To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
Holiness provokes hatred. The greater the holiness, the greater the human hostility toward it. It seems insane. No man was ever more loving than Jesus Christ. Yet even His love made people angry. His love was a perfect love, a transcendent and holy love, but HIs very love brought trauma to people. This kind of love is so majestic we can't stand it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Holiness can elicit negative reactions from others, even when rooted in love.
This quote illustrates the paradox that holiness and transcendent love can provoke hostility rather than acceptance. It suggests that the purity and depth of genuine love, as exemplified by Jesus Christ, can be so overwhelming that it unsettles those who are not prepared to receive it, leading to anger and trauma in human relationships.
Themes
HolinessLoveHostilityHuman NatureJesusParadox
In practice
Example use cases
This quote is powerful for reflection in a sermon discussing the nature of love and resistance.
More from R. C. Sproul
All quotes →I’ve 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
We impoverish God in our minds when we say there must be answers to our prayers on the material plane; the biggest answers to our prayers are in the realm of the unseen.
Oswald ChambersRead
All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.
Edward SaidRead
We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world - including in my own country.
Barack ObamaRead
Perhaps the Wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silence that reminds us we live by grace.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
Wicked sons do not have the Holy Ghost in the same way as do beloved sons, and yet they do have Baptism. So, too, heretics do not have the Church as Catholics have, even though they have Baptism.
Saint AugustineRead
Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.
William S. BurroughsRead