Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: — | Date: January 7, 2013 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Well, good afternoon and welcome to another edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. I gotta say, you know, it’s fall break around the seminary and I was just talking off-air with our guests that we’re going to have on the program today. It may be fall break, but it sure doesn’t feel like a break. The only thing that has anything to do with a break is that there are no classes. But studying seems to never take a break, especially as a seminary student. So be that as it may, it is fall break around Greenville Seminary, and I have the pleasure of having two interviews actually scheduled this week. And so you’ll hear those in succession at their appointed times on the calendar.

And today we’ll be talking with Dr. Fred Zospel on a book that he wrote about B.B. Warfield on the Christian life, and more about that in just a moment. As I indicated, this is a podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and if you want to find out more information about the seminary, you can visit us online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at gpts.edu. If you’re interested in more information about this podcast, you can visit us at our website, confessingourhope.com, and feel free to write in and contact me at confessingourhope@gpts.edu.

In addition to all those resources, we also now have a mobile app that you can use and install on your iOS or Android device where you’ll get all these podcasts handy right in your hand wherever you may be. If you’re like me and have to go shopping sometimes with your wife and don’t feel like going into the stores but want to do something else, you can sit out in the hall and listen to a podcast. There’s one way of doing it. There’s other ways. But anyway, be that as it may, you can download that at our website as well. All the information is there and available for you.

Also, coming up here at Greenville Seminary, just a few things to note. We are starting to think about our Spring Theology Conference. I realize that we’re just starting the fall, and we haven’t got through winter yet, and spring seems like an eternity from now. And, well, it may be, but it will be here before we know it. And we have a really exciting program at our Spring Theology Conference lined up. It’s on the doctrine of man, and given the current climate and issues in the Church, this is going to be a very exciting conference. Stay tuned for more information. We will be interviewing various speakers of the conference at a later date, so stay tuned for that, and as usual, you can get more information at the seminary’s website, gpts.edu.

Now for today, we do, as I indicated, have the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Fred Zospel into the studio, as it were. Actually, he’s on a phone call with me. But we’re going to be talking with him about a book that he wrote on B.B. Warfield on the Christian life. Dr. Zospel is a pastor of Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia, that’s in the great state of Pennsylvania, and he’s also the author of The Theology of B.B. Warfield. In addition to those duties and responsibilities, he’s also teaching at Calvary Baptist Seminary in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. So Dr. Zospel, it’s great to have you on the program today, and I appreciate you taking the time on Columbus Day, if that matters. For most people it does.

Dr. Zospel: Glad to be with you. Thank you.

Host: Thanks for being on. And I know most people have to work on Columbus Day. It’s not much of a holiday unless you work for a bank or the government. But I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me about this book that I have read. And it’s a very encouraging book, very practical, in fact, on the life and the thoughts and considerations of Warfield. Why did you choose to write this book, and why did you use… you obviously structured it in a certain way, so maybe give us a little bit of the background to what brought you to write this book in the first place.

Living In Light Of The Gospel

Dr. Zospel: Well, first of all, the first idea was not mine, actually. Justin Taylor at Crossway Books and Steve Nichols are editing a series, a brand new series, called Theologians on the Christian Life, and they contacted me to see if I would do Warfield. And I was very happy to do it because there’s a lot left that I still wanted to do about Warfield’s theology and particularly this aspect of it. So I was glad for the invitation. The series looks to be a really helpful series; it’s going to take major theologians of the Christian church and explore what they had to teach about the Christian life. And so we have Augustine on the Christian life, and Calvin on the Christian life, and Luther on the Christian life, and so on.

And it looks to be a really good series. Mine was the first and it was Warfield on the Christian Life, and I’ve subtitled it “Living in Light of the Gospel.” And I do that very deliberately because that was Warfield’s own outlook: that the Christian life is to be lived in light of the gospel that we embrace. And what that means simply is we are to live in the conscious awareness and the intentional awareness of what we have in Christ and what He has done for us, our need of Him, and the fact that we are in Him and have Him, and in Him have all the treasures that God has given to us. And living in that awareness is something that Warfield evidently, the best we can tell, was just a model at—living in the awareness of the blessings that we have in Christ.

The book is divided up into a few parts. First, I give just a personal background, a little bit of a history of Warfield and his work at Old Princeton primarily. He had some ministry before that, but that was the bulk of his career there. So after introducing Warfield himself and his approach to the Christian life, then I get into the matter of his teaching on the subject itself. We can’t go anywhere into the doctrine of the Christian life without laying some groundwork, and so the next major section of the book is foundations of the faith. And there I lay out Warfield’s thinking regarding the scriptures—the role of scriptures not only as inspired of God but as something that is given to us to reveal the work of Christ for us, and it is given for our spiritual growth as well as our initial conversion. And his grasp of that subject of the importance of the ongoing learning of scripture for Christian living.

