« "I've Been Reading...": Quotable Quotes from Excellent Books, Issue 6- C. R. Biggs | Main | 1 Timothy 4:10 »
At the heart of Reformed Theology
"At the heart of Reformed Theology, at the heart of Luther and Calvin's struggle, and in Knox and Jonathan Edwards, were men who were awakened to the greatness, to the majesty, to the holiness, and the sovereignty of God. By contemplating the holiness and sovereignty of God, they were driven to develop their doctrines of the grace of God. Because until you meet a God who is holy and is sovereign, you don't know what grace means. I don't think we are ever going to see a healthy evangelical church until the evangelical church is solidly Reformed, where it takes biblical Christianity seriously with a right concept of a sovereign God.
That's because unreformed Christianity has failed in our culture. It has been pervasively antinomian (no law, no Lordship), and has been pervasively liberal in it's trends and tendencies away from scripture, because there's been no real basis in the sovereignty of God.
Today's evangelicals are never amazed by grace, because they don't understand sovereignty. They don't understand God. The evangelical church today is sick, more sick than it has ever been. We need a style and a variety of Christianity that is not a religion, but is a life and a worldview, where at the heart and foundational structure of it is a sound and deep biblical concept of the character of God."
R. C. Sproul - from his series "A Blueprint for Thinking."
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.reformationtheology.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/688
Comments
This is quite timely. Thanks.
Posted by: Steve | June 23, 2007 12:19 AM
"Today's evangelicals are never amazed by grace, because they don't understand sovereignty. They don't understand God. The evangelical church today is sick, more sick than it has ever been."
I am relatively new to the church I now serve (9 months), so I'm still trying to get the pulse of this community. During visitations and counseling sessions, I've begun asking members of my congregation what they think it means to be a Christian. The responses are discouraging.
For the most part I hear, "I'm a Christian becuase I go to Church," or, "I'm a Christian because I believe in God." No mention of grace, no mention of deliverance, no mention of a life lived for the glory of God.
There is a sickness rampant in the church today - and I think the cause is decades of preaching and pastoring that has not called the congregations into active discipleship. We have pews full of spiritual infants who have never been led to maturity in the body of Christ.
Posted by: Pastor Ethan | June 26, 2007 12:14 PM
Wow! It's been quite a few years since I first heard that quote. I can still remember how that message changed me. I thank God for RC Sproul and the way He used that message and others by him to open my mind and heart to our supremely sovereign and holy God while I was a new believer trapped in church that was going "Purpose Driven" , in a spiritual wasteland where there was no reformed church for hundreds of miles - the state of Maine. We have since relocated to the SE, but praise God and pray with me for the first (about 3 years old)and second (in the planning-soon-to-be-planting stage) PCA churches in Maine!
Posted by: cindyu | June 28, 2007 09:31 AM
Good quotation. Pastor Ethan I am preaching this summer from 1 Corinthians and I am particularly focusing on 1 Cor 3:1-8. We indeed live in a time of "infant Christianity".
Posted by: Benjamin P. Glaser | June 30, 2007 06:06 PM
The "sickness" that Mr. Sproul refers to that is so prevelant in post-modern evangelicalism is the outworkings of Arminianism. It is simply a blatant denial of the "fall": 'As in Adam all men die"... An awakening to the Biblical truths of God's Sovereignty and Majesty also bring an awakening to the biblical truths of the depth of man's depravity and his utter dependance on the "Sovereign mercy of our Lord and God Christ Jesus. Unless I am brought to feel the misery and deplorable hoplessness of my condition without Christ, I will not look to "Sovereign" Grace as my only help. Church, lets re-capture the doctrines that "once shook the world"(J.M. Boice quote)
Posted by: Martin Lazda | July 1, 2007 07:29 PM