A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith: 2nd Edition - Revised and Updated

By Robert L. Reymond

A contemporary, foundational statement of classic reformed faith, now revised and updated.

• Comprehensive, coherent, contextual, and conversational
• Scripture-saturated, with more exegesis and more Scripture quotations than other one-volume theologies
• Upholds classic Calvinist positions on baptism, the Trinity, church government, and much more
• Interacts with contemporary issues and the work of other theologians
• Reveals the author's warmth and sensitivity born of more than 25 years as a professor at leading Reformed seminaries
• Numerous appendices covering special topics; abundant resources for further study through footnotes, and a selective bibliography
• A textbook for theology students, a life-long reference for libraries, ministers, teachers, and professional theologians

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Jan 31, 2010
• ISBN: 9781418586805

Book preview

A New Systematic Theology of The Christian Faith

Robert L. Reymond

Thomas Nelson Publishers ®

Nashville

A Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

www.ThomasNelson.com

Second Edition–Revised and Updated

Copyright © 1998, Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means–electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or any other–except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Scripture quotations as noted are from the following sources:

The New International Version of the Bible (NIV), copyright © 1983 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

The King James Version of the Bible (KJV).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reymond, Robert L.

A new systematic theology of the Christian faith / Robert Reymond.

p. cm.

Lectures delivered at Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Mo.

and Knox Theological Seminary, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8499-1317-9 (hardcover)

1. Theology, Doctrinal. 2. Reformed Church–Doctrines. I. Title.

bt75.2.r49 1997

230’.51–dc21

97-12939

CIP

A Special Dedication

To Shirley, my life’s companion, who daily brings the joy and order of music to my life

Contents

Preface

Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction

The Justification of Theology as an Intellectual Discipline

The Theological Task

Part One—A Word from Another World

1. The Fact of Divine Revelation

2. The Inspired Nature of Holy Scripture

3. The Attributes of Holy Scripture

4. The Nature of Biblical Truth

5. The Bible as the Pou Stw for Knowledge and Personal Significance

Part Two—God and Man

6. Introduction to the Doctrine of God

7. The Names and Nature of God

8. God as Trinity

9. The Trinity in the Creeds

10. The Eternal Decree of God

11. God’s Works of Creation and Providence

12. The Biblical View of Man

Part Three—Our So Great Salvation

13. God’s Eternal Plan of Salvation

14. The Unity of the Covenant of Grace

15. The Supernatural Christ of History

16. The Christ of the Early Councils

17. The Character of the Cross Work of Christ

18. The Divine Design Behind the Cross Work of Christ

19. The Application of the Benefits of the Cross Work of Christ

Part Four—The Church

20. The Nature and Foundation of the Church

21. The Attributes and Marks of the Church

22. The Authority and Duties of the Church

23. The Government of the Church

24. The Church’s Means of Grace

Part Five—Last Things

25. Biblical Eschatology

26. Downgrade Trends in Contemporary Evangelical Eschatology

Appendices

A. Two Modern Christologies

B. The New Testament Antilegomena

C. The Historicity of Paul’s Conversion

D. Anselm’s Satisfaction View of the Atonement

E. The Five Points of Calvinism

F. Whom Does the Man in Romans 7:14–25 Represent?

G. Selected General Theological Bibliography

Preface

The publication of a systematic theology of the Christian religion is always a momentous event, particularly for the author, inasmuch as such a work intends to display a professional lifetime of reflection upon all of the major themes (loci communes or standard places) of Holy Scripture and their implications for historical and contemporary points of view. This is true even though over sixty systematic theologies (Gabriel Fackre calls them theologies-in-the-round)—some evangelical, some ecumenical, some experiential—have been published in the English-speaking world alone since the late 1970s.¹

This present volume attempts to set forth a systematic theology of the Christian faith that will pass biblical muster. My years of study and teaching have persuaded me that such a construction must take on the contours of what the theological world characterizes as a Reformed theology. It must be ultimately God-centered in all its pronouncements and resist every human effort to intrude an unbiblical analogy of being (analogia entis) into the biblical thought-forms, that is to say, to put an and or plus where the Bible puts only or alone. For example, in theological methodology it must not say, "I understand and I believe, but, I believe in order that I may understand; in soteriology it must not urge God and man, but rather God only as Savior; it must not teach faith and good works as the instruments for justification, but rather faith alone."

The contents of this work are essentially the classroom lectures that I delivered while teaching systematic theology over a period of twenty two years at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and seven years at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. These lectures were written for required courses in the Master of Divinity programs in these two seminaries. Over the last fifteen years or so I have provided my lectures to my students in written syllabus form, and by taking this approach I found that I could cover far more material in class, and the students possessed my basic lectures in their entirety without having to concentrate on taking copious notes. My first reason for offering them now to a larger reading public is that my students have encouraged me hundreds of times over the years to do so. So in a very real sense you, my current reader, as you move through these chapters are sitting in my seminary classroom and witnessing my attempt to unveil the Big Picture within the divine Mind which, I am convinced, the one living and true God has revealed to men in Holy Scripture for their eternal salvation and spiritual benefit.²

A second reason I offer this volume to a wider audience is that those of us who teach in the Reformed tradition at the seminary level have had to look to Louis Berkhof’s revered (and trustworthy) but somewhat dated Systematic Theology for our basic one-volume English textbook in the field of systematics, and then we have had to supplement Berkhof with readings from such theological giants as Charles and A. A. Hodge, Benjamin B. Warfield, John Murray, and G. C. Berkouwer. While I am fully aware that no systematic theology will ever be written that will make all supplementation no longer necessary, I have attempted to draw upon the best insights of both biblical and historical theologians and to engage their disciplines as I have gone about fulfilling my fundamental responsibility of setting forth a systematic theology that will pass biblical muster. I hope, of course, that my systematics will commend itself, in its attempt to be both biblical and interesting, to other teachers of the Reformed faith. I would be sufficiently rewarded for my labors if any should find it to be what they are looking for for their own students.