After that, we look at matters of redemption: the person and work of Christ, His two natures, His incarnation, major themes like sacrifice and substitution, things like that, and larger areas like justification and conversion, the work of the Spirit, and the doctrine of sanctification. And all that kind of lays the groundwork for what follows in the book.

After that, then, we have a section what I call orientation and perspective. And what that simply is, is the believer’s orientation of his thinking. What are the major thoughts that should shape the way he responds to what God has done for us in Christ? And so we look at what it is to live in the light of justification, to recognize that I’m a justified sinner. What is it to live in the recognition that I belong to Jesus as one of His children, one of God’s children? What is it to live in light of God’s providence that is over all things?

And then after that, we move into the Christian life itself and how it is to be worked out in light of the gospel, orienting our minds toward Christ Himself as our not only our Savior and our substitute but also our model and our forerunner. And then what is it to be like Christ? And then moving to matters of practical piety and prayer and faithfulness and things like that. And then moving on to finally the Christian hope and even the Christian’s attitude toward death. And then finally at the very end, I give some summary reflections of Warfield’s approach to the whole thing, which I think are helpful.

Host: Now, as I was going through this book, I’m always looking for—in nearly any book I read, and unfortunately not every book is structured this way, I think by intention in some cases—but I always appreciate especially the section that you have here in part four, because it’s almost as though you took everything that was said prior, and then you wrapped it up into this practical application of these elements so that we can take away from it something for us in the 21st century. Certainly Warfield, he didn’t live in our time, and we don’t live obviously in his time, but as you indicated even briefly in the beginning, that the Gospel transcends all of that. And so maybe it might be helpful for us to know a little bit about Warfield’s world, and a little bit about him, so that we can then turn that over and say: how does he speak to us today? Though he’s dead, does he still speak today? Who is this guy, B.B. Warfield?

A Massive Scholar With A Heart For Christ

Dr. Zospel: Yeah, Warfield was a major theologian around the turn of the twentieth century. He taught at Princeton Seminary—not the university, the seminary—from 1887 to 1921. Before that, he had taught at Western Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he’d had a couple of other brief ministries, but this is where his life work was at Princeton. It was a critical moment in the history of the church in some very important ways. The liberalism, the new modernism, had just reached the scene at the time of Warfield, and there were many people, of course, who were opposing it and seeking valiantly to uphold and to promote historic Christian faith and the gospel. And they were doing wonderful things with it, but there was no one like Warfield who was so broadly and so deeply equipped to answer all of the criticisms that had come from virtually every department of learning.

He was above anyone else a man whose learning and whose grasp of things was so broad and so deep that whether the criticisms came from philosophy or historical studies or theological studies or New Testament studies or Old Testament studies—or if it was historical criticism or whatever the department of learning specifically—he would enter the frame, and everyone knew that he pretty much owned the discussion. He knew your position better than you did. And there are times even when he seems almost to be toying with his opponents because he knows the subject so much better than they did.

He was just a massively equipped theologian, more learned in things than anyone else around, and he was recognized to be that in his own day. In fact, I spent a considerable time during my research over the years looking through the old theological journals of that day, and one of the interesting things was—this doesn’t make its way much into my writing, but just a curious observation—was that the theologians of Warfield’s day seem to have done their work with an awareness of Warfield. It’s like they would do their work almost imagining that he was looking over their shoulder, because they’ll make remarks about Warfield in their writing, sometimes just offhand remarks. Like they’ll just refer to “the theologian of Princeton,” and of course everybody knows who he’s talking about. Or they’ll review something and say that, well, “the theologian of Princeton will not approve of this” or “he will like this.” This shows to be an awareness.

And very seldom will they enter into sharp disagreement with him. And most often, if they dare do that, it’ll be prefaced with a page or at least a paragraph of accolades for Warfield: how much we’ve profited from the man, and he’s a man of great learning, and we appreciate his work—and then they’ll get on with, “but I disagree.” There’s that kind of homage that’s given to him even in his own day. In 1912, there was the centennial celebration of Princeton Seminary, and there were delegates from all over the world who would come in, and letters of appreciation that had come from all over the world. Warfield is mentioned regularly in those—this is while he is living—and he’s mentioned as the leading ornament of the seminary. This was a land of giants. This was Charles Hodge, A.A. Hodge, Archibald Alexander, and people like that, and yet it was recognized even in his own day that here was a man who stood head and shoulders above the rest.

