The credal affirmation, 'he descended to the dead', has attracted a plethora of views over the centuries and many Christians today struggle to explain the meaning of these words. This book explores various interpretations of the doctrine of Christ's descent to the dead, both within particular historical contexts and within contemporary theology. Laufer argues that the descensus clause, Christ's descent, is integral to Christian faith, specifically to the doctrine of the incarnation. If we are to affirm that, in Christ, God became truly human then that affirmation must include his sharing in the state of being dead that is the ultimate consequence of being human. Laufer concludes that, since the Son has experienced genuine human death and the separation from God which is the essence of hell, there is no longer any human condition from which God is absent, either in this life or in eternity. Christ's descent means that he is truly 'hell's destruction'. Drawing on a treasure trove of writings from the western theological tradition, including Luther, Calvin, Maurice, Balthasar, Moltmann and others, and attending to historical, theological, exegetical, philosophical and pastoral issues, this book explores an often-ignored doctrine which lies at the core of Christian life, death and faith.

In nineteenth-century Britain, a large number of prominent Anglican and Presbyterian Evangelicals rejected the idea that salvation meant 'going to heaven when you die'. Instead, they proposed that God would establish his kingdom on earth, renewing the creation and reanimating embodied humans to live in a world of science and progress. This book introduces the writings and activities of these women and men, among whom were counted the ardent social reformer Lord Shaftesbury, the highly respectedclergyman Edward Bickersteth, the popular author Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, and the General Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance, Thomas Rawson Birks. The book shows that the catalyst for such theological revisionism was the end-times doctrine known as 'premillennialism'. While commonly characterised as a gloomy and sectarian belief, the book argues that remillennialism in Victorian Britain was actually an optimistic and often liberalising creed. It dissolved older Evangelical assumptions about the dissimilarities between time and eternity, body and soul, heaven and earth. The book demonstrates that, far from being eccentric pessimists, premillennialists were actually pioneers of trends in nineteenth-century Christian theology that stressed the importance of the incarnation, prioritized social justice, and even entertained the idea of universal salvation.

This is a completely new typeset of the monumental 1957 classic, containing an extensive historical and theological introduction and detailed in-text notations by George R. Knight. Originally produced by the Ministerial Association of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Questions on Doctrine was widely acclaimed and distributed in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a forthright answer to questions from evangelicals about key elements of Adventist doctrine. Controversy regarding the book's position on the nature of Christ and the atonement soon stopped its circulation. As part of the Adventist Classic Library, Knight's essays provide the background for how the book came about and describes the interaction of the principal players involved in the crisis that shelved this classic work for more than a generation.