     VOLUME ~VIII                            MAFKII  1, 1962 - GRAND RAPES, MICHIGAN                                  NUMBER  11


                                                                            That Face of the Lord! Oh, Jesus knew that Face from

               M E D I T A T I O N                                  the very beginning.      That Face told Him the story of His
                                                                    life on earth, and that story was brought to His conscious-

                                                                    ness ever clearer as the days went by.

               JEHOVAH BEFORE MY FACE                                       As a little boy of twelve years old He tells us what that

                                                                    Face has taught Him: "Wist ye not that I must be about
          "I have set the Lord alzwajjs  before Me!" Ps. 16:8a
                                                                    My Father's business ?"

    This time I am a little early, but it will not hurt, because       That Father's business !
sometimes I am a little late.
                                                                            What is it?
    For many, many years the Church of Christ has a good
custom to write and to speak of the suffering of our Lord                   It is the business of the .strong  right hand of Jehovah
                                                                    whereby He would scoop the whole Church out of the
Jesus Christ, prior to Good Friday. We name that period
"the Passion weeks."                                                clutches of the devil, out of the depth of hell, out of the state
                                                                    of condemnation, from under the wrath of God!
    The first week is March 11. Well, this writing comes
                                                                       And that business of Jehovah Christ was to make His.
before your face the 1st of March.
                                                                    own. He had to bring many sons and daughters to glory.

                                                                       And all through the life ( ?) of Jesus Christ He studied.

    Our fathers often speak of an inviolate rule: Scripture         that Face.

interprets Scripture.                                                  Did you note that question mark ? I had almost written ::

    The above text is a product of the Holy Ghost, and the          "and all through the DEATH of Jesus Christ." Do you

same Holy Ghost interprets it in Acts 2 :25-31.  So we are          understand ?

on safe ground.                                                        That Face told Jesus that He had to die, die and die:

    Yes, David wrote the above text, but it is the Lord Jesus       again.      He had to descend into the unfathomed depth of
Christ who fulfilled it. David did indeed set the Lord before       death, of eternal death. That Face told Him that He had
his face, but it is well to remember, that he did so with           to suffer . . . wait, let me let the fathers speak: "that my
many shortcomings. But when we want to say something                Lord Jesus Christ, by His inexpressible anguish, pains, ter-
about the text we better remember that Jesus lived this text        rors and hellish agonies, in which He was plunged during all
absolutely.                                                         His sufferings, but especially on the cross, hat11 delivered me.
                                                                    from the anguish and torments of hell."
    It is a terrible truth. Scripture tells us that Jesus is to
                                                                       Yes, we do not have to let the fathers speak: I know.
hear terrible things in righteousness. I think that the above
                                                                            could find all the above, and more, from the pages of
test lies at its foundation.     Exactly because Jesus set the      You 
                                                                    Holy Writ. What the fathers say is' a synopsis. If I would
Lord always before His face did He learn terrible things
                                                                    let all the Scriptures speak I would ha&-to transcribe `the.
in righteousness.
                                                                    sermon of Jesus to the blessed sojourners of Emmaus. But I
   All the horror, suffering, amazement, experience of the          have to wait for a copy of that when the Judgment Day rolls.
curse, death and forsakenness of God came from that FACE !          around. Jesus began at Moses and all the prophets, (and)

   Jesus was set in the midst of the world from the very            He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things.

beginning of His life to know, to learn, to experience terrible     concerning Himself. What things? Listen again to Jesus-

things, unheard of things, things that make us shudder when         our Lord: Ought not Christ to have  s@eved  these thirz.gs,m

we hear the story that is ever new.                                 and to enter into His glory ?


2         4    2                            T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                  L


     Note that one word: OUGHT                                        Read a little further in the text: "because He is at My

                                                                   right hand, I shall not be moved."
     It has the same strength as another word which Christ

often used: MUST.                                                     Oh yes, Salvation is of the Lord.

     That ought and that yucz&  the Lord learned from that            Jesus in all His hellish agony with the Face of God

FACE of my text.                                                   ever before Him, is the manifestation of the lovingkindness

                                                                   of our God.
     No, I do not know exactly what that Face said every

day and every night. But in general I do know. That Face              Therein God attained unto the only purpose of the Uni-

led Jesus deeper, ever deeper in the curse and wrath of            verse, Providence, Regeneration of all things, the New

God, in the depth of the hellish sufferings of death. And          Kingdom, all things: to show that He is so worthy to be

while He went downward, that Face kept saying to Hi:               praised unto everlasting.

Love Me! Do not walk away from My Face! Learn obe-                                              * * * *
dience in the things You are suffering, My Son!

     And Jesus kept saying : I always set the Lord before Me !        Yes, David also said: "I have set the Lord always before

                                                                   Me !"
     And that continued day and night.

                                                                      And yet, there were lapses. Perhaps. I do not fully know.
     Some nights Jesus could not stand it indoors. Some nights
                                                                   God knows. Perhaps he even set that Jehovah before his
when it was still dark He would arise from His bed, and
                                                                   face when he fornicated and murdered. I do not know.
don His clothes. Then He would walk ever so quietly out

of the house, through the streets, out of the village, and            But in general it is true. God's Holy Spirit does not lie.

wend His way to the desert, and fall into the dust among the       He cannot lie.

rocks.                                                                And because of it David is also happy at tha time I am

     And He would  pray and weep.                                  writing. David  is singing and playing on- the harp of God,

                                                                   while he is waiting for you, my brother and sister.
     Read Hebrews 5 ~7,  8 : "Who in the days of His flesh,

when He had offered up prayers and supplications with                 I have often heard men and women say: I have set the

strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him         Lord always before me. Or in different words, meaning the

from death, and was heard in that He feared ; though He            same thing.

-were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which             And it is also true that we ought to say it and mean it,
He suffered . . . ."                                               and do it.

     Those things which He suffered He learned from that              There is a text that says: "For even hereunto were ye
ever present Face of Jehovah before Him.                           called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an

     In the midst of the tornados  of God's wrath that ever        example, that ye should follow His steps." I Pet. 2 :21.

howled around and within Him, He expressly heard that                 No, it does not and it cannot mean that you should suffer
Face say: My Son, love Me ! Learn obedience in the hor-            for the elect, and so redeem them. First, it is done already:
rible things You suffer !                                          all God's elect are already redeemed. Second, you cannot

     And Jesus learned all His life.                               do it, even if you had a million of eternities at your command.

     The result ?                                                     But it does mean that you should set the Face of

                                                                   Jehovah before you, and study that Face, listen to that
      He atoned for          and me, my brother and sister!
                        you 
                                                                   Face, and obey that Face, and do whatever that Face com-
     The result is paying the price for our sin. And that is       mands you. For the good of the church, for the good of
hell, the experience of, and the sustaining of all the wrath of    Jehovah, even though it lead you through much suffering,
,God.                                                              even through death.

      But that's not all.                                             But we are a sorry lot.

      The devils and the wicked will also pay the price of sin:        I have often heard people say something like the text of
they all will pay and pay and pay in hell and damnation.           David, and sorry to say, it was very evidently a lie. And that
But they never atone.                                              is terrible. Better not to say it.

      Atone means that I pay because I love so very much.              Some say it and do the very opposite. They crawl away
Jesus exhibited the obedience, motivated by sweet love of          somewhere and try to destroy the Church which God and
Jehovah. Standing on the bottomless bottom of hell, Jesus          Jesus loved so much. But they say: I have prayed to my
kept on saying with all His heart and mind and soul and            God! I have the best interest of our church at heart. But
strength: I Love Thee, 0 My Father! That is atonement.             no, it is evidently a lie. Their works condemn them.

      And Jehovah ?                                                    And that works weariness for the true and the upright.


                                               T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                                                                                                            243


    How do you think Paul felt when everywhere they, that
is, the Church, opposed the Gospel of Jesus Christ? And                                             THE  STANDAHD  BEAHEH
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upon the Name of Jehovah, the Sanhedrin scourged them                                                         Editor - REV. BFHMIAN  HOEILTEMA

for doing what God's Face demanded ?                                               Communications relative to contents shonld be addressed to
                                                                                                  Rev. H. Hoeksema, 1139 &xnklin  St., S. E.,
    How did Luther feel when fleeing Worms? And Calvin,                                                                     Grand Rapids 7, Mich.

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                                                                                                                       Grand Rapids 7, Michigan
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                                                                                   RENEWAL: Unless a definite request for discontinuance is re-
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                            * * * *


    Ah, beloved, be simple. Be like a little child: upright,                                                                     C O N T E N T S

true, without partiality and without hypocrisy.                                  MEDITATION -

                                                                                       Jehovah Before My Face. . . .___  __. . .._...... . . ..___..... 241
  And stand before that attractive, beautiful, comely Face                                       Rev. G. Vos
 of Jehovah. Listen to that Face, obey that Face, suffer for

 that Face, weep before that Face. He has told me that He                        EDITORIALS -

 saves all your tears in His bottles.                                                  How Should the Schismatics  Return? . . .._..____.........................  244
                                                                                                  Rev. H. Hoeksema
    A blessed thought! There comes a Judgment Day: all                                 The Issues in the Case ____...____...............................................  246.

 th.c crooked will be made straight! Amen.                                                       Rev. H. C. Hoeksema

                                                                      G.V.

                                                                                 OUR DOCTR&-

                                                                                       Saving Faith (Continued) ____......._...._.._..................................  25@

                     Notice for Classis West                                                      Rev. H. Hoeksema


    Classis West of the Protestant Reformed Churches will                        A CLOUD OF WITNESSES -

 meet, the Lord willing, in Randolph, Wisconsin, on Wednes-                            Israel's          Worship                 . _. _. . ,251
 day, March 21, 1962, at 9 A.M.                                                                   Rev. B. Woudenberg


    The consistories are reminded of the rule that matters for
                                                                                 FROM  HOLY WRIT -
 the classical agenda must be in the hands of the Stated Clerk                         Exposition of I Timothy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253:
 not later than 30 days before the date of `Classis. And all                                      Rev. G. Lubbers

 matters that are to be brought to Synod must also be pre-

 sented at this classis.                                                         IN HIS FEAR -
                                                                                       Youth, Remember! (2) _.__..............__.....,......,...,.............,.........                                                         255:
                               R E V .   H .   VELDMAN,  S t a t e d   Clew-k

                                                                                                  Rev. J. A. Heys



                            ANNIVERSARY                                          CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH-
                                                                                       The Church and the Sacraments ..__.____________...........................  257
    On March 14, 1962, D.V., our beloved parents,
                                                                                                  Rev. H. Veldman
                     MR. AND MRS. JOHN PASTOOR

 will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. We are thankful that             THE VOICE OF OUR FATHERS -

 the Lord has spared them for each other and for us these many                         T h e Belgic Confession... ___ _.. .._ __ ._____  ,259  :

 years and our prayer is that He will be very near to them in their                               Rev. H. C. Hoeksema

 remaining years.

                                       Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Pastoor
                                                                                 DECENCY AND ORDER -
                                       Mr. and Mrs. Peter Koster
                                                                                       T h e Hymn                   Matter              ( Continued) .___.  ..262
                                       Mrs. E. Dantuma
                                                                                                  Rev. G. Vanden  Berg
                                       Mr. and Mrs. E. Masselink

                                       18 grandchildren

                                                                                 NEWS F                O
                                                                                           R O M           UR       ~~JRCHES...  ._.. . .._ .._____......  . . ..___  _____ 264;
    Open house will bs held March 15 from 7:30  to 10:00 p.m. at                                   Mr. J. M. Faber
 the First Protestant Reformed Church.

 Grand Rapids, Michigan


244                                       T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R
                                                                     `-.

                                                                    church Order which speaks of Christian discipline as fol-

                                                                    lows : "As Christian discipline is of a spiritual nature, and

                                                                    exempts no one from civil trial or punishment by the au-

                                                                    thorities, so also besides civil punishment there is need of

         How  Shoukd  the Schismatics Return?                       ecclesiastical censure, to reconcile the sinner with the church
                                                                    and his neighbor and to remove the offense out of the church
       I stated that the schismatics should return : 1. With a      of Christ." This cannot be done when the sinner ignores or is
heartfelt confession of the sin they committed when they left       al1owe.d to ignore the consistory against which he has sinned.
the Protestant Reformed Churches and supported the two              Moreover Southeast consistory also violated Article 75 of
heretical statements of De Wolf, and 2. That they should            the Church Order which states that reconciliation must take
make this confession to the consistory and church of which          place "upon sufficient evidence of repentance." Also this be-
they were members before the schism.                                comes impossible when the sinner simply bypasses the con-
       The latter item, though it was inseparably connected         sistory against which he has sinned. Besides, Christian clis-

`with the first, became the subject of difference of opinion        cipline, which must begin with the individual believer,

between the First Protestant Reformed Church of Grand               becomes impossible when the sinner is simply re-instated in

Rapids and the Southeast Church of the same city. The               another church and bypasses those against whom he has

latter claimed that they could receive schismatic members in        sinned.

their communion that, before the split, belonged to the First          5. Southeast consistory's action of receiving schismatic
Church ; the former insisted that, before those schismatic          members of First Church is based on the erroneous notion
members could join any other Protestant Reformed Church,            that the schismatics simply left the First Church and formed
they would first have to make confession of their sin before        a new church or rather continued to function as the legal
the consistory and congregation of the First Church.                First Protestant Reformed Church, while the fact is that they

       This became the occasion of a protest of the First Church    were guilty of rebellion, of mutiny. Not only the leaders but
to the Southeast Church, and, finally, of a protest to Classis      also the members that followed them were guilty of these
East together with an answer of Southeast Church.                   gross sins.    Yet Southeast consistory received these schis-
                                                                    matic member? without even acknowledging the consistory of
       We had just begun to publish the first mentioned protest     First Church.
in our Standard Boagper  and we were still to enumerate the
                                                                       6. Finally, the consistory of Southeast Church is not
grounds of this protest when, for lack of space, we had to
                                                                    even seeking the welfare of the schismatic members con-
discontinue.     These grounds we will now mention in ab-
                                                                    cerned. These know very well that they have sinned against
breviated form.
                                                                    the consistory and members of the First Church and that
       Here they are:                                               they never repented of and confessed their sin in the proper

       1. In spite of the fact that the consistory of First         way or in any way at all.    They cannot feel at home in the

