SALVATION-DEFINED
Who can add
to Christmas? The perfect motive is that God so loved the world. The perfect
gift is that He gave His only Son. The only requirement is to believe in Him.
The reward of faith is that you shall have everlasting life.
The inability
to love, obey, or please God is the very essence of human depravity. And the only solution to that predicament is
the re-creative work of God (2 Cor. 5:17).
That is why Jesus told Nicodemus, "You must be born again"
(John 3:7). "Unless one is born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (v. 3). This is what salvation is all about: God miraculously changes the nature of those
whom He redeems, so that they are drawn to the very same righteousness they
formerly hated. This was the central
promise of the New Covenant.
John MacArthur
The Battle for the Beginning, 2001, p. 197.
Salvation is
the exchange of all that we are for all that He is
John MacArthur
Matthew 1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 453.
The biblical
portrait of salvation centers around the antithesis
between the greatness of God and the desperate condition of humanity.
Gregory Thornbury
Who Will Be Saved? Edited by: House, Paul and Thornbury, Gregory. Crossway, 2000, p. 222.
The death of
Christ is the wisdom of God by which the love of God saves sinners from the
wrath of God, and all the while upholds and demonstrates the righteousness of
God.
John Piper
Desiring
God, Bethlehem Baptist Church, 1996, p. 60, used by permission, www.desiringGOD.org.
The cost of
food in the kingdom is hunger for the Bread of Life.
John Piper
Desiring God, Bethlehem Baptist Church, 1996, p. 83, used by
permission, www.desiringGOD.org.
You will find
all true theology summed up in these two short sentences: Salvation is all of the grace of God. Damnation is all of the will of man.
C.H. Spurgeon
If you wish
to come into God's kingdom, therefore, you must ask God to rescue you
"from the dominion of darkness" and bring you "into the kingdom
of the Son He loves" (Col. 1:13) You must
renounce your deal with the devil and swear allegiance to Christ the King. You
must say, in the beautiful words of hymnwriter
Frances Havergal, "Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne."
Philip Graham Ryken
When You Pray, Crossway Books, 2000, p. 84.
Salvation
in its full sense is from the guilt of sin in the past, the power of sin in the
present, and the presence of sin in the future.
This We Believe, John Armstrong and John Woodbridge, ed.
Zondervan, 2000, p. 97.
Salvation in
Three Tenses:
Past, from sin’s penalty, immediate,
secured by Christ’s death- Rom. 1:16; Acts 28:18, 16:31; Rom. 10:10; 1 Cor.
15:2; 2 Tim. 1:9
Present, from sin’s power, continuous by
Christ’s life- Heb. 7:25; Rom. 5:9; James 1:23; 1 Tim. 4:6; Phil. 2:12
Future, from sin’s presence, prospective at
Christ’s coming- Rom. 13:11; Heb. 9:28; Phil. 3:20; 1 Thes. 5:8
The Book of 750 Bible and Gospel
Studies, 1909, George W. Noble, Chicago.