Ryan M McGraw
Reformation Heritage
116, £1.00
ISBN: 978-1-60178-224-3
Star Rating: 4
This is a heart-warming and highly instructive book, providing a full-orbed exposition of the gospel.
The author proceeds from the premise that the primary cause of every deficiency in the Christian life is inadequate meditation upon the glory of Jesus Christ. So each chapter centres around some aspect of his person and work.
Beginning with a helpful chapter on the eternal Christ, the author then takes us back to the Christ of Genesis 3:15. This chapter too contains helpful material, though marred for this reviewer by an unwarranted leap from the seed of the woman to a defence of infant baptism!
Each of the following chapters is essentially an exposition of a quoted Bible passage (from the King James Version), dealing, in turn, with Christ incarnate, obedient, suffering, resurrected, exalted and reigning. These are heart-warming.
Along the way, he comes out with some thought-provoking and memorable observations, for example: ‘the incarnation of Christ is glorious only when we begin with his equality with the Father’ (p.35); ‘trying to be an independent creature is the essence of sin’ (p.49); ‘those who lay hold of the obedient Christ cannot help becoming obedient themselves’ (p.56); ‘the only way that the miseries of life can truly harm you is if they do not lead you to repentance and faith in Christ’ (p.62).
The author describes his work as his response to a challenge to write a gospel tract (with no page limitations) that included everything necessary to explain the gospel adequately.
As a book to give to unbelievers with only a mild interest in Christian things, it is doubtful that it achieves its aim, as it is unlikely that such a reader would get much beyond the first page. But as a Christ-exalting exposition of the doctrines of grace for believers, it is superb.
It brings out clearly that these doctrines, including definite atonement, are the essence of the gospel — for our good, and for Christ’s glory!
David Cooke
Banbury
