Posts in B. B. Warfield
Warfield on the Evidential Value of the Empty Tomb
Warfield on the Evidential Value of the Empty Tomb

Early in his career, Warfield produced an essay entitled “The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Fact.” It was written for the The Journal of Christian Philosophy, vol. III., 1884, 305-318.

Here are some of the points raised by Warfield which focus upon the empty tomb—an essential fact of Christianity. Did the disciples forget where Jesus was buried and went to the wrong tomb? Where did the body go? Was it stolen? Although I’ve addressed Warfield’s comments about the empty tomb, the essay is well-worth reading in its entirety since Warfield also deals with the eyewitness accounts and historical circumstances surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. What follows are selections from Warfield’s response to well-known critical biblical scholars of his day, David Strauss (1808-1874) of the Tübingen School, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1786-1834), the father of Protestant liberalism,and Ernest Renan (1823-1892) who, among other pursuits, was interested in the early development of Christianity. All three were well-known resurrection skeptics.

Warfield addresses Strauss’s “sorry hypothesis” that the disciples couldn’t remember where Jesus had been buried.

Is the admitted fact that Christ’s earliest followers were all convinced that he rose from the dead, adequately explained by the supposition that they were the victims of a delusion? We must remember that the testimony of eye-witnesses declares that Christ rose on the third day; and that we have thus to account for immediate faith. But, then, there is the dead body of Jesus lying in the grave! How could the whole body of those men be so deceived in so momentous a matter with the means of testing its truth ready at their hand? Hence, it is commonly admitted that the grave was now empty. Strauss alone resorts to the sorry hypothesis that the appearances of the risen Christ were all in Galilee, and that before the forty days which intervened before the disciples returned to Jerusalem had passed, the site of the grave (or dunghill) had been wholly forgotten by friend and foe alike.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerThe Empty TombComment
Warfield on What Paul Knew of Jesus
Warfield on What Paul Knew of Jesus

Throughout his later career, B. B. Warfield was a much sought-after encyclopedist. Before the internet and sites like Wikipedia, multi-volume encyclopedias were an important way to amass information on the whole range of subjects within a larger field of endeavor. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica 11th Edition was among the most famous of these.[1]

Christian scholars developed several notable such encyclopedias (i.e., the McClintock and Strong, Biblical Ccyclopedia; and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia—ISBE. The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1910) was one of the most well-known and respected of these. At the time of its publication, Warfield held the chair of Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. It was his job to pounce upon any and all departures from Presbyterian orthodoxy as expressed in the Westminster Standards. As a highly-esteemed scholar and a well-known theological conservative, Warfield was asked to write key entries in a number of these encyclopedias.

Warfield contributed the entry on “Jesus Christ,” for New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia (NSHERK). His essay can be found here in its entirety. I pulled out several of Warfield’s assertions about Paul’s knowledge of Jesus (given my Blessed Hope Podcastseries on the letters of Paul). Since Warfield was concerned to defend historic and orthodox Christianity, Warfield’s entry on “Jesus Christ” in NSHERK has a definite apologetic flavor. We certainly see this in Warfield’s treatment of Jesus and Paul.

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Paul As Witness from the Earliest Days of Christianity

Paul had known the Christian movement from its beginning; first from the outside, as one of the chief agents in its persecution, and then from the inside, as the most active leader of its propaganda [note: the term did not yet have the negative connotation it does now]. He was familiarly acquainted with the Apostles and other immediate followers of Jesus, and enjoyed repeated intercourse with them. He explicitly declares the harmony of their teaching with his, and joins with his their testimony to the great facts which he proclaimed. The complete consonance of his allusions to Jesus with what is gathered from the hints of the heathen historians is very striking. The person of Jesus fills the whole horizon of his thought, and gathers to itself all his religious emotions. That Jesus was the Messiah is the presupposition of all his speech of Him, and the Messianic title has already become his proper name behind which His real personal name, Jesus, has retired. This Messiah is definitely represented as a divine being who has entered the world on a mission of mercy to sinful man, in the prosecution of which He has given Himself up as a sacrifice for sin, but has risen again from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, henceforth to rule as Lord of all. Around the two great facts, of the expiatory death of the Son of God and his rising again, Paul’s whole teaching circles. Jesus Christ as crucified, Christ risen from the dead as the first fruits of those that sleep—here is Paul’s whole gospel in summary (150-151).

