                                                                                _, (.





    VOLTJIvfE =xvIII                          JUNE 1, 1962 - GRAND RAPIDS,  MICHIGAN                                      NUTWBER  1'7



                                                                          " There is something wonderful about that suddenness and

                                                                          that rushing act of Triune God.

                                                                             God is in a hurry!

                                                                             Again the fulness of time had come. There are many
              PENTECOSTAL BLESSINGS                                       such fulnesses in the counsel of God. This was the fulness

                                                                          of time when God would send out His own love into the
          "And when the day of .Pe&ecost  was fully  come., they          hearts of His beloved children. God had waited ( ?) 4000
     were all z&h  one accord' in one phce. And suddenly                  years for this moment. And when it finally came God is in a
     there ca.me  a sound frond  heaven as of a ru.shing  &ghty           great hurry to share His love with men, with men of His
     w,ind, a,fid  it @led  a.11 the house where they were sit&g.         goodpleasure.
     And there appeaued  unto the?%  cloven tongues like aI                  Do not read over that word: suddenly. You would miss
     of fiye,  and it sa.t upon each of them. And they were
                                                                          one of the most wonderful characteristics of the day of
     all filled z&la  the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with
                                                                          Pentecost.
     other tongues, as the Spirit ga(ve  them uttfmmce.,"            :

                                                     Acts 2 3-41             There is something indescribably beautiful in the sudden

                                                                          rush of .a mother when she spies her lost child, the child that
   The whole church is assembled in-&e  place. That is                    had been in mortal danger. When the child. is seen by the
emphasized. They are with one accord in one place.                        loving eye of mother, she rushes suddenly forward to grasp-

   It is so long ago, and yet we can somewhat imagine the                 the darling to her bosom and envelops it in the embrace of

sweet unity that bound these hundred and twenty souls                     sweetest love. There is no love like the love of a mother.

together. They all loved the Lord. Oh, how glad they had                  That is, on this earth.

been when finally they had all seen the Lord, and had all .be-
                                                                             But hold on!
lieved His wondrous resurrection. There `was plenty to talk

about! They must have rehearsed and rehearsed again the                      There is a love that far transcends the love of all mothers,

various appearances of the Lord. and what He had said at                  multiplied a million times. It is the love of God.

these appearances.                                                           The fulness of time had come when the love of God would

   The love of God and of His Christ bound them together,.                be spread abroad in, the hearts of His children as never

and that unity in the love of God would shine the more                    before. And so there is that tender suddenness and that

brightly after the promise of the Holy Spirit had been re-                loving rush, even in the sound as of a mighty wind.

alized
                                                                             Neither is the Lord miserly when He comes to give Him-

   They are together with one accord in one place.                        self through the Lord Jesus Christ unto His church. Note

 And they wait.                                                           that this mysterious and joyful sound'as of a rushing mighty
                                                                          wind filled all the house where the church was gathered.
   They wait for the New Testament Pentecost!

                                                                             God .gives  and He gives plentifully. Even in the Old

                          * * * *                                         Testament we see glimpses of that overflowing grace. My
                                                                          cup is overflowing. And Joel sings of the veritable flood of

   And suddenly !                                                         the Holy Spirit that would come in "those days."

   Also note this : from heaven !                                            You see it also in nature.

   And : a rushing mighty wind !                                             Attend unto this wonderful fact: the Lord knows that

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



His earthly creation needs the light of the sun. Well, He                And so is the Holy Ghost which Jesus Christ received

made a sun, and the scientists have figured out how much              at His glorification in heaven, and which He is now pouring

of the oceans of light of the sun are wasted ( ?). They have          out upon His church.

computed the amount of light that shines past the earth  and             That Spirit is the mysterious power which brings the
that shines in other directions than toward the earth at all          Kingdom of heaven to fruition, which labors upon it and
times.     And the computed sums are staggering. You see,             brings it to its final completion.
God is not niggardly when He blesses. He ove&loads  us
                                                                         Christ spoke of that mysterious' Wind to Nicodemus.
with His blessings.

                                                                         If is the power of God whereby the church is drawn from
       It is in the very nature of the eternal.
                                                                      the depth of death and hell and damnation unto the loving
       When you go to a party to which you have  looked for-          arms of God.
ward with great eagerness, you are usually disappointed,
                                                                         It is through that Holy Ghost that we are born again.
for the time comes altogether too fast when you must bid

one another adieu. But God's party will last unto all eternity           The Holy Ghost is the Almighty Person, God out of God,

and the rivers of God's pleasures are full of water.                  who brings you all the blessings of God's eternal covenant.

       Pentecost is therefpre the ozttpowdng  of the Holy Spirit         That mysterious power dwells in your heart never  to

of grace.                                                             forsake you again.

       Pentecost is beautifully plenteous !                              He takes the Bible and whispers that Bible in your heart,

                                                                      and comforts you in deepest night.
                             * * * *
                                                                         And, oh, He is in a hurry to acquaint you with all the

                                                                      goodness and all the love of God.

       But what do we see there 7                                      A mysterious, a loving, a rushing power is the love of

       There appeared upon them cloven tongues as of fire and         God.

it sat upon each of them.                                                                          +    * * *

       And what do we hear?

       These common fisherfolk begin to talk, and they speak             And then that column of fire!

strange languages.                                                       I conceive of it as an appearance of a great column of

       And  I am certain that no mistakes were made in gram-          fire, above the heads of the 120 disciples, and darting down-

mar or pronunciation.                                                 ward were those cloven tongues, each pointing to an indi-

                                                                      vidual member of that first New Testament Church.
       Pentecost is also God's grammar school;

                                                                         And what does it mean ?
       Mighty wonders  of God,

                                                                         First, fire purges, cleanses. It does that in the natural.
       Let us look carefuliy  on these several signs. They have
                                                                      I remember the day when the physician would give his need-
a story to tell. A story of the love of God and its marvellous
                                                                      les and other instruments a baptism of actual fire in order
work unto the children of men.
                                                                      to destroy all bacterial life that might inhabit his tools and
       First, there is the sound of that rushing mighty wind.         endanger the incision he was about to make.

       No, it was no wind. Nothing stirred on that day. I                And so the fire of God's love purges the church. It
think that it belongs to the wonder, as people must have              burns out all impurities and it heals. Did you ever hear of
observed later, that Jerusalem enjoyed a great calm in nature         the effect of cauterizing ?
when this mysterious sound came down from heaven.
                                                                         Second, it sanctifies.
       That wind ! It is the Divine ,uztach,  the sign of the Holy
                                                                         We speak of the fire of enthusiasm. An& rightly so.
Ghost of God.

                                                                         God's Holy Spirit of Christ sanctifies the Church. He
       How fitting when God employs the natural and the earthy
                                                                      sets us on fire with Divine and heavenly enthusiasm. And it
to reveal and teach the spiritual and the heavenly.
                                                                      is because of this heavenly visit of fire that the saints loved
       The wind, among us mortals, is the mysterious, that            not their lives unto death. They had something in them that
which is heard but not seen ; it is the irresistible and the          was more precious than the natural love a man has for his
fitting symbol of almighty power. Ask this of the people that         life on earth.                             -'
dwell in the middle West. They will tell you of the sudden
                                                                         But fire also destroys, it burns and consumes.
cyclones and whirlwinds that come down from heaven upon

them. And how the results of careful and long drawn-out                   Pentecost is lovable, glorious, heavenly. It sings of sweet

labor are destroyed in a moment.                                      strains of the music that is heavenly. But it also howls and


                                          T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                                                                                                      387



roars of the wrath of God when by the Spirit of His mouth

He will consume the wicked from off the face of the earth.                                  T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R

                                                                         Semi-monthly, except monthly during June, July and August

                            * * * *                                       Published by the REFOR-  FREE PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
                                                                         P. 0. Box 881, Madison Square Station, Grand Rapids 7; Mich.

                                                                                                    Editor - REV. HERMAN HOEKSEMA
   And, finally, there is that miracle of the tongues.
                                                                         Communications relative to contents should be addressed to
   It comes last, and that is fitting.                                                   Rev. H. Hoeksema, 1139 Franklin St., S.E.,
                                                                                                                Grand Rapids 7, Mich.

   You have all heard of the confusion of the speech of                   Announcements and Obituaries with the $2.00 fee included
                                                                         must be mailed 8 days prior to issue date, to the address below:
man. It is the story of Babel. We have heard of it in our
                                                                         All matters relative to subscriptions should be addressed to Mr.
first catechism classes,                                                                  James Dykstra, 1326 W. Butler Ave., S. E.
                                                                                            I-              Grand Rapids 7, Michigan
   Well, this Babel is now healed.
                                                                         RENEWAL: Unless a definite request for discontinuance is re-
   Attend to the speakers of the first day of Pentecost.                 ceived it is assumed that the subscriber wishes the subscription
                                                                               to continue without the formality of a renewal order.
   They all speak in strange tongues. And their speech is                                           Subscription price: $5.00 per year

about the wonderful works of God.                                              Second Cluss  postage paid at Grand Rapids, Michigan


   Babel is healed. For the whole multitude hears but on5

sermon: the praises of God Almighty.                                                                                 C O N T E N T S

                                                                    MEDITATION -
    0 Pentecost, thou art wonderful to- us that live in this              .    Pentecostal Blessings                           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
day.                                                                                    Rev. G. Vos

   The Holy Spirit of Christ Jesus dwells in us, in the entire      EDITORLUS  -

church of Jesus Christ.                                                        Election and Reprobation According to Barth . . . .._................ 388

                                                                                         Rev. H. Hoeksema
    It envelops the entire church, not one is missed. (Did

you note that the controversy of "false" brethren does not          OUR  DOCTIUNE-
                                                                               Saving Faith . . ..___..___......._........................................................                                               390
even come up ?)
                                                                               Of Justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,391

    They are all filled with the Holy Ghost. They are all                               Rev. I-& Hoeksema

purged by that Spirit and they are all sanctified by that           A CLOUD OF i%l-NESSES -
Spirit.                                                                        Rebellion and Punishment                                  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

                                                                                        Rev. B. Woudenberg
    And the whole church unites in the braises  of God. His

wonderful works are proclaimed throughout the earth.                FROM HOLY WRIT -

                                                                               Exposition of I Timothy . . . . . . .._ .._........_...........  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
    Do you think that it is any different now ?                                          Rev. G. Lubbers

    Oh no, God knows them who are His.                              IN &`FEAR  -

                                                                               Under Grace iu a Lawless World (3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
    A controversy as to who has the promise and who
                                                                                        Rev. J. A. Heys
has not? Let us reduce it to this question: Who has the

Holy Spirit of Pentecost?                                           CONTFNDING  FOR THE Fm-
                                                                               The Church and the Sacraments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
        "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is                             Rev. H. Veldman

none of His !"
                                                                    THE VOICE OF @JR  FATHERS-
                                                            G.V.               The        Belgic          Confession                 .__..............  . . . . . . . . 40_0

                                                                                         Rev. H. C. Hoeksema


                                                                    DECENCY AND ORDER -
                       Announcement                                            The Hymn Matter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
                                                                                         Rev. G. Vanden  Berg

        The Standard Bea!arer  Staff will meet, D.V., Thursday
                                                                    ALLAROUNDUS-
evening, June 7, at First Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.                    More on Church Union . . ..___._...  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..404
                                          John A. Heys, Sec'y                  U.S. Aid to Schools in Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .._ 405
                                                                                         Rev. H. Ha&o


                                                                    cONTRIBWITONS  -

                                                                               "The         Psalters            Questioned" .._...........  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
               Hope in God, ye waiting people ;
                                                                                         Mr. H. W. Kuiper
                 Mercies great with Him abound ;

               With the Lord a full redemption                      N E W S FROM O U R &s~xc~~s.  . . . ..___.............  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,408
                                                                                         Mr. J. M. Faber
                 From the guilt of sin is found.
                                                                    ,


388                                         T H E   ST.ANDAti.D  B E A R E R



                                                                     infallibility of the Word of God as revealed in Scripture, but

                                                                     rather his conception of election and reprobation.

                                                                             I certainly would have liked to have heard him lecture

                                                                     on that subject. And I am convinced, too, that no Reformed
Elec'rion  and Reprobation According to Barth                        theologian, or, for that matter, Reformed man or woman that

                                                                     is acquainted with this truth as revealed in the Bible, can
       No doubt, Karl Barth is one of the best known and
                                                                     possibly agree with Barth.
most famous theologians of modern times.

                                                                            He, indeed, uses many words and writes very elaborately
       But at the same time, it may be said that he is one of the
                                                                     on this subject. In fact, in the second volume of "Die Kirch-
strangest figures in the theological world. On the one hand,
                                                                     lithe Dogmatik" he devotes more than five hundred pages,
he is lauded and accepted by both orthodox and modern
                                                                     much of it in small print, to this subject alone. And, I am
theologians and "church people" of the present time ; on
                                                                     sorry to say, he seems to struggle with many words to cover
the other hand, he is condemned by both moderns and
                                                                     up his real meaning.
orthodox.
                                                                            On this subject, then, I wish to devote a few articles.
       How can this be explained ?                                   And first of all, I will give an outline of what Barth writes

       Is it perhaps true that Barth is intentionally vague so       on this subject and also a few definitions. The translation

that he can be explained either this way or that, in favor of        as well as some paraphrasing is mine. I know that much of

modern and orthodox theology? Does he purposely speak                Barth's Dogmatics has already been translated into English,

out of "bbth  sides of his mouth"?                                   but this translation* I do not' have, and since by far  most

                                                                     of our readers cannot read German, I will either translate or
       In a' panel discussion at the Rockefeller chapel as it was
                                                                     paraphrase.
reported in one of the Chicago papers, the question was
asked Barth how he would justify his "appeal to Scripture as                Barth offers the following definition of election:

the objective Word of God with his admission that Scrip-                    "The doctrine of election is the sum (Summe)  of the

ture is sullied by errors, theological as well as historical."       gospel, while it is the very best that can ever be said or heard :

Barth answered : "The Bible has proven and will continue             that God elects man and thus is also for him the one that

to prove itself as the true and fitting instrument to point          loves freely (der in Freiheit Liebende). It is grounded in

men to God. The Bible, being a human instrument, is bound            the knowledge of Jesus Christ, because He is the electing

by the temporal use of nature, history and ideas. Just so fas,       God and the elected man all in one. It belongs therefore to

the Bible is not sinless, like Jesus Christ himself and not          the doctrine of' God, since God chooses man, and destines

infallible like God. No wonder that even from the viewpoint          him, not only over him, but in an original manner over Him-

of world views and concepts of other ages the question may           self. Its function consists in the foundation-laying matter

arise whether or not we have problems of certain tensions,           of the eternal, free and permanent grace as the beginning of

contradictions, and, if you prefer the term, `errors'."              all the ways and works of God."

