           T         h          e
     STANDARD
          BEARER
            A REFORMED SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE                                        Y


                    SP'ECIAL. ISSUE
     THE DOCTRINE OF TOTAL DEPRAVITY
     I I . . . Therefore. all men are conceived in sin,
     and  by  nature  children  of  wrath,  incapable
     of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and
     in bondage thereto, and without the regener-
     ating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither
     able  nor  willing  to  return  to  God,  to  reform
     the  depravity of their  nature, nor to  dispose
     themselves to reformation."
       Specific  language!  Do  you  believe  it?  And
     confess it?
                See "Total Means Total" - page 245

c                                               Volurn~  LIX, No. 11, March  I,1983  -


242                                                                    THE STANDARD BEARER



                                                                                                                       THE  STANDARD BEARER
                                   CONTENTS                                                                                     ISSN 03624692
                                                                                                    Semi-monthly, except monthly during June, July, and August.
                                                                        .                           Published b the Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1.x.
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                                                                                          Editor-in-Chief:  Prof. Homer C. Hoeksema
       Dead  in Sin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._.I. 242    Department Editors: Rev. Wayne Bekkering, Rev. Wilbur Bruinsma, Rev. Ronald
                                                                                          Cammenga, Rev. Arie  denHartog,  Prof. Robert D. Decker, Rev. Richard  Flik-
  Editorials-                                                                             kema, Rev. Cornelius Hanko, Prof. Herman  Hank!,  Mr. David Harbach, Rev.
                                                                                          John A. Heys, Rev. Kenneth Koole, Rev. JaiKortermg,  Rev. George C. Lubbers,
       About  This Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .244         Rev. Rodney Miersma, Rev.  Marinus SC  Ipper, Rev. James Slopsema, Rev.
                                                                                          Gise J. Van Baren,Rev.  Herman Veldman.
       Total  Means Total . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . .245        Editorial  Office: Prof. H.C. Hoeksema
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MEDITATION

                                                                     Dead in Sin
                                                                                 Rev. C. Hanko

                     And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
                     Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course  of this world, according to the prince
                 of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
                     Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling
                 the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
                 others. Ephesians  21-3

  And you . . . . But God . . . .                                                            kind that could save us from spiritual death or
  Let it be deeply imprinted upon our souls that we                                          deliver our bodies from corruption. We were with-
were dead.  We  were dead in trespasses and sins,                                            out God in a world consigned to damnation.
hopelessly lost. There was no strength in us nor will                                            But God in His sovereign power and because of
to be saved, nor was there anyone among all man-                                             His eternal love has prepared His only begotten


                                            THE STANDARD BEARER                                                243



Son, and raised Him from the dead to be the Savior         also the only source of life. This is true as far as our
of His people. Salvation is of the Lord through our        physical existence is concerned, for in Him we live
Lord Jesus Christ. For "God, Who is rich in mercy,         and move and have our being. This. is also true of
for that great love wherewith He loved us, even            our spiritual existence. For "this is life eternal that
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us to-           they might know Thee, the only true God, and
gether with Christ, . . .and hath raised us up together    Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent" (John  17:3).
and made us sit together in heavenly places in             For us life, true life, is to share the covenant fellow-
Christ Jesus."                                             ship of the one only, ever blessed God, to be like
   "By grace are ye saved."                                Him, to experience His approval and blessings, and
                                                           to tell His praises. Death is the opposite. Death is
  Born dead in sin.                                        the bitter experience of God's disapproval, that He
  Throughout this entire passage in which is so            turns His back to us, so that we no longer see the
clearly depicted our depravity and the guilt of our        light of His countenance, that He shuts His ears to
sins there is a repeated reference to the fact that we     our crying and banishes us from His presence with
belong to the human race that is fallen in Adam.           the terrible indictment, "Depart from Me, thou
Our death-state goes back to our fall in our first         worker of iniquity, I know thee not." That was in
f a t h e r   A d a m .                                    times past our woeful experience, "Without Christ,
  In time past "we walked according to the course          being aliens of the commonwealth of Israel (the
of this world." From the time of our early infancy         church), and strangers of the covenants of promise,
we followed the pattern laid down by this present          having no hope, and without God in the world'
evil world. Their standard became our standard,            ( v e r s e   1 2 ) .
their customs our customs, their way of life and              As if that were not bad enough, our text adds that
sinful practices became ours. We made ourselves            we were dead in trespasses and sins. We were dead
conform to evil men in the their dress, in their am-       because of sin, the first sin of paradise. We also live
bitions, in their sinful lusts and pleasures. The ap-      our lives in the body as spiritually dead. Alive, yet
proval of men meant more to us than the favor of           dead. A seeming contradiction, yet a sad reality.
God.                                                       Though we live out our lives in our bodies, we are
   "Among whom also we all had our conversation            spiritually alienated from the fountain of life, given
in times past in the lust of the flesh." The apostle       over to sin and death. "For they that are after the
now includes himself and the saints of all ages. We        flesh do mind the things of the flesh....Because the
all, without exception, fell in Adam. His disobedi-        carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject
ence, along with Eve's, was the beginning of a life        to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 5:
devoted to sinful lusts. He refused to be dependent        7). Trespasses are departures from the law of God,
upon God, craving his independence. He scorned             the narrow way that leads to life eternal. We all like
the thought of being submissive, openly defying            sheep wandered off in our own willful way in re-
God's command. He despised the garb of a servant,          bellion against the living God. "Sins" refers to the
seeking to be king apart from God, claiming the            depravity of our nature, which corrupts our whole
whole creation as his own. He transgressed God's           walk of life. We reveled in sin, boasted of our evil
covenant; therefore God gave him over, and the             deeds. God was not in all our thoughts. Even to
whole human race with him, to sinful pride and             entertain a thought of God was repulsive to us. Our
carnal lusts.                                              desires, our thoughts, our words, our actions and
                                                           deeds all arose out of the corrupt fountain of our
   "And we were by nature children of wrath, even          evil nature. "Knowing the judgment of God that
as others." The "others" are the whole fallen              they which commit such things are worthy of
human race that still lies under the dominion of sin       death." We not only did the same, but had pleasure
in the bondage of death. By our very nature, which         in those that do them. (See Ram: 1:32;)
we receive from our parents, we are enemies of
God, prone to hate God and the neighbor, inclined             We walked "according to the course of this
to all evil and incapable of any good. We are spiritu-     world." Instead of walking in the light of God's
al stillbirths. Dead in sin from the moment of our         Words and precepts as children of light, we chose
conception. What a terrible indictment! Yet how            our company with the children of darkness, letting
true!                                                      Satan and his cohorts determine our way of life,
  Dead in sin.                                             reveling in sin and bringing ruin upon ourselves in
                                                           soul and body.
  Dead in sin, lifeless, like a stinking corpse that is
laid away in the grave. Death is the antithesis to            For it is "the prince of the power of the air" who
life. Life belongs only to God. God is Life. He alone      sets the pattern for the children of darkness. This
possesses life and immortality. Therefore God is           prince is none other than Satan, the wicked  oppo-


244                                          THE STANDARD BEARER



nent of God, who is the devil, the cunning deceiver        iniquity who sin against His holy Name. God's
of mankind. He wants to be as God. He is deter-            wrath rests on the sinner as well as on his deeds.
mined to wipe out the name of God and the cause            Children of wrath are we according to our very
of Christ from the face of the earth. He has a host of     nature and being. We are born out of wrath, only to
demons at his command, who help him to carry out           increase that wrath daily by the guilt of our sins.
his foolish ambition. These are the unseen, invisi-        We deserve only to be cast into everlasting tor-
ble powers, which do not have flesh and blood as           ments of hell-under the righteous judgment of our
we do, but who surround us wherever we are. The            God.
air is full of them. it is very well possible that each       Humbly we join the apostle in confessing that
of us has his personal demon, who makes it his             the guilt of Adam is our guilt and the depravity of
business to keep a watch over us to detect our             mankind is our depravity. We bow before the
weaknesses and the best moment as well as best             Scriptures which teach us that "as by one man sin
manner to attack. Yet this whole host of armies of         entered into the world, and death by sin; and so
hell could do nothing, if it were not for the fact that    death passed upon all men, for that (because)  aZZ
we are willing subjects to all their whims and wiles.      have sinned."
The devil and his host tell us that service of God is
bondage. Life, liberty, and happiness are found               Humbly we confess with Paul that in our former
only in their service. He and his host travel incog-       conversation we followed the dictates of an evil
nito. They prefer to be ignored. They distract all at-     world, which obeyed the dictates of Satan. We bore
tention from God, from eternity, and especially            the image and likeness of ugly Satan in open defi-
from hell. They create a "now" generation that             ance of our God. The name "children of wrath"
says, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for that is        applied to us as well as to all those who perish for-
real living." The victims of that host silence the         ever in their sins. We were certainly no better.
voice of conscience until it is hardened, callous,         There was no reason whatever that God should
and almost speechless.                                     love such wretches as we were.
  This becomes evident especially now as we ap-              But God.. . .
proach the end of the ages. Men are lovers of self           God is GOD, the all-glorious, holy, righteous,
more than lovers of God. Yes, they can be nice,            ever-blessed and adorable God. He loves us with an
friendly people. as long as this serves their own sel-     eternal, sovereignly free, unchangeable love in
fish ends. They have a form of godliness, but they         Christ Jesus. He has quickened us, raised us from
deny the true and living God, Who is the source of         the dead, and even exalted us to heavenly perfec-
their very existence. They follow the dictates of the      tion with Christ in His blessed presence!
evil world, which, in turn, follows the dictates of          How deeply humiliating it is, to think that He
Satan. Openly they commit and condone the gross-           loved us when were were still enemies.
est immoral acts. Murders, rape, stealings, rob-
beries are common occurrences. We see before our             How amazing are the riches of His grace and the
very eyes that the measure of iniquity of an evil          working of the power of His infinite might!
world is rapidly being filled. The day of final reck-        How wonderful, occasion for everlasting thanks,
oning is not far off. And to think-among them we           that we should be delivered from such horrible
also had our conversation in times past!                   depths of sin and exalted to such a high position of
  Children of wrath, even as others.                       glory in our Lord Jesus Christ.
  God's wrath is His eternal love for all that is            0 the depths of the riches of knowledge, of wis-
holy, just, and true. Therefore God's wrath is His         dom, of power, of grace, of mercy, yea, of bound-
just  defence of His own glorious Being and Name.          less, eternal love. To God be the glory forever as we
God hates not only sin, but also all the workers of        confess in sincere gratitude: Saved by Grace!

EDITORIALS
Prof H.C. Hoe,ksema

                                    About This Issue

  This is the third in our series of special issues de-    devoted in its entirely to the doctrine of Total De-
voted to the so-called Five Points of Calvinism. It is     pravity.


