Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: — | Date: September 16, 2010 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Introduction

From America’s Newsroom, I’m Lori London, Fox News Radio. Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bolling is a live call-in radio program providing doctrinal dialogue, cultural commentary, and insightful interviews with some of today’s foremost Christian authors and leaders. Knowing the Truth is the outreach ministry of the Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship located on Highway 25 in Travelers Rest. The goal of the church and the radio program is to seek the glory of God in the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of the saints by the ministry of the Word. For more information, go to www.knowingthetruth.org. Here with today’s edition of Knowing the Truth is Pastor Kevin Bolling.

Hey, welcome into this edition of the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. This is Pastor Kevin Bolling, and we’re going to be talking today about theology. Of course, we talk about theology quite often on the radio program, and today we’re specifically going to be talking about the theology of B.B. Warfield. Now, a lot of people may or may not be familiar—I think quite a few in our listening audience would be familiar with at least some of the works of B.B. Warfield—but that’s what we’ll be talking about today in our discussion, and we’ll be doing so with a special guest that I’ll tell you who he is in just a second here as we get started on the program.

I wanted to let you know just a couple things that are available out on the website before we get started and also give you the numbers to be able to call into the program today to talk about this subject. Let me say that, first of all, the numbers to call in are 1-888-660-WLFJ. That’s 1-888-660-9535. And then also, I want to let you know that you can send an email. The email here at the studio, I have it up and running, is simply kevin@knowingthetruth.org. That’s K-E-V-I-N at knowingthetruth.org. And if you call that, I’d be happy to take your question or your comment for our special guest today as well.

Let me just say, our special guest today is Fred Zaspel. He is a pastor, and he has written a book called The Theology of B.B. Warfield. And in that work, let me say to our listening audience that the works of B.B. Warfield are scattered. We didn’t have huge compilations of his works. It was kind of difficult for many, many years to be able to say definitively what Warfield had taught on a number of different subjects, because his works weren’t all compiled. Well, now Fred Zaspel has taken care of that by bringing together the theology of B.B. Warfield, and so he’s done a great service, I think, for the Christian church today, the modern evangelical church. So with that, let’s go ahead and welcome Fred into the broadcast today. Fred, welcome to the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast.

Fred Zaspel: Thanks. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Kevin Bolling: Thanks. Fred, I wanted to ask you just about, as you could hear in some of the statements I was just making about B.B. Warfield, is that correct? I’ve had this understanding that his works were kind of scattered in different locations, some in pamphlets, some articles, some books. This type of scattering is what I’m talking about. And it was rather difficult up until now to really get a good grasp of who B.B. Warfield was and what he taught on a number of issues.

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, that’s partly right. Most of his work—he wrote very few books. Most of his works were published in theological journals and other kinds of periodicals, and there are just literally hundreds of them. Also, he wrote just hundreds of extensive book reviews and things. Much of that has been gathered into the ten volumes of the works of Warfield that have been available now since 1930, and then two volumes of selected shorter writings of Warfield. But still, even beyond that, there are just many that have never been touched since they were published the first time back around the turn of the century. And what I’ve tried to do in this is pull together everything that he had written, and some of that was just dusting off stuff that had been left in the libraries of journals and things like that.

A Character Sketch Of B.B. Warfield

Kevin Bolling: If you would, would you start off by giving us a little bit of a character sketch, a little bit of a profile of who B.B. Warfield was?

Fred Zaspel: Yeah. Warfield was primarily known, of course, as the giant theologian at Old Princeton Seminary, where he was from 1887 until his death in 1921. He was from Kentucky originally. He taught, first of all, actually at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh and then went back to his alma mater at Princeton to teach there. Old Princeton was known as just the land of theological giants. They had some marvelous men there from Alexander—Archibald Alexander, their first professor—Charles Hodge, of course, and many others that were just giants. But among them all, it’s pretty much agreed that Warfield was head and shoulders above them. Some of Hodge’s own, like his grandson, said that, as much as some other people who knew them all.

One man in particular said that he had known all of the great theologians of that previous generation: Charles Hodge, Henry Boynton Smith, and William G. T. Shedd. And he said he was convinced not only did Warfield know more than all of them, but he’s disposed to say that Warfield knew more than all of them put together. It’s just hard to find a theologian with a broader scholarship than Warfield had. His learning was just massive, and it was as broad as it was deep. And he was recognized around the turn of the century as just almost entirely unique in the kind of theology he was doing, because he was able to pull from all quarters.

And of course, it was a time when old liberalism was on its advance, and many people had entered into that fight in wonderful ways. But it was Warfield alone who was able to stand up and meet the advance of liberalism at every front, because he was so learned in every department of theology and biblical studies. And so he’s known as the giant theologian of Princeton who was answering liberalism in his day.

