Digital Logos Edition
"Who do you say that I am?" asked Jesus of his disciples. The question, says Warfield, is also worth asking of modernist skeptics, who assail the deity of Christ, strip the Gospel from the person of Jesus, domesticate the work of God, and unwittingly create a Christless Christianity. Warfield has little tolerance for modernist, deist, and pragmatist conceptions of Christ, and aims to reaffirm the position of the second person of the Trinity. Warfield begins with a comprehensive survey of Jesus in the Old Testament—present at creation, in the promises to the patriarchs, and in the words of the prophets. He also notes Jesus’ own words about himself in the New Testament, along with the early church’s conception of his humanity and deity. Warfield also tackles historical heresies about Jesus and warns of their tendency to periodically reappear in orthodox Christianity. Christology fittingly articulates a biblical and historical theology of the second person of the Trinity.
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was born in 1851 in Lexington, Kentucky. He studied mathematics and science at Princeton University and graduated in 1871. In 1873, he decided to enroll at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was taught by Charles Hodge. He graduated from seminary in 1876, and was married shortly thereafter. He traveled to Germany later that year to study under Franz Delitazsch.
After returning to America, Warfield taught at Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). In 1881, Warfield co-wrote an article with A. A. Hodge on the inspiration of Scripture—a subject which dominated his scholarly pursuits throughout the remainder of his lifetime. When A. A. Hodge died in 1887, Warfield became professor of Theology at Princeton, where he taught from 1887–1921. History remembers Warfield as one of the last great Princeton Theologians prior to the seminary’s re-organization and the split in the Presbyterian Church. B. B. Warfield died in 1921.
“It is quite clear, at the outset, that the writers of the New Testament and Christ Himself understood the Old Testament to recognize and to teach that the Messiah was to be of divine nature.” (Page 4)
“In the history of Christian doctrine the conviction of the Deity of Christ was the condition, not the result, of the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.” (Pages 3–4)
“The significance of this revolt becomes at once apparent, when we reflect that the doctrine of the Two Natures is only another way of stating the doctrine of the Incarnation; and the doctrine of the Incarnation is the hinge on which the Christian system turns. No Two Natures, no Incarnation; no Incarnation, no Christianity in any distinctive sense. Nevertheless, voices are raised all about us declaring the conception of two natures in Christ no longer admissible; and that very often with full appreciation of the significance of the declaration.” (Page 259)
“These great names of ‘God’ and ‘Lord’ are apparently not adduced as new names, additional to that of ‘Son,’ but as explications of the contents of that one ‘more excellent name’; and thus we are advised of the loftiness of the name of ‘Son’ in the mind of this writer.” (Page 5)
“The question whether the Old Testament has any testimony to give as to the Deity of our Lord, when strictly taken, resolves itself into the question whether the Old Testament holds out the promise of a Divine Messiah.” (Page 3)