Rev. Augustus H. Strong

Augustus H. Strong (1836~1921) was a highly respected pastor and seminary president.Many years after his death, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with his son.He told me about the time he was baptized by his father in a church in Rochester, New York.Walking home with his father after that mountaintop experience, he had exclaimed, "Father, I'm so glad I was baptized.

Augustus Hopkins Strong is perhaps the most notable Baptist theologian of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. His place in a compendium of Baptist theologians is central. In some cases he must be read in order to understand the theological writings of others. Strong taught and wrote his orthodox theology from a committed, reformed, Baptist perspective, while at the same time rigorously engaging intellectual developments within his cultural context. Strong's magnum opus, the Systematic Theology, embodied the best of his own theological reflection and of Baptist theological thought prior to the momentous crisis (the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy).

Concerning his eschatology, Strong believed Christ's coming is "pre-millennial spiritually, but post-millennial physically and visibly."1 In Strong's view the two eschatologies are not in conflict but simply indicate the marvelous teleology of a God who infinitely rich glory and grace is able to redeem the time, both present and future, and all that it contains.
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Strong recognized various proofs for the divine inspiration of Scripture, but the one he favored was the teaching and convincing that the Holy Spirit does in perpetually spurerintending the sincere reading of that Scripture. By this means, understanding the Scripture "as a whole and in all essentials," occurs so reliably that it must have God as its ultimate source and goal.2 Scripture's inspiration was accomplished through the Spirit of God causing an interpenetration of fully divine and fully human characteristics.

Strong does not hedge in his commitment to the biblical understanding of God in His sovereignty so that all events serve His ultimate purpose and glory, even the reprobate in their destruction. Strong, however, is careful to avoid blind determinism and sets forth a compatibility between divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

As to election, Strong was an advocate of the moderate-Calvinistic "sublapsarian" view. Election is the determination of God to save some out of the mass of fallen humanity and to pass over the rest. Grace and sovereign election are kept in close relation. Drawing deeply upon reformed theology at this point, the actual effects of election secure union with Christ prior to justification and regeneration in the ordo solutis. Strong's earlier assertions about Christ in creation set the context for this view of election. Union with Christ, while avoiding "a false mysticism" is emphasized because of the powerful reality that is signified by the doctrine.

Ecclesiology, according to Strong, stands on the twin pillars of a regenerate membership and voluntary association, whether at the local or universal level. Each member stands on equal footing with God, to glorify Him and to do His will. Christ is the sole Lord of the church, whose authority in doctrine and life must be kept pure.

Footnotes: 1 Strong, Primer, 104. Cited in ibid., 36; cf. Strong's Miscellanies v. 1, 68 for his affirmation of a literal second coming of Christ 2 Grant Wacker, Augustus H. Strong and the Dilemma of Historical Consciousness (Macon GA: Mercer, 1985), 4-6; cf. the very fine biographical sketch by S. Fraser Langford.

1836 - Birth of Augustus H. Strong, noted Baptist theologian and pastor of 1st Baptist of Haverhill, Massachusetts. and Cleveland, Ohio.

DR. STRONG, its President, was born at Rochester, August 3d, 1836, and graduated from Yale College in 1857.While a student at Yale he was brought to Christ, and united with the First Baptist Church in Rochester; but after his graduation he first entered the Theological Seminary in that city, and then completed his studies in the German universities.On his return from Europe, in 1861, he was ordained pastor of the Baptist Church at Haverhill, Mass., which he left in 1865 to become pastor of the First Church, Cleveland, OH., from whence he went to take his present place, after seven years of successful pastoral toil.Although Dr. Strong is the youngest of our theological presidents, the classes which come from under his hand evince his care in training and his wisdom in impressing them with that robust impress of Biblical theology which betokens their reverence for the heavenly vision.Endowed himself with insight into spiritual things, with keen faith and high sanctity, they catch his spirit, and their ministry evidences their love for that Lord whose they are and whom they serve.He is the author of numerous notable articles on theological subjects, but his most elaborate and weighty book is his 'Systematic Theology' recently published.