Westminster Magazine | Volume 2 | Issue 1

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21

FROM THE PRESIDENT

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elcome to a special issue of Westminster Magazine! The theme of this issue—Far Greater—emerges from what we might describe as the Apostle Paul’s “Far Greater Doxology” in Ephesians 3:20–21.

Our God, Paul assures us, is able to do far more than we can ask or think. He is far greater than we will ever understand.

As we serve the seminary, we strive to remember that God has determined to accomplish his work through his people. As John Calvin notes in his Institutes, when God chose to call the gentile Cornelius, he sent him a dream, but then sent him a person—the Apostle Peter. When the risen Christ dramatically brought Saul to saving faith on the Damascus Road, he then sent him to a person, a disciple named Ananias. And so, God uses each of us to do his work for his glory. This is true at the seminary and wherever the Lord has you serving him now.

In this special issue, we are pleased to report on the encouraging things God is graciously doing on behalf of the seminary and to share some of our vision for a far greater ministry at Westminster. I hope you will be encouraged too, by both biblical teaching as well as reports of advances in our work. This is a ministry that we can only do together. Your partnership with Westminster is vital. We deeply appreciate your prayers, service, recommendations, referrals, and support.

As you learn about our hopes for Westminster’s campus, pastorate, and global network in this issue, I ask that you prayerfully consider contributing to this vision. A friend of the seminary has generously committed a $1 Million Matching Gift towards the Far Greater initiative. That means gifts made before year end will be doubled until our campaign raises the matching $1 Million. More details on how to give are included later in this issue, or you can visit our website to learn more.

Read and celebrate with us as we engage the truth that God is seeking to do far greater things than we can ask or imagine to advance his kingdom. He is calling each of us to follow Christ unto his glory. Join us in trusting our great God to do only what he can do.

Thanks for your fellowship in the Westminster community!

WESTMINSTER MAGAZINE

Volume 2 | Issue 1 | Fall 2021

Editor–in–Chief

Peter A. Lillback

Executive Editor Jerry Timmis

Editor

Victor Kim

Managing Editor Josh Currie

Associate Editor

Nathan Nocchi

Contributing Editors Joel Richards B. McLean Smith Rebecca Bylsma

Cover Design

Jessica Hiatt

Layout

Angela Messinger

Photography

Abram Hammer

Read, watch, and listen more at wm.wts.edu Westminster Magazine accepts pitches and submission of previously unpublished work. For more information email wtsmag@wts.edu Westminster Magazine is published twice annually by Westminster Theological Seminary, 2960 Church Road, Glenside, Pennsylvania 19038. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations.

Printed and Bound in the United States of America Cover art: Albert Bierstadt, Mt. Adams, Washington (1875)

Peter A. Lillback, President

The new Jan H Jacks hospitality garden behind Machen Hall

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IMAGINE FAR GREATER

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IMAGINE A CAMPUS

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IMAGINE A PASTORATE

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IMAGINE A GLOBAL NETWORK

David E. Briones

Peter A. Lillback

John Currie

David B. Garner

Faculty News and Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Westminster News and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Alumni News and Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Faculty Interview: Mark Garcia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 From the Archive: “Ministry of Hope” | Edmund Clowney . . . . . . . . . . 38 Westminster and the Chaplaincy | Joel Richards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Alumni Interview: Harry Reeder III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Bavinck, 100 Years Later | Nathaniel Gray Sutanto . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 You as They: Human Identity and the Trinity | Pierce T. Hibbs . . . . . . . 60 Hearts Aflame pt. 3 | David O. Filson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Holy Inhabitance | Whitney Rivera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

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A FAR GREATER IMAGINATION David E . Briones

Ivan K. Aivazovsky, From Mleta to Gudauri (1868)

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o you remember a song that John Lennon wrote called “Imagine”? It’s a utopian song about imagining a world without heaven or hell, countries or wars, private possessions, greed, or hunger, and especially without religion. For Lennon, imagining these things isn’t difficult, in fact it’s easy. While this song is immensely catchy and even promotes Christian desires like eradicating hunger, greed, and war, this utopian imagination is completely antithetical to a biblical imagination.

Although Lennon insists that it isn’t hard to have this liberal imagination, I find that hard to swallow. He can “easily” imagine a world rid of the things that restrict him intellectually and morally, like heaven, hell, and religion, but he has no solid foundation on which to rest his case. Lennon calls on people to join him and says he has followers, but it is indeed the blind leading the blind.

He has no basis for his imagination.

Christians have a far greater imagination—one that is founded on the very word of God, that centers on the finished work of Christ, and that depends on the Spirit to live, move, and have our being in this world. And this imagination is far greater because it is founded on far greater promises.

One of those promises is Ephesians 3:20–21: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

The Promise of Ephesians 3:20–21

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s you probably know, Ephesians can be divided straight down the middle. Ephesians 1–3 emphasizes the indicative (i.e., truth statements),1 whereas Ephesians 4–6 emphasizes the imperative (i.e., commands). That makes Ephesians 3:20–21 the doxological climax of the rich truths in Ephesians 1–3.

Paul begins this climactic promise with the words “To the one who is able.” This is the same one before whom Paul kneels in prayer, namely the Father (Eph. 3:14). Our heavenly father, Paul says, is “able,” “capable,” or, more literally, “powerful.” The emphasis on God’s power is obvious. In a single verse, Paul employs three words that underscore divine strength: “able” (δύναμαι), “power” (δύναμις), and “work” (ἐνεργέω).

But what specifically is God powerfully capable of doing? “. . . far more abundantly than all that we ask or

think.” Now that’s quite the statement, but it seems to lose some of its force in English. You see, three English words (“far more abundantly”) are used to translate a single Greek word (ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ). For those of you who have a knowledge of Greek, you can see that Paul prefixed two prepositions (ὑπέρ, “above” and ἐκ, “out of, from”) to an adverb (περισσοῦ, “abundantly”). And this single word communicates the “highest form of comparison imaginable,”2 best translated “infinitely beyond” or “quite beyond all.”

But this single word is taken to far greater heights with a prepositional phrase that comes immediately before it: ὑπὲρ πάντα. The ESV translates this phrase “than all”: “to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.” But the Greek can be translated literally “beyond everything.”

And so, the combined effect of the word ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ and the phrase ὑπὲρ πάντα (notice the emphasis on ὑπέρ) produces the following literal translation: “to him who is able to do beyond everything [ὑπὲρ πάντα], infinitely beyond [ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ] what we can ask or think.”

“Christians have a far greater imagination—one that is founded on the very word of God, that centers on the finished work of Christ, and that depends on the Spirit to live, move, and have our being in this world.”

It is kind of clunky, but it’s undeniably emphatic in the original. The promise here is that God is indeed powerful to infinitely surpass not only our petitions in prayer but even our thoughts, not only our words but even our imaginations.

What does it take to believe this grand promise that leads to doxology? Well, the answer is simple. We need to believe the one who made the promise,3 the one of whom Paul speaks, the one before whom he bows in humble

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adoration. We need to believe that God is able, that he can do the unimaginable, if he so wills.

But how do we do that? I think Paul intended for us to look down from the climax of Ephesians 3:20–21 to the greatest demonstration of God’s power in Ephesians 1:15–23: the resurrection, ascension, and coronation of Jesus Christ. This text is especially important because it contains the same keywords found in 3:20 (δύναμις, ἐνεργέω) and the same emphasis on God’s power.

God’s Power in Ephesians 1:15–23

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efore we look at this section, it is necessary to note how inextricably connected it is to Ephesians 1:3–14. I’m sure you’re familiar with this beautiful text (especially if you’re reformed). It clearly portrays the Father electing and predestining (1:3–6), the Son redeeming and forgiving (1:7–12), and the Spirit sealing and promising (1:13–14). Paul is so excited about these truths that he not only writes these verses as a single sentence in the original, but he also includes three doxological statements after mentioning the redemptive work of each person in the Trinity (1:6: “to the praise of the glory of his grace”; 1:12: “to the praise of his glory”; 1:14: “to the praise of his glory”). Glory and power are inextricably connected. When God displays his power, he receives glory.

When Paul pens Ephesians 1:15, he writes, “For this reason” (διὰ τοῦτο). With that phrase, he is clearly drawing an inference from Ephesians 1:3–14 where the grace, love, glory, and power of our Triune God in redemptive history has just been showcased. “For this reason. . . I give thanks” (1:15–16). He gives thanks to “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory” (1:17). But his gratitude quickly turns into a petition. Paul asks that “the Father of glory,” through the Holy Spirit (1:17), would enlighten the “eyes of [believers’] hearts to know. . . what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” (1:19).

And then Paul underscores the greatest demonstration of divine power: “. . . according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (1:19–23).

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You can be sure that God can do infinitely beyond what we can ever ask or imagine, because he accomplished the unimaginable when he raised Jesus from the dead and crowned him Lord of lords. Contrary to human expectations, God overturned the verdict of death by raising Jesus to life. He reversed the guilty verdict by justifying him in the resurrection. And he didn’t abandon him in the grave but transferred him into a state of eternal glory.

And if you think the Spirit was not involved in this monumental event, think again. The Spirit played a major role in the resurrection and coronation of Christ.

He is explicitly mentioned in connection with Jesus’ resurrection (Rom. 1:3–4; 1 Tim. 3:16; esp. Rom. 8:11).

And after Jesus was crowned Lord and seated at the right hand of power, he received “the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father” and poured Him out on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:33). With the Spirit dwelling richly within us, we can now have the eyes of our hearts enlightened (Eph. 1:19). We can know, both intellectually and experientially, “the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” (1:19).

“The promise here is that God is indeed powerful to infinitely surpass not only our petitions in prayer but even our thoughts, not only our words but even our imaginations.”

The Spirit and power are often associated in Paul.

That’s precisely why Paul continues in Eph 3:20 with the phrase “according to the power at work in us.” This is a subtle allusion to the work of the Spirit in our lives. Just glance at 3:16, where Paul asks God to strengthen believers “with power [δυνάμει] through his Spirit in the inner man.” You can’t be convinced of God’s ability to do the unimaginable without the Spirit of God illuminating your mind and heart in Christ Jesus. It’s only by the Word and Spirit that you can know the power of God in Christ and be convinced of his ability to do the impossible.

It therefore makes absolute sense for Paul to soar in praise: “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (3:21).

A Far Greater Imagination

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aving said all that, I now want you to imagine with me. Imagine a far greater pastorate, campus, and network since these are the distinct areas of focus in Westminster’s Far Greater Campaign.

Imagine a pastorate that Westminster Theological Seminary can help shape through a revamped pastoral residency program. Imagine a faculty leading this program that is known by their fruits of love just as much as by their biblical knowledge in the classroom and/or scholarly works. Imagine a student body that is shaped by their professors’ knowledge of, and love for, Christ and his church, as students learn how to put theology into practice, both inside and outside of the classroom.

Imagine Westminster graduates filling pulpits all over the world with knowledge, love, and zeal, as they warmly deliver the word of God to the people of God. Imagine the long-term ripple effects of this pastoral program on the global church.

Imagine a campus where all of this can take place.

Imagine constructing Westminster’s first-ever chapel, where pastors and professors can proclaim and embody Christ, where students come under the word together in the context of worship, where the lives of future pastors are radically transformed. Imagine a new residence hall where students can outdo one another in showing honor, encourage one another, serve one another, and engage in life-shaping discussions that glorify rather than grieve God. Imagine new classrooms in which professors can more effectively communicate and apply God’s word, and where students may experience an atmosphere that enables rather than hinders learning.

Imagine a network where Westminster can extend its reach. Imagine offering online courses to people who desire a theological education but are inhibited by their current circumstances. Imagine reaching people in foreign countries where the prince of darkness reigns, where Christ is not proclaimed and treasured. Imagine being able to equip elders and lay people with a theological education that benefits those to whom they minister.

Imagine offering degree programs at the masters and doctoral levels in different languages, such as Korean,

Mandarin, and even Spanish.

What Ephesians 3:20 teaches us is that God can do infinitely beyond all that we can ever ask or imagine.

And it is our earnest desire that he does more than what’s been mentioned. Why? To make a name for WTS? No. Rather, to make his name great among the nations.

Just as Paul exclaimed in Ephesians 3:21.

Conclusion

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phesians 3:20 is such a powerful promise for believers. It assures us of God’s power to do the unimaginable. But remember, it’s not a promise that he will. It’s a promise that he can. Many Christians have taken this as a “he will” promise and unwittingly adopted a “name it and claim it” mentality, a “if I can think it, God must exceed it” mentality. Just because God can do something doesn’t mean he will do it. We should rest content in the fact that God is God, and we are not, for he does whatever he pleases for our good.

At the same time, we should beware of our natural proclivity to think that God can’t exceed our imaginations. This text clearly says that he can. And so, we ought to strike a balance, praying that God exceeds our imaginations and trusting in his good, perfect, and unshakeable will.

1 Th e only imperative that appears in these chapters is the command to “remember” (2:11).

2 W alter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ed. Frederick W. Danker, 3rd ed.

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 1033a.

3 Make sure you qualify that God doesn’t always do more than we ask or think, or that God does that but it exceeds the way we thought it should have been accomplished, kind of like God always answers prayer. It’s either yes or no.

David E. Briones (PhD, Durham) is associate professor of New Testament. He is the author of Paul’s Financial Policy: A Socio-Theological Approach (T&T Clark, 2013) and is in the process of writing a commentary on Philemon (Philemon, International Theological Commentary Series; T&T Clark) and co-authoring Reading Paul: A Reformed Primer.

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IMAGINING A FAR GREATER CAMPUS Pe t e r A . L i l l b a c k

Wilhelm Barth (1779–1852): Potsdam vom Belvedere auf dem Brauhausberg

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estminster Theological Seminary has been blessed with its historic Glenside campus since 1937, a little less than a decade after the fledgling seminary got its start in a Philadelphia brownstone. Although J. Gresham Machen passed away before he had a chance to enjoy the new campus, the stately mansion that has stood at the center of the campus bears his name. Pursuing his hope for a better home for his students, Dr. Machen spent the last years of his life developing the seminary and its vision, and speaking to donors about the purchase of the campus we occupy today.

Under the leadership of the founding faculty guided

by Cornelius Van Til, Westminster’s early students watched the campus develop dramatically over time.

The carriage house was the first library, and the gate houses and upper floor of Machen Hall provided modest housing (as they do today). In fact, a founding systematic theology professor, John Murray, occupied the third floor of Machen throughout his career at Westminster. To this day, those rooms are referred to as Murray Heights.

Over the years, Montgomery Library was built to house our outstanding and growing collection of volumes, and Van Til Hall was built to provide academic classroom space with a lecture hall and auditorium that has also doubled as our chapel space. More recently, the Andreas Academic Center, housing faculty offices and the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster

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Standards, was added to the Montgomery Library. These wonderful spaces, contributed by God’s people for the work of Westminster, have been welcomed by faculty and staff, and have shaped the experience of thousands of graduates.

In more recent years, from the needs of a growing student body, a new far greater vision has emerged. Ideas and dreams for a next phase of Westminster’s campus have never been in short supply, but when a generous friend of our seminary proposed a new academic building that would become the center of Westminster’s mission to train the next generation of scholars and pastors for Christ’s global church, these dreams suddenly became tangible. This donor and his wife pledged $5 million as a concluding challenge grant for the project, and when it was noted that there was no master plan to build the campus, he generously offered substantial funding for a campus plan that would encompass all aspects of a rebuilt and improved campus.

This far greater vision for our campus brought together the renowned architectural skills of Ayers Saint Gross and the effective leadership of Mr. Jim Sweet, our seminary’s general counsel. The design and planning unfolded over many months, culminating in the approval of Westminster’s master plan by township officials. Mr. Sweet calculates that, over the last six years, thousands of man-hours and attendance at scores of community

meetings have been invested in securing the final approval of our master plan that is now in operation.

This far greater vision enables us not just to imagine Westminster’s campus of the future, but to begin building it, brick by brick. We are praying that this next phase of Westminster’s campus will serve our Lord and our students well into Westminster’s second century of service that will begin in 2029—only eight years away.

What will this renewed, reimagined campus look like? How will it be far greater? In the spirit of the visionary verses of the apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:20–21, we know that our Lord can do far more than we can ask or think, indeed far more than we can imagine. So, with humble dependence upon Him, we are praying for a campus that is far greater than what Westminster has been able to serve on thus far. Truly, the Lord is worthy of far greater than what we’ve ever given Him. This renewed campus, then, envisions several improvements. First, a new academic building will be joined with a dedicated chapel. Imagine Westminster being able to train pastors to preach in churches around the world from a chapel building on our campus! We’ve not been able to do that before. Further, while we’re grateful for the decades of memories in Van Til Hall, we’ve outgrown its walls. Built at a time when energy costs were not a concern and modern technology for global outreach was not a factor, Van Til Hall will eventually make way for more modern facilities where we can continue to explore the profound theology of its namesake.

Within the new academic building, constructed to harmonize with the stone architecture of our iconic Machen Hall, we will have the capability to implement the most recent technology to capture every aspect of the work of the seminary, and to make it available for our students globally, for Christ and His global church.

Additionally, there will be a designated dining hall for daily meals with faculty, residential students, and staff.

Further, it will be joined with the chapel, designed with a sense of transcendent reverence, while supporting other functions of our academic and institutional life.

Furthermore, we envision, by God’s grace, a far greater ability to care for our students from around the country and around the globe by providing on-campus residence halls. We pray that at this first phase we will be able to build at least one of our two planned residence halls, providing much needed living accommodations

for single and married students. At long last, the convenience of studying and living on campus will be a possibility.

Alongside these grand construction projects, we are intent on improving student experience in Machen Hall, benefiting admissions and student counseling and care, and doing the same in our library. Plans are being developed to make our rare books more accessible, even as we focus on the digital aspects of the library that will serve the students of tomorrow, making research more accessible and effective.

“We are praying that this next phase of Westminster’s campus will serve our Lord and our students well into Westminster’s second century of service that will begin in 2029—only eight years away.”

Please rejoice with us that Lord has allowed us to launch this far greater vision with a successful revitalization project! Already this October we plan to dedicate this project during our annual Westminster Conference on Preaching and Preachers. Although in the Lord’s providence there hasn’t been much opportunity to show it off until now, in the last two years our campus has gained the necessary infrastructure for each of the buildings that we are praying for. Additional campus roadwork and parking have been entirely redesigned so that there is an altogether new sense of community in our corner between Willow Grove Avenue and Church Road. Cars no longer whiz through the campus, creating a sense of uncertainty when students walk from building to building or to their cars.

We are rejoicing at a number of amenities that have been added to the campus making it more comfortable and enjoyable for students whether they will live on

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or off campus. These improvements include a walking path—sometimes referred to as the “Murray Mile” in honor of he and Dr. Van Til’s walking lectures—along which are the “Harry Reeder III Exercise Stations” for students and neighbors, in honor of the long career of our Westminster alumnus and board member. Connected to this is a children’s playground area available for seminary families and neighbors.

“In our $50 million Far Greater Campaign, we have, by His grace, raised approximately $33 million of our goal.”

One area we’re especially delighted in is the Jan H. Jacks Hospitality Garden behind Machen Hall, near the president’s office. It is now a beautifully-landscaped slice of creation that will welcome visitors to campus.

Some more surprises include a refurbished basketball court and a new Polly’s Pickle Ball Court, named in honor of the wife of a donor. There will be the Light Charitable Pavilion generously provided by Mun and Eun Chung, Eric and Sandy Choi, and Chang and Sook Seo. The nearby Ressler Family Gathering Area includes a grill and a fire pit with seating constructed from large stones that were excavated from the campus. We hope this area will be a popular destination for comfortable fellowship as it is furnished with water, gas, electricity, and lights.

