B. B. Warfield

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Picking a Theologian to Study for the Year

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, glad to be your host. I got an email from someone the other day, called me Mike Abendraft. So you know what? That�s all right. It�s abend, you know, afternoon, evening, I guess it means in German.

And so it�s an evening draft. It�s not quite as precise as a morning draft would be. What is a morgendroft? I can�t say night, noct. I don�t know what it is. Well, I�m your host. You can go to nocoever .com and watch a video.

You can go to nocompromiseradio .com and pull up all the archives. I�ve had to take people, I think I�ve had to take two shows down. People have blown out of ministry in one way, shape, or form and didn�t want those interviews online anymore.

Isn�t that sad? And let�s see. What else can you get there? Or you can go to bbcchurch .org and you can pull down the sermons, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday Guys on there. I�ve got Steve working on a Tuesday Guys Saturday special.

So it won�t be on WVNE, but it should be on the podcast that Steve can do a Tuesday Guys show. I think he�s going to have to have my introduction and all that because that�s just, you know, low budget staff around here.

So Steve, Tuesday Guy on Saturdays. That�s coming up pretty fast. All right. What else can they do? Oh, I just found out that back in early September our church website had a virus on it. And so I don�t know who does that.

Who thinks, let�s put a virus inside the church website so when people click on stuff it shuts their computer down. Maybe I should have bound Satan out of the HHHTP, HTTP, HURL, out of the URL for bbcchurch .org.

So anyway, let�s see, another funny story with the website. Someone was looking for John Piper at Bethlehem Baptist Church and found Bethlehem Bible Church and now they listen. So how about that? Come on.

We get money from Facebook. We�re at 1600 likes or something. We get extra money. So come on, put your money where your moolah is. We need to get on that thing right away. Highlights of Greece tour, we�re going to go on that in April.

This fall I�ll be in Germany teaching a one-week class on preaching in English, a master�s level class. So I�m excited about that. And then a two-day seminar in the Czech Republic, a few hours outside of Prague.

And that is going to be on preaching Ephesians. So I�m looking forward to that. Two countries where I can drink the water. Hallelujah. I think they have espresso too. As a matter of fact, I know they do.

Why B. B. Warfield Matters and How to Read Theologians Well

Well, today I�d like to promote a man called B .B. Warfield, Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. Breckenridge. What am I doing? Somebody emailed me a while ago, and it�s true, and then we had the rerun to make it doubly true, that Neil Armstrong, who I watched, I believe, in 1969, was it?

Step Onto the Moon, that studio back in North Hollywood. No, he actually stepped on the moon, Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11, I believe. And I called the Bondage Breaker author Neil, not Armstrong, but his name is Neil Anderson.

I called Neil Anderson Neil Armstrong. And so I�m sorry I didn�t get to apologize to Neil Armstrong before he died, that I actually called him the kind of Cooks and Barneys demon under every hedgerow, Neil Anderson.

Neil Anderson was very good when it comes to who you are in Christ. I thought he did an excellent job with that, but then he went off into shallower waters, should we say, with the Bondage Breaker stuff.

But B .B. Warfield. The other day I thought, you know, I was listening to S. Lewis Johnson, he said, �You�ve got to read B .B. Warfield, Volume 2, Predestination, pages 3 to 67 whatever it was. And I have the works of B .B. Warfield, and I�ve only read Volume 1, which is on revelation and inspiration.

And that about killed me, although here�s the thing, listeners. If you read a book that killed you five years ago or ten years ago, remember you�re probably a better reader now, and you�re more mature in life, and you are a more sanctified position practically, just about told a falsehood there, practically you�re more sanctified.

And you just are a better reader. And so if you try to read Edwards 20 years ago and try to read him now, it�ll be easier for you to read until he goes off on his weird things that he occasionally does.

And so sometimes when I think I can�t understand this, I end up being very glad I can�t understand it. I�m trying to read him the other day about how the nature of the Trinity and the nature of who God is demands a trinity.

And some try to say, well, since God is love, if God was one, then there would be no one to love, but God has to be more than one, and if He�s just two, then He loves the second person of the Trinity, the Father loves the second person, the second person loves the first, but then that�s just reciprocal, so there had to be a third.

And Edwards has a very strange way to try to argue for the triune nature of God. And I�m glad he�s arguing for the triune nature of God. And once we look at the Scriptures, it�s just assumed everywhere you go, highlighted by the fact that Jesus is God, the deity of Christ Jesus, that�s the linchpin to this whole talk.