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerWhat Paul knew of ChristComment
Warfield: With the Loss of Meaning of Critical Christian Terms, So Too Goes the Gospel
Warfield: With the Loss of Meaning of Critical Christian Terms, So Too Goes the Gospel

Just over a hundred years ago (September 17, 1915), B. B. Warfield gave the opening address in the Miller Chapel of Princeton Theological Seminary. To kick off the new academic year, Warfield took up the theme of the importance of the terms “Redeemer” and “Redemption,” — words, which when uttered by a Christian, brought forth the thought of “the cross . . . placarded before our eyes.” But upon making the point about the significance of these terms to the Christian—both in terms of the theology they carry, and the sense of trust in the Savior they convey, Warfield spends the bulk of his address on the sad state of affairs due to the loss of these terms throughout the Christian world—and about which Warfield is cautioning the new students.

The address has been reprinted as “Redeemer” and “Redemption” in Biblical Doctrines, Volume 2, in the Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, 375-398. It is also available in its entirety here.

Warfield laments the loss of proper meaning of a number of “Christian” terms, including the term “Evangelical.” He calls attention to the fact that . . .

Does anybody in the world know what “Evangelical” means, in our current religious speech? The other day, a professedly evangelical pastor, serving a church which is certainly committed by its formularies to an evangelical confession, having occasion to report in one of our newspapers on a religious meeting composed practically entirely of Unitarians and Jews, remarked with enthusiasm upon the deeply evangelical character of its spirit and utterances.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerRedeemer, redemptionComment
Warfield on 2 Timothy 3:16 -- The Scriptures Are God-Breathed, Giving Them Their Supreme Value
Warfield on 2 Timothy 3:16 -- The Scriptures Are God-Breathed, Giving Them Their Supreme Value

The following comes from B. B. Warfield’s article, “Inspiration,” originally written for The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia in 1915. The article was republished in 1948 by Presbyterian & Reformed in the Warfield volume The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, and was re-titled “The Biblical Idea of Inspiration” (131-166).

After pointing out that the Greek word θεόπνευστος (theopneustos) does not mean “inspired by God” (“breathed-in” or “inspirational”), but “breathed out by God,” Warfield fleshes the meaning of 2 Timothy 3:16 in “The Biblical Idea of Inspiration” (133-134). He is emphatic that Paul’s assertion here must frame how we understand the divine origin and supreme importance of Scripture.

(1) 2 Tim. iii. 16: In the passage in which Paul makes this energetic assertion of the Divine origin of Scripture he is engaged in explaining the greatness of the advantages which Timothy had enjoyed for learning the saving truth of God. He had had good teachers; and from his very infancy he had been, by his knowledge of the Scriptures, made wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The expression, “sacred writings,” here employed (ver. 15), is a technical one, not found elsewhere in the New Testament, it is true, but occurring currently in Philo and Josephus to designate that body of authoritative books which constituted the Jewish “Law.” It appears here anarthrously [without the article] because it is set in contrast with the oral teaching which Timothy had enjoyed, as something still better: he had not only had good instructors, but also always “an open Bible,” as we should say, in his hand. To enhance yet further the great advantage of the possession of these Sacred Scriptures the apostle adds now a sentence throwing their nature strongly up to view. They are of Divine origin and therefore of the highest value for all holy purposes.

Warfield is clear that the origin of Scripture—breathed forth by God—gives Scripture its authority as the Word of God. This, in turn, is why Scripture has the “highest value” for all holy purposes— which is the reason why the Bible is commonly described as our “only rule of faith and practice.”

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B. B. WarfieldKim Riddlebargertheopneustos, 2 Timothy 3:16Comment
Warfield on The Fact of Christ’s Resurrection
Warfield on The Fact of Christ’s Resurrection

In an age when “spirituality” has replaced being “religious” (see, for example Michael Horton’s outstanding bookShaman and Sage), B. B. Warfield’s remarkable essay tying Christianity necessarily to historical events comes as a breath of fresh air—even if it has the slight sense of coming from more than a century ago.