These extraordinary features of our revitalized campus are truly God’s blessings. Yet there’s even more! In our $50 million Far Greater Campaign, we have, by His grace, raised approximately $33 million of our goal. We are praying that the Lord, if He so wills, will provide the remaining funds we need to ensure that we can build the academic building and the chapel. We are thrilled that there are donors who have promised to supply the needed funds for cutting edge, state-of-the-art technology for those buildings to realize their capabilities in order for Westminster to fulfill its vision for a truly global community.

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Along with all his generosity, we have also seen the beginnings of the funding of two endowed chairs: one to honor long-serving Westminster board member and founding-father of the PCA, Dr. Frank Barker. The second is to honor our alumnus Ren Broekhuizen, who served not only as a pastor in the Holland and Grand Rapids areas of Michigan, but also ministered for several years as a missionary in Nigeria.

How good the Lord has been!

If you had asked me a decade ago about what the Westminster campus would look like today, I would not have even guessed the scope of what I’ve just described.

This is far more than I could have asked for or imagined.

But the Lord is at work. This reimagined campus is the fruit of His Spirit working through His people to advance the work of the seminary for the glory of Christ.

Would you continue to pray with us that the Lord will raise up those special friends and donors who will help us close the remaining gap to build our academic building and chapel? Please pray that the Lord would be so kind as to send generous donors who can help us build one or both of the residence halls as well! For indeed, the Lord can do above and beyond all that we ask or imagine.

We are seeking to reimagine our campus, knowing full well that the Lord has far greater plans than we could ever conceive. Pray with us that the Lord will provide according to His purpose for the best ministry of Westminster. Perhaps the Lord is calling you to be an answer to these prayers. Please call if you’d like to know more about how your prayers and your generosity will touch the generations to come. Paul assures us that God’s mighty work in and through us impacts not just now, but “forever and ever.” Amen!

Peter A. Lillback (PhD, Westminster) is president and professor of historical theology and church history at Westminster Theological Seminary.

He also serves as the president emeritus and founder of The Providence Forum and senior editor of Unio cum Christo: An International Journal of Reformed Theology and Life.

Visit: wts.edu

”I’ve never been asked that question before”

A FAR GREATER PASTORATE John Cur rie

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e were enjoying our first neighborhood party in more than a year—the first real opportunity we’d had for personal conversation post-pandemic—when the conversation turned to religion. Our neighbors know I’m a pastor and that I teach at a theological school, and they’ll often make clear to me how philosophically opposite they are from what they’re sure I believe. As we sat among this circle of families from our block, my friend began to explain his disapproval of the institutional church and Christians. As he saw it, Christians are an “angry, hateful, and hurtful” group. But, despite this, he still believed that he should live by the ethic he learned as a boy in his mainline church. I prayed silently about how to use this smiling garden-party assault into a gospel opportunity.

“Ok,” I said, “but what do you believe about the person of Jesus?” His response stuck with me. He said, “I’ve never been asked that question before.”

As my wife and I regrouped after the party we talked about the stories we’d heard catching up with our friends that evening. Then we prayed for the gospel to spread through our little mission village. As I went to sleep, the evening’s experience turned my mind once again to Jesus’ strategy for spreading his gospel amongst those who’ve never been asked that question—the sea of the lost and helpless for whom he had such compassion.

Jesus’ Strategy

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atthew 9:35–38 reveals that the “tip of the spear” of Jesus’ compassionate strategy is the sending of laborers into the Lord’s harvest, laborers in His word who not only evangelize, edify, and equip the saints but who invest their lives in sending the next generation of laborers in His word. It’s easy to take this for granted, but it is for this strategy that he tells his disciples to earnestly pray. As Christ’s plan unfolds in the New Testament, we see that he answers his disciple’s prayer himself by sending His laborers to His field. In Ephesians 4:7–12 the exalted Christ gives gifts of laborers in His word to evangelize, edify, and equip the people he has purchased for himself (Eph. 2:11–22). And when Paul, the apostle whom Christ first gave to the nations, describes how these laborers in His word would

Emanuel de Witte (1617–1692), Interior of the Oude Kerk at Delft during a Sermon (1651)

be perpetuated beyond the period of the New Testament, he entrusted this very same strategy to his son in Christ’s service, Timothy. Second Timothy 2:2 discloses how Christ still sends laborers into his field from one generation to the next—faithful pastors investing biblical convictions (“what you have heard”), character (“faithful”), and competencies (“able to teach others”)1 in the next generation of pastors, and the next, until the end of the age.

Old Princeton and Westminster’s Strategy

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t was this, Christ’s plan for generating generations of his laborers, that animated Westminster’s forefathers at Old Princeton. There, B.B. Warfield sought to inspire his pastoral students in the stewardship of their theological education by emphasizing the impact of their ministry (particularly preaching) on those still dead in their sin: Old Cotton Mather wrote a great little book once, to serve as a guide to students for the ministry. . . by a stroke of genius he added a sub-title. . . The angels preparing to sound the trumpets. This what Cotton Mather calls you, students for the ministry: the angels, preparing to sound the trumpets! Take the name to yourselves and live up to it. Give your days and nights to living up to it! And then, perhaps, when you come to sound the trumpets, the note will be pure and clear and strong, and perchance may even pierce the grave and wake the dead.2

In other words, what motivated the Lion of Prince3 ton and his colleagues in their passing on of Old Princeton’s Calvinism4 was the promise of an army of preachers for the Church to send into the harvest field to fulfill Christ’s mission of compassion for the nations.

This commitment has animated pastoral training at Westminster Theological Seminary since its inception.

There is no more poignant example than Professor John Murray’s “Welcome to incoming students,” delivered in the summer of 1944, just weeks after allied forces had paid incredible costs on the beaches of Normandy.

Murray, himself a wounded veteran of WWI, took this opportunity, in that context, to orient the generation of seminarians before him to the high call and eternal consequences of the training they were about to receive:

In a very peculiar and pre-eminent sense you are here as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and as such you are performing the highest service to God, and to Caesar. You are performing, even to your country, to the United Nations, yes, to the world, the highest ministry that can be rendered. For you are preparing yourselves in pursuance of a divine call for the ministry of the word without which the whole world perishes in sin, in misery and death.

You are training for the most militant service in that kingdom which is an everlasting kingdom and in that dominion which shall not be destroyed. . .5

“…what motivated the Lion of Princeton and his colleagues in their passing on of Old Princeton’s Calvinism was the promise of an army of preachers for the Church to send into the harvest field to fulfill Christ’s mission of compassion for the nations.”

The tradition of theological education in which Westminster stands has as its heart and as its goal the equipping of pastors to be sent to the multitudes in the name of Christ to proclaim the word of Christ. So, it must remain our conviction today if we share Christ’s heart for our neighbors, the nations, and the multitudes he has already gathered into His church. To that end we must surely embrace his strategy by investing our lives in the next generation of pastors who will proclaim His word publicly, privately, and personally as

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preachers, teachers, evangelists, counselors, and leaders in Christ’s great commission.

Westminster’s Pastoral Strategy for the Church Today

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hat this means for Westminster’s pastoral curriculum today is a deeper commitment to training the pastors the church needs.

We’re doing this by implementing a new 3+1 Pastoral M.Div. program. This commitment takes shape in two ways. First, the three-year pastoral theology curriculum has been enhanced to provide twice as many preaching, leadership, and evangelism and missions courses than previously offered, and now requires three courses in pastoral care and counseling. Additionally, during those three years students will receive 400 hours of faculty-to-student group mentoring along with opportunities for supervised field experience in local churches, global missions, and urban ministry. This is in addition to opportunities for short-term international study trips in biblical studies and church history. Finally, each student’s preparation for ministry in the M.Div. pastoral program at Westminster will culminate in a yearlong church residency. Just as new physicians need supervision as they begin a practice, physicians of the soul need accountability and guidance as they set out in ministry.

This entire pastoral theology program has been prayerfully designed to equip men for the rigors of today’s pastorate. It calls for our students, the churches that send them, and the seminary that trains them to count the cost of preparation for the “highest ministry that can be rendered…without which the whole world perishes in sin, misery, and death.”6 But we believe, with those who have gone before us, that the cost and the commitment of sending Christ’s laborers into His harvest field is worth it.

Yet we are also deeply aware of our own inability to accomplish the training of pastors to the standard and scale today’s church needs without the Head of the Church leading and empowering all our efforts. The apostle was abundantly clear upon whom his dependence lay for the leadership and life of the mission he sought to steward. It was Christ himself working in him, in the church, and in the next generation to whom the ministry was entrusted.7 He was unashamedly aware of his

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need for the prayers and partnership of God’s people in order to be effective in the great calling that had been given to him.8 But he also firmly believed that Christ, by providing His life and power in the hearts of his people, through the means of grace He has provided, would do “abundantly more than all what we ask or think. . .,”9 all for his glory!

“You are performing, even to your country, to the United Nations, yes, to the world, the highest ministry that can be rendered. For you are preparing yourselves in pursuance of a divine call for the ministry of the Word without which the whole world perishes in sin, in misery and death.”

—John Murray It’s that same desire for God’s glory and belief in the surpassing power of Christ that compels pastoral training at Westminster today. We are asking and trusting God to use us to provide the Church with a steady supply of men of God10 who have the character, conviction, and competencies to faithfully and effectively steward the word of God, not only in the pulpits of our lands but also in the difficult waters of neighborhood conversations; under the “preaching tree” on a mission field, or under the scrutiny of the security apparatus in a totalitarian regime; on the campus of a nation-shaping university, or in a conference room bible-study where the precepts of God’s Word meet the public sphere; at the bedside of a saint who is about to depart to glory,

Emanuel de Witte (1617–1692), Interior of a Church (c. 1680)

or in the living room where dreams of the ideal family have just been broken by sin and suffering. Our desire and design is to equip a generation of pastors whose lives and lips proclaim Christ from all of scripture to all people for all of life.

Like the apostle, we depend on vital partnerships with the local congregations we seek to supply with such pastors. As well as asking God’s people to, as they have for almost 100 years, pray for us and partner with us financially, we want your church to send us men called to be men of God—and then to receive those men of God as pastoral residents, providing students with the practical experience that can only happen in the field.

We are imagining a pastorate where the Church and the seminary together ask the Lord of the harvest to send and work together with him11 to send laborers into his harvest. Under His blessing and by His grace, we may accomplish together far more than we could ever ask or imagine.

“We are imagining a pastorate where the Church

and claims of the enterprise in which we profess to be engaged.

We are too apt to be satisfied with small and occasional contributions of service to this greatest of all causes instead of devoting to it hearts truly enlarged; instead of desiring great things; expecting great things; praying for great things; and nurturing in our spirits that holy elevation of sentiment and affection, which embraces in its desires and prayers the entire kingdom of God. . .12 1 S ee Harry L. Reeder III, 3D Leadership: Defining, Developing, and Deploying Christian Deaders who can Change the World. Wheaton: Crossway, 2018.

2 Benjamin B. Warfield, “The Religious Life of Theological Students” in The Master’s Seminary Journal, vol. 6, No.2 (Fall 1995), 181–96.

3 John Murray, “Greeting to Entering Students, 1944.” in Collected Writings of John Murray, Volume 1: The Claims of Truth (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), 104–6.

4 Ibid, 105.

5 Col. 1:29; Eph. 4:15; 2 Tim. 2:1 6 Eph. 6:18–20; Phil. 1:19; 4:14–20 7 Eph. 3:20–21

and the seminary together

8 1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17

ask the Lord of the harvest

10 1 Cor. 3:9

to send and work together

9 1 Cor. 3:9 11 S amuel Miller, “The Earth Filled With The Glory of The LORD,” The American National Preacher 10, No. 7 (December 1835), 302.

Emphasis mine.

with him to send laborers into his harvest.”

I conclude by expressing these kingdom aspirations through the words of another Old Princetonian, Samuel Miller: our plans and efforts for promoting this object ought…to be large, liberal, and ever expanding…when we direct our attention to the spread of the Gospel, our views, our prayers, our efforts are all too stinted and narrow.

We scarcely ever lift our eyes to the real grandeur

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John Currie (DMin, Westminster) is professor of pastoral theology at Westminster Theological Seminary.

He previously ministered at Redeemer OPC in Ada, MI and has served churches in the United States and Canada for thirty years.

The PULPIT in an AGE of CONTROVERSY

October 19–20, 2021

www.wtspreachingconference.com

A FAR GREATER SONG: Imagining a Global Network at Westminster David B. Gar ner

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18–20)

One Global Mission

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hrist’s words to his disciples at the end of Matthew stand firmly upon on an ancient and deep revelational bedrock. First promised in seed form in Gen. 12:3c (the protoevangelium, the first mention of the gospel), the word, given to Abram 4000 years ago (“. . . in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” [Genesis 12:3c]), ensures that God would establish a kingdom consisting of “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ ” (Rev. 7:9)

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Previously centered within the old covenant people of Israel, teaching people the word of Christ has become an international mandate by the cosmic authority invested in the resurrected King. In his resurrection from the dead the prior parameters, pointers, and practices of the old covenant came to an end, since he fulfilled the law (Rom. 10:4) and embodied the “yes” of all the promises of God (2 Cor. 1:20).

In what we now commonly call the Great Commission, Jesus Christ commanded his apostles and the disciples of subsequent generations to a great and privileged task, one far greater than we could even imagine: call all nations to follow Christ and instruct them to do all our Savior and King commanded. At the end of history, people from every corner of the globe will, with one voice, bellow praise to the reigning Lamb!

This ancient yet enduringly new commission delivers tremendous urgency for our Christ-centered kingdom work today. As good neighbors and responsible stewards of our lives in this world, the people of God should care deeply about creation, the economy, health care, and politics. We should celebrate beautiful art, well-written literature, delicious cuisine, excellent education, and advances in technology. But none of those vital responsibilities, however passionately we may feel about them or

Louis Rocca, Leipzig (c. 1850)

even how effectively we attend to them, are the mission of the Church. Of course, we fail to carry out divine mission rightly when we fail to exude consideration, compassion, and care—indeed, the people of God have a divine mandate to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31)—but kindness is no more the mission of the Church than friendliness is the mission of the chef de cuisine at a five-star restaurant. Just ask his boss.

Scripture uniformly insists the mission of the Church advances by the proclamation and instruction of the Word of God, that Word which is “able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).

Leaving out any wiggle room, Christ reinforced this word-centered, disciple-making mission following his resurrection. The church’s one global mission with one vital message draws upon Christ’s authority as King and its effectiveness draws upon his unlimited power and ubiquitous presence.

Accordingly, and exactly as promised to Abraham, the Church’s mission sprawls to the boundaries of Christ’s Kingship—the whole world. And this mission cannot fail.

Why? Because the King and Lord of all is, by his Spirit, “with you always, to the end of the age.” In step with the apostles to whom Jesus gave the Great Commission and his outpoured Spirit, the Church goes about disciple

making in the authority, power, and presence of our King.

By his Word and Spirit, his mission is unstoppable; “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).

Psalm 67: Divine Favor and Global Mission

An Astonishing Request One of the highest peaks on the Old Testament mission map is Psalm 67. The psalm opens with an astonishing, seemingly preposterous, prayer: “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us” (v. 1).

Who among us would dare ask the holy God of the universe for blessing? Think about it. As Scripture tells it, human history drones with horrific discord, what we might call antiphonal antipathy. God acts and speaks with patience, and his people, with a perverse giddiness, respond in ingratitude, making a mockery of the holy kindness of God. And so, it goes on and on. How then would such a prayer for God’s smile ever be appropriate?

It seems unthinkable, even irreverent.

But, with fresh eyes, consider this bold prayer at the gateway of Psalm 67 once again. This prayer actually comes with divine imprimatur. In Numbers 6: 22–26, the holy God of heaven delivered the Aaronic blessing—words given explicitly by the covenant LORD to

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his people: “The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’ ” Note how Psalm 67:1 echoes Numbers 6. Almighty God gave his people this prayer. He told his people to approach the throne of grace boldly and to expect grace from the throne. Precisely because it rehearses God’s words to his people and not our own instincts, this psalm is blessedly right to pray absurdly, to beg for blessing. We never pray better than when we pray God’s Word back to him.

Who can fathom such grace? Each syllable of the prayer should take our breath away.

The Generosity of Grace Not only is the God to whom we pray a gracious God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, he delights to forgive sin and to cleanse his people from unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). But there is even more, much more. This bold prayer for blessing also turns to a bold prayer for global mission, in which his blessing aligns his people’s heart with his heart, and he turns us from self-interest to divine mission: that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! (Psalm 67:2–3) Coupling the international scope of the Abrahamic promise (Gen. 12:1–3) with the Aaronic prayer for blessing we read above, the psalmist identifies the recipients of God’s grace as channels, not reservoirs. Our hearts are not to be stagnant ponds where grace pools, only to stagnate. Rather, we who drink of Living Water are vessels for pouring out, not merely sponges for soaking.

It was this zeal for proclaiming Christ’s gift to others that Luther adapted in his hymn, “May God Bestow on Us His Grace.”

May God bestow on us His grace, With blessings rich provide us; And may the brightness of His face To life eternal guide us, That we His saving health may know,

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His gracious will and pleasure, And also to the nations show Christ’s riches without measure And unto God convert them.

Gospel truths deliver certainty and invoke song. They are the words of life to the nations, the words of grace and of justice, of kindness and of equity. These words of divine blessing are to come from us to the nations. The sweet truths unite us in glorious song.

Global Mission unto Global Song Chiastic in structure, Psalm 67 ascends to its summit in verse 4 with reference to history’s climactic destiny—“Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.”

“Our hearts are not to be stagnant ponds where grace pools, only to stagnate. Rather, we who drink of Living Water are vessels for pouring out, not merely sponges for soaking.”

God is not just powerful. Oh, he is indeed that. Angels shout with astonishment at his creation of all things from nothing (Job 38:7). But having now borne witness to the mercy of God in saving sinners, the angelic hosts marvel at something more jaw-dropping than creation (Eph. 3:10). They bear witness to his “saving power” (v. 2)—a power exercised with perfect equity and gracefilled efficacy. In his holiness, he creates a holy people out of a despicable people. In his mighty grace, he transforms rebels into righteous sons.

How he accomplishes this evades comprehension even as it evokes song. Isaiah 55:8–9 reminds us God’s thoughts and ways differ entirely from ours, in particular with regard to his abundant forgiveness (Isa. 55:7).

His judgment passes over us because he subjects his own righteous Son to our judgment. “For our sake he made

him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). He “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous [the Just for the unjust], that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” (1 Peter 3:18).

This Son of God, born of woman and born under the curse of the law (Gal. 4:4) is the Son of God raised in power according to the Spirit of holiness (Rom. 1:4) “who is to judge the living and the dead” (2 Tim. 4:1). This Son exercises perfect judgment of the nations. He judges with equity. This Son has become the righteous Judge, who as the psalmist puts it, “judge[s] the nations with equity and guides the nations upon earth” unto his own righteousness. In Christ, “righteousness and peace kiss each other” (Psalm 85:10).

The nations glad and singing for joy? Imagine that!

God navigating the tangled web of human hearts and human evil in a manner whereby he judges all peoples impeccably? Imagine that!

But we won’t have only to imagine. Because of the excellency of Christ and his work, we will join the international chorus, singing with voices like angels. So precious and poignant is this song, the psalmist bookends this cosmic chorus in verses 3 and 5: “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!” Indeed, we will.

