R.C. Sproul > Quotes

“Reformed theology indeed insists that a real measure of freedom has been assigned to man by the Creator. But that freedom is not absolute and man is not autonomous. Our freedom is always and everywhere limited by God’s sovereignty.”
― R.C. Sproul, What is Reformed Theology?: Understanding the Basics

“Legalism is concerned simply with external conformity and is blind to internal motivation.”
― R.C. Sproul, How Should I Live In This World?

“Pelagius claimed that Adam’s sin injured only Adam; there was nothing passed on to Adam’s posterity. Adam’s sin was merely a bad example. Augustine, on the other hand, maintained that Adam’s sin affected not only Adam but the whole human race.”
― R.C. Sproul, Are People Basically Good?

“does God ordain evil? There is only one biblical answer to that question: yes. If God did not ordain evil, there would be no evil, because God is sovereign.”
― R.C. Sproul, Does God Control Everything?

“The marvelous lies beneath the surface." ~ R.C. Sproul”
― R.C. Sproul

“When people say those things to me, I look at them and say, “What do you mean, retire?” A person doesn’t retire from the work of God. You may change the direction of your labor, but you don’t ever, ever stop seeking to be faithful to God. I had a friend who was a missionary. He was in his eighties, he was infirm, and he couldn’t do any physical work anymore. But he said to me, “I can still labor eight hours a day.” I asked him, “What do you do?” He said, “I pray. That’s all I can do.” He wasn’t retired.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Advent of Glory: 24 Devotions for Christmas

“But I have had just enough of a taste of the majesty of God to want more.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“What the scholars discovered behind the veil was a Jesus created in their own images according to their own prejudices.”
― R.C. Sproul, Who Is Jesus?

“Special revelation is special because it provides specific information about God that cannot be found in nature. Nature does not teach us God’s plan for salvation; Scripture does. We learn many more specifics about the character and activity of God from Scripture than we can ever glean from creation. The Bible is also called special revelation because the information contained in it is unknown by people who have never read the Bible or had it proclaimed to them. General revelation is general because it reveals general truths about God and because its audience is universal. Every person is exposed to some degree to God’s revelation in creation.”
― R.C. Sproul, What is Reformed Theology?: Understanding the Basics

“Only sinful people are in need of a savior. Those who are well have no need of a physician.”
― R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God

“Le mot hébreu rendu par « en vérité » correspond au mot ancien amen.”
― R.C. Sproul, La sainteté de Dieu

“La autoridad de las Santas Escrituras, por la que ellas deben ser creídas y obedecidas, no depende del testimonio de ningún hombre o iglesia, sino exclusivamente del testimonio de Dios (quien en sí mismo es la verdad), el autor de ellas; y deben ser creídas, porque son la Palabra de Dios (1.4). El Juez Supremo por el cual deben decidirse todas las controversias religiosas, todos los decretos de los concilios, las opiniones de los hombres antiguos, las doctrinas de hombres y de espíritus privados, y en cuya sentencia debemos descansar, no es ningún otro más que el Espíritu Santo que habla en las Escrituras (1.10).”
― R.C. Sproul, ¿Estamos juntos en verdad?

“Christ is “truly God and truly man” (Vera Deus, vera homo).”
― R.C. Sproul, What Is The Trinity?

“When the word Lord occurs in lowercase letters, the translator is indicating to us that the word adonai is found in the Hebrew Bible. Adonai means “sovereign one.” It is not the name of God. It is a title for God, indeed the supreme title given to God in the Old Testament. When LORD appears in all capital letters it indicates that the word Jahweh is used in the Old Testament. Jahweh is the sacred name of God, the name by which God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush. This is the unspeakable name, the ineffable name, the holy name that is guarded from profanity in the life of Israel. Normally it occurs only with the use of its four consonants—yhwh. It is therefore referred to as the sacred tetragrammaton, the unspeakable four letters.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“Jesus was killed because He was the light of the world and because men prefer the darkness to the light.”
― R.C. Sproul, Matthew

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27).”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“Sometimes we struggle to grasp the biblical view of joy because of the way it is defined and described in Western culture today. In particular, we often confuse joy with happiness. In the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3–11), according to the traditional translations, Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.… Blessed”
― R.C. Sproul, Can I Have Joy In My Life?

