         VOLUME   XXX                                        OCTOBER   1,  1953   -.  GRAND   RAPIDS,   ~$cH.                           NUMBER   1
                                                                                                   -.

l 3
       I  
       H,-O-O-O-O-,-,,-~,-,,-,,-,,-~,-~,-,,-~,-~,-,,-,,-,,-~,-,.*.                  In these words you hear Jesus' pr&lamation of the
 j                                                                                   law of `the Kingdom of heaven..              ,.
 5i                ME.DI-TA~TION                                                1
.~.)-(l-ll-llbll-l,-,,-,,-,,-,-,,-,,-,,-`,-,,-~,-~-~,-,,-,,-,-,,,~.;                                             *  Q  Q  b
              .                    The Lowest Room  -'  -                                 Gd and sit down in the lowest room !
                        " . . .                                                           Well, you cannot do anything with this advice in
                                   go and sit down in the lowest room; . . .  ."     our world. There another law reigns: Everybody for
                                                                   Luke  14:ldb      hiltiself ! You can't keep 6~&odcl man down ! In .the
  %he words which `we have chosen for this  me~di-                                   Netherlands they have a provefib  that says: "Een bru-
tation were spoken .b? .our Lord Jesus at the occasion                               -taal mensch heeft  de helft van de  .wereld!"  W:hich
of a  &sit which  oilr Lord paid to one of  the chief                                means  in .our languaie: "A rude person owns half of
p h a r i s e e s .                                                                  the world !" And such practice is excused by the
                                                                                     term ambition.
         It happened on a sabbath .day.                               -
                                                                                          The result is th:t those who choose the chief rooms
         And when OLW Lor+d observed that thei which were                            are successful. And the iowly and humble are crushed.
bidden chose -the chief rooms; He warned them; and                                        But wait!. The  vieypdint of  ..Jesus' preaching is
admonished- His hearers to humility. At the end of                                   the Kingdom of heaven. He is not laying dpwn a rule
His discourse He emitted the fundamental law of t&e                                  for success in the-world. He is speaking of room in
Kingd'om of Heaven : "for whosoever exalteth  hi&                                    the Kingdom of heaven, as it appeared in His coming,
self shall be abased ; and he that humbleth himself
                                                           - -                       and as it dwells subjectively in the hearts of His. peop-
-shall be exalted."                                                                  le. And it is we!1 that He tells us to so act, for we are
         Indeed! The Lord's own life is a commentary on                              inclined to .do as the world and secur!e for us the chief
that law of the Kingdom. You  rnaq  sa$ that this                                    rooms, even in the church and in the Kingdom of
Kingdom of heaven  is founded on  h$iiKty.  Read                                     heaven. John and James wanted a chief room in that-
Phii.  2           .                 1                                               kingdom: to sit at the right and the left of Jesus when
         It  ms a very homely occasion which prompted                                Be'would be enthroned on high.
the Lord to .His admonition, but you may be.a&fed                                         llnd we are all inclined to so act.
that the  un,derlying   purpdse was to  poitit   us  to the
law of the Kingdoin of God-.                                                                                     *  *  *  *
         Read the Gospels, and. you .will note that the LorId
Jesus often began with an earthly symbol, but iri the                                  In that Kingdom  then.:-  go and sit down in the
end He was speaking of the Kingdom of heaven. Fdr                                    lowest room !
instance, when He  asked- the  .Samaritan woman to                                        There is room in that Kingdom. IGod be blessed,
give Him a drink of water out of the well of Jacob.                                  there is room with God, alld that for a multitude that
In no time'sat all the Lord shifted from the water of                                no .one can numb&;  on a new heaven and a new earth
this  wellt;i;o   the water of  life.. The woman thought                             wheae the righteousness oB,God  shall dwell.
that Jesus was still ta1kin.g about natural vater, when                                  And in that kingdom there shall be chief places,
He really space about His Spirit and grace.                                          places very near to the heart of God. And there shall
        So also here. %Go and sit down in the lowest room!                           be places, not so chief. Jesus spoke of the least in


                                          -.
 2-                                             T"`E  .S.%AN-DARD  B E A R E R
                                                                                     '
 ihat Kingdom and of the- greatest in that. Kiq$dom.                      foot.  Shredness, guile, power of  money, etc. are  in-
  There is a great variety. Some will shine as~the:  sun                  st.k;timental  in the struggle for mastery;
  in the firmament. Some  are in  .Abrahati's  bosom.                         Not so in God's Kingdom. Greatness in that king-
  Aln, yes, -some shall be called great in that LKingdom.                 dom depends on virtue. Listen: Who shall ascend in-
       You see something of th&t Variety already in the                   to the hill of the Lord? And her& is the answer: the
 -church. Therte   -are Doctors  &nd  Professors, Pastors                 man ~who is pure, clean, stibstaqtial a<d true. And
  and teachers, elders and d&<otis.,`-Thepe  $e qgtstand-                 all- this because this K$igclom is a Kingdom of virtue.
  ing menibers in the church%ha&`"shin6 iti virtue, .vir-                                              L
  fue  of  Gbd. And  Paul  sp&of.som&`.who-   w& `least
  esteemed. in the c@~ch;:: ::. ,.::: ~ _.._               .:'      :`                             *-6  *  *
   :J'h@re.   &&. some who  ha<e,i.$@   `With-  precious
  stone;,  gold and -silver, and they shall receive a-w-                      Look upbn. Jesus.
 ward for such building. IOthers df God's people built                        `Go and sit down in the lowest room!
  hay, straw- and stubble, and .they shall suffer, even                       He did. And such doing amounted to the down-
  though they will be saved.                                              ward journey to hell.             Finally there was no more
       Ah, yes there is a d?fference.                                     place for Him. It was prophesied in His birth for
       But I would caution you.                                           there was no room for Him in the inn. At His death
       About these differences as they appear here be-                    the place was called the place of a skull: Golgotha.
  low, Jesus said: many of the first shall be last, and                   The angels said: Come see where the Lord lay. The
  some that are last shall be first in the Kingdom of                     place was a grave.
  heaven.                                                                     ,Oh, Jesus must-have.been thinking of His own deep
       To be a minister of the ,Gospel  does not reserve                  hutiiliation when He spoke the advice to. His people
for us a chief  r,oom in  ,His  Kin,gdom.             .                   in my.text: go and sit down in the lowest room.
       I tremble as I write.                                                  Finally there was no more room for Him : He hting
       Many a so-calle,d  layman shall receive a greater and              between heaven  and earth. The Castaway!
  more beautiful place in heaven than many a minister.                      I ask you : if Jesus hangs on that cross before
       0 God.! have mercy!                                                your wondering eyes : how can we then be proud? If
                                                                          the ever recurring theme of the everlasting Gospel of
                                                                          God is: Jesus Christ and Him crucified, how then can
                             -*  *  -iI  %r                               we be proud?  I'ride in the face of  Golgbtha is  hor-
                                                                          ri,ble.
       .Wonder  why? !                                                        `Go and sit down in the lowest room.
       Because this Kingdom of heaven. is built on truth,
  righteousness and all virtue.                                                                    *  *  -i2  +I
       There lies all the difference:
       In the world? Listen to Mark 10:42. In the con-                        And what is the fruit of such humility?
  text we saw how Ja.mes atid John coveted a place on                        ~:See  it in  Jesus. Paul will tell you. "He humbled
 the right and on the left of Jesus in His glory. But                     Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the
  Jesus warned : "But Jesus called them to Him, and                       death of the cross.  WHERE$ORE God also  bath'
  saith unto them,. Ye know that t,hey which are ,zic-                    highly exalted Him . . . . "
  counted to rule over the `Gentiles exercise lordshib                     There is the fruit.
  over them ; and their great ones exercise authority                         He became great in the Kingdo'm of heaven
  upon  them. But so shall it not be among you: but                           He sat down in the lowest room. We shudder when
  whosoever. shall (be great among you, shall be your                     we write this down.
minister. (And mark you well, that the  .word "min-                           And Jesus' humiliation is a lesson for His church,
  ister" here does not mean "domin6,  but servant. G.V.)                  for us.
  &d -whosoever of- you will be the chiefest, shill be                        (Golgotha is a wonderful example for us unto hum-
  servant of  all. For even the Son of man  came not                      bl$ness of mind. Jesus' humiliation is a wonderful in-
  to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give                     centive for us to be lowly in mind and heart. He bids
  His life a ransom for many."                                            us learn .of Him.
       There you have the reason for Jesus' teaching in                      . Because Jesus humbled .Himself  such as no one has
  m      y         text.-                                                 ever humbled himself, nor can humble himself, God
       In the world the chief men and women exercise                      gave Him a name that is above every name. He hum-
  authority. T:he weak and humble are tra?pled under bled Himself and was exalted,
                                                              .-
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                                                     .Te'B  .s.ril_r\iDAR..D-~::B~-ARE#                                                                                                                         9
            .-  -.-.  `
                                -
           `And that .is a law of thQ Kingdom. It is the funda-
   mental law of that Kingdom.                                          i-, ~:                       _--
                                                                                            ."  _            -7.  :THE STANDARD BEARER
           Aed that fruit is  zeen in Jesus' sheep.  Through
   the miracle of grace in our inmost heart.                                 `:                      Semi-monthly, except  mc&ly  during July and  Arcgust
      .lGrace   .in the heart is the same thing  ai having                                  Published by the  REFORMED   FREE   PUBLI&ING   ASSOCIATION
                                                                                          P. 0. Box 881, Madison Square Station, Grand Rapids 7,  Mich.
   Jesus in your heart, and if you are intimately united                                                    `.     E d i t o r , ,   REV.   HERMAN  HOEKSEMA
   to Him in regeneriation  and conversion and faith, you'                             Communications relative  to  contems should be addressed to Rev. H.
   will surely experience obedience to `His Word, even                                 Hoeksema, 1'139  Franklin St., S.E. Grand Rapids 7, Michigan.
                                                                                       All. matters relative. to subscriptions should be addressed to Mr. G.
   the Word which comes to you in my present `text.                                    P i p e ,   1 4 6 3   A r d m o r e   S t . ,   S .   E . ,   G r a n d   R a p i d s   7 ,   Mich.
     ,Jesus comes to you and me and says: go and sit                                   Announcements and  Obituaries  must be mailed to the above address
   down in the lowest room! And as surely as Jesus                                     and will be published at a fee of $1.00 for each notice.
                                                                                      RENEWALS:                   Unless a definite request for discontinuance is received,
: -lives in you, you are going to practice such humility.                              it is assumed  chat  the subscriber wishes the subscription to continue
   It is the fruit of His wonderful work in you.                                      without the formality of a renewal order.
           .Jesus sajrs to you and to me : My ,brethren,  be not                                                     Subscription? price:  $4.00 per year
   many masters! `And- to thbse of His people who are                                        Entered  as Second  Class  matter at Grand Rapids, Michigan
   given to self righteousness, He spoke the parable of
   the pharisee and publican. Listen  t6 the verse im-
   mediately preceding this -parable: "And He spake this-
   parable unto certain w2hich trusted i,n the&elves ihat                                                                                 -
  they were righteous, and despised others . .i . ."
           That's ihe spirit of the world.
           But unto us He, says : go and sit. down in the low-                                                                C O N T E N T S
   est room !                                                                      MBDITATION-
     ,Come to think of it: what have we deserved? I                                         T h e   L&ese  R o o m . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..I...................                                  1
   tremble as I write this. Vire have deserved that ihe                                              Rev. G. Vos
   littie  place and rooin which we still occul;y  be taken                        EDITORIALS-
  -~from us, al$d that we be cast into the place where- there                               How the Guardian Defends  HeEesy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   Shall be room indeed, but room only to suffer, to weep                                   What Happened  in  the  West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                             6
* and `to wail.                                                                                      Rev. H. Hoeksema
           IOh God! have mercy!                                                    OUR   DOCTRINE-
                                                                                            The Triple Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
                                                                 --G. Vos                            Rev. H. Hoeksema

                                                                                   THE  DAY  OF  SHADOWS-
                                                                                            The Prophecy of Isaiah .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . . * . . . . . * . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . 11
                                                                                                     Rev. G. M. Ophoff

                                                                                            Just A Word of Explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                             14
                          -:::-                                                                      Rev. G. Lubbers

            .,.                                                                    IN  H I S   FEAR-
                                                                                           Afraid of the Gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                  16
                                                                                                     Rev. J. A. Heys

                                                                                   CONTENDING   FOR   THE  FAITH-
                            I N   M E M O R I A M                                          The Church and the Sacraments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                               18
                                                                                                     R e v .   H .   Veldman
    The Coasistory of  -the Protestant Reformed Church of South                    DECENCY   AND  ORDER-
   Holland,  I.llinois,  hereby expresses its sincere and  hkartfelt                       The Lawful  Calling . . . .  ;. . . . . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . 20
   sympathy to its fellow-deacon, Peter  Zandstra, in the  lo& of                                    Rev. G.  Vanden Berg
   his mother,                                                          t
                                                                                   ALL  AROUND  U s -
                     MRS.  J'OHN ZANDSTRA  SR..                                          The Promise Conditional or Unconditional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
                                                                                                     Rev. M, Schipper
   We commend him to the God of all comfort and grace in this                      CONTRIBUTIONS-
hour of sorrow.                                                                            4 Word for It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                24
                                                                                                     Mr. Thys Feenstra
      .                     Rev, M. Schipper,  PreS.  .                              A   Q u e s t i o n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
                            J o h n   V a n   ,%aren,   Clerk                                        Mr. Gysben Ryken
                                               -       -.         -.
So&h  -Holland; Illinois                  _                                        U-UIIIWUIOUI-IMD llQlleao"101-I-,--~~,~


