God's Amazing Grace in Romans Quotes

“Kneeling at the foot of the cross, Christians have reached the highest place they can attain. The cross is the Sermon on the Mount enacted. It is the Ten Commandments demonstrated. It is 1 Corinthians 13 exemplified. The cross is the fruit of the Spirit in full blossom.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Faith is not something you have got to self-generate. Faith is not something you develop. Faith is God's gift as you learn that Christ loved you enough to die for you. If Calvary does not melt and break the heart, there is nothing else God can do.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Sanctification only begins our being made like our Lord Jesus Christ. It is never complete in this life. There is no perfect Christian, even if he or she has been a Christian for a hundred years and trying to be just like the Master. The nearer we come to Christ, the more we confess our unlikeness to Christ. Inherent perfection is fully accomplished only by the change of glorification when Christ returns.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“In some denominations, "righteousness by faith" has traditionally been understood to include two things. (1) Being declared righteous (justification) and (2) being made righteous (sanctification—our status or standing with God by faith in Christ and our condition before God. By condition we mean the Holy Spirit in the life, the doing of good works, and the developing of character.) That, of course, is not the "righteousness by faith" of the New Testament. Never, never, never. In Paul's discussion on acceptance and in his discussion on justification, "righteousness" and "faith," "just" and "faith," are linked together thirteen times in thirteen verses. They are never so linked in his discussion on sanctification. It is so important to understand that sanctification, or being made righteous, is the fruit of the gospel. It is not the gospel. It is the result of the gospel. The gospel is the good news about the death and resurrection of Christ. Through faith in Christ, his perfect righteousness is imputed to us, and God accepts us—now. Sanctification—or working in cooperation with the Holy Spirit—is the fruit of the gospel.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Romans 3:21-26 are the most important verses in the
Bible. They reveal that God has provided for our
salvation in the cross of Christ. At the cross, God
has dealt with our guilt and given us heaven.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“God shoots down our ideas of human perfection. God's law demands that I be right inside and out. God's law demands that I had a perfect conception, a perfect infancy, a perfect childhood, a perfect maturity, and a perfect death. God's law demands that I be able to say, "Which of you convinces me of sin? I do always those things that please him." (See John 8:46 and 29.) My, we are done for. The Bible says, "His [God's] angels he charged with folly" (Job 4:18 KJV). The Bible talks about what a creature man is who "drinks up evil like water" (Job 15:16 NIV). "Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity" (Psalm 39:5 KJV).”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Do you see it? God's holy laws only show us that we are sinners. They cannot save us.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“So it is with humanity. Having sinned against God (Genesis 3), they sin against their brothers and sisters (Genesis 4). The farther we get from our divine Hub, the farther we get from each other. Wickedness and unrighteousness grow out of ungodliness. Conversely, when we get right with God in Christ, we will get right with our neighbor.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Your standing before God is always dependent on justification by faith.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“As we travel along through life's pilgrimage, our feet become soiled by our failures and mistakes. We do not need to go and be baptized again. We bring those feet to Christ, and God cleanses them.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Never think of justification as something that happens solely at the beginning of the Christian life, as though, once you are justified, you then roll up your sleeves and say, "We'd better get on with this business of sanctification or we will lose our justification." No! No! Justification is over you all the time, like the sun. Like the pillar of cloud in the desert that sheltered Israel from the heat. Justification and sanctification are like two railroad lines that run side by side all the way, all the days of your life. They may look as though they merge and join on the horizon. The fact is they run parallel, side by side, all the way. In other words, every minute of your standing before God does not depend on how you are doing, but on how Christ has done. That is the good news of the gospel.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“This word "justify." It never means to make righteous inside. It means, strictly, to count righteous. It is very important to know that. The whole of true religion revolves around this issue.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Romans explains how
God can justify the ungodly.
"Justification" is a declaration by God
that we are righteous only in Christ.
We need justification all through life,
however sanctified we might become!”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Faith is not something you have to work up. Faith is not something achieved by psychological striving, or by logical reasoning. Faith is God's gift to those who hear that God loved them enough to die for them. If you do not oppose that, if you do not resist the gospel, faith is born and reigns.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“The false religion of good views centers on humanity. The true religion of good news centers on God. The false religion looks at human activities, human achievements; but true religion looks at the cross. False religion makes Christ first of all our Example. That is a miserable teaching. It would depress any of us who are honest. You cannot compare yourself with Christ without feeling very far gone. True religion looks upon him as a Substitute. "Jesus was my substitute on Calvary, and he is my substitute in the last great day." None of us can get through the judgment without that Substitute.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“The only motive in the world that will keep me from sin is the knowledge that God is mine and I am his.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Since the days of Christ, these men we have mentioned have changed the world. Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin and Wesley—these have been great men who have transformed our world. F.F. Bruce was right when he said, "Beware when you read Romans. Anything can happen." All the great revivals in the Christian world have been triggered by this book.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Romans was written by the chief theologian of Scripture, the apostle Paul. Jesus made the atonement, but Paul explained it. The atonement couldn't be explained until after it was made.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Romans is the only book in the Bible that systematically tells us of the plan of salvation. The only book. If you do not understand Romans, you really do not understand the Bible.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“True religion, according to Romans, is about faith, hope, love; about the cross of Christ, and the love of God. It is about the reality of forgiveness—daily forgiveness, hourly forgiveness.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“True religion is the union of the heart with God that brings an overflow to our relationship with other people.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“The book of Romans goes deep, deep into our souls, and we can only stand what we see there because Romans also goes deep, deep into the heart of God.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“It is at the cross that this supreme revelation was made, and as we see the hand of the Crucified extended to east and west, we realize that all heaven is inviting us to come to him and claim him as our Substitute, Representative, Redeemer and Friend.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“No one can ever love God until he or she believes that God loves them.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Only when we know that God accepts us can we accept ourselves, and only as we accept ourselves can we accept others. The power of sin can never be broken until the guilt of sin is taken away by our acceptance of the gospel.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans

“Remember the warning of F. F. Bruce: "Be prepared—to conscientiously study Romans is to invite cataclysmic change ... but a change that is marvelously for the better." Romans is the gateway to Paradise.”
― Desmond Ford, God's Amazing Grace in Romans