Systematic Theology

By John Murray

Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

The task of systematic theology is to set forth in orderly and coherent manner the truth respecting God and his relations to men and the world. This truth is derived from the data of revelation, and revelation comprises all those media by which God makes himself and his will known to us men. God reveals himself in all the works of his hand with which we men have any encounter. It could not be otherwise. It was of his sovereign will that God created the universe and made us men in his image. But since creation is the product of his will and power the imprint of his glory is necessarily impressed upon his handiwork and since we are created in his image we cannot but be confronted with the display of that glory. Therefore what is called natural or general revelation comes within the scope of the data of revelation with which systematic theology deals. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). “The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the peoples have seen his glory” (Psalm 97:6). God himself is invisible, but phenomenal reality discloses what is invisible, and so “the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even his eternal power and divinity” (Rom 1:20). It is counter to the import of such passages to suppose that what the work of creation reveals is a God merely commensurate with what is finite. It is “eternal power and divinity” that are clearly seen and it is for this reason that all men are unexcusable when they fail to worship God as God in the infinite and eternal majesty made known in the things that are seen.[1] There is not only the creation externally visible; there is also the nature with which we are endowed and the work of the law written on our hearts (cf. Rom 2:15). It would be a mistake, therefore, to think that these aspects of revelation are the domain of philosophy and the sciences but not of theology. As will be noted presently, the chief source of revelation for theology is the special revelation incorporated in Holy Scripture. But the latter comes to us in the life which we live in this world and therefore in a context which is filled with the manifestation of the glory of the same God who specially reveals himself to us in his Word. It would be an abstraction to suppose that we could deal with special revelation and ignore the revelatory data with which the context of our life is replete.

It is true that natural theology has been conceived of as a department of, or as a basis for, systematic theology, to be developed independently. This would be as much an abstraction as to deal with special revelation apart from general revelation. But excessive claims for natural theology or for an independent role assigned to it should not lead us to ignore the data of natural revelation or to think that it is not the province of systematic theology to deal with them. If we take the word “natural” to designate the revelation given in the works of creation and general providence and in the constitution of our own being, then natural theology, properly conceived, would be the setting forth of the truth respecting God and his relations to men and to the world derived from these sources. It is in this light that the validity of such arguments as the cosmological and the teleological is to be maintained. To aver that they are invalid when construed as the necessary inferences to be drawn from the exhibition of God’s glory in his observable handiwork is to succumb to the unbelief which Paul indicts in Romans 1:18–20.

The principal source of revelation is Holy Scripture. Systematic theology when true to its task must regard Scripture as that which Scripture claims for itself, namely, that it is the Word of God. It is a misuse of terms to say that Scripture is the Word of God if it is not itself revelation, if it is not revelatory word addressed to us. It is necessary to take issue with Emil Brunner, for example, when he says that the Scriptures are the witness to revelation but not revelation itself, possessing “authority because they are the primary witness to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ”[2] so that “critical reflection on the adequateness or inadequateness, of the Biblical doctrinal testimony for the revelation to which it bears witness, is not eliminated”.[3] The same position is stated with more clarity by Barth when, dealing with the same question, he says: “there is a Word of God for the Church: in that it receives in the Bible the witness of divine revelation….When we examine this statement more closely, we shall do well to pay attention to the particular determination in the fact that we have to call the Bible a witness of divine revelation. We have here an undoubted limitation: we distinguish the Bible as such from revelation. A witness is not absolutely identical with that to which it witnesses.”[4] In taking issue with this position it is not maintained that to speak of the witness or testimony of the Bible is improper. There is the witness of Scripture. The point of difference is that the witness of Scripture is revelatory and that God speaks to us in the witness of Scripture and not merely through the witness of Scripture. In other words, when we speak of the witness of Scripture, we mean the witness which Scripture is as revelatory witness of God to us: it is God’s own witness to us, witness borne through the instrumentality of men but borne by such a unique mode that the witness of men is God’s own witness. “All scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim 3:16); “as borne by the Holy Spirit men spoke from God” (2 Pet 1:21).[5] This divergence in the estimate of what the Bible is is radical and it will have to be admitted that the theologies emanating from these opposing views of the witness of Scripture must be proportionately divergent.

When Scripture is viewed as revelatory and therefore as inscripturated revelation, this does not identify Scripture with God nor with Christ as the focal point of revelation. God confronts us in and with revelation and by revelation we come to know who God is and what he is. Again, Christ himself is the supreme revelation of God. He is the image of the invisible God, the effulgence of his glory and the transcript of his being (cf. Col 1:15; Heb 1:3). Scripture is not to be identified with him in this unique identity that is his. But it is apparent that we need more than the revelation which Christ is, and we can have no knowledge of, nor encounter with, the revelation that he is except through Scripture. It would be unnecessary to reflect on these matters in an essay of this kind were it not that the dialectic theology takes occasion in the discussion of this same theme to propound its view of the Bible as witness to revelation and insists upon the supremacy of the revelation in Jesus Christ himself to the prejudice of the revelatory character of Scripture as the Word of God written.[6]

When we properly weigh the proposition that the Scriptures are the deposit of special revelation, that they are the oracles of God, that in them God encounters and addresses us, discloses to us his incomprehensible majesty, summons us to the knowledge and fulfilment of his will, unveils to us the mystery of his counsel, and unfolds the purposes of his grace, then systematic theology, of all sciences and disciplines, is seen to be the most noble, not one of cold, impassioned reflection but one that stirs adoring wonder and claims the most consecrated exercise of all our powers. It is the most noble of all studies because its province is the whole counsel of God and seeks, as no other discipline, to set forth the riches of God’s revelation in the orderly and embracive manner which is its peculiar method and function. All other departments of theological discipline contribute their findings to systematic theology and it brings all the wealth of knowledge derived from these disciplines to bear upon the more inclusive systemization which it undertakes.

