Sin (178)
Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.
Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers Chapter 2
John Owen
Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers Chapter 2
Do not lose lying in Abraham's bosom for now lying in Delilah's lap.
there is something far more dreadful than physical calamity and suffering, namely, moral delinquency and spiritual apostasy. Alas, that this is so rarely perceived today!The Life of Elijah. Chapel Library.
That is why the unregenerate person cannot understand the urgency of the gospel message: until they see the depth of their sin and the holiness of God, they find no reason to seek remedy for their condition.
When I turn to the map of the world I must say the same thing. It matters not what quarter I examine: I find men's hearts are everywhere the same, and everywhere wicked. Sin is the family disease of all the children of Adam.Old Paths, Ch 7
Guilt and pain are gifts of God to warn us that the pleasures of sin are suicidal. Though they may feel good in the moment. SermonNov122000
The death of God's Son is a greater proof to God's abhorrence of sin than if all humanity had been damned for it forever.
At the heart of all sin is a lie. The lie says to all of us in our sin, "The act you are now doing, the desire or attitude you are now feeling is not very bad because there are much worse things, not very bad because everyone else experiences the same things, not very bad because you can't help it, not very bad because there is no God, or, if that won't work, God knows you are but frail and weak and he will tolerate and pity your sin." There are a thousand distortions of the truth which sin brings with it into the human heart, so that Jeremiah cries out, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?" (17:9).
When my thirst for joy and meaning and passion are satisfied by the presence and promises of Christ, the power of sin is broken. Future Grace (335)
A sheep may fall into a ditch, but it is the swine that wallows in it.
If you and sin are friends, you and God are not yet reconciled.Old Paths, Chapter 7
Forgiven souls hate sin.Old Paths, Chapter 7
The service of sin is perfect slavery; the service of God is perfect liberty.
Indeed there is no little sin because there is no little God to sin against.A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, 5:500
If anyone would feel the greatness of sin he would not be able to go on living another moment; so great is the power of sin.
We should not be entertained by the sins for which Christ died.
The man who continues in his rejection of Christ has a pet sin somewhere.
The Bible alone gives a true and faithful account of man. It does not flatter him as novels and romances do; it does not conceal his faults and exaggerate his goodness; it paints him just as he is. It describes him as a fallen creature, of his own nature inclined to evil, - a creature needing not only a pardon, but a new heart, to make him fit for heaven.
When a man truly sees himself, he knows nobody can say anything about him that is too bad.
The benefits of the gospel (justification, reconciliation, redemption, adoption) were being separated from Christ, who is himself the gospel. The benefits of the gospel are in Christ. They do not exist apart from him. They are ours only in him. They cannot be abstracted from him as if we ourselves could possess them independently of him.The Whole Christ (p. 44). Crossway
the charge [that God decrees sin] is not true; the decree merely makes God the author of free moral beings, who are themselves the authors of sin.Systematic Theology, 108
We don't know how much we've sinned in the same way a fish doesn't know how wet it is. Sermon: The Greatest Words in All of Scripture
Love to God will never let sin thrive in the heart.
What wise man will despise or deny a mine to be gold, because it hath some dross or bad earth with it? or will throw away a beast, and say it is not good meat, because it hath guts and garbage in it? The vermin of sin may sometimes crawl in a cleanly, holy person, though they be not allowed there. One act will not prove a habit, nor a few bad actions a bad person.
God is forced to mortify sins by afflictions, because we mortify them not by the Spirit.
You can never part with sin soon enough; it is a cursed inmate, that will surely bring mischief upon the soul that harbours it. It will set its own dwelling on fire.Works 7:147
If hatred of sin is necessary to God, then penal justice is equally necessary because the hatred of sin is the constant will of punishing it.
The fallen condition of all humankind in Adam is not the result of mere social conditioning but is such "by nature" (φύσει, physei)Ephesians, Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 152.
Sin before a holy God is the willing fruit of a fallen heartEphesians, Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 152.
Without the Law there is no transgression, so without the knowledge of the Law there can be no conviction.Nature, Necessity and Character of True Repentance
God's punishment to a wicked man is his wicked mind.
He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.
Sin always dies most where faith lives most. The most believing soul is the most mortified soul.
