What Is the Difference between Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology?
Divinely Inspired Words
The Bible doesn’t come to us as an academic textbook, with carefully delineated topical headings organized according to theological themes. Certainly, God could have chosen to reveal himself differently. He could have given us a long lists of rules. He could have given us something like an encyclopedia of theological doctrines.
But, as we know, that is not how God has chosen to reveal himself to us in his inspired word. In the pages of Scripture, we discover stories, poems, and songs. We find prophecies, visions, parables, and letters to early churches and individual Christians. God’s word, divinely inspired through at least forty different human authors over thousands of years is artistically and beautifully composed and wonderfully literarily diverse. What a gift for us to discover our God through the pages of Scripture and through all of the distinct human authors and different biblical literary genres!
Tracing God's Story
Jon Nielson
In this accessible guide to studying biblical theology, pastor Jon Nielson examines Bible passages from Genesis to Revelation to demonstrate how Scripture is one cohesive narrative of God’s redemptive work in the world.
Systematic Theology
However, from the earliest days of the Christian church, biblical scholars and faithful pastors have discerned the important benefit of bringing careful organization and explanation to the theological truths and doctrines that the Bible clearly teaches God’s people. Some of the earliest articulations of what today we would call “systematic theology” emerged in and through the church councils of the third and fourth centuries as the early church fathers battled various heresies (particularly relating to the person of Jesus Christ), and early creeds were formed as fundamental summaries of Christian doctrine.
The Nicene Creed, as one example, affirms clearly both the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ (doctrines which had both been under attack by pernicious false teachings), as well as the glorious authority of both God the Father and God the Son, from whom God the Holy Spirit proceeds. To put it simply, systematic theology is the careful organization and articulation of the theological truths of Scripture.
Systematic theology uses human categories to summarize what the Bible teaches about all kinds of things. What is God like? What is the nature of sin? What can we know about creation, the church, about human beings, and about the end of the world when Jesus Christ returns? When we engage in systematic theology, we systematize (or organize) our theological understanding of the clear truths and doctrines that God’s word teaches us.
Biblical Theology
Biblical theology is a different way of studying and organizing Scripture’s teaching of core Christian doctrine. Rather than utilizing categories and topical organization, biblical theology involves tracing the development of theological truths throughout the pages of Scripture in conjunction with the development of the biblical narrative. Biblical theology starts with the core conviction that the Bible is indeed one unified story, written by one divine author, which has its apex and climax in the person and work of that author’s divine Son.
If there is one author of the Bible, the Bible must ultimately be one unified story.
Our confidence in studying the Bible as a whole—as “one big story”—comes from our confidence in the doctrine of inspiration (that every word of the Bible is “breathed out” by God, as Paul declares in 2 Timothy 3:16). The Bible is God’s book, and we can confidently assume and assert that there is both unity and coherence to the revelation that God has once for all delivered to his people. If there is one author of the Bible, the Bible must ultimately be one unified story. And we can study it as such.
Biblical theology involves understanding the storyline of the Bible, but it is more than just a march through the pages of Scripture sequentially. It takes work and discipline and intentionality in every step along this march through the biblical narrative to see how the parts of the story are connecting, how continuity of God’s work and promises is maintained, and how God is progressively revealing his glorious saving plan and redemptive purposes to his people in the world he has made.
This is why one wonderful way to engage in biblical theology is to trace theological themes or ideas, examining their development from Genesis all the way through Revelation. So many of these core theological themes (such as “priest,” “sacrifice,” “blood,” and “justice”) emerge in the earliest pages of Scripture, begin to take on more depth and complexity and layers of meaning along the way until they burst into glorious fulfillment in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Biblical theology, then, is more than just “going through” the Bible from Genesis to Revelation—although it is certainly not less than that. It involves carefully discerning, with every twist and turn of the biblical narrative, how God is revealing more of himself, more of the depth and breadth of his sovereign plan of salvation, and more of the glorious hope of eternal redemption and victory through the work of his Son.
Biblical theology, you might say, is an attempt to “do theology” the way the Bible does it and in step with the rhythm and shape of the biblical narrative. It is the discipline of carefully tracking with every step of the progressive revelation of God in Scripture. In biblical theology, we are enjoying and savoring every moment of the story with every step along the way. And as we step back from the biblical narrative at every point, we see the glorious arc of God’s redemptive work in his world to save sinners, which culminates in his sending his own Son (the one by whom all things were created) to die in the place of his sinful people and to conquer sin, death, and Satan forever as their Savior and King.
It’s important to note that systematic theology and biblical theology are not enemies! These two disciplines are not in conflict, and there is, of course, often significant overlap between these two theological disciplines as Christians engage in them. It’s nearly impossible to see how God reveals his holy wrath against sin in the Old Testament accounts, for example, without beginning to formulate a systematic theological understanding of the doctrine of sin and the just consequences of unrepentant sin against a holy God.
Conversely, it’s almost impossible to think through the systematic category of biblical anthropology (the doctrine of mankind) without considering the biblical arc of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration—understanding both where human beings come from and where we are going! To put it simply, systematic theology and biblical theology are friends. Yet, they are distinct disciplines, and should be understood as such, even as they both can equip the saints of God to discover more about their glorious Savior and Lord.
Jon Nielson is the author of Tracing God’s Story: An Introduction to Biblical Theology.
Related Articles
10 Things You Should Know about Systematic Theology
Systematic theology teaches us to trace all things from, through, and to God, enabling us to give him all the glory.
Why Are the Books of the Bible in the Order They’re In?
The positioning of each book relative to other books in the canonical collection has hermeneutical significance for the reader who seeks meaning in the text.
7 Tips for Researching and Studying Theology
Joel R. Beeke, Paul M. Smalley
The following seven principles are useful for researching a theological paper, preparing to write an article, or developing a full systematic theology one piece at a time.
Why We Need Systematic Theology
Joel R. Beeke, Paul M. Smalley
Why do we need systematic theology? How we answer the question depends a lot on what we think theology is.
