Interview with Dr. Michael Horton

hello friends this is peter lillback at westminster seminary we're so grateful that we're celebrating again our annual richard b gaffin jr lectures we've been doing this for several years now to honor our illustrious scholar who's blessed so many and it's my joy to have an interview today with our special guest speaker dr michael horton who is the jay gresham machine scholar from our sister seminary in escondido california westminster theological seminary so brother welcome we're glad you're here thank you peter it's a delight to be here it's a real honor to be a part of this thank you mike and we are also grateful that uh this uh interview we're doing today is likely to be recorded and transcribed and perhaps become part of our union cristo or maybe we'll just share it right on our web page just as an opportunity to learn more about dr horton's thinking and his career in his ministry so mike tell us first of all just at the beginning how did the lord call you to himself i was raised in a christian family and my my dad wasn't really engaged let's say uh but my mom was an inveterate uh inquisitive thinker and she would always say when i had a question go look it up or when i came up with something she didn't agree with she'd want to argue about it she loved debate and so as i was reading the scriptures especially romans i came to really understand the gospel in a way i'd never understood it before and my brother who had just become a christian handed me some tapes from the philadelphia conference on reformed theology so how old were you at this time i was about 13 wow uh 12 or 13 and then i went to the conference uh finally when i was 13 and walked up to dr boyce and said i want to be a reformer too and he said well what are you doing for lunch and i said i don't have a lot of plans and he said i only have a little sack lunch here but i'll share it with you wow and that was the beginning of a wonderful relationship he was a mentor to me for until he died and we were able to work together on a lot of projects so i really it was it the philadelphia conference on reformed theology had a big impact got me reading uh some wonderful books including uh books by your faculty and it made a huge difference in my life it i can't say that i wasn't a christian before i understood the doctrines of grace but it was it was really like really understanding that's great yeah so then how did you go about your academic career then you obviously finished high school where did you go to college seminary and further studies what's your track yeah i went to biola for undergrad and then uh to westminster california and from there to uh oxford to work under aleister mcgrath on my phd and then from there came back and did a two-year research fellowship at yale and then dr godfrey president of westminster california uh probably unwisely asked me if i would be willing to come out and teach some some courses and i gained my foothold there and uh they haven't been able to get rid of me for 23 years or sure they haven't tried real hard so in terms of your doctoral studies what did you focus on thomas goodwin and the puritan doctrine of assurance wow and what was the best takeaway the lord gave you from that other than honing your scholarly uh skills well you know you you usually don't have to have kleenex near you when you're working on your dissertation but i did with thomas goodwin wow uh like owen he who was a good friend um good one i think is an under appreciated uh colleague of owen we always go to john owen and that's that's great because there's so much there and thomas goodwin has some interesting quirks that owen doesn't have but he also there is no distinction between faith and feeling for him and the emotion comes through the way he writes about the gospel uh isn't it wonderful isn't it it isn't that's how he presents the things of of the lord so i really appreciated the opportunity to dig into the resources of 16th and 17th century reformed orthodoxy and good ones place in that history uh and and to understand really the diversity uh as you well know of puritan thinking on so many issues including assurance that's good yeah and as you look at that uh were you already thinking about systematic theology as your focus or were you more of a church historian at that time or historical theology what what was your thinking about your academic career in the future you know i i i knew when i was in high school i wanted to go to westminster either either california or philadelphia i knew i wanted to go to westminster and i knew i wanted to teach at westminster you passed her first but then you know eventually that was just my goal uh i didn't know when i was studying at westminster that that would actually ever happen but it was a nice ideal and i wanted to go into biblical studies and then i think by my last year i decided i i think it's going to be systematics and so ever ever since i've been interested in you know biblical theology systematics and uh and also historical theology trying to fool you know bring them together now as i understand while you were doing your research you came across a man who became a major political leader tell us who that is and how that friendship developed major political leader would it be ben sass oh yeah sorry ben uh yeah uh just think of him as my friend um he he uh be be so another good friend uh dan bryant uh said you know i have this this person you met him at oxford but uh i've really gotten to know him dan and i were at oxford together and uh he said i think he wants to come out there and uh be an intern i said well we don't have interns at white horse inn and he says well he wants to come out anyway so he came out before he was married and worked in the warehouse and then we would we would stay up uh till all hours uh he and a few others talking theology and uh so eventually uh he came back to be the executive director of white horse inn and then we merged with the alliance of confessing evangelicals and he became the first executive director of of the alliance and