West London Alliance Church



Originally posted March 24, 2009:



“The Christian doctrine of revelation, far from making the human mind unnecessary, actually makes it indispensable and assigns to it its proper place. God has revealed himself in words to minds.” (18)
“As John Owen expressed it, ‘that good which the mind cannot discover, the will cannot choose, nor the affections cleave unto’.” (32)
“Gresham Machen expressed this matter admirably in his book The Christian Faith in the Modern World: ‘There must be the mysterious work of the Spirit of God in the new birth,’ he wrote. ‘Without that, all our arguments are quite useless. But because argument is insufficient, it does not follow that it is unnecessary’.” (40)
“We shall argue with his mind and plead with his heart, in order to move his will, and we shall put our trust in the Holy Spirit throughout.” (41)


Originally posted March 20, 2009:

I am often amazed by some authors' ability to articulate Christian truth with such clarity, conciseness, and power so as to leave one unable to be unaffected. This can be nothing less than a gift of God. John R. W. Stott is one such author. Consider this quote from The Cross of Christ on satisfaction through substitution:

…it is the Judge who himself in holy love assumed the role of the innocent victim, for in and through the person of his Son he himself bore the penalty which he himself inflicted. As Dale put it, ‘the mysterious unity of the Father and Son rendered it possible for God at once to endure and inflict penal suffering’. There is neither harsh injustice nor unprincipled love nor Christological heresy in that; there is only unfathomable mercy. For in order to save us in such a way so as to satisfy himself, God through Christ substituted himself for us. Divine love triumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice. The cross was an act simultaneously of punishment and amnesty, severity and grace, justice and mercy.” (159)

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