That every man is not only naturally a sinner, but is wholly sin
for antinomianism and legalism are not so much antithetical to each other as they are both antithetical to grace.The Whole Christ (pp. 156). Crossway
even infants bringing their condemnation with them from their mother's womb, suffer not for another's, but for their own defect. For although they have not yet produced the fruits of their own unrighteousness, they have the seem implanted in them. No, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed-bed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God.Institutes, Book 2 Chapter 1
(such is our innate pride) we always seem to ourselves just, and upright, and wise, and holy, until we are convinced, by clear evidence, of our injustice, vileness, folly, and impurity. Convinced, however, we are not, if we look to ourselves only, and not to the Lord also- he being the only standard by the application of which this conviction can be produced.Institutes, Book 1 Chapter 1
I hold very stern opinions with regard to Christian men who have fallen into gross sin; I rejoice that they may be truly converted, and may be with mingled hope and caution received into the church; but I question, gravely question whether a man who has grossly sinned should be very readily restored to the pulpit.Lectures to My Students (Kindle Locations 175-177). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
some things are sins and punishment of sin simultaneously, some are sins and the cause of sin, but others are sins and the cause and punishment of sin.The Sentences, Book 2, Distinction 36, C1
sin is every word or deed or desire which happens against the law of GodContra Faustum bk22 c27
the sin of the first man harmed not only him, but the whole human race, because from it we received condemnation and fault together.Hypognosticon, bk2 c4 n4
some heretics, who are called Pelagians, said that the sin of the first transgression passed into other men not by propagation, but by imitationDe Peccatorum b1 c9 m9-10
we must never look at any sin in our past life in any way except that which leads us to praise God and to magnify His grace in Christ Jesus.Spiritual Depression (75)
He loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.
Am I saying that a Christian is without sin? No, because in 1 John we learn that Christians do sin and if any man does not acknowledge his sin he knows not God. He's not walking in the light. So what is the difference? What am I really getting at? What I am getting at is this: If you are a genuinely born again Christian a child of God. You will walk in the way of righteousness as a style of life, and if you step of that path of righteousness the father will come for you. he will discipline you . he will put you back on that path. But if you profess to have gone though the narrow gate, and yet you live in the broad way. Just like all the other people in your highschool just like all the other people who are carnal and wicked. The Bible wants you to know that you should be terribly terribly afraid. You know not God. Sermon:Shocking Youth Message
If you have sinned, do not lie down without repentance; for the want of repentance after one has sinned makes the heart yet harder and harder
This, this it is which maketh evill times. It is an evill time (saith the Prophet Amos cap. 5. 13.), but what made it so? Why the manifold transgressions, and mighty sins of the people;
Sin goes in a disguise, and thence is welcome; like Judas, it kisses and kills; like Joab, it salutes and slays.
Never presume upon sin in hope of secrecy, for though thou mayest cover the candle of creatures with a bushel, yet thou canst not the glorious Sun of righteousness; nothing is hid from his sight.Christian Mans Calling
True repentance is a turning, not from some sin, but from every sin.
Though sin is not so evil as God is good, yet it is the greatest evil, and stands in opposition to God as the greatest good.
Sin is against an infinite God, and the offense being infinite, the punishment must be infinite also.Treatise on Hell
Forgiveness makes not a Christian bold with sin, but fearful of sin, and careful to obey, as Christians find in their daily experience.Works of Thomas Brooks (5)
if you will partake of other men's sins, you shall also partake of other men's plagues
The threefold misery of men introduced by sin--ignorance, guilt and the tyranny and bondage by sin--required this conjunction of a threefold office. Ignorance is healed by the prophetic; guilt by the priestly; the tyranny and corruption of sin by the kingly. Prophetic light scatters the darkness of error; the merit of the Priest takes away guilt and procures a reconciliation for us; the power of the King removes the bondage of sin and death. The Prophet shows God to us; the Priest leads us to God; and the King joins together and glorifies us with God. The Prophet enlightens the mind by the Spirit of illumination; the Priest by the Spirit of consolation tranquilizes the heart and conscience; the King by the Spirit of sanctification subdues rebellious affections.
All men in their natural condition are absent and at a distance from Christ. This is apparent because "coming" premises "absence.
Not every sin requires public protest. But every sin requires an abhorrence of it, and a distancing of ourselves from it in the fear of God and His judgement.Deep Discipleship, 165
Children are born sinful, and that sinfulness manifests itself not because of what parents do, but because of what they don't do.