So he was that kind of a man. But what’s not as widely recognized about him is that although he was a man of that kind of massive learning, his heart was just as big, and his heart just beats hot for Christ. And that was one reason I really was eager to get into this book when they asked me to do it, because that’s something about Warfield that’s not as widely appreciated. He’s recognized as the scholar he was, but he’s not—because he has not been read as thoroughly in these days—he’s not as widely recognized as the Christian that he was. And in his heart of hearts, massive scholar though he was, in his heart of hearts he saw himself simply as a sinner rescued by divine grace. And that’s really what animated him in every way.

Host: One of the things I appreciate about this book is, especially in the opening pages as you recount the life of Warfield and you talk about the things that he stood for—you know, his strengths and weaknesses as a man—it’s on page 34 of the book. In his final days, Francis Patton remarked in his memorial address—this is after Warfield died—remarked that it was a loss unquestionably felt throughout the greater part of the Christian world. “Nothing but ignorance of his exact scholarship, wide learning, varied writings, and the masterly way in which he did his work,” he surmised, “could prevent anyone from uniting with us today in the statement that ‘a prince and great man has fallen in Israel.’”

And then later on, Machen—I guess the founder of the OPC, if that’s how you want to refer to Machen—lamented in a letter to his mother after Warfield’s funeral that as they carried him out, Old Princeton went with him, and that he was certain there was not a man in the entire church who could fill one quarter of his place. And those are quite high statements for a man who obviously had a huge influence on people. And it’s sad to hear you say that he’s not as widely read today in the church, and perhaps we’re the worse for it as a result.

Dr. Zospel: I think that’s true. There is a bit of a, I can say this, a revival of interest in Old Princeton and in Warfield in particular. When I first started my research for that, that was not the case, but it just kind of coincided, and I’m really happy to be a part of that. It’s because we really will profit the more from him. And one of the reasons I was eager to do this book is simply that I, myself, have profited so immensely from this man, and I’m eager to see others profit from it as well. So when I see that, it really is gratifying, because he really does have much to offer.

Host: When you say there’s a revival of Old Princeton, maybe in today’s world, what leads you to think that or say that?

Dr. Zospel: Well, a few things. Republication of much of the Old Princetonians, some of Warfield’s works being published more. You’re finding a few more articles being written about him, things like that. You’re hearing more about it in some seminars that are being offered, courses in seminaries. And then also now with 2012, we’ve got the 200th anniversary of the seminary, so there’s been a little bit more of it because of that as well. And part of it very simply is just the growing gospel awareness of evangelicalism, and then within that the growth of the doctrines of grace and the wider appreciation of what we call Calvinism. And with that, you’re just not going to find too many better spokesmen than the Princetonians and Warfield in particular. And so because of all of that, I think there’s a growing interest in him.

Host: Now in the book you start where I would expect you to start in a book like this. You’re taking the readers through, as it were, a doctrinal tour, touching on some of the major doctrinal issues that the Christian faces. But we live in a climate, and I think you would agree, that is put off, as it were, I think, by doctrine. And it seems as though, you know, “don’t give me your doctrine, I just want to know how to live my life.” But yet you start in chapter 2 with the role of Christian doctrine in Warfield’s Christian life, and then by extension, the role of Christian doctrine in our life and how we apply that. And there’s a statement that’s made on page 37 of the book that I think captures a lot, in some sense, what you’re setting out to do in this chapter, where truth leads to life, and it is truth rightly understood that shapes Christian experience. How does that matter? I mean, if we’re talking about doctrine—and certainly doctrine isn’t something that stands on its own in the sense that we learn about right doctrine and it just sort of stays there—how does that help us bridge the gap between what doctrine is and what it’s supposed to do for us?

The Role of Christian Doctrine

Dr. Zospel: Well, actually, all of that that you’ve mentioned was a huge concern of Warfield, even in his own day. There were plenty of people from various quarters for various kinds of reasons saying, “we don’t need so much doctrine, what we need is life,” and “we don’t need doctrine, we just need truth,” and “we don’t need doctrine, we just need the facts.” You know, various ways of saying it, but there was this wave that was opposing theology in his own day as well. And his basic answer to it was: take away doctrine, you take away Christianity. There just is no Christianity apart from doctrine. Christianity is more than a creed, but at the very least it is a creedal religion. It is a revealed religion. Because it is a revealed religion, we are people with a message—a message from God, we dare to say. And so of first importance for us is propositions from God that have come, and we are given to announce those to the world and to inform the people of God as well.

