Sermon Quotes: "A Perplexing But Glorious Passage"
“A wonderful text is this, and a more obscure passage perhaps than any other in the New Testament, so that I do not know for a certainty just what Peter means…I cannot understand it and I cannot explain it. And there has been no one who has explained it.” Martin Luther
“Our willingness to suffer for the sake of Christ is grounded in the wonder of Christ’s willingness to suffer death for our sake.” Ed Clowney
“He did something, underwent something, so that we did not and would never have to do so.” Simon Gathercole
“Christ is done with your sin-and so are you.” Michael Lawrence
“To Jewish ears, the idea of a crucified Messiah was a contradiction in terms. To Gentiles, the claim that the salvation of the world had come through a crucified Jewish criminal was an absurdity. To both Jew and Gentile, the suggestion that death, particularly death on a cross, could bring eternal life, was blasphemous idiocy; had the early church had a professional director of communications, he would have said, categorically, ‘We don’t do the cross! Stay on-message, and focus on his wonderful ethical teaching.” Donald Macleod
“Believers at baptism ask God-on the basis of the death and resurrection of Christ-to cleanse their consciences and forgive their sins.” Tom Schreiner
“Not the act but the event that lies behind what the act symbolizes is the only meritorious basis for salvation…The physical act of baptism has no saving power. It is based not upon what man does but upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Robert Mounce
“Christians need not fear the sword of Roman magistrates or the fury of Satan.” Ed Clowney
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