But with Edwards, it�s more, well, God, how He�s going to be exactly the same, if He thinks exactly the same, and see, even now, I can�t even explain this. So when Edwards does that stuff, I just go, I can�t get it, I can�t figure it out, and then later, I�ll read B .B. Warfield, and he�ll say, �Oh, Edwards was off on that.

And I�ll think, yes! Not yes that Edwards was off, but yes, I recognize that Edwards was off. So B .B. Warfield�s wife was ill early on in their marriage, and he served her. He was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, when it was an excellent seminary.

And so I started reading B .B. Warfield, Volume 2, on predestination, and then the next chapter was, oh, what was the next chapter? Probably the Trinity, the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.

Just excellent stuff, just excellent. And so I thought, well, here�s what I should do. I should just pick a theologian, and I�ll read him for the year. Someone emailed me and asked why I don�t interview ladies on the show.

Well, there�s lots of reasons, but I�m going to pick a man to study, because I usually study pastors and theologians and men who train men for seminary, so that�s the main reason. And I�m going to just study that person for a year and his writings, and then I�ll study the next person, because the people that I pick, I want them consumed with the glory of our triune God.

I want them consumed with who God is and what he said. I want to study men who are consumed by Jesus Christ and his greatness, and I want the fame of Christ Jesus that was fanned into a flame in the hearts of these men, I want the same thing.

I would like to give more honor and deference and submission and glory to Christ Jesus, my Lord, without compromise. Oh, by the way, we�ve still got to sue Ligonier for their national conference next year, no compromise.

So I want you to write in to Ligonier. For all those of you who have never sent any money, no compromise, that�s okay. But you have to write in to Ligonier and say, �That name is already taken, thank you, and we�ll allow them to keep it if I get to be a guest speaker.

Okay? So that�s the scoop. We think Mike should be a guest speaker at Ligonier. Can you imagine that? I�d love to be on the panel with R .C. Sproul, senior. So, I don�t want to study men for men�s sake, but I do want to study men so I can understand who Jesus is.

Theology Proper, Christology, and the Basic Ologies

So this last year, for me, it was pretty much the year of Machen, German for maiden, I believe, and that was Jonathan Gresham Machen, and he also was at Princeton Seminary before they started to go south and he moved and started Westminster Theological Seminary.

I just got his book called Letters from the Front when he was on the front with the YMCA serving the soldiers in harm�s way in World War I. I think this is the year of Warfield. And so remember, if you�re a good theologian, you have to have just the letters of your name.

So, D .G. Hart, A .H. Hodge, C .H. Spurgeon, right, doesn�t that sound good? That is really something when you think about it. And so, I�m already trying to craft somehow M .L. Carr, and I was a basketball player for Boston of all places.

Boston. Somebody actually in my congregation, Joni, she listens, by the way, she gave me a Jerry West book the other day because she knew I really loved Jerry West and got to hand him some Gatorade when I was a ball boy for the Los Angeles Lakers for a game.

In Omaha, when it was the Kansas City Omaha Kings, 1973, I think it was Sam Bam Lacey was their center, and they had, I think Nate Archibald at the time was their point guard. Before he went to Boston, I think, actually.

And so, Bob Cousy is here from Worcester, and I respected Bob Cousy, and he was the point guard for the Boston Celtics, many world championships, etc. And I had my picture taken as a ball boy with Bob Cousy, and so, see, we have some love.

So, back to the topic at hand. Pick a theologian and study them. Now, what you can do maybe before you do this is if you don't study much theology, I suggest you pick a different ology and study an ology per year for about seven to nine years, and then you can pick up a theologian.

But maybe you want to just do this in the part time, you can do both. And so, pick bibliology, L-O-G-L-O is the word logos in the word bibliology. It's a word about the Bible. So, study the doctrines of the Bible, inerrancy, inspiration, sufficiency, authority, how we got the canon, why Bell the Dragon Slayer is not in the canon, Maccabees, why it isn't in the canon, how could Jude be in the canon with extra biblical writings quoted in Jude, that kind of thing.

So, then you pick theology proper. That doesn't have an ology, but it would be kind of theology, I guess, but God proper, who God is, attributes, existence of God, etc. Then you could pick Christology, which is the study of word about Christ, and Christ in eternity past, Christ in the Old Testament, Christophany, Christ in the New Testament, etc., His salvific work, His human nature, His divine nature, etc.

Then you pick pneumatology, pneuma, where we get the word ghost, our spirit, our wind, study of the Holy Spirit, pneumatology. And then we were off and running, and you can study anthropology, the study of man, traditionism and creationism, and image bearers, and you can send depravity, and you can talk about the fall, and you can talk about soteriology, that with the fall and salvation, redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, tulip, etc.

