Archibald Alexander, Thoughts On Religious Experience (1844), pages 165–166:
Until religious teachers inculcate clearly, fully, and practically, the grace of God as manifested in the Gospel, we shall have no vigorous growth of piety among professing Christians.
Heaven is eternity in the presence of God through a Mediator.
Hell is eternity in the presence of God with no Mediator.
Charles Spurgeon, in a sermon dated November 2, 1884:
The best preaching is, “We preach Christ crucified.”
The best living is, “We are crucified with Christ.”
The best man is a crucified man.
The more we live beholding our Lord’s unutterable griefs, and understanding how he has fully put away our sin, the more holiness shall we produce.
The more we dwell where the cries of Calvary can be heard, where we can view heaven, and earth, and hell, all moved by his wondrous passion—the more noble will our lives become.
Nothing puts life into men like a dying Savior.
Get close to Christ, and carry the remembrance of him about you from day to day, and you will do right royal deeds.
Come, let us slay sin, for Christ was slain.
Come, let us bury all our pride, for Christ was buried.
Come, let us rise to newness of life, for Christ has risen.
Let us be united with our crucified Lord in his one great object—let us live and die with him, and then every action of our lives will be very beautiful.
From Puritan Thomas Goodwin [Works, 5:292 (print|electronic)]:
…faith is to look at once with one eye to heaven, to Christ there as risen, ascended, interceding, so to look down with another eye to that Christ as once crucified and hanging on the cross, as made sin and a curse.
Some say we should avoid reading two new books consecutively without sandwiching an old book in between them. I agree with this rule, it just happens to be a good rule I rarely apply in practice. So when my copy of St. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Press, 1977) arrived yesterday, I dove in, partly out of curiosity, but mostly out of guilt for my disproportionate time reading new books lately, and in hopes that an especially old book (originally written in c. AD 318) would make up for my negligence.
At the outset let me say the book’s title is a bit misleading. Athanasius covers the Incarnation well but he sets the incarnation within the contexts of creation, the imago Dei, the fall, redemption, and the consummation of all things while at the same time showing how the Incarnation relates to the full scope of our Savior’s life and work—from his birth, throughout his life, death, resurrection, and forthcoming return. Much more could have been said on all these topics, but the theological breadth of the work is very impressive. For Athanasius the Incarnation is a gospel truth and his chapter on the cross (4: The Death of Christ) was brilliant and devotionally rich, something that came as a bit of a pleasing surprise.
When I finished the book its brevity was another impressive feature (I read it in just over 2 hours). The book is clear and pointed, and of course clear/pointed books are rarely lengthy. C.S. Lewis praised it saying, “only a master mind could, in the fourth century, have written so deeply on such a subject with such classical simplicity.” And later, “The whole book, indeed, is a picture of the Tree of Life—a sappy and golden book, full of buoyancy and confidence.” High words of praise from a man who knew a bit about good books (and bad ones).
Lewis’ introduction on the importance of reading old books (perhaps the most famous Christian introduction ever penned) was a treat at the beginning. The book closes with an appendix, a letter written by Athanasius on the importance, value, and Christ-centeredness of the Psalms. That letter was a treat at the end.
I’ve been waiting for a few years to read On the Incarnation. I finally got around to it and I confer with Lewis: this book is great.
Before you read another new book, read this one.
————————
Cool portrait by Zach Franzen
P. T. Forsyth (1848-1921), The Cruciality of the Cross, page 38:
“…the person of Christ would be dumb and inert for us in the world’s last crisis, apart from its active assertion and cosmic triumph on the cross. The cross was no martyr passivity of the finest prophet, led like a lamb to the slaughter; it was the work of a Messiah king with power over Himself. Christ never merely accepted His fate; He willed it. He went to death as a king. It was the supreme exercise of His royal self-disposal. The same great picture which presents the sheep before the shearers dumb deepens before its close to one who poured out His soul unto death. And when we obscure that, when we pity where we should worship, melt where we should kneel, or kneel where we should rise to newness of life, it is no wonder if faith become a mere affection, or a mere ethical ritual of conduct, and cease to be the absolute committal of ourselves to communion with Him for ever.”
Tony Reinke 