Notable Quotes July 2, 2012
Books don’tchange lives. Paragraphs do. Sometimes single sentences. At least that’s how itworks for me. I can remember specific sentences from specific books that lit myheart on fire and profoundly changed the way I thought. Here’s a sample of someof those verbal incendiary bombs from John Stott’s book The Cross of Christ.
“Before wecan begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading us to faithand worship), we have to see it as something doneby us (leading us to repentance).” (p 60)
“Sin is not aregrettable lapse from conventional standards; its essence is hostility to God,issuing in active rebellion against him.” (p 90)
“We saunter up to God to claim his patronage andfriendship; it does not occur to us that he might send us away. …We learn to appreciate the access to God which Christhas won for us only after we have first seen God’s inaccessibility tosinners.” (p 109)
“If we spokeless about God’s love and more about his holiness, more about his judgment, weshould say much more when we did speak of his love.” (p 132)
“Divine lovetriumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice.” (p 159)
“The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God,while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.” (p 160)
“For theSinless One to be made sin, for the Immortal One to die–we have no means ofimagining the terror or the pain involved in such experiences.” (p 214)
“No theologyis genuinely Christian which does not arise from and focus on the cross.”(p 216)
“Standing before the cross we see simultaneously ourworth and our unworthiness, wince we perceive both the greatness of his love indying, and the greatness of our sin in causing him to die.” (p 285)
“Pain isendurable, but the seeming indifference of God is not. …It is this terriblecaricature of God which the cross smashes to smithereens. We are not toenvisage him on a deck-chair, but on a cross. The God who allows us to suffer,once suffered himself in Christ, and continues to suffer with us and for ustoday.” (p 329)
That’s some of the sizzle. Want the whole steak? Pickup a copy today from the book table.