INAUGURATION OF THE REV. GEERHARDUS VOS. PH.D., D.D..

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INAUGURATION 

OF THE 



REV. GEERHARDUS VOS. PH.D., D.D.. 



PROFESSOR 



BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 



NEW YORK: 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH 
& COMPANY. 

(incorporated) 

182 FIFTH AVENUE. 

1894. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



The Rev. Geerhardus Vos, Ph.D., D.D., was elected 
Professor of Biblical Theology in Princeton Theological 
Seminary at the spring meeting of the Board of Directors, 
1893, and assumed the duties of the chair provisionally from 
September, 1893. His formal induction into the chair took 
place on Tuesday, May 8, 1894, at 12 o'clock, in the First 
Presbyterian Church of Princeton. The order of exercises 
on this occasion was as follows : 

Hymn. 

Prayer, by the Hon. James A. Beaver, LL.D. 

Administration of the Pledge to the New Professor, by the 
Rev. William C. Cattell, D.D., LL.D., First Vice-President 
of the Board of Directors. 

The Charge, by the Rev. Abraham Gosman, D.D., Pastor of the 
Church at Lawrenceville, N. J. 

The Inaugural Address, by Professor Vos. 

Hymn. 

Benediction, by the Rev. Dr. James McCosh, ex-President of the 
College of New Jersey. 



The Charge and Inaugural Address are here published by order of 
the Board of Directors. 



THE CHARGE. 



THE REV. ABRAHAM GOSMAN, D.D. 



CHARGE. 

My Dear Brother: 

The Theology taught in this institution has, as we beHeve, 
been Biblical from the beginning of its history, in the sense 
not only that its teachings have been in accordance with the 
Bible, but that they have been drawn from the Bible as their 
ultimate source. It may be fairly claimed that it has always 
sought to honor the infallible Word of God, and has recog- 
nized the truth that from its teachings, when once clearly 
ascertained, there is no appeal. 

Neither is it true that Biblical Theology even in its techni- 
cal sense, i. c, as that branch of theological science which 
regards and treats the doctrinal and ethical contents of the 
Bible in their historical surroundings and development, is new 
in the curriculum of study prescribed here. We have had 
illustrious teachers here in this very line. Those of us who 
were permitted to sit at the feet of that splendid scholar and 
teacher, Dr. Joseph Addison Alexander, will readily recall 
how he opened to us the contents of the books of the Old 
Testament, in their historical connections and surroundings. 
We were like those who feel the quickening breath of the 
morning, and see the eastern horizon flashing with the light 
of the coming day. We walked for a time along the old 
paths, but as in a new world which we were to explore, and 
in which the richest mines should repay our search. Nor can 
those who fell under the influence of that other great teacher, 
Dr. Caspar Wistar Hodge, whom God gave to us and has so 
recently taken away, and whose successor, in some sense, so 
far as Biblical Theology is concerned, you are, fail to recog- 
nize how he led you along the pathway you are still seeking 
to tread, and called to your more leisurely notice the pros- 
pects and the outlooks which greeted you at every step, as he 
opened to you the Scriptures. 



viii Charge. 

It is not, therefore, a new branch of Biblical science which 
you are called to teach. And yet it is comparatively new, in 
the definiteness of the field assigned it, in the closely limited 
relations it sustains to the other branches of Biblical science, 
in the history of its growth and progress, in the methods it 
pursues, in the fruits which have been already gathered, and 
in the well-grounded hopes of richer fruits in the future. It 
is a field which will amply repay the most assiduous culture, 
and upon which a man may enter with glowing hopes, and, 
with the blessing of God, come back from his toil bringing his 
sheaves with him. 

Biblical Theology stands in close relations both to Exegeti- 
cal and Systematic Theology, and yet has its own well-defined 
bounds. It presupposes Exegetical Theology ; it furnishes the 
material for Systematic Theology. If Systematic Theology is, 
as we may conceive it to be, the finished building, harmonious 
in its proportions, symmetrical and beautiful ; then Exegetical 
Theology may be regarded as the quarry from which the 
material is taken ; and Biblical Theology, as putting the granite 
blocks into form, not polished and graven, but shaped and 
fitted for the place they are to fill, as the structure grows in its 
vastness and beauty. It seeks the saving facts and truths as 
they lie in the Word, and are embedded, and to some extent 
expressed, in the history of the people of God. God's meth- 
ods are always historical and genetic, and it conforms to Kis 
methods. It views these words and facts in their historical 
relations and their progressive development. It aims not 
merely to arrive at the ideas and facts as they appear in par- 
ticular authors and in the books justly ascribed to them, and as 
they may be modified in their form by time, culture, in- 
fluences friendly or hostile ; but to set forth these facts and 
truths thus ascertained in their relation to the other books in 
which they may appear in clearer light, — to trace their progress 
and unfolding from the germ to the ripened fruit. As the 
stream of sacred history runs parallel with that of revelation, 
it borders closely upon Historical Theology. But the two 
conceptions are distinct. 



Charge. ix 

Biblical Theology serves also important purposes in its 
evidential bearings and force. It throws light upon passages 
which may have appeared doubtful to mere exegetical and 
critical study, but viewed in the light of the results which 
Biblical Theology has attained, and as lying directly along 
the line of the gradual unfolding of the truth, it becomes ap- 
parent at once that they belong to the divine Word. They 
fall fitly into the time and place in which they occur; they are 
indispensable to the full revelation of the truth. To leave 
them out would make a break in the process which could not 
be remedied. In the line of the Messianic teaching, e.g., 
which runs through the Old Testament Scriptures, there are 
passages which fair and honest criticism even leaves in doubt, 
if not as to their genuineness, yet as to their interpretation, 
but which, seen in the light of the final results of Biblical 
Theology, fall into their true place in the historical develop- 
ment of the Messianic promise and are found to be essential to 
its completeness. We not only see at once that they con- 
stitute a part of the records of Revelation, but know their im- 
port and interpretation. This evidential bearing of his work 
ought to have great weight with the teacher of Biblical 
Theology. For while a strictly scientific definition of Biblical 
Theology may exclude all exegetical investigation and relegate 
it entirely to its own branch, practically the two branches run 
into one another. The student of Biblical Theology must 
know whether the results of exegesis are such as to justify 
him in accepting them. He must test the ground upon which 
he stands. He cannot take with any satisfaction or certainty 
the books of the Bible as trustworthy or authoritative without 
an investigation of his own. And since the saving facts and 
truths of revelation are interwoven with the sacred history, well- 
nigh inseparable from it, he must know that the records of 
this history are absolutely genuine and accurate. While 
they are diversified in form, according to their human authors 
and surroundings, they bear their divine stamp. For these 
human authors were men chosen by God, brought into the 
world, placed in their peculiar conditions, endowed with their 



X Charge. 

peculiar qualifications, mental and spiritual, trained by special 
experiences, providential and gracious, quickened and guided 
in their writings so that the whole result should be as God 
would have it — the inspired Word of God. In ascertaining, or 
rather in verifying this result, he may well use the fruits and 
issues of his own special science, in solving the doubts which 
criticism has left or created. Nor would this be reasoning in 
a circle, as if he first reached the result by the aid of doubtful 
passages and his interpretation of them, and then used this 
result as confirming their absolute correctness or inerrancy 
and the interpretation he has given them. For the result 
here, as with every essential doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, 
does not depend upon specific passages merely, but upon the 
general drift and teaching of the Word of God. 

