You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘penal substitution’ tag.
The most significant and appalling demonstration of God’s holiness that the universe ever beheld , infinitely distancing ever other, is the suffering and death of His only and beloved Son! The cross of Calvary exhibits God’s hatred and punishment of sin in a way and to an extent which the annihilation of millions of worlds, swept from the face of the universe by the broom of His wrath, could never have done!
…Go, my soul, to Calvary, and learn how holy God is, and what a monstrous thing sin is, and how imperiously, solemnly, and holiy bound Jehovah is to punish it either in the person of the sinner, or in the person of the Surety. Never was the Son of God dearer to the Father than at the very moment that the sword of divine justice, flaming and flashing, pierced to its hilt His holy heart!
~Octavius Winslow
Justin Taylor complied a massive list of really good sermons and papers. The first four are his top sermons to read. Then Justin asked several pastors to give their lists as well.
Justin Taylor
- Thomas Chalmers, “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”
- Jonathan Edwards, “The Excellency of Christ”
- B.B. Warfield, “The Religious Life of Theological Students”
- B.B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord”
Bryan Chapell
- J.I. Packer, “What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution”
- Francis Schaeffer, “A Day of Sober Rejoicing”
- Thomas Chalmers, “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”
Graham Cole
- “The Martyrdom of Polycarp“
- Adolphe Monod, Adolphe Monod’s Farewell to His Friends and to His Church
- B. B. Warfield, “Imitating the Incarnation“
Mark Dever
- Jonathan Edwards, “A Farewell Sermon“
Dever also mentioned three books:
- Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed
- John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
- Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry
Kevin DeYoung
- John Piper, “Boasting Only in the Cross” (Passion OneDay 2000 sermon)
- C.S. Lewis, Introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation
- J.I. Packer, Introductory Essay to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
- Jonathan Edwards, “Heaven, a World of Love“
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “What Is Preaching?” (included in Knowing the Times)
- J. Gresham Machen, “What Is Christianity?” (in Selected Shorter Writings)
- J. Gresham Machen, “History and Faith” (in Selected Shorter Writings)
- J. Gresham Machen, “What Is the Gospel?” (in Selected Shorter Writings)
Stephen J. Nichols
- J. Gresham Machen, “The Good Fight of Faith“
- Jonathan Edwards, “The Most High, A Prayer-Hearing God“
- John Chrysostom, “Homily 21, On Ephesians 6:1-4“
Ray Ortlund
- Francis A. Schaeffer, “The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way“
- C. S. Lewis, “Three Kinds of Men“
- Martin Luther, Letter to Jerome Weller, in Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, edited by T. G. Tappert, pages 84-87.
- Jonathan Edwards, on spiritual pride, in “Thoughts on the Revival,” inWorks, I:398-403.
John Piper
- C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory” (first sermon in the book by that title)
- C.S. Lewis, Introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation
- J.I. Packer, Introductory Essay to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
- Jonathan Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul“
- Martin Luther, “Justification by Faith” (Luke 16:1-9) in The Protestant Pulpit, ed. by Andrew Blackwood
- Charles Spurgeon, “The Minister’s Fainting Fits“
- Charles Spurgeon, “The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear“
- Geerhardus Vos, “The Scriptural Doctrine of the Love of God“
David Powlison
- B. B. Warfield, “Imitating the Incarnation“ (“The last page and a half offers the most riveting description of the goal of Christian living that I’ve ever read.”)
Fred Sanders
- Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man
- Athanasius, “Letter to Marcellinus on the Reading of the Psalms“
- Lancelot Andrewes, Private Devotions
R.C. Sproul
- Jonathan Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light“
- This section of Luther’s last sermon at Eisleben
Carl R. Trueman
- R. V. G. Tasker, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Wrath of God“
- Martin Luther, “Two Kinds of Righteousness“
- George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” [the most brilliant statement (and example) of clear prose—something which pastors and theologians need to grasp.]
Bruce Ware
- R.C. Sproul, Lecture on “The Locus of Astonishment” (A brief summary is available here. For a similar talk, listen to “When Towers Fall.”)
Donald Whitney
- Charles Spurgeon, “The Minister’s Fainting Fits,” from Lectures to My Students.
- Charles Spurgeon, Sermon on “The Eternal Name,” from Ps. 72:17, no. 27 (New Park Street Pulpit), May 27, 1855 PM
- Charles Spurgeon, Sermon on “Baptismal Regeneration“
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “‘But God’: The Christian Message” (Ephesians 2:4)
Let men, with the newly sharpened axes of rationalism, do their utmost to hew down that cross; it will stand in spite of them.
Let them apply their ecclesiastical paint-brush, and duab it all over with the most approved of mediaeval pigments to cover its nakedness, its glory will shine through all. Let them scoff at the legal transference of the sinner’s guilt to a divine substitute, and of that Surety’s righteousness to the sinner, as a Lutheran delusion, or a Puritan fiction, that mutual transference, that wondrous exchange, will be found to be wrapped up with Christianity itself. Let those who, like Cain of old, shrink from the touch of sacrificial blood, and mock the “religion of the shambles (an old term meaning meat market or slaughterhouse),” purge their consciences with the idea of God’s universal Fatherhood, and try to wash their robes and make them white in something else than the blood of the Lamb;
to us, as to the saints of other days, there is but one purging of the conscience, one security for pardon, one way of access, one bond of reconciliation, one healing of our wounds, the death of Him on whom the chastisement of our peace was laid, and one everlasting song, “unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.”
~Horatius Bonar, Christ is All: the Piety of Horatius Bonar, quoting From “The Errors of the Age,” The Christian Treasury (1870). Page 80
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—(Galatians 3:13 ESV)
Our most merciful Father, seeing us to be oppressed and overwhelmed with the curse of the law, and so to be holden under the same, that we could never be delivered from it by our own power, sent his only Son into the world, and laid upon him all the sins of all men, saying Be thou Peter that denier; Paul that persecutor, blasphemer, and cruel oppressor; David that adulterer; that sinner which did eat the apple in Paradise; that thief which hath committed the sins of all men; see therefore that thou pay and satisfy for them.
~Martin Luther, Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, p. 274-275.
Stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
See Him dying on the tree!
’Tis the Christ by man rejected;
Yes, my soul, ’tis He, ’tis He!
’Tis the long expected prophet,
David’s Son, yet David’s Lord;
Proofs I see sufficient of it:
’Tis a true and faithful Word.
Tell me, ye who hear Him groaning,
Was there ever grief like His?
Friends through fear His cause disowning,
Foes insulting his distress:
Many hands were raised to wound Him,
None would interpose to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced Him
Was the stroke that Justice gave.
Ye who think of sin but lightly,
Nor suppose the evil great,
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the Sacrifice appointed!
See Who bears the awful load!
’Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed,
Son of Man, and Son of God.
Here we have a firm foundation,
Here the refuge of the lost.
Christ the Rock of our salvation,
Christ the Name of which we boast.
Lamb of God for sinners wounded!
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on Him their hope have built.
~Thomas Kelly
He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He went through all your temptations, dejection sorrows, dissertation, rejections.
He has drunk the bitterest of the cup and left you the sweet; the condemnation is out. Christ drank up all the Father’s wrath at one draught; and nothing but salvation is left for you.
~Thomas Wilcox, Honey Out of the Rock
