Quote city
"His reward as a gift giver is in the gladness of heart that we experience in receiving his gift as a gift. . . . Anything we do with a motive of adding to the work of Christ so as to win the forgiveness of God becomes the ground of self-satisfaction in our own goodness, rather than trust in God's grace."
John Esnor, The Great Work of the Gospel
The Lord redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. (Psalm 34:22)
"Faith is the mark of the ransomed, and wherever it is seen, though in the least and meanest of the saints, it ensures salvation. Believer, thou shalt never be deserted, forsaken, given up to ruin. God, even thy God, is thy guardian and friend, and bliss is thine."
Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David
"So completely was Jesus bent upon saving sinners by the sacrifice of Himself, He created the tree upon which He was to die, and nurtured from infancy the men who were to nail Him to the accursed wood."
Octavius Winslow, The Foot of the Cross
"Man's Maker was made man that the Bread might be hungry, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired from the journey; that Strength might be made weak, that Life might die."
St. Augustine
"Look more at justification than sanctification. In the highest commands consider Christ, not as an exacter to require, but as a debtor, an undertaker, to work in you and for you. If you have looked at your resolutions, endeavors, workings, duties, qualifications, etc., more than at the merits of Christ, it will cost you dear."
Thomas Wilcox, Honey out of the Rock
"All trouble comes from not right sorting and comparing things: seeking that on earth which is only to be had in heaven, and seeking that in the creature which is only to be had in God, and looking for that from self which is only to be found in Christ, and seeking that in the law which is only to be had in the gospel."
Thomas Manton, The Life of Faith
"Faith therefore must be purely taught: namely, that thou art so entirely joined unto Christ, that He and thou art made as it were one person: so that thou mayest boldly say, I am now one with Christ, that is to say, Christ's righteousness, victory, and life are mine. And again, Christ may say, I am that sinner, that is, his sins and his death are Mine, because he is united and joined unto Me, and I unto him."
Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians
"Make up your mind that to behold the glory of God by beholding the glory of Christ is the greatest privilege which is given to believers in this life. This is the dawning of heaven."
John Owen, The Glory of Christ
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
"The paradox is amazing. The Creator assumed the human frailty of his creatures. The Eternal One entered time. The all-powerful made himself vulnerable. The all-holy exposed himself to temptation. And in the end the immortal died."
John Stott, The Incomparable Christ
"It cannot be over-emphasized that we have not seen the full meaning of the cross till we have seen it as the center of the gospel, flanked on the one hand by total inability and unconditional surrender and on the other by irresistible grace and final preservation. Christ died to save a certain company of helpless sinners upon whom God had set his free saving love. Christ's death ensured the calling and keeping - the present and final salvation - of all whose sins he bore. That is what Calvary meant, and means. The cross saved; the cross saves."
J.I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness
"Jesus Christ has completely done the work of our redemption. He does not redeem us from some of our sins, and leave us to grapple with the rest. Oh, no! Christ makes a most complete work of it. He redeems us from all our iniquities. He delivers us out of the hands of all our enemies. He pays all debts, He delivers from all wrath, He takes off the whole curse, He saves to the uttermost, and will settle us in a state of full and perfect bliss—when grace shall be turned into glory."
Thomas Brooks, Paradise Opened
"If I am a new creature in Christ, then I stand before God, not in myself—but in Christ. He sees no longer me—but only him in whom I am—him who represents me, Christ Jesus, my substitute and surety. In believing, I have become so identified with the Son of his love, that the favor with which he regards him passes over to me, and rests, like the sunshine of the new heavens, upon me. In Christ, and through Christ, I have acquired a new standing before the Father. I am 'accepted in the beloved.' My old standing, that is, that of distance, and disfavor, and condemnation, is wholly removed, and I am brought into one of nearness, and acceptance, and pardon—I am made to occupy a new footing, just as if my old one had never been. Old guilt, heavy as the mountain, vanishes; old dread, gloomy as midnight, passes off; old fear, dark as hell, gives place to the joyful confidence arising from forgiveness and reconciliation, and the complete blotting out of sin. All things are made new. I have changed my standing before God; and that simply in consequence of that oneness between me and Christ, which has been established, through my believing the record given concerning him. I come to him on a new footing, for I am "in Christ," and in me there has been a new creation."
Horatius Bonar, Christ and the New Creation
"When we shall come home and enter to the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings; then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time - suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home to heaven."
Samuel Rutherford, The Loveliness of Christ
"There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us."
Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed
"The very fact that Christ suffered for us, and through His suffering became a propitiation for us, proves that we are (by nature) unrighteous, and that we for whom He became a propitiation, must obtain our righteousness solely from God, now that forgiveness for our sins has been secured by Christ's atonement. By the fact that God forgives our sins (only) through Christ's propitiation and so justifieth us by faith, He shows how necessary is His righteousness (for all). There is no one whose sins are not forgiven (in Christ)."
Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans
"I am His by purchase and I am His by conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His. Once I was a slave but now I am a son; once I was dead but now I am alive; once I was darkness but now I am light in the Lord; once I was a child of wrath, an heir of hell, but now I am an heir of heaven; once I was Satan's bond-servant but now I am God's freeman; once I was under the spirit of bondage but now I am under the Spirit of adoption that seals up to me the remission of my sins, the justification of my person and the salvation of my soul."
Thomas Brooks, Heaven on Earth
"There are differences in the ways the New Testament writers present the facts, but there can be no doubt that for the New Testament writers as a whole it was the cross that was at the heart of the faith. In the literal sense of the term it was 'crucial'. We are saved, not by some fine theory and not by some blinding revelation and certainly not by our own best effort, but by Christ's atoning death. Therefore, any really serious attempt to understand the Christian way must begin with the cross. Unless we come to see what the cross means we do not understand Christianity."
Leon Morris, The Atonement
"To those to whom Christ is the hope of future glory, he is also the life of present grace."
John Owen, The Glory of Christ
"The Son of God came to dwell in human flesh for us in order that He might come to dwell in us by His Spirit."
Sinclair Ferguson, In Christ Alone
"The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to rescue me from myself. His rescue produces change that fundamentally alters my response to these inescapable realities. The Redeemer turns rebels into disciples, fools into humble listeners. He makes cripples walk again. In him we can face life and respond with faith, love, and hope. And as he changes us, he allows us to be a part of what he is doing in the lives of others. As you respond to the Redeemer's work in your life, you can learn to be an instrument in his hands."
Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands
"When the clouds are blackest, even then look towards Christ the standing pillar of the Father's love and grace, set up in heaven for all sinners to gaze upon continually."
Thomas Wilcox, Honey Out of the Rock
"If there's anything in life that we should be passionate about, it's the gospel. And I don't mean passionate about sharing it with others. I mean passionate about thinking about it, dwelling on it, rejoicing in it, allowing it to color the way we look at the world. Only one thing can be of first importance to each of us. And only the gospel ought to be."
C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life
"What matters supremely is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it–the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. . . . This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort - the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates - in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me."
J.I. Packer, Knowing God
"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 trust 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
"He who comes to God in prayer, comes not in a spirit of self-assertion, but in a spirit of trustful dependence. No one ever addressed God in prayer thus: 'O God, thou knowest that I am the architect of my own fortunes and the determiner of my own destiny. Thou mayest indeed do something to help me in the securing of my purposes after I have determined upon them. But my heart is my own, and Thou canst not intrude into it; my will is my own, and Thou canst not bend it. When I wish Thy aid, I will call on Thee for it. Meanwhile, Thou must await my pleasure.' Men may reason somewhat like this; but that is not the way they pray."
B.B. Warfield
"To that righteousness is the eye of the believer ever to be directed; on that righteousness must he rest; on that righteousness must he live; on that righteousness must he die; in that righteousness must he appear before the judgment-seat; in that righteousness must he stand for ever in the presence of a righteous God."
Richard Haldane, quoted by Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace
"There is nothing wanting in my Lord; Christ hath done it all. On the cross he said, 'It is finished!' and if it be finished, then am I complete in him, and can rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, 'Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'"
Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Jan 31
"Remember this - all the sighing, mourning, sobbing, and complaining in the world, does not so undeniably evidence a man to be humble, as his overlooking his own righteousness, and living really and purely upon the righteousness of Christ."
Thomas Brooks, The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
"Faith does not certainly promise itself either length of years or honor or riches in this life, since the Lord willed that none of these things be appointed for us. But it is content with this certainty: that, however many things fail us that have to do with the maintenance of this life, God will never fail. ... Yet whatever earthly miseries and calamities await those whom God has embraced in his love, these cannot hinder his benevolence from being their full happiness."
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
"As we watch Jesus pray in agony in Gethsemane, He has every right to turn His tearful eyes toward you and me and shout, 'This is your cup. You're responsible for this. It's your sin! You drink it.' This cup should rightfully be thrust into my hand and yours. ... Instead, Jesus freely takes it Himself … so that from the cross He can look down at you and me, whisper our names, and say, "I drain this cup for you - for you who have lived in defiance of Me, who have hated Me, who have opposed Me. I drink it all … for you."