Special revelation as deposited in Scripture is redemptive. It not only provides us with the history of God’s redemptive accomplishments, not only does it interpret for us the meaning of these redemptive events; it is itself also an abiding and for us indispensable organ in the fulfilment of God’s redemptive will. Without it we should have no encounter with redemptive revelation and therefore no experience of redemption. Without it the blindness arising from sin would so darken our understanding that in God’s light we could not see light. This is the consideration that exposes the fallacy of attempting to interpret natural revelation in abstraction from the special revelation which the Bible provides. Natural theology is not an independent locus in systematic theology; far less is it an independent discipline.

Since special revelation is redemptive, there is another corollary of concern to systematic theology. It is that the theologian is unfitted for his undertaking unless he knows the power of the redemptive provision of which Scripture is the revelation and of the redemptive revelation that Scripture is. Without question, great contributions have been made and can be made to systematic theology by men who do not know this power. But it is a travesty for a man not knowing the power of revelation to pose as an expositor of it. This is just saying that the Scriptures cannot be properly interpreted without the illumination of the Holy Spirit nor can they be properly studied as God’s revelation apart from the sealing witness of the Spirit by whom alone we can be convinced that they are the Word of God. The person who addresses himself to the interpretation and formulation of the truth conveyed to us by revelation is destitute of the prime requisite if he is not imbued with the humility and enlightenment which the indwelling of the Holy Spirit imparts.

Systematic theology is not itself revelation nor is it an addendum to revelation that is to be placed alongside of Scripture. It is always a duty, sometimes a necessity, which the fact of revelation places upon the church of God. It is an accomplishment which has grown out of Christianity as it followed its course in history. Systematic theology has been a development within the church of God. The church of the first century did not begin with it and many factors have to be taken into account if we are to explain and vindicate this evolution of what is often called dogmatics.[7] The paramount consideration, however, is the demand residing in the fact of revelation, namely, that the Word of God requires the most exacting attention so that we as individuals and as members in the solidaric unity of the church may be able to correlate the manifold data of revelation in our understanding and the more effectively apply this knowledge to all phases of our thinking and conduct.

The fact that systematic theology is a development which arose in the course of history within the sphere of the church reminds us that it should not be thought of as the product of a theologian or series of theologians. It is true that the greatest contributions have been made by theologians. We think of Athanasius, Augustine, and Calvin. But neither these men nor their work can be understood or assessed apart from the history in the context of which they lived and wrought, particularly the history of the church. We may not underestimate the influence exerted by these men upon subsequent history. But history conditioned their work also and it is only because they occupied a certain place in history that they were able to contribute so significantly to the superstructure which we call theology. Of more relevance, however, than this obvious fact of interaction and dependence is the doctrine of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, in accordance with Christ’s promise, had led the apostles into all truth (cf. John 16:13) in a way consonant with their unique commission and function. But he has also been present in the church in all the generations of the church’s history, endowing the church in its organic unity as the body of Christ with gifts of understanding and expression. It is this ceaseless activity of the Holy Spirit that explains the development throughout the centuries of what we call Christian doctrine. Individual theologians are but the spokesmen of this accumulating understanding which the Spirit of truth has been granting to the church. Christ as head of the church must not be thought of apart from the Spirit nor the Spirit apart from Christ. Hence it is to state the same truth in terms of Christ’s presence when we say that he is walking in the midst of the churches and the angels of the churches are in his right hand. In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and from this fulness that resides in him he communicates to the church so that the church organically and corporately may increase and grow up into knowledge unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. It is this perspective that not only brings to view but also requires the progression by which systematic theology has been characterized. The history of doctrine demonstrates the progressive development and we may never think that this progression has ever reached a finale. Systematic theology is never a finished science nor is its task ever completed.

This progression does not mean that the advance has been uniformly continuous. There have been periods of theological decadence. Neither does it mean that the church as it exists in any one generation is characterized by the understanding, fidelity, zeal, or practice which its theological heritage deserves and demands. Lamentably, the professing church too often shows retrogression rather than progress and theological mission is to a large extent discarded. Instead of building upon foundations solidly laid the foundations are destroyed. “They break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers” (Psalm 74:6). But the unfaithfulness of the church in any one period or place does not suspend, far less does it make void, the constant progression which systematic theology is accorded by the oversight of the church’s Lord and the enlightenment of his Spirit. This progression is a permanent deposit in the literature of the church and even in decadent periods there is a remnant in whose appreciation and consciousness that tradition is reflected. History likewise demonstrates how, after long neglect, the deposit of the past comes, in times of theological revival, to have renewed meaning and influence. Treasures that had suffered discard and relative oblivion are rediscovered by a new generation and the truth is again verified, “other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours” (John 4:38).

