Tag Archives: Redemption

This Is Most Certainly True

Posted on by under Martin Luther

I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and delivered me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, in order that I may be wholly His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Jesus Values Believers

Posted on by under John Owen

He parted with the greatest glory, he underwent the greatest misery, he doth the greatest works that ever were, because he loves his spouse, — because he values believers.

What can more, what can farther be spoken? How little is the depth of that which is spoken fathomed! How unable are we to look into the mysterious recesses of it! He so loves, so values his saints, as that, having from eternity undertaken to bring them to God, he rejoices his soul in the thoughts of it; and pursues his design through heaven and hell, life and death, by suffering and doing, in mercy and with power; and ceaseth not until he bring it to perfection.

John Owen, Communion with God (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2004), 139.

HT: Of First Importance

Do You Think God Is an Angry Being?

Posted on by under J. C. Ryle

Beware of the common idea that God the Father is only an angry Being, whom sinful man can only regard with fear, and from whom he must flee to Christ for safety. Cast it aside as a baseless and unscriptural notion. Contend earnestly for all the attributes of God, — for His holiness and His justice, as well as for His love. But never allow for one moment that there is any want of love towards sinners in any Person in the Blessed Trinity. Oh! no! Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father loves, and the Son loves, and the Holy Ghost loves. The cross is the effect of the Father’s love, and not the cause. Redemption is the result of the compassion of all three Persons in the Trinity. To place the Father and the Son in opposition one to another, is weak and crude theology. Christ died, not because God the Father hated, but because He loved the world.

J. C. Ryle, Do You Believe?

Making Music with Broken Reeds

Posted on by under Donald Grey Barnhouse

It is possible for God to take a second best (or a sixty-fourth best!) and make it into something very wonderful when it is accepted as being the present condition in which a man finds himself, and when he moves toward God to develop it to the fullness of its possibilities in blessing and submission to His will, there cannot fail to be a great blessing. One of the glories of God in Christ is that He is able to make music from bruised reeds, and set smoking flax on fire (Matthew 12.20).

Donald Grey Barnhouse, The Invisible War, p. 192