You can study the doctrine of sin, harmoniology. You can study the doctrine of end times, eschatology, they usually put that at the end, the doctrine of ecclesiology, how the church runs, and so you could pick one of those doctrines per year and then go get a systematic theology and study it.

You could get Grudem, you could get Berkhoff, you could get, who else would be a good systematic theology? I'm actually trying to write, take S. Lewis Johnson's material and turn his 240-part series and turn that into a systematic theology.

I really love Robert Raymond's systematic theology. I probably like that better than Grudem's, although Grudem's has a way of worshipfulness that's in it. Is that a word, worshipfulness? Boyce, Christian Foundations, has an excellent one-volume systematic theology that you should read.

I regularly read systematic theologies, and that's what I try to do throughout the year. Just read one. Put one in the bathroom, put one around, and you just read a few pages in a day. Dabney might be my favorite, Robert Dabney, I read that one recently, but now all these are taking my favorites.

Institute for Christian Religion, John Calvin, two-volume. You don't want to get the, you want to get the, let's see, Nettles, not Nettles, oh, you don't want to get the one-volume Westminster one. You want to get the two-volume, oh, I don't know, it'll pop into my mind here soon.

I just started reading Charles Hodge. I have read Ryrie's systematic theology and Burkhoff's, so they've got Culver's, a fairly new one, I haven't read that one. I know Geisler has one, but why bother for that?

So anyway, trying to read books that help you figure out the ologies as you want to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior. You want to know about Him. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14.

To think and to learn and to benefit the congregation, you have to have intelligible words. And so, I know that Christianity is more than just facts and knowing. I understand that. But it must include facts and knowing.

I think of Machen back in the 30s when he wrote an article about Christian education, Christian academics. He said these days, we're not even, we don't even care about content. We want to know about learning theories and theories on how people learn, psychological backgrounds on how they learn, what prevents them from learning psychologically, sociologically.

And we've forgotten the content. You know, that's exactly what has happened in modern evangelical churches. We've forgotten to learn the content. You've got to have, if you go back to the Trivium, you've got to have grammar, that is the data, that is the basic building block, before you can synthesize it and before you can speak it and persuade people from it.

You've got grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and so the grammar is the data. The logic is how the data goes together, and the rhetoric is how it all comes together. Then you preach it out from logic to rhetoric.

The Theology of B. B. Warfield and His Reformed Faith

So today we're talking about theology in general, but once you've got your ologies down, I think I'm going to start doing once a year, just read in my spare time, since I have so much of it. I'm going to read theologians, and so 2013 is going to be the year of B .B. Warfield, and so if you want to know what he thinks generally, you can get a great book called Theology of B .B. Warfield, a Systematic Summary by Fred Zaspel, Z-A-S-P-E-L.

By the way, you can pull up Fred Zaspel online and read his charismatic stuff. It's brilliant. It's excellent. You can write him a letter, too. I think he's rigid righteous. And so Theology of B .B. Warfield, Fred Zaspel, forward by Sinclair Ferguson, crossway book, and this gives you a good summary of what B .B. Warfield believed.

He's a little tough to read sometimes because he was smart, and he quoted from the original sources. He wasn't a lackey when it comes to his research, and so I like Zaspel, how he puts everything together.

Great book, Theology of B .B. Warfield. And just to whet your appetite out there, if you've never read anything by Warfield, there's an appendix in this book by Zaspel, which includes some writing directly from B .B. Warfield.

A Brief and Untechnical Statement of the Reformed Faith, B .B. Warfield. And I'd like to just read that to you. It has, let's see, how many points, 13 points. So, I'm going to just read you this, and you're going to be encouraged, and you're going to want to read more about Warfield because he's pointing to the one who never compromises.

One, I believe that my one aim in life and death should be to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and that God teaches me how to glorify and enjoy Him in His holy word, that is, the Bible, which He has given by the infallible inspiration of His Holy Spirit, in order that I may certainly know that I am to believe what I am to believe concerning Him and what duty He requires of me.

Number two, I believe that God is spirit, a spirit, infinite, eternal, and incomparable in all that He is, one God but three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Sanctifier, in whose power and wisdom, righteousness, goodness, and truth I may safely put my trust.