4                                       THE  STANDA
                              - -
                                                               way of God's statutes before ,God will realize His prom-
                                                               is& Always th.e term condition means prerequ&ite.
                                                                  And always prerequisite means something required
                                                               beforehand.
        How the Guardian Defends Hmesy                            And this is exactly what Petter C.S. want.
                         (Continued)                               That this is true is evident from the  sc~`mon  I
     We must still treat the so-called conditional sen-        h.eard by De Wolf in which he  bolclly stated: "Now
tences in the passages concerning the promise we dis-          you can  &all this condition or prerequisite, but the
cussed thus far. /~                                            text  teache,s  that our act of: conversion is a prere-
     In I Ki. 9, the passage to which Petter erroneously       quisite to enter .into the kingdom of heaven."
                                                                   If they do not  m&an this, let- them state clearly
refers as having nothing to .do with the promise, we
yead in vss. 4, 5: "And if thou wilt, talk before ,me,         what they do mean.
                                                                  This they never did.
`as David .thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and -
in uprightness, to do according to all that I command-            But,  on,ce  more we ask: is that the meaning  uf
                                                               these "if clauses" in connection with. the promise?
ed thee, and wilt keep <my statutes and my judgments:             It very d&finitely is not!
Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon             Let me fir.st of all emphasize that the original lit-
Israel for ever" etc. And in vss. 6, `7: "But if ye shall      tle word in the Hebrew that is translated by our equal-
.at  .a11 turn from following me, ye or your. children,        ly little word "if" does not properly express the idea
and will not keep my commandments and my statutes              of condition at all. It has several different meanings,
which I have set before you, but go and serve other            but the mkaning which, according to the He.brew lex-
gods and worship  them: Then will I cut off Israel out         icon, comes closest to what i.s expressed in our idea of
of the land which I have given then&" etc.                     condition (a` word that is  nev,er- used in the Bible),
     Also in II Sam. 7 we find the same conditional            is supposing that ([Gesenius) . Dr. Aalders  translates
sentences. In vs. 14 we read: "If he commit iniquity           it by "gesteld dat" which we can probably translate
I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with               by "in case that."
stripes of the children of men." .And also in Ps.  89             Now there is a world of diRererice  between saying:
`we read the same conditional sentences or "if clauses.' supposing `that anyone keeps God's statutes" and "on
In vss. 30-32 we read : "If his children forsake my law,       condition that anyone keeps the law of #God."' Or be-        '
and walk not in my judgments ; if they break my stat- tw,een saying "supposing that anyone believes" and
utes and keep. not my  cdmandments   ;  Then I will            "on condition that anyone believes."
vi,sit their transgression with the rod, and their in-            In the last instance it always: expresses something
iTuity with stripes."                                          t?at anyoile must do before he can expect to receive
     Now what do these "if clauses" mean?                      something from someone else.
     Do they mean that the pro&se  of *God is dependent           In the first instance,, it simply .may denote a dis-
or contingent upon something man must do?                      tinguishing characteristic of those to whom something
     Is there, in these "if clauses" or so-called gram-        is promised.
matical conditional sentences really a condition in the           Thus it is with the promise of ,God and the heirs
dogmatical sense of the word?                                  of the promise.
     Does. the Lord here say to David and his seed: I             Applying this to the text in I Ki. 9 we obtain the
promise you an .everlasting  covenant and kingdom o:a          following result :
condition that you keep my statutes and judgments,
but if you do not keep my law, My promise  is with-               "Supposing that thou wilt walk.before me, as Dav-
@awn, is nul and void? IOr, to put it differently, does        id thy father walked, in integrity of heart, ancl in up-
God say to His people:                                         rightness, . . . then I will establish the throne of thy
                           You must do something (keep
the law, walk in my ways, beiieve, etc.) before I keep         kingdbm for ever upon Israel . . . . But supposing ye
my promise or in order that I may,fulfill  my promise?         shall at all turn from following me . . . then I will cut
 Turn the term  cord&on,  in the  doginatical sense            oE Israel dut of the land which I have' given them."
of the word, whatever way you will, but that is al-               In New Testament language : ",Supposing that thou
ways. the meanin.g. Man must, do something -before             believe in thine heart that -God raised Jesus from the
,God will realize His promise unto him.  - Man must            dead, thou shalt be saved."
live up to certain preYequi.sites  befolre *God will trans-       And if we interpret this distinguishing &use (sup-
late him' into the kingdom of heaven. Man must be-             posing thou walk in integrity of heart before Me, sup-
lieve b.efwre God will save hi& Man must walk in'the           posing that thou believe) in the light of all Scripture,


                                                       :i          -i     ..          -                .-i  "_  `7
                                                     . .                                    . . . _       1 _ ._i `I    i


                                                      fH.E   S.T~;T;~.DARD.=~:~BEARER                                                                     5
                                         -.~                                                                                 ----A
            `it metins:  "Supposing that by, His grace God has given                       taught us in so many words ,in Gal. 3 :15-19 : "Breth-
            the6 the faith so that thou believest, thou  shal$.  l$                        rep, I speak  after the manner of men: Though it be
~           saved ;" or : "Supposing that ,God has given, the&g?ace                        bi7$%-$ari'g coventint,  yet if it be confirmed, no man
I           to walk before me, in integrity df heart, `ihe promise                         disarinullefh,  or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham
            i s .   t h i n e . "  I-                                                 .    and. his &ed were the promises made. He saith not,
                 The opposite,. of -course, is also true.                                  And to seeds as of many ;. but as of one, And to thy
                  "Supposipg ihat God-has not given thee grace to                          seed which is Christ. And this I say, that the cove-
            `walk. in integrity- of heart, so that thou walkest in                         nant, that was confirmed before of  `God in Christ,
            sin, thou shalt be curse! ;" dr : "Supposing that- ,Gocl                       the law, which was four  huddred  and thirty years
            has not given thee %he grace of faith so that thou be-' after, cannot disannul, that it shoul,d make the prom-
            lieyest,  thou shalt be damned."                  e                            ise of none effect. For if the  ipheritance  be of the
                 Thus the promise of  #God is always addressed by law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Ab-
            God to beli.evers only, tind is only for thye- elect.                          raham. by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law?
                 Faith and  .sanctificatiion, walking in integrity of                      It was added because of transgressions, till the seed
            heart,. sorroiv over sin and repentance, hungering and                         should come to whom the promise was made ; and it
      -~ thirsting after rigl$eousness,  seeking, asking, knock-                           was ordained by angels into the hand of a mediator."
      ing, forgiving one another even as  ,God has forgiven                                            !C'he promise was first.
            them,-all these are no conditions or prerequisites                                         And although, for a time, the law was  superim-
            which man must  fulsll, as, the-Arminian would have .pose.d upon the promise, the latter never was condi-
      it; (but they' are, both .objectively  and before their own                          tioned by the former. Always the promise of God is
            consciousness, so .many distingnishing  marks. betwe.en                        unconditional.
            those to whom the promise  -is acldressed.  and those to                                   What then?
            whom it i$, not-addressed, ,betw.een  the believer and the                                 Did not the `Old Testament saints keep the law?
            unbeliever; between the elect and reprobate.                         .
       i                                                                                               Mi answer is in the first place i not if you regard
              This  Is Scripture, as  jrod  will readily understand                        them individualistically, apart from  ,Christ. In and
            if only' you read and interpret it in its own light.                           by themselves they could not keep the law of ,God at
               This  is- Reformed. in distinction from  all  Armin-                        all, and they knew it. The daily sacrifices, and es-
            ianism.                      .-                                                pecially the sacrifice on the Day of Atone,ment,  remind-
                 If .yoti underst$nd,  this, you- can never get it over                    ed them continually of this fact.
     your tongue to  sajr: `IGod promises to every one of                                              Secondly, and in  conne&ioti  with the foregoing,
            you that, if you believe,  ~977 shall be-  saved." For                         t.l.cy could never keep the ordinances of the Lord per-
            ti, preach thus  exactly~ erases  #God's distinguishing                        fectly. Frequently, when carnal Israel was reigning
            mark of faith, and transfers it to the ,power and fr.ee                        supreme, as was so  frequently the case, when the
            will .df man.                                                                  temple was ,defiled, w-hen Israel was in captivity; far
                 Nor can you, .if you understand Scrip$ure and the                         from the holy place, they could not even keep these
            Reformed truth, ever preach that our act of conversion                         ordinances and statutes of Jehovah outwardly.
            is a condition or sprerequisite to enter the kingdom of                                    Thirdly, however, if you regard the ,Old Testament
            heaven. For to humble ourselves and become, as a                               saints as the elect in Christ, they certainly fulfilled
            little child is a characteristic distinguishing  ,..mark                       the law in Him. [Christ was in their loins. From all
            which <God  placed upon those that are in the kin,gdom                         eternity they were in Christ. Christ is the promise.
            and do ent& it. But De Wolf, in that particular ser-                           He is the end of the law. He fulfilled the entire law.
            inon, transferred.  `God's distinguishing mark  to the                                     Herice, for the Old Testament  saints the law was
            power -and free will of man, `corl*upte'd the-Reformed                         a taskmaster, a pedagogue to Christ. Unto Him they
            truth and robbed, the people of CGod of every vestige                          looked in~hope as the suye realization of the promise
            o f   c o m f o r t .                                                          of God.
       But we must make one more observation.                                              And that the covenant  and promise of God were
                We must not fsil~ to distinguish Ibetween  the old                         absolutely sure and  unconditiofial, even so that the
            and the new dispensation.           ,                                          transgressions of the people ok God could never dis-
                This failure. also characterized Pet,ter's writing in                      annul them, is very plain from Ps. 89. For in that
     .the so-called Reformed  IGuardian.                                                   Psalm, ifter the glorious promise of the everlasting
             In the old- dispensation- the heirs of  the promise                           kingdom and covenant was described, mention is made
       : \+ere, for: a time, put ,under the law. Did this mean                             of the sins of the, people in these words: "If his chil-
     ~ that, for a time at least, the promise was conditioned- dren forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments;
            by- the law? By no means. -That this is not true is                            If they break my statntes, and keep not my commtind-
                                                                                                                                    L
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6                                                           T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R - E R
 -                                                                                                                              -                         - -
ments ; Then will I visit their transgression with the                                     condemned not only by the First  Prot. Ref. Church of Grand
rod, and their iniquity with stripes."                                                     Rapids, but also by  ,Classis  East of the Prot. Ref. Churches.
       Now, does that meari that `God will not keep His                                    These  here'ies  are'
covenant and fulfill His promise?                                                            a. That  ,God promises to all men, head for head and soul
                                                                                           for soul, that if they believe they shall be saved.
       The very opposite is clearly stated. in the text. For                                 b. That our act of conversion is a arereauisite to enter into
                                                                                                                                                    _       *
in the immediately following verses we read: "Nev-                                         the kingdom of heaven.
ertheless my lovingkindness will I ,not utterly take                                         2. You have taken sides with those:
from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. .My cove-                                      a. That were legally suspended and deposed as officebearers
nant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is                                         by the Consistory of the First Prot. Ref. Church of Gr,and Rap-
gone. out of my lips."                                                                     ids,. Mich.,  with the advice of the Fourth Church of the above-
       In spite of the transgression and iniquity of the                                   named city, and on the basis of the previous advice of  classis.
                                                                                             b. Who, after they were suspended and deposed,  iLlegally
people, the covenant of God stands and His promise                                         presumed to function as officebearers, thereby lost all right
is sure.                                                                                   of appeal, and placed themselves outside of the communion of
       The conclusion of this part of my discussion is                                     the Prot. Ref.  Chuyches.                   ' . . . .
twofold :                                                                                    3. The action of  Classis West in re the suspension  and de-
       1. The promise of God is always one and the same.                                   position of officebearers must be contdemned:
       2. T.he promise of God is always sovereign and un-.                                   a. Because it is illegal,  s.eeing  that it was not even. on the
conditional.                                                                               agenda of the  Classis,  which it should have been by classical
                                  .--                                       H . H .        decision.
                                                                                             ,b. Because it is contrary to  al&  Ghurch  Order:
                                                                                             1) Art.  3s: "The  ~Class~s  has the  s.ake  jurisdiction over the
                                                                                           Consis&or;y  %s the Farticuiar  Synod has over the Classis  and the
                                                                                           Genefal   8jQidd   ,d`Srkr  the Particular."
                                                                                             2) Art. 84: "No church shall in any way lord it over other
                                                                                           Churches, no Minister  bver other Ministers, no Elder or Deacon
                                                                                           pver  other Elders or *Deacons."
                                                                                             c. Because the' action is schismatic, seeing that they support
                                                                                           doctrines that  accollding  to the  Adecisiom,s  by the  Con&tory  of
                 What Happened  in the West                                                the First Church  of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and according to
                                                                                           the decision of  Classis  East, are contrary to Scripture and the
                                                                                           Confessions, and besides., are directly contrary to the Declara-
       By this  heading I am not referring to the very                                     tion of Principles, which -has been legally adopted as the ex-
foolish ,decisions  of Classis West, with which, by this                                   pression of our Ccn%ssions  by the Synod of our churches. IBe-
`time, we are all acquainted, but to the immediate con-                                    sides, by their action the  Crassis West supports  schismatics.
                                                                                             ,d. Because the action of  Classis  West was premature,  be-
sequerices and results of their absurd actions.                                            cauge Classis  East had not even finally decided on the matter.
Y. Briefly I will relate these.                                                              IV. Hence, we declare:
       The same week that classis  had met. I received a                                     1.  [That what calls itself.  Classis  West has broken with the
very urgent call from the people of Ed.gerton  and Hull                                    fellowship of the Protestant Reformed Churches.
to come over and help them.                                                                  2. That the churches of . . . . . . . (.. . . . . . . . . . are .the only faithful
       The Rev. Ophoff and undersigned responded to this                                   remnant of  C&assis  West..
call.'                                                                                       3. That we beg the Synod to take the same stand with us,
       We met with them, and inquired of them in what                                      and therefore:
                                                                                             a. That they refuse to seat the schismatic delegates.
respect they needed help. After learning from them                                           b. That ,they  recognize the <delegates which we elected and
what they wanted we advised them to present the                                            sent to Synod.  _
following document to their respective cdnsistories :                                      (Note: The above was used in  toto by Edgerton, was adopted
                                                                                           by  Doon's Consistory in as  fal' as it applied to the local  sit-
     I. We request that the Consistory reject the decisions. of                            uati@n and Doori's  relation to the former Classis West; and
Classis West in re the suspension  ,of Rev.  -De Wolf and the                              was  used by Hull with the exception of IV and  with the ad-
deposition of the elders without  .delay.                                                  dition of a time limit, Sept. 16,  ~1953)
     II. If this request is  ,denied,  we, the undersigned, declare
that the Consistory:                                                                           The same evening t_he consistory of Edgerton met
     1. Is guilty of schism.                           I                                   (Sept.  la). They  r'efused  to accede to the request
     2. That by this action they have  .separated  themselves from                         mentioned in Point I of the above document, and also
:the communion of the Protest&t Reformed Churches.                                         to rescind a former decision by which they had  al-
     3. That the undersigned are- the true consistory and  &em-
ders of the Protestant Reformed Church of F . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and    readjr taken a stand in favor of .De Wolf and his schis-
will ,,$+nction as such.                                                                   matic group. The faith,ful minority of the consistory,
     Iii., ,Grounds  :                                                                     the brethren J. Dokter, J. Van Niewenhuizen and' J.
     il'%y  this stand you have  principa1,l.y  adopted the heresy                         Verhey, declared themselves  the legal consistory and


                                                                                                  .       .


