Journal: Chafer Theological Seminary Journal
Volume: CTSJ 05:2 (Apr 1999)
Article: Book Review
Author: Anonymous

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CTSJ 5:2 (April 1999) p. 77

Book Review

Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville, TN, 1998), 1210 pages, clothbound. Reviewed by Clayton Jaurek.*

[*Editor's note: Clayton Jaurek earned a B.S. degree in broadcasting from the University of Illinois. He attended both Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois and Denver Seminary in Denver, Colorado, without degrees. Currently he teaches in the engineering department at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. His email is javurekg.asu.edu.]

Although reformed pastors and teachers often praise the systematic theology of Reformed theologian, Louis Berkhof,1 Robert Reymond has recently written a Reformed theology that may supplant Berkhof s work written in the 1940s.

Robert Reymond is currently professor of Systematic Theology at the Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is an ordained Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) minister and has a Ph.D. degree from Bob Jones University (Bob Jones University teaches dispensational theology; however Reymond is himself committed to Covenant Theology).

Reymond engages in serious theological dialogue and debate in his 1210 page theology. By extensively quoting scripture (NIV) in full text, using Hebrew and Greek both in original and transliterated scripts, and offering copious footnotes at the bottom of each page, Reymond’s book is a more in-depth work than Berkhofs. Quite often the reader gets the impression that he is reading scholarly material from a theological journal written for seminary students and professors as Reymond confronts Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Arminianism, Dispensationalism, and contrasts their teachings with those of the Reformed tradition, which he considers the norm for judging all theology (Much of Reymond’s footnoted material comes from John Murray, B. B. Warfield, the Westminster Confession/Catechism, and George Ladd).

Concerning salvation Reymond adheres to the view of the Westminster Confession of Faith that both faith and repentance are indispensable for salvation (faith being the turning to God and repentance being the turning away from sin). As a Reformed

CTSJ 5:2 (April 1999) p. 78

theologian, Reymond teaches that through regeneration, God works repentance and faith inside the unbeliever, who otherwise is unable to appropriate salvation in Christ. Moreover, the irresistible and efficacious work of the Holy Spirit must regenerate a person prior to faith.2 He argues that sanctification automatically follows justification both in practice and in persevera...

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