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.

It bordered on scandal in Warfield’s day that an “Evangelical” minister would allow non-Christians to participate in “religious meetings” in his church. This, after Warfield’s death in 1921, became the common practice of the mainline Protestant churches, and now occurs frequently in the so-called “Evangelical” churches which dominate much of contemporary American religion. Indeed, the very definition of the term “Evangelical” is a hot button topic and much debated.

But this is not the only term, Warfield notes, which has lost its proper meaning.

But we need not stop with “Evangelical.” Take an even greater word. Does the word “Christianity” any longer bear a definite meaning? Men are debating on all sides of us what Christianity really is. Auguste Sabatier [a noted French Protestant theologian] makes it out to be just altruism; Josiah Royce [a noted American philosopher] identifies it with the sentiment of loyalty; D. C. Macintosh [a well-known Canadian theologian] explains it as nothing but morality. We hear of Christianity without dogma, Christianity without miracle, Christianity without Christ. Since, however, Christianity is a historical religion, an undogmatic Christianity would be an absurdity; since it is through and through a supernatural religion, a non-miraculous Christianity would be a contradiction; since it is Christianity, a Christless Christianity would be—well, let us say lamely (but with a lameness which has perhaps its own emphasis), a misnomer. People set upon calling unchristian things Christian are simply washing all meaning out of the name. If everything that is called Christianity in these days is Christianity, then there is no such thing as Christianity. A name applied indiscriminately to everything, designates nothing.

The consequence of losing the very meaning of “Christianity” is a “Christless Christianity,” wherein the person and work of Jesus Christ has been replaced by an anti-supernaturalism grounded in mere sentiment and morality, not redemption from sin.

So too, Warfield points out, the terms “redeemer” and “redemption” are also being redefined.

The words “Redeem,” “Redemption,” “Redeemer” are going the same way. When we use these terms in so comprehensive a sense—we are following Kaftan’s [the Persian poet] phraseology—that we understand by “Redemption” whatever benefit we suppose ourselves to receive through Christ,—no matter what we happen to think that benefit is—and call Him “Redeemer” merely in order to express the fact that we somehow or other relate this benefit to Him—no matter how loosely or unessentially—we have simply evacuated the terms of all meaning, and would do better to wipe them out of our vocabulary. Yet this is precisely how modern Liberalism uses these terms. Sabatier, who reduces Christianity to mere altruism, Royce who explains it in terms of loyalty, Macintosh who sees in it only morality—all still speak of it as a “Redemptive Religion,” and all are perfectly willing to call Jesus still by the title of “Redeemer,”—although some of them at least are quite free to allow that He seems to them quite unessential to Christianity, and Christianity would remain all that it is, and just as truly a “Redemptive Religion,” even though He had never existed.

Warfield exhorts these students to appreciate the gravity of the loss of these terms. With their loss, goes the gospel!

I think you will agree with me that it is a sad thing to see words like these die like this. And I hope you will determine that, God helping you, you will not let them die thus, if any care on your part can preserve them in life and vigor. But the dying of the words is not the saddest thing which we see here. The saddest thing is the dying out of the hearts of men of the things for which the words stand. As ministers of Christ it will be your function to keep the things alive. If you can do that, the words which express the things will take care of themselves. Either they will abide in vigor; or other good words and true will press in to take the place left vacant by them. The real thing for you to settle in your minds, therefore, is whether Christ is truly a Redeemer to you, and whether you find an actual Redemption in Him,—or are you ready to deny the Master that bought you, and to count His blood an unholy thing? Do you realize that Christ is your Ransomer and has actually shed His blood for you as your ransom? Do you realize that your salvation has been bought, bought at a tremendous price, at the price of nothing less precious than blood, and that the blood of Christ, the Holy One of God? Or, go a step further: do you realize that this Christ who has thus shed His blood for you is Himself your God? So the Scriptures teach:

The blood of God outpoured upon the tree!

So reads the Book. O mind, receive the thought,

Nor helpless murmur thou hast vainly sought

Thought-room within thee for such mystery.

Thou foolish mindling! Do’st thou hope to see

Undazed, untottering, all that God hath wrought?

Before His mighty “shall,” thy little “ought”

Be shamed to silence and humility!

Come mindling, I will show thee what ’twere meet

That thou shouldst shrink from marvelling, and flee

As unbelievable,—nay, wonderingly,

With dazed, but still with faithful praises, greet:

Draw near and listen to this sweetest sweet,—

Thy God, O mindling, shed His blood for thee!