My third and primary reason for desiring to see these lectures in published form is because I love the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and I love the church for which he died. But the church—his church—for many years now has been regaled, both in its seminary classrooms and from multitudes of its pulpits, with subbiblical portrayals of what the true gospel of God is. I refer to the Pelagian, semi-Pelagian, semi-semi-Pelagian, Arminian, apostate, and name-it-and-claim-it gospels which abound on every hand. To all these false gospels the Reformed faith is the only antidote. For me the Reformed faith is not simply a creed the church may relegate now or at some future time to the dustbin of history; for me, its propagation is both a passion and a mission. Because I believe that the Reformed expression of the gospel is the eternal truth of the one living and true God, I believe that my representation of the gospel of Christ can serve as a corrective to these other gospels, which are really not the everlasting gospel at all. I hope, of course, that my effort here will contribute to the education of the church at a time when evidence exists all about us that the church has literally lost her evangelical mind and is floundering in anti-intellectualism and unbiblical thought. If I can to any degree provide a corrective to this current state of affairs, I will be amply rewarded for all my efforts.

While I have written from a Reformed perspective, I have not slavishly followed the established pattern of orthodox or Reformed thought when it did not commend itself to me because of its failure to conform in some way to what I perceive to be the teaching of Holy Scripture. For example, in my treatment of the doctrine of Scripture in part one, I have presented it from what is known in apologetic circles as the presuppositional perspective, which I think is more God-honoring than any other alternative. In chapter six I argue that Reformed Christians should not employ, as many of them do, the traditional arguments for the existence of God. In chapter seven I have declined to classify the divine attributes, and I remain unconvinced by any exegesis (or philosophical argument) that I have seen to date that God’s eternality necessarily entails the quality of supratemporality or timelessness. Throughout this chapter my main concern is that my reader will be confronted by the God of the Bible rather than the God of the Schoolmen, the latter of which often appears to be more Greek than biblical. In chapter nine, I urge upon my reader the Reformation view of the Trinity, which is distinctly different in some respects from the Niceno-Constantinopolitan representation of that doctrine which held sway within Christendom for over thirteen hundred years before it was challenged by John Calvin and which, regrettably, is still espoused unwittingly by too many of his followers. In chapter ten, while showing the inherent weaknesses and unbiblical character of Arminianism, I affirm—over against some Reformed thinkers who prefer to represent such things as simply mysteries for which the Bible provides no answers—that God is the decretal Cause of evil in the sense that he is the sole ultimate decretal Cause of all things. I also argue there for the equal ultimacy of, though not an exact identity of divine causality behind, election and reprobation in the divine decree. In chapter eleven I argue, over against a good many Reformed thinkers, that the creation itself has never ultimately had any other than a redemptive raison d’être, and that to insist otherwise provides a ground which lends aid and comfort to a non-Reformed methodological natural theology. In chapter twelve I urge, over against what I view as a downgrade trend among some Reformed thinkers, that Reformed theology must retain its classic insistence upon an original covenant of works between God and Adam. And in chapter thirteen I espouse a supralapsarian order of the divine decrees, but I offer my own order there inasmuch as the order customarily offered by supralapsarians is inconsistent with their own best insights. I trust the ideas presented throughout the book will advance the on-going discussions in their respective areas among theologians and laypersons alike.

Certain people have been of great personal help to me in my professional development; without them this book would never have been written. First, I want to express my lasting appreciation for Robert G. Rayburn, the first (and late) president of Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, who recommended me when I was only a fledgling theologian to the board of the seminary for a teaching position in the department of systematic theology. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the Covenant Board itself, which hired me and always encouraged all of us on the faculty to write, giving us sabbaticals to do so. I also want to acknowledge my indebtedness to R. Laird Harris, the first dean of faculty under whom I served at Covenant Seminary, and the late J. Oliver Buswell Jr., professor of systematic theology in the systematics department there, both of whom assumed the role of senior scholar for me through my earlier years of working under their direction and tutelage. A very special word of appreciation has to go to my dear friend, David C. Jones, who was my colleague in the systematic theology department at Covenant Seminary longer than any other person and who by his scholarly example taught me more than he will ever know about proper theological method and the eternal significance of the theological task.

To the board of Knox Theological Seminary I stand indebted for granting me a sabbatical in order to put the finishing touches on this work. I am indeed grateful for this thoughtful provision.

To Roger R. Nicole, visiting professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, whose friendship has graced my life for several years now and whose encyclopedic knowledge of theology I can only dream of acquiring, I must express profound gratitude for reading my systematic theology in its entirety in manuscript form and making many valuable suggestions (most of which I took). To John M. Frame, professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and William Edgar, professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, both of whom sharpened my argument in chapter six, I am also very grateful. Finally, I want to thank all my numerous students, who through the years have offered scores of suggestions which have greatly improved the accuracy and presentation of the material.

To all these people—humble, gentle servants of Christ, who in more ways than I can possibly express taught me by both words and example what Christian servanthood is—I, with great delight and deep appreciation, humbly dedicate this book. Any commendation a discerning readership accords it is theirs also; any and all errors and deficiencies which remain are to be traced to me alone.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

March 1997

Preface to the Second Edition

Four years have passed since A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith was first published. That first edition has gone through several printings and I am humbled and grateful for the reception that the Christian reading public has awarded it. I want to express my appreciation to the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association for selecting it in 1999 as a Final Nominee for its Gold Medallion Award. I am also profoundly humbled that several major evangelical seminaries have adopted it as their text of choice for their systematics courses.

As this Second Edition goes forth I want to thank both my commenders and my critics for the time and effort they expended to review the work. All their critical comments were taken seriously, and often these comments led to a modification of expression or of conception. This edition, while preserving the pagination of the former edition, includes these modifications. If they have improved the work to any degree I have these faithful servants of Christ to thank.