so he's been a friend for many years he was the editor of our magazine modern reformation magazine as well uh yeah it's a it's a been a pleasure and a joy uh we have enough on each other it could be mutually assured destruction so we keep each other in line that's good well just to say that uh senator sasse has often spoken in the senate in very memorable ways and you say thank god we have such an articulate leader who has uh reformed convictions yes and does civics every time he stands up that's right because we don't get it anywhere else someone's got to teach us get it somewhere so tell us how did the white horse end start that's been such a blessing to so many how did it develop yeah we uh so a number we first of all had a conference at biola when i was still a student there uh in undergrad and we had a number of people one representing uh uh two actually lutherans uh john montgomery and rod rosenblatt and j.i packer and james boyce and uh well someone else anyway it was it was on reformation day and we had a packed house i i was surprised that so many people were there and one person was there who said uh i'm going to uh you guys need to do this on radio and i'll pay for it wow and on radio and uh went to the salem network he went to the salem network he knew all the people and said let's do this and they said a theology talk show with people from different reformation traditions this will never fly yeah and uh he gave it enough money to make it you know last for a while and then it just it took off and 30 years later it's still going strong that's good so remind us how you took the name the white horse for years one of the one of the guys in the group um just you know friends uh said why don't you call it the white horse in and uh so we talked about you know the history of the white horse inn and uh this was the place where the reformation came to the english-speaking world by people just sitting around and talking we wanted to make sure it's not a church this is not a church we're not talking about we're all uniting and and so forth but uh what about all the streams of the reformation coming together even though we disagree on very important things right coming together and talking about what we do agree on together right and um so we said let's call it the white horse in and then by god's grace this last year we've started a new program called core christianity and i like just starting things and running away i started it with adriel sanchez and adriel does such a good job without me it's better when i'm not on so i just stepped out of it and adriel is uh taking it um by himself uh and it's just a fantastic program if you get a chance it's a call-in program just live calling program people asking their their deepest questions that's good now as uh time has gone on you you have become a professor have you done some pastoring and preaching through the years i have kim robarger who is one of my colleagues on the white horse inn we planted two churches together and in fact uh by by god's grace i was able this last sunday uh to visit um uh the church that we planted started in my living room and here it is uh 25 years later on the 25th anniversary just seeing people from seems like every race in and tribe and people uh just uh packed out in that in that wonderful place where people uh have been taught for 30 years by kim riddleburger the truth of god or 25 years the truth of god's word it was it was a real encouragement but he's been the sort of stable one yeah uh he's like my big brother and he's the he's the stable big brother i'm the i'm the one who runs around and starts starts fires so how did your vision for systematic theology of your own come about and and what do you think are the distinctives that you tried to bring to your work yeah thank you for asking that um i think that uh you know we would see eye to eye on this that the importance of biblical theology um such an important uh emphasis that it's not something necessarily separate from systematic theology it's it's part of how we do systematic theology as gerhardis vos said it's sort of like uh you know the difference between um a circle and a line or i like to say a road map and a street map um i'm sorry a street map and a topographical map okay it's good to see the layout of the hills and the streams and the valleys but then you also need to make connections between this street and that street so you don't get lost and so i i think that's very important but also historical theology to know where we've made the wrong turns and how to get back on the freeway how we got back on the freeway and what to avoid in our own day it it's not just looking at the past it's learning from the past to help us help us drive in the right direction in the in the present that's great and then also to sort of think about the apologetic context where are we in the place where god's providence has placed us and how do we how how do we defend this faith this christian faith uh in a way that is winsome but also uh shrewd and um and critical where we need to be and taking every thought captive to the obedience of christ that's great well as a systematic theologian there are deep insights you can bring about some of the pressing issues that confront us every day for example you mentioned how the church you're in had people from every kindred tongue people tripe and race we hear a lot about this critical race theory and about various racial tensions from a systematic or a biblical theological viewpoint what word of encouragement would you say this is the theological issue you must understand to navigate all of the cacophony on the issue of race relationships today well this is where i i would go go down the list of the loci or topics of systematic theology and just say you know we have a doctrine of creation people don't really believe we all came from one source that that really there's one race the human race and uh we we all have a diversity of ethnicities and languages and cultures and that that that's good god made us male and female he made us black and white he