The Emotional Life of Our Lord E-Book

B. B. Warfield

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Crossway Short Classics
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A Close Look at the Complex Emotions of Christ In the search to understand the deity of Christ, Christians might overlook what the Bible reveals about his humanity. Did Jesus really feel emotions? What grieved him? What delighted him? How did Jesus—fully human and fully God—react to the world and people around him? Throughout Scripture, Jesus displays a range of emotions that can help believers understand him more intimately. In The Emotional Life of Our Lord, theologian B. B. Warfield explains how Christ's complex emotions and personality proved his humanity. It was necessary for Christ to be born in the likeness of mankind to bear their griefs, carry their sorrows, take their infirmities, and ultimately redeem their lives. In this encouraging book, readers learn to see Christ as a compassionate Savior through his sinless expressions of emotions—from righteous anger to abiding love. - An Important Look at Jesus's Humanity: Examines Christ's complex emotions and explains their significance to the gospel - Draws Readers Closer to Christ: Explains how Christ's emotions allow him to sympathize with believers today - Written by B. B. Warfield: Considered one of America's leading theologians in the 19th century - Part of the Crossway Short Classics Series

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The Emotional Life of Our Lord

The Crossway Short Classics Series

The Emotional Life of Our Lord

B. B. Warfield

Encouragement for the Depressed

Charles Spurgeon

The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

Thomas Chalmers

Fighting for Holiness

J. C. Ryle

Heaven Is a World of Love

Jonathan Edwards

The Emotional Life of Our Lord

B. B. Warfield

The Emotional Life of Our Lord

Copyright © 2022 by Crossway

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

Cover image: Acanthus leaves, William Morris. (Bridgeman Images)

First printing 2022

Printed in China

Scripture quotations in the foreword are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations noted “English Version” are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations noted “Wycliffe” are from the Wycliffe Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations noted “Rheims” are from the Douay-Rheims Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations noted “Vulgate” are from the Vulgate. Public domain.

Scripture quotations noted “Revised Version” are from the English Revised Version. Public domain.

Other Scripture quotations in the text are from sources not identified by the author.

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-8004-8 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-8007-9 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-8005-5 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-8006-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Warfield, Benjamin Breckinridge, 1851–1921, author.  

Title: The emotional life of our Lord / B. B. Warfield.  

Description: Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, [2022] | Series: Crossway short classics | Includes bibliographical references and index. 

Identifiers: LCCN 2021020240 (print) | LCCN 2021020241 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433580048 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433580055 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433580062 (mobipocket) | ISBN 9781433580079 (epub)  

Subjects: LCSH: Jesus Christ—Psychology. | Emotions—Religious aspects—Christianity. 

Classification: LCC BT590.P9 W365 2022  (print) | LCC BT590.P9  (ebook) | DDC 232.9/03—dc23 

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021020240

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021020241

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-01-21 11:17:49 AM

Contents

Foreword by Sinclair Ferguson

Series Preface

Biography of B. B. Warfield

Note to the Reader

The Emotional Life of Our Lord

Scripture Index

Foreword

The writings of B. B. Warfield have been a presence in my life since the day I, as a seventeen-year-old freshman student, first heard his name. The only “Warfield” of whom I had any knowledge was Wallis Warfield Simpson, whose relationship to Edward VIII caused a British constitutional crisis in 1936 leading to the King’s abdication. Given that connection, I was not likely to forget the name, and it was not long before I purchased some of his works.

Warfield’s essays on the Inspiration and Authority of the Bible were of legendary distinction, as the classic evangelical work on the theme. But I was soon led to other riches, for the depth and the scope of his learning were staggering. He was the theologian of his day in the English-speaking world. In addition, his learning was matched by the grace of his preaching (the volume of his sermons Faith and Life is a special treasure). In a tribute to him, one of his colleagues at Princeton Seminary said that when he spoke in chapel, “The words proceeded from his lips as though they walked on velvet”!

