Perhaps
the clearest way to indicate the positive truths affirmed by both Keswick and
its critics is to examine the doctrine of sanctification confessed by that
staunch advocate of the theology and revivalistic
piety of Old Princeton and inveterate opponent of Keswick, B. B. Warfield. Truths confessed by both Keswick and by
Warfield can by no means be labeled Keswick distinctives, but would evidently
be the common inheritance of classic evangelical spirituality. The tendency of Keswick apologists to create orthodox
friends of their theology in a historically inaccurate way
probably makes Warfield the best choice to illustrate non-Keswick evangelical
piety. Higher Life apologists could
claim that writers who lived before the origination of the Convention and
advocated classically orthodox piety were actually Keswick antecedents simply
because of their advocacy of Biblical truths such as living by faith and
dependence on the Holy Spirit.
Similarly, men who lived after the origin of the Keswick Convention
could be labeled by Higher Life apologists as Keswick advocates who simply did
not recognize what they were affirming. However, it is most doubtful that any Keswick
writer would wish to affirm that B. B. Warfield was truly a defender of Higher
Life truth, just in disguise. His
writings, therefore, provide a safe avenue for a determination of what is
involved in evangelical non-Keswick piety.
Warfield,
receiving the truth common to old evangelicalism, emphasized the need to depend
on the Christ and the Holy Spirit for strength in sanctification, rather than
being self-dependent. Indeed, he recognized
such dependence was the very essence of religion: “[The] attitude of trust and
dependence on God is just the very essence of religion. In proportion as any
sense of self-sufficiency or any dependence on self enters the heart, in that
proportion religion is driven from it.”[4] The “central truth of complete dependence
upon the free mercy of a saving God,” Warfield affirmed, “is an absolutely
essential element in evangelical religion” which “underl[ies] and g[ives] its
form and power to the whole . . . movement” and is key to “a great revival of
religion.”[5] Warfield recognizes that confusing Christian
holiness with mere “righteous conduct and of self-sanctification or moral
character-formation,” so that “the individual Christian sanctifies himself,”[6]
is part of a view of God, sin, and salvation that is a “profoundly immoral
doctrine.”[7] The believer must not rely upon his own works
for either justification or sanctification.
Teaching these truths, Warfield approvingly
cited the “the words of the revival hymn” calling men to “‘cast our
deadly doing down’ and make our appeal on the sole score of sheer helplessness
. . . [rejecting] . . . self-dependence and [the] power of self-help.”[8] He states
that the “very cor cordis of the
Gospel” is expressed in the words of the hymn:
Nothing either great or small,
Nothing, sinner, no;
Jesus did it, did it all,
Long, long, ago. . . .
Doing is a deadly thing,
Doing ends in death . . .
Cast your deadly doing down,
Down at Jesus’ feet,
Stand in Him, in Him alone,
Gloriously complete.[9]
Consequently, helpless dependence on the perfectly
sufficient Christ is the attitude of the Christian:
[The] characteristic . . . [of] the children of the
Kingdom . . . [is to] lay happy and thoughtless . . .
in Jesus’ own arms. Their characteristic was just helpless dependence; complete
dependence upon the care of those whose care for them was necessary. . . .