                                             T#%           ,sT*.gb,ARb                ,&EABER
                                                                                                                                                 ii


 personally delivered the following letter to all the                              The result was that on Sunday, Sept. 13, the Rev.
 members of the congregation:                                                  Qphoff and the undersigned preached for the congre-
                                                                               gation of Edgerton and that, too, in the church build-
                                                             Sept. 11, 1953
                                                 Edgerton; Minnesota           ing at the regular time.
 Dear Members of the Congregation:                                                 In Hull the brethren ran into a little difficulty, due
   By this time you are all acquainted with the recent decisions               to the fact' that the- consistory there decided on the
 of `Classis West concerning the suspension of Rev. De Wolf and                evening of 8Skpt.  10 to postpone indefinitely to adopt
 the deposition of his apostate elders. You  .also know; that the              the decisions of Classis West.                         `. .
 same  Classis West upheld the deposed officebearers, illegally
 maintaining that they are the legal Consistory of the First                       Therefore, at our advice (the Rev.  CphofYs and
 Protestant Reformed  #Church  of  ,Grand   Rapi.ds,  Michigan,` and           mine) they sent the following letter to the consistory :
 thereby separating themselves from the communion of the'
 Protestant Reformed Churches.. You. also know that previons-
`ly, even before  Classis  West had taken this stand, the major-                                                                     Sept. 12, 1953
 ity of the Consistory (consisting of G. Mesman, M. Mesman,                                                                             Hull, Iowa
 H. Gunnink, and J.  Tempelman)  as well as the president of                   Mr. P. de Leeuw, Clerk
 the Consistory (the Rev. P. De Boer) took the same action of                  Boyden,  Iowa
 supporting the suspended pastor and the deposed elders, a                     Dear Sir:
 fact that was announced from the pulpit last Sunday. At                         We understand that at your last ,consistory  meeting you  de?
 the Consistory meeting of last Thursday evening, Sept.  19,                   tided to postpone indefinitely to (decide whether or not to adopt.
 this entire matter was. once more presented by the minority                   the decision of  ,Cl.assis  West  in: re the suspension of De Wolf
 of the Consistory to the afore-mentioned majority, with the                   and  ,the deposition of the apostate elders of the First Church
 request that they retract t,heir  former decision and refuse to be            of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Therefore:
 responsible for the  .decision of  Classis  mentioned  ,above.        Al-
 ready at the Consistory meeting in which the f.ormer  decision                  1. Seeing, that according to Art. 31 of the Church [Order  that
 was taken  the three minority members of the ,Con$story  plead-               decision of Classis  is nevertheless settled and binding upon .you
 ed with the  Con&tory  not to take a stand immediately, but                   as long as you do not publicly renounce it;
 rather to wait until Clas.sis  East hald spoken. But all this was               2. Seeing that by your decision the congregation also  falls
 of no avail.- And at that last Consistory  meetin,g,  Sept. 10,               un,der  the  -binding  decision of  Classis  West;
 the majority refused to retract the former decision of the Gon-                 3.  ,Considering,  moreover, that we,  the undersigned, cannot
sistory, and upheld. the stand of the ,Classis.                                be bound by such `a decision for reasons we have explained to
   On the basis of the foregoing the minority of the Consistory                you in `detail in our former communication to you;
 (J.  Dotter,  J. Verhey, and J. Van Niewenhuizen) maintained                    4. We inform you that from September 16, 1953, we will
 that the  Con&tory  was guilty of schism, and declared them-                  consider ourselves the legal consistory and congregation, and
 selves instead to .be the. only legal Coasistory of the E'dgerton,            function accordingly until  : you publicly  announ,ce  and inform
 Protestant Reformed Church, as they stand on the basis of                     us that you will  no longer be  responsibrle  for,  an,d consider
 Scripture and the Confessions, as they have always been inter-                yourselves bound by the  ,above-mentioned  decision of  Classis.
-preted  by  the Protestant Reformed  #Churches,  and as their in-               You will understand, further, that as the legal consistory
 terpretation had been legally adopted by the Syn,od  of the Prot-             and congregation of the Hull Protestant Reformed Church we
 estant Reformed Churches in the "Declaration of Principles."                  also claim the right to the church property, even though tem-
   The Consistory also announces that at the Consistory meet-                  porarily we must meet separately.
 ing of last Thursday, Sept.. 10, there were 15 protests, most of
which asked for  a'congregational meeting about this matter                                                   RespectfuBy,
 in the near future. The legal Consistory wilsl take care of these                                               The legal  con&story  and con-
 protests as soon as possible.                                                                                gregation of the Hull Protestant
   We also wish. to emphasize that the majority of the congre-                                                 Reformed Church.
g&ion stands back, not of the schismatic members of the  Con-                                      ._
.sistory,  but of  t.he legal Consistory.          . . . .. . _%
  We have decided to inform all the members of our congrega-                       The result is  thatalso  the legal congregation of
tion of-these facts by way .of the present letter. And we wish                 Hull will have `services by themselves from now.on;
                                                                                                   `...1
 to-announce that the services next Sunday, D'.V.,  Sept. 13, will                 The Rev. H. Veldman will preach' and"`labor  ,,in:
 be  -under the direction of the legal Consistory, and that they
 have invited the Rev. H; Hoeksema and the Rev. G. M. Ophoff                   Edgerton, the Rev. M. Schipper  in Hull.
to preach for them.                                                                Another-urgent call I received the moment I came
   Hoping that every one of you give this matter his prayer-                   home from the middle West. This time it came from
ful attention,  anld that  you.  may preserve peace and unity, we
remain                                                                         Redlands,  iCalifornia. At the time of this writing .I
                                  Yours in the Lord;  ,'                       am busily engaged getting ready to go ther.e, the Lord
                                   The' legal Consistory of the Ed-            w i l l i n g .
                                   gerton Protestant R e f o r m e d               All this is the immediate and logical result of the
                                   Church,                                     very foolish decisions of the former Classis West.
                                      (signed)  .J.  Dotter,  J..  Nieuw-
                                     enhuizen, J. Verhey                                                                               -I$.H.


                                                                                                              :     .


                                                                                    -_
                                                  .~

        8                                               pill?  S-`ihiAh$P,R.~~  BEA-%+

        .: ,.,-,--,I(,-,, q,-I,H,-,IH,~(lll,~`I-,,-,-,,-,-,-,,~-~~..                           have to put that answer in the special form of an oath,
                                                                                          ^
        1  ()  U  R'  J)  0  C  T  ,R  1  ;N  E-":  :  1                                       for: the: simple reason that the church in which he is
                                                                                               ordained,:the  minister that reads the form, and he that
        i                                                                                 z
        .*,
        : ' Wlt-l,-tUI-`
                             -I,-,-~-~-,,-,,~`
                                             ,-,,-~,~,,-~,-"
                                                                   -,-,,m~                     is ordained stand before the face of God, and therefore
                      THE~M'L&~KliOtiiEi&   '.  .: live in the perfect confidence that he that pledges
                                                                                               speaks the truth and that his yea is yea indeed. Al-
                                                                                               so .the Formula of Subscription that must be signed
               AN EXPOSITION OF THE  I%IDELBERG   CATECHI@VX                                   by- all officebearers for that same reason does not as-
                        PART-   I I I   - O F   THANKFULNESS   :                               syme the form of a special oath. .Nor does the "Pub-
                               _                                                               lic Declaration of Agreement with the .Forms  of Un-
                               - LORD'S DAY 37                                                 ity,".that is alweys read at~the  opening session of our
                        i                                                                      Synod. Even those who make confession of faith in
                                        2    .                                                 our -churches are required to make a pledge that they
                                                                                               agree -with the doctrine of the church, and that they
                              T:he Oath in the W'orld        -       ..
                *.                                                                             will submit to Christian discipline if they should be-
               In the kingdom of heaven, so we explained in our                                come delinquent.. But all these pledges and declara-.
        last chapter, the oath properly has no place,  .-and tions  ,do not assume the form of a special oath  be-
        should not be necessary, fork the simple-reason that                                   cause the church stands in the covenant of friendship
        the believer always should stand consciously Ibefore
                                                                           .-`---with the living God, and therefore is supposed to live
        the face of ,God, and that therefore in the communion                                  and act and speak always in his presence.
        of saints the yea should always be yea, and the nay,                                       Mark you well, the oath as- such is never sinful if
        nay.                                                                                   it is sworn for the cause .of the truth and to the glory
               Also when the believer makes a vow and is .re-                                  of God. Under certain circumstances it may even be
        quired. to make -a pledge, he does not swear and' is                                   necessary in the church to demand an oath of someone.
        not required to swear a special `oath, by raising his                                  I do not say that this is always to be avoided. In
        right hand and saying, "I solemnly swear that I speak                                  the course of, my ministry it happened once or twice
       th,e truth, the whole truth, and. nothing but the truth.                                that the consistory deemed it necessary to place some-
        $0 help me God." The reason for this is not that the                                   one. under oath, because the party of whom.it was re-
        oath as such'.is sinful, as we have shown, .but rather                                 quired had repeatedly sh.own  in his life and walk that
:
       that the swearing of a special oath presupposes the                                     he coulcl not be trusted. -Nevertheless; this certainly
     - lie, or the possibility of the lie, and therefore is based                              should not be the rule in the church of Jesus Christ.
       on distrust, which should not have a place- in the king-                                And when the exception  to the rule becomes necessary,
       dom of heaven and in the church in the world. When,                                     it' is always an  occas.ion for grief to' the saints in
       in  <presenting their children for baptism, the parents                                 C h r i s t   J e s u s .
       are required to pledge that they will bring up their                                        But how about the oath in the world?
     ~. children "in the doctrine. that is taught here in, this
        Christian church," they are not required to make of                                     -May  -the magistrates, for -instance, also proceed
       this pledge a special oath, .for the simple reason. that                                from the assumption that all the citizens stancl before
      the. parents in making this pledge stand consciously                                     the face of God and therefore speak  the truth?
       before the face of God. and therefore are exnected to                                    To ask this question is to answer it.  The  magis-
                                                             _
       speak the- truth.- The same is true for the, occasion tracy, its purpose and function, and the calling of be-
       of. the ordination of a minister or the installation of lie&s in relation to it are clescribqcl ip the we&kllowll
       elders and  ,deacons in  : the church of Christ.  -'  :One                              words of Romans 13: "Let -every soul be subject un-
       that is to be ordained as minister of the Word of God                                   to the h-igher powers. For there is no power but of
       is required to answer. whether he feels `in his heart                                   God: the powers that be'are ordained of Gocl. Who-
     that he is lawfully called of `God's church,- and tliere-                                 soever ther,efore  resisteth the power, resisteth the or-
       fore of aGod Himself, to the holy ministry ; whether                                    dinance of ,tGod: and they that resist shall receive to
       he believes the Holy Scriptures to be the Word of- God,                                 themselves damnation. For rulers are not -a terror.to
       and promises to reject all heresies repugnant tliere-                                   goody works, but to evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid
       to ; and whether he. pledges faithfully to  dischar,ge                                  of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt
      his office, and to submit himself in case he should be-                                  have praise of the same: For he is the minister of
       come' delinquent either in life or doctrine to eccles-.                                 God  .to thee for good. But if thou do that which is'
     iastical discipline. And when he -answers, as  his  ,the                                  evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain:
     custom, "Yes, truly,' with all my heart," he.  does-,not                                  for'he is `the minister of ,God, a revenger to exee.ute-

                                                                           _'.-.


                                                  -_  : :i-.  . =  :.        cc     _  _-  .  .  ...'    .:  .-
                                                                            :.





                                                               ..,:-::       -2.
                                                THE  ,STP;.NDA~~,~:.:~~;E;~~~~I;),R                                                    9
                                       _-__-_-                                                                     - - - - -      -
          wrath upon him -that doeth evil. Wherefore  -ye must              .The Christian must be subject to the higher pow-
          needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for-I?oi~. ere?:  @so  ,when they require of him an oath. When
          .science  sake." And  from Article 36 of the Co+i$e$sio         he;`~~~~l~ds:.-before  the worldly judge, he may not in-
          Belgicn we quote: "We belieye that our gracious God,            dignantly as&me an attitude of self-righteousness and
          because of the depravity of mankind, hath appointed -insist that no worldly `judge can demand of him an
          kings, ,princes  and magistrates, willing that the .world       oath because he is a Christian, and the judge there-
          should be governed by. certain laws and policies,; to the fore may assume that he speaks the truth, that his
         -end that the dissoltitions  of men might be restrained,         yea is always yea, and his nay, nay. This was We
          and all things.c?rried on among them with good order            &itude of the Anabaptists and other sects. But this
          and decency. For this purpose he hath. invested the             is a fundamental mistake. In fact, it is only the
          `magistracy with the sword, for the punishment. of              Christia.n, t,he believer in Christ Jesus, that can prop-
          evildoers and for  ~the  -piotection of `them that  do          erly swear an oath religiously and to the glory of
          well."                                                          God. The natur.al  man, although for various reasons
. .          It is not our -purpose here to offer a dissertation on and out of. different motives he may .speak the truth
          the institution, and purpose of government, but only            under oath, yet before God he always sins, ,becatise
       -- to show that the oath certainly has a prober place in           his act of swearing an oath does not proceed from
          the government of the world. It is evident tihat the            faith  am1 to the glory of the Most High. But for
       tvorldly magistrate has the  rule `over a mixture of               the believer in Christ Jesus even his swearing an oath
       citizens,  good. and` .evil, righteous and unrighteous, before the worldly judge should be  .an act of faith,
          children of  li.&ht and  children,~qf  darkness. In fact,       and should proceed from the love of (God and to His
          according to Arkic1.e 36 of the Netherlands Confession,         glory.
          it is `because of the- d&ravity.of ma&ind that God has           Ali this does not mean that the magistrate nec-
          instituted government; ins order that th'e dissoluteness        essarily always properly functions and functions re-
          of men might.be restrained... From this it should be `ligiously when he demands of the citizens an oath.
          very evident- that the government cannot function on            What is true of the  & that swears an oath is no
       the  assumptioti  that everyone of its citizens stands             less true of him that demands it.  ,Just as only a
        before the face of God and speaks  the truth, as is' the          Christian citizen can- properly and religiously swear
       . ease in the kingdom of heaven. -.It cannot even- pro-            an .oath, so only a Christian magistr.&e can function
          teed from the principle that there is a certain general         properly in putting the citizens under oath. It is al-
          operation of- the iHoly Spirit in the hearts of all its         sr) true of him that is detianding~  an oath df anyone
       citizens,  ~whereby that dissoluteness is spiritually re-          &at his act must be an act of faith and to the glory
          s&ined, as the theory of common grace and the Sec-              bf God. Ancl it is to Be feared from the thoughtless
          ond and Third. .Points adopted by the Synod of the              and profane manner in which an oath is frequently
          Christian .Ref. C+rches in. Kalamazoo, 1924, have it.           rattled off, that-the' principle of faith and the motive
         .Thti dissoluteness of meh- is not restrained by a cer-          of God's glory are often  wantring with the worldly
       -tain common grace, but by the power of the sword.                 magistrates.
       This dissoluteness certainly. implies the lie. The gov-                    In the thirty-sixth Lord's pay, Question and An-
          ernment, therefore, may not as&me that everyone of              swer 99, the Catechism also speaks of perjury and
         its citizens speaks the truth before the face of God,            rash swearing  ,as sins against the third command-
          as is ideally true of the citizens- of the kingdom of           ment. It stands to reason that perjury is a heinous
          heaven. But rather must it presuppose the possibil-             sin. For an olath is calling upon the name of God `as
          ity of the lie. And presupposing this  possib:iiity,  as-       the Orie who knows the heart, `that He will bear wit-
         ~suming the dissoluteness of its citizens,. and knowing          n,ess to .the truth of our statements or of our pledges.
          that they do not all stana before the face of God and           Hence,  one who commits perjury calls upon the name
       _ speak the truth .to- H,is `glory, the Christian magistrate       of  ,God to give testimony to the lie. And this is a
         mu+ require the qath. Whenever his subjects are                  most horrible form .of taking God's name in vain, pun-
          called to testify to the: truth, the magistrate, there-         ishable indeed by law, but also directly falling under
         fore; must solemnly remind them-that they stand be-              the threat of the Third Commandment, that the Lord
         fore the ,face of God, that He is witness of their tes-          will not hold .him guiltless that taketh his name in
         timony, and that He will punish them -if they do not             vain.
        ,~  speak the truth. Moreover,  see_ing that the  Imagis-                 But- what is meant by rash swearing? In the first
         trate bears the sword for -the punishment of evilidoers,         place,  we may say that under this head must be class-
         it is quite proper that it impose a heavy. p&alty up-            ified all oaths that are sworn with levity, without ~uffi-
         on perjury.                                                      cient reason, f'or all kinds -of trivial matters. There


