Book of the Week: The Cross and Salvation

This week’s book of the week is Bruce Demarest’s The Cross and Salvation.  This hefty theological treatise is a slim 544 pages but is a great read even if it isn’t the easiest.  Whenever you read about Jesus, time truly does seem to fly.

Top 5 Thoughts:

  1. “Biblical salvation thus has past, present, and future dimensions.”  Demarest’s words are pivotal for the believer.  Most people come to Christ only thinking of eternity or their destination once they die, but salvation has massive implications at all points in life (36).
  2. Demarest gave a great paradigm of orthodoxy and orthopraxy when he stated that, “Christian believers need to become outwardly and practically what they are inwardly and spiritually” (343).
  3. Justification happens in a moment biblically.  The moment changes the believer’s standing before God but does not to anything to the character (358).
  4. Sanctification cannot be complete until we are united with Christ in the next life.  Either through his return or the believer’s death, sanctification will be complete at that moment but not here on earth (411).
  5. Sanctification is through God’s power, but that does not negate the believer from exerting tremendous effort in the process (424).