It is here, in the thing that happened after the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. 'The Word became flesh' (Jn. 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. ... The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets.Knowing God
the association of a Christian festival as important as that of the Nativity with paganism would have been completely antithetical to the mindset of believers at the time. Countless sermons and books by preachers and leaders of the young Church stressed the need to avoid any association with the world of idols and state cults. Their desire to abstain from attendance at the games and the sacrifices that were so much a part of Roman life was noted by their fellow citizens and gained the new religion an unsavory reputation for atheism.Christmas in the Crosshairs, 7
Jesus miraculous birth does in fact point to his deity and also to the reality of the creative power that operates in our new birth (John 1:13).Concise Theology, Section 41
the true celebration of the feast of Christmas, is, to meditate (and as it were to ruminate in the secret cogitations of our minds) upon the incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ, God and man: not only at that time, but all the times and days of our life, and to show ourselves thankful to his blessed majesty for the same
I saw the other day in an Italian grotto a little fern, which grew where its leaves continually glistened and danced in the spray of a fountain. It was always green, and neither summer's drought nor winter's cold affected it. So let us for ever abide under the sweet influence of Jesus' love.
Lectures to my Students
When Jesus speaks of God as Father, he is implying that he is divine, an implication that is not lost on those around him. The God Who Is Triune: Revisioning the Christian Doctrine of God (Kindle Locations 261-262). Kindle Edition.
Only if Christ is God, in the full sense of the word and without qualification, has God entered humanity, and only then have fellowship with God, the forgiveness of sins, the truth of God, and immortality been certainly brought to man.Hist. of Doct. I, p211
Let us be content that God should rule the world; learn to acquiesce in his will, and submit to his providence. Does any affliction befall you? Remember God sees it is that which is fit for you, or it would not come. Your clothes cannot be so fit for you as your crosses. God's providence may sometimes be secret—but it is always wise; and though we may not be silent under God's dishonor—yet we should learn to be silent under his displeasure.A Body of Divinity p. 125 Banner of Truth
Providence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good than you could do had you been left to your own option.
the Lord usually adapts means to ends, from which the plain lesson is, that we shall be likely to accomplish most when we are in the best spiritual condition; or in other words, we shall usually do our Lord's work best when our gifts and graces are in good order, and we shall do worst when they are most out of trim.
Lectures to my Students
A firm faith in the universal providence of God is the solution of all earthly problems. It is almost equally true that a clear and full apprehension of the universal providence of God is the solution of most theological problems.
Years are slipping away and time is flying. Graveyards are filling up and families are thinning. Death and judgement are getting nearer to us all. And yet you live like one asleep about your soul! What madness! What folly! What suicide can be worse than this? Awake before it is too late; awake, and arise from the dead, and live to God. Turn to Him who is sitting at the right hand of God, to be your Saviour and Friend. Turn to Christ, and cry mightily to Him about your soul. Holiness (Chapter 6)
It is not the distance of the earth from the sun, nor the sun's withdrawing itself, that makes a dark and gloomy day; but the interposition of clouds and vaporous exhalations. Neither is thy soul beyond the reach of the promise, nor does God withdraw Himself; but the vapours of thy carnal, unbelieving heart do cloud thee.
atheism results from the perverted moral state of man and from his desire to escape from God. It is deliberately blind to and suppresses the most fundamental instinct of man, the deepest needs of the soul, the highest aspirations of the human spirit, and the longings of a heart that gropes after some higher Being. This practical or intellectual suppression of the operation of the semen religionis often involves prolonged and painful struggles.Systematic Theology, 22
A believer's inheritance—his glory, his happiness, his blessedness—shall be as fresh and nourishing after he has been many thousand thousands of years in heaven as it was at his first entrance into it.
Earthly inheritances are like tennis balls, which are bandied up and down from one to another and in time wear out. The creature is all shadow and vanity; it is filia noctis, like Jonah's gourd. Man can sit under its shadow but a little, little while: it soon decays and dies; it quickly fades and withers. There is a worm at the root of all earthly inheritances that will consume them in time.
Impatience is the daughter of infidelity. If a patient hath an ill opinion of the physician and conceits that he comes to poison him, he will take none of his receipts [medicinal preparations]. When we have a prejudice against God and conceit that He comes to kill us and undo us, then we storm and cry out through impatience.
I would rather confess my ignorance than falsely profess knowledge. It is no shame not to know all things, but it is a just shame to overreach in anything.
Ignorance, above other sins, enslaves a soul to Satan; a knowing man may be his slave, but an ignorant one can be no other. Knowledge does not make the heart good, but it is impossible that without knowledge it should be good. There are some sins which an ignorant person cannot commit; there are more which he cannot but commit.
There are, as a learned man truly observes, two doors of the soul barred against Christ: the understanding by ignorance and the heart by hardness. Both these are opened by Christ. The former is opened by the preaching of the gospel, the other by the internal operation of the Spirit.
However men may contrive to cheat themselves, God is not truly great in the soul till all other things become as nothing; neither doth the soul rightly converse with His infinite fullness so long as anything stands in opposition to it or competition with it.
Spend the greatest part of the day in thy particular calling. He that minds not his closet before his shop is an atheist, and he that minds not his shop after his closet is a hypocrite. The world is God's great family, and He will allow none in it to be idle.
It is hardly possible that a person should continue absolutely unemployed for any long time and he that is not doing what he ought will be doing what he ought not; the destroyer of souls can hardly wish for a fairer mark at which to direct his temptations than an idle person.
Idleness is a moth or canker of the mind, and the fruits thereof are wicked cogitations, evil affections, and worse actions; corrupt trees without fruit, twice dead and plucked up by the roots, engendering in the mind a loathing of God and godliness.