But assuming now, that Biblical Theology deals with the in- 
spired and infallible records of Revelation as exegetically 
ascertained, seeks to reproduce the doctrinal and ethical con- 
tents of the Bible in their historical relations, aims to ascertain 
what are the teachings of the inspired Word in their diversified 
forms and historical order and in their continuous develop- 
ment, how must we study its sources? It is often said, that 
we must come to the Bible as we come to other books claim- 
ing our attention ; that if God has revealed Himself and re- 
vealed His will in saving words, using human agents to com- 
municate them, these words must be interpreted according to 
the laws which govern all human languages ; that we must 
apply the same principles of construction here as elsewhere. 
This is all true, and must be insisted upon, if we would be fair 
and honest in our investigation. There is no other method by 
which we can reach valid and satisfactory results. But if, when 
it is said that we must come to the study of the Bible as we come 
to the study of other books, it is meant that we arc to forget 
that the Bible has its life and history' ; what it has done for the 
individual, for society, for the State, for the progress of civil- 
ization ; that all that is lovely and of good report has found its 
roots and life in this book ; that it has in all ages been the 
fruitful source of good, and of good only, — if that is what is 



Charge, xi 

meant, then it is both unreasonable and absurd. It is absurd 
to suppose that we can, at will, divest ourselves of those in- 
fluences which are entwined with every thread and fibre of 
our being, which are so intimately associated with our most 
sacred experience, and to which we owe largely the position 
we now occupy and the very power to make any intelligent 
investigation. And it is unreasonable, if it were not absurd. 
The Bible has its place and brings its own history. It carries 
upon its face and in its whole spirit its real nature. It points 
the student to what it has done, and what must therefore be 
its vital truth and force, as it submits itself to his investiga- 
tion. No interest of truth or goodness can be secured by 
blotting out its history. No man will gain a truer knowledge 
of its contents by shutting out the light and heat which it 
gives. A man may investigate the sun, the laws of its motion, 
its peculiar structure, its relation to other suns and systems ; 
but what would he know of the sun if he should disregard 
the fact that it has been pouring out with the utmost lavish- 
ness its flood of light and heat from the beginning, and is 
still pouring them out with undiminished fullness and splendor, 
or if he should insist upon beginning his investigation with a 
denial that it shines at all? Other bodies are not luminous, 
therefore the sun cannot be. Other books are not from God, 
therefore the Bible must be a human book, and we must deal 
with it as such. But the Bible comes to us as both human 
and divine. It claims recognition for what it has done, and 
demands investigation under these conditions. As the Apostle 
concentrates, condenses into one single word, " therefore," his 
splendid exhibition of the Gospel, in his letter to the Romans, 
as it takes the sinner from his guilt and pollution up into 
fellowship with Christ in His purity and glory, all issuing from 
the eternal and electing purpose of God; and then with 
all his fervor and love presses the whole argument upon his 
readers, "I beseech you therefore'"', so the Bible comes to us 
with its past history and work, as it has illumined the dark- 
ness, relieved the suffering, broken the bonds of the oppressed, 
lifted men into fellowship with Christ, enriched them with 



xii ^ Charge. 

deathless hopes, and says, as it opens wide its doors to all 
honest search and scrutiny, " therefore " let your investiga- 
tion be thorough, but with a full recognition of the facts and 
all that they imply. 

This will in no way restrict your freedom. The Bible 
seeks no concealment. It rather demands investigation, and 
its friends have no reason to fear the issue. The word of God 
makes free, and requires freedom. Just as the believer, when 
he comes to Christ and takes His will as the law of his life, is 
under bonds to Christ and is made the Lord's freeman, so the 
man who bows his reason, as he bows his will, to the authority 
of the divine word, is loosed from all other bonds. He is free 
to prosecute his researches in all legitimate methods. No 
human authority can restrict his liberty. And this institution 
has never sought and does not now seek to lessen the freedom 
of investigation. It welcomes light from every quarter, while 
it honors the Word and insists that there is no appeal from its 
decisions. Traditional interpretations are to be treated in all 
the new light which has been thrown upon them in the large 
advance of modern science. And Christian scholars must 
keep abreast with that advance. There is scarcely any science, 
material, philosophic, ethical, or political, which does not in 
some way contribute to the better understanding of the Word, 
and the whole wide field lies open to you to ascertain what 
the individual authors of the books of the Bible, all writing as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and all writing under 
the influence of their personal characteristics and surround- 
ings, moving freely in the history of the periods at which they 
lived, reveal to us of God and our relations to Him. You 
cannot reach the best results without taking freely the widest 
scope in your studies. Traditions are, of course, entitled to 
their legitimate weight. The fact that they have been long 
held does not necessarily imply, as it is sometimes apparently 
thought, that they are to be ignored or rejected. Human prog- 
ress along the various lines it has produced is not destructive 
of the past. It conserves and garners with the utmost care all 
that it has gained, while it refuses to be limited or restrained 



Charge. xiii 



i> 



by it. Traditional interpretations of the Word, if they are 
misleading or obscure, or hinder the progress of the truth, 
should be freely laid aside. There is no waste when mere ob- 
structions are removed. But it should ever be remembered 
that it is a serious thing to break up cherished convictions, to 
distress believing souls with needless doubts and apprehen- 
sions, to wrest from them the forms of truth which to them 
are instinct with the truth itself, and give them nothing to put 
in their place which will stand the test of either science or 
experience. We must insist upon the distinction between the 
inspired Word, which is changeless and errorless, and the hu- 
man interpretations of it, which are varied and may be wide 
of the truth. You will, doubtless, feel how grave and serious 
your line of study is, which brings you into the closest con- 
tact with the most sacred beliefs of the human heart and of 
the ages. They are things which must be treated with the 
greatest care. But we lay no restrictions upon you, but fidelity 
to the truth and to God. What we wish in your chair, and 
in every other chair in this Seminary, is just that you may find 
what God teaches, what He has revealed to us in His Word of 
Himself and of His will for our salvation. Give us this and 
we shall be satisfied. 

The highest freedom we can conceive of is that which is 
found in the angels who do His commandments. There are 
no bonds in their service, no craven fears as they veil their 
faces and bow in awe before the splendors of His throne. 
This is the freedom for which we pray : " Thy will be done on 
earth as it is in heaven." This freedom and reverence not 
only co-exist, but measure each other. The most profound 
reverence and the most perfect freedom are essential to the 
successful study of the Word. It is the Word of God, and 
therefore to be handled with the greatest reverence ; it is the 
Word of God spoken by inspired men, in varied surroundings 
and with varying degrees of completeness, and therefore to be 
treated with entire freedom. And there is no attitude of the 
human spirit which so opens it to the pure light of truth, 
which so clears away the films which have clouded its vision, 

x\v Charge. 

which brings it so near the very source of truth, as this 
reverential boldness, or this free and filial reverence. A man 
may be learned in the Scriptures and in all kindred studies ; 
but if he is flippant, self-conceited, boastful and arrogant, we 
may be sure that he has no profound views of God, and is an 
unsafe guide to truth. It is the man who lies in the deepest 
humility and forgetfulness of self whose eye God opens and 
makes him a teacher of men. 

You will need a broad and generous culture, a wide ac- 
quaintance with all kindred branches, to avail yourself of the 
light which may aid you in the solution of difficulties, or in 
setting forth the truth in its fullness. This is emphatically 
true now when so much is done to bring before us the actual 
life, or the vivid picture of the life of men, in the periods 
covered by the Bible, — the condition of men in their every- 
day life, their physical, mental, moral, and religious progress, 
their position with reference to the arts and civilization, the 
ties which bound them together, the walls which separated 
them ; when, more particularly, the two great world powers 
with which the people of God came into the closest historical 
relations, are revealing to us, in their stone-libraries and rec- 
ords, their inner life, their policies and arts, their prowess in 
arms, their victories and defeats, the rise and fall of dynasties, 
their religious faith and worship, and the great racial move- 
ments which underlie them. All this gives an interesting and 
important line of study. It is a side line indeed, but it 
throws light upon the main line along which your studies 
must run. 

You are here, my dear brother, primarily to aid in fitting 
young men for the ministry of Christ, but you are here also, — 
and I desire to impress it upon you now, — you are here also for 
the vindication of the truth, for the more complete and orderly 
unfolding of it, as it lies in the Word, and for the confirmation 
of the faith of God's people. While recognizing fully that 
your regular work will tax your time and strength, and that 
we have no right to demand anything more, I still venture to 
urge upon you the claims of these wider interests. At the 



Charge. xv 

proper time give the Church the ripe fruit of your studies 
through the press. Use your class-room first, but use your 
pen also. 

In behalf of the Directors of this Seminary I welcome you 
heartily to this chair, and pray that God may crown you with 
His richest blessing. 



THE IDEA OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AS A 

SCIENCE AND AS A THEOLOGICAL 

DISCIPLINE. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



BT 



THE REV. GEERHARDUS VOS, Ph.D., D.D. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of 
Directors : 

It is with no little hesitation that I enter upon the 
work to which you have called me and to-day more 
formally introduced me. In reaching the conclusion that 
it was my duty to accept the call with which you had 
honored me, I was keenly alive to the incongruity of 
my name being associated in the remotest manner with 
the names of those illustrious men through whom God 
has glorified Himself in this institution. Some of those 
at whose feet I used to sit while a student here, are 
fallen asleep ; a smaller number remain until now. 
The memory of the former as well as the presence of the 
latter make me realize my weakness even more pro- 
foundly than the inherent difficulty of the duties I 
shall have to discharge. While, however, on the one 
hand, there is something in these associations that might 
well fill me with misgivings at this moment, I shall not 
endeavor to conceal that on the other hand they are to 
me a source of inspiration. In view of my own insuffi- 
ciency I rejoice all the more in having behind and around 
me this cloud of witnesses. I am thoroughly convinced 
that in no other place or environment could the sacred 
influences of the past be brought to bear upon me with 
a purer and mightier impulse to strengthen and inspire 
me than here. The pledge to which I have just sub- 



4 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

scribed is itself a symbol of this continuity between the 
past and the future ; and I feel that it will act upon me^ 
not merely by outward restraint, but with an inwardly 
constraining power, being a privilege as well as an obli- 
gation. 

