Commemoration of RC Sproul 1939-2017 (December 14)

It would be impossible to overstate the impact of RC Sproul on my life. In this episode I reflect on the first time I met Dr Sproul in the flesh (rather embarrasing circumstances, as you will see). And the enormous impact of RC and Ligonier Ministries on my life and work. And it;s far from over.

“The crisis regarding the doctrine of justification,” wrote R.C. Sproul,

that provoked the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century has not yet been resolved. Thus, the Reformation is by no means over. The dispute over justification that split the church back then threatens to fracture contemporary, evangelical Christianity. At issue during the Reformation was the relationship of justification to sanctification. It was a question of the order of salvation. The difference is not a tempest in a teapot; it’s one by which salvation itself is defined.[1]

The relationship of justification to sanctification, once again, is where Satan has leveled his guns. Flip things around and make sanctification a condition of justification—and we do violence to the gospel. And doing violence to the gospel is anathema.

[1] R.C. Sproul, “Making Molehills out of Mountains,” Tabletalk, May 1, 2010, http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/making-molehills-out-mountains/.