There have been the periods of epochal contribution and advance. The reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is without question the most notable. It was then that the opus magnum of Christian theology was given to the church.[8] It was then that creedal formulation reached its zenith. The architectonic theologies of the protestant churches witness to the vigour and devotion with which the study of theology had been pursued. It was the golden age of precision and formulation. The theology that does not build upon these constructions or pretends to ignore them places a premium upon retrogression and dishonours the Holy Spirit by whose endowments and grace these epochal strides in understanding and presentation have been taken.

The promulgation of heresy has exercised a profound influence upon the development of theology. It has always compelled the church to examine the deposit of revelation with more care, to set forth the truth in opposition to error and right to wrong, and to awaken the faithful to greater vigilance against the inroads of unbelief. It is futile to maintain that theology should be only positive and avoid negations. If there were no sin or liability to sin there would be no negatives. If there were no error there would be no need of controversy. Revelation is realistic and is thus directed against sin. Theology must likewise be realistic and oppose error. Perhaps the most fatal error the church ever encountered was the Arian. The first ecumenical creed was the official answer of the church to that which struck at its foundation. And who that has jealousy for the biblical witness to the deity of Christ does not recognize the debt of gratitude to the fathers of Nicaea for the homoousion clause of 325 A.D.? The church’s confession had been in the balance but the Head of the church guarded the interests of his honour.

However epochal have been the advances made at certain periods and however great the contributions of particular men we may not suppose that theological construction ever reaches definitive finality. There is the danger of a stagnant traditionalism and we must be alert to this danger, on the one hand, as to that of discarding our historical moorings, on the other. Students of historical theology are acquainted with the furore which Calvin’s insistence upon the self-existence of the Son as to his deity aroused at the time of the Reformation. Calvin was too much of a student of Scripture to be content to follow the lines of what had been regarded as Nicene orthodoxy on this particular issue. He was too jealous for the implications of the homoousion clause of the Nicene creed to be willing to accede to the interpretation which the Nicene fathers, including Athanasius, placed upon another expression in the same creed, namely, “very God of very God” (θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ). No doubt this expression is repeated by orthodox people without any thought of suggesting what the evidence derived from the writings of the Nicene fathers would indicate the intent to have been. This evidence shows that the meaning intended is that the Son derived his deity from the Father and that the Son was not therefore αὐτόθεος.[9] It was precisely this position that Calvin controverted with vigour. He maintained that as respects personal distinction the Son was of the Father but as respects deity he was self-existent (ex se ipso).[10] This position ran counter to the Nicene tradition. Hence the indictments levelled against him. It is, however, to the credit of Calvin that he did not allow his own more sober thinking to be suppressed out of deference to an established pattern of thought when the latter did not commend itself by conformity to Scripture and was inimical to Christ’s divine identity. This polemic on Calvin’s part offers a prime example of the need to bring theological formulation to the test of Scripture as the only infallible norm. As it is true that ecclesia reformata reformanda est so also is it true that theologia reformata reformanda est. When any generation is content to rely upon its theological heritage and refuses to explore for itself the riches of divine revelation, then declension is already under way and heterodoxy will be the lot of the succeeding generation. The powers of darkness are never idle and in combatting error each generation must fight its own battle in exposing and correcting the same. It is light that dispels darkness and in this sphere light consists in the enrichment which each generation contributes to the stores of theological knowledge.

Much of the pleading for adaptation of the gospel to the needs of this generation is suspect. For it is too often a plea for something other than the gospel. Far more important is the reminder that each generation must be adapted to the gospel. It is true, however, that the presentation of the gospel must be pointed to the needs of each generation. So is it with theology. A theology that does not build upon the past ignores our debt to history and naively overlooks the fact that the present is conditioned by history. A theology that relies upon the past evades the demands of the present.

The progressive correction and enrichment which theology undergoes is not the exclusive task of great theologians. It often falls to the lot of students with mediocre talent to discover the oversights and correct the errors of the masters. In the orthodox tradition we may never forget that there is yet much land to be possessed, and this is both the encouragement and the challenge to students of the wonderful works of God and particularly of his inscripturated Word to understand that all should address themselves to a deeper understanding of these unsearchable treasures of revelation to the end that God’s glory may be made more fully manifest and his praises declared to all the earth.

Systematic theology is to be distinguished from the discipline that has come to be known as biblical theology. This does not mean that the latter is more biblical. It is true that systematic theology deals with the data of general revelation insofar as these data bear upon theology, and general revelation does not come within the province of biblical theology. But, since the principal source of revelation is Holy Scripture, systematic theology must be concerned to be biblical not one whit less than biblical theology. The difference is merely one of method.