Warfield’s essay, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historic Fact, begins with something quite obvious, yet too often assumed, overlooked, or rejected. Christianity is absolutely dependent upon what Jesus said and did (especially in his dying and bodily rising again from the dead), and not with any possible response to the message coming from the “spiritual self,” pushing me to find “my truth within” quite apart from the historical facts of the life of Christ. Warfield makes his view crystal clear in this regard.

It is a somewhat difficult matter to distinguish between Christian doctrines and facts. The doctrines of Christianity are doctrines only because they are facts; and the facts of Christianity become its most indispensable doctrines. The Incarnation of the eternal God is necessarily a dogma: no human eye could witness his stooping to man’s estate, no human tongue could bear witness to it as a fact. And yet, if it be not a fact, our faith is vain, we are yet in our sins. On the other hand, the Resurrection of Christ is a fact, an external occurrence within the cognizance of men to be established by their testimony. And yet, it is the cardinal doctrine of our system: on it all other doctrines hang.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerChristianity and history, the risen Jesus, Christ's resurrectionComment
Warfield on Prayer
Warfield on Prayer

The following is an excerpt from B. B. Warfield’s sermon “Prayer as a Means of Grace” reprinted in a volume of Warfield’s collected sermons, Faith and Life (Banner, 1974).

Prayer as a confession of weakness . . .

In its very nature, prayer is a confession of weakness, a confession of need, of dependence, a cry for help, a reaching out for something stronger, better, more stable and trustworthy than ourselves, oil which to rest and depend and draw. No one can take this attitude once without an effect on his character; no one can take it in a crisis of his life without his whole subsequent life feeling the influence in its sweeter, humbler, more devout and restful course; no one can take it habitually without being made, merely by its natural, reflex influence, a different man, in a very profound sense, from what he otherwise would have been. Prayer, thus, in its very nature, because it is an act of self-abnegation, a throwing of ourselves at the feet of One recognized as higher and greater than we, and as One on whom we depend and in whom we trust, is a most beneficial influence in this hard life of ours. It places the soul in an attitude of less self-assertion and predisposes it to walk simply and humbly in the world.

After discussing the nature of prayer, Warfield speaks of the proper attitude to be taken in prayer . . .

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerWarfield on Prayer Comments
Warfield on the “Conviction of the Holy Spirit”
Warfield on the “Conviction of the Holy Spirit”

Below is an excerpt from B. B. Warfield’s sermon, “The Conviction of the Holy Spirit” reprinted in a volume of Warfield’s collected sermons, Faith and Life (Banner, 1974).

We approach now the center of our subject and perceive what it is that the world is convicted of by the demonstration of the Spirit. The Saviour pointedly discriminates between the three elements: As to sin, as to righteousness, as to judgment. Conviction of the world is the work of the Holy Ghost. Conviction as to what? (1) As to sin. The world which as yet knows not sin is convicted of it as the first and primary work of the Holy Ghost. It is not without significance that this is placed first. There is a sense in which it underlies all else, and conviction of sin becomes the first step in that recovery of the world, which is the victory. Once convicted of sin, another conviction is opened out before it. (2) It may then be convicted of righteousness, that is, of what righteousness is and what is required to form a true righteousness, and (3) it may be convicted of judgment, that is, of what judgment is, what justice requires and its inevitableness. These two together form the correlates of sin. It is only by knowing sin that we can know righteousness; as it is only by knowing darkness that we know light. We must know what sin is and how subtle it is, before we can realize what righteousness is. We must know how base the one is before we can know how noble the other is. We must know the depth that we may appreciate the heights.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerConviction of the SpiritComment
Warfield on Christian Hope
Warfield on Christian Hope

I believe that as Jesus Christ has once come in grace, so also is He to come a second time in glory, to judge the world in righteousness and assign to each his eternal award: and I believe that if I die in Christ, my soul shall be at death made perfect in holiness and go home to the Lord; and when He shall return in his majesty I shall be raised in glory and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity: encouraged by which blessed hope it is required of me willingly to take my part in suffering hardship here as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, being assured that if I die with Him I shall also live with him, if I endure, I shall also reign with Him.

