Ligonier has a few excellent deals in this week’s $5 Friday sale, including books and teaching series by R.C. Sproul. It’s a good day to stock up on some of these for yourself or your church library here.

(Remember, if you do decide to purchase material, you can claim a 10% discount as a reader of this blog by using the coupon code: EGRACE10)

I read this today by Kevin DeYoung… I agree entirely. Its an article worth reading a few times and absorbing:

Though few would put it this way, it’s easy for Christians to think the cross is where love overcame holiness. Or to put it more prosaically: God saved us because he loves us so much he decided to look past our sins. God is love and he loves to forgive our sins.

But that’s not exactly how justification works. We are not justified because God’s mercy triumphed over God’s justice. We are justified because in divine mercy, God sent his Son to the cross to satisfy divine justice. Mercy triumphs over judgment, but it does not remove the need for justice. We were saved not by the removal of justice, but by the satisfaction of it.

A Loud Declaration
The resurrection, then, is the loud declaration that there is nothing left to pay (cf. Rom. 4:25). Peter says in Acts 2:24, “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” Why was it impossible for Jesus to remain dead? Because God is more powerful than death and the devil? That’s certainly true, but there’s another reason. The grave could not hold the Son of Man because it had no claim on him. The wages of sin is death. So when sin is paid for, there is no obligation to pay the wages of sin.

Here’s how Charles Hodge puts it: Our sins were the judicial ground of the sufferings of Christ, so that they were a satisfaction of justice; and his righteousness is the judicial ground of our acceptance with God, so that our pardon is an act of justice.

Think about that. Our justification is not an act of legal fiction, but an act of justice. God would be unjust if he did not pardon those who belong to Christ. It would be a denial of his name, his character, his own justice.

I believe many of us have not begun to grasp just how good the good news is, just how secure our salvation is, just how completely and unalterably justified we are through faith in Christ. Mark this: God did not set aside the law in judging us; he fulfilled it. Christ bore the curse of the law so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Not because we possess this righteousness, but because God credits it to our account. So that, in one sense, at the moment when Christ died, it was what he deserved (by imputation). And now by faith, blessing and mercy and favor are what we deserve (by imputation).

Justice is shot through the entire plan of redemption. People go to hell because God is just, and people go to heaven because God is just. We are not forgiven and justified because God waved his magic wand and decided to whitewash your faults. He has not overlooked the smallest speck of your sin. He demands justice for all of your iniquities. He demands justice for every last lustful look and proud thought and spiteful word. He demands justice for all of it. But praise God: the resurrection of the crucified Son of God assures us the demands of justice have been met.

The Resurrection Gospel
The resurrection is not a sentimental story about never giving up, or the possibility of good coming from evil. It is not first of all a story about how suffering can be sanctified, or a story of how Jesus suffered for all of humanity so we can suffer with the rest of humanity. The resurrection is the loud declaration that Jesus is enough–enough to atone for your sins, enough to reconcile you to God, enough to present you holy in God’s presence, enough to free you from the curse of the law, enough to promise you there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Something objectively happened on the cross, and that objective work was broadcast to the whole world by an empty tomb. The good news is not a generic message of love for everyone or hope for all. The gospel is the theological interpretation of historical fact. You might put the good news like this: Faith will be counted to us as righteousness when we believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification (Rom. 4:24-25).

Yes, that’s me, age 7.

Joining with many millions around the world, I want to congratulate Prince William and Princess Catherine, their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge; God willing, the one day future King and Queen of England.

Rev. David Wilkerson, founder of Teen Challenge, founding pastor of the 8,000 member Times Square Church in New York City and author of the popular book “The Cross and the Switchblade”, was killed Wednesday in a car crash in Texas. He was 79.

His wife was also involved in the crash but as yet there is no news on her condition. Please pray for the Wilkerson family.

What a specter, what a horrible thing death is to most of us. We regard it as a terrible monster that is going to grip us. Death, we say, is the most terrible thing of all, the thing to avoid. No, says Christ, death is nothing but the door of entry to my Father’s house for his followers–‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’

We tend to think of ourselves after death, do we not, as in some disembodied state in some great eternity where all is strange and terrible. But it is really to go home, if you are a child of God, if you are a brother or sister of the Lord Jesus Christ. God is not some terrible awful power, away in some distant eternity; he is your Father. He is one who loves you with a love you cannot imagine. Thank God for human love, but, my dear friends, our human love pales into insignificance and nothingness by the side of the love of God toward those who belong to him. ‘My Father’s house’ is a glorious home.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled (Crossway, 2009), 73

Update: A few minutes after posting this I received a message from a friend named Rodger, saying, “Wow how tragic. I will be eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father for this man of God! My wife, my father and my sister all received Christ at one of his crusades many years ago.”

Clearly, God has used Brother Wilkerson tremendously over the years.

Ligonier Ministries likes this blog. Actually, they like it so much that they have been kind enough to offer readers of Effectual Grace an EXCLUSIVE 10% discount on ALL purchases.

When you place your order online simply type in the coupon code EGRACE10 at the Ligonier Ministries Online Store

Finally, after much hard work behind the scenes by a man named JJ, and pray that many may indeed by edified as they hear them. Titles include:

“The Five Solas of the Gospel”
“The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything”
“Rightly Handling the Word of Truth”
“The Golden Chain of Redemption”
“The Baptism and Temptation of Jesus”
“The Truth of the Gospel”
“Who Is This Jesus?”
“Rest and Fight”

There is no charge to hear these messages, wherever you are in the world – be blessed!

Reports of this blog’s demise have been greatly exaggerated!

Thanks for the many e-mails over the last few days asking (with great concern) about this blog. Its heart warming to know that it has come to be a regular fixture in so many people’s lives.

Over the last 2-3 days, thanks to the great talents of a man named JJ Honeycutt, the whole site has been put on a completely different platform which will allow for the audio problems we had to be sorted out. That might still take a few more days to iron out fully, but at least the tools are in place before the final fixing is done.

So the Grim Reaper was never near, even if it seemed that way.

Talking about death, how do you frighten a man who has already died?

Ravi Zacharias explains:

Colossians 3:3 says, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

HT: JT