The Cosmos Reborn Quotes

“The cross was not about some mythical pagan deity demanding a blood sacrifice – destroying his own son like Molech. Someone may ask … but wasn’t blood required for the forgiveness of sins? Yes, but not in a paganistic Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom sort of way. Yes, blood was needed for the forgiveness of sins. Not because the Father needed it, but because we did. We were running from God; He was never running from us. In Hebrews 10:22, Paul writes, “let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience. …” The blood was for us. The sure solid proof and substance of God’s love. God did not need the blood for Himself. It was His blood. He poured it out for us.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Salvation is not about believing that you are a believer. How do you even know you’re a believer? If you’re looking to your own subjective experience or an encounter – who’s to say you didn’t misinterpret your conversion experience, or that it didn’t go deep enough? You’ll go headlong into an endless spiral of navel-gazing. There may be a valid moment of encounter, but you can’t bank on that. And if you are banking on it, you’re still having faith in your own experience. The only thing you can bank on is that Christ was crucified to save you. Done deal – you’re in!”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“There may be an initial fear and trembling when we first realize the futility of rejecting Him. But it is ultimately the kindness of God that leads men to repentance. Fear may be the “beginning of wisdom,” but it is not the end of wisdom. That place is reserved for love. We must take the final word given us in scripture regarding fear. “There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out all fear …” (1 John 4:18). The fear of God is one of the most highly misunderstood principles on planet earth. We fear God not because He is bad, evil, malicious or untouchable. We fear Him because He is a billion volts of beauty, gladness, happiness and sweetness – and we are mere two-volt fuses! We can’t handle the goodness!”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“news was never about your human response to God. It was always about Jesus responding to the Father on your behalf. Our response is merely a response to His response! It is our “amen” to a prior completed act. The two-dimensional unitarian view throws us back upon ourselves to make the appropriate responses to God. Jesus is merely a “potential savior” if you make the right response. It denies the incarnation and work of Christ as being the very substance of our union with God. He is our true Mediator and High Priest continually offering intercession before God. Even our worship is merely a glorious echo of the perfect worship of our High Priest before the Father. Sharing His Sonship The non-Trinitarian view always puts the burden of relationship back into our lap: “Jesus did His part, but you’ve got to do your part!” The focus ultimately denies Christ’s substitutionary work on our behalf – and instead it becomes “what you do with Jesus” or “how you get to Jesus.” This approach ignores the entire purpose of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“But if the striving toil of self-effort is involved, it ceases to be faith.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“The glory you experience is no result of a two-dimensional transaction between you and God based on your faith. This is Trinitarian. You are effortlessly graced to participate in the Spirit because of Jesus’ relationship with the Father. He prayed, “Now, Father, bring Me into the glory we shared before the world began” and then just after added, “I have given them the glory You gave Me, so they may be one as We are one” (John 17:5, 22). You have been infused with the same glory that the Father and the Son shared from the dawn of time.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“I am well aware that various movements have taken “Ye are gods” theology to bizarre conclusions. But the fact remains, as we are told in Psalm 82:6, “I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.’” Some have tried to mitigate this verse to suggest we are simply “judges” or “mighty ones.” But the literal word here is Elohim – gods. And to further bolster the point, Jesus quotes this passage – the New Testament Greek using the word Theoi – which is clearly translated as “gods.” “It is a serious thing,” says C.S. Lewis, “to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”95”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“The old has gone; the new has come … a different kind of creation. The Kainos Covenant – a different kind of covenant has come. We have moved from the shadowy external law to the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. It is written on human hearts and we have been melded together with God in love. We have come into something that is better than Eden.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Grace does not cause a man to retreat from work, but to find the deepest satisfaction of God’s presence amid the otherwise most wearisome of tasks. It was even for the joy set before Him that Jesus endured the cross! Doesn’t mean He enjoyed the nails – but He was thrilled with what those nails would accomplish. You may not enjoy getting up at 7 a.m. Monday morning, but it’s for the joy of the paycheck set before you that you endure the alarm clock! And He even invades the tasks at hand.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“A complacent satisfaction in God may cause you to accidentally outwork all your religious friends.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Part of maturing is knowing the difference between striving and actively moving in the unforced rhythms of grace. Fruitfulness all flows from a happy, ecstatic impulse toward our divine calling. This is what Paul said he was pressing in toward. He was not pressing in for moral perfection. Not pressing in for more of the Spirit he already had, or trying to get closer to a God with whom he was already in Union. He was pressing in toward his high calling – literally to complete his life’s race and vocation – his ministry purpose that would ultimately result in martyrdom (Phil. 3). Love and grace will push you to lengths that fear and law never will. To think there was no pleasure even in this most grueling task, you are missing the nature of the Gospel, as well as the personality of the apostle. The religious man is compelled to run strictly out of legal motivation – dry duty, obligation and fear of ulterior consequences. But we run out of a sheer pleasure! Not merely loving toward God, but allowing His love to flow through us tangibly in charity. We are at rest in the middle of the storm. The flavor of faith is rest, but the results of faith are mountain moving.