B.B. Warfield: Defender of the Faith
Twenty-five years ago I gave an address at a college in western Pennsylvania. After the service was completed, an elderly gentleman and his wife approached me and introduced themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Johannes Vos. I was surprised to learn that Dr. Vos was the son of the celebrated biblical theologian Geerhardus Vos who had written a classical work on redemptive history titled Biblical Theology, which is still widely read in seminaries. During the course of my conversation with them, Dr. Vos related to me an experience he had as a young boy living in Princeton, New Jersey, where his father was teaching on the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary. This was in the decade of the 1920s, a time in which Princeton Theological Seminary was still in its heyday; it was the time we now refer to as “old Princeton.” Dr. Vos told me of an experience he had in the cold winter of 1921. He saw a man walking down the sidewalk, bundled in a heavy overcoat, wearing a fedora on his head, and around his neck was a heavy scarf. Suddenly, to this young boy’s horror and amazement, as the man walked past his home, he stopped, grasped his chest, slumped, and fell to the sidewalk. Young Johannes Vos stared at this man for a moment, then ran to call to his mother. He watched as the ambulance came and carried the man away. The man who had fallen had suffered a major heart attack, which indeed proved to be fatal. His name was Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield.
I was thunderstruck by this narrative that was told to me by the now elderly Johannes Vos. I felt like I was somehow linked to history by being able to hear a firsthand account through somebody telling me of the last moments of the legendary B.B. Warfield’s life. At the time of his death, Warfield had been on the faculty of Princeton and had distinguished himself as its most brilliant theologian during his tenure.
My first exposure to the writings of B.B. Warfield was somewhat serendipitous. As a young college student, I had the daily dilemma of trying to parlay my meager funds into enough money to sustain myself. I was trying to live on a five-dollar-a-week allowance, out of which had to come the payment of my meals and the nightly ritual of a long distance telephone call to my fiancée. Obviously, even in the 1950s, five dollars did not stretch far enough to provide all of these needs. Therefore, I had to find ways to become semi-entrepreneurial and scrounge up a few extra dollars, so that I could eat and enjoy the conversation with my bride to be. I took up barbering without a license, giving my fellow students haircuts for a dollar to help defray my expenses. But my great break came when one of my professors told me of a new publishing company that was doing business out of a man’s garage in Nutley, New Jersey. It was called the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. The publishing house was looking for student representatives on various campuses to help distribute its products, and my professor asked if I would be interested in such an enterprise. I leapt at the chance, not motivated by any desire to propagate Reformed theology, but merely out of a pure economic motive. Within a few days there arrived at my dormitory a large cardboard box that was so heavy I could hardly lift it. It included all of the then published works of the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. There was a note inside indicating to me that these books were samples that I would have at my disposal, that I might familiarize myself with the works that were published by the company. Included were several of the works of Cornelius Van Til, a couple of volumes that had been published into English by G.C. Berkouwer, along with the complete works of B.B. Warfield.
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2022 Proposals: The Case for Item 6 & Against Item 11
Item 6 proposes a change that would better bring the rights of the various parties into balance by requiring a 2/3 vote to suspend the rights of someone who has been accused, but not yet found guilty. Item 11, on the other hand, would have the opposite effect. Requiring a 2/3 vote to suspend someone from the Lord’s Table and/or from official functions gives too much weight to the rights of the appellant, and it overlooks the rights of the court and the rights of the Church as a whole.
The Presbyteries of the PCA are currently voting on two Book of Church Order (BCO) amendments that are very similar: Item 6 (Overture 2021-20) and Item 11 (Overture 2021-21). In their final forms, both seek to require a 2/3 vote to suspend the official functions of an officer, or to suspend someone from the Lord’s Table, but in two different settings. Item 6 deals with suspending someone’s rights before the completion of his judicial process. Item 11 deals with suspending someone’s rights after the completion of his judicial process in the lower court, but while the decision is under appeal.
