To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
Dead men do not cooperate with grace. Unless regeneration takes place first, there is no possibility of faith.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Faith requires a transformative process, symbolized by regeneration, to be genuine.
This quote by R. C. Sproul emphasizes the idea that true faith cannot be achieved without a transformative experience, referred to as regeneration. The metaphor of 'dead men' signifies those who are spiritually unresponsive, suggesting that only through a significant change can one genuinely engage with faith and cooperation in a meaningful way.
Themes
FaithRegenerationTransformationSpirituality
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon discussing the need for spiritual awakening, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of being transformed before believing.
More from R. C. Sproul
All quotes βIβve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.
R. C. SproulRead
The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?
R. C. SproulRead
We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.
R. C. SproulRead
Without God man has no reference point to define himself.
R. C. SproulRead
I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
R. C. SproulRead
Similar quotes
The laws of nature are the rules according to which the effects are produced; but there must be a cause which operates according to these rules. The laws of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house.
Thomas ReidRead
I was brought up in a Jewish home, but I was brought up to be human - not fanatical, which is something that I don't appreciate at all. I learned to become a humanist and not to dwell on the differences between Jews and Christians.
Marcel MarceauRead
What kind of times are they, when A talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
Bertolt BrechtRead
It would be curious to discover who it is to whom one writes in a diary. Possibly to some mysterious personification of one's own identity.
Beatrice WebbRead
All social inequalities which have ceased to be considered expedient, assume the character not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice, and appear so tyrannical, that people are apt to wonder how they ever could have. been tolerated; forgetful that they themselves perhaps tolerate other inequalities under an equally mistaken notion of expediency, the correction of which would make that which they approve seem quite as monstrous as what they have at last learnt to condemn.
John Stuart MillRead
Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
Ambrose BierceRead