Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 106:421 (Jan 1949)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

Christian Theology. By Dr. P. B. Fitzwater. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids. $7.50. 522 pp.

Dr. Fitzwater has taught in the Moody Bible Institute for many years. Recently he became Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Pastor’s Course. Evidently these lectures on theology are the lectures given in the classroom. Dr. Fitzwater’s long and faithful service is appreciated by his hosts of friends and hundreds of graduates.

However, theologies must be classified by what they set forth. This volume is termed Christian Theology, which would indicate that it is confined to that in the Scripture which is related to Christianity. The Bible contains both Judaism and Christianity, and yet the author, in agreement with the usual Covenant theologian, has treated these two so divergent systems as one continuous combination or development. To the observing student the distinctions between Judaism and Christianity are as vital and important as the distinctions between the two Testaments.

In this connection it may be pointed out that the author, following the pattern of the Westminster Confession of Faith when presenting what are supposed to be the Christian’s responsibilities in daily life, dwells upon the Ten Commandments, themselves a major feature of Judaism; and this in spite of the fact that the great Apostle Paul declared that the Christian is not under law (Rom 6:14), that he is delivered from and dead to the law (Rom 7:4, 6), that since Christ—the object of faith—has come he is not under the schoolmaster, or the law (Gal 3:25), and that that which was “written and engraven in stones”—the Decalogue—is abolished (2 Cor 3:13).

This is not a minor issue in theology to be passed over lightly. It is the whole question of what God requires of His

children today. When, one by one, Dr. Fitzwater reaches the Fourth Commandment respecting the Sabbath day, which commandment is wholly unrecognized in the New Testament, he lacks the consistency of the Seventh Day Adventists who, having applied the commandment to Christians, are attempting to keep the seventh day. It is true Dr. Fitzwater mentions a difference between the Sabbath and the Lord’s day, but he fails to see the whole revelation of a New Creation with its own resurrection day. Nor does he see the fact that, since the believer has been perfected forever in Christ, the whole merit system could not apply to him. Why...

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