And if you sing off key now, be assured that at that climactic day in history when the nations are gathered before the throne of the Lamb, your lungs filled with holy air and your heart perfectly pitched to gospel grace, your voice will sound forth Pavarotti-like. United with the redeemed from among the nations, we will heartily bellow lyrics of divine acclaim and “sing for joy.”

The Certainty of Singing Having petitioned the Lord in prayer in verses 1–5, the psalm ends with an assertion of confidence (vv. 6–7): “The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!” Confident in the efficacy of God’s power and the certainty of his Word, graciously aligned with his expressed will and mission, the people of God sing a glorious song of holy praise.

In the final verse of this holy hymn, we sing not with petition for divine favor, but as those in full possession of it. We sing with joyful confidence in the Lord who shall bless us and shall bless all those from the nations

who fear him. He has spoken. He has promised. He has delivered. He is our saving God, and we are his sanctified and singing people.

“Gospel truths deliver certainty and invoke song. They are the words of life to the nations, the words of grace and of justice, of kindness and of equity.”

Psalm 67 and Matthew 28:18–20 thus attest to the faithfulness of God in history, who in his Son accomplished the salvation purposed from before the foundation of the world and promised through the prophets.

Jesus’ resurrection and associated commission mark the fulfillment of divine purpose on earth: assembling the chorus of nations, who will sing with one voice the praise of the Triune God, in whose name they have been called and by whose mighty grace have been saved. The One who judges the nations with equity leads the children of God in song (Heb. 2:11).

A Far Greater Vision

I

t is that prayer, sung through the ages, from Abraham to David, from Luther to our forebearers at Old Princeton,1 that we sing at Westminster Theological Seminary and train our students to sing. The nations need to know why to sing, how to sing, and what to sing.

It is for such proclamation that Westminster Theological Seminary exists—to train our students to proclaim this Christ of Scripture, the Just One who is the Justifier of the wicked, the King who dwells on the throne of grace and judges the nations with equity.

Since 1929 God has brought students to us from many nations and sent thousands of graduates to over 60 countries worldwide, where they proclaim Christ to the nations and bear witness to God’s work in saving sinners and filling their hearts with song. And it is with a heart to see this mission not only continue but flourish that

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Westminster has chosen to pursue key initiatives to boldly pursue a global network of ministry for Christ’s kingdom.

“at that climactic day in history when the nations are gathered before the throne of the Lamb, your lungs filled with holy air and your heart perfectly pitched to gospel grace, your voice will sound forth Pavarotti-like.”

With you, we are asking God to do something still far greater. Communications, travel, and educational technology swing open new doors to train leaders in the treasures of God’s Word so they can proclaim the Christ of Scripture to the nations. Almost without exception, the greatest need in the global Church is leaders who are trained well in Scripture; leaders who can present Christ and proclaim his Word faithfully.

With those needs in view, I invite you to pray for four far greater global mission prayers for Westminster.

Korea. In recent years, God has enabled us, under the strong leadership of Rev. Hukmin Kwon, to launch Korean-language programs: the Doctor of Ministry and Master of Arts in Theological Studies. The effects of this work stir the heart and spark praise. Please pray with us that the Lord will sustain and grow these programs for the Korean-speaking church and Korean missionaries around the world!

Latin America. With the growth of the gospel in Latin America, we are asking the Lord to provide resources whereby we can launch Spanish language programs. Numerous Spanish-speaking partners wait as we prayerfully seek funding to move this initiative forward.

Black Shield. We are asking Lord to provide support for our Black Shield initiative—whereby we deliver theological training in other languages spoken by people in the underground, persecuted church around the world.

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By God’s kindness, we have launched one Black Shield program so far, in which we have begun training more than 100 underground church leaders!

Asking Different Questions. A lot, maybe even most seminary students, will consider the mission field at some point, but often in terms of, “Perhaps I should consider the mission field.” But that approach fails to harmonize with the global ambitions of Psalm 67, the words of the Great Commission, and the goal of the global chorus of saints gathered to praise our God. Imagine instead if every student at Westminster asked, “Why not me?” instead of “Why me?” Recalibrating these questions could be transformational for the church. Would you pray that our students, who are themselves disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, find their hearts attuned to the right questions?

Westminster Theological Seminary believes the word of God. We believe, at the deepest level of conviction, that what the whole world needs the glorious gospel it unveils. Christ has given himself to us and compelled us with his song of redemption. In keeping with our Savior’s heart, we long for the nations to know Christ and to join in singing his praise.

Pray with us that the King of the universe would be pleased to use Westminster in far greater ways to train servants of Christ to make singers of the nations, who will proclaim with all the people of God throughout history, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:9) 1 S ee David B. Calhoun, “The Last Command: Princeton Theological Seminary and Missions (1812–1862),” PhD diss., (Princeton Theological Seminary, 1983).

David B. Garner (PhD, Westminster) is Academic Dean, Vice President of Global Ministries, and Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. David Garner has served in theological education, pastoral ministry, missions, and parachurch ministries since 1986. He has lived and taught in various parts of the world, including Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He is the author of Sons in the Son and also serves as the systematic theology Book Review Editor for Themelios Journal.

Sharpen your knowledge in a major field of theological study Fully online or on-campus

The Master of Theology prepares you to: Master core methods and tools of theological research Closely examine primary texts alongside experts Make an original research contribution in the fields of Old and New Testament studies, apologetics, systematics, or church history Serve the church with greater theological precision and depth for pastoral ministry and teaching, or continue on to doctoral studies

Dig deeper at wts.edu/thm

fargreater.org 14

FACULT Y NEWS & UPDATES Mark Garcia: On July 1, 2021, Dr. Mark Garcia joined the voting faculty at Westminster, where he will serve as Associate Professor of Systematic Theology. Dr. Garcia joins Westminster with many years of experience in pastoral ministry, academic research, and teaching. Dr. Garcia is ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and has served as pastor at Immanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Coraopolis, PA for the past fourteen years. He currently serves as the President and Fellow in Scripture and Theology at Greystone Theological Institute. He will continue as President of Greystone as he joins Westminster’s faculty. Dr. Garcia has also held research positions at Wolfson College, Cambridge and the University of East Anglia. Many students are keen to welcome Dr. Garcia as he has already proved to be a focused, careful, and accurate exegete and systematician with a considerable awareness of pastoral issues. We warmly look forward to the ways in which the Lord will continue to use Dr. Garcia as he provides valuable expertise to our faculty, staff, and students.

Alfred Poirier: With immense gratitude, Westminster recently appointed Dr. Alfred Poirier to the position of Professor of Pastoral Theology. Prior to his arrival at Westminster, Dr. Poirier held several additional teaching positions and was engaged in pastoral ministry for thirty-eight years, twenty-six of which were served at Rocky Mountain Community Church (PCA) in Billings, Montana. These experiences afforded Dr. Poirier the opportunity to engage faithfully in pastoral ministry and teaching, strengthening his ministry and expository preaching experience, both of which prepared him for this new role at Westminster. Many students who have already taken courses with Dr. Poirier can attest to the wisdom and insight with which he expounds and applies biblical wisdom. We are very grateful indeed to the Lord that, in His providence, the Westminster community continues to be blessed with a world-class faculty.

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David Briones has an upcoming article to be published on Desiring God about justification by faith alone in light of recent criticisms, titled “A Word of Surest Consolation: Justification by Faith Alone.” He also contributed to Tabletalk Magazine with an article entitled, “Greco-Roman Control of the Jews.” Additionally, he formulated two dictionary entries on Friendship and Financial Support. Finally, he has another essay called “Circularity of Grace: Romans 11:36 in Retrospect and Prospect,” which will be published in an Eerdmans festschrift this year.

Stephen Coleman co-edited a new collection of Reformation era treatises Faith in the Time of Plague. This volume will be released this fall.

Brandon Crowe has a book due out with Baker Academic this October titled Why Did Jesus Live a Perfect Life?

The Necessity of Christ’s Obedience for Our Salvation In November he will deliver a paper at the Society of Biblical Literature’s annual meeting in San Antonio.

The title of that paper is “The Kingdom of Heaven and Baal-Perazim: New Light on Matthew 11:12.”

John Currie has several upcoming speaking engagements. He will be speaking at Westminster’s Faith in the Public Square conference in Holland, MI, on October 9th. He will also join Dr. Garner in Nashville in November for Westminster’s Seminary on Saturday. Additionally, he will speak at the Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology on November 12–13.

He has one upcoming article that will be published in Unio Cum Christo titled “The Priority of Preaching in the Church’s Global Mission.”

Iain Duguid has two recent publications. He wrote an essay for Tabletalk Magazine in July titled “The Fifth Commandment and the Household.”

He also offered commentary on 1 Kings in the Grace and Truth Study Bible published by Zondervan in August of this year.

William Edgar recently preached at a memorial service for the Class of ‘66 at his Harvard University reunion. At the same reunion one of his jazz concerts was featured. This year he also spoke at the European Leadership Forum and gave a lecture on “Ministry and Temptations” for a Westminster extension course on “Evil” which was hosted by Nate Shannon.

Dave B. Garner has several upcoming speaking engagements. He will be speaking at Seminario Reformado Latinamericano’s annual Reformed Convention September 23–24, 2021.

Additionally, he is hosting a Westminster Theological Seminary symposium on theological education in Latin America. In the States, he will be speaking at a Missions Conference at Christ Church Presbyterian in Charleston, SC October 1–3, 2021, as well as at Westminster’s Seminary on Saturday at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN on November 6, 2021.

Vern Poythress has two upcoming books that will be published with Crossway later this year and early next.

They are, respectively, Redeeming Our Thinking about History: A God-Centered Approach, and Truth, Theology, and Perspective: An Approach to Understanding Biblical Doctrine. He will also be on sabbatical this fall academic term.

Jonathan Gibson has a number of upcoming publications and speaking engagements. He will preach on Reformation Sunday (October 31st) at Lansdale Presbyterian Church. He will also give four lectures on Isaiah at Cape Cod Conference, November 12–14.

Among his upcoming publications are The Acrostic of God: A Rhyming Theology for Kids, published by New Growth Press and due out in October this year, and I Will Build My Church: Select Writings of Thomas Witerrow on Polity, Baptism, and Sabbath, which will be published by Westminster Seminary Press this Winter.

Todd Rester has two forthcoming books. Faith in a Time of Plague will be published by Westminster Seminary Press this Fall. Volume 3 of Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretical Practical Theology, “The Works of God and the Fall of Man” will be published by Reformation Heritage books in October. In addition to various other translation efforts, he is writing an article due out in 2022 on 17th-century Reformed debates with Remonstrants and Socinians on the role of the Holy Spirit in the perspicuity of Scripture.

Chad Van Dixhoorn has a number of notable upcoming publications and speaking events. He recently contributed a Foreword to an abridgement of Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor, and has a forthcoming book co-authored with his wife, called Gospel-shaped Marriage: Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints, which is due out with Crossway in June of next year.

He is also editing Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms: A Reader’s Edition due out in June 2022. In addition to several book reviews published in the Westminster Theological Journal, he also has a speaking engagement at the 120th Anniversary of Westminster PCA conference in Atlanta, GA.

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WESTMINSTER NEWS & EVENTS Please join us this semester for our Weekly Chapel Services, Wednesdays at 11:00 AM from 9/15/21–11/17/21. You can stream these live on the Westminster Youtube page.

Faith in the Public Square, a Framework initiative at Westminster, will host a conference in Holland, Michigan on October 9th, 2021, which will engage today’s most heated public debates that center around questions of human identity. “Faith in the Public Square: A Firm Foundation for a Culture Adrift” will host speakers John Currie, John Stonestreet, Peter Lillback, and David Filson, who will explore these questions and show how Scripture points the way to true justice. For more information about this conference, please visit fipsmichigan.com.

The annual Preaching Conference will be held at Westminster Theological Seminary on October 19–20, 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM and 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, respectively.. This year’s theme is entitled “The Pulpit in the Age of Controversy.” For more information, please visit wtspreachingconference.com.

Faculty enjoying the return to an in-person graduation.

CCEF Conference: The 2021 National Conference will be held in Greensboro, NC on October 8– 9. This year’s theme is “Modern Problems.” Presenters will examine how to bring the wisdom of Scripture to bear on the questions and difficulties of living today. For more information please visit: https://www.ccef.org/ conference/2021-national-conference/.

Craig Seminar: The Craig Seminar is an academic seminar funded by the Craig Center. This year Westminster students and faculty will present papers on various topics related to the theology, history, and philosophy of the Reformation and post-Reformation periods. These presentations will occur on the last Thursday of each month of each semester of the 2021–2022 academic year at 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM in the Craig Room of the Montgomery Library. For more information visit the events page on wm.wts.edu.

Stay up to date on Westminster News and Events by visiting wm.wts.edu.

Now Available from Westminster Seminary Press

Reformed Theology for Life and Ministry in Times of Plague "I thank God that this timely book has appeared at this particular moment.”

–Dennis E. Johnson | Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology, Westminster Seminary California

Edited by Stephen M. Coleman and Todd M. Rester

Includes new and classic translations of hymns, treatises, and prayers from Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, Theodore Beza, Gisbertus Voetius, Johannes Hoornbeeck, Cyprian of Carthage, Zacharias Ursinus, George Abbot, John Rawlet, Jerome Zanchi, Ludwig Lavater, Andre Rivet, and the Book of Common Prayer.

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Faithful Determination

Faculty Interview: Mark Garcia On July 1, 2021, Dr. Mark Garcia (PhD, University of Edinburgh) joined the faculty at Westminster as Associate Professor of Systematic Theology. Dr. Garcia has been in various teaching roles throughout the years, has served as a minister at Immanuel OPC in Coraopolis, PA for the last fourteen years, and is Executive Director and President of The Greystone Institute. This summer, Dr. Alfred Poirier, Professor of Pastoral Theology, had the opportunity to interview Dr. Garcia. Their conversation included a splendid variety of intriguing topics such as being a sommelier, the theology of the Lord’s Supper, and the role and importance of systematic theology in the church today. This transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity. To listen to the full-length interview, please visit wts.edu/Garcia.

Alfred Poirier: Let’s begin by getting some sense of who you are, your family, and anything else you’d like to share.

for all my years growing up before becoming a pastor myself.

Mark Garcia: I am married to Jill, and we have four children, two daughters and two sons. Our eldest, Adriana, was born when I was a seminary student here at Westminster, just nearby at Abington hospital in the year 2000. And our second daughter, Elisa, was born when I was in Edinburgh, Scotland doing my PhD work, which I left Westminster to do in 2001. She was born in 2002. After three years of study there, we returned to the US, and I was a pastoral intern for a year. I stayed on to do some adjunct seminary teaching for Reformed Theological Seminary and a variety of campuses. I was ordained and was an associate pastor for that second year as well in Orlando. And we moved from there back overseas to Cambridge University, where we had our third child, my first son, Mark Andrew, Jr. I was there on a research project working with Dr. Van Dixhoorn of Westminster on the Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly. And from there we moved to Pittsburgh, on the extreme other side of the state from Westminster, where we had our fourth child, Thomas. I moved to Pittsburgh to become the pastor of Immanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And just earlier this summer, July 4, was my last day of ministry there as I anticipate my transition to Westminster. And that also marked exactly 14 years of pastoral ministry at Immanuel. So, we have four children that we like to say are four different souvenirs of places we’ve lived over the years. I grew up in Southwest State County in Miami, Florida, the son of a Baptist pastor. And I grew up under his Spanish speaking Baptist church ministry

AP: Spanish speaking? What’s your family background?

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MG: My father is Cuban, and my mother is American; both are American citizens. But he came to the US during the time of Castro’s transition into power. But in God’s kind providence, his family had resources back then and he required open-heart surgery. And the family was able to work out on arrangement with the emerging government at the time, and to allow the family as a whole to make their way to the US legally in exchange for all their Cuban assets. So, they turned everything over to Castro’s new government, and that’s how my father ended up in Miami with his family. I grew up in a context where I didn’t have a first language except for Spanglish. So, my father and his family spoke primarily Spanish, and my mom’s, English. The school I went to, the church I attended was also very, very much a blended situation.

AP: Apart from your pastoral and academic interests, we’ve heard that you have an interesting relationship with wine. Tell us about that.

MG: Well, I am a sommelier, having gone through the training programs and so on. A sommelier is a wine specialist and wine instructor. . . While I always enjoyed a good glass of wine and knew that there was something interesting historically, philosophically theologically, and culturally about wine, I was also coming through a very difficult time as a pastor. I had been just fiercely

and heavily engaged in pastoral crises, heavy pastoral labors, and theological labor, doing a lot of work at the time on important questions. And I reached a point where I thought this has become all of me and it might be good to develop a hobby. It might be good to have a wholly non-theological hobby for a while, and I thought wine would be fascinating to study. And so, I dove head first into the deep end of wine study, found it far more exhilarating and interesting than I thought it would be without taking it too seriously either. And would you know that what I found most fascinating and enriching about the serious study of wine was, go figure, it’s theological significance and character. So, at Greystone I run a regular series of wine and Christianity seminars that brings the public in to hear the gospel’s special relationship to wine biblically and historically and so on.

But I also give them wine instruction, and it’s a good, fun thing to do.

AP: You’ve written an article on Christ and the Spirit and you touch there on the Eucharist the Lord’s Supper.

Tell us about how most churches use grape juice, and some churches use wine, the Lord’s Supper in general, and what you’ve come to appreciate more about it as a pastor and as a theologian.

MG: There may be no feature of the Christian faith and life that has become more precious and substantive in its importance for me than the Eucharistic and Lord’s Supper aspects of the church. Some many years ago now, I happened upon a series of studies that persuaded me that the first ever use of the word catholic in the Christian tradition was from Ignatius of Antioch and his letter to the Sumerians. In that context, he says, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church.

These studies I think quite persuasively demonstrated what Ignatius meant there in the polemical context of the early church was wherever the Eucharistic Christ was, there is the catholic church in as much as what the church confesses and professors to believe is happening at the Lord’s table.

This excludes a wide range of heresies about Christ and about his church. You cannot be unorthodox in your Christology at that basic level and still come to the Lord’s table. You can’t wobble on his real humanity or divinity. You can’t be hesitant about his saving relationship to his people as the heart of the church’s identity in

life. From that day, several years ago, to now, I’ve become more and more persuaded biblically that we, in the reformed tradition especially, have a wonderful heritage and tradition of appreciating the special centrality of the Lord’s table to the being and well-being of the church.

This is not to suggest for a moment that we should downplay or mitigate the centrality of the preached word, but that we should recover the language of Peter Martyr Vermigli and others that the Lord’s table is the visible word and enjoined to it ordinarily.

So, at Immanuel where I’ve been pastoring 14 years, we did move to weekly communion as a way of accenting our confidence that the church is a fundamentally Eucharistic reality, not because the Supper is everything, but because she is what she is, maybe most poignantly, at the table. And we did in fact move to wine only. One thing that was quite important for us was appreciating how biblical the element is; not merely the grape but the wine. That is, in fact sacramental, symbolic, meaningful, and effective in the way that Scripture depicts the Eucharistic scene. There is something special and important about wine biblically in terms of the conveying of the wrath and grace of God that you don’t quite get with anything else.

AP: That’s beautiful. I want to ask a little bit more about how you came to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Also, tell us about how you came to sense your calling to pastoral ministry.