Biblical theology deals with the data of special revelation from the standpoint of its history; systematic theology deals with the same in its totality as a finished product. The method of systematic theology is logical, that of biblical theology is historical. The definition of Geerhardus Vos puts this difference in focus. “Biblical Theology is that branch of Exegetical Theology which deals with the process of the self-revelation of God deposited in the Bible.”[11] The pivotal term in this definition is the word “process” as applied to God’s special self-revelation. Or, as Vos says later, when taking account of the objections to the term “biblical theology”, the name “History of Special Revelation” is to be preferred.[12]

It cannot be denied that special revelation had a history. God did not reveal himself to man in one great and all-embracive disclosure. Since we are mainly concerned with the revelation that post-dates the fall of man and also to a great extent with redemptive revelation, it is apparent that this revelation began with the protevangelium to our first parents, was expanded more and more through successive generations and ages, and accumulated progressively until it reached its climax in the coming and accomplishments of the Son of God in the fulness of the time, the consummation of the ages. Our perspective is not biblical if we do not reckon with this history and with the process and progression which it involves. And our study of special revelation would not only be too restricted but it would also be dishonouring to God if it did not follow the lines of the plan which he himself pursued in giving us this revelation.

It is necessary to appreciate the terms of the definition of biblical theology.No phase of biblical studies enlists more interest or receives more attention at the present time than biblical theology. There is a reaction against what has been considered to be the religious and theological barrenness of the product that had been so largely devoted to literary and historical criticism, and this applies particularly to Old Testament studies. In the words of Gerhard von Rad, “It is not so very long ago that a theology of the Old Testament could learn very little beyond questions of date and of this and that in matters of form from those introductory studies which were working mainly on the lines of literary criticism”.[13] But in the last twenty or thirty years there has been a marked change in “the surprising convergence—indeed the mutual intersection—which has come about…between introductory studies and Biblical Theology”.[14] Or, to state the climate in the words of G. Ernest Wright, “one of the most important tasks of the Church today is to lay hold upon a Biblically centred theology. To do so means that we must first take the faith of Israel seriously and by use of the scholarly tools at our disposal seek to understand the theology of the Old Testament. But, secondly, as Christians we must press toward a Biblical theology, in which both Testaments are held together in an organic manner.”[15] And the realization of the fact that biblical faith is something “radically different from all other faiths of mankind”, he says, “leads most Biblical scholars today to believe that far more unity exists in the Bible than was conceived fifty years ago. They are thus confident that a Biblical theology is possible which is something other than the history of the Bible’s religious evolution.”[16]

It is not the purpose of this article to review the history of the distinctive discipline known as biblical theology from the work of Johann Philipp Gabler to the present time. But it is necessary to point out the radical divergences that exist between the viewpoint reflected in the definition by Vos, given above, and some of the representative exponents of biblical theology in the last two decades.

1. The most significant works in biblical theology at the present time are based on the assumptions of the literary and historical criticism which rejects the Bible’s own representations. That is to say, the Bible is not regarded as providing us with “the actual historical course of events”. There is, therefore, a reconstruction of biblical history in accordance with what are conceived to be the insights which scholarly research has afforded us. With respect to the framework, the period of the patriarchs, the oppression in Egypt, the Exodus, the Revelation at Sinai, the Wandering in the Wilderness, the Conquest, for example, von Rad says, this was “not determined by the actual historical course of events, since that had long passed out of memory; its basis was rather a preconceived theological picture of the saving history already long established in the form of a cultic confession” and thus “even the sequence of the main events conforms already to a canonical schema of a cultic nature”.[17] This position means the rejection of the truly historical character of the Old Testament. In this resides the basic divergence by which the work concerned has forfeited its right to be called theology of the Old Testament. The alleged history which provides the framework for this Old Testament “theology” is a reconstructed history of which the Old Testament itself knows nothing. Even if this viewpoint speaks of revelation and revelatory acts, the progressive revelation posited is not the process portrayed for us in the Old Testament. Biblical theology properly conceived and unfolded must follow the lines delineated for us in the Scriptures. To the extent to which these lines are abandoned or reconstructed to that extent the theology ceases to be the biblical theology.

2. Representatives of the biblical theology being criticized show a radical divergence in respect of the unity which is indispensable to a proper view of revelation. In Sigmund Mowinckel’s esteem, for example, “the Old Testament is not a homogeneous entity”, “between ‘the Law’ and ‘the Prophets’ there is a huge cleft, an essential difference” so that the Old Testament “bears the clear marks of a diverse human history with many cross-current lines”.[18] There is indeed the diversity and multiformity which accumulating divine self-disclosure involves. All of this belongs to the term “process”. But to confuse diversity with heterogeneity is to relinquish the basic premise of biblical theology.

3. The almost exclusive emphasis upon revelatory deeds betokens a distinct deflection from the biblical witness. Again Mowinckel is representative. “This idea of God as the God of history, and of history as the place of revelation, also clearly shows what the Bible means by revelation. It is not communication of knowledge, theoretical truths from and about God. Yes, it is too, but only secondarily and derivatively. Primarily and essentially revelation is deed; it is God’s work of creating anew and of creating the future that is his revelation.”[19] “As has been mentioned already, for the Old Testament, God’s word is not utterances, not verbal expressions of ideas, concepts, and thoughts, but deed.”[20] With a total thrust that is more congenial G. Ernest Wright is perhaps the most pronounced advocate of this thesis. “Biblical theology is the confessional recital of the redemptive acts of God in a particular history, because history is the chief medium of revelation.”[21] “Biblical theology is first and foremost a theology of recital.”[22]

It is to be appreciated that Wright does not overlook the fact that God reveals himself in words.[23] Furthermore, many of the insights and emphases in Wright’s eloquent monograph are not only worthy of endorsement but are to be highly prized as contributions to Old Testament study.

It is not to be disputed that acts are central in God’s redemptive accomplishment and that the cardinal message of the gospel is the proclamation of what God has done. Believing confession in both Testaments reflects these features. But the type of concentration upon acts as the media of revelation, exemplified in the biblical theology of the present, is subject to criticism for three reasons in particular. (a) Deeds are of themselves mute for us unless they are accompanied by word revelation respecting their significance.[24] This principle applies in a great variety of respects. If the acts are God’s acts, they can only be understood for what they are in the context of knowledge respecting God, respecting his relation to the world in which the acts occur, and his relation to those who are the beneficiaries of these redemptive deeds. In a word, the interpretation of their meaning involves a concept of God derived from other revelatory data. Further, if they are acts of grace, the grace must be related to needs which make this grace relevant. Thus there are implications involved in the term “deeds” which presuppose an understanding which the deeds themselves do not impart and the same applies to the confession respecting these deeds. (b) The concentration upon deeds is prejudicial to what occupies so large a place in the Scripture, namely, the verbal communication of truth respecting God and his will for man.[25] It is apparent that the reconstruction of Old Testament history adopted by the biblical theology in question goes hand in hand with the rejection of the authenticity of the Old Testament witness to this verbal communication. And the way in which biblical theology is distorted is due to a large extent to the suppression of this feature of the Old Testament itself. Again, this biblical theology is not a transcript of the Old Testament but of hypotheses which are alien to its representations. (c) The suppression of the revelatory word tends to discard or at least overlook the place which the communication of truth occupies in redemptive accomplishment. Redemption is the redemption of men in the whole compass of personality and in the whole realm of their relationships. Indispensable, therefore, is the enlightenment of the mind. How can redemption be effective in the whole range of personal life without the correction which truth conveyed imparts and the enlightenment which truth sheds abroad in heart and mind? The Bible in both Testaments is true to this need. It is true to this requirement because it is realistic, and the emphasis upon deeds to the suppression or neglect of verbal communication has come by a discount of the Bible’s realism, a fallacy into which even orthodox apologetic has sometimes fallen when it says that Jesus came not to preach the gospel but that there might be a gospel to preach. Jesus came to do both.

4. The biblical theology representative of recent decades, in reconstructing biblical history, has deprived biblical theology of its foundations. Apart from the truncated and revised version of Mosaic and post-Mosaic history, of the Sinai transactions, of the wilderness journeys, of the conquest of Canaan, and of the events closely interrelated, it is characteristic to question, if not to deny, the authenticity of the patriarchal history as set forth in Genesis. Th. C. Vriezen, for example, “takes the historical line to begin with Moses, not because”, as he himself affirms, “he denies the possibility of a pre-Mosaic revelation to Abraham, but because, in his opinion, a scholarly historical approach is possible to a certain extent with respect to Moses but not with respect to Abraham”.[26] And Walther Eichrodt, who rightly attaches primacy to the covenant relationship, does not go back farther than Mosaic times to find this covenant concept.[27] The covenantal institution is basic to any construction of redemptive history and revelation. The Exodus cannot be biblically interpreted unless it is recognized to be in fulfilment of the patriarchal covenant (cf. Exod 2:24, 25; 3:6–17). The Sinaitic covenant must be understood as an appendage to and extension of the Abrahamic (cf. Gal 3:17–22). And the coming of Christ is in pursuance of the same (cf. Luke 1:72, 73). Christ is the seed in whom all the families of the earth are blessed (cf. Gen 22:18; Acts 3:25; Gal 3:8, 9, 16). It should be apparent how indispensable to biblical theology is the covenant concept and how far removed from the biblical data our theology must be if it is not oriented to the successive unfoldings of covenant grace and relationship. But the main interest of our present discussion is that the covenant history with which the Bible furnishes us is bereft of its foundation unless we go back to the origin of this history in the covenants made with Abraham (Gen 15:8–21; 17:1–21). The theology which can dispense with this central feature of patriarchal history is not biblical theology.[28]