Church objected to receiving the schismatic members, that           several meetings held by the members of the Protestant

before 1953 belonged to First Church, Southeast co&story            Reformed Churches. And they cannot feel in their hearts

and church nevertheless did receive these schismatic mem-           that the blessing of God rests upon them.

bers in their own communion without first referring the                Thus far, in brief, is the protest of the First Church.
matter to Classis. This action is hierarchical.                         Now let us give also a brief but quite sufficient and ade-

       2. These schismatic members had no proper attestation.       quate outline of the answer of Southeast consistory as it was

Surely, attestation from the schismatic DeWolf  group could         before classis.

not be considered valid. This is in plain violation of Article          This is not easy, not only because the answer of the
a61 of the Church Order which plainly states that no one com-       Southeast consistory is very long (it covers eleven type-
ing from another church shall be received as member and             written pages), but also because it brings in all kinds of
.admitted  to the Lord's Supper without proper attestation.         material that has nothing to do with the protest of First
       3. The consistory of First Church calls attention to the     Church consistory proper. But I will try. And remember

fact that Southeast Church violated Article 84 of the Church        that it is not my purpose to criticize this answer, even though

`Order  which reads as follows : "No church shall in any way        I cannot help but make a remark occasionally.

lord it over other churches, no minister over other ministers,          First of all, the answer states that the protest of First
.no elder or deacon over other elders or deacons." This is          Church is based on the following main principles: 1. That
further explained by the fact that Southeast Church and             the De Wolf group did not constitute a lawful denomina-
consistory assumed jurisdiction over the former schismatic          tion. They had no legal officebearers ; nor could they elect
members of First Church and that Southeast consistory               new officebearers and, therefore, they continued to function
ignored the jurisdiction of First Church.                           illegally. They could not baptize, receive confession of

       4. Southeast consisttiry  also violated Article 71 of the    faith or issue papers. 2. That all who left were guilty of


                                           T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                               245


grievous sins. 3. Therefore, if those who left us desire to       sistory of Southeast Church maintains that the De Wolf

              `.
return, they must make confession of their sin before their       group constitute a legal denomination. In the past numerous

former cotisistories.                                             churches have come into existence through splits. (This is

    Then Southeast consistory presents a few questions,           true, of course. The fallacy of this argument is, however,
namely: why did the consistory of First Church not include        that the churches did not claim that they were the original
certain names of those that also left us and were received        denomination as did the De Wolf group. The Reformers in
by Southeast Church, and why  did First Church recognize          the sixteenth century did not claim that they were the Roman
the baptism of a certain child that received this sacrament       Catholic Church. In 1924 we did not claim that we were the
from the De Wolf group. Southeast consistory claims that          Christian Reformed Church: we took the name Protestant
neither the consistory of First Church nor Classis East will      Reformed Churches. H.H.)

dare to assume the consequences of the, position of First             Hence, Southeast consistory states in its answer to the
Church.                                                           protest of First Church: "We must affirm our right, as far

    And here I (H.H.) have a question. It is this : Does the      as this aspect of the question is concerned, to receive these

consistory of Southeast maintain that the De Wolf group'is        people and deal with them, to receive and deal with their cer-

(not merely a legal denomination) but the legal Protestant        tificates of dismissal." But see for this the article by H.C.H.

Reformed denomination 7                                           To do otherwise is, according to the answer, Romish and

    Next the Southeast consistory makes a rather long quota-      sectarian.       (By sectarian Southeast consistory, evidently,
tion from a letter addressed to the consistory of First           means that Classis East was wrong when they condemned
Church on Nov. 27, 1961, i.e., after the schismatic members       the two statements of De Wolf and that, from those of the
had already been received by the consistory of the Southeast      schismatics who desire to return to us, we must demand not
Church. In this letter they state, chiefly, that the position     that they, too, condemn them. It follows that, when these
of the First Church had already been clearly stated, namely,      schismatic members were received by Southeast consistory,.
"that the only way to come to an agreement as consistories        they were not asked to confess this sin. I stated this on the
would be for us precisely what you maintain." _ . . "Con-         floor of classis.  I asked the consistory of Southeast, or rather
sequently, we felt in good conscience that we  had the right      the delegates from that church to classis,  to tell us what they
and duty to proceed."        This meant that Southeast Church     confessed, but they refused to answer. H.H.)

and consistory had already received the schismatic members            On pages 5 and 6, Southeast consistory claims that the
in their communion in spite of the objections raised by the       schismatic members of First Church did not separate .them-
consistory of First Church in a letter addressed to the con-      selves but were dismissed by the consistory of First Church.
sistory of Southeast Church after the meeting of Oct. 10 with     Into this we need not go any farther, for' the simple reason
a committee of the latter church. In the same letter of           that they, the Southeast consistory themselves, know and.
Southeast to which we referred above, they claim that it is       state in their answer that they were severing themselves.
not true that "the consistory of Southeast was not concerned
                                                                      On pages 7 and 8 of their answer Southeast consistory
at all whether we had anything against these families in
                                                                  relates the case of H. Vander Vennen. Also into this we need.
connection with the split." In fact, "they might have callecl
                                                                  not go any .farther,  for the reason that this matter will still
you an assembly of devils or something of that nature." Be-
                                                                  be brought up on the April session of Classis  East.
sides, in the same letter they deny that they are lording it
over the consistory of First Church. They consulted various           On pages 7 and 8 of their answer Southeast consistory,.
authorities on Church Polity and found that they one and          declares :    "Furthermore,    we cannot agree that we must:
all agreed with them, i.e., with the consistory of Southeast      regard and treat all these people as guilty of gross, grievous,
Church. (See for this the article of H.C.H. in the present        censurable sins."       If the consistory of Southeast Church,,
issue of our Sta,ndal-d  Bearer.)                                 means by this that they were not all equally guilty, we can
                                                                  agree. But the protest of First Church did not refer to "all
   The next page of the answer is chiefly repetition of what
                                                                  these people" but to the Gritter family, and they certainly-
was said before.         They, the consistory of the Southeast
                                                                  were guilty of "gross, grievous, censurable sins."
Church, cannot agree that the De Wolf group is not a legal

denomination.       And they offer various grounds for this           On the rest of page 8 the consistory of Southeast Church.

opinion as, for instance, that in that case they could not        states :

recognize the baptism administered by the De Wolf group,              "We affirm, therefore :
nor the confession of faith made before them, that all the
schismatics lived for eight years outside of the instituted           "1) These people left for conscience and conviction. Be-
church, that our loved ones who died while they were mem-         cause they could not see that our decisions and actions were-
bers of that group can hardly be considered saved, that all       right, our interpretations of statements, our decision to dis-
these people were worse than heathen and atheists.                cipline, etc.

   For  the rest, there is a good deal of repetition. The con-        "2) These people left because they had faith in their


246                                           T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E ' A R E R


leaders and their assurances that they were and would re-                  I believe that I have done full justice to the answer of

main Protestant Reformed.                                               Southeast consistory.

       "3) These people now want to return, not because we                 We still have the protest of Creston's consistory and of
have so much to offer them outwardly and visibly, to be sure,           Mr. Pipe. But this, as well as the decision in the matter by

but because they now see that they were deceived, that we are           Classis  East, must wait till next time.
indeed the Protestant Reformed Churches, and they desire                                                                          H.H.

fervently our fellowship, our churches, our doctrine. As one

prominent minister said : `Accept them ; make it easy for

them; they are only sheep returning to the fold ; I know,                                 The Issues in the Case
these sheep cannot feel at home anywhere else except with

you people.'                                                               The case referred to in the title of this article is that! of

                                                                        the protests of First Church and Creston  against the action
       "4) And this should be our basic attitude toward these
                                                                        of the Southeast Consistory in receiving as members in good
people."
                                                                        s&ding  schismatics who had left the former two congrega-
       And then the answer goes on to assert that there is no           tions in the split of 1953 and who had not made confession
reason why these schismatics should apply to their former               of sin and become reconciled with the congregations which
consistory. Southeast consistory has the right to receive               they left. Classis  East began to deal with appeals on this
them as members. This is also evident from the letters South-           matter in January; and in an extended session, February
east received from the Netherlands. (Read the article by                14-16, this matter was treated and finished by classis,  and
H.C.H.)                                                                 an excellent and concise majority report was adopted with

       The answer closes with a brief discussion of the grounds         few changes. At the Thursday session the undersigned, who
on which the protest of First Church is based. It states the            was privileged to have advisory vote at classis,  made some
following :                                                             extensive remarks which might well be characterized as
                                                                        dealing with the issues in the case. Because of the extensive
       1. As to ground 1: there is nothing hierarchical in the
                                                                        debate at classis  not only, but also because of the rather
action of the consistory. Southeast did not violate the bond
                                                                        widespread discussion of these matters among our people, it
of denominational unity. This is not the position of Prof.
                                                                        was suggested by several of the brethren (ministers and
Nauta. (See the article by H.C.H.)
                                                                        others) that it would be helpful if my remarks would appear
       2. The action of Southeast is not in conflict with Article       in print. I spoke at the time from a rather detailed outline,
61 of the Church Order. This is motivated by the statement              and so it is possible to reproduce rather accurately what I
that Article 61 does not apply here.                                    said. Some of the references will be to debate on the floor

       3.    The consistory did not violate Article 84 of the Church    of classis;  others to the answer of Southeast and to the posi-
Order. They simply received dismissal papers and acted                  tions taken in a majority and a minority report presented by
accordingly.                                                            classis'  committee of pre-advice. But the main thrust of my
                                                                        remarks will be clear, I think, without detailed knowledge
       4. In regard to grounds 4 and 5 of the protest of First
                                                                        of these documents. And where necessary, I will make ex-
Church the consistory first states "that this material has
                                                                        planation. A r&urn& of my remarks follows.
already been answered" in their reply, but they, nevertheless,

go into the matter at length, and it is impossible as well as

immaterial for us to quote this long discussion. But what               Mr. Chairman :
the Southeast consistory really wants to say is in the last
part, and this we quote once more: "We submit, too, that                   I spent the entire day listening yesterday, without making
when people return from the De Wolf group to any one of                 any remarks at all, both in order to try to analyze the
.our churches, there confess their sorrow for having done               fundamental issues in this case, and in order to discover
what they did, there repudiate clearly and fully their former           what arguments, if any, there really were on either side.
position and confess their longing for our churches and doc-            Much of the discussion, to my mind, was repetitious. But 1
trine, they are revealing `sufficient evidence of repentance.'          have come to the conclusion that there are indeed certain
and as such should be embraced by all our churches anrl                 fundamental issues in this matter, both from the viewpoint
people. . . . But we do say, that any one of our churches               of the church political aspect of the case, and from the view-
has the right to deal with these matters, and finish them,              point of the contents of the case itself.

.and that the church to which they apply has the jurisdiction              Secondly, I will try to make clear what these issues are.,

to act."                                                                as briefly as possible, and to prove what I say both from

                                                                        authorities on Reformed church polity and from the record
       5. As to the last ground the consistory in its answer
                                                                        of our classical and synodical  decisions and from our history.
declares that what "the First Church says here is a sad com-

mentary on the spiritual state of affairs in our churches."                Then, in the third place, I want to apply what I prove


                                             T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                 247


to some of the fearsome claims that have been made here.               this main and controlling issue. However, I believe that when

There have been such claims made ; and they are frightening            this main issue is decided, then all the various side issues        `\
ones'. It has been claimed that .the position of the majority          should. also be treated, and the arguments answered, in

report would lead us down the path of sectarianism. It has             harmony with this main issue. There has been much men-

been claimed that the protestant consistories and the                  tion of these side issues. Other cases have been mentioned.

majority report would completely deny and destroy the                  The answer of Southeast mentions a case in which they claim

autonomy of the local church. It has been predicted that               that First Church acted contrary to what they now insist

the position of the majority report would be destructive of            upon. And the charge is made that First Church wants to

our Protestant Reformed Churches. And it has been argued               measure with two measures.      And I believe that it is the

that if we adopt the advice of the majority report, we will            ecclesiastical method not only to answer in regard to the

shut the door completely on the schismatics  who might other-          main issue, but to follow through and as much as possible to

wise return to us. These are bold claims. They are not                 take way all these side issues and arguments as well. This

really arguments on the point under debate. But they talk              may be long and tedious. But it is the only way fully to

about the conseqztences of adopting the position of the major-         settle the case. Otherwise, if the case is appealed, Synod

ity report. The argument really is that if all these bad conse-        is going to be faced with the same problem and the same long

quences follow, then the advice of the majority report must            debate, and will be in a position to say that Classis  East did

be wrong. And we can agree! Not one of us would want                   not finish these matters properly. And otherwise, both con-

these consequences, I am sure. But the question is : are these         sistories and public are going to go home saying, "What

claims just bogey-men, to scare us into not adopting the               about this point? What about that point? And what about

advice ? Are they cliches, catch-words, slogans ? Or are they          this argument?' And the result will be that no one is fully

real ? Is it really true that these will be the consequences ?         satisfied. (Note : Classis later decided to follow this sugges-

In other words, do these frightening predictions of dire               tion, at least in part, and gave the committee a mandate to

consequences hold water ?                                              report on certain connected cases at the April session, D.V.);

        I submit that when this entire case is viewed in the light
of the adopted position of our churches and in the light               That Advice ~YOWL  the Netherlands

of our historic position and what is historically the position            Much has been made in the debate Wednesday of those

of the Reformed churches as to the ethical and church polit-           letters from Professors Kamphuis, Vander Woude, and.
ical questions at stake, it will appear clearly that these dire        Nauta.
predictions are empty and do not apply at all.                            For those not present at classis,  let me explain that the

                                                                       Rev. R. Veldman wrote to the professors mentioned above
Wlmt  Is the Position. of tlw iVa.jovit-ty  Report?                    and sought their opinion as to the right of Southeast to.

        Briefly, the majority report presents the main issue of        receive these families as members in good standing. At the-

this case as follows:                                                  classis he read both his own letter to them and their replies.