The mother cannot tell what her tender infant may grow up to be, tall, short, weak, or strong, wise or foolish: he may be any of these or not, it is all uncertain. But one thing the mother can say with certainty: he will have a corrupt and sinful heart.
Travelling one day by express from Perth to Edinburgh, on a sudden we came to a dead stop, because a very small screw in one of the engines—every railway locomotive consisting virtually of two engines—had been broken, and when we started again we were obliged to crawl along with one piston-rod at work instead of two. Only a small screw was gone. If that had been right the train would have rushed along its iron road, but the absence of that insignificant piece of iron disarranged the whole. A train is said to have been stopped on one of the United States' railways by flies in the grease-boxes of the carriage wheels. The analogy is perfect; a man in all other respects fitted to be useful, may by some small defect be exceedingly hindered, or even rendered utterly useless.Lectures to my Students
God's commands are His enablings! If you are single due to divorce, know that God will sustain you and minister to you as a single. Don't compromise the teachings of the Bible to justify remarriage just so you can be "fulfilled." Know that the single life can be a fulfilling experience for you as you obey God and trust Him to enable you to live for Him.Divorce Myth, 111
That some sins are greater than others appears, (1) Because there was difference in the offerings under the law; the sin offering was greater than the trespass offering. (2) Because some sins are not capable of pardon as others are, therefore they must needs be more heinous, as the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Matt xii 31. (3) Because some sins have a greater degree of punishment than others. 'Ye shall receive the greater damnation.' Matt xxiii 14.Ten Commandments, 189
As some diseases are worse than others, and some poisons more venomous, so some sins are more heinous.Ten Commandments, 189
How do I judge my own sincerity? The saving grace of salvation is located in a holy and electing God, and a sacrificing, suffering, and obedient Savior. Stakes this high can never rest on my sincerity.
The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life depends on our mortification of deeds of the flesh.
Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death.
Lay siege to your sins, and starve them out by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life.
There is no thought, no word, no act, and no area of human life that is not affected by sin.
Christ will receive all who come to Him, but
Christ will not be sweet to them until sin is first bitter in them.
If one evil thought, if one evil word, if one evil action, deserves eternal damnation, how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve, whose whole lives have been one continued rebellion against God!
People want to recommend themselves to God by their sincerity; they think, 'If we do all we can, if we are but sincere, Jesus Christ will have mercy on us.' But pray what is there in our sincerity to recommend us to God? ... therefore, if you depend on your sincerity for your salvation, your sincerity will damn you.
The Bible says that our core problem, the fundamental reason we do what we do, is sin.
Sin makes us moral quadriplegics.
The terrible, tragic fallacy of the last hundred years has been to think that all man's troubles are due to his environment, and that to change the man you have nothing to do but change his environment. That is a tragic fallacy. It overlooks the fact that it was in Paradise that man fell.
If Scripture teaches the imputation of sin, we should not stumble when we find it affirming the imputation of righteousness.
the depth and complexity and ugliness and danger of sin in professing Christians is either minimized—since we are already justified—or psychologized as a symptom of woundedness rather than corruption.https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/foreword-to-overcoming-sin-and-temptation-three-classic-works-by-john-owen
Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer.
He that has learned to feel his sins, and to trust Christ as a Savior, has learned the two hardest and greatest lessons in Christianity.
In biblical times or in ancient Greece, sex was regarded as something that human beings did; today it is considered to be something vital to who human beings are.
To use a distinction deployed by philosopher Roger Scruton, pornography is about bodies, not faces. If sex is just about my pleasure, any body will do as a partner. But in a marriage, the specific identity of the sexual partners is critical. The purpose of sex is not to have sex but to make love, to reinforce a relationship with a particular person—or, to use Scruton's terminology, with a face, not just with a body.
If the expressive individual sees personal satisfaction or happiness as central to the fulfilled human life, then pornography allows for the realization of that in sexual terms. It presents the sexual act as something whose significance is found simply in the pleasure of the observer or consumer.
It is only against the pitch blackness of the night that we see the glory of the stars. And it is only against the pitch blackness of man's radical depravity that we can begin to see the glories of the gospel.
The cross is proof of both the immense love of God and the profound wickedness of sin.
