God's Gift to Sinners

by Horatius Bonar

Christ is the gift of the Godhead to sinners. He is the sinner's life, righteousness, peace, light, wisdom, strength, consolation, and hope. All that a sinner needs is to be found in Christ. This article was originally written as a preface to a reprint of Thomas Wilcox's booklet Honey out of the Rock.

30 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 1, 2017

About the author

Horatius Bonar (19 December, 1808 – 31 May, 1889) was a Scottish churchman and poet.

The son of James Bonar, Solicitor of Excise for Scotland, he was born and educated in Edinburgh. He comes from a long line of ministers who have served a total of 364 years in the Church of Scotland. One of eleven children, his brothers John James and Andrew Alexander were also ministers of the Free Church of Scotland. He had married Jane Catherine Lundie in 1843 and five of their young children died in succession. Towards the end of their lives, one of their surviving daughters was left a widow with five small children and she returned to live with her parents. Bonar's wife, Jane, died in 1876. He is buried in the Canongate Kirkyard.
In 1853 Bonar earned the Doctor of Divinity degree at the University of Aberdeen.

He entered the Ministry of the Church of Scotland. At first he was put in charge of mission work at St. John's parish in Leith and settled at Kelso. He joined the Free Church at the time of the Disruption of 1843, and in 1867 was moved to Edinburgh to take over the Chalmers Memorial Church (named after his teacher at college, Dr. Thomas Chalmers). In 1883, he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is God’s gift to sinners? In this booklet by Horatius Bonar, the answer given and the focus of this booklet is Christ! I have previously enjoyed some of the writings by the author, which I found great for my own spiritual meditations and focus on Christ. This was originally a preface for a book by Thomas Wilcox and was during Horatius Bonar’s life also reprinted as a separate stand alone article. This is an evangelistic read and also even for the Christians a great read to warm one’s heart to continue to love Christ. I love how it is evangelistic and devotional!
There’s four parts to this booklet. Part one is God’s Gift to Sinners and here Bonar argues that Christ is the gift to sinners from the Father, the Spirit and the Son Himself. It is beautifully Trinitarian, I love that! Part Two then is “What God has Spoken Concerning Christ” and seven biblical truths about Christ is highlighted such as Christ is our Righteousness, Christ is our Peace, Christ is our Consolation, etc. The next part is “Our Connection to Christ” which looks at six ways the Bible describes believers’ connection to Christ such as being rooted in Him, found in Him, etc. Part four is “Christ is all” and talks about our need to focus on Christ; there’s a great discussion here about even how our focus isn’t on faith, but our focus is to turn our faith to trust in Christ. There’s a danger of thinking we need to have faith in faith, and I see how this is not only a modern problem given how Horatius Bonar talked about it, and he lieved form 1808 to 1889.
I love this booklet for it being clear, simple and biblical. Love how it made me warm my heart to love Christ. I love the discussion in the end about not being focused on Christ. I recommend this book.