   Did Barth answer the question that was asked him?                        This is a rather heavy definition.

He did not. It is true that he admitted, after many words                   We may notice also that the definition concerns, not

that really had nothing to do with the question, that there          predestination, but only election. And in the explanation of

are errors in Scripture "if you prefer the term." But this           this definition in pages 1 to 100, it already becomes evident

was not the question. The question was "how  he would                that Barth, I will not say as yet, denies reprobation, but does

justify his appeal to Scripture as the objective Word of God         not like it. Later we must say more about  this.

with his admission that Scripture was sullied by errors,                    In three chapters Barth explains his definition of the

theological as well as historical." And this question he cer-        doctrine of election. First he speaks of the direction of the

tainly did not answer. He avoided and camouflaged it.                doctrine of election. Briefly we may say that the doctrine of

   Barth certainly quotes frequently from the Bible, espe-           election is directed to the revelation of God's love, and that,
cially also in his "Die Kirchliche Dogmatik." But the ques-          too, of God's merciful love (barmherzige Liebe) in Christ
                                                                     J
tion is: how can he possibly do this? Who, if the Bible is                esus.    Secondly, Barth has a chapter on the ground (Be-
not infallible and if there are errors in Scripture, is going        griindung) of the doctrine of election. In response to the
to determine what is truth and what is error? According to           question : from where comes the doctrine of predestination,
what principle can anyone do this ? This was the question            Barth answers, first that it cannot rest on tradition, not even
which Barth was supposed to have answered. And this he               dn the tradition of the Church. Secondly, this doctrine can-
certainly did not do.                                                not rest on its usefulness. And, thirdly, and emphatically, it
                            * * * *                                  cannot be based on experience. The result of such prepos-
                                                                     sessed and predetermined experience, according to Barth,

   But my subject, for the present, is not Barth's view of the       is that one approaches Scripture with all this experience in


                                           TH.E  STANDARD   B E A R E R                                                           389


mind and, instead of letting Scripture speak for itself," hk           This `I will continue now.

injects his own experience-philosophy into the Bible and               In paragraph one of the seventh chapter Barth speaks of

thus comes to the conclusion there are "both elect and rep-         the election of J&us Christ.
robate of God."                                                         First of all he offers a definition of "Die Gnadenwahl in

   Still another possibility as the ground of election (and         Jesus Christus," the gracious election in Jesus Christ. And

reprobation) Barth denies. It is the theory that makes the          this I better translate as literally as possible :

almighty power of God and His determinate foreknowledge                 "The gracious election is the eternal beginning of all the
the ground of election and reprobation. It is God, and  not         ways and works of God in Jesus Christ, in which God in free
a blind  fate or chance that elects or rejects.                     grace gives or destines (bestimmt) himself for sinful men

   Of course, Barth writes much more under this head, but           and sinful men for himself and also takes upon himself the

we cannot go into this now. Even what he writes about the           reprobation (Verwerfung) of men with all its consequences

Remonstrants of the seventeenth century and about the Synod         and elects men unto participation of his own glory."

of Dordrecht, though it is very interesting, we must pass by            In explanation of this definition, if I may so call it, he
for the time being. The same is true of what he writes about        has two items: 1. Jesus Christ is both, the electing and the
the Lutheran conception of predestination.                          elect. 2. The eternal will of God.

   And as far as the question concerning the ground of the              In this explanation a few things demand our special

doctrine of election is concerned, we may briefly state that it     attention.

must be found in the self-revelation of God as espressed in             First of all that Jesus Christ is the electing God. In this
the Scriptures, the self-revelation of God in Christ Jesus,         connection I must call attention to the fact that Barth must
Who is, both the electing God and the elect Man.                    have nothing of what is called a decretzm.  absolutzm,  an ab-

   In the third chapter in explanation of Barth's definition        solute decree. And especially attention must be called to the

of election Barth speaks of ti?e place of the doctrine of elec-     fact that, according to Barth, Jesus Christ was in the be-

tion in dogmatics. We can afford to be brief here. Accord-          ginning with God. He proposes this especially on the basis

ing to Barth, the Reformed fathers treated the doctrine of          of the first two verses of John 1. "In the beginning was the

predestination after that of creation and the fall of man. He       Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

writes that seemingly the doctrine of predestination belongs        This Word, according to him, was not merely the Son of

inseparably to the doctrine of God and, therefore, must pre-        God, but was Jesus Christ. He writes on pages 111, 112

cede the doctrine of creation and the fall. Nevertheless,           that this not simply means that in God's decree Jesus Christ

according to him, this is not the case.                             was in the beginning, i.e., from all eternity with God. But

    It is true that infra-lapsarianism injects the historical       it means that Jesus Christ was "im Anfang,"  in the beginning
order in the decrees, of God so that election comes after           with God in reality, as "the firstborn of every creature."

creation and the fall. It also is true that the Reformed Con-           Secondly, Barth emphasizes that Jesus Christ is also the

fessions are usually infra-lapsarian. And this is not correct.      elect of God as Man. He is not simply "ei%  Erwghlter,"  an

For, undoubtedly, what is first in order in God's decrees is        elect, but He is "der  Erwshlter," the elect of God. Other

last in history. But it .is not true this holds for all Reformed    elect are not simply chosen next or alongside of Him, but

theology of the sixteenth century. And as for myself I have         according to Eph. 1:4 in Him, that is in His person, in His

always taught that the order of the decrees of God must be          will.

conceived as follows: 1. God determined to glorify himself              Thirdly, Barth emphasizes that Christ suffered and died,
outside of Himself (this, in fact, is true of all Reformed          not only for the sin of His people, but also took upon Him-
theology, whether infra. or supra). 2. For the highest realiza-     self the reprobation of all men. For we all have delivered
tion of this purpose, He appointed His only begotten Son            ourselves unto the wrath of God and unto His reprobation
to become the Christ. 3. Again, for the highest realization         (Verwerfung). But Christ has taken our reprobation upon
of this purpose He gave unto Christ the elect, that He might        Himself. But even as the Reprobate, Christ remains the
be the firstborn among many brethren. 4. For the realization        Elect of God. And, therefore, in taking their reprobation
of this purpose, He determined that not all should be elect         upon Himself He has cancelled forever their reprobation. In
but some should be reprobate. 5. Then follows the decree            other words: reprobation is no more.
concerning creation and the fall. 6. And the decree concern-                                                                  H.H.
ing all things that have to be realized in history.

    But un&ttingly I have already begun to criticize and that                            Attention, Please!
is not the purpose of this article.                                     According to custom, during the months of June, July

    My purpose is rather to present an outline of what Barth        and August, only one issue of The Stlc&md  Bear&v  will ap-
teaches about the doctrine of election and reprobation.             pear, i.e., one each month.                                   Ed.

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


                                                                     in the things of the kingdom of God. Reference is usually

        O U R   DOCTRI'NE                                            made to the parable of the sower, in Matthew 13 5, 6: "Some
                                                                     fell upon stony places, where they  had not much earth: and

                                                                     forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of

                                                                     earth : And when the sun was up, they were scorched ; and
                           CHAPTER III                               because they had no root, they withered away.,' One may

                                                                     also perhaps refer to Hebrews 6:4-8, which speaks of those
                       SAVING FAITH                                  that have once been enlightened, and have tasted of the

                                                                     heavenly gift, and become partakers of the Holy Ghost, and
                           (Continued)
                                                                     tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the age to

       Usually a distinction is made between true, saving faith      come, and then fall away. It is natural that especially under

and other kinds of so-called faith, such as historical faith,        the influence of wild and enthusiastic revivals, such tem-

temporary faith, and miraculous faith.                               porary faith reveals itself. But also this has nothing to do

                                                                     with true, saving faith. The latter operates from within,
       Historical faith is a mere, objective assent to the truth
                                                                     from the principle of the regenerated heart, and through the
of some part of the revelation of God in Scripture. It is an
                                                                     efficacious calling by the Holy Spirit. Temporary faith is
operation of the natural mind. It is not rooted in the love of
                                                                     effected from without, especially through emotional preach-
God and in regeneration. And, of course, it is also without
                                                                     ing and the so-called altar-call, by which the emotions are
personal application. It stands to reason that historical faith
                                                                     affected, but not the heart.
is no confidence in the God of our salvation. Just as one may

believe that Paul or Apollos  existed, so one may also believe          Finally, we must call attention to what is called mirac-
that Christ was born in Bethlehem and that He died on                ulous faith. This kind of so-called faith is either active or
Golgotha, without being spiritually affected by the truth            passive. Active miraculous faith is the strong conviction that
whatsoever. I say that historical faith accepts only parts of        a miracle can be performed by the one that possesses this
the truth as it is revealed in the Word of God. It                   faith. Sometimes I doubt whether this is true. Did a man
does not accept everything.      So, for instance, one may be-       like Judas, for instance, possess this miraculous faith? It is
lieve that Christ existed and that He taught the people during       true that the Lord sent forth His disciples to preach the
His thirty years of sojourn, and that after that He was killed       gospel and also to heal the sick and to perform miracles. And
by the Jews and  crucified by the sentence of Pontius Pilate.        therefore it would seem that even a man like Judas possessed
But he cannot believe, really believe, in the resurrection and       this miraculou<"faith.  On the other hand, we must not forget
exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, the term              that the Lord sent forth His disciples two by two, and that
h&orical  faith `is really not quite correct. For it includes not    therefore it does tiot necessarily follow that also Judas per-
only the facts of history that are recorded in Scripture, but        formed miracles. But, as I say, I cannot be positive, espe-
also certain moral and ethical truths. One may, for instance,        cially when we consider not only the active miraculous faith,
believe that man is a sinner, that he is not perfect, without,       but also the passive. In the passive sense, miraculous faith
however, being sorry for sin and coming to repentance. And           is the conviction that a miracle can be and will be performed
that he cannot accept all the truths that are revealed in            upon one.    The question is often asked whether miraculous
Scripture is evident from modern philosophy and modern               faith still exists. Our answer would be that God, of course,
theology, which deny such things as the virgin birth, the            is able to perform miracles now, in the present dispensation,
atonement, and the reconciliation of the sinner to God through       as well as at the time of Christ and the apostles. Nor can
the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. In a word, the natural           we deny that in exceptional cases, when it is necessary for
mind cannot and will not accept spiritual things. Thus, then,        the establishment and corroboration of the gospel, God will
so-called historical faith is very limited. Nevertheless it can      still perform wonders, although we have no proof to establish
accept certain facts and truths that are revealed in Holy            such facts. Neverkheless,  it undoubtedly must be said that
Writ. Thus, we read that the devils believe that God is One,         signs and wonders were performed before the time when the
and they tremble. James 2 :19.  And Agrippa, according to            special revelation of Scripture was completed, and that too,
Paul, believes the prophets. Acts 26:27. But after all is said,      to establish the `truth concerning Christ and the gospel. It
it must not be forgotten that historical faith is essentially        is not impossible that in the future, immediately before the
different from saving faith. It is not spiritual, but natural.       coming of Christ, God will once more show signs and won-
It is not rooted in the regenerated heart of man. And there-         ders. Nevertheless, it-is essential that also this miraculous
fore, it is no saving faith whatsoever.                              faith as such has nothing to do in common with saving faith.

       But what is temporary faith ? It is an affectation of the     One that has miraculous faith, and believes that he can per-

emotions, or even of the natural mind and will of man,               form miracles or that a`miracle  can be performed upon him,

whereby for a time one apparently embraces Christ and all            may or may not have the saving faith in Christ Jesus our

His benefits, and even evinces an enthusiastic joy and interest      Lord.


                                            T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                  391


                                                                        sanctification and justification, to which we must refer later.
                           CHAPTER IV
                                                                        Sanctification removes the pollution of sin, and causes the

                                                                        life of regeneration to triumph over the old man of sin. But
                    OF JUSTIFICATION                                    justification is a legal concept. It removes the guilt of sin,

                                                                        clothing the sinner with a righteousness of God in Christ.

    We now come to the important subject of justification.
And, first of all, I may define justification as that act of                The Reformation of the sixteenth century emphasized this
God's grace whereby He imputes to the sinner that is in                 truth of justification as a legal act of God whereby He de-
himself guilty and  condemned, but elect in Christ, the perfect         clares the sinner righteous. Before the Reformation, the
righteousness of God in Christ, acquits him on the ground of            truth of justification was not always clearly confessed and
the merits of Christ Jesus our Lord of all guilt and punish-            understood. The making just, or righteous, was often con-
ment, and gives him the right to everlasting life.                      fused with the forensic act whereby God declares the sinner
                                                                        righteous. In the Middle Ages justification was presented
    The words for justificatioi,  both in the Old and in the
                                                                        as really including sanctification. The sins of man are for-
Nkw Testament, have uniformly a legal, or judicial, signifi-            given, and he is made righteous in the spiritual, ethical sense
cance. In other words, they do not refer to ethical righteous-          of the word. And this, really, became the doctrine of the
ness, or sanctification, but  rather to juridical righteousness.        Roman Catholic Church. The grace of justification is infused
Justification means that God declares a sinner just, and                in man. And on the basis of that infused righteousness, his
places him in a state of righteousness. Thus, for instance, we          sins are forgiven. Hence, justification is based, at least in
may refer to the text in Proverbs 17 :15  : "He that justifieth         part, on the good works of the sinner himself. The Reforma-
the wicked, and condemneth  the just . . . ." The same is true          tion, however, changed this, and emphasized the truth that
of Deuteronomy 25 :l : "They shall justify the righteous and            justification is a purely legal act, changing the state of the
condemn the wicked." The same meaning is also evident                   sinner without changing his condition. Sanctification is based
from Isaiah 50:8,  where the Servant of the Lord speaks as              on justification, never the reverse. And this is the expression
follows : "He is near that justifieth me ; who will contend             of all the Reformed symbols.
with me ?' This is also true of the meaning of the verb that

is used in the New Testament. Justification does not refer                  This is also true, as we might indeed expect, of the

to one's ethical righteousness, but to the state of righteous-          Lutheran confession. In the Formula of Concord, Article

ness which is the result of a legal declaration. Thus we find           3, we read:      "We unanimously believe, teach, and confess

in Romans 2:13 : "The doers of the law shall be justified."             that Christ is truly our righteousness, but yet neither accord-

And in Romans 3 :20  we read : "Out of the*-works  of the law           ing to the divine nature alone nor according to the human

no flesh shall be justified before him." In Romans 4:5 the              nature alone, but the whole Christ according to both natures,

apostle Paul makes the apparently unjustifiable expression :            to wit : in his sole, most absolute obedience which he rendered

"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that                 to the Father even unto death, as God and man, and thereby

justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."        merited for us the remission of all our sins and eternal life.

