Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
David Gibson
Read between
October 12, 2017 - August 5, 2022
The words of God in Isaiah 48:11 fly like a banner over every divine deed: “For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.”
God’s glory revealed in Christ and his work is essential to what the gospel is.
all his works exist to display the glory of his grace, and the cross of Christ is the climactic revelation of the glory of his grace, which is the apex of the glory of God.
the aim of creation is the fullest display of the greatness of the glory of the grace of God. And that display would be the slaying of the best being in the universe—Jesus Christ—for countless millions of undeserving sinners.
the death of Jesus for sinners is the climax of the revelation of the glory of God’s grace.
the redeeming work of Christ on the cross is what secures the passage of a person from lost sinner to adopted son, from being a child of wrath (2:3) to being a child of God. Thus the glory of God’s grace, displayed in the achievement of the cross, is also displayed in the blood-bought passage of a lost person from death to life.
the act of making the spiritually dead to live is the work of God’s grace.
The atonement does not make possible the spiritual quickening of all people; it makes certain and effective the spiritual quickening of the elect.
it is not just redemption accomplished at the cross that brings glory to God, but redemption accomplished and applied to the believer that is “to the praise of his glorious grace”
We are made alive because the atonement secures it.
What would it be like for a wife, I ask them, to think that her husband only loves her the way he loves all other women?
I tell my people, you will never know how much God loves you if you continue to think of his love for you as only one instance of his love for all the world. To be sure, God loves the world (John 3:16), but there is a “great love” for his children which he does not have for the world. Nor should anyone say (changing the metaphor from bride to children) that he has this special love for his children because they believe in him. That is backwards. Rather, spiritually dead children of wrath were made alive and brought to faith because he had this special love for them (Eph. 2:4). This is the
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The love of God for his elect is greater than the love he has for the world.
what Christ secured when he died was not only the possibility that all who believe will be saved, but also—and this is what makes the atonement definite—that all who are “called” will believe (Rom. 8:30; 1 Cor. 1:24).
The blood of Christ did not merely purchase possibilities; it purchased actualities.
The glory of God consists largely in the display of Christ’s achievement in obtaining all the promises of God for his people.
The new covenant will not be broken. That is part of its design. It lays claim on its participants, secures them, and keeps them.
He will give a new heart—a heart that fears the Lord.
the new covenant promises regeneration. It promises to create faith and love and obedience where before there was only hardness.
How can there be a “double payment” for sin?
The design of Christ’s death is more inclusive than the blessings that belong specifically to the atonement. This is to say that even the non-elect are embraced in the design of the atonement in respect of blessings falling short of salvation which they enjoy in this life.23
The fullness of Christ’s achievement on the cross can be offered only if it has been fully achieved.
An offer is valid if the one who offers always and without fail gives what is offered to everyone who meets the terms of the offer. This God does without fail. No one ever believed on Jesus and then perished (John 3:16).
What is offered to the world, to everyone who hears the gospel, is not a love or a saving achievement designed for all and therefore especially for no one; but rather, what is offered is the absolute fullness of all that Christ achieved for his elect.
In the gospel, we do not offer people a possibility of salvation, we offer Christ, and in him the infinite achievement that he accomplished for his people by his death and resurrection.
“Receive Christ, and your sins will be covered. Receive Christ, and your condemnation will be removed.”
“Christ has purchased a people for himself. He invites you to be a part of it. He holds out his hands to you. If you will come, you will be satisfied in him forever. If you will receive Christ, you will have Christ! All that he has done will count for you. He desires that you come. So come!”
this vision of the atonement and the free offer of the gospel propels us into the global work of missions with compassion and confidence: compassion, because we have been so loved ourselves and because God has put within us a longing for others to join us in this great salvation; confidence, because contained in the atonement itself is the power of the gospel to raise the spiritually dead and bring people to faith.
When a church is faithfully and regularly taught that they are the definite and particular objects of God’s “great love” (Eph. 2:4), owing to nothing in them, the intensity of their worship will grow ever deeper.
Love is laying down one’s conveniences, and even one’s life, for the good of others, especially their eternal good. The more undeservingly secure we are, the more we will be humbled to count others more significant than ourselves, and the more fearless we will be to risk our lives for their greatest good.
the glory of the cross is the fullness of its definite achievement.