MG: Well, I did, as I mentioned, grow up under the ministry of my father as my pastor in a Spanish speaking church, an independent fundamentalist Baptist church of the sort I have not quite found anywhere else in terms of its unique identity, tradition, and way of thinking and doing things. It’s certainly quite different from the one in which I serve and operate now, and there are a number of things that I think would merit concern about it. I don’t disparage my upbringing for all of the theological issues I might have with it, because for all of its weaknesses, I will tell you this: I grew up believing and hearing constantly that Jesus is the only way of salvation that the world needs, that whatever the Bible says is true, that the church exists among other things to worship God, to glorify God and to preach his word, and that God is our father in Jesus Christ, that God is Trinity, and that there is a ministry and presence of the Holy Spirit. God, in his

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kindness, drilled these things deeply into me which have become, somewhat ironically, the reasons why I went into the reformed tradition. When I explained to my friends, family, and my father in particular, that’s something that they respect because they hold such a high view of the Bible. I am grateful for those things.

It was in that context that I was converted and grew from a very young age. And yet I was never going to be a pastor. From the time I could hold a pencil, I was going to be an artist. My father himself was a cartoonist and had a job offer from Disney. His family was very excited about this. And then he decided to go into the ministry instead; everyone was devastated. Everyone thought he had such a gift, so why would he choose to throw his life away and go into this poor man’s life of a pastoral ministry for a small Spanish speaking church in Miami?

But as I was growing up, they all got excited, you know, his father wouldn’t do it, but he’s going to do it.

And then I just broke everyone’s heart when about halfway through college, the only thing I’d ever really saw myself doing gave way to an external and internal call of great power to serve the church. What that looked like, I wasn’t sure yet. I knew I wanted to preach and to teach and write in whatever configuration that might prove possible, but I wanted to see what the Lord’s providence would look like and trained for whatever his service would entail. And through the Lord’s Providence, I’ve

been able to do all those things, and I’m grateful for that.

But I still look at my father as the example of Christ-like service to the church and allegiance to Christ’s word no matter what.

AP: That’s great that you so appreciate your father. In what ways did the service as a pastor help you to come to know Christ better?

MG: My ministry of 14 years, which is classically considered rather brief, was shaped not only by my seminary training which is ultimately the beginning of one’s theological formation, but also through life, service, and worship. Indeed, it comes through the life of the church.

It is within that context that the force and importance of certain questions, biblically and theologically, ethically, and pastorally have been impressed upon me precisely because of my pastoral experience.

AP: Can you give an example?

MG: The issues of spousal abuse, marriage, divorce theory, domestic violence, and gender. I always had a certain understanding of these things, but that has evolved throughout the course of my ministry. This evolution, however, is one formed by the wisdom of the Christian tradition, the power of the Scriptures, the richness of the

gospel, and the urgency of pastors taking such questions seriously as properly biblical and theological ones. These are sophisticated and difficult questions which require humility and patience.

AP: To the pastors in our readership who might be dealing with these very dilemmas, what encouragement would you want to give them?

MG: As situations vary, counsel will vary accordingly.

Nevertheless, there are some persistent truths that seem helpful for pastors always to hold fast. Firstly, we’re not the first to face them. There’s an abnormal normality.

Secondly, and more fundamentally, it is no surprise to Christ. He remains as ferociously protective and compassionately gentle as the shepherd of his sheep, and it is a healthy thing to remind ourselves that we are under-shepherds, not the Shepherd.

We must love the people of God with our whole selves at the same time, remembering that they are not ours, but the Lord’s. He will do with them what he pleases. Our call is to be faithful, and the Lord will do what he will do. We must be honest and prepare ourselves to hold our reputations, our very ministries, even our very lives loosely enough, that we could lose all things for Christ’s sake and not be lost ourselves in the process. This requires humility. . . And there’s a way of wisdom in dealing with conflicts and difficulties of this sort that the Scriptures commend to us. James puts it memorably: be quick to hear and slow to speak. If we were to ask one more question than we think we need to, if we were to adopt as our ordinary posture, that of listening and listening well and patiently, and taking the long view of listening, we might learn a great deal about those who are suffering, about our brethren who are wrestling with these questions. And we must be listening to our brethren, listening to Christ’s voice by his Spirit, through the church, generation upon generation, taking the wealth of our tradition into view and not just our friends.

AP: Amen. You have written a great book on union with Christ and much of what you’re saying really goes together with that theology. Why don’t you take a bit of time just to tell those that are reading, what is this union with Christ? Why write a dissertation on it and publish a book on it?

MG: In as few words I think is as possible for now, it is Paul’s shorthand for the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 1, it is God’s doing a most wonderful and liberating truth.

You’re in Christ Jesus. Christ has been made to us, or for us, wisdom from God. And those familiar with the extraordinary depth and riches of the wisdom tradition rejoiced to hear that Christ has been made wisdom for us by his Father.

Paul continues on to righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, each of which are distinguished by him. So, they shouldn’t be collapsed into each other. We don’t collapse the concerns of justification into sanctification and vice versa. They are importantly distinct. They are also inseparably joined. And they, separately joined not by some theological trick, but because they are what they are, only as they belong to Christ himself. And to the extent we are his, they are ours. And the more we locate the blessings of the gospel personally, rather than just logically in Jesus Christ himself, the more extraordinarily beautiful it appears to us that we have not been given a benefit of Christ in the abstract.

We have not been given a blessing of justification or whatever. We have been given Christ. Every spiritual blessing comes to us from him. These are Pauline, but also deeply biblical expressions, each of which in their own way, cast light on something. We will never exhaust its power and glory, our union or fellowship, our communion with the Son of God, with Jesus Christ by the Spirit.

AP: I want to understand you better, because I think what you’re teaching is so profound, namely that we just don’t get an impersonal blessing, or an impersonal grace from Christ, it is Christ himself. Christ Himself is expressed by these other words, grace or wisdom or righteousness, but it is him himself.

MG: Indeed, just as we would say in contrast to the Roman Catholic tradition that we must not reify grace and turn it into a “thing.” It’s not a thing any more than merit is a thing out there. These are personal things.

There is Christ who is the gift in whom we receive the many infinite facets of Christ as gift, which we call grace by the word gift. And every one of these graces is derivative of him, aspectival of him, and an expression of our life in and with him. They lift us to heavenly glory and fellowship with Father, Son, and Spirit. Grace is a deeply and exhaustively personal thing rooted in the Son of God.

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AP: Share with us your vision for Greystone Theological Institute.

MG: I serve as the founding president of Greystone.

Greystone has its base of operations in Pittsburgh on the west side of Pennsylvania and will continue to be based there, Lord willing. Greystone is quite unusual, and yet with a lot of traditional features. We focus our energies on advanced level course modules, ThM and PhD level modules for most of our courses. We also run a series of study days, study weekends, workshops, postgraduate seminars, special lectures, things of that sort. But we focus a great deal on the mentorship facet of theological formation for ministers, ministers in training, interns, and students, but for all thoughtful Christians wanting to take the next step from wherever they are one step further in their understanding.

Through various conversations with people in different global contexts, we learned that there are gaps in current seminary education and decided we would only do that and not try to duplicate what anybody else is doing well. So, what we’ve done is partnered with seminaries, with other organizations, to supplement their offerings with our own offerings but also provide regular contexts in which thoughtful Christians can get together; and in a fairly advanced, rigorous way, pause over great texts of the tradition and imbibe from them the richness of the tradition.

AP: Is this something that’s done residentially, virtually, or combination of both? If one of our listeners would say, “Hey, can I take a course?” How would you answer?

MG: It’s residential because you need that for that kind of mentorship focused approach, not just there in Pittsburgh, but we have learning community sites in London and Cardiff, one in formation in Eastern Europe, a new one about to launch in South Africa, opportunities as well in Canada, and a few others in the United States, but primarily right there in Pittsburg. We also have a carefully crafted online presence through greystoneconnect.org.

AP: What would you say the importance is for a pastor to be trained in this systematic theology?

MG: Many have said in different contexts for some time now being a theologian isn’t an option. Everyone is a

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theologian. Here at Westminster, we have reasons for saying so that I think reflect Westminster’s distinctives, but also tap on a deep-running widely Christian conviction. Systematic theology, and there are a variety of legitimate ways of capturing it, but systematic theology is the faithful determination to live, to speak, to think, to act with the grain of how God has revealed himself.

In my experience, I have found that the idea of a theologian as someone who knows they are under authority, who speaks, and who writes as one under authority to be strangely liberating. It’s an expression of fearing God. And because I fear God, to use Calvin’s famous line, I must go as far as scripture goes; I must also go no further.

AP: You’re going to be training men to be pastors in the church. What are some of the challenges that you see that they’re going to face?

MG: We live and work in a very strange and challenging time. This may be a time in which there’s a special urgency to exhibit our confidence that the church is the arena in which God is advancing the concerns of his glory, and he will serve the world through the church, but it requires that the church be the church. And that’s not the same thing as allowing the world to determine what the agenda is and what our topics of interests are. We must be about Christ and his gospel.

The church is its own culture, a culture the Spirit is cultivating by Word and Sacrament and prayer. I think it’s especially important for us to adopt the mode of a fruitful, faithful, and courageous humility. In that posture of thoughtful humility, we walk and speak courageously based on God’s word. The Lord needs faithful servants. The world is in his hands; nothing is a surprise to him. He has not changed his call upon us as ministers.

And that call is to be ready to be faithful and to be willing to lose everything.

AP: Thank you very much, Dr. Garcia, for this interview.

We are again so glad that you have chosen to hear our call and to come teach our young men and women for the ministry of the gospel.

MG: It is an honor to be here. It really is. Thank you.

But to Christ, Despite All, We Hold.

J. Gresham Machen

These words were the culmination of J. Gresham Machen's first convocation Address at Westminster Theological Seminary. Machen reminded Westminster’s first students that their pursuit of Christ meant going against growing trends in culture, including liberalism.

Today, we continue to cherish Machen's words as Westminster seeks to train pastors, counselors, and church leaders who cling to Christ in the face of progressivism, gender and identity politics, and theological compromise.

A generous family has recognized the great need for well-trained specialists in the bible and has committed to match dollar for dollar, the first $1,000,000 donated to scholarships until December 31,

2021.

for

the

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church leaders.

Join us as we seek to train specialists in the bible to proclaim the whole counsel of God for Christ and his global church.

Ways to Give

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THE MINISTRY OF HOPE President’s Inaugural Address, 1966 E d m u n d P. C l o w n e y

Dr. Edmund P. Clowney was installed as the first President of Westminster Theological Seminary on October 24 with the Rev. LeRoy B. Oliver, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, presiding. Professor Cornelius Van Til gave the invocation, Scripture was read by the Rev. John P. Clelland of Troy, Alabama, and the inaugural prayer was offered by Professor John Murray. A seminary choir sang under the direction of Mr. William Viss. Professor Paul Woolley, Dean of the Faculty, presented Dr. Clowney to Mr. Oliver, who asked the constitutional questions and delivered a charge to the new President.

—B. Mclean Smith

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r. Oliver, members of the Board and of the faculty, friends, your kindness brings a glow of cheer to this occasion. It’s a quiet glow, and I’m glad for that. Westminster has certain scruples

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about adopting the props of “show biz.” We have had no frugging in the aisles, and the men of the choir sang without drums, guitars, or slap bass. The only pageantry apparent is the medieval mummery of gowns and hoods, and these, I take it, are symbols of decorum, not festivity.

This restraint is most commendable. Westminster has never had a president and I have never been president of anything but a college literary society. My best friend has her misgivings about my new role. Some of you know me as ex-Eutychus, and others have noticed a certain resemblance to Charlie Brown. As I take these new responsibilities on my shoulders you are ready to ask with Lucy, “What shoulders?” Well, all of you may take comfort that the theme of this address is the ministry of hope.

You will realize that the humor of the situation is not

jesting. There is absurdity in every calling of God’s grace.

I will solemnly confess that God has not permitted me to stand here tonight without making the absurdity in my case painfully evident to me. Only a fresh discovery of the abounding hope of the gospel gives me liberty to accept this charge in the presence of the Savior. My reflection on the theology of hope has been first the seeking of my own need.

Yet to consider the ministry of Westminster Seminary in the light of the Christian hope is like seeing the campus foliage in the slanting fire of an autumn sun. The familiar bush is aflame with glory.

Hope is the word of our time. The revolutions that sweep the continents are born of hope. Time magazine began an article on the fate of the civil rights revolution in America with these words: “In the classic pattern revolution leads to hope, hope to frustration, frustration to fury. Thus, it is that so many revolutions end by devouring their own children and destroying the goals for which they were fought.”

Hopes in Contrast

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ear the cadenced language: revolution to hope, hope to frustration, frustration to fury. That whirlpool to the depths contrasts with the springing rhythm of the Apostle Paul: “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom. 5:3–5).

The nations are gripped with a fever of hope. They have seen that technology can check disease, reap abundant harvests, and offer leisure in luxury. They have seen too the weapons of technology; they covet goods, wealth, and power.

This hope is doomed to frustration partly because it is devoured by its own fierce haste, partly because it is exploited by a more cynical selfishness, but finally because it is realized. The glory of this secular hope has come. The economy of abundance for which the Gentiles seek has been found—in the American suburbs.

Mrs. Stone has it. Tennessee Williams describes her as she enjoys health, leisure, and luxury. “Mrs. Stone pursued the little diversions, the hair-dresser at four o’clock, the photographer at 5:00, the Colony at 6:00, the theatre

at 7:30, Sardi’s at midnight…she moved in the great empty circle. But she glanced inward from the periphery and saw the void enclosed there. She saw the emptiness… but the way that centrifugal force prevents a whirling object from falling inward, she was removed for a long time from the void she circled.”

The transition from secular hope to existential despair requires only the instant in which the bubble bursts and all is nothingness. Just now, a secular optimism is the mood of the American mind and the keynote of contemporary theology. The call is to clear away the defeatism of old and new orthodoxies and to venture with the secularists in the building of the new metropolis, the city of man. Let the church nail up its escape hatch to heaven, renounce its heritage of accomplished salvation, and become a partner with Christ, establishing in history the new mankind, which is the essential manhood of all men.

Yet this mood does not dispel more reflective and more somber expressions of despair. Sub-Christian hope will always disintegrate into despair and sub-Christian despair will always generate illusory hope.

The glory of the Christian hope has another center than the economy of abundance or the new mankind.

God is the hope of Israel, the promised portion of his people. “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord…I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope…Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption” (Psalm 130:1, 5, 7).

God Our Hope

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ope cleaves to the living God—not to a nameless infinite nor to an impersonal ground of being, but to the God who speaks and utters his covenant name Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He not only calls his people by his name but calls himself by their name: El Elohim Israel, God the God of Israel. The God of the name is self-determined, not indeterminate; infinite, not indefinite; present, not absent. The most high God dwells in the midst of his people.

No greater blessing can be given to a people than that God’s name should be named upon them. The crown of the covenant lies not in what God gives to his people but in what God is to his people: I will be your God and you

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shall be my people. Love is the bond of God’s personal covenant. Israel is restored from rebellion when God proclaims his name to Moses, the name of lovingkindness and sovereign mercy.

“Only a fresh discovery of the abounding hope of the gospel gives me liberty to accept this charge in the presence of the Savior.”

God’s personal presence becomes the hope of his people when he comes to dwell not in the bush or in the temple but in his Son. The blessing of God’s name is revealed as the presence of God our Savior and Christ Jesus our hope (1 Tim. 1:1).

The dayspring of hope that arises to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death is the glory of the present Lord. Not only is the child of the virgin the Lord’s Christ, blessed by the aged Simeon; he is Christ the Lord, hailed by the hosannas of the hosts of heaven (Luke 2:26, 11). God is in the midst of his people.

When hope is gone and exhaustion can no longer lift the oars against the waves, then he comes, walking on the water.

Jesus Lives

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e comes, who is the prince of life, and he enters death for our salvation; his triumph is the seal of our hope. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3, 4).

Not the ghostly hope of modern heresy but the

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glorious hope of Christ’s living flesh is the hope of the gospel. The apostle Paul could not say this more plainly.

“If Christ has not been raised your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins…If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable” (1 Cor. 15:17, 19).

We do not create a doctrine of the resurrection to generate hope; we must hope because Christ did rise from the dead. The spurious theology that continues to speak of Christ’s resurrection while allowing for the decay of his body somewhere in Palestine is itself decaying in our time. If Christ’s resurrection is but the projection of our hope, then he is dead and his God is dead with him.

But Paul knew the living Christ; he had seen his resurrection glory and he waited for the day of his coming again. “When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory” (Col. 3:4). The Christian hope is one. The glory of the returning Christ, the glory of the new heaven and earth, is the glory of the resurrection body bearing the nail prints that we too shall one day see.

The Christian hope is worldly, new-worldly. We do not come to our age with a special language game that is fun to play on Sunday mornings. We talk plainly about what the world is and what it will be. Christ is our hope for that frail and withered body lying in deathly silence among the funeral flowers. She is joined to Christ. Because he lives, she lives; and when the voice of his risen body again sounds on earth, her resurrection laughter will echo his name.

The Coming World

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hristian hope is not made real by being conformed to the narrow possibilities of a world shut up to death. The real world is the coming world, the new man is the living Lord. Hope that is no wider than a coffin is a mockery in life and a terror in death.

God’s great handiwork in nature and history will not end in corruption but in glory. The groaning and travailing creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:20).

The new secularism calls men from religious myth to secular reality because it does not believe in the

resurrection of Christ’s body or in the world to come that bursts from the garden tomb. But Christian hope calls pilgrims to journey through the world of creation to the world of consummation. We have here no abiding city, but we seek after that which is to come. Hope affirms the world, for the meek shall inherit the earth; but it affirms the world not as it now is but as it shall be when death is swallowed up of life.

Hope then lives in the tension between promise and fulfillment. “In hope were we saved; but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it?” (Rom. 8:24, 25). Hope in the promise is hope in the sure Word of God. Contemporary theology puts the living Word of Scripture aboard the same Stygian ferry where it has laid the living body of the Savior and conveys them both to a shadowy underworld where religious concepts are preserved from annihilation. Yes, we are told, Scripture must be a unique and authoritative witness to Christ, but only on the understanding that witness is not revelation but man’s fallible response to God’s revealing act.

Comfort of the Scriptures

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gain, the hope of the gospel is being bound by the dead-grave clothes of human possibilities.

If history is supreme over God’s Word, then its sure promises are dissolved in ambiguity. But if God’s Word is sovereign over history, then he speaks and it is done, he commands and it stands fast, and he will watch over his word to perform it. Then through the comfort of the Scriptures we have hope, for the zeal of the Lord of hosts will make all his promises yes and amen in Christ Jesus.

We possess the living and the written Word on the same terms. Not only does Christ testify to the Scriptures and the Scriptures to Christ, but Christ shaped the Scriptures by his Spirit, and the Scriptures shaped Christ in the obedience of his Sonship.

We dare not weaken the Word of God’s promise in order to exalt the Word of his presence in Christ. To the contrary, it is by the wisdom of the richly indwelling Word of Christ that we press on to know Christ in us, the hope of glory. Paul speaks so much of the presence of Christ and how union with Christ draws

Dr. Clowney illustrates a “ministry matrix.” 1950.

this grand doctrine from the realization of the history of redemption in Christ. He describes the mystery of Christ confirming the promises given to the fathers by becoming the hope of the Gentiles (Rom. 15:12).

We must heed Paul’s full expression: “the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Paul thinks of the dwelling of Christ in the Gentile church as the great fulfillment of redemptive history. Here is hope of glory—God’s great plan has moved to its climactic phase. The praises of the Gentiles are a pledge of the consummation of redemption. The nations are delivered from darkness to become partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Even the contributions of the Gentiles for the poor saints of Jerusalem become a sign

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of the ministering of the wealth of the nations in the fulfillment of the promises of God.