God justifies the ungodly. But in the passage of Romans                 As it is written: `As by one man's disobedience many were

3 :26 this apparently unjustifiable declaration of the apostle          made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be

is justified, and the assertion is made: "To declare, I say,            made righteous' (Rom. 5 :101).

at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the
                                                                          "We. believe, therefore, teach, and confess that this very
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." The same truth is
                                                                        thing is our righteousness before God, namely, that God
expressed in Galatians 2 :16:     "Knowing that a man is not
                                                                        remits to us our sins of mere grace, without any respect of
justified by the works of the law, but by the fai.th  of Jesus
                                                                        our works, going before, present, or following, or of our
Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might
                                                                        worthiness or merit. For he bestows and imputes to us the
be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of
                                                                        righteousness of the obedience of Christ; for the sake of that
the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justi-
                                                                        righteousness we are received by God into favor and ac-
fied." Virtually the same truth is expressed in Romans 5 :19,
                                                                        counted righteous.
now with a view to the obedience of Christ: "For as by one

man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obe-                  "We believe also, teach, and confess that Faith alone is
dience of one shall many be made righteous." From all these             the means and instrunient whereby we lay hold on Christ the
passages, and from many others in the New Testament, it is              Saviour, and so in Christ lay hold on that righteousness
evident that righteousness does not refer to any ethical right-         which is able to stand before the judgment of God'; for that
eousness, but to the legal act of justification, that is, of placing    faith, for Christ's sake, is imputed to us for righteousness
man, and particularly the sinner, in the state of righteousness         (Rom. 4 :5) ."     Cf. Schaff,  "Creeds of Christendom," III,
before God.                                                             pp. 115, 116.

   This emphasizes at the same time the difference between                                                                       H.H.


392                                            T H E   S.TANDAR:D   B E A R E R


                                                                           peating itself. His wrath was kindled and would not be

rA Gk.OUD  OF W.DTNESSES  1 silent. When Moses appeared before Him, God spoke, "How
                                                                           long will this people provoke me ? and how long will it be

                                                                           ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed

                 Rebellion and Punishment                                  among them ? I will smite them with the pestilence, and
                                                                           disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and

           Ami  the LORD s&d,  I have pardoned accord&g  to                mightier than they."

        thy wof-d:                                                            Just as before at Mt. Horeb, Moses found himself stand-

           But as tmly  as I live,  all, the em&  shall be ji?Jed  with    ing in the position of a mediator between Israel and God's

        the glory of the LORD.                                             holy wrath, a type of the true Mediator to come. The people

                                                                           had sinned a great sin ; and, if he would stand aside, the
           Became  all those men which have seen YX~ glpsy,  and
                                                                           justice of God would consume them in a moment. The
        way mimcles,  zuhiclz  I did h Egypt and i,n the witder-
                                                                           seriousness of the situation brought from within him the
        ness, and have tempted me now these ten &aea, and
                                                                           deepest love which he felt. Nothing could detract him from
        have hearkmed  to my vo&;
                                                                           it, not even the possibility of highest exaltation for him and
           Swely they slmll vtot see the land which I swaive unto          his own children. Only one thing finally mattered to Moses,
        the&  fa,thers, neither shall any of them that provoked            and that he, quickly expressed. "Then the Egyptians shall
        -me see it:                              Numbers 14 :20-23         hear it (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might

                                                                           from among them ;) and they will tell it to the inhabitants
       It was a troubled spirit that moved through the camp of
                                                                           of this land : for they have heard that thou LORD art among
Israel. God had brought them to what appeared to be an
                                                                           this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that
utterly impossible situation.      Spies had been sent to find out
                                                                           thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before
what the land of Canaan was like, and upon returning the
                                                                           them, by day in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire
great majority of them had agreed that the land was im-
                                                                           by night. Now if thou wilt kill all this people as one man,
possible to conquer. Only two out of the twelve had felt
                                                                           then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak,
that they could take the land, and that was merely on the
                                                                           saying, Because the LORD was not able to bring this people
basis of a faith that Jehovah could do what was apparently
                                                                           into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath
impossible to them. Once the people saw what stood before
                                                                           slain them in the wilderness. And now, I beseech thee, let
them, a cry of anguish went up from their lips. Agitation
                                                                           the power of my LORD be great, according as thou hast
moved in waves throughout the nation. A movement quickly
                                                                           spoken, saying, The LORD is longsuffering, and of great
gathered strength to do away with Moses and Aaron and to
                                                                           mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means
return in mass to the land of Egypt. Openly the people wept,
                                                                           clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
but inwardly they were really pleased. This was exactly
                                                                           the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon,
what they wanted. So often they had been proved wrong
                                                                           I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the
by Jehovah, and now the tables were turned. Now it seemed
                                                                           greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people,
quite evident that Jehovah was in the wrong. His promises
                                                                           from Egypt even until now."
to them could not be kept. That was a soothing balm to their

wounded pride. It gave added strength to the volume of                        This was the deepest iove of Moses' heart. It was true

their complajnts. The more Moses and Aaron and Joshua                      that he loved Israel, the people that he led. It was true that

and Caleb circulated through the camp telling them not to                  he loved the promise of God to bring them into Canaan land.

rebel, the louder their cries of anguish became. They had a                But more than anything else, he loved his God and was

good case, they thought, and they were not going to let it                 jealous for the glory of God's name. He desired with all

rest. Boldly they picked up stones and told them to be                     his heart that the goodness of God should be revealed and
silent or suffer death.                                                    maintained unto the ends of the earth. For this he first

  And then God came. His glory shone in all of its holy                    pleaded, and from this derived all the rest. There was noth-
brilliance before the tabernacle,- and a hushed silence settled            ing on Israel's part that could be pleaded as an excuse for

over the camp. This the people had not expected. Somehow                   what they did. There was no virtue on Israel's part which

they had felt that in the difficulty of the situation He would             warranted that their sin should be overlooked. There was

not dare to appear. Or, if He did, that it would be to beg and             only one thing that demanded Israel's preservation. God had

to plead `that they would help Him along in this time of                   promised forgiveness and redemption, and for His name's

trouble.. But now they gazed upon the full glory of God as                 sake Moses pleaded, "Parddn, I beseech thee, the iniquity of

so often before. They never could seem to get used to that                 this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy."

glory. Before it they trembled in spite of all they had said.                 The intercession of Moses was good and in accord with

       Once again the drama of God's righteousness was re-                 God's own purpose. The answer He gave to Moses imme-


                                         T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                 393


diately, "I have pardoned according to thy word." But there         only the few faithful, such as Joshua and Caleb, would be

was also more that had to be considered for the glory of His        preserved to enter the promised land.

name. As He had also said on Horeb's  mountain, He could               The true depth of Israel's iniquity came to the light when

not allow sin to go unpunished. His justice also had to be          Moses informed the people of this which the Lord had said.

maintained. Thus He went on to add, "But as truly as I              A deep mourning fell over the camp, but it was not a

live, all the earth- shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.    mourning of repentance. As long as the opportunity was

Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my              there for them to enter the land, they found a certain pleasure

miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and           in refusing to go. Now that the way was closed, they wanted

have tempted me now these ten, times, and have not heark-           the land as never before. Their mourning was that of a

ened to my voice ; surely they shall not see the land which I       people who felt themselves greatly misused. This was their

sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that            trouble all along. They just did not`want  the way of Lord.

provoked me see it: but my servant Caleb, because he had            What the Lord commanded they did not want because the

another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him            Lord had commanded it and for no reason else. All of their

will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed          heated reasoning was but a making of excuses to justify the

shall possess it. Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the           basic wickedness of their hearts.

wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. How long shall I bear            Suddenly the feelings of the camp took an entirely dif-
with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I             ferent tack. Those who before had been so determined to
have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which          appoint a new leader and return to Egypt now exclaimed
they murmur against me. Say unto them, As truly as I live,          that they had to enter the land of Canaan and that they had
saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I           to do it right away. With God they would not go near the
do to you : your carcases  shall fall in this wilderness ; and      land, but without Him they felt no restraint. Even more they
all that were numbered of you, according to your whole              would do so under the pretense of religious dedication. Like
number, from twenty years old and upward, which have                a wave they began to move all the time muttering the cry,
murmured against me, doubtless ye shall not come into the           "Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the
land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein,           LORD hath promised: for we have sinned."
save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of
                                                                       Aghast at their inconsistent folly, Moses tried vainly to
Nun. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey,
                                                                    stop them. "Wherefore now do ye transgress the command-
them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye
                                                                    ment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper. Go not up, for
have despised. But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in
                                                                    the LORD is not among you ; that ye be `not smitten before
this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilder-
                                                                    your enemies. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are
ness forty years, and bear you whoredoms, until your carcases
                                                                    there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye
be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of days in
                                                                    are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will
which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a
                                                                    not be with you."
year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye

shall know my breach of promise. I the LORD have said, I               It was a pitiful sight. Without order, without prepara-

will surely do it unto all the evil congregation, that are gath-    tion, and without plan, the children of Israel moved in mass

ered together against me : in this wilderness they shall be con-    toward the strongly fortified borders of Canaan. But what

sumed, and there they shall die."                                   was far more serious, they went without their God. It was

                                                                    but a small group of faithful that remained behind with the
   The history of Israel had come to a very critical juncture.      ark of God, looking on in anguished horror at the mass of
Ten times the people had rebelled against their God, and ten        Israel's fighting men rushing toward Canaan as cattle to the
in the Old Testament typical language was the number of             slaughter. And then from the hills came the Amalekites and
completeness. Theirs was a complete rebellion. And over-            .the Canaanites. Strong,    hardened warriors, they swept
against them God would maintain His glory. In faithfulness          through the host of Israel as a tide of death. In what seemed
to His promises, He would pardon and save the nation. But           but a matter of moments, the great nation of Israel was scat-
He would also be faithful to His justice. No one would be           tered. As the spies had reported, from a human point of
allowed to think that He overlooked Israel's sin and allowed        view the strength of Canaan formed an impenetrable barrier.
it to go unpunished. Those who had sinned this great sin            Without faith in their God, Israel before them was as noth-
would not be allowed to enter the rest of the promised land.        ing. The people fled for their lives unto Hormah.
For many this would be a judgment. They were inwardly
                                                                       Forty years the children of Israel were given to wander
enemies of God and wandering in the wiIderness  would die
                                                                    in the wilderness and contemplate their presumptions and
in their sins. For some who had joined this rebellion against
                                                                    folly. They had yet to learn that without their God they
their better judgment, it would be a chastisement to remind
                                                                    were as good as dead.
them of their unworthiness and turn them in repentance to

God. Forty years Israel must wander in the wilderness and                                                                    B.W.


  394                                          T H E   STANDAkD   B E A R E R


                                                                           and homes that has become a lost art; it is a spi&~al  art

  11  F R O M   H O L Y   WRIT.11 to distinguish between the aged men and the young men,
                                                                           between the elderly women and the young women. And
  I'                                                                -`I
                                                                           this spiritual art is very delicate, and must constantly be
                     Exposition of I Timothy                               taught and learned in the church. Wherefore Moses directs

                           (I Timothy 5 :l-16)                             Israel, the church of the Old Covenant, in Leviticus 19 :32
                                                                           as follows : "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and
                                    a.
                                                                           honor the face of the old man, and thou shalt fear thy God:
        The general subject which Paul is elaborating upon to              I am Jehovah."
  Timothy is that of how the affairs should be conducted in                   Let us attempt to understand this a bit better!
  the house of God, in the midst of the saints.                               FSrst  of all, it is Jehovah who here speaks. He has re-
         The one word under which it can all be summed up is:              deemed us, Israel, from the bondage and guilt of sin ; He
  godliness !                                                              has set us free. Basically, this means that we now honor
         Such godliness is rooted in the Mystery of godliness that         the LORD, bow before His commandments and ordinances.
  is great. God is manifested in the flesh, is seen of angels,             The Lord is the Ancient of Days. And when we obey Jeho-
  preached in the world, and taken up in glory. Godliness is,              vah then we walk in holy fear ; we tremble before God ; have
  therefore, not to be equated with a mere walk of morality, the           no other gods before Him.
  mere knowledge of right and wrong, external orderly deport-
                                                                              When all things are equal, it is in the "old man" that we
.- ment; it is a walk before the face of God in Christ Jesus.
                                                                           see this image of God reflected ; here is wisdom, knowledge,
         This godliness must, first of all, be found in the preacher ;
                                                                           experience in the Lord. The elderly men are the pillars in
  a minister of the gospel .must therefore give heed to i&~~c?lf
                                                                           the church, in the home and in the state. When a church,
  and to the doctrivte.  He must be an example of godliness, in
                                                                           state or nation forgets this such go to ruin. Here is reflected
  word, in conversation, in faith, in love and in purity. Thus
                                                                           the basic commandment "honor thy father and thy mother,
  he will save himself and those who hear him !
                                                                           that it may go well with thee, and that thou mayest live long
        Paul still has some admonitions and directives for Tim-
                                                                           upon the earth."
  othy as to how to shepherd the flock of God. A minister is
                                                                              He who "riseth up" before the "old man, the hoary head"
  not only a homilete, he is also a shepherd. This is treated in
  the Seminary under the course and science called "Poimen-                riseth up, therein, before the LORD himself! This is a far
  its."                                                                    cry from "youth speaks," let the young people have a chance,
           Paul has some very basic, instructive directives for
  Timothy. We shall'call attention to these presently.                     etc. It was not for nothing that the bears came from the
                                                                           wood and killed forty-two children who mocked Elisha! It
         We shall not quote the entire passage here from Paul's
                                                                           is true they mocked a prophet of God ; but, too, they mocked
  pen. We shall quote as we go along in our expository re-
  marks.                                                                   the hoary head.

