In a recent interview with Mark Dever, Darryl Hart suggested that Westminster (CA) students tend to be more historically focused while Westminster (PA) students tend to gravitate toward biblical theology. Hart has asked students from each school which three authors they would prefer to have if stranded on an island. The typical Westminster (CA) would prefer Calvin, Berkhof and Kline whereas Westminster (PA) students would select Vos, Ridderbos and Gaffin.
While I’m not qualified to speak about the accuracy of his statements regarding Westminster (CA), I think he makes an interesting and generally accurate observation. Clearly, this kind of statement cannot be applied to the entire student body of either institution, but as far as general trends go, I believe he’s right. If that’s the case, then we necessarily arrive at an is/ought question. Should we necessarily place a heavier emphasis on biblical theology? Is some other stress preferential or should we place equal emphasis on systematic, historical and biblical theology?
In recent years it has become increasingly common for theologians to focus their attention on the sphere in which redemption occurs. The Temple motif from the Garden of Eden to the Heavenly City–New Jerusalem–is traced out in such noteworthy works as O. Palmer Robertson’s Christ of the Prophets, and Understanding the Land of the Bible; T. Desmond Alexander’s From Paradise to the Promised Land, and From Eden to the New Jerusalem; William J. Dumbrell’s Covenant and Creation; G.K. Beale’s The Temple and the Church’s Mission, John Fesko’s Last Things First, and Meredith Kline’s Kingdom Prologue. The question that now must be asked is whether or not the work of these men can be further developed and deepened for our benefit.
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Here’s the fix for the Ridderbos junkies:
From the history of the investigation it has become evident how easily the entrance to Paul’s preaching is blocked or narrowed when one comes to place in the center and absolutize certain facets of his proclamation of salvation at the expense of others. It may undoubtedly be said to be a result of the more recent investigation that, although it has not in its own turn escaped all kinds of one-sidedness and dogmatism, it has succeeded in arriving at a broader conception of Paul’s preaching. It has no longer sought the basic motif of this preaching in one particular soteriological aspect, whether in justification by faith or in victory over the flesh through the Spirit, but, transcending all these partial viewpoints and antecedent to them, in the eschatological or redemptive-historical starting point of Paul’s proclamation. The whole content of this preaching can be summarized as the proclamation and explication of the eschatological time of salvation inaugurated with Christ’s advent, death, and resurrection. It is from this principal point of view and under this denominator that all the separate themes of Paul’s preaching can be understood and penetrated in their unity and relation to each other.1
1 Ridderbos, Herman Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 44.
