Reformed Faith & Practice is the online journal of Reformed Theological Seminary. You can browse five years of of the journal online or download each individual issue as a PDF.
In the latest issue you will find a reflection on Eugene Peterson’s pastoral theology, a sermon on Numbers 6:22-27, an argument for restricting the ordained office of deacon to qualified men, several other articles, and a number of book reviews.
Included among the latter is my review of James Eglinton’s new biography of Herman Bavinck. With permission, I’ve pasted that review below.
*****
James Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020). Cloth. $44.99. xxii, 450pp.
Over the past decade, there has been a growing tide of English language Bavinck dissertations and Bavinck-inspired theologizing, but there has not been a corresponding scholarly account of Bavinck’s life—until now. Making impressive use of Dutch language newspapers of the period, as well as Bavinck’s own journals (dagboeken), James Eglinton, the Meldrum Senior Lecturer in Reformed Theology at the University of Edinburgh, has managed to write an academic biography that is at learned and nuanced as well as fresh and insightful.
Central to Eglinton’s thesis is his argument against the old historiography that saw “two Bavincks”—the conservative Calvinist and the apparent modernist—forming opposite poles in one man. Building on his earlier work, Trinity and Organism (T&T Clark, 2012), Eglinton insists that far from being a schizophrenic theologian holding contrary opinions, Bavinck was a creative thinker who sought to articulate the historic Christian faith in a newly modern world. “My biography has a particular aim,” Eglinton writes, “to tell the story of a man whose theologically laced personal narrative explored the possibility of an orthodox life in a changing world” (xx).
Eglinton’s biography has been widely praised since its release in September, and with good reason. The book is meaty—with well over a hundred pages of end notes and bibliography—but the narrative itself wastes no words and is only 300 pages. Eglinton’s approach is critical (in the academic sense), but never unsympathetic to Bavinck as a man and as a Christian. There are enough personal vignettes to keep the casual reader interested (e.g., Bavinck’s unrequited romantic affections over many years for Amelia den Dekker), but the text never plods along as a mere chronicle of daily life.
I especially appreciated the Appendix, “My Journey to America,” where Bavinck applauded the youth and energy of late nineteenth-century America but also critiqued its superficial religious life. Among his other observations, Bavinck noted that “there are few handsome men, but more and more beautiful women” (308), that Orange City surpassed Pella and Holland as an enclave of religious piety (303), and that the pillows were bad (307). In a surprising final remark, Bavinck predicted that there was little future for Calvinism in America, but allowed that Calvinism was not the only truth and that American Christianity should chart its own path (314).
Several features of the book’s design are noteworthy. I was helped by the “Chronology” page at the front of the book and by the section highlighting “Key Figures, Churches, Educational Institutions, and Newspapers” in the back. The 39 plates of photographs in the middle of the book were tremendous, and the original artwork by theologian Oliver Crisp makes for an attractive cover. It’s hard to find much to complain about in the book, but I would have benefited from a Bavinck family tree, and some readers may come to the book expecting more intellectual history (though, personally, I was glad Eglinton stuck to biography more than the theological exploration).
Of all the important lessons in this outstanding biography, the most important may be the most obvious: Herman Bavinck was a real person. Writing to his friend Snouck Hurgonje who asked whether Bavinck had been able to keep up with his scholarly pursuits, the 26 year-old new pastor remarked, “If you think for a moment that I must preach twice on Sunday, teach the catechism four times through the week, must also devote much time to visiting homes and the sick, and then sometimes have to lead a Frisian funeral, you won’t have to ask further whether any time or opportunity remains for my own study” (121).
Bavinck was not only swamped with ministerial duties at the outset of his short pastorate in Franecker (1881-82), he was also single, lonely, and spiritually depleted. “The most difficult part of my work,” Bavinck wrote in the same letter to Hurgonje, “is always to lift myself up to, and to stay at, the ideal level in my faith and confession.” Bavinck worried that a shallow, insincere heart might take shape beneath the guise of spiritual depth. He felt pressure to always be the minister, and without a wife he struggled to find “anyone here with whom I can (or might dare to) enjoy” the “familiarity” of friendship (121). Here is a man honest about ministry and honest about himself.