                                            :-      :-         /



10                                   PHI3  STANDARD  BEARER

are indeed people that are always ready to swear an           ions or other associations. Such societies no Chris-
oath. They call  upon the name of God-for  $1 kinds           tian can possi.bly join, whether it is required for mem-
of insignificant things. Usually people like, th& are         be&hip  iiterally and verbally to swear the oath or
.untrustworthy, just like people &at always nekd the          wh&her the oath only appears in the constitution of
testimony of someone else to corroborate their state:         such a society. And again I say that this is impossible
ments. In the sec0n.d place, rash oaths are al:s6 such        for a Christian, not because he cannot swear an oath:
as swear to things contrary to the Word of ,God. A-           for the oath as su,ch is not sinful. But the Christi-an
bout these Qsinus writes.in his "Commentary on the            cannot allow himself to  .be oathbound to lodge  or-
Heidelberg Catechism" as follows: `Y&ly such oaths            worldly union for two.reasons.     In the first place, be-
are lawful as are evidently n'ot opposed to the Word          cause a so-called neutrial  union is ungodly, and there-
of God, and which ar,e made concerning things true,           fore the very requirement of an oath is a profaning
-certainly known, lawful, -possible, weighty, necessary,      of the name of ,God. But what is of even more impor-
useful; and worthy of such and so great a confirma-           tance is that the contents of such oaths are themselves
tion, or of suchithingg .as require a confirmation for        contrary to the Word of God, and. the believer in
the glory `of God and for the safety of our neighbor.         Chiist can never, swear them. I do not have to call
It is only in reference .to such things, that it .is liaw-    attention to the dreadful oaths that arqe pexuired of one --
ful for us to make an oath. Unlawful oaths are such that wants to become member of a lodge. But even the
as are plainly in opposition to the Word of CGod, and         oaths required for membership in many a union can-
are made in ref,e:rence  to things which are either false,    not possibly .be taken by the Christian. I have be-
uncertain, unlawful, imp&sj?ble, or light and trifling.       fore me the Constitution of the International Typo-
#Of such things no one should make an oath: for he            graphical Union, membership of ?vhich is contingent
tiho makes an oath in reference to things which are           upon the swearing of the following oath:
false, calls God to witness a lie. He who swears things             "I hefeby `solemnly and sincerely swear or affirm
uncertain, makes oath with an evil conscience and with        that I will not reveal any business or proceedings of
contempt of God, inasinuch as he has the presumption          any meeting of this ,or any subordinate union to which
to make God a witness #of which he has--n? certain            I may hereafter be attached, unless by order of the
knowleclge  whether it be true or false. ~He.who.swe&s        union, except to those whom I know to be members in
ifi this way; has but'little- con6er.n  .whethcr.he  makes    good. &anding  thereof: that I. will, without equivoca-
God a witness of what is truth, or falsehood; and yet         tion or evasion, and to the best of my ability, abide-by
at ihe same time he desires that $God will either-give        the-  constitutio:1,  by-laws  and the  ' adopted scale of
.testimony  to a lie, or if he  ~21 not be a  %5triess  of    prices of any union to which I may belong; that I will
what is false, that he will punish him making an oat?l.       at -all times support the laws, regulations, and de-
He who malies ,oath  concerning things unlawful, calls        cisions of the International Typographical Union, and
upon God to approve land sanction what he has for-            will carefully avoid giving aid or succor to its en-
bidden in his. law, and makes God contradict himself;         emies, and use all honorable means within-my power
because he  detiires  that God may punish him if he           to  procpre~,employment  for members of the Interna-
does.what he cotimands,  or, if he does not do what God       tional Typograph$al  Union in preference  to others ;
has forbidden. And still further,  he  who swears in
this way, either purposes,.:to act contrary to the com-       and that my fidelity to the un@ and my duty to the
                                                              members thereof shal,l in no-wise be interfered with
mand of ,God, or if he!s.~e~rs*sipcere!y; he calls God
to witness a falsehood. He M&O swears in reference            by any allegiance that I may now or hereafter 0w.e to
to' things impossible, is either' beside himself,. or else    any other organization, social, political or religious,
                                                                                                 ,     ,.
trifles with God an,d*m,en; since he cannot have a sin-       secret or otherwise ; that I will bebong to no society or
cer,e purpose to do what he takes an oath to, or he .combination   cqmposed  wholly ox  .partly  of printers,
`sweays  hypocritically concerning a lie, `namely : .that     with the-intent- or purpose to interfere with the trade
he wi!l do that which he.neither  will nor can do. Last-      regulations or influence or control. the legislation of
.l,?, he .&lo swears.tiith levity, is devoid of all proper    this union ; that I will not wnong a member, or see him
,1:?yerence  ,,to God, and he whd swears readily and          aim her  wronged,  if in my power to prevent. To all
tlidughtlessly, also Y;eadily  for.swears or takes oath to    this I -pledge my most sacred. hpnor."
what is false. The principle cause of ain oath should                                                        - H.H.
be the glory ,of God, and the public and private safe-
ty of our neighbor."  ,_
i. Under this head a word may be said ,about oath-            $, . .  /  ^ --r.l+J -- ---                              iv,,
.boQnd   so&t&s in the world, whether  l,odgep or  un-


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                                         ..,
                                                .     .     .     .     .     .     .       .     .     ."
                                         I'HE  STANDARD.:  B$A&Er',                                                                                                         ii
                                                                                                                                               -    -
                                                                                                              escape, for the remnant in Z,ion and Jerusalem. They
  1.  T-HE  m>Ay  OF  SIQADOW&;   j shall ,be called holy, whose names are written in the
                                                                                                                 .
                                                                                                              bo@;l;of life, when the Lord shall have purged away
                                                                                                              the filth of l&s people by the Spirit of judgment and
              The  Proph&  ?f  Isaiah                                                                         the. Spirit of burning. And as in the wilderness the
                                                                                                              pillar of cloud by day and the appearance of fire by'
     b. The second  introd&ti&,  ch&ti~i%   IT-V.                                                             night was over the taberhacle, so shall .ever,y house and
     vers. l-4-With the s&ond  chapter a'new probhecy                                                         the whole assembly be marked as the holy abode ,of the
 begins as is indicated by the first verse: "The- word                                                        Lord by the signs of His presence, warding off every
 that Isaiah the son of Amos  saw concerning                                                                  hostile storm.
                                                                                         Judah
 and Jerusalem."                                                                                                      Chap. V :l-7 :-By the .employment  of the allegory
     The prophecy sets out with a  d.escription   of the                                                      of the disappointing vineyard the prophet fully jus-
 glorious future of the church of the elect.                                                                  tifies the judgments with which the Lord will overtake
                                                           In the last
 days the .mountain of the house of the Lord will be                                                          Judah and Israel. According to the prophet the alle-
 exalted abbve all mountains. All nations shall flow tb                                                       gory is a song-a lamentation-that originated with
 ,it in order to be instructed in the law of the Lord to                                                      his wellbeloved, the Lord, and that he will now. @g.
                                                                                                              to the Lord.                                             .
 go forth out of Zion. By His  tiord the Lord shall
 cause all strife among nations to ceatie  so that there                                                              The vineyard was plant.ed  on a sunny. slope with fat
 will `be no' more war.                                                                                       soil. And so its site was good. The owner assisted.
     The prediction is that of the calling of the  gen-z nature as much as possible. The spot he fenced, gath-
 tiles through the ages of this dispensation of the aGo&                                                      ered out the stones and planted it with the choicest
 pel and df Christ's reign of peace in the hearts of His                                                      vine. He made provision for the protection of the
 redeemed and glorified people on the `new earth.                                                             vines and for putting the fruit to use. Such were
     Vers. 5-22:-This being the high destiny of God's                                                         the watchtower and the winepress. What could have
-people according to the election, the house of Jacob                                                         been done more to the vineyard? And so the Lord
 is exhorted to walk in the light Qf the Lord's promise.                                                      lodked  for grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.
 The Lord has forsaken His people because they cor-                                                           The Lord will say what he will do to His vineyar'd.
 rupted their way before Him  bjr sins, various and                                                           He will lay it waste. `For the vineyard is the house of
 great. "Forgive them not," so the prophet prays, and                                                         Israel and the men of Judah. And he looked for
 he bids them to hide themselves in the dust and to                                                           jud'gment and behold oppresion ; for rig\hteousness  and
 enter into the rock for the glory of His majesty. For behold a cry.
 His day shall be upon every one that is proud and                                                               Vers.  8-30:-The Lord names several such  wild
every earthy  eininence  shall be cast down, that the                                                         grapes, atrocities of His people, and against the per-
 Lord alone may appear as the High `One. In that ,day petrators of each species of evildoings a separate woe
 a man shall' cast his idols to the animals and creep in-                                                     is uttered. The cause of all their calamities is cer-
 to the clefs for fear of the  L'ord.                                                                         tainly their sins and the purpose of their woes is the:
     Chap. III :l-15 :-The whole stay of bread and the                                                        exaltation of the Lord of hosts and the sanctifying of
.whole stay of water shall be taken away. And the                                                             the holy IGod in righteousness and the debasement of
 places of authority in the nation shall be filled by                                                         the proud.             They shall be devoured and consumed.
 women and boys instead of by competent rulers, and                                                           because they have cast away the law of the Lord of
 the result Will be anarchy and oppression.                                                                   hosts an,d despised the word of the Holy One of Is-'
   Chap. 11.1.: 16:IV': 1 :-Also the pride. of the women                                                      rael. Therefore the Lord hath smitten them, and His
 shall be  humbl,ed.    The Lord will smite them with hand is stretched out still. He will bring upon them
 scab. ,He will. take "away from them their splendid                                                          nations afar off by which is to  ,be understood the
 garments and replace them by wretched ones to cor- Assyrians and the Chaldeans.
 respon,d.    Their husbands shall fall by the sword in a                                                        Chap. VI:-The sixth chapter forms  ? distinct
 short time. Desolate they shall sit upon the ground.                                                         discourse and it, too, introduces the total of pro-
 Seven women shall'attaeh themselves to one man with-                                                         phecies that follow. The prophet describes his call-
 out demanding his support, but only to be allowed to                                                         ing to the prophetic office that took place in a vision.
 bear his name to take away their reproach.                                                                   The time was the year of Uzziah's death. He saw the
 Chap.        IV:2-6 :-But all these judgments the house                                                      Lord upon a lofty throne with His glory filling the
 of  ,Judah  will not be utterly  destroyed.~  For in that temple. Abope ,the throne stood seraphims that cried
 day will th.e scion of the Lord be ibeauty and glory and                                                     the one to the other, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
tile fruit of the earth excellent.for them of Israel that                                                     hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. The pro-


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  ii                                               `PIHE                                              ST+DA$$                          $zAA&!%,
                                 -     -
  phet was afraid and thought that .he must di.e. For                                                  the Israel of -the ten %ribes and Syria their' ally. The
  his eyes had seen the glory of the Lord, and he was a                                                riches of Damascus and the spoil of  Samaria shall
  sinful man that dwelt among a sinful people.. But he be; taken -aqa;y by the king of Assyria. And to prove
  was told that his sins were purged. When.  -he  '  ex-' that?. it is the Lord who does all these things the ex-
  pressed his willingness to :be the Lord's prophet, he was                                            act time when it shall come to pass is specified: even
  commanded to make the heart of the people fat and                                                    before Isaiah's new born son, tiho'm  he must name
  their ears heavy and to shut ,iheir eyes, lest- they set                                             MahershaZaZ-hnshbax  meaning "hasten to the spoil,"
 with their eyes, and hear with their ears and under-                                                  shall have knowledge to cry, My. father, my mother.
  stand with their heart and be he.aled. This hardening                                                        Vers  5-8:-Another prophecy to the effect  tliat
-. process  .implying  the destruction of the  .hardeneri,                                             thi Israel of the ten tribes and Judah shall be spoiled
 would continue until the land be desolate; The. ref-                                                  by the Assyrians.         ,
  erence was to a series of judgment that would cul--                                                          Vers. 9, lO:-But it is God's country whom the
 minate in the exile of Judah. But the substance of the heathen  lay waste. the land of Immanuel. Let the
  nation is a holy tenth that shall return and not be                                                  nations that continual!y  take counsel together against
 consumed.                                                                                             His. people beivare.           Let them associate themselves.
   Part II. `Chapters VII-XII. Prophecies occasioned                                                   In the end they shall be broken to pieces:  For the
 by King Ahaz' distrust of the Lord in connection with                                                 Lord is with His people.
 the s&ge of Jerusalem be Rezin king .of Syria and Pe-                                                         Vers. 11-22 :-The Lord is with His servant the
 kah king of the Israel of the ten tribes.                                                             prophet. For he puts his confidence in ,Gocl, who shall
        Chapter VII :l-16 :Ver. 1 begins a new discourse                                               be for a sanctuary to all such that trust in him, but
 of which the son& of thanksgiving of -chapter 12 is the                                               a stone of stumbling to the unbelieving and the ungod-
 conclusion.                                                                                           ly.  -But the prophet shall wait upon the Lord, he
        IResin king of Syria  .and Pekah king  `@f Israel                                              and the. (spirittia.1)  children that the Lord gave him
 lay siege to Jerusalem their purpose being to cast                                                    for signs and wonders in Israel. All such he admon-
 Ahaz king of Judah from his throne that he might be                                                   ishes to give no ear to them that advise to seek them
 replaced .by the son of Tebeal.  But the Lord by the                                                  that have familiar spirits, but to cleave to the law
 mouth of His prophet tells the king that the plan of                                                  and,the testimony, and to consider that the light is not
 the invaders shall come to nought. The fearful king                                                   in all such who spe+k not according to this word, and
 .receives  the liberty to choose a sign that the word of                                              who therefore behold trouble and darkness and the
 the Lord shall surely come to bass, but he refuses in                                                 dimtiess of. anguish.
 his unbelief. But he is  given a sign  n,evertheless.                                                         Chapter 1X:1-7:-Yet the people that- walked in
 The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name                                                darkness-particularly the northern  tribe+ (two of
-shall be called Immanuel. Before the child attains                                                    which are mentioned by  name-Zebulon  and  Naph-
 to the age that it can refuse the evil and choose the                                                 tali) , who -because  of their location had first to en-
 good the land (of .Judah  &nd Israel) shall be f;orsaken                                              dure  the wrath if the heathen nations marching in
 each~ by its king, .&eaning -th& both kings and their                                                 upon Israel from the north-the Assyrians-have. seen
 people shall be led into captivity. Predicted is the                                                  and shall see a great light. For the Lord shall break
 dispersion of  th.e ten tribes and the  esile of  Judah                                               the rod of the .oppres>or  so that his incursions into
 to  Babylon. This shall have to take place before. the                                                God's country shall cease. For `unto God's people a
 promise of Immanuel can go into fulfillment.                                                          child is born upon whose shoulders the governmtint
        Vers 17-25 :-But Ahaz w-ill not be warn&l. In                                                  shall be, and his name shall be wonclerful, counselor,
 his unbelief he looks for help to Assyria. the `new and                                               the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the `prince
 rising power:. He sends costly gifts to  Tiglath-pjle-                                                of. peace. Of the increase of his government and
 zer king of Assyria, even going so far as -to declare                                                 peace there shall be no lend, upon the throne of-David,
 himself his seryant atid hoping thereby to -induce him                                                and upon his kingdom to order, it, and to establish
 tb come tp his rescue, which he does by making  war                                                   it with judgment ancl justice, from henceforth even
 against Damascus the capital city of Syria arid there-                                                forever. The zeal of the Lord of host shall perform
 by compelling Resin and Pekah to lift the seige and                                                   this.
 to return each to his mown place. But Judah shall be                                                          .Vers. S-12 :-All the people shall know particular-
 devasted by the very  lieathen-the  Assyrians-in                                                      ly the Ephraimites  ancl the inhabitants of Samaria,
 whom Ahaz iS putting his confidence, .and spoiled al-                                                 who. clo not repent,  ,but who in their rebellion and
 so by the Egyptians for later on soliciting their help                                                the-pride of their he&ts'ancl in clefience  of God's jndg-
 against the Assyrians.                                                                                ltients are acldressecl  to-the task of rehabilitating their.
        `Chapter VIII : l-4 :-A like judgment will- be izpon                                           devasted land even on a grander scale; They shall builcl


