PAULINE EPISTLES

The Epistle to the Ephesians

Free Grace

Plot

Chafer's theology may be characterized as biblical, Calvinistic, premillennial, and dispensational; but chiefly he was a strong exponent of the grace of God. This central concept was related to his Calvinism (though he taught unlimited redemption); to his understanding of the distinctiveness of the church, the body of Christ, in the program of God (thus his dispensationalism); to his emphasis on the faithfulness of God to fulfill his promises to Israel (thus his premillennialism); and to grace as the ruling principle of the Christian life, coupled with an emphasis on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Chafer was a skilled theologian, as may be seen in his excellent and often unique treatment of soteriology and pneumatology, and his theological writings gave academic status to his dispensational premillennial viewpoint. Undoubtedly his teaching and his written and popular ministry exerted a major influence for biblical understanding on the church in the twentieth century. For the first time modern Fundamentalism has been systematized in an unabridged systematic theology. The work is definitely creative and original. There is no other work in systematic theology which is comparable to it. Its form of treatment, method of interpretation, and unabridged character have no parallel. As a representative, authoritative, and comprehensive treatment of systematic theology it will occupy a place filled by no other publication.