Do not seek to empty your cup as a way to avoid sin, but rather seek to fill it up with the Spirit of life, so there is no longer room for sin.
Thousands acknowledge they are sinners, who have never mourned over the fact.
It is not the absence of sin but the grieving over it which distinguishes the child of God from empty professors
The least sin is contrary to the law of God, the nature of God, the being of God, and the glory of God
Sin so bewitches the soul, that it makes the soul call evil good, and good evil; bitter sweet and sweet bitter, light darkness and darkness light
saints have chosen to suffer the worst of torments, rather than commit the least sinPrecious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
A Christian should wear Christ in his bosom as a flower of delight, for he is a whole paradise of delight. He who minds not Christ more than his sin, can never be thankful and fruitful as he should.Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
those sins which we are apt to account small, have brought upon men the greatest wrath of GodPrecious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
Satan will first draw you to sit with the drunkard, and then to sip with the drunkard, and then at last to be drunk with the drunkard. He will first draw you to be unclean in your thoughts, and then to be unclean in your looks, and then to be unclean in your words, and at last to be unclean in your practices.Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
A poisonous pill is never a whit the less poisonous because it is gilded over with gold; nor a wolf is never a whit the less a wolf because he has put on a sheep's skin; nor the devil is never a whit the less a devil because he appears sometimes like an angel of light. So neither is sin any whit the less filthy and abominable by its being painted over with virtue's colors.
As the Empire ground down, the decadent Romans were given to a thirst for violence and a gratification of the senses. This is especially evident in their rampant sexuality.How Should We Then Live, 24
If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior.
Some rude and rough stones were taken out of Nero's palace; some that were servants to the most abominable tyrant, and the greatest monster of mankind; one that set Rome on fire, and played on his harp while the flames were crackling about the city; ripped up his mother's belly to see the place where he lay; would any of the civiller sort of mankind be attendants upon such a devil? Yet some of this monster's servants became saints. Phil. 4:22. "All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household." To hear of saints in Nero's family, is as great a prodigy as to hear of saints in hell.
Great sinners are most easily convinced of the notorious wickedness of their lives; and reflecting upon themselves because of their horrid crimes against the light of nature, are more inclinable to endeavor an escape from the devil's slavery, and are frighted and shaken by their consciences into a compliance with the doctrine of redemption; whereas those that do by nature the things contained in the law, are so much a law to themselves, that it is difficult to persuade them of the necessity of conforming to another law, and to part with this self-law in regard to justification
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.
We may be truly said to worship God, though we lack perfection; but we cannot be said to worship Him if we lack sincerity.
The Christian religion is the religion of sinners, of such as have sinned, and in whom sin in some measure still dwells.
The Christian life is a life of continued repentance, humiliation for and mortification of sin, of continual faith in, thankfulness for, and love to the Redeemer, and hopeful joyful expectation of a day of glorious redemption, in which the believer shall be fully and finally acquitted, and sin abolished for ever.
The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.
The fact that we do not regard these offenses as serious is probably because we do not see relationships as significant nor adultery as one of the worst breaches of trust and relational devotion. We are so committed to living in what Dale Kuehne calls the "iworld" of postmodern individualism that we are insensitive to the relational concerns of the "rworld," which is based on the belief that "humans are made for relationships and that we find our deepest fulfilment not when seeking self-fulfillment but when living and engaging in the full constellation of healthy human relationships."God Justice and Society, 365
Now try yourselves in this: what is the restraint of your sinning? Suppose all men in the world were in a dead sleep. Suppose that no eye did see you, suppose that no tongue of human justice would call you to account: would not your heart then with full sail spread out itself? Would you not now, like the lions in the night, wander about for your preys? Would not your heart turn out itself, let go itself, drive out its secret inclinations? Would you not do that in any place which you now commit in secret corners?
Beloved the main battle of a Christian is not in the open field; his quarrels are most within, and his enemies are in his own breast, when he has reformed an ill life, yet it shall cost him infinitely much more to reform an ill heart.
The Bible reveals that sin is not a matter of knowing better. If it were, we would not need grace through the atoning Savior, Jesus Christ. Sin is deceptive. It takes people captive. Sin is more than a bad idea over which you have complete control.The Gospel comes with a house key, 123
That men sin, is attributable to themselves: that in sinning they produce this or that result, is owing to the mighty power of God, who divides the darkness as he pleasesDe praedest. sanct.