                                          THE STANDARD BEARER                                                 245



  You will immediately notice again that we are          rather limited point of view of its relation to the
not following the popular-and, perhaps, expected         doctrine of man's conversion to God, or, irresistible
-order in our treatment of the Five Points. Instead      g r a c e .
we are following the order of our Canons of  Dor-          It is not the purpose of this issue to follow the
drecht. And, as we have already noted in connec-         more restricted point of view of our Canons. For
tion with the doctrine of definite atonement, the        one thing, we purpose to treat the doctrine of total
order of our Canons was historically determined by       depravity as such and as a whole. We shall certain-
the order of the Five Points of Remonstrance. The        ly take into consideration in this connection the
third article of the Arminians was concerning            Arminian view of sin; and two of the assigned arti-
man's depravity; therefore the third chapter of the      cles will be devoted to this. Also the subject of the
Canons, in reply to it, is also concerning man's de-     origin  of our depravity is important in this con-
pravity. But there is more. Anyone who is acquain-       nection, and two more assignments concern this as-
ted only casually with the Canons of Dordrecht will      pect. From our distinctive Protestant Reformed
know that Chapters III and IV of the Canons are          point of view, the entire area of Total Depravity
combined into one; and although the numbers are          and so-called Common Grace is important, and to
retained, the single chapter is referred to as           maintain the truth of Total Depravity over against
"Canons III, IV." There is a reason for this. The        the errors promulgated by Dr. Abraham Kuyper
third article of the Arminians, though very brief        and by the Second and Third Points of 1924 belongs
and certainly inadequate as a full statement of the      to our heritage. Two more assignments were in this
doctrine of the depravity of the natural man, was in     area. Nor did we leave out of consideration the
itself not heretical. Yet, when one reads the fourth     practical aspect of this doctrine. One assignment
article of the Remonstrance, which makes the grace       concerned the doctrine of total depravity and
of salvation utterly dependent upon the free will of     preaching; and another, total depravity and the
natural man, he discovers that the Arminians did         antithetical life. In addition, the Meditation in this
not really hold to the total depravity of the natural    issue is related to its theme; and it fell to your editor
man at all. For this reason, the fathers of Dordrecht    to introduce the subject.
treated the two doctrines of man's depravity and           We left it to the various writers to choose the
his conversion to God (Total Depravity, the T of         actual titles of their articles; we only assigned their
T-U-L-I-P, and Irresistible Grace, the I of  T-U-        subjects and added a brief statement in some in-
L-I-P) in a combined chapter, entitled, "Of the Cor-     stances with a suggestion or two as to the specific
ruption of Man, His Conversion to God, And the           area of discussion assigned to them.
Manner Thereof." And while the first few articles
of Canons III, IV furnish us a very adequate state-        In behalf of the Staff's committee, I hereby ex-
ment of the depravity of natural man and, in fact, of    press sincere thanks to all those who contributed to
the origin of our sin, the fact remains that the         this special issue.
Canons deal with total depravity only from the             It is our hope that the reader will profit.


                                 Total Means Total

  Today almost everyone who is at all to be clas-        the new life, for the gift of regeneration. Almost
sified even in the broadest sense as "evangelical"       everyone today gives lip service to the doctrine of
professes to believe the doctrine of total depravity.    total depravity.
Those who hold to the Kuyperian doctrine of com-           What does this mean for Reformed people?
mon grace nevertheless claim to believe this doc-
trine, although they have so compromised it that in        It means that in our profession and in our
their view there is in reality nowhere to be found in    preaching, in our catechizing and teaching, in our
this world a totally depraved man: common grace          spreading abroad of the truth of the gospel on the
prevents this. Many a modern day Arminian evan-          domestic or on the foreign mission field, it is no
gelist will also profess-even as the Arminians of        longer enough merely to say that we maintain the
old-that man is totally depraved. A man like Billy       doctrine of total depravity. The mere term fotaZ de-
Graham in his book, World Aflame, freely professes       pravity is no longer some kind of magical badge of
that man is totally depraved; yet his totally de-        distinction of a Calvinist. Common grace men wear
praved man is able to pray to God and ask Him for        this badge. Arminians wear this badge. In fact, they


246                                          THE STANDARD BEARER



even go so far as to deny the badge of "total de-           possible to speak of any good in such a man. It may
pravity" to us and to others who have the only right        be possible to have an otherwise good apple with a
to wear it because we insist upon the full, biblical,       rotten spot in it; and if the bad spot is removed, you
confessional, historically correct meaning of this          have an edible apple. But it is not so with man's
doctrine. They will say, for example, that our badge        nature. If his heart is corrupt, and if all the issues of
is the badge of "absolute depravity" instead of the         life are from that heart, then the whole man is cor-
badge of "total depravity." This, of course, is a           rupt, dead in trespasses and sins. But because of
favorite ploy of heretics and deniers of the truth.         various attacks upon the truth concerning man's
They attempt to use the language of Scripture and           depravity, it became necessary to underscore that
the language of the confessions, the language of or-        totality and to add the term which is really repeti-
thodoxy, as a cover for their doctrinal corruptions;        tious,  total.
and meanwhile they attempt to deny the use of that            As I have already suggested, since that time other
language to those who have the only right to use it.        devices have been used by opponents of the truth.
  Positively speaking, it means that we must be             The one used by Billy Graham, for example-and, I
specific. We must spell out in clear, bold, unmistak-       may add, very commonly used by others-is that
able, sharply defined, black-and-white lines what is        total depravity means that the whole man, all the
meant by this doctrine of total depravity. We must          parts of his `nature, are depraved; but that this does
do this antithetically, that is, with specific rejection    not mean that every part is totally depraved.
of every error repugnant thereto. We must not hesi-         Result? There is enough good in man that he can
tate to point out that many who use the terminol-           still make the first move: he can ask God to regen-
ogy of total depravity in fact deny the depravity           erate him. Total depravity? No! Pelagian and
of natural man and are Pelagian. We may never be            Arminian denial of total depravity! The same is true
satisfied to do lip-service to the doctrine by merely       of the misuse that is made of an otherwise proper
asserting, "We believe total depravity." In the pul-        distinction between total and absolute depravity. It
pit and in the catechism room, at home and onthe            is used to cover up the denial of the Scriptural and
mission field, on the air waves and in the printed          confessional doctrine of total depravity.
page we may not be satisfied to refer to the doctrine         We must be specific, therefore.
merely by the term itself and then to assume that             And to be specific we must speak the language of
those who hear and read actually understand what            our Reformed creeds.
is meant. There is a real danger of failure in this re-
spect. There is a real danger that through the mere           Probably best known in those creedal statements
force of tradition, particularly with those doctrines       is the brief statement of our Heidelberg Catechism
which have become more or less popularly known              in Q. and A. 8. After making it clear in Question 5
by certain names, such as "The Five Points of Cal-          that our sin is a matter of our very nature, the Cate-
vinism" or "Sovereign Predestination" or "Total             chism teaches in Q. and A. 8 the following: "Are we
Depravity," etc., we tend to assume that everyone           then so corrupt that we are wholly  .incapable of
knows what is meant and that everyone under-                doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness? In-
stands what is truly meant and what we, Reformed,           deed we are; except we are regenerated by the
mean. Operate on this assumption in the catechism           Spirit of God." Notice: the single exception to the
room, and you bring up a generation of doctrinal ig-        universal rule of total depravity is that of regenera-
noramuses. Operate on this assumption in the con-           tion; and regeneration is by the Spirit of God. :
gregational pulpit, and you train a congregation to
have itching ears that cannot stand sound doctrine.           But our other creeds, the Belgic Confession of
Operate on this assumption on the mission field, at         Faith and the Canons of Dordrecht add to this brief
home or abroad, and you will gather perhaps gen-            description, and they do so in clear and unequivo-
erally conservative churches, but not distinctively         cal terms. Consider the language of Canons III,
Reformed flocks. In fact, it may safely be said that        IV, 1:  ". ..but revolting from God by the instigation
if our loyalty to the truth is no deeper and no more        of the devil, and abusing the freedom of his own
specific than such traditionalistic lip-service to cer-     will, he forfeited these excellent gifts; and on the
tain code-words of the truth, we are just one among         contrary entailed on himself blindness of mind,
many generally conservative churches and have no            horrible darkness, vanity and perverseness of judg-
real right of existence.                                    ment, became wicked, rebellious, and obdurate in
                                                            heart and will, and impure in his affections." Or
  This is a matter of history.                              read Article 3: "Therefore all men are conceived in
  There was a time when it was sufficient simply            sin, and by nature children of wrath, incapable of
to speak of the depravity of man's nature. After all,       saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bond-
if man's very nature is depraved, corrupt, in heart         age thereto, and without the regenerating grace of
and mind and will and all his affections, it is not         the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to


                                           THE STANDARD BEARER                                                 247



return to God, to reform the depravity of their nay          Specific language! Do you believe it! And confess
ture, nor to dispose themselves to reformation."          it? _e

                                      BornDead in Sins
                                                 Rev. Carl Haak


  The teaching of the Bible with regard to man in         means that sin is a matter of the nature, not just the
sin is that he  $ born into this world dead in tres-      act, of the heart, not just the deed. Sin is something
passes and sins. The student of the Bible identifies      which stems from what a man is, not merely what
those words as being from Ephesians 2:6. When the         he learns or does. Look at the little child, the new-
Apostle says, "you were dead" he obviously is deal-       born. That infant was shapen in iniquity and was
ing with the truth of spiritual death and not actual      conceived and born in sin. This does not mean that
physical death, because he goes on immediately to         the sexual act of a believer within the sphere of
say, "wherein ye walked" and "in which we all             marriage is sinful in itself. Paul makes plain in He-
had our conversation in times past." In other             brews  13 that marriage is honorable in all, and the
words, the Bible teaches that apart from Christ man       bed undefiled when sanctified by prayer. But this
is born into a living death. He is born spiritually       does mean that we inherit a sinful nature from our
dead.                                                     parents. Our very natures, when we come into this
  There is no stronger word than  death.  Death is        world, are already polluted. The tendencies for sin
the end of all activity, and spiritual death means        and the desires of sin are all there, and all the world
there is no activity in the soul of man to love God or    does is give it an outlet. There is rebellion, hatred,
do the good in God's sight which is peace and joy.        and enmity within us. It comes out at once. This is
Death is the absence of life, and spiritual death         the first thing we manifest.
means no life of God which is sweet and satisfying;
but rather there is darkness, blackness, and separa-          We tend to think of sin in terms of separate acts
tion from God, the only Good. Death is absolute. It       of the will; and therefore we tend to lose sight of
is not "almost dead"; it is not "desperately ill"; but    the fact that we ourselves are sinful apart from our
it is dead. Death is horrifying, and the deepest          actions, that sin is in us and is part of our very na-
horror of spiritual death is that it leads to eternal     ture. It is not true that we are "all right" until temp-
death, i.e., uninterrupted torment in hell fire           tation comes and we fall. Certainly our acts of sin
according to God's justice. Man in the state of sin,      are evil in themselves. It is not only the act or the
before the power of God unto salvation comes to           fall into sin, but it is the nature that is sinful. Take
him by grace, is spiritually dead.                        the words of the Lord Himself Who said to the
                                                          Pharisees: "Not that which goeth into the mouth
  We are born this way. We are not born neutral in-       defileth a man; but that which  cometh out of the
to this world. We are not born evenly balanced,           mouth, this defileth a man. . . For out of the heart
with the possibility of going either the narrow way       proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornica-
of life or the broad way of destruction. But we are       tions..." (Matthew  15:10-20). The trouble is the
born within the sphere of death, a child of death,        heart of man. It is fallen and sinful by nature. It is
chained to death, loving death in fiendish delight.       as Paul says, "in my flesh dwelleth no good thing,"
David puts it memorably in Psalm 51:5: "Behold, I         or "the carnal mind is enmity against God. . . " Ob-
was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother          serve' how strongly the Apostle expresses it: "The
conceive me." Here David is examining himself.            carnal mind," he says, "is enmity against God." He
He has been reminded of what he has done, the             does not say it is merely opposed to God, but it is
adultery and the murder following it. He is awak-         positive enmity. It is not only at enmity, but enmity
ened and seems to be saying to himself, "How              itself; it is not only black, but blackness; it is not
could I do it? What renders a man capable of that?"       only corrupt, but corruption; it is not only rebel-
And, he says, "There is only one answer, it is as         lious, it is rebellion; it is not only wicked, it is wick-
deep as this: I was conceived and born in sin. I in-      edness itself. The heart of man by nature, though it
herited corruption from Father and Mother and of          be deceitful, is positively deceit; it is evil in the con-
myself I am born unclean!"                                crete, sin in the essence; it is the quintessence of all
  This means that from the very inception of life,        things that are vile; it is not merely envious against
man of himself is depraved. To be born in sin             God, it is envy; it is not only at enmity, it is actual


