Binding and Loosing in Heaven and on Earth

Posted on by under Colin Marshall, Martin Luther, Tony Payne

The Ministry of the word belongs to all. To bind and to loose clearly is nothing else then to proclaim and to apply the gospel. For what is it to loose, if not to announce the forgiveness of sins before God? What is it to bind, except to withdraw the gospel and to declare the retention of sins? Whether they [that is, the Roman Catholic Church] want to or not, they must concede that the keys are the exercise of the Ministry of the word and belong to all Christians.

Martin Luther in Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine (Kingsford NSW Australia: Matthias Media, 2009), 58.

Preaching Is…

Posted on by under G. Campbell Morgan, Wilbur M. Smith

Preaching is the declaration of the grace of God to human need on the authority of the throne of God, and demanding, on the part of those who hear, but they show obedience to the thing declared.

G. Campbell Morgan in Wilbur M. Smith, Peloubet’s Select Notes on the International Bible Lessons for Christian Teaching: 1958 (Boston: W. A. Wilde Co., 1957), 377-78.

My Soul, Wait Thou Only upon God

Posted on by under Henry Burton, Wilbur M. Smith

He who worships truly carries his Holy of Holies with him. He who takes his own fire need never complain of the cold, and with wood and fire all prepared, he can find or he can build an altar upon any mount. Happy is the soul that has learned to lean upon God, who can say, amid all the distractions and interventions of man, ‘My soul wait thou only upon God.’

Henry Burton in Wilbur M. Smith, Peloubet’s Select Notes on the International Bible Lessons for Christian Teaching: 1958 (Boston: W. A. Wilde Co., 1957), 381.

Where God Himself Cannot Go

Posted on by under Alexander Whyte

On Jesus Christ’s baptism:

If you can look on Jesus the Christ coming up out of the water praying for Himself and for you as your Mediator, and if you will take home to your heart of hearts these glorious words spoken over him by His Father, then His Father is well pleased with you henceforth, for His righteousness sake. And what more would you have? What more, what better, could God Himself do for you, or for any man, than to proclaim you accepted in His beloved Son. Beyond that even God cannot go.

Alexander Whyte (1836-1921)