Although not a new study, yet Biblical Theology is. 
a new chair, in this Seminary ; and this fact has deter- 
mined the choice of the subject on which I purpose to 
address you. Under ordinary circumstances, the treat- 
ment of some special subject of investigation would 
have been more appropriate, and perhaps more interest- 
ing to you, than a discussion of general principles. But 
Biblical Theology being a recent arrival in the Semi- 
nary curriculum and having been entrusted to my special 
care and keeping, I consider it my duty to introduce ta 
you this branch of theological science, and to describe, 
in general terms at least, its nature and the manner in 
which I hope to teach it. 

This is all the more necessary because of the wide 
divergence of opinion in various quarters concerning 
the standing of this newest accession to the circle of 
sacred studies. Some have lauded her to the skies as. 
the ideal of scientific theology, in such extravagant 
terms as to reflect seriously upon the character of her 
sisters of greater age and longer standing. Others 
look upon the new-comer with suspicion, or even openly 
dispute her right to a place in the theological family. 
We certainly owe it to her and to ourselves to form a 
well-grounded and intelligent judgment on this question. 
I hope that what I shall say will in some degree shed 
light on the points at issue, and enable you to judge 
impartially and in accordance with the facts of the 
case. 



As a Scte7ice a?id as a Theological Discipline. 5 

THE IDEA OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AS A SCIENCE AND 
AS A THEOLOGICAL DISCIPLINE. 

Every discussion of what is to be understood by 
Biblical Theology ought to proceed from a clear under- 
standing of what Theology is in general. Etymology, 
in many cases a safer guide than a priori constructions, 
tells us that Theology is kiiowledge co7icerning God, and 
this primitive definition is fully supported by encyclo- 
paedic principles. Only when making Theology knowl- 
edge concerning God do we have the right to call it a 
separate science. Sciences are not formed at haphazard, 
but according to an objective principle of division. As 
in general science is bound by its object and must let 
itself be shaped by reality ; so likewise the classification 
of sciences, the relation of the various members in the 
body of universal knowledge, has to follow the great 
lines by which God has mapped out the immense field 
of the universe. The title of a certain amount of 
knowledge to be called a separate science depends on its 
reference to such a separate and specific object as is 
marked off by these God-drawn lines of distinction. 
We speak of a science of Biology, because God has 
made the phenomena of life distinct from those of inor- 
ganic being. Now, from this point of view we must 
say that no science has a clearer title to separate exist- 
ence than Theology. Between God as the Creator and 
all other things as created the distinction is absolute. 
There is not another such gulf within the universe. 
God, as distinct from the creature, is the only legitimate 
object of Theology. 

It will be seen, however, on a moment's reflection, 
that Theology is not merely distinguished from the other 



6 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

sciences by its object, but that it also sustains an alto- 
gether unique relation to this object, for which no strict 
analogy can be found elsewhere. In all the other 
sciences man is the one who of himself takes the first 
step in approaching the objective world, in subjecting it 
to his scrutiny, in compelling it to submit to his experi- 
ments — in a word, man is the one who proceeds actively 
to make nature reveal her facts and her laws. In The- 
ology this relation between the subject and object is 
reversed. Here it is God who takes the first step to 
approach man for the purpose of disclosing His nature, 
nay, who creates man in order that He may have a finite 
mind able to receive the knowledge of His infinite per- 
fections. In Theology the object, far from being 
passive, by the act of creation first posits the subject 
over against itself, and then as the living God proceeds 
to impart to this subject that to which of itself it would 
have no access. For "the things of God none know- 
eth, save the Spirit of God." Strictly speaking, there- 
fore, we should say that not God in and for Himself, 
but God in so far as He has revealed Himself, is the 
object of Theology. 

Though applying to Theology in the abstract and un- 
der all circumstances, this unique character has been 
emphasized by the entrance of sin into the human race. 
In his sinful condition, while retaining some knowledge 
of God, man for all pure and adequate information in 
divine things is absolutely dependent on that new self- 
disclosure of God which we call supernatural revela- 
tion. By the new birth and the illumination of the 
mind darkened through sin, a new subject is created. 
By the objective self-manifestation of God as the Re- 
deemer, a new order of things is called into being. And 



As a Science and as a Theological Discipline. 7 

by the depositing of the truth concerning this new or- 
der of things in the Holy Scriptures, the human mind is 
enabled to obtain that new knowledge which is but the 
reflection in the regenerate consciousness of an object- 
ive world of divine acts and words. 

This being so, it follows immediately that the begin- 
ning of all our Theology consists in the appropriation 
of that supernatural process by which God has made 
Himself the object of our knowledge. We are not left 
to our own choice here, as to where we shall begin our 
theological study. The very nature of Theology re- 
quires us to begin with those branches which relate to 
the revelation-basis of our science. Our attitude from 
the outset must be a dependent and receptive one. To 
let the image of God's self-revelation in the Scriptures 
mirror itself as fully and clearly as possible in his mind, 
is the first and most important duty of every theologian. 
And it is in accordance with this principle that, in the 
development of scientific theology through the ages, a 
group of studies have gradually been separated from the 
rest and begun to form a smaller organism among them- 
selves, inasmuch as the receptive attitude of the theo- 
logical consciousness toward the source of revelation 
was the common idea underlying and controlling them. 
This group is usually designated by the name of Exe- 
getical Theology. Its formation was not a matter 
of mere accident, nor the result of definite agreement 
among theologians; the immanent law of the develop- 
ment of the science, as rooted in its origin, has brought 
it about in a natural manner. 

In classifications of this kind general terms are apt to 
acquire more or less indefinite meanings. They tend to 
become formulas used for the purpose of indicating 



8 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

that certain studies belong together from a practical 
point of view or according to a methodological princi- 
ple. In many cases it would be fanciful to seek any 
other than a practical justification for grouping certain 
branches together. So it is clear on the surface that 
much is subsumed under the department of Exegetical 
Theology, which bears only a very remote and indirect 
relation to its central idea. There are subservient and 
preparatory studies lying in the periphery and but loosely 
connected with the organic centre. Nevertheless, if 
Exegetical Theology is to be more than a conglomer- 
ate of heterogeneous studies, having no other than a 
practical unity, we must expect that at its highest point 
of development it will appear to embody one of the nec- 
essary forms of the essential idea of all Theology, and 
will unfold itself as kjiowledge concerning God in the 
strict sense of the term. The science in which this act- 
ually happens will be the heart of the organism of Exe- 
getical Theology. 

Exegetical Theology deals with God under the aspect 
of Revealer of Himself and Author of the Scriptures. 
It is naturally divided into two parts, of which the one 
treats of the formation of the Scriptures, the other of 
the actual revelation of God lying back of this process. 
We further observe that the formation of the Scriptures 
serves no other purpose than to perpetuate and trans- 
mit the record of God's self-disclosure to the human 
race as a whole. Compared with revelation proper, the 
formation of the Scriptures appears as a means to an end. 
Bibliology with all its adjuncts, therefore, is not the cen- 
tre of Exegetical Theology, but is logically subordinated 
to the other division, which treats of revelation proper. 
Or, formulating it from the human point of view, all 



As a Science and as a Theological Discipline. g 

our investigations as to the origin of tiie Scriptures, 
their collection into a Canon, their original text, as well 
as the exegetical researches by which the contents of 
the Biblical writings are inductively ascertained, ulti- 
mately serve the one purpose of teaching us what God 
has revealed concerning Himself. None of these 
studies find their aim in themselves, but all have their 
value determined and their place assigned by the one 
central study to which they are leading up and in which 
they find their culminating point. This central study 
that gives most adequate and natural expression to the 
idea of Exegetical Theology is Biblical Theology. 

In general, then, Biblical Theology is that part of 
Exegetical Theology which deals with the revelation of 
God. It makes use of all the results that have been 
obtained by all the preceding studies in this depart- 
ment. Still, we must endeavor to determine more pre- 
cisely in what sense this general definition is to be un- 
derstood. For it might be said of Systematic Theol- 
ogy, nay of the whole of Theology, with equal truth, 
that it deals with supernatural revelation. The specific 
character of Biblical Theology lies in this, that it dis- 
cusses both the form and contents of revelation from 
the point of view of the revealing activity of God Him- 
self. In other words, it deals with revelation in the act- 
ive sense, as an act of God, and tries to understand and 
trace and describe this act, so far as this is possible to 
man and does not elude our finite observation. In 
Biblical Theology both the form and contents of revela- 
tion are considered as parts and products of a divine 
work. In Systematic Theology these same contents 
of revelation appear, but not under the aspect of the 
stages of a divine work ; rather as the material for a 



lO The Idea of Biblical Theology 

human work of classifying and systematizing according 
to logical principles. Biblical Theology applies no 
other method of grouping and arranging these con- 
tents than is given in the divine economy of revelation 
itself. 

