Christless Christianity

    Although I love books, I'm not one to spend much time in book stores. However, one day a couple years ago, I happened to go into a bookstore with my mom, and while she looked at whatever she came in to look for, I began perusing the clearance theology books. Sitting there on top was Christless Christianity by Michael Horton. It looked good, so I bought it, not realizing the impact it would make on my life.

    It took me about six months to finish the book, since finding time to read a fairly deep book amid an already full schedule is not easy. However, the book revolutionized much of how I view my status with God, and my relationship with Christ. These are some good quotes from Michael Horton from several of his books.

    "If we think the main mission of the church is to improve life in Adam and add a little moral strength to this fading evil age, we have not yet understood the radical condition for which Christ is such a radical solution.”

     “Doctrine severed from practice is dead; practice severed from doctrine is just another form of self-salvation and self-improvement. A disciple of Christ is a student of theology.”

     “Jesus was not revolutionary because he said we should love God and each other. Moses said that first. So did Buddha, Confucius, and countless other religious leaders we've never heard of. Madonna, Oprah, Dr. Phil, the Dali Lama, and probably a lot of Christian leaders will tell us that the point of religion is to get us to love each other. "God loves you" doesn't stir the world's opposition. However, start talking about God's absolute authority, holiness, ... Christ's substitutionary atonement, justification apart from works, the necessity of new birth, repentance, baptism, Communion, and the future judgment, and the mood in the room changes considerably.”

     “When we meet God in the gospel, we first encounter him as a stranger, come to rescue us from a danger we did not even realize we were in.”

     “Election does not exclude anybody from the kingdom of God who wants in. Rather, it includes in God’s kingdom those whose direction is away from the kingdom of God and those who would otherwise remain forever in the kingdom of sin and death.”