“Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Atheists believe in the virgin birth of the cosmos. Choose your miracle.” – Glen Scrivener
“You will hear people say, ‘The early Christians believed that Christ was the son of a virgin, but we know that this is a scientific impossibility’. Such people seem to have an idea that belief in miracles arose at a period when men were so ignorant of the course of nature that they did not perceive a miracle to be contrary to it. A moment’s thought shows this to be nonsense: and the story of the Virgin Birth is a particularly striking example.
When Joseph discovered that his fiancée was going to have a baby, he not unnaturally decided to repudiate her. Why? Because he knew just as well as any modern gynecologist that in the ordinary course of nature women do not have babies unless they have lain with men. No doubt the modern gynecologist knows several things about birth and begetting which St Joseph did not know. But those things do not concern the main point–that a virgin birth is contrary to the course of nature. Joseph obviously knew that. In any sense in which it is true to say now, ‘The thing is scientifically impossible’, he would have said the same: the thing always was, and was always known to be, impossible unless the regular processes of nature were, in this particular case, being over-ruled or supplemented by something from beyond nature.
When Joseph finally accepted the view that his fiancée’s pregnancy was due not to unchastity but to a miracle, he accepted the miracle as something contrary to the known order of nature. All records of miracles teach the same thing.” – C. S. Lewis
“The Christ who was born into the world must be born in your heart. Religious sentiment…without the living Christ is a yellow brick road to darkness.” – Kent Hughes
“Remember Jesus for us is all our righteousness before a holy God, and Jesus in us is all our strength in an ungodly world.” – McCheyne
“First, by the obedience of the life of Christ you see what is intended,—his willing submission unto, and perfect, complete fulfilling of, every law of God, that any of the saints of God were obliged unto. It is true, every act almost of Christ’s obedience, from the blood of his circumcision to the blood of his cross, was attended with suffering,—so that his whole life might, in that regard, be called a death; but yet, looking upon his willingness and obedience in it, it is distinguished from his sufferings peculiarly so called, and termed his active righteousness. This is, then, I say, as was showed, that complete, absolutely perfect accomplishment of the whole law of God by Christ, our mediator; whereby he not only “did no sin, neither was there guile found in his mouth,” but also most perfectly fulfilled all righteousness, as he affirmed it became him to do. Secondly, That this obedience was performed by Christ not for himself, but for us, and in our stead.” – John Owen, Of Communion with God, in the Works of John Owen (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, repr. 2009), 2:161–162.
“Hence, it is also manifest that if any good quality or work of ours were made the condition of our justification or title to eternal life, this would turn the covenant of grace exhibited in the gospel into a covenant of works. The covenant of grace revealed and offered to sinners in the gospel is the only covenant according to which a sinner can be justified and entitled to life eternal. It is absolutely impossible that he can be justified according to the broken covenant of works. But were any graces, acts, or works of his the proper conditions of his justification, the covenant of grace would be as much a covenant of works as ever the covenant made with Adam was. The condition of Adam’s covenant was perfect obedience, and according to this imaginary law of easier terms, the conditions of the covenant of grace are sincere faith and sincere obedience.” – John Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Law and Gospel (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books), 102.
“Therefore, we explain justification simply as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as righteous men. And we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.” – John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.11.12.
“In group Bible studies generally, participants are led to look directly for personal devotional applications without first contemplating the writers’ points about the greatness, goals, methods, and mystery of God. In putting together Christian books and magazines for popular reading and in composing, preaching, hearing, and thinking about sermons, the story is the same: it is assumed that our reaction to realities is more significant than any of the realities to which we react. Thus we learn to cultivate a mode of piety that rests upon a smudgy, deficient, and sometimes misleading conception of who and what the God we serve really is. Brought up on this, we now reflect the subjectivist turn of the Western thought-world of more than a century ago: personal guesses and fantasies about God replace the church’s dogma as our authority, a hermeneutic of habitual distrust and suspicion of dogma establishes itself, and dogma becomes a dirty word, loaded with overtones of obscurantism, tunnel vision, unreality, superstition, and mental enslavement.” – J.I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett | Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old Fashioned Way, 11.