My earnest hope is that this Second Edition will prove to be even more beneficial to the church than did the first.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

December 2001

Introduction

As the word itself suggests, theology¹ (from the Latin theologia, in turn from the Greek theologia) in its broad sense speaks of intellectual or rational (reasoned) discourse about God or things divine.² As the intelligent effort to understand and explicate the whole Bible viewed as revealed truth, theology in the broad encyclopedic sense encompasses the disciplines of the classical divinity curriculum with its four departments of exegetical (or biblical), historical, systematic, and practical theology.³

By systematic theology—the department of theology with which this book is primarily concerned—I refer to the discipline that answers the question, What does the whole Bible teach us about a given topic? Stated more technically, systematic theology is that methodological study of the Bible that views the Holy Scriptures as a completed revelation, in distinction from the disciplines of Old Testament theology, New Testament theology, and biblical theology, which approach the Scriptures as an unfolding revelation. Accordingly, the systematic theologian, viewing the Scriptures as a completed revelation, seeks to understand holistically the plan, purpose, and didactic intention of the divine mind revealed in Holy Scripture, and to arrange that plan, purpose, and didactic intention in orderly and coherent fashion as articles of the Christian faith.⁴

Systematic theology covers, as integral parts of Holy Scripture’s total body of sacred truth, the theological topics of Holy Scripture itself, God, man, Christ, salvation, the church, and last things. Also falling within this discipline’s province are articulation of a believer’s pattern of life (personal and social ethics) and the Christian presentation of truth to those outside the church (apologetics).⁵

The Justification of Theology as an Intellectual Discipline

Theology, as defined above, however, has fallen upon hard times. One may recall here Søren Kierkegaard’s lampooning definition of a theologian as a professor of the fact that Another has suffered,⁶ while Jaroslav J. Pelikan’s reminder that the nearest equivalents to the term theologian in the New Testament are scribes and Pharisees⁷ does not help to make the work of the theologian any more appealing either to the church or to the world at large. Indeed, as the Western world has become increasingly a secular city, more and more men and women within as well as without the church argue that it is impossible even to say anything meaningful about God. Accordingly, Gordon H. Clark begins his book In Defense of Theology with the following assessment: Theology, once acclaimed ‘the Queen of the Sciences,’ today hardly rises to the rank of a scullery maid; it is often held in contempt, regarded with suspicion, or just ignored.⁸ If Clark’s judgment is correct, the Christian might well conclude that he should be done with theology as an intellectual discipline altogether and devote his time to some mental pursuit holding out promise of higher esteem. The issue can be pointedly framed: How is theology—construed as an intellectual discipline that deserves the church’s highest interest and the lifelong occupation of human minds—to be justified today? Still more pointedly: Why should I, as a Christian, engage myself for a lifetime in scholarly reflection on the message and content of Holy Scripture? And why should I continue to do it in the particular way that the church (in her best moments) has done it in the past? I would offer the following five reasons why we should engage ourselves in the theological enterprise:

Christ’s own theological method;

Christ’s mandate to his church to disciple and to teach;

the apostolic model;

the apostolically approved example and activity of the New Testament church;

the very nature of Holy Scripture.

Christ’s Own Theological Method

All four Evangelists depict Jesus of Nazareth as entering deeply into the engagement of mind with Scripture and drawing from it fascinating deductions about himself. For example, on numerous occasions, illustrated by the following New Testament passages, he applied the Old Testament to himself:

Luke 4:16–21: "He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them: ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’"

John 5:46: If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.

Luke expressly informs us that later, "beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [the glorified Christ] explained [dierme¯neusen] to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:27; see also 24:44–47). Such an extensive engagement of his mind in Scripture exposition involved our Lord in theological activity in the highest conceivable sense. It is Christ himself then who established for his church the pattern and end of all theologizing—the pattern: we must make the exposition of Scripture the basis of our theology; the end: we must arrive finally at him in all our theological labors.

The Church’s Mandate to Disciple the Nations

After determining for his church the pattern and end of all theology, the glorified Christ commissioned his church to disciple the nations, baptizing and teaching his followers to obey everything that he had commanded them (Matt. 28:18–20). The Great Commission then places upon the church specific intellectual demands. There is the evangelistic demand to contextualize without compromise the gospel proclamation in order to meet the needs of every generation and culture. There is the didactic demand to correlate the manifold data of Scripture in our minds and to apply this knowledge to all phases of our thinking and conduct.⁹ And there is the apologetic demand to justify the existence of Christianity as the revealed religion of God and to protect its message from adulteration and distortion (see Tit. 1:9). Theology has risen in the life of the church in response to these concrete demands of the Great Commission. The theological enterprise serves then the Great Commission as it seeks to explicate in a logical and coherent manner for men everywhere the truth God has revealed in Holy Scripture about himself and the world he has created.

The Apostolic Model

Such activity as eventually led to the church’s engagement in theology is found not only in the example and teaching of Jesus Christ but also in the rest of the New Testament. Paul wasted no time after his baptism in his effort to prove (symbibazo¯n) to his fellow Jews that Jesus is the Son of God and the Christ (Acts 9:20–22). Later, as a seasoned missionary he entered the synagogue in Thessalonica "and on three Sabbath days he reasoned [dielexato] with them from the Scriptures, explaining [dianoigo¯n] and proving [paratithemenos] that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead (Acts 17:2–3). The learned Apollos vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving [epideiknys] from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ" (Acts 18:28).

Nor is Paul’s evangelistic theologizing limited to the synagogue. While waiting for Silas and Timothy in Athens, Paul reasoned (dielegeto) not only in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks but also in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there (Acts 17:17). This got him an invitation to address the Areopagus, which he did in terms that could be understood by the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers gathered there but without any accommodation of his message to what they were prepared to believe. Then, in addition to that three-month period at Ephesus during which he spoke boldly in the synagogue arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God (Acts 19:8), Paul dialogued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus (hardly the name his parents gave him; more likely, the name his students gave him), not hesitating, as he would say later to the Ephesian elders, to preach anything that would be helpful to them and to teach them publicly and from house to house, declaring to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 20:20–21).

We also see in Paul’s letter to the Romans his theological exposition of the message entrusted to him—both in the broad outline and essential content of the gospel he preached and in the theologizing method which he employed. Note should be taken of the brilliant theological flow of the letter: how he moves logically and systematically from the plight of the human condition to God’s provision of salvation in Christ, then, in turn, on to the results of justification, the two great objections to the doctrine (justification by faith alone grants license to sin and nullifies the promises God made to Israel as a nation), and finally on to the Christian ethic that God’s mercies require of us.

