Salvation has something to say not only to the individual man but also to the culture. Christianity is individual in the sense that each man must be born again, one at a time. But it is not individualistic. The distinction is important. As God made man, He also made an Eve so that there could be finite, horizontal relationships between two people. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 86

Assurance of salvation is a precious thing, so precious and so necessary that we dare not dilute it with feelings of safety apart from transformed lives. A Godward Life, 255

Nowhere is salvation conceived of as a flight from history as in Greek thought; it is always the coming of God to man in history. Man does not ascend to God; God descends to man. The Last Things (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans: 1978) 43

Eternal life is not a reward for effort; it is a gift to those who trust Christ.

We must never separate what God does for us from what God does in us.

I am convinced that many men who preach the gospel and love the Lord are really misunderstood. People make a "profession," but because they haven't understood the message, they are not really saved. They feel a psychological need and they want psychological relief, but they don't understand that the Christian message is not talking only about psychological relief (though it includes that) but is talking about true moral guilt in the presence of a holy God who exists. The real need is salvation from true moral guilt, not just relief from guilt feelings. And I am certain many men who make a profession go away still unsaved, having not heard one word of the real gospel because they have filtered the message through their own thought forms and their own intellectual framework in which the word "guilt" equals "guilt feelings." Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 93

All men -- lost or saved -- are great in their significance. Having been made in the image of God, man is magnificent even in ruin. God made man to be responsible for his thoughts and his actions, and man fashions a significant history. This is true of both Christians and non-Christians, both men with the Bible and men without the Bible. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 93

The wisdom of God has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God.

Doubtless this will be our everlasting admiration, that so rich a crown should fit the head of so vile a sinner..

Sometimes a sinner parlays with his Savior, wishing he could have a little of the honor of his salvation., wanting to keep some favorite sin and amend the humbling terms of grace. But Jesus will be all in all, and the sinner must be nothing at all.

The glory of God, and, as our only means to glorifying Him, the salvation of human souls, is the real business of life.

Public salvations will give no impunity, no security, to private sinners: still every man that eats the sour grapes shall have his teeth set on edge.

God breaketh not all men's hearts alike.

God did not save you to be a sensation. He saved you to be a servant.

Alas! can we think that the reformation is wrought, when we cast out a few ceremonies, and changed some vestures,and gestures, and forms! Oh no, sirs!it is the converting and saving of souls that is our business.

The salvation of souls is a means to the glorifying of God because only saved souls can duly glorify Him.

The Lord will not save those he cannot command.

Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that 'the just shall live by his faith.' Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.

Grace despised is grace forfeited, like Esau's birthright. They that will not have Christ when they may shall not have him when they would.

Many like Agrippa are but Almost Christians, will find in the end they shall be but Almost Saved.

'It is more a question with me whether we, who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.

God didn't save you to make you happy. That's a by-product. He saved you to make you holy. You were predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son.

It was not for societies or states, that Christ died, but for men.

If heaven be too high for you to think on, and to provide for, it will be too high for you ever to possess.

Either sin is with you, lying on your shoulders, or it is lying on Christ, the Lamb of God. Now if it is lying on your back, you are lost; but if it is resting on Christ, you are free, and you will be saved.

We must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice, we should have saved their souls.

Conversion, then, is repentance (turning from sin and unbelief) and faith (trusting in Christ alone for salvation). They are two sides of the same coin. One side is tails -- turn tail on the fruits of unbelief. The other side is heads -- head straight for Jesus and trust his promises. You can't have the one without the other any more than you can face two ways at once, or serve two masters.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

This dual salutation is found in all the Pauline letters (with "mercy" add in 1 Tim. 1:2 and II Tim. 1:2). Grace is the divine favor showed to man, and peace is that state of spiritual well-being which follows as a result. More than a casual greeting, it bestows what it proclaims. The Book of Revelation NICNT (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans: 1977) 68