From this it follows that, in order to obtain a more 
definite conception of Biblical Theology, we must try 
to gather the general features of God's revealing work. 
Here, as in other cases, the organism of a science can 
be conceived and described only by anticipating its re- 
sults. The following statements, accordingly, are not 
to be considered in the light of an «/rz' of God are given to the human race as a 
whole to be henceforth subjectively studied and appro- 
priated. It is as unreasonable to expect revelations 
after the close of the Apostolic age as it would be to 
think that the great saving facts of that period can be 
indefinitely increased and repeated. 

Even this, however, is not sufficient to show the his- 
toric character of revelation in its full extent. Up to 
this point we have only seen how the disclosure of truth 
in general follows the course of the history of redemp- 
tion. We now must add that in not a few cases revela- 
tion is ideyitified with history. Besides making use of 
words, God has also employed acts to reveal great 
principles of truth. It is not so much the prophetic 
visions or miracles in the narrower sense that we think 
of in this connection. We refer more specially to those 
great, supernatural, history-making acts of which we 
have examples in the redemption of the covenant- 
people from Egypt, or in the crucifixion and resurrec- 
tion of Christ. In these cases the history itself forms a 
part of revelation. There is a self-disclosure of God in 
such acts. They would speak even if left to speak 
for themselves. Forming part of history, these reveal- 
ing acts necessarily assume historical relations among 



14 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

themselves, and succeed one another according to a 
well-defined principle of historical sequence. Further- 
more, we observe that this system of revelation-acts is 
not interpolated into the larger system of biblical his- 
tory after a fanciful and mechanical fashion. The rela- 
tion between the two systems is vital and organic. 
These miraculous interferences of God to which we 
ascribe a revealing character, furnish the great joints 
and ligaments by which the whole framework of sacred 
history is held together, and its entire structure deter- 
mined. God's saving deeds mark the critical epochs of 
history, and as such, have continued to shape its course 
for centuries after their occurrence. 

Of course we should never forget that, wherever reve- 
lation and the redemptive acts of God coincide, the lat- 
ter frequently have an ulterior purpose extending be- 
yond the sphere of revelation. The crucifixion and 
resurrection of Christ were acts not exclusively intended 
to reveal something to man, but primarily intended to 
serve some definite purpose in reference to God. In so 
far as they satisfied the divine justice it would be inac- 
curate to view them under the aspect of revelation 
primarily or exclusively. Nevertheless, the revealing 
element is essential even in their case, the two ends of 
satisfaction and of revelation being combined into one. 
And in the second place, we must remember that the 
revealing acts of God never appear separated from His 
verbal communications of truth. Word and act always 
accompany each other, and in their interdependence 
strikingly illustrate our former statement, to the effect 
that revelation is organically connected with the intro- 
duction of a new order of things into this sinful world. 
Revelation is the light of this new world which God has 



As a Scie7ice and as a Theological Discipline. 15 

called into being. The light needs the reality and the 
reality needs the light to produce the vision of the 
beautiful creation of His grace. To apply the Kantian 
phraseology to a higher subject, without God's acts the 
words would be empty, without His words the acts 
would be blind. 

A second ground for the historic character of revela- 
tion may be found in its eminently practical aspect. 
The knowledge of God communicated by it is nowhere 
for a purely intellectual purpose. From beginning to 
end it is a knowledge intended to enter into the actual 
life of man, to be worked out by him in all its practical 
bearings. The Shemitic, and in particular the Biblical, 
conception of knowledge is distinguished from the 
Greek, more intellectualistic idea, by the prominence of 
this practical element. To know, in the Shemitic sense, 
is to have the consciousness of the reality and the prop- 
erties of something interwoven with one's life through 
the closest intercourse and communion attainable. Now 
in this manner God has interwoven the supernaturally 
communicated knowledge of Himself with the historic 
life of the chosen race, so as to secure for it a practical 
form from the beginning. Revelation is connected 
throughout with the fate of Israel. Its disclosures arise 
from the necessities of that nation, and are adjusted to 
its capacities. It is such a living historical thing that it 
has shaped the very life of this nation into the midst of 
which it descended. The importance of this aspect of 
revelation has found its clearest expression in the idea 
of the covenant as the form of God's progressive self- 
communication to Israel. God has not revealed Him- 
self in a school, but in the covenant ; and the covenant 
as a communion of life is all-comprehensive, embracing 


i6 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

all the conditions and interests of those contracting it. 
There is a knowledge and an imparting of knowledge 
here, but in a most practical way and not merely by 
theoretical instruction. 

If in the foregoing we have correctly described the 
most general character of revelation, we may enlarge 
our definition of Biblical Theology by saying that it is 
that part of Exegetical Theology which deals with the 
revelation of God in its historic continuity. We must 
now advance beyond this and inquire more particularly 
in what. specific type of history God has chosen to em- 
body His revelation. The idea of historic development is 
not sufficiently definite of itself to explain the manner 
in which divine truth has been progressively revealed. 
It is not until we ascribe to this progress an organic 
character that the full significance of the historic princi- 
ple springs into view. 

The truth of revelation, if it is to retain its divine and 
absolute character at all, must be perfect from the begin- 
ning. Biblical Theology deals with it as a product of a 
supernatural divine activity, and is therefore bound by 
its own principle to maintain the perfection of revealed 
truth in all its stages. When, nevertheless, Biblical 
Theology also undertakes to show how the truth has been 
gradually set forth in greater fullness and clearness, these 
two facts can be reconciled in no other way than by 
assuming that the advance in revelation resembles the 
organic process, through which out of the perfect germ 
the perfect plant and flower and fruit are successively 
produced. 

Although the knowledge of God has received material 
increase through the ages, this increase nowhere shows 
the features of external accretion, but throughout appears 



As a Scie7ice and as a Theological Discipline. 1 7 

as an internal expansion, an organic unfolding from with- 
in. The elements of truth, far from being mechanically 
added one to the other in lifeless succession, are seen to 
grow out of each other, each richer and fuller disclosure 
of the knowledge of God having been prepared for by 
what preceded, and being in its turn preparatory for 
what follows. That this is actually so, follows from the 
soteriological purpose which revelation in the first in- 
stance is intended to serve. At all times, from the very 
first to the last, revealed truth has been kept in close con- 
tact with the wants and emergencies of the living gener- 
ation. And these human needs, notwithstanding all 
variations of outward circumstance, being essentially the 
same in all periods, it follows that the heart of divine 
truth, that by which men live, must have been present 
from the outset, and that each subsequent increase con- 
sisted in the unfolding of what was germinally contained 
in the beginning of revelation. The Gospel of Paradise 
is such a germ in which the Gospel of Paul is potenti- 
ally present ; and the Gospel of Abraham, of Moses, of 
David, of Isaiah and Jeremiah, are all expansions of 
this original message of salvation, each pointing forward 
to the next stage of growth, and bringing the Gospel- 
idea one step nearer to its full realization. In this Gos- 
pel of Paradise we already discern the essential features 
of a covenant-relation, though the formal notion of a 
covenant does not attach to it. And in the covenant- 
promises given to Abraham these very features reappear, 
assume greater distinctness, and are seen to grow to- 
gether, to crystallize as it were, into the formal covenant. 
From this time onward the expansive character of the 
covenant-idea shows itself. The covenant of Abraham 
contains the promise of the Sinaitic covenant ; the lat- 



1 8 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

ter again, from its very nature, gives rise to prophecy ; 
and prophecy guards the covenant of Sinai from assum- 
ing a fixed, unalterable form, the prophetic word being 
a creative word under the influence of which the spirit- 
ual, universal germs of the covenant are quickened and 
a new, higher order of things is organically developed 
from the Mosaic theocracy, that new covenant of which 
Jeremiah spoke, and which our Saviour brought to light 
by the shedding of His blood. So dispensation grows 
out of dispensation, and the newest is but the fully ex- 
panded flower of the oldest. 

