Zwingli on the Nature of Justification

Zwingli wrote on justification by faith alone,

A second kind of freedom from the Law is that the Law cannot condemn any more, which yet before wrought the wrath and indignation and just vengeance of God, Rom. 4:15 and Gal. 3:10; and Deut. 27:26, where divine justice sternly thunders: ‘Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.’ Christ, therefore ‘redeemed us from this curse of the law, being made a curse for us,’ that is, being nailed to the cross for us, Gal. 3:13 and Rom. 6:10. We are no longer under the Law but under grace; and if under grace, the Law cannot condemn us, for if the Law still has the power to condemn, we are not under grace. It is, therefore, Christ who has broken the wrath of the Law (that is, who has appeased God’s justice, which would have caused Him deservedly to rage against us), and who by bearing the cruelty of the cross for us has so softened it that He has chosen to make us not only free instead of slaves, but even sons...We are freed from the vengeance of the Law; for Christ has paid by His suffering that penalty which we owed for our sins. Indeed, we have been so completely freed from sin, as far as it is a disease, that it is no longer able to harm us if we trust in Christ. For ‘there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh’ (Rom. 8:1) (Huldrych Zwingli, Commentary On True and False Religion (Durham: Labyrinth, 1981), pp. 141–142).

The Real Peace of Jesus our Bodily Risen Savior: A 4-Point Sermon Study on Jn 14:27, Pt 1

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful" (Jn 14:27 NASB).

1.  The affectionate Christ spoke these divine words before His betrayal.  This very betrayal would bring about the holy peace of God's people alone through the eternal shed blood of Jesus Christ at His Cross.  He knew well that He would be crucified the next day.  He knew all that would take place to see to it that His people would be redeemed through the precious blood of the divine Lamb of God.  The discourse began after He partook of the passover.  He instituted and established the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.  Judas Iscariot went out to betray Him and only His faithfully true disciples were left.  Jesus faithful disciples were the only ones left and He addresses them as true disciples.  This is the last discourse Jesus had with His people before His blessed and atoning death.  We see His coming dying discourse where He takes upon Himself the absolute sin and damnation of God's people.  He dies for them in their place.  The resurrection verifies that Jesus' atonement is authentic.  Therefore Christians really have true peace.  I suggest to you that true peace is only through Jesus Christ our great Savior and divine King.

2.  It is evident that this discourse is a profound statement of divine love, especially to beloved John whose heart was complete with love for the Savior.  I think beloved John is a picture of every believer's love for Jesus and Jesus' love for us in Christ.  Jesus said in this discourse that He was going away.  Jesus' disciples were filled with heaviness and sorrow.  Jesus provides them with comfort and relief of their sorrow.   He says they will have peace when He is gone.  The peace of the world is not the peace of Jesus and the peace of Jesus is not the peace of the world.  There is a strange and foreign "peace" and "comfort" of the damned and this is not the peace and comfort of Jesus.  It is a stranger to the Bible's peace through Jesus our Lord.  For Spurgeon says,  "The little world within us, like the great world without, is full of confusion and strife; but when Jesus enters it, and whispers “Peace be unto you,” there is a calm, yea, a rapture of bliss."

3.  Jesus leaves His disciples in divine peace. Waves of tribulation approach the mind of Jesus' peace and all is calm because of His all-sustaining grace.  Jesus says, "peace I leave with you."  Jesus gives that which is His own; Jesus provides His sheep with divine peace.  He bestowed heavenly peace on His blessed children.  Many seek peace in all the wrong places.  There is no peace with God in man-made religion or tradition.  Peace is only something that Jesus provides in His person and work.  Touching His human presence, Jesus had to leave this accursed world.  Touching His divine presence, He is never apart from us and He is always with us.  He is especially with us in spiritual fellowship in partaking of communion.  Jesus had no earthly wealth but what He had He gave to them; He gave His very heart of peace to them in His humiliation.  He lived for our peace; He died for our peace; He intercedes for our peace.  There is no peace like the peace of Jesus Christ.  Dr. MacArthur wrote, "He offers peace from God (Romans 1:7) to all who are the recipients of His grace. He makes peace with God (Romans 5:1) for those who surrender to Him in faith. And He brings the peace of God (Philippians 4:7) to those who walk with Him.  (God With Us, Zondervan, 1989, p. 22).

4.   Jesus provides His sheep with the joy of peace.  He enjoyed the same joy and peace that He gives to His people.  I remember when I was miserable in man-centered religion and I had no true peace or joy.  I suggest to you that the divine peace of Jesus Christ is through the perfect peace of His sinless life and the perfect peace of His sinless death through the spiritual application of God's Spirit and Word in Jesus' imputed merit alone by faith alone.  He spoke that their joy may be full in themselves.  He gave them His peace that He had before His death.  Jesus suffered so greatly but He possessed the peace of God.  He is able to see us live with this peace as He Himself did as He endured His Cross.  Though men sought to destroy the living Savior, Calvin said, "the Cross was more powerful to save, than Adam's sin was to destroy."  (Ref: J. Edwards, Sermon XII, "The Peace Which Christ Gives His True Followers").  

Fierce was the wild billow,
Dark was the night;
Oars labored heavily,
Foam glimmered white;
Trembled the mariners,
Peril was nigh:
Then said the God of God,
"Peace! it is I."

