“But when our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been clearly shown that its reward, was impending over us; and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us, He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!”

The quote is from The Epistle to Diognetus 9, translated by Roberts-Donaldson. This text dates from early to mid 2nd century AD. It is an early indication that the doctrines of substitutionary atonement and double imputation were not first the product of the Protestant Reformation, but were held dear by the earliest generations of Christians. The author is unknown – he refers to himself simply as a mathetes “disciple”.

“No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian has a theology. The issue, then, is not, do we want to have a theology? That’s a given. The real issue is, do we have a sound theology? Do we embrace true or false doctrine?” – Dr. R. C. Sproul

“The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.” – John Stott

“Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because He loves us.” – Tullian Tchividjian

“That tiny hill in that tiny land is the centre of all history, not only of this world, but of all the countless galaxies and island universes of outer space from eternity to eternity.” – Paul Billheimer

“I made a pile of my good works and a heap of my bad works; and I fled them both to Christ.” – David Dixon

“Many Christians are either woefully deficient in their knowledge of Scripture or noticeably devoid of any experience of God’s power. The Lord never intended this for His people. We have all seen firsthand the joyless intellectual arrogance the absence of spiritual power can produce, as well as the fanatical emotional excess that comes from the lack of theological integrity.” – Dr. Sam Storms

“Here is the end of the matter: God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is not the act of a needy ego, but an act of infinite giving. The reason God seeks our praise is not because he won’t be fully God until he gets it, but that we won’t be happy until we give it. This is not arrogance. This is grace. This is not egomania. This is love.” – John Piper, Is Jesus an Egomaniac?

“Surely the gospel does not confine men’s hearts to delight in the present life, but lifts them to the hope of immortality. It does not fasten them to earthly pleasures, but by announcing a hope that rests in heaven it, so to speak, transports them thither.” – John Calvin, Institutes, Book II.10.3

“We gather for worship not to escape the real world, but to be reminded that this present world in its present fallen state is not all there is.” – Unknown

“[God] reckons righteousness to them, not because he accounts them to have kept his law personally (which would be a false judgment), but because he accounts them to be united to one who kept it representatively (and that is a true judgment).” – J. I. Packer, “Justification,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984], p. 596.

(Mar 7.21-22) For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
“Never did any sin appear in the life of the vilest wretch who ever lived; but look into your own corrupt nature, and there you may see the seed and root that sin—and every other sin. There is atheism, idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, and whatever is vile—in your heart! Possibly none of these are apparent to you; but there is more in that unfathomable depth of wickedness than you know. Your corrupt heart is like an ant’s nest, which, while the stone lies on it, none of them appear. But take off the stone, and stir them up but with a straw—and you will see what a swarm is there—and how lively they are! Just such a sight would your heart afford you—did the Lord but withdraw the restraint He has upon it—and allow Satan to stir it up by temptation!” — Thomas Boston (1676-1732) from Human Nature in Its Fourfold State

“I believe that if we are God-centered simply because we consciously or unconsciously believe God is man-centered, then our God-centeredness is in reality man-centeredness. Teaching God’s God-centeredness forces the issue of whether we treasure God because of his excellence or mainly because he endorses us.” – John Piper

“The ten feet from the front pew to the pulpit are the most significant any preacher travels in a given week. It’s hard for an observer to fully appreciate the stange combination of agony and delight joining forces to make that walk possible… There’s no such thing as an average sermon. For any faithful expositor, the distance is paved with blood, sweat and tears. Those few sheets of paper resting in the back of our Bibles are everything. We step up every week hoping a little of our life-changing encounter with the Word of God gets through. This expectation fills our very soul.” – Byron Yawn, Well Driven Nails: The Power of Finding Your Own Voice, p. 19

“Biblically faithful Christianity does not present itself as a nice religious structure that makes happier parents and well-ordered children and good taxpaying citizens. It may produce better parents and taxpaying citizens, but the issues at stake in biblical Christianity have to do with eternity: heaven and hell, matters of the utmost significance, your relationship to your Maker, what God has provided in Christ, what the cross is about, the resurrection… At the end of the day, what hell measures is how much Christ paid for those who escape hell. The measure of his torment (in ways I do not pretend to begin to understand) as the God-man is the measure of torment that we deserve and he bore. And if you see that and believe it, you will find it difficult to contemplate the cross for very long without tears.” – D.A. Carson, The God who is There

“The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light.” – John Calvin

“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” – Frederick Buechner

“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.” – Mark Twain

“Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the dangerous nature of the soul’s disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies.” – J. C. Ryle

“Trials and tribulations are very good for us in that they help us to know ourselves better than we knew ourselves before.” – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I know of nothing which I would choose to have as the subject of my ambition for life than to be kept faithful to my God till death.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“It is God Himself who in holy wrath needs to be propitiated, God Himself who in holy love undertook to do the propitiating, and God Himself who, in the person of His Son, died for the propitiation of our sins. Thus God took His own loving initiative to appease His own righteous anger by bearing it His own self in His own Son when He took our place and died for us. There is no crudity here to evoke our ridicule, only profundity of holy love to evoke our worship.” – John Stott, The Cross of Christ