Quotes About Christ

Orthodox theologian Michael Oleksa makes the point that the Christian, while knowing where Christ is, can never be certain where he is not.61

Are you following Christ's ambitions for your life or expecting Him to help you reach yours?

We often think that having faith in Christ means believing in his identity as the Son of God and the Savior of the world. But believing in Jesus' identity as the Christ is only the first half of it. The other half is believing in his ability, in his power to cleanse and to save—to make unworthy sons and daughters worthy.

Bonhoeffer has both christology (the doctrine of Christ) and ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church) at the center of his theology, like the hub of a wheel. It might even be better to say that Bonhoeffer's ecclesiology flows from, naturally and necessarily, his christology

Sola Gratia, meaning "grace alone," and Sola Fide, meaning "faith alone": Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. It is not by works; we come to Christ empty-handed. This is the great doctrine of justification by faith alone, the cornerstone of the Reformation.

Solus Christus, meaning "Christ alone": There is no other mediator between God and sinful humanity than Christ. He alone, based on his work on the cross, grants access to the Father.

Bonhoeffer and Luther draw on Christ's paradox of gaining one's life by losing it. So we come to the ultimate paradox: by service—and ultimately, by sacrifice—we are free, we are happy, we live the good life. True freedom is only freedom in Christ. True freedom, as Luther points out, is found in serving others. Bonhoeffer echoes that notion.

Costly discipleship is held captive to Christ; it is Christ-centered.

This poem, "Stations on the Road to Freedom," echoes the Christ-centered or christotelic emphasis we have come to see in so much of Bonhoeffer's writings. In Christ's humiliation we see discipline, action, suffering, and ultimately death. In Christ's crucifixion we see all four as well. And in Christ's resurrection we see his triumph over death and over suffering. In the risen and living Christ we see the triumph of freedom.

These sentences, heavily underlined by R. C., present Luther's idea that the law is a "schoolmaster" that points us to Christ. To put it existentially, as Luther does, the law makes us despair over our inability. Therefore, we need a righteousness extra nos, outside of us. This stresses, again, the necessity of the doctrine of imputation. Luther was the original imputationist.

His ecclesiology, though, is never an independent topic. It always flows from and back to Christ and his christology. Neither is Bonhoeffer content with mere academic work on ecclesiology. For his ecclesiology is never independent of practice or action. Christ always and necessarily stands before and above and over Bonhoeffer's ecclesiology; and ethics, which for him can be summed up in love, always and necessarily pours out from and surrounds his ecclesiology.

I offer this succinct synopsis of Bonhoeffer on the Christian life: We live in love by grace as the church-community—in, through, and toward Christ.

The idea is that we are "meritorious," righteous before God, by both justification and infusion. Christ's strength is infused, it fills us, and then we are enabled to do good works. This is salvation by cooperation. God works and God infuses us to do good works. Salvation is by faith and works, not by faith alone. Infusion is about cooperation. Imputation, on the other hand, is the work of one.

Perhaps Bonhoeffer shapes us best by showing us in word and in deed, as a theologian and in his life, how to live the Christian life, how to be a disciple of Christ, how to live in the Christuswirklichkeit.

The idea, popular in Orthodox apologetics, that the Church can have no visible head, because Christ is her invisible head, is theological nonsense. If applied consistently, it should also eliminate the necessity for the visible head of each local church, i.e. , the bishop.

Arthur stood alone in the centre of the ring of kings. In the flickering light of the Christ Mass candles, holding the sword easily by the hilt, alert, resolute, unafraid, he appeared an avenging angels, eyes alight with the bright fire of righteousness.

Jesu is alive!" he rasped, raising his voice above its normal whisper. "Rejoice and be glad, my friends, for all who trust in Christ have eternal life. And as we will one day gather in Heaven's Great Hall, let us enjoy the blessings of God's rich bounty this good Easter day—a foretaste of the Feast of the Lamb.

We are closest to Christ when sharing the world's misery. Think you Jesus came to remove our pains? Wherever did you get that notion? The Lord came, not to remove our suffering, but to show us the way through it to the glory beyond. We can overcome our travails. That is the promise of the cross.

Thus it will appear that we have placed and kept the Bible in the fore front of our work. It has been evangelization first, and civilization following along with it. This, it seems to us, is the true order. The civilization and the grand unification of the world is to be accomplished through faith in Christ. Hence it is written: 'For it pleased God that in Him should all fullness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things to Himself.

only one Person can live the Christian life, and that is Christ Himself; and only as I trust Him to live His life in me, can I possibly live the quality of life that satisfies the heart of God and challenges the world in which I witness.19

ministry is participating with Christ in his ongoing ministry as he offers himself to others through us.

It is only in Christ that we will find the spirit, the substance, the strength, the stamina, and the skill to engage each other in ways that will enable us to move forward as God intends.

We must abide in Christ moment by moment, realizing that without His empowering presence the serpent of self-sufficiency will strike us, infecting us with it's poison.

We read or study the Bible for one reason: so that we will encounter the Living Christ. The Bible is not an end unto itself. The Bible is the divinely inspired witness that brings us to Christ Jesus.