The Plan of Salvation

by Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

Publisher:

Presbyterian Board of Publication

, 1915

Overview

All Christians believe that the power to save belongs to God alone, but did God plan to save individuals before the creation of the world? If so, why didn’t God—in his foreknowledge—choose to save everyone? The doctrine of salvation is perhaps the simplest and most basic Christian doctrine, and the act of God’s saving power remains central to all of Christian thought and practice. If that’s the case, why is it so difficult for the church to articulate exactly what God’s redemptive work looks like? The Plan of Salvation is comprised of five lectures delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary in June, 1914 on the various conceptions of the doctrine of salvation. These lectures summarize the divergent views about salvation held by various groups of Christians throughout history. Although Warfield does not endorse all of them, he masterfully explains the significant components of each and how each doctrine of salvation relates to the other central doctrines of Christianity.

Product Details

• Title: The Plan of Salvation
• Author: B. B. Warfield
• Publisher: Presbyterian Board
• Publication Date: 1915
• Pages: 144

About Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was born in 1851 in Lexington, Kentucky. He studied mathematics and science at Princeton University and graduated in 1871. In 1873, he decided to enroll at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was taught by Charles Hodge. He graduated from seminary in 1876, and was married shortly thereafter. He traveled to Germany later that year to study under Franz Delitazsch.

After returning to America, Warfield taught at Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). In 1881, Warfield co-wrote an article with A. A. Hodge on the inspiration of Scripture—a subject which dominated his scholarly pursuits throughout the remainder of his lifetime. When A. A. Hodge died in 1887, Warfield became professor of Theology at Princeton, where he taught from 1887–1921. History remembers Warfield as one of the last great Princeton Theologians prior to the seminary’s re-organization and the split in the Presbyterian Church. B. B. Warfield died in 1921.

Contents

Top Highlights

“In the second place, sacerdotalism deals with God the Holy Spirit, the source of all grace, in utter neglect of his personality, as if he were a natural force, operating, not when and where and how he pleases, but uniformly and regularly wherever his activities are released.” (Page 82)

“The deepest cleft which separates men calling themselves Christians in their conceptions of the plan of salvation, is that which divides what we may call the Naturalistic and the Supernaturalistic views. The line of division here is whether, in the matter of the salvation of man, God has planned simply to leave men, with more or less completeness, to save themselves, or whether he has planned himself to intervene to save them. The issue between the naturalist and the supernaturalist is thus the eminently simple but quite absolute one: Does man saves himself or does God save him?” (Page 15)

“For the Reformation is nothing other than Augustinianism come to its rights: the turning away from all that is human to rest on God alone for salvation.” (Page 44)

“There are fundamentally only two doctrines of salvation¹: that salvation is from God, and that salvation is from ourselves.” (Page 37)

“The precise issue which divides the universalists and the particularists is, accordingly, just whether the saving grace of God, in which alone is salvation, actually saves. Does its presence mean salvation, or may it be present, and yet salvation fail?” (Page 24)

Product Details

• Title: The Plan of Salvation: Five Lectures
• Author: Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield
• Publisher: Presbyterian Board of Publication
• Print Publication Date: 1915
• Logos Release Date: 2008
• Era: era:modern
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Salvation
• Resource ID: LLS:PLNSALVATION
• Resource Type: text.monograph.lecture
• Metadata Last Updated: 2023-01-25T21:45:10Z

About Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) was a prolific writer, accomplished scholar, and ranks as one of America’s greatest theologians. After studying mathematics and science at Princeton University, he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1873, where he was taught by Charles Hodge, in order to train for ministry as a Presbyterian minister. He later returned to America and taught at Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary).

In 1881, Benjamin B. Warfield co-wrote an article with A. A. Hodge on the inspiration of Scripture—a subject which dominated his scholarly pursuits throughout the remainder of his lifetime. When A. A. Hodge died in 1887, Warfield became a professor of theology at Princeton, where he taught from 1887 until 1921.

History remembers Warfield as one of the last great Princeton Theologians prior to the seminary’s re-organization and the split in the Presbyterian Church.

Warfield is known as one of Reformed theology’s most ardent defenders. The foundation to Warfield’s theology was his adherence to Calvinism as supported by the Westminster Confession of Faith and much of his writings are centered on this.

He has authored many books in his lifetime, including The Atonement and Modern Thought in the Classic Studies on the Atonement collection, Westminster Doctrine anent Holy Scripture: Tractates by A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, and the titles included in the B. B. Warfield Collection.