Christ the Pledge

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et hope holds more than such pledges of the promise. Christ himself is the pledge to every believer. The Holy Spirit is the earnest, the down payment of the full redemption of the new creation; and by the Spirit, Christ himself is present in glory transforming the individual believer and his body, the church, into his own image from glory to glory.

The hope of the Christian is a rainbow of assurance that stretches from Christ’s presence in glory through the Spirit to his coming in glory at the end of the age.

Not only does the Christian have his hope in Christ sealed because Christ stands for him in his heavenly mediation; that hope is sure because Christ abides in him witnessing by the Holy Spirit that he is a son of God and an heir of glory. What is the calling of this hope? Is this the “theology of glory” so often deplored? Does it spawn pharisaical complacency? Is it the ultimate caricature of all status-seeking on the part of those who imagine they have arrived spiritually?

“The economy of abundance for which the Gentiles seek has been found—in the American suburbs.”

All these objections seem quite valid from without.

The gospel of grace is an open invitation to license until one has tasted grace! The gospel of hope is constantly joined in the New Testament with the experience of suffering. Tribulation works steadfastness; steadfastness, approvedness; and approvedness, hope. Hope is the product of the experience of faith. Through fires of testing hope becomes pure and strong. The Christian not only rejoices in hope, he sorrows in hope and suffers in hope.

Out of the fullness of hope in Christ the ministry of hope is exercised. Paul ministered in hope, laboring

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that the offering up of the Gentiles might be a sacrifice well-pleasing to God. His prayer was, “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13).

The Dynamic of Hope

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t is to train men in this ministry of hope that Westminster has been raised up. By the dynamic of the hope of the gospel, the dilemma of contemporary theology and theological education is resolved. We are not forced to choose between secular relevance and Scriptural revelation. To blind unbelief, the gospel seems unreal because it promises too much, fantastically too much—but its promises could not be more relevant to the needs of a dying sinner. Perhaps the gulf has widened between the image that man has of himself and the picture that God reveals of him. Yet God is still true though every man is a liar.

Before the guilty rebel can hope in Christ, his false hope in his own idol must be thrown down like Dagon before the ark. The ministry of hope wields the axe of judgment before it kindles the sacrifice of praise. Hope is not served by removing the offense of the gospel. To proclaim “Peace” when judgment is coming is to deceive and destroy. The true prophet is known by his cry, “No peace to the wicked.”

Every secular hope builds a city that cannot abide, a kingdom that will be shaken, a house that will fall in the flood of judgment. Hope in Christ cannot rest in chariots and horses. It dare not usher in his kingdom by using the sword in his name. Hope walks the way of the cross, the path of service and suffering, not of political dominion and compulsion.

Those who do not believe that Christ will come in power and judgment will sooner or later seek to wield power and execute judgment. But those who remember the purpose of the restraint of wrath in Christ’s long-suffering will plead with men to repent. The mission of the church is fulfilled in hope. The false hopes of secularism and universalism and the foolish hopes of Arminianism will betray the ministry of the gospel.

Only hope in God’s sovereign grace—a sure hope that does not mislead and cannot be frustrated—only that hope will sustain the ministry of evangelism. When Christ would encourage his apostle at Corinth, he said

in a vision, “Be not afraid, but speak…for I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:10). Just because our hope is in the Lord, the high mystery of his electing love is the anchor of hope.

Hope in the Lord drives men by Christ’s love to preach the gospel through the highways and hedges, in season and out of season. Calvinism can be dried like a pressed flower to keep the color of the divine glory in two-dimensional death. But Christ the hope of glory is the prince of salvation who will thrust forth laborers into his harvest. Glorying in hope is the dynamic of revival whenever missionary zeal grows cold.

Fruits of Hope

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he ministry of hope that evangelizes the world also edifies the church. Abounding hope purifies and unites the people of God. Everyone who has his hope set on Christ purifies himself even as he is pure. There is a holy intolerance of unfaithfulness to Christ that is kindled by hope. Lost hope brought Judas to betrayal and renewed hope comes as the breath of the Spirit to the Christian who is winded in the race. To despair of Christ’s praise for his church is sin. The Christian who convinces himself that tolerance of false teaching is ecclesiastical realism, sins not only against truth but against hope. The zeal of true hope is jealous of Paul to present the church as a pure virgin to Christ.

Hope also holds fast to the unity of the church of Christ. We are called in one hope of our calling and press to that hope “with every grace endued.” No Christian in this life has yet become what he is called to be, and the church, too, is still under construction. It must be seen in its design, not in its incompleteness. Yet the fullness of Christ indwells the church and to that fullness the church shall come.

This keynote of hope must shape the training of the ministry. Only in hope can Westminster or any of its graduates stand fast. The Christian apologetic is one of hope. We dare not scale down the gospel until it is believable to unbelief. Neither dare we flee with the gospel to a noumenal never-never land that is safe from scientific scrutiny. We must be strong and of good courage and utter God’s name over his whole creation. Hope knows that the victory is won, that faith shall be sight, that Christ is now seated at the right hand of power.

Hope’s Perspective

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ut steadfast hope must also be an abounding hope.

Not only apologetics, but each discipline of seminary study has a fresh dynamic in the perspective of hope. Biblical studies gain in value, for the sure Word of God becomes infinitely precious. Further, hope grasps the structure of Scripture as the word of promise and unfolds the beauty of the history of redemption and of its realization in Jesus Christ. Systematic theology has always traced the history of salvation, but deepened by hope, systematics can address our age with fresh understanding of the fullness of scriptural doctrine. What power lies in the biblical development of the calling of God, to take one example.

Because hope is the reach of faith through time, it must take history seriously not only in the Bible but in the church. Experience works hope in the life of the individual, and the perspective of hope cannot ignore the experience of all the people of God through the ages, or the growth of their understanding of God’s word.

Practical theology, too, has much to gain from the theology of hope. We have seen that the dynamic of hope drives the church to mission, to edification, to worship.

The preaching of the church offers the promise of hope; its order applies the discipline of hope. The ministry of mercy is a sign of hope, presenting in deeds of compassion a token of the relief of all misery and the restoration of all blessings that will come with the new heavens and the new earth.

The realism of hope takes a strong interest in the life of man and the history of the world. The pilgrim to the city of God does not pass by on the other side when he sees a wounded man on the road to Jericho. The cheerfulness of hope ministers to men in their need.

Hope Possessed

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ou will observe that the biblical doctrine of hope furnishes an approach that is superficially similar to many of the trends of our time yet really set against them. The emphasis on history, on biblical theology, on involvement with contemporary affairs, these all have new meaning when Christian training is stamped with hope. Yet all hangs upon that living hope that centers upon the living God. Further, and this may be most important of all, the perspective of hope joins the believer with the object of

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his faith. Neither the ministry of the word nor training for it may abstract doctrine from life. On the one hand, the doctrines of the application of redemption require much further study. What riches there are to be possessed in understanding the doctrines of union with Christ and of the work of the Holy Spirit! How strange it is that the high mysteries of God’s sovereignty have been much discussed, but that so little theological analysis has been given to the subject of prayer.

“But Christian hope calls pilgrims to journey through the world of creation to the world of consummation.

We have here no abiding city but we seek after that which is to come.”

On the other hand, the training of men as ministers of hope must not only instruct them in the doctrines of that hope; it must encourage them to possess it. Just because Christ in you is the hope of glory, training for the ministry of hope must be training in maturity in Christ.

The charter of the seminary wisely defines a grand design, to “unite in those who shall sustain the ministerial office, religion and literature; that piety of the heart which is the fruit only of the renewing and sanctifying grace of God, with solid learning.”

A ministry of hope can be raised up in no other way, for learning is not the right hand and piety the left hand of the gospel minister. Rather learning and piety alike are the reasonable service of the renewed mind proving what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Jesus Christ is the hope we minister and our hope as we minister. Our one hope is in one Lord who has come and is coming. The rolling wooded campus of our catalogue is a hill-top where we watch for the dawn of his appearing.

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Westminster’s hope is not a new faculty, a new student body, and certainly not a new administration. Our hope is the presence of the Savior’s glory.

“Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained mercy, we faint not. . . For we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus’s sake. Seeing it is God who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ who shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:1, 5, 6).

Mr. Chairman, in pursuance of the action of the Board of Trustees on May 17, 1966, I present to you Edmund Prosper Clowney, native of Philadelphia, Bachelor of Arts of Wheaton College, Bachelor of Theology of Westminster Theological Seminary, Master of Sacred Theology of Yale University, Doctor of Divinity of Wheaton College, student of theology and of mankind for many years, pastor in Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey, sometime editor of the Presbyterian Guardian, Lecturer and Instructor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor of Practical Theology in this institution, long celebrated as facile with both the artist’s brush and the writer’s pen, master of the columnist’s scalpel, author of Eutychus (and his pin), Preaching and Biblical Theology, Called to the Ministry, Another Foundation, administrative and educational pioneer par excellence, for induction as the first President of Westminster Theological Seminary.

1 “ Politics: The Turning Point” in Time Magazine, vol. 88, no. 15.

October 7, 1966, 29.

2 Quoted in Eric Josephson, Man Alone (Dell: 1962), 469.

Edmund P. Clowney (1917–2005) was President of Westminster Theological Seminary from 1966-1984. An accomplished teacher, theologian and pastor, his books include Preaching Christ in All of Scripture and The Unfolding Mystery.

A Gift that Gives Back!

Did you know that you can support Westminster and its training of the next generation of pastors and ministry leaders, while also receiving income back from your gift? It might sound too good to be true, but with planned giving vehicles like a Charitable Remainder Trust or a Charitable Gift Annuity, your investment in Westminster can provide income to you for years to come.

Our Stewardship team is ready to work with you and your financial planner to customize one of these options for you.

Contact us today at (215) 935-3871 or: plannedgiving@wts.org

ALUMNI NEWS & UPDATES For this issue we asked alumni to send in along with their updates an answer to the question, “How has your education impacted your ministry?” We want to hear more from our alumni family. If you have a piece of news or a Westminster story you’d like to share, please send us an email. You can contact Joel Richards at jrichards@wts.edu.

Kyle Davis began full time as the Executive Director of Bible Translation Fellowship on January 1.. God willing, the Davises will move to Cape Town, South Africa as soon as they get their visas. There Kyle will be training translators and pastors, and working towards becoming a Translation Consultant.

Bob Eckardt (MDiv., 1978) retired from over 40 years of pastoral ministry in the OPC as of July 2020.

Bill Edgar replied, “I attended WTS from 1966 to 1969.

Of course, the education was superb: some of the founders were there, Van Til, Woolley, Young, and Murray. But perhaps my most valuable experience was the friends I made: Moises Silva, Ray Dillard, Jim Hurley, Dick Keyes and many more. As a WTS professor, today I still mine the wisdom I learned from them.”

Jeffrey McCleary is retiring after 37 years in ministry.

Praise the Lord for His service.

Larry Roff (D. Min, 1982) writes “My doctoral studies at WTS were under the oversight of Ed Clowney and George Fuller. My work was in the area of hymnody.

That led to my writing an adult Sunday School course on the history and theology of our hymns, and to my serving as editor of the (red) Trinity Hymnal, both published by Great Commission Publications. I am now retired and living at Penney Retirement Community south of Jacksonville, FL. I am writing a 3–4 page hymn study each week and am now working on #75 in that series. I hope to find a publisher, since many of the 500+ subscribers on my email distribution list have been urging me to do so. We are thrilled that our daughter,

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Jennifer, is now Development Director of the large multi-staff crisis pregnancy center ministry, ‘Choices,’ in Chattanooga, TN.” Daniel Scott (DMin., 1995) was elected Moderator of the 146th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

Donald Slager has worked with most language groups in Liberia and Sierra Leone for 40 years. “Presently” Donald writes, “I concentrate on translation projects in Liberia (right now Bandi, Dan, Maan, and Manya). I also serve as the editor of the United Bible Societies’ English Handbook Series for Bible translators. I’ve been working on them for about 20 years, just completing the series.

Westminster prepared me well for the work I’m doing.”

Henry B Smith Jr. (MAR, 2015) writes, “My WTS education and training was absolutely essential for my ministry work with Associates for Biblical Research.

The supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures and the Christ revealed therein must be the proper foundation and starting point for all archaeological and historical research connected to the Bible. Van Til’s apologetic equipped me to recognize and critique worldview paradigms which govern human interpretations of both the biblical text and related archaeological evidence. The value of my Westminster education is inestimable. Sola Scriptura!”

Ken Stewart (M.Div. 1975; Th.M. 1976) has retired as Professor of Theological Studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA where he taught since 1997.

In his retirement, he is doing adjunct work in various seminaries and carrying on with writing projects. His co-authored book, Reformed and Evangelical Across Four Centuries: The Presbyterian Story in America, will be released by Wm. Eerdmans Co. in January 2022.

Chaplain Lt. Col. David Wersler (M.Div., 1980) has been awarded the Gill Robb Wilson Award.

A MINISTRY OF PRESENCE: Westminster Alumni on the Frontlines Joel R ichards

Henry Armytage Sanders, Photograph of a New Zealand Brigade Church Service in Sapignies, France.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this article belong to the interviewees and not to any branch of the United States Armed Services.

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ou never know what’s going to come around the corner. That is the life of being a military chaplain, and yet what great opportunities do come through tragic experiences. This is where a chaplain can provide pastoral care, shepherding, and missionary work in ways that you never asked or imagined.”

What came around the corner for Chaplain (Captain) Doug Hess was a striking example of the unpredictable in a chaplain’s ministry. While ministering to a grieving family, Doug asked about a nearby Bible, and an unexpected owner announced himself. Hess describes this solider as a formidable, 260-pound, barrel-chested man.

The story Doug heard that day has remolded his view of the chaplaincy: this powerful man confessed to being a one-time enemy of the King, but through the influence of a faithful chaplain, God had prodded his heart, exposed his sin, and brought a thirst for the truth of God’s Word. Thus, in a desert, spiritually and physically, a sinner found living water.

Chaplaincy is a ministry opportunity where doors open in unexpected places. By God’s blessing and faithfulness, Westminster Theological Seminary has the privilege to shepherd and instruct chaplains who serve in various places throughout God’s Kingdom. This article is a window into the ministries of these alumni and an encouragement to consider God’s call for ministers to enter a ministry of presence.

Incarnational Ministry

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here are many stories that show a need for the compassion and care of Christ’s gospel. Chaplain (Colonel) Robert Nay recounted an abundance of ministerial opportunities. Ranging from preaching the Gospel during Christmas eve services along the Macedonian Serbian-Kosovo border to powerful opportunities to simply sit and mourn with those who have lost the lives of loved ones—mourning with those who lost loved ones in combat or comforting the mother of a stillborn. The ministry of a chaplain is an incarnate ministry.

Following in our Master’s footsteps, a chaplain “goes to where the people are.”

This incarnational ministry is an incredible call for

the kingdom. Chaplain Candidate (2dLT, Army) Luke Bae, a current Westminster student commissioned earlier this year, was called to the chaplaincy by this reality. Bae recalled the famous quote about there being no atheists in foxholes and then opened up about the chaplain’s duty.

“The chaplain’s role is to be in the foxhole with the soldiers when they need somebody the most. That somebody might be someone to just hold their hand, or someone to be scared with them, or someone to actually provide them with some kind of spiritual or religious support.

And I think the nature of the military allows those special circumstances to happen, and I just want to be there.”

“…in a desert, spiritually and physically, a sinner found living water.”

The same is true for those who seek to serve in a variety of other capacities as well. Chaplain (Lt. Colonel) David Wersler of the Civil Air Patrol described chaplaincy as a ministry of presence. Whether a chaplain in the hospital, fire department, police force, or the military, the ministry is to those around you. Chaplains are there with people. “You are dressed like them. They know who you are because you are wearing the same uniform as them.” The incarnational aspect of a chaplain’s duty is that he interacts with people where they are. Chaplains minister to ordinary people who wouldn’t ordinarily be in church. This call is one to be always ready and prepared to serve in unexpected areas.

The military, by its nature, puts people in situations where death is all too common. Add to that the reality that sinful people live in a broken and sinful world, and the result is catastrophic. Death, depression, anxiety, domestic problems (including but not limited to adultery), and hopelessness are serious issues that demand serious solutions. Nay said that “We bring hope. We bring life, eternal life. But it is the Holy Spirit that moves us, through us, and in the hearts of people that we are with.” But, as Hess notes, there is a temptation to give into man pleasing behaviors and practices. So, what is it that encourages chaplains to

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have the gentle, yet bold, love required in such painful circumstances?

Theology Matters

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here the word is faithfully preached, chapel attendance grows.” Nay has seen the effect of God’s Word when it is brought before those that suffer. Nay worked with the Japanese army and helped them to reduce the number of suicides by 20 percent. When I asked him about this, his response was so simple. “It’s the theology of who God is.”

Nay went on to talk about Van Tillian apologetics, the creator-creature distinction, and the proper understanding of human nature. “Remembering who God is and who we are is foundational.”

“The military, by its nature, puts people in situations where death is all too common. Add to that the reality that sinful people live in a broken and sinful world, and the result is catastrophic.”

The ultimate reality is that the Bible is the foundation for ministry. Nay continues, “Westminster did not teach me every method; they provided a foundation. When I encountered other situations, I would have principles to guide my decision making.” For Nay, apologetics is not a battle of the wits and persuasive words but a demonstration of the Spirit’s power and understanding the world’s philosophy.

It’s a recognition that the battle belongs to the Lord.

Chaplain (Colonel) Pete Sniffin, who served as the Commandant of the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School and Director of the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Center, addressed the importance of a deep education: “Anytime you go deeper, what you provide can go deeper.”

Unfortunately, the reality is that the education some chaplains receive leaves them with much less to offer to

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the spiritually or physically wounded. “When someone is in the hospital, you want their chaplain to be a person of substance. We don’t want the lowest common denominator for trauma. Chaplains need to be persons of substance.”

Hess stated that his training at both Westminster and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary have been paramount for him, helping him grow in his convictions and to be bold—a boldness that has helped Hess in counseling through hundreds of cases of adultery. Despite the enormity of those challenges, Hess recognized that “we can’t say the mess is too difficult. We have Christ and all his resources. I believe he has the tools to help heal marriages even from the most damaging sins like adultery. Adultery is a big deal when you are far away from home.”

So, what does a Reformed understanding of scripture have to offer on the frontlines? Isn’t the typical seminary graduate just “a head on a stick”? Chaplain (Captain) Jeremy Coenen’s description of his education couldn’t be further from this caricature. “We have to be ready for anything.” While all Westminster curricula set the foundation, Van Tillian apologetics had the most significant impact on Coenen. “Meeting people and interacting with people who have a different worldview requires real answers for the deepest longings and the deepest concerns that they have. So, the most practical was apologetics.”

Coenen also went into detail on Westminster’s perspective on scripture and hermeneutics. Many soldiers were not familiar with the idea of the unfolding of revelation. A majority of those Coenen met came from a legalistic background. “When you lay out the unfolding revelation, this way that God has graciously called people to himself ever since Genesis 3, it’s refreshing.

It’s the Gospel. When you start sharing the truth of the reformed understanding of the Gospel, it’s almost shocking for people when they get that perspective. The Gospel becomes fresh air. It becomes water in the desert.”

This reformed understanding of the Gospel does provide much you can’t find elsewhere. Hess described a host of reformed resources, but there was one work in particular that a reformed heritage was able to offer.

