John Murray

During his time at Westminster Theological Seminary, John Murray skillfully trained many pastors and theologians in the truth of God. In this episode, Stephen Nichols tells us highlights from the life of this gifted theologian.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. On this episode, we are talking about John Murray. He was born in 1898 in the Highlands of Scotland. He was the eighth of eight children, six boys and two girls. He was raised in a Presbyterian home. His parents were in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and by all accounts, it was a godly home, and a young John Murray excelled as a student. While four of the six Murray boys went off to fight in World War I, John Murray fought with the Royal Highlanders, the Black Watch, and he served in France. During fighting in what would be the last German offensive, he lost his right eye to shrapnel and had a glass eye the rest of his life. Two of his brothers lost their life in the war.

When Murray returned, he went to Glasgow and received an MA in theology from the University of Glasgow. Then, he went across the Atlantic and studied at Princeton Seminary under Machen and Geerhardus Vos. Then he returned for more study back to Edinburgh and there at the Free College. In 1929, he was invited to come back to Princeton as a professor, and he did serve as a professor at Princeton Seminary from 1929 to 1930 that one year. You might recall that it was in 1929 that Machen actually left Princeton and founded Westminster Seminary, and after Murray completed that first year of teaching, he crossed the Delaware River, and he joined Machen and became a professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. Murray was a legend at Westminster. Of course, as Machen was dying, and he sent that final telegram expressing how grateful he is for the active obedience of Christ. He sent that telegram to his good friend and colleague, John Murray. It was said that everyday John Murray walked a mile, and there is today a mile long route marked out on the campus of Westminster Seminary, and it’s called the Murray Mile.

He taught a whole generation of pastors and theologians, and clearly, he was one of the 20th century’s finest theologians. He wrote a number of books, and among them is his classic commentary on Romans. There, he writes, in the introduction of chapter eight, he says, “Chapter eight teams with assurance, that all things work together for good to them that love God.” He adds, “The span of God’s grace for them stretches from its foundation and election before the foundation of the world to its consummation in glory with Christ.” He wrote his book Redemption Accomplished and Applied, a wonderful treatment of the doctrine of atonement, and he wrote his book on ethics entitled Principles of Conduct. Chapter ten is my favorite chapter. It’s on the fear of God, and the first sentence says, “The fear of God is the soul of godliness.” Murray goes on to write, “Since the biblical ethic is grounded in and is the fruit of the fear of the Lord, we are apprised again that ethics has its source in religion, and as our religion is, so will be our ethic. This is to say that what or whom we worship determines our behavior.”

Well, Murray retired from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1966. That year, he returned to his beloved Scotland to the Highlands, and in the next year, in 1967, at the age of sixty-nine, this lifelong bachelor married. He married Valerie Knowlton. His wife had a Ph.D. from Harvard, and in the late 1950s, she had taken classes at Westminster Seminary and had taken classes by John Murray. She was a professor at the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia. That was the first college in the United States to grant MDs to women. She left Philadelphia in 1967 and made her home in Scotland with John Murray. Together they had two children. John Murray died of cancer in 1975, and so while he is a Scottish theologian, he spent most of his career here in America and teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. Well, that is the life of John Murray, and I'm Steve Nichols, and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.