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Quote by John Webster

“…We know in advance what’s going to be said, and so we forget to listen….”

Author

John Webster, born in 1580 in England, was a renowned dramatist of the 17th century. His works are characterized by their deep tragic tone and complex psychological portrayals, with notable plays such as 'The White Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi'. more

“The story of the passion, these few brief hours one afternoon in the history of the world, [is] the outworking of the eternal will of God for our salvation. Jesus’ abandonment and death is not his defeat. It does not spell the overthrow of God’s ways—quite the opposite. It’s the fulfillment of those ways, the fulfillment of the eternal resolve of God to be our God, to take up our cause, to put an end to our opposition and establish our peace. ‘By oppression and judgment he was taken away,’ Isaiah tells us. ‘Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; …he has put him to grief’ (53:8a, 10). This is God’s doing. This is not tragedy; it’s not Jesus overtaken by a destiny which he could not master. It’s the fulfillment in time of the eternal purpose of God.”

Confronted By Grace

Author:John Webster

“Why is it that we often go away from Scripture unmoved, unaffected, dull? In the end, it’s because we refuse to be schooled by Christ.”

Confronted By Grace

Author:John Webster

“As we read the stories of [the] last week of the life of Christ…, we are not to think of what we read as the last days of a good man scandalously treated and slowly engulfed by powers too great for him. No, we’re to wonder at the majestic condescension of God, the unbroken movement of the will of God. At the Last Supper, faced with the presence of his betrayer, Jesus said, ‘the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!’ (Luke 22:22). These words—‘as it has been determined, but woe’—stand over the whole of the course of the passion. Holy Week is no accident and no tragedy. The betrayal of Judas, the abandonment of the disciples, the vacillation and weakness of Pilate, the self-protection of the leaders of the people—none of this corners Jesus or overtakes him. He is and remains Lord.”

Confronted By Grace

Author:John Webster

“In company with Christians down through the ages, we read…every passage of Scripture…out of the fact that for us, the center of Scripture is Jesus Christ.”

Confronted By Grace

Author:John Webster