“Everybody talks about living and worshiping to the glory of God. And I find that something now is missing in the heart of it and the mind of it unless they are really happy about the fact that the most God-centered person in the universe is God. That God loves His glory more than He loves them. If we are only God-centered because He is man-centered, we are man-centered! But if we are God-centered because we want to get on board with God’s God-centeredness, then God is God and we are not. God chose us to the praise of the glory of His grace. God has from eternity reached out and made us His own that He might be made much of. God chose you for God. Isaiah 43:6 “bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who I created for My glory.” You were made for God’s glory. There’s no doubt about why you exist. You exist to make God look good like He really is, that’s why you’re on planet earth. To draw attention to the magnificence of God, you were created for that, to the glory and praise of God. Oh, if we could just remember the beginning of sentences when we get to the end, our whole lives would be different. Christ suffered and died on the cross to vindicate the righteousness of God because God had passed over so many sins. Get that? Hardly anybody in America gets that. What the cross was designed to solve is the unrighteousness of God in forgiving sinners. You know its unrighteous to free rapists and murderers and say, ‘Oh, let it go.’ The whole bible says it is an abomination to justify the wicked. This is unjust to let off so many criminals that fill this room who rage against the living God or are indifferent to God. He kills it, punishes it, He hates it, He pours out wrath upon it, He condemns it. ‘It’ is called ‘Jesus crucified’.” - John Piper (transcribed from "Real"; a Sermon Jam from relevantrevolution.com)

“Paul stresses justification by faith, and James stresses justification of faith. Paul treats of the justification of the man of faith, and James treats of the justification of the faith of the man.” - Jeff Buck, in an e-mail to me on Aug 31, 2007 11:52 AM, although he would attribute the framing of this quote to someone else, who also would, no doubt, attribute it to someone else…and on and on.

“How many children, now I’m going to be dangerous here but this is a warning to parents, how many children’s testimonies say that they were scared when they heard about hell and wanted to escape and so prayed to receive Jesus? Now, I believe that in His mercy, God works in little children’s hearts often at those moments so that there is more than fear of hell going on. There really is a little seed of delight in God, love for God, love for Jesus. If there isn’t, they’re not saved. To embrace Jesus as a fire insurance policy and not a beloved savior is not salvation. To embrace Him as the forgiver of sins and not to embrace Him as the lover of our soul that satisfies our desires so that we want to be with Him forever as the result of our forgiveness is not salvation.

Do you know why we love to be forgiven? Do you know why we love justification? Do you know why we love escape from hell? Do you know why we love the promise of heaven? Because all of those things do two things. One, they show us the kind of God we have and two they get us there, they get us to Him. That’s why they’re precious. Who cares about forgiveness of sins unless it means reconciliation with our Father who satisfies our souls in relationship? Forgiveness means nothing if it doesn’t produce that. Neither does justification, neither does escape from hell. ‘Heaven without Jesus,’ if that is attractive to you, you’re not saved.” - John Piper (“All Things for Good” by John Piper, originally preached June 9, 2002; radio broadcast 3/23/07)

“The doctrine of Justification by Faith through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ is very much to my ministry what bread and salt are to the table. As often as the table is set, there are those necessary things. This is the very salt of the gospel. It is impossible to bring it forward too often. It is the soul-saving doctrine. It is the foundation-doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon - MTP Vol 61 pg. 565. (VERIFY SOURCE)

"’In Him’, don’t miss those two last, little, explosive, words. What this teaches is that because of our union with Him, because we are ‘in Him’, we become righteous [in] the same way Jesus became sinful. How did Jesus become sinful? Did He become sinful by sinning? No, nor do we become righteous by doing righteousness. He became sinful by having God recon to His account my sin, and I become righteous by having God recon to my account, His righteousness. And if that isn’t the best news in all the world, I don’t know what is because I know that in this life, both biblically and experientially, I’m not going to ever arrive at a point where I would qualify to be accepted by God. Ever! Therefore I must have the qualification from another, and it is His. And then the question is, ‘How do I get it?’ And the answer is ‘In Christ!’ United to Jesus, my sin is on Him, his righteousness is mine, and do you then see how huge this issue is? [Do you see] how important being ‘in Christ’ is? Union with Christ is not a throw-away, minor doctrine; it is at the center [of our doctrine]." - John Piper

(“United with Christ in Death and Life” by John Piper 10/8/2000. I personally transcribed and added the information in the brackets of this transcription.)

“On one occasion when [Henry Drummond] was in England, he was invited to speak at a very uppity, snobbish, high class, west end, London club. Upon his arrival he found all of the members present, and everything was arranged for his message. And he began his speech with this very provocative truth, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the entrance fee into the Kingdom of Heaven is nothing. However, the annual subscription is everything.’”

(John MacArthur, GTY “James the son of Alphaeus, Labbeus, and Simon the Zealot part 1” 6/11/07 quoting Henry Drummond)

“Every six year old in this church should be able to answer the question, ‘How could God punish sin in Jesus if Jesus had no sin?’ And if our six-year-olds cannot answer that question, we need to beef-up our devotional life at home.” – John Piper

(2/8/07 dg netcast – heard on 4/11/07)

“There’s a real sense, for thousands of years, up until Christ, there was a moral scandal in the universe. Divine righteousness seemed to be sleeping. Some might [have] asked if it even existed. Where is the God of justice, [because] men sin and they live.” – Dr. John F. MacArthur Jr.

(Speaking about the death of Christ as necessary for salvation/justification & without it, any forgiveness would have been evil. (4/6/7 radio; heard on 4/11/07)