For as a body, while it contains and fosters the cause and matter of disease, cannot be called healthy, although pain is not actually felt; so a soul, while teeming with such seeds of vice, cannot be called sound.Institutes, Book 2 Chapter 3
The human mind receives a humbling blow when all the thoughts which proceed from it are derided as foolish, frivolous, perverse, and insane.Institutes, Book 2 Chapter 3
Accordingly, Augustine, who had at one time thought that the discourse related to the natural man, afterward retracted his exposition as unsound and inconsistent. And, indeed, if we admit that men, without grace, have any motions to good, however feeble, what answer shall we give to the apostle, who declares that we are incapable of thinking a good thought? (2 Cor 3:5)Institutes, Book 2 Chapter 2
That the Apostle is speaking of the regenerate is apparent from this, that after saying "in me dwells no good thing," he immediately adds the explanation, "in my flesh."Institutes, Book 2 Chapter 2
So indulgent is man toward himself, that, while doing evil, he always endeavors as much as he can to suppress the idea of sin. It was this, apparently, which induced Plato (in his Protagoras) to suppose that sins were committed only through ignorance.Institutes, Book 2, Chapter 2
he who is most deeply abased and alarmed, by the consciousness of his disgrace, nakedness, want, and misery, has made the greatest progress in the knowledge of himselfBook 2 Chapter 2
Preaching to the heart, then, is not merely a matter of technique or homiletic style. These things have their proper place and relevance. But the more fundamental, indeed, the more essential thing for the preacher is surely the fact that something has happened in his own heart; it has been laid bare before God by His Word. He, in turn, lays his heart bare before those to whom he ministers. And within that context, the goal he has in view is so to lay bare the truth of the Word of God that the hearts of those who hear are opened vertically to God and horizontally to one another.Feed My Sheep
I know nothing so likely to counteract this modern plague as constant clear statements about the nature, reality, vileness, power, and guilt of sin.Holiness, Chapter 1
It bears repeating: assurance of salvation is the fruit of faith in Christ. Christ is able to and does, in fact, save all those who come to him through faith. Since faith is fiducia, trust in Christ as the one who is able to save, there is a certain confidence and assurance seminally inherent in faith. The act of faith, therefore, contains within it the seed of assurance. Indeed, faith in its first exercise is an assurance about Christ. This dimension of assurance is therefore implicit in faith.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 197). Crossway
Paradoxically, today it is often statements like those of the Confession of Faith that are accused of a lack of biblical-theological perspective, for failing to understand the place of the law in redemptive history. But to this the Westminster Divines would surely be entitled to respond, "But how can you read the prophets and say they did not understand these distinctions? Were they not the mouthpieces of God, saying: 'It is not sacrifice and burnt offering that come first, but obedience'? Did they not thereby distinguish ceremonial law from moral law?"The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (pp. 171). Crossway.
Now whatever in the Sinaitic covenant was intended to preserve and distinguish the people as a nation in a particular land, and to point them to Christ by means of ceremonies and sacraments, has ceased to be binding on the church. The Whole Christ (pp. 170). Crossway
Commandments are the railroad tracks on which the life empowered by the love of God poured into the heart by the Holy Spirit runs. Love empowers the engine; law guides the direction. They are mutually interdependent. The notion that love can operate apart from law is a figment of the imagination. It is not only bad theology; it is poor psychology. It has to borrow from law to give eyes to love.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (pp. 168-169). Crossway.