[T]he Kingdom of heaven is made up of those who are helplessly dependent on the
King of the Heavens . . . [like] infants who are to be done for, who can not do
for themselves.[10]
Warfield stated:
[The] evangelical quality of all really evangelical
faith [is found in] . . . whoever recognizes in the recesses of his soul his
utter dependence on God; whoever in all his thought of salvation hears in his
heart of hearts the echo of the soli Deo
gloria of the evangelical profession . . . these fundamental
principles—which underlie and give its body to all true religion—[ought] to
work themselves freely and fully out in thought and feeling and action.[11]
Warfield explained elsewhere that this utter dependence on
the Holy Spirit is characteristic of the Christian piety of all Bible-believing
Protestant denominations:
The evangelical note is formally sounded by the
entirety of organized Protestantism. That is to say, all the great Protestant
bodies, in their formal official confessions, agree in confessing the utter
dependence of sinful man upon the grace of God alone for salvation, and in
conceiving this dependence as immediate and direct upon the Holy Spirit, acting
as a person and operating directly on the heart of the sinner. It is this
evangelical note which determines the peculiarity of the piety of the
Protestant Churches. The characteristic feature of this piety is a profound
consciousness of intimate personal communion with God the Saviour, on whom the
soul rests with immediate love and trust.[12]
Every single spiritual good comes
from the Holy Spirit, Warfield taught, and Biblical religion necessitates utter
dependence on Him. Possession of the
Spirit is the highest glory of the believer:
[T]he
Spirit of God is the author of all right belief and of all good conduct,—to
assure us that then, too, on Him depended all the exercises of piety, to Him
was due all the holy aspirations and all the good accomplishments of every
saint of God. And certainly the New Testament tells us in repeated instances
that the Holy Spirit was active throughout the period of the Old Dispensation,
in all the varieties of activities which characterize the New. The difference
between the two lies not in any difference in the utter dependence of men on
Him[.] . . . Paul . . . is full of joy . . . to have . . . God’s Holy Spirit .
. . working faith in him[.] . . . He
claims no superiority [to other believers] in the matter. If he has a like
faith, it is because he is made by God’s grace to share in a like fountain of
faith. The one Spirit who works faith is the common possession of them and of
him; and therein he finds his highest privilege and his greatest glory. . . .
[T]he operations of the Spirit . . . Paul represents as the height of Christian
privilege to possess.[13]
Warfield unabashedly identified himself with those in the
history of doctrine who were the champions of the grace of God. He labeled self-dependent moralism the very
antithesis of Biblical Christianity:
[The] entire system . . . [of the] champion[s] of
grace . . . revolved around the assertion of grace as the sole source of all
good in man as truly and as completely as did that of Pelagius around the
assertion of the plenary ability of the unaided will to work all righteousness.
. . . [W]e are aided by the grace of God, through Christ, not only to know but
also to do what is right, in each single act, so that without grace we are
unable to have, think, speak, or do anything pertaining to piety[.] The
opposition between the two systems was thus absolute. In the one, everything
was attributed to man; in the other, everything was ascribed to God. In them,
two religions, the only two possible religions at bottom, met in mortal combat:
the religion of faith and the religion of works; the religion which despairs of
self and casts all its hope on God the Saviour, and the religion which puts
complete trust in self; or since religion is in its very nature utter dependence
on God, religion in the purity of its conception and a mere quasi-religious
moralism.[14]
Clearly, rejection of
self-dependence, a recognition of the need to trust in the Lord Jesus and the
power of the Holy Spirit for strength to live the Christian life, and a
rejection of sanctification sourced in the believer’s works, are by no means
Keswick distinctives.
Warfield
taught that the essence of Christianity is that “all [is] of God and nothing of
ourselves”—God’s unmerited love gives His people all. Since “the
Christian life as a life” is one “of continuous dissatisfaction with self and
of continuous looking afresh to Christ as the ground of all our hope,”[15] believers must always look to the Lord Jesus and depend on
Him for grace:
We may rightly bewail our coldness: we may
rightly blame ourselves that there is so little response in our hearts to the
sight of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, or even to the
manifestation of His unspeakable love in the death of His Son. Oh, wretched men
that we are to see that bleeding love and not be set on fire with a flame of
devotion! But we may be all the more thankful that it is not in our frames and
feelings that we are to put our trust. Let us abase ourselves that we so little
respond to these great spectacles of the everlasting and unspeakable love of
God. But let us ever remember that it is on the love of God and not on our
appreciation of it that we are to build our confidence. Jesus our Priest and
our Sacrifice, let us keep our eyes set on Him! And though our poor sinful
hearts so little know how to yield to that great spectacle the homage of a
suitable response, His blood will yet avail even for us.
