Thanks for Dick Gaffin’s Ministry
John
M. Frame
Dick
finished his B. D. program at Westminster Seminary in the spring of 1961; I
began mine in the fall of that year. He earned his Th. M. in 1962, and then
entered the seminary’s Th. D. program. So I saw him often during the early
1960s. I seem to recall that we took one of Cornelius Van Til’s Th. M.-level
classes together. We had a lot of discussions in those days. A mutual friend
who was studying philosophy at Penn invited the two of us to evening discussions
of various theological, philosophical, and methodological issues. One of us
described this group as the “Rushmore Club,” because it seemed that if we ever
managed to solve the questions before us, we would have belonged on
Mt.
Rushmore
.
Now many years have elapsed and, alas,
Mt.
Rushmore
is still devoid of philosophers and theologians.
Dick began
teaching at
Westminster
in 1965, I in 1968, so we experienced together the fun of being junior faculty.
In those days,
Westminster
had only a skeletal administration, and most all business was handled by the
faculty through great numbers of committees and in interminable Saturday
meetings. Van Til, for example, was for some years the chairman of the
“buildings and grounds committee.” I was thankful, however, that most of us saw
the humor in all of this. One memorable discussion concerned who should be
chairman of the athletic committee, which, I guess, was supposed to organize
games and such. I remember the moment when Dick Gaffin, who had held the office
before, formally nominated himself to
head the committee. Self-nomination was just not done in those days, but we
took the athletic committee with somewhat less seriousness than the others, and
the discussion had us in stitches. Sadly, I forget who Dick’s opponent was, and
I forget who won.
Dick and I
disagreed on some things. He thought, and still does evidently, that biblical
theology should control systematics. I have always thought that no theological
discipline is primary but that all should provide checks and balances for one
another. At my invitation, Dick came to one of my Th. M. courses to discuss
this issue, and with the students we had a good, thoughtful discussion.
Dick was
the very model of graciousness in debate. That was also evident in his defense
of Norman Shepherd in various contexts in the late 1970s, when Shepherd was
accused of doctrinal error. In a situation where others were flashing swords
and hurling epithets, Dick was calm and gentle, always trying to honor the
legitimate points made by opponents, and always taking the trouble to make a
substantive, persuasive argument.
I wish that
we could have continued our close collegial relationship. I know that Dick was
disappointed at the departure of several professors including myself in 1980 to
plant the
new Westminster
in
California
. I saw little of Dick after that,
but I did my best to keep up with his writings and inevitably profited from
them.
Dick’s
writings have met important needs in the church. When we began teaching, it was
regularly assumed that Reformed Christians were sabbatarians, and that for them
the gifts of tongues and prophecy had ceased. But it was hard to find in the
contemporary literature any rigorous arguments for these positions. Dick
supplied those needs, with his Perspectives
on Pentecost, Calvin and the Sabbath,
his work on the Orthodox Presbyterian Church Report on Sabbath Matters,
[1]
and his article “A Sabbath Rest Still Awaits the People of God”
[2]
In his
writings, and in occasional email exchanges, Dick has continued to encourage
me. I also hear often from his students and former students that his godly
example has influenced their walk with God. I congratulate him on his
retirement and on his many theological achievements. I also thank God for the
many people who have been drawn closer to Christ through Dick. May God give him
the years and the strength to continue this ministry among us, and may there be
many others who follow his example in scholarship and in ministry.