Since the English translation of his four-volume Reformed Dogmatics appeared in 2008, Bavinck has become a treasured companion and authoritative guide for Calvinist theologians, students, and pastors throughout the English-speaking world. And yet, for many, I imagine Bavinck the person has been virtually invisible, swallowed up by the heft of Bavinck’s brain sitting on our shelves. Almost every Reformed pastor knows something about Luther’s courage at Worms or Calvin’s reforms at Geneva or Whitefield’s role in the Great Awakening. But without any commensurate knowledge in Dutch history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bavinck can be too quickly reduced to disembodied ideas on a page. This would be a shame, for the story of Bavinck’s life is interesting and instructive in its own right. Herman Bavinck lived a remarkable life as a dogmatician, an ethicist, an educational reformer, a politician, a journalist, a Bible translator, a champion for women’s education, and eventually the father, father-in-law, and grandfather of heroes and martyrs in the anti-Nazi resistance movement (291). This is the story Eglinton tells, and he tells it very well.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Collin, Justin, and I enjoyed sitting down with Dr. Miguel Núñez, Pastor for Preaching & Vision at IBI and President of Ministerios Integridad & Sabiduría, who left his medical practice to follow his passion of preaching the Gospel. When COVID-19 broke out in 2020, he used his medical expertise to assess the situation for The Gospel Coalition. Now, one year later, he offers his insights along with a conversation about how the preaching of the Gospel is spreading in the Dominican Republic.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

The accounts of Jesus’s birth in Matthew (chapter 1) and Luke (chapters 1-2) are clear and unequivocal: Jesus’s birth was not ordinary. He was not an ordinary child, and his conception did not come about in the ordinary way. His mother, Mary, was a virgin, having had no intercourse prior to conception and birth. By the Holy Spirit, Mary’s womb became the cradle of the Son’s incarnation (Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:35).
Of course, the doctrine of the virgin birth (or more precisely, the virginal conception) has been ridiculed by many outside the church, and, in modern times, by not a few voices inside the church. Two arguments are usually mentioned.
First, the prophecy about a virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14, it is argued, actually speaks of a young woman and not a virgin. (To be fair, some scholars make this argument about Isaiah’s prophecy and still believe in the virgin birth). Many have pointed out that the Hebrew word in Isaiah is almah and not the technical term for virgin, bethula. It is true that almah has a wider semantic range than bethula, but there are no clear references in the Old Testament where almah does not mean virgin. The word almah occurs nine times in the Old Testament, and wherever the context makes its meaning clear, the word refers to a virgin. More importantly, the Septuagint translates almah with the Greek word parthenos (the same word used in Matthew 1:23 where Isaiah 7:14 is quoted), and everyone agrees that parthenos means “virgin.” The Jewish translators of the Septuagint would not have used a clear Greek word for virgin if they understood Isaiah 7:14 to refer to nothing more than a young woman.
Second, many have objected to the virgin birth because they see it as a typical bit of pagan mythologizing. “Mithraism had a virgin birth. Christianity had a virgin birth. They are all just fables. Even Star Wars has a virgin birth.” This popular argument sounds plausible at first glance, but there are a number of problems with it.
(1) The assumption that there was a prototypical God-Man who had certain titles, did certain miracles, was born of a virgin, saved his people, and then got resurrected is not well-founded. In fact, no such prototypical “hero” existed before the rise of Christianity.
(2) It would have been unthinkable for a Jewish sect (which is what Christianity was initially) to try to win new converts by adding pagan elements to their gospel story. I suppose a good Jew might make up a story to fit the Old Testament, but to mix in bits of paganism would have been anathema to most Jews.
(3) The supposed virgin birth parallels are not convincing. Consider some of the usual suspects.