In my opinion, Presbyteries should support Item 6 but oppose Item 11. My reasons for differentiating between the two proposals have to do with the balance of the various rights within a judicial setting. In church polity, we are always dealing with questions about how to balance different rights, values, and needs. Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised (RONR) captures this goal well:
The rules of parliamentary law found in this book will, on analysis, be seen to be constructed upon a careful balance of the rights of persons or subgroups within an organization’s or an assembly’s total membership. That is, these rules are based on a regard for the rights:of the majority,
of the minority, especially a strong minority—greater than one third,
of individual members,
of absentees, and
of all these together.The means of protecting all of these rights in appropriate measure forms much of the substance of parliamentary law, and the need for this protection dictates the degree of development that the subject has undergone. (RONR [12th ed], “Principles Underlying Parliamentary Law,” xlix)
As we consider the rights of the various parties in church discipline proceedings, we must consider how to balance the various rights of the prosecutor, the accused, the court, and the Church as a whole.
Summary Overview for Supporting Item 6 and Opposing Item 11
In brief, my reason for supporting Item 6 is simple: in considering this balance of rights, the accused has the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. While there may be good reasons for suspending him from the sacraments or (if an officer) from official duties, that decision should require a supermajority (i.e., a 2/3 vote).
On the other hand, Item 11 would seek to require the same supermajority 2/3 vote after someone has had his opportunity to present evidence, call witnesses, and make his case in court. Although that individual retains the right to appeal a guilty verdict or a censure (BCO 42), the balance of rights in this situation should shift to the decision of the original court. While the court may not persist with such a suspension as a censure before the appeal is heard, I believe that the court should retain the right to determine by a simple majority vote whether there are sufficient reasons to prevent the appellant from approaching the Lord’s Table and, if an officer, from exercising some or all of his official functions.
Furthermore, since the “functions” of an officer are clearly defined in the BCO as what the officer does, and not what the church does to remunerate the officer (see BCO 8-5; 34-10; 36-7), this provision could never permit a church to suspend a teaching elder without pay.
So, to require the same 2/3 vote for this decision both before and after a trial does not properly balance the competing rights of the various parties of the case. Therefore, Item 6 would improve the balance between the judicial rights of the various parties, while Item 11 would create an imbalance of those rights.
In the rest of this article, I will expand this brief summary into greater detail.
Balancing the Rights of the Parties
It is enlightening to categorize the provisions contained in the Rules of Discipline according to the various rights afforded to each of the parties of a case: the prosecutor, the accused, the court of jurisdiction, and the Church as a whole.
Let’s begin with the rights of the prosecutor. The prosecutor has the right to bring an accusation against the accused (BCO 31-3). Nevertheless, when it is an individual making out charges against another person, this person’s rights are very limited. An injured party is required to have sought the means of private reconciliation from Matthew 18 in the case of personal offenses (BCO 31-5). Furthermore, the court is to exercise great caution to consider the character of the accuser (BCO 31-8), and every voluntary prosecutor must be warned that if he should fail to show probable cause of the charges, “he may himself be censured as a slanderer of the brethren” (BCO 31-9).
The accused, on the other hand, has many more rights protected by the BCO.Read More
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A Damning Theology and Practice of Prayer
While it appears spiritual, it is erroneous to call fire on believers’ problems. We don’t bind demons or Satan in hell. Because we simply don’t have such authority or power. You cannot command Satan. Thus hours of prayer spent in these ways is corrupt and unbiblical. Christians must grasp a proper theology of the nature of their enemy, spiritual warfare, and prayer.
Prayer is important to many people, Christian or not. It seems to be intertwined with human DNA to seek divine help. Prayer happens everywhere: at shrines, in exam rooms, on the football pitch, in mosques, during travel, and in churches. The Bible itself is full of prayers and praying people. In fact, prayer is at the heart of all communications between God and his people. Such is the seriousness of prayer. But prayer can also be right or wrong, sound or erroneous, even heretical. Thus a proper understanding and theology of prayer is crucial for a Christian. It matters to God how we pray.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism provides an excellent, biblical definition of prayer. It describes prayer as, “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.”
