Category Archives: Quotes

Stay in your field of expertise

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Stephen Hawking (pictured) recently portrayed heaven as being a fairy tale. N. T. Wright reponded with a brief article in the Washington Post‘s On Faith blog:

“It’s depressing to see Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant minds in his field, trying to speak as an expert on things he sadly seems to know rather less about than many averagely intelligent Christians. Of course there are people who think of ‘heaven’ as a kind of pie-in-the-sky dream of an afterlife to make the thought of dying less awful. No doubt that’s a problem as old as the human race. But in the Bible ‘heaven’ isn’t ‘the place where people go when they die.’ In the Bible heaven is God’s space while earth (or, if you like, ‘the cosmos’ or ‘creation’) is our space. And the Bible makes it clear that the two overlap and interlock. For the ancient Jews, the place where this happened was the temple; for the Christians, the place where this happened was Jesus himself, and then, astonishingly, the persons of Christians because they, too, were ‘temples’ of God’s own spirit.

Hawking is working with a very low-grade and sub-biblical view of ‘going to heaven.’ Of course, if faced with the fully Christian two-stage view of what happens after death—first, a time ‘with Christ’ in ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise,’and then, when God renews the whole creation, bodily resurrection—he would no doubt dismiss that as incredible. But I wonder if he has ever even stopped to look properly, with his high-octane intellect, at the evidence for Jesus and the resurrection? I doubt it—most people in England haven’t. Until he has, his opinion about all this is worth about the same as mine on nuclear physics, i.e. not much…”

HT: The Resurgence

Miscellaneous Quotes (15)

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“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling ‘darkness’ on the wall of his cell.” —C.S. Lewis

“Little sins often slide into the soul, and breed, and work secretly and undiscernibly in the soul, til they come to be so strong, as to trample upon the soul, and cut the throat of the soul…there is more evil in the least sin than in the greatest affliction.” – Thomas Brooks

“It is neglect of the Bible which makes so many a prey to the first false teacher whom they hear.” – J.C. Ryle

“Backsliding generally first begins with neglect of private prayer.” – J.C. Ryle

“We spend our years with sighing; it is a valley of tears; but death is the funeral of all our sorrows.” – Thomas Watson

“Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God’s grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace.” – Martin Luther

Martin Luther in his Commentary on Galatians tells us how to answer the Accuser: “Paul does not say that works are objectionable, but to build one’s hopes for righteousness on works is disastrous, for that makes Christ good for nothing. Let us bear this in mind when the devil accuses our conscience. When that dragon accuses us of having done no good at all, say to him,”You trouble me with the remembrance of my past sins; you remind me that I have done no good. But this does not bother me, because if I were to trust in my own good deeds, or despair because I have done no good deeds, Christ would profit me neither way. I am not going to make Him unprofitable to me. This I would do if I should presume to purchase for myself the favor of God by my good deeds or if I should despair of my salvation because of my sins.”

“True faith takes its character and quality from its object and not from itself. Faith gets a man out of himself and into Christ. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!” – Sinclair Ferguson, The Christian Life

“There are times when God asks nothing of his children except silence, patience and tears.” – Charles Seymour Robinson

“If you don’t believe in the devil’s existence, just try resisting him for a while.” – Charles Finney (yeah, I know, it’s the heretic Finney; but it’s a great quote)

“The chief and fundamental thing in the Gospel is this, that before you take Christ as your example, you recognize and accept Him as God’s gift to you; so that when you see or hear Him in any of His work of suffering, you do not doubt but believe that He, Christ Himself, with such work or suffering of His, is most truly your very own, whereon you may rely as confidently as if you had done that work… See, this is to understand aright the Gospel, that is, the infinite grace of God… This is the mighty fire of God’s love toward us whereby He makes the conscience confident, joyful, and content.” – Martin Luther, as quoted in Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method (Eerdmans, 1999), 119

“A cold, hard-hearted Christian is the greatest absurdity and contradiction. It is as if one should speak of dark brightness, or a false truth!” – Jonathan Edwards, ‘Charity and Its Fruits,’ in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Yale ed., 8:147

Concerning the gift of our Great High Priest and His prayers of intercession for us:

Louis Berkhof: “It is a consoling thought that Christ is praying for us, even when we are negligent in our prayer life; that He is presenting to the Father those spiritual needs which were not present to our minds and which we often neglect to include in our prayers; and that He prays for our protection against the dangers of which we are not even conscious, and against the enemies which threaten us, though we do not notice it. He is praying that our faith may not cease, and that we may come out victoriously in the end.” (Systematic Theology p. 403)

Robert Murray M’Cheyne: “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”

All Ours

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Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

“Christ bestows all the goodness of the past, the present, and the future upon His people. In the mysterious ages of the past the Lord Jesus was His Father’s first elect, and in His election He gave us an interest, for we were chosen in Him from before the foundation of the world. He had from all eternity the prerogatives of Sonship, as His Father’s only-begotten and well-beloved Son; and He has, in the riches of His grace, by adoption and regeneration, elevated us to sonship also, so that to us He has given “the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12)

The eternal covenant, which He has confirmed by an oath, is ours, for our strong consolation and security. In the everlasting settlements of predestinating wisdom and omnipotent decree, the eye of the Lord Jesus was fixed upon us; and we may rest assured that in the whole roll of destiny there is not a line that militates against the interests of His redeemed.

The great betrothal of the Prince of Glory is ours, for it is to us that He is engaged, as the wedding feast shall soon declare to an assembled universe. The marvelous incarnation of the God of heaven, with all the amazing condescension and humiliation that attended it, is ours. The bloody sweat, the scourge, the cross are ours forever. Whatever blissful consequences flow from perfect obedience, finished atonement, resurrection, ascension, or intercession, all are ours by His own gift.

Upon His breastplate He is now bearing our names; and in His authoritative pleadings at the throne He remembers us and pleads our case. His dominion over principalities and powers, and His absolute majesty in heaven, He employs for the benefit of them who trust in Him. His high estate is as much at our service as was His obedience unto death. He who gave Himself for us in the depths of woe and death does not withdraw His help now that He is enthroned in the highest heavens.”

– Alistair Begg