Category: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

What it means, in other words, is that the salvation of a single soul is the most wonderful thing that God has ever done.  He has surpassed and eclipsed everything.  All His ways are matchless, godlike and divine; the creation, providence, the manifestation of power over Pharaoh and his hosts, the manifestation of His wrath – all these things are manifestations of the glory of god.  But they are nothing when you put them beside what God has done in the redemption of man.  Even creation becomes nothing when you put it beside this; providence is nothing, punishment is nothing; everything is eclipsed here.  This, the Bible teaches us, is indeed the very wonder of heaven itself.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 9, p. 226

Now the ultimate truth about God, his ultimate attribute, if we may so speak, is glory.  We talk about the power of God, His omnipotence, His Omniscience and His omnipresence, and all these various other attributes, but of course ultimately what makes God God is His glory!  You cannot describe it; you cannot define it!  All the Bible itself does is to give us some kind of description of men and women who have had a glimpse of the glory of God; they fall to the ground and they feel utterly unworthy.  Glory!  What is it?  Well all I know is that it is perfect light, perfect love; it baffles description.  So that everything that God does is in some shape or form the manifestation of His glory.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 9, p. 224

Is that not, generally, the trouble in most arguments?  You watch the next time you see two people having an argument!  If you just sit and listen to them, you will notice that neither is really listening to the other; he is waiting for the other to stop; indeed he is ready to interrupt him.  And that is precisely what so many people do with the scriptures.  They have never really allowed the Scriptures to speak to them; they are so anxious to give their opinion.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 9, p. 128

What, then, is a covenant?  Well, a covenant in the Bible is a sovereign act of God’s grace in which He pledges Himself to do something.  There is not a single instance or illustration in the Bible of God meeting with the people and, as the result of a kind of bargaining discussion, God and the people agreeing for their mutual benefit to do certain things.  Covenant in the Bible is always something that is entirely and solely and only from God’s side.  God moved by nothing in us at all, but entirely by His own grace and His own eternal love comes to the people and He says, ‘I am going to do so and so and I pledge Myself that I will do it.’  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 9, p. 54

On Romans 9:1-3:

[W]hat we have here in these two great and mighty men of God, Moses and the Apostle Paul, is such an intense concern for the glory of God and for the souls of men that the feel it to the extent, that they come nearest of all to that mind which was in Christ Jesus when he gave himself as an offering for sin that others might be saved.  It is difficult for us to understand this, is it not?  The famous old commentator Bengal said, ‘It is not easy to estimate the measure of love in a Moses and a Paul, for our reason does not grasp it, as a child cannot grasp the courage of warriors.’  These men so knew something about the burden of souls, that they were capable of using expressions that fill us with a sense of astonishment and amazement – expressions which have often led lesser minds to criticize them and to misunderstand them.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 9, p. 22

Next we must look at this phrase ‘more than conquerors’.  Not only says the Apostle, shall nothing separate us from His love to us; in all these things which try to separate us we are ‘more than conquerors’ with respect to them.  This is what he is particularly concerned to emphasize.  In every case his argument has been reductio ad absurdum.  He is not content merely answering objections, he ridicules them; and he does it here.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 8, p. 444

How pathetic and hopeless is the position of people who think that they safeguard the love of God by denying the substitutionary theory of the atonement, who say that our Lord did not cry out in an agony, and who imagine that the measure of the love of God is that God says, ‘Though you have killed my only Son, I still love you, and am still ready to forgive you’!  They believe that they safeguard and magnify the love of God by denying the truth concerning the wrath of God, and that God must and does punish sin.  I hope I have shown what they actually do is to detract from the love of God.  The love of God is only truly seen when we realize that ‘He spared not his own son”…  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 8, p. 396

We must not only think of it [salvation] in terms of ourselves, but we must realize that God’s ultimate object in ever planning and introducing the scheme of salvation is to glorify His Son. … We must realize – there is nothing so comforting as this, nothing so assuring – that the very honor and glory of the blessed Holy Trinity is involved in our ultimate complete salvation.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans vol. 8, p. 229

The true Christian is a man who cannot understand himself; he can only say ‘I am what I am by the grace of God.  I have not done this myself.’  But he knows that something has been done to him.  He is amazed at the fact that he loves God.  The Christian is a man who is conscious that God has been dealing with him.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 8, p. 190

An old preacher who lived about 100 years ago used a very good illustration to explain the matter.  He said: “Here is a statement which appears to be contradictory, ‘All things work together for good to them that love God”.  How can that be?  The good things I see, are working in that direction, but look at those other things – they seem to be working in the opposite direction.  How can you say that things which are working in the opposite directions are for my good?  The old preacher answered by using the illustration of a watch.  He said, “Take your watch and open it.  What do you see?  You see that one wheel is turning in an anti-clockwise direction, but it is attached to another wheel that is working in a clockwise direction.  You look at the machinery and you say, ‘This is mad, this is quite ridiculous; here are wheels turning in opposite directions; the man who made the watch must have been a madman.”  But he wasn’t.  He has so arranged the watch and put in a main-spring to govern all the wheels, that when it is wound up, though one wheel turns this way, and another that way, they are all working together to move the hands round the face of the watch.  They appear to be in contradiction but they are all working together to the same end.  Our lives are like that.  Look at life, and you ask at first what is happening?  I can see that certain things are good for me, but other things seem to be al against me.  But think again of the great Watchmaker who has planned it all.  Do not jump to the conclusions, look for the ultimate purpose, look for the ultimate end.  And if you do so with a spiritual eye you will soon begin to see that God knows what He is doing.”  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 8, pp. 169-170