George Eldon Ladd > Quotes

“The presence of the messianic salvation is also seen in Jesus' miracles of healing, for which the Greek word meaning "to save" is used. The presence of the Kingdom of God in Jesus meant deliverance from hemorrhage (Mk 5:34), blindness (Mk 10:52), demon possession (Lk 8:36), and even death itself (Mk 5:23). Jesus claimed that these deliverances were evidences of the presence of the messianic salvation (Mt 11:4-5). They were pledges of the life of the eschatological Kingdom that will finally mean immortality for the body. The Kingdom of God is concerned not only with people’s souls but with the salvation of the whole person.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The miracles of healing, important as they were, were not an end in themselves. They did not constitute the highest good of the messianic salvation. This fact is illustrated by the arrangement of the phrases in Matthew 11:4-5. Greater than deliverance of the blind and the lame, the lepers and the deaf, even than raising of the dead, was the preaching of the good news to the poor. This “gospel” was the very presence of Jesus himself, and the joy and fellowship that he brought to the poor.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The righteousness of the Kingdom is a righteousness which only God Himself can give. Perfect purity, perfect honesty, perfect love, perfect forgiveness: what man is there anywhere in any dispensation who can live such a life?”
― George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God

“The mission of Jesus brought not a new teaching but a new event. It brought to people an actual foretaste of the eschatological salvation. Jesus did not promise the forgiveness of sins; he bestowed it. He did not simple assure people of the future fellowship of the Kingdom; he invited them into fellowship with himself as the bearer of the Kingdom. He did not merely promise them vindication in the day of judgment; he bestowed upon them the status of a present righteousness. He not only taught an eschatological deliverance from physical evil; he went about demonstrating the redeeming power of the Kingdom, delivering people from sickness and even death.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God is the announcement by word and deed that God is acting and manifesting dynamically his redemptive will in history. God is seeking out sinners; he is inviting them to enter into the messianic blessing; he is demanding of them a favorable response to his gracious offer. God has again spoken. A new prophet has appeared, indeed one who is more than a prophet, one who bring to people the very blessings he promises.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The righteousness of God’s Kingdom is the product of God’s reign in the human heart. God must reign in our lives now if we are to enter the Kingdom tomorrow.”
― George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God

“Love does not mean the abandonment of justice and right; nor is it a sentimental benevolence which does not have the capacity for holy wrath.”
― George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God

“The Kingdom of God is His kingship, His rule, His authority. When this is once realized, we can go through the New Testament and find passage after passage where this meaning is evident, where the Kingdom is not a realm or a people but God’s reign. Jesus said that we must “receive the kingdom of God” as little children (Mark 10:15). What is received? The Church? Heaven? What is received is God’s rule. In order to enter the future realm of the Kingdom, one must submit himself in perfect trust to God’s rule here and now. We must also “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6: 33). What is the object of our quest? The Church? Heaven? No; we are to seek God’s righteousness—His sway, His rule, His reign in our lives.”
― George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God

“Thus while the ground of justification is the death of Christ, the means by which justification becomes efficacious to the individual is faith.29 Justification is a gift bestowed to be received by faith (Rom. 3:24, 25). Faith means acceptance of this work of God in Christ, complete reliance upon it, and an utter abandonment of one’s own works as the grounds of justification”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“However, the reason for Paul’s appeal to nature and conscience is not primarily to suggest that human beings have an intrinsic inner guide for correct ethical conduct. It is rather to assert that even those who do not have the revealed Law do have an inner sense of right and wrong, but have failed to be obedient to the light they have even as the Jews have failed to keep the Law.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Now I know in part.” This lays a demand upon us that we hold the Word of God both in humility and in charity: in humility towards God and in charity towards our brethren.”
― George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God

