           T          h            e
    STANDARD

+- A REFORMED SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE





            Twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three
     hundred and sixty-six days once seemed like a
    long time;  nqw they are vanished like a mere
     shadow-. . . . They .--have  left `with God a
    record  ,that will not be disclosed until the
                            .
     Books are opened  at.the Great White Throne
    in that great Day of days.
       "Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day,
       Its joys grow dim, its glory fades away.
       Change and decay in all around I see,
       .O thou who  changest not, abide with me."
        See "Silent Unto God" - page 146




                                 Vslume'LIII, No. 7, January 1, 1977--------J
                                          ISSN 03624692


146                                                       THE STANDARD BEARER



                                                                                                         tHE STANDARD  BEARER
                                                                               Semi-monthly.   except  monthly   Owing  Juno.   July,  and  Auwst
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                                                                           IbV.  COrneliUS   Hanko.  Prof.  Herman   Hdnko.   Rev.  Robert   C.  liarbach.
                                                                           Rev.  John  A.  Heys,   Rev.   Jay  Kortering.   Rev.   M.  Hoeksema
   Silent Unto God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . .146    Georpe.   C.  Lubbers.   :@ipcv-   Meindert   Joostens.   Rev.  wrmus   S&iEp%
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MEDITATION


                                                Silent Unto God
                                                                 Rev. C. Hanko


             "Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him corn&h my salvation. He only is my Rock and
             my Salvation: He is my defence: I shall not be greatly moved. " Psalm 62: 1,2.



   December 3 1, 1976                                                               Serenely I listen as a distant bell tolls the midnight
   Tonight, as the year 1976 fades into the irrev-                           hour. Another year has come and gone. Twelve
ocable past, and a new year with its uncertain reali-                        months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred and sixty-six
ties confronts us, "My soul waits upon God."                                 days once seemed like a. long time; now they are
   Truly my soul waits. Or better still, as the original                    vanished like a mere shadow. These months, weeks,
expresses it, "Truly my soul is silent unto God." A                          and days have left with me many memories, pleasant
perfect peace of heart and mind fills my soul with                           and unpleasant, some of which will never  be for-
grateful hope and trust in my God.                                           gotten. They have left with God a record that will not


                                               THE STANDARD BEARER                                               147


be disclosed until the Books are opened at the Great       streets of our cities, day or night. Once lottery was
White Throne in that great Day of days.                    frowned upon as gambling; today various States
  "Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day,          indulge'in it. We are forced to ask: how much worse
  Its joys grow' dim, its glory fades away.                will the iniquity of the world become before the
  Change and decay in all around I see,                    measure is full?
  0 Thou who changest not, abide with me."                   In our present day "church world" God is being  _
                                                           dethroned and Man is exalted as if he were God.
  My soul is silent unto God in an amazing tran-           Religion has become purely man-centered. A social
quility, even while troubles round me swell, and fears     gospel finds its appeal to old and young alike, eagerly
and dangers throng.                                        asking: How can the church improve our present
  This past year was not without its ominous signs in      society? The inerrant Scriptures, the righteousness of
the world round about us. It has been a dry summer         God, the atoning death of Christ, salvation to the
both in Europe and in America, with crops withering        elect only by sovereign grace, are doctrines that are
in the fields under the burning heat of the sun. Severe    relegated to mere theories that are not relevant to the
earthquakes have brought untold devastation and            enlightened, scientific times in which we are privileged
have taken many human lives. The mere fact that            to live. The knowledge and wisdom of man are exalted
they did not strike us does not make them less sig-        above the knowledge and wisdom of God. There is a
nificant. The national election brought changes in the     form of godliness which denies the power of God, the
administration that makes one wonder whether the           only power unto salvation. The Jesus Who saves His
threat of the unions and the closed shop  .may not         people from their sins and Who is the only Lord over
make it increasingly difficult for the believer to         their lives is forgotten. A lethargic, complacent attitude
obtain employment. The constant rise in the cost of        settles upon the members of the church, with an air
living creates a growing concern to those whose            of, let us marry and give in marriage, let us eat and
weekly expenses include school tuition and con-            drink, for tomorrow we die.
tributions to the church, missions, and the needy. A
shroud of gloom hangs over the `heads of world               As my thoughts turn inward I realize that I myself
commentators who foresee threats of bankruptcy             am not without my daily struggles in this body of sin
confronting so many nations of the world. The fear is      and death. The past year knew its trials, its dis-
not unfounded that the citizens will arise with acts of    appointments, its own peculiar sorrows. At times my
violence when their accustomed affluence is taken          soul was overwhelmed, anxiously I asked whether
from them. The Beast of Revelation 13 lifts its head       God had forgotten to be kind, whether He was
and shows its claw, menacingly crowding in upon            deliberately withholding His mercies from me. Psalm
individual freedom with its government control in          39 came-to mind. I was dumb, I dared not open my
every sphere of life. Sad to say, so many in the           mouth, lest in doing so I should sin against the Most
church world ignore this, or even deny it. Yet there is    High. Yet pondering the ways of the Lord, I could
a voice speaking to us from the holy Scriptures, "Be-      finally say with the Psalmist, "I was dumb, I opened
hold, I have told you before."                             not my mouth; because thou didst it."
   Blatant wickedness dominates every sphere of life.        I know my weaknesses which increase with the
Not so many years ago our larger cities had their "red     years. I am afraid. I am afraid of those three mortal
light district," where the saloons, gambling dens,         enemies, referred to in our Heidelberg Catechism, the
dope centers, and public houses were confined.             devil, the world, and my own sinful flesh. These wage
Respectable people stayed away from there, because         war against me constantly in a bitter death struggle,
they did not want to be associated with the scum and       as they seek to destroy my soul. I am weak, so weak
corruption of society. Today that scum and cor-            that I cannot stand, no, not for a day, not for an
ruption has spread out over the entire community,          hour, not for a minute, not even for a second. In the
making our cities cesspools of iniquity. Almost every-     midst of these present miseries I complain,
one, no matter in which stratum of society, does
what is right in his own eyes, defiantly transgressing        0 Lord, my God, o'erwhelmed in deep affliction,
every one of the ten commandments, as if there were           Far from Thy rest, to Thee I lift my soul;
no God in heaven who regards and takes vengeance.             Deep callst to deep and storms of trouble thunder,
Once cohabiting created a scandal, divorce and                While o'er my head the waves and billows roll.
remarriage were condemned as sin; but today the               Yet even so, peace like a river pervades my weary
word sin is no longer known, so that evils are con-        soul. God is still on the throne; His power speaks
doned even by counsellors  and moral advisors. Once        through the silence of the night. For God is so very
vandalism, armed robbery, and rape were virtually          near. He holds me in the palm of His hand. He keeps.
unknown, while today one is hardly safe on the             me under His watchful eye. His ear is attentive to my


