To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
I'm afraid that in the United States of America today the prevailing doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone. It is not even justification by good works or by a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in our culture today is justification by death. All one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the contemporary understanding of salvation, emphasizing that faith and works are overlooked in favor of merely dying to achieve salvation.
R. C. Sproul's quote highlights a significant concern regarding the way people today perceive the concept of justification in Christian theology. He argues that many have shifted their focus from the traditional beliefs of salvation through faith and good deeds to an unsettling notion that simply dying is enough for acceptance into eternity. This reflects a deeper societal trend where moral accountability is diminished, and superficial compliance takes precedence over genuine faith and actions.
Themes
JustificationFaithWorksSalvationDeath
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon discussing the essence of faith, this quote can remind the audience of the importance of belief and actions in their journey.
More from R. C. Sproul
All quotes →I’ve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.
R. C. SproulRead
The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?
R. C. SproulRead
We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.
R. C. SproulRead
Without God man has no reference point to define himself.
R. C. SproulRead
I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
R. C. SproulRead
Similar quotes
We can speak about the institution, but ultimately the bar is the group that both is in touch with the public on the one hand and understands the judicial institution on the other
Stephen BreyerRead
The observations and encounters of a devotee of solitude and silence are at once less distinct and more penetrating than those of the sociable man; his thoughts are weightier, stranger, and never without a tinge of sadness. Images and perceptions which might otherwise be easily dispelled by a glance, a laugh, an exchange of comments, concern him unduly, they sink into mute depths, take on significance, become experiences, adventures, emotions.
Thomas MannRead
Crazy people are not crazy if one accepts their reasoning.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
For it is a horrible blasphemy to imagine that there is any work by which you should presume to pacify God, since you see that there is nothing which is able to pacify Him but this inestimable price, even the death and the blood of the Son of God, one drop of which is more precious than the whole world.
Martin LutherRead
They call him Aslan in That Place," said Eustace. "What a curious name!" "Not half so curious as himself," said Eustace solemnly.
C. S. LewisRead
You can't have capitalism without racism.
Malcolm XRead