 248                                          THE STANDARD BEARER



enmity. This is what it means to be born dead in            .-will. He cries the same excuse that he brings
sins: sin is a matter of our very natures received in       against all the truth of sovereign grace: "How then
birth.                                                      can God account me to be responsible? If I am born
   Still more, to be born in sin is to be under the         this way, if I inherit a corrupt nature dead in sins,
wrath of God. God's wrath, which is the burning of          how can I be held responsible for my sins? I am
His holiness against sin, is upon those who are at          only doing what is expected of me, what I can't
enmity with Him and hate Him. Therefore, of our-            help doing! And thus how can God blame me for
selves we are children of wrath even as others. This        my sins?"
is powerful. We deserve wrath, we are subject to it,          The answer is not impossible. There is first of all
we can only bring it down upon us. How offensive            the fact that this is not true within the very con-
this is to man. The further we go into the truth of         science of man, that is, that a man sins because he
man's being born dead in sins, the more incensed            feels constrained or forced to from without. When
becomes man; Little babies, so cute and beautiful,          man gives the impression that he sins because he
are under wrath? "`How can it be?" cries man in             can't help it and would rather not, he is a LIAR.
supposedly pious indignation. Yet it is so, and the         The sinful nature is not as a Mr. Hyde which takes
Bible makes it plain that of ourselves  ,the wrath of       over against our will so that we say, "Here I go
God is justly upon us.                                      again, I can't stop.1" This is not true within the heart
  This is universal. All are born dead in sins. "In         of man. Man can onZy sin, but man sins because he
Adam all die"; "for all have sinned"; "Death                wants to, he remains a willing slave. Sin is his mis-
passed upon all men." This is true without excep-           tress which he loves and goes after in the lust of his
tion. Here the world becomes one. This transcends           heart. Not one sin has ever been committed by
and breaks down every curtain, whether it be iron           compulsion without, but always from an evil desire
or bamboo; every color and race; every culture and          within. There is, secondly, the fact that according
age. All are born dead in sins and thus the world           to the good pleasure of God, Adam was made'the
stands guilty before God.                                   head of the human race. The transmission of cor-
                                                            ruption to Adam's children is done in divine jus-
  Why? Well, as you know, there can be-only one             tice, for Adam was created the representative of all
explanation. Adam, the first man, created by God            men, and the corruption he merited for his nature
good and upright, was not an isolated individual,           is justly reckoned to us. God is righteous in all His
but he was the father of the human race (Acts               ways and dealings with man, and in strictest justice
17:26). Adam's fall into sin most definitely affected       the pollution of Adam is infused to Adam's descen-
his nature; he died spiritually, he fled from the pre-      dants.
sence of God into the sphere of death. At one time
he walked with God in the cool of the garden be-              But there is something more involved in man's
cause his heart leaped and danced within himself            objection to the truth of being born dead in sins.
with the love of God. But he sinned and his nature          The very objection, the very refusal to admit to it,
became depraved. The love of God was now hated              the hatred of man against this sound doctrine,
by him, and the hatred of God was now loved by              reveals his true depravity. To be born in sin means
him. This corrupt nature he transmitted to all his          that by nature we refuse to admit to the implica-
posterity. Just as all human life comes from the one        tions of this truth, but rather we grind our teeth and
man Adam, so also Adam passed on his corrupt                harden our hearts in hatred against it. Every com-
nature to all men. Just as you cannot gather grapes         promise on the extent and meaning of man's
from a thorn bush, so also you cannot have a good           natural corruption stems from depraved pride
man from fallen Adam. "Who can bring a clean                which will never confess this truth.
thing out of an unclean?" cries Job. "No one."                One only submits and confesses this to be true
                                                            by  grace.  The more we learn and taste of God's
  This, by the way, is simply why we believe the            grace, the more we understand that its one great
first chapters of Genesis to be literal history. You        fruit is humilify.  Grace makes a man humble to con-
cannot believe the gospel of salvation without it.          fess his birth in sins and death and to say "Amen"
This is why man is what he is. Adam fell, Adam              to the Lord's words, "Without Me ye can do
sinned; and the result is that all the seed of Adam         nothing." Spiritual humility worked by sovereign
are born in corruption, with a polluted nature. We          grace, says to the Word "born in sin," "Alas, it is
are all born in sin, children of disobedience, heirs        true! and true of me!" Pride says no to this truth.
of a fallen nature that expresses itself in the lusts of    Behold now the true depth of human depravity!
the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of       Man refuses to and cannot admit it; he  wiZZ not.
the mind, and therefore under the wrath of God              There is one thing a sinner never does of himself,
and utterly hopeless.                                       and that is confess himself to be a worthless dead
  Man does not like this: he never has and never            sinner. It is only God's grace which makes a man


                                            THE STANDARD BEARER                                                   249



know the truth about himself; it is only grace which       stand the must. We do not need a good influence, a
makes him say, "Christ Jesus came into the world           good example; but we need life out of death. Now
to save sinners of whom I am chief ."                      we can understand the meaning of His resurrection
  We want to know this truth of our birth in sins          and Joseph's empty tomb. He arose with new life,
and death not in some morbid sense so that we can          life which seeks God's face and fellowship. That is
see how miserable we can make ourselves, not to            the life we need! Now we can understand that the
spawn despair and false piety within us. We wish           imparting of true life can only be a work of God
not to glory in our shame by never getting beyond          alone. And now we understand what Jesus meant
our depravity of sin. We want to know this in true         when He said, "Abide in me"! Without Him we can
faith because this opens our eyes to see the whole         do nothing; we are nothing. The danger is always
gospel! Without the confession and knowledge of            that in folly we would go away from Christ to seek
our birth in sin we can never see it and Christ            ourselves and our sinful flesh. Always we must by
profits us nothing. Compromise with this truth and         faith stay close to Him. Then all is well.
inevitably man loses the only comfort of belonging           We glorify God! God raises elect sinners, born
not to himself but to his faithful Savior Jesus Christ.    dead in sins, to the life of His gracious covenant. Is
Only a dead man needs a Sovereign Savior. He               salvation all of God? Yes, it is; that is a fact. It is the
needs resurrection from the dead! If you tamper            truth, no matter what any one says. Yes, it has to
with the truth of man's birth in sin, you can only         be, because we were born dead in sins and only
detract and ultimately deny his resurrection and re-       God can raise the dead. Praise His name, for in
birth in Christ.                                           Christ He has!
  "Ye must be born again." Now we can under-



                      Depraved in Heart and Will
                                             Rev. Thomas C. Miersma


  When the child of God opens the Scriptures and           leave no doubt as to the extent of that depravity.
reads concerning sinful and fallen man as he is by         They speak particularly of the heart, the spiritual
nature, he is confronted with a woeful picture of          center of man's nature, out of which are the issues
the misery of man. He reads in Jeremiah  17:9 that         of life, and proclaim that its every imagination is
"the heart is deceitful above all things, and desper-      only evil, and that continually. The natural heart is
ately wicked: who can know it?" and again in               desperately wicked. Just as the physical heart circu-
Genesis  6:5, "And God saw that the wickedness of          lates blood to every part of the body and sustains its
man was great in the earth, and that every imagi-          earthly existence, so also spiritually, at the center of
nation of the thoughts of his heart was only evil          man's nature, there beats a depraved heart that is a
continually." The Scriptures speak of the fact that        fountain of wickedness, rendering his nature
the "imagination of man's heart is evil from his           utterly corrupt. This is why the Scriptures speak of
youth" (Genesis 8:21), that he is shapen in iniquity       unregenerate man as wicked and ungodly. The
and conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5), and that he is, in      natural man does not merely commit sin, but he is a
fact, "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2: 1).      sinner. Thus our Heidelberg Catechism (Lord's Day
  In the light of this clear and simple teaching of        III, 8) in answer to the question, "Are we then so
Scripture, we as Reformed believers confess the            corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any
truth of man's total' depravity by nature and his          good, and inclined to all wickedness?" responds,
utter inability either to will or to do the good. Con-     "Indeed we are; except we are regenerated by the
trary to the idea that there is any good in man, we        Spirit of God." The only way out for fallen man is a
confess that the natural man is really and truly           wonder of grace, rooted in the cross, in the death
dead, a spiritual corpse, whose heart is a fountain        and resurrection of Christ, and applied by the Spirit
of wickedness,. sin, and corruption. Natural man           of Christ to the elect through the grace of regener-
lacks any spiritual virtue or power; he is unrigh-         ation.
teous, unholy, and stands at enmity with God and             This truth of the full extent of sin in man and our
the neighbor.                                              utter and total depravity by nature, the child of God
  The Scriptures, in their description of fallen man,      confesses. It leaves him nothing of his own. He con-


250                                          THE STANDARD BEARER



tributes nothing to his salvation, but confesses that      qualities belonged to the image of God, they were
it is a work of grace from beginning to end. The           lost in the fall. They therefore refuted the  Armini-
truth of total depravity leaves no room for sinful         ans by setting forth the Scriptural truth of the image
pride, no place for boasting. It is not surprising,        of God and by rejecting the Arminian description of
therefore, that this truth has been a battleground in      the will. "For such is contrary to the description of
the history of the church. Man's sinful pride wants        the image of God, which the Apostle gives in Eph.
to keep the reins of salvation in his own hands.           4:24, where he declares that it consists in righteous-
Some place must be left for man, that he might be          ness and holiness, which undoubtedly belong to
the deciding factor in salvation. It is important that     the will" (Canons III-IV, B, 2).
we understand the truth of total depravity is not            The Arminians, having separated the image of
itself the primary issue. Throughout the history of        God from the will, wanted at the same time to
the church, it has been attacked with this' end in         sound Reformed and were therefore willing to
view: that by preserving some good in man, some            speak of man's depravity. This is why they spoke of
spiritual power or ability, a place might be found         a form of spiritual death, but excluded the will from
for man to be sovereign in his salvation. The issue        this. By excluding the will they could not properly
is not first of all man's sinfalness,  but salvation by    speak of a man's depravity in terms of his nature as
grace alone. If some remnant of good, spiritual            such, as an organic whole. Instead they divided
power or ability can be found in man, then he and          that nature up into compartments. Thus depravity
not God is the decisive element.                           extended to man's faculty of understanding, which
  At the time of the Reformation the truth of total        was darkened, and to his affections, those natural
depravity and the sovereignty of God was  ,clearly         and earthly desires which were irregular, that is,
set forth and incorporated into the creeds of the          disorderly. These factors hindered the will in its
Reformation, such as Lord's Day III of the Heidel-         operation, so that it was difficult for man to choose
berg Catechism and Article XIV of the Confession           the good. The Arminians were willing to make
of Faith. But there were also those in the Reformed        some room for grace, a grace which by presenting
community who were not content with this. They             that which is good to the will, assisted it. With this
wanted to retain some place for man in the work of         assisting or helping grace, the will of man was able
salvation. Arminius was the leader of this group.          to cooperate in choosing the good. The final
He sought a conditional salvation. To accomplish           decision lay with the will of man and not with the
this he had to corrupt the Reformed doctrine of sin        grace of God (Canons III-IV, B, 3). Thus the neces-
and man's depravity. The Arminians taught that             sity of grace was reduced to a mere assisting influ-
man was depraved, yet not totally. They tried to           ence. Man needed reformation and instruction, but
limit the extent of man's depravity. This error the        man's problem was principally one of ignorance
Reformed churches rejected in the Canons of                and bad habits.
Dordt.                                                       To this our Reformed fathers replied by pointing
  In the third and fourth heads of doctrine, Rejec-        out that which Scripture says concerning the heart
tion of Errors, Articles 2-4, you find the line of the     of man. They went to the spiritual center of man's
Arminian argument and the fathers' rejection of it.        existence and from Scripture showed its depravity,
The Arminians began by reviving the semi-Pelagian          as set forth in Jeremiah  17:9 and Ephesians  2:3
idea that the image of God, particularly righteous-        (Canons III-IV, B, 3).
ness and holiness, did not belong to the will in             The Arminians, having attempted to preserve the
man's creation. They rejected the idea that man's          will incorrupt, were compelled to teach its whole-
will could be described as either good or bad, but         some influence in the life of fallen man. Man then
wanted a will which was merely neutral, which              was completely dead, but only affected by spiritual
could choose either way, without any inclination in        death; man was merely sick. He could still long
one direction or another. Thus man's will could be         after the good and desire it, such that "he can yet
the decisive factor in his salvation. Therefore they       hunger and thirst after righteousness and life, and
taught "that the spiritual gifts or the good qualities     offer the sacrifice of a contrite and broken spirit,
and virtues, such as: goodness, holiness, righteous-       which is pleasing to God" (Canons III-IV, B, 4). In
ness, could not belong to the will of man when he          this way they destroyed the reality of sin, teaching
was first created, and that these therefore could not      that man was not only able to will the good, but
have been separated therefrom in the fall" (Canons         also by his good desires was capable of meriting the
III-IV, B, 2). This our fathers rejected, rightly dis-     assisting grace of God.
cerning that the Scriptures teach that holiness and
righteousness belong particularly to the activity            This our fathers rejected utterly, for it denies that
and inclination of the will, and that they were in         man is dead in sin and makes him not only alive in
fact spiritual qualities of the will of man. As these      part, but the active agent in salvation. Because  Ar-