        1. The families concerned have sinned when, in the             And apparently the action of Southeast Consistory was based.

schism of 1953, they joined the De Wolf movement; and                  in part on this advice from the Netherlands. Unfortunately,

these sins they committed against their respective consistories        although mention is made of these letters in the official an--

(First and Creston).                                                   swer of Southeast, these letters were never produced at classis

        2. There is therefore need of reconciliation, that is,         until after the committee reported. And then these letters

through the removal of the offense, through confession of              were read and translated by Rev. Veldman. No one else had

sin.                                                                   access to the letters at classis,  however; and we had to rely

        3. This reconciliation must take place between the fam-        on our memory in discussing them. It is this fact which

ilies concerned and those against whom they sinned, namely,            makes it impossible also to treat these letters in detail. What-

the consistory and congregation of First Church. (Note:                I say concerning them is from memory, and, in the nature'

this was also the main issue, according to the committee, in           of the case deals only with certain key impressions.

the Creston  case, also treated by classis.)                              First of all, I want to say a few words about this method

        This is the main issue of the entire case, according to the    of seeking advice. I will concede gladly that these men are

report of the committee. It controls all other issues in the           experts in the field of church polity. But, in the first piace,
case. And from this statement of the main issue all the                we ought to keep in mind the background of this advice.

.rest  of the committee's advice follows with inescapable logic.       Remember that the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands

Moreover, this main issue is based upon the fundamental                are characterized by a rather broadminded ecumenicism. And

rule of the kingdom expressed in Matthew 5 :23, 24.                    as a result, they do not easily want to exclude anyone. This

        I can agree with the committee's presentation of the           is true to an extent even in the history of the split there.

matter. And can I agree too that the committee has done                Do not forget that the attitude of the Synodicals in the split

excellent work in going through the mass of material with              was such that they even adopted a new formulation of the::

which it was confronted and in very concisely singling out             matters involved, in order to woo the Liberated back. 1:

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


am not now interested in the right or wrong of the doc-             other sins which were committed) fundamentally: a) Of

trinal issues. I state this merely as a matter of background        supporting two literally. heretical statements which concerned

in evaluating this advice. And I suggest too that some of           the very essence of our doctrinal position as Protestant Re-

the Liberated have felt the necessity of retreating from their      formed Churches. And, b) of the sin of schism and rebel-

former sharp position (again, rightly or wrongly) in order          lion. 2) That it was the adopted position of our churches

to survive as a church and to hold their membership, many of        (by synodical decision) that those who thus left us could

whom have returned to the Synodicals.                               return only in the way of heartfelt repentance and confession.

                                                                    These were very  essential o&ssions  in the information to
   In the second place, I consider it very dangerous to get         the three professors.    One of them, Professor Nauta, even
an opinion on an issue of this kind on the basis of a very          suggested that account had to be taken of any synodical
brief letter of a page or two, which very scantily describes        regulations made in the matter. And he was unaware that
the situation in our churches, and that too, to men who are         there were such regulations !
largely unacquainted with what took place. You can hardly

expect a thorough-going opinion and advice on the basis :)f            Thirdly, I want to point out that even in spite of the
such scanty information. Do not forget that we had a history,       above, the letters that were read to us nevertheless to some
and that this letter covers matters which involved much             degree pointed in the same direction as the majority report.
discussion on our own assemblies and many decisions which           To a large extent, of course, these letters missed the point
are not even mentioned in the letters to these professors. It       when they paid attention to the mere question of membership
would have been much better, rather  than going to con-             and affiliation and to the matte< of seeking membership in a
temporary experts in church polity, to consult recognized           different congregation and at a different consistory than that
authorities from the past and to do research from their             which these families left several years ago. This is some-
writings with a view to the issues and principles of church         what understandable in the light of the information received
polity involved.    I believe that this explains too why the        from Southeast and in the light of the peculiar membership
three Netherlands professors gave no grounds for their opin-        set-up in the Netherlands. But, in the second place, iri spite
ions. Let me add, upon later reflection, that I believe the         of the above, more than one of the letters nevertheless sug-
three professors were even placed at a distinct disadvantage        gested that if there was any wrong involved - either as far
at the classis  by this method of seeking and quoting advice.       as the brethren or the congregation or the consistory was
And I doubt whether their opinions would have been the              concerned-that had to be straightened out, and reconcilia-
same if they had the full picture.                                  tion had to take place, and that too, to the satisfaction of the

                                                                    offended party. And mark well, they said this, drawing a
   In the third place, the question occurs, though I will not
                                                                    mistaken conclusion from our set-up concerning place of
make .an issue of this : why go all over for advice ? Why
                                                                    membership. To this I will come back in the next phase of
were not our own assemblies asked for their advice-sister
                                                                    my discussion. Finally, in this connection, let me draw
consistories and the classis  ? This, I believe, is the ecclesi-
                                                                    your attention to the fact that Southeast did not even follow
astical method. And why were not our own veteran profes-
                                                                    the advice that was given. Prof. Nauta especially emphasized
sors consulted and quoted ? They are men who are acquainted
                                                                    the advisability of contact with any sister consistory that
with the situation. And they are veterans in the field. Our
                                                                    might be involved and that might differ with Southeast
own Professor Ophoff has been busy in the field of church
                                                                    before taking any decision or action. This certainly would
polity for over thirty years; and he has lived close to the
                                                                    have been in harmony with the ecclesiastical manner. But
heart-beat of our churches also as far as the fundamentals
                                                                    Southeast has not done this. Although they knew that there
of church government are concerned.
                                                                    was rather sharp difference of opinion, and although First

    Next, I want to point out that the letter sent to the           Church had in detail stated their objections (be it in the

professors in the Netherlands was by no means adequate.             form of an opinion rather than a formal protest), Southeast

It gave only very.scanty information about what took place          sent but one brief communication to the Consistory of First

in the split. It spoke generally  of the "bitterness" attendant     Church. And in this one, brief, three-point communication,

upon the split-something that is much in harmony with               without any grounds, they merely informed First that they

current attitudes toward the split also in the Netherlands :        rejected their position and would act according to their con-

there is much averse talk about such "bitterness." But I            victions in the matter. This in the name of autonomy! First

want to point out some fundamental omissions in that letter         Church may rightfully claim, therefore, that Southeast

.of information. I can cite these without having the letters in     shut the  door. It may be -objected that First would not

my possession, because these were very obvious omissions.           have listened to arguments and was not receptive for South-

The letter neglected completely to state these fundamental          east's position and claims. This never excuses anyone from

facts : 1) That it was the adopted position of our churches         trying to convince, from presenting grounds, reasons, But

(both by classical and synodical decision) that those who           none of this was done. And I submit that if the ecclesiastical

left us were guilty of s&z. They are guilty (not to mention         manner had been followed, this whole problem might never


                                           T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                  249


have been in the lap of the classis. This, I say again, was        ferred to also in the letters that were read at classis.  What

Prof. Nauta's recommendation also.                                 does this mean ? The following : 19 That if you live in one

                                                                   territory, you cannot possibly be member of a church in an-
Tlie Opinion of Acknozwledged  Author&es  on the                   other territory, but only of the church in your district. 2)
Chwch  Order                                                       That a consistory of another territory cannot even consider

    In this connection I want to show that all the acknowl-        accepting you as a member, or, in fact, have direct dealings

edged authorities on the Church Order, like Rutgers, Bouw-         with you. 3) That if you live in one territory, you cannot

man, Joh. Jansen, and Monsma and Van Dellen,  insist  to           apply for membership nor have direct dealings with the

varying degrees that there must in one way or another be           consistory of another territory. 4) Hence, if you have sinned

reconciliation, where sin has been committed, to the satisfac-     against one consistory in one territory, and now live in the

tion of the original consistory where the sin has been com-        territory of another church, you cannot possibly go back to

mitted. This question was raised in the discussion Wed-            church A to apply for membership, and that church A could

nesday. And the position of the committee was criticized.          not possibly deal with you directly. Church B, of your new

The question was raised: doesn't the committee think that          territory, could rightfully say, "Hands off !"         This is a
they know in the old country that Matthew 5 :23, 24 is in          policy that is rather carefully adhered to and taken into con-

the Bible ? And indeed, the chairman of the committee was          sideration by all the authorities I am going to quote. But

correct when he stated that the principle of Matthew 5 :23,        even in that light, these authorities all insist that there must

24 must be maintained even if church order authorities ignore      nevertheless be reconciliation, if at all possible, with the

it. But I want to show that the position of the committee is       consistory where one has formerly belonged.

historically Reformed, and that the authorities on the Church         In our churches we have no districts. As it was said, we
Order have exactly always adhered to this principle. This is       have complete freedom of membership, regardless of location.
important because this will also show that the position of         (Personally, I can agree with Monsma and Van Dellen  that
the committee is in harmony with all Reformed thought, is          this complete freedom has been wrongly viewed and used in
historically sound, not sectarian..                                the light of history.    But that is neither here nor there, in
    But before I cite these authorities, I want to make two        the present discussion.) But what is the logical conclusion.

observations, observations which are important for the cor-        from this complete freedom with respect to the question.

rect understanding of these quotations.                            under discussion, namely, the question of reconciliation and

    In the first place, we must keep in mind that you will find    removal of an offense ? Is it this, that one is completely
no material on the exact situation which we confront here          free to by-pass and ignore a consistory which you have left
on classis. Prof. Rutgers in his "Kerkelijke  Adviezen"            and against whom you have sinned and by whom you are
treats various concrete problems which were presented him          charged with sin, even censurable sin, and then ,try to gain
in connection with the articles of the Church Order. The           membership through another consistory? That seems to be
other commentators actually treat and expound the meaning          the conclusion of Southeast. But this is not the case! That
of the Church Order itself, and raise various questions con-       complete freedom and lack of any geographical restrictions
cerning the application of the articles. But our particular        means that n pasty is co~whflete2y  free to go dh-ectly,  if at all
situation, with its exact set of circumstances and various         possible, to the original consisto~~y,  against which he has
phases, is not directly treated. You find no ready-made            sinned, md make  full and cow@lete  rcconc&tion,  and thus
opinion, especially not on our rather unusual situation aris-      be restored to the posith~~  zwhwe  he `may enjoy the rights of'
ing from the history of 1953-`54.  Rather must we look for         a member  in good staxdisg.  But in any case, I-econci1iutiio.u
pl,inc@es  and for the line of Reformed thought and for            is necessa:ry,  a.nd  that to the satisfac fiiout of the off ended
explanations which point out the general direction in which        con&tory.  This is the principle maintained, to one degree
these thinkers wanted to go. Thus, for example, you can            or another, by all authorities.

find material under the articles that deal with censure and                                 (to be continued)
reconciliation and under the articles that deal with member-                                                                 H.C.H.L
ship-bearing in mind at the same time that while the

families involved committed what is undoubtedly censurable

sin, they removed themselves by their very act of schism                       I keep before me still
from the government of the consistory that would have cen-                        The Lord Whom I have proved ;
sured them. Hence, we must search for the main line of                         At my right hand He guards from ill,
Reformed thinkers as to offense and reconciliation. And                           And I shall not be moved.
then plenty of material can be found.                                          My heart is glad and blest,

    In the second place, we must keep in mind constantly;                         My soul its joy shall tell;
when consulting Dutch authorities, the fact that the Dutch                     And lo, my flesh in hope shall rest,
churches h,ave  their own definite territories. This was re-                      And still in safety dwell.

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


                                                                    ,Spirit.`He  convicted the spirits of the ungodly in prison of

                                                                    their own utter condemnation and defeat and of the justifica-

                                                                    tion and victory of Himself and of His people. A similar

                                                                    passage to which the universalists also appeal is found in I

                         C H A P T E R  I I I                       Peter 4 :6 : "For for this cause was the gospel preached also

                                                                    to them that are dead, that they might be judged according
                      SAVING FAITH
                                                                    to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.`"
                          (Continued 9                              Again we say that the text does not mean and does not say

       The Word of God plainly teaches that we are all born         that the gospel was preached unto men after death. In fact,
in sin and corruption and death, and that the sin of Adam           according to the text, the preaching that is here spoken of is
is imputed to the whole human race. It is evident, therefore,       presented as antecedent to the death of those to whom it
that the Savior in these words cannot have meant to teach           was preached. The gospel was not preached to them after
that no man has sinned unless he comes in touch with Christ         they had died, but while they were still living in the flesh.
first, but that the special sin of hating Him and His Father        They were judged according to men in the flesh, but they
would not have become revealed, would not have been mani-           had been justified, and they lived according to God in the
fest, if Christ had not spoken unto them and had not shown          spirit. To the martyrs of Peter's time the gospel had been
unto them His mighty works. They also appeal to the text            preached, and that too, in order that they might sufier  ac-
in I Peter 3 :lS-20 : "For Christ also hath once suffered for       cording to men, in order that they might be condemned and
sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,       killed by the wicked world? and in order that that wicked
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:       world may be condemned in the day when they shall have to
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in              give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the
prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the              dead.
longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, dhile  the             Are all men saved in Christ as they perished in Adam ?
ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were             That is the question which the Heidelberger asks and
saved by water.`"    This text  is supposed to teach that all       answers with an emphatic "No." But the Pelagians and also
men will still have an opportunity to believe in Christ after       the Arminians answer this same question, as far as God is
death. It is evident from the text that it speaks of a preach-      concerned, in the affirmative. According to the latter, that
ing to the spirits in prison, not as most Reformed theologians      is, the Arminians, Christ died, according to God's intention,
have it, at the time of the flood and before the flood, but         for all men without exception. That all men are not saved
rather after the resurrection of Christ. For the text tells us      is not due to any limitation which God places upon salvation,
that Jesus `was put to death in the flesh and quickened by          but to the fact that all men do not accept the offer of salva-
the Spirit. And therefore, in that Spirit He went and               tion as preached in the gospel. In other words, salvation is
preached to the spirits in prison. It is also evident that He       universal as far as God is concerned, but man limits this
preached not to men in the flesh, but to disembodied spirits        universal work of salvation on the part of God.
that lived in the prediluvian period and that had already gone          Unilerlying  these various universal errors are two sup-
into hell. For the text adds that these disembodied were            positions. The one is that men can only be condemned be-
"sometime disobedient,"     referring to the time when the          cause they do not accept Christ, so that sin ia itself, either
longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah. Nor does           original or actual sin, is no sufficient ground for damnation.
the text teach a personal descension of Christ into hell, as        And the second supposition is that salvation depends for its
is the teaching of the Roman Catholics and also of the              realization upon the will of man, who can either accept or
Lutherans. For He did not go into hell personally, but in           reject the salvation which, as far as God is concerned, is
the Spirit. Nor is there any ground in the text to maintain         universal.
that in His preaching the Lord proclaimed the gospel unto              But the answer of the Catechism is radically opposed to
these spirits in prison. The text merely states that Christ         these theories. For it answers:  "No; only those who are
in the Spirit proclaimed something to the prediluvian un-           ingrafted into him, and receive all his benefits, by a true
godly that were in prison, that is, in hell. We may probably        faith."                                                           H.H.

ask in connection with this somewhat difficult passage: why,

and in what way, did the Lord after His death and resur-
                                                                                                IN MEMORIAM
rection proclaim somethin g to those spirits in prison ? And
                                                                       The Hudsonville Ladies' Society herewith wishes to express
my answer would be, in the first place, that the prediluvian        its sympathy with our fellow member, Mrs. `Peter Lubbers in the

ungodly were, indeed, very wicked, so wicked, in fact, that         loss bf her mother,
                                                                                           MRS. WILLIAM E. TANIS
the Lord destroyed them, together with the entire prediluvian       aged 78 years. May the God of all grace comfort the bereaved
world. In the second place, as we said before, there is no          family. I Gor. 15:55-57.

reason whatever to maintain that the Lord preached the                                     The Hudsonville Ladies' Society
gospel unto them. Rather, by His message unto them in the                                               Rev. Gerrit Vos, President
                                                                                                        Mrs. Rhine Lubbers, Secretary


                                          T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                     251

                                                                                                                                            _ _- __ .-
                                                                     truth. It was that which made the tabernacle and the cloud

 [ A CLOUD OF WITNESSES j which filled it with glory so amazing. It meant that God had
                                                                     come to dwell in the midst of them while they were yet sin-

                                                                     ners !