Hess notes that “to this day, military men are blown away by the Heidelberg Catechism.” Hess taught the Heidelberg through Bible studies and recognized the power of the first question of the Heidelberg: Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A: That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

“Think of what it means to the soldier, to the airman, to the Marine, to the sailor,” said Hess. “Think about what it means to the person out there who is away from their family. Not a hair from my head will fall without the Father’s will.”

Reformed confessions and creeds, a redemptive-historical hermeneutic, a biblical anthropology, a recognition of God’s sovereignty, and a creator creature distinction have provided these men a way to interact with boldness and confidence: their substance is God’s Word.

The Church and the Chaplain

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ot all are called to be chaplains. “It’s not for the faint of heart. We are ministering to people who are anti-Christian or people who are suffering because of their own sin or just the sin of the world,: Coenen noted. “Additionally, chaplaincy can be lonely.” The reality of facing darkness coupled with frequent moves can be overwhelming. However, those who minister in Christ’s name are not called to go it alone. Through our common union to Christ, we are called to edify, and build up one another. There is a multitude of ways the church can support its chaplains.

First, encourage those who are seeking ministry to consider chaplaincy. While it won’t necessarily be a comfortable ride, Coenen notes that those who have heard the call of ministry shouldn’t ignore “the cross-cultural ministry in the United States of America.” Hess echoed this, “It’s absolutely amazing. The places I’ve been, the things I’ve gotten to do, and the people I’ve been able to expose reformed theology to that would never enter a Presbyterian church.” Chaplains speak into the everyday operations of the military. They have an opportunity to influence marriages and children and even speak into the foundations of religious liberty in America. Nay puts it well: “If you want to directly engage the world, you go out to the world, and you minister and care for them. People who you would not normally minister to will become your ministry.”

Second, encourage those considering chaplaincy to consider Westminster. A rigorous program is necessary for a rigorous profession. As Sniffin recognizes, the

MDiv program at Westminster ensures that a substantial education will be provided. Additionally, Westminster requires two semesters of apologetics—a rarity at any seminary, and especially significant for chaplaincy. One thread that ran through each of these chaplains’ stories was their dependence on a Van Tillian apologetic.

Third, reach out to chaplains in your community.

Chaplains, and their families, often move from place to place. Invest fully in them while you have the opportunity. Learn their names, invite them into your homes.

And ask to hear their stories. Space doesn’t allow for the testimonies of each of these men interviewed, but if only you could hear all of their stories! It is a great blessing to hear how God works in seemingly impossible situations.

Utilize the ministries of chaplains as you have opportunities. In short, minister to them and their families as you allow them to minister to you and your own.

Finally, pray for your chaplains. Pray for their courage, boldness, and wisdom. Pray for their protection. Pray for their families, their marriages, their children, and the flock they shepherd. And pray for those who minister to chaplains, that they would be incarnational in their approaches as well. Pray that a chaplain’s ministry will be one where they glorify their King as they present a gospel message to an unchurched people. Pray for this incarnational, cross-cultural ministry of presence.

Alumni interviewed were Chaplain (Captain) Jeremy Coenen, Chaplain (Captain) Doug Hess, Chaplain (Colonel) Robert Nay, Chaplain (Lt. Colonel) David Wersler, Chaplain Candidate (2nd Lieutenant) Luke Bae, and Chaplain (Colonel) Pete Sniffen. Pete was vital to the entire interview process and the development of questions. I had no perspective on what to even ask about until Pete sat down with me. Truthfully, these men each blessed me in enormous ways, and I have developed incredible relationships from them.

If you or someone you know are interested in learning more about chaplaincy in the armed services, contact jrichard@wts.edu.

Joel Richards is an M.Div. student at Westminster, where he also serves as Advancement Processing Specialist and Alumni Associate.

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Staying in the Fight

Alumni Interview: Harry Reeder III Dr. Harry Reeder III of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1982. He had the great privilege to study under Edmund Clowney and Palmer Robertson. His written works include The Leadership Dynamic and From Embers to a Flame. This summer, Dr. David Garner, Academic Dean at Westminster, sat down to interview Dr. Reeder about his coming to faith, his call to ministry, and the various ways God has blessed his labors at Briarwood Presbyterian Church. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. To listen to the full-length interview, please visit wts.edu/Reeder.

David Garner: Harry, welcome! Why don’t you start telling us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, and how you came to faith in Christ.

Harry Reeder: I grew up in a Christian home. My family was very much intertwined with the Graham family.

We attended Calvary Independent Presbyterian Church in Charlotte but moved frequently due to my dad being in minor league baseball. In fact, I went to 11 schools in 12 years! We eventually moved back to Charlotte and were very much engaged in the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. But I did not become a believer.

My granddaddy was on the original Billy Graham team.

My dad and mom were believers. I became a Christian out of a drug problem—my dad and mom “drug” me to church every week. But I had another life, and when I went away to college it no longer was a secret life.

Eventually, the Lord brought me to an end of myself. I came to see the emptiness of the life that I was pursuing. So, I came to Christ under the ministry of the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod.

I was then called to the ministry. So, I left East Carolina University and went to Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. I spent some time in the Reformed Baptist Association and had the wonderful blessing of learning under Walter Chantry and pastor Al Martin.

While in seminary, I had a student pastorate part-time.

Subsequently, I had the great blessing of finishing with Westminster Seminary in 1982.

DG: Tell us a little bit about your experience at Westminster. You are one of those unique students who didn’t study right here in Glenside.

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HR: Yes, I got the professors, but I didn’t get the Philadelphia city environment nor the weather. . . The faculty from Westminster would come down [to Westminster South] in the summar and in January for two-week intensives. . . so I got Dr. Palmer Robertson. . . Robert Godfrey, Dr. Clowney. . . I love that model of the academy and apprenticeship together. . .

I was there for three years and then the denomination asked me to go and plant a church. They gave me 10 cities. I was essentially a guinea pig for what they call the flagship church planting program. I ended up going to Charlotte and planting Christ Covenant from which there would be a Presbytery. And, now two presbyteries have been planted there. And my dear friend Kevin DeYoung pastors the church there. In 1999, after being there 17 years, the Lord called me to follow Dr. Frank Barker, who had planted Briarwood Presbyterian Church. And so, I moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and I’ve been there.

DG: Harry, you made mention of the academy and apprenticeship. Talk a little bit about why you think that model is important as this is what we’re doing right now at Westminster in the Master of Divinity pastoral track.

HR: This is taking basically taking what Calvin was doing in Geneva and connecting it to the Westminster legacies like Murray, Van Til, Clowney, and many others.

We’ve got all this wonderful scholarship, but how do we educate men in the context of ministry? That’s what Jesus did. He had the classroom, the moving academy, and then he had ministry. I believe Westminster Seminary

is doing something that is cutting edge; it’s going back to the way Jesus trained pastors, the way that Calvin trained pastors, and the way institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge are set up. So, the first couple of years you will have class with hours of mentoring surrounding it, cohort relationships with pastors in the area, and relationships with our faculty.

In the last year you’ll go into an apprenticeship in a Westminster-type ministry, in a church that will support what you’ve been learning. You’ll continue with intensive courses during that time, but you’ll be going through a residential program like a doctor. As you’re exposed to preaching leadership, Christian education, small-group discipleship, evangelism leadership, implementation, how to impact culture, you’ll be able to absorb and see and begin to be tested. What kind of ministry is the Lord calling me to in this pastoral ministry? To that question, you can get the input of a pastor and a session while you’re, as it were, tying the bow of the educational process.

DG: Well said. And as I hear you talking about that, in this generation of the life of the church in the West, and maybe even globally, what are the issues that you find most concerning and why does this matter so much at this particular time?

HR: Dave, I have a burden in this area, and have written and preached on it. I have been donating Machen’s

Christianity and Liberalism because liberalism is, at present, a virulent enemy of biblical Christianity. Indeed, I think we’ve kind of got a Christian Liberalism 2.0, and that’s progressive Christianity. Even the same slogans are used. They seek to “rescue the evangelical church from the dustbin of history and save the church for the next generation.” Ultimately it is in arrogance that we think to make the church relevant, and then we take the church into a new mission of cultural transformation. Now let me be the first to say I want cultural transformation.

But I don’t believe that’s the mission of the church. That’s the consequence of the church staying on mission, on message, and in ministry. And I think it’s very important that we educate young men who are called to the pastoral ministry, and men and women for leadership throughout the church to participate in a ministry with godly character, biblical content, and honed gifts for the ministry.

Now, why is this important? Because whatever the functional mission and motivation of the church is will eventually determine its message. So, for instance, if the motivation and mission of the church is church growth, then you end up with a pragmatic gospel to get the numbers; if it’s self-esteem, you end up with a therapeutic gospel; if it’s success in life, you end up with a prosperity gospel. If it’s cultural transformation, you end up with a cultural accommodation of the gospel and, therefore, a dilution of the gospel. That means the message is going to be an accommodating message to the culture. And that’s exactly what happened in liberal Christianity,

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because they wanted to be culturally relevant and culturally transformational. They lost the true doctrines of the supernatural power of God. And today, what is lost is not merely biblical inerrancy, but the sufficiency of scripture and therefore the sufficiency of Christ and the sufficiency of the gospel. It is in this context that the church’s pulpits begin to highlight the issues that the culture says to highlight and become strangely silent on the issues that the culture tells us to be silent about, such as the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of sexuality, and the sanctity of gender.

Considering this and the initiatives at Westminster, I believe that Westminster is uniquely positioned to turn out pastors who can keep the church on mission, on message, and in ministry, making disciples with a comprehensive message of a gospel wrapped in the whole counsel of God, which will then turn out Christians who know how to do biblical justice, walk humbly with God, and love mercy.

DG: Harry, some might take issue with your juxtaposition of classic liberalism with progressive Christianity, saying “Harry, I believe in the one, way, truth, and life, Jesus Christ. I believe in the bodily resurrection.

I’m no liberal.” How would you respond to that being a false connection in as much as many people might see it?

HR: Well, firstly, let me agree with them. I don’t believe that the same doctrines that were targeted in liberal Christianity are targeted in progressive Christianity. For instance, foundationally liberal Christianity targeted the inerrancy of scripture. Progressive Christianity, I believe, targets the sufficiency of scripture. I also believe that I can safely say that in many cases there is the claim that we are in concert with historic biblical confessional Christianity. But as I said, when you get to the terms of debate, you find out we don’t mean the same thing. For instance, take the term missional.

I have people now calling me, “Pastor, can you give us names for pastors. . . we don’t want one of those missional guys because they seem to have capitulated to the culture.” And I say to them, “No, no…really you do want to missional guy. Missional is merely describing the lifestyle of a leader who is surrendered to the mission.” The problem is, ultimately, you’ve got the wrong mission. Me, personally, I am missional in my drive as a

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pastor to make disciples through my various ministries.

The key to all this is the gospel, not merely a half-gospel approach. Progressive Christians often preach the gospel with its declarative blessings of justification and adoption, but they do not believe in the transformational blessings of the gospel, that you can break the power of sin.

DG: Many today would say that they can accept the fact that we need to be on mission, but we should abandon that old “dinosaur” model that doesn’t really change people. It just doesn’t change culture. Can you speak to that?

HR: We were having a sanctity of life Sunday, where we were asking the Lord to impact the culture in this area. We engaged the Bible to see what it says about life as a part of discipling a congregation in the context of a worship service. This was an effective ministry as we were able to remove all the abortion centers in Birmingham. This became a comprehensive ministry. It’s almost a quilt-work: Doctors for Life, Alabama Policy Institute Lawyers for Life, Nurses for Life, the best adoption agency, foster care ministry, and abortion recovery counseling ministry by one of the young ladies in our church.

While speaking to the executive pastor, Bruce, we realized that these ministries were primarily begun by members of Briarwood. Things were changing all around because we discipled these people. They became salt and light of the earth.

Perhaps my favorite ministry development was when we got a phone call from the Commissioner of Prison and Corrections agencies. There was a prison called the “bloody bed.” And there’s a reason it’s called that. And there was a dorm, they call Fallujah. It was filled with racial violence, gangs, segregation, violence, lethal weapons, pornography, and sexual promiscuity in the prison. There’s a reason the guards called it Fallujah. The commissioner of the prison said, “Harry, I want you and Briarwood to come in and do what you did in my life when I was in high school. That’s all I’m asking for.”

So, we went in there, and now, three years later, Fallujah has been rated by the United States Marshalls 34 times, and there is not one piece of pornography, not one lethal weapon. There are no gangs. They all sleep in the dormitories. There is now a library and a small chapel.

We started Birmingham Theological Seminary that has

a cooperative relationship with Westminster. We started a cohort of classes for certificate programs. Many of the inmates are in for life, but if they sign a paper when they graduate, they will join another inmate and move to another prison and start a cohort there for a seminary class. We now have graduated two cohorts and some of them were able to move on now to credentialed degree programs in our seminary. There was a time when one of the graduates gave a lecture on Bavinck and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

We also planted a church. It’s called the Church Behind the Wire. I’m in there giving a lecture on systematic theology and right there in front is a white guy and a black guy, both in for egregious crimes. They’re best friends. They studied together, and are now mentoring another group of guys going through the cohort.

DG: That’s wonderful to hear, Harry. A number of our alumni, perhaps prospective students, are likely reading this. What would you say to them is the greatest need for ministers today in this 21st century context of ministry in view of what you’ve said already? How would you encourage our guys to think?

HR: You need to be a man of God. Like Paul instructs Timothy, we need men who are equipped with the sufficient scripture, who believe in the power of the gospel, who believe in the power of the means of grace, who believe that God’s word has power, in the hands of God’s spirit, through the preaching of the word in worship and all the means of grace. When it’s put together, we need men of God who believe that and who model that.

DG: Harry, throughout our time together, you’ve referred to several things that drive in one direction about the man of God and his community. Many of our alumni perhaps are serving in solo pastorates in places and it can be very lonely at times. I know in your own experience, you’ve had a group of men that you have gathered with every year, and you pray together, you hold one another accountable. How would you encourage our alumni now who are maybe feeling very alone and unsure how to create that sort of dynamic?

HR: In my book, 3D Leadership, I discuss that question in great detail. I believe you learn by imitation, instruction, and encouragement. And so, for imitation,

you need models for your life. I think you ought to get them from history. I’ve got five models from my life as a leader and five models from my life as a pastor, and I have done the deep dive on those five men. I try to fix my eyes on Jesus by using these five men as signposts to point me to Christ. Secondly, you need mentoring.

I have been extraordinarily blessed to have five significant mentors in my life. All of them but three are with the Lord now. It’s hard for me to say how much that has meant in my life. They are, as it were, my band of brothers, and we have been meeting and praying together, anywhere from six to two times a year depending on the challenges that we face, and whether our families are close. We’ve been meeting together now for 38 years. And we pray for each other. We can hold each other accountable while we pray with each other. And that has been of inestimable value to me. Again, it’s hard for me to express how much that has meant to me and my life. So, you get your models from history, and your mentors (unless you know how to channel!) from the present.

DG: As you are at this stage of your life and ministry with many years behind you, what would be your greatest desire as you move across the finish line to however many years that God gives you?

HR: Wow. I just want to stay in the fight. The Christian life is a battle. William Gurnall wrote the 1600-page volume on Ephesians 6:10–19. He felt the Christian armor text was the Christian life. There is a lot of truth to that.

We need to stay in the fight. So as long as I can stay in the fight, I’m not interested in counting shells on the Gulf coast. That’s not really what I’m interested in doing.

I tell Briarwood, listen, you’re going to peel my hands off the pulpit and put me in the grave, but here’s the good news: It doesn’t have to be Briarwood’s pulpit. In other words, as long as I can serve, to whatever level of service I’m capable of physically, mentally, and spiritually, I want to stay in the fight till I go home. And so, I’ve asked the Lord that wonderful verse from the hymn that says, “do not let me outlive my usefulness to you.” I love the passage in Acts 13:36, when it says that David, after he had served God’s purpose in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers. This is what I want. I ask the Lord to let me do it, to stay in the fight. And then I’m ready, ready to go home.

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MOVING BEYOND THE BINARIES: Herman Bavinck, 100 years later Nathaniel Gray Sutanto

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ne hundred years after his death, Herman Bavinck studies are enjoying “a moment.” Since the translations of his four volumes of Reformed Dogmatics were completed in 2008, works on Bavinck, many of which are connected to the University of Edinburgh, have been released at a rapid pace, settling past debates on purportedly irreconcilable conflicts in his thought, and applying his work to contemporary dogmatic and cultural issues. Further translation efforts are directed at making his more occasional and briefer treatises available to the Anglophone world, even as those same works are being translated into other languages,

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such as Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, and Portuguese.

Most recently, James Eglinton’s scholarly and definitive biography rendered Bavinck’s life into clear technicolor detail, showing us the man behind the masterful theological writings.

New scholarship and translations are being produced on other well-known Reformed theologians as well, but Bavinck has generated a rare momentum that is not easily replicable. What accounts for Herman Bavinck’s influence, and why he’s enjoying such a renaissance, is not so difficult to imagine. One can point to numerous reasons—the systematic character of his Dogmatics, the psychological depth with which he attended to matters of theological anthropology, or his winsome and irenic character, for example. But I’ll focus on just one particular characteristic of his writings: his remarkable ability to find a third way that cuts across perceived and unnecessary binaries. In a polarized theological (and political) climate, then, one finds in Bavinck an exemplary model of level-headedness, not easily swayed by the ephemeral, heated debates of the hour. In broad strokes, we can see this clearly in multiple ways.

Orthodox yet Modern

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he first way may be encapsulated by the title of Cory Brock’s recent monograph: Orthodox yet Modern (Lexham, 2020). While Brock’s work was focused specifically on Bavinck’s critical appropriation of Friedrich Schleiermacher, this commitment to confessional Reformed orthodoxy in dialogue with modern thought characterized the whole of Bavinck’s writings.

In contrast to contemporary suspicions from both sides

that orthodoxy and modernity exist in contradiction, Bavinck argues that the orthodox—insofar as they refuse to be separatists and are engaged in society, and thus are enjoying the benefits of modern philosophy, technology, and culture—are always at risk of denying themselves when they decry modern life as only opposed to the gospel. As Bavinck would often refrain, we are children of our time, and ungratefulness here is not only a disservice to who we are, but also to God—the same God who raised Christ from the dead is the same sovereign one who remains Lord of the modern age.

However, to embrace modern life is not identical with the embrace of modernism. Modernism in the West, in Bavinck’s view, pretends to be unbiased and autonomous, when, in fact, it is always dependent at every point on the older orthodoxy. It exists parasitically on the Christian influences that have been so dominant in the past—an argument that historians like Larry Hurtado and Tom Holland have recently reiterated. Here, it is instructive to read Bavinck’s mature address “Modernism and Orthodoxy” alongside Abraham Kuyper’s own “Conservatism and Orthodoxy”—to stand on the past is something categorically different from repristination, and to be engaged with the present is not identifiable with compromising confessional convictions.

“the church is a transcendent good; a spiritual kingdom of God that is in antithesis with the principalities of the world.”

Today, it appears that the Reformed community still wrestles with this tension, and what one finds is a temptation toward one of two sides. On the one side is a curmudgeonly spirit that longs nostalgically for a past utopian age, that decries the present order and its culture and philosophies as simply inferior to the past.

And on the other there is a progressivism that looks at the past with suspicion and haughtiness, seeing nothing there but confusion and darkness. To the former, Bavinck would argue that there was no theological

utopian age, and to the latter that they fail to do justice to the fact that God has spoken.

Far from rejecting the ideas of the newer sciences and philosophies, Bavinck sought to learn from them while never compromising his own Christian confession. In this way, he is an exemplar to the church in every age, including our own, which needs to wrestle with new questions. In our own times, new issues surrounding race, gender, and culture are cropping up, and Bavinck’s own nuance and patience models for us the way forward.