Alexander the Great: his most reliable ancient biographer (several centuries after his death) makes no mention of a virgin birth. Besides, the story that began to circulate (after the rise of Christianity) is about an unusual conception, but not a virgin birth. Alexander’s parents were already married when he was born.
Dionysus: like so many of the pagan “parallels,” he was born when a god (in this case Zeus) disguised himself as a human and impregnated a human princess. This is not a virgin birth and not like the Holy Spirit’s role we read about in the Gospels.
Mithra: he’s a popular parallel. But he was born of a rock, not a virgin. Moreover, the cult of Mithra in the Roman Empire dates to after the time of Christ, so any dependence is Mithraism on Christianity and not the other way around.
Buddha: his mother dreamed that Buddha entered her in the form of a white elephant. But this story doesn’t appear until five centuries after his death, and she was already married.
In short, the so-called parallels always occur well after the life in question, well into the Christian era, and are not really stories of virginal conceptions.
What’s the Big Deal?
Even if professing Christians accept the virgin birth, many would have a hard time articulating why the doctrine really matters. Several years ago, Rob Bell (in)famously argued that it wouldn’t be a big deal if we discovered “Jesus had an earthly father named Larry.” What if the virgin birth was thrown in to appeal to the followers of Mithra and Dionysian religious cults? What if the word for virgin referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? Bell suggested that none of this would be catastrophic to the Christian faith because Jesus would still be the best possible way to live.
So what is the big deal about the virgin birth? Why does it matter?
For starters, the virgin birth is essential to Christianity because it has been essential to Christianity. That may sound like weak reasoning, but only if we care nothing about the history and catholicity of the church. Granted, the church can get things wrong, sometimes even for a long time. But if Christians, of all stripes in all places, have professed belief in the virgin birth for two millennia, maybe we should be slow to discount it as inconsequential. In his impressive study of the virgin birth, J. Gresham Machen concluded that “there can be no doubt that at the close of the second century the virgin birth of Christ was regarded as an absolutely essential part of the Christian belief by the Christian church in all parts of the known world.” It takes a lot of hubris to think that an essential article of faith for almost 2,000 years of the Christian church can be set aside without doing damage to the faith.
Second, the gospel writers clearly believed that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived. We don’t know precisely how the Christ-child came to be in Mary’s womb, except that the conception was “from the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20). But we do know that Mary understood the miraculous nature of this conception, having asked the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34). The Gospels do not present the virgin birth as some prehistoric myth or pagan copy-cat, but as “an orderly account” of actual history from eyewitnesses (Luke 1:1-4). If the virgin birth is false, the historical reliability of the gospels is seriously undermined.
Third, the virgin birth demonstrates that Jesus is truly human and truly divine. This is the point the Heidelberg Catechism makes when it asks in Question 35, “How does the holy conception and birth of Christ benefit you?” The answer: “He is our mediator, and with his innocence and perfect holiness he removes from God’s sight my sin—mine since I was conceived.” If Jesus had not been born of a human, we could not believe in his full humanity. At the same time, if his birth were like any other human birth—through the union of a human father and mother—we would question his full divinity. The virgin birth is necessary to secure both a real human nature and a completely divine nature.
Finally, the virgin birth is essential because it means Jesus did not inherit the curse of depravity that clings to Adam’s race. Jesus was made like us in every way except for sin (Heb. 4:15; 7:26-27). Every human father begets a son or daughter with his sin nature. This is the way of the world after the fall. Sinners beget sinners (Ps. 51:5). Always. If Joseph was the real father of Jesus, or Mary had been sleeping around with Larry, Jesus is not spotless, not innocent, and not perfectly holy. And as result, we have no mediator and no salvation.
The virgin birth is part of what Christians have believed in all times and in all places, and it is a key element in what it means for the incarnation to be “for us and for salvation.” We ignore the doctrine at our peril; we celebrate it to our benefit and to God’s glory.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.