                     Israel's Worship                                    In this tabernacle a richness of detail concerning the

                                                                     covenant of grace was set forth as never before. It all cen-
          Tlze~  Moses  mid unto  Aaron, This is it tht thr          tered in the cloud of Jehovah's presence which dwelt in the
      Lord spahe,  saying,, I will be sanctified in them t&t
                                                                     inner sanctuary of that tent upon the mercy seat, between
      come wigh  me,  a n d   before a l l   the people I will be    the cherubim, and above the tables of the law. That cloud
      glovijied.                                 Leviticus 10 :3
                                                                     was glorious because in it was revealed the Angel of Jeho-

    It was a glorious day in the camp of Israel when the             vah, the Old Dispensation form of Jesus Christ, revealing
tabernacle of Jehovah was assembled from its various parts           the grace of God in salvation to His people. Under the
and the cloud of His presence descended to cover the tent            canopy of the tabernacle, He held covenant fellowship and
and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Not only was        communion with them as they were represented in the outer
it the fruit of many months of dedicated labor, it was a rich        sanctuary of the tent. The blessedness of their state was to
unfolding of revelation concerning the Gospel through which          be seen in the furnishings of that room, the golden candle
only they could be saved. We must remembkr that Israel               sticks, the table of show bread, and the altar of incense. The
did not possess the fulness of doctrine and spiritual truth          candle sticks filled the sanctuary typically with the light of
which we have today.     A scant outline of God's grace and          life fed by the oil of the Holy Spirit. The table held the
faithfulness in salvation was a!1 that they knew, a history          bread of life sufficient for all of Israel according to its tribes.
of Seth's generations and of the fathers, the promises given         From the altar their prayers ascended as a sweet smelling
to Adam, Noah, Abraham and Jacob, besides the short                  savor before the face of the angel of God. All of- Israel knew
revelations they had received themselves. But for the true           that these visible representations of their blessedness were
believer in Israel this was sufficient to fill him with hope and     there, not only because they had helped make them and seen
confidence. It was the strength of his life. The spiritual           them put in their place, but because their representatives, the
children of Israel spoke of these things often, and they longed      priests, could enter to partake of their blessings. And all that
to learn more. And there in the tabernacle that materialized         stood between the two sanctuaries of God and His people
before their eyes, this hope was being realized. The taber-          was the finely woven veil of blue, purple and scarlet with
nacle set before them new details concerning God's plan of           its golden cherubim design. And even that separation was.
salvation which they could see, and believing them they              not permanent, for once in a year their high priest could
could be drawn into closer cot&union  with God.                      enter within the veil as a promise of even more perfect corn--
                                                                     munion in ages to come.
   In a large part these people possessed a mentality and

understanding that was different from ours. We live in a                 Indeed, all of this blessedness would have seemed far too

scientific, philosophical age and do our thinking by analyz-         impossible for Israel in its present humbled state, were it-

ing logical relationships with our minds. It is a sign of            not that their approach to the sanctuary was also made plain.

maturity perhaps, although often, like maturity, unnecessarily       Before the entrance to the sanctuary stood an altar. Gen-.

cold. In contrast, they were more simple and poetical. Their         erally they knew what this meant, for the altai  was an

minds would visualize images and pictures to which they              institution which had been used by their fathers ever since.

reacted with strong feelings. Thus when they saw the taber-          man's first fall into sin. For those who were burdened with

nacle rise up before them, it stirred their hearts with feelings     the sorrow of guilt, it was a symbolic promise of God that

such as we, perhaps, can never completely understand.                He would provide for them a way unto the forgiveness of

                                                                     their sins.    Not that their sin would be forgotten and thus.
   What made the existence of the tabernacle so very im-
                                                                     God's justice denied. Rather, a substitute would be provided,
pressive for them was the lingering feeling of guilt that still
                                                                     represented by the animal victim that was slain, which 
hung as a shadow upon their hearts'. Under the shadow of                                                                         would
                                                                     enter into the c&se of death in their stead. Vicarious blood
Sinai, their outlook on God and life had undergone a great,
                                                                     would wash away the guilt and they would be counted free-
deepening change. In coming to Sinai from Egypt they had
                                                                     from every taint and stain of sin. To every saint who came
felt self-assured and confident to a fault. It had seemed to
                                                                     to the altar believing, it was a source of inner righteousness.
them that they were the people of God because of some
                                                                     and peace.
special virtue that was characteristic of them as a nation.

And then they had committed that sin. And God had re-                   But now as they stood that day before the newly erected

vealed to them that were it not for His mercy revealed in            sanctuary, Moses stepped forth to explain that God was

Moses as their typical mediator they would be utterly                giving to that altar a new dimension of meaning. Henceforth

destroyed. All they deserved was to perish and in times to           the sacrifices would be distinguished into different kinds ac-

come-many of them would who did not belong to Him in                 cording to the needs and occasions for them. Carefully he:


I    252                                        T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                           `.


     explained. As before, there would be the burnt offering, only         might be completely covered. While the congregation

     now its ritual would be more definitely defined. This was a           watched,  they ate the sacrificial meal and were commanded

     sacrifice freely given by a believer burdened with the con-           to spend the next week, seven complete days, within the

     viction of his sinfulness. It was not occasioned by any               doors of the tabernacle.

     particular act of iniquity, but by the general sorrow for sin            After the seventh clay was completed, Moses called the
     which is experienced by every child of God. As the body of            elders of Israel with Aaron and his sons `tq. the .tabernacle.
     the victim was consumed upon the altar before the eyes of             The time had come for the priests to take up the duties of
     the offerer, he received the testimony that his curse was             their offices. Before the sacrifices had been offered by Moses ;
     atoned for and his sin completely covered. To this was being          henceforth the priests would be in charge. Soon all .of the
     added the new institutions of the peace offering and the meat         congregation had come together to dbserve  as once again a
     offering. The peace offering was a sacrifice of thanksgiving          sin offering, a burnt offering, and a peace offering were
     in which the greater part of the victim's flesh was given to          prepared unto the Lord. Carefully Moses instructed them
     the priest and the offerer for a joyful feast before the Lord,        each step of the way. When all was ready, Aaron lifted his
     while the meat offering of wine and cakes, oil, salt and              hands toward the people and blessed them, and he with
     frankincense was combined with it, and its greater portion            Moses entered into the sanctuary of the Lord. WFen  they
     was also given to the priest. Finally Moses gave them the             came out again, they once more blessed the people. It w,as  at'
     institution of the sin and trespass offerings which was to be         that moment that the glory of the Lord appeared before them
     offered by those who in ignorance or weakness had com-                all, and the fire of God leaped forth to consume the burnt
     mitted some particular sin. For each of these sacrifices very         offering and the fat. It was an indisputable sign that God
     particular rituals were provided governing the choice of the          would work in the sacrifices and Israel would indeed be
     victim, the laying of the offerer's hands upon the victim's           blessed. The Eeople  fell to their faces and worshipped.
     head, the slaying of the animals, the manipulation of tlie
     blood, the burning and disposal of the victim's body, and the            This was a joyful  day for Israel, until also a somber note
     sacrificial meal that often followed. The animal victim was           was added. Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's oldest sons, cor-
     to be perfect so as to symbolize a perfect redeetner. Through         rupted their newly acquired offices. As Israel feasted and
     the laying of the offerer's hands on the victim's head, it was        rejoiced, they were carried away with the excitement of the
     testified that his sin and guilt was transferred to the sacrifice.    occasion. Possibly under the influence of wine, they decided
     The slaying of the animal, together with the burning of its           of themselves to offer incense to the Lord. Without request-
     body testified that the curse of sin was borne completely,,           ing either permission or instructions, they proceeded to do
     while in the sprinkling of the blood before the altar the             just that. Quickly they took incense and censers, put fire to
     image of the victim and the priest merged almost into one             them, and entered the sanctuary of God. It was neither the
                                                                           proper time nor method. Incense was to be offered to God
     .as the typical mediator which stood before the sinner and
     his God. Finally, in the sacrificial meal the assurance was           only in the morning and evening with a fire taken from the
     given that the very atonement which took away guilt was a             coals of the altar. It was strange fire which they brought,
                                                                           and the wrath of God was kindled. In a moment, the fire of
     blessed nourishment and strength for all that came in faith
                                                                           God struck out and devoured them in thei;  sin.
     unto Jehovah in the tabernacle.

            As one by one these institutions were given, it became             Soon a hushed silence had fallen over the camp. But it
     increasingly evident that the priesthood was to fill a very           was the judgment of God and it was just. Moses stepped
     important place in the worship of Jehovah in the tabernacle.          forth and gave instructions. Aaron and the two remaining
     Only in their charge could any of the sacrifices be offered,          sons might not mourn the death of the brothers. It was the
     .and by their hands the atoning blood was to be sprinkled and         work of God, and in the functions of their sacred offices, they
     poured out according to the ritual of each offering almost as         might not appear sorrowful because of it. The cousins of
     if it were their own. They stood as types of the perfect              the boys were called to carry the bodies away, but the cere-
     mediator and redeemer to come. As all of Israel watched,              monies of the tabernacle had to continue.

     Aaron and his sons were summoned to Moses. They were                      There was a vivid lesson for Israel in this. The taber-
     .appointed  to be the priests of the Lord. First Aaron and            nacle and its ceremonies were rich in spiritual blessing.
     then his sons were brought forth. They were commanded                 They set forth .the gospel of salvation in figure and type. But
     .to ,wash themselves at the laver in the .tabernacle's  court.        they were not to be used presumptuously. God would guard
     Before the people they were dressed in the beautiful, priestly        His dwelling place, and he who used them in sin would be
     .robes that had been prepared and were anointed with holy oil         judged in his sin. As Moses said to .Aaron, "This is it that
     .to signify that they were separated and qualified by the Spirit      the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that
     .of God to live in complete consecration to the service of God.       come nigh me, and before all of the people I will be glori-
     It was for them that the altar of the tabernacle was first            fied."                                       1
     brought into use with a sin offering, a burnt offering, and a

     peace offering offered for them by Moses that their guilt                                                                        B.W.
                                    (.


                                              T H E   S T A N D A R D   BEARER                                                      253


                                                                     times."    For he is the king of the demon-world, the hellish

                                                                     scorpions, who sting men with the sting of their tails for five

                                                                     months j without killing them, but causing them to be tor-
P-----                                                         J1
                                                                     mented in their conscience, so that they seek death and can-
                  Exposition of I Timothy                            not find it. Rev. 9:1-12. Is this king of the abyss not the

                         [I Timothy 4:1-5)                           Destroyer, his name being in Hebrew: Abaddon, and in
                                                                     Greek : Apollyon ? ! Did he not personally encounter Jesus in
                                    b.                               the wilderness, tempting Him when He was an hungered for
   It may not be without purpose to remind even the thought-         forty days and nights ? And was not the issue : will Satan
ful and attentive reader bf the salient points touched upon          rule the world as its prince, or shall it be the Son of God,
in our former article on the verses 1-5 of I Timothy 4. For          who comes into the world to conquer sin, guilt, death. Be-
the text itself we refer the reader to his own Bible. We             hold, then the great wrath of the Apollyon against the "great
suggest that the reader first read the text from this letter of      Mystery of godliness" in these "latter days" !
Paul to Timothy as he labors in Ephesus.                                 Such were, briefly, our findings in the former article.
    If one would take the time to peruse our former article              Now we stand before a few questions both of an exegetical
he would see that we touched upon the following exegetical           and of a conceptual nature. We will here give these questions,
points.                                                              briefly enumerating them, and then we shall attempt to an-
    In the first place, we took notice of the term "faith" in the    swer these questions a little more in detail in seriatem order.
text; the faith from which some will apostatize in the "latter       We here will ask the following questions :

days" according to the expressed teaching of the Spirit. We              1. What is the import of the "giving heed" (pro-

took the position that the term "faith" does not refer simply        sexontes)  in relationship to the "falling away" from the faith ?

to our subjective believing, but rather refers to the objective          2. Who are the "seducing spirits", here in the text? Are
truth, to that which is b,elieved;  it refers to the tme cZoctr&r    they heretics in flesh and blood, or are they the demon-world,
of godliness. Paul has spoken of this true doctrine when he          the scorpions from the abyss ?
cites the poem(  ?) : "Great is the mystery of godliness, God            3.    What is meant by the phrase "the teaching of devils"?
is manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of         Is this a teaching limited to the two matters mentioned, to

angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the               wit, "forbidding to marry" and "abstaining from meats,"
world, and received up'in  glory." It is the doctrine that the       or does this refer to a teaching, which is as an all-pervading
Son of God "caT?Le  into this world." Such is the "faith" once       vicious and evil leaven, that will finally deny and oppose all

delivered to the ~saints  !    '                                     that is of God in Christ Jesus in the "Mystery of Godliness"?
    In the second place, we noticed that the "falling away"             4. Why is "hypocrisy" the spiritual-ethical fountain of
can only be gauged, in its true meaning and magnitude,               this speaking of lying words on the part of those who have

against the background of this "faith" which is manifested           fallen away from the truth?

particularly in the church of the living God, the pillar and             5. Has this "hypocrisy" any causal relationship to their

ground of the truth. The idea of "falling away," of apostasy,        having a "seared conscience," or is their "seared conscience"

means exactly falling away from the revealed truth of God            the reason for the falling away from the faith? And: is a

in Christ Jesus, coming into this world to save from sin.            "seared conscience" a conscience which no longer registers

    In the third place, this also explains why this falling away     right and wrong, or is it a conscience which bears about in

is a peculiar phenomenon of the "latter days," that is, the          it the sign of condemnation, as did that of Cain of old ?

