A Gospel Beating

Tim Keller:

"The gospel is therefore not just the ABCs of the Christian life, but the A to Z of the Christian life.  Our problems arise largely because we don't continually return to the gospel to work it in and live it out.  That is why Martin Luther wrote, 'The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all the Christian doctrine....Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually."  The Prodigal God, p. 119

I would add to Luther: "Beat the gospel into your own head continuously and persistently."

Self-Righteousness Needs a Big Axe

In honor of the ever-hastening Reformation Day I will be doing some posts from leaders of the Protestant Reformation.

Here is Martin Luther on the evil of self-righteousness, the axe, and the remedy:

"When the Law was instituted on Mount Sinai it was accompanied by lightning, by storms, by the sound of trumpets, to tear to pieces that monster called self-righteousness.  As long as a person thinks he right he is going to be incomprehensibly proud and presumptuous.  He is going to hate God, despise His grace and mercy, and ignore the promises in Christ.  The Gospel of the free forgiveness of sins through Christ will never appeal to the self-righteous.

This monster of self-righteousness, this stiff necked beast, needs a big axe.  And that is what the Law is, a big axe...

The business of the Gospel, on the other hand, is to quicken, to comfort, to raise the fallen.  The Gospel carries the news that God for Christ's sake is merciful to the most unworthy sinners, if they will only believe that Christ by His death delivered them from sin and everlasting death unto grace, forgiveness, and everlasting life."

Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter III, 127

Happy Reformationstag I

Happy Reformationstag.

We must not forget that issues in regards to the nature of the human will was one of the key issues of the Protestant Reformation. For those who think Biblical conclusions over the nature of the human will are unimportant and simply speculative: stand corrected from Mr. Martin Luther. The following quote is from his Bondage of the Will:

"Therefore, it is not irreligious, curious, or superfluous, but essentially wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know, whether or not the will does any thing in those things which pertain unto Salvation. Nay, let me tell you, this is the very hinge upon which our discussion turns. It is the very heart of our subject. For our object is this: to inquire what “Free-will” can do, in what it is passive, and how it stands with reference to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatever of Christian matters, and shall be far behind all People upon the earth. He that does not feel this, let him confess that he is no Christian. And he that despises and laughs at it, let him know that he is the Christian’s greatest enemy. For, if I know not how much I can do myself, how far my ability extends, and what I can do God-wards; I shall be equally uncertain and ignorant how much God is to do, how far His ability is to extend, and what He is to do toward me: whereas it is “God that worketh all in all.” (1 Cor. xii. 6.) But if I know not the distinction between our working and the power of God, I know not God Himself. And if I know not God, I cannot worship Him, praise Him, give Him thanks, nor serve Him; for I shall not know how much I ought to ascribe unto myself, and how much unto God. It is necessary, therefore, to hold the most certain distinction, between the power of God and our power, the working of God and our working, if we would live in His fear."

(Source)