There is only one genuine cure for legalism. It is the same medicine the gospel prescribes for antinomianism: understanding and tasting union with Jesus Christ himself. This leads to a new love for and obedience to the law of God, which he now mediates to us in the gospel. This alone breaks the bonds of both legalism (the law is no longer divorced from the person of Christ) and antinomianism (we are not divorced from the law, which now comes to us from the hand of Christ and in the empowerment of the Spirit, who writes it in our hearts).The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (pp. 157). Crossway
At root then antinomianism separates God's law from God's person, and grace from the union with Christ in which the law is written in the heart. In doing so it jeopardizes not simply the Decalogue; it dismantles the truth of the gospel.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (pp. 154). Crossway
the deepest response to antinomianism is not "You are under the law" but rather You are despising the gospel and failing to understand how the grace of God in the gospel works! There is no condemnation for you under the law because of your faith-union with Christ. But that same faith-union leads to the requirements of the law being fulfilled in you through the Spirit. Your real problem is not that you do not understand the law. It is that you do not understand the gospel. For Paul says that we are "in-lawed to Christ." Our relationship to the law is not a bare legal one, coldly impersonal. No, our conformity to it is the fruit of our marriage to our new husband Jesus Christ.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (pp. 153-154). Crossway
It was in this context that his friend Johannes Agricola (1492-1566) drew what he thought were the logical conclusions of this radical contrast between law and gospel the abolition of any role for the law in the Christian life. He expounded this "antinomianism" first in debate with Philip Melanchthon and then later with Luther himself.The Whole Christ (p. 139). Crossway
It was a consolation to the Marrow Brethren that the preaching and teaching of both Jesus and Paul aroused the same questions and criticism. But antinomianism, like legalism, has many faces.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 138). Crossway
What, then, is the remedy for legalism? At the stage we have reached in reflecting on the Marrow, it scarcely needs to be said. It is grace. But it is not "grace" as commodity, grace as substance. It is grace in Christ. For God's grace to us is Christ.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 134). Crossway
only shock therapy recalibrates the mind, will, and affections rooted in a legal frame.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 129). Crossway
The gospel never overthrows God's law for the simple reason that both the law and the gospel are expressions of God's grace. Therefore the reverse is true: grace confirms the law and its true character.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 88). Crossway
Legalism is simply separating the law of God from the person of God. Eve sees God's law, but she has lost sight of the true God himself. Thus, abstracting his law from his loving and generous person, she was deceived into "hearing" law only as negative deprivation and not as the wisdom of a heavenly Father.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 83). Crossway
This, in fact, is the lie that sinners have believed ever since - the lie of the not-to-be-trusted-because-he-does-not-love-me-false-Father. The gospel is designed to deliver us from this lie. For it reveals that behind and manifested in the coming of Christ and his death for us is the love of a Father who gives us everything he has: first his Son to die for us and then his Spirit to live within us.The Whole Christ (p. 69). Crossway.
The subtle danger here should be obvious: if we speak of the cross of Christ as the cause of the love of the Father, we imply that behind the cross and apart from it he may not actually love us at all. He needs to be "paid" a ransom price in order to love us.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 68). Crossway.
John Bunyan put the putting off of the burden too far off from the commencing of the pilgrimage.
The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 59). Crossway.
There is a living Savior who, because he died and rose again, is sufficient to save you and indeed each and every person who comes to him in faith. There is fullness of grace in Christ crucified. And you, too, may find salvation in his name.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 51). Crossway
New Testament Christians did not think of themselves as "Christians"! But if not, how did they think of themselves? Contrast these descriptors with the overwhelmingly dominant way the New Testament describes believers. It is that we are "in Christ." The expression, in one form or another, occurs well over one hundred times in Paul's thirteen letters.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 45). Crossway
The offer of the gospel is to be made not to the righteous or even the repentant, but to all. There are no conditions that need to be met in order for the gospel offer to be made.The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (p. 42). Crossway
This is our likeness. We are all naturally proud and self-willed. We have no pleasure in fellowship with God. We depart from Him, and go afar off. We spend our time, and strength, and faculties, and affections, on things that cannot profit. The covetous man does it in one fashion; the slave of lusts and passions in another; the lover of pleasure in another. In one point only are all agreed. Like sheep, we all naturally "go astray, and turn every one to his own way." (Isaiah. 53:6.) In the younger son's first conduct we see the natural heart.Gospel of Luke Commentary (15)
Here Peter Lombard has displayed gross ignorance (Lombard, lib. 2 dist. 31). When investigating the seat of corruption, he says it is in the flesh (as Paul declares), not properly, indeed, but as being more apparent in the flesh. As if Paul had meant that only a part of the soul, and not the whole nature, was opposed to supernatural grace.Institutes, Book 2 Chapter 1
It was because we rejected the doctrine of original sin that we on the Left were always being disappointed; disappointed by the refusal of people to be reasonable... by the behavior of nations and politicians... above all, by the recurrent fact of war.