                                              THE STANDARD BEARER                                              251



minians reduce sin in the life of man to merely the          one who commits sin, and who can therefore by
acts which he does, they deny that man is himself            proper training be re-educated. Sin can be cured by
truly sinful, so that he is dead in trespasses and           social reform, prisoner rehabilitation, and  counsel-
sins. This theory of the Arminians the Synod of              ling.`
Dordt rejected by pointing to the spiritual state of           Against this corruption of God's Word we are
the unregenerate, as set forth in  Ephesians  2:1, 5         called to stand fast and to contend for the truth that
and Genesis  6:5;  8:21, and by showing that the             man is dead in trespasses and sins, not merely sick
qualities spoken of belong only to the regenerate, as        or dying, but dead by nature, drowned, not drown-
shown in Psalm 51:10, 19 and Matthew 5:6 (Canons             ing. His heart is corrupt and depraved, sinful not
III-IV, B, 4).                                               merely because of what he does, but because of
  This same error still confronts us as Reformed             what he is, a sinner. His nature viewed as an or-
people today. It does not always come in the same            ganic whole is depraved, and the extent of that de-
guise. In its neo-Evangelical form it comes to us in         pravity total. This truth is a precious comfort to the
spiritual self-improvement books or by so-called             Reformed Christian for it means that His salvation
evangelists who cleverly explain how to be regener-          is of God alone. The only way out is by a wonder of
ated or born again, as if that which is spiritually          grace which proceeds from God alone, finds its cen-
dead could make itself alive by means of a sort of           ter in the shed blood of Christ and the power of His
spiritual do-it-yourself manual. In its simpler form         resurrection and is wrought in us by the quickening
it calls upon man to make his decision for Christ            Spirit of Christ in our regeneration. As Jesus Him-
and pictures fallen man as one who is drowning, to           self says (John 3:5), "Except a man be born of water
whom is cast the life-line of the gospel. In its most        and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom
modernistic form, sin is conceived of merely as              of heaven."
something which one does, and a sinner merely as




                             The Judicial Ground of
                                Universal Depravity
                                                 Rev. RonaZd Hanko


   Scripture clearly teaches the truth of total deprav-        The first man Adam is both the first father and
ity, that is, that all men as they are born into the         the representative head of the human race. In other
world are incapable of doing or willing that which           words, he bears both an organic or natural (an-
is pleasing to God; they are all without exception           cestral) relation to us, and a legal or judicial
turned aside into darkness and evil (cf. Gen.  6:5,          (federal) relation. In harmony with this twofold re-
Ps.  14:2, 3, Jer.  17:9, Rom.  8:7, Eph.  2:l). However,    lationship between Adam and the race, it becomes
this universal depravity of our race cannot be un-           clear that original sin also has two aspects; original
derstood apart from our relationship to Adam.                pollution and original guilt. And finally, so does our
  In our study of the doctrine of total depravity we         salvation consist in two elements; justification and
must not only understand what the truth of total             sanctification. Through justification we are deliv-
depravity means, but we must also understand why             ered from the guilt of sin, and through sanctifica-
we are all "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:l).         tion from the pollution of sin.
The old heresy of pelagianism gives a very superfi-            In order to understand all this we must remem-
cial answer to the "why" of depravity and tells us           ber first of all that total depravity is one aspect of
that the miserable condition of our race is due only         the death with which God threatened Adam when
to bad example or an unsuitable environment. The             He placed him in the Garden of Eden and com-
solution to depravity, then, is to be found in "the          manded him concerning the trees that were in the
power of positive thinking," in social reform and            Garden. All our infirmities, our physical death, and
rehabilitation, or in education. Over against all this,      God's curse are also part of that death that came
Scripture clearly teaches that the explanation and           upon Adam through his disobedience, but so is
origin of depravity and sin is in Adam and in the            total depravity. Total depravity is spiritual death
twofold relationship he bears to us, his children.           (Matt.  4:16, Rom.  8:6, Eph.  2:1, Col.  2:18, I John


252                                           THE STANDARD BEARER



3:14).                                                      judgment are the habitation of His throne" (Ps.
   Total depravity, therefore, is the  punishment  of       97:2). We cannot object, we may not complain, and
sin. And it is a very fitting punishment. Adam con-         we do not want to resist when we remember that
spired to steal God's glory and refused to serve the        this same representative relation in Christ is the
purpose for which he was created. God had no use            ground of our salvation.
for such a rebel in His creation and punished him              This doctrine of original guilt and of Adam's rela-
with death, thus driving him far from God and out           tion to the race as legal representative is not very
of God's creation into Hell. When Adam chose the            clearly developed in our creeds. They speak more
service of Satan, God gave him exactly what he              of "the propagation of a vicious nature" (Canons
chose and made him the abject slave of "him who             III, IV, 2), of our being "conceived and born in sin"
has the power of death" in order that in the service        (Heid. Cat, Lord's Day III,  7), and of that "heredi-
of Satan he might earn the "wages of sin" (Heb.             tary disease, wherewith infants are infected even
2: 14, Rom 6:23). All this is not so difficult to under-    in their mother's womb" (Belg. Conf., XV). All this
stand.                                                      has to do with original pollution (depravity) and our
  What is more difficult to understand is the fact          natural relationship to Adam. Nevertheless,
that this depravity or spiritual death as the punish-       Scripture teaches clearly the truth of original guilt
ment  for  sin  is passed on to all of Adam's descen-       and its imputation through Adam's legal position as
dants. This is what we call "original pollution."           head of the race. The two passages which are most
Scripture teaches that Adam's depravity and the             important in this connection are Romans  5:12-19
pollution of his whole nature through sin is passed         and I Corinthians 15:21,22,45.
on to his children through his natural relation to            In I Corinthians  15:21 Paul makes the general
them as father; "a corrupt stock produced a corrupt         statement that death came by man, and that in the
offspring" (Canons III, IV, 2; cf. also Gen.  5:3, Job      same way the resurrection also comes by man. This
14:4, I Cor. 15:21, 22). But then the question imme-        general statement is further explained in verse 22
diately comes up, "For what are Adam's children             where he tells us that there were two men in-
punished? How can it be that they  inherit  the             volved, Adam and Christ, and that "in Adam all
punishment of sin?"                                         die." This does not only mean that Adam's death
  Obviously, this punishment is not due to their            was passed on to all his descendants, but it refers to
own sin, since they are  born  totally depraved (Ps.        the fact that in Paradise when Adam fell all his de-
51:5). They are punished before they are guilty of          scendants also had the sentence of death passed
any evil thought or word or deed. This is true              upon them because they were legally represented
because Adam is not only the father of the human            "in" him.
race but also its legal representative. In fact, he is        To understand this we must see what Paul means
our legal representative in the very same way that          when he says that we are also in Christ. That we are
our Lord Jesus Christ represents us in His suffering        in Christ means, first of all, that we are actuaZZy one
and death. Adam stood in our place in the first crea-       with Him through faith. Faith makes us bone of His
tion just as Christ stands in our place in the new          bone and flesh of His flesh. But being in Christ also
creation. Adam represents us in such a way that his         means that we are represented in Him. That is why,
actions, including his sin, are imputed and charged         for example, Scripture can say in Ephesians 2:6 that
to us. His sin is our sin, by imputation, and we are        God has raised us up and made us sit together in
held responsible for it before God. Thus we are             heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We are not yet ac-
guilty in Adam (original guilt) and thus it is possible     tually and bodily in heavenly places, but in so far as
and necessary that we be punished with Adam. We             we are represented in Christ and legally one with
are not, then, the innocent victims of Adam's trans-        Him, so already we sit with Him in His kingdom
gression; but from the moment Adam sinned to the            and power and glory. And, therefore, as we are
time that we are conceived and born we stand as             both legally and actually one in Christ, so also are
guilty sinners before the great Judge. Death is not a       we in Adam. He is legal head and father of the race.
natural event which happens to all creatures, man           But it is especially because our legal relationship to
and beast alike, but it is the execution of the: divine     Adam is exactly the same as our legal relationship
death sentence upon a guilty race.                          to Christ that Christ can be called in verse 45 "the
  We might object to this God-ordained represen-            last Adam."
tative relationship between ourselves  and' Adam              This same legal and representative relationship is
and complain that i-t is unfair, but that does not          taught in Romans 5:12-19. We ought to notice here
change what God has done. All our objections are            that throughout this part of Romans 5 the Apostle is
in vain. And our complaints also fall by the way            dealing with legal relationships, our legal relation-
when we remember that "righteousness and                    ship to Adam and also our legal relationship to


                                           THE STANDARD BEARER                                                253



Christ. This is evident from the choice of words.          on "one man" is the comparison that Paul makes
Paul speaks of the law in verse 13 and then goes on        between Adam and Christ. In the same way, Paul
to speak of "imputation," "transgression,"  !`of-          says, that death reigned by the offence of one man,
fence," "judgment," "condemnation," "justifica-            the free gift of grace is ours by the righteousness of
tion," and "righteousness," all of which are legal         one man (vs. 15). And we know that the gift of righ-
terms. And Paul's emphasis here in Romans 5,               teousness is first of all ours legally through Christ
therefore, is not on our natural relationship to           as our representative (vss. 8-10). Christ represents
Adam, but on the fact that he was our legal repre-         us in His suffering and death and resurrection and
sentative, and that through our legal solidarity with      thereby obtains for us the right to righteousness and
him we are all accounted guilty before God.                eternal life. That is the first part of our  salvation-
  Thus, when Paul says in verse 12 that "death             our justification. Only then does He actually make
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned," he is      that righteousness ours and assure us of it in the
not referring to the fact that we all sin after we are     work of sanctification. To deny our legal relation to
born into the world, but to the fact that Adam's           Adam, then, is to deny the possibility of righteous-
transgression is charged to us-we sinned in him.           ness in Christ. They stand and fall together.
He makes that even clearer in verse  14  when he              And that is also the importance of all this for us.
says that "death reigned . . . even over them that         Paul's purpose in Romans 5 is not to leave us in the
had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's trans-       pit of despair as we consider the death that has
gression." In many respects our sin is after the           passed upon all men, but to lead us to Christ. We
similitude of Adam's, that is it is like Adam's sin.       must see that "where sin abounded, grace did
Our sin is also rebellion against God and a refusal to     much more  abound'l (vs. 20). First we see our lost
serve Him. There is only one respect in which any          condition. Not only do we sin daily against the
man's sin is not after the similitude of Adam's and        Most High, not only are we born corrupt and de-
that is that no man has Adam's free will to choose         praved, but before we are born we are counted as
the good and reject the evil. We are in bondage to         guilty and damnworthy sinners in Adam. When we
sin. Nevertheless, though we cannot choose be-             see that, then we understand how "much more the
tween good and evil, yet death reigns also over us,        grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one
because Adam as our representative chose for us.           man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many" (vs.
That is why Paul emphasizes in the chapter "one            15). Then and only then do "we also joy in God
man" and "one  offence" as the explanation of the          through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we
universal reign of death.                                  have received the atonement" (vs. 11).
  Closely connected, however, with this emphasis




             Total Depravity and the Antithesis
                                               Rev. James Slopsema


