9 Truths That Must Take Root for You To Be Fully Alive to God
From J.I. Packer’s introductory essay in In My Place Condemned He Stood:
- “Only where these nine truths have taken root and grow in the heart will anyone be fully alive to God.”
(1) God…”condones nothing,” but judges all sin as
it deserves: which Scripture affirms, and my conscience confirms, to be
right.
(2) My sins merit ultimate penal suffering and rejection from God’s
presence (conscience also confirms this), and nothing I do can blot
them out.
(3) The penalty due to me for my sins, whatever it was, was paid for me
by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in his death on the cross.
(4) Because this is so, I through faith in him am made “the righteousness of God in him,” i.e. I am justified; pardon, acceptance and sonship become mine.
(5) Christ’s death for me is my sole ground of hope before God. “If he
fulfilled not justice, I must; if he underwent not wrath, I must to
eternity.” (John Owen)
(6) My faith in Christ is God’s own gift to me, given in virtue of Christ’s death for me: i.e. the cross procured it.
(7) Christ’s death for me guarantees my preservation to glory.
(8) Christ’s death for me is the measure and pledge of the love of the Father and the Son to me.
(9) Christ’s death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, to love and to serve.