“Nothing in my
hand I bring,
Simply to Thy
cross I cling”—
here—and let us bless God for it—here is
the essence of Christianity. It is all of God and nothing of ourselves.[16]
Through the “gospel the
eye is withdrawn from self and the face turned upward in loving gratitude to
God, the great giver [in a] . . . continual sense of humble dependence on God
and of loving trust in Him.”[17] Warfield noted the
teaching of Scripture that, in the workings of the Lord towards His people, “[a]t
every step it is God, and God alone, to whom is ascribed the initiative; and
the most extreme care is taken to preserve the recipients of the blessings
consequent on His choice from fancying that these blessings come as their due,
or as reward for aught done by themselves, or to be found in themselves.”[18] Nothing was the
product of the believer’s own strength; thus, Warfield could encourage believers:
Faint not! It is not your own strength—or rather
weakness—that is . . . in question; it is the power of Almighty God. . . . It
was of His own purpose that He called you; the grace that has come to you was
given you from all eternity. . . . It is this Almighty God who is using you as
His instrument and organ. Nothing depends on your weakness; all hangs on His
strength.[19]
Since every aspect of salvation
was sourced in God alone, Warfield passionately warned of the dangers of
self-sufficiency and called upon men to live by faith and to surrender
themselves entirely to the Lord:
The very point of this passage [Habbakuk 2:4] is the
sharp contrast which is drawn between arrogant self-sufficiency and faithful
dependence on God . . . [I]t is by faith that the righteous man lives . . . the
righteous appear . . . as men who look in faith to God and trustingly depend
upon His arm. . . . Here we have, therefore, thrown into a clear light the
contrasting characteristics of the wicked, typified by the Chaldæan, and of the
righteous: of the one, the fundamental trait is self-sufficiency; of the other,
faith. This faith, which forms the distinctive feature of the righteous man,
and by which he obtains life . . . is a profound and abiding disposition, an
ingrained attitude of mind and heart towards God which affects and gives
character to all the activities.[20]
Indeed, “[T]he very core
of Old Testament religion . . . [is] entire self-commitment to God [and] humble
dependence on Him for all blessings,” so “[s]elf-sufficiency
is the characteristic mark of the wicked . . . while the mark of the righteous
is that he lives by his faith (Hab. 2:4).”[21] Warfield wrote that trusting in God and
rejecting self-dependence was not just the very core of Old Testament true
religion, but of all true religion in any dispensation whatever: “Now this attitude of trust and dependence on
God is just the very essence of religion. In proportion as any sense of
self-sufficiency or any dependence on self enters the heart, in that proportion
religion is driven from it.”[22] Consequently, Warfield extolled those in
church history he understood as recognizing that the essence of true religion
is dependence on God, despair of any confidence in themselves, and rejection of
mere religious moralism. Such an
understanding is key to being filled with love and joy in believing:
Self-despair, humble trust, grateful love, fullness of
joy—these are the steps on which his own soul climbed upward: and these steps gave their whole
color and form both to his piety and to his teaching. In his doctrine we see
his experience of God’s seeking and saving love toward a lost sinner expressing
itself in propositional form; in his piety we see his conviction that the sole
hope of the sinner lies in the free grace of a loving God expressing itself in
the forms of feeling. In doctrine and life alike he sets before us in that
effective way which belongs to the discoverer, the religion of faith as over
against the religion of works—the religion which despairing of self casts all
its hope on God as over against the religion that to a greater or less degree
trusts in itself: in a word, since religion in its very nature is dependence on
God, religion in the purity of its conception as over against a quasi-religious
moralism. . . . [W]e are admitted into the very life of [the godly man] and are
permitted to see his great heart cleansing itself of all trust in himself and
laying hold with the grasp first of despair, then of discerning trust and then
of grateful love upon the God who [is] his salvation . . . [such truths have]
perennial attractiveness and [the] supreme position . . . [for] edification.[24]
Warfield believed that those advocating the doctrinal
system he embraced were in a special way “called upon to defend the treasures
of truth that had been committed to the[m] from the inroads of that perpetual
foe of the grace of God which is entrenched in the self-sufficiency of the
natural heart.”[25] Warfield believed that part of his calling as
a defender of the faith was, in a special way, to fight against that awful foe,
self-sufficiency. He wrote: “As over against all teaching that would
tempt man to trust in himself for any, even the smallest part, of his
salvation, Christianity casts him utterly on God. It is God and God alone who saves,
and that in every element of the saving process.”[26] Justification, sanctification, glorification,
and everything else in the doctrine of salvation was all sourced in God, not in
man himself. Since every aspect of
salvation comes from God, Christian life involves despairing of confidence in
oneself and a humble and joyful trust in the Lord alone. B. B. Warfield, and the old evangelical piety
of his theological tradition, emphasized these truths—they were by no means the
peculiar possession of the Kewick theology.