  It is quite apparent to anyone with any spiritual        today that is entirely free from this kind of thing.
discernment that worldliness is more and more              In many cases this trend is applauded as being good
creeping into the church. In many cases worldli-           and wholesome. In actual fact it means the destruc-
ness has in fact taken over the church. Witness for        tion of  .the church. The devil knows of no better
example how the perspective of the world on                way to destroy the church than to make it worldly.
almost any subject under the sun has become the            When the church becomes the world then it's
perspective of the church. What the world has to           simply a fact that you no longer have the church.
say about sex, marriage, divorce, birth control,
morality, education, and a host of other subjects             To combat this trend of worldliness in  -the
has in many cases simply been adopted by the               church it is necessary to emphasize the antithesis.
church. Consequently, the life-style of the church           The word "antithesis" implies opposition and
also closely resembles that of the world. The songs,       contrast. That you have an antithesis means that
the dress, the speech, the dance, the entertain-           you first have a "thesis," something put down and
ments of the world have become a way of life for           established. That which forms the opposite and
the church. It is safe to say that there is no church      contradicts this is the antithesis. Thus for example


254                                           THE STANDARD BEARER



the antithesis of light is darkness; the antithesis of    tion and to put them to use. As king in God's crea-
heaven is hell; the antithesis of sin is grace.           tion he is able to a certain degree to subdue the cre-
   Between the church and the world there also            ation. Hence, we see the development in history of
exists an antithesis - a spiritual antithesis.            music, literature, art, medicine, science, technolo-
                                                          gy, and the like. All these things however the world
   On the one hand there is the world. This world is      produces in its depravity. Consequently it is all de-
characterized by spiritual darkness and depravity         filed with sin and stands in the service of sin.
on account of the fall. Through the fall man became
horribly twisted and perverted, from a spiritual            The antithesis arises because of the work of
point of view. He lost the image of God in which he       God's grace in the heart of His elect. By the power
had originally been created. To be more exact, the        of grace, the elect of God are born again. This spiri-
image of God was changed into the very opposite.          tual rebirth consists of radical change in the very
His righteousness was changed into unrighteous-           depths of their spiritual being. They are restored to
ness. Originally he was holy; now he is profane.          the image of God, restored to righteousness and
Once he was upright; now he is crooked. Through           holiness. They are given the life which is from
the fall the mind of man became spiritually dark-         above. They are made new creatures who have a
ened, his will obdurate, his heart hard. The heart of     new life, able to walk in a new obedience.
fallen man is filled with enmity and hatred against         Consequently, there are from a spiritual view-
God and his neighbor. This is man's depravity.            point two different kinds of people in the world:
  This depravity is total. By total depravity we do       there are the children of light and the children of
not mean that every part of man is to some degree         darkness; there are those who are spiritually dead
depraved. This is the teaching of some who would          and those alive in Jesus Christ; there are those who
allow for some good yet in the fallen sinner. This is     bear the image of God and those who bear the
a misuse of the term. By total depravity we mean          image of the Devil; there are those who have the
rather that every part of man-his heart, his mind,        ability to serve God and those who can only serve
his soul, his strength-is totally and completely de-      sin. This is the reality of the antithesis. The antithe-
filed with sin and depraved. Man is so completely         sis is not something we must create or establish. It
depraved that there is nothing good left in him. Nor      is an existing reality established by the work of
is there any possibility of his doing any good what-      God's grace as He calls His people out of darkness
soever. He is capable only of sin and disobedience        into His marvelous light.
to God.                                                     It is, however; the calling of every child of God to
  This certainly is the teaching of our Reformed          live this antithesis. The antithesis must reflect itself
Confessions. The Heidelberg Catechism in Lords            in his life as he lives it from day to day in the world.
Day 3, Question 8, teaches that unless we are re-         This is done when the child of God lives in spiritual
generated by the Spirit of God we are so corrupt          isolation from the world. There have been those
that we are wholly incapable of doing any good and        who  made,the mistake of trying to live in physical
inclined to all wickedness. The Canons of Dordt in        isolation from the world. They have sought to
Head III, IV Article 4 teach that man does retain         maintain a separate physical existence, apart from
some glimmerings of natural light after the fall. But     society, thinking that they will both escape sin and
even these he is incapable of using  aright, even in      please God. This is wrong-and doomed to failure.
things natural and civil.                                 God has placed His people in the world; and in the
  That man is totally depraved is also the teaching       world they are to stay and work and live. We are to
of the Scriptures. Are we not taught, for example,        be in the world. We are not however to be of the
that the natural man is dead in trespasses and sins       world. Our isolation is to be spiritual only. But
(Eph. 2:1)? Is it not true that the carnal mind is en-    spiritually isolated we are to be from the world. We
mity against God: for it is not subject to the law of     are to stand apart and be distinct.
God, neither indeed can be (Romans 8:7)? Is not the         This means several things. This means first that
judgment of God as He views the wickedness of             the direction of our life must be obviously different
man that every imagination of the thoughts of his         from that of the world. The spiritual direction of
heart is only evil continually (Genesis  6:5)? Cer-       the world is completely away from God. The
tainly the natural, fallen man is depraved, totally       direction of our life must be towards God. Whereas
and completely.                                           the world walks in rebellion and disobedience
  This depravity of man in turn defiles all of man's      against God, we must humble ourselves before God
accomplishments. The natural man is able to               and His law. Whereas the world stands with all that
accomplish many great feats. Due to his glimmer-          it is and has and does in the service of sin, we must
ings of natural light he is able for example to dis-      stand in the service of our God.
cover the various laws and powers in God's crea-            Antithetical living means secondly that we must


                                           THE STANDARD BEARER                                               255



be careful how we use all that the world produces.        of men but according to the dictates of Scripture.
As we have already seen, all that the world pro-          This means that he must do it on a different basis
duces-its art, literature, music, science, etc.-it        than the world, in a different manner than the
produces in its depravity. Hence, it is all defiled       world, for a different purpose than the world. This
with sin, and by the world pressed into the service       means in turn that he can not do it in cooperation
of sin. This means that we must be careful how we         with the world but in cooperation only with his
use these things. That which we can sanctify and          fellow saints.
press into the service of God we may properly use.          All this however is undermined and destroyed
But much of the world's art and literature and cul-       when the truth of total depravity is denied. Remove
ture is beyond this. In fact, as we fast approach the     the foundation of a building and it will crumble.
end of time and as the world continues to develop         Deny the truth of total depravity which is the foun-
in sin, the culture of the world is becoming so vile      dation for a truly antithetical life and such a life
that most of it is beyond use by the child of God. He     falls by the way. It simply stands to reason that if
can not possibly sanctify it for use in the kingdom.      there is still some good in the world of unregenerate
Then his calling is to turn away from it and re-          man and some good that the world can do, then
pudiate it lest he defile himself.                        there is a common spiritual ground on which the
  Antithetical living implies thirdly that there is no    world and the church can both stand. In those areas
room for cooperation with the world in things spir-       where the world is able to please God, there is
itual. The world may talk in very glowing terms of        room for cooperation between the church and the
all its righteous and noble causes. In the name of        world. In fact, this cooperation is demanded. Inso-
righteousness it will fight poverty, overcome social      much as the world does that which is good the
injustices, make peace, and alleviate suffering           church may embrace the world, follow the world,
among mankind. But in truth all these works are           live as the world, and invite the world into its
works of darkness, performed in the service of sin        fellowship. And this is exactly the trend in those
as acts of rebellion and disobedience to God. Any-        churches that have in one way or another turned
one who would deny this denies the plain and sim-         from the truth of total depravity. It simply is in-
ple teaching of the Scripture. All these "noble"          evitable.
works of the world are aimed at the establishment            This is a dreadful thing. For the truth of total
of the kingdom of Antichrist. Consequently, there         depravity stands, whether the vast majority in the
is no room for cooperation in these things with the       church world today will acknowledge it or not.
world. The child of God must have a hands-off             And, therefore, by embracing all this "good" of the
policy lest he defile himself with the unfruitful         world, one simply clutches to his bosom the un-
works of darkness. Better yet, the child of God is to     fruitful works of darkness and defiles himself with
oppose these causes of the world in the name of           them. Vain is the religion of a man who does not
God.                                                      keep himself unspotted from the world (James 1:26,
  Lest there be any misunderstanding in all this, it      27).
must be remembered that in a certain sense all               Let us therefore hold fast to the truth of total de-
these causes which we have mentioned must be              pravity. It is in a way an ugly doctrine. It certainly
championed by the child of God. Certainly the             is not a flattering doctrine. But if we will maintain
child of God is called to fight poverty, oppose in-       an antithetical life in the midst of the world it is a
justice, make peace, and alleviate suffering.             necessary doctrine. Let us then confess this
However, he must do. this differently than the            doctrine, defend it and then live it.
world. He must do it not according to the wisdom



        The Doctrine of Depravity and Preaching
                                                Rev. G. Van Buren


   The principal mark of the three that distinguish        eloquent. Proper preaching of the gospel is to be
the faithful and true church of Jesus Christ is the        distinguished by the content of that which is  pre-
pure preaching of the gospel. Proper preaching is          sented.  What must the preaching of the gospel pro-
not to be equated with making speeches or being            claim? And where does a doctrine such as "total de-


256                                                    THE STANDARD BEARER



pravity" fit within this preaching of the gospel?                  whole counsel of God-including the fact of the
Some might insist that it has no place in the preach-              depravity of natural man.
ing. Others might claim that sin and depravity must                Depravity-and the Address of the Gospel
be the principal point of emphasis in the preaching.                 One must note, first, that a proper understanding
Proper Preaching of the Gospel                                     of depravity is essential unto a correct address of
  Preaching of the gospel involves the  proclama--                 the gospel to the hearers. Other articles in this issue
tion of Christ crucified. The  .great  apostle Paul                of the Standard Bearer point out the meaning of the
wrote in I Corinthians 1:17-18, "For Christ sent me                Scriptural truth concerning depravity. I need but
. ..to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words,                apply this to the activity of preaching of the gospel.
lest the cross of Christ should be made of none                      Consider what an erroneous view of depravity
effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that             must do in the address of the gospel. There are
perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is              those advocating "common grace" who make a dis-
the power of God." And again he writes in I Corin-                 tinction between "total" and "absolute" depravity.
thians 2:2, "For I determined not to know any thing                Though totally depraved, the sinner is not absolute-
among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified."                  ly depraved. Therefore there is in natural man
  There can be no doubt, therefore, that preaching                 some remnants of good-the result of the "common
must present the cross in all of its fulness and glory             grace" of God. This same erroneous view makes
-no matter that men speak of such as foolishness                   the "well-meant offer of the gospel" to be under-
and weakness. But that preaching of the cross can                  standable. If one were to offer a steak dinner to a
not and does not exclude other subjects. Were the                  person completely dead, the offer would be mean-
attempt made to present the cross while excluding                  ingless and hardly "well-meant." But if a person
certain Scriptural doctrines, the obvious conclusion               had death affecting every part of him, yet that
would be: the cross has not been correctly set forth.              death had not absolutely. taken over, such an one
One can not ignore any Scriptural truth-yet                        could respond favorably to an offer of a steak din-
present Christ crucified according to the Word of                  ner. He at least might express interest, and perhaps
God.                                                               might be encouraged to try it. The "offer" would be
  Paul declared again to the elders of Ephesus (Acts               "well-meant" because some kind of response was
20:27), "For I have not shunned to declare unto you                possible. So also with the sinner. If he is not com-
all the counsel of God." When the cross is set forth,              pletely dead in sin in all of his parts, one might rea-
then the whole of God's revelation is involved. One                sonably make to him an "offer" of salvation. A
can not ignore, or declare irrelevant, the truths of               positive response would at least be conceivable.
reprobation, or depravity, or providence. Many                     However, when "total depravity" is properly un-
have sought to do so. Reprobation is considered un-                derstood to refer to the complete deadness of the
true, or demeaning, or debasing-therefore to be                    sinner, an "offer" of salvation would be the height
omitted from the preaching. Or, depravity is                       of foolishness.
viewed as producing Christians "who are walking                      The same may be said about the "invitation" as
cases of uptight, defensive, angry, fearful, neurotic              this is commonly given in our day. The invitation
meanies" (Robert H. Schuller, Self-esteem: the New                 presumes the ability to accept. It presumes some
Reformation). In this same book by Schuller, re-                   ability, some grace, in every man so that he may re-
viewed by the editor of this magazine a few months                 spond. But invitations to those completely dead in
ago, one finds the statement (page 150):                           sins are nonsense. If depravity is tota2,  there is also
         So I contend and plead for a full-orbed theological       the inability to respond.
       system beginning with and based on a solid central            If depravity is  totaZ   (and what other kind of de-
       core of religious truth-the dignity of man. And let us      pravity can there be?), then one understands too
       start with a theology of salvation that addresses itself    the approach of Scripture. Paul answered the  Phil-
       at the outset to man's deepest need, the "will to self      ippian jailor by commanding, "Believe on the Lord
       worth." Then we will see how additional,  second-           Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy
       generation theologies are born-like healthy children        house" (Acts  16:31). The "command" is in
       from healthy parents.. . .                                  harmony with the righteousness of God. He created
Schuller wants not the cross as the "solid central                 man capable of obedience. When Adam trans-
core of religious truth," but rather the "dignity of               gressed, and all his posterity with him, he lost the
man." He would have the church proclaim man's                      ability to serve and to obey. Yet the command of
"self worth" rather than to make any references to                 God remains. Now that -command demands
depravity which produces "neurotic meanies."                       obedience to Christ. The dead sinner hears with his
  Overagainst such false doctrine, we must insist                  ears, but continues to reject that command to his
that the preaching of the cross must involve the                   damnation. But where God is pleased to regenerate


