TLDR Review
Rating: 5 Stars. How do we become right with our Creator? This book explains what believing in Jesus Christ is and how God saves us through faith alone in Christ alone. He is the source of real life, real love, real joy, real hope.
Introducing the author: Michael Reeves is President of Union School of Theology in Bridgend and Oxford, United Kingdom. He teaches in the areas of systematic and historical theology, preaching, and spiritual formation. He has authored several books: Rejoicing in Christ; Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith; Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord; and other titles.
Introducing the book: Right with God is a clear explanation and warm expression on how God saves us through faith alone in Christ alone.
The Essentials Series: Union Publishing is producing a series of books focused on key aspects of Christian belief. You can see the various doctrines addressed across the series in the nearby graphic. The books are written at a popular level to help people across the globe to better understand what we believe as Christians.
Summary Review
Right with God is a book written to be read widely. It is written in common language and is relatively brief, coming in at under 60 pages. It explains what “Justification by Faith Alone” is, but this is no academic tome which throws around Latin phrases willy-nilly.
Dr. Reeves writes on how God saves through the overflowing abundance of his love expressed in the life, death, and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ. The tone is warm throughout, hope-filled, and intoxicatingly God-centered. To be saved by faith alone in Christ alone is no mere doctrine. It is to be brought into the life of Jesus Christ, in every aspect helpful and life-giving to those who come because they are joined with Christ, in union with him. “Take up and read” is my most hearty recommendation for you.
Extended Review
This book begins and ends with God’s love. Chapter 1 is titled “Love That Liberates”. Chapter 8 is called “Hallelujah! What a Savior!”. Between these bookends of God’s love is a pastoral call to receive the Savior sent, to believe in the One sent for sinners, to believe in the name of Immanuel, God with Us.
Chapter 1 – Love That Liberates
Am I loved? Have I done enough to win love from anyone? You may have asked yourself this kind of question at some point in your life. Out of this need, an even greater question arises. “Does God truly love me? Have I done enough to win God’s love?” Yet, that question is framed in the pattern of our world, not in the way God speaks of love. Reeves points out that God’s love for sinners is real. His love for the lost is authentic and deep. His love for the world is the foundation for sending the Savior. Most surprisingly and hopefully, His love is not based on your performance, on how well you have done.
“God does not love people because they have sorted themselves out: he loves failures, and that love makes them flourish.” – p.9
In our present day, we love the victor, the achiever, the powerful and confident, the beautiful. Our cultural moment looks to fame, adulation, money, and power as the engine which drives the love and acceptance we receive from those around us. For many of us, this cultural current pulls us along, dragging us under the surface when we begin to consider whether we will find love today, if ever.
I have good news for you. There is an entirely different perspective on love which differs from our culturally-formed expectations. The Bible tells us that God’s love is not earned by achievement, by power, or by our quest for human perfection. Rather, God’s love is freely bestowed without regard for your performance. God’s love brings liberation for the weak, for the guilty, for the rebel. His love brings joy and life through the gospel of Jesus Christ. This gospel is good news to all kinds of people, including people like you and me.
Chapter 2 – Justification Changes Everything
One struggle faced by many Christians is muddled thinking, where our justification and our sanctification are mingled and blended together. In this murky muddle, we fall in and out of God’s favor depending on the type of day we are having. But our justification by God is not based on our achievement, on our performance. God’s declaring us “justified”, “righteous”, springs from God’s grace. Reeves points this out as follows:
“To be justified, then, is to be a sinner on whom God has graciously pronounced the verdict ‘righteous.’ It is to be declared righteous, not slowly transformed to become righteous.” – p.19
Chapter 3 – New Clothes
How can God deliver the verdict “righteous” to you, to me, when we are sinners and are certainly unrighteous. How can we possibly be justified before our Creator who sees and knows all things about us, including our inner thoughts and motives? How, indeed. The facts upon which our justification rests are all “in Christ.”
Believing in Jesus, we are joined in union with him. His death is become our death. His death on the cross in our place cleanses us from all our filth before the Almighty. Yet, this union goes even deeper, even higher than a removal of uncleanness. He does more than remove the filthy rags of our sin through his death on the cross. Our union with Christ gives us new clothes, clothes not fashioned by our past rebellion, failure, and sin… clothing not fashioned by our life in the least. Rather, new clothes of righteousness cover us, spun in golden threads of the righteous life of our Savior, given to all who believe in him, who receive him, who believe in his name.
This one sent by God, the Son of God in the flesh, fully God and fully man, stands in our place of condemnation, his righteous life stands in the place of our life.
“We try to dress ourselves before God in the fig leaves of our own righteousness, but he clothes us kindly and properly with the righteousness of Christ. So we come before our Father clothed in Christ.” – p24-25
Reeves expands on this with the story of Jacob, drawn from John Calvin. He explores our union with Christ in more depth and addresses common misunderstandings. All of this is to help you, if you are a Christian, to know you are loved by God and clothed in Christ, truly justified by your Creator King.
Chapter 4 – The Astonishing Swap
The theme of union with Christ continues across this chapter. Reeves patiently reminds us that “justification by faith alone” does not make faith the one true virtue we must seek to possess. Rather, faith is the means wherein we have Christ himself in our place. His death saves us. His righteousness saves us. His resurrection saves us. He saves us.
Faith is simply accepting, receiving, believing Christ — and he is enough. – p.33
The great exchange is miraculous and gracious indeed. As Christ takes our sin fully upon himself, to bear it away in the cross, so he fully gives us his righteous life that we are fully justified in him. He is enough. This chapter is central to the entire book. Much more could be written here, but I leave this chapter encouraging you to read and consider what Dr. Reeves points out in its pages.
Chapters 5-7 Yes, But…
Dr. Reeves addresses common concerns which have arisen when “justification by faith alone” has been proclaimed and believed.
- How Do We Explain Works and Faith?
- Are We to Continue in Sin?
- Can I Really Know?
The questions are real, whether they arise from the Bible, or from those who hold differing convictions, or from our own hearts which, like sheep in a field, probe every inch of fencing in search of greener grass on the other side.
Reeves explores these potential stumbling blocks with refreshing directness. In such a brief book, significant space is notably devoted to exploring these concerns. My recommendation remains… read the book and consider.
In addressing works and faith from the book of James, Reeves writes:
“A living faith is a heartfelt trust in Christ which will manifest itself in love for God, a changed life, and good works–just as Abraham’s faith, expressed in Genesis 15, proved itself to be a living faith through his works in Genesis 22.” – p.40
Reeves is a student of the Reformation. He proves out from Scripture, time and time again, that justification by faith alone is truly justification by Christ himself. He is enough. Take up and read, friend.
Chapter 8 – Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Our love for God does not spring from the infertile soil of our sin-filled heart. Rather, our love for God finds its origins in God’s love for us. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
Consider for one moment how deeply this love of God reaches into your life. In all things you can be thankful. In every trial you can rejoice. In every hardship you can trust the One who holds you.
“Justification by faith alone must therefore be the very foundation stone of healthy Christian living.” – p.51
This world will continue to have its beauties, its failings, its dangers. Where will you look? Who will you look to as your days linger in the ebb and flow of life?
“I will rise and go to Jesus! He will save me from my sin. By the riches of his merit, There is joy and life in him.” (Joseph Hart, 1759) – p.54
Conclusion
Right with God is a book which honors God, magnifies the Savior, and savors how justification by faith alone is truly how “He Himself becomes ours.” Take up and read, friend, brother, and sister.