Editorial Note: This article depends on information from Regular Baptist Ministries, Cornerstone University, Our Daily Bread University, obituaries, and Dr. Joel Beeke’s personal website, along with recent correspondence.
“Theology is a verb. It’s an activity—everyone does it. The purpose of doing theology is to enact authentic Christian ministry,” said James Grier (1932–2013). While Dr. Grier has been in glory for nearly twelve years, his legacy of faithful, Christian work and proclamation of the gospel continues to impact those whom he mentored and with whom he partnered—and countless others unconscious of his influence on their own ministers and mentors.
Dr. Grier’s life was marked by a noble pursuit of truth. Being the son of a faithful pastor of a Regular Baptist church, Dr. Grier displayed an insatiable desire to learn about God and his word. Indeed, he earned four degrees between three seminaries and devoted his life’s work to passing on his knowledge of and godly love for the infallible and authoritative Scripture. This work was undertaken in churches located in Michigan and in various institutions of higher learning, including Cedarville University, Cornerstone University, and Grand Rapids Theological Seminary (Cornerstone Theological Seminary). Dr. Grier earned a BTh from Baptist Bible Seminary, an MDiv from Grace Theological Seminary, a ThM from Westminster, and a ThD, also from Grace Theological Seminary. “He was a born teacher, a disciplined teacher, a loving teacher, and above all, a perpetual student,” wrote Joel Beeke, former President and current Chancellor of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.
A former student of Dr. Grier, Dr. William Potter recalled taking his philosophy class at Cedarville University in 1970 (which was then known as Cedarville College): “With arrogant schoolboy insouciance, I skipped classes, ignored the warning signs that my ill-discipline would have unpleasant consequences, and proceeded to fail a course for the first time in my life,” Dr. Potter said. “I did not understand any of the questions on the final exam and wrote him that I would tell him to ‘eat his heart out, but he would break his teeth,’ a quote he used in his intro to philosophy classes for years to come.”
But Dr. Grier patiently encouraged him to retake the class, and with such kind encouragement, Dr. Potter “absorbed the content like a sponge,” learning about Van Til and how to engage with philosophy from a biblical perspective. “Professor Grier transformed my approach to teaching history, the major goal of my collegiate education, and, as it turned out, my calling for more than fifty years thus far,” he said. Dr. Potter remarked that “Professor James Grier’s teaching changed my presuppositions and provided the biblical framework for my life’s calling…I believe Dr. Grier had more influence on my intellectual and spiritual development than any other individual in life.” Dr. Beeke wrote, “I don’t say this lightly, but I believe he is one of the two best professors I have ever sat under in my life. His clarity of thought, his command of complex subjects and vocabulary, his humble demeanor and spirituality, his freedom to confess his own shortcomings, were all simply astonishing.”
Dr. Peter Lillback, now president of Westminster Seminary, remembers being in Dr. Grier’s Introduction to Philosophy class. He was so overwhelmed with the breadth of Grier’s thinking, he decided to bring a cassette recorder to class. He recorded every lecture and wrote it down word for word, learning vocabulary he had never heard before, such as metaphysics, epistemology, presuppositionalism, the self contained ontological triune God of Scripture, and yes, the name Cornelius Van Til. Later, Dr. Lillback became the president of the philosophy club at Cedarville, and at that time, he was able to deepen his knowledge of the unique approach to apologetics that was part of the Van Tilian system taught by Professor Grier.
Other former students, Gillis West and John D. Street, also noted the transformative influence of his philosophy course at Cedarville: “Never before had I heard such rigorous thought expressed in an otherworldly vocabulary and married to a profound love of the Scriptures and elevation of the sovereignty and majesty of God,” Mr. West said. Dr. John Street agreed, saying, “I will never forget my first day in his philosophy class as a sophomore. I was prepared to take notes, but the depth of his vocabulary and the passion in his lecture captivated me so much that I didn’t write a single word.”
Between his many years pursuing his own theological education, Dr. Grier began to pass on the truth he was garnering by pastoring two Michigan churches—North Adams Baptist and Evangel Baptist—through the 1960s. While he went on to preach in many churches, his first sermon, and his last, he preached in his childhood church in New York.
Gillis West noted how Dr. Grier was an excellent preacher and expositor whose instruction has directly impacted the preaching of his students for the past 50 years. “I will never forget when he described to me how he preached from the original text of the Old and New Testaments and translated the text as he spoke because he always wanted to be as close to God’s original revelation as he could in his preaching. Wow! Who does that kind of thing?” Mr. West said, noting Dr. Grier’s pastoral heart: “He also explained to me that his primary apologetic mission was to proclaim the gospel to dead sinners and not to win intellectual arguments, even though he possessed a first-rate mind and superior intelligence and could hold his own in any debate.”
After his time teaching at Cedarville University, in 1982, he took on the role of Executive Vice President and Academic Dean of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, now Cornerstone Theological Seminary, where he also taught as a distinguished professor of philosophical theology, also serving at Cornerstone University. He would continue teaching at the seminary for roughly 30 years. He also taught at Puritan Reformed Seminary, among many other institutions. Indeed, while much of his career in ministry and teaching was spent in Michigan, Dr. Grier’s influence was international, as he taught at London Reformed Baptist Seminary, Evangelical Baptist Seminary of Quebec, and at Asia Baptist Theological Seminary, as well as teaching in Zambia and Hungary.
Walking and working beside him in his full and active life of ministry was Dr. Grier’s wife Shirley, whom he met in college and married in 1954. Dr. Grier’s legacy is alive and well in those whom he taught, those who carry on the biblical fidelity and philosophical inquiry that marked his gospel ministry. As Dr. Daniel J. Estes of Cedarville University recently remarked, Dr. Grier taught many how to “think as a Christian scholar, how to care as a compassionate pastor, and how to walk as a man of God.”