Three, I believe that the heavens and the earth and all that is in them is, and all that is, all in them is, are the work of God's hands, that's weird, and all that in them is, there it is, are the work of God's hands, and that all that He has made He directs and governs in all their actions, so that they may fulfill the end for which they were created, and I who trust in Him shall not be put to shame, but may rest securely in the protection of His almighty love.

Four, I believe that God created man after His own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and entered into a covenant of life with Him upon the sole condition of obedience that was His due, so that it was by willfully sinning against God that man fell into the sin and misery in which I have been born.

Five, I believe that being fallen in Adam, my first father, I am by nature a child of wrath under the condemnation of God and corrupted in body and soul, prone to evil and liable to eternal death, from which dreadful state I cannot be delivered save through the unmerited grace of God my Savior.

Six, I believe that God has not left the world to perish in its sin, but out of great love wherewith He has loved it, has from all eternity graciously chosen unto Himself a multitude which no man can number, to deliver them out of their sin and misery, and of them to build up again in the world His kingdom of righteousness, in which kingdom I may be assured I have my part if I hold fast to Christ the Lord.

Seven, I believe that God has redeemed His people unto Himself through Jesus Christ our Lord, who, though He was and ever continues to be the eternal Son of God, yet was born a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem them that are under the law.

I believe that He bore the penalty due to my sins in His own body on the tree, and fulfilled in His own person the obedience I owe to the righteousness of God, and now presents me to His Father as His purchased possession, to the praise of the glory of His grace forever.

Wherefore renouncing all merit of my own, I put all my trust only in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ my Redeemer. Eight, I believe that Jesus my Redeemer, who died for my offenses, was raised again for my justification, and ascended into the heavens, where He sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty, continually making intercession for His people, and governing the whole world as head over all things for His church, so that I need fear no evil, and may surely know that nothing can snatch me out of His hands, and nothing can separate me from His love.

Nine, I believe that the redemption wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ is effectually applied to all His people by the Holy Spirit, who works faith in me, and thereby unites me to Christ, renews me in the whole man after the image of God, and enables me more and more to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness, until this gracious work, having been completed in me, I shall be received into glory, in which great hope abiding, I must ever strive to perfect holiness in the fear of God.

Ten, I believe that God requires of me under the gospel, first of all, that out of a true sense of my sin and misery and apprehension of His mercy in Christ, I should turn with grief and hatred away from sin, and receive and rest upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation, that so being united to Him, I may receive pardon for my sins, and be accepted as righteous in God's sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to me, and received by faith alone, and thus and thus only do I believe I may be received into the number and have a right to all privileges of the sons of God.

Eleven, I believe that having been pardoned and accepted for Christ's sake, it is further required of me that I walk in the Spirit whom He has purchased for me, and by whom love is shed abroad in my heart, fulfilling the obedience I owe to Christ my King, faithfully performing all duties laid upon me by the holy law of God my Heavenly Father, and ever reflecting in my life and conduct the perfect example that has been set me by Christ Jesus my Leader, who has died for me and granted to me His Holy Spirit, just that I may do the good works which God has also prepared that I should walk in them.

Twelve, I believe that God has established His church in the world and endowed it with the ministry of the word and the holy ordinances of baptism, the Lord's Supper, and prayer, in order that through these as means the riches of His grace in the gospel may be made known to the world, and by the blessing of Christ and the working of His Spirit in them that by faith receive them, the benefits of redemption may be communicated to His people.

Wherefore also it is required of me that I attend on these means of grace with diligence, preparation, and prayer, so that through them I may be instructed and strengthened in faith and in holiness of life and in love, that I may use my best endeavors to carry this gospel and convey these means of grace to the whole world.

Thirteen, I never thought I'd finish, I believe that as Jesus Christ has once come in grace, so also He is to come a second time in glory to judge the world in righteousness and assign to each His eternal reward.

And I believe that if I die in Christ, my soul shall be at death made perfect in holiness and go home to the Lord. And when He shall return in His majesty, I shall be raised in glory and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity.

Encouraged by which blessed hope, it is required of me willingly to take my part in suffering hardship here as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, being assured that if I die with Him, I shall also live with Him.

If I endure, I shall also reign with Him.". And then he gives some closing words, B .B. Warfield, and B .B. Warfield writing a brief and untechnical statement of the Reformed faith. And to Him, my Redeemer, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, three persons, one God, be glory forever, world without end, amen and amen.

B .B. Warfield, Theology of Systematic Summary, a brief and untechnical statement of the Reformed faith. Three persons, one God, be forever, world without end, amen and amen.

B .B. Warfield, Theology of Systematic Summary, a brief and untechnical statement of the Reformed faith.