Quote 4725
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
The Gospel is temporary, but the law is eternal and is restored precisely through the Gospel. Freedom from the law consists, then, not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night.
though the moral law be thus far abolished, it remains as a perpetual rule to believers. Though it be not their Saviour, it is their guide. Though it be not foedus, a covenant of life; yet it is norma, a rule of life. Every Christian is bound to conform to it; and to write, as exactly as he can after this copy. 'Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid.' Rom iii 31. Though a Christian is not under the condemning power of the law, yet he is under its commanding power.The Ten Commandments, 44
A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant.
All the prayers in the Scripture you will find to be reasoning with God, not a multitude of words heaped together.
What a wonder that two natures infinitely distant should be more intimately united than anything in the world... That the same person should have both a glory and a grief; an infinite joy in the Deity, and an inexpressible sorrow in the humanity; that a God upon a throne should be an infant in a cradle; the thundering Creator be a weeping babe and a suffering man;
A God of unmixed blessedness is linked personally with a man of...sorrows: life incapable to die, joined to a body in that economy incapable to live without dying first; infinite purity, and a reputed sinner; eternal blessedness with a cursed nature, Almightiness and weakness, omniscience and ignorance, immutability and changeableness, incomprehensibleness and comprehensibility; that which cannot be comprehended, and that which can be comprehended; that which is entirely independent, and that which is totally dependent; the Creator forming all things, and the creature made, met together to a personal union; "The word made flesh
Power is God's hand or arm, omniscience His eye, mercy His bowels, eternity His duration, but holiness is His beauty
The best man is more unworthy to receive anything from God than the worst can be to receive from us.
The moral teaching of Christ and his apostles is the old law deepened and reapplied to new circumstances--life in the kingdom of God, where the Savior reigns; and in the post-Pentecost era of the Spirit, where God's people are called to live heaven's life among themselves and to be God's counterculture in the world.Concise Theology, Section 34
Christ in fact had not the least intent of making any change or innovation in the precepts of the law. God there appointed once for all a rite of life which he will never repent of... so let us have no more of that error, that here a defect of the law is corrected by Christ; Christ is not to be made into a new law-giver, adding anything to the everlasting righteousness of his Father, but is to be given the attention of a faithful interpreter, teaching us the nature of the law, its object and its scope.
The greatest punishment inflicted upon Christ, when he stood as a sacrifice for sin, was not the act of men, but the act of God
The great objection of a penitent is, I have sinned, and I know not whether God will receive me: consider, God knows your sin better than you do, yet he kindly calls to you, and promises you as good a reception as if you had never sinned.
Love is a commanding affection, a uniting grace; it draws all the faculties of the soul to one center. The soul that loves God, when it hath to do with Him, is bound to the beloved object; it can mind nothing else during such impressions. When the affection is set to the worship of God, everything the soul hath will be bestowed upon it.
The commands of the gospel require the obedience of the creature. There is not one precept in the gospel which interferes with any rule in the law, but strengthens it and represents it in its true exactness; the heat to scorch us is allayed, but the light to direct us is not extinguished. Not the least allowance to any sin is granted; not the least affection to any sin is indulged.
Holiness can no more approve of sin than it can commit it. To be delighted with the evil in another's act contracts a guilt, as well as the commission of it; for approbation of a thing is a consent to it.
He could not be Lord of any man as a happy creature if He did not, by His power, make them happy; and He could not make them happy unless, by His grace, He made them holy.
How comfortable is it to think that our distresses, as well as our deliverances, are the fruits of infinite wisdom! Nothing is done by Him too soon or too slow, but in the true point of time, with all its due circumstances, most conveniently for His glory and our good. How wise is God to bring the glory of our salvation out of the depths of a seeming ruin and make the evils of affliction subservient to the good of the afflicted!
God is said to harden men when He removes not from them the incentives to sin, curbs not those principles which are ready to comply with those incentives, withdraws the common assistances of His grace, concurs not with counsels and admonitions to make them effectual, flashes not in the convincing light which He darted upon them before. If hardness follows upon God's withholding His softening grace, it is not by any positive act of God but from the natural hardness of man.
Envy is a denial of providence.
The hell of devils belongs to [God's] authority. They have cast themselves out of the arms of His grace into the furnace of His justice. They have by their revolt forfeited the treasure of His goodness but cannot exempt themselves from the scepter of His dominion. When they would not own Him as a Lord Father, they are under Him as a Lord Judge. They are cast out of His affection but not freed from His yoke. He rules over the good angels as His subjects, over the evil ones as His rebels. Selections
If once pardoned, thou will be always pardoned. For the first pardon Christ paid His blood; for the continuance He does but plead His blood, and we cannot be without a pardon till Christ be without a plea.
Evil works are a dust stirred up by an atheistical breath.
the law of God must be perpetual from its very nature.
The law of the Old Testament is not a mere datum or a mere code book, but the personal word of the great King of the universe. And who is this King? From eternity to eternity the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1). The King is the trinitarian God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God the Son was always at work from the beginning. The law of Moses is a reflection and foreshadowing of the absolute perfection and righteousness of Christ, rather than Christ being a reflection of the law.
We are now by the Spirit at liberty to delight in the law, to make the law our counsellor, to make the Word of God our counsellor. That which terrified and frightened us before is now our direction. A severe schoolmaster to a very young pupil becomes later, as the pupil grows, a wise tutor to guide and direct. So, the law that terrifies and whips us when we are in bondage, till we are in Christ -it scares us to Christ -that law afterward comes to be a tutor, to tell us what we shall do, to counsel us and say this is the best way. And we come to delight in those truths when they are revealed to us inwardly. And the more we know, the more we want to know, because we want to please God better every day.Glorious Freedom, 41
Special OfferTop Authors
1. Thomas Watson (174)
2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. John Calvin (107)
5. J.I. Packer (93)
6. Thomas Brooks (89)
7. John Piper (87)
8. George Swinnock (82)
9. John Flavel (81)
10. John Owen (71)
11. A.W. Pink (68)
12. Louis Berkhof (63)
13. William Gurnall (62)
14. Thomas Manton (60)
15. C.S. Lewis (59)
16. B.B. Warfield (59)
17. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
18. R.C. Sproul (55)
19. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
20. Matthew Henry (51)
2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. John Calvin (107)
5. J.I. Packer (93)
6. Thomas Brooks (89)
7. John Piper (87)
8. George Swinnock (82)
9. John Flavel (81)
10. John Owen (71)
11. A.W. Pink (68)
12. Louis Berkhof (63)
13. William Gurnall (62)
14. Thomas Manton (60)
15. C.S. Lewis (59)
16. B.B. Warfield (59)
17. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
18. R.C. Sproul (55)
19. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
20. Matthew Henry (51)
Top Topics
1. Sin (216)2. Scripture (152)
3. Prayer (143)
4. Faith (134)
5. Preaching (119)
6. Gospel (112)
7. The Law (108)
8. Suffering (99)
9. Salvation (91)
10. Sabbath (88)
11. Church (85)
12. Christ (82)
13. Grace (73)
14. Justification (63)
15. Law (61)
16. Truth (53)
17. Death (51)
18. Holiness (47)
19. Love (46)
20. Children (45)
21. Heaven (45)
22. Sanctification (44)
23. Creation (43)
24. Theology (43)
25. Ten Commandments (42)
26. Holy Spirit (41)