made us latino and these are not obstacles these are part of the variety of god's creative work and his his providence uh the doctrine um the the the doctrine of the fall you know we're kind of all in this together there are no you know the bad people aren't the folks over there the others we're all in this mess together but sin isn't just things we do like explicit acts of racism it's a condition so when people talk about systematic or systemic racism we have a doctrine for that it's original sin it's not just things we do it's it's you know we're sinners and sinned against with there's there's a web of violence and hatred for each other that is is part of the fallen human condition it's seeped into all of our institutions all of our lives uh but then you come to uh christology you know christ didn't become uh he didn't assume jewishness of course he was a particular jewish person in his own world in context but he assumed our humanity and that means that he's not a white jesus a black jesus a jewish jesus he is the jesus for all people yes jewish in his own context but he assumed you know the the universal humanity that we all share and died for the sins of people from every tribe kindred tongue people and nation and then you you get to ecclesiology finally and you know what are we looking forward to together with ecclesiology eschatology what are we looking forward to a church gathered around the throne singing praises and you look around why did he mention from every tribe in kindred and tongue and people and nation a kingdom of priests because it reflects that diversity that god thinks is good and that he made in creation all of these doctrines i think are are so vital we're so divided by what i call fox christians and cnn christians we we need to be bible christians go back to the doctrines that really fundamentally alter the way we look at everything and not allow the culture to divide us over these issues let me offer another question the confusion of genders today and all the redefinition of male and female and multiple genders and the fluidity of these things gender dysphoria how does systematic theology help us to think about those issues i can tremendously helpful um you know i i have have some uh sort of knowledge and talking to people counseling and so forth as you do with uh some of these issues and there there is a real a real thing called gender dysphoria um and it's again part of our fallenness it's it's uh we're we're broken things are not the way god created them to be but that doesn't mean that we're outside of god's providence outside of god's care that he doesn't love us we're all broken in different ways and so we we shouldn't treat these things as if they're sort of unique this is a shock this is what is a shock is that we're living in a time where people don't believe in something called nature so we have to go back to the doctrine of creation and of course see it in the light of eschatology why did god make us for in fact i'll be talking about this in the the gaffin lecture uh tomorrow nature is something that our culture right now doesn't believe in anymore you choose your nature and you know i think a lot of a lot of people even christians who are struggling with some of these issues that you mention um don't believe actually that they've chosen their nature they're struggling with certain sinful conditions uh they're suffering from brokenness and are making good decisions in a lot of cases are saying no i have a nature and i'm not going to i'm going to resist temptation i admire those people tremendously sometimes i give in to my temptations and i look at those people and say that they really are my heroes so i think that you know if we believe that we have a nature we're created with a nature we are created in the image of god it's not something we choose it makes a great deal of difference in how we look at then the twistedness and distortedness of it all we have a framework for talking about it it's like yeah god knows that god god's not surprised uh we shouldn't be either this is your area of brokenness this is uh you know i could tell you my areas of brokenness and how can how can the the church be helpful for believers who are struggling with these issues and how can unbelievers be called to repentance not just for saying that they can be whatever they want to be but for that whole world view that says i'm autonomous i decide my identity i choose my identity i go online and pass you know put patch together the identity i'd like to have uh no all of us need to think seriously about how we've done that and how we need to back away and say no god made me and us all of us a certain way we've fallen from that christ has redeemed us justifying us uniting us to himself and therefore to the father and now sanctifying us conforming us to the image of christ together and we do that it's a team sport all of us are just fellow fellow sinners on the way who claim nothing in my hands i bring but simply to the cross i cling and depend on christ for the double cure salvation from both sins guilt and power sanctification is such a treasured doctrine how do you see sanctification relating to the doctrine of justification which of course is the foundational reformation insight that we're declared righteous through faith alone and yet we recognize god calls us to a holy life how do you put those together in your understanding yeah i actually i think the reformation helped recover sanctification too i think that um to put it in its right context that we only have all of the gifts of salvation including justification and sanctification in christ paul's favorite preposition you know everything that we have we have in christ chosen in christ redeemed by christ united to christ by the holy spirit uh we are uh in christ who is the head of his church all of the all of the great truths that we have uh being conformed to the image of christ being glorified and we don't talk about that often enough glory the doctrine of glorification what does it mean to be calvin says christ considers himself in some measure imperfect at present until the rest of the body is raised together with him as the head what a picture this is not we haven't seen anything yet it gets so much better than this but along the way between our justification and our glorification there's this wonderful christian life that is filled with trouble and doubts insecurities anxieties and yet the promise that he will keep on doing what he started that's great if god if god didn't start this be if god didn't if i started this then at some point it it depends on me whether it's finished but if as paul says he who began a good work in you will complete it then i can struggle against sin i you know people think that calvinism sometimes people think will lead to antinomianism it's the very opposite instead of giving up or leading to self-righteousness on one hand or despair on the other it says i i'm a sinner i will be until i die i'm sinful uh still by nature the power the dominion of sin is broken but i will i i will continue to sin not by determination but i know that i will and yet that's not who i am this is who i am in christ and on the basis of what god says i am in christ justified adopted friend of god instead of an enemy reconciled instead of alien alienated because what he says about me i can go on in that struggle in the confidence that he who began a good work in me will complete it to the day of christ jesus that takes work i mean but it frees me now for the first time to say i can work i can work at this again people don't say no you can you can work at this not because of self-help not because you have the strength to in yourself but because he's too good a god just to relieve you of the burden of your guilt and not relieve the burden of the dominion and cruel oppression of sin that's wonderful well we're gonna have to wrap up our time so let me begin our concluding uh time by saying thank you for coming to be our gaffing lecturer i'm so honored we appreciate it uh and also since you're bringing westminster california to westminster philadelphia give us a couple things you hope might continue to grow between us as we've talked from time to time about recognizing our common heritage our common concerns we have a natural competitive rivalry because we are in different sides of the country in different schools but we share so much what is your what are some honest aspirations for our partnership well since the chargers left you know we really have lost a lot of the rivalry i think we don't really have teams to uh correspond to each other anymore uh no i think that we are so uh um eager to see the the emphases that we share go out from from any institution that bears them and of course we have uh been so grateful for the heritage that we have from westminster philadelphia and um the the great things the lord is doing at westminster california uh i'm grateful to you and to dr godfrey for starting uh a closer conversation uh and joel kim our new president is so eager to continue those conversations our faculty are so interrelated as friends and colleagues i think that we're we see each other much more than we did before only because we didn't get together very often as friends and co-laborers and that's a very exciting thing to see that's great well as we conclude today in god's providence today is election day in america and we believe in sovereign election we also are dealing with national election say a word about both of those truths and encourage our listeners today sure well i you know uh what what really matters today is our election in jesus christ that's what that's what matters most that's what transcends uh whether you know whoever you vote for that's what transcends everything but i would say isn't it a wonderful thing you know you look at the admonitions in the epistles uh especially what paul and peter say to christians who are enduring hardship and he says you know be a good neighbor uh be be a peacemaker be it be at peace with everyone around you and that was in a situation where christians had no say in how things go in god's providence he's placed us in a in a situation where however difficult christians today think it is i mean we live in a democracy and where the people decide uh by whom they're governed and so i think that uh we ought to be very grateful to the lord for the gifts that we have the opportunities we have to be citizens of this passing evil age whatever country god has placed us but to also remember um one day there won't be any elections in the united states or anywhere else one day there will only be one universal theocracy and that's where god's love and true justice and peace will prevail forever well dr horton thank you for being with us it's such an honor and would you pray to our king of kings and lord of lords as we conclude our time i would love to our gracious heavenly father we do thank you for giving us in your son a kingdom that cannot be shaken and for uniting us to yourself in your son by your spirit through your gospel we thank you that you hold us there you keep us there that we are adopted justified and because of that uh have no fear of being cut out of that last will and testament and on that basis drawing upon the the power of the holy spirit through the same gospel pursuing a holy life the the godly and upward calling that you've given us in christ jesus and from there help us to fulfill our callings in the world thank you for all the variety of vocations that you've given to people who may be watching or listening or reading uh pray that they will cherish the opportunities that you've given them having been served so richly by you to love and serve their neighbors in jesus name amen so thank you dr horton thank you friends for your sharing in this time god bless and what a joy it is to work together with brothers who are such serious scholars but have a heart for christ in his kingdom thank you thank you god bless

Channel: Westminster Theological Seminary

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Length: 31min 21sec (1881 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020