This is a useful book for anyone interested in what Tyner has correctly identified as the center of both biblical theology and the Christian life. Stuart Tyner is one of the pastors at the La Sierra University Church in Riverside, California. He traces the presence and history of God’s saving grace beginning with the OT, through the NT, and in the history of Christian thought. He rejects any Marcionistic view of grace and maintains that both Testaments proclaim salvation by grace. He describes the conflict between legalism and grace in Christian history and how the saving power of grace was obscured and even rejected by the Christian church. The book also describes his journey as an Adventist from legalism to grace. He is primarily writing for Adventists who never understood what saving grace is and who are allegedly afraid of it. His discussions on saving grace in the writings of E. G. White is a good introduction to the topic.

His emphasis on salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and through Christ alone is welcomed. It would have been good for Tyner to explore in more detail and with a little more theological precision what grace is. Here is one of the weaknesses of the book: It repeats again and again that salvation is by grace, without any contribution from us, but it does not explore how that grace saves us. He is working with an understanding of the atonement that is never clearly articulated leaving the reader wondering and disoriented concerning his underlying assumptions. He is clear on what grace is not: It is not salvation through our works and neither is it a combination of salvation by grace supplemented by our good works. But what is it? How does God’s grace save us? There is no serious attempt to address that extremely important concern. Because of that limitation one could be led to conclude that grace is divine sentimentality lacking any serious concern for divine justice and integrity. That does not seem to be what Tyner is promoting.

Missing in the book are three other important issues related to salvation by grace in Adventist thinking. The first one is judgment. We can hardly avoid discussing saving grace independent of a human contribution without at the same time dealing with judgment by works. This is probably the most serious challenge to salvation by grace in the mind of some Adventists and among many other Christians. Somehow Tyner missed it. It would have been good for him to raise the issue in his brief discussion of the origin of the Adventist movement in 1844. He chose to tip toe around the prophetic origin of the Movement and never raised the issue of the investigative/pre-advent judgment. He did refer to the concept of judgment among the Egyptians and interpreted it as a pagan example of salvation through human works. His silence on the subject is surprising to me.

The second issue absent in the book is a serious discussion of obedience to the law and grace. The discussion is not totally absent from the book. There are several places in which Tyner makes a clear and valid distinction between the two indicating that obedience is not instrumental in salvation. What I could not find was a systematic analysis of an issue that is located at the heart of the Adventist message and theology. While Protestants emphasize grace we proclaim grace and obedience to God’s eternal law. We do not see them as incompatible and neither do we consider obedience to be against salvation by grace alone.

The third issue absent in the book is related to the limits of God’s grace. This is also important in Adventist thinking. Although grace is totally free and reaches us as a gift from God, a Christian can fall from grace. We reject predestination or the idea “once saved always saved.” We also talk about the eschatological end of God’s mercy and grace toward unrepentant sinners. How does that relate to a grace that is totally free and always available to sinners? Most of the theological depth of the topic still remains untapped. This book helps, but it is not yet a full exposition of an Adventist biblical view of it. It is closer to the traditional evangelical view.