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Thomas Goodwin – The Sum or Substance of Our Religion

4 Dec

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All then, that God works upon you savingly, from first to last, is a discovery of Christ, some way or other, in you. It is either the knowledge of his person, or it is a conformity to him, or it is dispositions suited to what you know of him; working upon us, and operations of God upon us suitable to what is in him; and this I call the sum or substance of our religion.

~Thomas Goodwin~




A Puritan Theology (Grand Rapids, MI; Reformation Heritage Books; 2012) p. 332.
Quoted from: Goodwin, Glory of the Gospel, in Works, 4:346.

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Herman Bavinck – History Matters

14 Nov

History is not a matter of indifference in a single religion, but Christianity itself is and creates a history. Precisely because it is the perfect, absolute, and definitive religion, it is and has to be a historical religion. The reason is that Christianity regards sin not as ignorance, which can easily be overcome by some enlightenment, but as an appalling power, which produces its effects throughout the cosmos; and over against this power it brings reconciliation and redemption in the deepest and broadest sense of those terms. It brings redemption from the guilt and the stain, from all the consequences of sin, from the errors of the intellect and the impurity of the heart, from the death of soul and body. It brings that redemption not only to the individual but also, organically, to the family and generations of families, to people and society, to humanity and the world. For that reason Christianity has to be a history, rooted in facts, producing facts. The facts are the skeletal system of Christianity; specifically, the cross and the resurrection of Christ are the two mainstays on which the Christian faith rests. When that gospel is preached purely, it always includes those facts; and when the preaching of that gospel is blessed and effects faith and conversion, then, in the religious experience of sin and grace, the divinity of this history is sealed. For if Christ did not die and was not raised from the dead, our faith is vain. Those facts, accordingly, are not events that took place at some time in the past and have now lost their significance. They do not stand between us and God, keeping us separate from him. “To the New Testament writers this concentration of faith upon the historic realities of redemption does not in the least interfere with its personal character as a direct act of trust in God and in Christ. The Person is immanent in the facts, and the facts are the revelation of the Person.”

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 594.

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Martin Luther – No Tongue of People or Angels

10 Oct

I leave it to orators to expound the theme of the inestimable grace and glory that we have in Christ Jesus. Let them tell us how we who are miserable sinners, children of wrath by birth, may obtain this honor, so that by faith in Christ we can become children and heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, lords of heaven and earth. There is no tongue of people or of angels that can proclaim the glory of this magnificently enough.

~Martin Luther~






Reformation Commentary on Scripture – Galatians, Ephesians (Downers Grove, IL; IVP Academic; 2011) p. 126

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George Whitefield – The First Gospel Promise

1 Oct

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel. – Genesis 3:15

This first promise must certainly be but dark to our first parents, in comparison of that great light which we enjoy. And yet, dark as it was, we may assure ourselves they built upon it their hopes of everlasting salvation and by that faith were saved.

~George Whitefield~




The Sermons of George Whitefield (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2012) p. 45.

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George Whitefield – The Free Grace of God

18 Sep

Let us take a short view of the miserable circumstances our first parents were now in. They were legally and spiritually dead, children of wrath and heirs of hell. They had eaten the fruit, of which God had commanded them that they should not eat. And when arraigned before God, notwithstanding their crime was so complicated, they could not be brought to confess it. What reason can be given, why sentence of death should not be pronounced against the prisoners at the bar? All must own they are worthy to die. Nay, how can God, consistently with his justice, possibly forgive them? He had threatened, that the day wherein they eat of the forbidden fruit, they should ‘surely die’ and, if he did not execute this threatening, the devil might then slander the Almighty indeed.

And yet mercy cries, spare these sinners, spare the work of thine own hands. Behold, then, wisdom contrives a scheme how God may be just and yet be merciful; be faithful to his threatening, punish the offence and at the same time spare the offender. An amazing scene of divine love here opens to our view, which had been from all eternity hid in the heart of God! Notwithstanding Adam and Eve were thus unhumbled and did not so much as put up one single petition for pardon, God immediately passes sentence upon the serpent and reveals to them a Saviour.

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”

~George Whitefield~


The Sermons of George Whitefield (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2012) Sermon #1: The Seed of the Woman and the Seed of the Serpent.

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George Whitefield – Glad Tidings

26 Aug

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.
– Genesis 3:15

Reading to you these words, I may address you in the language of the holy angels to the shepherds that were watching their flocks by night, ‘Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy.’ For this is the first promise that was made of a Saviour to the apostate race of Adam. We generally look for Christ only in the New Testament. But Christianity, in one sense, is very near as old as the creation. It is wonderful to observe how gradually God revealed his Son to mankind. He began with the promise in the text and this the elect lived upon till the time of Abraham. To him, God made further discoveries of his eternal council concerning man’s redemption. Afterwards, at sundry times and in divers manners, God spoke to the fathers by the prophets, till at length the Lord Jesus himself was manifested in flesh and came and tabernacled amongst us.

~George Whitefield~


The Sermons of George Whitefield (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2012) p. 45.

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Jonathan Edwards – Loving Like Jesus

23 Aug

He [Christ] thus loved us without any expectation of ever being requited by us for his love. He did not stand in need of anything we could do for him, and knew that we should never be able to requite him for his kindness to us, or do anything towards it; for he knew that we were poor, maimed, halt and blind, empty needy vagabonds, who could only receive from him, and could render nothing to him. He knew that we had no money or price; that instead of receiving anything from us, he must give us all things that we needed, or we should be eternally without them. Now how far shall we be from a selfish spirit, and how contrary to it, if we love one another after such a manner, or if there be the like spirit of love in us towards others which was in Christ towards us. Our love to others will not depend on their love to us; but we shall do as Christ did to us, love them, though enemies. We shall not only seek our own things, but we shall be in our hearts so united to others that we shall look on their things as our own. We shall look on ourselves interested in their good, as it was in Christ towards us. We shall be ready to forego and part with our own things in many cases for the things of others, as Christ expended and was spent for us. And these things we shall do without any expectation of being requited by them, as Christ did such great things for us without expectation of any requital from us.

~Jonathan Edwards~


Charity and Its Fruits: Living in the Light of God’s Love (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2012) p. 175-176

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Jonathan Edwards – Christ Spent Himself For Us

21 Aug

Christ, as it were, spent himself for us. Though we were enemies, yet he so loved us that from love to us he had a heart not only to look at our things, but to spend his own things for us, to forego his own ease and comfort, and outward honor, and to become poor for us. “For even Christ pleased not himself; but as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me” (Rom. 15:3). And not only so, but to spend himself for us, to spend his blood, to offer up himself a sacrifice to the justice of God for our sakes.

~Jonathan Edwards~


Charity and Its Fruits: Living in the Light of God’s Love (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2012) p. 175

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Herman Bavinck – The Grace of God in Jesus Christ

9 Aug

Saving faith has as its object, not simply God’s words and deeds as such, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

~Herman Bavinck~








Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 561.

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Herman Bavinck – The Gospel and Humanity’s Perceived Problems

7 Aug

The gospel is not to the liking of human nature, not a ready match for the needs of people as they themselves picture those needs. Outside of revelation human beings do not even know themselves.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 552.

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