The Everlasting Righteousness - by Horatius Bonar

"Man has always treated sin as a misfortune, not a crime; as disease, not as guilt; as a case for the physician, not for the judge. Herein lies the essential faultiness of all mere human religions or theologies. They fail to acknowledge the judicial aspect of the question, as that on which the real answer must hinge; and to recognise the guilt or criminality of the evil-doer as that which must first be dealt with before any real answer, or approximation to an answer, can be given." (pg. 3)

"Sin is too great an evil for man to muddle with. His attempts to remove it do but increase it, and his endeavours to approach God in spite of it aggravate his guilt. Only God can deal with sin, either as a disease or as a crime; as a dishonour to Himself, or as a hinderer of man's approach to Himself." (pg. 7)

"God's free love to the sinner is the first part of our message; and God's righteous way of making that free love available for the sinner is the second. What God is, and what Christ has done, make up one gospel. The belief of that gospel is eternal life." (pg. 23)

"The resurrection was the great visible seal set to this completeness. It was the Father's response to the cry from the cross, 'It is finished.' ... The resurrection added nothing to the propitiation of the cross; it proclaimed it already perfect, incapable of addition or greater completeness." (pg. 57ff)

"Men object not to receive any kind or amount of this world's goods from another, though they have done nothing to deserve them, but everything to make them unworthy of them; but they refuse to accept this favour of God, and a standing in righteousness before Him, on the ground of what a substitute has done and suffered. In earthly things they are willing to be represented by another, but not in heavenly things. The former is all fair, and just, and legal; the latter is absurd, an insult to their understanding, and a depreciation of their worth!" (pg. 91ff)

"Though faith is not 'the righteousness,' it is the tie between it and us. It realizes our present standing before God in the excellency of His own Son; and it tells us that our eternal standing, in the ages to come, is in the same excellency, and depends on the perpetuity of that righteousness which can never change." (pg. 113)

"Let it be granted that Christ in us is the source of holiness and fruitfulness (John xv. 4); but let it never be overlooked that first of all there must be Christ FOR US, as our propitiation, our justification, our righteousness. The risen Christ in us, our justification, is a modern theory which subverts the cross." (pg. 121)

"For Him resurrection was joy, not merely because it ended His connection with death, but because it introduced Him into the fulness of joy, - a joy peculiar to the risen life, and of which only a risen man can be capable." (pg. 139)

"...let us know that assurance was meant to be the portion of every believing sinner. It was intended not merely that he should be saved, but that he should know that he is saved, and so delivered from all fear and bondage, and heaviness of heart." (pg. 174)

"The love of God to us, and our love to God, work together for producing holiness in us. Terror accomplishes no real obedience. Suspense brings forth no fruit unto holiness. Only the certainty of love, forgiving love, can do this." (pg. 183)

Horatius Bonar, The Everlasting Righteousness (Carlisle, PA: The Banner Of Truth Trust, 1993)