In recent days, the term “biblical theology” has become somewhat of a buzzword; however, there is little agreement on exactly what it is and how to do it. At a popular level, when people use the term, they simply mean that one appeals to Scripture to warrant their theological beliefs. In the academic world, people mean different things by the term.
However, a proper understanding of “biblical theology” is vitally important to the doing of systematic theology. Why? Because biblical theology is the discipline that seeks to understand the entire canon as God’s word, we cannot draw legitimate theological conclusions from Scripture apart from it. In other words, biblical theology serves as the biblical warrant for systematic theology. Given biblical theology’s importance for theology and given the fact that people mean different things by it, let me explain a bit more what biblical theology is, and why it serves as the biblical warrant for theology.
Biblical Theology
Biblical theology is the theological discipline that seeks to understand the canon of Scripture “on its own terms.” As such, biblical theology is the discipline that seeks to read specific texts (i.e., exegesis) in light of the entire canonical teaching of Scripture. Or, as Brian Rosner states: Biblical theology is “theological interpretation of Scripture in and for the church. It proceeds with historical and literary sensitivity and seeks to analyze and synthesize the Bible’s teaching about God and his relations to the world on its own terms, maintaining sight of the Bible’s overarching narrative and Christocentric focus.”[1]
1. Brian Rosner, “Biblical Theology,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, 10 (italics removed from original).
As an exegetical discipline, biblical theology is not presuppositionless. It approaches Scripture according to its own claim, namely that Scripture is God’s word written, and it presupposes the central truths of historic Christianity, hence the reason why it is a theological discipline. Since Scripture is God’s word written, it assumes that despite its diversity, Scripture is a unified, true, and authoritative revelation. And given that Scripture has come to us over time, Scripture is a progressive unfolding of God’s plan across a specific redemptive-historical plotline demarcated by the biblical covenants. As an exegetical method, it is sensitive to literary, historical, and theological dimensions of various corpora, as well as the interrelationships between the earlier and later texts in Scripture, thus relating the “parts” of Scripture to the “whole.” Biblical theology allows us to discern God’s intention through the authors of Scripture, which is most fully known in terms of the entire canon. As such, biblical theology provides the basis for understanding how texts in any portion of Scripture relate to the entire biblical teaching with the goal of learning better how to read and apply Scripture correctly, to proclaim “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), and to “think God’s thoughts after him.” For this reason, biblical theology is foundational to theology since it provides the biblical warrant from a whole Bible for our theological conclusions. In other words, we cannot say what the Bible says on any matter apart from exegeting and understanding the entirety of God’s word across the entire canon.
Systematic Theology
This essential and foundational role that biblical theology serves for theology is also understood by properly defining what systematic theology is. Although people have defined systematic theology in a number of ways, I think the best way is to define it as follows: Systematic theology is the study of the triune God by the application of God’s word to all areas of life.[2] The emphasis on “application” is important since it helps us think about what theology is and how it is to be done, and it also underscores why biblical theology is essential to the doing of theology. Minimally, doing systematic theology involves two steps.
2. For this definition, see Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology: From Canon to Concept, vol. 1 (Brentwood: B&H Academic, 2024), chapter 1.
Apply the Entirety of God’s Word
First, systematic theology requires that we apply the entirety of God’s word. This not only assumes that Scripture, as God’s word written, is true and authoritative and thus foundational for our theology, but also that a right interpretation of Scripture is central to the doing of theology. Scripture is more than a collection of isolated texts from ancient history. Instead, Scripture is God’s unfolding revelation of his eternal plan that moves from creation to the new creation, centered in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, a correct reading of Scripture requires that individual texts be located in relation to the Bible’s unfolding covenantal story and ultimately in light of the entire canon fulfilled in Christ Jesus. As we read Scripture, careful attention must be given to the Bible’s own presentation of its content, categories, and teaching, which is precisely what we are doing when we do biblical theology.
In this regard, Charles Hodge’s well-known definition of theology requires modification, along with Wayne Grudem’s definition that is dependent on Hodge. For example, Hodge defines theology as “the exhibition of the facts of Scripture in their proper order and relation, with the principles or general truths involved in the facts themselves, and which pervade and harmonize the whole.”[3] Likewise, Wayne Grudem defines theology as the study that answers the question: “‘What does the whole Bible teach us today?’ about any given topic,” which involves “collecting and understanding all the relevant passages in the Bible on various topics and then summarizing their teachings clearly so that we know what to believe about each topic.”[4]
3. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (reprint; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 1:19.
4. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020), 1 (emphasis removed).
No doubt there is truth in what Hodge and Grudem say. Theology does seek to know what the entirety of Scripture teaches on any given topic, hence the term “systematic.” Yet, the problem with such definitions is that they fail to do justice to what Scripture actually is. Scripture is not a theological dictionary or a storehouse of propositions or facts, although it is thoroughly propositional. Instead, Scripture is God’s authoritative word that is comprised of many literary forms that require careful interpretation, and it is an unfolding revelation given to us over time. Theology, then, does not simply collect texts and arrange them properly; Scripture already comes to us in a specific order and within its own interpretive framework.
Another way of stating this is that Scripture is a word-act revelation. It not only recounts God’s mighty actions in history; it is also God’s interpretation of his redemptive acts, through human authors, and thus true, objective, and authoritative. For this reason, Scripture’s own interpretations and descriptions are infallible, and they serve as our interpretive framework or “spectacles” for thinking about God, the world, and ourselves. Thus, to apply Scripture first requires that we interpret Scripture correctly as an entire canon. In fact, our task in reading Scripture is to understand the entirety of it and to “put together” Scripture “on its own terms,” which is the task of biblical theology. This is why we cannot do systematic theology apart from the doing of biblical theology since it is the biblical warrant for our entire theology.
Applying God’s Word to All of Life
Second, theology requires that we apply Scripture to all areas of life. Here is where it goes beyond biblical theology. Systematic theology is more than repeating Scripture; instead, it also has a constructive element to it. This constructive element not only puts together all that Scripture teaches; it also involves application to every area of life. This is why systematic theology is foundational for worldview formation, as it seeks to integrate God’s revelation in nature and Scripture as an exercise of “faith seeking understanding.” As we take the Bible’s authoritative teaching (given to us by biblical theology), we seek to understand Scripture in terms of application, logical implications, and metaphysical entailments. No doubt, we do so with help from the past, but we also seek to apply Scripture to the issues of our day in order to teach the church sound doctrine and refute the errors of both the past and present age. God has not given us his word for only one aspect of our lives; God’s word applies to every area of life, just as Christ’s Lordship is over everything.
We can illustrate this second step (which depends on biblical theology but goes beyond it) by referring to the doing of Christology. To answer the question of who Jesus is, we must first turn to the entire canon of Scripture (which requires the discipline of biblical theology). We must think through how the Bible presents who Jesus is from Genesis to Revelation as forged across the biblical covenants. But after we do so, we discover that the Jesus of the Bible is utterly unique; he is God the Son from eternity who, in the incarnation, assumed a human nature (John 1:1, 14). Yet, this biblical presentation, drawn from the entire canon of Scripture (i.e., biblical theology) raises some legitimate theological questions that require understanding and theological construction, even the use of extra-biblical language, concepts, and judgments. For example, how should we think of the relation between Jesus as the Son and the Father and Spirit? Or how should we understand the relationship between the Son’s deity and humanity, given the Creator-creature distinction (Phil. 2:6–11)? Or how do we make sense of Jesus’s statement that he does not know certain things, if he is God the Son and thus omniscient (Mark 13:32)? To answer these questions, the constructive element of systematic theology is done, which seeks to understand the whole counsel of God and to put together the biblical teaching in such a way that accounts for all the biblical data in the way that Scripture presents it. It is not enough merely to repeat Scripture; we must also make sense of it in order to disciple believers in the truth and to obey Scripture’s exhortation to always be ready to give a reasoned defense for what we believe.
Conclusion
Hopefully, by a proper description of what biblical and systematic theology is, we see that we cannot have one without the other. For systematic theology to be biblical, it must draw its conclusions from the entire canon of Scripture “on its own terms,” which is the discipline of biblical theology. Otherwise, our theological conclusions will not be warranted by Scripture, and if they are not warranted by Scripture, they do not command our faith and obedience. What our churches desperately need today is sound systematic theology, but we will never have a sound theology apart from its being grounded and warranted by Scripture alone.
