Michael Horton - Putting Amazing Back into Grace: Embracing the Heart of the Gospel

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 salvationnot from our pain, misery, poverty, and exploitation, but from the guilt and power of our sinsis lifes top priority.

In those days, the study of redemption was everyones concern, and Gods 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 souland mineas we gaze upon the triumph of Gods 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 Hortons 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 Reformations 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 Hortons lively pummeling has brought to his readers. Let Horton show you how to lose theological fat and flab! You wont 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 Gods kingdom at its purest for us today! Read, mark, learn, and digest Putting Amazing Back into Grace .

J. I. Packer
Author of Knowing God