I’ve been blessed recently by Micheal Horton’s The Gospel-Driven Life.
Some excellent quotes:
“It is not Christian orthodoxy but moralistic liberalism that reduces the surprising news of the gospel to the bland repetition of what people already know.” (p.25)
“The bible is not a collection of timeless principles offering a gentle thought for the day. It is not a resource for our self-improvement. Rather, it is a dramatic story that unfolds from promise to fulfillment, with Christ at the center. Its focus is God and His action. God is not a supporting actor in our drama; it is the other way around…. Has it really hit you that no matter what your inner voice, conscience, heart, will or soul tells you, God’s objective Word on the matter trumps it all?” (p. 26)
“God’s law is not a tool that we can use; it is the rod by which God measures us. God’s law says, ‘Be perfect.’ God’s gospel says, ‘Believe in Christ and you will be reckoned perfect before God.’ The law tells us what must be done if we are to be saved; the gospel tells us what God has done to save us.” (p. 60)
“‘God justifies the wicked’ (Rom. 4:5). As counterintitive as it is simple, that claim which lies at the heart of the Good News has brought immeasurable blessing – and trouble – to the church and the world. Be nice, take out the trash, stop nagging your spouse, try to spend more time with your children, don’t get into credit card debt, lose some weight and get some exercise. Every one of these exhortations might be valid… however, it is not the big story. No wonder people – especially younger folks – are bored if this is the ‘news’ that the church has to bring to the world. This kind of news need not come from heaven; there are plenty of earthly sages who can communicate it better than most preachers.” (p. 64)
“So God justified the wicked — not those who have done their best yet have fallen short, who might at least be judged acceptable because of their sincerity, but those whare are the very moment of being pronounced righteous are in themselves unrighteous… Protestants [that’s me] are just as likely today to assume that the gospel gives us something to do rather than [sic] an announcement of something that has already been fully, finally, and objectively accomplished for us by God in Jesus Christ.” (p.73)
“I often hear believers say that it was wonderful when they first believed. Then and there they were promised forgiveness, God’s favor, and eternal life. But over time the message changed. Now it’s time to get busy. The gospel is for unbelievers, but Christians need a constant stream of exhortations to keep them going. Yet this is far from what the Bible itself reasons. Not only in the first instance, but throughout the Christian life, faith is born and fed by the gospel alone. Christ is sufficient even for the salvation of weak and unfaithful Christians.
The great divide… is between an objective, complete, perfect and finished justification by God alone in Christ alone and a subjective, progressive, incomplete and unfinished justification by the believer’s cooperation in grace.” (p.75)
“On my best days, my experience of transformation is weak, but the gospel is an announcement of a certain state of affairs that exists because of something in God, not something in me; something that God has done, not something that I have done; the love in God’s heart which he has shown in his son, not the love in my heart that I exhibit in my relationships.” (p.77)
“The gospel is not a general belief in heaven or hell or hope for a better life beyond… it is the announcement that Jesus Christ himself is our life, for he is our peace with God. He does not merely show us the way; he is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).” (p.80)
“We all want to be and to do something rather than to be made and to receive our identity from above. It is a blow to our spiritual ego to be told that everything has already been done. Yet that is the glory of the gospel! That is why it is Good News.” (p.93)
“It is often said that we must apply the Scriptures to daily living. But this is to invoke the Bible too late, as if we already knew what ‘life’ or ‘daily living’ meant. The problem is not merely that we lack the right answers, but that we don’t even have the right questions until God introduces us to his interpretation of reality.” (p.111)
Well… I’m only about halfway through the book right now. But what a refreshing and thoughtful treatment of the Gospel! How I need to hear it every day… as I, by God’s wondrous grace, am a light in a world that needs to hear the good news.
This is not to say that I’m not progressively being changed, or that don’t I engage my will (gladly!) to follow my Father’s guides… but the center of our lives as believers is the story of the Gospel. May we hold on to the truth every day!
