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Jonathan Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light,”
John Bunyan, The Saints’ Knowledge of the Love of Christ, in The Works of John Bunyan,
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
Jonathan Edwards, “Seeking After Christ,”
Sanctification is lifelong, gradual growth in grace. Justification, however, is not a process but an event, a moment in time, the verdict of legal acquittal once and for all.
we are justified by being given a right standing that comes to us from wholly outside us.
no one can ever accuse us again.
Sanctification, however, is change with regard to our walk, our personal holiness, the subjective result of the gospel. This must happen internally.
One of the great mistakes made generation after generation through church history is to slather rules onto our behavior and think that external behavior is what fosters, or even accurately reflects, vital spiritual growth. This is the mistake of the Pharisees, who “clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence” (Matt. 23:25). They are “like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:27).
Edward Fisher, in his famous Puritan treatise on sanctification, explained that external conformity to rules without an internal reality fueling it is akin to watering every part of a tree except its roots and expecting it to grow.3 The internal realities of the Christian are what define true growth in Christ.
We think, As long as I get that, then I’ll have arrived; then I can handle anything. The problem is that unlike the gospel, idols nurture an insatiable itch. The more we scratch, the more the itch spreads. Pursuing the idol causes the idol to keep moving just further out of reach. In that rare instance where we do in fact attain the idol we’ve longed for, we will be astonished at how empty and hollow it is. All of this world’s fraudulent pseudo justifications are shiny on the outside but only bring misery when attained. They are like baited fish hooks: when bit down on, they only bring pain.
It was Martin Luther who opened my eyes to this. More than once throughout his writings he points out that the first of the Ten Commandments is the prohibition of idolatry: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). Luther explains that the first commandment is in essence a call to justification by faith; that is, justification by God. Negatively, we are to avoid idolatry. Positively, we are to trust in God. An idol, after all, is not simply a matter of what we worship but, more deeply, what we trust (Ps. 115:4–8). Consequently, there is no breaking of commandments 2–10 without at
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In 1954, for example, he writes to a certain “Mrs. Jessup” of his 1951 experience as a revolutionary change “from mere intellectual acceptance of, to realisation of, the doctrine that our sins are forgiven. That is perhaps the most blessed thing that has ever happened to me. How little
they know of Christianity who think that the story ends with conversion.”18
Francis A. Schaeffer, True Spirituality (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 1971), xxix–xxx.
The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.2
Often our idolatrous pursuits through sexual immorality, overindulgence in alcohol, or social media platform-building are all simply misplaced longings for human fellowship. If we traced those heart-eroding pursuits down to their source, we would find, among other things, simply an absence of real Christian fellowship.
in culminating fulfillment of the shed blood of the Passover lamb in the Old Testament law, Jesus stood in for his people and let his own blood be taken on their behalf. He offered his own life so that all who desire for Jesus’s blood to stand in for the taking of their own blood can have that substitutionary transaction determine their own eternal destiny. In that way his blood cleanses us.
Notice that the text says we are cleansed “from all sin” (1 John 1:7). This is a comprehensive treatment.
Our hearts crack open to receive it more deeply than before. The forgiveness of the gospel moves from printed recipe to mouth-watering experience.
The New Testament tells us again and again, however, that pain is a means, not an obstacle, to deepening in Christian maturity. The anguish, disappointments, and futility that afflict us are themselves vital building blocks to our growth.
The Bible tells us to locate our supreme longings and thirstings in God himself. He alone can satisfy (Ps. 16:11), and he promises he will satisfy (Jer. 31:25).
if we’re going to add a cherry of self-contribution on top of Christ’s work to really be okay, we have to provide the whole sundae.
In the same way that playing matchbox cars on the front lawn loses its attractiveness when we’re invited to spend the afternoon at a NASCAR race, sin loses its appeal as we allow ourselves to be re-enchanted time and again with the unsurpassable beauty of Jesus.
when our hearts redirect their gaze to the Jesus of the Bible in all his glorious gentleness and dazzling love, sin gets starved and begins to wilt.
the struggle itself reflects life.
It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of His presence.
What is the Bible? It is your greatest earthly treasure. You will stand in strength, and grow in Christ, and walk in joy, and bless this world no further than you know this book.
the introduction to the Bibles published by the Gideons:
Your Bible is not just the best book there is among all the books out there. The Bible is a different kind of book. It’s of another class. It is similar to other books in that it is bound between two covers and is filled with small black letters comprising words throughout. But the Bible is different from other books in the way rainfall is different from your garden hose—it comes from above and provides a kind of nourishment far beyond what our own resources can provide.
God told Jeremiah, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth” (Jer. 1:9). That’s precisely the way to understand Scripture: God put his words in human mouths. The words are truly God’s, but he gave them through the distinct personalities and word banks of the human authors. This is why the simple elegance of John can differ markedly from the terse earthiness of Mark or the flowery, lengthy sentences of Paul, while all three are truly and fully speaking God’s own words.
When we yawn over the Bible, that’s like a severe asthmatic yawning over the free offer of a ventilator while gasping for air.
Here are nine common but wrong ways to read the Bible:
you will go deeper with Christ no further than you go into Scripture.
build Bible reading into your life in the very same way you build breakfast into your life.
God’s favor does not take a hit when you fail to read the Bible some days. But consider yourself undernourished if skipping that spiritual meal becomes normal.
This is a book on growing in Christ. And my resounding theme is that the Christian life is at heart a matter not of doing more or behaving better but of going deeper.
A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World,
Satan loves your shrugged acquiescence to your sin. Jesus Christ’s own heart for you is flourishing growth. He understands more deeply than you do the psychology of the heart fueling the sin you can’t seem to leave behind once and for all.
What did the Old Testament anticipate taking place at the end of the world?
When we get to the New Testament, we do not find the apostles joining in the Old Testament’s anticipation of these final events—we find the apostles declaring that every one of these hopes has been fulfilled.
But there is no sin in your life more powerful than the Holy Spirit.
Your spiritual ID card places your address, even now, in heaven.
we do not need the Spirit to live a moral life, but we do need the Spirit to live a supernatural life.
we don’t need the Spirit to obey God; we do need the Spirit to enjoy obeying God.
To grow as a disciple of Christ is not adding Christ to your life but collapsing into Christ as your life.
Scottish pastor Andrew Bonar said in an 1875 letter at age sixty-five: “Christ grows more precious every day. O to know His heart of love.”1
Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in his almighty arms. . . . Let your soul be filled with a heart-ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in Him. Let the Holy Spirit fill every chamber of your heart; and so there will be no room for folly, or the world, or Satan, or the flesh.3