From “A Brief and Untechnical Statement of the Reformed Faith”

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerChristian HopeComment
Warfield On An Overlooked Aspect of Calvin's Doctrine of God
Warfield On An Overlooked Aspect of Calvin's Doctrine of God

In his essay “Calvin’s Doctrine of God” written for the Princeton Theological Review (vii, 1909) on pages 174-175, B. B. Warfield considers John Calvin’s stress upon the Fatherhood of God. Warfield’s important, but often overlooked, point about Calvin’s emphasis on divine Fatherhood, is taken from The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Calvin and Calvinism (Baker, Reprint ed., 1981),Vol. 5 133-185. The essay can be found in its entirety here: Calvin’s Doctrine of God.

Warfield summarizes Calvin’s comments from the opening section of The Institutes, in which Calvin speaks of the knowledge of God and that God is the source of all good.

And then [Calvin] proceeds (Institutes I. ii. 2) to expound at length how the knowledge of God should first inspire us with fear and reverence and then lead us to look to Him for good. The first thought of Him awakes us to our dependence on Him as our Lord: any clear view of Him begets in us a sense of Him as the fountain and origin of all that is good—such as in anyone not depraved by sin must inevitably arouse a desire to adhere to Him and put his trust (fiducia) in Him—because he must recognize in Him a guardian and protector worthy of complete confidence (fides).

Warfield then quotes Calvin at length from the opening section of the Institutes (I. ii. 2),

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerCalvin's doctrine of God, Fatherhood and sovereigntyComment
B. B. Warfield on the Formation of New Testament Canon
B. B. Warfield on the Formation of New Testament Canon

B. B. Warfield’s magisterial essay “The Formation of the Canon of the New Testament” was published in 1892. You can find the essay here. It has also been included in the various editions of Warfield’s The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible.

Here a few gems from that essay.

Warfield reminds us that the apostolic church did not “invent” the idea of a canon of New Testament books. The church possessed a canon of inspired and authoritative books from the very beginning–the Old Testament. The church was, therefore, never without a “canon.”

In order to obtain a correct understanding of what is called the formation of the Canon of the New Testament, it is necessary to begin by fixing very firmly in our minds one fact which is obvious enough when attention is once called to it. That is, that the Christian church did not require to form for itself the idea of a “canon” — or, as we should more commonly call it, of a “Bible” — that is, of a collection of books given of God to be the authoritative rule of faith and practice. It inherited this idea from the Jewish church, along with the thing itself, the Jewish Scriptures, or the "Canon of the Old Testament." The church did not grow up by natural law: it was founded. And the authoritative teachers sent forth by Christ to found His church, carried with them, as their most precious possession, a body of divine Scriptures, which they imposed on the church that they founded as its code of law. No reader of the New Testament can need proof of this; on every page of that book is spread the evidence that from the very beginning the Old Testament was as cordially recognized as law by the Christian as by the Jew. The Christian church thus was never without a “Bible” or a “canon.”

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerThe NT CanonComment
Warfield on Jesus's Anger at the Death of Lazarus
Warfield on Jesus's Anger at the Death of Lazarus

One of B. B. Warfield’s most profound and widely read essays is “On the Emotional Life of Our Lord” first published in 1912. In the essay (originally written for a Princeton Theological Seminary faculty publication and republished many times since), Warfield considers all of those instances in the gospel accounts in which Jesus demonstrates deep and abiding emotions. It is at once a beautiful and moving essay, while at the same time a powerful statement that Christ’s true human nature brings forth true human emotions—ranging from compassion to anger. You can download the essay for free here, but there are new published versions (in booklet form with updated text and with introductions) here and here.

Since we are now in Easter week, I thought it would be a good time to consider Warfield’s discussion of Jesus’s anger upon learning of the death of his dear friend, Lazarus.

Warfield writes,

The same term [for anger] occurs again in John’s narrative of our Lord’s demeanor at the grave of his beloved friend Lazarus (John 11:33, 38). When Jesus saw Mary weeping — or rather “wailing,” for the term is a strong one and implies the vocal expression of the grief — and the Jews which accompanied her also “wailing,” we are told, as our English version puts it, that “he groaned in the spirit and was troubled”; and again, when some of the Jews, remarking on his own manifestation of grief in tears, expressed their wonder that he who had opened the eyes of the blind man could not have preserved Lazarus from death, we are told that Jesus “again groaned in himself.”