Kevin Bolling: I had read one of your articles that you wrote on another blog entitled “Remembering Warfield on His Birthday” last year. His birthday, I believe, is November 5th, if I remember right.

Fred Zaspel: Yes.

Kevin Bolling: But November 5th of last year, and you wrote this, you said, “At important moments in the history of the church, God, in kind providence, has raised up men to give voice to his word. And so there is Augustine, the theologian of sin and grace. He didn’t invent these doctrines, of course, but in his battle with Pelagius, he gave them such a clear and cogent articulation that forever since, he has been recognized as the one who gave these doctrines to us. He was the high-water mark, and so also there was Anselm, the theologian of the doctrine of the atonement; there was Luther, the theologian of justification; and Calvin, the theologian of the Holy Spirit. In this sense, exactly, Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield, of Old Princeton, is a theologian of the doctrine of inspiration. Those who hold to the historic doctrine today add very little to what Warfield said a hundred years ago. So also, any who reject that doctrine must contend with Warfield before their work is complete. He was the theologian of inspiration. This is his gift in God’s kind providence to the modern church.” That’s quite an accolade there that you’re giving him.

Fred Zaspel: It is, but I don’t think that can be disputed. His writings on the doctrine of inspiration were just massive, and they were recognized to be so, even in that day. In fact, I’ve been curious, just thumbing through the old theological journals of the day, to see that kind of thinking about Warfield reflected in others, even those who disagreed with him, acknowledging that this is the guy we have to contend with if we’re not going to agree to this historic doctrine of inspiration.

Kevin Bolling: You mentioned in that same article, though, that if we were to summarize Warfield and only see him in that particular role—although he was the man that God had raised up to speak to that issue during his time, as you pointed out a few moments ago, that that was the issue of the day for Warfield, the attacks coming against the inspiration of Scripture—but you say in that article, if we were to think that that was all that Warfield was about, we would be completely wrong. Explain that comment, if you would, please.

Fred Zaspel: Well, because he is the theologian of inspiration and deservedly recognized as that, it’s just somehow the common legend, the common opinion about him, that that’s what he was all about, that’s what he wrote about, and that’s that. But it was the issue of the day, and it was a big issue for him, and so he’s the one who stood to meet that. But in his own heart of hearts, that’s not what he was all about. What he was all about was Christ, and he is a very Gospel-centered, very self-consciously Gospel-centered, Christ-centered Christian in his own writings. He has more voluminous writings on the person and work of Christ and the salvation that comes from him than we have on inspiration, although his writings on inspiration were just massive, something like over a thousand pages. But yeah, that was not his own center, although that was the very big issue of the day. And in fairness, that’s why he’s recognized as that, because at a critical moment in history, he’s the one who stood up and gave us that doctrine.

Christ’s Two Natures

Kevin Bolling: You mention again in that article that Warfield provided the Church with a massive exegetical grounding for the great truths of Christ’s two natures, his redemptive work, and so on. Speak to us just for a moment here about what he said about Christ’s two natures. I think that, you know, the modern-day Church probably doesn’t give enough airtime to the subject of the two natures of Christ, in union with the single person of Christ. So if you would just talk about that issue for just a second, that’d be wonderful.

Fred Zaspel: Sure. In his day, the doctrine of Kenoticism was prevalent—that the liberals had advanced a teaching of Christ’s incarnation which they professedly grounded in Philippians chapter 2 where it says Christ emptied himself. The Greek word there is kenoo, and so the Kenoticism was a doctrine that gave various expressions in various ways depending on who was teaching it, but the thing they held in common was that when the second person of the Trinity became incarnate, he surrendered his deity; he became something less than God. And so the Jesus we meet in the New Testament, they would argue, was not God. He maybe used to be, but now he’s not. He’s just a man, or maybe a superior man, but still just a man and not God.

And Warfield would mock that and call him the God of Kenoticism, or the Jesus of Kenoticism, a shrunken deity or something like that. But for Warfield, this was not just something of a party spirit or anything like this; this struck at the heart of the gospel—the heart of the Christian faith—because if our Savior is not both God and man, then he’s not qualified to save us, and everything unravels at this point. And so he gave just a Herculean effort to the exposition of Jesus’ deity and his humanity and exact definition as to how these two natures relate to each other, how we see them in Jesus in the New Testament Gospels and so on. And this for him was a point of critical importance and also as a point of worship then as well. And here’s the Christ whom we adore. He is God and he is man. He’s both. And what else could we ever hope for?