It detracts in no way from Paul’s inspiredness (see 1 Thess. 2:13; 2 Pet. 3:15–16; 2 Tim. 3:16) to acknowledge that he reflected upon and bolstered his theological conclusions by appeals to earlier conclusions, biblical history, and even his own personal relationship to Jesus Christ as he unfolded his doctrinal perception of the gospel of God under the Spirit’s superintendence. One finds these theological reflections and deductions embedded in Romans in the very heart of some of the apostle’s most radical assertions. For example, at least ten times, after stating a specific proposition, Paul asks: What shall we say then? and proceeds to deduce by good and necessary consequence the conclusion he desired his readers to reach (Rom. 3:5, 9; 4:1; 6:1, 15; 7:7; 8:31; 9:14, 30; 11:7). In the fourth chapter the apostle draws the theological conclusions that circumcision is unnecessary to the blessing of justification and that Abraham is the spiritual father of the uncircumcised Gentile believer from the simple observation based on Old Testament history that Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6) some fourteen years before he was circumcised (Gen. 17:24)—striking theological deductions to draw in his particular religious and cultural milieu simply from the before and after relationship between two historical events! Then, to prove that at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace (Rom. 11:5), Paul simply appeals to his own status as a Christian Jew (Rom. 11:1), again a striking theological assertion to derive from the simple fact of his own faith in Jesus.

The apostolic model of exposition of, reflection upon, and deduction from Scripture supports our engagement in the theological enterprise. If we are to help our generation understand the Scriptures, we too must deduce and arrange conclusions from what we have gained from our exegetical labors in Scripture and be ready to dialogue with men. Engagement in and the result of this task is theology.

The Activity of the New Testament Church

Engagement of our minds in theology as an intellectual discipline based upon the Holy Scriptures gains additional support from the activity of the New Testament church. The New Testament calls our attention again and again to a body of saving truth, as in 2 Thessalonians 2:15—the traditions, Romans 6:17—the pattern of doctrine, Jude 3—the faith once for all delivered to the saints, 1 Timothy 6:20—the deposit, and the faithful sayings of Paul’s pastoral letters (1 Tim. 1:15; 3:1; 4:7–9; 2 Tim. 2:11–13; Tit. 3:4–8). These descriptive terms and phrases indicate that already in the days of the apostles the theologizing process of reflecting upon and comparing Scripture with Scripture, collating, deducing, and framing doctrinal statements into creedal formulae approaching the character of church confessions had begun (examples of these creedal formulae may be seen in Rom. 1:3–4; 10:9; 1 Cor. 12:3; 15:3–4; 1 Tim. 3:16 as well as in the faithful sayings of the Pastorals).¹⁰ Furthermore, all of this was done with the full knowledge and approval of the apostles themselves. Indeed, the apostles themselves were personally involved in this theologizing process. In Acts 15:1–16:5, for example, the apostles labored as elders in the deliberative activity of preparing a conciliar theological response to the issue being considered then for the church’s guidance.

Hence, when we today, under the guidance of the Spirit of God and in faith, come to Holy Scripture and with our best intellectual tools make an effort to explicate its propositions and precepts, trace its workings in the world, systematize its teachings and formulate them into creeds, and propagate its message to the world, we are standing squarely in the theologizing process already present in and conducted by the church of the apostolic period.

The Divine Inspiration and Authority of Holy Scripture

As we will argue in part one, the Bible is the revealed Word of God. Christ, the Lord of the church, regarded the Old Testament as such, and he gave the church ample reason to regard the New Testament in the same way. This means that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—indeed, the Triune God—is really there and he has spoken. If he is there, then he must be someone people should know. And if he has spoken to us in and by the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, then that fact alone is sufficient warrant to study the Scriptures. Stated another way, if God has revealed truth about himself, about us, and about the relationship between himself and us in Holy Scripture, then we should study Holy Scripture. It is as simple as that. Indeed, if we take seriously the biblical truth that only in the light of God’s Word will we understand anything as we should (Ps. 36:9), we must study Holy Scripture, or what amounts to the same thing, we must engage our minds in the pursuit of theological truth. Not to be interested in the study of Holy Scripture, if the one living and true God has revealed himself therein, is the height of spiritual folly.

For these five reasons the church must remain committed to the theological task. And it can do so with the full assurance that its labors will not be a waste of time and energy. For no intellectual pursuit will prove to be more rewarding ultimately than the acquisition of a knowledge of God and of his ways and works. Indeed, so clear is the scriptural mandate for the theological enterprise that the church’s primary question should not be whether it should engage itself in theology or not—the Lord of the church and his apostles leave it no option here. The church must be engaged in theology if it is to be faithful to him. Rather, what should be of greater concern to the church is whether, in its engagement in theology, it is listening as intently and submissively as it should to its Lord’s voice speaking to his church in Holy Scripture. In sum, the church’s primary concern should be, not whether to engage in theology, but is its theology correct? Is it orthodox? Or perhaps better: Is it biblical?

The Theological Task

Precisely how the theological task is described will be determined by the Sitz im Leben of the individual theologian, governed as he is by his own intellectual qualifications, socio/historical situation, learning, and theological station.

General Aspects of the Theological Task

With Louis Berkhof, I believe that the theological task in general is both a constructive and a demonstrative one, both a critical and a defensive one—

Constructive in that the theologian, dealing primarily with the dogmas embodied in the confession of his church, seeks to combine them into a systematic whole—not always an easy task since the connecting links between many truths that are merely stated in a general way must be discovered, supplied, and formulated in such a way that the organic connection of the several dogmas becomes clear, with new lines of development being suggested which are in harmony with the theological structure of the past;

Demonstrative in that the theologian must not by his systematizing of dogmas merely describe what his church urges others to believe but also must demonstrate the truth of it by showing exegetically that every part of it is rooted deeply in the subsoil of Scripture, offering biblical proof for the separate dogmas, for their connecting links, and for any new elements which he may suggest;

Critical in that the theologian must allow for the possibility of a departure from the truth at some point or other in his church’s dogmas and in the systematic system which he himself proposes, meaning, first, that if he detects errors anywhere, he must seek to remedy them in the proper way, and second, if he discovers lacunae, he must endeavor to supply what is lacking (for Reformed theologians this aspect of the theological task is captured in the motto ecclesia reformata semper reformanda—a Reformed church is always reforming); and

Defensive in that the theologian, concerned as he is with the search for absolute truth, must not only take account of previous historical departures from the truth in order to avoid them himself, but he must also ward off all current heretical attacks on the true dogmas embodied in his church’s system.¹¹

With regard to the task of systematic theology in particular, I concur with Gabriel Fackre that it should be (1) comprehensive, that is, cover all of the standard teachings of the Scriptures, (2) coherent, that is, demonstrate the interrelationships of the several topics, (3) contextual, that is, interpret, whenever and wherever possible, the sweep of doctrine in terms of current issues and idioms, and (4) conversational, that is, engage historical and contemporary points of view.¹²