         In the verses l-2 Paul write;: "`Rebuke                              This principle is here too at stake in this admonition of
                                                        not ax elder
   (old man) ltard,  but exhort I&m as a father; the youngm*               Paul to Timothy. Rebuke not an "old man" hard but exhort

  `yMen  as brethren; the elder women as mothers, the younger              as a father, and the aged women as mothers. This is well for
  as sistem in all pwity."                                                 a young minister as well as for older ministers to remember.

        First of all, we have here presupposed that Timothy does           Paul does not merely give here some practical advice but

  have authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to speak the Word                lays down a basic ordinance of God in Poimenics!

  to all classes of men in the Church. God is the Savior of all               What Paul says about Timothy's relationship to the

  classes of men in the church. Woe to Timothy if because of               younger men and women bears closer scrutiny. Here Tim-

  age, prestige or any other reason, he does not say: thus saith           othy will come to stand in closer affinity to the members of

  the Lord! He is to speak the Word in season and out of                   the church. When speaking with the younger men, who

  season. He is servant, minister of the Word of God.                      walk in sin, he can address them as one of his own age. He

         Secondly, we notice that Timothy must use proper dis-             can fellowship with them without stooping to their folly. And

  cretion in speaking the Word of God in the midst of the                  because Timothy is a man, a 3lo"ng  man, he must exhort the

  congregation to various individuals. It is not simply enough             young women "in all purity" ! What a delicate task to re-

  that he speaks the tmtla; it is also important hozef he speaks           prove sin without becoming tainted with the very sin which

  it. And then he must be directed in his manner of speaking               one rebukes. The Bible ever rebukes sin in purity and holi-

  the Word by fundamental principles, which are rooted in the              ness. It speaks of the sins of the saints. One never reads

  ord&znnces  of God. God has placed people in different stages            about the sins of the saints in the Bible with the feeling

  of life. That ordinance must be honored in the church and                that the Bible suggested or insinuated these sins to us. We

  by the minister, be he old or young.                                     hear therein ever the "thus saith the Lord." These things

         Thirdly, we would notice here that Paul differentiates            were written for our example that we should .not walk in

  men and women here as to their a.ge-level!  In many churches             the same sin, is echoed on every page and in every word !


                                          T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                 395


    What wisdom and purity is requisite in the shepherd of           and the care for them. No one who studies the Bible will

the flock !                                                          say that all godliness is -exhausted in caring for the widows,

    It seems that in close      ection -with the foregoing, and      and that all "religion" corzsists  in such care, but certainly
as an outgrowth of the 1)        be of godZ%ness,  Paul also has     care for the widows is a certain proof that one's religion is
a word to say about the care for the widows in the church.           not simply dead orthodoxy, but a manifestation of the love

Writes he: "Honor widoqm  that aye widows &deed  . . . .             of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Such do not `have the
Now she that is a$ widow indeed, and desobte,  a.nd  hath set        faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with respect
her hope on God, and con&ueth in suppl&ation  a.nd prayers           of persons. Such work with their hands that they may have to
&ght  an,d day. But she that giveth herself to pleasure is           give to them that are in need. Eph. 4:28b.

dsad  while she Zveth."                                                 Paul differentiates between widows and widows.

    Certainly the care of the "widow" also falls under the              There is the difference between widows and widows from

fruit of redemption from sin; it is the fruit of thankfulness        the viewpoint of age. There are young widows below the

to God. Thus we read expressly in Deut. 24:17:  "Thou shalt          age of three-score years and there are older widows beyond

not wrest the justice due to the sojourner, or to the fatherless,    those years. That is one distinction made by Paul. We shail

nor  take the widow's mitlzent  to pledge;  b,ut thou shalt re-      have opportunity to return to this later.

member that thou wast a bondman  in Egypt, and Jehovah                  Then there is the difference between widows who have

thy God redeemed thee thence ; therefore I command thee to           children and grandchildren, and those who do not have such

do this thing." Or again we read in Exodus 22 :22-24 : "And          kith and kin. What a difference between a lonely widow

a~ sojourner shalt thou not wrong, neither shalt thou oppress        and a widow who is the mother of eleven children and sur-

him: for -ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Ye shall          rounded by three-score grandchildren.

not afllict  any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them       Finally, there is a distinction between those who "are

at all, and they at all cry unto me, I will surely hear their        widows indeed" and those who "give themselves to pleasure."

cry; and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with            Three times Paul mentions those "who are widows indeed."

the sword ; and your wives shall be widows and your children         Verses 3, 5, and 16.

fatherless." In Deut. 10 :16-19  we read : "Circumcise there-           Let us begin by observing Paul's teaching concerning the

fore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.         last class of widows, namely, those who are widows indeed.

For Jehovah your God, he is the God of gods, and Lord of             The term for "indeed" in the Greek is "ontous." It means:

lords, the great God, the mighty, and the terrible, who re-          act,ually,  really. It indicates that Paul has in mind women

gardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute              who are truly widows, answering to the Scriptural portrait

justice for the fatherless and widow, and loveth the sojourner,      of a widow. Now what is widowhood ? It means to be "be-

in giving him food and raiment. Love therefore the so-               reft" of a husband ; to be left alone on earth, while the hus-

journers, for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt." In           band has gone on before to heaven. In a sense this has ac-

Psalm 6s :5 we read: "A father of the fatherless, and a judge        centuated the longing of the woman to be where her husband

of the widows, is God in his holy habitation." Speaking of           is. She, therefore, steadfastly places her desire and longing

the arrogant and the wicked in Psalm 94:6, 7, the psalmist           upon the things above. Here she is emphatically a sojourner.

complains : "They slay the widow and the sojourner, and              She is a picture of the church on earth awaiting the coming

murder the fatherless, and they say Jehovah will not see,            of her husband, the Lord Christ from heaven. Just as the

neither will the God of Jacob consider." That the LORD is            husband was the head of the wife, so the Lord is the Head

an abundant helper is the theme of the psalmist in Psalm             of the Church. Such a widow, a real widow we meet in the

146. There we read in verses 5-10:  "Happy is he that hath           aged Anna in the temple. This one, Luke tells us, had been

the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Jehovah              in her widowhood for four-score and some years. She waited

his God . . . who executeth justice for the oppressed, who           for the consolation of Israel. She lived here as a stranger,

giveth food to the hungry . . . Jehovah preserveth  the so-          seeking the things above. That is real widowhood.

journers, He upholdeth  the fatherless and the widow, but               As a correlative of this widowhood and sojourning is also
the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. Jehovah will           the fact that a widow is pictured in Scripture as being utterly
reign forever, Thy God, 0 Zion, unto all generations. Praise         dependent upon others for her sustenance and livelihood. If
ye Jehovah."                                                         she is not helped she perishes. Together with orphans,

    Small wonder that James teaches us that "the pure                widows are the picture of the needy and helpless people of

religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to         God in the world. They are the picture of the poor whose

visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep     cause is just and which cause is defended and, maintained by

oneself unspotted from the world." James 1 :27.                      the God of Jacob.

   Paul, therefore, indeed touches upon the very chief mani-            Just what instructions Paul gives concerning these real

festation of the godliness which proceeds from the thank-            widows and others that they be blameless we hope to see in

fulness of redemption when he writes here of the "widows"            our next instalment.                                      G.L.

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



                                                                           hood and runs rampant in teen agers and youth in general.

                     I N   H I S   F E A R                                 Surely the world is not getting better. Truly there IS a
                                                                           development of sin. The sequel of the days before the Flood

                                                                           is upon us.

                                                                               Then you saw a phenomenal thing ! Men lived to be nine
                   Under Grace in a Lawless World                          hundred years old before their life of sin was brought to an

                                                                           end. Think of all the generations to which they could hand
                                       (3)                                 down their crimes and evil practices ! lVIodern  prisons are

                                                                           condemned by educators and social workers, for so very often

              "DO we then make void the law through faith ? God for-       youth for a "minor" crime is confined with hardened criminais

       bid : yea, we establish the law." Romans 3 :31.                     and learns new "tricks" and ways to live a life of crime and

                                                                           violence and get away with it for a longer period of time
              The regenerated child of God according to the new prin-
                                                                           before being apprehended. The same thing was true in the
       ciple of life which he has received from God always desires
                                                                           days .that preceded the Flood. Not only children but grand-
       to have the law established and never seeks to have it made
                                                                           children and great-grandchildren were taught and trained by
       void. It is the flesh and the world that has nothing but the
                                                                           wicked men to live a lawless life before God. Until it is
       flesh that seeks at every turn to get rid of God's law. And
                                                                           stated in Genesis 6 5 that "God saw that the wickedness of
       in such a lawless world, we find ourselves today.
                                                                           man was great in the earth and that .every imagination of the
              Of course the whole human race has been lawless ever         thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." What a
       since man fell into sin in Paradise. It is nothing new that         sad commentary on the human race that had been created in
       the world in which the Church lives is a lawless world.             the image of God ! What a lawlessness there must have been
F,     Eating of the tree of the knowledge of godd  and of evil was        to cause the world to be ripe for judgment so soon after
       an act of the head of the human race whereby he chose to            creation !
       take the whole human race into the fields of sin whic~l  the
                                                                              As we said, we are rapidly approaching that same situa-
       law forbids. There we all are born. And though man has
                                                                           tion and condition today. There are several factors that serve
       progressed and developed in that sin to a new height-or
                                                                           this rapid development of sin in the days in which
       should we say depth ? - the Church has always lived in a
                                                                           we live. Men do not live to be nine hundred years old any-
      lawless world.
                                                                           inore.  But is it an undeniable fact that in the comparatively

              That world has not succeeded in getting rid of God's law.    brief span of three-score years and ten man today does far

       It has not made it void, but it has lived outside of that law       more than the world before the Flood did in nine hundred

       and turned its back upon it. That law they cannot make void.        years. We travel from one end of the world to another. With

       They cannot get rid of that law. It cannot be destroyed, be-        our automobiles we are able to speed from one carnal amuse-

       cause it is the expression of God's will for the rational, moral    ment to another. With our means of communication we can

       creature. And man cannot destroy God. Man's desire to               spread our evil propaganda with speed and ease. With the

       destroy God is so clearly to be seen in the cross. Then God         printing press we can produce and flood the world with

       came in our flesh where we could touch Him and kill Him;            copies of our atheistic, lawless theories and practices. By

       and the human race did not hesitate to do exactly that as           means of our radio and television we can contact the masses

       soon as it became plain to it that this was indeed the Son of       and teach them crime, violence - even the world decries this

       God. His miracles they enjoyed. The bread He supplied               fact -humanistic philosophies and enticements to immoral-

       them they greedily ate and ran after Him for more. Buf              ity and sin. Hollywood comes in your living room! Godless,

       when He presented Himself so very clearly as the Son of             adulterous, sin-hardened, blasphemous, cursing and swearing

       God, they accused Him of blasphemy and rushed Him out               outlaws s@ak i,n  yoztr honre!  They wink at you and urge you
       of this world. Here the lawlessness of the world reached its        to sin with them ! They ridicule the things of God's kingdom !

       climax.     The Lawgiver they slew. On Him they gnashed             They play with things that are holy ! And when you "open

       with their teeth. The love of God was not in their hearts.          the door" and let them in your home, your children and

              Living in the day and age in which we do, we will as         grandchildren accept this as approval of the ways and sayings
       ,those who are under the grace of God shudder at the lawless-       of these evil men and women and hasten to pattern their lives
       ness which is so clear in the world about us. Without the grace     after these worldly heroes and idols. Woe unto us ! Does it
       of God in our hearts that will never be the case. It is true        appear in our homes that we are under grace or frovut  zt.nder
       that the world often expresses its concern about the present        grace and into lawlessness 7

       generation. Books are written. Magazine articles are pub-               Another element that contributes to the rapid develop-

       lished. Lectures are delivered. Educators speak and write           ment of sin is the shrinking of this earth by the means of

       all in an attempt to stem the tide of immorality, of violence       transportation invented by man. We live in each other's back

       and crime that reaches down into the tender ages of child-          yards. We breathe down each other's necks. The various


                                         ,T H E    ST-A N D A R D `B E A R E R                                                397


nations, tongues and tribes which came into being at the con-      ship-services. We are not in good company when we support

fusion of tongues at Babel have developed their own in-            those who want to make it void and try to expel it from our

dividual and personal brands of sin. Now they bring them to        lives and thinking. We are in good company when we up-

our door, or we fly and speed to their doors to eat and drink      hold it as the rule of our life and admonish one another to

of their sinful delicacies, and we and our children learn new      keep it. To the church at Pergamos Jesus points out the sin

ways to dedicate ourselves to the lust of the flesh, the lust      of idolatry and fornication which the law forbids. And He

of the eyes and the pride of life. Soon, as Jesus pointed out,     declares that He has somewhat against the church at Per-

men will be eating and drinking and be giving in marriage          games  because she harbored these evils. He admonishes her

as before the Flood. Men will be making more and more              to repent quickly ov He -V&Z  f;srzt lrxr with the sword of His

ambitious plans of sin and lawlessness. And then with swift        mouth. That does not sound as though we are not under the

destruction Christ will come with the fire of God's wrath and      obligation to walk according to God's law. The same is true

consume the whole world in His holy indignation. The law           of the church at Thyatira. Indeed we are in good company

is still there; and men will be judged according to it.            with Christ Himself when we do not make void the law in

                                                                   our own lives but establish it and recognize it as the sphere
    Revelation 20 teaches us that all, both small and great
                                                                   in which God created us.
shall be judged. Those whose names are in the Lamb's book

of life also shall be judged according to the things written in        It makes it harder for us to keep that law in a world

the books that are opened. Paul includes himself and the           that is developing in its lawlessness. And that is exactly why

Church at Corinth in this judgment when in II Corinthians          we ought to be careful that before our children and before

5 : 10 he declares that "We must all appear before the judg-       others we do not encourage lawlessness by our walk or

ment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things           speech. As Paul declares in Philippians 3 :20  -as correctly

done in the body whether they be good or evil." Indeed, we         translated - "our citizenship is in heaven." Let our walk

too shall be judged.                                               of life be then according to the laws of that kingdom. And

                                                                   let us remember that it has no new set of laws but that its
    But do you not see that this is quite impossible if the law
                                                                   principle is one and the same with the decalogue or ten com-
is made void ? According to what shall we be judged ? Then
                                                                   mandments: Love to God.
the child of God never sins anymore in this life. And that

surely is not true. John tells us that "If we say that we have        With the love of God in our hearts we will love that law

no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,"  I      .and  desire to keep it not as the condition for our salvation

John 1%.  And how could Paul be so wretched when he cries          but as the way of expressing our gratitude unto God for a

that the evil that he would not that he allows, and the good       salvation that is full and free. And we would conclude with

that he would that he does not do ? What teaches him the           the word of the Heidelberg Catechism on this matter, "Why

good and the evil 7 What determines good and evil ? That law       will God have the ten commandments so strictly preached,

of God which never changes, never grows out of date, never         since no man in this life can keep them? First, that all our

wears out and never ceases to point out the way in which we        lifetime we may learn more and more to know our sinful

must go. We repeat, we are not under the condemnation of           nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the re-

that law, for we are under grace. We are not under God's           mission of our sins, and righteousness in Christ; likewise

wrath and punishment as that law demands because of our            that we constantly endeavour and pray to God for the grace

transgressions, but we are under the obligation to keep it.        of His Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more

God cannot withdraw that demand. For then He would                 conformable to the image of His Son, till we arrive at the

cease to be God and we would be His equal, if indeed we            perfection proposed to us, in a life to come." And that per-

would not be superior to Him.                                      fection is to be filled with the love of God.