                                            THE STANDARD BEARER                                              257



a dead sinner, there the command falls upon hear-          depravity sets forth the depths out of which Christ
ing ears and a responsive heart.                           must lift His people. He saves not from some minor
  With awareness of this truth, the preacher can           difficulty. He does not seek to contribute to our
boldly ascend to the pulpit. He need not "count"           self-worth. Rather, He delivers  dead  sinners! He
how many souls he has saved. He need not believe           grasps those~who  were hell-bound. He pays for the
that it is the persuasiveness of his speaking, or the      sins of those who were utterly corrupt. He does not
novelty of his approach, which brings sinners to           save willing, struggling, sinners-but  dead  sinners.
their knees. He brings the gospel: the cross of               Even as Christ raised Lazarus from physical
Christ. He commands, as does Scripture, to repent          death, so must He deliver His people from spiritual
and believe. God powerfully uses that proclaimed           death. In the instance of Lazarus, Christ command-
word to bring regenerated sinners to conversion.           ed Lazarus to come forth from the tomb. He had
Such do repent and believe-so that all those given         been dead four days already. His body was in the
of the Father to Christ, shall come to Him (John           process of decay. He had no ears which could hear.
6:37). Wonderful it is for the preacher to be assured      He had no willingness to depart from the tomb with
that the sinner can not even come-except the               proper encouragement. He was dead. But the
Father draw him (John  6:44); Then one can boldly          command of Christ caused him to come forth from
preach, confident that proper preaching has its de-        that place of corruption. Wholly by the power of
sired effect.                                              Christ, without any cooperation of Lazarus, the
Depravity-and the Comfort of the Gospel                    man arose from the dead and came forth. From
  Some insist that the preaching must emphasize            stinking corruption, he came forth to renewed life.
the joy of the salvation. Since we have been deliv-        So it is with dead sinners. The awfulness of the
                                                           "tomb" of sin and death must be set forth. The
ered from sin, why dwell upon depravity or the
sins which still remain in us? If only we point to the     complete hopelessness and helplessness of the
joy, Christians will be inspired to seek more and          sinner must be seen.  Then  one can know the
more the kingdom of heaven. Why even mention               wonder of grace that the power of Christ can and
                                                           does deliver such from sin and death. Let that be
depravity to joy-filled saints?                            heard in the preaching-that the glory of salvation
  Yet it would be very wrong to neglect the fact of        may ever be God's and not man's.
depravity in the preaching. There must be the
preaching of the full counsel of God. And Scripture          There is another, related,  fact. The joy and
itself never neglects to mention the depravity of the      thanksgiving for salvation can be adequately ex-
                                                           pressed in proportion to our understanding of that
sinner. Examine, for instance, Romans 3. There,            from which we are delivered. If we do not properly
the depravity of the sinner, Jew and Gentile, is
starkly set forth. Nor do the epistles fail to warn the    understand total depravity, how can the joy of sal-
church concerning the sins which remain in us.             vation fill our hearts? Therefore the child of God
The joy of salvation must indeed be set forth togeth-      rejoices in repeating and hearing repeated the won-
er with proper instruction concerning depravity of         der of deliverance from sin and death. Into what
the nature of man.                                         horrible depths we had fallen! Unto what glorious
                                                           heights we have been raised! Let the people of God
  The preaching must include the truth concerning          know and understand what God hath wrought!
depravity as a proper backdrop for the cross. The
wonder of the cross can never be understood cor-             In conclusion, total depravity is not a subject to
rectly unless one also sees the depths from which          be presented by itself in isolation from the rest of
Christ must deliver His people. Our Heidelberg             the Word of God. But depravity must be a part of
Catechism recognizes this when, in Lord's Day 2, it        the total picture of salvation. The cross of Christ
                                                           must be preached-the cross which delivers from a
asks, "Whence knoweth thou thy misery?" A                  depravity from which no mere creature can extri-
proper knowledge of misery points to the great             cate himself. Glory, then, be to God alone.
need of the cross. The proper presentation of total

        Total Depravity and "Common Grace"
                 - in the Light of the Confessions
                                                  Prof. H. Hanko

  The truth of total depravity has always been dif-        one spiritual, the other theological. The Scriptural
ficult to maintain. There are two reasons for this-        teaching concerning total depravity is difficult to


258                                          THE STANDARD BEARER



maintain spiritually because it is entirely contrary          You must understand, in this connection, that
to our pride-filled nature. This doctrine makes us         spiritual death is synonymous with total depravity.
nothing, nothing at all in the sight of God. We rebel      Kuyper taught, therefore, that, spiritually, if God
against that because we want desperately to retain         had not intervened with the antidote of common
some bits and pieces of our pride. The Scriptural          grace, man would have become an animal. The an-
truth of total depravity is difficult to maintain theo-    tidote of common grace prevented this. It served to
logically because it stands inseparably connected to       enable man to remain man, but it also served to
such doctrines as sovereign predestination, particu-       enable man to do good which is truly good in the
lar atonement, irresistible grace, etc. The five           sight of God.
points of Calvinism are not, after all, five unrelated       This idea of common grace, which was promoted
and  disconnected doctrines. They stand or fall to-        by Kuyper, was incorporated into official doctrinal
gether. Deny one and you lose them all. Total de-          standards made by the Synod  of the Christian Re-
pravity must be maintained and can be maintained           formed Church in 1924. The Synod made two deci-
only within the context of all the five points of Cal-     sions which related especially to this question. The
vinism.                                                    first statement committed the Christian Reformed
  While the doctrine of common grace has a rela-           Church to the position that God restrains sin in the
tively long history we are concerned in this article       unregenerated man by an operation of His Holy
with a view of common grace of more recent times           Spirit within the sinner's heart, without, in fact, re-
which has also led to a denial of total depravity. We      generating him. The Holy Spirit is the common
refer to the teachings of Dr. A. Kuyper and of the         possession of all men. He operates in men in such a
Christian Reformed Church in her officially adopt-         way that He, from within their hearts, restrains the
ed position on this matter. While Dr. A. Kuyper's          full outbreak of sin. That is, the Christian Reformed
view never was officially adopted by his own de-           Church essentially adopted the position of Kuyper,
nomination in the Netherlands, but remained his            only adding to it the statement that this restraint of
private opinion, his views were incorporated into          sin was accomplished by the operation of the Holy
official Christian Reformed doctrine by the deci-          Spirit.
sion which this denomination made in 1924.                   The second statement said that, because of this
                                                           operation of the Holy Spirit, the unregenerated
  In developing his views (see especially Dr.  Kuy-        man is able to do good in things natural and civil.
per's three-volume work entitled, De Gemeene Gru-          By this the Christian Reformed Church meant to
tie, or Common Grace) Kuyper spoke of the punish-          express that the natural and unregenerated man is
ment of death which came upon the human race at            able to do such good in the world which is pleasing
the time when our first parents ate of the forbidden       in the sight of God and which is of value and bene:
tree in Paradise. Kuyper distinguished between two         fit to the child of God. It is because of this good that
kinds of death: a death which is visited upon man          there is a broad area of cooperation possible be-
as a result of a threat of death-as the threat of the      tween the righteous and the wicked, between the
electric chair which is carried out upon a man who         elect and the reprobate, between the children of
commits a capital crime; and a death which is a            God and the children of this world. The two share a
natural consequence of an act-such as the death            common area of endeavor in which there is possi-
which comes upon a man because he eats poison. It          bility for mutual respect, common labor, and close
is, says Kuyper, the latter kind of death which came       cooperation in seeking to make this world a better
upon Adam and Eve when they ate of the forbid-             place to live.
den tree. There was something in the tree itself
which brought death as a natural consequence of               Especially the Christian Reformed Church ap-
eating of it. So, if God had not intervened, Adam          pealed to the Confessions in support of this view;
and Eve would have dropped dead at the foot of the         and this article must deal especially with the teach-
tree, dead now, both physically and spiritually. But       ings of the Confessions on this matter.
God's intervention prevented that from happening.             We quote, first of all, those articles in the Confes-
God gave Adam and Eve a massive dose of "com-              sions which were directly appealed to by the Chris-
mon grace" which served as an antidote to the poi-         tian Reformed Church in support of their doctrinal
son they had taken and which enabled them to               utterances. We will not quote the articles in full in
vomit up a large measure of this poison-although           every case, but only those parts of the articles
not all. The result was that, while they did indeed        which were of particular concern.
die, the power of death was mitigated somewhat.                  This doctrine affords us unspeakable consolation
That is, as far as physical death is concerned, they           (the doctrine of God's providence, H.H.), since we are
did not die immediately, but only after a long                 taught thereby....that He so restrains the devil and all
period of time; and, as far as spiritual death is con-         our enemies, that without His will and permission,
cerned, they died only partially.                              they cannot hurt us.. .( Belgic Confession, Article XIII).