The same principle may also be established more 
objectively, if we consider the specific manner in which 
God realizes the renewal of this sinful kosmos in accord- 
ance with His original purpose. This renewal is not 
brought about by mechanically changing one part after 
the other. God's method is much rather that of creating 
within the organism of the present world the centre of 
the world of redemption, and then organically building 
up the new order of things around this centre. Hence 
from the beginning all redeeming acts of God aim at the 
creation and introduction of this new organic principle, 
which is none other than Christ. All Old Testament re- 
demption is but the saving activity of God workingtoward 
the realization of this goal, the great supernatural prelude 
to the Incarnation and the Atonement. And Christ 
having appeared as the head of the new humanity and 
having accomplished His atoning work, the further re- 
newal of the kosmos is effected through an organic 
extension of His power in ever widening circles. In 
this sense the Apostle speaks of the fashioning anew of 
the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed 
to the body of the glory of Christ, saying that this will 



As a Science mid as a Theological Discipline, 1 9 

happen ''according to the working whereby He is able to 
subject even all things unto Hiinself (Phil. iii. 21). If, 
then, this supernatural process of transformation pro- 
ceeds on organic principles, and if, as we have shown, 
revelation is but the light accompanying it in its course, 
the reflection of its divine realities in the sphere of 
knowledge, we cannot escape from the conclusion that 
revelation itself must exhibit a similar organic progress. 
In point of fact, we find that the actual working of Old 
Testament redemption toward the coming of Christ in 
the flesh, and the advance of revealed knowledge con- 
cerning Christ, keep equal pace everywhere. The vari- 
ous stages in the g-radual concentration of Messianic 
prophecy, as when the human nature of our Saviour is 
successively designated as the seed of the woman, the 
seed of Abraham, the seed of Judah, the seed of David, 
His fifrure assuminc: more distinct features at each narrow- 
ing of the circle — what are they but disclosures of the 
divine counsel corresponding in each case to new reali- 
ties and new conditions created by His redeeming power? 
And as in the history of redemption there are critical 
stages in which the great acts of God as it were accumu- 
late, so we find that at such junctures the process of reve- 
lation is correspondingly accelerated, and that a few 
years show, perhaps, more rapid growth and greater ex- 
pansion than centuries that lie between. For, although 
the development of the root may be slow and the stem 
and leaves may grow almost imperceptibly, there comes 
a time when the bud emerges in a day and the flower 
expands in an hour to our wondering sight.* Such 



* Cf r. "The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament," by 
Thomas Dehany Bernard, p. 44. 



20 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

epochs of quickened revelation were the times of Abra- 
ham, of Moses, of David, .and especially the days of the 
Son of Man. 

This progress, moreover, increases in rapidity the 
nearer revelation approaches to its final goal. What 
rich developments, what wealth of blossoming and fruit- 
age are compressed within the narrow limits of that 
period — no more than one lifetime — that is covered by 
the New Testament ! In this, indeed, we have the most 
striking proof of the organic nature of the progress of 
revelation. Every organic development serves to em- 
body an idea ; and as soon as this idea has found full and 
adequate expression, the organism receives the stamp of 
perfection and develops no further. Because the New 
Testament times brought the final realization of the 
divine counsel of redemption as to its objective and cen- 
tral facts, therefore New Testament revelation brought 
the full-grown Word of God, in which the new-born 
world, which is complete in Christ, mirrors itself. In 
this final stage of revelation the deepest depths of 
eternity are opened up to the eye of Apostle and Seer. 
Hence, the frequent recurrence of the expression, "be- 
fore the foundation of the world." We feel at every 
point that the last veil is drawn aside and that we stand 
face to face with the disclosure of the great mystery 
which was hidden in the divine purpose through the 
ages. All salvation, all truth in regard to man, has its 
eternal foundation in the Triune God Himself, It is 
this Triune God who here reveals Himself as the ever- 
lasting reality, from whom all truth proceeds, whom all 
truth reflects, be it the little streamlet of Paradise or 
the broad river of the New Testament losing itself again 
in the ocean of eternity. After this nothing higher can 



As a Scie7ice and as a Theological Discipline. 2 1 

•come. All the separate lines along which through the 
ages revelation was carried, have converged and met at 
a single point. The seed of the woman and the Angel 
of Jehovah are become one in the Incarnate Word. And 
as Christ is glorified once for all, so from the crowning 
glory and perfection of His revelation in the New 
Testament nothing can be taken away ; nor can any- 
thing be added thereunto. 

There is one more feature of the organic character of 
revelation which I must briefly allude to. Historic 
progress is not the only means used by God to disclose 
the full contents of His eternal Word. Side by side 
with it, we witness a striking multiformity of teaching 
-employed for the same purpose. All along the historic 
stem of revelation, branches are seen to shoot forth, 
frequently more than one at a time, each of which helps 
to realize the complete idea of the truth for its own 
part and after its own peculiar manner. The legal, .the 
prophetic, the poetic elements in the Old Testament 
are clearly-distinct types of revelation, and in the New 
Testament we have something corresponding to these 
in the Gospels, the Epistles, the Apocalypse. Further, 
within the limits of these great divisions there are 
numerous minor variations, closely associated with the 
peculiarities of individual character. Isaiah and Jere- 
miah are distinct, and so are John and Paul. And 
this differentiation rather increases than decreases 
with the progress of sacred history. It is greater 
in the New Testament than in the Old. The 
laying of the historic basis for Israel's covenant- 
life has been recorded by one author, Moses ; the 
historic basis of the New Testament dispensation we 
know from the fourfold version of the Gospels. The 



2 2 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

remainder of the New Testament writings are in the 
form of letters, in which naturally the personal element 
predominates. The more fully the light shone upon 
the realization of the whole counsel of God and dis- 
closed its wide extent, the more necessary it became ta 
expound it in all its bearings, to view it at different 
angles, thus to bring out what Paul calls the much- 
variegatcd, the manifold, wisdom of God. For, God 
bavins: chosen to reveal the truth through human in- 
struments, it follows that these instruments must be 
both numerous and of varied adaptation to the common 
end. Individual coloring, therefore, and a peculiar 
manner of representation are not only not detrimental 
to a full statement of the truth, but directly subservient 
to it. God's method of revelation includes the very 
shaping and chiselling of individualities for His own ob- 
jective ends. To put it concretely : we must not con- 
ceive of it as if God found Paul " ready-made," as it 
v^rere, and in using Paul as an organ of revelation, had 
to put up with the fact that the dialectic mind of Paul 
reflected the truth in a dialectic, dogmatic form to the 
detriment of the truth. The facts are these : the truth 
having inherently, besides other aspects, a dialectic and 
dogmatic side, and God intending to give this side full 
expression, chose Paul from the womb, moulded his 
character, and gave him such a training that the truth 
revealed through him necessarily bore the dogmatic and 
dialectic impress of His mind. The divine objectivity 
and the human individuality here do not collide, nor 
exclude each other, because the man Paul, with his 
whole character, his gifts, and his training, is subsumed 
under the divine plan. The human is but the glass 
through which the divine light is reflected, and all the 



As a Science a?id as a Theological Discipline. 23 

sides and angles into whicli the glass has been cut serve 
no other purpose than to distribute to us the truth in all 
the riches of its prismatic colors. 

In some cases growth in the organism of revelation is 
closely dependent on this variety in the type of teach- 
ing. There are instances in which two or more forms 
of the one truth have been brought to light simultane- 
ously, each of which exercised a deepening and enlarg- 
ing influence upon the others. The Gospel of John 
contains revelations contemporaneous with those of the 
Synoptists, so that chronologically we can distribute its 
material over the pages of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 
Nevertheless, taken as a whole and in its unity, the 
Gospel of John represents a fuller and wider self-reve- 
lation of Christ than the Synoptists ; and not only so, 
but it also represents a type of revelation which pre- 
supposes the facts and teachings of the other Gospels, 
and is, in point of order, subsequent to them. The 
same thing might be said of Isaiah in its relation 
to Micah. So the variety itself contributes to the prog- 
ress of revelation. Even in these cases of contemporane- 
ous development along distinct lines and in independent 
directions, there is a mysterious force at work, which 
makes " the several parts grow out of and into each 
other with mutual support, so that the whole body is 
fitly joined together and compacted by that which every 
joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the 
measure of every part." 

We may now perhaps attempt to frame a complete 
definition of our science. The preceding remarks have 
shown that the divine work of revelation did not pro- 
ceed contrary to all law, but after a well-defmed organic 
principle. Wherever there is a group of facts sufli- 



24 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

ciently distinct from their environment, and determined 
by some law of orderly sequence, we are justified in 
making these facts the object of scientific discussion. 
Far from there being in the conception of Biblical 
Theology anything at variance with the idea of Theol- 
ogy as based on the revealed knowledge of God, we 
have found that the latter even directly postulates the 
former. Biblical Theology, rightly defined, is nothing 
else than the exhibition of the orgastic progress of super- 
natural revelation in its historic continuity and multi- 
formity. 