And with Klaus Bockmuehl, I believe that the systematic theologian himself (1) must encourage . . . and exercise the ministry of teaching in the church and reactivate [the] catechetical function in order to confirm both churches and individual believers so that they are not being driven around by alien doctrines and finally destroyed; (2) must alter his form of expression, whenever and wherever possible, away from that of Greek metaphysical concepts of thought and language to that of the biblical dynamism that was concerned with the history of God’s deeds of mercy; and (3) against the philosophy of the lordship of man, must call for the reversal of [modern society’s] decision of secularism [i.e., godlessness] and again publicly assert and encourage to assert the lordship of God . . . [and] announce God truly as God to a generation forgetful of this fundamental fact.¹³

Specific Aspects of the Reformed Theological Task

With these general aspects of the theological task guiding him, the Reformed systematic theologian is specifically responsible to provide his readers with (1) organized cognitive information that is radically biblical (this is simply what it means to be Reformed) and (2) to do so in such a way that such information will encourage growth both in ministerial skills and in specific heart attitudes toward the things of the Spirit.

The Reformed systematician should provide his readers with cognitive information concerning

the major loci and cardinal doctrines of Christian theology as set forth in Holy Scripture (what he gives his readers should be, with no change in basic content, preachable and teachable material);

the historic faith of the early church and the manner in which the church articulated and expressed its faith in such creeds and symbols as the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Definition of Chalcedon, and the so-called Athanasian Creed;

the distinctive nature, richness, and beauty of the Reformed faith as the teaching of Holy Scripture, and as interpreted, expounded, and exhibited in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and the great national Reformed confessions, particularly the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Assembly’s Catechisms, Larger and Shorter;

Reformed orthodoxy and its validity as the most viable contemporary expression of scriptural orthodoxy;

dominant motifs of contemporary theology from the posture of Reformed biblicism and confessionalism;

philosophical, ideological, and religious themes of contemporary thought where they affect the content of the Christian gospel construed as including both Christian proclamation and Christian teaching.

The Reformed systematician is also responsible to impart this cognitive information in a way that will encourage his readers to grow in certain specific religious affections, specifically in their

reverence for the Holy Scriptures as God’s Word to us and as the final instructional source and norm for faith and life;

constant readiness to see God’s kingdom and the unity of the biblical covenants as the hermeneutical key to the understanding of Holy Scripture;

appreciation for the Reformed theological heritage;

perseverance in their effort to grow as systematic theologians;

respect for the work of others who have addressed themselves to the systematic task, e.g., Origen, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, William Ames, Francis Turretin, Jonathan Edwards, Heinrich Heppe, Charles and A. A. Hodge, William G. T. Shedd, James Henley Thornwell, Robert Lewis Dabney, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Augustus Hopkins Strong, Benjamin B. Warfield, Francis Pieper, Louis Berkhof, J. Oliver Buswell Jr., Gerrit C. Berkouwer, John Murray, John H. Gerstner, and Wayne Grudem;¹⁴

awe as those who have been granted the great privilege to study the mind of Christ as revealed in Holy Scripture;

soberness as those who have been called to spread God’s word of judgment to the peoples of the world;

joy as those who have been called to proclaim God’s word of grace to the same people;

meekness as those who recognize that they too must live by and under that same Word which they study and apply to the lives of others;

boldness to apply the doctrinal insights they gain winsomely and practically to Christian living and to a world in great need;

sincere concern for a biblically faithful evangelization of a lost world and for the juridical subjugation of the nations under the general equity of Christ’s current messianic rule (Westminster Confession of Faith, XIX/iv); and

humble, prayerful reliance upon God for all of these things, with the perpetual prayer that the favor of the Lord will rest upon them and establish the work of their hands (Ps. 90:17).

With this perception of the task of theology—and of a Reformed systematic theology in particular—governing our thinking, we will now begin our journey into the fascinating and dazzlingly rich world of theology as an intellectual discipline. Since all true theology must have an appropriate ground, we will begin with a propaedeutic treatment of Holy Scripture as the only legitimate ground for authoritative theological predications. Then we will address in turn the classical theological loci, namely, the doctrines of God (or theology proper), man as covenant creature and covenant breaker, the nature of Christ’s incarnation, his salvation in both its accomplished and applied aspects, the church and its attributes and marks, its authority and duties, its government, and its sacraments, and finally, the marvelous but perplexing intricacies of last things.

Part One

A Word from Another World

Chapter One

The Fact of Divine Revelation

Hundreds of the world’s space scientists are spending vast sums from their nations’ treasuries trying to make meaningful contact with imagined rational beings living in deep space. It is an extremely questionable undertaking for many reasons, but the insatiable thirst for a word to us from another world drives them on in a pursuit that has to date yielded nothing.

The Christian church believes that it already possesses such a word from outer space, or, more accurately, a word from beyond space, even from the Triune God of heaven himself. My aim in part one of this work is to set forth a major portion of the evidence for the teaching that the Bible is indeed God’s revealed and inspired Word from another world to the inhabitants of this world. We will show that though written entirely by men, it is also entirely the Word of the living God, because the Spirit of God inspired men to write it in the whole and in the part. The relation between the human authors and the Spirit of God, however, was not one of simple cooperation or coauthorship. Men could not (and would not) have written the Bible apart from the Spirit’s superintending activity. The Holy Spirit, then, is the author of Scripture in a more profound and original sense than the human writers ever could (or would) have been. God is the primary author of Holy Scripture, with the human writers being the authors of Scripture only insofar as the Spirit mandated, initiated, and provided their impulse to write. Never did the Bible, either in the whole or in the part, exist for a moment apart from its Spirit-mandated and inspired character. Consequently, to regard the Bible as only a generally reliable library of ancient documents composed by human authors, as even some evangelicals are willing for the unbeliever to do (at least at first) as part of their apologetic strategy,¹ is to overlook the most fundamental fact about the Bible and the Bible’s major claim about itself.