New Testament dispensation. The great "falling away.," as                Let us seek to answer these various questions in order.

here referred to by Paul, could not happen in the days of               As to the first question we should notice that the notion

the shadows when Christ was not yet glorified:                       of "giving heed" has in it the idea of directing the mind

    Lastly, we noticed too that the hatred and raging of             tozemrd something. This is the requisite in all temptation and

Satan and all his hosts must needs reach~ its greatest height        in g&&g  lzeed  to temptation as did the first woman in Par-

exactly in .these  latter days, when the mystery of God is           adise, later called Eve. The term in Greek for "giving heed"

revealed in the church, the manifold wisdom of God. Com-             (p.ros er on es re ers
                                                                          -:- t) f             to the wmnner  of the falling away. No
pare Ephesians 3 :lO. Let it not be forgotten that Satan is          longer listening to the Gospel of God in Christ, and not

the prince of this world (koswtos)  and that Christ "came  into      seeing the Mystery of godliness by faith, they give heed to

this world" to destroy the works of the devil. I John 3 :%           "seducing spZ&s."  Here Paul lifts the veil on a terrible

Does Christ not say in John 12:31,  32: "Now is the judg-            reality of the relationship of heretics to the leadership of the

ment of the world, now shall the prince of this world be             demon-world! The demon-world and its influence and com-

cast out"? And is such casting out of the "prince of this            munication with men is very real in these "latter days." Not

world" not the counter-part of "And I when I am lifted up,           to see this is to shut one's eyes to reality.

will draw all men (all kinds of men) unto me" ? That is                  For, and that brings us to the second question, these

why Satan rages peculiarly vehemently during these "latter           "seducing spirits" are not simply men in flesh and blood,

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


 heretics who lead others astray, but refer to, the world of            God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was

 demons, and evil spirits! These demons come from the                   very good," and from that other word of God in Genesis

abyss; they are the devils, who are kept in "pits of darkness,"         2 :24 : "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,

 being kept in chains unto final judgment; evil spirits they            and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

 are who left their own native principality. See II Peter 2 :4 ;        They all deny the Creation of God, that it was "good" from

 Jude 6. By God's permissive will (see the account of the               "the beginning."

 dialogue between God and Satan in Job 1) these demons                     The two matters here enumerated by Paul as being the

 sally forth seeking whom they may devour; they torment all             teaching of devils are always and again the symptomatic ear-

 who do not have the seal of God upon their forehead ; who              marks of those who are branded in their conscience. They

 are not covered by the blood of Jesus. Rev. 9 :1-l 1. These            seek evil where it is not; they seek to remove evil from

 spirits have access to the hearts of such who "give heed to            the world apart from the Christ of God, who came not to con-

 them" ! Such are in the power and under the direct influence           demn the cosmos, but who came to save it as the resurrection

 of this demon-world. And, mark you well, in these "latter              and the life. Thus He came into  this Cosmos. Such, who

 days" !                                                                deny that marriage is as holy as celibacy and that all meats

       In the third place, this also explains that this being under     are good, being creatures of God, have never understood or

 the influence of, this giving heed to these evil spirits, means        believed the profound confession of Martha: I believe that

 giving heed to the "doctrine of devils." This "doctrine"               Thou art the Christ Who should coytie into this world (cos-

 (didask~alia) of d evl s
                      `1     comes to stand directly opposite to the    mos>.

 "faith" once delivered to the saints. Now concerning this                 They deny the mystery of godliness that is great!

 doctrine of these demons it should be noticed :                            They have never understood this grand truth: God is

       1. That seemingly it only touches the very fringe, so to         whavzijested  in the flesh . . . takew  up into glory!

 speak, of the Mystery of faith. It simply enumerates two                   They break their neck on this rock of offense, this stone

points : a. That marriage is forbidden. b. That it is forbidden         laid in Zion.

 to eat meats.      Seemingly simply some legalistic, Jewish                Listen to their denial of the truth.

 scruples. However, upon closer examination we see that it                  In the first place such deny the good creation! Why?

 is with this just as with the sickness called the cancer. It           Because in Uzeir  thinking, in their "idea" of ,God there is no

 has deep and deadly roots which `will corrupt the entire body.         room for evil in the world. Refusing to confess the sin of

 Thus it is with all denial of the truth in Jesus. Deny the             man, their sin, as an evil in the .heart,  they pride themselves

 resurrection of the dead and you have no motive for ethics,            that man has two parts : the good part and the evil, that is,

 Christ died in vain and we are still in our sins. Then we              body and soul ; the former is evil, the latter is good.

 will live by the adage:: "Let us eat, drink and be merry, for              In the second place, they must deny God in relationship
 tomorrow we die." $0,  this is not an innocent lack of under-          to evil in the world, His counsel over all things.
 standing the truth `in Jesus. It is a denial of all truth, an             In the third place, since they hold that the body, matter, is
 attempt to overthrow the "pillar and ground of the truth"              inherently evil, they will.not  believe that God was manifested'
 itself.                                                                in the flesh. The flesh must be destroyed, shall evil be over-
       2. For notice the following: this forbidding to marry            come.
 and insistence that meat be not touched is a teaching which                Since marriage is in their mind void of anything higher
has let go of Christ completely and altogether. It is a volun-          than matter, flesh, void of the mystery of Christ and the
 tary humility and worshipping of angels, not holding fast the          church, it is taboo.
 Head (Christ) from whom all the body, being supplied and
                                                                            Since "meat" is also body, one must, to be holy, abstain
 knit together through the joints and bands, increaseth with
                                                                        from meats. Meat and drink, man and wife, marriage and
 the increase of God. (See Colossians 2 :lS, 19.) Note well :
                                                                        children do not belong to the `<world"  which Christ came
 Paul is here speaking of apostasy born from hell itself against
                                                                        to save. He only came to save the "immortal soul." And then
 God and His Christ! Now whether you call this "the leaven
                                                                        this immortal soul is saved not from the guilt of sin ancl  the
 of the Pharisees," the teaching and practices of the not-men-
                                                                        spiritual pollution, but it means saved from its connection
 tioned sect in Scripture called the Essenes, or the later second
                                                                        with the body and from the material world, the world of
 century heresy of Gnosticism, Ebionitism, Marcion-docetism,
                                                                        matter !
 Roman Catholic fasting on Friday as outgrowth of their
 Nature-Grace dualism, or the Anabaptism of the Reformation                Thus the demon-world directs man's mind away from
 times, or any other dualistic conception of evil and good              the Cross, the Savior, the Advocate with the Father, from
 which finds its origin historically in the Zoroastrian or              baptism and regeneration and a good conscience before God
 Persian system based on the assumption that there existed              - from the Mystery of godliness ! And since Christ cannot
 two original and independent powers of evil, ~of  light and            come into this "matter" He did not overcome the world, and
 darkness, doesn't make a particle of difference. They  all             we are still in our sins. Behold, then, this teaching of devils !

 depart from that word of God spoken in Genesis 1 31: "And                                                                          G.L.


                                           T H E   S T A N D A R D .   BE'ARER                                                    255
                                                                                                                          ._ -

                                                                    pleasures of sin. He could be the idol and hero of many

            I N   H I S   F E A R                                   more sinners among the youth of the land than was the case
                                                                    after the flood. One can imagine what an influence upon

                                                                    youth it was not only to see father's sins but also grand-
                     Y o u t h ,   R e m e m b e r !                father's and great-grandfather's and great-great-grandfather's

                                                                    sins as they developed them, polished them, .made them look
                               (2)                                  cute and enticing. And, of course, this holds true not simply
    It was a very different time when Solomon lived from            of young men but also of young women and the sins of their
the time in which youth lives today.                                mothers and grandmothers for generations of the past.
    But the words of Solomon still are appropriate and words            However, there is that which we must not overlook today.
of true wisdom: "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy            True, we do not live to be nine hundred years old today.
youth."                                                             But we may say without any fear of contradiction that today
    If in Solomon's day there were many earthly things to           we fill a life of seventy, eighty years with far more than
occupy the time and mind of youth, what shall we say of             a nine hundred year man could ever do in that day. And
today? In fact from Adam's day until today there has been           we by our means of preserving the writings of men in books
a steady increase in the number of earthly things upon which        and magazines, by preserving his speech on tape and disk,
to set one's affections and an increasingly greater number of       his actions on film and by bringing these to the attention
ways to seek the flesh. In Paradise life was simple. Com-           of today's youth by radio and television certainly are rushing
pared with our life, the life of Adam was one in which he           towards that day when the world will again be ripe for
simply could not commit many of our sins. He had no father          judgment, this time the final judgment.
and mother whom he could dishonor. Although he coulcl kill,             Youth, remember that your Creator is coming in such
the sin of adultery was immediately after the fall quite im-        a judgment! Last time we quoted those words of Solomon,
possible in the physical sense of the word. Very limited was        "Rejoice, 0 young man, in the days of thy youth ; and let
he in stealing, for he would have to steal from his wife ; and      thy heart cheer thee in the day of thy youth, and walk in
that would be stealing from self. And what was there to             the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but
steal then ? There was no third party yet unto whom he              know thou (Remember this, youth) that for all these things
could bear false witness. And though he might covet what            God will bring thee into judgment."
Eve had, our life today makes all these sins of Adam look               Youth is the time to remember, the time when it is so
exceedingly tame.                                                   very easy to remember. The mind of youth is clear, and the
    When Cain and Abel grew up as young men, they did               afflictions of later life do not yet affect his mind. Indeed,
not have cars to fly here, there and everywhere all in one          soon enough these will strike him with unrelenting force.
night. There were no passion-feeding dance floors for them          Solomon points out that the days will igon  be here when
to frequent till the wee hours of the morning. They did not         we will say that we have no pleasure in our days anymore.
have their pockets jingling with coin and their billfolds           Listen to this wise man, youth. Listen to him because God
bulging with means to buy them thrills and excitement and           is speaking through him. Remember what God says when

riotous living. Means of communication were almost non-             today you are bombarded by the philosophies of men. Vitamin

existent. Let me say it, They had to invent their own ways          pill advertisements, medical bulletins, health columns and

of sinning. Indeed, they were quite adept at this. The              the like all intend to assure you that the span of 1iEe  is being

natural heart is continually busy inventing new and more            lengthened. We are making life more pleasant for the aged.
devilish ways of rebelling against God. Just read Genesis           Rest homes, social security insurance, and old age pensions

65, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was very                are making the declining years more comfortable. Ah, yes,

great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts       youth, but remember your Creator. Remember what He says

of his heart was only evil continually." ". . . every . . .         through Moses in Psalm 90, "The days of our years are three

only . . . continually . . ." we read. And with that kind of        score and ten ; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore,
imagination and thought pattern the natural man is very             yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off

prolific and clever in his inventing of new ways to sin.            and we fly away." Their strength is labor and sorrow. You
   Therefore in a comparatively short time the world was            will soon feel it, Your body will soon tell you that your
ready for a judgment day.       Youth did not remember its          spirit will soon return unto God, the Creator, who gave it.

Creator; and when grown, a generation brought forth seed               Solomon presents this so beautifully and figuratively in

that knew Him not but instead explored, organized and em-           that twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes. In verse 2 he tells us

ployed His creation to oppose Him and His Christ. The               that cloudy days are coming.     There will be days when we
spirit of the anti-Christ  was strong on the earth then already.    will not see the sun, the moon and the stars. It will rain.

Added to this is the fact that men lived to be nine hundred         Misery and affliction will be our lot. And hardly has the
years old. A man could pass on to many more generations             sky begun to clear in the west, and it begins to rain again.
than his own immediate generation the methods and deceiving         We are hardly over this ache and pain, and lo, another


 256                                        `1`II.E..S'TAN-DA-R`D   B E A R E R


-misery gnaws at our bones and gives pain in the flesh. He            soon shall be your lot. Now you can commit to memory the

 goes on in verse 3 to indicate that the muscles shall lose           works' and Word of this Creator. Now you are as the twig:

 their strength and man shall become bent and stooped. NO             and as the twig is bent, so the tree will grow. You cannot

 longer will he stand so erect and manly as when he stood             spend your youth in riotous living, forsaking the means at

 at attention during his basic training in the armed forces.          hand for growth in knowledge of the truth and the mysteries

 And whereas formerly he could lift an object of a certain            of the kingdom ;        cannot fill your Sabbath with the things
                                                                                       you 

 weight with ease, now he finds .that, because of his weakened        of the world, sleep through the whole sermon, sleep some

 and stiffening muscles, his arms and legs tremble under that         more at home, while the whole Sabbath away, and then in

 weight. Weakness has set in. The teeth are few and there             later life be rich in spiritual experiences of salvation and be
 is not much left wherewith to grind food. The eyesight               a pillar of faith in the Church. Fill your mind and your day

 fails. Single lens glasses, then bi-focals and afterward tri-        with that which God prepares for-you. Study His Word and

 focals even fail to give satisfactory sight. "They that look         listen to the exposition of it. Prepare `faithfully and thor-

 out at the windows are darkened." -Neither does man eat              oughly for your society discussion of that Word. Fill not

 with the zest and enthusiasm of youth. This and that and             your mind with cheap novels of worldly passion and thrill.

 the other thing do not agree with his aging digestive system.        Hide God's Word away in your heart, for           live in a more
                                                                                                                    you 

 He is gradually returning to his childhood milk diet with a          evil day than your parents did in their childhood days. Soon

 little toast. He does not open the door of his mouth for food        that Word will be denied us; and men shall forbid our right

 as often or as widely. Sleep escapes him, and he rises with          to assemble to hear it and worship. It will then have to be

 the birds. He takes his catnaps, but sound sleep and restful         hidden in your heart. It will have to be in your mind where

 sleep escape him. The music he enjoyed, he can hardly                no man can take it from you.

 hear, for his hearing too is impaired. Man goes to his long             Remember, 0 youth, to remember your Creator.

 home. Fears' shall grip him. He will be afraid to go out in             Walk in His fear and let that be your rejoicing. Then

 the snow and storm and to drive in fog and on ice. In his            the day will never come when you will say that you have no

 youth he thrilled to pit his strength and skill at the "ele-         pleasure in such activity.                                 J.A.H.

 ments" and would laugh when you told him to be careful.

