This book contains 50 very good reasons to buy and read it. That’s the number of short chapters in this collection of studies which first saw the light of day as articles in the Eternity and Tabletalk magazines. No chapter is more than four pages long, and they are grouped together in six sections, each with their own emphasis but retaining the overall Christologilcal theme of the book.
Part 1: The Word Became Flesh, introduces us to who Jesus is; dealing with his deity and humaniy, while Part 2: The Heart of the Matter, turns our attention to what Jesus has done for us, explaining the great truths of atonement, redemption and justification succinctly and persuasively, with insightful, brief expositions, mainly from Romans and Hebrews.
Part 3: The Spirit of Christ, while still keeping the overall attention on Christ, shows the nature and importance of the relationship between the Son and the Spirit, and how vital that relationship is to all believers as they seek to live the Christian life.
Part 4: The Privileges of Grace is aimed at demonstrating that “Growing stronger in living for Christ depends on understanding and entering into all of the privileges that are ours in Christ.” There is great teaching here on, among other things, abiding in Christ, our adoption as sons and the indwelling Christ.
Part 5: A Life of Wisdom and Part 6: Faithful to the End are wonderful examples of how profoundly practical profound doctrine is and I found his studies in the Hebrews `warning passages’ as good and helful an explanation of these as you will find anywhere.
Throughout this excellent book Ferguson presses home the teaching of Scripture with questions of application and the book has as many Scriptural references as I have probably ever seen in a book this size, so I would encourage you to read this with a Bible and pen at the ready.
A brief review of this short book can in no way do justice to it. The only way to do that is to buy a copy, read it and be blessed by it.
For the purpose of review, I received a complimentary copy of the book from the Publishers. I was under no obligation to write a positive review.
Reformation Trust (9 April 2008) Review written in 2012