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     -.                                           `p.&lE!  L  ST&.NDAi$&   @AREk
                                                                        --                                                          i3
  but  the Lord will throw down through the  agen@ of                         their-pride shall be humbled. The high ones of stat-
     the Assyrians now collaborating with the Syrians.,and                    ure shall be hewn down.
                                                                                 , -.
     the Philistines..                                                         -:  Chap&  X1:1-9:-The destruction of Assyria is
           Chapter IX  ~13  - X : l-4 :-For then  peop!e do not               foliowed  b$ a description of a new flourishing of the
-  tu?n to the Lord that smites  th,em. Therefore His                         house and kingdom of David. This house will be re-
     anger continues to burn. He will remove the men of                       duced to a stump, signifying that its royal glory will
     prestige and influence and the prophets. But this will be made to depart from it completely so that it will
     be no real loss as all of them are apostates. He will                    find itself in the meanest  circum&ances  just at  the-
     take no pleasure in their young men, nor will He have                    time when Assyria will be at the summit ,of its pow-
     mercy  on the fatherless and the widows, for &very one                   ,er. But the stump will sprout a  scion. From its
     in a hypocrite. The--Israel of the ten tribes, against                   roots a shoot will bear fruit. ,On Him, the <Messiah,
     whom this prophecy seems  eipecially directed, will                      the Spirit of God will abundantly rest so that He will
     be torn. by internal strife and discord. No  tian will                   be eminently and gloriously qualified as God's king and
     spare his brother. The old feud between Ephraim                          judge in Israel. He shall practice strict justice. In
     and Manasseh will revive and both will be .agai&                         His court, the poor and the meek of the earth shall
     Judah. But even f,or this His anger is not turned a-                     receive impartial hearing and full, justice will be done
     way. IOther judgments will follow. -Still more dev-                      to their case, but the wicked shall be smitten by the
     astations will come from afar off-from the valley of                     breath of His lips.
    the Euphrates, the' home of the Assyrians and  -the                          His kingdom will be one of true peace even to the
     C h a l d e a n s .                                                      extent that the wild beasts of prey will b,e filled with
           Chapter X:5-19:-A prophecy against the king of                     its spirit so that they no longer shall do any harm in
     Assyris and all the great ones in the earth compre-                      all God's holy mountain. For deep knowledge of the
     hended iv his empire and upon whom he leans saying,                      Lord shall fill the earth as completely as the bottom
    "Are not my pr.inces-  altogether kings (ver. 9) ?" and                   of the sea is covered with waters,
     in their totality here set forth under the image of a                       Vers. lo-16:-And after the root of Jesse, stand-
    towering forest. The Lord sends him-this  king-                           ing as a banner of the people, the gentiles shall in-
     against the hypocrites of His people so that he is ,but                  quire.
     a rod-Che  r,od of God's anger. God uses hiti to I&y                        And for a second time the Lord shall set His hand
     His strokes upon His people. This is the~purpose  of                     to acquike the remnant of His people in every place
    God that he serves. But he meaneth not so. He will                        that they are found.
     not mak.e  this purpose his own -and allow himself to                       land setting Up a banner-the Messiah-for the
     be activated by it. In the point of  vie,w  .of his own                  nations, he shall gather the outcasts of Israel and of
    intention he is in the service of self.  He plunders                      Judah from the four corners of the earth.
     and destroys nations as he chooses and his sole aim is                   ' :: The adversaries of Judah shall be cut off. Ephra-
     the enrightmetit of self -and the promotion of tbe,&ds                   im arid Judah shall be at peace with each other, and
     of his own kingdom to his own glory. And his boast                       together they shall conquer their common enemie.s.
     against-the Lord is that he. achieves by his own might                      And the arm of the Egyptian (Red) Sea, will be
     and. wisdom, while the fact is that he has. ,his being                   dried up and thus destroyed, and with His mighty
     in  *C;od :and that by His power he lives and moves.                     wind the Lord shall dry up the river (Euphrates) so
     And. therefore the glory of his forest shall be con-                     that it will separate into seven rivulets, which Israel
     sumed by a fire kindled under it by the Lord.                            m?y waik through. And there shall be a highway-a
      Vers.  20-27:~The remnant of Israel shall return                        formed road-for the remnant from Assyria, that will
     to the L:ord and not any longer put their confidence in                  be as passible as the highway on which Israel returned
     their adversaries by whom they .are be&g smitten.                        out of. Egypt.
     And they must not be afraid of the Assyrian. True,                          Remark. All this has reference to the work of the
     thqy will be smitten by his rod, but after a little his                  glorified Christ wherefby He gathers. out of the world
     yoke will be -destroyed by the anointing.              e.                the  Ichurch of- the elect in this Gospel period. Of
           Vers. 28-34 :-A clramatic description of the march                 this wopk of `Christ the return of the remnant from
     of. the Assyrians against  .Jerusalem-  in the days of Babylon was the type, the preindication.
     Hezekiah. -Upon entering the land of Judah they h&t-                        The prophet concludes his -prophecy against As-
  en on toward their chosen destination. The inhabi-                          syria, representative and typical of the Anti-Christian
     tants of the cities that lie on their route take to flight               world-power of this present dispensation of the world,
     at their approach. When they are near Jerusalem,                         with a song of praise for the mercies of Jehovah upon
    they shake their  .hand  (fist) at the holy  citjr. But                   His chosen people. Chap 12.             -.G. M. Ophoff


 i4                                      TYU3  STANDARD  BEARER
                                    -

               Just a Word of .Explanation                      is that the contestants are not clearly identified as
                                                                to their nature. It is not. clear whether he had in
       This time I shall not use the space comtionly .oc-       miric? not the battle ton the small and mean scale of a
cupied by'ihe rubric "From Holy Writ" for that pur-             battle of personalities, or the battle ori the grand plain
pose. Rather I shall take this opportunity to give an           of the "battle of all ages". In the latter the battle is
account of myself and of my stand as a member of the            not against flesh and blood, but it is against princi-
"Majority Committee" ifi the matter of the protests             palities and powers, -against the rulers of the darkness
against the `Statements ,of Rev. De Wolf."                      and usurpers of this `world. (Ephesians 6 : 13) Here
       It is not that  I choose to write  oti this subject.     it is the gates of hell as they would prevail against
Had it been possible I would never write,  about it. But        the Church. Here it is Satan and all his hosts,. and
Scripturz  teaches us that there is not only a time for         the church as she manfully fights against sin, the
silence, but that there is also a time to speak. And            Devil and his whole dominion.
this time is now.                                                  In this battle I had made terms, had capitulated
       The reason?                                              with the enemy, the forces of evil as they expressed
       It is this: the Rev. A. Cammenga insinuates very         themselves in the flesh and blood of the Revs. H. Hoek-
strongly in the Vol. I, No. 4 issue of the "Reformed            sema and `G. M. Ophoff i The battle is against them in
Guardian" that the  undkrsigned has capitulated or              their capacity of not thinking the things of God, but
faltered in the fray when he openly stated on the floor         of man ; as they are an offence to Christ, and that,
of Classis that the stand taken in. the Majority- Re;           too, in such a way that Christ says to them: Get thee
port  was wrong."                                               behind me Satan, for thou art an offence, a stumbling
                                                                block to me! And in this battle I had faltered and
       *He writes this before the entire public of our Prot-    not done the right thing by stating openly that I be-
estant Reformed  IChurch  world. It occured- to me to           lieved that the majority- report erred; a `report of
write him a personal letter about this matter, but-that         which I was the composer. I had made "conditional"
is not possible. For I have been misrepresented in the          terms with the enemy !
open forum, and in the open forum I shall make this
word of explanatton and refutation.                                The Rev. Cammenga must .remember that in this
       In the first place I would like to say just a word       battle of the ages it is the great battle to build the
abdut that "capitulating" and "faltering" in the                walls of Jerusalem, and- that her bulwarks and pal-
"fray".      The Rev. A. Cammenga here clearly insin-           aces may stand ; that the truth in Jesus may be con-
uates that I was overrun in the battle, lost. courage           fessed by the living stones in the spiritual temple of
and made an `ignoble surrender to the enemy. The                God. And in this battle for the building of the walls
reader must understand that the Rev. Cammenga em-               of  <Jerusalem  tlie "sword" is not the chief concern,
ploys the metaphors of the battle-field. To captiulate          but rather the "trowel". The builders on the walls
means :`to surrender on stipulated terms, just as Ger-          of Jerusalem only carry the sword for def,ense  against
many capitulated to the armies of the allies; It is a           those who make the building of the temple and th.e
cohditional` surrender. And that is what the under-             walls of  Jeiasalem impossible. Their chief concern
signed did, so the  Rev. A. Cammenga insinuates                 is to build and not to fight. They do not fight fior the
But, probably the undersigned was not .quite that `Gil-         love of fighting, but are peace loving souls, who fight
itaristic. Probably he was not a General signing the            only because they must  ,build. Their work is more
terms, but was simply a buck-private who faltered,              positive than negative. The builders must be work-
wavered and tottered when the battle was set in array           men that need not be ashamed.
on the floor of  classis. At least that is the way it              `On the floor of Classis  th.e undersigned certainly
look.ed to the Rev. Cammenga sitting in  classis.  I            did not sh,ow himself a man, who loves `co fight simply
had quaked with fear as did the heart of Saul when              for the sake of  fight,ing, or who had a chip on  ,his
mighty ,Gol'iath of the Philistines had defied the armies       shoulder that he dared another to touch. The under-
of the living God. I had not dared to sally forth into          signed is a- peace-loving man. He was that too on the
the fray in the Name of the ,God of Israel. No, I had           floor of Classis. But he does not want a peace at any
surrendered to the foe, made terms with them, or had            price. He would not sell Jerusalem for a few "erron-
fought bravely for a little season, and then lost heart         eous Statements" to make an ignoble peace, to cap-
and had been ,overrun  by the eilemy.                           itulate to the hosts of Hell who would prevail against
    `The trouble with. this imagery of the battle-fi&.ld        the Church. He will not knowingly put hay and straw
 *That is on the question of "pre-requisite" in .-Statement     in the temp1.e of God's truth, where the stones of the
II.  The Committee never said De Wolf's Statement I w$s or-     truth of the `Architect `must be- placed. Rather than
thodox !                                   .:                   do such an ignbble thing, h.e will fight any workman
               -.


                                         T H E   STANDARP   BEAREk.                                                             .15

  that  would so build as to put to shame, and he will          soul, so that they said: woe is us, if we do not  re-
  d,o all that is in his power ts- keep his "fellow-!abor-      ti&z the &Fense ,of this departure from the plumbline
  ers" in the Gospel from  being such  workmeti-  that          fY;&i the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
  need be ashamed! That was the deepest motivelin, the             .You- will. n,otice,  dear reader, that, the undersigned
undersigned on the floor of  Classis!               ::          has  :no  ljersonal gripe with Rev. Cammenga. He is
     It was not the, sentimental pity for the underdog          simply deeply interested that all of you understand
  that motivated ,the undersigned, .but it was the .de-         the reason for his stand, and where he  sitands as a
  sire to give honor for one's work's sake, where such          workman in Sion. He wills to be a workman that
  honor is due. As long as he could- not see that the           needs not to be ashamed. He is a. little ashamed of
  "statements" were wrong, that-the "statements" were           that "majority report". You may tell that to your
  bricks of straw, thtit did not fit in the building accord-    neighbors when you find the oppor`tunity right.
  ing to the plumbline of Scripture, he was sot going               Then I would also like to have the "Reformed
  to call the "statements" heretical. That was fighting         Guardian" tell all-of its readers that the undersigned
  -the battle. with manly strength. But as soon as it           tias greatly strengthened in the conviction that the
  became evident that the."Statements"  did not fit in the      "Statements" are a departure from the Reformed
  framew,orks  of Reformed Theology, more particularly          plumbline. The -undersigned was quite convinced a-
  into-the Ordo  Sal&is of Reformed Theology, ibut rath-        bout the error of IStatement II. At the time of Clas-
er in the  f&mework  of Roman Catholicism, then it              sis East sessions, son the evening of May 23, 1953 he
  was no longer possible to work constructively on the          wrote the following brief personal memorandum :
  building of truth with those who would not build ac-            2. The Statement "our act of conversion is a  prereqtisite
cording to the plumbline!                                       t6 enter the Kingdom" is,  isn the light of  Dhe Confessions,
     It took manly courage to take that stand, brother          heresy.
                                                                a. Strictly and confessionally speaking our sorrow for sin
  Csmmenga !                                                    is godly sorrow and is conversion. And the joy in God through
   It took courage to stand overagainst the inclination         Christ  is  Kingdom-joy, and it is conversion, and not a pre-
of our  own sinful hearts to be slothful  workers! It           requisite to conversion. Lord's Day  32:89,  90.
  took courage to say to a dear friend : you are not b,uild-      b. This conversion is a requirement (not a prerequisite) for
  ing according td the plumbline. Especially when               us as Kingdom children. This requirement is: that we cru-
                                                          SO
  many  wonld-be   buildens,  who could  eveli recite the       cify our old nature, forsake the world, and walk in a new and
                                                                .holy life. (Baptism Form) This requisite the Holy Spirit
  first question of the Heidelberg Catechism, insisted          works through the  preschina  in  our hearts in such an incom-
  ihat the "Statements" were according to the "blue-            prehensible way, that we believe (convert ourselves) and love
  print" of the  ,Gonfessions,  and tried to show this  -to     our Savior. Canons III, IV, 13.
  ,others with specious arguments. `Then it -requires             c. Practically psychologically the "pre-requisite" notioa,  does
  resolute courage to take a stand, and to  haire the           not  square  with the Reformation teaching concerning the Ordo
                                                                Ealutis,  but belongs to the ascetic moralism and legalism of
  grace to say : my judgment of the  b,uilding of this          Rome and  all Pelagianism: it  leqds  to the chains of penance
fellow-workman was in error! No, that was not cap-              rather than ever anew to cause us to rejoice  ia, our  sliberty  in
  itulating to the enemy, Satan,. but it was deep con-          Christ Jesus; it places one under the law rather than under
  cern for the flock of God and for the truth as it -rests      grace.
  on that Foundation beside which there is none other.            d. And it (the prerequisite notion) does not really make God
  That was not faltering in the fray, but it was simply         the Savior of us in our hearts  ,and through us; it robs the
                                                                Lord our God of His grace and  glory in the  sai;n,ts, and of
  resetting the sights on that enemy which is an offense        His superabundant power to us who believe.
 to Christ in His Church.                                        .  r Thus the undersigned wrote on Saturday, May 23.
     The undersigned did not capitulate, niake an ig-               And now on Friday, September 18, the undersigned
  noble surrender $6 the foe on certa,in  stipulated con-       reads a confirmation of this "memorandum" in Bav-
 ditions, but he agreed that the older workmen in `God's        in&s Gereformeerde Digmatiek, Dee1 III, Paragraphs
  church, who had more experience in r-eading the blue-         420-422. There Bavinck speaks of the school that is
  print of (God, were right when they insisted workmati         known in Dogma History as the School of the Neo-
 De Wolf was not sticking to the plumbline in his build-        nomist, who makes faith a new law, a certain condi-
  ing activities.. And there was -the plumbline #of l&b-        tion what must be fulfilled. The question is not what
  lical, Reformed truth! It was as clear as the day.            some' mean with the term "faith is a condition", the
  Oh, the undersigned was not go sure that the older            question is what is its implication in the history of
  workmen should not haye b&en a little more easy on            .Dogma. Read this part in -Bavinck, fellow-workmen.
their younger co-laborer, but then the truth of the                 Then you shall see whether the undersigned cap-
  beauty .and strength of th:e temple as designed by the        itulated and' faltered in the fray or not!
  Architect and Builder bf the temple surely fillea their                                                            G. Lubbers


                                                        ._  ;     ., -.i..      ,,_                 .




                                                                                                                                  .'

