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[Mike Abendroth]

Robert Louis Dabney was an outstanding Presbyterian theologian during the
mid-19th century. He served as a minister, as a chaplain, as chief of staff
to General Stonewall Jackson, and as a seminary professor. He also helped
establish a seminary in Austin, Texas.

As he aged, Dabney began to worry about his impending death, and he
expressed his fears in a letter to a former student and theologian, C.R.
Vaughan. Dabney wondered about his ability to die honorably and to hold on
to his Christian faith.

Vaughan replied: "Dear friend, let me advise you now as you often have me.
If you were about to cross a deep chasm, and there were a bridge over it,
would you stand there looking in at yourself, wondering if you trusted
enough in bridges to be able to cross? Or would you not rather go and
examine the beams and timbers of the bridge and the quality of its
construction, and determine whether the bridge were trustworthy, and then
pass over it in confidence? Our faith is in Christ; spend yourself focusing
on Him and His sufficiency, rather than on yourself."

Our Daily Bread, January 28, 1995

 

 

Thanks.

 

Charis,

 

Mike Abendroth

 

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

 

Ephesians 3:21 auvtw/| h` do,xa evn th/| evkklhsi,a| 

 

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

 

"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician ... Faith is
not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on
Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us;
that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for
our sins.  It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a
sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can
pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It
brings us to the cross, . but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor
the sacrifice; . Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between
itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves,
and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing
virtue. It owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work
done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter
into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see
the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion
without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the "It is finished!"
of the Sin-bearer, and says, "Amen."   

NOT FAITH, BUT CHRIST 

by Horatius Bonar 
(1808-1889) 

 

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