   But in that lawless world the man under grace seeks to             "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a

establish himself by that grace of God in the law and to have      good understanding have all they that do His command-

that law established in his life. He will testify against law-     ments: His praise endureth forever."

lessness. He will teach his children to keep that law. He                                                                 J.A.H.

will not spare the rod and spoil the child but exactly apply

discipline to him whenever he walks contrary to that law.

The Church likewise will not look the other way when her
                                                                          Advancing still from strength to strength,
members walk contrary to that law but apply discipline with

the desire to save.                                                         They onward go where saints have trod,

                                                                          Till every one appears at length
   Jesus points out to the seven churches in Asia in Revela-
                                                                            In Zion's courts before his God ;
tion 2 and 3 departures from that law and does not commend

the churches for living a lawless life. We are not in good                Jehovah, God of Hosts, give ear,

company when we decry the reading of that law in our wor-                 Our fathers' God, in mercy hear.


398                                            T H E   S,_t',&NDP?.&P   B E A R E R
            -_------_--..~~~~~ ~~
I-----                                                               what you term a Roman Catholic Church. The average man
          Contending For The Faith                                   makes no mistake in practice on this point.
                                                               II       501. If the word Roman identifies your Church as the

                                                                     only Catholic Church, where do the other Churches come in?

            The Church and the Sacraments                               They are man-made substitutes which do not come in,

                                                                     but which went out. Modern Protestants do not advert to
            THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION                              the fact that they have been robbed of membership in the

                                                                     true Church by their ancestors. Protestant Churches cannot
                  V I E W S   O N   T H E   C H U R C H
                                                                     claim to have been founded by Christ, yet they confuse many

                  T H E   P R O T E S T A N T   V I E W              people. But the true Church may be discerned by finding
                                                                     out that one which goes back to St. Peter, and through him

       We were busy, in our preceding article, with the attribute    to Christ. And he who is subject to the Pope is in commun-

of catholicity of the church. We had quoted from the Dog-            ion with the very successor of St. Peter.

matics of Dr. H. Bavinck in connection with this attribute,             502. Scripture mentions neither the word Roman nor
and had begun to quote from the "Radio Replies" by the               Catholic in connection with Christ's Church.
Fathers Rumble and Carty, which we consider extremely in-
                                                                        It is not a question of a name, but of the thing. And the
teresting, inasmuch as they may be considered to give us an
                                                                     universal spiritual society now known as the Catholic Church
accurate presentation of this subject. We will now continue
                                                                     is most clearly described in Scripture. Christ said clearly that
to quote from these Radio Replies, Volume I.
                                                                     His Church would be one fold under one shepherd, the fold
       498. Whence do you get the name Roman Catholic ?              embracing all. nations, the shepherd being St. Peter, and his

       The word Roman is derived from the fact that St. Peter        successors. Either the Catholic Church is the one Christ

established the headquarters of the Church in Rome. I am             established, or His Church has altogether ceased to exist.

not a Roman Catholic in any sense of Roman citizenship. I            (All this would be true, provided that Peter was appointed

am an American Catholic in communion with that Church                to be the shepherd of Christ's Church, and that the popes are

which has its centre in Rome. (Incidentally, there is no             the successors of this shepherd., and provided also that we

proof whatever, either Scripturally or historically, that Peter      do not bear in mind that Christ gathers His Church by His

ever established the headquarters of the Church in Rome.             Word and Spirit, and therefore where His truth is pro-

- H.V.)                                                              claimed according to the Word of God. - H.V.)

       499. What is the difference between a Catholic and a             503. We Protestants say, "I believe in the Holy Catholic

Roman Catholic ?                                                     Church!" when we recite the Creed.

       The same as between a Britisher and an Englishman, or            The recitation of a formula does not make one a member

if you wish, as that between the Jewish and the Mosaic               of the true Church. A profession of belief in America would

religions. There is no real difference. The words Roman              not make a man an American citizen. Citizenship in the

Catholic do not mean that there are other kinds of Catholics,        Catholic Church involves actual reception into that Church

but only that all true Catholics belong to that one great            and submission to her authority.

Church which has its centre in Rome. There are no Cath-                 504. Would you say that Christ Himself was a Catholic?
olics apart from that one great universal Church. Those who
                                                                        Yes. The Founder of the Catholic Church was certainly
leave that Church cease to be Catholics. At the time of the
                                                                     a Catholic, and history proves that Christ founded the Cath-
Reformation Protestants left the Catholic Church. They can-
                                                                     olic Church, and identified it with Himself. Thus St. Paul
not leave it and belong to it. The only way they can be
                                                                     says, "God bath made Him head o,ver all the church (not
Catholic is to return to the Church their forefathers should
                                                                     churches) which is His body, and the fulness of Him who
never have left.
                                                                     is filled all in all." Eph. 1 :22-23. (Of course, Christ is the
. 500. Is not Catholic Church broader in meaning than                Head over all the church, not churches. Christ's church is
Roman Catholic Church ? Catholic means universal, not                one. Protestants surely maintain this. - H.V.)
Roman Catholic.
                                                                        505. How could Christ be a Catholic when He existed
       Catholic and Roman Catholic are alternative expressions.      before the Church ?
The Roman Catholic Church is the Church universal on
                                                                        His pre-existence did not prevent His founding a Church
earth. All Catholics in Europe, America, Asia, Africa, and
                                                                     and identifying it with Himself. As the Son of God He
Austraiia, and in the rest of the world, are subject to the
                                                                     existed before the Incarnation, but that did not prevent His
present Bishop of Rome. Were you to stop any man in-
                                                                     being man from the moment of the Incarnation.
discriminately in the street and ask him to direct you to the

nearest Catholic Church, he would unhesitatingly point out              512. In the name of Catholicity you often point out that


                                            T.HE-   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                              399
                           "._.


your Church exceeds all others numerically. But that only               And the answer reads: "You do not say `what type of

disproves your case. Christ said that He scarcely expected          Protestantism you profess. But no single type of Protestant-

to find faith on earth.                                             ism can possibly be. Catholic; The, Catholic Faith is .one

                                                                    Faith believed universally. The Catholic Church means one
    Christ said that His Church would teach all natipns,  and
                                                                    world-wide united body. Protestantism as a whole is a
go to the uttermost parts of the earth, the tiniest" of seeds
                                                                    conglomerate of conflicting bodies. And no single form of
growing into a great tree. His words, "When the Son of
                                                                    Protestantism is world-wide in any sense of the word. You
man cometh,  shall He find, think you, faith upon earth ?"
                                                                    must face the difficulties of your position. Let us suppose
refer not so much to numbers as to quality of belief, as the
                                                                    that you are an Anglican. What are you going to do with
context shows. And He is referring to special conditions
                                                                    the Greek Orthodox, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Congrega-
which will prevail towards the end of time when the charity
                                                                    tionalists and others ? Are they `Catholics'? Or will you call
of many shall have grown cold. Matt.  XXIV:12. The text
in no way suggests that the body of believers through all the       them Greek Catholics, Wesleyan Catholics, Presbyterian
ages will necessarily be small. (This is certainly an evasive       Catholics, etc? Are Anglicans alone to be straightout Cath-
answer. The question concerned the statement of Christ that         olics ? Or are each and all these conflicting religions Cath-
faith would be scarce upon the earth upon His return upon           olic - Rom.an Catholics alone not being Catholics ? Also,
the clouds of heaven. Now we know that the Roman Cath-              turn to history. It is said by Anglicans that the Pope had
olic Church is certainly very large, counts its members in the      falsely usurped jurisdiction over the whole Church. England
hundreds of millions, and that this church will also be of vast     had to leave the Pope, but intended to remain Catholic. But
size when Christ returns upon the clouds of heaven. Does            if that were so, on its own principle it should have joined
this answer imply that, upon Christ's return, the vast major-       the Greek Church which had already renounced the Pope.
ity of these Roman Catholic members will not have faith ?           Yet it did not. England separated from any kind of union
Does the answer imply that the vast majority of Roman               with' all other bishops in the world ! Again, no Anglican will
Catholic members will have grown cold in their faith and            deny that the Church in England prior to the Reformation
love ? Also Protestantism maintains vehemently that that            was the Catholic Church. If the present Church of Engla`fid
"tiny seed will grow into a great tree," and that the Church. of    is the same why was the Mass abolished, and a new Prayer
Christ will be constituted of a multitude as great as the stars     Book and Communion Service unheard of till then in Chris-
in the sky, the sand along the seashore, the dust upon the          tendom introduced ? Edward VI abolished the, Mass ; Mary

ground. H.V.)                                                       the Catholic restored the Mass; Elizabeth the Protestant

                                                                    abolished the Mass. The Church of England adopted the
513. Christ said, "Fear not, little flock."
                                                                    word Protestant; and the king has to swear that he is a
   The Church was a little flock at the time Christ spoke, for
                                                                    faithful Protestant as opposed to the Catholic religion. James
it was in the seedling stage.      But even the vast grown tree
                                                                    II could have remained king had he ceased to be a Catholic.
can be called a little flock. The Catholic Church is little and
                                                                    He was deposed and William of Orange was brought in 
despised by worldly-minded men because she consists chiefly                                                                     to
of the poor and of the despised. And it is always little in         secure the Protestant succession. How can Anglicans turn
spirit, insisting upon humility in accordance with Christ's         round now and say that they are Catholics ? You yourseif

words, "Unless you become as little children you cannot             now wish to remain a Protestant, yet be a Catholic. .We are

enter into the kingdom of heaven.,, (This, too, is surely a         Roman Catholics. No one in Spain is a Catholic - all there

perversion of these words of Christ in Luke 12 :32.  Do these       are Spanish Roman Catholics. No one in France is a Cath,

words mean that this little flock of Christ, at a given moment      olic. They are French Roman Catholics. The `Catholics' in

in the New Dispensation, would consist of hundreds of mil-          the United States are not Catholics. They are. American
lions of sheep, and that this flock is little only in the sense     Roman Catholics. Pure and undefiled Catholics" are to be
that it is poor in spirit, humble, and poor in the materialistic    found only in Anglicanism. If `you want to find a genuine
sense of the word? We know better. Besides, it can hardly be
                                                                    Gatholic, you must look for him in an English Protestant!
said that the Roman Catholic Church of today, or ever since
                                                                    No sane man in the world would adm4t  this. But I have
this church grew into prominence, is characterized by poverty
                                                                    said enough. Those only are Catholics who belong to that
in the earthly sense of the word. The Roman Catholic Church
of today, as well as in the Middle Ages, presents a rather          Catholic Church which is discerned from-the  fact of its union

imposing structure in the midst of the world. The Roman             with the Bishop of Rome."

Catholic Church is not earthly poor but earthly rich.-H.V. j
                                                                       The Lord willing, in our following article, we will com-
   Also of interest are question and answer 472 in Volume
                                                                    ment on the claim of Rome that it is truly the Catholic, uni-
III of these radio replies by the Fathers Rumble and Carty.
                                                                    versal Church of God and of Christ in the midst of the world.
This question reads: "We Protestants are Catholics; but you

are Roman Catholics."                                                                                                       H.V.


4 0 0                                           T    H    E         ST-ANDAR.D       B    E    A    R    E    R


                                                                               but very simple: "We believe, without amy doubt, a0 thhgs
II The Voice of Our Fathers                                                    contained in them." And if only the church and the individual
                                                                         I I believer actually proceeds in all matters of the truth and of
                                                                               our confession, as well as in matters of life and practice,

                                                                               from this simple standpoint,, and is ready to receive, without
                     The Belgic Confession                                     any reservation, all things contained in the Scriptures, the

                                                                               whole of the truth of the gospel is very simple and clear. The
                               ARTICLE V                                       difficulty is not that the Scriptures are not plain. And the

                  We receive all these books, and these only, as holy          problem is not one of interpretation and of intellectual under-
                and canonical, for the regulation, foundation, and con-        standing. But the question is : are we willing. to be still and
                firmation of our faith; believing without any doubt, all
                things contained in them, not so much because the              to listen, willing to receive by faith, without any doubt, all
                Church receives and approves them as such, but more            things contained in these holy and canonical books ? Then
                especially because the Holy Ghost witnesseth in our
                hearts, that they are from God, whereof they carry the         all real problems disappear.
                evidence in themselves. For the very blind are able to
                perceive that the things foretold in them are fulfilling.          These remarks we make by way of introduction.


