22 November 2010

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

To save His creatures, the Son of God became a creature and took for His gracious purpose the most common things of the creature world.  Men could not move toward God.  God came all the way to man.... He exposed Himself to the contempt of men.  His body was flogged by soldiers and is given into the mouth of unbelievers.  Of all imaginable gods, such a God is the most obnoxious to men who would have a part in earning their salvation, who would take some steps at least toward God.  Yet if God be gracious, if we are saved by grace alone, then His "no" to every effort of man is categorical.... No supposed movement of man to God could be part of salvation.  Salvation is alone in God coming all the way to man, all the way into creatureliness, all the way into things.  Such is His coming in the incarnation and the Lord's Supper.  Thus alone He comes, and thus the gracious ways of God to man are one. -- Dr. Norman Nagel, CTM 1953, p. 648.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

From the lst century Jewish view
the scandal of the gospel is this:
Christ, the promised Messiah of the
Old Testament, is a crucified
criminal who brings salvation to all
who believe in Him.

Today, we proclaim a gospel of God's
intervention into our world through
the crucified and resurrected Christ.
The gospel message is foolishness to
those who want something wiser and
intellectual to reason out in their
own mind.

Anonymous said...

At the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 1
is the Biblical paradox of the
wisdom of God versus the wisdom of
man.