Van Til's Greeting to the Entering Students
This address by Dr. Van Til to the entering students helps to make clear part of the reason for and the importance of such a theological training as Westminster provides.
Perhaps your friends at home or at college were surprised to hear that you were planning to attend a seminary. Perhaps they were even more surprised to learn that you were planning to attend Westminster Seminary. If they were I think I know what you told them. In all likelihood you told them that you were planning to teach or preach Christ and him crucified, Christ and the resurrection. Perhaps you quoted Paul's words when he said: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Romans 1:16).
If these words of Paul truly express the purpose of your hearts then we of the Faculty and of the student body welcome you with open arms. For there is no greater joy than to set forth Jesus Christ the Savior before lost and dying men. To tell all classes and conditions of men that the “wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23), who would not give his all to do just that? And to lead the people of God in saying the words of Paul's doxology: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39), is there anything better on earth than to do just that? The Seminary stands ready to help you to prepare yourself to do this very thing.
Prepare Yourself?
But why should you prepare yourself in order to speak of Christ? Why should you learn Hebrew and Greek in order to present Christ to men? Do people want you to speak to them in these languages today? Why should you involve yourself in the problems of higher criticism? Can you make men believe that the Bible is the Word of God by showing them from the facts of Scripture that no mere words of men are found in it? Why should you study church history, systematic theology or apologetics? Much learning will only make you mad! There is no need for it; we have enough in Scripture, in Christ and in the promise of his Spirit!
Confusion
But you know the answer to this sort of reasoning. At least you know it in substance. You know something of the confusion that exists in the minds of men today. Men speak of sin and they speak of Christ as the Savior from sin. But they do not think of sin as making them rightfully subject to the wrath of God. Nor do they think of Christ as the Son of God who, though he knew no sin, was made sin for us "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (II Corinthians 5:21) .
When men today speak of sin they tend to mean only that they have not lived up to their own ideals and ideas of right and wrong. And when they speak of Christ as Savior from sin they tend to mean that he, more than other men, has overcome the battle with evil in himself, and has set us an example that we may follow.
The Source of Confusion
The source of men's confusion on the questions of sin and salvation lies, of course, basically in their own hearts. Sinners are bound to misconstrue the meaning of sin. The natural man is self-righteous above all else. To maintain himself in his self-righteousness the natural man invents all manner of excuses for his failure to love God above all and his fellow-man as himself. Similarly the natural man, when he hears of Christ, seeks to bring down this Christ so that he too is of the earth alone. A Christ thus brought down to earth cannot convict others of sin nor supply them any help in overcoming it. Or if men raise up the Christ above the earth it is because they think all men, with him, are inherently and essentially from a higher world. Thus always the Christ men naturally think of is at most gradationally higher than other men. For them he is never the one by whom "all things were created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven" (Colossians 1:16-20).
Yes, Prepare Yourself
You will be called upon in days to come, therefore, to preach Christ to men who are in a state of confusion. And this confusion is traceable, at last, to sin. Men worship and serve “the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.”
There seems to be no end of the many ways by which men seek to make themselves believe that they are serving God when they are really only serving themselves. Men make bulwarks of defense for themselves by means of science, by means of philosophy, by means of literature, by means of biblical criticism. With great honesty and sincerity but withal in basic self-deception men employ all the artifices of learning to keep from facing God. And thousands there be that follow them.
How can you bring Christ to such men? You cannot effectively do so if you do not know their thoughts. The church of Christ cannot perform its mission in the world without a learned ministry. True, the church needs first of all a pious ministry. The final question is not one of learning. The power of the Holy Spirit regenerating the hearts of men will, in the last analysis, alone enable men to accept the Christ of the Scriptures. Even so, God is a God of order. He would have his church set forth the Christ as the one who "is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (I Corinthians 1: 30) . Christ said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." As such he must be presented unto men.
Christ as Truth
To do so with confidence to all classes of men we must understand for ourselves, so far as we can, what Christ means when he speaks such words. We must understand what this means for the sake of building up the church of Christ. Do you not yearn to lead God's people more deeply into the riches of the meaning of his Word? Is there not a burning desire within your heart to display the risen and ascended Christ before his people that they may be changed from glory unto glory as by the Spirit of the Lord?
All the learning that you may expect to acquire at the Seminary, the languages and exegesis, the church history, the systematic theology, the public speaking and the apologetics, must be subservient to the one purpose of presenting Christ to his church.
And then as you learn more adequately, more truly, by means of "much learning" to present Christ to his church you will, at the same time, learn better to present him to lost men in general.
You will then first of all learn true humility. It is not likely that you will be able to compete in learning with the wise men of the world. But even if you could it would still be true that you cannot begin to fathom the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of Christ. You can and must always and everywhere present a sovereign God, speaking of himself to men in Christ. This Christ identifies himself in terms of himself. He tells you who you are and what you are. He alone knows the heart of man. In terms of his Word alone do you know sin and deliverance from sin.
Only by grace, by his Spirit have you been able to call this Christ your Lord. Only by his Spirit have you been enabled to say "Abba Father.” Where then is boasting? It is excluded.
Humility and Boldness
But though it is in humility that you must learn to present the Christ, you must nonetheless present him as a challenge to the wisdom of the world. Without Christ there is no wisdom. Men must learn to know that all is darkness, and all is unrighteousness and all is despair unless they submit to Christ. “Where there is nothing but oneself, there is nothing.”1 “The entire human community is (then) in the desert, attempting to build an impious tower of Babel to scale heaven, but really cutting itself off more and more from God…” (p. 285). Man then lives in a world in which the church "spire is falling and no adequate substitute has been found for the faith which the spire symbolizes.” So you must not only humbly but also boldly challenge the wisdom of the world. "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (I Corinthians 1: 20, 21).
Why then prepare for preaching Christ? Why acquire much learning at great expense of energy? It is that God might "grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man…” (Ephesians 3:16) "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him (Ephesians 3: 10-12).
"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." (Ephesians 3 :20-21).
Following the closing prayer, the faculty, students, and friends enjoyed tea and a time of visiting in Machen Hall of the Seminary.