     148                                             THE STANDARD BEARER


     cry. His mouth breathes blessings upon me, even            words fail us because we do not know what is best for
     when I am least aware of it:                               us, the Spirit within us prays with groanings that only
        "Unto God."                                             He can utter. Father in heaven knows and, under-
        "My soul is silent unto God," also now as I look        stands and answers our prayers. far beyond anything
     out upon the darkness of the last night of the passing     that we can ask or think. With Him is abundant
     year, as I wait and long for the dawning of the new        mercy to forgive our sins every day anew. He fits us
     day. "To Thee I lift my soul. In Thee my trust             with the armor of salvation to fight the battle of faith
     repose."                                                   against that triple alliance out of hell, the devil, the
                                                                world of wickedness, and my own sinful flesh.
       I will say of the LORD, "He only is my `Rock and         Though I am weak, He is strong. Though I realize
     my Salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be greatly     with increasing fears that without Him I can do noth-
     moved."                                                    ing, He assures me that I can do all things through
       My Rock! He is Jehovah, the covenant God, Who            Christ Who strengthens me.
     lives His own glorious and blessed covenant life with-      Truly my soul waits, waits upon the Almighty,
     in His own Being, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit          "from-Him cometh my salvation."
     fellowship together in intimate love and joy.. He
     always reaches out His almighty arm to draw me from           In this coming year the nations will continue their
     the stormy billows on to the solid Rock, Christ Jesus.     ragings against God and His Anointed. Inflation,
     He is my Rock, because He is my salvation. My              unemployment, labor disputes, international bank-
     heavenly Father sent His Son into the world, and           ruptcy will only grow worse. instead of better. The
placed Him under the fury of His consuming wrath, a             whole world is pressing blindly down ,a dead-end
     curse for me. The Son willingly gave Himself to come       street, for their trust is in man rather than in the
into our world  .of sin and death, to suffer at my              living God. Sooner or later chaos must result, and out
hands, to lay down His life for me, while I was still           of that chaos will arise the Man of Sin, the Antichrist,
His enemy. The Son of God, our Jesus, is now risen              as if he knows the solution to all the world's ills. Like
from hell, death, and the grave to the highest heavens,         Roosevelt in the 3Os, who taught us how to spend our
where He is exalted in power and majesty, Lord over             way `to a sham prosperity that ends in bankruptcy, so
all, my Savior and my Lord. Even as He died for me,             also the antichrist will create, an unprecedented
He now lives for me. He gives me His Holy Spirit as             period of prosperity that will plunge the whole world
the Spirit of Christ dwelling in me. I live by the              into swift: confusion and despair. The Scriptures are
power of that Spirit; yet not I, Christ lives in me. The        being fulfilled before our eyes every day. They speak
life I now live is the life of Christ, the new heavenly         of the hastening judgment of God upon a world that
life of faith and hope, even while I am still in this           hardens itself in wickedness and boldly refuses to
body of death. I am God's son by adoption; God's                show any semblance of repentance.
heir by the new life of Christ within me. Though my               But we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor in
sins rise up against me, prevailing day by day, I re-           the highest heavens. Even as we see Him with an eye
ceive mercy, forgiveness, the assurance that sin does           of faith, we hear Him assure us, "Behold, I come
not actually have dominion, but that grace abounds.             quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the
God Who has begun a good work in me will surely                 prophecy of this book."
finish it in the day of Christ Jesus.           .                 He tells us that Sion, His Church, is a safe refuge.
     Yes, "Jesus is a Rock in a weary land, a shelter in        The  -righteous flee into it and are safe. There they
the time of storm." He has always been and always               celebrate the Sabbath of the resurrection of our Lord,
will be a safe refuge to all those who flee to Him for          and' there they fix longing eyes upon the Sabbath, the
shelter. We need no letter of recommendation. We               Rest that remains for the people of God in heavenly
need no appointment. We always have our Advocate               glory, as.they breathe the prayer: Com,e, "Lord Jesus,
before the face of God, constantly interceding for us.         yea, come quickly."
Through Jesus we have boldness and access to the                  Why, 0 my soul, art thou cast down within me,
throne  .of grace  .to make all our needs known in               Why art thou troubled and oppressed with grief?
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving and with               Hope thou in God, the God of thy salvation,
praise. Even when we cannot pray as we ought; when                Hope and the Lord will surely send relief.
i                                        Subscribe  Now to
,                          THE STANDARD BEARER


