Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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things that man has never done, that He died
for men's sins on the cross, that He rose from
the grave, that He ascended into heaven. I
either accept these things as facts, or else I
say that they are nothing but fables and
inventions. 1.'
Likewise on Christ's work of vicarious, substitutionary,
atonement:
(The Gospel was) just this, that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, that in dying He fulfilled
the Law and destroyed the power of death, and
that by so doing He cancelled the power of sin
and wiped out the sinful debt of humanity and
that by the power of the Spirit a man can be
created anew and start upon a new life which is
an eternal life.20
Or on the present reign of Jesus:
Jesus Christ is not merely a historical
person--He lives. He reigns and in the Holy
Spirit He operates in this world here and
now.21
Concern for the eternal destiny of individual
persons motivated Lloyd-Jones in his preaching. One's
belief in Christ's person and appropriation of his work
(as described above) determines a person's eternal
destiny. Without an individually chosen lifetransforming
reversal of direction, sinful persons move
toward an eternity of God's wrath in hell. The preacher
must tell his hearers, as Lloyd-Jones did,
The whole world is being divided into two
groups, the godly and the ungodly; judgment is
coming, swift, certain and sure; and what will
determine our eternal and everlasting fate is
which of these two positions we are in. We
must not bring natural reason to this; we must
accept the Bible as the Word of God, the
revelation of God, and live a life which is in
conformity to it.22-
Thus, congregations today (as generations past),
need authoritative, evangelistic preaching, a message