and Nick Roark (vs. 5), 2009
Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout Heav’n’s eternal days.
On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.
Let me all Thy love accepting,
Love Thee, ever all my days;
Let me seek Thy kingdom only
And my life be to Thy praise;
Thou alone shalt be my glory,
Nothing in the world I see.
Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me,
Thou Thyself hast set me free.
In Thy truth Thou dost direct me
By Thy Spirit through Thy Word;
And Thy grace my need is meeting,
As I trust in Thee, my Lord.
Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring
Thy great love and power on me,
Without measure, full and boundless,
Drawing out my heart to Thee.
Here is love, displayed in glory,
To the heavenly hosts above;
All the Church, redeemed and holy,
Bless the Saviour’s dying love.
Saints from every tribe and nation,
Called by grace, and saved by blood,
Praise forever their salvation:
“Hallelujah to our God!”
“If the worst things work for good to a believer, what shall the best things– Christ, and heaven! How much more shall these work for good! If the cross has so much good in it, what has the crown? If such precious clusters grow in Golgotha, how delicious is that fruit which grows in Canaan? If there be any sweetness in the waters of Marah, what is there in the wine of Paradise?
If God’s rod has honey at the end of it, what has His golden sceptre? If the bread of affliction tastes savoury, what is manna? What is the heavenly ambrosia? If God’s blow and stroke work for good, what shall the smiles of His face do? If temptations and sufferings have matter of joy in them, what shall glory have?
If there be so much good out of evil, what then is that good where there shall be no evil? If God’s chastening mercies are so great, what will His crowning mercies be? Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
–Thomas Watson, All Things For Good, or A Divine Cordial (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1663/2001), 63.
“The key is always biblical balance, allowing God’s revelation to check our speculations.”
–Carl Trueman, “Sin in High Places” in Risking the Truth, Ed. Martin Downes (Geanies House, Scotland, UK: Christian Focus, 2009), 40.
“I am increasingly convinced that pride is the root of problems among students. I was convicted recently by a minister friend quoting to me 1 Timothy 1:5-7 (ESV): ‘The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.’
My friend made two observations about this passage. First, the drift into dubious theological discussion is here described as moral in origin: these characters have swerved from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith; that is why their theology is so dreadful. Second, their desire is not to teach but to be teachers. There is an important difference here: their focus is on their own status, not on the words they proclaim. At most, the latter are merely instrumental to getting them status and boosting their careers.
Thus, what concerns me most is that students may simply desire to be teachers. If that is their motivation, then they have already abandoned a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith, and their theology, no matter how orthodox, is just a means to an end and no sound thing. It is why I am very sceptical of the internal call to the ministry as a decisive or motivating factor in seeking ordination.
Nine times out of ten, I believe that the church should first discern who should be considering the Christian ministry, not simply a rubber-stamp act as a putative internal call which an individual may think he has. Further, such students whose first desire is to be teachers are more likely to try to catch whatever is the latest trendy wave.
Orthodoxy is always doomed to seem uncreative and pedestrian in the wider arena; if the aim is to be a teacher, to be the big shot, then it is more likely that orthodoxy will be less appealing in the long run – though there are those for whom orthodoxy too is simply a means to being a celebrity.”
–Carl Trueman, “Sin in High Places” in Risking the Truth, Ed. Martin Downes (Geanies House, Scotland, UK: Christian Focus, 2009), 31-32.
“I would not want to exchange my Kate for France nor for Venice to boot.”
–Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, comp. Ewald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), entry no. 2774, p. 888.
“Perseverance is a continuing miracle of God’s grace.”
–G. C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics: Faith and Perservance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), 147.
“And the house alone, thought Dalgliesh, must be worth at least three-quarters of a million, probably considerably more, given its position and unique architechtural interest. He recalled as he so often did the words of an old detective sergeant when he, Dalgliesh, had been a newly appointed DC: ‘Love, Lust, Loathing, Lucre, the four L’s of murder, laddie. And the greatest of these is lucre.’”
–P.D. James, A Taste for Death (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), 115.
“It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life. The rich colours of grass and earth were intensified by the mellow light of a sun almost warm enough for spring, and the air was a sweet evocation of all Dalgliesh’s boyhood autumns: woodsmoke, ripe apples, the last sheaves of harvest and the strong sea-smelling breeze flowing water.
The Thames was running strongly, under a quickening breeze. It flattened the grasses fringing the river edge and eddied the stream into the little gulleys which fretted the bank. Under a surface iridescent in blues and greens, on which the light moved and changed as if on coloured glass, the blade-like weeds streamed and undulated. Beyond the clumps of willows on the far bank, a herd of Friesians were peacefully grazing.
Opposite and about seventy yards downstream he could see a bungalow, little more than a large white shack on stilts, which he guessed must be their destination. And he knew too, as he had known walking under the trees of St. James’s Park, that here he would find the clue he sought. But he was in no hurry. Like a child postponing the moment of assured satisfaction, he was glad that they were early, grateful for this small hiatus of calm.
And suddenly he experienced a minute of tingling happiness so unexpected and so keen that he almost held his breath as if he could halt time. They came to him so rarely now, these moments of intense physical joy, and he had never before experienced one in the middle of a murder investigation. The moment passed and he heard his own sigh.”
–P.D. James, A Taste for Death (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), 356.
“The cross is the heart of the gospel. It makes the gospel good news: Christ has died for us. He has stood in our place before God’s judgment seat. He has borne our sins. God has done something on the cross which we could never do for ourselves. But God does something to us as well as for us through the cross. He persuades us that He loves us…
God has accepted us for Christ’s sake. But He wants to go further. He intends to persuade us that He does accept us for Christ’s sake. So He demonstrates, by adequate proof, His love to us. When I look at the cross, I learn to say, ‘The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20). I begin to believe with Paul that if God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to the cross for me, then He loves me so much He will always give me only what will bring me blessing (Romans 8:32).
Such conviction is a key point in Christian growth. If we have deep-seated fears that God does not really love us (as many Christians have), we can only go so far in growing nearer to God. There will come a point at which we will fear to trust Him any further because we cannot be sure of His love. When we look at ourselves, or our own faith, or our circumstances we will never be free from those lurking fears. Satan will see to that.
But when we lift up our eyes and look on the cross we find the final persuasion that God is gracious towards us. How can He be against us when all His wrath against us fell upon Christ? How can He fail to care for us when He gave the only Son He had for our sake? How can we doubt Him when He has given us evidence of His love sufficient to banish all doubts? The reason we lack assurance of His grace is because we fail to focus on that spot where He has revealed it.”
–Sinclair B. Ferguson, Grow in Grace (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1989/2006), 58-59.
“We can never be content with parrot-like repetition of the definitions of the past. Yet it would be presumptuous to speak before we have listened to the fathers. Men like Athanasius and Augustine, Basil and Calvin, are the Newtons and Einsteins of theology. By comparison, we are pygmies. Our only hope of far-sightedness is to stand on the shoulders of the giants.”
–Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 16.