The prohibition to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a trial of obedience, that Adam, by observing it, might prove his willing submission to the command of God.Institutes Book 2 Chapter 1
converted Christians regularly experience deeper conviction of sin after their conversion than they knew before, and why one dimension of spiritual growth, as we shall shortly see, is growth downward into a more thorough humility and more radical repentance. Though not much is said about this nowadays, a deepening sense of one's sinfulness remains a touchstone of the genuine Christian life.Rediscovering Holiness: Know the Fullness of Life with God (Kindle Locations 667-669). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Sin is not merely a psychological malfunction; it means that man has no personal relationship with God, but is under His wrath and curse. The modern Gospel that is rooted in Neo-orthodoxy does not allow this. It represents sin as malfunction, and salvation within man's reach.Doctrine of Sin (256)
We may find a great deal of emphasis upon the undesirability of sin, the unfortunateness, the odiousness, ugliness, disgustingness, even filthiness of sin, without any truly Christian assessment of sin as lawlessness, pollution and guilt.Collected Writings, Vol2 op.cit p 81
Man has a universal tendency to disregard God and to disobey His law.Preface to Freedom of the Will
The darkness of sin clouds man's view of the nature of the gospel and the necessity of faith... [it] produces a real aversion to God, filling it with enmity against him and with desires that are antagonistic to him, as well as with prejudice against spiritual realities.Owen, Vol 2, pp 257ff
the law demonstrates the seriousness of sin by including within its corpus the stipulated methods of dealing with it. This fact alone underlines for us the fact that the giving of the law, far from implicating man further in his departure from God, was actually given with a salvific purpose in mind.The Doctrine of Sin (32)
By maintaining the personal nature of the God who legislates, the norms become absolute, uncompromising and non-negotiable. Sin is not a subjective category; the inscription of these commands and prohibitions brings it fully into the category of the objective and absolute.The Doctrine of Sin (31)
It is clear, therefore, in the protevangelium, that sin, in biblical terms, is temporal - in the realm of human experience it has an actual point of entry and anticipated and promised point of defeat.The Doctrine of Sin (25)
Many Modernists at present do not hesitate to say that the doctrine of Rousseau respecting the inherent goodness of man has proved to be one of the most pernicious teachings of the Enlightenment, and now call for a greater measure of realism in the recognition of sin.Systematic Theology, 227
Some may for a time dream of the essential goodness of man and speak indulgently of those separate words and actions that do not measure up to the ethical standards of good society as mere foibles and weaknesses, for which man is not responsible, and which readily yield to corrective measures; but as time goes on, and all measures of external reform fail, and the suppression of one evil merely serves to release another, such persons are inevitably disillusioned. They become conscious of the fact that they have merely been fighting the symptoms of some deep-seated malady, and that they are confronted, not merely with the problem of sins, that is, of separate sinful deeds, but with the much greater and deeper problem of sin, of an evil that is inherent in human nature.Systematic Theology, 227
it is by no means uncommon to hear people echoing sentiments similar to [Abelard] about the "injustice" of Christ's blood sacrifice and condemning the notion of the Father's pleasure at such a thing as sadistic. But then as now, people who think like that suffer the same drawback as Anselm's dialogue partner Boso: they have not considered how serious sin is.God Has Spoken 453
According to Calvin and the Reformers generally, original sin is a hereditary depravity and corruption of human nature, rendering man obnoxious to the divine wrath and producing in him the works of the fleshThe History of Christian Doctrines (147-148)
Semi-Pelagianism made the futile attempt to steer clear of all difficulties by giving a place to both divine grace and human will as co-ordinate factors in the renewal of man, and by basing predestination on foreseen faith and obedience. It did not deny human corruption, but regarded the nature of man as weakened or diseased rather than as fatally injured by the fall.The History of Christian Doctrines (138)
What is sin, except a transgression of the divine law and disobedience of heavenly commands?De paradiso c8 n39
We have all been born in sin, and, conceived from the pleasure of the flesh, we have all contracted the original fault in ourselves; so it is that we embroil ourselves in sin also by our own will.On Exod 13, 13
The Christian has been saved from the condemnation of sin, is being saved from the power of sin, and will be saved from the presence of sin.Twitter
a sense of the love of Christ in the cross, lies at the bottom of all true spiritual mortificationMortification of sin in believers (Chap 8, 87)
Those who are Christ's, and are acted in their obedience upon gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep-grounded abhorrency of sin as sin, to oppose to any seduction of sin, to all the workings, strivings, rightings of lust in their hearts.Mortification of sin in believers (Chap 9, 93)
