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"For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."  (Mark 10:45) "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" (John 14:6)  I've just finished reading B. B. Warfield's classic article, "Christless Christianity" (1912) available online here . This long journal article is worth the time invested in reading. Warfield's research influenced his own student, J. Gresham Machen, especially as reflected in Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923) and What Is Faith? (1925).  What makes this relevant to us today is that orthodox (by that I mean, historic) Christianity has always needed to defend the unique position of our Lord Jesus to Christian faith itself. Ever since the Enlightenment skeptics have sought to separate Jesus Christ (or the Jesus of history) from Christianity. This is done a number of ways, for example, ...

Over a century ago, Benjamin B. Warfield, principal and professor at Princeton University (then College), wrote out a "brief and untechnical statement" of personal faith.  His last paragraph (#24) was as follows:  “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 hardships 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 to Him, my Redeemer, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, Three Persons, one God, be glory forever, world without end, Amen, and Amen.”   Is this something you and I can also affirm? Image: from Warfield's grave in Princeton Cemetery. ...

And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."  And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. (Mark 10:13-16 ESV) "Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them."  (Luke 18:15 ESV)  At the turn of the previous century, B. B. Warfield, Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton, would give Sunday afternoon sermons to the students on campus.  A number of these have been collected and published in Faith and Life (Banner of Truth, 1974).  In this message on Jesus' blessing of the children (from Mark 10 and Luke 18) Warfield sought to understand just what it was about children (many of them infants) that made them sui...

I came upon some good quotes by B. B. Warfield (1851-1921) on the Word and and on faith . (The picture above is from his grave in Princeton Cemetery ).    The Bible is authoritative, for it is the Word of God; it is intelligible, for it is the word of man. Because it is the word of man in every part and element, it comes home to our hearts. Because it is the word of God in every part and element, it is our constant law and guide. When the Christian asserts his faith in the divine origin of his Bible, he does not mean to deny that it was composed and written by men or that it was given by men to the world. He believes that the marks of its human origin are ineradicably stamped on every page of the whole volume. He means to state only that it is not merely human in its origin. Why may we not believe that the God who brings his purposes to fruition in his providential government of the world, without violence to second causes or to the intelligent free agency of his creatures,...