A COMPANION TO WAYNE GRUDEM’S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY HISTORICAL THEOLOGY AN INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE FOREWORD BY WAYNE GRUDEM GREGG R. ALLISON This book is dedicated to my three children, whom God gave to my wife, Nora, and me— Lauren Marie Schneringer, Hanell Joy Schuetz, and Luke Winford Allison —three wonderful blessings in my life as I was writing this book. As committed followers of Jesus Christ, you are heirs to the evangelical legacy described in the following pages, members of the great company of saints whose study of Scripture, careful thinking, fight against heresy, prayer, worship, perseverance in the truth, love for Christ, labor in the church, and yielding to the Holy Spirit led to the development of the evangelical doctrines that you now embrace, and that embrace you. May you follow the way of this truth throughout your life— until you go to be with Jesus, or he comes for his church — redeemed by the One who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Contents Title Page FOREWORD PREFACE Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL THEOLOGY Part 1 THE DOCTRINE OF THE WORD OF GOD Chapter 2 THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE Chapter 3 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE Chapter 4 THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE Chapter 5 THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE Chapter 6 THE CLARITY OF SCRIPTURE Chapter 7 THE SUFFICIENCY AND NECESSITY OF SCRIPTURE Chapter 8 THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE Part 2 THE DOCTRINE OF GOD Chapter 9 THE EXISTENCE AND KNOWABILITY OF GOD Chapter 10 THE CHARACTER OF GOD Chapter 11 GOD IN THREE PERSONS: THE TRINITY Chapter 12 CREATION Chapter 13 PROVIDENCE Chapter 14 ANGELS, SATAN, AND DEMONS Part 3 THE DOCTRINE OF HUMANITY Chapter 15 THE CREATION AND NATURE OF HUMANITY Chapter 16 SIN Part 4 THE DOCTRINES OF CHRIST AND THE HOLY SPIRIT Chapter 17 THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST Chapter 18 THE ATONEMENT Chapter 19 RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION Chapter 20 THE HOLY SPIRIT Part 5 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION Chapter 21 ELECTION AND REPROBATION Chapter 22 REGENERATION, CONVERSION, AND EFFECTIVE CALLING Chapter 23 JUSTIFICATION (RIGHT LEGAL STANDING BEFORE GOD) Chapter 24 SANCTIFICATION (GROWTH IN LIKENESS TO CHRIST) Chapter 25 PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS (REMAINING A CHRISTIAN) Part 6 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH Chapter 26 THE CHURCH: ITS NATURE, ITS MARKS, AND ITS PURPOSES Chapter 27 CHURCH GOVERNMENT Chapter 28 BAPTISM Chapter 29 THE LORD’S SUPPER Chapter 30 WORSHIP Part 7 THE DOCTRINE OF THE FUTURE Chapter 31 CHRIST’S RETURN AND THE MILLENNIUM Chapter 32 THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT Chapter 33 THE NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH GLOSSARY OF MAJOR CHURCH LEADERS, WRITINGS, AND MOVEMENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERMISSIONS READING THE COMPANION VOLUMES FOR GREATEST BENEFIT ABBREVIATIONS AND SOURCE REFERENCES Copyright About the Publisher FOREWORD This book is an amazingly rich resource that traces the development of thirty-two major doctrines from the time of the New Testament to writers in the present day. Every chapter provides a fascinating story that is hard to put down because it shows how God has worked in Christians’ lives over the centuries to allow one heresy after another to challenge the church, then to raise up courageous, wise teachers and writers to respond to the wrong teaching with a new and deeper understanding of Scripture, resulting in even stronger faith in God and his Word. Therefore this book is the story of how the Holy Spirit has guided and protected the people of God over many centuries, and how he is still doing so today. Christians tend to make two mistakes when thinking about church history. The first mistake is to ignore it or think it unimportant. This view forgets that the Holy Spirit has been working in the church throughout the centuries to gift “shepherds and teachers” (Eph. 4:11) so that they would guide and teach the church. Gregg Allison quotes extensively from these gifted teachers that God raised up in every generation and shows how we can still learn a great deal from them today. The second mistake is to idolize church history, or at least some part of it. I have met Christians who seem to think that there was some golden age of doctrinal understanding long ago, and our task today should be simply to “get back” to that understanding of the past, such as the views of the early church Fathers, or the early creeds of the church, or Augustine, or Luther, or Calvin, or the Puritans, or Wesley. But this view can neglect the fact that our only perfect source of doctrine is the Bible itself, and no one in history has understood it perfectly. Rather, Christ has been working in the church throughout the centuries to “sanctify” it, so that at the end “he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:26–27). The history that this book traces is a history of the Christian church gradually growing in understanding, making progress toward the goal that we “may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,” but by “speaking the truth in love” we may “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph. 4: 14–15). Gregg Allison is one of the wisest, most articulate, and most knowledgeable theologians in the church today, and this is evident throughout this book. He is also a humble, godly man whose life adorns (Titus 2:10) the doctrine he teaches, and it is my privilege to count him as a friend. I am grateful that he wrote this book to be used alongside my Systematic Theology (as a supplement and sometimes a needed corrective to my brief historical summaries), and I am sure that his book will also find wide usefulness as a resource by itself. It is a privilege for me to commend this wonderful book for the strengthening of the church throughout the world. Wayne Grudem, Ph.D. Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies Phoenix Seminary, Phoenix, Arizona, USA