The Benefits and the Benefactor

"There is a center to the Bible and its message of grace. It is found in Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected. Grace, therefore, must be preached in a way that is centered and focused on Jesus Christ Himself. We must never offer the benefits of the gospel without the Benefactor Himself. For many preachers, however, it is much easier to deal with the pragmatic things, to answer “how to” questions, and even to expose and denounce sin than it is to give an adequate explanation of the source of the forgiveness, acceptance, and power we need.

It is a disheartening fact that evangelical Christians, who write vast numbers of Christian books, preach abundant sermons, sponsor numerous conferences and seminars, and broadcast myriad TV and radio programs actually write few books, preach few sermons, sponsor few conferences or seminars, and devote few programs to the theme of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We give our best and most creative energies to teaching God’s people almost everything except the person and work of our Lord and Savior. This should cause us considerable alarm, for there is reason to fear that our failure here has reached epidemic proportions.

We need to return to a true preaching to the heart, rooted in the principle of grace and focused on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then people will not say about our ministry merely, “He was an expository preacher,” or “That was practical,” or even “He cut open our consciences.” Instead, they will say: “He preached Christ to me, and his preaching was directed to my conscience. It was evident that he gave the best of his intellectual skills and the warmth of his compassion to thinking about, living for, and proclaiming his beloved Savior, Jesus Christ.” This is what will reach the heart! And when you have experienced such preaching, or seen its fruit, you will know what true preaching is. And you will agree that its fruit lasts for all eternity."

           - Sinclair Ferguson, in Feed My Sheep:

HT Peter Cockrell &  Erik Raymond

Pilgrim People

From Challies.com

Melted Hearts

Only when we turn away from looking at our sin to look at the face of God, to find his pardoning grace, do we begin to repent. Only by seeing that there is grace and forgiveness with him would we ever dare to repent and thus return to the fellowship and presence of the Father.… Only when grace appears on the horizon offering forgiveness will the sunshine of the love of God melt our hearts and draw us back to him. 

                 -Sinclair Ferugson in You Can Change

HT: Rick Ianniello, Of First Importance

It's All Jesus

“There is no such ‘thing’ as grace! Grace is not some appendage to Christ’s being. All there is is the Lord Jesus Himself. And so when Jesus speaks about us abiding in Him and He abiding in us – however mysterious it may be, mystical in that sense – it is a personal union.

Christianity is Christ because there isn’t anything else. There is no atonement that somehow can be detached from who the Lord Jesus is. There is no grace that can be attached to you transferred from Him. All there is is Christ and your soul.”

 — Sinclair Ferguson message on John 15 at the 2007 Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference

Hat Tip: Internet Monk,  Of First Importance

Paradise Regained

The story of paradise lost becoming paradise regained is the story of God’s grace bringing us from alienation from him to membership in his family. God’s grace restores us to what Adam lost for us — sonship to the God who made us, loves us, and provides for us in every detail in life.” 

               — Sinclair Ferguson, Children of the Living God, page 6

HT: Of First Importance

Brother

“The notion that because Christ has ‘brothered us’, we may become children of God, lies at the heart of the New Testament’s teaching about our salvation.”

— Sinclair Ferguson Children of the Living God
(Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1989), 4

HT: Of First Importance

Glad to Be a Heretic

What is the greatest Protestant heresy (according to the Catholic Church)? Justification by faith? Sola Scriptura? Guess again. From Sinclair Fergusan:

Let us begin with a church history exam question. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542– 1621) was a figure not to be taken lightly. He was Pope Clement VIII’s personal theologian and one of the most able figures in the Counter-Reformation movement within sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism. On one occasion, he wrote: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is _______ .” Complete, explain, and discuss Bellarmine’s statement.

How would you answer? What is the greatest of all Protestant heresies? Perhaps justification by faith? Perhaps Scripture alone, or one of the other Reformation watchwords?

Those answers make logical sense. But none of them completes Bellarmine’s sentence. What he wrote was: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is assurance.”

If this is heresy, then I am a grateful heretic! Read it all at the link.

The Litmus Test of Grasping Grace

“Being amazed by God’s grace is a sign of spiritual vitality. It is a litmus test of how firm and real is our grasp of the Christian gospel and how close is our walk with Jesus Christ. The growing Christian finds that the grace of God astonishes and amazes.”

- Sinclair B. Ferguson, By Grace Alone (Orlando, Fl.; Reformation Trust Publishing, 2010), xiv.

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

He is Grace

"There is no such ‘thing’ as grace! Grace is not some appendage to His being. Nor is it some substance that flows from us: ‘Let me give you grace.’ All there is is the Lord Jesus Himself. And so when Jesus speaks about us abiding in Him and He abiding in us–however mysterious it may be, mystical in that sense–it is a personal union. Do not let us fail to understand that, at the end of the day, actually Christianity is Christ because there isn’t anything else; there is no atonement that somehow can be detached from who the Lord Jesus is; there is no grace that can be attached to you transferred from Him. All there is is Christ and your soul.”

- Sinclair Ferguson, By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me.

Hat Tip: Miscellanies