“Discipleship to Jesus was not like discipleship to a Jewish rabbi. The rabbis bound their disciples not to themselves but to the Torah; Jesus bound his disciples to himself. The rabbis offered something outside of themselves; Jesus offered himself alone.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Jesus is the messianic son, but not in the same way that his disciples are children of God. (2) Jesus never called anyone but his disciples children of God. People became children of God by recognizing his messianic sonship.16”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Morris adequately summarizes the doctrine of redemption, including both word groups.51 (a) The state of sin out of which humanity is to be redeemed. This is likened to a slavery that humankind cannot break, so redemption involves intervention from an outside person who pays the price human beings cannot pay. (b) The price that is paid. The payment of a price is a necessary element in the redemption idea; and Christ has paid the price of our redemption, (c) The resultant state of the believer. This is expressed in a paradox. We are redeemed to freedom, as children of God; but this freedom means slavery to God. The whole point of this redemption is that sin no longer has dominion. The redeemed are those saved to do the will of their Master.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The verb anatethrammenos may well mean “reared from infancy,” and may express the claim that while he was born in Tarsus, his family moved to Jerusalem while he was still a child, and his entire schooling was in Jerusalem.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“This fact is expressly affirmed in Philippians 3:20, where Paul affirms that the Christians’ true homeland (politeuma)36 is heaven; and we await the coming of the Lord, who will fulfill the eschatological hope by the transformation of our lowly bodies. This statement had particular significance to the Philippians, who constituted a Roman colony in the heart of Greece. The word politeuma designates a colony of foreigners whose organization reflects their native homeland. “We have our own home in heaven and are here on earth a colony of citizens of heaven.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“In Hebrews faith is the faculty to perceive the reality of the unseen world of God and to make it the primary object of one’s life, in contrast to the transitory and often evil character of present human existence.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“However, certain distinctive Christian elements are evident, the first of which is “the apostles’ teaching” or didachē. This included the meaning of the life, death, and exaltation of Jesus, his enthronement as messianic King and Lord inaugurating the messianic age of blessing, and the future eschatological consummation.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The renewal of the new person6 does not designate gradual renewal of the character, but that the new humanity, already existing in Christ, is progressively actualized in the Christian church.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Walking in the Spirit means to live each moment under the control of the Holy Spirit. Walking involves living a step at a time, moment by moment; and to walk in the Spirit means to take each step of my earthly walk under the direction and control and leadership of the Holy Spirit.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“Here again the eschatological gift is divided into two portions, the first of which has become present experience, but the fullness of which remains an object of future eschatological realization. The resurrection is both history and eschatology; the life of the Spirit is both experience and hope; the Kingdom of God is both present and future; the blessings of the Age to Come remain in their fullness objects of hope and expectation; yet these very blessings have in part reached back into the present evil age because of the modification of the antithetical structure and have become in Christ the subjects of present Christian experience.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“We may say that there is a Jewish Pentecost, a Samaritan Pentecost, and a Gentile Pentecost.10”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“But “it is almost universally agreed that the word justify (dikaioō) does not mean ‘make righteous.’”21 Rather, it designates the status — the relationship of righteousness.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“There is little in profane Greek, or in the LXX, to illuminate the meaning of this agapaō in the New Testament.”32 “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (13:1). The phrase eis telos can well mean “to the uttermost” — to the point of death. The revelation of God’s love for humanity and the depth of Jesus’ love for his disciples are found in the cross. This is the meaning of the “new” commandment of love: to lay down one’s own life for one’s friends (15:13).”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The striking — indeed to a Jew, the shocking — thing about Paul’s use of the word is his affirmation that in Christ God justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5). If the ungodly were treated as they deserve, they would be condemned. A judge in Old Testament times who justified or acquitted the wicked would prove to be an unrighteous judge. Righteousness means upholding the norms of right conduct — the acquittal of the innocent and the condemnation of the guilty. Paul asserts that in the very act of justifying the ungodly, God has shown himself to be righteous (Rom. 3:26). Furthermore, this acquittal comes entirely apart from the works of the Law (Gal. 2:16; 3:11) — by faith alone (Gal. 2:16). Little wonder that Paul found himself in conflict with many Jewish Christians.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“This close relationship falls short of being one of complete identity. Paul does say once that “your bodies are members of Christ” (1 Cor. 6:15). But in the discussion in 1 Corinthians 12, Christians are thought of as members of Christ’s body rather than members of Christ. It is too much to say that Paul thought of the church as an extension of the incarnation — that just as God was incarnate in Christ, Christ is incarnate in the church. Paul preserves a clear distinction between Christ and his church.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“It is a work … outside of us in which God so deals in Christ with the sin of the world, that it shall no longer be a barrier between himself and men … reconciliation, in the New Testament sense, is not something which is being done; it is something which is done.35”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The will of God here is not proper conduct in specific situations; it is the redemptive purpose of God for humankind. “God’s will is that one should put his whole being at God’s disposal. In this total ‘belonging’ to him he is to apply himself to what is good.”57”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The purpose of the passages is to argue that Paul enjoys the same apostolic authority as those who were apostles before him (Gal. 1:17), because he, like them, received his commission and his gospel directly from the Lord.”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament

“The tabernacle with its priests was a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary. The real has come to people in the historical life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. History has become the medium of the eternal. There is nothing ephemeral or transitory about Jesus’ life and work. The Christ-event was history with an eternal significance. What Jesus did, he did once for all (ephapax, 7:27; 9:12; 10:10).”
― George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament