We cannot speak of the doctrine of the Trinity, therefore, if we study exactness of speech, as revealed in the New Testament, any more than we can speak of it as revealed in the Old Testament. The Old Testament was written before its revelation; the New Testament after it. The revelation itself was made not in word but in deed. It was made in the incarnation of God the Son, and the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit. The relation of the two Testaments to this revelation is in the one case that of preparation for it, and in the other that of product of it. The revelation itself is embodied just in Christ and the Holy Spirit. This is as much as to say that the revelation of the Trinity was incidental to, and the inevitable effect of, the accomplishment of redemption. It was in the coming of the Son of God in the likeness of sinful flesh to offer Himself a sacrifice for sin; and in the coming of the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, that the Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead was once for all revealed to men. Those who knew God the Father, who loved them and gave His own Son to die for them; and the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved them and delivered Himself up an offering and sacrifice for them; and the Spirit of Grace, who loved them and dwelt within them a power not themselves, making for righteousness, knew the Triune God and could not think or speak of God otherwise than as triune. The doctrine of the Trinity, in other words, is simply the modification wrought in the conception of the one only God by His complete revelation of Himself in the redemptive process. It necessarily waited, therefore, upon the completion of the redemptive process for its revelation, and its revelation, as necessarily, lay complete in the redemptive process. -B.B. Warfield, The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity
Category: B.B. Warfield
The Pugilist: The Old Room and the New Light
This is not an illegitimate reading of New Testament ideas back into the text of the Old Testament; it is only reading the text of the Old Testament under the illumination of the New Testament revelation. The Old Testament may be likened to a chamber richly furnished but dimly lighted; the introduction of light brings into it nothing which was not in it before; but it brings out into clearer view much of what is in it but was only dimly or even not at all perceived before. The mystery of the Trinity is not revealed in the Old Testament; but the mystery of the Trinity underlies the Old Testament revelation, and here and there almost comes into view. Thus the Old Testament revelation of God is not corrected by the fuller revelation which follows it, but only perfected, extended and enlarged. It is an old saying that what becomes patent in the New Testament was latent in the Old Testament. – B.B. Warfield, The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity
The Pugilist: On the Term “Trinity”
The term “Trinity” is not a Biblical term, and we are not using Biblical language when we define what is expressed by it as the doctrine that there is one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the same in substance but distinct in subsistence. A doctrine so defined can be spoken of as a Biblical doctrine only on the principle that the sense of Scripture is Scripture. And the definition of a Biblical doctrine in such un-Biblical language can be justified only on the principle that it is better to preserve the truth of Scripture than the words of Scripture. The doctrine of the Trinity lies in Scripture in solution; when it is crystallized from its solvent it does not cease to be Scriptural, but only comes into clearer view. Or, to speak without figure, the doctrine of the Trinity is given to us in Scripture, not in formulated definition, but in fragmentary allusions; when we assembled the disjecta membra into their organic unity, we are not passing from Scripture, but entering more thoroughly into the meaning of Scripture. We may state the doctrine in technical terms, supplied by philosophical reflection; but the doctrine stated is a genuinely Scriptural doctrine. – B.B. Warfield, The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity
The Pugilist: Christians Grow in the Dark
True Devoutness is a plant that grows best in seclusion and the darkness of the closet. -B.B. Warfield
The Pugilist: Prayer vs. Study
Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books. “What!” is the appropriate response, “than ten hours over your books, on your knees?” Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must from your books in order to turn to God? -B.B. Warfield, The Religious Life of Theological Students
The Pugilist: A Christless Cross
A Christless cross no refuge is for me;
A Crossless Christ my Savior may not be;
But, O Christ crucified! I rest in thee.– B.B. Warfield
The Pugilist: Perfectionism’s Imperfections
Perfectionism is impossible in the presence of a deep sense or a profound conception of sin. This movement proclaimed, it is true, only in attenuated perfectionism perfectionism merely of conduct. But this involved a correspondingly attenuated view of sin. – B.B. Warfield, The “Higher Life” Movement
The Pugilist: Duty and Love
Love itself, indeed, is a duty; and in loving, we fulfil our obligation. When Augustine says, “Love and do what you please,” it is with the maxim in his mind that love is the fulfillment of the law, in the sense that love is in order to duty, and instrument to the meeting of obligation. It is a fundamental mistake to set love and duty in opposition to one another, as if they were alternative principles of conduct. We cannot try a cause between the religion of love and the religion of duty as litigants — as if we were trying the cause between spontaneous and legalistic religion. Love should be dutiful and duty should be loving. What God has joined together, why should we seek to separate? If we could think of a love which is undutiful — that could not be thought of as an expression of religion; any more than a dutifulness without affection. What we are really doing is discussing the affectional and the ethical elements in religion and seeking to raise the question whether we prefer emotion or conscientiousness in religion. The only possible answer is — both. -B.B. Warfield, The Mystical Perfectionism of Thomas Upham
The Pugilist: Mysticism Too Spiritual
The Quietist’s preoccupation, in other words, was not with sin but with nature. The Protestant, whose preoccupation was with sin, did not look for the annihilation of nature, but for the eradication cf its sin. But what the Quietist sought to be delivered from was self. It was not a purified nature he sought but a superior nature. …To the Protestant when sin is gone, nature remains — the whole of nature; sin is merely an accident to nature. To the Quietist it is only when “nature” is gone that “sin” is gone; what he is thinking of chiefly when he says “sin” is that limitation of “nature” which constitutes its essential character. There is no cure for this evil but passage into the All. -B.B. Warfield, The Mystical Perfectionism of Thomas Upham
The Pugilist: Let Go of “Let Go and Let God”
Concerning “let go and let God” theology:
If the house catches on fire we must sit quietly in it and burn up: to walk out is to distrust God. If the boat sinks under us, we must not swim to shore, but fold our hands and sink – “let go and let God.” Here is a fully developed philosophy of irresponsibility. -B.B. Warfield, The Mystical Perfectionism of Thomas Upham
No Other Boast 