Kevin Bolling: Amen. And I totally agree with that, of course, about the natures of Christ. And I think that there’s a lot of sloppy theology about, especially around the time of a couple of the holidays that we celebrate—of course, Christmas and Easter—you hear preachers make some sloppy statements about the person and the work of Christ. And sometimes I think, especially about Christ and His human nature, I think that it does well to have that restated theologically so that we say it correctly and don’t talk about Christ emptying Himself of His essential Godhood, of His essential person in the Godhood. Otherwise, we’re not saved. We can’t be saved by anybody else other than God Himself doing this work on our behalf.

Fred Zaspel: That’s right. In fact, what’s interesting, though, in that is, although he, more than anyone else at the time, gave exposition to the deity of Christ and the two natures of Christ, he also, in ways that are more vivid and graphic and insightful than any other, I think, gave exposition to the human nature of Christ as well. And he gave full weight to that, that we needn’t be embarrassed to say that Jesus was a man in everything that entails being a man. And he would press that and then apply that in ways that were just vivid. He would write studies, for instance, on the emotional life of our Lord, studying the emotions of Jesus in his human life and things like that, and how that reflects God as well. Then he would look at Jesus as our model, as our ideal. He would look at Jesus as our forerunner, since he’s one of us. We will follow him, become what he is and has become—of course not in his deity, but in the glory that he has now achieved. Just some wonderfully rich expositions of his humanity as well as his deity.

Kevin Bolling: Amen. Well said, and I think that, obviously, that is just as important. You know, a lot of people, again, downplay that, that Jesus Christ was truly human, as you pointed out there, in all points, tempted like as we are, yet without sin. And that’s so important for one reason: He can sympathize with us. He was God in that He could satisfy divine justice, and what was required for us—to satisfaction and adequate satisfaction be made for our sins. But obviously he was man as well in that he can sympathize with what we go through as well.

You mentioned in that article that I’ve been discussing here, you said, “But the breadth and the depth of Warfield’s grasp goes even greater still.” You say that not only was he well noted for his defense of inspiration and his writing about inspiration, but you say then his Christology was certainly something that was second to none. And then, third, you’re saying here, basically, I think, in this point, you’re pointing to his apologetic work about his thorough grasp of the issues exegetically, theologically, historically, philosophically. In all of these different ways, he put forth these polemics second to none. Is that a correct interpretation of what you’re saying?

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, I think so. At least in his time, and I think it’d be difficult to find an equal to Warfield at any point. I think there may have been somebody. It’s certainly not common, but certainly in his day he was recognized as the one who could speak with authority on every department of theology and biblical studies, whether it was Old Testament, New Testament, textual issues, authorship of the various books, historical theology, systematic theology. Any given department of theology, on every one of them, he spoke with just commanding authority, and everybody recognized it. He was just an unusually learned man.

He was well-read in all of the literature that was related to anything to do with biblical and theological studies, and not just the contemporary literature of his own day, but all the way back to the early fathers as well. He was comfortable dealing with the Greek fathers, the Latin fathers; he’s comfortable dealing with historical theology in many of the different fields. For example—this is one of my favorite examples of it—he wrote the introduction to Abraham Kuyper’s book on the Holy Spirit, which was a wonderful work on the study of the Holy Spirit. In Warfield’s introduction to that book, he gives something of a survey of the literature that has been done on the Holy Spirit throughout the history of the Church. His point overall is to emphasize the landmark nature of Kuyper’s work.

But in surveying the literature, he just shows such an amazing grasp of it all himself. He shows what has been done in Latin, what was done in Greek, what was done through the Church, what was not done through the history of the Church, and how it came to a revival of studies in the Holy Spirit in the Reformation with Calvin in particular, then it came to its flower in the Puritans and whatnot, and how these various branches of the church never touched it, these did, and how this one excels the other. It’s just a massive grasp of the entire literature in the field, both ancient and modern, and not just modern in English, but modern in German and French and Dutch. He’d read it all, and he’s just an enormously learned man.

Kevin Bolling: Well, yeah, I could see that. And you mentioned, though, that although he had that tremendous amount of ability and learning that he had done, yet he did this in a way that was really what you describe, I think, in this article as humble piety coupled with a fervent love for Christ. It wasn’t just—it was polemic, to be sure, but it was nevertheless, he had the ability, as you mentioned in the article, to devour his enemies of truth, or the enemies of truth on all fronts. But because it flowed out of such a deep heart and love and loyalty for Christ, it came across in this humble, piety sense. Is that a fair statement?

