In the Year of Our Lord Quotes

“The government of the Church of Christ has been so constituted from the beginning,” Calvin wrote, “that the Cross has been the way to victory, death the way to life.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“The second is that despite the decline of the church in the West and the rise of militant Islam (often masking the very large numbers of people in the Islamic world who have become Christian believers), the number of Christians in the world has dramatically increased. Had we the ability to see the real spiritual situation, we would perhaps conclude that Jesus Christ has never been more active than He is today in building the church in the power of the Spirit through the message of the gospel.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Two World Wars, the Holocaust, the rise and fall of communism, conflict in the Middle East, genocide in many countries, and the radical transformation of the moral norms of the West in the second half of the century are all part of the story that shapes the psyche of our generation.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Edwards wept the first time he heard Whitefield preach; Whitefield in turn needed the theological wisdom of Edwards in order to grow into a clearer understanding of the ways of God.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“No longer is the subject matter the revealed God (whether in general or special revelation) but man and his religious experience.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour before I should hear the last trump.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Such preaching was not lacking in rhetorical power. But it aimed at the mind, the conscience, the will, and the affections—in a word, at the “heart.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“These principles simply underlined the emphases Luther found in Scripture. But in context, what is most significant about them is not only what they stressed but what they bypassed. Neither Luther nor the other magisterial Reformers despised the church. But they saw the church as only a witness to and a powerful illustration of salvation by grace—not the dispenser of that salvation. In a sense, then, the church had not only failed to teach the gospel rightly; it had usurped the role of the Holy Spirit in salvation. It was the reestablishing of the Spirit’s ministry in the application of redemption that brought such a sense of the immediacy of God’s grace and the joy and relief of pardon and new life in Christ. It is to Christ alone and not to the mediation of the church that we need to turn for grace and salvation.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Luther had grasped that the Vulgate translation of “Repent” (poenitentiam agite) was open to the misinterpretation “Do penitence (or penance).” And he had also grasped a principle that John Calvin would later expound with great clarity: penitence or repentance is not the action of a moment; it is the turning around of a life—the rejection of sin effected by the gracious work of the Holy Spirit. It cannot therefore be a single act completed in a moment; it is a style of life that lasts until glory.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“As Luther continued to read and ponder these words, light dawned. He came to see that the righteousness of God that Paul had in view is not the righteousness that He demands and we lack but the righteousness that is shown in Christ to sinners, which He provides and which we receive by faith.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“No wonder Cardinal Robert Bellarmine would later comment that of all Protestant heresies, assurance of salvation was the chief.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“We make that mistake over and over again, personally as well as ecclesiastically. We need to learn again to bow at the feet of Jesus as our example as well as our Redeemer and adopt His countercultural lifestyle. He has set us in the world to witness to it, and there we must remain until we take our leave of it.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Unless you can suggest something better, I will say that the name of Jesus bears resemblance to oil in the threefold use to which the latter lends itself, namely, for lighting, for food, and for healing. It feeds the flame, it nourishes the flesh, it soothes pain. It is light, and food, and medicine. Consider now how the same properties belong to the Bridegroom’s name. When preached, it gives light; when meditated, it nourishes; when invoked, it soothes and softens.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Unless you can suggest something better, I will say that the name of Jesus bears resemblance to oil in the threefold use to which the latter lends itself, namely, for lighting, for food, and for healing. It feeds the flame, it nourishes the flesh, it soothes pain. It is light, and food, and medicine. Consider”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“As has happened again in our own time, Christians faced few alternatives, none attractive: conversion to Islam, flight from their homes, the payment of fines, second-rate citizenship, or death.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“But one of the heartbeats of the Reformation message (especially in Calvin’s teaching) was that it is possible to live out the aspirations of monasticism in the day-to-day world, to serve Christ in the power of the Spirit and in the fellowship of the church—that is, to live a life totally given over to the service of God in everything we do.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“And, in most instances, either having no second service on the Lord’s Day, or one that is vastly diminished in attendance.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“We have largely lost the sense that a life lived sacrificially for Christ, in obscurity, among those who have little, in places where there is no private medicine, few domestic comforts, low literacy rates, but a desperate need for the gospel and the teaching and training of Christians, can be a life whose fruit for eternity can be amazingly multiplied. Such were the brothers Cyril and Methodius. Their modern counterparts are, like them, living in obscurity. But are they a diminishing number?”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“self-examination is surely in order. Am I, perhaps, the kind of Christian who is quick to be caught up in a controversy (which may indeed have its place) while ignoring the call to world evangelism? Then let me remember Boniface, the Sigan-Fu Stone, and most of all, let me remember Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead that He might be my Lord.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“These men illustrate two of the characteristics Christ looks for in contemporary Christians: to stand for Christ in a pagan environment—whatever it costs—like Boniface, and the willingness to go wherever God sends us, like A-lo-pen. Some”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“But before we leave the Iconoclastic Controversy, it is worth asking if Protestants have been iconoclastic in the wrong sense—failing our Lord by a disregard of the two icons He has given to us. Twenty-first-century Christians do not seem to give their baptism much thought after the event itself, unless to debate it. And then, imagine members of a congregation being given a blank card after the Lord’s Supper and asked to fill in what—if anything—they think “happened” at the service. Could we be confident that the answers in our own church family would display simplicity, clarity, unity—and even orthodoxy? So, perhaps if we are critical of the use of icons in the Eastern church, we ought also to be critical of ourselves that we have paid so little attention to the “icons” we believe Jesus has given to us. Mystery”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Gregory held the view that Christ had made the bishops of Rome archbishops of the whole church. The pope was, therefore, Christ’s own vicar, His representative on earth. In that role, the pope had the task of laying claim to the whole world for Christ, with all secular powers subject to him.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“We need a different goal: to grow closer, deeper, more local, and more visible in the community, if the gospel is to make its true impact on our Western world.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“The Apostle Paul was rarely alone. He did not travel around the ancient world as an individual but as the leader of a mobile gospel cell group. The gospel message and its manifestation in the life of the church go hand-in-glove in New Testament evangelism. How odd, then, if our churches persist in sending individual church planters instead of a cell group to begin a new work. We surely need to return to the New Testament pattern and to the genius of these monk-evangelists.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Another lesson we learn from both Ninian and Columba is that the power of the gospel is best expressed in community life, no matter how small.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“The only hope we have of standing in God’s presence is if in Jesus Christ He shows us His saving grace and draws us out of our darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“The Princeton theologian Charles Hodge would later say that he was more afraid of the ghost of semi-Pelagius than he was of Pelagius.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History

“Augustine was saying, in essence, “Lord, You are sovereign and You may command anything that pleases You, but we are not able to accomplish what You command. You tell us to obey Your Word and will, but we are sinners and we cannot. So, give us obedience. You tell us to have faith in Jesus Christ. We try to do this, but we can neither obey You as You desire nor trust You as we should. Since we are unable of ourselves to trust in Jesus Christ, by Your sovereign grace help us to trust in and obey Him.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History