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerJesus's anger, death of LazarusComment
Warfield on the Religious Life of Seminary Students
Warfield on the Religious Life of Seminary Students

I grew up in an evangelical culture in which many depreciated the life of the mind, pitting “head knowledge” against “heart knowledge.” Those of us drawn to apologetics (a healthy and flourishing element in many of these same churches), found ourselves up against the accusation that striving to defend the faith or study Christian doctrine was the quest for “head knowledge,” allegedly connected to the sin of pride. It was charged that such an emphasis inevitably led to to “dead faith” and a cold heart. I recall a noted evangelical pastor laughing at those who went to “cemetery” (using a rather feeble bit of word-play to mock “seminary”). Of course, he was not theologically trained and this is often evident in his teaching and preaching.

When I first encountered B. B. Warfield’s tract, “On the Religious Life of Theological Students,” first published in 1911, I was greatly relieved that someone of much greater intellect and stature than I, made a case compelling case for uniting mind and heart. Prayer and theological study go hand in hand, or they should. This was required reading at Westminster Seminary California when I was a student and still is.

But this tract is not just for seminary students—although that is the primary audience. All Christians who love to read and study theology ought to give it a careful read. It can be found here: The Religious Life of Theological Students.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerReligious Life of Theology Students, Head and Heart Comment
B. B. Warfield on the Indelible Mark of the Westminster Shorter Catechism
B. B. Warfield on the Indelible Mark of the Westminster Shorter Catechism

This is one of my favorite Warfield stories. It comes from an essay written in 1909, entitled “Is the Shorter Catechism Worthwhile?”

What is ‘the indelible mark of the Shorter Catechism’? We have the following bit of personal experience from a general officer of the United States army. He was in a great western city at a time of intense excitement and violent rioting. The streets were over-run daily by a dangerous crowd. One day he observed approaching him a man of singularly combined calmness and firmness of mien, whose very demeanor inspired confidence. So impressed was he with his bearing amid the surrounding uproar that when he had passed he turned to look back at him, only to find that the stranger had done the same. On observing his turning the stranger at once came back to him, and touching his chest with his forefinger, demanded without preface: ‘What is the chief end of man?’ On receiving the countersign, ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever’ — ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘I knew you were a Shorter Catechism boy by your looks!’ ‘Why, that was just what I was thinking of you,’ was the rejoinder.

It is worth while to be a Shorter Catechism boy. They grow to be men. And better than that, they are exceedingly apt to grow to be men of God. So apt, that we cannot afford to have them miss the chance of it. ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.’

More on Warfield: The Lion of Princeton here

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerThe Westminster Shrter Catechism Comments
B. B. Warfield -- On Christless Christianity
B. B. Warfield -- On Christless Christianity

One of B. B. Warfield’s most insightful essays is “Christless Christianity,” written for The Harvard Review in 1912. It is available in its entirety here: Christless Christianity. It is not an easy essay, but well worth the effort.

Warfield takes aim at those who would divorce Christianity from history thereby eliminating Christ’s cross as the ground of our salvation. He points out that,

There is a moral paradox in the forgiveness of sins which cannot be solved apart from the exhibition of an actual expiation [a payment for sin]. No appeal to general metaphysical or moral truths concerning God can serve here; or to the essential kinship of human nature to God; or, for the matter of that, to any example of an attitude of trust in the divine goodness upon the part of a religious genius, however great, or to promises of forgiveness made by such a one, or even—may we say it with reverence—made by God himself, unsupported by the exhibition of an actual expiation.

No payment for sin, no Christianity.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerChristless ChristianityComment
B. B. Warfield on the Celebration of Christmas
B. B. Warfield on the Celebration of Christmas

In a review of a German book beautifully illustrating the art associated with the celebration of Christmas written by Georg Rietschel (1842-1914), who was a professor of theology at Leipzig University (H. T. Barry Waugh: Warfield on Celebrating Christmas) , B. B. Warfield concludes by raising the following questions:

1). What can be said for the customs [of Christmas] to which we have committed ourselves?

2). There is no reason to believe that our Lord wished his birthday to be celebrated by his followers.

3). There is no reason to believe that the day on which we are celebrating it is his birthday (Michael Kruger: Five Misconceptions of Christmas).

4). There is no reason to believe that the way in which we currently celebrate it would meet his approval.