         This is a very important article of faith, and one of the

gems in our Confession because it sets forth so, simply and                    Which  Bible?
concisely the believer's confession concerning the authority
                                                                                   Before we proceed with the discussion of this article as
of Holy Scripture and his faith in that authority. Actually
                                                                               such, we should give our attention to a matter which con-
the the article sets forth two main elements of the Reformed
                                                                               cerns not only this article, but all the articles of our Confes-
believer's faith concerning the Scriptures. In the first place,
                                                                               sion which deal with the doctrine of Scripture, a matter which
the article contains an acknowledgment of the Scriptures as
                                                                               sometimes causes believers no little concern.
holy and canonical, or, an acknowiedgment  of the authority

of the Scriptures. And, in the second place, the article sets                      That matter is expressed in the question, "Which Bible?'

forth the reasons why we receive these books as holy and                           By this question I do not refer so much to the fact that
canonical. But the above description scarcely does justice                     we today are faced by a choice among many different versions
to the beauty of the article. For by means of a few choice                     of our English Bible. For while this is indeed true, and while
expressions the article defines and distinguishes this faith of                especially in recent years, such versions and would-be "new
the church in a manner so concise and unequivocal that there                   translations" are being multiplied, this is not such a perplex-
can be no question nor any shadow of a doubt as to where                       ing problem. This multiplication of versions is in part re-
the Reformed believer stands and ought to stand in respect                     lated to the problem I have in mind ; but in itself, for more
to the doctrine of Holy Scripture. Note these careful formu-                   than one reason, it is not so difficult. My chief reason is that
lations :                                                                      the well-established King James Version is still the safest

         1) The article makes both an inclusive and an exclusive               and the most dependable English translation, as well as the

statement as to the books that are holy and canonical: "We                     most beautiful and most beloved among the people of God.

receive a22 these  books, and these only . . ."                                And it has stood the test of time, and is as yet not being dis-

                                                                               placed by any other version. In the second place, if we bear
         2) The article acknowledges that faith is entirely de-
                                                                               in mind the proverb that "All change is not improvement,,'
pendent on the Word of God: "We receive all these books
                                                                               we will not readily admit changes in this regard. An.d if, in
    . . for the regztlatios,  foundation, and confirmation of our
                                                                               the third place, we remember that not all the Biblical scholar-
;asz,,
                                                                               ship that ,produces  the various new translations and versions
         3) The article expresses unequivocally a faith in the ab-             is to be trusted as orthodox and believing, we will be doubly
solute authority and veracity of the Scriptures : ". . . . be-                 cautious about making any change. This is not to say that
lieving, without any doubt, all things contained in them . . .`,               no benefit can be derived from a use of other versions in our

         4) And yet the Reformed believer does not give expres-                study of Scripture, however: for to maintain this would be

sion to a blind and unreasoned faith, but gives careful account                blind folly.

of the reasons why he receives these books as holy and                             However, the matter I have in mind is somewhat dif-
canonical. But notice that this careful account is at once a                   ferent. We do not have, and the church has not had for a
matter of simple, child-like, spontaneous faith.                               long time, any of the original writings of the Scriptures.

         We may therefore remark, by way of application, that if               They have been lost. The autographs, that is, the original

only, in our highly complex and sophisticated age, the church                  writings of Peter and Paul, of John and Luke, as well as

would live by this faith of our fathers, there would be no                     those of all the other writers of the Old and of the New

difficulty in regard to the entire matter of the doctrine of                   Testament, are no more: And one might probably say too

Holy Scripture. For the truth is not obscure and difficult,                    that if only we had one complete, dependable copy of those


original writings, which could be clearly traced back to the                   could at best be applied-only to the autographs, but never to

autographs, the problem would still not be so involved. But                    the thousands of copies of the Hebrew an&  Greek Scriptures,

the facts are much different. Not only are the original writ-                  which are filled with discrepancies, and certainly not to our

ings long lost, but there are many, many copies of these                       translations of those copies. And those autographs are lost.

original writings from which our Bibles are translated. Espe-                  Hence, even if the theory of infallibility and of verbal in-

cially is this true of the New Testament writings. Of the                      spiration were true, actually no one has an infallible Bible

New Testament or of parts of the New Testament there are                       today, nor has there ever been an actual collection of all the

more than four thousand different manuscripts. And all of                      autographs of Scripture at any time that could be called an

these copies are imperfect, besides. They differ, as far as the                infallible Bible.

text is concerned, in more than one hundred and fifty thou-                        And what shall we say to these things ?
sand places. Some of these points of difference are due to
                                                                                   In the first place, let us remember that this is but an
mistakes made in copying. Others are due to deliberate
                                                                               illustration of the enmity of the natural man over against the
changes made by copyists for one reason or another. But
                                                                               Word of God. He will go to any lengths, and use any pos-
the fact remains: these differences are there. Moreover, we
                                                                               sible argument, in order to escape the truth, to deny the
must not imagine that all these manuscripts are cleanly
                                                                               Scriptures and their authority, and thus deny the living God.
preserved and neatly legible, as, for example, a printed page
                                                                               If ,that  same natural man has more than four thousand
of our Standard Beww,  or even of some old book which you                      copies of an ancient secular writing-let us say, of the
have in your library. Not at all ; in some cases there may be
                                                                               Greek poet Homer - he will be overjoyed because he has
only a fragment of a certain book. In other cases, there may
                                                                               so much material to use and to compare in trying to arrive
be part of a page, or of a scroll, that is tom out and
                                                                               at an accurate text. But if he has more than four thousand
missing. Crude materials were used. Writing was all in
                                                                               manuscripts of the New Testament, he cries out, "See, an
manuscript form. And these manuscripts show the wear and
                                                                               infallible Bible is pure fiction !" Such is the perverseness of
tear of use not only, but also of centuries of disuse, of
                                                                               unbelieving scholarship.
weathering, of being buried, etc. Besides, the reading of
these manuscripts is not like the reading of our neatly printed                    In the second place, we need not try to deny the facts.
Bibles, with verse-separations, punctuation, and word-separa-                  They are true. Nor need we be vanquished by these facts.
tions. The manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, for                         For we not only concede the facts, but we would expect
example, might be written in all capital letters, with not even                matters to be no different. The infallible Scriptures were
any separation between words, and without punctuation.                         given to the church in the process of history - the history of
Thus, for example, Mark 1620  might appear in Greek, in                        many long centuries. There is no book more ancient, nor
much rougher form, as it here follows in English: "AND                         any written over a longer period of time and under more
T H E Y W E N T F O R T H A N D P R E A C H E D E V E R Y W H E R              trying circumstances, than our Bible. And that Bible was
ETHELORDWORKINGWIT'HTHEMANDCONFIRMI                                            preserved also in the process of history. And the inspiration
N G T H E W O R D W I T H S I G N S F O L L O W I N G . "   A l l   t h i s    and infallible guidance of the Spirit certainly ceased, as fau
will serve to give you some idea of the great difficulty involved              as the sacred writings are concerned, with the human instru-
in translating the Scriptures and in arriving at the most                      ments (prophets and apostles) who wrote them. The men
nearly correct rendering of the original writings.                             who copied the originals were fallible men, and their copies
                                                                               bear the earmarks of their fallibility. But even at that, con-

    What must we think, then, of our Bible ? Do we have an                     sidering all the contrary circumstances, we must remember

infallible Bible? Could Guido de Bres, the author of our                       not only that in many cases these copies were very pains-

Confession, and our fathers of the Reformed Churches of the                    takingly written and checked and rechecked, but that the

Lowlands actually have thought that the Bible which they                       Bible as a whole is marvelously preserved. In fact, there is

possessed (and whose translation was not yet ,as refined as                    no book more wonderfully preserved than the Bible. The

ours) was infallible? Could they really ascribe to their Bible                 Lord our God took care of that.

divine authority, and confess, "We believe, without any                            In the third place, even with all the variant readings
doubt, all things contained therein" ? And can we today say                    which are cited, we must be careful to understand their
this of our Bible, even as it may possibly be refined through                  significance. And that significance is indeed small. First of
the efforts of further Biblical scholarship and textual criti-                 all, there is no article of faith that is affected by these varia-
cism ?                                                                         tions. Secondly, only one-twentieth of all these variations are

                                                                               of any significance at all. And thirdly, of that one-twentieth
    There are those who take hold of these facts and attempt
                                                                               there is only another one-twentieth that affects the sense of
to turn them into an argument against the whole doctrine of
                                                                               the text to any important degree.
the Scriptures. They maintain that the church of today has
                                                                                   In the fourth place - and this is of major importance -
no infallible Bible. They argue that after all is said and done,

the whole theory of an infallible and ve,rbally  inspired Bible                                     (Continued on pmge  407)



                                                                                                                                           ,

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


                                                                    other songs unofficially, and to this I have no objections,

       DE.CENCY  and ORDER / where is it indicated in Scripture that there must be such
                                                                    officially ?'

                                                                        To me the answer of the editor of The StandA-d Bewer

                     The Hymn Matter                                is unsatisfactory. He points out two things.` In the first place,
                                                                    he points out that `(we  do not sing the Psalms in the form in

       We have contended that it is wrong for the church to         which the Holy Spirit gave them to the Old Testament

introduce hymns into its worship services. Our argument             Church and that this would be impossible." This is no

rests upon the claim that the Holy Spirit has given the             proof from Scripture that the New Testament church is

church of all ages one book of songs, the inspired Psalms,          mandated to provide its own official songs apart from the

and has nowhere indicated a desire that the church should           Psalms. At best it demands a more diligent labor of Psalter

occupy herself with the task of versifying other parts of or        revision and to this none object. There is room for Psalter

all the rest of the inspired Word. From the Holy Spirit's           improvement. We have said before that the talent in the

silence in this regard, we conclude that the church has no          churches that is so energetic toward composing hymns ought

calling to add to the Divinely provided songs for the church.       to be diverted in this direction.

The Holy Spirit might have indicated such a calling very                In the second place the editor writes : "And what, if the
simply by moving the apostle Paul to write in I Timothy             church may only sing the bundle of the Old Testament
3 :16,  "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is       Psalms as given by the Holy Spirit to the Church, must we
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction (for sing-     do with Article 69 of the Church Order ?" Here, too, the
ing), for instruction in righteousness." But the the words          question does not offer any proof. It is further stated, "In
in parentheses do not appear in the text nor is there in the        this article, to be sure, the principle that only the Old Testa-
entire New Testament, to the best of our knowledge, any             ment Psalms may be sung by the churches is completely
passages that indicate that Scriptures were given to be versi-      abandoned. It does not even maintain, as we proposed, that
fied  and that the church through the ages should enrich her        only such hymns as are faithful versifications of Scripture
bundle of songs by occupying herself with this task.                and are approved by the Synod, shall be sung." This may

       It is then our further contention that the attempts on       indeed be true but why did our fathers in Article 69 state so

the part of the church in the past as well as now to do this        emphatically, "ONLY  the 150 Psalms . . . ." and then pro-

are, in effect, a rejection of the songs the Spirit has provided    ceed to permit a few - a very limited few exceptions to this ?

for her use in public worship. No church will admit this and        Could it have been that even then there was such a strong

neither do those who want hymns in our churches today               demand for hymns (right or wrong) that it could not be

concede this. This we understand but the fact is that in all        entirely suppressed? Let us then revise the article of the

the history of hymnology  and psalmody, the hymns have              Church Order but until it is proven from Scripture that the

replaced the psalms in every church that introduced them.           church is permitted to make its own bundle of songs along

This is not because the church itself expresses that desire.        sidesof  those provided by the Holy Spirit, let us refrain from

The very opposite is true. They have said that they purpose         making any exceptions and abide with "only the 150 Psalms."

to retain the Psalms but this proves to be impossible. It is        To us they are sufficient to express the praise, the prayers,

our conviction that the reason for this lies in the fact that       the needs, etc. of the church. Let the inspired Psalms be the

the Lord Himself makes this impossible. The church that             official praise of the church. That is all we need and that is

sets aside the book of songs He has provided and begins to          our plea.

use the songs she has provided is not worthy of the former              In connection with this yet, it must be pointed out that
and the Lord takes them away in spite of her best intentions        our Synod is duty bound to review past decisions of the
to keep them. We are agreed with the following from the             synod before deciding this matter. In 1949 the then existent
pen of the late Rev. H. H. Kuiper  in the October 15, 1961          Psalter revision committee reported to synod and among
Standard Bearer :                                                   other things requested :

       "We have always been taught, and rightly so, that the            "4. The Psalter Committee also comes to Synod with the

church of all ages is ONE. I cannot see, apart from the argu-       request for permission to work on versifications, as literal

ments advanced by you (Editor of S.B.) in the S.B. some             as possible, of Scripture passages dealing with Christ's birth,

years ago, why the giving of a bundle of songs to that church       crucifixion, resurrection, Pentecost, etc., and incorporate it

in the Old Dispensation, is not good enough for the Church          in the new Psalter" (Acts of Synod, 1949, p. 57).

of the New Testament. It seems to me that if something else             Note here that the committee did not ask for "hymns"

were needed for the church today, the Holy Spirit would             as the original overture of First Church did. They ask for

have provided such, and the burden of proof why He did              literal versifications of Scripture which is the same thing the

not and yet permits the church to make its own bundle, lies         study committee in the present case advised and with which

with those that want it. Granted that God's people may sing         the synod is currently occupied.




        .


