You Need Christ to Put Your Sin to Death
Christian salvation is fundamentally a matter of grace, rescue, help, deliverance—it is God invading our miserable little lives and triumphing gloriously and persistently over all the sin and self he finds.
Articles by Dane Ortlund
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Why You Must Leverage Your Self-Despair
There is a strange though consistent message throughout the Bible. We are told time and again that the way forward will feel like we’re going backward.
Why We Need the Psalms of Lament
The Psalms help us express our pain to God, knowing that he hears our cries.
Why the Book of Psalms Is for You
The Psalms were written for ordinary Christians leading ordinary lives—lives marked by depression, discouragement, despair, frustration, or maybe even numbness toward God or anger toward others.
The whole Bible is from heaven, and the whole thing is profitable (2 Tim. 3:16). But different parts of the Bible serve us in different ways.
Why Study the Book of 2 Corinthians?
The Christian life is impossible to live without 2 Corinthians.
Why It Matters That Jesus Was and Still Is Human
The impression often seems to be that the Son of God came down from heaven in incarnate form, spent three decades or so as a human, and then returned to heaven to revert back to his preincarnate state.
Why Do We Need So Many Books on the Gospel?
This post by Dane C. Ortlund was originally published on May 25, 2011. We're reposting it as we celebrate Crossway's 75th anniversary.
Why Devotional Bible Reading Is Good Bible Reading
The purpose of reading the Bible devotionally is to commune with God and grow closer to him.
What Was Paul's Thorn in the Flesh? (2 Corinthians 12)
This passage gives every indication that the thorn in Paul's flesh is still a present reality and thus represents a prolonged, sustained pain. But what was the thorn?
What the Puritans Understood about the Human Heart
The genius of the Puritans was that they knew how to build bridges between Scripture and the human heart.
What’s All This ‘Gospel-Centered’ Talk About?
A gospel-centered life is the only life that can truly be enjoyed, no matter your circumstances.
With Christ, though, our sins and weaknesses are the very tickets that qualify us to approach him. Nothing but coming to him is required—first at conversion, and ten thousand more times.
What It Means That God Is Rich in Mercy
Nowhere else in the Bible is God described as rich in anything. The only thing he is called rich in is mercy. What does this mean?
What Is Distinct about the Theology of 2 Corinthians?
If otherwise vital Pauline notions such as “grace” and “law” are nowhere near the heart of Paul’s concerns in 2 Corinthians, what is the heart or center or core burden of this letter?
What Does Perfect Anger Look Like?
Christ got angry and still gets angry, for he is the perfect human, who loves too much to remain indifferent. And this righteous anger reflects his heart, his tender compassion.
What Bible Reading and Eating Have in Common
Devotional Bible reading is vital for every believer in the same way that eating is vital for every human—it's just the way you're nourished. It's what you do to get stronger and grow.
Understanding the Role of Justification
Theologically understood, justification is the moment—the event—that God declares a sinner righteous in his sight.
We need to look to Christ. We need to draw our strength from him. The way we grow is simply by looking to Christ.
When Jesus, the Clean One, touched an unclean sinner, Christ did not become unclean. The sinner became clean.
The Reason We Don't Feel the Weight of Our Sin
Just as we can hardly fathom the divine ferocity awaiting those out of Christ, it is equally true that we can hardly fathom the divine tenderness already resting now on those in Christ.
The Most Accessible Person in the Universe
Jesus is lowly, he's accessible. You don't have to go through security to get to him. You just have to humble yourself.
The Hidden Value of Pastoral Gentleness
As leaders of God’s people, we all long to make a difference for Christ. We don’t want to be unfruitful. The main reason to nurture gentleness is neither pragmatic nor historical, but biblical.
The Heart of Jesus Reveals the Father of Mercies
I am trying to help us leave behind our natural, fallen intuitions that God is distant and cold and to step into the freeing knowledge that he is gentle and lowly in heart.
People are rebellious, even God’s people, but God himself insists on doing his people eternal good anyway.
Are we swimming in the mental and emotional universe of what God has told us our future is?
The whole reason we care about sound doctrine is for the sake of preserving God’s beauty,
The Amazing Truth at the Heart of the Psalms
The Psalms have an important message: God loves you.
Short Studies in Biblical Theology
One of the great advances in evangelical biblical scholarship over the past few generations has been the recovery of biblical theology.
Scripture: The Treasure of the Christian Life
When we immerse ourselves in Edwards's writings, we do not find him speaking of Scripture so much as speaking from it.