But recently I’ve noticed a huge emphasis among Christians on praying that casts out, binds, and calls down fire from heaven to burn Satan along with other problems in their lives. This practice is built on the presupposition that Jesus gave believers authority and power over spirits, principalities, and heavenly beings. Thus the believer is encouraged to bind and cast whatever stands in the way of their progress or prosperity. Through prayer, they call down heavenly fire against Satan, as well as those spiritual beings in league with him. However, casting and binding doesn’t seem to be the primary shape of most biblical prayers.
Believers Don’t Hold the Keys, Jesus Does
To support the above practices, Christians and especially preachers will often appeal to Matthew 16:19. They understand this verse to mean that Jesus gave believers the keys of heaven and hell, to bind and to loose anything above or below. However this understanding of Jesus’ words isn’t only a bad one, but it reveals a horribly presumptuous view of mortal man.
When Jesus spoke to Peter, he referred to the gospel that he’d entrusted to them, the disciples.
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Who is Really in Control?
We simply are NOT in control. But the good news is, a loving and caring and all-wise God IS in control. That means we can trust him, even in times of war. Even when a loved one passes away. Even when cancer strikes. The idea that illness and the like can be a wonderful teaching tool and a God-appointed means of bringing us closer to him while shattering all our false illusions is of course a truth that Scripture and the history of God’s people have long affirmed.
The real struggle throughout human history has to do with the question of who is in control – or better yet, who should be in control. Fallen autonomous men likes to think they are in control, and as such, they seek to take the place of God as the ultimate sovereign of the universe.
Sinful, rebellious humans think they are the centre of the universe and that they are in control. They certainly WANT to be in control. But the rightful ruler is not so easily deposed. It is God who is in control, and he is calling the shots. Sure, we are able to make morally significant choices, but at the end of the day it is the sovereignty of God that we all are under.
The fact that we keep forgetting – or refusing to acknowledge – that God is in control means that out of love for us he often seeks to get our attention by reminding us just how little control we have over most things. We plan a nice picnic in a park, and instead of the warm sunny day we had hoped for, a cold, miserable and rainy day happens instead.
Or the weather may be fine, but as we are about to drive to that park, we discover that we have misplaced the car keys, and they are nowhere to be found. Yes, human error has happened, but a God who is at work behind the scenes may be the ultimate cause of such things.
There is very little in life we have direct and total control over. Let’s say the weather is nice, the car keys are found, and the picnic with loved ones commences. We get stuck into a steak sandwich in a nice hard roll that we had prepared, only to find the first bite results in a very bad toothache – so much so that the picnic is cancelled and a quick trip to the dentist is undertaken.
God may well often allow such things for all sorts of reasons, but one such reason is to remind us that we are NOT in full control, and that there is a God in heaven who cares about us so much, that he is willing to rob us of temporary happiness in order to give us eternal holiness.
And often, difficult and trying times can be a major means of bringing this about. A time of war certainly brings us to an end of our sense of self-sovereignty and control. One minute you are planning picnics and sleeping in your own bed and having friends over and going to work, and the next minute you might be one of millions of refugees fleeing a war-torn country like Ukraine.
I just saw a quote on the social media by the famous US Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall which ties in here. I looked up the source of the quote and learned about this story. He was about to give a speech to the midshipmen at the U. S. Naval Academy, but changed his mind at the last moment, ignoring his notes and speaking off the cuff. An hour after his talk, it was learned that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor.
In that prophetic speech he said this in part: “War forces us to examine the very foundations of life itself. . . . What man refuses to learn in times of peace, God teaches him in times of war. . . . God permits war in order that we might see what sin really is.” It also teaches us how little control we have over things.
Everything changes in such a situation, and we quickly realise that the control we thought we had over life was just a mirage. Of course other calamities and tragedies such as illness or the death of a loved one also will help remind us of these basic truths. A particular illness may leave you without control of your own bladder. And a death of a spouse may leave you reeling as your world caves in.
When these things happen, we can either become bitter or better. We either re-orientate ourselves back to God, or we become even more defiant, angry and rebellious. And it is not just non-Christians I am talking about here. Christians need to learn and relearn these lessons just as much as any pagan does.
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