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When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Isaac Watts
Recent Entries
God? Who Needs Him?May 31, 2013
Self-sufficient humanism. Paul saw it coming – “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”
Imago Dei
September 12, 2012
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Why Can't I Pray?
August 18, 2012
The bible gives us several reasons, but according to Jeremy Taylor, a deceitful heart is at the root of prayerlessness.
It's Not Rocket Science
July 23, 2012
To keep in step with the Spirit should be our daily quest. And if we are successful at that, all of life falls into place.
Theological Steak
April 10, 2012
These words by P. T. Forsythe on the magnificence of Christ's work are to theology what Ruth's Chris is to a good steak.
Describing the Indescribable
February 11, 2012
What we have in Christ will take all eternity to describe. But for one segment of one sermon, a great preacher made a mighty attempt.
Making Sense Of It All
January 30, 2012
Where are things headed? Is there rhyme and reason to the endless cycle of summer, fall, winter and spring? Is there a plan in place, or is randomness the explanation?
Boasting In The Cross
July 5, 2008
The last one hundred years have taken their toll on the meaning of the cross of Christ. Once it was undisputed that His death on the cross was in our place and was a death we deserved, that it was atoning in its purpose and satisfied the wrath of God. That understanding has been slowing eroding away, and in many circles is considered outdated.
Not surprisingly, diminishing the substitutionary act of God on the cross coincides with a loss of the holiness of God, and the justice of God, so that the cross is no longer "necessary." Even the concept of sin is disappearing. That is a fatal mistake, the most costly one that fallen man could dream up.
Samuel Zwemer, who powerfully labored among followers of Islam, burying two young daughters on the island of Bahrain in the process, spoke passionately about the effects of a diminished cross on world missions. One hundred years later, we need this word even more passionately in our world today.
CHRISTIANITY THE FINAL RELIGION
"The Apostolic Gospel"
Samuel Zwemer
"A God all mercy is a God unjust."
Dr. Chatterjee, India
The importance of the death of Jesus Christ as the fundamental fact in the New Testament is shown by the place it occupies. One-third of the New Testament matter deals with the story of the cross and the atonement. Matthew devotes two long chapters to the trial and death of Jesus; in Mark the two longest chapters relate to this event; one-seventh of the entire text of Luke is taken up with the same story, and in John's Gospel the shadow of the cross falls on the scene almost at the outset ("Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world"), while one-half of the narrative deals with the last week of Jesus' life.
In the Apostles' preaching as recorded in the Acts and the Epistles, their one theme seems to have been Christ crucified. Peter voices the message of which they had no other, the Good News of peace through Jesus Christ, which spread throughout the length and breadth of Judea and was carried all over the Roman Empire:
"You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached - how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
"We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
"He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." Acts 10:37-43
Paul at Corinth determined to know nothing in his preaching save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The very word "cross" was used so frequently that it became the synonym for "Christianity." The preaching of the cross, the offence of the cross, the glory of the cross, the power of the cross - all these phrases indicate the place this doctrine had in Apostolic preaching.
The two Christian sacraments are without significance, without symbolism, without mystic meaning, except they refer to the death of Christ. We are buried with Him in baptism; we partake of His broken body and shed blood; it is the washing of regeneration that refers to the washing away of our sins. We are to testify to the fact and the significance of the Lord's death till He come.
"It will be admitted by most Christians that if the atonement, quite apart from precise definition of it, is anything to the mind, it is everything. It is the most profound of all truths and most creative. It determines more than anything else our conception of God, of man, of history and even of nature; it determines them, for we must bring them all in some way into accord with it. It is the inspiration of all thought, the key, in the last resort, to all suffering.
"The atonement is a reality of such a sort that it can make no compromise. The man who fights for it knows that he is fighting for his life and puts all his strength into the battle. To surrender is literally to give himself up, to cease to be the man he is and become another man. For the modern mind, therefore, as for the ancient, the attraction and the repulsion of Christianity are concentrated on the same point; the Cross of Christ is man's only glory or it is his final stumbling-block."
Dr. Denney THE ATONEMENT AND THE MODERN MIND
Not surprisingly, diminishing the substitutionary act of God on the cross coincides with a loss of the holiness of God, and the justice of God, so that the cross is no longer "necessary." Even the concept of sin is disappearing. That is a fatal mistake, the most costly one that fallen man could dream up.
Samuel Zwemer, who powerfully labored among followers of Islam, burying two young daughters on the island of Bahrain in the process, spoke passionately about the effects of a diminished cross on world missions. One hundred years later, we need this word even more passionately in our world today.
CHRISTIANITY THE FINAL RELIGION
"The Apostolic Gospel"
Samuel Zwemer
"A God all mercy is a God unjust."
Dr. Chatterjee, India
The importance of the death of Jesus Christ as the fundamental fact in the New Testament is shown by the place it occupies. One-third of the New Testament matter deals with the story of the cross and the atonement. Matthew devotes two long chapters to the trial and death of Jesus; in Mark the two longest chapters relate to this event; one-seventh of the entire text of Luke is taken up with the same story, and in John's Gospel the shadow of the cross falls on the scene almost at the outset ("Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world"), while one-half of the narrative deals with the last week of Jesus' life.
In the Apostles' preaching as recorded in the Acts and the Epistles, their one theme seems to have been Christ crucified. Peter voices the message of which they had no other, the Good News of peace through Jesus Christ, which spread throughout the length and breadth of Judea and was carried all over the Roman Empire:
"You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached - how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
"We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
"He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." Acts 10:37-43
Paul at Corinth determined to know nothing in his preaching save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The very word "cross" was used so frequently that it became the synonym for "Christianity." The preaching of the cross, the offence of the cross, the glory of the cross, the power of the cross - all these phrases indicate the place this doctrine had in Apostolic preaching.
The two Christian sacraments are without significance, without symbolism, without mystic meaning, except they refer to the death of Christ. We are buried with Him in baptism; we partake of His broken body and shed blood; it is the washing of regeneration that refers to the washing away of our sins. We are to testify to the fact and the significance of the Lord's death till He come.
"It will be admitted by most Christians that if the atonement, quite apart from precise definition of it, is anything to the mind, it is everything. It is the most profound of all truths and most creative. It determines more than anything else our conception of God, of man, of history and even of nature; it determines them, for we must bring them all in some way into accord with it. It is the inspiration of all thought, the key, in the last resort, to all suffering.
"The atonement is a reality of such a sort that it can make no compromise. The man who fights for it knows that he is fighting for his life and puts all his strength into the battle. To surrender is literally to give himself up, to cease to be the man he is and become another man. For the modern mind, therefore, as for the ancient, the attraction and the repulsion of Christianity are concentrated on the same point; the Cross of Christ is man's only glory or it is his final stumbling-block."
Dr. Denney THE ATONEMENT AND THE MODERN MIND
