Of First Importance

God takes action in Christ

Tue, 22 May 2012 19:54:15 +0000

“God takes action in Christ against sin, death, and the devil. The doctrine of justification is not about the workings of impersonal law in the universe, or about manipulating its outcomes, but it is about God. The moral law is simply the reflection of the character of God, and when God acts to address the outcomes of the broken moral law, he addresses these himself, himself taking the burden of his own wrath, himself absorbing in the person of Christ the judgment his righteous character cannot but demand, himself providing what no sinner can give, himself absorbing the punishment no sinner can bear and live.”

— David F. Wells
The Courage to Be Protestant
(Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2008), 201

Christ unites all who accept the Accepter

Mon, 21 May 2012 07:01:40 +0000

“The church offers a way forward, beyond mere individualism, beyond mere organization. It is a voluntary community of those who have caught some glimmering of what God means in Christ and how Christ unites all who accept the Acccepter. Thus in the church, at its best, there is both the flowing of individuality and also the sense of belonging, of being accepted, of forgiving, of being forgiven, of loving and being loved.”

— Chad Walsh
The Christian Imagination, ed. Leland Ryken
(Colorado Springs, Co.: WaterBrook Press, 2002), 170-171

The radiance of God’s glory

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:26:24 +0000

“The writer to the Hebrews says (Hebrews 1:3) that God spoke in several ways in the past but in these last days God has spoken to us in His Son, who is ‘the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature’.

He is the outshining radiance of God. No man has seen God at any time. Just as we cannot gaze directly at the sun, but can often see magnificent rays of sunlight pouring through gaps in the clouds, so we cannot see God but we can know Him through the One who has come to us where we are.

The sun’s rays are the outshining of the sun. They are the sun coming to us in ways that it is possible for us to see. Jesus came to man radiating the presence of God.”

— Terry Virgo
The Spirit-Filled Church
(Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2011)

A bride being prepared

Wed, 16 May 2012 22:46:43 +0000

“Ephesians describes the church as God’s new humanity, a colony in which the Lord of history has established a foretaste of the renewed unity and dignity of the human race … a community in which God’s power to reconcile men and women to himself is experienced and then shared in transformed relationships.… It is an outpost in a dark world … offering light to the lost.… The church is a bride being prepared for the approach of her lover and husband.”

— Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible, quoted by J. Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt in
Women's Ministry in the Local Church
(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006), 31

The Christian imagination

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:47:26 +0000

“The Christian imagination is anti-Gnostic. The Judeo-Christian imagination is not a flight from physical reality; it is not an aristocratic exercise in personal insight; and it detests myth, which despises history. It refuses to separate salvation from creation, the life of the Spirit from its inception in the flesh.”

— Janine Langan
"The Christian Imagination" in The Christian Imagination, ed. Leland Ryken
(Colorado Springs, Co.: Shaw Books, 2002), 66

A community of hope

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:39:35 +0000

“The new community of Jesus is an eschatological community which lives already in the new age he inaugurated. For justification is an eschatological event. It brings forward into the present the verdict which belongs to the last judgment. That is why the church is a community of hope, which looks with humble confidence into the future.”

— John Stott
The Cross of Christ
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 192

A suitable Saviour

Fri, 11 May 2012 12:08:04 +0000

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

Faith implies the enlightening of the understanding to discover the suitableness of Jesus Christ as a Saviour, and the excellency of the way of salvation through him. While the sinner lies undone and helpless in himself, and looking about in vain for some relief, it pleases a gracious God to shine into his heart, and enables him to see his glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Now this once neglected Saviour appears not only absolutely ncessary, but also all-glorious and lovely, and the sinner’s heart is wrapt away, and for ever captivated with his beauty: now the neglected gospel appears in a new light, as different from all his former apprehensions as if it were quite another thing.”

— Samuel Davies
Sermons of the Rev. Samuel Davies, Vol 1
(Pittsburgh, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1993), 125

The most cheerful act of your whole life

Thu, 10 May 2012 11:55:34 +0000

“If you have ever truly believed in Jesus Christ, my friends, it has not been the languid act of a cold, impenitent, unwilling heart—but your whole souls have exerted their utmost vigor in it, and it has been the most cheerful, animated act of your whole lives!

When God shined into your hearts, to give you the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ, when you received the first glances of his glorious righteousness, and heard, as with new ears, the offer of it in the gospel—stand, and pause, and recollect—what were your sentiments, and the temper of your heart in that important and memorable hour?

Was not their language, ‘When I see your glory, O lovely Savior, I most cheerfully consent to the method of salvation revealed in the gospel, not only because I must—but because I choose to do so. I see it is a scheme well ordered in all things, and sure, and therefore it is all my salvation and all my desire. I would not only be saved—but I would be saved by you, blessed Jesus! I am willing, I am desirous, that you, and not I, should have the glory of it. Pardon is sweet to a guilty criminal; salvation is sweet to a perishing soul; but oh! pardon by your righteousness, salvation through your grace, this is doubly sweet!’”

— Samuel Davies
"The Nature of Justification, and the Nature and Concern of Faith In It"

The gospel starts with a promise

Wed, 09 May 2012 21:27:01 +0000

“The gospel starts with a promise: a relationship in the Spirit. It is pictured as a meal and a washing: the Lord’s Table and baptism. It is rooted in a unique action supplying a unique need: the cross. It is inaugurated as a gift that is the sign of the arrival of the new era: Pentecost. It is affirmed in divine action and Scripture: God working uniquely and inseparably through Jesus. It is embraced in a turn that ends in faith: invoking the name of Jesus. It involves a different kind of power and is designed to be a way of life: Reconciliation and the power of God unto salvation.”

— Darrel L. Bock
Recovering the Real Lost Gospel
(Nashville, Tn.: B & H Publishing, 2011), 5

Jesus is alive

Tue, 08 May 2012 16:28:02 +0000

“It seems to me that the great difference between practical theism and practical atheism is the church of the living God. Jesus is alive, and we can’t keep that a secret. It is not okay to think, When they get to know us, they’ll realize that Jesus is alive. It has to be front and center in our worship, our smiles, our greetings, our interaction, our preaching — in everything we do, Jesus is alive. Church is not an evangelical golf club. It is the church of the living God, and we need to indicate that. We don’t want to give the impression that Jesus died and went to heaven in 1950. He’s still alive and doing things today. A church that decides it has ‘arrived’ is a breath away from dying. Pride comes before a fall. We need practical theism, a resurrection theology, the power of the Spirit through the Word of God.”

— Josh Moody
No Other Gospel
(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2011), 19