Ridge of the mountain-wave,
Lower thy crest!
Wail of Euroclydon,
Be thou at rest!
Sorrow can never be,
Darkness must fly,
Where saith the Light of Light,
"Peace! it is I."

Jesus, Deliverer,
Come thou to me;
Soothe thou my voyaging
Over life's sea:
Thou, when the storm of death
Roars, sweeping by,
Whisper, O Truth of Truth,
"Peace! it is I."

On Saving Faith and Repentance

Louis Berkhof wrote,

True saving faith is a faith that has its seat in the heart and is rooted in the regenerate life...In speaking of the different elements of faith we should not lose sight of the fact that faith is an activity of man as a whole, and not any part of man...In order to obtain a proper conception of faith, it is necessary to distinguish between the various elements which it comprises.

A) An intellectual element (notitia). There is an element of knowledge in faith...The knowledge of faith consists in a positive recognition of the truth, in which man accepts as true whatsoever God says in His word, and especially what He says respecting the deep depravity of man and the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Over against Rome the position must be maintained that this sure knowledge belongs to the essence of faith; and in opposition to such theologians as Sandeman, Wardlaw, Alexander, Chalmers, and others, that a mere intellectual acceptance of the truth is not the whole of faith.
B) An emotional element (assensus). When one embraces Christ by faith, he has a deep conviction of the truth and reality of the object of faith, feels that it meets an important need in his life, and is conscious of an absorbing interest in it – and this is assent.
C) A volitional element (fiducia). This is the crowning element of faith. Faith is not merely a matter of the intellect, nor of the intellect and the emotions combined; it is also a matter of the will, determining the direction of the soul, an act of the soul going out towards its object and appropriating this. Without this activity the object of faith, which the sinner recognizes as true and real and entirely applicable to his present needs, remains outside of him. And in saving faith it is a matter of life and death that the object be appropriated. This third element consists in a personal trust in Christ as Saviour and Lord, including the surrender of the soul as guilty and defiled to Christ, and a recognition and appropriation of Christ as the source of pardon and of spiritual life (Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), pp. 503-505).

Jonathan Edwards wrote,

The apostasy of man summarily consists in departing from the true God, to idols; forsaking his Creator, and setting up other things in his room. When God at first created man, he was united to his Creator; the God that made him was his God. The true God was the object of his highest respect, and had the possession of his heart. Love to God was the principle in his heart, that ruled over all other principles; and everything in the soul was wholly in subjection to it. But when man fell, he departed from the true God, and the union that was between his heart and his Creator was broken: he wholly lost his principle of love to God. And henceforth man clave to other gods. He gave that respect to the creature, which is due to the Creator. When God ceased to be the object of his supreme love and respect, other things of course became the objects of it.The gods which a natural man worships, instead of the God that made him, are himself and the world. He has withdrawn his esteem and honour from God, and proudly exalts himself. As Satan was not willing to be in subjection; and therefore rebelled, and set up himself; so a natural man, in the proud and high thoughts he has of himself, sets up himself upon God’s throne. He gives his heart to the world, worldly riches, worldly pleasures, and worldly honours: they have the possession of that regard which is due to God (Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Edinburgh: Banner, 1974), Volume 2, Men Naturally Are God’s Enemies, Sect. III, pp. 132-133).

Sinclair B. Ferguson on the Fear of God

Sinclair B. Ferguson author of Grow in Grace pg. 32 wrote, 

[The fear of God] is the result of discovering that the God whom we thought of with slavish, servile fear, the holy righteous, terrifying God of judgment and majesty, is also the God who forgives us through Jesus Christ… One reason why we know so little of such filial fear is that we do not appreciate the gospel! If we would grow in grace so that we fear God like this, we must first return to the gospel, and to the meaning of the cross.

John Calvin on the Crime of Abortion

John Calvin wrote on a commentary on Exodus 21:22, 

The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being and it is a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.

Martin Luther on the Free Mercy of God

The Bible speaks of the free mercy of God in Jesus' unified righteousness by faith: 

"At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, "In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’" There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: The righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates" (Preface to Luther’s Latin Writings).

The God Who Sinners Hate: A Biblical Prayer of Spiritual Help

The Bible says that by nature we hate God and we despise Christ.  How have you come before a holy God?  Have you come in the personal effort of your own heart?  Here is prayer that is surely "set apart" and different in the way people come to Christ nowadays.  You would rarely here this kind of biblical prayer on a televangelist program.  For it is biblical to say to God:

Dear God, whom I hate with all my being precisely because you hate and threaten me with hell, I hate this punishment perhaps even more than I hate you. Or, maybe I should say that I love my comfort even more than I hate you. For that reason I am asking a favor of you. I want you to make me love you, whom I hate even when I ask this and even more because I have to ask this. I am being frank with you because I know it is no use to be otherwise. You know even better than I how much I hate you and that I love only myself. It is no use for me to pretend to be sincere. I most certainly do not love you and do not want to love you. I hate the thought of loving you but that is what I'm asking because I love myself. If you can answer this 'prayer' I guess the gift of gratitude will come with it and then I will be able to do what I would not think of doing now—thank you for making me love you whom I hate. Amen.   (John H. Gerstner. The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, Volume III, (Virginia: Berea Publications, 1993), p. 81).