See here for this entire study.
[4] Pg.
213, The Power of God unto Salvation,
B. B. Warfield. Philadelphia: PA:
Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1903.
[5] Pg.
357, Calvin and Calvinism: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 5,
B. B. Warfield. Bellingham, WA: Logos
Research Systems, Inc., 2008.
[6] Pg.
24, Studies in Perfectionism, Part One,
The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol.
7, B. B. Warfield. Bellingham, WA: Logos
Bible Software, 2008. Italics in
original. Warfield is critiquing the
theologically liberal perfectionism of Albrecht Ritschl.
[7] Pgs.
160-161, 63-64; cf. pg. 100, Studies in
Perfectionism, Part One, The Works of
Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 7, B. B. Warfield. Warfield does not limit his reference to the
immorality of Ritschl’s system to the German rationalist’s perfectionist
doctrine of sanctification; Ritschl’s doctrine of justification and other parts
of his system are certainly included and are mentioned in the immediate context
of some of the pages referenced.
[8] Pg.
99, Christology and Criticism: The
Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 3, B. B. Warfield. Bellingham, WA:
Logos Bible Software, 2008.
[9] Pgs.
323-324, Faith and Life, B. B.
Warfield. New York, NY: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1916.
[10] Pg.
78, Faith and Life, B. B. Warfield.
New York, NY: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1916.
[11] Pg.
356, Calvin and Calvinism: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 5, B. B. Warfield. Bellingham,
WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2008.
[12] Pg.
87, The Plan of Salvation: Five Lectures,
B. B. Warfield. Philadelphia, PA:
Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1915.
[13] Pgs.
237-238, Faith and Life, B. B.
Warfield. New York, NY: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1916.
[14] Pgs.
40-41, The Plan of Salvation: Five
Lectures, B. B. Warfield. Philadelphia, PA:
Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1915.
[15] Pg.
90, Studies in Perfectionism, Part One,
The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield,
Vol. 7, B. B. Warfield.
[16] Pgs.
253-254, The Power of God unto Salvation,
B. B. Warfield. Philadelphia: PA:
Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1903.
[17] Pg.
213, The Power of God unto Salvation,
B. B. Warfield. Philadelphia: PA:
Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1903.
[18] Pg.
12, Biblical Doctrines: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol.
2, B. B. Warfield. Bellingham, WA: Logos
Bible Software, 2008.
[19] Pg.
408, Faith and Life, B. B. Warfield.
New York, NY: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1916.
[20] Pgs.
469-470, Biblical Doctrines: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 2,
B. B. Warfield. Bellingham, WA: Logos
Bible Software, 2008.
[21] Pg.
11, Biblical Doctrines: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 2, B. B. Warfield. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008.
[22] Pg.
213, The Power of God unto Salvation,
B. B. Warfield. Philadelphia: PA:
Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1903.
[24] Pgs.
252-253, Studies in Tertullian and
Augustine: The Works of Benjamin B.
Warfield, Vol. 4, B. B. Warfield.
Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008.
[25] Pg.
144, Studies in Theology: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 9,
B. B. Warfield. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008.
[26] Pg.
59, The Plan of Salvation: Five Lectures,
B. B. Warfield. Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1915.