        16                                       THE  ST.ANDARD   -BEA.RER
                                    _  A - - -              .'                                                                          - -
        .~CHIMI-(III,-(II,,-~!~,,-,,-~,~,,-`,-~,-,,~,,-,-,,-,,~,,~~,,-,.*.                               could find no such flower. Neither could those who
                   1  `N  H  1  S  F~  E  A,  R---  +  1 drew  .up `this name for the weed.
                                                                                      . . -                  Butnowwe know!
        .;.,rl-s-e-c,n,-~-,,-~-,,-,,-,,-,,~~,-,,-,,-~-,,-,~,-,,-`,.:.                                       ^By a united defense~and  persistent refusal to deny
                           Afraid of thi -Go&f                                                           it, we know that by "Conditions in the reformed sense"
                                                                                                         are meant "prerequisites".      Even the cautious ref-
                                    (3)          :.                 :                          ^         erence to "conditions which we by <God's grace .ful-
                                                                                                         fill" is no more heard, but the key word now is "pre-
              Seeds germinate.'                                                                          requisites". That word must be maintained and be
              Such -is ~the process of 1if.e.                                                            defended, so they now say. Now what is defended
          And' if you do not root up or choke -that which                                                is not merely that as covenant children we have a
        sprouts forth-from the seed, the plant `will soon come .calling, that there are things which we must do as
        to that degree of. growth that you can distinguish the                                           heeding the precepts of the gospel. Now what is de-
        plant `from other types of plants.                                                               fended `is that we must do something BEFORE God
              You plant your flower seeds, and they grow. -But                                           bestows- the next installment- of our salvation. Un-
        in; the soil are also the seeds of several obnoxious                                             derstand it is not requisites but P*RErel.uisites  that are
        plants, the- seeds of weeds. They also germinate. And                                            being -defended. We are told that  ,our act of con-
        as both that which your flower seeds send forth growi                                            version is required  before  we enter into the kingdom
      : and- that which these seeds, of the not-wanted plants                                            of God.
        send forth grows,. you ar.e for a brief period of time                                              Do not say, "$0, but we mean that we perform that
        at a loss to decide which must be uprooted.                             ._                       act- of conversion only and entirely by God's grace.
              So `it is with the seed ,of the truth and. the -seed                                       We are speaking of those already in the kingdom."
        of the lie..                                                                                     Listen! You put that grace of God before our act of
              Both grow, and ,at certain stages, when that .which                                        conversion and you have taken the "pre" away from
        the lie has brought forth ii&t begins~ to make itself                                            your. requisite. It -is misleading doubletalk to speak
                                                                                                         of prerequisites we fulfill by God's grace. The mo-
        manifest, you hesitate to root it up,- land you -cannot
        always with definiteness brand it immediately as the                                             ment that `God gives. you that grace to perform the act
                                                                                 :
        lie-rsther than. as the flower of the truth.:                                                    of conversion, you -have already entered into His king-
                                                                           '                             dom, entered consciously into the enjoyment of that
         That has been our- experience' with those-seeds of                                              kingdom. Why, do you not see that the moment <God
        conditional theology which have troubl.ed us. and led                                            gives. you that grace to convert yourself  YOLZ ARE
        many of our people to be' afraid- of the gospel.  -                                              C~ONSCIOUBLY ENJOYING one of the wonders of
              When that conditional theology first appeared in                                           that=kingdom?m  IOne is conscious ,of his act of conver-
        OLUY midst, after the seeds were sown from a foreign                                             sion;.-is  he -not? You must enjoy  the  gmcle of  that
.-      soil, we had a rather general discussion of conditions                                           lcingdom  -before  you: can convert yourself.
        in the covenant. Soon enough faith was presented ss                                                 Then  t,oo, conditions must be preached, so it is
        a,condition  of salvation. F\Taturally,  as the plant. `grew                                     clnimed,  lest we deny the responsibility of man. Come,
       _-and thrived in our soil, we heard defenses of -condi-~ now. Y'OLI mean that? Then why do you, when your                                                        .
        tional promises. We were assured, by those~wholoved                                              doctrinal soundness seems to b,e questioned, quickly
        this plant, that althoughthe plant had the name-of a                                             add, "Which we fulfill only by God's grace." Are you
        weed it was really a pretty flower. By now .we- could                                            not afraid to add that too? By such an addition have
        ~see the plant clearly.. We could see the leaves,' the                                           you yourself not done damage to the idea of man's
        stem and even the flowers, and were therefore .clamor.-                                          responsibility? Are you not afraid that you will make
       ing .for these~Z%s to be uprooted and choked out of                                               man a stock and a -block by telling him that he ful-
        our garden, our Protestant Reformed  garden  `So                                                 fills those conditions only- by God's grace? Have you
        those who cherished this imported plant decided-: to                                             not --fallen. again into that dreadful  thinjg of preach-
        give the weed the name-of a flower. And so .it was' ing a p.assive doctrine? ,Come, let'us throw-away that
      called "Conditions in the Reformed  Senser" Weli, prerequisite business ! Let us uproot all .that condi-
        now that ought to warn anyone not to try to uproot                                               tional theology that has crept into our Protestant Re-
        such a lovely plant!                                         -~                                  formed "flower garden",.
              We pleaded! " We asked and waited for.`a: defini-'                                            It was not ever thus. It was not even. thus with
        tion of those "conditions in the Reformed sense." Nat-                                           those who. hold so tenaciously to this error today in
        urally such. a condition is..one taught. and defended                                            our circles.. Those who condemn: the conditional the-
        by the Reformed Confessions. In that  catalogue  we                                              ology have changed ??? ? ? What will you say then of


                                                                     .      .~
                                                                           ,..,,                   `.               .-'
                                                     ._,                     `
                                                                                  ..*.1*
                                                       ..-                   Y. ,_

                                                      ::     .~      ~.           <~                      : _,.,    I     -....     `
                                                                                                                                    .
                                               _               :                        :

                                             Tia  S'iiANDARb  %gARtik                                                                                            .17
                                 -      -                                                    -                                      ~
  I.these lines~ below written only ten years ago?:. .Thei . C!assis .West, Consi&ories, members in the congre-
   were writtefi by one*: who today wants th6 me$%ho g&$&s;- iho is' it now that has changed? This con-
-taught him the  PFotestant  Reformed  trtith,  e&&ed                                               -*~ .
                                                                     . . .                        d-lf6nal th<ology you have-been h&arin*g so much these
   from their position as pr'ofessors -in our Theological                                         last years frown  your pulpits, is that what these same
   Schodl. Why?  Because he has  changed...hist-views men, taught you ten years ago? Urge them to come
  --from the Reformed truth tb Conditional Theology. -                                            bzck to the Protestant Reformed Truth.
       (The italics are ours in every instance.) Writing                                                       0, indeed, some of you  have a problem of  inter-
 about  Art;`111 of the  &cotid half of the first  chap,                                          pretation.  Y,ou have been frightened by these loud
   ter of the Canons of- Dordt; we come across. this a-                                           cries. of making men stocks and blocks, of preaching
 mazing paragraph which we quote in its entirety?                                                 a passive doctrine and of denying man's responsibil-
   "They say here (the Pelagians,  J.A.,H.) that God  e-                                          ity. You have  be& made afraid of the  gbspel,  so
   lected certain conditions. God, they say, could have                                           much so that one can read the amazement upon your
   maybe made it so that nobody &ouid~ ever be saved.                                             faces when from the pulpit the Scriptural and Prot-
   But it pleased God to  say: `Whoever will meet  MY                                             estant Reformed truth is declared that (God loves His
   concditions,  him will I elect unto salvation.`. That is                                       people even while they walk in sin. It is because elec-
  -their conception.. Hence according to them, salvation tion has not been preached to you, and you have not
 `- rests on the question of whether we meet the condi-                                           been reminded that God nhouzjs looks down upon His
   tions.    This  is what we call `Conditional Election:' people in Christ and  therefoi:e  sees them as  right-
   Mqny people also speak this way about accepting the                                            eous and holy in Him? Have you for.gotten that the
`.  te&ns  bf  the  Covenant.  (There, brother, you have the Scriptures  .say that  while we  w&e  yet. sinners  ,God
   controversy that is raging in our churches, and what                                           manifested -His  1,ove in sending His Son to die for
.~ do you say of that? J.A.H.) `. We clo indeed believe in                                        sinners? .Has it not been held, before your eyes that
 %pvenan$  ob.ligations  an&  privileges, but never  CM  con-                                     "The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlast-
   &it$ons." That, if you please, was.only ten years ago.                                         ing upon those that f,ear  Him", Psalm 103 :17, so that
   Frankly, brother, NEVER is longer ,than ten years,                                             all prerequisites of fearing Him  before  that mercy
   is it not?                                                                                     comes  ar,e ruled out? That mercy which begins in
      .A little later in the same vein we read, in regard                                         eternity, surely was upon them before `their first act
   to -Article II of the second half of. chapter- 6ne ef`the                                      Of `fearing Him.
  -Canons, "Which stat& that there. ares really two kinds                                                     We will concede that our regenerated minds must
   of election. One is election unto faith and the other                                          see the fruits of the Spirit in our lives in order for us
 is  .election  unto salvation.  ,One can be elected unto                                         to have the consciousness of our salvation. But that
   faith btit not unto salvation. In other words, one has                                         is a far cry. from prerequisites and conditions. My
   to go two miles, but it may be we get .only on& niile.                                         regenerated  linind (which is then already in principle
 Hen&  W,e are not saved. The whole of  election.  is                                             saved  and therefore desires assurance of the  forgive-
   therefore dependant upon the question .tihether  man                                           ness of sins) cannot have this assurance unless and
  .keeps  on believing, On this error- much of that. so-                                          until I can see repentance in my life. But then  P.:-
   called Revival preaching iS based. Of -course we must                                          pentance, conversion, my act uf faith are not colidi-
   keep  OTL believing, but  thud is not a  con.&ition.. It  is                                   tions God demands me to fulfill before Fie- will give
   rather the Grace of Gocl which gives power td keep on me the consciousness of my forgiveness.  Instead they
  belie~tiing.~ And that grace  flows forth from-election." are His signs to me through which. He speaks the
       That,  br.other,  is-  Pr&estant Reformed language. cbmforting words that I am IChrist's and that I may
   That is what the men, you now want relieved of their                                           know it by these  frzds of  the Spirit.  Then my act
   position- as professors in our seminary, taught you.                                           of conversion is not something that God must see
                                                                                                  before and in order to give me th,e consciousness of
 That is wheie you get it.- Now you do not want them
   to teach that to dur.present  students? Are-you afraid                                         entering His kingdom, but it is that work of God
   of the gospel now, when- ten years ago you boldly pub-                                    which mu reg.enerated mind (for God deals with me
   lished it in this book of. yodrs, which we once wrote                                     as a rational moral creature) must see and demancls
  you, we enjoyed?                                                                           in order that I may have this assurance. Why should
  Return, return, the  undersigried pleads with  YOU,                                        we. want anything more than that? The rest is Ar-
                                                                                                  n~illianism
  rettipn to that stand. `Go back and preach that again                                                                                          -J. A.  Heys
  from the housetops. Be anothkr  testimony in Classis
  W,est of tliat Protestant R,eformed  Truth.                                                                Nothing but the lancet of God's law, in the hand of
                                                                                             `the Spirit, c-n let out the  p&de  of a Pharisee, and
   *) The Rev. M.  Gritters in his  work "The Testimony of Dordt,"
  written in 1943 at Sioux Center, Iowa.                                                     reduce the swellings .of self-righteousnesg.  -Toplady


     18                                         THE   S~ANj-)A$I):.-.j3~AR~~

                                          -                       3,.  1     ch&cte&ed  *by the profundity in thought which  .is
     .~,1-11-0-`
                   1-1)-,,-,,-,,-`
                                 ,-~,-,,-,,-,,-,,-,,-~,-~,~,,-,,-,,-i~-,~

              Contending For The Faith  f true .of~ the sound exposition of the Word of God in
                                                                             our present day. Much in their writings is highly
     1
     .~.1-11-0-0-1,-,,-,,-~,-,,-~,-~,-`,-,,-`,-,-~,-~-,,-~,-`,-,,-,,.~       allegorical and their langulage is strongly figurative.
                  The Church and the Sicratnents  '                          It is also true that these early leaders of the Church
                                                                             of God are characterized by simplicity and indefinite- -
             E                                                               ness. `Consequently, many speak slightingly of them.
               ARLY VIEWS  OF THE CHURCH  (Cont'd)                           However, we should try to be honest and fiair-in our
           The reader will recall that we, in  ,our previous                 appraisal of them. We must never overlook the time
     article, were calling attention to the development of                   in which they lived and wer,e called of God to labour.
     the episcopal form of church government in the early                    It m&t never be ;forgotten  that they stand upon the
     period of the New Testament Church. We noticed the                      threshhbld ,of the New Dispensation. The full Bible
     rise to power of the monarchical, ,diocesan, and- met-                  was not at their disposal. The Old Testament was the
     ropolitan bishops.                                                      only canon which had  loeen  of&ally adopted. It is
           I do not believe it difficult to uliderstand this Ilevel-         true  tha,t the apostles had written several epistles,
     opment of the `episcopal form of church goyernment,                     but these epistles were not canoniized,  officially recog-
     the rise to power of  the bishops in the Church of                      nized as the inspired -New Testament in addition to
     God. I believe that three elements or factors contrib-                  the Divinely inspired and canonized Old Testament
     uted heavily toward this development of Epiticopal-                     until the New Dispensation was well undkr way. This
     ianism rather than Presbyterianism.                                     is n'ot all. We must als6 remember that these. Ap&-
                                                                             t&c Fathers labored without the aid of creeds and
           In the first place, the Apostolic Fathers wer,e ,ca!led           con$essions.  We, who live in the twentieth -century,
     such because the apostles had Ibeen their f,athers and have an exceedingly rich heritage. The saints of God.
     they had been their  ,disciples. There is little reason have sealed the truth ,of the Word of the Lord with
     to dispute this. Their writings certainly indicate that                 their own blood, and have left fmor us rich and beau-
     they had been very intimate  with the apostles  atid                    tiful  creedss  and confessions.  <Our  aclvantage  is in-
     had received instruction from them. Hence, in con-                      deed that we may reap what the Church of God has
     nection with this, these Apostolic Fathers weie re-                     sown, throughout the ages. Fund.&ental  creeds which
     garded by many as the successors of the apostles of                     confirm truths stich as the Divine Person `of the :Son
s    the Lord. Is it surprising, then, that these men, them-                 and of the  .Holy Spirit, the  amazinlg and  w,onderful
     selves disciples of the apostles, should be regarded as                 union between the. two tilatures  of- the Christ in one        _
     their successor? I realize that not every ,elder who be-                Divine Person, the sovereignty  an`cl uncondiiti:onality
     came a monarchical bishop in a local congregation was                   of election and ieprobatidn,  the complete and utter de-
     a `disciple of the apostles. But the very fact that these               pravity of the human nature, the particular and vicar-
     Apostolic  Pathers were regarded as the successors                      ious ,char.acter  of 5atonemen%, the irresistible character
     of the apostles certainly lent considerable impetus to                  of. the grace `of God, the cer$ain perseverance of the
     the development of the episcopal for.m of church g&-                    saints, the tiholly particular character of the grace
     ernment.       This `development is surely perfectly. un-               of  .,God-are  now  ,at  ,our  Gisposal. And, as Protestant
     deratandable. We must bear in mind that the Church Reformed Churches we might build  upon the truth
     of  ,God, one throughout the ages, now stood upon the                   of the wholly par$cular grace of the Lord and there-
     threshhold of the Neti Dispensation. The knowledge                      fore proclaim tl$ the promise of the Lord is strict-
     of the truth as it is in `Christ Jesus was very limited.                ly and exclusively'unconditional. All these wonderful
     And the f,act that these Apostolic Father,s had b&en
     disciples of the apostles gave' them considerable dis; truths, we say, are now at' our disposal. However, the
     tin&ion. In fact, it woubd have been a truly amazing                    Apostolic father! lacked. all -these advantages . They
     thing had the early iChurch been characterized by the                   stood strictly upon their own. Besides, we must surely
     Presbyterian rather than the -Episcopalian form of                      not overlook the fact that the coming of .our Lord Je-
     Church government. This rise to  po,wer of the in-                      sus Christ into qui .flesh and blood was for them an
     dividual elders and bi,shops is exactly what one would                  event of very recent occurrence. How little-the corn-
     expect under the circumstances.                                         ing of Jesus Christ was  under&ood  at the time of             ~.
           Another heavily contributing factor in this epis-                 His appearance among us ! Anyone acquainted with
     copal development is the undeniable fact that these                     the New Testament gospels will attest $0 `the earth-
     leaders .of the early Church must have been able men.                   ly conception which the disciples entertained of the
     It is true that many speak slightingly of these men.                    kingdom which Christ -came to establish. In addition
     One cannot $eny the fact that their writings are not. to all this, we are also acquainted with the relentle&s


