Announcing Dr. Zaspel’s “Warfield on the Christian Life”

By Matthew Claridge–

With a fair share of poetic justice, Dr. Fred Zaspel has been riding to the defense of one of the Faith’s greatest defenders of the last 150 years, B.B. Warfield. His much acclaimed The Theology of B.B. Warfield has introduced a new generation of readers to the intellectual powerhouse of this Old Princetonian. Zaspel is now turning us to the warm faith that guided Warfield’s drive and committed orthodoxy in Warfield on the Christian Life: Living in Light of the Gospel, the first title in Crossway’s series “Theologians on the Christian Life” due out on March 31st.  The book amounts to a spiritual biography of Warfield centered, naturally enough, on his dependence and lifelong reflection on the truth of the gospel. Warfield’s practical application of the great doctrines of salvation and sanctification will gives the church a deeper respect for the man himself and a deeper awareness of the riches we have in Christ. But don’t take my word for it, consider the following:

“We are already indebted to Fred Zaspel for his work on The Theology of B. B. Warfield — a book that has introduced a new generation to the voluminous writings of a Princeton scholar who was both New Testament interpreter and systematic theologian. Warfield’s style feels a tad impenetrable to many contemporary readers, but through Zaspel, Warfield, though dead, still speaks. But can any devotional and practical guidance come out of old Princeton? Zaspel’s latest contribution, B. B. Warfield on the Christian Life: Living in Light of the Gospel, does not simply answer with a resounding affirmative, but again faithfully unpacks Warfield and shows him to be a theologian of head and heart. Above all, Warfield is an integrated thinker, so he is ideally equipped to show how that which is central to the Bible, the Gospel of God, rightly shapes the Christian’s entire life. And Zaspel makes this accessible.”

–D.A. Carson. Research Professor of New Testament. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, IL.

“Following the publication of Warfield on the Christian Life it will be impossibly difficult to continue to claim that Princeton Theology was ‘all head but no heart’, or that Warfield himself was little more than an Enlightenment rationalist.”

–Paul Helm. Teaching Fellow. Regent College, Vancouver. Author of The Providence of God, John Calvin’s Ideas, and Calvin at the Centre.

 

“B B Warfield looms large in the Protestant imagination as a theologian, one of the giants in the land.  What is less well-known are the details and dynamics of his own approach to the Christian life.  Fred Zaspel has already written a substantial volume on Warfield as theologian; now he opens up for us the world of Warfield’s practical Christianity.  Once again, fans of the great Princetonian are in for a treat – and are deeply and delightfully in debt to Dr. Zaspel.”

–Carl R. Trueman.Paul Woolley Professor of Church History. Westminster Theological Seminary, PA.

 

“If the only thing Dr Fred Zaspel accomplished in these pages was to point us to B.B. Warfield’s masterpiece sermons in his too-little-known Faith and Life, he would have done the church yeoman service.   But he has done much, much more!  In Warfield on the Christian Life we are given the privilege of sitting at the feet of a Christ-centered, Bible-saturated, Gospel-loving theologian of the first rank and learning how to say “To me to live is Christ.”   A very welcome addition to what promises to be a valuable series.”

–Sinclair B Ferguson.First Presbyterian Church. Columbia, SC.

 

“Scripture and history show that spirituality rests wholly on a foundation of revealed truth, cordially received and loved. The best theologians have always been the most profound, and trustworthy, promoters of vital piety and transformation of life. We look to Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, Bunyan, and Edwards and a host of Puritan pastor-theologians as determinative of the truth of this observation. Now we must include B. B. Warfield in that imposing list of those that make clear the path, not only to live by the Spirit, but to walk by the Spirit. Fred Zaspel has condensed the marvelous insight contained in the Theology of B. B. Warfield  and served it up as foundational to a robust practice of piety analyzed in this present work. Zaspel had laid out both the doctrinal and exegetical expertise of Warfield in showing how seriously he pursued true worship as the summum bonum of life. From divine revelation to the imitation of the Christ and the consummation of Christian hope, the Christian finds substantive truth on his side and is assured by that truth that God Himself is near, to protect, direct, and finally perfect all the sheep for whom Christ died.”

–Tom J. Nettles. Professor of Historical Theology. The Southern Baptist Thelogical Seminary, KY.