Sunday, August 4, 2013

More Than A Means to An End

"Where the gospel is not taken for granted, it is often a means to an end, like personal or social transformation, love and service to our neighbors, and other things that in themselves are marvelous effects of the gospel. However, the Good News concerning Christ is not a stepping-stone to something greater and more relevant.

Whether we realize it or not, there is nothing in the universe more relevant to us as guilty image-bearers of God than the news that he has found a way to be ‘just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus’ (Rom. 3:26). It is ‘the power of God for salvation’ (Rom. 1:16), not only for the beginning, but for the middle and end as well — the only thing that creates the kind of new world to which our new obedience corresponds as a reasonable response. "

— Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008), 22

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