                          `.                T H E   STANDARD  BE~ARBR                                                            19
                                    - - - -
        attack of the Jews upon the Church and the apostles' and blood. This, we understand, was a very danger-
        presentation of the truth. How bitterly the a$ostles         o&heresy. If Christ did not `assume our flesh and
        were withstood wherever the Lord sent them to ~pro-          blood salvation does' not exist. Then He was never
_       claim the gospel of the crucified and risen Lord! Is         born, did not suffer and die and rise again in our hu-
        it not, in the light of all this, a truly amazing thing      man nature, and that for the simple reason that He
        that these Apostolic Fathers, be it oftimes  allegorical-    did not take upon Himself our human nature and
        ly and vaguely, upheld the truth of the Word of God          therefore could ndt have .been born, suffered and died,
       was revealed in Jesus Christ, God's otily begotten Son,       risen again in it. More can be said about this here-
        our Lord?~ It is indeed remarkable  that they were ,as       sy but this can suffice.  Montanism was an entirely
        sound as they were. And is it, therefore, surprising         different kind of heresy. The Montanists taught that
        that the Church of the living God should look up to          the outpouring of the Holy Spirit had really not oc-
       .them  for leadership and guid,ance in those exceedintg-      curred upon the  ,day of  Pentacost.  This outpouring
        ly `difficult times and recognize their episcopil author-    of the Spirit whereof the Scriptures speak really re-
        ity? Had they not been taught  perslonally by  the a-        ferred to later times and was actually being fulfilled
        postles? Were they not recognized as the successors          in them. Hence, to learn and know  the truth the
        of the laposltles? Did not the people of God in that day     people should listen to them rather than to the apostles.
        have a very limited  conctiption  of the truth? It is        This, too, of course was a very serious heresy. We un-
        surely natural, therefore, and indeed expected -that         derstand that if this were maintained, all the apostles
        the form of church government should  be  episcqpal          must be regarded as imposters. Then they never $e-
        rather than presbyterian; Everything certainly co-           ceived the Holy Spirit.  Tlien they never proclaimed
        operated to bring this state of affairs about in the life    the truith. This implies that we have, then, no New
        of the Church.                                               Testament, no revelation of the Christ, inasmuch as
           However, even this is not all. There is i third con-      the apostles are (surely the writers of the New Testa-
        tricbuting factor which must be borne in `mind. Be-          ment. These were the  .heresies with which the Ap-  -_
        sides being ,dis&ples of the apostles and personally         ostolic Fathers were forced to cope.
        taught by them and also themselves very able, they              These heresies were condemned, even as all her-
        led the fight against heresies. These heresies soon de-      esies have been condemned by the ,Church which re-
        veloped. IOf course, they were (always  present,. and        ceived the promise of the risen Lord that He would
        they were  sur,ely  p?esetit  during the time of the a-      lead it into all the truth. But.it %s worthy of note that
        postles. We need not dwell upon this. But we must            these Apostolic Fathers and the Church Fathers who
        remember that, when the apostles lived, their word           succeeded them led the Church in this fight against
        was final. They were infallibly led and directed by the      these heresies. And this. struggle wlas fiercely and
        Holy  ISpirit into all the truth. Soon  after the close      bitterly fought. Hence,  it is not difficult to understand
        of the apostolic era the enemies of the truth launched       that the Church should ascribe special authority and
        their relentless attacks upon the Church of God. In          powers to these bishops who led them in their fight
      fact, the recognition ,of the .authority  of the monarehi-     against these departures from the truth. And we
        Cal bishops was occasioned exactly by the appearance         know that this recognition of their authority grew as
        of two heresies, known as Gnosticism and Montanism.          the years rolled by.  ,The Lord willing, we will call
       `Both these heresies arose and became real threats be-        attention, in subsequent articles, to the high esteem
        fore A.D. 160. *Gnosticism comes from a Greek word           in which these bishops were held by th'e early Chris-
        which means knowledge. These Gnostics claimed they           tiaiz  C h u r c h .
       had the knowledge. The claimed that they understood                                                     -H. Veldman
        the w,orld,  its makeup, qeration,  and destiny, and that
        knowledge was what saved those who possessed it.                                                                  .  -_
        They also had their own conception of the <Christ. The                         -I-.-.---1:
        Gnostics worked very largely with the contrast be-                                                                 I           .
        tween good and evil. They called matter evil and
        spirit good. .This means, of course, that, entertaining                                                            b:
        such views, they could not recognize the `God of ~the           Errata: On page 494 the second column the l&t
        Bible, the Creator of heaven and eartki,  as the only        sentence of paragraph 3 should have read: "By the
      tru&,God.    Neither coulld they believe in the truth that     efficacious preaching of the gospel of His love Gdd
       the Lord Jesus `Christ -had assumed our flesh -and            works love for Himself in the hearts of his regener-
       blood, inasmuch as matter is  neces%i+ly  evil and            ated children." Our copy had  "regenepated"  where
     ..__ Christ, therefore, could not have assunied  our flesh      "unregenerated" `appears in the. above line. J.A.M.


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   20  -                               - - T H E   S--TANDARD,   B E A R E R

                                                                                      Cor. 12 :28 `and "He gave some . . . pastors- and teach-
             DEc@Na  and  ()RDER-:-;Ff   1 e<s for Ithe perfecting of the saints, for the work -of
                                                                                 t~~~~~ip&&~," Eph. 4 :ll ,This act of God is in the
                                                                                 highest s,epse  their ordination for except God Himself                                  _
                                                                                 s&?$. m% in the office  of the church, no man is right-
                    The, LawfIlL `Calkllg                                        fully and really ordained.
                                                                                                    The candidate, therefore, who has been properly
                   THE PUBLIC ORDINATION.                                        called and approved by the church and in his examin-
                       A .   its  M e a n i n g                                  at+ has revealed himself capable and worthy of the
      The public .or,dination  of a candidate to the office                      office of %the ministry, is to ,b.e ordained in the pres-
   .of the ministry of then-Word  and the Sacr.anient.is,  in-                   @ncnCe of the congregation according to the appropriate
   deed, a solemn occasion. - Dr. H. Bouwman says that                           stipulations of the church. When this takes place he
   the ordinatibn is the- erozun upon the calling. For the                       receives, as it were, the prize for which h.e haslong
   minister;elect  it means the realizdtion ,of his heart's                      been striving, the crown of his arduous labor. His
   desire and the entrance. updn his life's calling. To                          ordination means that Christ, through the church,
   the church the ordination of her minister marks- the                          pbces him in lthe office of the ministry of the Word.
   .`.nswer to her prayer, "Come  over and help us". Th&c                        From Christ,  therefore, and not from any man he re-
   is then abundant reason for solemn joy and sandi-                             ceives the right to  operi his mouth and say, "Thus
   fied gratitud,e when the act of public ordination takes                       saith the Lord" and to "Feed His beloved sheep".
   place in +lie chu& of Jestis  Christ.                                                            Furthermore, wher,eas there is no man who of him-
      we are. at present concerned only with the ordin-                          self is sufficient unto these things, the- ordination also
 ation- bf candidates to the ministry although there is                          implies that Christ `Himself qualifies the one ordained
   also the ordination of ministers who are called .from                         with the necessary gifts and power.s to perform the
   one, congregation to another and, likewise, the .ordin-                       spiritual  1,abors unto which he has been appointed.
   ation of elders and deacons.  Oi the latter we read                           This is signified in the laying on of hands which we
   in A'cts G :3, "Look ye out amtong you seven men' of                          will discuss presently. This assurance that his supply
   hone& report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom,                              of gifts and power is alone in Christ is the strength
   whom we may appoint over this business." Al.though                            of- the minister in all- his labors.
   it is said that these men were appointed as deacons,
yet, it may be noted that the same w&d is used here                                                                                    B. The Service
   as we find in Titus 1:5 where Titus. is comm'anded  <by                                     The minister is ordained in a- public service in the
  the apostle "to o&?&z ,elders  in every city .of' Crete." presen,ce of. the congregation. Usually this service
    Two things are rather striking in this connection.                           is conducted on a week day evening enabling as malzy
   The first is that the Rfevised  Version of our Bible has                      of the neighboring ministers, friends, and relatives
   changed the word "ordain" in every instance iYhe+e                            to. be present. There could, of course, be no .objecti,on
   it-appear,s in the King James Version to  read-  "ap-                         to ordaining the minister in a regular ISunday service'
p o i n t ". Although we prefer the  King James Version                          as, the elders and deacons are frequently ordained.
   and see nd reason why the +ord "ordain" could .not                                 (In many churches the latter is done on New Year's
   also  shave been  used in such passages as Acts  6.~3,                        morning). It is for practical, rather than for princi-
   Heb. 2 :7, 5:1, 7 :28, Rom. 5 :19 and oithers, yet;- this                     gal reasons that this is done during the week.
  change of word.s  does not effect the essential mean-                                        The entire  congregatipn  assembles. The  ,auditor-
  ing. :Ordination  certainly implies appointment. Christ; ium is unusually full on this  occasion   *because   ther?
  through the church, appoints men to the offices and                            are many frpm neighboring congregations who have
  this appointment by Christ Is essentially ordination.                          come  `to witness the event. The service is simple.
      The second sltriking thing i,s that we do not find this                    There is no pomp or elaborate rites. The minister
  word used in Scl:iptul*,e with reference to the ordina-                        (usually the. counsellor of the church) ascends to the
  tion of ministers of  the Word. This does not mean                             pulpit and preaches the- Word appropriate -to the oc-
  that they are not to be ordained or that an ordained                           casion. Thereupon, either he, or one ,of the visiting
 mihistry is  wrbng as some  aver. On the contrary, *ministers, proceeds to read the Form for Ordination of
  their ordination is surely implied in that of the elders                       Ministers. The questions are asked of the candidalte.
  `for they are "elders who Iabor in the word alid doc-                          T,his is fiollowed  by the ceremony ?f the laying on of
  trine".    (I' Tim. 5 :17)    Furthermore, it is, express-                     hands. Then both the newly ordained minister and
  ly stated that "God has set some in the church, first                          the cdngregation  (are charged and admonished by dne
  apostles, s&ondarily prophets, thirdly teachers .`. ;" I                       of the ministers present.                                     Prayers are offered and


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                                        T H E   %li~@bAR.i~  B-j&ARE)1                                                      ii

:&he service is concluded with the newly ordained min-
 ister speaking the benediction.                      .- -          ,.            E. The Laying On Of Hands
                                                                           .
                                                                          since 1856 this custom has been practiced by Re-
           --  NC. The Ordination  F,ori-n                    f&tied' Churches. It is used only in the case of those
                                                              who have noit previously served in the ministry of the
    owe cannot write in detail about -this form iti the       W,ord and that because the ordination i.s properly re-
-space of this article nor is that necessary. Our read-       garded to be for life. According to this custom all
 ers may find and study it <as it appears in the back         the ministers present at the service for ordination
 of our Psalter. The first part of the Form Contains          place their liands upon the head of the candidate while
 a circumscription ,of the institution or office  of the      the officiating ministers utters a prayer for the en-
 minister of the Word. It is well that we aye all thor-       lightenmcent and gifts of the Holy Spirit in behalf of
 oughly aoluainted with this so that we may know what him who is ordained. The significance of this rite,
 to expect from our minister  in these days when that         therefore, is as Dr. Bbuwm.an expresses it "a symbolic
 holy office is so widely misun.derstood.     We will have    act whereby it is signified that the brother concerned
 occasion to write in detail on this in connection with       has received the necessary gifts of office (through ,the
 Art. 16 of our  D.K:O. What is implied  .in this  of&e       Holy Spirit) and &at these gifts are now dedicat.ed  to
 is expressed in the following sentence taken' from the       tihe service of the church. Further, it is a  soltemn,
 form : "What  this holy office  ,enjoins  may  .easily be    public. declaration- on God's part, before the congrega-
 gathered from the very name itself; f,or as it is the        tion that the elected brother is lawfully called of God
 duty of a common shepherd to feed,  guid,e, protect          Himself, and is to be regarded by the congregation as
 and rule the flock committed to his charge; so it is         His servant, whereas the office bearer himself is urged
-with regard to these spiritual shepherds, who are set        by this solemn exercise, to develop the gifts alloted
 over the church,  which  ,God  calleth  unto salvation       to him .and to use them for the glory of God, and the
 and counts as sheep of His pasture." This exalted            welfare of the congregation." (Kerkrecht,  Vol.  1,~.
 duty is further defined in .a fourfol,d way.      (1) He     4 1 0 )
 must pkeach  the Word. (2) .He must ptiblicly bear the                   This ceremony also has the sanction of Holy Writ.
 church  Ito the  throjne of grace in `prayer.     (3)  He Although bt is sometimes.-,objected  that Jesus did not
 must administer the Holy Sacraments. (4) He, with            use this rite when He ordained His disciples (Matt.
the elders, must keep the church in good discipline.          10 :lff) , yet, as Dr. Bavinck points uot,. i,t had a place
 From this it is plain that his duty is tie be `a prophet,    in connection witjh the miracles of healing (Acts 9 : 17))
 priest and king in th? church ; an underdepherd  of          the outpouring of the gifts ,of the Holy Spirit (Acts
 Christ, to Iteach, s.anctify and rule the -people of God.    8 :17), the appointment of deacons (I Tim. 4 :14, II
 Indispensable to the performance of this task is .the        Tim. 1:6) and according to Heb. 6 :3 i#t belonged to the
 Divine calling and the gifts uf the Holy Spirit.             first  princip!es  of the doctrine of Christ.  (Gerefor-
                                                              meerde Dogmatiek, Vol. 4, p. 418). Fur&her,  we may
                  `D. The  Interrogatilons                    note such passages as I Tim. 1:18, 4 :14, Acts 13 :3
                                                              where it is associated with the office of the ministry
~Upon  hearing this circumscription  .of his office,          of the Word.
 the minister is asked in bh& presence of all to answer                   We must, therefore, be careful ,that we do not at-
 three important questions. To them he replies, "Yes,         tach sbme: mystical or magical significance to this rite
 truly with all my heart", thereby  expressing most em-       or that we do not elevate this to a sacrament ai the
 phatically his readiness to take upon himself these          Romish Church ,does. Bearing iri mind that it is only
 solemn  duties.  T.he questions are: (1) Do you feel         a symlbolic sot, its use is proper indeed.
 in your heart that you  (are lawfully called of God's                    The next time, D.V., we will conclude our discussion
 Church and, therefore, of God Himself, to this holy          of the ordination by calling attention to i?he charge or
 office? (2) Do you believe the books of the Old and          admonitions which are spoken to the cand:idate and to
 New Testament to be the only Word (of God and the            the congregation.                   \
 perfect doctrine unto salvation, and d'o you reject all                                                      C,. Vanden Berg
 doctT@e  repugnant thereto? (3) Do you promise
 faithfully  to discharge your office, according to the                                    -::---
 same doctrines as above  d.escribed, and to  adlorn it
 with a godly life: also, to submit thyself, in case thou                 God's people  are travellers. So'metimes  they are in
 shouldest become delinquent either in life or doctrine       dark lanes and deep valleys ; sometimes on the hills
 to ecclesiastical admonition, according to the public        of joy, where all is light and cheerful.
 tirdinance.  of the churches ?                                                                              -From  Toplady