If Bavinck was able to critically appropriate the newer findings in romantic philosophy and the psychology of the unconscious life in his own day, how might we critically appropriate the newer findings of our own times?

Pearl and Leaven

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nother perceived binary that Bavinck navigates beyond is that tension between the church and the world. To be sure, the church is a transcendent good; a spiritual kingdom of God that is in antithesis with the principalities of the world. Yet to be distinct from the world is not to be confused with a separatist principle that wants to depart from the world.

The church, then, is both a pearl—beautiful and an end in itself—and a leavening agent. The gospel unites us to Christ and renews human beings, but precisely as it renews human beings, it transforms their engagements with the world.

This is powerfully presented in his address, “The Catholicity of Christianity and the Church,” in which Bavinck doesn’t merely expound catholicity as a unifying principle, where the church in every generation joins together with the whole catholic church in the past, but he sees catholicity as a leavening principle. The lecture concerns catholicity (“according to the whole”), so we need to comprehend his concern that grace concerns all of nature. In a letter to Snouck Hurgronje on his intentions for the address, he wrote: “Imagine with this lecture that this is primarily intended as a medicine for the separatist and sectarian tendencies that sometimes appear in our church. There is so much narrow-mindedness, so much pettiness among us, and the worst thing is that this is regarded as piety.”1 One reason that Bavinck is gaining so much traction today is this gnawing awareness that the church moves back and forth between that narrowmindedness and

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uncritical assimilation. On the one hand, we are so mired in culture wars that we forget our spiritual calling, or, on the other, we mimic the world in the attempt to be relevant. It is a difficult task, indeed, to resist that narrow-mindedness disguised as piety, and to hold onto the unchanging truths of Scripture. Yet this is exactly what Bavinck sought to do, and why he is an exemplar to us.

Subjects and Objects

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theme in all of Bavinck’s writings on knowledge is the connection between subjects and objects.

How do the ideas in my mind correspond to the world outside of the mind? And how can we do justice to the inevitably subjective character of our knowing, and the absolute character of the truth outside of us? Having recently translated Bavinck’s Christian Scholarship (Christelijke wetenschap) (Crossway, forthcoming)—a companion volume to his Christian Worldview (Crossway, 2019)—I found this was one of the questions that he sought to answer. Our contemporary age sees life divided in two: into realms of pure subjectivity (faith) and pure presuppositionless objectivity (science). In response, Bavinck argued this way: There is no contradiction whatsoever in the idea that the absolute exists, and that we have only a relative knowledge (kennis) of it. The relative does not become absolute because we might eventually know (kennen) it absolutely and fully, and the absolute does not become relative because we know (kennen) it merely in a relative, limited, and defective sense. As long as one does not mean to deny the existence of the absolute, one cannot put too much emphasis on the relativity of our knowledge. What we really know is minor in content and small in scope. Kant and Comte have made us deeply aware of this. They have failed, as scholastics sometimes have, in that they have tried to draw a sharp geometrical line between what could be precisely known and what could be believed on subjective grounds. There is no such boundary. Thus, the world cannot be divided into two halves, nor can humanity be divided into two persons.2

What Bavinck is saying here deserves more unpacking than space allows—and my own work has sought to explore these issues in greater detail3 —but notice his basic

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point: there is no sharp boundary between the subjective and the objective. At every point of our living and knowing, the subjective is fully engaged, and the objective is that which is approximated. In our knowing, just as in our living, we must embrace our finitude. And this cuts across both the church and the world. The world is mistaken insofar as it considers theology to be sequestered to the realm of private opinion, with science and reason occupying the realm of public and objective knowledge. It fails to consider that the subject’s world and life view, too, is involved in our simplest perception of visible things, and that theology has to do with an objective revelation.

But the church, too, should heed this—the truth of God never changes, but we see through a glass dimly, and our contexts, selves, and upbringings mean we need to receive and re-express those truths afresh. We are never as pure as we think in our reception of the truth, and at times this lack of self-awareness has led to great harm by failing to diagnose idolatrous prejudices. In the contemporary trends of “exvangelical” and “deconstruction” narratives, Bavinck shows us how one can be a Reformed theologian and still seek to do justice to issues of the subjective life.

Bavinck’s voice remains relevant because he helps us move beyond these perceived binaries. For the church in the 21st century—even more aware of the tensions that Bavinck already felt a century ago—his voice is a beacon.

As pilgrims along the way, we need help in walking this line.

1 C ited in James Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 161.

2 H erman Bavinck, Christelijke wetenschap (Kampen: Kok, 1904), 43.

Translation is my own.

3 Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, God and Knowledge: Herman Bavinck’s Theological Epistemology (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2020).

Nathanial Gray Sutanto (MAR, Westminster Theological Seminary; PhD, University of Edinburgh) is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Washington D.C. His book on Bavinck, God and Knowing, was recently issued in paperback by T&T Clark, and his translation of Bavinck’s Christian Scholarship is forthcoming from Crossway.

The 15th Annual Gaffin Lecture

on Theology, Culture, and Missions March 23, 2022 | 11:00am Westminster Theological Seminary Live stream: wts.edu/gaffinlecture

Dr. Daniel Strange

Dr. Richard B. Gaffin

YOU ARE THEY: Human Identity and the Trinity P i e r c e Ta y l o r H i b b s

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677), Creation of Man and Beast (State 2).

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irrors are muted philosophers. Every time I look in one, the same questions sit on my forehead, mapped with furrowed roads of worry, surprise, and awe. But the king of questions always steps ahead of the others, strong and silent: Who are you?

Would you even have an answer? You’d probably give your name, your occupation, your social and family roles.

All these things are part of your identity. But there’s also something deeper beneath the rippling water of your experience, something worthy of the title you.

The Secular Approach to Identity

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ust what that something is, however, can be hard to articulate. The secular world is frenzied over identity.

It’s the hallmark of artistic and cinematic expression in our age. But identity is defined, on a popular level, in ways that should make a Christian shudder. For much of the world, identity is unbound autonomous freedom—freedom to choose (and the freedom to not make a choice),

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freedom to express, freedom to love, freedom to “make yourself” (whatever that means).

As a father of young kids, I’ve seen my fair share of Disney movies. Almost all of them focus on this notion of free identity. Go ahead; pick one. The Little Mermaid?

A girl who leaves behind her scales to put on human skin and make herself exactly what she wants to be. Frozen? A girl who ditches conformity for authentic self-expression and (in the sequel) takes up a mysterious union with the divine. The Jungle Book? A boy who leaves behind the animal world to find himself in the look of a young village girl. Even the most recent, Soul, which dares to creep into the transcendent, is all about finding identity not in greatness but in the purpose-filled, “ordinary” callings we all have (which, admittedly, is quite refreshing). It’s always about identity. It’s always about the freedom to make yourself or find yourself.

The same is the case with popular literature. Glennon Doyle’s Untamed has sold over two million copies, staying at the top of the Amazon charts for weeks. The book

description says that she “explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet others’ expectations and start trusting the voice deep within us.” It sounds a lot like Moana, which I forgot to mention in the queue of Disney films.

In secular culture, the only thing worthy of the title you is unbound autonomous freedom. You don’t take your identity; you make it. You don’t receive who you are; you create who you are. This has been called expressive individualism, and it appears to be “the highest form of authority” in our day.1 When you think about it, that makes total sense for a God-rejecting world. If you’re the only one in the universe and God is practically irrelevant, then your identity is pretty much up to you. It’s all on your shoulders. That can feel both liberating and crushing—liberating because it gives you the illusion of control but crushing because it’s an illusion of control. You can make a host of freewill decisions, but you can’t reject every other source of input for your identity. You need something outside of yourself to define you. Otherwise, your identity is incomplete and constantly frustrated. It becomes amorphous, ever evolving.

Some people like it that way, I guess. They want identity to be constantly shifting and developing.

“If we are the makers of our identity, but we’re constantly blockaded by others trying to make or maintain their identity, where does that leave us? Lost.”

Yet, I can’t help thinking that those people also feel lost. And they likely feel crushed when others more powerful and influential are shut down in their attempts at unbound freedom of identity. This is where the Marxist roots of our culture become apparent. Karl Marx argued that “Whether it is politics, economics, or ideas, history is a matter of dominant, powerful groups marginalizing and silencing others.”2 Anyone more powerful or influential than you are who tells you “no”

is, in a sense, marginalizing and silencing you. But there will always be people more powerful and influential than you are. No one stays at the top forever, and most of us aren’t anywhere near “the top.” This is a recipe for identity frustration. If we are the makers of our identity, but we’re constantly blockaded by others trying to make or maintain their identity, where does that leave us? Lost.

If the very method you are using to define yourself is flawed and frustrated, then you’re never going to have a stable identity. In short, you won’t ever really have an answer to the basic human question, “Who are you?”

A Christian Approach to Identity

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f you ask the same question to Christians—who are you?—we’re accustomed to saying “creature of God” or “God’s child” or “image-bearer.” All of those are correct. But the mirror on the wall isn’t so easily satisfied; it wants something more concrete. As we stare at our reflection, it presses. It pushes. It wants more. What does it mean to be made in God’s image? Some of us may have an answer to that, too. Reformed theology has traditionally taught that we resemble God in our knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. That’s true, provided that we see Christ when we look in the mirror because we’re united with him. On my own, I’d never describe myself with the adjectives knowledgeable, righteous, and holy. It’s only through Christ, into whose image I’m being crafted, that I can claim these things. And we should claim them. In Christ and by his Spirit, we know the truth, uphold the truth, and live out the truth.

Still, knowledge, righteousness, and holiness are abstractions. Our picture in the mirror is concrete. It calls for an equally concrete identity. Is there one? Yes. It may sound abstract at first, but it’s not. The Christian answer to the pivotal question of identity—who are you?—is this: a creature who speaks with God. We find our identity in a holy conversation. That conversation has a theological side and a practical side. Let’s take them each in turn.

You Are They: The Trinitarian Theology of Our Identity

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n terms of theology, who you are is rooted in who God is. And the one God is three persons. God is the Father constantly communing with the Son in the power of the Spirit. God is a being who communes

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with himself. In a sense too high to articulate, God is always speaking with himself, always conversing, always expressing, and sharing in unbound fellowship. That’s simply who God is.

The constantly conversing God defines us. We are creatures made for communion. Or, as Geerhardus Vos put it, everything in us is “disposed for communion with God.”3 But another way of saying this is that we’re creatures made for speech with God. In fact, we’re creatures created, governed, and redeemed by divine speech.

The Father spoke us using words, derivatives of his Son, the eternal Word (John 1:1). And he did that in the power of his Spirit, which was then breathed into us (Genesis 2:7). That’s why the psalmist can write, “By the word [the Son] of the LORD [the Father] the heavens were made, and by the breath [Spirit] of his mouth all their host” (Psalm 33:6). We are divinely uttered syllables from the speaking God. We were created only in relation to the Father, Son, and Spirit.

“The Christian answer to the pivotal question of identity—who are you?—is this: a creature who speaks with God. We find our identity in a holy conversation.”

And that creative speech didn’t leave. It stayed. It continued to govern the world. Isaiah writes, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10–11). The natural laws of the universe are, in a sense, just faithful words of God.4 His speech stays in the natural world.

But it also governs us. As we are identified through the speech of God, so we are guided by the speech of God. And it’s not a cold, legalistic guiding. It’s personal.

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It’s loving. “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). God gives his word to shepherd us in love. By keeping that word and by being governed by it, we more faithfully reflect who we are in him. But that comes only after we’ve been redeemed.

And it’s God’s speech that redeems us, even while that speech is governing us and holding our molecules together (since God’s common grace can be understood as a form of speech). We are redeemed by the greatest speech of God, the greatest word. The love song of the Son serenaded a sinful world. The word entered an era and became silent for our sake (Isaiah 53:7). We speak holy words only when we’re in that word, when we’re in Christ, when we speak in his silence. But that word is the word of our Father, spoken in the breath of God’s Spirit. Trinitarian speech redeems us.

In short, trinitarian speech creates; trinitarian speech governs; and trinitarian speech saves. When someone asks who you are, you might reply, “I’m a unique word spoken by the Trinity.” That’s the theology of your identity. Breaking the bounds of English grammar, we can say, you are they. You cannot be identified apart from the Father, Son, and Spirit who speaks. That doesn’t mean you’re divine; it just means your identity comes from the one who is. You are fully yourself when you are abiding in the Godhead who already dwells in you.

We abide in Christ by the power of the Spirit and are brought into the presence of the Father. That’s our identity. As Rankin Wilbourne put it, “You no longer belong only to yourself. Your identity now includes another; it is broadened from ‘me’ to ‘us.’ ” 5 You are they.

You Are They: The Trinitarian Practice of Our Identity

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he theology of our identity demands practice. If you are a creature who speaks with God, then you have to. . .you know, speak with God. It’s a wonder to me that we can claim to be followers of Christ, that we can claim to be Christians, and not cultivate a daily conversation with the Trinity.

I worked in a supermarket as a teenager. There was a man who would walk up and down the aisles in his old plaid shirt and ripped khakis, mumbling about the products on the shelf. He would browse the lightbulbs

and say, “We’ve got 75 watt, 60 watt, 30 watt. . . we’ve got soft white, bright white, clear glass. . . we’ve got appliance bulbs, household bulbs, exterior bulbs. . .” He was talking to himself. That made him a “crazy person.” Why, exactly? He was talking to someone no one could see.

Well, people could see him, but usually we talk to someone else we can see. The point is it would be insane to speak to what you cannot see.

“We are citizens of an invisible country, inhabited by invisible saints, governed by an invisible God.” But isn’t that what we’re called to do all the time?

The Thessalonians are called to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). That means, “Never stop talking to God.” But God is a Spirit (WCF 2.1). So, we can’t see him. Put conversationally, the Thessalonians are told, “Always talk to the invisible God. Always look like the crazy person.” Sounds wild, doesn’t it? To be more accurate, it sounds otherworldly, and it is. We are citizens of an invisible country, inhabited by invisible saints, governed by an invisible God. We can’t get around invisibility. But neither can we get around the call to speak constantly with God. A practical outworking of our identity is talking to the Father of love, the Son of grace, and the Spirit of comfort. Speech with the Trinity is a manifestation of who we are. You are they. You can’t define yourself apart from speaking to the God who loves you, the God who is love (1 John 4:8). You can’t.

Identity and Expression

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ow, where does that leave us in terms of self-expression? I mentioned earlier that we live in an age of expressive individualism. We feel entitled to self-expression. And that’s not all bad. God does want us to express ourselves as unique creatures. But we’re not unique creatures in isolation from him. We’re not

autonomous, much to the chagrin of modern society.

Remember, you are they. We can’t truly express ourselves apart from finding that expression in the Trinity.

Thoughts, speech, and action that express the diversity, order, beauty, power, relationship, and restorative work of God are healthy expressions of identity. And we find examples or pointers to such expressions in Scripture.

Thoughts, speech, and action running counter to the God of Scripture are unhealthy expressions of identity.

But digging into examples would require another article (or book).

Let’s end on a practical note. When we stare into that mirror each morning, some of us might be disappointed with saying, “You are they.” (I won’t be, since I teach writing and grammar, and that sentence just makes me smile.) Isn’t there something dynamic, some energizing definition of self that can spur us into the day? I think there is, and (surprise, surprise) I think it’s trinitarian, too. Each of us can claim our identity in the triune God, but that also leaves the door open to how we’re being shaped each day and what blessings we can bring to others in the world.

Identity through Stability, Variety, and Relationship

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rue identity, I learned from the late Kenneth Pike (and from Vern Poythress), involves stability, variety, and relationship.

Who am I? A creature who speaks with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s my stability. That’s my rock. That’s my mountain. It’s not leaving. It’s never changing. I am grounded in the God who spoke me, silenced my sin, and then restated me in the power of his own breath. I don’t have to wonder about “finding myself” or “making myself.” I’m found; I’m made. And because of that, I’m free. I don’t have to go asserting my identity on the runaway train of expressive individualism. I’m safe. The more rooted I become in who God made me (and remade me) to be, the more myself I am. My identity is found in another. That’s why “you are more and most yourself when united to Christ. He covers you; he shields you; he represents you before the Father. He also fills you, illuminates you, and animates you, making you more yourself and more human than you could ever be on your own.” 6 Stability is found in relationship with the Father, in the Son, and by the Spirit. That is the stone we stand on.

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But we also develop and change, don’t we? Each day, we are a variant of our true selves, looking more like the God who made us. And so, variety is a critical component to our identity too. We are constantly growing and expressing ourselves in new ways. That doesn’t change who we are. The peonies outside our window have just burst into pink blossoms, bright voices on the dark landscape of green grass and brown mulch. But just a week ago, their heads were still wrapped shut, tight and full—treasures in humble silence. So much was coming for them a week ago, but it was hidden. They blossomed in time, not apart from it. But they were still peonies last week. What changed wasn’t their identity; it was their expression of that identity in a later stage of maturity. The peonies this week are a variant of the same peonies from last week. Their beauty comes in growth, in unfolding, in the worship of a thousand open hands.

Identity also involves relationship, and that, too, is built into us by the Trinity. We cannot identify ourselves in isolation. No one can truly be by himself. We are identified, in part, through our relationships with others.

Who is the Father? He’s the Father of the Son and of the Spirit. He is known in relationship. Who is the Son? He’s the Son of the Father and joined to him in the Spirit.

Who is the Spirit? He’s the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Identity lies in relationship. When I ask myself who I am, it’s the same. I’m the son of Donald and Monica; the brother of Tucker, Trevor, and Toby; the husband of Christina; the father of Isaac, Nora, and Heidi. I’m identified in my relationships.

My identity is stable in the Trinity, and so I can grow each day and spread my life into a million other relationships as who I am becomes more fully realized, more mature, more gloriously Christ-like.

Conclusion

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nowing “who you are” can sound cliché. But what we think about, what we say, and what we do—all of that is based on who we are. In a world that is constantly challenging identity as something given rather than made, we need to be intentional about looking in the mirror. As I stare at my aging self each morning, I say with quiet joy, “You are they. Now go and grow.” The more we embrace who we are in God, the

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greater freedom we will have to be our true selves. We’ll also be a light to those around us struggling to find or make an identity on their own. That project is not only futile; it’s exhausting. People need to see us as truly at home in the Trinity. That’s who we are. We are they.

Why not end with a poem? It’s another expression of my identity in the God of words.

God of glory, grass, and men, Of colored things and spirits living, Tell me who I am again.

“A man among the God of giving.”

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Speaking, sharing, giving chase, You make me more; you make me most.

You paint into my penciled face.

In you, I am, my vine and door.

You grow me strong and call me in.

Whether I want less or more, I find myself where you begin.

1 G eerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 2: Anthropology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), 13.)

2 C arl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 402.

3 Trueman, The Rise and Triumph, 190.

4 V ern Poythress, Redeeming Science (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006), 15.

5 Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2016), 15.

6 Wilbourne, Union with Christ, 44.

Pierce Taylor Hibbs (MAR, ThM Westminster) is Associate Director for Theological Curriculum and Instruction at Westminster. He is the author of many books, including The Speaking Trinity, Struck Down but Not Destroyed, Finding Hope in Hard Things, and The Book of Giving. You can read more of his work at piercetaylorhibbs.com.

“The church lives in the world and it lives within the domain of political entities.

If it is to be faithful to its commission it must make its voice heard and felt in reference to public questions.” –John Murray

Framework exists to equip pastors and church leaders by deploying a biblically faithful theological framework to engage the challenging moral, civic, and cultural issues the church faces in society.

