Required reading
Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Continue reading Chapter VI, Salvation, and read to the paragraph that begins: 'Many are the passages and many are the ways in which the central doctrine of the new birth is taught in the Word of God' (page 117 in the new edition).
My notes and thoughts
Now Machen answers a fourth objection to the substitutionary atonement: that it gives a degraded view of God.
This objection is due to a liberal view of sin: 'If sin is so trifling a matter as the liberal Church supposes, then indeed the curse of God's law can be taken very lightly, and God can easily let by-gones be by-gones.'
Furthermore, Machen shows that such a view of seeking joy in God by ignoring the seriousness of sin (i) doesn't work and (ii) isn't true. Great quote about how it doesn't work: 'Yet men are strangely ungrateful. After the modern preacher has done his part with all diligence - after everything unpleasant has carefully been eliminated from the conception of God, after His unlimited love has been celebrated with the eloquence that it deserves - the congregation somehow persistently refuses to burst into the old ecstasies of joy. The truth is, the God of modern preaching, though He may perhaps be very good, is rather uninteresting.'
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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