Spoken and Acted

"God has spoken and acted in Jesus Christ. He has said something. He has done something.

This means that Christianity is not just pious talk. It is neither a collection of religious ideas nor a catalogue of rules. It is a ‘gospel’ (i.e. good news) – in the apostle Paul’s words ‘the gospel of God…regarding his Son…Jesus Christ our Lord’.

It is not primarily an invitation for us to do anything; it is supremely a declaration of what God has done in Christ for human beings like ourselves."

                  – John Stott, Basic Christianity

HT: Trevin Wax

A Prayer for Communicators

A prayer by John Stott, which I can heartily join into, from his  book Your Mind Matters

I pray earnestly that God will raise up today a new generation of Christian apologists or Christian communicators, who will combine an absolute loyalty to the biblical gospel and an unwavering confidence in the power of the Spirit with a deep and sensitive understanding of the contemporary alternatives to the gospel; who will relate the one to the other with freshness, authority, and relevance; and who will use their minds to reach other minds for Christ.

Amen and Amen!

HT: Darryl Dash

Sons and Daughters

“The Christian life is the life of sons and daughters; it is not the life of slaves. It is freedom, not bondage. Of course, we are slaves of God, of Christ, and of one another. We belong to God, to Christ, to one another, and we love to serve those to whom we belong. But this kind of service is freedom.

“What the Christian life is not, is a bondage to the law, as if our salvation hung in the balance and depended on our meticulous and slavish obedience to the letter of the law.

“As it is, our salvation rests upon the finished work of Christ, on His sin-bearing, curse-bearing death, embraced by faith.”

– John Stott, The Message of Galatians (Intervarsity, 1968), 108-109

HT:  Jared Wilson

What He Did

"The meaning of atonement is not to be found in our penitence evoked by the sight of Calvary, but rather in what God did when in Christ on the cross He took our place and bore our sin."

— John StottThe Cross of Christ(Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1986), 9

Cut to Size

Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, ‘I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.’ Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.

                  - John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians, 179.

HT: Vitamin Z

The Symbol of Divine Suffering

“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. 

That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering.”

                       — John Stott The Cross of Christ

Hat Tip:  Of First Importance

Value Lies in the Object

"To say ‘justification by faith’ is merely another way of saying ‘justification by Christ’. Faith has absolutely no value in itself; its value lies solely in its object. Faith is the eye that looks to Christ, the hand that lays hold of him, the mouth that drinks the water of life."

            — John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986), page 187

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

John Stott Memorial Website

There is now an official John Stott Memorial website

John Stott was born in London in 1921 to Sir Arnold and Lady Stott. He was educated at Rugby School, where he became head boy, and Trinity College Cambridge. At Trinity he earned a double first in French and theology, and was elected a senior scholar.

John Stott trained for the pastorate at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He was awarded a Lambeth doctorate in divinity (DD) in 1983 and has honorary doctorates from universities in America, Britain, and Canada.

He was listed in Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” (April, 2005) and was named in the Queen’s New Years Honours list as Commander of the British Empire (CBE) on December 31, 2005.

 Much more at the link above.

Where the Noxious Weeds Shrivel & Die

In memory of John Stott, who passed away this week, here is a great quote from one of his classic great books.

Our sin must be extremely horrible. Nothing reveals the gravity of sin like the cross. For ultimately what sent Christ there was neither the greed of Judas, nor the envy of the priests, not the vacillating cowardice of Pilate, but our own greed, envy, cowardice, and other sins, and Christ’s resolve in love and mercy to bear their judgment and so put them away.

It is impossible for us to face Christ’s cross with integrity and not feel ashamed of ourselves. Apathy, selfishness, and complacency blossom everywhere in the world except at the cross. There these noxious weeds shrivel and die. There they are seen for the tatty, poisonous things they are. For if there was no way by which the righteous God could righteously forgive our unrighteousness, except that he should bear it himself in Christ, it must be serious indeed…

     --from The Cross of Christ

Instead of "passed away," I should say "was promoted to glory." Thank God for this brother's life and legacy!

Hat Tip: John Stott, the Cross, and the Gravity of Our Sin | 9Marks:

RIP John Stott

John Stott, World Famous Evangelical Leader, Dies at 90:

World-renowned evangelist and Biblical scholar John Stott died Wednesday at 3.15 p.m. local time in London (10.15 a.m. EST), according to John Stott Ministries President Benjamin Homan.

Homan has reported that Stott’s death has come following a few weeks of discomfort, and that the death was simply related to complications related to old age.

Stott, who died at 90, retired from public ministry in 2007 when he was 86 years old. He spent his retirement in the College of St. Barnabas, Lingfield, which is a residence for retired Anglican clergy.

The English Anglican leader is revered for his ministry life. The world famous evangelist, the Rev. Billy Graham, described him as "the most respected clergyman in the world today."

RIP, Brother. You will be greatly missed.