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Thomas C. Oden Quotes

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Famous Thomas C. Oden Quotes

“Sins that have been completely absolved on one occasion sometimes on other occasions cannot be completely forgotten or set aside. They may continue to have a ripple effect. But it is comforting to realize that they are no longer remembered by God, even if traces remain in human memory.”

Sin Christianity Forgiveness Memory God S Mercy

Book:Corrective Love: The Power of Communion Discipline

Source: Corrective Love: The Power of Communion Discipline

“While the memory of guilt is far from pleasant (like 'wormwood and gall'), it has the curative intent of restoring us into an awareness of the constancy of God's love, new every morning. God's mercy is not spent even with our worst misdeeds.”

Sin Christianity Forgiveness Guilt God S Love God S Mercy

Book:Guilt free

Source: Guilt free

“Christian consciousness experiences itself in a curious sense as LIBERATED TO FAIL, without intolerable damage to self-esteem and without any reduction of moral seriousness. We are free to be inadequate, free to foul things up, and yet affirm ourselves in a more basic sense than the secular moralist or humanistic idealist (who can affirm themselves only on the basis of merits and accomplishments. We are free to choose and deny finite values, free to take constructive guilt upon us and to see it as an inevitable and providentially given aspect of our fallen human condition. All that we have said leads us to the pinnacle of this good news: In Jesus Christ we need no longer be guilty before God. It is only before our clay-footed gods that we stand guilty!”

Jesus Sin Christianity Forgiveness Guilt Idolatry

Book:Guilt free

Source: Guilt free

“Before whom am I guilty? Myself and my gods. But before God? I would be guilty before God IF God had not disclosed himself as forgiving, taking my place, rendering a verdict of pardon upon me. But upon that IF hinges the force of justification by grace through faith alone. For precisely amid our failure to actualize values we mistakenly imagine as ultimate, God himself continues to perceive us AS IF we were clothed in Christ's own righteousness. The Reformation formula, simul peccator et justus, meant: I am a sinner, deserving condemnation for my idolatry; but from God's point of view I am AT THE SAME TIME pardoned, regarded as if the charge against me were canceled out! the final verdict is thus not the one I give myself or the one that may be given in the courts of law or gossip or peer pressure. Rather, it is what God himself has decided about my situation, how he has regarded and perceived me. Through God's own incomparable initiative, our sin is not remembered against us, even though we may oddly persist in remembering it against ourselves.”

Jesus Sin Christianity Forgiveness Guilt God S Mercy

Book:Guilt free

Source: Guilt free

“Sins of ignorance or infirmity are to be admonished in a different way than intentional sins of malice of intention. The assurance of forgiveness is not to be offered carelessly by those whose conscience is seared, but to penitents who come contritely to the table of the Lord.”

Sin Christianity Forgiveness Sins Of Omission Sins Of Commission

Book:Corrective Love: The Power of Communion Discipline

Source: Corrective Love: The Power of Communion Discipline

“A delicate balance is required: keep the penitent tautly close to the point of recognizing sin, and then allow the relief of that pressure to flow through forgiveness. Confession increases this tautness, only to clear the path for release.”

Sin Forgiveness Repentance Confession

Book:Corrective Love: The Power of Communion Discipline

Source: Corrective Love: The Power of Communion Discipline