C.J. Mahaney, Christ Our Mediator
John Esnor, The Great Work of the Gospel
The Lord redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. (Psalm 34:22)
"Faith is the mark of the ransomed, and wherever it is seen, though in the least and meanest of the saints, it ensures salvation. Believer, thou shalt never be deserted, forsaken, given up to ruin. God, even thy God, is thy guardian and friend, and bliss is thine."
Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David
"So completely was Jesus bent upon saving sinners by the sacrifice of Himself, He created the tree upon which He was to die, and nurtured from infancy the men who were to nail Him to the accursed wood."
Octavius Winslow, The Foot of the Cross
"Man's Maker was made man that the Bread might be hungry, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired from the journey; that Strength might be made weak, that Life might die."
St. Augustine
"Look more at justification than sanctification. In the highest commands consider Christ, not as an exacter to require, but as a debtor, an undertaker, to work in you and for you. If you have looked at your resolutions, endeavors, workings, duties, qualifications, etc., more than at the merits of Christ, it will cost you dear."
Thomas Wilcox, Honey out of the Rock
"All trouble comes from not right sorting and comparing things: seeking that on earth which is only to be had in heaven, and seeking that in the creature which is only to be had in God, and looking for that from self which is only to be found in Christ, and seeking that in the law which is only to be had in the gospel."
Thomas Manton, The Life of Faith
"Faith therefore must be purely taught: namely, that thou art so entirely joined unto Christ, that He and thou art made as it were one person: so that thou mayest boldly say, I am now one with Christ, that is to say, Christ's righteousness, victory, and life are mine. And again, Christ may say, I am that sinner, that is, his sins and his death are Mine, because he is united and joined unto Me, and I unto him."
Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians
"Make up your mind that to behold the glory of God by beholding the glory of Christ is the greatest privilege which is given to believers in this life. This is the dawning of heaven."
John Owen, The Glory of Christ
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
"The paradox is amazing. The Creator assumed the human frailty of his creatures. The Eternal One entered time. The all-powerful made himself vulnerable. The all-holy exposed himself to temptation. And in the end the immortal died."
John Stott, The Incomparable Christ
"It cannot be over-emphasized that we have not seen the full meaning of the cross till we have seen it as the center of the gospel, flanked on the one hand by total inability and unconditional surrender and on the other by irresistible grace and final preservation. Christ died to save a certain company of helpless sinners upon whom God had set his free saving love. Christ's death ensured the calling and keeping - the present and final salvation - of all whose sins he bore. That is what Calvary meant, and means. The cross saved; the cross saves."
J.I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness
"Jesus Christ has completely done the work of our redemption. He does not redeem us from some of our sins, and leave us to grapple with the rest. Oh, no! Christ makes a most complete work of it. He redeems us from all our iniquities. He delivers us out of the hands of all our enemies. He pays all debts, He delivers from all wrath, He takes off the whole curse, He saves to the uttermost, and will settle us in a state of full and perfect bliss—when grace shall be turned into glory."
Thomas Brooks, Paradise Opened
"If I am a new creature in Christ, then I stand before God, not in myself—but in Christ. He sees no longer me—but only him in whom I am—him who represents me, Christ Jesus, my substitute and surety. In believing, I have become so identified with the Son of his love, that the favor with which he regards him passes over to me, and rests, like the sunshine of the new heavens, upon me. In Christ, and through Christ, I have acquired a new standing before the Father. I am 'accepted in the beloved.' My old standing, that is, that of distance, and disfavor, and condemnation, is wholly removed, and I am brought into one of nearness, and acceptance, and pardon—I am made to occupy a new footing, just as if my old one had never been. Old guilt, heavy as the mountain, vanishes; old dread, gloomy as midnight, passes off; old fear, dark as hell, gives place to the joyful confidence arising from forgiveness and reconciliation, and the complete blotting out of sin. All things are made new. I have changed my standing before God; and that simply in consequence of that oneness between me and Christ, which has been established, through my believing the record given concerning him. I come to him on a new footing, for I am "in Christ," and in me there has been a new creation."
Horatius Bonar, Christ and the New Creation
"When we shall come home and enter to the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings; then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time - suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home to heaven."
Samuel Rutherford, The Loveliness of Christ
"There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us."
Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed
"The very fact that Christ suffered for us, and through His suffering became a propitiation for us, proves that we are (by nature) unrighteous, and that we for whom He became a propitiation, must obtain our righteousness solely from God, now that forgiveness for our sins has been secured by Christ's atonement. By the fact that God forgives our sins (only) through Christ's propitiation and so justifieth us by faith, He shows how necessary is His righteousness (for all). There is no one whose sins are not forgiven (in Christ)."
Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans
"I am His by purchase and I am His by conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His. Once I was a slave but now I am a son; once I was dead but now I am alive; once I was darkness but now I am light in the Lord; once I was a child of wrath, an heir of hell, but now I am an heir of heaven; once I was Satan's bond-servant but now I am God's freeman; once I was under the spirit of bondage but now I am under the Spirit of adoption that seals up to me the remission of my sins, the justification of my person and the salvation of my soul."
Thomas Brooks, Heaven on Earth
"There are differences in the ways the New Testament writers present the facts, but there can be no doubt that for the New Testament writers as a whole it was the cross that was at the heart of the faith. In the literal sense of the term it was 'crucial'. We are saved, not by some fine theory and not by some blinding revelation and certainly not by our own best effort, but by Christ's atoning death. Therefore, any really serious attempt to understand the Christian way must begin with the cross. Unless we come to see what the cross means we do not understand Christianity."
Leon Morris, The Atonement
"To those to whom Christ is the hope of future glory, he is also the life of present grace."
John Owen, The Glory of Christ
"The Son of God came to dwell in human flesh for us in order that He might come to dwell in us by His Spirit."
Sinclair Ferguson, In Christ Alone
"The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to rescue me from myself. His rescue produces change that fundamentally alters my response to these inescapable realities. The Redeemer turns rebels into disciples, fools into humble listeners. He makes cripples walk again. In him we can face life and respond with faith, love, and hope. And as he changes us, he allows us to be a part of what he is doing in the lives of others. As you respond to the Redeemer's work in your life, you can learn to be an instrument in his hands."
Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands
"When the clouds are blackest, even then look towards Christ the standing pillar of the Father's love and grace, set up in heaven for all sinners to gaze upon continually."
Thomas Wilcox, Honey Out of the Rock
"If there's anything in life that we should be passionate about, it's the gospel. And I don't mean passionate about sharing it with others. I mean passionate about thinking about it, dwelling on it, rejoicing in it, allowing it to color the way we look at the world. Only one thing can be of first importance to each of us. And only the gospel ought to be."
C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life
"What matters supremely is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it–the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. . . . This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort - the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates - in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me."
J.I. Packer, Knowing God
"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 trust 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
"He who comes to God in prayer, comes not in a spirit of self-assertion, but in a spirit of trustful dependence. No one ever addressed God in prayer thus: 'O God, thou knowest that I am the architect of my own fortunes and the determiner of my own destiny. Thou mayest indeed do something to help me in the securing of my purposes after I have determined upon them. But my heart is my own, and Thou canst not intrude into it; my will is my own, and Thou canst not bend it. When I wish Thy aid, I will call on Thee for it. Meanwhile, Thou must await my pleasure.' Men may reason somewhat like this; but that is not the way they pray."
B.B. Warfield
"To that righteousness is the eye of the believer ever to be directed; on that righteousness must he rest; on that righteousness must he live; on that righteousness must he die; in that righteousness must he appear before the judgment-seat; in that righteousness must he stand for ever in the presence of a righteous God."
Richard Haldane, quoted by Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace
"There is nothing wanting in my Lord; Christ hath done it all. On the cross he said, 'It is finished!' and if it be finished, then am I complete in him, and can rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, 'Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'"
Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Jan 31
"Remember this - all the sighing, mourning, sobbing, and complaining in the world, does not so undeniably evidence a man to be humble, as his overlooking his own righteousness, and living really and purely upon the righteousness of Christ."
Thomas Brooks, The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
"Faith does not certainly promise itself either length of years or honor or riches in this life, since the Lord willed that none of these things be appointed for us. But it is content with this certainty: that, however many things fail us that have to do with the maintenance of this life, God will never fail. ... Yet whatever earthly miseries and calamities await those whom God has embraced in his love, these cannot hinder his benevolence from being their full happiness."
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
"As we watch Jesus pray in agony in Gethsemane, He has every right to turn His tearful eyes toward you and me and shout, 'This is your cup. You're responsible for this. It's your sin! You drink it.' This cup should rightfully be thrust into my hand and yours. ... Instead, Jesus freely takes it Himself … so that from the cross He can look down at you and me, whisper our names, and say, "I drain this cup for you - for you who have lived in defiance of Me, who have hated Me, who have opposed Me. I drink it all … for you."
C.J. Mahaney, Christ Our Mediator
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