Certain Victory by Dr. J. C. Davis

What follows is the first of a series of reviews on books not connected with writing. Works reviewed will be non-fiction and fiction, poetry and plays. This first book review is an excerpt of an evaluation written when I worked for Star Bible.


In Certain Victory, Dr. J. C. Davis writes of Jesus’ Second Coming and the certain victory that Christians will have on that day. He carefully goes through the Scriptures, putting them in proper context, as he discusses the general topic and subtopics. He begins by introducing the topic in general, then goes on in successive chapters to discuss the resurrection of Jesus and the hope that brings to Christians, and how the Scriptures refute false teaching of the Rapture, Premillenialism, the Thousand-Year Reign and the man-made religion of Islam. In the next few chapters he discusses heaven and hell, four views of hell and what the Scriptures teach, what heaven will be like, gospel certainties, and how Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

This book seems to be based on a series of sermons because it is repetitive in spots and conversational in tone, but those things aren’t a drawback: the repetitions only impress on the reader what has been discussed and the conversational tone makes the subject matter and author more approachable--it is like the author is speaking directly to the reader, kindly and seriously. Another thing that makes the book helpful is its focus on Scripture. Davis uses hardly any secondary sources to make his point. He also turns to the original text, but in a matter of fact way and using transliteration rather than the words in the Greek alphabet; the reader will not be intimidated.

Several things make this book helpful and necessary--his focus on Scripture that draws people back to the Bible, his timely discussion of end times and Islam, the explanation of Greek words, his discussion of heaven and certainties, and his emphasis on knowing Jesus as opposed to simply knowing about Jesus.