These questions cause Warfield to conclude with the follow challenge; “are we not in some danger of making of what we fondly tell ourselves is a celebration of the Advent of our Lord, on the one side something much more like the Saturnalia of old Rome than is becoming in a sober Christian life; and, on the other something much more like a shopkeeper’s carnival than can comport with the dignity of even a sober secular life?”

Christmas is a difficult time for Christians precisely because of these important questions raised by Warfield. What do we do when a secular holiday and all the things that go with it (some good, some terrible) becomes thoroughly intertwined with the Christian celebration of our Lord’s birth and incarnation? There is something wonderful about an annual gathering when families and friends come together, feast, share gifts, and make family memories. There is something awful when “Frosty the Snowman” plays in the annual rotation of the FM radio station of Christmas music right after “Joy to the World.”

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History and Culture, B. B. Warfield, Two KingdomsKim RiddlebargerWarfield on Christmas Comments
Warfield on the Slight Difference Between Rationalism and Mysticism
Warfield on the Slight Difference Between Rationalism and Mysticism

B. B. Warfield was not a fan of mysticism nor rationalism for that matter. According to Warfield, here’s what happens when you give up on biblical authority:

Once turn away from revelation and little choice remains to you but the choice between Mysticism and Rationalism. There is not so much choice between these things, it is true, as enthusiasts on either side are apt to imagine. The difference between them is very much a matter of temperament, or perhaps we may even say of temperature. The Mystic blows hot, the Rationalist cold. Warm up a Rationalist and you inevitably get a Mystic; chill down a Mystic and you find yourselves with a Rationalist on your hands. The history of thought illustrates repeatedly the easy passage from one to the other.

This gem is found in, B. B. Warfield, “Review of Mysticism in Christianity by W. K. Fleming and Mysticism and Modern Life by John Wright Buckman, in The Princeton Theological Review, xiv (1916), 343-348; and is reprinted in B. B. Warfield, Critical Reviews (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981), 366-367.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerMysticism and RationalismComment
Warfield on Imputation
Warfield on Imputation

In a 1909 entry on “Imputation,” written for the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, in the second of six sections, Warfield defines the three acts inherent in a proper understanding of the meaning of “imputation.”

II. THREE ACTS OF IMPUTATION

From the time of Augustine (early fifth century), at least, the term “imputation” is found firmly fixed in theological terminology in this sense. But the applications and relations of the doctrine expressed by it were thoroughly worked out only in the discussions which accompanied and succeeded the Reformation. In the developed theology thus brought into the possession of the Church, three several acts of imputation were established and expounded. These are . . .

the imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity;

the imputation of the sins of His people to the Redeemer;

the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to His people.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerimputationComment
B. B. Warfield on the Essence of Calvinism: “God Saves Sinners”
B. B. Warfield on the Essence of Calvinism: “God Saves Sinners”

B. B. Warfield is well-known as an ardent defender of what is commonly identified as “Calvinism,” which Warfield defines simply as a “profound apprehension of God in His majesty.” In an entry entitled “Calvinism” written in 1908 for the New Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia of the Religious Knowledge (a massive and respected reference work in its time), the Calvinist, says Warfield is one who . . .

who believes in God without reserve, and is determined that God shall be God to him in all his thinking, feeling, willing—in the entire compass of his life-activities, intellectual, moral, spiritual, throughout all his individual, social, religious relations—is, by the force of that strictest of all logic which presides over the outworking of principles into thought and life, by the very necessity of the case, a Calvinist. In Calvinism, then, objectively speaking, theism comes to its rights; subjectively speaking, the religious relation attains its purity; soteriologically speaking, evangelical religion finds at length its full expression and its secure stability.

As for the Calvinist’s understanding of redemption from the guilt and power of sin, Warfield contends we must start with the fact of revelation—Calvinistic doctrine is revealed in Scripture and is not the consequence of human speculation (as often charged). He notes, “a supernatural revelation, in which God makes known to man His will and His purposes of grace; a supernatural record of this revelation in a supernaturally given book, in which God gives His revelation permanency and extension—such things are to the Calvinist almost matters of course.” To paraphrase Warfield here, Calvinism is “biblical.”

