Justin S. Holcomb Quotes

Jesus, they claim, is God: "God from God." If you need an analogy, the next phrase serves. It's like light. How can you separate light from light? You can't. (This was a traditional example in early Christian writings, usually concerning the ray of the sun and the sun itself.) Neither can the Father and the Son be separated.

The very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace of God - the grace of God which depends not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is absolutely undeserved, resistless and sovereign. J. Gresham Machen

If Pelagius had solved the problem of sin and human responsibility by arguing that humans are perfectly capable of doing whatever they want, Augustine solved it by saying that humans deliberately act against the good ideals that they don't know and are selfish, greedy, lustful, stubborn, and proud. In his words, people are non posse non peccare, "not able not to sin," because even the good things that we do are not out of love for God but for some lesser purpose.

Because of the widespread illiteracy during the period of the Reformation, catechesis often took place in face-to-face discussion. This is why "Luther intended his catechism to target primarily pastors, but also parents, and other 'opinion makers' who would in turn share the teachings of the catechism orally with children and illiterate members of the household.

Whereas orthodox Christianity answers Jesus' question to Peter - "Who do you say I am?" (Mark 8:29) - by affirming that Christ was both God (the Creator of the universe, the Lord of Israel) and human (an average Joe, yet without sin), these heretical thinkers answered the question differently.

Marcion: The God of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament are two different gods. Docetists: Jesus only appeared to be human. Arius: The Son was a created being of a lower order than the Father. Apollinarius: Jesus' divine nature/Logos replaced the human rational soul in the incarnation. In other words, Jesus' "pure" divine nature replaced the "filthy" mind of a typical human. Sabellius: Jesus and the Father are not distinct but just "modes" of a single being. Eutyches: The divinity of Christ overwhelms his humanity. Nestorius: Jesus was composed of two separate persons, one divine and one human.

What victims need are not self-produced positive statements but God's statements about his response to their pain. How can you be rid of these dysfunctional emotions and their effects? How can you be rid of your disgrace? God's grace to you dismantles the beliefs that give disgrace life. Grace re-creates what violence destroyed. Martin Luther writes that "the love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it." One-way love is the change agent you need. Grace transforms and heals; and healing comes by hearing God's statements to you, not speaking your own statements to yourself.

It is notable that many of the Semi-Arians were men of exceptional moral rigor but apparently little gentleness,13 and although Gregory also exhorted his listeners to focus on doing good works, he reminded them, God specially rejoices in revealing Himself to the world as Love.

Do you consider him a Christian who oppresses the wretched, who burdens the poor, who covets others' property, who makes several poor so that he may make himself rich, who rejoices in unjust gains ... and a man of this kind has the audacity to

The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity taught that there are multiple (three) persons, but they all share one nature in the Godhead, preserving monotheism. Conversely, the personhood of Christ shares multiple (two) natures - God and man, timeless and subject to time, invisible and visible - yet he is one person.15

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare ... it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

If I can bring anyone into that hall [creeds], I have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms [confessions], not the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals.7