A new sin may be permitted, as well as a new affliction sent, to bring an old sin to remembrance.Mortification of sin in believers (Chap 9)
How shall I go to God? It is with our sins that we go to God-for we have nothing else to go with that we can call our own. This is one of the lessons that we are so slow to learn; yet without learning this we cannot take one right step in that which we call a Christian life.http://gracegems.org/B/Bonar_how_shall_i_go_to_god.htm
The truth is that unless people realize they have a sin problem, they will not come to Christ for a solution. People do not come for healing unless they know they have a disease; they do not come for life unless they are conscious that they are under the penalty of death; they co not come for salvation unless they are weary of the bondage of sin.Gospel According to Jesus 3e(75)
Don't kid yourself. Sin is an onramp to death. If you get on it and don't repent, turn around, and exit, you will find the landscape getting darker, grosser, filthier, and deadlier. Porn Again Christian (Chapter 4)
The essence of sin is we human beings substituting ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us. We put ourselves where only God deserves to be; God puts himself where we deserve to be. The Cross of Christ, (p.160)
Can you imagine a soldier going into battle with the aim of "not getting hit very much"? The very suggestion is ridiculous. His aim is not to get hit at all! Yet if we have not made a commitment to holiness without exception, we are like a soldier going into battle with the aim of not getting hit very much. The Pursuit of Holiness (96)
All sin comes from not putting supreme value on the glory of God-this is the very essence of sin.
Sin is like spiritual leprosy. It deadens your spiritual senses so that you rip your soul to shreds and don't even feel it. Desiring God (Chapter 3)
Original sin is the only rational solution of the undeniable fact of the deep, universal and early manifested sinfulness of men in all ages, of every class, and in every part of the world.
Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.
The difference between an unconverted and a converted man is not that the one has sins and the other has none; but that the one takes part with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes part with a reconciled God against his hated sins. Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth: Illustrations of the Book of Proverbs(311)
The fall did not leave people neutral toward God but at enmity with him. Therefore we must not pretend that non-Christians are seekers by the simple virtue of their having been made in the image of God. The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (56)
Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease that affects the whole human race, of every rank, and class, and name, and nation, and people, and tongue; a disease from which there was but one born of woman who was free. Holiness (Chapter 1)
Christ did not have to die merely because I'm a sinner. He had to die because God in His infinite holiness and justice is angry at the world. We are children of anger. We are justly deserving of the wrath and the anger of God. Lausanne Conference 2010 (Ephesians 3 Talk 2)
The whole man, from the top of the head to the sole of the foot, is so flooded, as it were, that no part remains without sin, and so everything that comes from him is considered sin. Institues 2.1.9
The semi-Pelagian doctrine of free will prevalent in the evangelical world today is a pagan view that denies the captivity of the human heart to sin. It underestimates the stranglehold that sin has upon us. None of us wants to see things as bad as they really are. http://www.bible-researcher.com/sproul1.html
None of us wants to see things as bad as they really are. The biblical doctrine of human corruption is grim. We don't hear the Apostle Paul say, "You know, it's sad that we have such a thing as sin in the world; nobody's perfect. But be of good cheer. We're basically good." Do you see that even a cursory reading of Scripture denies this? http://www.bible-researcher.com/sproul1.html
We are ever prone to regard sin lightly, to gloss over its hideousness, to make excuses for it. But the more we study and ponder God's abhorrence of sin and His frightful vengeance upon it, the more likely are we to realise its heinousness. Knowing God (The Wrath of God, 174))
Hell is a fully informed conscience. Resolved 2005
failing to be satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus, is the root of all sin. Future Grace (323)
And this is the first thing that the Spirit does in order to the mortification of any lust whatsoever-it convinces the soul of all the evil of it, cuts off all its pleas, discovers all its deceits, stops all its evasions, answers its pretenses, makes the soul own its abomination and lie down under the sense of it. Unless this be done all that follows is in vain. Of the Mortification of sin in believers (138)
How shall he, then, mortify sin that has not the Spirit? A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit. Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers (Chap 7, 80)
One of the great ironies of sin is that when human beings try to become more than human beings, to be as gods, they fall to become lower than human beings. Counterfeit gods (121)
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