In Christ Alone Quotes

“Failure to deal with the presence of sin can often be traced back to spiritual amnesia – forgetting our new, true, real identity. As a believer, I am someone who has been delivered from the dominion of sin and who therefore is free and motivated to fight against the remnants of sin in my heart. You must know, rest in, think through, and act upon your new identity – you are in Christ”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“As the early church fathers delighted in saying, Christ took what was ours so that we might receive what was His.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Here are wonders upon wonders: the Strong One is weak; the Infinite One lies in a manger; the Prince of Life dies; the Crucified One lives; the Humiliated One is glorified.
Meekness and majesty, indeed!
Behold, then, your newborn King! Come and worship Him!”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“The work of atonement took place in the presence of the God of heaven. Indeed, it involved a transaction within the fellowship of the persons of the eternal Trinity in their love for us: the Son was willing, with the aid of the Spirit, to experience the hiding of the Father's face. The shedding of the blood of God's Son opened the way to God for us (Acts 20:28). That is both the horror and the glory of our Great High Priest's ministry.
Terrible”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“So long as Jesus Christ is there, in heaven before God for us, our salvation will last.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“God protects us from Satan even at times when we are not aware of His protection. But how can we develop Jesus-like discernment? By Spirit-aided digestion of the solid food of God's wisdom.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Seeing human need with perfect clarity, Jesus felt it with unparalleled intensity.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“That life begins with God's working, not with our "doing.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Such contentment is never the result of the momentary decision of the will. It cannot be produced merely by having a well-ordered and thought-through time- and life-management plan calculated to guard us against unexpected twists of divine providence. No, true contentment means embracing the Lord's will in every aspect of His providence simply because it is His providence. It involves what we are in our very being, not just what we do and can accomplish.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Underline this thought: assurance, peace, access to God, knowledge that He is our Father, and strength to overcome temptation all depend on this-the Son of God took our flesh and bore our sins in such a way that further sacrifice for sin is both unnecessary and unintelligible. Christ died our death, and now in His resurrection He continues to wear our nature forever, and in it He lives for us before the face of God. He could not do more for us than He has done; we need no other resources to enable us to walk through this world into the next.
You and I need a Savior who is near us, is one with us, understands us. All of this the Lord Jesus is, Hebrews affirms. Fix your gaze on this Christ and your whole Christian life will be transformed.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Go back to the school in which you will make progress in being a Christian. Study your lessons, settle the issue of ambition, make Christ your preoccupation-and you will learn to enjoy the privileges of being truly content.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“The genius of the divine way of salvation by faith is that in it we are personally, actively united to Jesus Christ, but in a way that contributes nothing to His work. Faith is by definition noncontributory; it is the reception of Christ, not an addition to His finished work.
B. B. Warfield finely puts it this way:
It is not faith that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ.... It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. The saving power resides exclusively, not in the act of faith or the attitude of faith or in the nature of faith, but in the object of faith.14
In this sense, even though we are actively involved in faith, we are passive with respect to the accomplishing of justification. In the deepest sense, then, it is by grace that we are saved through faith, and that (whether the grace, the faith, or the union of the two in justification) is the gift of God; it is not of works, lest anyone should boast (Eph. 2:8-9; notice the reiteration of the theme of non-boasting of Rom. 3:27).”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Faith is not the ground or basis upon which we are justified, but the means, the "instrument," by which we are united to Christ, in whom our justification, our "right-wising" with God, has been accomplished.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Third, hear our loss of focus on the gospel in our songs. This is no comment on musical styles and tastes, but simply an observation about the lyrical content of much that is being sung in churches today. In many cases, congregations unwittingly have begun to sing about themselves and how they are feeling rather than about God and His glory.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“the Son of God took our nature and came "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3) in order to exchange places with Adam, so that His obedience and righteousness might for our sakes be exchanged for Adam's (and our) disobedience and sin (Rom. 5:12-21).
Exchange”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“In undiluted monergism, He called the galaxies into being, and He gives life to the dead in the same way”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Jesus' sinlessness should not be equated with emotionlessness.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“For if we seek salvation, the very name ofJesus teaches us that he possesses it.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“growing in faith and love for Christ, revealed as He is in Scripture, will be the greatest of all preservatives against being led astray. The person who is saturated in the teaching and spirit of the Gospels will have his or her senses "trained ... to distinguish good from evil" (Heb. 5:14, NIV) and to know what is truly Christ-like and Christ-honoring.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Before all time; prior to all worlds; when there was nothing "outside of" God Himself; when the Father, Son, and Spirit found eternal, absolute, and unimaginable blessing, pleasure, and joy in Their holy triunity-it was Their agreed purpose to create a world. That world would fall. But in unison-and at infinitely great cost-this glorious triune God planned to bring you (if you are a believer) grace and salvation.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“you cannot destroy love for the world merely by showing its emptiness. The world-centered love of our hearts can be expelled only by a new love and affection-for God and from God. The love of the world and the love of the Father cannot coexist in the same heart”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Can you take in what you have overheard in the High Priestly Prayer of John 17? It is like a light momentarily switched on in a darkened room and then extinguished. Did you really see such treasures? Has Jesus actually prayed that my faith will not fail (Luke 22:31-32) and that I will be kept by God's power for such glory (1 Peter 1:5-11)? Is even my name engraved on His shoulders and inscribed on His heart?
Do you understand how much your High Priest cares for you and loves you? It is almost as though He were saying, "Father, My glory will be incomplete unless You keep this promise-that My beloved disciples can see it and share it.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“When we see salvation whole, its every single part is found in Christ, And so we must beware lest we derive the smallest drop from somewhere else.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient. And, yes, it means distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“The invisible is more substantial than the visible; The future shapes the past; The new is more fundamental than the old.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Christian liberty does not mean that you welcome fellow Christians only when you have sorted out their views on X or Y (or with a view to doing that).”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“We are, after all, learning to think God’s thoughts after Him—about Himself, about the world, about others, about ourselves. God’s Word is not a comfort blanket. It is the sword of the Spirit; indeed, it is sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12).”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“His work is the real thing. It preserves us from two dangers. The first is the (Arminian) danger of false revivalism. Familiarity with the genuine is the best safeguard against the false. The second is the (Reformed?) danger of a false superiority.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“Far more important, it is only through such empowering that we will get beyond witnessing to fellow Christians about the Reformed faith and start witnessing to non-Christians about saving faith.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life

“If I insist on knowing exactly what God is doing and what He plans to do with my future, if I demand to understand His ways with me in the past, I can never be content until I am equal with God.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life