New Book | More Quotes

New book time! This has become a 'classic' for me, as much as John Pipes (read: John Piper), still living, can be classic. I've read it before and I'm so excited to be reading it again. It's great. So get excited. And ready. About to blow you away with some quotes from 50 Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die:

Introduction:

• Jesus was "very God of very God."
• The Gospels (Matthew-John) are "the testimony of those who knew him and were inspired by him to explain who he is."
• "I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (John 10:17-18).
• "The controversy about which humans killed Jesus is marginal. He chose to die. His heavenly Father ordained it. He embraced it.
• "True Christian love humbly and boldly commends Christ, no matter what it costs, to all people as the only saving way to God." 
• "The death of Jesus Christ is the most important event in history, and the most explosive political and personal issue of the twenty-first century.
• (Speaking of those who ran the Jewish concentration camps): "They never knew the Christ who, instead of killing to save a culture, died to save the world."
• "God himself was the chief Actor in the death of his Son, so that the main question is not, 'Which humans brought about the death of Jesus?' but 'What did the death of Jesus bring about for humans - including Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and nonreligious secularists - and all people everywhere?"

Reason No. 1 | To Absorb the Wrath of God

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a

curse for us - for it is written,

"Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree."

Galatians 3:13

God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation by his blood,

to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness,

because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Romans 3:25

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us

and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:10

• "If God were not just, there would be no demand for his Son to suffer and die. And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for his Son to suffer and die. But God is both just and loving. Therefore his love is willing to meet the demands of his justice.
• "God's law demanded, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might' (Deuteronomy 6:5). But we have all loved other things more. This is what sin is - dishonoring God by preferring other things more than him, and acting on those preferences."
• "We glorify what we enjoy most."
• "The Creator of the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love him is not trivial - it is treason. It defames God and destroys human happiness."
• "The meaning of the word "propitiation" (from Romans 3:25 -see above)...refers to the removal of God's wrath by providing a substitute. The substitute is provided by God himself. The substitute, Jesus Christ, does not just cancel the wrath; he absorbs it from us to himself."
• "We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of his wrath against us. But when, by grace, we waken to our unworthiness, then we may look at the suffering and death of Christ and say, 'In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the [wrath-absorbing] propitiation for our sins.' (John 4:10)."