Now, what’s fascinating about this, and this is what Warfield captures, I think, very well, is that it’s not just, therefore, a cerebral religion. The great thing is that these truths that we proclaim and these propositions that we proclaim become, in the hands of the Spirit of God, the means by which God captures—if we can say it that way—claims His people and transforms His people. It is the means; it’s the stuff that God uses to transform us from unbelievers to believers, from new believers to growing believers. And so it’s very important that this truth be learned and continued to be studied, because this is the means in the hands of the Spirit of God by which He makes us what we ought to be.

At the very center of all of that, at the very center of the revealed religion itself, is the message about Christ. And that in particular is the means that God uses to transform us. And Warfield makes a lot about that in this. What’s interesting too is that this is before it was popular as it is now in our day. In our generation, it has become popular to be “gospel-centered” and to talk about the gospel and say that you’re a gospel-centered church or whatever. Warfield was all about that before it was ever popular to say it. That’s what characterizes his work from beginning to end. And so whether he’s writing a very scholarly, polemical piece against unbelievers, or if he’s publishing a sermon that he’s preached in the chapel there, Miller Chapel in Princeton, always it’s this gospel pulse through it all. And he’s just deeply convinced that this is what the Christian life is all about, and this is how God makes us who we are, and it’s how He transforms us.

Host: As a result of Christianity being a doctrinal enterprise, for lack of a better word, you start out in chapter 3 and, as I indicated, we’re going to try to work our way through it. Certainly we won’t be able to cover everything in a short period of time, but I’m trying to pick out critical pieces, although I think much of what is said in this book is critical for the reader. You start in chapter 3 with really the foundational perspective. You’ve already hinted on or talked about this idea of our Christian religion being a revealed religion. And if it’s such that, how is it revealed to us? And I think in chapter 3 you really start with how it is revealed. I think as Warfield puts it, or you have subtitled it, “A Religion of the Book.” What are we talking about?

A Religion Of The Book

Dr. Zospel: Yeah, Warfield was big on talking about all kinds of revelation. He expounded in some fascinating ways that you can’t find elsewhere the idea of what we call general revelation, and he had some marvelous observations about it all. But he was also very careful to say that all of that is just incomplete and preparatory to special revelation that comes through God’s spokesmen and climaxes in the written word. And so the written word that we have, the Bible, is—and he made a big thing about this—this is God speaking. What the Bible says, God says. What scripture says, God says. That was the foundation of his whole doctrine of inspiration.

As you know, he’s referred to as the theologian of the doctrine of inspiration. Throughout the history of the church, God has raised up men at very critical moments to speak to the issue of the day. And so we have Augustine, who is the theologian of the doctrine of sin and grace. He didn’t invent the doctrines, but he articulated it in such a way that its influence is still being felt today, and it was very shaping and very helpful. And some theologian of the doctrine of the atonement, or Luther the theologian of justification and whatnot. In that very same sense, Warfield is the theologian of the doctrine of inspiration. He articulated it massively and gave it such a massive exegetical grounding in such a definitive statement that all discussion of the doctrine since—many people have said it’s just a footnote to Warfield. Whether you agree with his position or not, you have not finished your study until you’ve considered Warfield. So yeah, he made much of it, but at the bottom of it was this simple proposition: what scripture says, God says. Once you’ve said that, well then the questions like authority, inerrancy, infallibility, they just fall right into place. If what scripture says, God says, well then all that else follows.

Host: Why is the subject of the doctrine of inspiration so important?

Dr. Zospel: Well, this was the day of higher criticism, and it had reached its own zenith. Supposed historical critics had found supposed errors in the scriptures, and they had found them in various kinds of ways—whether historical inaccuracies they would claim, or internal inconsistencies, or theological problems, or ethical problems in the scripture. Because of all of that, because it was coming in such a wave from all quarters, it was the issue of the day in many respects. As I say, Warfield above everyone else was the man whom God raised up to give answer to the critics in that day and in that sense then propel orthodoxy into the twentieth century.

Host: In the chapter that follows his discussion on the authority of scripture and its inerrancy and inspiration, you then move into the chapter that’s entitled “Redemption Accomplished: God to the Rescue.” I love that: “God to the rescue,” because we were certainly in need of great rescue. But in this section, you make this statement: “For Warfield, Christianity is redemption,” and you italicized the “is,” I think, for a strong emphasis. Can you maybe elaborate on that? How Warfield, for him, why would he say that?

