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Archive for January, 2010

The Resurrection Assumed and Neglected

9781433507168

“Raised with Christ” is now available

Almost 2,000 years ago Jesus rose from the dead.

As Christians, unfortunately we may have grown all too familiar with this, but the apostle John originally “fell on his face as though dead in order to worship his best friend,” explains author Adrian Warnock. “This was the Son of God in all his glory. Who could stand before him? This revelation of the glory and majesty of Jesus had shaken him to his core. The only appropriate reaction was reverence, awe, and wonder.” (pp 156).

Warnock writes out of deep concern that compared to his atoning death, Jesus’ resurrection sparks relatively little discussion in the church. We can become so focused on the cross where Christ died for our sins, that we almost forget he was “raised for our justification.”

To assume or neglect the resurrection is to neglect the gospel—in preaching, in evangelism, and in application to our own lives.

In reality the resurrection changes everything. It changes the cross from a tragedy into a triumph. It changes fear into love, despair into joy. It changes people from being spiritually dead to being alive to God. It changes anxiety into a hope that goes beyond the grave. It changes our sinful hearts so they want to follow the Lord Jesus.

“Christianity is in its very essence a resurrection religion,” wrote John Stott. “The concept of resurrection lies at its heart. If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.”

Learn more about this important book at raisedwithchrist.net, check out Adrian’s blog, or skim the contents and sample chapter.

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January 6, 2010 | Posted in: Books,Resurrection of Christ | Author: Crossway Staff @ 9:44 am | (2) Comments »

Free on Kindle – In My Place Condemned He Stood

9781433502002In My Place Condemned He Stood by J.I. Packer and Mark Dever is now available for free on Kindle this month. Download your copy here.

(*Please note that we are pursuing similar partnerships with other eBook providers as well and look forward to future opportunities).

J.I. Packer on how we have lost our grip on the Biblical Gospel (excerpt from chapter 4):

Without realizing it, we have during the past century bartered the gospel for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing. Hence our troubles; for the substitute product does not answer the ends for which the authentic gospel has in past days proved itself so mighty. Why?

Whereas the chief aim of the old was to teach men to worship God, the concern of the new seems limited to making them feel better. The subject of the old gospel was God and his ways with men; the subject of the new is man and the help God gives him. There is a world of difference. The whole perspective and emphasis of gospel preaching has changed.

From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in the supposed interests of “helpfulness.”

To recover the old, authentic, biblical gospel, and to bring our preaching and practice back into line with it, is perhaps our most pressing present need.

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January 4, 2010 | Posted in: Books,Digital,The Gospel | Author: Crossway Staff @ 8:17 am | (6) Comments »