Alive by Grace

Law, Freedom, and the Word that Happens

by the Rev. GB Swann

Alive by Grace is a meditation on how God’s living Word kills and makes alive. Drawing from the theology of Martin Luther, Oswald Bayer, and Gerhard Forde, Swann brings the ancient distinction of Law and Gospel into contemporary speech, showing how the Word itself performs what it promises.

Rather than treating grace as a substance or a moral ideal, Swann presents it as an event—God’s own address that frees the hearer. The Law exposes and accuses; the Gospel creates and restores. In that encounter, the sinner dies and the new creature rises.

Across five movements—The Word That Kills and Makes Alive, The Grace That Frees and Bears Fruit, The Covenant Written on Hearts, Being Known by God, and The Freedom of the Gospel—the book unfolds how justification is not human achievement but divine action. Faith is not a power within us but God’s Word happening to us.

Alive by Grace reclaims theology as proclamation rather than system. With clear, poetic language, it invites readers to rest in the freedom of the Gospel: “The Word acts, and the creature receives.”

(paperback, 40 pages)