Redemption Accomplished: God To The Rescue

Dr. Zospel: Well, yeah. First of all, the “God to the rescue,” that is not a statement from Warfield, that’s my own characterization of it, but it captures very well Warfield’s thinking: that salvation as the Bible teaches it is characterized by this statement that God has come to the rescue. Christianity itself, being a revealed religion, at its center is what we call the gospel. Its whole reason for being is that it is a redemptive religion. The whole purpose of the whole faith is to bring redemption to humanity. And so Warfield emphasized this repeatedly throughout his works. Sometimes even in his polemical works on inspiration and whatnot, he would bring this point in to demonstrate that apart from redemption there’s no reason at all for Christianity.

And so the attacks that have come on the person of Christ or the meaning of the gospel—the meaning of Christ’s death and so on—are of just drastic importance because without those doctrines as the scripture teaches them, there’s no Christianity left. You can keep the name—and Warfield talks about that quite often—these people who want to keep the name but yet they eviscerate the very meaning of what Christianity is by carrying out these doctrines. This was a day when not only inspiration was being undercut; the larger problem was the anti-supernaturalism of the day. It was a very naturalistic age. This is the age of Darwin, and “we know how everything works now; God wasn’t even that much involved in creation, so how much was He involved in inspiration, and really how much was He involved in Jesus and the whole incarnation that we call?” Warfield makes a big point to answer all of that—to say that without those things there is no Christianity. It is not new, he said, that people are offended by the cross. What is new, he said, in our day, is that people are offended by the cross but want to keep the name Christian. And it’s just an impossibility because Christianity is, at its root, a redemptive religion. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That’s the whole purpose of it. So he would say, like, the Incarnation had sin as its occasion and redemption as its goal. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And he was all about that. Even revelation itself, he would say, is a redemptive event—not that it accomplishes redemption, but that its purpose is to bring about redemption.

Host: Yeah, and in fact, on the same page that I read from—and I left this out, and I probably shouldn’t have—but it says, you make reference to this: “Redemption is what Christianity means.” It doesn’t just describe Christianity. It is the part and parcel of the entire process. And as you were talking, I was thinking about how the Scriptures jump right in pretty much from the beginning and tell us that. That’s what it’s all about. It’s one of the things I appreciate the most about Warfield is that he saw that. And again, this was before it was popular to say you’re gospel-centered. But he saw that as clearly as anyone I’ve ever read.

Dr. Zospel: And I was just looking through here. Since you mentioned that chapter, on page 52, I have one of my favorite quotes from Warfield. He says, “In proportion as the grace of the saving God in Christ Jesus is obscured or passes into the background, in that proportion does Christianity slip from our grasp. Christianity is summed up in the phrase: ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.’ Where this great confession is contradicted or neglected, there is no Christianity.”

Now I think that just speaks volumes to the contemporary church, because a contemporary church can be all about a lot of things, and it can be all about a lot of good things—it can be all about family, it can be all about contemporary music or traditional music or whatever it’s all about. But if that’s what they’re all about, they’ve missed the point. And Warfield’s charge, I think, is justified: insofar as the gospel is only assumed—insofar as it’s only out there somewhere assumed and you’re really about something else—insofar as that is the case, it’s not really Christian.

Host: Well, that’s remarkable, and given the climate of his day and the things that he was dealing with, I can’t imagine it made him a lot of friends to take these positions so strongly. He just strikes me, and reading a little bit about his background and his life, as a towering presence, however, and as you’ve already indicated, most guys, even when they would disagree with him, had to give some deference, as it were, to his positions. In that chapter, and we certainly don’t have time to go through all this, but he moves into the person and work of Christ. You highlight and touch on nearly every aspect of Christ’s work: His satisfaction, His substitute, the sacrifice, reconciliation, redemption again, and then, of course, Christ is the object of our adoration.

But then in chapter 5, we move into that place where every human being is—either you can divide humanity into two groups: those who have a right standing with God and those who do not. And we start talking about this idea of justification. And where he says—and is careful to clarify in this, on page 63—that in justification God acts as judge and not merely as sovereign. What does he mean?

Dr. Zospel: Yeah, He’s not just declaring us by divine fiat, a sovereign declaration, but it’s a judicial term. God is acting as a judge in the sense that He’s weighed out the evidence and, on the basis, on the ground of justice, has declared us to be righteous—which of course is just a remarkable thing about the doctrine of justification. It’s the question that Paul takes up in the last part of Romans chapter 3: that our justification is first of all not a problem that faces us, but a problem that faces God. How can God remain just and declare unjust sinners to be just? And of course, that’s exactly the question the gospel takes on: that in Christ, God has provided for us everything He requires of us, and on the ground of what our substitute has done for us, God can remain just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus.

Host: And in light of the fact that one is justified, made right before God, and is declared to be such by faith alone—and fast-forwarding through the book just because of time—think about chapter 9. You subtitle this chapter… well, the chapter’s titled “Righteous and Sinful: Miserable Sinner Christianity.” I gotta say, I read that and I think to myself, “What exactly?” I mean, it doesn’t sound real joyful. Did you feel that way by the time you finished the chapter?