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerCalvinism, monergismComment
B. B. Warfield on the Value of the Westminster Shorter Catechism
B. B. Warfield on the Value of the Westminster Shorter Catechism

B. B. Warfield knew full well that Christianity isn’t caught, it must be learned. And even though it must be learned, as he puts it, it is “not very easy to learn. And very certainly it will not teach itself.” Since Christianity (Bible knowledge and basic doctrine) is the sort of knowledge people ought to possess, this is why the authors of the Westminster Shorter Catechism “were less careful to make it easy than to make it good.”

Here are a couple of gems from this short essay on the value of the Shorter Catechism.

An anecdote told of Dwight L. Moody will illustrate the value to the religious life of having been taught these forms of truth. He was staying with a Scottish friend in London, but suppose we let the narrator tell the story. “A young man had come to speak to Mr. Moody about religious things. He was in difficulty about a number of points, among the rest about prayer and natural laws. ‘What is prayer?,’ he said, ‘I can’t tell what you mean by it!’ They were in the hall of a large London house. Before Moody could answer, a child’s voice was heard singing on the stairs. It was that of a little girl of nine or ten, the daughter of their host. She came running down the stairs and paused as she saw strangers sitting in the hall. ‘Come here, Jenny,’ her father said, ‘and tell this gentleman “What is prayer.” ‘ Jenny did not know what had been going on, but she quite understood that she was now called upon to say her Catechism. So she drew herself up, and folded her hands in front of her, like a good little girl who was going to ‘say her questions,’ and she said in her clear childish voice: “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.” ‘Ah! That’s the Catechism!’ Moody said, ‘thank God for that Catechism.’ ”

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerWestminster Shorter CatechismComment
Warfield on 2 Timothy 3:16: Scripture Is Not "Inspired" But "God-Breathed"
Warfield on 2 Timothy 3:16: Scripture Is Not "Inspired" But "God-Breathed"

In his essay “The Biblical Idea of Revelation” (1915), Warfield addresses the terminology associated with the divine production of Scripture. His comments here are widely known and have been very influential upon recent Bible translations and discussions of inerrancy.

Warfield addresses the common use of “inspired “and “inspiration.” He writes . . .

The Biblical books are called inspired as the Divinely determined products of inspired men; the Biblical writers are called inspired as breathed into by the Holy Spirit, so that the product of their activities transcends human powers and becomes Divinely authoritative. Inspiration is, therefore, usually defined as a supernatural influence exerted on the sacred writers by the Spirit of God, by virtue of which their writings are given Divine trustworthiness. (BBW, The Inspiration and Authority, 1948 ed., 131; new edition 71)

The term has changed meaning over time:

Meanwhile, for English-speaking men, these terms have virtually ceased to be Biblical terms. They naturally passed from the Latin Vulgate into the English versions made from it (most fully into the Rheims-Douay: Job 32:8; Wisd. 15:11; Ecclus. 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21). But in the development of the English Bible they have found ever-decreasing place. In the English versions of the Apocrypha (both Authorized Version and Revised Version) “inspired” is retained in Wisd. 15:11; but in the canonical books the nominal form alone occurs in the Authorized Version [i.e., the KJV] and that only twice: Job 32:8, “But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding”; and 2 Tim. 3:16, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." The Revised Version removes the former of these instances, substituting “breath” for “inspiration”; and alters the latter so as to read: “Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness,” with a marginal alternative in the form of, “Every scripture is inspired of God and profitable,” etc. The word “inspiration” thus disappears from the English Bible, and the word “inspired” is left in it only once, and then, let it be added, by a distinct and even misleading mistranslation. (BBW, The Inspiration and Authority, 1948 ed., 132; new edition 71)

But “inspiration” is not the proper translation . . .

For the Greek word in this passage—θεόπνευστος, theópneustos—very distinctly does not mean “inspired of God” . . . . The Greek term has, however, nothing to say of inspiring or of inspiration: it speaks only of a “spiring” or “spiration.” What it says of Scripture is, not that it is “breathed into by God” or is the product of the Divine “inbreathing” into its human authors, but that it is breathed out by God, “God-breathed,” the product of the creative breath of God. In a word, what is declared by this fundamental passage is simply that the Scriptures are a Divine product, without any indication of how God has operated in producing them. No term could have been chosen, however, which would have more emphatically asserted the Divine production of Scripture than that which is here employed. (BBW, The Inspiration and Authority, 1948 ed., 132-133; new edition 71-72)

You can find this and other essays here: B. B. Warfield" The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (new edition)

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