                                            T H E   S T A N D A R D   .BEARE,R  '                                                              403
                                                                                                            _- -..-


                                                                                                      :'
    Then notice too that in 1949 the committee of pre-advice            First Church contended that although the radio service
gave to synod the following advice: (We assume that the             was `official, it was .not an official church service in the ac-
motion that was made on the floor of synod was made up011           cepted sense of the word and, therefore, Article 69 did not
recommendation of this committee. This is customary proce-          apply and there was and is ao violation.
dure. There is no report of the committee of pre-advice as              It is not our purpose to enter into the arguments of this
such in the Acts.)                                                  protest at this time but the matter was presented to the
    "Motion is made and supported to adopt advice under 4,          Classis  and then Classis  East requested the consistories within
c, to grant permission to work on versification  of other pas-      its resort to express themselves on the question of the use of
sages of Scripture and to advise the committee to search the        hymns on the radio broadcasts. These we will share with
field of existing hymns for doctrinally sound hymns for             our readers because they reflect the feeling of our churches
special occasions."                                                 on this matter. Again, the churches in the west did not ex-

    This motion was defea,ted by the synod. (Art. 27, Acts          press themselves except that during the course of the treat-

of Synod, 1949.) Regrettably there is no record in the Acts         ment of this matter, the consistory of Oak Lawn inquired

of the grounds or reasons Synod decided as it did. Un-              about the practices of those churches in the west that were

doubtedly these things were brought out in the discussion of        also sponsoring radio programs. All of the consistories that

the matter.    It would have been well if the Synod, after          responded informed us that the practice in the west was to

defeating the above motion, had entertained another motion          use the Psalter on the radio exclusively. This would indicate

to the effect, that: "Synod rejects this request and that on        that the west was satisfied with the Psalter and felt no need

the following grounds."      Then the reasons would have been       of new or additional songs, not even for the radio.

recorded and we would have a stand by which we could be                 We let the readers judge for themselves as to how the
directed now that the hymn matter or the matter of versifica-       churches in the East felt about this matter. To do so our
tions is once more before synod.                                    readers will have to know that at Classis  there was a "major-

    In the present case, Synod should do just that. If the          ity" and a "minority" report on this matter. The majority

motion that is before synod "to adopt a proposed revision           report favored the use of hymns while the minority report

of Art. 69"  is defeated, the matter should not be dropped          maintained the position that hymns should not be used on

there. Synod should then either :                                   our official radio programs.

    (1) Express that the present Art. 69 be retained and then           We have room yet this time only for the reply of Creston.

give the reasons for rejecting any proposed revision of that        They wrote :

article or,                                                             "The sentiment of the consistory is that we feel very

    (2) Adopt a different revision of Article 69 and give the       strongly for the position of Oak Lawn. We believe that the

grounds for its adoption.                                           majority report arguments are not all valid. Although we

    The point is that if the synod of 1962 acts consistently        cannot legislate a rule that we shall have no hymns at all, we

with the past synods (1949) it will reject the proposed mat-        feel that Oak Lawn signals a very great danger here, that is,

ter of introducing new songs in our worship services.               of losing the distinctiveness and consciousness of our Psalter

                                                                    which has in it particularly the prophet and also the strong
                             :,: * 4: *                             consciousness of the antithesis between the church and the

                                                                    world, election and reprobation, the righteous and the wicked,
               Hymns  Amd Our Radio Broadcasts                      the keynote of which is in Psalter No. 1. That is the position

                                                                    of our consistory."
    In connection with the question of hymns, we purpose to

also write a bit about the question of the propriety of their           Next time, the Lord willing, we will present what other
use on our officially sponsored radio programs. The readers         consistories had to say.                                         G.V.d.B.

will recall that ,this  question was treated by Classis  East in

January of 1953. In July of the previous year, the consistory

of Oak Lawn began a series of correspondence and protest                                  WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

with the consistory of the First Protestant Reformed Church            The Lord willing, our dear parents
in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The whole matter dealt with the
                                                                                    MR. and MRS. ANDREW PETERSON
question of the use of hymns on the Reformed Witness Hour,
                                                                    look forward to observing the 
a practice which is still current today.                                                         40th anniversary of their marriage on
                                                                    June 28, 1962. We trust they may be spared for many more years.
   Oak Lawn's consistory contended that whereas the radio           "`And as thy days, so' shall thy strength be." Deut. 33:%b.

program was an official service of the church, the rules of the                                               Mr. and Mrs. Owen R. Peterson
                                                                                                              Mr. and Mrs. Fred J. Peterson
Church Order (Art. 69) applied and, therefore, it was and                                                     Mr. and Mrs. Wesley C. DeWit!
is a violation of Church `Order for the consistory to permit                                                  Mr. and Mrs. John L. Peterson
                                                                    Spring Lake, Mich.
the use of hymns on the program.                                    114 N. Park St.

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


                                                                     which the local congregation retains all its authority and

       A L L   A R O U N D   U S                                     autonomy so that there are not even Classes and Synods)
                                                                     are bitterly opposed to this. Some are of the opinion that a

                                                                     compromise will be reached in which the apostolic succes-

                                                                     sion of bishops is discarded, while the office is retained.
MORE ON CHURCH UNION
                                                                         4) Further consultations of this committee are to be
       Our readers will recall that on various occasions we have
                                                                     held in the future under the name of The Consultation on
discussed in this column a proposed merger between the
                                                                     Church Union. James I. McCord,  president of Princeton
Methodist Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church, the
                                                                     Theological Seminary, was `elected chairman, for a two-year
United Presbyterian Church and the United Church of
                                                                     term.
Christ.

       This merger was first proposed by Eugene Carson Blake,           The concluding st,atement  of the delegation chairman
                                                                     reads :
Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in Decem-

ber of 1960. If the proposal were put into effect, the new                       We have met as delegates of the Methodist Church, the
denomination would number 19,000,OOO  members : 10,046,293                    Protestant Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and
                                                                              the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. to discuss the
from the Methodist Church, 3,500,OOO  from the Protestant
                                                                              possibility of the formation of a church truly catholic, truly
Episcopal Church, 3,X9,01 1 from the United Presbyterian                      reformed, truly evangelical. Each communion has been rep-
Church and 2,015,037 from the United Church of .Christ.                       resented by both clerical and lay members, all of whom are

       Some forty representatives from each denomination met                  deeply involved in the life of their churches and many of
                                                                              whom are widely experienced in ecumenical relations. We are
together recently for the first of a long series of consulta-
                                                                              grateful to God for having led us into these conversations, and
tions. This meeting was approved by each of the broader                       we believe on the basis of our preliminary discussions that the
assemblies of the denominations involved. A brief survey of                   Holy Spirit is leading us to further explorations of the unity
some of the problems and decisions would include:                             that we have in Jesus Christ and to our mutual obligation to
                                                                              give visible witness to this unity.
       1) Delegates agreed to invite three more denominations
                                                                                 We have made no attempt to reach agreement in areas of
to join the discussions : the  International Convention of                    difference. Rather, we have sought to isolate issues that need
Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) with nearly two                      further study and clarification. Among these are: (1) the his-

million members; the Evangelical United Brethren with                         torical basis for the Christian ministry that is found in the
750,000 members ; the Polish National Catholic Church with                    Scriptures and the early church; (2) the origins, use and stand-
                                                                              ing of creeds and confessional statements; (3) a restatement of
about 300,000 members. It is hoped that at some future date
                                                                              the theology of liturgy;  (4) the relation of word and sacra-
the Baptists can also be persuaded to join ; while the Luther-                ments.
ans, who have been discussing mergers of their own, would                        All of the delegations had in mind that they represent
also be welcome. It is evident from this that the aim of the                  churches having deep roots in the Reformation. At the meet-
committee is to include in one denomination all of Protestant-                ing they were ieminded  by theological spokesmen of the
                                                                              "earriest  concern" of the Reformation "for theological integrity
ism, to establish one Protestant Church of America. The                       and cultural relevance;' and that today these principles of
delegates are afraid, however, that the opposition to such a                  "theological integrity and meaningful witness demand the
united Church will result in further schism in Protestant                     mien  of the churches."

Churches, a result which they are exactly trying to avoid.                       The delegates earnestly beseech the members of their
                                                                              churches to be constant in prayer that the peoplk of God may
       2) There are high hurdles to be overcome before such a                 be open to His leading, that t&se  communions may receive
super denomination can be realized even along the more                        from Him new obedience and fresh courage, and that God's
modest lines of the Blake proposal. In these four Churches                    will for His people may be made manifest before the world.
are represented Calvinist, Arminian and Catholic traditions.                     It was the unanimous decision to hold further consultations.
These will have to be overcome somehow. However, dele-                        The nest meeting is March 19-21, 1963.

gates happily note that throughout the years the historic
                                                                                                         9 0 0 0 0
creedal  positions and traditions of these Churches have been

watered down considerably. This makes the whole matter
easier.                                                                 In other ecumenical news, two major denominations of
                                                                     the Reformed tradition are proposing a joint resolution "to
       3) It seems as if the most formidable hurdle of all is the
                                                                     seek together a fuller expression of unity in faith and action."
apostolic succession of bishops-a doctrine held to by the
                                                                     These two Churches are The Presbyterian Church in the
Episcopalians. This doctrine preserves in the Church the
                                                                     United States with nearly l,OOO,OOO  members and the Re-
office of bishop in which is invested the authority of Church
                                                                     formed Church in America with 250,000 members.
rule. It is much like Roman Catholicism, both in the author-

ity vested in the cler,gy  and in the teaching that the office is       Although spokesmen are very careful not to talk of or-

directly descended from the apostles. The Congregationalists,        ganic union into one denomination, they are not shutting the

with their Congregation form of Church government (in                door to this future possibility. An appointed committee drew


                                               T H E   S T A N D A R D   BEARER                                                       405


up a statement of areas of common concern in which the                   have-been closed- by Catholic clerics even though the country

denominations can begin cooperation :                                    is 50% illiterate and the Romish Church makes pious pro-

                                                                         nouncements about her efforts to banish illiteracy. Protestant
            Doctrine and Polity,  Worship and Liturgy; World Missions    children have been refused enrollment in "public" schools.
      and Ecumenical Relations;
                                                                         Students of Protestant parents and missionaries that attend
            Christian Education, including higher education.
                                                                         schools at all are forced to join their Catholic classmates in
            Theological Education, including exchange of students and
      professors; A nationwide strategy for Evangelism and Church        taking three hours of Catholic instruction each week and

      Extension and Retention.                                           attending Mass on Sundays and feast days. Often in school

            Communicant referrals and mutual pastoral care, including    Protestantism is ridiculed publicly by Romish teachers.
      chaplains and Armed forces personnel;
            Stewardship Education and Cultivation.                           American aid is also intended to be used for the es-

            Interchange of Ministers and Church Workers, inc1udin.g      tablishment of Catholic normal schools which Protestants
      considerations of pensions and annuities.                          may not enter. Since Catholic prelates have the control over
            Men's Work, Women's Work, and Youth Work:                    the hiring and- firing of teachers as well as over the text-
            Christian SociaI  Concern and Action.
                                                                         books used in all the schools, it is next to impossible for
            Reciprocal studies of denominational administra&e  and
      organizational structure.                                          Protestants to get teaching certificates without which they

            Exchange of pulpits, conference leaders, consultants and     cannot teach, and to use material that is not biased strongly

     advisors.                                                           towards the Church of Rome.
            Use of official church papers to acquaint our entire con-
     stituencies with the life and-work of both churches, including          But even this is not all. In the last fourteen years alone

     church publications and communications media;                       116 Protestant Christians have been martyred by the Romish

            Developing personal acquaintance through exchange of         Church because of their faith, 66 Protestant Churches and
     sizeable  groups of fraternal delegates to the General Synod,       Chapels have been destroyed by fire or dynamite and over 200
     the General dssembly, Synods, Presbyteries and Classes, to
                                                                         schools have been closed.
     Men's, Women's, and Youth assemblies and conferences.

                                                                            The Colombian Ministry of Education has given certain
   The national assemblies are now being asked to accept
                                                                         assurances that all the American-financed schools will be
this resolution and, if this is done, each Church will appoint
                                                                         built outside areas where Catholics have absolute control;
a committee of 12 to engage in a study of these areas and
                                                                         that Protestant children will not be denied access to these
make future recommendations.
                                                                         new schools nor forced to take Catholic instruction ; that

                                                                         prospective Protestant teachers will be permitted to attend

U.S. AID TO SCHOOLS IN COLOMBIA                                          normal schools and will be issued teaching certificates. But

  The United States government has earmarked $40,000,000'                Protestant missionaries in Colombia are not satisfied and

for aid to. education in Colombia according to a recent report           still fear the long arm of Rome. For one thing, the two

in ChrL&anity  Today. This was done through the Alliance                 Vatican Pacts still stand as law. As long as this is the case

for Progress Treaty signed by President John Kennedy and                 there is very little hope of promises being fulfilled. Besides,

aimed at developing South American countries economically                a new government is scheduled to take power this year, a

and culturally. Already sites have been chosen for 22,000                government which is more conservative and therefore much

new classrooms and architects named for the program that is              more favorably inclined towards Roman Catholicism than
                                                                                                                                 .
to be carried on over four years.                                        the present one.

   This would be of little interest to our readers who are                  It seems sometimes as if there is little justice left in this

accustomed to .hearing  of millions of our tax dollars being             country. Not only are the tax dollars taken from our people to

poured out overseas to help other countries, except for the              support the public school system in this country - tax dollars

fact that this money is to be used to develop a school system            urgently needed for our own schools ; now these tax dolIars

in a strongly Roman Catholic country. The schools, includ-               are to be sent to a foreign country to promote Roman Cath-

ing many of the "public" schools, in Colombia are, to a great            olic education. It is bad enough that we must support athe-

extent, under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church.             istic religion in this country as taught in the public school

Two Vatican Pacts, the Concordat, and the Treaty on Mis-                 system ; it is adding insult to injury to insist that we must

sions, give the Catholics almost complete control over educa-            now also support Romish teachings in a country in South

tion since Roman Catholicism is the state religion there. The            America. Forced by our government, that supposedly grants

result is that American tax dollars are now being used to                freedom of religion; we must pay the Church that killed the

promote Roman Catholic religion and education in South                   saints to educate their children in their corrupt teachings.

America.                                                                    How difficult, if not impossible, it becomes for the faith-

   The history of the persecution of Protestants by the                  ful Christian to be a steward over the material possessions

Catholics is long and bitter. In this South American country             which he has received from his God.

in the past few years alone more than 200 Protestant schools                                                                  H. Hanko

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



                                                                    the various books written in either the Old or the New

                                                                    Dispensation, but we note further that there is ONE book

                                                                    of Psalms, or literally "songs." ONE book of psalms which

                                                                    was given to the church, in the Old Dispensation already,

                 "The Psalters Questioned"                          as their song content or text. ONE book, designated speci-
                                                                    fically for songs and singing by His church, never subse-

       Much writing has been done concerning the so-called          quently added to by the Holy Spirit in the New Dispensation.