Dr. Zospel: No.

Host: Okay, good. And it brought to mind Luther’s statement where we are… oh, it’s just lost… Simul justus et peccator, yes. That’s it, yes. Go ahead. No, you say it. You’ll do it better than I will.

Righteous And Sinful: Miserable Sinner Christianity

Dr. Zospel: Well, simul justus et peccator is a Latin phrase that Luther used. Simul—simultaneously or at the same time—both righteous and a sinner. At the same time just and the sinner. Of course, that’s the gospel. In myself considered, I’m a sinner and never will be anything else but a sinner. But before God, I am righteous at the same time because I stand in Christ. In fact, there’s another phrase that Luther developed: not only simul but semper justus et peccator. That is “always”—always righteous and a sinner.

That’s the heart of the gospel. I’m a sinner, but I have in Christ what God requires of me. I’m righteous before God because I’m in Him. And so it’s very important—and this was the point of that chapter—it’s very important that the Christian recognize that he’s a sinner, not so that we grovel, but so that we can rejoice. Warfield makes the point—I think it’s a wonderful point—that this is the thought that has shaped the piety of Christianity for centuries: the recognition that we are sinful in ourselves, but we have everything given to us in mercy in Christ, and then we are recognized as accepted in Him. And so we have this joy of what he calls “soulless contrition.” We’re contrite because of our sin, but there’s no joy like that of soulless contrition. We have in Christ the answer to all of the worst problems that we have: our sin. And so while we are sinful, we are also righteous and accepted before God in Christ.

Host: Now, Warfield was dealing with a particular… well, I’ll just… problem, okay, in his day. And you touched on this in the beginning of the chapter: this whole idea of perfectionism. What do we mean by perfectionism?

Dr. Zospel: Well, there were various brands of perfectionism, varieties of the teaching, but they held in common that in some sense a Christian was perfect. Now, some would say that by definition a Christian is perfect; others would say that a Christian can become perfect and ought to become perfect if you do this or that or whatever. Inevitably, they would dumb down the definition of what it is to be perfect, and Warfield pounced on that pretty firmly. Warfield was just death on the whole idea, and the reason was—and that’s the purpose of this chapter—was really to say, I think it’s summarized in that statement by Thomas Adam very well: that the moment we think we are perfect, the moment we think that we’re okay, we’ll abandon Christ. And at every moment of every day, what I need more than anything else is to look to Christ, and to keep looking to Christ, and to keep looking to Christ. And the moment I think I’m perfect, I’ll abandon Christ because I don’t need Him anymore. And so Warfield saw this as a very important gospel issue: to remember that on the one hand, yes, I’m a miserable sinner—that’s historical language of the Christian Church—but not in order to grovel in it, in order to glory in what I have in Christ. My sin is worse than I ever thought. That’s okay because I have a Savior who’s greater than I ever imagined.

Host: Yeah, Warfield comments, “It’s the very spirit of the miserable sinner Christian. We recognize our sin and so make humble confession, and yet we rejoice in the provision of grace found in Christ and seek to honor Him with our lives.” And as I read that and I think about my own upbringing—I was raised in a Baptist church, and for better or for worse, that’s where God had me in growing up—but there was always this mentality, as I reflect back on it, and don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful that the Lord put me in a Christian home and I was able to hear the Gospel at a young age, but there was always this mentality that sort of hung there. Not necessarily spoken out loud, but it was as though the gospel was for those people. But I’m now a Christian, and now the gospel, that’s something that happened, but now I’m over here, and things are different. Well, in some sense that’s true, but on the other hand, as I grew in my faith and understanding of what the gospel is, I began to realize more and more—and I think this chapter really presents that very clearly—that the gospel isn’t just for the lost; it’s as much for the saved as it is for the lost.

Dr. Zospel: Absolutely. Absolutely. And by the way, I’ve got to tell you this since I’m a Baptist: it’s not Baptists who are alone in that. It’s just that we somehow come to Christ and somehow we think we need to go on to “better things.” The way I like to say it is—I think Tim Keller has said it this way—that the gospel is not the ABCs, it’s the A to Z. It’s not the invitation to the party; the gospel is the party. And Warfield, again, before it was popular to talk like that, Warfield was just all about that.

