In Depth:  Michael Reeves

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Substitute ‘saviours’
everyday theology

Substitute ‘saviours’

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

Justification of sinners by grace alone lies at the heart of the gospel. It is the proof and consequence of the fact that Christ is so entirely all-sufficient a Saviour that His work needs no supplementing by us. While this may be good news, it is not an easy truth for the fallen to swallow.

The fact that Jesus pronounces a foul sinner righteous while condemning a life committed to religious uprightness (see Luke 18:9-14) offends our pride. For the humbling effect of Jesus’s teaching, so entirely condemning our self-reliance, makes it far easier to reserve the message of justification by grace as one only for beginners or outsiders. Justification may be an essential evangelical truth, but it is one that all evangelicals struggle to live by.

Are you a ‘real sinner’?
everyday theology

Are you a ‘real sinner’?

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

Do we downgrade Christ?
everyday theology

Do we downgrade Christ?

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

To be faithful to the gospel means treating Christ and His redeeming death and resurrection as matters ‘of first importance’ (1 Cor. 15:3-4). And yet, through the centuries, Christians have managed to downgrade Jesus, cast Him in their own image, or use Him as the icing to sell some other agenda.

But that is not the evangelical way. Evangelicals look to Scripture to know Christ, and there they find the unique Son of God, exclusive in His glorious identity and completely sufficient as a Saviour.

Evangelicals? Humble?
everyday theology

Evangelicals? Humble?

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

At the heart of being an evangelical is humility. That might seem a laughable claim amid all the empire-building and hubris that has blackened the name of evangelicalism.

And there is something about evangelicalism that can make it a fertile soil for pride. Evangelicals are people of the word, and so learning is in the blood. Yet learning so commonly fosters arrogance.

Showing Christ personally
everyday theology

Showing Christ personally

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

If the desire of the Father, the work of the Spirit, and the purpose of Scripture is to herald Jesus, then so it must be for the faithful preacher.

If the Son’s great and eternal goal is to win for Himself a bride, then His heralds must woo for Him. They are like Abraham’s servant in Genesis 24, commissioned to find a bride for His master’s son. Only when we take our eyes off ourselves and herald Him will we truly glorify God. But when we do that, we may be sure that our preaching will always be evangelistic and, at the same time, always edifying to the saints.

What shapes your faith? The Trinity?

What shapes your faith? The Trinity?

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8). Those three words could hardly be more bouncy.

They seem lively, lovely, and as warming as a crackling fire. But ‘God is Trinity’? No, hardly the same effect: that just sounds cold and stodgy. All quite understandable, but Christians must see the reality behind what can be off-putting language. Yes, the Trinity can be presented as a fusty and irrelevant dogma, but the truth is that God is love because God is a Trinity.

A new call for evangelical integrity

A new call for evangelical integrity

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

The New Testament has a good deal to say about the importance of being gospel people.

Paul’s letter to the Romans, for example, is a New Testament book all about the gospel and about being gospel people. In the first 11 chapters, Paul lays out the ‘gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures’ (1:1–2). It is good news ‘concerning his Son’ (1:3), the Last Adam (5:12–21), our only hope. And it is good news concerning ‘the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood’ (3:24–25). In Romans, we read that: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;’ (3:10–12).

Newton is the new Tyndale

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

A new theological centre along the lines of Tyndale House, Cambridge, is to open in Oxford this September.

Professor Michael A.G. Haykin, a regular contributor to en, will be serving as the first Director of Newton House when it is inaugurated.

WEST in Union

WEST in Union

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

There are big changes afoot for one of the UK’s independent theological colleges

On 12 January, WEST (Wales Evangelical School of Theology) announced that it is to transform into Union.

Joyful, infectious theology

Joyful, infectious theology

Michael Reeves
Michael Reeves

... Mike Reeves has a dream

The Revd Dr Michael Reeves is Director of Union and Senior Lecturer at Wales Evangelical School of Theology.