Who are we and where are we going?

What is a Christian Church? How will the church survive? How will Jesus return? How will the Cosmic Conflict end? These questions and more are ardently probed in light of scriptural revelation in this fourth and final volume of Norman Gulley’s Systematic Theology. Here he culminates this work of a lifetime by examining the doctrines of ecclesiology and eschatology within the theological framework of the cosmic controversy between Christ and Satan.

This volume examines controversial questions about God’s church: Who is its Head? Who is its Vicar? How does it receive God’s grace? Who has ultimate authority? Gulley both examines and critiques some of the traditional answers by his interpretive framework of Scripture enunciated in his system. The Reformation is not finished, and there is thus a need for increasing clarity.

The Bible refers to a coming tribulation, and this work examines how it can be understood and survived. The books of Daniel and Revelation play a pivotal role here, as Gulley surveys and critically examines various approaches to prophetic eschatology that have been held throughout Christian history—preterism, futurism, historicism, and idealism—including their related views regarding the return of Christ. He builds his eschatological outlook on a historicist approach, with biblical prophecy fulfilled throughout Christian history, as well as in the present and the future. The foundational principle employed is that which Gulley began in his Prolegomena—sola scriptura. This final volume of the immense and wide-ranging Systematic Theology thus culminates where the first began with the primacy of Scripture in the cosmic conflict worldview. And it fittingly climaxes with the final resolution of that conflict—the Second Coming of Christ and the final judgment.

About the Series

In this monumental, comprehensive theological system, Norman R. Gulley argues pervasively and persuasively that Scripture, and Scripture alone, must be the sole foundation of authentic evangelical Christian faith.

Throughout, Gulley engages deeply and thoughtfully with all topics of theology, including God as Trinity, Creation, Ecclesiology, Eschatology, Old and New Covenants, Salvation, and the Sanctuary. He critiques them always against his basic credo of tota, prima, and sola scriptura.

This ambitious work is designed for both the committed student of theology and the general reader who will appreciate each chapter’s opening summary, concise conclusion, and helpful set of study questions.

About the Author

Norman R. Gulley is Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee and holds a Ph.D. degree in Systematic Theology from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He has worked in the Far East and in the United States during a long career of pastoring, teaching, academic administration, professional society involvement, writing and extensive worldwide travel as a visiting lecturer. He has authored several books including Is the majority moral, Christ Our Substitute, and Christ Is Coming! as well as more than 150 professional papers and popular articles on a wide range of issues in theology and practical religion. He is an active member of the Evangelical Theological Society and is a past president of the Adventist Theological Society.