                                                      THE STANDARD BEARER                                                            259



      We believe that our gracious God, because of, the               Spirit of God (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 8).
    depravity of mankind, hath appointed kings, princes                 We believe that God created man out of the dust of
    and magistrates, willing that the world should be gov-            the earth, and made and formed him after His own
    erned by certain laws and policies; to the end that the           image and likeness, good, righteous, and holy, capable
    dissoluteness of men might be restrained, and all                 in all things to will, agreeably to the will of God. But
    things carried on among them with good order and de-              being in honor, he understood it not, neither knew his
    cency.. . (Belgic Confession, Article XXXVI) .                    excellency, but willfully subjected himself to sin, and
      There remain, however, in man since the fall, the               consequently to death, and the curse, giving ear to the
    glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some             words of the devil. For the commandment of life,
    knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the differ-           which he had received, he transgressed; and by sin
    ences between good and evil, and discovers some re-               separated himself from God, Who was his true life,
    gard for virtue, good order in society, and for main-             having corrupted his whole nature; whereby he made
    taining an orderly external deportment. . . (Canons of            himself liable to corporal and spiritual death. And be-
    Dort, III & IV, 4).                                               ing thus become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all
  It is interesting to note in this connection that the               his ways, he hath lost all his excellent gifts. . . (Belgic
rest of this article from the Canons contradicts the                  Confession, Article XIV).
position of the Christian Reformed Church:                              Therefore all men are conceived in sin, and by na-
                                                                      ture children of wrath, incapable of saving good,
      But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient        prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto, and
    to bring him to a saving knowledge of God, and to true            without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they
    conversion, that he is incapable of using it aright  even         are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform
    in things natural and civil. Nay further, this light,             the depravity of their nature, nor to dispose them-
    such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly pol-            selves to reformation (Canons of Dort, III & IV, 3).
    luted, and holds it in unrighteousness, by doing which
    he becomes inexcusable before God.                              Our Confessions teach clearly and unmistakably
  Now, there are several points at issue here. And                the truth of man's total inability to do any good. Of
we ought to be clear on all of them.                              this there can be no doubt. Any doctrine which
                                                                  teaches the contrary is at odds with our historic Re-
  In the first place, some theologians who have de-               formed Confessions.
fended the views of common grace have made a
distinction between what they call "total depravi-                  In the fourth place, both the Canons (III & IV, 4)
ty" and "absolute depravity." The latter term is in-              and the Belgic Confession (Article XIV) speak of
tended to describe the unregenerated man as he is                 "glimmerings of natural light" and "remains of ex-
apart from common grace. He is totally and thor-                  cellent gifts." However, in no sense of the word is
oughly corrupt in his entire nature, incapable of                 this intended to teach what the proponents of com-
doing anything good, perhaps even bestial in his na-              mon grace teach. There is not so much as a breath
ture. The former, on the other hand, means that                   in our Confessions which speak of a general opera-
man is not wholly incapable of doing any good, but                tion in the hearts of all men which restrains sin and
is only wicked in all parts of his nature, although he            enables the unregenerated sinner to do good. The
is also "good" in all parts of his nature.                        only place where common grace is mentioned in
  This distinction is neither Biblical nor Confes-                the Confessions is in the mouth of the Arminians
sional, and ought not to be used among us.                        who were condemned (III  & IV, B, 5). Specifically
                                                                  rejected is the view that apart from regenerating
  In the second place, it is striking that the part of            grace the natural man can do good.
Article 4 of Canons III  & IV, which Synod of the
Christian Reformed Church failed to quote, specifi-                 What then are these "glimmerings"? Kuyper and
cally mentions that the natural man is not even                   those in the Christian Reformed Church who have
capable of doing good in things "natural and civil"               followed him are as wrong as wrong can be when
-an idea specifically set forth in the theory of com-             they  .claim that the fall would have resulted in
mon grace. Common grace is anti-confessional.                     man's becoming a beast if it had not been for the in-
                                                                  tervention and operation of common grace. There
  In the third place, all our Confessions teach the               is no proof for this either in Scripture or in the Con-
doctrine of total depravity. We quote a few in-                   fessions. It simply is not so. In fact, on the face of it,
stances.                                                          it is absurd. Man remains man after the fall. How
      Canst thou keep all these things (of Gods law) per-         could he possibly lose his humanity as a creature of
    fectly?                                                       God? But he becomes a sinner. And when death
      In no wise; for I am prone by nature to hate God            and depravity come upon him, even the natural
    and my neighbor [Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 5).                powers of his humanity are vitiated so that he
      Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapa-           retains only glimmerings or remnants of them. He
    ble of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness?        remains, therefore, according to the Confession, a
      Indeed we are; except we are regenerated by the             man with mind and will who still knows the differ-


260                                          THE STANDARD BEARER



ence between good and evil, who is still accounta-         maintained because this is essential to the truth of
ble before God and who is justly punished for his          sovereign grace. Only when the truth of  toal
sin. But, as all Scripture and the Confessions teach,      depravity is confessed and believed by the church
he uses even these natural powers to sin against           can the church also hold fast to the sovereignty of
God. He is totally depraved, wholly inclined to evil       God in the work of salvation. If man is not totally
and sin, unable to do any good in the sight of God.        depraved, then he contributes something-be it but
  Finally, it is of crucial importance that this doc-      a little-to the work of salvation. And the salvation
trine be maintained. It must, of course, be main-          is not of grace alone, and then God no longer
tained because it is the clear teaching of Scripture.      receives all the glory that is due His Name. Against
The difficulty of maintaining it is exactly because it     the background of total depravity stands the
runs counter to all our pride. It requires a work of       glorious truth of salvation by grace alone that all
sovereign grace within our hearts even to confess          glory may be to Him of Whom and to Whom and
this truth that we are by nature incapable of doing        through Whom are all things-the God of our salva-
any good and inclined to all evil. But it must also be     tion.



                            ,So Many Good Works -
                            But No Common Grace?
                                             Pastor Wayne Bekkering



  A few months ago the "News Editor" for the               that a Christian is careful to learn what God re-
Standard Bearer  reported that our congregation in         quires in His Word, and that he, in thankfulness to
Houston, Texas was using a "question and answer"           God, tries to bring glory to God in all that he does (I
approach to try to acquaint people with the truth as       Cor.  6:19-20). These are the things that God calls
we know it, love it, and try to live it.                   good works in His Word!
  In this article we are going to use that same            Q. You said that "good works are performed by
method. We are going to begin with some of the             those who are in Christ Jesus by faith, which is a
questions and answers as they actually appeared in         gift of God's grace." Does this mean that only a
the  Katy Times.  We are going to continue with an         Christian can do a good work? What if a man who
extended dialogue to develop the general subject,          does not believe in Christ donates a thousand dol-
Total Depravity and "Common Grace"  - In the               lars to the American Cancer Society, would not that
Light of Scripture.                                        be a good work? It doesn't seem fair to tell someone
                                                           like that that his work isn't good.
Q. What are good works?                                    A. The answer to the question whether only a
A. Good works in the Bible are referred to in a nar-       Christian can do good works is, Yes. The Bible
    rower sense than we usually use.                       shows that clearly in the following passages: Ephe-
Q. What do you mean by that?                               sians 2:8-10; Matthew  5:16; Hebrews  11:6a;
A. We use "good works"' to refer to any helpful            Romans  14:23b. (We quoted them in full in the
    gesture on the part of any person.                     newspaper, which is not necessary here.)
Q, How does the Bible use the term?                          The answer to the second question as to whether
                                                           the unbeliever's donation is a good work or not is-
A. The Bible shows that a good work proceeds out           No. Whether this seems fair to us or not the Bible
of the saving work that God performs in His chosen         allows only a negative answer. The difference be-
ones. Ephesians  2:8-10 shows that good works are          tween one who believes in Christ and one who does
performed by those who are in Christ Jesus, by             not believe in Christ is a life-death difference. "He
faith, which is a gift of God's grace. Without the gift    that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and
of faith no one can do good works, for whatsoever          he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but
is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23).                     the wrath of God abideth on him" (John  3:36).
  The Bible teaches that everything we do must be          Many who do not believe in Christ do things that
done to the glory of God (I Cor. 10:31). This means        men say are good works, but the wrath of God


                                            THE STANDARD -BEARER                                              261



abides on them. "Not every one that saith unto Me,         A. We need to understand what happened to man
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven;        when he disobeyed God's command not to eat of
but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in        the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen.
heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord,             2:16-17). God said to man, "The day that thou
Lord, have we not prohesied in Thy name? And in            eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Man ate of
Thy name have cast out devils? And in Thy name             that tree and he  died.  God's word is no empty
done many wonderful works? And then will I pro-            threat; it is living and powerful and accomplishes
fess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me,          what it promises to do. The Scripture then refers to
ye that work iniquity" (Matt. 7:21-23).                    Adam's sin as bringing death not only upon him-
Q. You have not really answered my question. I             self, but also upon all men (Romans 5: 12).  Ephe-
can see your point, but are you going to be so nar-        sians  2:l  & 5 also show that according to our first
row and unrealistic that you are going to insist that      birth we are all dead in trespasses and sins. Romans
all the noble and self-sacrificing deeds that unbe-        3:12 makes it abundantly clear and final-"there is
lieving people do are not good?                            none that doeth good, no, not one."
A. Yes, because that is what the Bible teaches.              Thus the image of God in man is so marred that
                                                           the  .faint evidences of it which are left in man are
Q. That would seem to put you in a very inconsis-          not sufficient to bring man to a saving knowledge of
tent position. You use hospitals built with unbeliev-      God and to true conversion; therefore the "good
er's money and unbeliever's skill and dedication.          works" of the unbeliever cannot be accounted for
You take advantage of cancer research that is fund-        by an appeal to it.
ed by unbelievers. If you were consistent you
would refuse to take advantage of the fruits of the        Q. Well, it's not hard to see that man is in bad
unbelievers, wouldn't you?                                 shape after his fall into sin, but now I don't know
                                                           what to say about the seemingly good works in sin,
A. We are getting away from the point, or better           do you?
maybe we are getting right to the point. The ques-
tion that we need to explore is this: "What or Who         A. To be dead in sin is not to be inactive, but very
is the standard of what.is good?" Psalm 258 states,        active in sin. The inactivity of man in sin is with re-
"God and upright is the LORD." Jesus emphasizes            spect to anything that is good and righteous.
that truth in Luke  18:18-19 when the rich young           Through the fall of man into sin he lost his right and
ruler asked Him saying, Good Master, what shall I          ability to serve God. Man became a bond-servant to
do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him,       sin and without ability or desire to do that which
Why callest thou Me good? None is good, save one,          pleases God.
that is, God.                                                You say that you can see that man is in bad shape
  The Bible from Genesis to Revelation reveals             after his fall into sin. Man's situation is far worse
that God in His being and work is only good. I John        than that! Our Heidelberg Catechism in Lord's Day
15 says, "This then is the message which we have           III, Q & A 8 expresses the truth of the Bible when it
heard of Him and declare unto you, that God is             shows that man is so corrupt that he is wholly in-
light, and in Him is no darkness at all." That God is      capable of doing any good, and inclined to all wick-
light and no darkness at all emphasizes the moral          edness unless he is regenerated by the Spirit of
purity and goodness of His being. All that God is          God.
(His being) is good. All that He says is good. All that    Q. Can we account for the seeming good works of
God does is good, and because He is good all praise        unbelievers as an evidence of a "common grace" of
and glory belong to Him.                                   God?
  God is the Creator and all that He made was very         A. Why are you so concerned that unbelieving
good. He is the Sustainer doing good, giving us rain       man receive glory and praise? You took the position
from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts      earlier that I stood in a "very inconsistent position."
with food and gladness (Acts 15:17).                       Please look carefully at your position in the light of
                                                           God's truth. "The earth is the LORD's and the  ful-
  God is the Sovereign Judge Who on the basis of           ness thereof; the world, and they that dwell there-
His own goodness always renders just judgment.             in" (Psalm 24: 1). All things belong to God. He gives
  To sum it  up  then, God alone is the absolute           and withholds according to just and sovereign dis-
standards of what is good!                                 crimination. Man is in God's world as a  creature-
Q. I agree with your answer. Since God is the              servant and man must use all the resources of the
Standard of what is good, can we not account for           creation, and his own strength and abilities to one
the good works on the part even of unbelieving man         end-to the praise and glory of God. For man to use
by attributing them to the influence of the image of       God's resources and strength to perform deeds and
God in man?                                                then to say "these are my good works" is not only a


262                                        THE STANDARD  BEARER



very inconsistent position, but is downright wicked       people in Christ Jesus. His gracious saving work in
and incurs the just anger of God.                         them brings them out of spiritual death to new life
  There is no such thing as "common grace"!               in Christ, restores in them the image of God, and
God's grace is always directed to His own peculiar        enables them to bring forth good works so that
                                                          God's great name might be glorified.



