The incarnation is in itself an unfathomable mystery, but it makes sense of everything else that the New Testament contains.

The gospel tells that our Judge has become our Savior.

The Trinity is the basis of the gospel, and the gospel is a declaration of the Trinity in action.

Christ had no interest in gathering vast crowds of professed adherents who would melt away as soon as they found out what following Him actually demanded of them. In our own presentation of Christ's gospel, therefore, we need to lay a similar stress on the cost of following Christ and make sinners face it soberly before we urge them to respond to the message of free forgiveness. In common honesty, we must not conceal the fact that free forgiveness in one sense will cost everything.

The measure of all love is its giving. The measure of the love of God is the cross of Christ.

Has the word propitiation any place in your Christianity? In the faith of the New Testament it is central. The love of God, the taking of human form by the Son, the meaning of the cross, Christ's heavenly intercession, the way of salvation-all are to be explained in terms of itand any explanation from which the thought of propitiation is missing will be incomplete, and indeed actually misleading, by New Testament standards

Confidence that one's impressions are God-given is no guarantee that this is really so, even when they persist and grow stronger through long seasons of prayer. Bible-based wisdom must judge them.