                                                                                      1.
                                                                        by-God",  I am confounded. Do you mean, Professor,
                                                                        that. the promise is given  uncondihionally while its
t  A L L   A R O U N D   US--.  -1 realization-is conditioned by faith? ,Or dd you mean
   +                                                         :    .?
   .:.1-1,-1,-,-11-,,-,,-,,-,,-~-,,-,-,-,-,,-,,-,,-,,-`
                                                     ,-,,-,,-,1,~.      th&t -tihat you said in yours first statement is-not truth
                                                                          .`-Y  r-
                                                                        after all?' ^Ls it your contention that the promise is
   The Promise, Conclitional. or Unconclit~onal?            _.          absolutely unconditional ? I am confused, pro$essor.
        In his rubric "Trends in Reli~gious Thought", pro-              Will you kindly enlighten me,? You see, what conftis-
   fessor -Louis  Berkhof, in the Banner of August 21st,                es me still more is the fact that I was aware that for
   treats them subject : "The Unity  ,of the Covenant of                some thirty years now you have taught that God, due
   Grace."             .-                            -                  to `His "common grace" OFFERS salvation to all who
                                                                        hear the gospel. But I was not aware that you would
        It is not my purpose to reflect on his article as-such          teach that God PRO~MMLSE8S salvation on condition of
   in which he.seeks to combat the vi&s of. thle Dispen- .faith. I always thought your Churches were afraid
   sationalists  ,by setting forth what he conceiv:es to be             of that term "promises" in 1924 because you under-
   the correct Scriptural view on t$is subject. Rather, I               stood the implications of this concept, and therefore
   call attention to two statem,ents in his writing ,which              you pr,eferred  to use the term "offer". Am I .now to
   in my humble opinion appear to Ibe quiite contradic- .understand that these two concepts are to be used iti-
   tory, and for which I should like his explanation.                   terchangeably  ?      I am really confused and need
        The professor will par&n me for singling out these              l i g h t .
   two statements- without Ijutting them in their prop@
   coqtext.  I could not help noticing them because one                    I am not confused about some of our protestant
 of them was so similar to others I have heard in- our                  Reformed ministers. .When they say: `SGod promises
   Churches of late, which our Churohe8s  have condemned.               to everyone. of you that if you believe you will be
                                                                        saved", I understand immediately that t6ey are not
  They have to do with the question is the pkomise  of
   `God conditional  qr unconditional? In my own  -mind                 talking Protestant Reformed language. Or, when
  I am satisfied to believe th,at it is always unconditional            they say: "I  Ibelieve in  UNCONDITI~ON&L  election,
   both in its pronouncement  and in its  realiiation.  I               and in CONDITIONAL salvation", even though this
 was instructed in  6his doctrine in our seminary,  and                 is nonserise,.  I understand them. For they are bent on
                                                                        confusing the minds of those who have to listen to
   in my ministry I-have always  taught it. How some
   of our ~ministers can now embrace-  conditionality can               them. And  when they say: "faith is a condition to
                                                                        salvation", though I am convinced that they cannot
 j only be explained by the f&t that- they have imbibed
   -a docltrine other than &hat wherein  they were instruct-            sustain this with Scripture and our Confessions,. I
   ed in our seminary. If it is any encouragement- to                   stil!, understand what (they are driving at. They sim-
                                                                        ply desire to repid.iate  our Protestant Reformed doc-
 theni that  proflessor.   Berkhof also speaks  i&eir lang-
   uage, at least -in the one st.atement of his, they may               trine. You See, profess,or,  Wi.th our doctrine  that God
   have- this- encouragement. But then they must not                    is everything and man nothing our Churches  don't
   blame me. for accusing them of bein,g Christian Re-                  become big. Yea, we get smaller and smaller. And
                                                                        some of our ministers and peoplse are getting tired of
   formed-  and no longer Protestant; Reformed.                         this. They -like a name fdr themselves in the ,Chur.ch
        But now to  tho,se. two  st~atements..   Be+hof first           tiorld. We also had a chance to become big once by
  -makes this 1i:teral statement: "The promise ~of fr'ee                associating with the Schilder group in the Nether-
   grace,  j that is, unmerited favor, was  ni&de  to  Ab-              lands and with th,e imigran.ts  in Canada; But we did-
   Gaham. And .the only -condi$idn for receiving the pro-               n't snap up that chalice because there was an element
   mised  blessings tias faith in then calming  Redeemer."              in ,our Churches that loved our Protestant Reformed
   Toward the close of his article the professor writes: <truth so much they were willing to remain small.
   "The promise, once unconditionally given `by God was                 `But some of us don't like it, and so there is the at-
   not made conditional by tihe law." And I suppose the- tempt to talk the language of others. outside our
   professor means to say in regard to this  l,ast  $&te-               Churches. That is what is back of our present strug-
   ment, "but it is conditioned by our acceptance by                    gle, professor. This I understand-clearly.
  faith." I ati .confused  when I look at <he bare state-
  ments. In the first place there seems  to be no doubt                  But I don't understand those -statements  of yours.
   at all in ihe mind of the prof&so,r  that the promise- Aed- the reason is, as I -stated, you appear to con$ra-
   of  (God is conditioned  .by our  -receivin'g  it  ,by  faith.       diet  yqurself.   -1 will  .be  satislfied if you will only tell
   But when I look at the second statement where-.&e                    me whether the- promise is -conditional or uncondition-
   speaks of  "bhe promise, once  uncqnditionally   given               -al; . . You seem to say both and this is confusing indeed.


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                                      T H E ST&DAR~~D  BEARER                                                           23
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                                               .(
,The  P?-ese& Debacle in the Protestant  ZZ'ef&mecl                 1 Maybe I have misunderstood the reverend. I f   I
                                                     .-  __-
C h u r c h .                                        .,  .i-.
                                                        =-  -.    ha$he may correct me. But it seems to me that in
                                                                  alluding  `to the controversy in the Protestant Re-
    On the same page of the Banner above referred to,             formed JChurches  which he deigns to call our "present
the Rev.  -John Weidenaar writes on: -"Recipe for "debacle", he concludes that the whole thing is rooted,
Christmindedness." He is writing a-series of articles             not so mu& in a doctrinal dispute, but in evil sus-
on the ,epistle  to then Philippians, and in this article         picions we have over against certain of our breth-
is reflecting on w.haB Paul- wrote to. the Philippians ren. Now certainly Rev. Weidenaar knows that evil
in ehap,ter  2 :5. `(Let this mind be in you, which was           suspicions do not make ministers make heretical state-
also in Christ .Jesus." After he had shown his read-              ments. But the tru,th is that you become suspicious
.ers' what is the mind of Christ according to Paul in             of those who make heretical statements when they
,2 :6-U, he proceeds to show the recipe for-christmind-           maintain them. And when they maintain them you
edness.                                                           are no longer suspicious of them, bu,t you condemn
   `He calls attention to the address the apostle makes           them. I'm *afraid if we had to follow  Wei.denaar's
to the Philippians in `vs. 12 where he callIs them "my            advice we would have to say to those who make her-
beloved" and he tells us that "this is in accord with             etical statements: "Well, brethren, you and we know
the opening address in which Paul Galled them saints.             those statements as such cannot stand. But we also
"In our attitude towards others of the household of               know and believe well enough in one another that you
faith  we,must do the same. We must be done with                  do not mean to teach heresy. None of us has a cor-
suspicion. T,he arrogance which leads me" to call into            ner on the truth, and so we will just for#get about the
question the orthodoxy of anyone who differs from me              whole thing." Mr. Weidenaar, I do not like your ad-
is a pernicious evil which has wrought havoc in the               vice.- I don't believe this is a good recipe for (Christ-
Church. Recently a Dutch author wrote a book on a                 mindedness either. Neicther  do I believe that is the
century of strife within the Church on baptism and the mind of Christ. If your Church had a real'leader,  or
cqvenant. During my first pastorate I became in-                  men who dal-ed to say what they think, your Church
volved in a raging battle in a very small group con-              would be cast into the throes of controversy as well
cerning the covenant. Some were devotees of Dr. A.                as- ours. Be,cause  you have no real leaders, the best
Kuyper and others sharply- opposed his views. The                 way to ,boldly face the difficulty is to pass on and give
proponents of the ,one view were sure that the others .your people a little soft soaping.
were downright heretics.      The history of our  -own                                                   - M .   Schipper
IChurch  has been woefully marked with similar battles..
The present debacle- in  .the  Protestam   Ref,ormed
Church may serve as a warning to all of us. Any                                      -::::
minister or member who starts out with theassump-
tion that he has a corner on the truth and-is obsessed                      The man who once has found abode
with the messianic delusion that he alone is able- to                       Within the secret place of God
set things straight is doomed to fail. .He has forgotten                    Shall with Almighty God abide,
the elementary truth that we are f,ellow-servants of                        And in His shadow safely hide.
the Lord Jesus Christ. What a tragedy and what a
fearful waste of ,effort and time that mighty have been               . I of the Lord my  ZGod  will say,
better spent in working together for the upbuilding                         He is my refuge and my stay ;
of the Church of' God."
                 ,,.                                                        To Him for safety I will flee,
    Rev. Weidenaar felt he said a little bit too much                       In Him my ,constant trust shall be.
when he wrote this and so, in a attempt to patch `up
a -little, he continues : "That does not .m~ean' that we                    The Lord with His protecting `care
are to be indifferent to' sound doctrine. ~ But the al-                     Shall keep thee from the hidden snare;
leged devotion to the truth that-is not ,obedient to the                    When fearful plagues around prevail
Christ and that fails to show this obedience by gen-                        Thy life the scourge shall not assail.
uine love for the brethr,en as well as love to _a11 men
is itself ,by that very token the clearest evidence that                    Thou shalt beneath His wings abide,
it is not devotion to the truth of ,God! Truth is nev-                      And safe within His care confide ;
.er abstract or impersonal and the moment you make                          His faithfulness shall ever be
>t such you have sold out to speculative idealism which                     A sure protection unto thee.
withers in the presence of the Christ Who said, `I
am the truth' . " So far the article,                                                                     Psalter 248 : 1-4


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     24     _      ._               ..;.`
                                              I     -Ie  .:--L        --T`H-E.'  $.TxNDA.RD   B E A R E R
                                              L--i.---                                        ~.                                                   -           - ----_
                                                                                                                         -  -..
                                                                                                                     Will you please correct this in your next issue of
                                                                                                             the Standard Bearer  ?
                                                                                              .;                                                  Submittingly  ycurs,
Dear             .Editor,,        ~.          :           1                        :                                                                Gysbert Ryken
                                                                                                     .._'                                           Oskaloosa, Iowa
       Will you please, put this in .the Standard- Bearer?                                                             . .
                                                                                                              _.                             R E P L Y
                              ~. A  W'ORD FOR IT                                         .                          I wish to thank brother Ryken for'his .manifest in-
     .The Dutch has a word for it: I discovered this the                                                     terest as well as for his-careful reading of. the Stan& .
other day, when I read-the Report on Synod- .in #Con-                                                        akcl -BeweT.
%ordia Thursday, Aug. 27,. 1953 by the Rev. W; Hof-                                                                 `I also wish to thank  him. for his questions. If
man, when he writes about the Redlands cases. He                                                             there is anythin.g to be corrected in what 1. write I am
writes and I quote, "This was literally quite a mass of                                                      glad that my attention is called-to it.
material and consumed several days of synod's time                                                                   Yet, in this case, ther.e is nothing to correct. For
in .discussion and decision. In general these protests                                                       I still maintain the very term condition does not occur
concerned the same ,matter.  It seems that difficulty                                                        in the Bible.                                       _
developed in the Sunday School -since the S. S. was                                                                 `As far as I Sam. 11:2 is concerned, brother Ryken
having difficulty procuring .teachers."                                                                      could have known this even without knowing anything
       Whereedid  the Rev. W. Hofman get this? That                                                          about the original Hebrew, for the-word condition is
the Sunday School had difficulty procuring teachers?                                                         printed in italics in our English Bible which always
Not from the ~documents  at Synod. That is not true                                                          indicates'that the term does not occur in the original.
what the Rev. H,ofman writes. We did not have any                                                            Nevertheless, I checked the text in the original and
difficulty- in .proauring- teachers, but the consistory re-                                                  there it reads literally: "In. this  (BeZ'OTH) will I
fused to *OK the list sent them.                                                                             make a covenant with you."
       Please  get, this `straight. `The Dutch has a word                                                            In Luke 14:32, it is true .that the- English bible
for-it, brother.Hofman which is `de dingen verdraaien.' does not print the word condition in italics, but it
Why- don't brother Hofman tellthe  people the truth,                                                         should -have done so, for in the original we.. simply
Also about the slanderous grounds. the consistory of read, instead of "conditions'" ,the things (ta) . So that
Redlands sent to Classis in regard the `,S. S.. case, and                                                    the text literally reads: "he desireth the things of
about all the corruption of R,edlands' Consistory. Why pcac-3."  .  .
don't you tell the people also how corrupt classis west                                                      But I admit that my statement that the word con-
was,- when they tried to- cover. up the corruption of                                                        dition does not at all occur in Scripture is rather
Redlands consistory. Why don't  you do  ,this; Rev.                                                          sweeping (though I still maintain it) and, therefore,
W. Hofman. You were there on Synod. Yes, the                                                                 if `brother Ryken should find some more instances
Dutch has a word for it `de dingen verdraaien' but I                                                         where the -term occurs, I will- be very glad to check
like the English better,  P!LA.IN   LIES.                                                                    LQ on them.                                                  H.H.
                                                               Thys Feenstra
                                                               219 W. Lugonia                                                          .lal-                    -
                                                               R e d l a n d 's ,   Calif.  -                _:                    ANNOUNCEMENT
                                                                              0                                     Classis East will reconvene on Tuesday, October
                                --I: :--                                                                     6, .1953 at 9 o',clock A. M. in the Fourth Protestant
                                                                                                             Reformed, Church. _~ This is the same Classis as that
                                A QUESTION                                                                   of April, 1953, and, will ,meet  to finish the agenda.
                                                                                              . .            Will the delegates of the April Classis please take note.
Rev. Hoeksemaj  Editor of Standard Bearer :                                                                                          Rev. -Gee. C. Lubbers
       In your editorial of -Standard B,earer of. Sept. 1;                                                                             Stated Clerk
1953 you made a statement that the term ,condition
is not found in all Scripture.                                                                                      .NIOTICE  :-Mr.  .,G.  Pipe,`- 1463 Ardmore St.,  S.E.
       I have both the American Revised Version.and the                                                      [Grand  Rapids, `7, Michigan has been appointed busi-
Authorized King James Version and I -find the term                                                           ness  mana,ger of the Reformed Free Publishing  As-
condition in both.                                                                                           scciation. All matters pretaining to subscriptions, no-
       You may read it in I Sam. 11:2 and also in Luke tices etc. should be sent to him at the above address.
,14:32.                                              0                                                                                                       The Board


