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Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (1851–1921) has justifiably been considered one of the seminal Reformed theologians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through his teaching at Western Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary, as well as his published works, he had a significant influence for good in the academy and in the church. Warfield’s publishing output was prodigious. During his tenure at Princeton, he published over forty books and more than 1,700 periodical articles and book reviews. In 1948, the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company (P&R) began a project of republishing some of his important works, including the two titles reviewed here. Now more than seventy years later, P&R is again making Warfield accessible to a new generation with these deluxe editions.
The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, first published in 1948, collected for the first time eight of Warfield’s essays on the nature and authority of the Bible. Warfield lived in a time when many, in both the academy and in the church, were having serious doubts about the origins and the authority of God’s Word. Emphasis was increasingly being placed on the human authorship of the Bible. Not surprisingly, this resulted in people questioning anything miraculous or supernatural, and caused some to even question how God could be said to be directly involved in history or the lives of individuals.
Warfield’s essays clearly stated the Reformed understanding of these issues and why they matter. While it’s not possible to discuss all the essays in this review, I would like to highlight two of them that have lasting importance. The collection begins with a summary of the biblical idea of revelation and then moves on to a historical sketch, which sets out what the church has believed about the inspiration of the Bible.
Here Warfield asserts that the church has always seen the Bible “as the Word of God in such a sense that whatever it says, God says . . . [It is] not a book . . . in which one may by searching, find some word of God, but a book which may be frankly appealed to at any point with the assurance that whatever it may be found to say, that is the Word of God” (37). If these words were important in War-field’s time, they are even more so now. While Warfield was contending with teaching that questioned in what sense could the Bible be seen as God’s Word, we now live in a time where there are people who question whether truth can objectively be known at all. Without the certainty of God’s Word, we can be certain of very little. It is good to be reminded that God has spoken, and his Word can be trusted.
In the third essay, Warfield looks at what it means to say that the Scriptures are inspired. In discussing the well-known words of 2 Timothy 3:16, he states that what the Greek term 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.” . . . In a word, what is declared by this fundamental passage is simply that the Scriptures are a Divine product. . . . No term could have been chosen, however, which would have more emphatically asserted the Divine production of Scripture than that which is here employed. The “breath of God” is in Scripture just the symbol of His almighty power, the bearer of His creative word. . . . When Paul declares, then, that “every scripture,” or “all scripture” is the product of the Divine breath, “is God-breathed,” he asserts with as much energy as he could employ that Scripture is the product of a specifically Divine operation. (72)
The Person and Work of Christ, first published in 1950, is divided into two main sections, the first dealing with who Jesus is and the second with what Jesus has accomplished. Two of the articles are particularly worth noting here. “The Emotional Life of Christ” is perhaps one of Warfield’s best known articles. It has been reprinted many times and is well worth a careful reading. Warfield begins with the assertion that “it belongs to the truth of our Lord’s humanity, that he was subjected to all sinless human emotions” (104). Warfield goes on to examine how Christ experienced compassion and love, anger and indignation, and joy and sorrow. What is most powerful in this article is the stress it lays on how our Lord’s life was focused on his work of redemption. Here, Warfield rightly states that when
we observe him exhibiting the movements of his human emotions, we are gazing on the very process of our salvation: every manifestation of the truth of our Lord’s humanity is an exhibition of the reality of our redemption. In his sorrows he was bearing our sorrows, and having passed through a human life like ours, he remains forever able to be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. Such a High Priest, in the language of the Epistle to the Hebrews, “became” us. We needed such a one. When we note the marks of humanity in Jesus Christ, we are observing his fitness to serve our needs. We behold him made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, and our hearts add our witness that it became him for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. (146–147)
In his day, Warfield contended with the views of some scholars who wanted to cling to Christianity as a religion of love but didn’t like the idea that the atonement was at the heart of our faith. The chapter entitled “The Essence of Christianity and the Cross of Christ” is an answer to these dangerous ideas. Warfield reminds us that Christianity is not a religion based on moral teachings or abstract philosophy; rather, it is about Christ’s atoning work for his people on the cross. Warfield says this about those who have been redeemed by Christ:
The redeemed in the blood of Christ, after all is said, are a people apart. Call them “Christians,” or call them what you please, they are of a specifically different religion from those who know no such experience. It may be within the rights of those who feel no need of such a redemption and have never experienced its transforming power to contend that their religion is a better religion than the Christianity of the Cross. It is distinctly not within their rights to maintain that it is the same religion as the Christianity of the Cross. (566)
The ideas Warfield was engaging with are still with us. There are still those who want to retain some of Christianity’s ethical framework but want no part of the essence of the gospel. We need to be as clear as Warfield was that Christianity without the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus is a different religion, and one that is emptied of the saving power that we all need.
Both volumes reviewed here are not just reprints of classic works. Rather, under the skillful editorship of Jonathan Hughes, there are several enhancements and additions. Each title has a helpful introduction as well as summaries of each of the articles and a study guide that could be used for personal or group study. There are also detailed indexes, bibliographies, and editorial notes. For those who are interested in learning more about Warfield, there is a brief biography and an article that provides suggestions for further reading. Whether you are coming to Warfield for the first time or have benefited from his scholarship before, these books are a major achievement and are well worth adding to your library.
The author is a ruling elder at Cornerstone Presbyterian in Ambler, Pennsylvania.
The Classic Warfield Collection: The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible and The Person and Work of Christ, by Benjamin B. Warfield. Series editor, John J. Hughes. P&R, 2023. Hardback, 656 and 752 pages, $99.98.
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