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Divine pleasure is a great gauge to determine whether we are laboring from rest or strife. Did you know that ultimately, every man is looking for pleasure? “All men seek happiness,” says Blaise Pascal. “This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Part of maturing is knowing the difference between striving and actively moving in the unforced rhythms of grace. Fruitfulness all flows from a happy, ecstatic impulse toward our divine calling.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“There’s no more need to beg Him to “open the Heavens.” He already did that. He checked that one right off the prayer list when the veil of His flesh was torn and all of Heaven opened with it. If you stop asking for that – and actually trust that it exists for you – you will experience that open Heaven every day of your life. A fully supernatural lifestyle.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“The renowned Bible commentator Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote: The true preaching of the Gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament Gospel of salvation than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. If my preaching and presentation of the Gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the Gospel.83”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Grace is not simply a “hiding” away of sin – or even a mere forgiveness of your sinfulness. Grace is not just a cover up – as if God the great Santa Clause in the sky is covering His eyes from your wrongdoings – acting as if they don’t exist. He’s not choosing to put you on the “nice” list when you deserve the “naughty” list. Grace does not hide God’s eyes from your sinfulness. That’s what we’ve been taught – but the true Gospel is far better. Grace actually eradicates sinfulness itself. It’s not a cover up – instead it’s an absolute removal of your old heart. Grace is not a freedom to sin, but it is freedom from sin. On the cross, your sinfulness itself was destroyed in His death. Your old sinful self was co-crucified together with Christ. Grace mystically transformed your identity from a sinner to a saint. There’s no mixture left. Grace does not merely “cut you slack” while leaving you with indwelling sinfulness. Grace fully nailed that “indwelling sinfulness” to the tree – your entire old corrupt nature was abolished as a free gift (Rom. 6, Gal. 2:20). What I am saying is that there is nothing left for you to do, but simply be who you are – that perfect new you who is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). It should be more difficult to sin than to manifest the true holy you. Now your chief end is to glorify God simply by enjoying Him forever. As John Piper often says, “God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Paul found everything he had ever wanted in the person of Christ – the source of his bliss and fulfillment. Those in Christ truly lack nothing. He had been plugged into an eternal wellspring of grace. Maybe this satisfaction – this divine complacency – sounds good to you on paper. But how do we tangibly feast on this abundant grace in our daily lives? By faith. That is, simply by trusting. The flavor of faith is not striving, contending or “pressing in” for something. The flavor of faith is rest. It is to trust in what someone else has already accomplished for us. His work was enough to satisfy you perfectly. Christ has now become our eternal Sabbath Rest.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“When the Church says “outpouring” she is usually misguided. She is looking for an inpouring – for God to come down from the sky and fill her tank. But the true Biblical definition of outpouring is found here: out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). Know it or not, we possess His fullness.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Right now, the earth is groaning for the revealing of the sons of God. Groaning for us to manifest an already existing reality. I am convinced that we are about to see a major outpouring of the supernatural like never before. But it will not come from groaning and pushing and trying to “make ourselves” manifest the kingdom. It is coming through an awakening to our identity – that we have already arrived. Our arrival is not a future point (when the manifestation occurs). Our arrival has happened – it is Him. You are a source of endless possibilities. Your identity is in Him, and your actions are an outflow of it. The problem has been our attempt at creating identity by carrying the responsibility for evangelism, miracles, kingdom advancement, good marriage, etc. on our own. Those things will happen. But it’s foremost a question of being rather than doing.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Repentance is not the price tag for salvation; it is a first fruit of salvation.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Christ’s work on your behalf is true, whether you know it or not, feel it or not – even if you don’t believe it! Facts are facts, whether they are believed or not. The believer is a man who, by faith, recognizes what has happened and therefore enjoys his participation in it. But our acceptance or rejection of Christ’s loving sacrifice does not nullify its cosmic scope. No matter how much you reject Christ, He never fails to love and include you. You are free to reject Him – but your rejection does not nullify His inclusion. You cannot dictate His character that way. You cannot make Him cease being Love. At the height of Israel’s rejection of their own Messiah, they reached the point of crucifying Him – and yet this was the very act by which He chose to forgive, include and save them.