Cross and Salvation, The

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Mar 2001 by Robinson, Bob

The Cross and Salvation. By Bruce Demarest. Wheaton: Crossway, 1997, 544 pp., $25.00 paper.

This is a very good book about that most distinctive and vital Christian doctrine: salvation in Christ. It is the first volume in a new series Foundations of Evangelical Theology, edited by John S. Feinberg. 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. Second, 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. 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. Nonetheless, the book is certainly not evangelical in a narrow sense. For example, although the author's Baptist sympathies are fairly clear (see the sizeable number of index entries under "Baptism, water" and "Baptist theology"), he does balance these with fair representations of other viewpoints. This balance is also seen in the fact that, apart from the Biblical writers, the twelve authors most frequently cited by Demarest are Augustine, Barth, F. F. Bruce, Calvin, Finney, Luther, John Murray, J. I. Packer, Spurgeon, A. H. Strong, and John Wesley. From this list it is clear that Roman Catholic opinion is much less extensively discussed, though it is not entirely absent.

From an international perspective the American context is a little intrusive at times. The opening paragraph, for example, is a discussion of America's waning Christian heritage, and some of the debates discussed have barely surfaced in other parts of the English-speaking world. Moreover, I was amazed to find no mention at all of John Stott's comprehensive The Cross of Christ (InterVarsity, 1986), and I cannot imagine that the Biblical discussions would not have been strengthened by a consideration of the writings of Leon Morris (e.g. his The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross and The Cross of Jesus) and Michael Green's fine discussion of the Biblical material in his The Meaning of Salvation (Hodder, 1965)-to mention but three non-American evangelical scholars. And is there nothing at all we evangelicals could learn from Moltmann's moving work The Crucified God, flawed though it obviously is? Moreover, two key Biblical words are virtually ignored. The first is (God's) love. The word is completely absent from the fairly comprehensive index, though there is a long entry for law and cognates. The very good chapter on grace-entirely relevant as it is-does not compensate for this omission. Is it not because God so loved the world that Christ was given? The other omission that surprised me is the concept of covenant. This reviewer cannot imagine discussing salvation (especially in a volume of more than 500 pages) without linking it clearly with the notion of covenant-- though perhaps that simply draws attention to my coming from a different stream of the evangelical tradition than Demarest.

Nonetheless, all of those faults would be easily ignored, or remedied, in the teaching context in which the volume will be widely welcomed and used. In fact, I can imagine more than one teacher (myself included) considering the construction of an entire course around this book-even if further reading is required. (To the supplementary volumes mentioned above I would also add the fine Mennonite study by John Driver: Understanding the Atonement for the Mission of the Church.) Moreover, Demarest's competence in several disciplines means the work would stretch even advanced students into that integration of Biblical foundations, theology (including theology in its historical dimensions), and personal/ministry application for which we all surely long.

Bob Robinson

Bible College of New Zealand, Christchurch, New Zealand