But the work that has left the deepest impression on me is this essay on The Emotional Life of Our Lord. It is the hidden jewel of his writings. I say “hidden” because although it first appeared in 1912, it was not included in the ten-volume set of his works and therefore has not had the prominence it deserves. More significantly, it is also a “jewel.” The subject matter—our Lord’s emotions—is one that Christians have often neglected, and in doing so have deprived themselves of a vital element in the gospel. Our Lord was truly human. He became like us, sin apart. As Warfield points out, he was a man who expressed not just compassion but also anger. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, but also a man of joy. He was sometimes amazed; at times, he felt shame.

Throughout the centuries, other writers had explored this theme. But the better treatments lay largely unopened on the more remote shelves of theological libraries. So, when Warfield published this carefully focused study, he was probably the first evangelical scholar of international reputation to highlight the theme since Calvin had done magnificently in the comments that punctuate his commentaries on the Gospels.

So, this was a groundbreaking work in 1912. Perhaps it has never received the attention it deserves because Warfield (like Calvin before him) has suffered from the reputation of being a great theologian, and therefore not likely to appeal to “ordinary Christians” who want to know Christ better. If so, a few pages of The Emotional Life should dissolve that misapprehension.

The battles evangelical Christians have fought have mainly focused on the deity of Christ. Warfield also fought them, but he did not leave Christ’s humanity unexplored.

I have watched people carefully when saying something like, “If the Jesus you believe in was not able to growwiser and also to grow in favor with God, he is not the Jesus of the Gospels” (see Luke 2:52). I usually see some startled faces. Somehow, many Christians have not been able to take in that our Lord’s humanity is as real as that. The result is that they have not yet fully discovered Christ as he was and is in experiencing the complete range of our human emotions. But it is in this Christ, as the letter to the Hebrews underlines, that we find the full salvation of our humanity that we so desperately need. And without an appreciation of his emotional life, Christ will always seem to be at a distance from us.

As you read these pages, you will appreciate the reverence and care with which Warfield handled the text of Scripture. But I think you will also find other benefits.

For one thing, this essay should help you re-center your faith and life on Jesus Christ himself. There is an almost total absence of the imperative mood here. It is who Christ is, not what we do, that is central. Warfield understood the dynamic of the gospel: knowing leads to being, and being leads to doing. Short-circuit or reverse this pattern—as much contemporary evangelical teaching and preaching has done—and we drain the dynamic dry. So while this is an essay on the Gospels, it also expresses the theme of Hebrews (which has so much to teach us about the humanity of Christ): “Consider Jesus . . . looking to Jesus . . . consider him” (Heb. 3:1; 12:2, 3).

In addition, this essay helps us to read the Gospels properly. Many Christians have been schooled to read them with one question in mind: “Where am I in this story? With whom do I identify?” Of course, there is something for us to learn about ourselves in every Gospel narrative. But you and I are not in any of them, while Jesus is in all of them! Here Warfield is simply averting our gaze away from ourselves to Jesus. For he is the story. And indeed, he is the same “today” for us as he was “yesterday” for others. And he will be “forever” (Heb. 13:8). Warfield’s calm exposition helps us to recalibrate our reading of the Gospels so that we can refocus on the Lord himself.

So, here is The Emotional Life of our Lord. I hope that by its closing sentences you will have a sense that as you have read it, Christ himself has walked toward you from the pages of Scripture. If so, the prayer of Richard of Chichester will in some measure be answered in your experience:

Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ,

For all the benefits thou hast given me,

For all the pains and insults which thou hast borne for me.

O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother

May I know thee more clearly,

Love thee more dearly,

And follow thee more nearly,

Day by day. Amen.1

Sinclair Ferguson

Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic Theology,

Reformed Theological Seminary

1  See David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th ed. rev. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 379.

Series Preface

John Piper once wrote that books do not change people, but paragraphs do. This pithy statement gets close to the idea at the heart of the Crossway Short Classics series: some of the greatest and most powerful Christian messages are also some of the shortest and most accessible. The broad stream of confessional Christianity contains an astonishing wealth of timeless sermons, essays, lectures, and other short pieces of writing. These pieces have challenged, inspired, and borne fruit in the lives of millions of believers across church history and around the globe.