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, it’s one of the things that attracted me to Warfield. He was a man whose learning was just unparalleled. But his heart was as deep as his head, if you can put it that way. He had just the deepest affection for Christ, and he speaks of Christ always in just the most adoring terms. And I’m just certain of it. In his heart of hearts, he saw himself first, not as a scholar or anything like that. In his heart of hearts, he saw himself first as a sinner rescued by divine grace through the blood of Jesus Christ, his Savior. He was, in his heart, he was first a Christian who had undergone this great rescue from sin. And that pulses through so much of what he writes, even in some of his most polemic works. You’ll see it reflected where it’s still coming back to this center, that we are Christians utterly dependent upon our Redeemer.

And that is what made so many of these various other attacks so significant. It’s not just because some unrelated doctrine was in question, but because as it unravels, it affects the gospel itself. And then, of course, our own salvation. And so when he speaks of Christ, or when he speaks of these various issues, he brings it back to that center in just worshipful, adoring terms. And some people have, like one church historian in particular, mentions how he describes Warfield’s scholarship as dry. And I think of that, one of two things is true when someone says that about Warfield. Either one, they haven’t read him, or two, they themselves just don’t have spiritual life to see it. I just don’t get it because this heart for Christ and this heart for the gospel and the sense of utter dependence upon Christ just pulses through Warfield’s works everywhere.

Kevin Bolling: Yeah, I was going to say that. If they say that, I guess we may want to check for a pulse.

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Bolling: Make sure that everything’s okay.

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, that’s right.

Speaking Out Against Perfectionism

Kevin Bolling: Well, I want to talk some more about a couple of the other issues, and primarily that he spoke out against the subject of perfectionism. But first, we’re going to take a very quick commercial break, and when we come back from there, then I’ll ask you a couple of questions about that as well—about him standing up and speaking out against perfectionism, which was, for some reason, a popular issue during his day. Let me just tell our listeners that we’re speaking today with Fred Zaspel. He’s the pastor of Reformed Baptist Church in Franconia, Pennsylvania, and we’re talking about the subject of the theology of B.B. Warfield. We’ll be back in just a couple minutes. Stay tuned.

[Commercial Break]

Kevin Bolling: Hey, welcome back into the Knowing the Truth radio program. We’re talking today about the theology of B.B. Warfield, and we’re doing so with Fred Zaspel. He’s the pastor of Reformed Baptist Church in Franconia—I think I’m pronouncing that right—Pennsylvania. And we’re going to go back to that conversation here in just a second. I just want to let you know about something that’s out on the Knowing the Truth website. And out on that website, I have an item in the right-hand column as well as right down the middle of the page. But it’s Steve Lawson, Dr. Steve Lawson, making a promotional pitch for the upcoming Expositors Conference that’s going to take place at the end of this month at Dr. Lawson’s church in Mobile, Alabama. Both himself and Dr. R.C. Sproul will be there. They’ll be teaching how to preach in an expository manner through the attributes of God, and so it’s going to be a tremendous time together. Very, rather small, intimate environment, and I just would point you to the website to go out there to click on that link to find out more about attending there. Something we were able to work out with the folks putting on the conference was a special $55 rate for students. That includes your meals at the event as well, but just $55 for the two-day event. And again, you can find out all the details, and I’ll take you right to their page, the Expositors Conference with Dr. Steve Lawson and Dr. R.C. Sproul. You can find out more at their website at www.knowingthetruth.org.

Let’s go back to our discussion now with Fred Zaspel about his latest book, put out by Crossway, by the way. If you want to find out more about this book, you can go out to www.crossway.org. That’s www.crossway.org, and you can find out some more information about how you can get a copy of this book. I’ll be happy to send out a couple copies here on the broadcast today for your question or comment about this subject. I’d be happy to put one in the mail for you, courtesy of Crossway, and get that sent right out to you.

Let’s go back to our discussion now. Just before the break, Fred, I was asking about the subject of perfectionism. It seemed that Warfield wrote pretty extensively about perfectionism. My view of perfectionism, when people teach this, is you have to do one of two things. You have to either change the definition of being holy and perfect, or you have to change the definition of sin, because it’s so obvious that we can’t achieve perfectionism in this life. Was that the type of issue that Warfield was dealing with?

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, exactly. Warfield did critique perfectionism on exactly those lines, and many others as well. He wrote over a thousand pages on the subject of perfectionism and the Higher Life movements and such. Interestingly, just a little anecdote here: one church historian mentioned that when the Keswick Conference came to Princeton from 1916 to 1918, they were entering the lair of the aging lion of strict Presbyterian orthodoxy—meaning Warfield, even called the Lion of Princeton. Spotting this major doctrinal deviation, the lion pounced. And a thousand pages later, they certainly felt it. They were published in various theological journals for the next couple of years.

