I 
ordered Sinclair Ferguson’s newest book, By Grace Alone because WTS had it on sale at a time when I was ordering some other books, so I included it in my purchase. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was the best purchase I made in that order. For book lovers, you will be immediately impacted by the aesthetic appeal of it’s cover, and in this case you can feel comfortable judging this book by the cover. It’s contents are refreshing and impacting.
This book is a quick read (only 119 pages), but the concept is very unique. Dr. Ferguson reflects on grace
from seven angles, each built around a stanza from a rich but little-known hymn, “O how the Grace of God Amazes me,” written by Emmanuel T. Sibomana (ca. 1915-1975), a pastor in the African nation of Burundi.
By the title and description, I was fully prepared to be taken on a journey that examined grace and atonement, and I was. What I did not expect was to be blown away with some of the content on Spiritual Warfare and suffering contained within the pages of this small book.
Chapter 5, for instance, opens with the fifth verse from Sibomana’s hymn:
No all my heart’s desire/is to abide/In him, my Saviour dear/In him to hide./My shield and buckler he,/Covering and protecting me;/From Satan’s darts I’ll be/Safe at his side.
From there Dr. Ferguson sets out to show the guarantee of security we have in Christ. That security, according to Dr. Ferguson, is found in God’s good pleasure to save us, not in our ability or desire to be saved or to stay saved.
We are not accounted righteous in God’s sight either by regeneration or by sanctification. The fact that we have been born again does not justify us. It gives us a new heart, bu tin itself it does not provide the forgiveness of sins. No, the gospel that saves us is entirely outside us. It is Jesus Christ, incarnate, crucified for our sins, raised for our justification, who saves us.
Furthering examining spiritual warfare and suffering, Dr. Ferguson looks at the life of Job and his suffering. I found his treatment of Satan’s work in Job’s life particularly helpful. Dr. Ferguson shows that Satan’s work is to “exchange the truth of God for a lie” and to convince Job that God is not good. Honestly, the book is worth the price for this one small chapter that deals with Job.
The goal of this book is to help us once again to be amazed by the grace of God. It reminds us all that our problem is not isolated acts of sin from which God must save us and forgive us. No, those isolated acts of sin are the symptom of our real, true problem which is that we are sinners at our core. We need not be forgiven of specific acts and helped to not commit them again, we need to be completely remade. God in his grace does this, and that is amazing.
I am glad to recommend By Grace Alone to you. No doubt a more critical review would find some faults, but for the devotional way I was allowed to read this book, it had a profound impact upon me and I’m sure it will upon you as well.