This conviction that the Holy Spirit is the primary author of Scripture entails yet another conviction, namely, that the Spirit’s superintending influence upon the minds of the Bible writers insured that they would write precisely what God wanted them to. So, since the God of truth by the Spirit of truth inspired the Bible writers to write what he wanted them to write, the final effect was an inerrant autograph or original. And if we fail to recognize within the Scriptures our Master’s voice speaking his infallible truth to us from his world to our world, we destroy ourselves not only epistemically but also personally, for we abandon the only foundation for the certainty of knowledge and the only meaning base by which we may truly know the One infinite, personal God and thereby ourselves as persons of dignity and worth.²

The Revelational Process

The Bible teaches that God revealed himself to people at many times and in various ways (Heb. 1:1–2).³ The most common nominal expressions in the Old Testament for this revelatory idea are the phrases the word of Yahweh [or God] ([debar yhwh [elo¯hîm]), which occurs scores of times, and the law [of Yahweh] ([to¯rat_ [yhwh]), the proper meaning of which is instruction, which in turn strongly suggests authoritative divine communication.⁴ The primary Old Testament verb expressing the revelatory idea is ga¯låh, occurring some twenty-two times, the root meaning of which appears to be nakedness, and which, when applied to revelation, seems to suggest the removal of obstacles to perception, for the prophet is often spoken of as a seer (ro¯eh, or ho¯zeh) who sees visions (mareh, hazôn, ha¯zût_, hizzayôn) (see Isa. 1:1; 2:1; 13:1; 29:10–11; Jer. 38:21; Lam. 2:14; Ezek. 1:3, 4; 13:3; Amos 1:1; Mic. 1:1; Hab. 1:1; 2:1).⁵ Occasionally the verb ya¯d_a, in its causative stem (to make known) is also employed in the sense of revealing (Pss. 25:4; 98:2). In the New Testament the primary word groups for the revelatory idea are formed from the verbs (apokalypto¯, to reveal; see apokalypsis, revelation) and (phaneroo¯, to manifest; see epiphaneia, manifestation).⁶

What was it that God revealed? He revealed (1) both his existence and something of his nature, as well as his moral precepts, through man’s nature as imago Dei (Prov. 20:27; Rom. 2:15), (2) his glory, in creation and nature, in a nonpropositional manner (Ps. 19:1, 3 [NIV mg]; Rom. 1:20), and (3) his wisdom and power, both through his acts of ordinary providence⁷ and his mighty acts in the history of salvation or Heilsgeschichte (e.g., see the sparing of Noah’s family at the flood, the exodus, the Incarnation, Christ’s cross and resurrection). These mighty acts of God in history, of course, required the propositional explanations that always accompanied them (Amos 3:7) and without which the acts would have been left to their observers to interpret the best they could. Indeed, more than thirty-eight hundred times the writers of the Old Testament introduce their messages with such statements as the mouth of the Lord has spoken, the Lord says, the Lord spoke, hear the word of the Lord, thus has the Lord shown to me, or the word of the Lord came unto me, saying.⁸ Consider the following data.⁹

Old Testament Evidence

In the Prepatriarchal Age (Gen. 1–11) God spoke directly and propositionally to Adam, having apparently assumed a manlike form for that purpose (Gen. 2:16–17; 3:8), and entered into covenant with him, promising Adam great blessedness for obedience and imposing the sanction of death for disobedience. He also spoke to Cain (4:6–12), to Noah (6:13–21), and to Noah and his sons (9:1, 8).

In Patriarchal Times (Gen. 12–50) God again revealed his covenant promises and preceptive will through theophanies (the angel of the Lord,¹⁰ Gen. 16:7–13; 28:13 [see 31:11–13]; 32:22–32 [see 48:15–16; Hos. 12:3–4]), and he also spoke through visions (Gen. 12:7; 15:1, 12; 26:24; Job 4:13; 20:8; 33:15) and two types of dreams—dreams in which direct revelations were communicated (Gen. 15:12; 20:3, 6; 28:12; 31:10, 11; 46:2), and symbolic dreams requiring divine interpretations (Gen. 37:5, 6, 10; 40:5–16; 41:1, 5).¹¹

In the Mosaic Period (Exodus through Deuteronomy) God continued to reveal himself through theophanic media (his angel, the burning bush, the pillar of cloud and fire) and through visions (Num. 22:20). But the chief organ of revelation was Moses himself, whom God commissioned at the burning bush to be his authorized spokesman and thus a unique prophet in Israel’s history (Num. 12:6–8; Deut. 18:18, Hos. 12:13). At the sea God revealed himself as the God of the covenant, saving his people and judging their enemies. Several times we read of Moses recording things that God told him (Exod. 17:14; 24:4, 7; 34:27; Num. 33:2; Deut. 31:9, 24; see John 5:46–47). At the mountain, Moses received the book of the covenant (Exod. 24:7—se¯p_er habberîth; see also the book of the law, Deut. 31:26), which was regarded as of equal authority with Moses himself. The high priest’s Urim and Thummim also became a medium for discerning the Lord’s will (Exod. 28:30; Num. 27:21; 1 Sam. 14:41, NIV mg; 28:6; Ezra 2:63; Neh. 7:65), while the Levites were commissioned to preserve and to teach the Law (Deut. 17:18; 31:9–13; see Mal. 2:5–7). In this period Moses authored Psalm 90. Also in this period we see spiritism and sorcery expressly forbidden as means for determining the divine will (Lev. 19:26; 20:27; Deut. 18:14).

In the Age of Conquest (Joshua through Ruth) the Law of Moses continued to abide as Israel’s authority (Josh. 1:7–8; 8:30–35; also called the book of the law of God, Josh. 24:26), with God continuing to speak to Joshua (Josh. 1:1, 5, passim) and by his angel to such judges as Gideon (Judg. 6:12). He also spoke through a dream to a Midianite soldier (Judg. 7:13–15).

In the great Age of the Prophets (Samuel to Malachi; see Acts 3:24) God spoke audibly to Samuel (1 Sam. 3; see also 1 Sam. 10:25: "the regulations of the kingship [which Samuel] wrote down on a scroll [se¯p_er] and deposited before the Lord," which underscores Samuel’s role in the inscripturation of revelation). Samuel in turn organized schools or guilds of prophets (1 Sam. 10:5–11) who were to supplement the Word of God given by Moses, to instruct Israel in the ways of God, and to act as guardians of the theocracy. Also in these cloisterlike establishments dedicated to religion and learning,¹² the prophets studied God’s revealed law, kept a record of Israel’s history,¹³ and arranged to preserve their own prophetic writings.

