What wisdom once devised the plan
Where all our sin and pride
Was placed upon the perfect Lamb
Who suffered, bled, and died?
The wisdom of a Sovereign God
Whose greatness will be shown
When those who crucified Your Son
Rejoice around Your throne

And, oh, the glory of the cross
That You would send Your Son for us
I gladly count my life as loss
That I might come to know
The glory of, the glory of the cross

What righteousness was there revealed
That sets the guilty free
That justifies ungodly men
And calls the filthy clean?
A righteousness that proved to all
Your justice has been met
And holy wrath is satisfied
Through one atoning death

What mercy now has been proclaimed
For those who would believe
A love incomprehensible
Our minds could not conceive?
A mercy that forgives my sin
Then makes me like Your Son
And now I’m loved forevermore
Because of what You’ve done

The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation.  For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.  Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.  Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone; God accepts penalties that belong to man alone.

…

The doctrine of substitution affirms not only a fact (God in Christ substituted himself for us) but its necessity (there was no other way by which God’s holy love could be satisfied and rebellious human beings could be saved).  Therefore, as we stand before the cross, we begin to gain a clear view both of God and of ourselves, especially in relation to each other.  Instead of inflicting on us the judgment we deserved, God in Christ endured it in our place.  Hell is the only alternative.  This is the “scandal,” the stumbling block, of the cross.  For our proud hearts rebel against it.  We cannot bear to acknowledge either the seriousness of our sin and guilt or our utter indebtedness to the cross.  Surely, we say, there must be something we can do, or at least contribute, in order to make amends?  If not, we often give the impression that we would rather suffer our own punishment than the humiliation of seeing God through Christ bear it in our place.  

- John Stott, The Cross of Christ, pp159-160

I can be a child of God too!:

Group pic a VBS (most of the kids had run off at this point):

Group pic in the room we gutted:

Cross in the prayer room in the mission building (click through + look at the contents):

This could become one of my favorite books, I think.

I’ll post much more thoroughly from it in the coming days, but let me leave you with the following thoughts/quotes (bolding mine, italics not):

“Only those who are aware of God’s wrath are amazed at God’s grace.”

In a chapter on feeling:

“Lloyd-Jones reminds us that ‘what we have in the Bible is Truth; it is not an emotional stimulus…and it is as we apprehend and submit ourselves to the truth that the feelings follow.’”

“Lloyd-Jones then proceeds to this profound application: ‘I must never ask myself in the first instance: What do I feel about this?  The first question is, Do I believe it?’”

“Knowing and wholeheartedly believing the truth will always bring you, in time, to a trustworthy experience of the truth.  But if you trust your feelings first and foremost, if you exalt your feelings, if you invest your feelings with final authority – they’ll deposit you on the emotional roller coaster which so often characterizes our lives.”

“‘Have you realized,’ [Lloyd-Jones] observed, ‘that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?’”

“On a daily basis, we’re faced with two simple choices.  We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging truth of who God is and what He’s accomplished for us at the cross through His Son Jesus.”

And the next few chapters….

“John Calvin wisely instructs us, ‘When we behold the disfigurement of the Son of God, when we find ourselves appalled by his marred appearance, we need to reckon afresh that it is upon ourselves we gaze, for he stood in our place.” 

“When you’re tempted to doubt God’s love for you, stand before the cross and look at the wounded, dying, disfigured Saviour and realize why He is there.  I believe His Father would whisper to us, ‘Isn’t that sufficient?  I haven’t spared My own Son; I deformed and disfigured and crushed Him – for you.  What more could I do to persuade you that I love you?’  That’s how far God’s love goes.”

“R. C. Sproul wrote that the most perplexing theological question is not why there’s suffering in this world, but why God tolerates us in our sinfulness.  Considering how our sin must appear in the pure sight of the righteous and holy God who created us, why are we even still here, alive and breathing?  God’s mercy is indeed an incredible mystery.”

“When you tell non-Christians, ‘God loves you,’ they aren’t surprised, they aren’t perplexed, they aren’t stunned.  Regrettably, the same is true among most evangelicals, who simply assume this gracious disposition of God – and therefore presume upon it.  And we’ll continue to do this until we learn to see our condition more fully from God’s perspective.”

I’ll comment on these, and undoubtedly have more to post, in the coming week.

-Ben