Host: Yeah, and it’s not to say—and you go on in the book and start talking about sanctification and our response to a gospel-centered life. Okay, so what? What does it matter? Okay, I’m right with God. I have been justified by faith alone. I am no longer guilty. I have been declared not guilty because of Christ. Great. But okay, so what? Now, what’s the Christian’s response to that? And what I appreciate, and I mentioned this in the beginning of the interview, that you do devote a significant amount of pages to this response, this “living response” as you call it. And I want to zero in just on a couple areas because we’re almost out of time. But the one area that jumps off the page at me—perhaps it’s because of where I’m at in my own life, I’m certain that’s the case—but chapter 15 of the book, you start talking about prayer, a practice of piety and a means of grace. Now I gotta tell you, I just think, you know, candid confession, I think Christianity in general has lost the value of a strong prayer life. Yet in this chapter, you talk about it as a practice of piety. What do you mean?

Prayer: A Practice of Piety and a Means of Grace

Dr. Zospel: Well, for Warfield, that was the very centerpiece of the Christian’s, if we can call it, practical Christian living. This is where we see that a Christian recognizes his dependence upon God and so goes to God. This is where we see that a Christian recognizes the great work that God has done for him in grace and so he goes to God in praise and thanksgiving. And when we see a Christian in prayer, there we see a Christian who really gets it. And I think that’s what Warfield is getting at.

Host: Yeah, in this section you talk about prayer as a means of grace and then you discuss where Warfield examined the implications of the Lord’s words to Ananias in Acts chapter 9. And then you go on to say Warfield passed over this observation with only a brief mention to investigate instead what this passage has to tell us of prayer as a means of grace. How was prayer a means of grace in Warfield’s view?

Dr. Zospel: He really made it simple: prayer is a means of grace if nothing else because one very important aspect of prayer is asking. There it is. And it’s really… I’ve read lots of books on prayer; I’ve never seen one put it quite so simply. And you see that and you think, “Okay, this is an ‘oh duh’ moment,” but that was very helpful, I think. Prayer is asking from God.

Host: I’m reminded of a passage where, you know, it just plainly says that “you have not because you ask not.” You know, I often reflect on that in my own prayer life. What do you desire? What is your heart’s desire? I mean, certainly we’re always working as Christians and striving to get our hearts in line with what God desires. And I think ultimately true prayer brings us into that alignment with what God wants. And it’s really not true prayer until we recognize that reality in the life of the believer. But I love what you said about how prayer demonstrates really the effects of the gospel on a person, because the gospel itself shows our complete dependence. We are people in need of rescue. And once we’ve been rescued, we don’t, as you said earlier, we don’t just say, “Okay, great,” and go about our business and do what we want. But we continue to live in that way. And I can’t think of a better way to express that dependence than to take this posture of prayer as God’s people.

Dr. Zospel: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Host: And just leaping through the book, there’s just so much in this book, and I would commend to the listeners, if you have opportunity, you really want to get this book. I’ll throw this out there: our own president here at the seminary made this comment about the book. Dr. Piper made the comment. He says, “I will reread, assign to my students, and give away Zospel’s book, not because it is an excellent commentary on Warfield, though it is, and not because it is highly readable, though it is, but primarily because I am a better Christian for having read it.”

Those are high comments, high remarks. I mean, I personally know Dr. Piper, and for him to say that, those are very high statements to make. As I read through the book, there is an aspect of it that really challenges you; it grips you to press more on in this life of the Christian—how the gospel has so radically changed us. Was that really your goal when you wrote it?

Dr. Zospel: Absolutely. I really deeply appreciated his comments, both just because of the help that it was to him, but really in a larger way because that’s what the study had—that’s the effect the study had on me. And in writing the book, that’s what I wanted, and that’s what I was hoping for and praying for. And to see that was just a matter of great… I just deeply appreciated his catching that and saying that for others.

Host: Yep, and we do sell it here at the bookstore still, as a matter of fact, here at the seminary. In wrapping things up—I know we touched on barely some of the major things and left out a lot, obviously—but if Warfield were alive today, what would he say to this generation?

Dr. Zospel: I think he’d say the same thing he did then. He would emphasize the supernaturalness of the Christian faith. He would emphasize that it’s revealed religion, and he would emphasize that the heart of it is a gospel that proclaims a truth that is as relevant and helpful for this generation as it was for the first. That this is what we need more than anything else: what God has provided in Christ.

Host: Well, you know, I’m reminded of a hymn, you know, “The Old, Old Story.” You know, I know it’s an old, old hymn, but in some sense, you know, the old, old story should never get old.

Dr. Zospel: That’s right. That’s right.