OUR CONVICTIONS

Scripture is true and sufficient Good theology should be public theology There is an urgent need in the church Our role is to equip not politicize We must prepare for what's next F R A M E W O R K .W T S . E D U

HEARTS AFLAME A Guided Tour of the Legacy of Precision and Piety in Presbyterian Preaching, Pt. 3 Dav id O. Filson

Editor’s Note: Parts 1 & 2 of “Hearts Aflame” appeared in the first two issues of Westminster Magazine. Interested readers can read those parts online at wm.wts.edu before enjoying the conclusion of the story below.

The Tender Lion of Old Princeton

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harles Hodge’s white-hot passion for God’s glory burned ardently, the focused flame of theological exactitude kindling the hearts of his students.

This was true of his son, Archibald Alexander Hodge, too, and would find even greater levels of expression in the hands of a blueblood from the Bluegrass State.

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was born in Lexington, KY, on Nov 5, 1851, to a rather prosperous and wellheeled family. His father, William, was a wealthy farmer who served as a Union officer in the Civil War. Young Benjamin enjoyed the privilege of private tutoring, and from his youth was determined to become a scientist, having read Darwin and other scientific literature at an early age. Warfield would enter the orbit of the Princetonians, and our story, by two paths of influence. First, his maternal grandfather had been an Old School Presbyterian minister. Second, after his private education, he matriculated, following the footsteps of Hodge before him, at the College of New Jersey (1868–1871), where he graduated with highest honors. After this he embarked on a year of European travel the following February. It was during this season of his life that he began to sense a call to ministry. This, of course, meant a return to Princeton, NJ, in order to attend the great Presbyterian seminary, where he could study under the elder and younger Hodges.

Warfield was licensed to preach in May 1875 and provided pulpit supply in Kentucky. He finished his studies

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at Princeton Theological Seminary, left for Dayton, OH, and was ordained. His ministry at First Presbyterian of Dayton was an answer to the desperate need of that church for a Sunday preacher. Dayton First Presbyterian, albeit of humble beginnings in a log cabin (not the first time a log cabin figured significantly into Presbyterian history), had become a rather prominent church. In fact, its pastor, Phineas Gurley, preached the funeral of none other than Abraham Lincoln. As the years passed, the church eventually went through a tumultuous parting of the ways with one of her ministers, Rev. John McVey, in 1874. The Presbytery found the church to be in error in their handling of the situation and required a statement to that effect be read from the pulpit. The church session responded with an official protest. Needless to say, these were stormy times in the life of this church, as this was followed by two years without a minister. Their reputation in the Presbytery was soiled.

“Needless to say, these were stormy times in the life of this church, as this was followed by two years without a minister.”

Stepping up to the plate to fill the pulpit of this now spiritually impoverished congregation was the young B. B. Warfield, with his freshly minted degree from

Princeton Theological Seminary. His July 1876 sermon on Romans 3:4, “Let God be true, though every man a liar. . .” was a solid treatment of the sovereignty of God, the inspiration and authority of the Bible, covenant theology, and the nature of the incarnation—all in one! The session and congregation of First Presbyterian of Dayton appreciated the theologically rich sermons of Warfield.

They extended a call to him to be their pastor, with an impressive salary of $2,500.00 a year.

Sadly, just as his preaching ministry began, Warfield was diagnosed with an undisclosed “disease of the throat.” Whatever the nature of this condition, it resulted in his declining the offer of the pulpit at First Presbyterian of Dayton, as his doctors advised him to refrain from preaching for the sake of his throat.

“The Reformed Churches hold, indeed, that every word of the Scriptures, without exception, is the word of God; but, alongside of that, they hold equally explicitly that every word is the word of man.”

Of even more significance in Warfield’s life was his marriage, two weeks after this impressive sermon that resulted in a ministerial call being offered, to the love of his life, Annie Pierce Kinkead. Having declined the offer of staying in Dayton, the newly married Warfield’s departed for Europe—part honeymoon, part exploration for further study in New Testament. Neither Benjamin nor Annie could have anticipated the tragedy that awaited them. At some point in this European tour, they were caught in a terrible, raging storm. That this thunderstorm occurred about a hundred miles west of Leipzig in the Harz Mountains gives the whole

episode something of a Luther-esque flavor (recall his solemn vow to St. Anne that providential July 2, 1505, just outside of Stotternheim). While there is mystery surrounding the nature of the storm and the exact nature of her response—whether emotional, neurological, physical, or all three—Annie Warfield was never to be the same. This shocking event necessitated their immediate return to the States, where Annie remained something of an invalid for the rest of her life, partially paralyzed, and greatly hindered in her physical capacities. This event, perhaps, more than any other, defined Warfield for the rest of his life and ministry. Annie was diagnosed with what was then a rather common diagnosis for women—neurasthenia, which included symptoms of fatigue, depression, and general physical weakness. Sadly, she was fully bedridden the final two years of her life.

Warfield left Europe with his new and all-but-helpless bride and returned to what he knew—pulpit supply—at First Presbyterian of Baltimore, until he was eventually ordained by the Ebenezer Presbytery of Kentucky.

Rather than taking a call to a church, Warfield accepted the position of Instructor of New Testament at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA in 1878. His interest in New Testament studies grew, and, even as eventual Professor of Dogmatics at Princeton (more in a minute), his systematic and historical theological work was always marked by rigorous exegesis of the text of Scripture and constant reading, writing, and reviewing in New Testament studies. Even his massive emphasis on apologetics was always with an eye toward the historic defense of the authority and credibility of the New Testament. The title of his inaugural address upon promotion to full professor—“Is the Church Doctrine of the Plenary Inspiration of the New Testament Endangered by the Assured Results of Modern Biblical Criticism”—revealed much of the trajectory of the rest of his life, as he diligently defended the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of Scripture. Distinguishing the Reformed view of inspiration from a mechanical view, Warfield says with forceful eloquence: It is by no means to be imagined that it is meant to proclaim a mechanical theory of inspiration. The Reformed Churches have never held such a theory: though dishonest, careless, ignorant, or over-eager controverters of its doctrine have often brought

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the charge. Even those special theologians in whose teeth such an accusation has been oftenest thrown (e. g., Gaussen) are explicit in teaching that the human element is never absent. The Reformed Churches hold, indeed, that every word of the Scriptures, without exception, is the word of God; but, alongside of that, they hold equally explicitly that every word is the word of man. And, therefore, though strong and uncompromising in resisting the attribution to the Scriptures of any failure in absolute truth and infallibility, they are before all others in seeking, and finding, and gazing on in loving rapture the marks of the fervid impetuosity of a Paul—the tender saintliness of a John—the practical genius of a James, in the writings which through them the Holy Ghost has given for our guidance.

Though strong and uncompromising in resisting all effort to separate the human and divine, they distance all competitors in giving honor alike to both by proclaiming in one breath that all is divine, and all is human. As Gaussen so well expresses it, “We all hold that every verse, without exception, is from men, and every verse, without exception, is from God. . .every word of the Bible is as really from man as it is from God.”1

As early as this 1880 lecture, we see the intellectual horsepower, muscular prose, and affectional-aesthetic literary style that would mark the whole of his writing ministry. His academic prowess quickly spread and his alma mater, The College of New Jersey, awarded him this same year with an Honorary D.D. The following year, The Theological Seminary of the Northwest in Chicago offered Warfield the chair of theology. He would remain at Western, however, until his theological alma mater called upon him to succeed A.A. Hodge at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1887 as the Charles Hodge Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology. Like his earlier inaugural address at Western, his May 8, 1888, inaugural address at Princeton summarized and prophesied the past, present, and future trajectory of theological method at Old Princeton. Entitled, “The Idea of Systematic Theology Considered as a Science,” this seminal lecture is still required reading for students of Reformed theology to this day.2 In a sense, one cannot fully appreciate the redemptive-historical, biblico-systematic method we follow at Westminster Theological Seminary apart from

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understanding Warfield’s method, which carried on the great tradition of Hodge’s own Systematic Theology, as well as Herman Bavinck’s (1854–1921) “genetic-synthetic” approach. While our theological method at Westminster stands on the shoulders of the Old Princeton giants, we do recognize the contextual emphasis on the scientific method of the Old Princetonians, with their appreciation for the Common Sense Realism of philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–1796), and we seek to lay as clear an emphasis as possible on the organic nature of Biblical Theology and the necessity of a covenantal revelational (scriptural) epistemology and methodology in the train of Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987).

“The Reformed Churches hold, indeed, that every word of the Scriptures, without exception, is the word of God; but, alongside that, they hold equally explicitly that every word is the word of man.”

While the full-bodied Princeton precision of Warfield would find a home at Westminster Theological Seminary, it was no less the inheritor of the full-hearted Princeton piety evident in his inaugural address, The Religious Life of Theological Students, the trajectory of which would blaze a trail through Pine Street in downtown Philadelphia, all the way up to Glenside, PA: Whatever you may have done in the past, for the future make all your theological studies ‘religious exercises’. This is the great rule for a rich and wholesome religious life in a theological student. Put your heart into your studies: do not merely occupy your mind with them but put your heart into them. They bring you daily and hourly into the very presence of God; his ways, his dealing with men, the infinite

majesty of his Being forms their very subject matter. Put the shoes from off your feet in this holy presence!3

Warfield continued in his teaching post at Princeton for the rest of his life, but he rarely traveled and was not significantly involved in Presbytery or the affairs of General Assembly. Instead of cultivating what would most certainly have been an international reputation, with all the invitations to lecture at European destinations, Warfield was zealous in his commitment to remain by Annie’s side. Although she visited friends here and there, within walking distance of the seminary, she was more or less confined to the old two-story house to the immediate left of Alexander Hall. Once the house of Charles, then A.A. Hodge, it was now home to Annie and her doting husband, Benjamin. The “Lion of Princeton” was tender, indeed. That he traded travel and international fame for faithfulness as a husband did not deter from his being recognized as an intellectual giant. This lion could also roar! Along with his early Honorary D.D. from the College of New Jersey, Davidson awarded him the LL.D. in 1892, followed by Lafayette College granting him the Litt.D. in 1911, and the S.T.D. by the University of Utrect in 1913.

“Steeped in the spirituality of his Princeton fathers, Machen carried the torch of an old flame to a new seminary in Philadelphia.”

Ever the tender caretaker of Annie, Warfield never wandered far from campus, but he remained extremely busy, to the point of overworking himself. J. Gresham Machen would pen a letter to his mother, in which he observed that Warfield did the work of “ten ordinary men.” He was a popular, beloved lecturer, and wrote voluminously.

The vastness of his corpus is difficult to overstate. He

was the editor for many years of the Princeton Review, and later, The Presbyterian and Reformed Review (later renamed The Princeton Theological Review), which was a theological journal much like our own Westminster Theological Journal.

He was also a serious collector of books—the only owner in America (a point of which he was rather proud) of an original 1536 edition of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, which he used in composing his lecture notes on Calvin.

B.B. Warfield’s heart was yet to sustain two more blows—one emotional, the other physical. On Nov 19, 1915, he said goodbye to Annie. After 39 years of constant, tender watch-care over her every need, he laid her

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body to rest in Princeton Cemetery of Nassau Street Presbyterian Church. For five more years he threw himself into his work, lecturing and writing at such a pace that those close to the situation feared he might hasten his own death. Adding to the concern was the fact that the Warfield’s had no children, due to Annie’s lifelong illness. Just a little over five years later, on Christmas Eve 1920, Johannes Vos, son of Warfield’s dear friend, Geerhardus, happened to be looking out the window of their house on Mercer Street, and saw the Great Lion of Princeton collapse on the sidewalk. Warfield had experienced a heart attack. He recovered well enough to teach an afternoon class for the next several weeks.

On February 16, 1921, after delivering a lecture from 1 John 3 on the love of God, in which he spoke of the Christ laying down his life for us, just as we should for the brethren (just as Benjamin did for Annie), Warfield assured his students that he believed in the supernatural and closed his lecture. Francis L. Patton (1843–1932), who had served as President of Princeton Theological Seminary (1888–1902), recounted in his memorial address, “The lecture was over; Dr. Warfield returned to his lonely dwelling: there came a few sharp shocks of pain—and he left the work that had been his joy, to be with the Savior whom he loved.”

The Lion’s Legacy

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he day after Warfield was laid to rest, J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) wrote:

Dr. Warfield’s funeral took place yesterday afternoon at the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton. . . It seemed to me that the old Princeton—a great institution it was—died when Dr. Warfield was carried out.

I am thankful for one last conversation I had with Dr. Warfield some weeks ago. He was quite himself that afternoon. And somehow, I cannot believe that the faith which he represented will ever really die. In the course of the conversation, I expressed my hope that to end the present intolerable condition there might be a great split in the Church, in order to separate the Christians from the anti-Christian propagandists. “No,” he said, “you can’t split rotten wood.” His expectation seemed to

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be that the organized Church, dominated by naturalism, would become so cold and dead, that people would come to see that spiritual life could be found only outside of it, and that thus there might be a new beginning.

Nearly everything that I have done has been with the inspiring hope that Dr. Warfield would think well of it. . . I feel very blank without him. . .

He was the greatest man I have known.4

As Machen mourned the Great Lion of Princeton being laid to rest, he may have had some sense that his life would never be the same. Indeed, the decade before him would be one of such shifting cultural currents and theological controversy. Steeped in the spirituality of his Princeton fathers, Machen carried the torch of an old flame to a new seminary in Philadelphia.

“That he traded travel and international fame for faithfulness as a husband did not deter from his being recognized as an intellectual giant. This lion could also roar!”

When the New York Times ran a story: “MACHEN PROPOSES A NEW SEMINARY—Urges Evangelicals to Found School to ‘Continue Old Princeton Tradition’” a small band of Machen’s fellows, such as Oswald T. Allis, John Murray, and Robert Dick Wilson would follow him down southward, down to 1526 Pine Street in Philadelphia, where a house made do for a seminary. If this rings a bell—the doorbell of a little house on Mercer Street in Princeton in particular—it is the sound of God doing great things through small beginnings.

Although Warfield’s dear friend Geerhardus Vos, preparing for retirement from Princeton, did not make the journey with Machen in body, the spirit of warm-hearted, world-encompassing gospel mission of Old Princeton was alive and well in the new seminary.

Another of Machen’s Mighty Men who did make the journey was Vos’ fellow Dutchman, the great apologist Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987). Known for penetrating philosophical prowess, he nonetheless beautifully captured that which set Old Princeton’s heart aflame and kept the fire burning in Philadelphia—namely a vision for a Reformed understanding of the creation-fall-redemption-consummation mission of the resurrected Savior: Christ walks indeed a cosmic road. Far as the curse is found, so far his grace is given. The Biblical miracles of healing point to the regeneration of all things. The healed souls of men require and will eventually receive healed bodies and a healed environment. Thus, there is unity of concept for those who live by the Scriptural promise of comprehensive, though not universal redemption. While they actually expect Christ to return visible on the clouds of heaven, they thank God for every sunny day. They even thank God for his restraining and supporting general grace by means of which the unbeliever helps to display the majesty and power of God. To the believer the natural or regular with all its complexity always appears as the playground for the process of differentiation which leads ever onward to the fullness of the glory of God.5

Now reunited in the fellowship of the great cloud of witnesses, Machen happily knows that Dr. Warfield “thinks well” of the now 92 years of God’s faithfulness through Westminster Theological Seminary, continuing the “Old Princeton Tradition.” Machen’s stated purpose for the seminary was simple, “Our specialty is found in the Word of God. Specialists in the Bible—that is what Westminster Seminary will endeavor to produce.” May God continue to give grace of his Spirit to fuel the loving devotion of hearts aflame among the staff, faculty, alumni, student body, and churches served by our graduates across the globe. This worldwide-from-Glenside

impact is the Lord’s fulfillment of the original intention of Old Princeton’s Plan for the Theological Seminary, which, in the words of its author, Ashbel Green (1762–1848), would provide a “nursery for vital piety, as well as sound theological learning,” with a missionary vision to reach the four corners of the earth. One needs only attend a graduation ceremony at Westminster to witness the nations literally walk across the stage to receive freshly minted diplomas deploying them for trustworthy ministry in a troubled world.

So, let us pray, and pray some more, that the Lord will fan the flames of legacies of Alexander, Hodge, Warfield, Machen Van Til, and other faithful giants upon whose shoulders we stand. May we gratefully pay forward a debt of love to that nursery of Bible-specializing missionaries, pastors, teachers, professors, counselors, and other servants of Christ’s kingdom, that our tribe would increase and continue to cause the gates of hell to tremble.

1 B .B. Warfield, ”Is the Church Doctrine of the Plenary Inspiration of the New Testament Endangered by the Assured Results of Modern Biblical Criticism” Accessed Online, 2021. https://www. logcollegepress.com/benjamin-breckinridge-warfield-18511921.

2 W TS Magazine readers can access a copy of the original published form of Warfield’s address, here: https://archive.org/details /inaugurationofre00prin/page/n27/mode/2up.

3 B.B. Warfield, The Religious Life of Theological Students. Accessed online, 2021: https://www.logcollegepress.com/benjamin-breckinridge-warfield-18511921.

4 N ed B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (Banner of Truth: 1998), 310.

5 Cornelius Van Til, “Nature and Scripture,” in The Infallible Word: A Symposium by the Members of the Faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, ed. N. B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley (1946; repr., Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002), 271–72.

David O. Filson (PhD, Westminster) is Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Westminster and Director of Alumni Engagement. He is Pastor of Theology and Discipleship at Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Nashville, TN.

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Holy Inhabitance W h it n e y R i v e r a Trembling in the throne room of The Most High, wondrous King Encircled by the holy ones who hallow Your will And hide their faces under burnished wings Who can stand Amidst the fire and smoke? The revel-racked train of Your wending robe?

That surges across the sapphire sea Of firmament glass, where sabbaths Your star-trodden feet And burns its path to the undoing of me

I should be slain. Bones licked by the flames, soul sundered awry from His presence A foundling of wrath and of shame.

I, like Abraham’s Isaac, (Your friend’s One and Only) Fumble up the hill, wood on my frame.

Too feeble to tread, too finite to bear the glorious heft of The Name Your eyes saw the death knell due Duly earning true Justice And for us On the Mount was provided the same

The pious and riotous pounding What sounding! Of praise, and of pinions, And prayers of droves; Wine-dark utterings of old, Hidden kennings of secret things cellared To be found in Your glory-steeped trove.

Pleased to wrap me round, spangled down, enrobed in gleaming whiteI can boldly stand by faith among the Council Arrayed in righteousness by Your One and Only Son, Jesus Christ

And the fresh, silvered smolder-glow Curling and whorling its scent; Hot, holy coals.

Redolent still of the best man can rend with his eyes: The pleasing aroma of resin-crushed pride, Grief-wrung poverty You will not despise.

“Holy Inhabitance” is winner of the Edgar Creative Writing Prize, awarded annually at Westminster.

Whitney Rivera is enrolled in the Masters of Divinity program at Westminster. She lives on the windswept plains of Nebraska with her husband Elliot and their nine children. She enjoys spending time with her family, tasting God’s goodness through good food and drink, and magnifying the truth of scripture through art.

Gustave Doré, Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice Gaze Upon the Highest Heaven

modern problems modern problems caring for souls in the 21st century caring for souls in the 21st century 2021 National Conference Greensboro, NC — October 8-10 2021 National Conference Greensboro, NC — October 8-10

featured speakers

Shai Linne

Julie Lowe

alasdair Groves

Brad Hambrick

ed welch

jonathan holmes

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