Grace Works: (And Ways We Think It Doesn't) (Bond)

Description

When the church downplays the gospel, it breeds its own assassins: moralists who yawn at the notion of free grace in Christ alone and rebels who can’t get out of pharisaical churches fast enough. Sounding the alarm, Douglas Bond celebrates the amazing, effective power of grace while showing us how to identify destructive “law-creep” in our churches and lives.

Table of Contents

Part 1: The Unanimous Testimony of Church History: It Will Happen to Us

1. From Grace to Disgrace

2. It Won’t Happen in My Church

3. Satan’s War Strategy

Part 2: “Grace Won’t Work without Works”: And Other Ways We Distort the Gospel

4. The Gospel at Thirty-Five Thousand Feet

5. Getting the Bad News Right

6. Getting Grace Right

7. Objections to Free Grace

Part 3: Why Keeping Grace and Works in Order Matters: More Ways We Allow Law to Creep into Gospel

8. Trust and Obey?

9. Three Uses of the Law – Not Four

10. One Way of Salvation – Not Two

11. Getting the Cart before the Horse

12. The Order Really Matters

13. The Dungeon Flamed with Light

Part 4: Adding Contingencies to Justification: Ways We Erode the Gospel with Good Intentions

14. Corrupting Sanctification

15. Mingling Works with Grace

16. Inseparability of Faith and Works

17. Holiness by Grace Alone

Part 5: How to Interpret the Bible: And Ways We Misinterpret It

18. What the Bible Is All About

19. Same Text, Different Message

20. More Ways We Diminish Jesus

21. Comparing Scripture with Scripture

22. Preaching Opposite Poles

Part 6: How We Say One Thing but Believe Another: How Departing from Confessions of Faith Corrupts the Gospel

23. Believing What We Confess

24. Beware the Fine Print

25. Teaching Our Children What We Confess

26. Confessing Our Unity

Part 7: Gospel Vigilance: Rediscovering the Gospel Every Generation

27. Never Yawn at Good News

28. Gospel Succession

29. All Else Fails, but Grace Works

Appendix A: We Worship Christ

Appendix B: A Hymn if Grace Doesn’t Work 

Endorsements  

“Douglas Bond’s most important book on the most important controversy in the world: the gospel. With his usual verbal dexterity and ease, Bond not only drives out the demons of our remaining Pelagianism but fills our hearts with the work of our Savior and Lord.” — R. C. Sproul Jr., Associate Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics, Reformation Bible College

“Grace Works! clearly shows how an emphasis on grace differentiates Christianity from all the works religions invented by man. He also explains well what happens when we decide the cake God gives us needs our own frosting: we get a sugar rush now and a stomachache later.” — Marvin Olasky, Editor-in-chief, WORLD News Group

“Grace is not the enemy of works, but the only proper source. It’s amazing how many ways we can get that wrong—usually, as Doug argues, by incremental and often imperceptible changes. There is a lot of wisdom in this book.”  — Michael Horton, Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics, Westminster Seminary California

“In brief, straight-shooting chapters, he diagnoses the tendency of even the most biblical churches to drift into legalism. This is a key book for everyone who loves the church of Christ.” — Joel R. Beeke, President, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary 

Author Bio

Douglas Bond is author of more than twenty books of historical fiction, biography, devotion, and theology, including two adult novels translated and published by Dutch publishing houses. Bond and his wife Cheryl have been married for more than thirty years and have two daughters, four sons, and two granddaughters.