 Now he voices his fears to his children. The garden is full

 of weeds and the pests eat up the vegetables because his
                                                                         CALL TO ASPIRANTS TO THE MINISTRY
 reflexes are too slow and his interest too little to be out

 there to drive them away. Such is man before his spirit                 All young men desiring to study for the ministry of the
 returns to God Who gave it. In that light read Ecclesiastes          Word in the Protestant Reformed Churches kindly appear
 12 11-7,  and we will quote them for you to read.                    at the next meeting of the Theological School Committee
        "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,           which will be held, the Lord willing, on Friday evening,
 while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when          April 6, 1962, at 8 P.M. in the parsonage of the Hudsonville
 thou shalt say. I have no pleasure in them. While the SLIII,         Protestant Reformed Church, in Hudsonville, Michigan.
 or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor            The qualifications requisite to enrollment in our seminary
 the clouds return after the rain ; In the day when the keepers
                                                                      are the following:
 of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow
 themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and            1. You must present a letter from your local consistory
 those that look out of the windows be darkened, and the              certifying that you are upright in walk and pure in doctrine.

 doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the               2. You must have a certificate of health signed by a
 grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the            reputable physician.
 birds, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;             3. You must be a graduate from High School and show
 Also when he is afraid of that which is high, and fears
                                                                      evidence that you have completed a one-year course in High
 shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, ancl        School in History General and Church History ; and have
 the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail:
                                                                      also completed the following College courses : Latin - two
 because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go
                                                                      years, Greek - two years, German - two years, Philosophy
 about the streets : Or ever the silver' cord be loosed, or the       - one year, Psychology - one year, Logic - one semester.
golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the foun-
 tain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern. Then shall the             All correspondence relative to the above announcement
 dust return to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall ret,urn    should be sent to the undersigned:

 unto God Who gave it."                                                             Secretary of the Theological School Committee,
        Verbum  sapienti  Sat! A word to the wise is sufficient!
                                                                                                 REV. M. 
        Remember then, youth.                                                                              SCHIPPER,
        Now you can learn with your clear mind. Now           can                                1636 Martindale Ave., S. W.,
                                                           you 

 study that Word of God unhindered by the afflictions that                                      Wyoming 9, Michigan.


                                                                                                          I
                                           T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                   257


                                                                      by His Word leads man to the church, but, on the contrary,

        Contending For The Faith                                      it proceeds from the church and then leads to the Scriptures,
                                                                      and to Christ. Therefore it is fitting for the church to be

                                                                      known, to be pointed out for all, and even to be demonstrated

          The Church and the Sacraments                               before all ; it must become so plain  by its attributes and
                                                                      marks, that no doubt can exist with respect to it and only
         THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION                                  deliberate and guilty unbelief can disregard and reject it.

               VIEWS ON THE CHURCH                                    It (the Church, H.V.) is the first and most important source
                                                                      of the truth, and for this reason many Romish theologians
                THE PROTESTANT VIEW                                   treat it in the doctrine of the principles. The ecclesia audiens

    The Church of God, we noted in our preceding article,              (the Church as it is ruled and taught, H.V.)j is completely
is the gathering of believers, and as rooted in Divine un-            dependent upon the ecclesia docens ; it (ecclesia audiens,
changeable election. This is the Protestant view of the               H.V.) is only passive in participating in all the glorious
Church, which we are now discussing in these articles, and            attributes of the church ; its only task it is to receive
as in distinction from the Roman Catholic view. And that              the supernatural grace out of the hand of the priest
Church of God is also most emphatically an object of faith.           in the sacrament-; to believe what the church believes, obe-
Because of its catholicity, its oneness, its holiness, and the        dience to hierarchy, subjection to the pope is its greatest
fact that it is destined for everlasting and heavenly glory and       virtue and necessary unto salvation. The essence of the
immortality it cannot be discerned with the natural eye.              church does not depend upon the quality of this ecclesia
We can only believe  an holy catholic church.                         audiens.  To be sure, it is good and profitable that the mem-
    There are several aspects of the doctrine of the Church           bers of the church should be believers. But the ecclesia
as we treat the historical development of this doctrine that          docens, the objective institute of salvation, remains just as
are worthy of our attention. Worthy of note, for example,             well the true church, even if all its members were unbelievers
are the attributes of the Church and also its gathering as            and ungodly. All those who are outside of the Romish church
confessed according to the Protestant view according to the           are no members of the church of Christ, as the catechumens,
Word of God. We must also call attention to the marks of              the excommunicated, the schismatics,  etc. Their Christian
the Church of God, consisting of the preaching of the, Word,          faith, their pious walk does not profit them ; they are without
the proper administration of the sacraments, and the exer-            the only-saving church. But all those are truly members of
cise of Christian discipline.     However, we will begin by           the church, who remain in the fellowship with Rome, even
calling attention to the visible and invisible aspect of the          though they be manifestly unbelievers and ungodly. These
Church of God, and attempt to show the historical develop-            are not actual, but potentially the church ; they do not belong
ment of this particular aspect of the Church.                         to the soul, but to the body of the church ; they are not as
   The Protestant view of the Church differs sharply from             perfectly the church as are those who believe and
Rome also as far as the Church's visible and invisible aspect         live in the Romish church ; but they are nevertheless mem-
is concerned. Rome's corruption of this feature of the Church         bers of the church and belong to it just as well as the body
is set forth by Dr. H. Bavinck in his Dogmatics, and we               belongs to the essence of man. To belong in any way to the
quote from ,him now as follows, Volume IV, 268-269  (the              church, more or less perfect, no internal virtue of love or
translation is of the undersigned) : "And, therefore, in the first    faith is necessary, but only the external profession of faith
place, applicable to this ecclesia docens (the Church as con-         and the communion of the sacraments." - end of quote from
sisting of those who rule, H.V.) are all the attributes which         Bavinck.

the Romish Christian acknowledges of his church. It is the               This Romish conception of the church, setting forth that

one, only, alone Christian,      catholic, descending from the        the membership of the Church is completely dependent upon

apostles by regular succession, imperishable, infallible church,      the hierarchy, the priesthood and especially the pope, en-

denying to all other so-called churches the right of existence,       countered considerable oppbsition.  Greek Christendom never

is intolerant by virtue of its essence, does not tolerate or          did recognize the absolute authority of the bishop of Rome,

acknowledge another church next to itself, to depart from             and therefore resisted all efforts unto absolute oneness and

which in doctrine or to separate oneself in life is always sin        catholicity. Many opposed and denied this Romish concep-

and never permissible. For, because Christ distributes all            tion of the Church in the IMiddle  Ages. However, it did not

grace only through the office and the sacrament, therefore the        occur until the Reformation that a principally different con-

ecclesia docens, the Romish church institute, is the only             ception of the Church developed over against Rome. Luther

mediator of salvation, the keeper or preserver and distributor        found peace for his soul, not in the external operation of the

of all grace for all men, the only ark of preservation for the        sacrament, nor in the doing of good works, but only in the

entire human race.    It (the Church, H.V.) alone leads man           forgiveness of sins through faith alone. And it was from this

to the Scriptures, to the Person of the Christ, to the fellow-        point of view that he attacked the Church of Rome, rejected

ship with God. The order of salvation is not such, that God           the priesthood, the sacrifice, the monks, the infallible church


258                         $              T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R


institute and the magical operation of the sacrament, pro-             formed Churches, and so beautifully set forth in Rev. Hoek-

claimed the liberty of the Christian, and conceived of the             sema's pamphlet: De Geloovigen en Hun Zaad.

Church as a gathering of believers, as a communi'on  of saints            Frdm this we may conclude that the distinction between

even as it is confessed to be the object of faith  in the Twelve       visible and invisible church was originally never merely

Articles of the Apostles' Creed. It was for Luther a very              intended to declare over against Rome that the essence of

severe struggle to break with the Romish church and its                the church lay in the invisible, in faith, in the fellowship with

cotinception  `of the church ; he surely  did not take this matter    T Christ and His benefits through the Holy Spirit, but that it

very lightly ; he did not have a program of reformation ; it           most emphatically did not intend in any way to deny the

was his only concern  to counteract the many abuses and                visible aspect of the church. Soon this distinction, between

wrongs that were rampant in the Church of Rome. But he                 the invisible and visible church, began to be used in a dif-

foimd  and maintained his firmness and steadfastness in the            ferent sense.    One could not deny the fact `that there were

justification of the sinner only through faith, and from this          many in the church who really were no children- of God but

principle he proceeded much farther than he originally had             belonged to the kingdom of this world and of darkness.

intended and anticipated. This principle also led him to               Hence, the church could be viewed in a narrower and a

another conception of the Church, a conception which he                broader sense. Luther, at times, spoke of two churches, and

found in the Holy Scriptures.                                          later theologians began to apply the distinction between in-

       Continuing to quote freely from the Dogmatics of H.             visible and visible church to this fact. The chunch,  then, was
Bavinck, Volume IV, according to Luther, the Church was                called invisible, not because it had a spiritual side and was
not simply a gathering of those predestined unto eternal life,         therefore an object of faith, but because the circle of true
neither did it consist merely of those who walked according to         believers could not be known by us; and the church was
some of the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. But the               called visible, not from the viewpoint of the believers' walk
Church was a gathering of believers, of people who through             and confession, but from the viewpoint of the unbelievers
faith had received the forgiveness of sins and were children           who in the past had been viewed by Luther as belonging to
of God, prophets and priests of the Lord. It is, of course,            the kingdom of the devil. The believers constituted an in-
true and a self-evident fact that the Church had an invisible          tisible  church in the visible church.
and a visible side or form. Seeberg  contends that this distinc-          The Reformed conception of the Church agrees principally
tion (visible and invisible church) was made first by Luther           with this Lutheran conception of the church. However, it
a$lhot  by Zwingli. When Luther made this distinction he               does reveal certain peculiarities which are not unimportant.
did not mean two churches, but two sides or aspects of the             In the first place, the conception of the institute of the
one and the same church. The church was not for Luther a               church is somewhat different in the Reformed view
merely philosophical ,conception,  an idea without its cor-            and conception. Luther, it is true, understood the church
responding reality, but it consisted for him very concretely           to be the communion of saints, but nevertheless sought its
in people, who live and through faith have become partakers            oneness and holiness more in the objective insiitution  of the
of the forgiveness of sins. Viewed from the one side or                office, word and sacrament than in the subjective communion
aspect, the church of God is invisible, an object of faith, in-        of the believers which often left so much to be desired.    More
asmuch as we do not see what we believe. However, viewed               and more, according to the Lutheran conception, the church
from the other side or aspect, the church is visible, because          became a Divine institute which had to realize the oneness
it becomes known and is reco,&zable.  And, the church can              and holiness of the believers. And it is truly Reformed doc-
be known, not from its papacy, bishops, and all the other              trine that the Lord ordinarily bestows the benefits of Christ
external things that characterize the Romish Church, but               by means of the Word and sacrament, but is nevertheless not
from the pure administration of the Word and of the sacra-             bound to them, and, be it rarely, also bestows salvation out-
ments. Where the administration is of the Word and of the              side of the institute of the church.

sacraments the true believers must ,be present, even though                                                                        H.V.

they be present only in the cradle as little infants (in-

cidentally, it is well to bear this in mind when we attempt
                                                                                                  NOTICE
to distinguish between the True and False Church, to wl&h
we will call attention later). Luther also maintained that                The Hope Protestant Reformed Christian School is in
there are and can be unbelievers in a church, even as strange          need of three (3) teachers for the 1962-63 school year; one
and foreign elements can penetrate into a human body, but              each for the first, second and fifth grades. Interested, qualified
the essence of the church is determined by the believers, the          persons are urgently requested to send their application or
whole is named according to its most important part. As                inquiry to Richard L. Bloem, 4630 Riverbend Dr., S. W.,
Protestant Reformed people, we recognize this distinction,             Grand Rapids, Michigan.

do we not, namely that the "whole is named according to its                                 Richard L. Bloem, secretary
most important part" ?    This must surely remind us of that                                Hope Prot. Ref. Christian School Board
which we have preached and taught in our Protestant Re-                                     Grand Rapids, Michigan


                                            T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                259


                                                                      have to be afraid of or try to evade this fact. To my mind,

11        The Voice of Our Fathers 11 all this simply adds to the wonder and the beauty of the
                                                                      Scriptures, that.is,  as long as we consider it from the point

                                                                      of view of faith.

