Biblical and Systematic Theology

Biblical theology is the indispensable servant of systematic theology, where the latter is understood as providing a presentation, under appropriate topics, of the teaching of the Bible as a whole. Biblical theology is indispensable for systematic theology because its distinguishing attention to the text in its redemptive-historical context is indispensable for the exegesis that is the lifeblood of sound systematic theology. Biblical theology is also systematic theology’s servant. It is subordinate to systematic theology in the sense that its distinguishing focus on the specific and distinctive revelatory contributions of each of the various secondary, human authors of Scripture (and by others recorded in their writings) is not for its own sake but only as it serves the more ultimate end of presenting the unified and coherent teaching of the Bible in its entirety as the word of God, its primary author. For instance, our interest in Romans or in Paul’s theology is not ultimately in what he says but what God says there and elsewhere in Scripture.

 

Richard Gaffin, In the Fullness of Time (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 38