Salvation is in the one who considered nothing human as alien and through his Holy Spirit joins us to himself through a word that is also fully human and wholly true… Jesus is Savior, and the reach of his grace extends as far as the effects of sin’s corruption.
~Herman Bavinck~
Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 389.
What he [Christ] has done for us is that he has satisfied the law and all its demands. It is amazing to me how people can look at and preach about Christ, his life and death and never mention the law. But unless the law of God is satisfied, there is no salvation. The law is opposed to us; it stands there and demands a perfect, absolute obedience and it threatens us with death if we fail in any one respect. If Christ has not fulfilled the law, we are yet in our sins, we are undone, we are damned and we are lost, but he has finished the work, the books have been cleared, the law has been satisfied, there is therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Do you know that? Are you rejoicing in it? Are you ready to take your stand with Toplady and say:
The terrors of law and of God
With me can have nothing to do,
My Saviour’s obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view.
~Martyn Lloyd-Jones~
The Assurance of Our Salvation (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2000) p. 19
Persons cannot be said to forsake Christ, and live on their experiences, merely because they use them as evidences of grace; for there are no other evidences that they can take. But then may persons be said to live upon their experiences, when they make a righteousness of them; and when, instead of keeping their eye on God’s glory and Christ’s excellency, they turn it on themselves. They entertain their minds by viewing their own attainments, their high experiences, and the great things they have met with, which are bright and beautiful in their own eyes. They are rich and increased with goods in their own apprehensions, and think that God has as admiring an esteem of them, on the same account, as they have of themselves. This is living on experiences, and not on Christ; and is more abominable in the sight of God, than the gross immoralities of those who make no pretences to religion. But this is a far different thing from improving experiences as evidences of an interest in a glorious Redeemer.
~Jonathan Edwards~
The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 1 (Peabody, MA; Hendrickson Publishers, Inc; 2007) p. 260. Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards
What, I ask you, would Christ have bestowed upon us if the penalty for our sins were still required? For when we say that he bore all our sins in his body upon the tree [1 Peter 2:24], we mean only that he bore the punishment and vengeance due for our sins. Isaiah has stated this more meaningfully when he says: “The chastisement (or correction) of our peace was upon him” [Isa. 53:5]. What is this “correction of our peace” but the penalty due sins that we would have had to pay before we could become reconciled to God–if he had not taken our place? Lo, you see plainly that Christ bore the penalty of sins to deliver his own people from them… This is why Paul writes that Christ gave himself as a ransom for us [1 Tim. 2:6]. “What is propitiation before the Lord,” asks Augustine, “but sacrifice? What is the sacrifice, but what has been offered for us in the death of Christ?”
~John Calvin~
The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Louisville, Kentucky; Westminster John Knox Press; 1974) p. 657.
While objections–e.g., from historical criticism–should not be ignored, we must not overlook the spiritual-ethical hostility to Scripture from the forces of unbelief. While not all questioning of Scripture reveals hostile unbelief, it is important to underscore the duty of every person to be humble before Scripture. Holy Scripture must judge us, not the reverse. The Holy Spirit opens our heart to trust, believe, and obey God’s Word in Scripture. Submission remains a struggle, also an intellectual one. We must acknowledge our limitations, the reality of mystery, our weakness of faith, without despairing of all knowledge and truth. Our hope is in Christ, the true man in whom human nature is restored. That is the purpose of Scripture: to make us wise unto salvation (2 Tim. 3:15)
~Herman Bavinck~
Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 389.
Hark, the herald angels sing,
Glory to the new-born King,
“Peace on earth, and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled.”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Hail the Heaven-born Prince of Peace
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Veil’d in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus Our Immanuel here.
Mild He lays His glory by;
Born, that men no more might die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born, to give them second birth.
Come, Desire of Nations, come!
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s promised Seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Glory to the new-born King!
Let us all the anthem sing,
“Peace on earth, and mercy mild;
God and sinners reconciled.”
~Charles Wesley~
Our Own Hymn-Book (Pasadena, TX; Pilgrim Publications; 2002) p.256.
Well, I would lay it down as a principle at this point — and it is applicable not only to this question of prayer but to many other problems as well — that the one thing we have to do in a situation like this is to avoid becoming slaves to our own theories and ideas and to our own understanding of the truth. In avoiding that danger we should go to the Scriptures, and look at the Bible’s plain and obvious teaching with as dispassionate and open a mind as we are capable of. We should do that, I say, not only with regard to this problem of prayer, but with regard to any other problem that may arise in our spiritual experience. There are certain doctrines taught in Scripture quite clearly, but then we come up against something that we cannot quite fit into our doctrinal pattern, and the danger at that point is to stand on our own doctrine and to try to explain away the Scripture. If ever we find a point that seems to conflict with our clear grasp of doctrine, it seems to me that, for the time being, the essence of wisdom is to leave our doctrine where it is. It is not that we deny it, we just leave it for the moment, we come back to Scripture and we note what Scripture has to say everywhere about this particular matter. Then having done that, we again attempt to relate this obvious and clear teaching of Scripture with the doctrine of which we are equally sure.
~Martyn Lloyd-Jones~
The Assurance of Our Salvation (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2000) p. 27-28
The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced, have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my own good estate; but in a direct view of the glorious things of the gospel. When I enjoy this sweetness, it seems to carry me above the thoughts of my own estate; it seems, at such times, a loss that I cannot bear, to take off my eye from the glorious, pleasant object I behold without me, to turn my eye in upon myself, and my own good estate.
~Jonathan Edwards~
The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 1 (Peabody, MA; Hendrickson Publishers, Inc; 2007) p. lxxxix. Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards
So when we are content with our conditions and what God disposes of us to be in, there is a blessing in it, then it is sweet to us, but if we must needs have more, and keep it longer than God would have us to have it, then there will be worms in it and it will be no good at all.
~Jeremiah Burroughs~
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Edinburgh, Scotland; The Banner of Truth Trust; 2009) p. 160.
The Lord Jesus Christ has manifested his Father, and has manifested these names [the names of God in the Old Testament] in a way that transcends everything that I have been saying. Go back to the Old Testament, look at those names, study them, read them – we are meant to do so, for they are absolutely true today. What Christ has done, in a sense, is to let the floodlight in, to open them out, and to enable us to grasp them, because he has done it in his person. Study them, and remember that what God has said is this: he is ‘The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and that will by no means clear the guilty’ (Ex 34:6-7). Remember that his name is ultimately Love, that he has loved us with an everlasting love and knowing him thus, we can appropriate unto ourselves all the gracious promises. He will provide, he will heal, he will lead, he will enable us to conquer, but above all, and thank his great and holy name for this, he will never leave us nor forsake us, he will always be with us.
~Martyn Lloyd-Jones~
The Assurance of Our Salvation (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2000) p. 240-241
The Old Guys 