But yeah, he critiqued perfectionism along several lines. One is what you mentioned: you have to redefine either sin or holiness or both. And he kind of mocked it at this point on some occasions. He would say things like, it’s ironic that “perfect” means “perfect” everywhere except when Christians speak of being perfect. It’s just not a real perfection. And then he would remark on how odd it is at how imperfect the perfection of Christian perfectionists is, which, of course, is what you have to do if you’re going to claim to be perfect. But he would also critique it along other lines. A big point of his is that perfectionist teachers were impatient. He agreed with them that God had purposed for us to reach full perfection. But he reminded them that God nowhere says that this perfection will be ours in this life. And he said they’re like little children demanding their entire inheritance all at once. And that’s just not what God has promised. What God has promised is that it will come, but it will come in glory.

Kevin Bolling: I was going to say that we had Andy Naselli on the program, and we talked about the Keswick movement with his great work there, Let Go and Let God. I don’t remember offhand what he had said concerning that, but in their view of perfectionism, did they state that it was not having any known sin? Was that their particular way of getting around the issues?

Fred Zaspel: Well, some have said that, and Warfield tries to critique all the different varieties of perfectionism, and there were several different varieties, but yeah, some of them did say that. And some of them would define perfection just in terms of love. When you’ve perfected love, then you’re perfect. So they would get around it in various things. But again, the bottom line is the same. You’ve redefined perfection.

Kevin Bolling: Now that was an issue during his day. Do you find anybody in their right mind talking about perfectionism today?

Fred Zaspel: Well, very few. There are some groups who do. I’ve had one person in my life claim to me that she was perfect, said she hadn’t sinned in 20 years. I about fell over when she said it. But there it was. There are very few who do. But the perfectionist teachings do remain in the various higher life, victorious life types of teachings that permeate evangelicalism and fundamentalism today. With the two varieties of Christians—those who are surrendered, those who are sold out, and those who are not. And so you do end up with the two classes of Christians, the carnal and the spiritual, or whatever, among teachings today in evangelicalism and fundamentalism. It’s really rampant. It’s very common. And Warfield took issue with a lot of that as well, and he would call it just the stepchild of perfectionism. And he critiqued them in terms of making a lower and a higher variety of Christians; he found that very unhelpful. It would foster pride on the one hand for those who are sold out or whatever it is, surrendered, and it would also foster unnecessary discouragement to the so-called ordinary Christians who actually recognize their sins.

Kevin Bolling: Yeah, we talked about that pretty extensively, and I totally agree with that assessment, and I don’t see that in the Scriptures at all, making this third class of people out there, carnal Christians and these types of things. Let’s go on line two. We’ll run to the phone line very quickly. We’ve got a fellow Pennsylvanian on the line, Don from Pittsburgh. Hey, Don, welcome into the discussion today.

Don: Thank you, brother. Fred, I’ve read at least part of your book on New Covenant theology. I think you wrote it, even though I’m a Presbyterian. Yes, and it’s been a while, but I’ve read portions of Warfield’s book on the person and work of Christ. It’s quite a book. The question I have relates to: how would B.B. Warfield have—what would have been his understanding, going back to the two natures of Christ, when Christ said on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I know that there are some people—a former pastor of mine included—who believe that, there’s a lot of people who believe that what that’s teaching is that the Father, because he looked upon the sin that was imputed to Christ, forsook him. My former pastor thought, no, no, no, that’s heresy. Whatever it means, it can’t mean that. And I was just wondering what B.B. Warfield would have had to say about that. And I’ll take my answer off the air.

Kevin Bolling: Great question, Don. Appreciate it. Could you hear the question entirely? Let me restate it for you real quickly. He was talking about the words of Christ from the cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”—”My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And he was asking, you know, in that statement, what is actually being meant there? And he said he’s heard a couple of different viewpoints. One told him that to say that Christ was forsaken of the Father would be heresy; we’d have a division in the Trinity. But what exactly would Warfield have said about a statement like that from Christ?

Fred Zaspel: Well, I don’t think Warfield addressed that passage anywhere in writing specifically. All I can do is guess, and my best guess is he would look upon his Son as, in his representative capacity, standing for sinners, and in that sense rejected him, poured out the curse of sin against him, who is the representative sinner. I think he would have been in full agreement with Luther and Calvin and those kinds of remarks.

Kevin Bolling: So a legal statement, could we say, Fred?

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, I think so, that’s right.

Kevin Bolling: Forensic or legal statement of saying that Christ, in taking our sin upon Him, the sins of His people upon Him, that He was then condemned of God in that legal element there, certainly not in the essential element of who Christ is.