                                                                          Consider all the variety in Scripture for a moment.
                  The Belgic Confession                                   The Holy Spirit employed many different human instru-

                                                                      ments in His wonderful work of inspiration. Some of these
                           ARTICLE III
                                                                      men we learn to know rather well from the pages of Scrip-

                            (continued)                               ture. Of some of them we know very little personally. And

                                                                      some of them we cannot even identify: we do not even know

      First of all; in answering the objection that verbal in-        their names. The Scriptures, moreover, were written over a

spiration is, necessarily mechanical, we may n&ice  that this         period of some fifteen hundred years. Yet somehow all those

is a thoroughly rationalistic argument. It does not appeal to         writings, scattered over the centuries, belong together, con-

Scripture. It is not an argument based upon the Word of               stitute the one, infallible Word of God. Still more: those

God, either directly or by implication. It is purely speculative.     writings were scattered all over the ancient world-the

It arises out of.human  reason. In this respect it is very sim-       desert of Sinai, the land of Canaan, Babylon, Persia, Rome,

ilar to the argument raised by the Arminians and Pelagians            Asia Minor. Well-educated men, such as Moses and Paul,

against the doctrine of salvation through sovereign, irresist-        but also simple Galilean fishermen were among those human
ible grace, namely, that this doctrine reduces men to mere            instruments. Among them are numbered prophets and priests
stocks and blocks, that is, suppresses completely their ra-           and kings, choir leaders, shepherds, herdsmen. And these men
tio&l, moral nature.       Neither that argument against the          were inspired to write while guiding flocks, while in prisons,

truth of sovereign grace, which aims. at destroying the doc-          in palaces, in the courts of great world-rulers. Moreover,
trine by showing that its supposed consequences are evil, nor         these Scriptures were witten  by men who apparently had no

the present argument against infallible inspiration, which            knowledge of one another and who had no knowledge of what
also aims at destroying the truth by pointing to a supposed           others were writing or were going to write. Undoubtedly it

evil consequence, is true. However, in connection with what           is also, true that they wrote without knowing even that what

was  stated concerning our attitude and approach in dealing           they wrote would eventually be a part of one large book. In

with this subject, we may point out that this argument would          other words, in all the production of Scripture there was as

not change the truth that the Bible is the infallibly inspired        little outward and mechanical unity as is imaginable. And

Word of God whatsoever. In other words, supposing it were             yet there is the most beautiful inner harmony conceivable in

true that inspiration, in order to be plenary and verbal and          Scripture. And there is perfect unity. To be sure, the Lord

infallible, necessarily had to be mechanical ; and supposing          did not mechanically come to these men, as it were, and say,

that we could find no plausible explanation of the relationship       "I want to dictate a portion of my Word ; write this down."

between the two ; what then would the answer of the Chris-            Such is not inspiration. And even though it is possible to

tian have to be ? This : then inspiration may have been               point to instances in which holy men were indeed com-

mechanical, but by all means I insist that the Word of God            manded to write, the truth of inspiration does not hinge on

is the Word of God from beginning to end, without any                 this fact.

human admixture whatsoever ! If I am compelled to mak'e  a                But there is more.

choice between accepting a so-called mechanical inspiration               That which belongs to the individuality of these writers
or denying that the Bible is the infallible Word of God,              comes to manifestation in Scripture. The sacred writers
verbally inspired, then I will choose for mechanical inspira-         wrote in their own language, Hebrew or Greek, not Holland,
tion !                                                                or French, or Chinese. They wrote from the point of view

      In the second place, it is a self-evident fact that the Lord    of their peculiar times and circumstances, not only in general

did not sz$+~~  the human instruments who were employec$              and as far as the old or new dispensations are concerned, but

by the Holy Spirit in the production of the Scriptures. This          also in detail. And this is true not only of historical books,

supposed consequence of the doctrine of infallible inspiration        but also of prophetical writings. The prophecy of Isaiah, for

none of its adherents will ever accept. For this is obviously         example, could only have been written in the particular

contrary to fact, contrary to the evident nature of Scripture's       setting of time and place and minute circumstances and

contents. Certainly, in respect to their individuality, their         events in which it was written. And this is indicated in

personal characteristics, their style of writing, their time,         Scripture: "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he

their circumstances-in regard to all these the human in-              saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah,

struments were not suppressed by the Holy Spirit. For these           Jotham,  Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." Isa. 1 :l.

very elements shine forth from every page of Holy Writ;               The same is true individually of many of the psalms of David,

and they cannot be ignored.                                           so that their background and setting very obviously played
      In fact, I would emphasize that the child of God does not       a part in their contents.    Variety is also plainly mani-

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


fest in style. How different, for example, is the contemplative    struments are as so much clay which He molds according to

and intuitive and direct style of John from the logical and        His own good pleasure? And as the alone Sovereign One is

reasoning style of Paul. How different are the prosaic Chron-      He not able by His Holy Spirit so to use and to move holy

icles from the poetry of the Psalms.                               men to speak and to write His own Word, and yet to do

   From all this, it is very evident that men spake, men           so in such a way that they speak and write quite in harmony

wrote, men taught, men sang, men prophesied, men recorded          with their own, individual natures and characters and times

facts and events, and that too, with all their individual          and circumstances ? After all, He is God ! And this entire

peculiarities of character and talents, of time and place, of      question comes down basically to this fundamental truth.

history and circumstances. This is included in the wonder             Permit me to make a comparison once more between the

of infallible inspiration, and yet so, that nevertheless, "this    nature and manner of inspiration and the manner of God's

Word of God was not sent, nor delivered by the will of man,        operation in the work of salvation.

but holy ,men of God spake as they were moved by the                  We confess that God's grace is irresistible, or efficacious,

Holy Ghost."                                                       and that all of the work of salvation as applied to the elect

   There is one very striking exception in Scripture. That         is from beginning to end the work of sovereign, irresistibie

is Balaam, that most despicable hypocrite of the old dispensa-     grace. What does this mean? When the Almighty regen-

tion. We may well say, in the light of Scripture, that he          erates a man, can that man possibly remain a dead sinner?

did not want to prophesy. In fact, with all his evil nature he     Of course not! When He works saving faith in the elect,

tried not to speak the Lord's Word of blessing upon His            is it possible for him not to believe ? Absolutely not ! Wiien

people, and that too, repeatedly. In a way, he spake in the        He converts, is it possible for a man not to turn ? Absolutely

same way that his dumb ass was made to speak when Balaam           impossible! When He preserves the saint, is it possible for

was on the way to Balak. And we read that "the Lord put            that saint not to persevere ? That is absolutely impossible !

a word in Balaam's mouth, and said, Return unto Balak,             Well, then, does all this work of irresistible grace make of

and thus thou shalt speak." Numbers 23 5. And when Balak           that man a mere puppet, a machine, a stock and block ? By

in the fury of his frustration says, "What hast thou done          no means ! What then? Must we somehow after all begin

unto me ? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold:          to limit the sovereignty of God ? Or must we place the

thou hast blessed them altogether," Balaam himself replies,        responsibility of man in opposition to the sovereignty of God,

"Must I not take heed to speak that which the Lord hath            and say, "Yes, but man is al& responsible"? Not at all !

put in my mouth ?" vss. 11 and 12. Evidently, therefore,           Can we say nothing at all about the manner of this work of

Balaam was in some sense under coN+&on.  And yet,  even            God ? Yes, we can. In general, first of all, we may say that

this exception must be carefully defined. The longer you           the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth always employs His

study this story of Balaam the more mysterious it becomes.         creatures in a way that is in harmony with the nature which

For the Spirit of God comes upon him, and he hears the             He Himself has given them. He operates in a tree in har-

words of God, and sees the vision of the Almighty, and falls       mony with its nature as a tree, in a fish in harmony with

into a trance, and utters some of the most marvelous proph-        its nature as a fish, in a beast in harmony with its nature as

ecies concerning the people of God. Undoubtedly the "ex-           a beast, and so also in a man in harmony with his nature as

ception" of which we spake, therefore, must be understood          a man. To man He has given a rational, moral nature. Does

especially in connection with the fact that Balsam,  though        He in His sovereignty simply ignore that rational, moral

irresistibly moved by the Holy Spirit, was not a 1~01~  Ina.n.     nature which He Himself has given man ? No ; but God

But at the same time, let us note that this very exception         sovereignly upholds and governs man in a way that is in

shows us also to what lengths the inspiration of the Holy          harmony with his nature. Hence, He does not intervene

Spirit can go. The wicked Balaam cannot possibly speak             between that man's nature and his actions. But in the work

anything but the Word of the Lord. Though he with all his          of salvation He with absolute sovereignty operates upon, or

heart wants to say, "God damn Israel," he necessarily must         rather, in, that nature itself, in his heart and mind and will,

say, "God bless Israel." And all of Balak's silver and golil       and changes a man ethically from darkness unto light.

cannot change this situation. Numbers 24 :l-14.                       In much the same way we may conceive of the wonder

   In the third place, we may state that essentially this,         of inspiration by the Holy Spirit. The human instruments

charge of mechanicalism is an attack upon the sovereignty of       who were moved by the Holy Spirit were rational, moral

our God. When the Scriptures teach us that the Holy Spirit         creatures. Did the Holy Spirit violate their rational, moral

moved holy men in such a way that the end-product was the          nature, or change it into an irrational, brute nature ? Did He

very Word of God Himself, who is puny man that he should           set aside their power of intellect? Did He simply ignore their

say that God cannot do this without completely suppressing         power of will ? Did He supply Paul with an entirely different

their individual human natures ? Is our God limited ? Is He        style than he normally had? Did He simply impose the

to be judged according to human standards ? Is He not              twenty-third psalm on David, though, perhaps, there was

able to do what He wills ? Is He not also in this respect the      nothing in David's life and soul that had anything to do

sovereign potter, in relation to Whom all these human in-          with his saying, "The Lord is my shepherd"? Nothing could


                                              THE  S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                  261


be farther from the .truth.  Besides, we must not forget that         ing, personal experiences, and historical circumstances in

the Holy Spirit moved lzoly men. God not only employed hu-            such a way that they were from eternity prepared to be fit

man instruments, but sunctificd  human instruments. And the           instruments of divine, inspiration, each in his own place in

Holy Spirit, therefore, not only used these men in a way that         the organism of Scripture.

was formally in harmony with their rational, moral nature,,               3) That the Holy Spirit, and that too, as the Spirit of

but in a way that' was fully in harmony from a material..             Christ, called these divinely ordained organs of inspiration

viewpoint with their nature, that is, with their nature as it         into existence in time, forming them and preparing them,

was changed from darkness to light by the power of grace.             both naturally and spiritually, for their divinely ordained

    Finally, however, let us not forget that this woridrous           task.

operation of the Holy Spirit is nevertheless mysthous.  It                4) That thus also :the  same Spirit inspired, moved, il-

is exactly at the point where the Spirit of God touches the           lumined, guided, and actually caused these human instru-

heart and mind and will of holy men in such a way that they           ments, thus ordained, prepared, and called, to speak and to

infallibly write God's Word and yet write it as men that we           w?ite  infallibly God's own Word.

come face to face with this mystery. How does that operation              Thus we may understand that these holy men were not

take place ? What exactly takes place ? Can you describe              simply human stenographers for the Holy Spirit. Nor were

that work? No, I cannot; and there is no need of this. All            they merely a human framework on which God wrought the

I need do is believe, and then stand in awe before the                design of His divine Word. But the Scriptures and the

wondrous works of God.                                                human instrum.ents were all of God, a wonderwork of divine

    With this in mind, we may attempt to say a few words              grace,    ordaining, preparing, moving, and guiding, so that

about what is called organic insfiiru.tbn.                            we might have the complete and rich revelation of Christ,

    What is meant by this ? Only too often, organic inspira-          the Eternal Word of God.

tion is presented in such a way that it merely means that the         Gmphic Inspiration

Holy Ghost sought out suitable men for His purpose, found                This is one more distinction that is frequently made when

them, and used them with all their individual characteristics,        the truth of the inspiration of Scripture is developed. Very

traits, and circumstances, just as He found them. I have              briefly, this means inspiration to w&e.. The term itself is not

found that this is a very common presentation of organic in-          employed in Article III, but the last part of this article sets

spiration, even among Reformed people. But this is a very             forth this truth: "And afterwards God . . . . commanded his

poor presentation of the matter, and leaves one very dis-             servants . . . . to commit his revealed Word to writing."

satisfied. Nor is it in any way an answer to the idea of              After all that has been said on the subject of inspiration, in

mechanical inspiration really. Besides, it at least leaves open       connection with which we have continually mentioned not

the possibility that the Holy Ghost was dependent upon and            only the spoken Word of God, but also the writfen  Word of

limited by the human instruments that He was able to find.            God, the Scriptures, we need not elaborate on this subject

And, in the light of His Godhead, the latter is impossible, of        very much. Let us emphasize especially what the article itself

course.                                                               emphasizes, namely :

    Hence, it should be emphasized that the proper view of               1. That graphic inspiration is a matter of God's "special

organic inspiration requires that we work from and with that          care, which he had for us and our salvation." To glimpse

grand and fundamental principle of Scripture, the eternal             a little of this special care, consider for a moment the pos-

and sovereign counsel of the Most High, and that too. as              sibility that God's Word had never been written and then

sovereignly executed in time.     This is a truth that is all too     preserved for us of the twentieth century. 0, there was a

much ignored and neglected in connection with various other           time when God's people depended largely on, oral tradition.

aspects of the truth. And the same must be said in connec-            In the world before the flood there were no Scriptures. But

tion with inspiration. But proceeding on the basis of this            at that time oral tradition was very well possible, if you but

fundamental truth, we may distinguish the following ele-              think of the fact that Lamech, the father of Noah, could ob-

ments in organic inspiration :                                        tain the whole history of paradise and the fall directly from

    1) That just as God conceived sovereignly and from                Adam. Besides, in those times God undoubtedly revealed
eternity of His people as an organism in Christ, so He con-           Himself to men and inspired men to speak His Word as well.
ceived in His eternal counsel of the whole of Scripture, in           But today you and I would have no Word of God if it
all its parts and all its inter-relationships, as the written         were not for graphic inspiration. Indeed, this is a matter
revelation of Himself, with Christ as the heart and center of         of God's special care for us and our salvation. For without
that entire  revelation.                                              the Scriptures our salvation would be impossible.

    2) That God from eternity and sovereignly conceived of               3 That the significance of graphic inspiration is very
                                                                         I.

and determined upon special organs of Christ's body, organs           clear here. This is the meaning of the reference to God's
of inspiration, and ordained all the details of their personality,    writing with His own finger the two tables of the law. That

character, talents, education, mode of thinking, style of writ-                            (Continued on page 264)


262 .                                        T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R


                                                                        can stand in this heaven-breathed array?"