"Hymn Question" in our church periodicals during the past           We contend, of course, that the Scriptures as we have them

few years. And discussion is proper, even though some feel,         are complete.

even as they write, I`. . . that any amount of writing will not         Did God give the Psalms to the Old Dispensation church
convince the opponents, because it is their conviction, and it      as a filling of their responsive need, which same Psalms
is impossible to change or even argue against one's convic-         would be deemed " i n a d e q u a t e " by man (by His
tion." This, if discussion is to retain any merit whatever, and     CHURCH ? ! ? !), and then neglect to provide for this same
if the concept that the Word of God is the determining crite-       need in the New Dispensation church ? Certainly not !
rion for all our convictions is. to be maintained, I empha-         Neglect? No, they are, therefore, the complete text that the
tically deny.                                                       Holy Spirit ever intended should be used for singing by the
       "Hymn Question" ?    Perhaps. The question does involve      Church of Christ.
hymns, in a secondary sense. Yet it is obvious that the
                                                                        It has been advanced that nowhere in the Word of God
above title more correctly "tags" the issue for what it is.
                                                                    do we read that the Psalms are to be regarded as the only
And then the implications become much more grave and
                                                                    basis for the songs of the New Dispensation church of God.
serious. The entire issue of introducing hymns into our
                                                                    This may be true. But wait! Think of all the institutions of
church services must necessarily have followed upon a con-
                                                                    the Old Dispensation church which were no longer main-
clusion or a supposition that the present mode of our con-
                                                                    tained as such in the New. They were each specifically and
gregational singing, namely the psalters based on the Psalms,
                                                                    detailedly replaced by the New Dispensation form, e.g., the
had been tried and found wanting. Therefore we have the
                                                                    Passover by the Lord's Supper, Circumcision by Baptism,
clamor for hymns as songs that are needed as "supplements"
                                                                    and the doing away with all the bloody sacrifices in the pres-
to the Psalm-based psalters. We don't busy ourselves by
                                                                    ence of the perfect sacrificial work of Christ. But we find
making issues of matters that, as they presently exist, are in
                                                                    no such indicated change concerning that bundle of poem-
good order, do we? If so, I would refrain from comment on
                                                                    songs which had been given through the heart of the psalmist
a senseless point. If not, then the former is true, and that
                                                                    -to the Church of Christ in the Old Dispensation ! It was not
concept I just as emphatically contest. More than that! I
                                                                    replaced ! Therefore it STANDS today as the basis for the
tremble because of the regard thus shown for the structure
                                                                    songs in the New Dispensation, even as it did in the Old.
of the Word of God as a whole.
                                                                        I believe, therefore, that this issue is not @+z&ly  con:
       Some writers assert that they will prove "that this
                                                                    cemed  with thF  following considerations :
Hymn Question cannot possibly be a matter of principle," or
`< . . . we must all agree that there can be nothing principally            1) Whether or not people of our denomination pos-

wrong in singing Scriptural hymns in our churches." Never-                sess the ability to compose song-texts that are faithful

theless, to date there has been no writing or argument forth-             versifications  of the Word. I assume that if if were cor-

coming which shows that this question does not involve a                 rect to introduce song-texts based on other parts of the

basic principle. On the other hand, the editor of "Decency                Scriptures, we would be led by the'Holy Spirit to com-

and Order" has pointed out, among many other considera-                   pose and select those that are scripturally correct.

tions, that to depart from the basic principles which were                  2) Whether or not any existing hymn is a faithful
adopted by the fathers, without any regard for their possible             versification  of the Word. In fact, I believe that there
basis, is dangerous indeed ; moreover, he further suggested               @ye many hymns today that are just that!
the probability of a principle objection by noting that no
                                                                             3) Whether or not there exist in our psalter some
mention is made of any other basis for songs, even in the
                                                                          songs that are NOT faithful vex&cations  of the
apostolic church, than the Psalms. Therefore, with respect
                                                                          Psalms. In fact, here also, I think that several of that
to these above quotes, I once more disagree, and purpose
                                                                          type have been cited at various times throughout this
to show principle objection.
                                                                          discussion, so that further citation is useless.
       I believe that the church of Christ HAS principle objec-
tion to the introduction of hymns INTO THE CHURCH                           4) Whether or not we, as a denomination, could at
SERVICE (and this, although many that write fail to                       this time finance a revision of our psalter to include
                                                                          some of the scripturally-correct hymns.
remember this vital point, is the question !). Considering

the STRUCTURE of the complete Word of God, we note                          5) Whether or not a majority of our congregations


                                                T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                      407

      want and would adopt such a revision if it became avail-                                   CJUL  TO SYNOD
      able.
                                                                                 According to the decision of the last Synod, the Con-
           6j Whether or not we must conform to that which
                                                                             sistory  of the First Protestant Reformed Church of Grand
      was done through the course of history by the church
      fathers, withou.t  regard for the,ir wzofivation  or reasons           Rapids, Michigan,. notifies the churches that the 1962 Synod

      fey  doing so. For we do not say, do we, that simply                   of the Protestant Reformed Churches will convene on Wed-

      because the church fathers decided in a certain manner,                nesday, June 6, D.V., at 9:00 A.M. in the above mentioned

      that therefore it must be correct? No, but due regard                  church.
      must be given as to their possible basis  for doing so!
                                                                                 The pre-synodical service will be held on Tuesday eve-
           7) Whether or not there are those that feel that we               ning, June 5, at 8:00 P. M. at First Church. The Rev. M.
      as churches possess some distinctivenes.s,  without which
                                                                             Schipper,  president of the previous Synod, will preach at this
      we would be much better off, and question the praise-
      worthiness of such distinctivenes.s  !                                 service.

    Rather, I believe it is evident that the issue involves a                   Synodical  delegates are requested to gather with the Con-

desire to supplement that which God has given as complete.                   sistory before the service.

And, on that basis, I believe that the whole idea of introduc-                  Those requesting lodging are to contact Mr. P. Decker,
ing hymns for singing in the worship services of our churches                108 Mayfield  Ave., N. E., Grand Rapids, Michigan.
ought to be treated and rejected!
                                                                                                            Consistory of the First Protestant
    As to the,psalter  revision, I feel that we are always duty
                                                                                                            Reformed Church
bound, for our own spiritual good and that of succeeding

generations, to attempt to root out those things which are                                                      Rev. C. Hanko, President

shown to be in error; so here also.                                                                             P. Decker, Secretary

    Finally, on the question bf altering the present reading of

Article 69 of the Church Order, I also feel that a change is

indicated. Inasmuch as no other portion of the Word of

God has been designated as songs for His church, I believe                                  THE VOICE OF OUR FATHERS
that our next reading of Article 69 should be: "IN THE
                                                                                                (Continued from page 401)
C H U R C H E S   O N L Y   T H E   1 5 0   P S A L M S   O F   D A V I D
SHALL BE SUNG." The Ten Commandments were not                                the same Lord Jesus Who insisted that the Scriptures can-
given to the church militant as a song, nor was the Lord's                   not be broken Himself used not the autographs of the Old
Prayer, nor were the passages that relate the words of and                   Testament, but copies of the originals, just as we have today.
events concerning Mary, Zacharias, and Simeon. These then                    And yet He did not hesitate to appeal to those Scriptures
are the additions already with us that should be discarded AS                and to designate them as Moses and the prophets. The same
SONGS !                                                                      is true of the apostles. In fact, it may even be pointed out
                                                                             that quotations from the Old Testament Scriptures are made
    Let us drop them, then, as songs, and let us as churches                 from the Septuagint, which was not even a copy, but the first
SING ! Indeed, let us sing the infallible responses of the
                                                                             Greek translation of the Old Testament.
regenerated and sanctified child of God, as the Holy Spirit
has given them to His church in the Psalms.                                     Hence, we need have no fears on this score. The Scrip-
                                                                             tures as we possess them, though they manifest the effects of
                                                        H. W. Kuiper
                                                                             having passed through history and of having been handled

                                                                             by fallible men, are nevertheless the infallible Word of God.

                                                                                                                                        H.C.H.



                           IN MEMORIAM


   The Con&tory  of the First Protestant Reformed Church herewith                            The faithful and the upright

expresses its sympathy to our Clerk, Mr. Peter Decker, Jr., whose                              Shall minister to me ;

mother,                                                                                      The lying and deceitful

                    MRS. PETER DECKER, SR.                                                     My favor shall not see.

passed away April 28. May  the God of all grace xomfort  the be-                             I will in daily judgment

reaved family.                                                                                 All wickedness reward,

                                                                                             And cleanse from evildoers
                                           Rev. C. Ha&o,  President
                                                                                               The city of the Lord.
                                           G. Vi& Vice Secretary


                                                                    much the  parents'  zeal as that of the children to which Rev.

    NEWS FROM QUR.CHURCHES                                          Kortering calls attention when he thus asks the congregation
                                                                    to share his thankfulness for this display of faithfulness to
               "All t?ze iaints  salute thee . . ." PHIL. 4:21      catechetical instruction.. :.

                                                                       .Andther~  notice. found  in Hull's bulletin was an excerpt

        S&d  news from our Churches direct to Mr. J. M. Faber,      from Rev. B. Woudenberg's  latest Reformed Witness Pam-
          :     1123  Cooper, S. E., Grand Rapids 7, Mich.
                                                                    phlet entitled, "Christ The -Priest." Rev. Kortering, knowing

                                                May 20, 1962        human frailty, reminded his parishioners to "be sure and

   Rev. G. Lanting, of Holland, has received the call from          read your copy."

the congregation in Loveland, Colorado.                                Did you know that a Holland-Psalm-Sing was held in

   From the Program Committee of the Reformed Witness               Southwest Church, May 13, after the evening service? This
Hour we have received this contribution: Prof. H. C. Hoek-          treat for the psalm singing oldsters was sponsored by the

sema, professor in the Theological Seminary of the Prot.            Men's Society of that church.

Ref. Churches of America, will, D.V., be the speaker on our             The acute minister shortage in our denomination is more

distinctively Reformed broadcasts during June. This month           and more being reflected in the bulletin notices of our

the Church of `our Lord Jesus Christ celebrates the Ascension       churches, even in those of Classis East which are closer to

of Christ and the Day of Pentecost. Prof. Hoeksema has              the available supply. Reading services and change of service

devoted his first sermon (June 3) to Christ's Ascension with        times are becoming more and more commonplace in the

a message entitled, "Christ Appearing Again." His Pente-            Eastern Churches as the Western Churches have experienced

costal sermon, which can be heard Sunday, June 10, explains         for quite some time. 1Yoztpzg  Mere,  the Vineyard of. the Lord

"The Blessings of the Spirit Shed Forth." The succeeding            needs laborers !

Lord's Day (June 17) Prof. Hoeksema has chosen for the                 The Society for Protestant Reformed Secondary Educa-

text of his sermon, Chapter 12, verse 3, of Paul's first Epistle    tion in its Annual Business meeting was an enthusiastic

to the Corinthians. This sermon entitled, "The Confession           gathering. Besides the election of officers, the society de-

That Jesus Is Lord" proclaims the unequivocal truth that            cided to distribute envelopes for a regular source of income ;

"no man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit."        and, as a display of their faith, decided to conduct a drive

"Trying the Spirits" (I John 4 :l-3) will be the- theme of the      to raise funds with which to buy .property.-  The men attend-

message to be heard June 24. The Program Committee sin-             ing this meeting seemingly agreed with the sentiments of

cerely hopes that the listeners will receive a blessing through     the bulletin announcements concerning the meeting which

this radio ministry. Are you on the mailing list of the Ref.        read, "Our responsibility to educate our children according

Witness Hour? The address is -The Reformed Witness                  to our convictions did not end when we established our own

Hour, P.O. Box 8, Grand Rapids 1, Mich.                             grade schools. This responsibility extends to a High School

   While the Revs. G. Van Baren and J. A. Heys were in              as well." The goal of a Prot. Ref. High School is now one
Lynden on an official Church Visit, Rev. Harbach invited            step nearer realization !

them to occupy his pulpit, May 6. Rev. Van Baren  preached             Hope Church's own missionary effort, by way of printed

on "The Church's Eternal Election" in the morning service ;         page, is still going strong. The bulletin announcement con-

the Rev. Heys' topic in the afternoon was, "Fed By The              cerning the collections taken. in the month of April showed

Risen Lord," and served as a basis for a Preparatory sermon.        an offering of over fifty-three dollars to what they call "The

A special  treat was afforded the congregation in the evening.      Hope Pamphlet Fund."

Instead of the regularly scheduled Young People's Society              To those of our readers who have not heard the lecture

meeting, Rev. Heys gave a lecture on "The Kingdom of the            of Rev. C. Hanko on "The New Heavens and the New

Anti-Christ." An occasion such as this, and utilized in this        Earth," and to those who have heard it but nevertheless

manner, is an excellent means for a distant church to get           desire a copy thereof : This announcement appeared in Oak

acquainted with other ministers of the denomination, and to         Lawn's bulletin - "Mimeographed copies of the recent

enjoy a "change of diet," hearing a Peter and an Apollos            lecture given by Rev. C. Hanko have been prepared. Those

preaching the Word.of  God as does their own Paul, but each         desiring a copy may pick one up in the annex. Kindly con-

with his own divinely appointed talents.                            tribute lO$ to cover mimeographing." We venture the guess

   Hull's bulletin of May 6 listed the name of 9 catechumens.       that one may obtain a copy from Rev. Vanden  Berg by mail
They - Alvina  Van Maanen, George Hoekstra, Aletha                  if the request is accompanied with the stipulated contribution

Kooiker, Karla  Kooiker, Edith Hoekstra, Dennis Jansma,             plus cost of mailing.     The contents are designed to satisfy
Marjean  Van Maanen, Jim Jansma, Joan Van Maanen -                  the hungry hearts of those who are eager for their future

were being honored for having had perfect attendance records        Home.

in the catechism year just finished. It is probably just as            . . . . see you in church.                           J.M.F.