Fred Zaspel: No, that’s right, but still it was a very personal bearing of wrath.

Kevin Bolling: Yes, yes. Let’s go back to the line. I think we’ve got another Don on line three, so let’s go, Don, line three.

Second Don: Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my call. I have to confess, I’m not that familiar with Warfield, but I’m going to start getting that way, that’s for sure, and reading some things. What was his basic theology—more Reformed theology—and what was his views on eschatology, I would ask?

Kevin Bolling: Good question, Don. And Don, send me an email to kevin@knowingthetruth.org with your mailing address, and I’ll make sure I send you out a copy of the book to help you get familiarized with him. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Don. Could you hear his question okay?

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, that I got. It is a little faint, but I was able to hear it. Warfield was, I think we could best summarize it as a Westminster Presbyterian. He thought so highly of the Westminster Confession of Faith, he said it was something like it was the best document ever penned, short of inspiration. And he was completely consistent with the Westminster Confession of Faith as a loyal Presbyterian. So that says the long and short of it. In terms of eschatology, he is what we would call post-millennial. Now, he didn’t himself—he didn’t like the terms post-millennial, amillennial, premillennial, whatever. And in one sense, it didn’t fit him, because his exposition of Revelation 20, which deals with a thousand years, was a bit odd. He didn’t refer that to any of the three positions. He referred the thousand years of Revelation 20 to the intermediate state, which is kind of a strange interpretation, I think, no matter what standpoint you come from. But he was very definitely post-millennial in some of his writings, bearing that out in just graphic detail. In fact, one of the articles that he wrote was in specific request from a response to a publisher who had asked for him to represent the post-millennial view.

Kevin Bolling: Some have, speaking about Reformed versus Arminian viewpoints, some have described Warfield’s apologetic method as Arminian. Is that because of—was there a little bit more of an evidentiary approach to it rather than a presuppositional approach? Or where did he get the—where do people get the idea that his apologetic method was Arminian?

Fred Zaspel: Well, he did place lots of stress on evidence and on reason. But anyone who would characterize that as Arminian just hasn’t read him fully on it, because Warfield would make an extensive point arguing that the natural man cannot be persuaded by the evidence that we give. He would say things like, the normal mind—the normal mind is capable of right reason, but what right do we have to consider the unregenerate mind normal? It’s in a defective state. It’s fallen, and it cannot grasp the things of the Spirit of God, and he’s completely dependent upon the illuminating work of the Spirit of God. So we give evidence, and we give the arguments and all of that, but we know all the while that only God can open the hearts.

And part of his approach in apologetics is misunderstood, because in Warfield’s mind, apologetics is not just a defensive task; it’s a constructive task. That is to say, when he does the apologetics, he’s not simply arguing against those who disagree. He’s constructing theology. Before you can do theology, you have to have a Bible. Before you have a Bible, you have to have God. Before you have God, you have to know that you can communicate with God, that God can communicate with you, and that you’re capable of receiving. And all of this is the Department of Apologetics, which is sort of foundational, then, to doing theology. So in Warfield’s mind, it’s a constructive task that’s preliminary to doing theology. And I think because they haven’t read him fully on that, that he’s been widely misunderstood.

Kevin Bolling: Having said that, when you think about your preparation in writing about Warfield to the extent you have—I think there’s 500 and some pages in this book, pretty sizable writing about one man—you must have read a number of others and what they wrote about Warfield. What did you find? Was there something that struck you as that they didn’t get it right about Warfield, or what was your general take on the other books that have been written about him?

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, I’ve tried to read everything that’s been written about him. Now, I’m sure I’ve missed a lot, but everything I could get my hands on, at least, and everything I could find, I have tried to take into account. And, of course, Warfield is quoted very often with just commanding authority and high respect and all of that and high regard. But I suppose the main thing that has struck me in reading what others have written about him is that they have not read him fully. And so he tends to be a little bit misunderstood or misrepresented, even at times, not intentionally always. But he’s used—I get the sense that he is referenced quite often, but not really studied and read in full.

And that’s not the fault of anybody; if you haven’t, Warfield has written so much that who can read it all? I suppose the published pages are 15 to 20,000. I’ve done that, but it’s been over a period of many years of concentrated study. And so a lot of that is understandable. But some of it is—some of it comes from some surprising quarters. There are some friends of Warfield, those who would consider themselves in agreement with him, who have said some things about him that were just mistaken, and I’m sure they were not intentional. The idea of Warfield and evolution is one. Everybody has just bought into the idea that Warfield was an evolutionist. That’s not true. He was open to the idea, but he was not an evolutionist. That just gets repeated and gets repeated so often that finally everybody believes it, whether it’s true or not. And some other statements have been made like that in regard to his apologetics, and even in regard to his Christology at a couple points. Somebody said that he held to a kenotic view of Christology until 1914. That’s just not true at all. It’s surprising how some of these rumors and that get started, but there’s no actual evidence of it in the writings.