                   The Arminians and Romans 7
                                             Profi Robert D. Decker


  Romans  7:14-25 is a passage concerning which           sage. It is not possible to give a detailed exegesis of
there has been a great deal of discussion and dis-        this passage in one article and we do not intend to
agreement in the history of God's church. The pas-        try. (Those who wish to study the passage in more
sage reads: "For we know that the law is spiritual:       detail may consult  H; Hoeksema's  Dogmatics,  pp.
but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do      533-546.) What we wish to accomplish is to empha-
I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but         size the importance of maintaining the correct view
what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I         of this passage and, at the same time,  to.indicate
would not, I consent under the law that it is good.       some of the serious implications of the Arminian in-
Now it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth     terpretation.
in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh)         According to the Arminian this is Paul speaking
dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with       of his experience and struggle before his conver-
me; but how to perform that which is good I find          sion. In other words, this is unregenerate man
not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil     speaking in Romans seven. Consider the serious,
which I would not, that I do. Now if I  ,do that I        even absurd implications of this. If this view were
would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that       correct it would mean that the unregenerate is able
dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I           to know that the law of God is spiritual and that he
would do good, evil is present with me. For I de-         is carnal, sold under sin (vs. 14); condemns the evil
light in the law of God after the inward man: But I       which he does (vs. 15); wills the good and hates the
see another law in my members, warring against            evil (vss. 15, 19); wills not to do the evil (vss. 16,
the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity        20); delights in the law of God (vs. 22); thanks God
to the law of sin which is in my members. 0               through Jesus Christ (vss. 24, 25). All this, accord-
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from         ing to the Arminian, is possible for one who is out-
the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus         side of Christ, who lacks the principle of the life of
Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself           Christ. Such a person, it would seem, would have
serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of       little need for a Savior!
sin." There have been three main interpretations of
this passage which may be summed up as follows:             This view runs contrary to the entire message
1) The passage is Paul's autobiographical account of      and emphasis of the Epistle to the Romans. In chap-
his pre-conversion experience. 2) The passage is not      ter one Scripture describes the process of sin in the
autobiographical, but pictures man in general, or         life of the reprobate (unregenerate). They refuse to
the Jew in particular, apart from Christ, under the       glorify and thank God, they are vain in their imagi-
law. 3) The passage describes Paul's own experi-          nation, they become fools, they change the glory of
ence as a believer. The first interpretation was that     the uncorruptible God into images made like to cor-
of Arminius himself. (Cf.  Arminius: A  Sfudy In The      ruptible man and animals, God gives them over to
Dutch Reformation, Carl Bangs, pp. 186 ff.) Others        their lusts and all kinds of vile affections (homosex-
holding this view of the passage were Pelagius,           uality, lesbianism). These are the unregenerate ac-
Erasmus, Socinus, Episcopius, and Grotius. The            cording to Romans 1:18ff. Upon them the wrath of
second view, currently rather popular, was intro-         God is revealed. Who dares to say these unregen-
duced by W. G. Kummel, a German theologian.               erate "delight in the law of God"? Scripture states
This position is followed by H. Ridderbos  (Paul)         categorically: "There. is none righteous, no, not
and A. Hoekema (The Christian Looks At Himself).          one: There is none that understandeth, there is
Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Reformed theolo-           none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out
gians in general maintain the third view of the pas-      of the way, they are altogether unprofitable; there


                                               THE STANDARD BEARER                                           263



is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Romans 2: lo-       life of the child of God. The difference between the
12). Verses 13 through 18 (Romans 2) present a             unregenerate and the regenerate is not that the for-
fearful description of all who stand outside of            mer does nothing but sin while the latter sins no
Christ, the unregenerate. The whole world of unre-         more. The unregenerate deliberately and willingly
generate stands guilty before God (vs. 19).                transgresses God's law. He holds the truth under in
  This is Scripture throughout. Ephesians  2:1-3           unrighteousness. And he delights in that. He loves
speaks of the unregenerate in these terms: "And            sin. God's child, born again with the life of Christ,
you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespas-           sins but he hates that sin. He fights against sin and
ses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked ac-           flees from evil. He strives to serve  the. Lord and
cording to the course of this world, according to the      finds his joy in doing the wili of God. When he
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now        through weakness falls into sin he neither despairs
worketh in the children of disobedience: Among             of God's mercy nor continues in sin. Rather, he is
whom we all had our conversation in times past in          earnestly sorry for his sins. He confesses them be-
the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the      fore God and in godly sorrow he repents (II Corin-
flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the              thians 7: 10). All of this is impossible for the unre-
children of wrath, even as others." This is what we        generate. He  cannot  be subject to the law of God
are by nature, apart from grace. The unregenerate          (Romans 8:7).
is dead in trespasses and sins. He revels in sin. And        This is the teaching of Romans  7:14-25.  The re-
he can do nought else. How is it possible for him to       generated child of God still retains "the `flesh"
delight in the law of `God or to hate sin? All who are     (verse  18), "indwelling sin" `(verses 17,  20),
outside of Christ and untouched by the grace of            "another law in his members" (verse 23). This
God are dead in sin. Jesus expressed this same truth       "flesh" Scripture elsewhere calls the "old man of
to the seeking, questioning Nicodemus: "Verily,            sin." (Cf. Ephesians  4:2Off.) That "old man" must
verily, I say unto thee, `Except a man be born again,      be put off. According to the flesh the regenerated
he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Un-          child of God is "carnal," "sold under sin." He does
less a man be born anew with the spiritual resurrec-       evil and fails to do good. According to "the inward
tion life of Jesus Christ he cannot even see the King-     man" (verse  22), or the "new man" (Ephesians
dom, much less enter it.                                   4:2Off.), or what we call the principle of regenera-
  Perhaps nowhere in Scripture is this truth put           tion, the child of God wills the good and hates the
more plainly than in Romans  8:5-7: "For they that         evil and delights in the law of God. The regenerated
are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;       child of God cries out, "0 wretched man that I am,
but they that are after the Spirit the things of the       who shall deliver me?" In the same breath he ex-
Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be      claims, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our
spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the          Lord" (verse 24, 25).
carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not sub-        This means that the life of the spiritually healthy
ject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."            child of God is characterized by tension. Precisely
Notice, they who are after the flesh, the unregen-         because he is born again he has a deep, profound
erate, mind fleshly things. These surely do not hate       awareness of his sinful nature and the sins he daily
evil and delight in the law of God! The reason they        commits according to that sinful nature. When he
mind the things of the flesh is stated in verse six. To    confesses in the communion of the saints, "I  be-
be carnally minded is death! The reason for this is        lieve...the forgiveness of sins," he is confessing
stated in verse seven. The carnal mind, (literally,        "that God for the sake of Christ's satisfaction, will
"the mind of the flesh," R.D.D.) is enmity (hatred)        no more remember my sins,  neither my corrupt
against God. That mind of the flesh is not subject to      natuve   (emphasis mine, R.D.D.), against which I
the law of God and it cannot be subject to the law of      have to struggle all my life long; but will graciously
God. The carnal mind does not have the ability to          impute to me the righteousness of Christ, that I
be subject to the law of God! How then could the           may never be condemned before the tribunal of
unregenerate person delight in the law of God!             God" (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 56). The battle of
Absurd! This is the doctrine of total depravity. Man       faith begins and rages within the child of God. Daily
by nature, and this means apart from the grace of          he strives to serve his Lord, daily he sins, daily he
God in Jesus Christ, is inclined to all evil and in-       repents of his sin and strives against it. This con-
capable of doing any good. By nature he is prone to        tinues until the Lord delivers him to glory where he
hate God and the neighbor (Heidelberg Catechism,           shall sin no more.
Lord's Days II, III).                                        That is the glory which awaits God's children.
  The Reformed interpretation (Augustine, Luther,          Through death we shed the "flesh," the "old man
Calvin, et. al.) of Romans seven is certainly correct.     of sin." Finally, in the new heaven and earth, we
This passage describes for us what is normal in the        shall be raised up incorruptible, immortal, and we


   THE STANDARD BEARER                                                                                                   SECOND CLASS
           P.O. Box 6064                                                                                               POSTAGE PAID AT
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506                                                                                        GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.





264                                                       T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R




shall rejoice in God's presence through our Lord                                              RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY
Jesus Christ forever. In his characteristic way                                  The Council of the Southeast Protestant Reformed Church expres-
Martin Luther put in like this:                                               ses its heartfelt sympathy to our fellow office-bearer, Elder Gerald J.
         Paul, good man that he was, longed to be without                     De Vries, in the death of his wife, MARY JANE.
    sin, but to it he was chained. I too, in common with                         It is our prayer he will find comfort and strength in God's Word as
    many others, long to stand outside it, but this cannot                    recorded in Psalm 138:8, "The Lord will perfect that which concern-
                                                                              eth me: Thy mercy, 0 Lord, endureth for ever: forsake not the works
    be. We belch forth the vapours of sin, we fall into it,                   of Thine own hands,"
    rise up again, buffet and torment ourselves night and                                                                    Rev. Carl Haak, President
    day; but, since we are confined in this flesh, since we                                                                 Richard H. Teitsma, Clerk
    have to bear about with us everywhere this stinking
    sack, we cannot rid ourselves completely of it, or even                                   RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY
    knock it senseless. We make vigorous attempts to do                          The Ladies' Society and Men's Society of Hope Protestant Re-
       so, but the old Adam retains his power until he is de-                 formed Church, Redlands, CA, express their Christian sympathy to
    posited in the grave. (Luther, Cited by C. Pronk, The                     their members Mr. & Mrs. Chuck Van Meeteren together with their
       Outlook, Nov. 1978)                                                    family in the death of their brother-in-law, MR. FLOYD BRUHN.
                                                                                 "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee; He
                                                                              shall never suffer the righteous to be moved" (Psalm 55:22).
                       TEACHER NEEDED                                                                                      Rev. K. Koole, Pres.
                                                                                                                           Mrs. Neva Feenstra, Sec'y.
Hope Protestant Reformed Christian School is in need of a teacher for                                                      Mr. Ed Karsemeyer, Sec'y.
a combination third-fourth grade classroom for the 1983-1984
school year. Contact H. Tim Heemstra at (616) 457-0279 or write in
care of the school, 1545 Wilson Avenue, SW., Grand Rapids, MI                        CALL TO ASPIRANTS TO THE MINISTRY
49504.                                                                            All young men desiring to begin studies for the 1983-84 academic
                RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                                         year in the Theological School of the Protestant Reformed Churches
                                                                               should make application at the March 17, 1983 meeting of the Theo-
   The Council of Faith Protestant Reformed Church expresses Chris-            logical School Committee.
tian sympathy to our fellow officebearer, Elder Andrew Brummel and             Pre-Seminary Students:
his family in the death of his father, MR. GERRIT  BRUMMEL.                       A transcript of grades from high school and college (if any), a letter
   "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dis-         of testimony from the student's pastor or consistory, and a certifi-
solved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands,               cate of health from a reputable physician must accompany the appli-
eternal in the heavens." (II Cor. 5: 1).                                       cation.
                                                Rev. W. Bruinsma, Pres.        Seminary Students:
                                                Dave Dykstra, Clerk               A testimonial from the student's consistory that he is a member in
                RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                                         full communion, sound in faith and upright in walk, a certificate of
                                                                               health from a reputable physician, and high school and college tran-
   The Senior Mr. and Mrs. Society of Southeast Protestant Re-                 scripts must accompany the application. All applicants to the semi-
formed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan wishes to express its sincere            nary department must have completed the equivalent of a four-year
Christian sympathy to our fellow member, Mr. Gerald De Vries, in the           college education (125 semester hours) and must meet the course
recent death of his wife, MRS. MARY DE VRIES who was also a dear               requirements for entrance to the seminary department. These en-
fellow member.                                                                 trance requirements are listed in the seminary catalog available from
                                                                               the school.
   May he feel that God is truly near to him, and find comfort in His
Word.                                                                             All seminary department applicants must'appear before the theo-
                                                                               logical School Committee for interview before admission is granted.
   "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" (Psalm       In the event that a student can not appear at the March 17th meet-
116:15).                                                                       ing, notification of this fact along with a suggested interview date
                                       Rev. Carl Haak, Pres.                   must be given to the secretary of the Theological School Committee
                                      Mrs. Lorna VanderVennen,  Sec'y.         before this meeting.
                RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                                            All correspondence should be directed to the Theological School
                                                                               Committee, 4949 lvanrest Ave., S.W., Grandville, Michigan 49418.
   The Priscilla Society of the First Protestant Reformed Church                                                               Jon Huisken, Secretary
(Grand Rapids, MI) wishes to express sincere sympathy to their fel-
low member, Mrs. Gary Bol in the recent death of her sister, MRS.
MARY DE VRIES.
   "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He                                   Read and Study
knoweth them that trust in Him" (Nahum 1:7).                                                  The Standard Bearer
                                                Mrs. C. Kregel, Pres.
                                                Miss  R. Sietstra, Sec'y.


