Richard Gaffin

Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (born July 7, 1936) is an American Calvinist theologian, Presbyterian minister, and professor emeritus at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He held the Charles Krahe Chair of Biblical and Systematic Theology from 1999 to 2008, and has been Professor Emeritus of Biblical and Systematic Theology since 2008. He is widely regarded as one of the preeminent Reformed biblical theologians of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and has taught at Westminster since 1965.

A son of Orthodox Presbyterian Church missionaries to China and Taiwan, Gaffin's scholarly work has centered on building upon the redemptive-historical biblical theology of Geerhardus Vos and applying it to Pauline soteriology, eschatology, and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. His 1969 doctoral dissertation, published as Resurrection and Redemption, is considered a landmark contribution to the study of Paul's theology.

Early life and family Gaffin was born on July 7, 1936, in Peiping (modern-day Beijing), China, to Richard B. Gaffin Sr. and Pauline Gaffin, who were serving as missionaries with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church's Committee on Foreign Missions. He may have been the first covenant child born in the newly formed Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which J. Gresham Machen and others had founded just twenty-six days before his birth.

Education Gaffin received a Bachelor of Arts from Calvin College in 1958. He then enrolled at Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS), where he earned a Bachelor of Divinity (1961), a Th.M. (1962), and a Th.D. (1969). For his master's dissertation under John Murray, Gaffin studied John Calvin's doctrine of the Sabbath — a project that introduced him to the biblical theology of Geerhardus Vos, whose influence would define his subsequent career.

Redemptive-historical biblical theology At the heart of Gaffin's theology is the conviction that Scripture must be interpreted according to the history of redemption — the historia salutis — which reaches its decisive turning point in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. Drawing on Vos's insight that Scripture is the interpretation of God's redemptive activity in history, Gaffin argued in his dissertation Resurrection and Redemption (1969; published 1987) that the resurrection of Christ is not merely an event in the past but the eschatological event which inaugurates the new creation. Believers' union with the risen Christ by faith constitutes the foundation of all of Paul's soteriology.

Cessationism Gaffin has been an influential defender of the cessationist position, which holds that certain revelatory gifts of the Holy Spirit — such as prophecy, tongues, and miraculous healing — ceased with the completion of the biblical canon and the death of the apostles. In Perspectives on Pentecost (1979), Gaffin argued that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost belongs to the historia salutis as a once-for-all turning point in redemptive history, not as a normative post-conversion experience available to individual believers in the present age. In 1980, Shepherd was removed as a professor by the Westminster Board of Trustees; he subsequently transferred his credentials to the Christian Reformed Church. Despite the theological differences that subsequently emerged between them, Gaffin and Shepherd remained in conversation through the years.

Personal life Gaffin married Jean Young, daughter of E. J. Young, on August 23, 1958. They had three children: Richard III, Steven, and Lisl. Jean died in 2019 after sixty-one years of marriage. The couple had moved to the Washington, DC area in 2016 and began worshiping at Grace Presbyterian Church in Vienna, Virginia, where his son Richard III serves as a ruling elder. He transferred to the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic at that time.

Books Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul's Soteriology, 2nd ed. (P&R, 1987). Perspectives on Pentecost: New Testament Teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (P&R, 1979; repr. 1993). Calvin and the Sabbath: The Controversy of Applying the Fourth Commandment, revised ed. (Mentor, 2009). God's Word in Servant-Form: Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck and the Doctrine of Scripture (Reformed Academic Press, 2008). By Faith, Not By Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation, 2nd ed. (P&R, 2013). No Adam, No Gospel: Adam and the History of Redemption (P&R, 2015). In the Fullness of Time: An Introduction to the Biblical Theology of Acts and Paul (Crossway, 2022). Word and Spirit: Selected Writings in Biblical and Systematic Theology, edited by David B. Garner and Guy Prentiss Waters (Westminster Seminary Press, 2023).

Edited volumes Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos, Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures, revised ed., ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (P&R, 1988) Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (P&R, 2001) J. P. Versteeg, Adam in the New Testament: Mere Teaching Model or First Historical Man?, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (P&R, 2012) Thy Word Is Still Truth: Essential Writings on the Doctrine of Scripture from the Reformation to Today, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. and Peter A. Lillback (P&R, 2013) Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, 5 vols., ed. and trans. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Lexham Press, 2014–2016)

Contributed essays (selected) "Geerhardus Vos and the Interpretation of Paul," in Jerusalem and Athens, ed. E. R. Geehan (P&R, 1980) — a Festschrift for Cornelius Van Til "Theonomy and Eschatology: Some Reflections on Postmillennialism," in Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, ed. William S. Barker and W. Robert Godfrey (Zondervan, 1990) "A Cessationist View," in Are Miraculous Gifts for Today?, ed. Wayne Grudem (Zondervan, 1996) "Union with Christ: Some Biblical and Theological Reflections," in Always Reforming: Explorations in Systematic Theology, ed. A. T. B. McGowan (IVP Academic, 2007) "What 'Symphony of Sighs'? Reflections on the Eschatological Future of the Creation," in Redeeming the Life of the Mind: Essays in Honor of Vern Poythress, ed. John M. Frame, Wayne Grudem, John J. Hughes (Crossway, 2017)

Academic articles (selected) "Paul as Theologian," Westminster Theological Journal, May 1968 "The Usefulness of the Cross," Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 1979 "The Holy Spirit," Westminster Theological Journal, Fall 1980 "Old Amsterdam and Inerrancy?" Westminster Theological Journal, Fall 1982 and Fall 1983 "The Holy Spirit and Eschatology," Kerux: The Journal of Northwest Theological Seminary, December 1989 "Some Epistemological Reflections on 1 Corinthians 2:6-16," Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 1995 "Pentecost: Before and After," Kerux: The Journal of Northwest Theological Seminary, September 1995 "Paul the Theologian," Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 2000