When biblical theology is conceived of as dealing with “the process of the self-revelation of God deposited in the Bible”, it must be understood that this specialized study of the Bible, so far from being inimical to the interests of systematic theology is indispensable to the systematic theology that is faithful to the Bible. In some cases the present-day interest in biblical theology springs from or at least is related to an antipathy to systematics or, as it is sometimes called, dogmatics. The latter is charged with being abstract and philosophical and, therefore, devoid of the dynamic realism and force which ought to characterize any reproduction of the Bible’s witness. This charge is not to be dismissed as without any ground or warrant. Systematic theologies have too often betrayed a cold formalism that has been prejudicial to their proper aim and have not for that reason and to that extent promoted encounter with the living Word of the living God. But two observations require to be made with reference to this charge and to the corresponding admission. First, there are certain phases of the truth with which systematic theology must deal and certain polemics which it must conduct that call for the type of treatment which to many people seems cold and formal. The painstaking analysis and exacting research which the pursuit of a faithful dogmatics requires must not be abandoned because some people have no interest in or patience with such studies. This would mean that areas of investigation necessary to the wide range of the theologian’s mandate would be abandoned to the enemy. We must appreciate how diversified are the tasks and interests that come within the orbit of systematic theology. A biblical scholar’s product may have to be sometimes as dry as dust. But dust has its place, especially when it is gold dust. Second, the charge, insofar as it is warranted, is not the fault of systematic theology but of the theologian or of the milieu of which his product is the reflection. Systematic theology by its nature must have its logical divisions.[29] Not all theologies have the same sequence or the same structural schematism. But if we think of theology, anthropology, and soteriology, it is difficult to comprehend how any one sensitive to the governing message of Scripture can take exception to the exhibition of this message under such subdivisions as these exemplify. It is true, as Calvin reminded us at the beginning of his Institutio, that we cannot think properly of ourselves without thinking of God and we cannot think properly of God without also thinking of ourselves. But theology is teaching, exposition, communication, and it so happens that we cannot say everything all at once nor can we think of everything that needs to be thought of God and of ourselves all at once. The observation all-important for the present is that there is nothing inherent in a logical mode of treatment that hinders, far less prevents, sustained confrontation with the living Word of the living God. Systematic structure is the application to the totality of revelation of the same method as the science of homiletics applies to the exposition of particular passages of Scripture.

Biblical theology is indispensable to systematic theology. This proposition requires clarification. The main source of revelation is the Bible. Hence exposition of the Scripture is basic to systematic theology. Its task is not simply the exposition of particular passages. That is the task of exegesis. Systematics must coordinate the teaching of particular passages and systematize this teaching under the appropriate topics. There is thus a synthesis that belongs to systematics that does not belong to exegesis as such.[30] But to the extent to which systematic theology synthesizes the teaching of Scripture, and this is its main purpose, it is apparent how dependent it is upon the science of exegesis. It cannot coordinate and relate the teaching of particular passages without knowing what that teaching is. So exegesis is basic to its objective. This needs to be emphasized. Systematic theology has gravely suffered, indeed has deserted its vocation, when it has been divorced from meticulous attention to biblical exegesis. This is one reason why the charge mentioned above has so much to yield support to the indictment. Systematics becomes lifeless and fails in its mandate just to the extent to which it has become detached from exegesis. And the guarantee against a stereotyped dogmatics is that systematic theology be constantly enriched, deepened, and expanded by the treasures increasingly drawn from the Word of God. Exegesis keeps systematics not only in direct contact with the Word but it ever imparts to systematics the power which is derived from that Word. The Word is living and powerful.

What then of biblical theology? What function does it perform in this process? Biblical theology recognizes that special revelation did not come from God in one mass at one particular time. Special revelation came by process. It came progressively in history throughout ages and generations. Mankind has never lacked special revelation. Man’s life had been regulated from the outset by specially revealed ordinances and commandments. When our first parents had fallen from their original integrity, special revelation with redemptive import supervened upon their sin and misery to inspire faith and regulate life in the new context which their sin had created. Thus began the process of redemptive revelation to the progressive unfolding of which the Bible bears witness. This process was not, however, one of uniform progression. The Bible does not provide us with a complete history of special revelation (cf. John 20:30, 31; 21:25). But we must believe that the pattern found in the Scripture reflects the pattern followed in the history of revelation as a whole. This pattern which Scripture discloses shows that special revelation and the redemptive accomplishments correlative with it have their marked epochs. It is undeniable that the flood and the institutions related thereto, the Abrahamic revelations, the Exodus from Egypt, the Davidic period, the coming of Christ mark outstanding epochs in the history of revelation. The science concerned with the history of special revelation must take account of this epochal character and it would be an artificial biblical theology that did not adhere to the lines which this epochal feature prescribes. Redemption, as Geerhardus Vos observes, “does not proceed with uniform motion, but rather is ‘epochal’ in its onward stride. We can observe that where great epoch-making redemptive acts accumulate, there the movement of revelation is correspondingly accelerated and its volume increased.”[31] The divisions which biblical theology recognizes and in terms of which it conducts its study are not, therefore, arbitrary but are demanded by the characteristics of redemptive and revelation history. The Bible is itself conscious of the distinct periods into which the history of revelation falls. Although there could be more detailed subdivision within certain periods, it could not be contested that the Bible itself marks off the distinguishing character and momentous significance of the creation of man, the fall of man, the flood, the call of Abraham, the Exodus, the advent of Christ. Hence the periods, the creation to the fall, the fall to the flood, the flood to the call of Abraham, the call of Abraham to the Exodus, and the Exodus to Christ[32] are so well-defined that this structure must be adhered to in the discipline, biblical theology.

If biblical theology deals with the history of revelation it must follow the progression which this history dictates. This is to say it must study the data of revelation given in each period in terms of the stage to which God’s self-revelation progressed at that particular time. To be concrete, we may not import into one period the data of revelation which belong to a later period. When we do this we violate the conditions which define the distinctiveness of this study.[33] And not only so. We do violence to revelation itself because the history of revelation and the progressiveness which characterized it belong to the activity of God by which revelation has come to us, and the error is not merely a violation of the science of biblical theology but a distortion of the history which must ever be borne in mind and prized as that apart from which redemptive revelation does not exist.

