truth

Philippians 2:12–13:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Eerdmans, 1955), pp. 148-149:

God’s working in us is not suspended because we work, nor our working suspended because God works. Neither is the relation strictly one of co-operation as if God did his part and we did ours so that the conjunction or coordination of both produced the required result.

God works in us and we also work. But the relation is that because God works we work. All working out of salvation on our part is the effect of God’s working in us, not the willing to the exclusion of the doing and not the doing to the exclusion of the willing, but both the willing and the doing…. The more persistently active we are in working, the more persuaded we may be that all the energizing grace and power is of God.

Greg Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, from the rough ms:

True saints should be psychologically motivated to fulfill God’s precepts because they know that God has given them the power to do so. … This kind of motivation is comparable to my neighbor’s desire to remove snow from his driveway. He has a fine snow-blower and gets his driveway cleaned off quickly. On the other hand, I do not own a snow-blower but have only a rusty snow shovel. When it snows a few inches, I have no desire to go out and shovel the snow. After it keeps on snowing and I still don’t go out to clear it off, my wife gives me a polite implied command by way of questioning, ‘when are you going to shovel the driveway?’ But I have no desire to respond positively to her command. I continue to let the snow build up until after the snow has finished falling, and then I go out rather reluctantly to shovel. I don’t have the motivation to clear off the snow because I don’t have the power to do it effectively. On the other hand, my neighbor has all the desire in the world because he has the power to remove the snow effectively. When one has the power to do something, the motivation for doing it follows.

via Miscellanies

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“Glaube … vereinigt die Seele mit Christus, so wie eine Braut mit dem Bräutigam vereinigt wird. Von einer solchen Heirat, sagt Paulus, folgt das Christus und die Seele ein Fleisch werden, so dass sie alle Dinge gemeinsam haben, im Guten wie im Schlechten. Das heißt das was Christus gehört auch der gläubigen Seele gehört, und was die Seele besitzt gehört Christus. Da Christus alle guten Dinge und Heiligkeit besitzt, gehören diese nun der Seele. Der Seele gehören Laster und Sünde, welche nun Christus gehören. … Ist das nicht ein glückliches Geschäft? Christus, der reiche, noble und heilige Bräutigam, nimmt diese arme, verachtenswerte und sündige kleine Prostituierte zur Frau, nimmt alle ihre Sünde weg und schenkt ihr all seinen Reichtum! Es ist für Sünde nun nicht mehr möglich sie zu überwältigen, da sie nun in Christus gefunden wird.”

Martin Luther, quoted in Alister E. McGrath, Christian Spirituality: An Introduction(Oxford, 1999), pages 158-159. via rayortlund

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One of the things most alarming about today’s culture is the way in which evangelicals are responding to attacks. Gone are the days, it seems at times, when believers devoted themselves to thinking deeply about the world in order to respond humbly to the church’s enemies without ceding any intellectual ground. Many evangelicals have bought into the idea that having one’s heart in the right place is all that matters—that a passion for Jesus and the life of the mind are mutually exclusive. What this view misses is that burning hearts are not nourished by empty heads. We must develop our minds if we are to sustain our passion for the Savior and deal with the bias against us.

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Secular Humanism rests in pure sentimentality; it merely feels good to protect human rights and dignity. But such persons are intellectual cowards. They dont’t have the stomache to go where their atheism drives: them full-fledged nihilism. – R.C. Sproul

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via Andy Naselli

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