11 DECENCY and ORDER 11                                                    The antithetical note that is so pronounced in the Psalms
                                                                        must be sung by the church as well as preached. It is very

                                                                        much needed today. Even more! It must be Z&X& by the

                                                                        church in every sphere. The life of the church today is being
                  THE HYMN MATTER
                                                                        more and more synchronized with that of the world. The

                           (Continued)                                  church is playing a conciliatory role and reneging in her call

                                                                        to battle. In no single facet of our worship and life may we
   We must return once more to the report of the Synodical              contribute toward this synchronization, conciliation and
Study Committee and its report to the Synod of 1960 on                  apostasy. This we believe the introduction of hymns into the
the hymn matter. In addition to the committee's historical              worship of our churches will do by the gradual process of
and exegetical survey of the hymn question, it includes in              depriving us of the antithetical battle-song which we, by the
its report a section entitled i`Conclusions  Of Your Commit-            grace of God, have dared to sing through the ages. We must
tee."    To this section we will direct the attention of our            bolster our defenses. We plead for Psalter revision and
readers in the present article.                                         Psalter improvement by which the beauties of the Psalms
   Although the committee readily grants "that the singing              may be expressed with greater clarity and accuracy. Let the
of the hymn in public worship is nowhere expressly forbid-              talent of musical composition be diverted into this channel
den in Scripture and neither is there an express command                rather than toward the adding of other songs which will only
that the hundred fifty Psalms shall be sung excfu&vely,"  it            deprive the church of her present heritage. With Rev.
reaches the conclusion that hymns ought not to be introduced            Hoeksema we fully agree when he wrote, "Let the congrega-
in the churches. The committee has, in our opinion, some                tion first learn the riches of the psalms before she begins to
very valid reasons for this conclusion. It did not suck this            speak of the need for other songs."
out of the thumb. It did not express this simply as a personal             Another interesting note in the report of the committee
preference. It had studied the matter and after weighing all            of synod is their mentionin,
                                                                                                    m of a part of the original Article
the facts it arrived at this sound conclusion. Note, if you             69 of our Church Order which has somehow become lost.
will, a bit of the committee's reasoning.                               The Synod of Dordt appended to the article this sentence:
    The committee underscored the sentiment expressed by                "All other songs shall be kept out of the churches, and there
the Rev. H. Hoeksema when he stated: "Therefore it .is d-               where some are alreadv introduced. one shall do away with
                                                                                               ,
a1av.s w4uch  safer to keep  0ztrselve.s  to the mngzgs  addclz  the    them through the most decent means." Although there un-
Sc&tures  presertt US." (Italics ours.) It asserted that "his-          doubtedly were sauna!  hymns in existence at that time, in-
tory teaches that hymns were introduced, either when the                eluding  some written by Luther and Calvin, the Synod of
Church was in decline or when heretics assailed her with                Dordt banned them all from public worship. Would this
man-made songs in order to sing their errors into the
                                                       -      .         Synod have said that it is p&&a$ wrong to sing these
churches," and it pointed in this connection to tinosticlsm,            songs ? We doubt it but this consideration did not move the
Arianism, Appolinarianism  and Donatism in the early church             synod to decide that these songs should be introduced into
and Arminianism  in the post-reformation period. It further             the churches if they were synodically approved. On the con-
argued the point that "the hymn always has a tendency to                trary it decreed that the Psalms (with a few specified addi-
crowd the psalm out of public worship" and pointecl  to the             tions) were to be sung and "all other songs kept out of the
history of the Reformed Churches as an example. Then, too,              churches." We advocate that our synod walk in the steps of
we must quote the following from the committee's report                 these forbears.
because to us it is a stronger argument against the introduc-              And now the conclusions of the study-committee of our
tion of hymns than all we have mentioned above. The com-                synod as found on page 115 of the 1960 Acts of Synod:
mittee wrote :
                                                                            "1. History teaches that the hymn is, generally, the
    "The hymn does not give us the knowledge of God such                carrier of heresies, and has the tendency to oust and supplant
as the Psalms do. In the Psalms of David we have the                    God's Book of Psalmody.
complete and.  adequate knowledge of God in the sphere of
                                                                            "2. The hymn is largely silent anent retribution, damna-
Psalmody. All situations, conditions, trials, temptations,
                                                                        tion, election and reprobation, the wrath of God, corruption
warfare, struggles and pitfalls of the child of God are sung,
                                                                        and the filth of man in his fallen state. This is its greatest
prayed, and supplicated, as well as his victories, ecstasy,
                                                                        weakness : in its totality the hymn is not the complete knowl-
thrills , gladness and joys and hallelujahs. God shines forth
                                                                        edge of God.
gloriously as the God of our salvation in the Face of His
anointed Son, telling            in beauteous strains of His love,          "a. Many hymns are out and out Arminian, both in
                          us 
mercy, lovingkindness, faithfulness and goodness. But also              words and music.

we sing with trembling of His wrath, judgment, righteous-                   "b. They are sentimental and superficial and not worthy

ness, holiness and sure vengeance. Where is the hymn that               of use in the exalted worship of the church.


                                          T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                              263


    "c. They are not expressive of the truth of Scripture, but     down the overture but then, it appears to me, as a sort of
rather of subjective feelings and experience, and divorced         conciliatory gesture toward the First Church they intro-
from the objective truth of God's Word.                            duced the matter of "versifying Scripture" and advised
    "d. They are Christo-centric. While in itself a song con-      Synod to so change Article 69 that the introduction of versi-
cerning Christ is not wrong, it should be noticed that Scrip-      fied  songs or versified hymns would be permitted.

ture is Theo-centric. A wrong emphasis on Christ to the               We do not approve of this tactic. It is a compromise
exclusion of God is characteristic of hymns.                       measure and we look with askance upon compromises. In
    "3. The Psalms are the Book of Songs to be sung in             effect it is saying to the First Church that their request for
P u b l i c   W o r s h i p :   .                                  hymns is unacceptable but we will meet you half way and

    "a.    Christ, the Apostles, and the early Church sang them    work out something that will satisfy both you and the

exclusively.                                                       churches which will not accept hymns. We will not talk

    "b.    The Church of Christ at her most flourishing periods    anymore about hymns ; about hymns in general ; Arminian
employed the Psalms for public worship ahnost exclusively.         hymns; worthless hymns but we'll speak only about "versi-
                                                                   fied hymns," i.e., those hymns which are literal versifications
    "4. The Psalms of David give us in the sphere of song
                                                                   of the Word of God and to this no one can have objection
in public worship the full, adequate and complete knowl-
                                                                   because in pdnciple it is permissible to sing these songs.
edge of God.
                                                                   Therefore, "let us drive the carriage along the edge of the
    "5. In the Psalms of David resounds the ever abiding and       canal"    (Hib Kuiper) in spite of all the dangers we are
eternal key-note of the godly mind, while the hymns usually        aware of and about which we have told you. Let us revise
bear a temporal character, marking the one-sided conception        Article 69. And although we told you in our conclusions
of the moment in the Church of God (Kuyper).                       that "we must not dilute our beautiful Psalmody by the
    "6. There is no need for hymns next to the Psalms of           inclusion of uninspired hymns, but live in harmony with the
David, which are presented to us in Holy Scripture. There          Synod of Dordt" which said that "all other songs are to be
is in the Psalms a spiritual wealth wherein also the heart of      kept out," we now advise you not to listen to that Synod but
the New Testament Church is able to express itself perfectly,      go ahead and include as many "literal versifications" as the
provided one learn to understand those Psalms well (Hoekse-        synod will approve.
ma).
                                                                      We do not stomach this advice. When synod moved to
    "7. Faithful versifications of Scripture, other than the
                                                                   adopt this proposed change of Article 69, it is our conten-
Psalms, may be sung in the churches.
                                                                   tion that synod was no longer treating the overture of Firs;
    "And so, let us not dilute our beautiful Psalmody by the       Church but a nae, wd'ter  introduced by its study committee.       .
inclusion of uninspired hymns, but let us live in harmony          And if synod proceeds to adopt this, it will be imposing upon
with Moses, David, Asaph, Christ, the Apostles, the early          the churches a thing that was never brought to it through
Christian Church, the Council of Laodicea, and the Synod           the proper ecclesiastical channels. We may call this point a
of Dordrecht."                                                     technicality but it is an important one if this whole matter

    We must keep in mind that this committee of synod was          is viewed in its proper sequence. The overture of the First

given the original overture of the First Church, together          Church, with its grounds, was in effect that we follow the

with related material from Classis  East, for study. Would we      Reformed Churches of the Netherlands and the Christian

not expect then, in view of the first six conclusions drawn        Reformed Church here and introduce into our churches

above, that the committee would have followed with thk             hymns. Let us boldly say "No" - an uncompromising "NO"

advice that the overture requesting the introduction of hymns      -to that request and there let the matter rest. But we must

be rejected? This, it seems, would have followed logically         notice yet that again in Art. 85 of the 1960 Acts of Synod

from these conclusions. And this would have then covered           a motion was made "that the churches be given opportunity

the main thrust of the overture.                                   to express their opinion in re the advice of the study com-

    There were other things in the overture, particularly in       mittee." This failed to pass. If synod is hesitant to speak an
the grounds. For example, the First Church contended that          unequivocal "No," why does she persist in refusing to let
Article 69, in its present form, is not workable. These mat-       the churches speak their opinion ?

ters could then have also been treated under separate advice          The synod in 1960 referred the matter of revising Article
as we have suggested before.
                                                                   69 back to its study committee with the instruction that they
    The point to be observed, however, is that in spite of its     supply,proztnds  for this action. These grounds were brought
own conclusions, the committee did not so advise synod.            to the Synod of 1961 and to these we will call attention,
They added the seventh conclusion and thereby introduced           D.V., the next time.
into this question a new wmtter  which was not in the scope of
their mandate and study. In effect the committee turned                                                                  G.V.d.B.


                                                      .--_  _.,                         - C-----.-.---.  L._i_  _ _ _ _             . .
                                                                           .'
                                                           :,
       --&a...       r      ..~:I   .   .          _ -T.HE,S`T.A-N-,-JARD  BE'kkER -



                                                                                          following topics for' these sermdns : NI'arch 4, "God's People  :

          NEWS FROM OUR CHURCHES                                                          Excellent Through What ?"; March 11, "Bless The Lord,"
                                                                                          March 18, "The. Great Salvation," .and for Sunday, March
                          "`All  the saints salztte thee . . ." PHIL. 4:21                25, "The Divine Necessity of Jesus' Suffering." `The Radio
                                                                                   1
                                                                                          Committee wishes to remind our readers that the program

                                                                 Feb.. 20, 1962           to be aired March 11 will be the l.OOOth  broadcast of our

                                                                                          Distinctively Reformed Ministry. We are sure that all who
          Thursday, Feb. 8, was a happy' day for the congregation'
                                                                                          attended the special program cbmmemorating  this event will
       of ,our Southwest Church. The congregation came together
                                                                                          listen to this broad&t and we urge all who could not be
       for the purpose of shaiin g their pastor's joy in celebrating
                                                                                          there to tune in on this history making event. Address re-
       the 25th anniversary of his ordination into the Ministry. To
                                                                                          quests for this and all our broadcasts to The Refoimed  Wit-
       the Schipper family that date had triple meaning for oti  it
                                                                                          ness Hour, P.O. Box S, Grand Rapids 1, Mich.
       the birthday anniversaries of both father and daughter were
       also celebrated. The congregation enjoyed a dinner in the                             In one of the February meetings of the Hull Ladies'
       church parlors before meeting in the auditorium for the pro-                       society the after recess discussidn centered around the sub-
       gram.      Guests included Rev. Schipper's father and mother                       ject of celebrating Holy Communion, touching upon such
       from Holland, Rev. and Mrs. H. Hoeksema, Rev. arid Mrs.                            aspects as children's participating, and the use of the com-
       G. M. Ophoff and Rev. and Mrs. C. Hanko. Rev. Hoeksema                             mon cup.

       gave a speech on, "The Minister And The Book." The mu-                                At the beginning of this year's society season the following

       sical portion of the program consisted of a male quartet, a                        paragraph appeared in Oak Lawn's bulletin: "Active partic-

       piano-organ duet, and an accoydion-electric  guitar duet. In                       ipation in the society activities of the church is an indication

       behalf of the congregation, Mr. Ted Engelsma, consistory                           of spiritual interest in the things of God's kingdom ; spiritual

       clerk, presented Rev. Schipper with a purse in token of their                      interest is a token of spiritual life ; and spiritual life is

       love and esteem and in appreciation of all he means to them.                       nourished and strengthened by the Word studied and d?s-

       At the close of the meeting, Rev. C. Hanko led the congrega-                       cussed in society. God blesses us through the processes

       tion in a prayer of thanksgiving to their God Who graciously                       which He Himself has instituted in His church." And in

       gave such a great privilege to His faithful servant.                               his Feb. 18 bulletin Rev. Vanden  Berg writes: "On Monday

          Edgerton's Feb. 11th bulletin announces a change of date,                       evening the Men's Society meets, giving us the opportunity

.;i    from Feb. 22 to March 5, of the advertised lecture sponsored                       to talk together about God. Tomorrow we will discuss Rev.
.I
       by their Men's Society. The postponed lecture was the one                          22 :l-6 and after recess the 4th Commandment will be dis-

       scheduled to be presented by their pastor, Rev. B. Wouden-                         cussed. Men, do yo'u  have `Mzoye  importa,nt  things tlLan tlxess

       berg, on "The Christian's Attitude Toward War."                                    to talk a.boud  towowoze~  night?" People of God, young and

          Another coming event for our Western Churches is a                              old, re-read the above item, applying the circumstances to fit
       "Mission Night" sponsored by Hull's Ladies' Society. A                             your society, and answer the question to the glory of God.

       prbgram has been arranged including an address by our M'is-                            Remmzbm,  ".  .   . . tl"lat they which do sztch  things (the

       sionary, Rev. G. Lubbers. He plans to speak on his mis-                            works of the flesh) shal2i  not &&et-it  the kingdo.w  of God.

       sionary labors under the theme, "The Word of God is not                            But the frz&  of the spirit  is love, joy, peace; lo~~gsu~eri~ag,

       Bound." And, indicating the close unity of the neighboring                         gentleness, goodness,  faith, meekness, tempwance:  against
       churches, the people of Doon  and of Edgerton  are invited.                        ych there is no laze." Gal. 5 :21b,  22, 23.
           Following his good custom whenever a worthwhile speech                             . . . . see you in church.                             J.M.F.
       is rendered in his or a neighboring church, Rev. VandenBerg

       prints and offers for distribution copies thereof. The last one

       so prepared is a copy of the speech by Prof. H. C. Hoeksema
       given at the Dedication of their new school in South Holland.                                      THE VOICE OF OUR FATHERS
                                                                                                              (Continued from page 261)
          Bulletin Quote (Lynden's) : "A family is the seminary o?                        reference is not merely to an isolated instance, but esactly
       the church and state; and if children be not well principled                       means to emphasize that all of Scripture is so thoroughly the
       therein, all mis-carries : a fault in the first . . . is not mended                written record of God's Word that it is as though God Him-
       in the second. If youth be bred ill in the family, they prove ill                  self wrote it all with His own finger.
       in church and commonwealth. There is the first making or                              And the conclusion of faith is plain: "Therefore," that
       marring, and the presage of their future lives to be thence                        is, since in view of the truths confessed in this article that
       taken, Prov. 20 :ll" - Thomas Manton.                                              is actually the case - "Therefore we call such writings holy

          The Lord willing, the Rev. Hoeksema hopes to continue                           and divine Scriptures."    In other words, when we call them

       his current series of radio messages for the Reformed Wit-                         such, we are not using a mere, empty term; but we call them

       ness Hour during the month of March. He has selected the                           such because that is truly what they are !                H.C.H.


