Of First Importance

“I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the justice of God,’ [Rom. 1:17] because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him.

Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by his faith’ [Rom. 1:17]. Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas the ‘justice of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressively sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate of heaven….”

- Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 34: The Career of the Reformer IV, Helmut L. Lehmann, ed. (Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 1960), 337

(HT: Dan Morse)

“If thou couldst rightly consider the incomparable price, thou shouldst hold as accursed all those ceremonies, vows, works, and merits before grace and after, and throw them all down to hell. For it is a horrible blasphemy to imagine that there is any work whereby thou shouldst presume to pacify God, since thou seest that there is nothing which is able to pacify Him but his inestimable price, even the death and the blood of the Son of God, one drop whereof is more precious than the whole world.”

- Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Classics, 1979), 95.

(Note: In celebration of Reformation Day on October 31st, we’ll be posting quotes from Martin Luther all this week.)

“Faith therefore must be purely taught: namely, that thou art so entirely joined unto Christ, that He and thou art made as it were one person: so that thou mayest boldly say, I am now one with Christ, that is to say, Christ’s righteousness, victory, and life are mine. And again, Christ may say, I am that sinner, that is, his sins and his death are Mine, because he is united and joined unto Me, and I unto him.”

- Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Classics, 1979), 80.

“It is in His death that He destroys the wolf, so that the blackest place on earth, where the Son of God is crucified, becomes the place where the blackest of evil is subdued by the love of God and made to minister to the redemption of the world.  By the Cross all our evil is taken under the command of the sacrifice of Christ and made to work together for good to those who love Him, and who hear and follow the voice of the Good Shepherd, not only because by His death our sin and guilt are removed, but because He who died lives again, and is able to make the very grave of mankind to become the cradle of new and abundant life.”

- T.F. Torrance, When Christ Comes and Comes Again, 94.

When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up. Psalm 94:18

“I perceived my danger, and cried out in horror, and then, at the very moment of my extremity, came the needed help, “thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.” Often enough is this the case, we feel our weakness, and see our danger, and in fear and trembling we cry out. At such times nothing can help us but mercy; we can make no appeal to any fancied merit, for we feel that it is our inbred sin which makes our feet so ready to fail us; our joy is that mercy endureth for ever, and is always at hand to pluck us out of the danger, and hold us up, where else we should fall to our destruction.

Ten thousand times has this verse been true in relation to some of us, and especially to the writer of this comment. The danger was imminent, it was upon us, we were going; the peril was apparent, we saw it, and were aghast at the sight; our own heart was failing, and we concluded that it was all over with us; but then came the almighty interposition: we did not fall, we were help up by an unseen hand, the devices of the enemy were frustrated, and we sang for joy.”

- Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers), 146.

“My ‘experience’ of Jesus can and must only be understood in terms of God’s revelation of him in the Scriptures. The gospel is anchored in history. In an age which studies little history and puts such a high premium on experience, this aspect of the gospel is often forgotten, yet it is the ground of our assurance.

Often I feel as if living the Christian life is too difficult and am tempted to give it all away. However I remind myself that this is just not on! Jesus Christ really did live. He did die on the cross and rise again. He did ascend into heaven. I am not mistaken. There is no other life to live than the Christian life unless I ignore the facts. So I press on with it.

The Jesus of my ‘experience’ cannot sustain me in a such a moment of temptation because I am not sure if my experience is real and true. The Jesus of history can and does sustain me in such a moment because there is no doubt about his reality. He really did happen.”

- John Chapman, Know and Tell the Gospel (Kingsford, NSW: St Matthias Press), 20-21

“There is no Christian in his wits who will dare to adventure the everlasting safety of his soul upon the leaking vessels of his own holiness or services.”

- Thomas Brooks, A Cabinet of Choice Jewels