Looking Back - Calvary

"The grace of God reveals One who loves us so much as to have made Calvary possible, but who hates sin so much as to make Calvary necessary."

~ T. S. Mooney

Looking Back - The Cross

“Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to be saying to us, I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying. Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.”

~ John Stott

Looking Back - B. B. Warfield

"There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His 'blood and righteousness' alone that we can rest."

~ B.B. Warfield, Works Vol. 7

Looking Back - Law and Grace

"The alternative to law is not grace; it is lawlessness."

~ R. J. Rushdoony

James White - Closing Statement: Debate on Calvinism

Looking Back - Free Grace

"The Lord Jesus Christ is a gift of free grace. Christ is the greatest, the sweetest, the choicest, the chief gift which God ever gave; and yet this gift is given by a hand of love. The only ground of God's love is His love. The ground of God's love is only and wholly in Himself. There is neither portion nor proportion in us to draw His love. There is no love nor loveliness in us that should cause a beam of His love to shine upon us. There is that enmity, that filthiness, that treacherousness, that unfaithfulness, to be found in every man's bosom, which might justly put God upon glorifying himself in their eternal ruin, and to write their names in His black book in characters of blood and wrath."

~ Thomas Brooks

Looking Back - Justice, Mercy, Grace

• "Justice is when you get what you deserve
• Mercy is when you don't get what you deserve
• Grace is when you get what you don't deserve."

~ Author Unknown

Another Augustine MUST READ!

Here's another goldmine of a quote from Augustine of Hippo. I am really falling in love with his writings. As Agostino Trapè says, he is a "a philosopher, theologian, mystic, and poet in one." After many years of being in bondage to sexual sin and lust (involving a 15 year relationship with a concubine) he was finally converted by the irresistible power of God's sovereign grace. He realized the deceitful emptiness of worldly pleasure compared to the eternal fullness of the pleasures of God. This is what he wrote:

"How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the sweetness of trifles! And it was now a joy to put away what I formerly feared to lose. For thou didst cast them away from me, O true and highest Sweetness. Thou didst cast them away, and in their place thou didst enter in thyself -- sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled than all mystery; more exalted than all honor, though not to them that are exalted in their own eyes. Now was my soul free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting, of wallowing in the mire and scratching the itch of lust. And I prattled like a child to thee, O Lord my God -- my light, my riches, and my salvation." (Confessions, IX, I).

Looking Back - Charles Hodge

"The doctrines of grace humble a man without degrading him and exalt a man without inflating him."

~ Charles Hodge

Hatred and Grace

There is a universe of difference between those who are saved and those who are not. Unbelievers really do believe in God (Rom 1) they just hate Him. The unregenerate is NOT neutral toward God. Natural man in his natural state hates God. In spite of what he says or how tolerant he claims to be, he has a hatred for God. Christians, before they were saved, hated God. Until we really understand our pre-regenerate hatred we won't quite understand how amazing His grace is and how undeserving His love was toward us while we yet hated Him.

"No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." (Luke 16:13)

The parable of the ten minas - "But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’" (Luke 19:14) - There's the real reason fallen man hates Him... they do not want Him to reign over them

"For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed." (John 3:20) Another reason fallen man hates Him is that he doesn't want his works exposed. He wants to maintain the illusion that he is neutral.

"The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil." (John 7:7)

"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you." (John 15:18)

"Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’" (John 15:23-25)

(Notice all these references from the "love gospel" of John. This is the same book we get John 3:16 from. Until you understand our hatred of Him you can't truly understand His love for us.)

"...slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents.." (Rom 1:30)

In our fallen state, left to ourselves, we are haters of God! "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me."

By Grace Through Faith

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph 2:8-9) It is important for us to see here that it’s not saying we are saved BY faith but, rather, we are saved by grace THROUGH faith. Not only that, even that faith is a gift of God. It is God’s grace that gives us the gift of faith. Because God is gracious, therefore wicked and sinful men are forgiven, reborn, sanctified and saved. It is not because of anything in them but because of a merciful, gracious, good and loving God.

As Charles Spurgeon said, “Grace… is the fountain and source even of faith itself. Faith is the work of God's grace in us… Faith, which is coming to Christ, is the result of divine drawing. Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation; and faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which grace employs... Faith occupies the position of a channel or conduit pipe. Grace is the fountain and the stream; faith is the aqueduct along which the flood of mercy flows down to refresh the thirsty sons of men.”