Kevin Bolling: Yeah, what they will do is take a quote, a single quote, and their spin on it is mistaken. And so they hold that up as representative, which is not truly representative. And if they had read it more fully, they would see, one, what he meant by that quote, and two, from all of the other extensive writings that he could not have meant what they thought. We talked about a couple of the areas where you had mentioned, you know, a bit of a strange view about the thousand years and those types of things, but is there any other areas that, you know, that you just found a little bit of an odd take on some theology looking at him so extensively?

Fred Zaspel: Well, that’s the most odd one. I did find some things. Now, I confess I’m Baptist, and so I’m biased on this, but his treatment of baptism at times I thought was interesting. He holds to what amounts to a presumptive regeneration. We baptize only believers, but we still baptize infants because we must presume that they’re believers because God’s promises that our children will be a part of the covenant as well, and so he holds an interesting view in that regard. And yet at other times, although he says at times we must presume that our children are believers, he’ll also say at other times that the majority of children are lost. Even the majority of believers’ children seem to be. So there’s a contradiction. I don’t know what to do with that. That’s a contradiction. He never seeks to resolve that.

Kevin Bolling: Yeah, I just wonder if he’s doing, as you mentioned, presumptive regeneration, but that the means of grace and the preaching of the Gospel would still be necessary in order to bring them to that salvation. I don’t know. I haven’t read him on that particular one, but I’m just wondering if that’s what…

Fred Zaspel: Well, he doesn’t write terribly extensively on baptism, and so I’m sure there’s more to him that we’d like to have that we just don’t. The issues of his day were other, and so his writings on baptism are really pretty thin.

Warfield’s Learning And Piety

Kevin Bolling: Well, I asked you that one first about some of his faults or some of the areas that you might disagree with him on because I didn’t want to end with that one. But let me ask you the flip side of that. Having studied so much about Warfield, you obviously know him very well. I’m thinking about Kelly Kapic. When he wrote his book about John Owen’s work, he said that he felt like he was spending every day with Owen, and could almost converse with him. He had spoken with him, or felt he knew him so well in his writings. Did you feel that same way about Warfield? And what then stands out in your mind about him? We talked a little bit about his warmth of this theology. Was there a certain area that you really felt challenged by him, or really just struck you deep in your own soul as you were studying about this man?

Fred Zaspel: Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, just to help balance out the disagreement, because I’m a Baptist, some people have asked me, why have you spent so much of your life studying a Presbyterian? And the short answer to that is simply there just isn’t another Warfield. He’s just an outstanding scholar in every dimension. And I have just been enormously blessed reading and studying him, as well as having learned so much from him. And I thank the Lord for him. He was a wonderful man, a giant of a scholar, and a godly Christian.

And what stands out, I think most of all, is that he is sort of the embodiment of the old Princeton ideal. When old Princeton was founded in 1812, they even wrote it into their plan for the seminary—this is something of their charter—that they want to produce ministers of the gospel who, one, are learned and able to defend the gospel against all critics, and two, men of deep, genuine piety. That’s what they wanted. It was a two-fold goal: learning and piety. And Warfield embodies that better than, I think, better than anyone who was ever there, although they have wonderful models of it besides him. But his learning was massive, his scholarship was almost unmatched, and yet his heart for Christ was just warm and it beat hot for Christ.

Kevin Bolling: Wow, what a tremendous testimony. And I’ve heard that said of Warfield by others as well. Just tremendous. We think about scholarship, you know, as just being so detached and egghead almost, you know, and without any warmth whatsoever. So it’s so great to see someone like this who excelled at it—excelled at bringing his mind to bear on the gospel and giving himself over to learning these things, and yet it doesn’t stay there. It goes through his heart as it comes out in his writing.

Fred Zaspel: That’s right. And also in terms of his work on the inspiration of scriptures, he’s recognized as the academic who thought this through better than anyone, and he was. But at the same time, behind it all, there’s just this humble confidence in the Word of God. What he believed at the bottom of it all is what the Scripture says, God says. And so I don’t think it really ever seriously entered his mind that the Bible could be wrong at any point. This is what God has said. How could it be wrong? And there’s just that humble spirit of confidence, utter confidence in what God has said.

