Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield (1851-1921)
Posted on 02/23/2015 5:41:49 PM PST by RnMomof7
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” – 1 Timothy 1:15
Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield (1851-1921)
“Christ Jesus came to save sinners.
Not, then, merely to prepare salvation for them; to open to them a pathway to salvation; to remove the obstacles in the way of their salvation; to proclaim as a teacher a way of salvation; to introduce as a ruler conditions of life in which clean living becomes for the first time possible; to bring motives to holy action to bear upon us; to break down our enmity to God by an exhibition of His seeking love; to manifest to us what sin is in the sight of God, and how He will visit it with His displeasure. All these things He undoubtedly does. But all these things together touch but the circumference of His work for man. Under no interpretation of the nature or reach of His work can it be truly said that Christ Jesus came to do these things. For that we must penetrate deeper, and say with the primitive Church, in this faithful saying commended to us by the apostle, that Christ Jesus came to save sinners.
We must take the great declaration in the height and depth of its tremendous meaning. Jesus did all that is included in the great word ‘save.’ He did not come to induce us to save ourselves, or to help us to save ourselves, or to enable us to save ourselves. He came to save us. And it is therefore that His name was called Jesus—because He should save His people from their sins. The glory of our Lord, surpassing all His other glories to usward, is just that He is our actual and complete Saviour; our Saviour to the uttermost. Our knowledge, even though it be His gift to us as our Prophet, is not our saviour, be it as wide and as deep and as high as it is possible to conceive. The Church, though it be His gift to us as our King, is not our saviour, be it as holy and true as it becomes the Church, the bride of the Lamb, to be. The reorganized society in which He has placed us, though it be the product of His holy rule over the redeemed earth, is not our saviour, be it the new Jerusalem itself, clothed in its beauty and descended from heaven.
Nay, let us cut more deeply still. Our faith itself, though it be the bond of our union with Christ through which we receive all His blessings, is not our saviour. We have but one Saviour; and that one Saviour is Jesus Christ our Lord. Nothing that we are and nothing that we can do enters in the slightest measure into the ground of our acceptance with God. Jesus did it all. And by doing it all He has become in the fullest and widest and deepest sense the word can bear—our Saviour. For this end did He come into the world—to save sinners; and nothing short of the actual and complete saving of sinners will satisfy the account of His work given by His own lips and repeated from them by all His apostles.
It is in this great fact, indeed, that there lies the whole essence of the gospel. For let us never forget that the gospel is not good advice, but good news. It does not come to us to make known to us what we must do to earn salvation for ourselves, but proclaiming to us what Jesus has done to save us. It is salvation, a completed salvation, that it announces to us; and the burden of its message is just the words of our text—that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Ping
Wasn’t he a hall of fame wide receiver for the Redskins?
Bump.
To help fill up heaven with the big vacancy Lucifer and his followers left.
Warfield.
Sproul says he is the second greatest American Theologian. First being Edwards.
Thanks for pointing to the web site. I had not run across the word “bibliophile” before and had to look up the definition. Thanks for the education!
Tangent comment - Jesus did not come to condemn the world. The world (as in all sinners) was already condemned. Sometimes that simple concept is missed.
He says it all right there doesn’t he!!! Great article!
Jesus Christ was born in order to found the Catholic Church, which exists to dispense his grace to mankind through the ordinary means of his sacraments.
The summit of the sacraments is the Eucharist, in which we consume the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The principal effect of the sacrament is the strengthening of charity. Charity is the very Form or Nature of God. I.e., by receiving the Eucharist we become divinized, sharing in the divine nature.
One man’s opinion...
Another poster mentioned Sproles however. Despie good seasons with San Diego and New Orleans, he's still active on the Philadelphia Eages' roster and, therefore, not eligible for the Hall of Fame.
Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.
Paul, no BB.
Oh, Man ... Thanks. I feel so silly now!
No.
Christ didn’t come here to found a heretical cult. He came to pay the price for our sins — to save us — to save sinners.
The Roman Catholic Cult wasn’t founded until around 300 AD anyway, so, it seems your math is a little off.
Nice try though.
Hoss
How about Jesus own words?
“For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, TO BEAR WITNESS TO THE TRUTH.”! John 18:37
Any professional historian would laugh at the assertion that the Catholic Church was founded in 300 A.D.
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said “All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them”
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIssqxixYp0
I’ll take 300 A.D. over 1530, 1580, 1650, 1830, 1912, etc.
But even Pilate had sense enough to ask what the truth was.
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