Product Description
Professor and award-winning author Bruce Demarest has made plain God's glorious plan of salvation, his provision for the human dilemma through Christ's work on the cross, and the application of saving grace to unbelievers. Demarest's unique approach defines each topic, identifies its most pressing issues, examines the ways in which the doctrine has been understood historically, and interprets the Bible's revelation. The result is a clear and carefully constructed doctrinal statement that you can defend, live out, and communicate to others.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 9 reviews)

Not bad for a reference work

Definitely an encyclopedic work. Demarest does a good job of explaining different views regarding Christology and Soteriology. He also defends why he believes a fairely-reformed, evangelical view most accurately portrays the array of biblical data on these topics. not an easy read, but very thorough. After reading it for his Theology 2 course, I probably will not refer to the book very often after taking the course. I appreciated the work, but find it to be too difficult to navigate to be much use after having read it through. Other theologies are much more approachable for the lay person (see Grudem's systematic theology, or even Erickson's Christian theology). Definitely an academic work.
May 22, 2008

Meat

Five hundred pages of gospel meat was put onto my plate with Demarest's "The Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation". I have only begun to crack the pages of this one, but it comes very highly recommended by friends. Particularly helpful so far has been his section on the atonement. I'm going to chew this one slowly.
March 19, 2008

Soteriology Of An Accurate Kind

Bruce Demarest is in good company. In this volume he attains to the moral and ethical and biblical views espoused by other esteemed Calvinistic scholars before him. The defense of Calvinism is its main trajectory, its contents produced in a systematic-theology style. A sound and reformed work.

The information is well-documented and well-grouped. It is predominantly meant to be a reference work, but topics can easily be researched and read individually.

Only one consequential difference would be in Chapter 8, where Demarest argues for an 'ecumenical' co-operation, which some find doctrinally untenable.

'Scripture indicates that penultimately people can and do resist the Spirit's operations (Acts 7:51, 26:14, Heb 12:25). But ultimately human resistance does not prevail, for the Spirit exerts on the souls of chosen sinners an influence of sufficient grace and power to cause the Father's saving purpose to bear fruit.' pg 84-85

On Romans 8:28-30: 'We observe, first, that the foundation of the Christian's calling to salvation is God's "prothesis", meaning, 'purpose, resolve, or decision'. (Rom 9:11, Eph 1:11, 3:11, 2 Tim 1:9) The believer's hope of future glory is grounded not in his own will but in the sovereign, pre-temporal purpose of God.' pg 127

An excellent resource with references from important persona in the Churches history referenced throughout.
September 22, 2007

Good Soteriological Resource

If for nothing else, this book is worth having for the historical sketches included in each chapter. Demarest is a modified Calvinist, very similar to Millard Erickson. Hoekema's Saved By Grace is preferable, but I would not want to be without this book.
April 08, 2007

An Almost 'Must Read' for a real study of salvation

This book on soteriology is one of the best and broad studies in soteriology available today. Unlike other theological books, Demarest writes on a level for all to understand. The author covers individual aspects of soteriology like justification, sanctification, union with Christ, redemption and so on. He definately has a Calvanistic approach to the subject, but never comes across in an arogant way. In fact, he lists most of the major views on each subject having to do with the subject. And this endevor takes Demarest through the Old Testament teachings on the various subjects and then takes it through the New Testament teachings.

But what may separate this book from others like it is the coverage of the historical theology pertaining to the various subjects. Demarest goes through each subject and how they have been viewed throughout history, covering the various changes in thought and how we got to the widely held belief we have today. This is one of the most useful things, because too many people just think people have thought they way they have since Christ died and the ink out the quill of the apostles dried.

This book would be very useful to go through in an adult Bible study if the teacher was trying to teach a simple theology of soteriology and trying to teach the people a historical context for our present beliefs. This book is a real easy and interesting read, not getting bogged down in technical jargon that the normal layperson would resist.
November 16, 2005

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

The Person of Christ (Contours of Christian Theology)
by Donald MacLeod

No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Foundations of Evangelical Theology)
by John S. Feinberg, Harold O. J. Brown

Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World
by Alister E. McGrath
by Dennis L. Okholm, Dennis L. Okholm, Timothy R. Phillips, Timothy R. Phillips, John Hick, R. Douglas Geivett, W. Gary Phillips, Stanley N. Gundry

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine
by Wayne Grudem

He Who Gives Life: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Foundations of Evangelical Theology)
by Graham A. Cole