Forgiveness is Condemning the Sin but Sparing the Sinner

To be just is to condemn the fault and, because of the fault, to condemn the doer as well. To forgive is to condemn the fault but to spare the doer. That's what the forgiving God does.

--Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 141.

Biblical Assurance of Salvation

According to Scripture, assurance of salvation is always based on Christ's work, not ours. Objectively, Christians look to Christ's past work on the cross; subjectively, Christians look to Christ's present work in our lives; and supremely, Christians look to Christ's unshakable promises regarding our future. Our assurance of salvation is not found in a prayer we prayed or a decision we made however many years ago as much as it is found in the sacrifice of Christ for us, experiencing the Spirit of Christ in us, obeying the commands of Christ to us, and expressing the love of Christ to others.

--David Platt, Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2013), 189-190.

Christ Commands All Christians to Teach

God has clearly called and gifted some people in the church to teach his Word formally. At the same time, he has commanded all of us in the church to teach his Word relationally.

--David Platt, Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2013), 192.

Human Freedom is Unlike God's Freedom

It's rather that, unlike God, we always exercise our will as beings constantly shaped by many factors--by language, parental rearing, culture, media, advertising, and peer pressure, and through all these, we are shaped either by God or by God's adversary. Often we don't perceive ourselves as shaped at all. If we are not visibly and palpably coerced, we think that we act autonomously, spontaneously, and authentically. Yet we are wrong.

--Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 66.

What is Human Freedom?

But maybe our sense that to be free is to act under no constraint whatsoever is mistaken. We tend to think that we must be autonomous and spontaneous to act freely. Behind this identification of freedom with autonomous spontaneity lies the notion of a self-defined and free-floating person. Strip down all the influences of time and place, abstract from culture and nurture, and then you'll come to your authentic core. This core is who you truly are, the thinking goes--unique, unshaped, unconstrained.

But that's more like a caricature of a divine self than an accurate description of a human self.

--Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 65-66.

We Give Only What We Have Already Been Given

We give only because we have first received. God gives from what is originally, exclusively, and properly God's own; we give from what is our own because God continually gives to us.

--Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 62.

God, the Non-Receiving Giver

We are not God, so it follows that when we give, we must give differently than God does. For one thing, God is the first giver. For centuries, Christian philosophers have spoken of God as the "unmoved mover" and "uncaused cause." We can say, by analogy, that God is a "non-receiving giver." Just as God causes without being caused, God gives without having received.

--Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 61.