15. Truth Unchanged Unchanging. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. 1951/1993. Crossway. 128 pages. [Source: Bought] [4 stars, apologetics, lectures, christian nonfiction, 1947]
First sentence: What is man? Any true consideration of man and his problems in the modern world must answer that question. If the basic idea of what man is is a mistaken one, so of necessity will be the view of his troubles and what can be done for him.
Truth Unchanged Unchanging began its life as a series of lectures given by Martyn Lloyd-Jones in 1947. It was first published in book form in 1951. Crossway republished it in 1993. The lectures have an apologetic vibe. The lectures address basic questions that "universal man" is asking and seeking answers to. It is very much written with a twentieth-century view, and perhaps slightly older than mid-century philosophy. That is not at all to say--not even a little bit--that the answers are any less relevant or any less true. Just that the specific questions and the arguments against Christian answers will have shifted and changed. Particularly the arguments against. The suppositions/presuppositions will have perhaps changed as well. Again, Lloyd-Jones' arguments FOR Christianity are ever-relevant, ever-true. At the end of almost every chapter, his writing becomes more emphatic, more persuasive. He always ends his arguments strongly.
Chapter titles include:
- What is Man?
- What is Wrong with Man?
- Sincerity versus Truth
- The Simple Gospel
- Is the Gospel Still Relevant?
Quotes:
Man cannot rehabilitate his true self. He cannot find God. Man can lose his own soul, but he can never find it again. He can kill and destroy it, but he cannot create it anew. And were it not for one thing he would go inevitably to the eternal fire of Hell. But, thank God, there is that one thing. "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." (Luke 19:10). Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, came down to earth and lived and died and rose again in order to save. He has borne the punishment that we deserve on account of sin and for spoiling and marring the image of God upon us. But more, He restores our soul to us. He gives us a new nature and fills us with power that will enable us to express this new and true self even as He expressed it Himself. (35)
