John B. Webster > Quotes

“Theology is not free speech but holy speech. It is set apart for and bound to its object - that is, the gospel - and to the fellowship of the saints in which the gospel is heard as divine judgement and consolation-that is, the Church.”
― John B. Webster, Holiness

“God is not silent; God says, as Isaiah puts it, “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live” (Isaiah 55:3). Faith”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“Religion is sin when it makes God into something which we can handle.”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“Paul’s contentment derives from God. It’s not a matter of human strength of character; it’s a matter of human weakness transfigured by the astonishing sufficiency of God. Contentment is that exercise of faith in which we accept the sufficiency of God. It’s not feeling all right; it’s not mastery of circumstance. It’s the fruit of the conversion of our lives to the grace and goodness of God.”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“Revelation is purposive. Its end is not simply divine self-display, but the overcoming of human opposition, alienation and pride, and their replacement by knowledge, love and fear of God. In short: revelation is reconciliation.”
― John B. Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch

“Contentment is not mastering circumstances but faith in God.”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“Theology is not promoted by culture but by the belief in God’s revelation as an event beyond all human history, to which Scripture bears witness and which finds confirmation in the Confessions of our Church. Only a theology that clings inexorably to these most essential presuppositions can help build up a Church that really stands unshaken amidst all the attacks of the spirit of the age. And such a Church alone will be the salt of the earth and the light of the world; any other Church will perish along with the world.”
― John B. Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch

“Revelation is not to be thought of as the communication of hidden truths, as if in revelation God were lifting the veil on something other than his own self and indicating it to us. Revelation is divine self-presentation; its content is identical with God. To speak of revelation is simply to point to God's speaking of his own most holy name.”
― John B. Webster, Holiness

“what is required is not more effective defence of the viability of Christian talk about revelation before the tribunal of impartial reason: the common doctrinal slenderness of such defences nearly always serves to inflame rather than reduce the dogmatic difficulties.”
― John B. Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch

“revelation is the self-presentation of the triune God, the free work of sovereign mercy in which God wills, establishes and perfects saving fellowship with himself in which humankind comes to know, love and fear him above all things.”
― John B. Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch

“None of us is exempt; all of us have to realize that religion always carries with it the danger that we will make God into the likeness of something on earth, and in doing so we will lose faith, and lose God. What”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“dogmatics is that delightful activity in which the Church praises God by ordering its thinking towards the gospel of Christ.”
― John B. Webster, Holiness

“The basic rule for thinking about faith is this: What matters about faith is not us, but the object of faith. Faith isn’t primarily a power or capacity in me; it isn’t first and foremost an attitude which I adopt; indeed, it’s not first of all something which I do. Faith is objective—that is, faith is wholly turned outward to the object of faith. In a real sense, it’s not faith itself but that toward which faith is turned that is critically important in getting our thinking straight. What matters about faith is therefore not us but God, the object of faith. But”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“And grace is a little New Testament shorthand word for the miracle of God’s mercy in Jesus Christ. Grace has a name, the name of Jesus; he is grace, embodied and acted out: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” (Titus 2:11). To say that we are under grace is to say that the final truth of our lives, the final authority by which we are made and judged, is Jesus Christ the mercy of God.”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“Jesus’ passion shows us up for what we are. It’s the hour of the world’s judgment, because it is the hour when God lets the world have its own way.”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“The origin of the Church's holiness, as we have seen, is entirely outside itself; the consequences of this are that, first, it is manifest as a hearing of the gospel's promise and command, and, second, that its sign is penance, not perfection.”
― John B. Webster, Holiness

“Its place is in the shady world of political trade-offs and vacillating leaders and institutions hell-bent on survival.”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“Praise is the great act of rebellion against sin, the great repudiation of our wicked refusal to acknowledge God to be the Lord.”
― John B. Webster, Holiness

“Through the Spirit, Jesus Christ the exalted one generates a new mode of common human life, the life of the Church. To participate in that common human life, hearing the gospel in fellowship under the word of God and living together under the signs of baptism and the Lord's supper, is to exist in a sphere in which God's limitless power is unleashed and extends into the entirety of human life: moral, political, cultural, affective, intellectual. Reason, like everything else, is remade in the sphere of the Church; and theological reason is an activity of the regenerate mind turned towards the gospel of Jesus Christ, which constitutes the Church's origin and vocation.”
― John B. Webster, Holiness

“If the holiness of God is not perceived and understood, then the entire work and conduct of God are not grasped.'29”
― John B. Webster, Holiness

“The Church is holy; but it is holy, not by virtue of some ontological participation in the divine holiness, but by virtue of its calling by God, its reception of the divine benefits, and its obedience of faith.”
― John B. Webster, Holiness

“Very often, we need to express our faith in God by saying “Nevertheless”—saying that, despite disorder and humiliation and disappointment, nevertheless God is the one who proves himself in Jesus to be the good God who wills our good and pledges himself to bring us to glory. “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15). True contentment sees this; it sees the truth of the dark side of life, faces the way we’re so often disillusioned and hurt, and says, “Nevertheless, I have learned to be content.”
― John Webster, Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian

“The particular task of theology is to attest the truth of the gospel in the wake of Christ's own self-attestation. Theology edifies by testifying to the gospel as promise and claim.”
― John B. Webster, Holiness