It must be admitted, however, that not everything 
passing under the name of Biblical Theology satisfies 
the requirements of this definition. From the end of 
the preceding century, when our science first appears 
as distinct from Dogmatic Theology, until now, she 
has stood under the spell of un-Biblical principles. 
Her very birth took place under an evil star. It was 
the spirit of Rationalism which first led to distin- 
guishing in the contents of the Scriptures between what 
was purely human, individual, local, temporal — in a 
word, conditioned by the subjectivity of the writers — 
and what was eternally valid, divine truth. The latter, 
of course, was identified with the teachings of the shallow 
Rationalism of that period. Thus Biblical Theology, 
which can only rest on the basis of revelation, began with 
a denial of this basis ; and a science, whose task it is 
to set forth the historic principles of revelation, was 
trained up in a school notorious for its lack of historic 
sense. For to this type of Rationalism history, as such, 
is the realm of the contingent, the relative, the arbi- 
trary, whilst only the deliverances of pure reason possess 
the predicate of absoluteness and universal validity. In 



As a Science and as a Theological Discipline. 25 

this Biblical Theology of Rationalism, therefore, the his- 
torical principle merely served to eliminate or neutral- 
ize the revelation-principle. And since that time all 
the philosophical tendencies that have influenced Theol- 
ogy in general have also left their impress upon Biblical 
Theology in particular. It is not necessary for our 
present purpose to trace the various lines and currents 
of this complicated history ; the less so since there can 
be no doubt but that they are rapidly merging into the 
great stream of Evolutionistic Philosophy, which, what- 
ever truth there may be in its application to certain 
groups of phenomena, yet, as a generaf^fneory of the 
universe, is the most direct antithesis to the fundamental 
principles of revelation and Christianity. 

That the influence of this philosophy, as it expresses 
and in turn moulds the spirit of the age, is perceptible 
in the field of Theology everywhere, no careful observer 
of recent events will deny. But Biblical Theology is, per- 
haps, more than any other branch of theological study 
affected by it, because its principle of historic progress in 
revelation seems to present certain analogies with the 
evolutionary scheme, and to offer exceptional opportuni- 
ties for applying the latter, without departing too far from 
the real contents of Scripture. This analogy, of course, 
is merely formal, and from a material point of view there 
is a world-wide dilTerence between that philosophy of 
history which the Bible itself outlines, and which alone 
Biblical Theology, if it wishes to remain Biblical, has a 
right to adopt, and, on the other hand, the so-called 
facts of the Bible pressed into the evolutionary formu- 
las. It is especially in two respects that the principles 
of this philosophy have worked a radical departure from 
the right treatment of our science as it is prescribed by 



26 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

both the supernatural character of Christianity and the 
nature of Theology. In the first place, evolution is 
bent upon showing that the process of development is 
everywhere from the lower and imperfect to the higher 
and relatively more perfect forms, from impure begin- 
nings through a gradual purification to some ideal end. 
So in regard to the knowledge of God, whose growth 
we observe in the Biblical writings, evolution cannot 
rest until it shall have traced its gradual advance from 
sensual, physical conceptions to ethical and spiritual 
ideas, from Animism and Polytheism to Monolatry and 
Monotheism. But this of necessity rules out the reve- 
lation-factor from Biblical Theology. Revelation as an 
act of God, theistically conceived of, can in no wise be 
associated with anything imperfect or impure or below 
the standard of absolute truth. However much Chris- 
tian people may blind themselves to the fact, the out- 
come will show, as it does already show, that the prin- 
ciples of supernatural redemption and natural evolution 
are mutually exclusive. Hence, even now, those who 
accept the evolutionary construction of Biblical history, 
either openly and without reserve renounce the idea of 
supernatural revelation, or strip it of its objectivity sa 
as to make it less antagonistic to that of natural devel- 
opment. In the same degree, however, that the latter 
is done, revelation loses its distinctively theistic charac- 
ter and begins to assume more and more the features of 
a Pantheistic process, that is, it ceases to be revelation 
in the commonly accepted sense of the term. 

In the second place, the philosophy of evolution has 
corrupted Theology by introducing its leaven of meta- 
physical Agnosticism. Inasmuch as only the phenom- 
enal world can become an object of knowledge to us 



As a Science and as a Theological Discipline. 27 

and not the mysterious reality hidden behind the phe- 
nomena, and inasmuch as Theology in the old, tradi- 
tional sense pretended to deal with such metaphysical 
realities as God and heaven and immortality, it follows 
that Theology must either be entirely abolished, or must 
submit to such a reconstruction as will enable her to re- 
tain a place among the phenomenalistic sciences. The 
former would be the more consistent and scientific, but 
the latter is usually preferred ; because it is difficult at 
one stroke to set aside a thing so firmly rooted in the 
past. Theology, therefore, is now defined as the science 
of religion, and that, too, in the sense chiefly of a phe- 
nomenology of religion, in which by far the greater part 
of the investigation is devoted to the superficial exter- 
nal side of religion, and the heart of the matter receives 
scant treatment. Applied to Biblical Theology, this 
principle involves that no longer the historic progress 
of the supernatural revelation of God, but the de- 
velopment of the religion recorded in the Biblical 
writings, shall become the object of our science. The- 
ology having become the science of religion, Biblical 
Theology must needs become the history of one, be it 
the greatest, of all religions, the history of the religion 
of Israel and of primitive Christianity. 

How far this evil has penetrated may be inferred from 
the fact that there is scarcely a book on Biblical Theology 
in existence in which this conception of the object of our 
science is not met with, and in which it does not very 
largely determine the point of view. It has even viti- 
ated so excellent a work in many respects as Oehler's 
Old Testament Theology. Of course, there are many 
degrees in the thoroughness with which this subjectiviz- 
ing principle is carried through and applied. Between 



28 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

those who are just beginning to descend the ladder and 
those who have reached its lowest step, there is a very 
appreciable difference. 

First, there are those who think that, though God has 
supernaturally revealed Himself in words and acts, never- 
theless this revelation pure and simple, cannot be for us 
an object of scientific discussion, except in so far as it 
has blended with and produced its effect upon the religi- 
ous consciousness of the people to whom it was given ; 
and that, consequently, we must posit as the object of 
Biblical Theology the religion of the Bible, and can hope 
at the utmost to reason back from this religion as the re- 
sult, to revelation as the cause that has produced it. To 
this we would answer, that there is no reason to make 
Biblical Theology, so conceived, a separate science. The 
investigation of the religion of Israel as a subjective phe 
nomenon, together with the objective factors called in 
to explain it, belongs nowhere else than in the depart- 
ment of Biblical History. Furthermore, we believe 
that the Bible itself has recorded for us the interaction 
of the objective and the subjective factors in sacred his- 
tory in such a manner that their joint product is no- 
where made the central thought of its teaching, but 
much rather we are invited everywhere to fix our gaze 
on the objective self-revelation of God, and only in the 
second place to observe the subjective reflex of this 
divine activity in the religious consciousness of the 
people. 

Others are more reserved in their recognition of the 
supernatural. They would confine the revelation of 
God to acts, and derive all the doctrinal contents of the 
Bible from the source of human reflection upon these 
divine acts. In this manner a compromise is obtained, 



As a Science and as a Theological Discipline. 29 

whereby both the objectivity of revelation and the sub- 
jective development of Biblical teaching can be af- 
firmed. This view is unsatisfactory, because it loses 
sight of the analogy between divine revelation and the 
ordinary way in which man communicates his thoughts. 
To man, made in the image of God, speech is the high- 
est instrument of revealing Himself, and it would be 
strange if God in His self-disclosure entirely dispensed 
with the use of this instrument. Nor does this view 
leave any place for prophecy. The prophetic word is 
frequently a divine word preceding the divine act. Al- 
though, as we have seen, the progress of revelation is 
clearly conditioned by the actual realization of God's 
plan of redemption, yet this by no means implies that 
the saving deeds of God always necessarily go before, 
and the revelations which cast light on them always 
follow. In many cases the revealing word comes as an 
anticipation of the approaching events, as a flash of 
lightning preceding the thunder of God's judgments. 
As Amos strikingly expresses it : " Surely the Lord God 
will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His 
servants the prophets " (iii. 7). 