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Athanasius takes top down approach. His focus is not so much on working up from the bottom – from the separated human condition like Augustine. Instead, Athanasius starts at the answer. His theology starts from the perspective of what Jesus has already accomplished for the entire cosmos. Then he works it down from there into how it trickles out and affects our individual human lives. Athanasius is not so much problem-focused on mankind making a transition. Instead, he starts with what God Himself did to regenerate humanity. Then the rest of the details (such as our acceptance of it, etc.) eventually filter out from there. Our response to the ultimate Truth is not Athanasius’ focus. He starts with the incarnation – Christ absorbing all of humanity into Himself as He took on human flesh. And “if one has died, therefore all have died” (1 Cor. 5:14). So it is not moving from problem to answer for Athanasius. It is not about moving from outsider to insider. For Athanasius, it’s all about, “This is what Christ did …” We’re all insiders whether we know it or not. Christians are those who have come to the point of faith-awareness that we’ve already been included. The Church is comprised of those who are no longer resisting their inclusion but embracing it as they walk with Jesus. Here is a big difference in the two schools of thought. Whenever the New Testament mentions all – which it does a lot – these passages get sidelined in the West. Nobody wants to touch them. But in the Eastern Church, those are actually considered the main texts! There are two sides to the coin. We can’t ignore the strong universalistic pull in the Gospels, but at the same time, salvation is not actualized in an individual life until each comes to faith.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“The Church is a microcosm here in the earth of what humanity and the entire cosmos is really called to be - and we treat those who don’t know the Truth according to their true identity as much as possible. Those who are not yet awakened to the fact that they are clean and forgiven before they even know to ask.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“The Good News of Jesus Christ is not another religion. Rather, it is the universal announcement of the end of all worldwide religion. It is a catholic message for all of humanity: that God is no longer in the religion business. He stepped down and accomplished salvation for us all single-handedly.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Election is not about God choosing this human over that human. There was no lotto wheel. No random word of choice. In the beginning His Word was “Jesus!” Election is all about the Electing God and the Elected Son. Jesus is both Elector and Elected. He is God’s choice for all of humanity. And all of humanity was vicariously represented in Him. Notice in Ephesians 1 that we are elect “in Him,” chosen “in Him,” predestined “in Him!” God didn’t pick you over someone else – He picked Jesus on behalf of everybody. And those of us who realize our free association in Him participate in an inheritance that was always ours. All talk of election must be centered upon Christ.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Not caught off guard by Adam’s sin, it was always His prior intent to redeem us from it. “He planned that we would be woven into the fabric of Jesus’ existence,” writes C. Baxter Kruger. We cannot work our way into that circle of the Trinity. This is why Christ attacked our side of the covenant. He invaded our side of the divine-human relationship. He violently cleansed us through His death. He never intended us to fulfill our side of any agreement. He never for a moment entrusted His plan to us or expected us to be in charge of our own spiritual destiny.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Ultimately, we have to know the heart of the Father based on what we see in the Son, not by shadowy Old Testament passages that, on the surface, seem to show us a different version. Only Christ is the “exact representation” of His Father’s nature and the “visible image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15, NLT). We have, what Paul calls “a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:24). You will fry your brain trying to patch up the apparent inconsistencies between God’s two résumés in the Old and New Testaments. So theologize all you want … at the end of the day, I would recommend you just give up and look at Jesus. All of the Father’s loving plan for humanity is wrapped up in Him – the Author and Finisher of our faith.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Folks who are hell bent on having an angry God have difficulty swallowing the idea that God doesn’t want to destroy sinners. Another proof text for them would be Romans 5:9, “Having now been justified by His blood, we will be saved through Him from the wrath. …” “But that still does not mean that Christ’s death propitiated God,” continue the authors. “For Paul the wrath of God is God’s judgment which destroys all unholiness and sin. In the light of the threatening wrath of God, the need of sinners can be said not to be the transformation of God’s attitude toward them but the transformation of their sinful existence before God.” This accurate understanding that God’s wrath is against sinfulness and not sinners, helps us to get a clearer picture of what is going on. It is more like a doctor fighting a patient’s disease, or a freedom fighter liberating slaves from bondage. That God’s wrath is redemptively aimed against sinfulness itself finds solid Biblical support. “The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18).”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“When discussing wrath, we must see that God has always been a God of grace. To take away the dark side of God makes religious people mad. They want to kill somebody, so they want their god to kill somebody. But God has no desire to inflict pain or agony on anyone. He came to rescue you from sin, death and self-destruction.”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn

“Jesus stepped into our blindness. He moved fully into our darkened state of mind and turned the lights back on. Not turning His Father toward us, but turning us back to His eager loving face that had always been set like flint to redeem us. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ …” (2 Cor. 5:18).”
― John Crowder, Cosmos Reborn