Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller were the first professors appointed to Princeton Theological Seminary, an institution which first opened its doors in 1812. Charles Hodge, who was considerably younger, joined the faculty in 1822, having studied under the older men. After teaching in the Seminary for a remarkable 50 years – during which time Hodge taught 2700 students, most of whom entered the ministry – a large gathering came to Princeton to mark the occasion. When his time came to reply to the speeches, Hodge wanted to speak, not about himself, but about the Seminary. He spoke in particular about his senior colleagues, who, many years before, had been removed to a better world.
“Drs Alexander and Miller”, said Hodge, “were not speculative men. They were not given to new methods and new theories. They were content with the faith once delivered to the saints. I am not afraid to say that a new idea never originated in this Seminary.”1 Much scorn has been poured on this last statement in more recent generations, but Hodge did not mean that, for instance, it was impossible to express a particular doctrine more clearly or to give a more satisfactory interpretation of some passage of Scripture. If his critics had paid more attention to the context in which that remark was made, they might have understood better what he meant. But they no doubt preferred to criticise from a position where original thinking is always to be favoured rather than a spirit of submission to the authority of God.
What was Hodge’s context? It is supplied by the words that follow, still referring to Alexander and Miller: “Their theological method was very simple. The Bible is the Word of God. . . . Then it follows that what the Bible says, God says. That ends the matter.” And although we may not be professors of theology, our attitude to religious ideas should be the same as theirs: What the Bible says, God says. What are we to think on any religious subject? We must go to the Bible, and whatever we find on that subject, we must receive it as God’s mind on the matter, and we are therefore to receive it as truth.
We are always to say, whatever part of the Bible we read and whatever doctrine we may consider, “Thy Word is truth” (Jn 17:17).
What are we to believe about God? Exactly what He has revealed about Himself in the Bible. If He had not revealed Himself, we could know very little about Him – though the Bible states that “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they [those who suppress the truth] are without excuse” (Rom 1:20). Apart from God’s grace, people reject both what He makes known in creation about “His eternal power and Godhead” and the much more extensive revelation in the Bible. There He tells us that He created all things; He could do so because He is infinitely powerful and infinite also in wisdom.
But why did He create us, the earth and everything in it, even the whole universe? He did so for His own glory. He is “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy” (Is 57:15), infinitely exalted above all His creatures – and that is something which fallen beings like us resent unless we are graciously subdued by God’s power and grace, so that we become willing to worship Him and serve Him, in the light of His Word. Obviously, there is much more to be said about the great God of eternity, but everything that has been said here is based on Scripture, and therefore on what God Himself has said. And for us, as for Alexander and Miller, that should end the matter. There should be no argument, no resistance. We should be conscious of our ignorance and we should respect totally the perfect wisdom of the One who has revealed so much to us in the Bible.
If we ask what we are to believe about sin, the answer must be along the same lines. We must receive the truths that God has revealed in the Bible – for what the Bible says is what God says. “It is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God” (Jer 2:19). And every sin involves turning away from God in some degree – turning away from what God has specified in His law. And His law is a reflection of His holy nature, which is why He demands: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Pet 1:16). And sin, the Bible says also, must be punished: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezk 18:20) – especially, it will suffer eternal death, in a lost eternity.
Again, the Bible speaks about salvation from sin, and God is speaking through the Bible. So what He says has authority, total authority, for those who listen to, or read, the words of Scripture. Even when the message is brought through the ministers whom He has sent out to preach, they speak as God’s ambassadors. What they say (provided they remain faithful to the Scriptures) comes with real authority to those who listen.
The Bible tells us about Jesus having had laid upon Him the guilt of a vast number of sinners and about Him enduring the punishment that was justly due to them when He suffered throughout His time in this world. This was especially so when He was brought to Calvary to meet the sword of divine justice, until He breathed out His soul into His Father’s hand. The Bible further tells us that, because divine justice was satisfied on behalf of all those whom the Saviour was representing, He rose from the grave and ascended to heaven, from where He distributes the benefits of salvation.
When we are told that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”, we ought to be conscious that we are sinners and that the salvation which Christ has wrought out is therefore suitable to us in our need. Because of the authority with which the gospel message comes to us, we have no right to reject it. When the Bible says to us, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31), God is speaking to us. What responsibility all lie under who have heard the gospel!
Hodge makes a further important point: “We were taught by our venerable fathers [Alexander and Miller] to take the Bible in the sense in which it was plainly intended to be understood”. Accordingly all three men accepted the teachings of the Bible, whatever difficulties these teachings might involve. Since the Bible teaches that there is one God, but that there are three Persons in the one Godhead, they received the testimony God Himself has given in the Bible; they did not subject that testimony to their own limited minds with a view to deciding if a doctrine is reasonable or not (even if, when compared with others, they had powerful intellects). Rather they submitted their minds to what God had revealed. Similarly they willingly received the teaching of the Bible on the Person of Christ: that He has two natures in one Person. They were not like those who, to take a more modern example, refuse to accept the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, rejecting the sense in which the relevant passages were “plainly intended to be understood”. Let us remember that what the Bible says, God says. It ought to end the matter.
These men at Princeton knew, not only what they must believe, but how to apply the truths they believed. For instance, Hodge tells us that, if a student went depressed to Alexander, he was sure to be told: “Look not so much within. Look to Christ. Dwell on His person, on His work, on His promises, and devote yourself to His service, and you will soon find peace.” This advice assumes, of course, that the student was already converted. But the main part of that advice can be given to every sinner: to look to Christ by faith, to meditate on who He is and what He has done, and what He is undertaking to do for those who look to Him. And then, whatever their position in life, they are, through divine grace, directed to serve Him. That is the teaching of Scripture; that therefore is how God is directing us to live.
1All quotations, apart from Bible verses, come from A A Hodge, The Life of Charles Hodge, Banner of Truth reprint, 2010, pp 555-6.