This is a subject worthy of considerable expansion. But, in relation to our present interest, it is this principle that bears directly upon exegesis. Exegesis is the interpretation of particular passages. This is just to say the interpretation of particular revelatory data. But these revelatory data occur within a particular period of revelation and the principle which guides biblical theology must also be applied in exegesis. Thus biblical theology is regulative of exegesis.

Systematic theology is tied to exegesis. It coordinates and synthesizes the whole witness of Scripture on the various topics with which it deals. But systematic theology will fail of its task to the extent to which it discards its rootage in biblical theology as properly conceived and developed. It might seem that an undue limitation is placed upon systematic theology by requiring that the exegesis with which it is so intimately concerned should be regulated by the principle of biblical theology. And it might seem to be contrary to the canon so important to both exegesis and systematics, namely, the analogy of Scripture. These appearances do not correspond to reality. The fact is that only when systematic theology is rooted in biblical theology does it exemplify its true function and achieve its purpose. Two respects in which this is illustrated may be mentioned.

1. Systematic theology deals with special revelation as a finished product incorporated for us in Holy Scripture. But special revelation in its totality is never properly conceived of apart from the history by which it became a finished product. As we think of, study, appreciate, appropriate, and apply the revelation put in our possession by inscripturation, we do not properly engage in any of these exercises except as the panorama of God’s movements in history comes within our vision or at least forms the background of our thought. In other words, redemptive and revelatory history conditions our thought at every point or stage of our study of Scripture revelation. Therefore, what is the special interest of biblical theology is never divorced from our thought when we study any part of Scripture and seek to bring its treasures of truth to bear upon the synthesis which systematic theology aims to accomplish. Furthermore, the tendency to abstraction which ever lurks for systematic theology is hereby counteracted. The various data are interpreted not only in their scriptural context but also in their historical context and therefore, as Vos says, “in the milieu of the historical life of a people”[34] because God has caused his revelation to be given in that milieu.

2. Perhaps the greatest enrichment of systematic theology, when it is oriented to biblical theology, is the perspective that is gained for the unity and continuity of special revelation. Orthodox systematic theology rests on the premise of the unity of Scripture, the consent of all its parts. It is this unity that makes valid the hermeneutical principle, the analogy of Scripture. A systematic theology that is faithful to this attribute of Scripture and seeks earnestly to apply it cannot totally fail of its function. But when systematic theology is consciously undertaken with the claims and results of biblical theology in view, then the perspective gained is more than that merely of unity. It is the unity of a growing organism that attains its fruition in the New Testament and in the everlasting covenant ratified and sealed by the blood of Christ. Revelation is seen to be an organism and the discrete parts, or preferably phases, are perceived to be not sporadic, unrelated, and disjointed oracles, far less heterogeneous and contradictory elements, but the multiform aspects of God’s intervention and self-disclosure, organically knit together and compacted, expressive not only of his marvellous grace but of the order which supreme wisdom designed. Thus the various passages drawn from the whole compass of Scripture and woven into the texture of systematic theology are not cited as mere proof texts or wrested from the scriptural and historical context to which they belong but, understood in a way appropriate to the place they occupy in this unfolding process, are applied with that particular relevance to the topic under consideration. Texts will not thus be forced to bear a meaning they do not possess nor forced into a service they cannot perform. But in the locus to which they belong and by the import they do possess they will contribute to the sum-total of revelatory evidence by which biblical doctrine is established. We may never forget that systematic theology is the arrangement under appropriate divisions of the total witness of revelation to the truth respecting God and his relations to us men and to the world. Since the Bible is the principal source of revelation and since the Bible is the Word of God, systematics is the discipline which more than any other aims to confront us men with God’s own witness so that in its totality it may make that impact upon our hearts and minds by which we shall be conformed to his image in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness of the truth.

