Rest in peace, R.C. Sproul

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6:1-3)

R.C. Sproul, one of the spiritual and theological giants of our day, passed away last week at the age of 78. He was a pastor, a prolific author and speaker, founder of Ligonier Ministries, teacher on the radio program Renewing your Mind, and so much more. His best known work was his 1985 book The Holiness of God, which was a powerful treatise on God’s perfection and our standing as sinners in need of His mercy. In honor of Rev. Sproul, I wanted to share some of his best quotes in the hopes that they might help you to know and love God more:
“We are secure, not because we hold tightly to Jesus, but because he holds tightly to us.”

“The problem we face is that the word holy is foreign to all languages. No dictionary is adequate to the task.”

“Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. Only once is a characteristic of God mentioned three times in succession. The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy.”

“We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.”
“
Death reminds us that we are creatures. Yet as fearsome as death is, it is nothing compared with meeting a holy God. When we encounter him, the totality of our creatureliness breaks upon us and shatters the myth that we have believed about ourselves, the myth that we are demigods, junior-grade deities who will try to live forever.”

“No matter how much injustice I have suffered from the hands of her people, I have never suffered the slightest injustice from the hand of God.”
 
 “If ever a person had room to complain of injustice, it was Jesus. He was the only innocent man ever to be punished by God. If we stagger at the wrath of God, let us stagger at the cross. Here is where our astonishment should be focused. If we have cause for moral outrage, let it be directed at Golgotha.”

”There is no greater state than to get up from your knees knowing that God has forgiven every sin you’ve ever committed.”

“To know that God knows everything about me and yet loves me is indeed my ultimate consolation.”
 
“We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.”

“The Christian life is a life of non-conformity.”

“People in awe never complain that church is boring.”