The supernatural factor, however, is reduced to still 
smaller proportions and entirely deprived of its objec- 
tivity by a third group of writers on Biblical Theology. 
According to these, supernatural revelation does not in- 
volve the communication of divine thoughts to man in 
any direct manner either by words or by actions. Rev- 
elation consists in this, that the Divine Spirit, by an un- 
conscious process, stirs the depths of man's heart so as 
to cause the springing up therein afterward of certain 
religious thoughts and feelings, which are as truly hu- 
man as they are a revelation of God, and are, therefore, 



30 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

only relatively true. It is owing to the influence of the 
Ritschlian or Neo-Kantian school of Theology that 
this view has gained new prevalence of late. The peo- 
ple of Israel are held to have possessed a creative relig- 
ious genius, just as the Greek nation was endowed with 
a creative genius in the sphere of art. And, although 
the productions of this genius are ascribed to the im- 
pulse of the Divine Spirit, yet this Spirit and His work- 
ing are represented in such a manner that their distinc- 
tion from the natural processes of the human mind be- 
comes a mere assumption, exercising no influence 
whatever on the interpretation of the phenomenal side 
of Israel's religion. Writers of this class deal as freely 
Vv'ith the facts and teachings of the Bible as the most 
extreme anti-supranaturalists. But with their evolution- 
istic treatment of the phenomena they combine the hy- 
pothesis of this mystical influence of the Spirit, which 
they are pleased to call revelation. It is needless to say 
that revelation of this kind must remain forever inac- 
cessible to objective proof or verification. Whatever 
can pretend to be scientific in this theory lacks all rap- 
port with the idea of the Supernatural, and whatever 
there lingers in it of diluted Supernaturalism lacks all 
scientific character. 

I have endeavored to sketch with a few strokes 
those principles and tendencies by which the study 
of Biblical Theology is almost exclusively controlled at 
the present time, because they seem to me to indicate 
the points which ought to receive special emphasis in 
the construction of our science on a truly Scriptural 
and theological basis. The first of these is the objective 
character of revelatioi. Biblical Theology must insist 
upon claiming for its object not the thoughts and re- 



As a Science and as a Theological Discipli7ie. 3 1 

flections and speculations of man, but the oracles of 
God. Whosoever weakens or subjectivizes this funda- 
mental idea of revelation, strikes a blow at the very 
heart of Theology and Supernatural Christianity, nay, 
of Theism itself. Every type of Biblical Theology 
bent upon ignoring or minimizing this supreme, cen- 
tral idea, is a most dangerous product. It is an indis- 
putable fact that all modern views of revelation which 
are deficient in recognizing its objective character, fit 
far better into a Pantheistic than into a Theistic theory 
of the universe. If God be the unconscious background 
of the world, it is altogether natural that His truth and 
lio-ht should in a mysterious manner loom up from the 
unexplorable regions that underlie human conscious- 
ness, that in His very act of revealing Himself He 
should be conditioned and entangled and obstructed by 
man. If, on the other hand, God be conscious and 
personal, the inference is that in His self-disclosure He 
will assert and maintain His personality, so as to place 
His divine thoughts before us with the stamp of divin- 
itv upon them, in a truly objective manner. By mak- 
ins" revelation, both as to its form and contents, a spe- 
cial object of study, Biblical Theology may be expected 
to contribute something toward upholding this import- 
ant conception in its true objectivity, toward more 
sharply defining it and guarding it from confusion with 
all heterogeneous ideas. 

The second point to be emphasized in our treatment 
of Biblical Theology is that the historical character of 
the truth is not in any way antithetical to, but through- 
out subordinated to, its revealed character. Scriptural 
truth is not absolute, notwithstanding its historic set- 
ting ; but the historic setting has been employed by God 

The Idea of Biblical Theology 



for the very purpose of revealing the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth. It is not the duty of 
Biblical Theology to seek first the historic features of 
the Scriptural ideas, and to think that the absolute char- 
acter of the truth as revealed of God is something sec- 
ondary to be added thereunto. The reality of revela- 
tion should be the supreme factor by which the historic 
factor is kept under control. With the greatest variety 
of historical aspects, there can, nevertheless, be no incon- 
sistencies or contradictions in the Word of God. The 
student of Biblical Theology is not to hunt for little 
systems in the Bible that shall be mutually exclusive, 
or to boast of his skill in detecting such as a mark of 
high scholarship. What has been remarked above, in 
regard to the place of individuality in the plan of rev- 
elation, may be applied with equal justice to the historic 
phases through which the progressive delivery of the 
truth has passed. God has done for the historic un- 
folding of His word as a whole what He has done for 
the reproduction of its specific types and aspects through 
the forming and training of individuals. As He knew 
Jeremiah and Paul from the womb, so He knew Israel 
and prepared Israel for its task. The history of this 
nation is not a common history ; it is sacred history in the 
highest sense of having been specially designed by God 
to become the human receptacle for the truth from above. 
In the third place. Biblical Theology should plant 
itself squarely upon the truthfulness of the Scriptures 
as a whole. Revelation proper announces and records 
the saving deeds of God, but a mere announcement and 
record is not sufficient to furnish a complete history of 
redemption, to produce a living image of the new order 
of things as it is gradually called into existence. No 



As a Science and as a Theological Discipline, 33 

true history can be made by a mere chronicling of 
events. Only by placing the bare record of the facts 
in the light of the principles which shape them, and the 
inner nexus which holds them together, is the work of 
the chronicler transformed into history. For this rea- 
son God has not given us His own interpretation of the 
great realities of redemption in the form of a chronicle, 
but in the form of the historical organism of the inspired 
Scriptures. The direct revelations of God form by far 
the smaller part of the contents of the Bible. These 
are but the scattered diamonds woven into the garment 
of the truth. This garment itself is identical with the 
Scriptural contents as a whole. And as a whole it has 
been prepared by the hand of God. The Bible contains, 
besides the simple record of direct revelations, the further 
interpretation of these immediate disclosures of God by 
inspired prophets and apostles. Above all, it contains, 
if I may so call it, a divine philosophy of the history of 
redemption and of revelation in general outlines. And 
whosoever is convinced in his heart of the inspiration of 
the Holy Scriptures and reads his Bible as the Word of 
God, cannot, as a student of Biblical Theology, allow 
himself to reject this divine philosophy and substitute 
for it another of his own making. Our Theology will 
be Biblical in the full sense, only when it not merely 
derives its material from the Bible, but also accepts at 
the hands of the Bible the order in which this material 
is to be grouped and located. I for one am not 
ashamed to say that the teachings of Paul concerning 
the historic organism of the Old Testament economy 
possess for me greater authority than the reconstructions 
of the same by modern scholars, however great their 
learning and critical acumen. 



34 The Idea of Biblical Theology 

Finally, in designating our science 2S Biblical Theology y 
we should not fail to enter a protest against the wrong 
inferences that may be easily drawn from the use of this 
name. The name retains somewhat of the flavor of the 
Rationalism which first adopted it. It almost unavoid- 
ably creates an impression as if in the Bible we had the 
beginning of the process that later gave us the works of 
Origen, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Cal- 
vin. Hence some do not hesitate to define Biblical 
Theology as the History of Dogmatics for Biblical 
times. To us this sounds as strange and illogical as if 
one should compare the stars of the firmament and their 
history with the work and history of astronomy. As 
the heavens contain the material for astronomy and the 
crust of the earth for geology, so the mighty creation of 
the Word of God furnishes the material for Theology in 
this scientific sense, but is no Theology. It is something 
infinitely higher than Theology, a world of spiritual 
realities, into which all true theologians are led by the 
Spirit of the living God. Only if we take the term 
Theology in its more primitive and simple meaning, as 
the practical, historic knowledge of God imparted by 
revelation and deposited in the Bible, can we justify the 
use of the now commonly accepted name of our science. 
As for the scientific elaboration of this God-given ma- 
terial, this must be held to lie beyond the Biblical pe- 
riod. It could only spring up after revelation and the 
formation of the Scriptures had been completed. The 
utmost that can be conceded would be that in the 
Apostolic teaching of the New Testament the first signs 
of the beginning of this process are discernible. But even 
that which the Apostles teach is in no sense primarily to 
be viewed under the aspect of Theology. It is the in- 



As a Science and as a Theological Discipline. 35 

spired Word of God before all other things. No the- 
ologian would dare to say of his work what Paul said to 
the Galatians : " But though we or an angel from heaven 
should preach unto you any gospel other than that which 
we preached unto you, let him be anathema" (i. 8).* 

In the foregoing I have endeavored to describe to 
you the nature and functions of Biblical Theology as a 
member in the organism of our scientific knowledge of 
God. I have not forgotten, however, that you have 
called me to teach this science for the eminently prac- 
tical purpose of training young men for the ministry of 
the Gospel. Consequently, I shall not have acquitted 
myself of my task on this occasion unless you will per- 
mit me to point out briefly what are the advantages to 
be expected from the pursuit of this study in a more 
practical way. 

First of all, Biblical Theology exhibits to the student 
of the Word the organic structure of the truth therein 
contained, and its organic growth as the result of reve- 
lation. It shows to him that in the Bible there is an 
organization finer, more complicated, more exquisite 
than even the texture of muscles and nerves and brain 
in the human body ; that its various parts are interwoven 
and correlated in the most subtle manner, each sensitive 
to the impressions received from all the others, perfect 
in itself, and yet dependent upon the rest, while in them 



* In view of the Rationalistic associations connected with the name 
Biblical Theology, and in view of its being actually used for the propa- 
gation of erroneous views, the name History of Revelation would per- 
haps be better adapted to express the true nature of our science. This 
name has been lately adopted by Nosgen in his Geschichte der Neutesta- 
mentlichen Offenbarung. 



o 



6 1 he Idea of Biblical Theology 



and through them all throbs as a unifying principle the 
Spirit of God's living truth. If anything, then this is 
adapted to convince the student that what the Bible 
places before him is not the chance product of the 
several human minds that have been engaged in its 
composition, but the workmanship of none other than 
God Himself. The organic structure of the truth and 
the organic development of revelation as portrayed in the 
Bible bear exactly the same relation to Supernaturalism 
that the argument from design in nature bears to Theism. 
Both arguments proceed on precisely analogous lines. 
If the history of revelation actually is the organic his- 
tory, full of evidences of design, which the Bible makes 
it out to be, then it must have been shaped in an alto- 
gether unique fashion by the revealing activity of God. 

In the second place. Biblical Theology is suited to 
furnish a most effective antidote to the destructive 
critical views now prevailing. These modern theories, 
however much may be asserted to the contrary, disor- 
ganize the Scriptures. Their chief danger lies, not in 
affirmations concerning matters of minor importance, 
concerning errors in historical details, but in the most 
radical claims upsetting the inner organization of the 
whole body of truth. We have seen that the course of 
revelation is most closely identified with the history 
described in the Bible. Of this history of the Bible, 
this framework on which the whole structure of revela- 
tion rests, the newest criticism asserts that it is falsified 
and unhistorical for the greater part. All the historical 
writings of the Old Testament in their present state are 
tendency-writings. Even where they embody older 
and more reliable documents, the Deuteronomic and 
Levitical paste, applied to them in and after the exile. 



As a Science and as a Theological Discipline, 2>7 

has obliterated the historic reality. Now, if it were 
known anaong believing Christians to what an extent 
these theories disorganize the Bible, their chief spell 
would be broken ; and many would repudiate with horror 
what they now tolerate or view with indifference. There 
is no other way of showing this than by placing over 
against the critical theories the organic history of revela- 
tion, as the Bible itself constructs it. As soon as this is 
done, everybody will be able to see at a glance that the 
two are mutually subversive. This very thing Biblical 
Theology endeavors to do. It thus meets the critical 
assaults, not in a negative way by defending point after 
point of the citadel, whereby no total effect is produced 
and the critics are always permitted to reply that they 
attack merely the outworks, not the central position of 
the faith ; but in the most positive manner, by setting 
forth what the principle of revelation involves according 
to the Bible, and how one part of it stands or falls 
together with all the others. The student of Biblical 
Theology has the satisfaction of knowing that his treat- 
ment of Biblical matters is not prescribed for him ex- 
clusively by the tactics of his enemies, and that, while 
most effectually defending the truth, he at the same 
time is building the temple of divine knowledge on the 
positive foundation of the faith. 

In the third place, I should mention as a desirable 
fruit of the study of Biblical Theology, the new life and 
freshness which it gives to the old truth, showing it in 
all its historic vividness and reality with the dew of the 
morning of revelation upon its opening leaves. It is 
certainly not without significance that God has embod- 
ied the contents of revelation, not in a dogmatic system, 
but in a book of history, the parallel to which in dra- 



T,S The Idea of Biblical Theology 

matic interest and simple eloquence is nowhere to be 
found. It is this that makes the Scriptures speak and 
appeal to and touch the hearts and lead the minds of 
men captive to the truth everywhere. No one will be 
able to handle the Word of God more effectually than he 
to whom the treasure-chambers of its historic meaning 
have been opened up. It is this that brings the divine 
truth so near to us, makes it as it were bone of our bone 
and flesh of our flesh, that humanizes it in the same sense 
that the highest revelation in Christ was rendered most 
human by the incarnation. To this historical character 
of revelation we owe the fullness and variety which 
enable the Scriptures to mete out new treasures to all 
ages without becoming exhausted or even fully ex- 
plored. A Biblical Theology imbued with the devout 
spirit of humble faith in the revealed Word of God, will 
enrich the student with all this wealth of living truth, 
making him in the highest sense a householder, bringing 
forth out of his treasures things new and old. 

Fourthly, Biblical Theology is of the greatest im- 
portance and value for the study of Systematic Theology. 
It were useless to deny that it has been often cultivated 
in a spirit more or less hostile to the work in which 
Systematic Theology is engaged. The very ndimt Bibli-^ 
cal Theology is frequently vaunted so as to imply a pro- 
test against the alleged un- Biblical character of Dog- 
matics. I desire to state most emphatically here, that 
there is nothing in the nature and aims of Biblical The- 
ology to justify such an implication. For anything pre- 
tending to supplant Dogmatics there is no place in the 
circle of Christian Theology. All attempts to show that 
the doctrines developed and formulated by the Church 
have no real foundation in the Bible, stand themselves 



As a Science a7id as a Theological Discipline. 39 

without the pale of Theology, inasmuch as they imply 
that Christianity is a purely natural phenomenon, and 
that the Church has now for nineteen centuries been 
chasing her own shadow. Dogmatic Theology is, when 
rightly cultivated, as truly a Biblical and as truly an in- 
ductive science as its younger sister. And the latter 
needs a constructive principle for arranging her facts as 
well as the former. The only difference is, that in the 
one case this constructive principle is systematic and 
logical, whereas in the other case it is purely historical. 
In other words, Systematic Theology endeavors to con- 
struct a circle. Biblical Theology seeks to reproduce a 
line. I do not mean by the use of this figure, that 
within Biblical Theology there is no grouping of facts 
at all. The line of which T speak does not represent a 
monotonous recital of revelation, and does not resemble 
a string, even though it be conceived of as a string of 
pearls. The line of revelation is like the stem of those 
trees that grow in rings. Each successive ring has 
grown out of the preceding one. But out of the sap 
and vigor that is in this stem there springs a crown with 
branches and leaves and flowers and fruit. Such is the 
true relation between Biblical and Systematic Theology. 
Dogmatics is the crown which grows out of all the work 
that Biblical Theology can accomplish. And taught in 
this spirit of Christian willingness to serve, our science 
cannot fail to benefit Systematic Theology in more than 
one respect. It will proclaim the fact, too often forgot- 
ten and denied in our days, that true religion cannot 
dispense with a solid basis of objective knowledge of the 
truth. There is no better means of silencing the super- 
cilious cant that right believing is of small importance 
in the matter of religion, than by showing what infinite 



40 The Idea of Biblical Theology. 

care our Father in heaven has taken to reveal unto us, 
in the utmost perfection, the knowledge of what He is 
and does for our salvation. Biblical Theology will also 
demonstrate that the fundamental doctrines of our faith 
do not rest, as many would fain believe, on an arbitrary 
exposition of some isolated proof-texts. It will not so 
much prove these doctrines, as it will do what is far bet- 
ter than proof — make them grow out organically before 
our eyes from the stem of revelation. Finally, it will 
contribute to keep Systematic Theology in living con- 
tact with that soil of divine realities from which it must 
draw all its strength and power to develop beyond what 
it has already attained. 

Let us not forget, however, that as of all theology, so 
of Biblical Theology, the highest aim cannot lie in man, 
or in anything that serves the creature. Its most ex- 
cellent practical use is surely this, that it grants us a new 
vision of the glory of Him who has made all things to 
the praise of His own wonderful name. As the Uncre- 
ated, the Unchangeable, Eternal God, He lives above 
the sphere of history. He is the Being and never the 
Becoming One. And, no doubt, when once this veil of 
time shall be drawn aside, when we shall see face to 
face, then also the necessity for viewing His knowledge 
in the glass of history will cease. But since on our 
behalf and for our salvation He has condescended to 
work and speak in the form of time, and thus to 
make His works and His speech partake of that pecul- 
iar glory that attaches to all organic growth, let us 
also seek to know Him as the One that is, that was, 
and that is to come, in order that no note may be lack- 
ing in that psalm of praise to be sung by the Church 
into which all our Theology must issue.