Notes

1. Cf. Herman Bavinck: Our Reasonable Faith, Grand Rapids, 1956, pp. 40f.
2. The Christian Doctrine of God, Dogmatics, Vol. I, Philadelphia, 1950, p. 45.
3. Ibid., p. 49.
4. Church Dogmatics I/2, Edinburgh, 1956, p. 463.
5. It is unnecessary to expound and defend the implications of these texts and the doctrine of Scripture here propounded. This has been done in numerous monographs in the last three decades as well as in older works.
6. Cf. Emil Brunner: op. cit., pp. 47, 49.
7. These factors are well summarized by Brunner in op. cit., pp. 9ff.
8. The reference is to the definitive edition of Calvin’s Christianae Religionis Institutio.
9. Cf., for example, Athanasius’ Expositio Fidei where it is clearly stated that the Father has being from himself (τὸν ἔχοντα αφ' ἑαυτοῦ τὸ εἶναι)whereas the Son derives his Godhood from the Father (οὔτως ἡ ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς εἰς τὸν ῾Υιὸν θεότης ἀρρεύστως καὶ ἀδιαιρέτως τυγχάνει). See also his De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi §§ 3 and 19.
10. Cf. Inst. I, xiii, 19–29.
11. Biblical Theology. Old and New Testaments, Grand Rapids, 1948, p. 13.
12. Ibid., p. 23; cf. also G. F. Oehler: Theology of the Old Testament, E.T., Edinburgh, 1874, Vol. I, pp. 7, 8, 20, 22.
13. Old Testament Theology, E.T., New York, 1962, Vol. I, p. v. Walther Eichrodt is more emphatic and says: “It is high time that the tyranny of historicism in OT studies was broken and the proper approach to our task re-discovered” (Theology of the Old Testament, E.T., Philadelphia, 1961, Vol. I, p. 31).
14. von Rad: idem.
15. God Who Acts. Biblical Theology as Recital, London, 1952, pp. 29f.
16. Ibid., p. 35.
17. Op. cit., pp. 4f. Cf. also Sigmund Mowinckel: The Old Testament as Word of God, E.T., New York, 1959, pp. 13, 15.
18. Ibid., pp. 16, 17, 19. Cf. also von Rad: op. cit., pp. 6, 7, 8, 16.
19. Op. cit., p. 39.
20. Ibid., p. 42.
21. Op. cit., p. 13.
22. Ibid., p. 28; cf. also pp. 38, 55, 59.
23. Cf. ibid., pp. 23, 83, 103.
24. It is not that G. Ernest Wright, for example, is oblivious of this fact. “By means of human agents”, he says, “God provides each event with an accompanying Word of interpretation, so that the latter is an integral part of the former” (ibid., p. 84). “To confess God is to tell a story and then to expound its meaning” (ibid., p. 85). It is that Wright and the other scholars concerned lay such emphasis upon revelation as consisting in “acts” and on theology as recital that verbal communication is not accorded its place and as a result the concept of revelation is distorted. Cf. the succeeding footnote.
25. James Barr, writing from a different theological standpoint from that of the present writer, has effectively drawn attention to this same feature of the biblical representation. In The Princeton Seminary Bulletin for May 1963 under the title, “Revelation through History in the Old Testament and in Modern Theology” he sets forth some of the most cogent considerations in criticism of the viewpoint under consideration. Barr does not deny revelation through historical divine action but “that it can be the principal organizing conceptual bracket which we use to view the material as a whole and to identify the common and essential features within its variety” (p. 8). With respect to the Exodus events and the texts bearing upon them these texts, he says, “far from representing the divine acts as the basis of all knowledge of God and all communication with him, they represent God as communicating freely with men, and particularly with Moses, before, during and after these events” (p. 7). Thus there are, he contends, other axes than that of “acts” and the one he has particularly in mind is that of “direct verbal communication between God and particular men on particular occasions” (p. 11).
26. An Outline of Old Testament Theology, E.T., Oxford, 1958, p. 16, n.1; cf. p. 30.
27. Op. cit., p. 36. Wright makes summary mention of “the call of the Patriarchal fathers” (op. cit., p. 76) as central in confessional recital, but the Abrahamic covenant does not give direction to his presentation of this recital.
28. The significance of the Noahic covenants, pre-diluvian and post-diluvian, is not to be depreciated. They furnish us with the covenantal concept basic to all subsequent covenantal disclosures. But in terms of redemptive revelation we are bereft of the foundation of all subsequent disclosure if we fail to take full account of the Abrahamic covenants.
29. It is of interest that two recent noteworthy titles: Ludwig KÖhler: Old Testament Theology, E.T., Philadelphia, 1957; Millar Burrows: An Outline of Biblical Theology adopt the method of topical presentation. It may not be legitimate to question the right of a scholar to choose his own title. But Burrows’ work is not “biblical theology” in the generally accepted use of the title. It is rather a systematic theology. And Ludwig KÖhler does not follow the historico-genetic method of delineation.
30. The principle known as the analogy of Scripture is indispensable to exegesis for “the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself”. But the analogy of Scripture is not to be equated with the synthesis which is the specific task of systematic theology.
31. Op. cit., p. 16.
32. The period from the Exodus to Christ would obviously require subdivision. But there is also good reason for recognizing a unity corresponding to that of the other periods. The New Testament era is, of course, the consummatory era in this structure. Redemption and revelation will be resumed at Christ’s second coming. But the new revelatory acts associated with the second advent do not come within the province of biblical theology.
33. There are several questions that arise in connection with this principle. It is not the purpose of this article to discuss these. Suffice it to say that the abuses must be avoided. We are not prevented thereby from using the data of later periods of revelation in determining the precise import and purport of earlier data, their import and purport, however, in the precise context in which they were given. And we are certainly not to overlook the witness borne by the New Testament, for example, to the intent and scope of Old Testament data. We may not accede to the tendency so common to underestimate the richness of Old Testament revelation, the vigour of the faith of Old Testament saints, or the relevance of its institutions. We should also keep in view the distinction that must be maintained in certain instances between the revelation given in particular periods and the inscripturation of that revelation. This is specially important in the pre-Mosaic periods. It is inscripturation that provides us with the data and assures us of their authenticity. Furthermore, inscripturation is a mode of revelation and so with inscripturation there are revelatory data that belong only to the inscripturation itself. Inscripturation does not merely provide us with a record of revelations previously given by other modes; Scripture is itself revelation.
34. Op. cit., p. 17.