"He left the Bristol feeling, as he would have said, a different man. Indeed he was a different man. From now onwards till the moment of final decision should meet him, the different men in him appeared with startling rapidity and each seemed very complete while it lasted. Thus, skidding violently from one side to the other, his youth approached the moment at which he would begin to be a person."
(C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, p. 214)
Our Call Never Begins Unless It’s a Response
“‘You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you,’ said the Lion…”
C.S. Lewis
"Justification refers to my status; sanctification to my state."
Anthony N.S. Lane
The Dangers of Mixing Law and Gospel (Jason Stellman)
The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.
What is being taught here (I would soon discover) is the idea that Adam was created with a desire for an eternal and spiritual quality of life beyond the temporal, “soulish” life that he originally enjoyed, and further, that his achieving of this goal was predicated upon a condition imposed upon him (feel free to substitute “natural” for “soulish,” although the latter is a stricter rendering of psychikos — Paul’s term in 1 Cor. 15:42ff). What was the condition? Well, this is where the works element comes into play. Westminster says that the condition upon which everything hinged was Adam’s “perfect and personal obedience.” In other words, Adam was called upon to obey the terms of the covenant in order to achieve the blessing of eternal life.
This idea that the original Edenic covenant was a conditional covenant of works, and that Adam had to fulfill its conditions in order to gain the stipulated reward, can be a jagged pill to swallow for many Reformed folks. After all, doesn’t this all sound so legal? Where’s the grace in all of this?
Read the full thing here.
"I don’t know what kind of sentimental ideas you have about Jesus. Just read your Bibles and they’ll go away."
John Piper
"Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners."
(G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 122)
"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching."
2 Tim 4:1-2
"The resurrection of Jesus Christ is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying."
"First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? And the main answer can be put like this. As long as we see Christian hope in terms of “going to heaven,” of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated. Indeed, some insist angrily that to ask the second one at all is to ignore the first one, which is really the important one. This in turn makes some others get angry when people talk of resurrection, as if this might draw attention away from the really important and pressing matters of contemporary social concern. But if the Christian hope is for God’s new creation, for “new heavens and new earth,” and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together. And if that is so, we find that answering the one is also answering the other."
(N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, p. 5)