Kevin Bolling: We need that today, that’s for sure, no doubt about it. I’ve been actually preaching through Psalm 119 and been focusing on the sufficiency of the Scripture. And I’ve made the comment a few times that great work has been done on the inspiration of Scripture, on the authority of Scripture, and other aspects of the doctrine of Scripture, but that I really felt that in our day and age, and maybe within our specific congregation or our specific region here that we live in, that we really needed to focus on the sufficiency of Scripture. Did B.B. Warfield zero in on the sufficiency of it as well?

Fred Zaspel: Not as much. More indirectly. He mentioned it in passing a few times, but most of it was indirect. He would deal with people who would want to alter the doctrine, say, of the doctrine of man that they’re studying or the doctrine of the church that they’re writing on. And the author in question would be saying things like, it used to be believed, but now it’s this. In other words, the doctrine of the man is changing because we now know more and whatnot. And so Warfield would counter that with what amounts to an exposition of the sufficiency of Scripture. This is all we need. And although society changes, and although our ideals change, God’s Word has not changed, and this is still the source of truth, and this is where we find it, and it’s sufficient for that.

Kevin Bolling: Amen. And boy, we stand on the shoulders of these guys that have done just a tremendous amount of work in these areas. And I think we take it for granted far too often that, you know, without the work of somebody like a Warfield, we would still be going through these battles. He really articulated this area of inspiration so well. Well, Fred, thank you very much for taking the time out to talk with us about this issue. I pray that God richly blesses your ministry here and the work that you’ve put together. Thank you for your efforts on doing this, and I pray that it’ll be a real blessing to the church.

Fred Zaspel: Oh, you bet. Thanks for having me.

Kevin Bolling: OK. Thank you very much. All right. That was author Fred Zaspel. Let me spell his last name for you. It’s Z-A-S-P-E-L. That’s Fred Zaspel. And he’s a pastor at the Reformed Baptist Church in Franconia, Pennsylvania. And he’s written this tremendous book and tremendous work here on the theology of B.B. Warfield. Again, you can go out to Crossway, that’s www.crossway.org, in order to find out more about how you can get a copy of this book.

As you can hear in our discussion today, it goes over a number of different areas. I didn’t really get a chance to go directly into the book. We’re talking about some of the related items associated with it. But let me just give you a little bit of a sense of what you would find here in this book. It opens with the historical context of the book, talking about the years that Warfield was alive and his work there at Princeton Theological Seminary, about Princeton and the Presbyterians and beyond, and about Christian supernaturalism. Warfield talking about this issue in a summary of that.

He also then talks about the apologetic part of this: apologetics and the theological enterprise, the apologetic task that Warfield gave himself to, and the theological enterprise, the nature of theology, and the right of systematic theology, the goal of theology—all of these different aspects of it. He talked about the existence of God and divine revelation. He defined it. He gave a great description of it, classifications of it. He spoke about revelation and authority, you know, the revelation we have between general revelation and special revelation, and revelation and the knowledge of God. How do we know what we know about God? Well, we know that through the divine revelation or the special revelation that has been given to us by Almighty God, i.e., the Scriptures primarily.

And so he talks about all of these different issues: Warfield’s doctrine of Scripture in summary, the inspiration of the church doctrine, the inspiration of biblical doctrine, the canon, the inspiration of evident truth. I mean, this is a very, very thorough work that you have here. He speaks about Christology: the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the two natures of Christ—which I said are so important for us to get down theologically and very precisely in our theology about those issues, as with all of these issues, but that one specifically.

The work of Christ, speaking about Christ and His satisfaction, the satisfaction of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. He talks about the extent of the atonement. He speaks about the resurrection of Christ and then about the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the ministries of the Spirit. Anthropology he speaks about. So, just a number of different topics here. It is a very, very thorough work and I highly recommend it to you. The Theology of B.B. Warfield put out by Crossway. Again, you can go out to their website at www.crossway.org.

Again out on our website, I just want to mention that at knowingthetruth.org I have that link out there for you to go to the Expositors Conference. This is put on by Dr. Steve Lawson at his church in Mobile, Alabama, coming up at the end of this month. It’s only a two-day conference, but Dr. R.C. Sproul will be there as well. Remember in all these things, the Lord Jesus Christ said this. He said that you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. You’ve been listening to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bolling. Knowing the Truth is the outreach ministry of the Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship located on Highway 25 in Travelers Rest. For more information about the church and radio ministry, visit us on the web at knowingthetruth.org. The opinions expressed on today’s program are those of the announcers, their guests, and callers, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff and management of his radio network, the Radio Training Network, or Clear Channel Communications. Life-changing teaching and talk for the Carolinas in Georgia. Christian Talk 660. WLFJ Greenville Spartanburg Anderson. Fox News Radio, I’m Lisa Brady. The man suspected of gunning down a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore