Samuel H. Kellogg (1839-1899)

by Thomas D. Ice

    Samuel Kellogg (1839-1899) is indica­tive of those who helped turn the tide among evangelicals from postmillennialism to premillennialism between the Civil War and World War I. Kellogg was a Presbyterian scholar, linguist, professor, missionary, and pastor. "But the greatest thing about him was his wonderful knowledge of and love for his Bible," said a friend. "He was a man of the Book."

    This "man of the Book" was born on Long Island, New York. He was home-schooled and briefly attended Williams College in 1856, but graduated from Princeton College in 1861. He graduated from Princeton Seminary in 1864 and was ordained a missionary to India.

    Kellogg taught at the theological school in Allahabad and completed a monumental grammar of the Hindi language in 1875, which stood for many years as the leading authority. Upon the death of his wife in 1876, he returned to the United States and pastored a Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh. He was then called to the chair of Systematic Theol­ogy at Allegheny (Western) Presbyterian Seminary in Pittsburgh. Before returning to India where he died, for the final five years of his life, he pastored St. James Square Pres­byterian' Church, Toronto. Kellogg's final task in India was to head a triad of transla­tors of the Old Testament into Hindi. "So highly did his colleagues regard his knowl­edge of the Bible and Indic philology that after his death they asked for no successor, but this is what they say of their custom: 'When we differ between ourselves, and we recall what would have been Dr. Kellogg's view, the one whose opinion differs from this gives way at once.'"

    Perhaps Kellogg's greatest gift to Christendom lies in his contribution to the Hindi language. His most well-known En­glish contributions are his commentaries on Leviticus and Samuel, still widely respected and used today. However, he also made an impact in an area that he greatly loved as an Old Testament scholar---eschatology.

    Kellogg penned two outstanding works on Bible prophecy. They are The Jews or Pre­diction and Fulfillment: An Argument for the Times (1883) and Are Premillennialists Right? (ca. 1890). Kellogg's premillennial­ism was not developed as an appendage from Revelation 20; rather Revelation 20 serves as the climax to a drama begun in the earli­est books of the Old Testament. His understanding of a future for the Jews and a yet-future, literal fulfillment to them as a na­tionally distinct people drove him to the only possible eschatology to which such an un­derstanding leads. Dr. Wilbur Smith said, "Dr. Kellogg was. . . one of the great Bible scholars of his day. Probably this is the great­est single volume on prophecy in relation to the Jews to be written in our country during the nineteenth century." Kellogg believed that the Jews had a bright future under their even­tual Messiah and King-Jesus.

    Kellogg's scholarly statement and defense of premillennialism in Are Premillennialists Right? involves a survey of church history and Scripture. Convinced that the Bible teaches premillennialism, he interacts with many of the arguments raised against it by postmillennialism. Postmillennialism was dominant during Kellogg's seminary days. A common argument in his day raised against premillennialism by postmillennialists was that it discourages efforts at world evangeli­zation. Kellogg was living proof to the opposite. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, missions were dominated by premillennialists. Kellogg shared the follow­ing anecdote about his graduating class at Princeton Seminary: "Among the fifty gradu­ates were just seven Premillennialists. These all volunteered for the foreign field, while none of the others did. Four were permitted to go, and the three who were found physi­cally unfit engaged in home missions work."

    Kellogg was said to have been motivated to enter the mission field in the first place by anticipation of his Lord's return. It was the blessed hope that drove him to excellence in his work. Thus, at his death his friends placed on his gravestone at Landour these precious words, "Till He Come."