Putting Amazing Back into Grace , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Michael Horton

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137 pages

English

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What does it mean to be "saved by grace"? Now revised and updated, this classic reminds readers of the Reformation's radical view of God and his saving grace, the liberating yet humbling truth that we contribute nothing to our salvation. It lays out the scriptural basis for this doctrine and its implications for a vibrant evangelical faith. Horton's accessible treatment will inspire readers with a fresh amazement at God's grace. Foreword by J. I. Packer.

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Philosophie et théologie

Christian theology

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 octobre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441233875
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0490€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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© 1991, 1994, 2002, 2011 by Michael Scott Horton
Previously published in 1994, 2002 by Baker Book House Company and in 1991 by Thomas Nelson
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-3387-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Scripture quotations labeled ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2007
Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations labeled NASB are from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
Scripture quotations labeled NKJV are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Foreword by J. I. Packer
Preface to the New Edition
Introduction : Welcome to the Reformation
1. Jumping through Hoops Is for Circus Animals
2. Created with Class
3. Rebels without a Cause
4. Grace before Time
5. So What?
6. Climbing Jacob’s Ladder
7. Mission Accomplished
8. Intoxicating Grace
9. Righteous Sinners
10. No Lost Causes
11. Two Keys to Spiritual Growth
12. A Kingdom of Priests
Afterword to the New Edition
Appendix
Suggested Resources for Digging Deeper
About White Horse Inn
Notes
About the Author
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Foreword
Once upon a time, people in the Christian world knew that the most important issues anyone faces are those of eternity. They knew that God the Creator is pure and holy, that we are in his hands, and that one day we must give an account to him. They knew that none of us is naturally fit to do that and that the quest for salvation—not from our pain, misery, poverty, and exploitation, but from the guilt and power of our sins—is life’s top priority.
In those days, the study of redemption was everyone’s concern, and God’s plan of salvation was a matter of general interest. Today, however, it is not so.
Why is that? Not because the problem has ceased to exist. God and people are the same, and the need for salvation remains as acute as it ever was. But we have become distracted by the urgent pace of our culture, preoccupied with the material things we can produce and possess, obsessed with the myth that science has displaced Christianity. We know so many facts about our world, we believe that we are the wisest generation in history, and therefore, we cannot stoop to accept the wisdom of our ancestors. Thus, with all our technological expertise and intellectual arrogance, we have become the cleverest fools in world history.
Mike Horton has seen through all the excuses and appreciates that true and timeless wisdom is found in the paths of the Christian gospel. Putting Amazing Back into Grace expresses the thrill of his soul—and mine—as we gaze upon the triumph of God’s almighty grace through the life, death, resurrection, present reign, and future return of the Mediator, “God incarnate, man divine,” our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Horton says it the way the early Reformers and St. Augustine said it: sin has made us utterly impotent for real godliness in any shape or form, and it takes omnipotent mercy from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to save us. I commend most heartily Mike Horton’s labor to make it clear, so that God may be praised on earth in the same terms that angels and triumphant saints are already using in heaven.
This book is a breathtaking workout for Protestant laypeople, with a prospect of new health and strength for those who stay the course. Tough, genial, and encouraging (as good trainers learn to be), Horton makes us pump intellectual iron as he puts us through the painful yet healthful discipline of relearning the Reformation’s vital message of saving grace. As in current advertisements where fit folk tell how well-planned diet and exercise delivered them from a fat and flabby existence, so I predict there will soon be many testimonials about the strengthened grip on grace that Horton’s lively pummeling has brought to his readers. Let Horton show you how to lose theological fat and flab! You won’t regret it, I promise you. It is a pleasure to commend so businesslike a book on the things that really matter.
Here is the quintessence of the gospel, the new wine of God’s kingdom at its purest for us today! Read, mark, learn, and digest Putting Amazing Back into Grace .
J. I. Packer Author of Knowing God
Preface to the New Edition
If knowing God is our greatest privilege, then knowing his gospel—“Good News”—is our greatest joy. Apart from God’s revelation of his loving mercy toward us in his Son, God would be an intolerable burden. We might respect him, as we would a powerful leader. We might even stand in awe of him, as we would the Grand Canyon or the Matterhorn. However, the gospel is a very specific announcement. It’s a message delivered from God to people in a precarious and hazardous spot—that is, to people like you and me. The message is that the Triune God of glory, power, righteousness, and justice has freely loved us before the world began, redeemed us at the cost of the Son’s own blood, unites us to Christ, and keeps us in him to the end until finally we are raised bodily in glory to share fully and forever in God’s new world.
Zeal without knowledge of this gospel is blind, as Paul warns in Romans 10. The Good News seizes our whole being, captivating our mind, liberating our will, moving our heart, and animating our hands. It is not something we need to hear only at the beginning of the Christian life before moving on to more ostensibly important subjects, but it is the story of God’s astonishing love and mercy that gives us faith and keeps us in faith to the very end.
Over the last two decades, I have been privileged to hear some of the most remarkable stories of how fellow Christians—and non-Christians, too—have encountered a paradigm shift in their understanding of God and salvation. One of the striking consistencies in these stories is that the doctrines of grace not only rearrange intellectual furniture but radically alter our experience and lives. Of all my books, Putting Amazing Back into Grace is still the one that has helped the most people discover these life-changing truths.
I experienced that paradigm shift myself when I began delving into Paul’s letter to the Romans and began to read the whole Bible in a new light. Raised in a Bible-believing home and church, I nevertheless grew increasingly dissatisfied with what I perceived as a confusing mixture of emphases. On one hand, we were taught that salvation was by grace; on the other hand, it seemed that “appropriating,” entering into, and enjoying God’s saving grace was dependent from start to finish on my decision and effort.
I was thirteen when I began reading the Bible with a host of brothers and sisters who lived in North Africa, Turkey, the Middle East, and Europe centuries ago. These fellow pilgrims seemed in many ways more relevant and sympathetic in my search than many of my contemporaries. As I began reading church fathers like Augustine, the Reformers, the Puritans, and contemporary Reformed writers, I felt as if I were walking into a new room. Yet each room—vast enough on its own—opened into another room filled with strange and wonderful delights. I am still finding my way around what has turned out to be a sprawling estate with treasures around every corner.
Writing initially as a way of collecting my own meager thoughts thus far, mainly to explain to my family my strange obsession with the doctrines of grace, I finished my first book at fifteen, and my gracious friend and mentor James M. Boice contributed a foreword. Published in my sophomore year in college, it was titled Mission Accomplished . After I added some chapters, as well as a new foreword by J. I. Packer, it became Putting Amazing Back into Grace . Since then, I have been deeply rewarded by the stories I regularly hear of its impact, and it has been translated into many languages.
You don’t have to be familiar with theological terms and church history to profit from this book. My goal is to introduce readers to key teachings of Scripture through biblical passages. It’s a simple guide to some profound truths. Our older theologians used to call their summaries of Christian doctrine “our humble theology” and “the theology of pilgrims on the way.” None of us has arrived yet. We are all pilgrims. My hope is that with this updated and revised edition of Putting Amazing Back into Grace , more people will share this pilgrimage and test this version of it by God’s Word.
Introduction
Welcome to the Reformation
If you are a thinking Christian who is weary of the spiritual hamster wheel of endless “principles for living,” or if your heart can no longer embrace what your mind regards as superficiality and religious hype, you may be ready for the theology of the Reformation. Many Christians today are experiencing frustrations similar to those which eventually surfaced in the Reformation of the sixteenth centur