John Murray

John Murray was born in Scotland in 1898. During World War I, John Murray enlisted in the British Army and fought in the Black Watch regiment. He lost an eye in the war.

When his time of service was finished, he went to the University of Glasgow and studied the subject of divinity. When he was done at Glasgow, he decided to cross the Atlantic and study at Princeton Theological Seminary. There, he came under the tutelage of  J. Gresham Machen and Geerhardus Vos. He taught at Princeton Seminary for a year and then left with Machen to go across the Delaware River and start up Westminster Theological Seminary.

Murray was appointed professor of systematic theology at Westminster. He held that post from 1930 until the time of his retirement in 1968. He taught an entire generation of pastors in systematic theology. The year before Murray retired, this lifelong bachelor married at the age of 69. After his retirement, he returned to Scotland. He served as a pastor in numerous places and also continued his writing and his speaking ministry. He died in 1975.

I want to talk about three of Murray’s books. One of them is Principles of Conduct, which is a wonderful book on ethics. It shows Murray’s broad range. He was a theologian writing a book on ethics and helping us think theologically about our conduct.

Another book he wrote is his commentary on Romans. It was published in 1960. He had been teaching theology, teaching Paul, and especially teaching Romans for thirty years. And he poured all of the benefit of those three decades of teaching and in-depth study into that commentary on Romans. It is still a gem today.

The other book I want to mention is his little book Redemption Accomplished and Applied. This book has two parts, and you might be able to guess what they are. The first part is “redemption accomplished.” In this part, Murray begins with his discussion of the love of God and shows how the love of God is directly related to this doctrine of the atonement. In the second part, he moves to talk about “redemption applied.” Here is an excerpt from the conclusion of the first part:

There is only one source from which we can derive a proper conception of Christ’s atoning work. That source is the Bible. There is only one norm by which our interpretations and formulations are to be tested. That norm is the bible. The temptation ever lurks near us to prove unfaithful to this one and only criterion. No temptation is more subtle and plausible than the tendency to construe the atonement in terms of our own human experience and thus to make our experience the norm.

We want to theologize from us out. We want to build from our own experience and sometimes we even want to limit theology to what our own expectations should be. Murray, as the consummate theologian, reminds us that that should not be the case, that our theology comes to us from the Word of God as we stand under it, as we read it, and as we study it.