Geerhardus Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics Is Now Complete

The fifth and final volume of Geerhardus Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics is now available! For over five years, Richard B. Gaffin Jr. has been diligently working to bring this classic work into English for the first time ever. The first four volumes were extremely well received, with Michael Horton likening them to “a lost Shakespeare play recently discovered.”

This last volume presents Vos’ views on Ecclesiology, the Sacraments, and Eschatology. First, he deals with the essence and organization of the Church and its purpose. Then, Vos moves the discussion to the Means of Grace, going beyond merely the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist into issues of the Word of God and Gospel Proclamation as well. Lastly, he concludes with his examination of eschatology both in the sense of “things to come” and also in the sense of the current state of the Church as existing in the “already, but not yet.”

The essence of the Church

Since this volume deals with the communal outworking of the theology he lays out in the previous four volumes, it’s also the most practical and applicable. Vos’ thoughts on the nature of the Church and its relationship to the Word of God are particularly illuminating.

The ministry of the Word is the means ordained by God to maintain the Church and continue it. A Church that would abandon this ministry, at least in its fundamental elements, would cease to be mother of believers. It strikes at the sign and seal for the continuation of God’s covenant. To abandon this ministry is equivalent to endangering the continuity of the Church.

To Vos, this deep connection between the Word of God and the Church is critical to a healthy, missional community. Everything that follows—administration of the sacraments and faithful ecclesiastical discipline—flows out of an adherence to the Word. With the Word as a foundation, the Church can grow and flourish.

There can be a dead orthodoxy where all true communion of saints appears to be lacking. And on the contrary, there can be a Church that in spite of all sorts of errors and false notions in the area of doctrine, displays spiritual power. But the Church that is pure in doctrine is the Church that, all things considered, can satisfy the existence of its calling; that has a guarantee for the future; that in the long run must engender the greatest number of believers, will be the most fruitful mother of children.

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This fifth and final volume provides us with a full and complete picture of Vos’ systematic theology. Gain valuable insight into the nature of the Church from this influential theologian. Don’t miss this important piece of biblical theology—get it today!