Of First Importance

“Would I gather arguments for hoping that I shall never be cast away? Where shall I go to find them? Shall I look at my own graces and gifts? Shall I take comfort in my own faith and love, and penitence and zeal, and prayer? Shall I turn to my own heart, and say, ‘This same heart will never be false and cold’?

Oh, no! God forbid! I will look at Calvary and the crucifixion. This is my grand argument: this is my mainstay. I cannot think that He who went through such sufferings to redeem my soul, will let that soul perish after all, when it has once cast itself on Him. Oh, no! What Jesus paid for Jesus will surely keep. He paid dearly for it: He will not let it easily be lost. He died for me when I was yet a dark sinner: He will never forsake me after I have believed.

Ah, reader, when Satan tempts you to doubt whether Christ’s people will be kept from falling, you should tell Satan that you cannot despair when you look at the cross.”

- J.C. Ryle, Old Paths

“When the Lord Jesus Christ offered up Himself a sacrifice unto God the Father, and had our sins laid upon Him, He did give more perfect satisfaction unto Divine justice for our sins than if you, and I, and all of us had been damned in hell unto all eternity.

For a creditor is more satisfied if his debt be paid him all down at once, than if it be paid by the week.”

- William Bridge, quoted in A Puritan Golden Treasury ed. by I.D.E. Thomas

“Christ discharged the debt of sin. He bore our sins and purged them. He did not make a token payment which God accepts in place of the whole. Our debts are not cancelled; they are liquidated. Christ procured redemption and therefore he secured it. He met in himself and swallowed up the full toll of divine condemnation and judgement against sin.”

- John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied

“When the clouds are blackest, even then look towards Christ the standing pillar of the Father’s love and grace, set up in heaven for all sinners to gaze upon continually. Whatever Satan or conscience say, do not conclude against yourself — Christ will have the last word.

He is Judge of quick and dead, and must pronounce the final sentence. His blood speaks reconciliation (Col 1:20); cleansing (1 John 1:7); purchase (Acts 20:28); redemption (1 Peter 1:18); purging (Heb 10:19); justification (Rom 5:9); nearness to God (Eph 2:13). Stand and hear what God will say, for He will speak peace to His people, that they return no more to folly (Psa 85:8). He speaks grace, mercy and peace (2 Tim 1:2). That is the language of the Father and of Christ.”

- Thomas Wilcox, Honey out of the Rock

“Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him, and say, ‘Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I was not.’”

- Martin Luther, quoted in J.I. Packer, Growing in Christ

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb.

“What the Lord expects from us at such seasons is not to abandon ourselves to unreasoning sorrow, but trustingly to look sorrow in the face, to scan its features, to search for the help and hope, which, as surely as God is our Father, must be there. In such trials there can be no comfort for us so long as we stand outside weeping.

If only we will take the courage to fix our gaze deliberately upon the stern countenance of grief, and enter unafraid into the darkest recesses of our trouble, we shall find the terror gone, because the Lord has been there before us, and, coming out again, has left the place transfigured, making of it by the grace of his resurrection a house of life, the very gate of heaven.”

- Geerhardus Vos, Grace & Glory

“The doctrine of the incarnate God invests with light and radiance every essential difficulty and truth of the inspired word. Infinitely mysterious itself, it yet explains every other mystery. It solves what is inexplicable, fathoms what is profound, illumines what is obscure, and reconciles what is discrepant. And yet, while thus irradiating every other doctrine, and elucidating every other mystery, it remains, as it ever will, enshrined in its own unapproachable light, the most wonderful, incomprehensible, and sublime of all — the great mystery of godliness.”

- Octavius Winslow, The Glory of the Redeemer