During the time of the united kingdom God spoke to David (1 Sam. 23:2–4) and to Solomon (1 Kings 3:5; 9:2; 2 Chron. 7:12) through prophets such as Nathan (2 Sam. 7:4–17; 12:1–14; 1 Chron. 17:3), through the (at least) seventy-three psalms of David¹⁴ and the two psalms of Solomon, and finally through the wisdom literature of godly, wise men.¹⁵ It was also in this period that a clear distinction was drawn between general and special revelation (see Ps. 19).

During the divided kingdom period, prior to the time of the great writing prophets, God spoke through such prophets as Ahijah (1 Kings 11:29–39; 14:6–16), Shemaiah (1 Kings 12:22–24), Elijah (but see 2 Chron. 21:12–19 for a written prophecy by Elijah), Micaiah (1 Kings 22:17–28), and Elisha (2 Kings 2–13), who made both short-term (e.g., 1 Kings 17:1, these to authenticate the prophetic institution in Israel quickly as truly from God) and long-term predictions (e.g., 1 Kings 13:2).

Then from the ninth century down to the fifth century God spoke in visions to the so-called writing prophets—Obadiah and Joel (ninth-century prophets), Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah (eighth-century prophets), Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah (seventh-century prophets), Daniel, Ezekiel, Haggai, and Zechariah (sixth-century prophets), and to Malachi (a fifth-century prophet). He also spoke by dreams to Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel (Dan. 2:1, 3, 19, 26; 4:5; 7:1; see also Jer. 23:25, 28, 32; 27:9; 29:8; Zech. 10:2).

As these prophets conveyed God’s message to the people, while everything they said was ultimately from God (see 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:20–21), many times the divine factor so overpowered the human factor that the latter virtually dropped out of sight. As Louis Berkhof notes:

The prophetic word [often] begins by speaking of God in the third person, and then, without any indication of a transition, continues in the first person. The opening words are words of the prophet, and then all at once, without any preparation of the reader for a change, the human author simply disappears from view, and the divine author speaks apparently without any intermediary, Isa. 19:1, 2; Hos. 4:1–6; 6:1–4; Mic. 1:3–6; Zech. 9:4–6; 12:8, 9. Thus the word of the prophet passes right into that of the Lord without any formal transition. The two are simply fused, and thus prove to be one.¹⁶

The Old Testament also gives evidence that God clearly instructed several prophets to preserve in writing the revelations he was giving them (see 1 Chron. 29:12, 19; Isa. 8:1; 30:8; Jer. 25:13; 30:1–2; 36:2, 27–28; Ezek. 24:1, 2; 43:11; Dan. 9:2; 12:4; Hab. 2:2; see also here 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:20–21), justifying the inference that he did so with all of the writing prophets.

The prophets also speak of the Lord’s hand being upon them in such a manner that they were constrained—sometimes contrary to their natural desire (Exod. 3:11; 4:10, 13; Jer. 1:6)—to proclaim the divine message (Isa. 8:11; Ezek. 1:3; 3:22; 37:1). Jeremiah expressed the holy compulsion he felt to speak God’s message in these words: "His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot [welo¯ ûc_a¯l]" (Jer. 20:9).

Throughout this period of kingdom disruption a very evident process of inscripturation of the divine Word was also taking place, each biblical book of this period, so inscripturated, becoming a covenant or kingdom document given to the people of God in the history of redemption, with later prophets often recognizing earlier prophetic writings as speaking with absolute authority and citing them as the word of God (see Joel 2:32 and Obad. 17; Amos 1:2 and Joel 3:16; Jer. 26:18 and Mic. 3:12; Jer. 49:14–22 and Obad., passim; Ezek. 14:14, 20; Dan. 9:2 and Jer. 29:10; Zech. 7:12; Mal. 4:4).

It was doubtless also in this period of the great prophets that the twelve psalms of Asaph, the ten psalms of the sons of Korah, the psalm of Heman the Ezrahite, and the psalm of Ethan the Ezrahite were composed and added to Israel’s Psalter.fifth-century prophet

We may now summarize the concept of revelation in the Old Testament period:

God revealed himself in the context of the history of redemption (in which history he acted in mercy and judgment to redeem his people).

This history of redemption was structured by several covenants that God made with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel (both at Sinai and on the Plains of Moab), and David, and by the promised new covenant of Jeremiah 31, each covenant building upon those preceding it as God carried out his salvific purpose.

This covenantally structured history, in turn, necessarily entailed and was served by verbal communication of propositional truth, assertions sometimes immediately by and from God himself, sometimes immediately by persons authorized, authenticated, and inspired by him.¹⁷

This revelatory activity that accompanied and served God’s redemptive activity was necessarily progressive, its progressiveness possessing an organic character, that is, a perfection at every stage (herein resides one reason why later prophets did not hesitate to cite earlier prophets).¹⁸

These revelations came by means of theophanies, dreams, and visions that accompanied and explained God’s redemptive activity, but they culminated in the Mosaic Age and each age afterward in the ongoing inscripturation of the Word of God. Certain New Testament descriptions of the Old Testament are noteworthy in this regard in that they suggest that the New Testament writers viewed the Old Testament as a fixed and authoritative literary corpus: the Law and the Prophets (ho nomos kai hoi prophe¯tai)Luke 16:16; Moses and the Prophets (Mo¯usea kai tous prophe¯tas)Luke 16:29; the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms (to¯ nomo¯ Mo¯useo¯s kai tois prophe¯tais kai psalmois) Luke 24:44; the Law (to¯nomo¯ [a citation from Psalms]) John 10:34; the Scripture or the Scriptures (he¯graphe¯, hai graphai) John 10:35; Rom. 9:17; Luke 24:27; holy Scriptures (graphais hagiais) Rom. 1:2; the oracles of God (ta logia tou theou) Rom. 3:2; living oracles (logia zo¯nta) Acts 7:38; prophetic Scriptures (grapho¯n prophe¯tiko¯n) Rom. 16:26; and [the] sacred Scriptures ([ta] hiera grammata) 2 Tim. 3:15.

Public reading and teaching of the Word of God followed its inscripturation, in order that the Word of God might be kept before the people as his perpetual revelation to them (Josh. 8:30–35; Neh. 8:1–18; Mal. 4:4–6).

