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Bruce Demarest. The Cross and Salvation: Foundations of Evangelical Theology: The Doctrine of Salvation. Wheaton: Crossway, 1998. 544 pp. $25.00.
This is a very good book about that most distinctive and vital Christian doctrine: salvation in Christ. After an introductory chapter, Demarest launches into a thorough discussion of his topic with a further eleven chapters on the doctrines of grace, election, atonement, divine calling, conversion, regeneration, union with Christ, justification, sanctification, preservation and perseverance, and glorification. Within the middle ten of these chapters, a helpful fourfold pattern is followed: first the issues ("Introductory Concerns") are defined; then a cross-section of opinion from the history of Christian thought is summarized; third, the biblical revelation is applied to the discussion in some detail; and finally, the implications for a Christian lifestyle are addressed.
No two theologians could be expected to undertake such a huge project or even to illustrate the issues in the same way and Demarest's choices signal the expectation that he expects his readers will, like him, be conservative evangelicals-and that is not indefensible in a work that is the first volume in a new series "Foundations of Evangelical Theology," edited...