“Suppose some persons laugh. You weep on the other hand for their transgression! Many also once laughed at Noah while he was preparing the ark; but when the flood came, he laughed at them; or rather, the righteous man never laughed at them at all, but wept and bewailed! When therefore you see persons laughing, reflect that those teeth, that grin now, will one day have to sustain that most dreadful wailing and gnashing, and that they will remember this same laugh on That Day while they are grinding and gnashing! Then you too shall remember this laugh! How did the rich man laugh at Lazarus! But afterwards, when he beheld him in Abraham’s bosom, he had nothing left to do but to bewail himself!” – John Chrysostom | The Homilies on the Statues, in Saint Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statues, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens, vol. 9, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1889), 481.
“I’m not afraid of failure; I’m afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.” – William Carey
“Don’t vote for the lesser of two evils. Vote for the one who will lessen evil.”
“The righteous are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community, the wicked are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves.” – Bruce Waltke
“Pain that brings you closer to God will always be better than comfort that keeps you away from Him” – J. C. Ryle
“We have plenty of troubles and trials, and if we like to fret over them, we can always do that; but, then, we have far more joys than troubles, so our songs should exceed our sighs.” – C.H. Spurgeon
“Christian, if you want to be in God’s will, you will do all you can to be physically present and involved as a member of a faithful local church.” – Dan Phillips
“Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to keep the faults of his friends.” – Henry Ward Beecher
Romans 1:30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 *undiscerning*, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.
“Discernment isn’t a gift. It’s a requirement. To be undiscerning is a sin!” – Phillip May
“I rest solely in His righteousness and in His atonement because I know there is nothing I can do to make up for my iniquity.” – R C Sproul
“A lot of people think that Christianity is you doing all the righteous things you hate and avoiding all the wicked things you love in order to go to heaven. No, that’s a lost man with religion. A Christian is a person whose heart has been changed; he has new affections.” – Paul Washer
“Dear fellow, you must not look at yourself, how worthy or unworthy you are, but at your need—your need of the grace of Christ. If you see and feel your need, you are worthy and sufficiently prepared, for he has not instituted the sacrament to act as a poison and to harm us, but to grant comfort and salvation.”
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 38: Word and Sacrament IV, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 38 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 132.
“Election based on foreseen faith implies we are ordained to eternal life because we believe. Yet Scripture declares the reverse: “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed,” (Acts 13:48) not “as many as believed were ordained to eternal life.” – Isaac Abrose
“An Arminian gospel might suffice, if men were just IN darkness. Problem is, they LOVE darkness (Jn. 3:19). Only sovereign grace will save.” – Dan Phillips
“O, what a benefit is this to a poor sinner, that owes to God infinitely more than he is ever able to pay, by doing or suffering; to have such a rich treasure of merit as lies in the obedience of Christ, to discharge, in one entire payment, all his debts to the last farthing?” – John Flavel
“…And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men;” – Clement of Rome, 96 AD
“The doctrine of the Covenant lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace is a master of divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scriptures are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenants of law and the covenants of grace. May God grant us now the power to instruct and you the grace to receive instruction on this vital subject.” – C. H. Spurgeon
“Luther said, ‘Whoa, you mean the righteousness by which I will be saved is not mine?’ It’s what he called a ‘justitia alienum’—an alien righteousness, a righteousness that belongs properly to somebody else. It’s a righteousness that is ‘extra nos’, outside of us—namely, the righteousness of Christ. And Luther said, ‘When I discovered that, I was born again of the Holy Ghost, and the doors of Paradise swung open, and I walked through.’” – R.C. Sproul
“I understand that what God really uses to really work in me and to really change me are not the times of sunshine and rainbows but it’s the times of dark clouds and storms and pain and suffering and affliction. Those are the things that God is so sovereign that He takes those things – the very things that we shrink from and He says, ‘I will take those and I will sanctify them to you and use them for your good.’” – Brian Borgman