“when I was in seminary I kept a card on my desk that said, "You are responsible to believe and to teach what the Bible teaches, not what you would like for it to teach." I realize that when there's something in the Word of God that I don't like, the problem is not with the Word of God, it's with me.”
― R.C. Sproul, John

“authority of the church. It was created to counter the drift from this important doctrinal foundation by”
― R.C. Sproul, Can I Trust The Bible?

“people”
― R.C. Sproul, What Do Jesus' Parables Mean?

“Existen distintos métodos que podríamos utilizar para conseguir nuestra imagen de Jesús. Podríamos examinar los credos clásicos de la iglesia, y adquirir así un valioso conocimiento acerca de la sabiduría colectiva de las edades. Podríamos restringir nuestra investigación a la teología contemporánea en un intento por estudiar a Jesús a la luz de nuestra propia cultura. O podríamos probar suerte en nuestra propia creatividad y producir una nueva mirada especulativa. Yo opto por mirar a Jesús según como nos lo presenta el Nuevo Testamento.”
― R.C. Sproul, ¿Quién es Jesús?

“Christ is the only Mediator because He is the only begotten and divine Son of God, the only God incarnate, and He is alive. No one else can do the work of mediation that He does for us. All those other religious leaders are dead. They were sinners, and none of them had the credentials necessary to reconcile us to God.”
― R.C. Sproul, Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith

“Being righteous is not all that complicated; it means doing what is right. We have to have a passion to do what is right.”
― R.C. Sproul, How Can I Be Blessed?

“Arrogant worship is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Yet we see it throughout Scripture. The gospel was given to Adam and Eve. As redemptive history unfolded, the people of Israel continued to recite the promise and to demonstrate it with their liturgy, their signs, their sacraments, and their cultic worship. But the judgment of the prophets that came upon the house of Israel was this: “Your worship has become idololatria. You are not putting your faith in God; you are putting it in Baal, in the temple, in the rituals you are doing, in your heritage, in your biology. You are trusting in everything else but God.”
― R.C. Sproul, How Then Shall We Worship?: Biblical Principles to Guide Us Today

“✞] I have been tcrucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives uin me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, vwho loved me and wgave himself for me.”
― R.C. Sproul, ESV Reformation Study Bible

“We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the church is subordinate to that of Scripture. We deny that church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.”
― R.C. Sproul, Can I Trust The Bible?

“This raises the ultimate philosophical question: Why is there something rather than nothing?”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“But I hope you understand why I believe Jesus is the only way. It is because Jesus said that He was the only way, and if I deny that, I deny Him."
Let me just say parenthetically, if you deny that, you deny Him.”
― R.C. Sproul, John

“Still it is very important for us to call upon him: First, that our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve him, while we become accustomed in every need to flee to him as to a sacred anchor. Secondly, that there may enter our hearts no desire and no wish at all of which we should be ashamed to make him a witness, while we learn to set
all our wishes before his eyes, and even to pour out our whole hearts. Thirdly, that we be prepared to receive his benefits with true gratitude of heart and thanksgiving, benefits that our prayer reminds us come from his hand. (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960], Book 3, chapter 20, section 3.)”
― R.C. Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things?

“a human nature cannot be in three places at the same time. However, a human nature can be joined to a divine nature, which can be in three places at the same time. The divine nature could be in Pittsburgh, Boston, and Washington at the same time. But the argument, historically, was about whether the physical body of Jesus, which belongs to His humanity, could be at three places at the same time, and some said it could because His divine nature communicates the divine attribute of omnipresence to His human nature. Well, it is one thing for the divine nature to communicate information to the human nature; however, it is another thing entirely for the divine nature to communicate attributes to the human nature because such a communication would deify the human nature. This truth of the separation of Christ’s natures was very important at the cross. The human nature died, but the divine nature did not die. Of course, at death, the divine nature was united to a human corpse. The unity was still there, but the change that had taken place was within the human nature, not the divine nature. That’s very important to understand.”
― R.C. Sproul, What Is the Trinity?