Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 25:1 (Spring 2021)
Article: Editorial: Remembering The Life And Theology Of John Gill (1697–1771)
Author: Stephen J. Wellum

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Editorial: Remembering The Life And Theology Of John Gill (1697–1771)

Stephen J. Wellum

Stephen J. Wellum is Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and editor of Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. He received his PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and he is the author of numerous essays and articles and the co-author with Peter Gentry of Kingdom through Covenant, 2nd edition (Crossway, 2012, 2018) and God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology (Crossway, 2015); the co-editor of Progressive Covenantalism (B&H, 2016); the author of God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of the Person of Christ (Crossway, 2016) and Christ Alone—The Uniqueness of Jesus as Savior (Zondervan, 2017); and the co-author of Christ from Beginning to End: How the Full Story of Scripture Reveals the Full Glory of Christ (Zondervan, 2018); and the author of The Person of Christ: An Introduction (Crossway, 2021).

Christian theology, indeed, objective truth is only possible because the triune God of Scripture is there, he has created and governs this world according to his plan, and he has spoken to us, to borrow from the thought of Francis Schaeffer. As a result of God’s spoken word-revelation to us through prophets and apostles and made permanent in Scripture, the church has a strong epistemological warrant for truth and theology. For this reason, Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) is our final authority for all of our theological and doctrinal thinking about God, ourselves, and the world. Scripture alone is sufficient for all we need in this life for faith in Christ and to live lives that are pleasing to our triune Creator and Lord to the praise of his glory and grace.

However, in rightly and properly emphasizing the importance of God’s word-revelation to us for us to know truth and to do theology, Christian

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theology also stresses the importance of tradition, learning from the past, and standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. We must never think that with our right emphasis on sola Scriptura and its normative role in the church that this rejects the vital role that tradition and learning from the past serve in our thinking and lives. To conclude such a thing would be a grave mistake. The proper balance between Scripture and tradition is that Scripture is “magisterial” and tradition is “ministerial.” But for something to be “ministerial” still means that it has a crucial role to play. In fact, the Reformers made this point against the elevation of tradition by the Roman Catholic Church. Rome wrongly elevated tradition to a “magisterial” role along with Scripture, and t...