Fred G. Zaspel

I’m no expert on B.B. Warfield. As a student in (un)seminary I read some Warfield-his treatment on inspiration, providence and the nature of theology. I also have read a decent chunk of Counterfeit Miracles. What I do know of Warfield was that he was the end of an era. He was the last defender of a broad consensus in Evangelical theology. As one of ‘Old Princeton,’ in the tradition of men like Archibald Alexander, C.H. Hodge and A.A. Hodge he was one of the great minds of 19th Century Evangelicalism in the Calvinist tradition. He was sholarly and able to pull together various disciplines. Schooled in Scottish Common Sense Realism, he was empirical in his approach and an opponent of the rationalism of higher critical readers of the Bible on the one hand and the emotionalism of much evangelicalism on the other.

But what does Warfield have to teach us about the Christian life? More importantly, what does he have to teach me? Unlike Warfield I am not particularly Calvinist, not as empirical in my theology and not a cessationist. I am a postmodern, charismatic (albeit a cautious one) evangelical. What does Warfield have to teach me?

In Warfield on the Christian Life, part of Crossway’s Theologians on the Christian Life series, Fred Zaspel presents the broad contours of Warfield’s theology with an eye to its practical import. Zaspel is a faithful interpreter of Warfield and the pages of this book are peppered with references and quotes from Warfield’s own works. This book is organized into five sections: part 1 presents Warfield’s personal background. Part 2 gives us a window on Warfield’s basic understanding of the broad contours of the Christian life. In part 3, Zaspel shows us Warfield’s view of our proper orientation and perspective as Christians (as simultaneous sinners and saints, as children of God, resting in divine providence). Part 4 presents the practical implications of Warfield’s theology and his advice on spiritual disciples. Part 5 has Zaspel’s summary reflections on Warfield which form a fitting conclusion to the book.

Zaspel does not address some of the aspects of Warfield’s theology which many contemporary evangelicals might find controversial (i.e. his openness to theistic evolution and his cessationist views do not figure prominently); however, he does a great job of presenting Warfield’s insights into the nature of the Christian life as a supernatural reality. I really appreciated a lot of his theology and frankly, found Zaspel’s presentation inspiring at several points. Here are somethings I really, really liked:

Warfield’s refutation of Keswick/Finney style perfectionism. I think he’s spot on and his view of the process of sanctification and our journey towards perfection does justice to human experience and the biblical account.
Warfield is an apt defender of classic Evangelicalism and he is always thoughtful and challenging. I appreciated his thoughts on our goals and values, our orientation and our hope as Christians.
Warfield’s exortations to imitate Christ and cultivate piety through various disciplines and prayer are an inspiration. He argues that piety is cultivated through learning (especially biblical learning), corporate worship, prayer, meditation and devotional reading.
Warfield’s understanding of prayer as having both an objective and subjective basis, and objective and subjective result were instructive to me. I am always critical of authors on prayer who advocate too instrumental of an approach to prayer. In contrast, Warfield says our basis for prayer is Jesus Christ and (subjectively) our faith. The result is Communion with God and (subjectively) our answers to prayer. This approach does not deny that God answers prayer or that faith is important but stresses the real basis and goal of prayer.
I love the intellectual rigor Warfield employed. This is not your typical anti-intellectual evangelical fluff. Warfield was thoughtfully engaged with scholarship in his age, while being prayerfully attentive to God in his study.
Of course I don’t agree with Warfield on everything but I found this presentation of his theology instructive and challenging. Zaspel does a good job of synthesizing Warfield and presenting his views in a way that is engaging and understandable. and BB proves a worthy interlocutor for our age. I love the idea for this series and I think that we need to engage some of our great minds of the past. Warfield is a good choice.

Thank you to Crossway books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for this review.… (plus d'informations)

This book by Wells and Zaspel is indeed an excellent book on the growing New Covenant Theology paradigm. It outlines and attempts to show from Scripture the rightness of its position, which is claimed to be the natural teaching of the text of Scripture when interpreted in context.

Upon examining the arguments for New Covenant Theology as outlined here (and also in Reisinger's book Tablets of Stone), NCT appears to be the child of Biblical Theology with its idea of progressive revelation, and depends on it for its substance. While Biblical Theology is indeed important, the over-reliance on Biblical Theology at the expense of Systematic Theology creates theological problems and logical contradictions within the system. One such example of a logical contradiction is the teaching of OT believers being not part of the Church (p. 52), yet part of the Church (p. 63). A theological problem found in NCT is that OT believers are not saved by the Gospel (p. 31), but if so then they cannot be saved by God's grace through Christ's atonement for all believers either (Rom. 1: 16), not to mention that this explicitly contradicts Gal. 3:8

Since the topic of study is that of the biblical metanarrative and transcendental truth, the revelation of biblical truth in history (Biblical Theology) cannot be used to derive transcendental biblical truth (Systematic Theology). The outworking of God's truth in time is definitely important, but such cannot be used to infer anything about transcendental truths of God. NCT oversteps the boundary of Biblical Theology by making Biblical Theology the framework for understanding metanarrative truths when it is not designed to do so. Rather, metanarrative truths are to be attained through Systematic Theology done through logical inference from all of Scripture (Tota Scriptura), with the role of Biblical Theology limited to the HOW of its outworking in redemptive history. It must be said here that is is regrettable that this overemphasis on Biblical Theology with its teaching of the logical priority of Jesus' teaching, while true, is unwittingly used to undermine the authority of Scriptures by pitting the physically uttered teachings of the Incarnate logos (λογος) against the revelatory logos (λογος) or the entirety of Scripture, and thus make the "red letters" in the Bible to be of much higher authority and "more inspired" than the normal black letters of the rest of Scripture.… (plus d'informations)