New Testament Evidence

In the New Testament age (a much shorter period of time than that of the Old Testament, only covering approximately a hundred years), God reinaugurated the revelatory process that had ceased with Malachi. The first messages were Gabriel’s words to Zechariah and to Mary (Luke 1:13–20, 28–37) and five supernatural dreams to Joseph and the Magi (Matt. 1:20; 2:12, 13, 19, 22).

God later spoke through John the Baptist, with Luke 3:2 reporting the emergence of revelation with John in words paralleling the Old Testament formula: The word of God came to John (egeneto rhe¯ma theou epi Io¯anne¯n).

Then he revealed his glory, grace, and truth most personally and directly in his incarnate Son who is the Word of God (John 1:1, 14, 17; 17:3–8; Heb. 1:1–2)—whose person manifested God’s name and nature (John 17:6), whose work revealed God’s work (John 17:4), and whose words revealed God’s words (John 12:44–50; 17:8).

Finally, in the apostolic age God provided the explication of this Son revelation by his Word revelation through Christ’s apostles and prophets (John 16:12–15; 1 Thess. 2:13; 1 Cor. 2:13; 12–14; Eph. 3:5; 2 Pet. 3:15–16).¹⁹

We may summarize the concept of revelation in the New Testament age with six more points:

In the Gospels, Christ the incarnate Word, whom John announced as the Messiah of the Old Testament, claims to have supreme, ultimate, and absolute authority, the authority of the Lord God himself (see Matt. 9:2; 11:27; 28:18; Luke 21:33).

In the Gospels, Christ calls, equips, and sends out apostles to speak and act with his authority, and provides for their continuing authoritative witness (Luke 6:13; 9:1–6 [here they are assigned an internship in exercising this authority], John 14:25–26; 16:12–15; 17:20 [here they are assured that they need not rely on their memories for knowledge and accuracy; the Holy Spirit will aid them; here also, as church missionaries, they are to go forth as Christ’s plenipotentiaries, having his authority]).²⁰

In the New Testament age, following the resurrection and ascension of Christ, the apostles are authenticated as Christ’s authoritative representatives by the marks of the apostle (Acts 5:12; 2 Cor. 12:12; Heb. 2:4).

The apostolic witness, which was in the first instance and for the most part oral, progressively culminated in the written apostolic tradition, which in turn became authoritative and normative in the church for faith and practice (1 Thess. 2:13; 5:27; 2 Thess. 2:15; 3:6, 14; 2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10; Eph. 3:1–4; Col. 4:16; 1 John 1:1–4; 4:6; John 20:30–31).

The church received these apostolic writings as being on a par with the Old Testament Scriptures (explicitly stated in 1 Tim. 5:18 [see Luke 10:7]; 2 Pet. 3:16; implicitly stated in 1 Thess. 5:27; Col. 4:16; 1 Tim. 4:13; Rev. 1:3).²¹

The postapostolic church did not canonize the New Testament Scriptures but only declared that it had received them as authoritative and thus normative from the beginning as an inspired body of literature. The earliest list containing only the twenty-seven New Testament books occurs in a letter of Athanasius, A.D. 367; the first council to affirm the twenty-seven New Testament books was the Third Council of Carthage, A.D. 397.

In anticipation of an issue that will be addressed more fully in chapter three, namely the cessation of special revelation, it is important to note here that the revelatory process that produced our Old and New Testaments did not flow uninterruptedly. Between Genesis 49:27 and Exodus 2:1 slightly over four hundred years transpired when there was a blackout of divine communication to Jacob’s family in Egypt. Then with the passing of Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets, another four-hundred-year blackout ensued before the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah the priest, thus commencing the New Testament period of revelation. Such previous revelational blackouts should prepare us for the naturalness of the revelational blackout that has been in place since the close of the New Testament canon.

The Neoorthodox Objection

In our century a certain sophisticated objection has been registered against the whole idea of a verbal revelation. This objection contends that religious truth by its very nature will always be existential truth—that is, subjective truth for me, the human existent. It is said that because written or spoken language is always caught in the web of historical relativity, it is inadequate as a conveyor of religious truth to meet the soul’s subjective demand for religious certainty; it serves at best as a Hinweis—a pointer—to the existential truth encounter lying behind and signified by the actual words of Scripture and experienced nonverbally by the human existent. In other words, revelation is never propositional but always only personal in terms of the Christ event, for Christ alone is the Word of God. The Bible becomes then the fallible human witness to the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit inspires, not the Bible, but faith, recreating the Christ event in us existentially. It is the believer who is actually inspired.²²

Such is the dogmatic pronouncement of classic neoorthodoxy. As one facet of that impressive enterprise of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, it takes its place in the broader vision of that theological novelty which, under the influence of the Kantian distinction between the phenomenal and noumenal realms,²³ maintained the qualitative distinction between God and man, between eternity and time. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) had argued that the phenomenal realm, the world of appearances, was controlled by pure reason, while the noumenal realm was the realm of God, freedom, and faith, and was governed by practical reason. Accordingly, neoorthodox theologians contended that, while eternity might touch time as a tangent touches a circle, it never enters into time. While God, true enough, existentially speaks to men, this revelation always lurks outside of and behind history in what the proponents of this view referred to as primal history (Urgeschichte), and it is never to be identified with the words of the Bible or any other book in the A = A sense of the word. This objection, in a word, views the Bible as a (flawed) record of God’s revelation to human beings but not the revelation itself. Revelation is always a nonverbal direct theophany outside ordinary history, and religious truth is always personal or existential truth—the effect of an existential crisis encounter (the Christ event) between God and the individual human existent.

I would say at least three things in response to this objection to the historic Protestant doctrine of Scripture as the very Word of God.²⁴ First, whatever one may personally think about the verbal or propositional character of special revelation, he should at least be willing to admit that Scripture itself affirms that one form—indeed a significant form—of divine disclosure assumed precisely this character. James Barr, himself certainly no friend of the evangelical doctrine of Scripture, concedes as much in his book Old and New in Interpretation. In an appendix to this book entitled A Note on Fundamentalism, Barr observes: "In modern revelational theologies [by this term he refers to the neoorthodox theologies], it is a stock argument against fundamentalism [by this term he refers to evangelical theology] to say that it depends on a

Reviews for A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith

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Excellent. The best contemporary systematic I have read.

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The best new systematic theology around. It is not on the same level as Calvin, but what is?