Host: If you don’t mind, I’m going to read the last paragraph of the book. I think it summarizes well what we’re getting at, not only in the book but the discussion here as well. “In short, Warfield’s own Christian life is marked by a fervent and adoring appreciation of gospel truth, especially the person of Christ and His work for us and in us. And to encourage us in our Christian walk, he offers the same. Warfield teaches us that we will never outgrow the gospel. We will never reach such levels that we should move on to ‘better things.’ There is no better thing, and there is nothing so well-suited to our growth and further faithfulness than this.”

Those are, well, I think those are remarkable words. And as I think about our world today and the climate we live in—and I was just commenting recently to a friend, you know, we face it here in the United States, we face an election in our future—and we talk about how “if we just get this president, things will be better. If we just get that president and get rid of this president, things will be better.” And I just simply said, “You know, here’s the reality: they won’t be better.” What we need more than anything in this country is a deep penetration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s going to change this country.

But at the same time, if God’s people, who’ve already been affected by the gospel, do not live in the light of the gospel as this paragraph said—we’re not moving out to the next best thing because there is no better thing than that—if we don’t live in the wake of that, in the light of it, then we will never see any change, not for our churches, not for our country, and not for ourselves. And I think that’s where this book really marries up so nicely those critical doctrines that we say that we hold dear and give mental assent to, but then to turn them over and say: this is how you are to live in the wake of those. The perfect bridging between theology and doctrine and the Christian life and piety and those things that express those truths in our day-to-day lives—how we interact with our wives, how we interact with our friends, how we interact with the world, how we interact with whoever, and how we behave in certain circumstances—all is in the shadow, in the wake of how the gospel has changed us and made us dependent on Him. Any final words, Dr. Zospel? It’s been a great interview.

Dr. Zospel: I’d like to mention that several people have said that the book provides a useful series of lessons for Sunday school or for small groups in those kinds of settings. And we’ve appreciated that. And so just this last week, we have finished up making a study guide to go with the book.

Host: Oh, great.

Dr. Zospel: Yeah, I think that’s going to be available on the internet. We don’t know exactly what form yet, but if you’ll keep an eye open at Crossway’s blog and then I don’t know where else, but we’ll try to make a splash with it so everybody knows who wants to use it, they’ll know that it’s there for them. I think it would be a useful series of Sunday school lessons for people because it provides such foundational truths in directing our thinking to the gospel.

Host: Yeah, that’s outstanding and very helpful, I think, in today’s world to have a study guide to help focus the thinking and direct it in a way that’s very helpful. And I will be paying attention to that. For the listeners, as soon as I get information about that, I will post that information on the confessingourhope.com website so that they can have access to that as well as the book. I would, of course, fail my job miserably if I didn’t ask you how the listeners could actually get a copy of the book.

Dr. Zospel: Ah, Amazon.com or Westminster Bookstore—either of those places sell it. Those are probably the easiest.

Host: Okay, and again, I’ll have a link to those sources as well on the confessingourhope.com website so people can get a copy of it. We did not do it justice, I can assure you. I’ve read the book. We did not do it justice. We touched the surface of the material that’s here. Don’t be put off or afraid, as it were, with the fact that this is Warfield. You know, its name sort of carries with it that kind of baggage: “all heady theology; if that’s going to go over my head, I won’t be able to comprehend it.” The author does a great job of distilling the things down so that you can grasp and understand, get your head around the critical issues that come from this man’s life. And so while dead, Warfield still speaks to us today, and I think we would do well to listen to what he has to say. And this book does that; it helps us understand these things. Dr. Zospel, I know your time is important to you, but I do appreciate your willingness to talk with me today on this subject, and I hope it bears fruit in the days to come.

Dr. Zospel: Well, thank you for having me. It’s a subject I always enjoy speaking on. Thanks a lot.

Host: Thank you. You have been listening to an interview with Dr. Fred Zospel on a book that he wrote, Warfield on the Christian Life, and it’s a book I would strongly encourage people to get a copy of. It’s not overly expensive. It’s something that you can read—use it on your Lord’s Day afternoons, read through it, pick a chapter a day, whatever, however you want to do it. It’s a book well worth your time and resources. Think about what is said here. I think you’ll benefit greatly from this treatment of the life of Warfield and what he had to say to us. Gospel-centered living. Well, we need that message so much more than we hear in today’s world. We need it as much as he did, maybe more, in light of what we’re currently dealing with in our churches and in our country today, and I really have appreciated this discussion.

Coming up on the podcast… well, given the fact that I don’t release these now for a few weeks after the interview, it’s hard for me to even predict anymore what’s going to happen. So the best thing to do as a listener is to just pay attention to our confessingourhope.com website for what is going to be released in the days to come. So that’s where you’ll find all the information. So until next time, we do thank you for listening to this particular edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. And God bless.