                                               THE STANDARD BEARER                                                                   149


EDITORIAL




                      Baptism on the Mission Field
                                                             (3)
                                                 Prot H. C. Hoeksema


  In this installment of our series on the above sub-               both under II, where it discusses the Form of Ordina-
ject we wish to concentrate, as promised in our                     tion, and in its first item of advice: "Synod declare
December 1 editorial, on the stipulation in the Form                that the missionary has the authority, under the
of Ordination of Missionaries which limits his baptiz-              supervision of the sending church, when the Word of
ing anyone on the mission field, ". . . if it pleases God           God is preached, to baptize those on the mission field
to make thy work fruitful unto the gathering of a                   who repent and believe, as well as their children,
church. . . ." Before turning to this question, how-                although the church institute is not yet established
ever, I wish to make two items clear:                               there, with a view to the instituting of a congre-
   1) First of all, as to my motivation in these edi-               gation."
torials, I trust that everyone understands that I am                  Before discussing this question, however, I wish to
not disagreeing with the Study Report simply for the                quote in full what the Study Report has to say on
sake of disagreeing; nor am I disagreeing merely out                this subject, Acts ofSynod, pp. 106, 107:
of resistance to change as such-although it remains                       The Form of Ordination of Missionaries (pp 74-76
true that change should not take place lightly and
             .  -.                                                     in the back of the Psalter),  rightly understood,
easily, especially not when it concerns policies of long               charges the missionary with the duty of baptizing on
standing and when it concerns so important an                          the mission field, before and with a view to the ex-
element as the sacraments. I am concerned, as we all                   istence of the instituted church.  This Form was mis-
are and ought to be, that if our churches change their                 understood by the Synod of 1956, which decided
stand (and the stand of Reformed churches in the                       that "administration of `the Sacraments is contrary to
past) on this matter, this change must be made in full                 the second duty mentioned in the Form of  drdina-
awareness of the implications and consequences and                     Con" (Art. 9 1).
must be made pn clear and indubitable grounds. And                        The second duty of the Form reads: "Secondly,
then I state frankly that, while I am open to convic-                  thou art holden,  if it pleases God to make thy work
tion, at the moment I have not been convinced that                     fruitful unto the gathering of a church, to administer
we must go the course recommended by the Study                         the Sacraments of Holy Baptism according to the
Report; on the contrary, I have many reasons to dis-                   institution of the Lord and the requirement of the
agree with said Report.                                                covenant." The Synod of 1956 evidently understood
                                                                       the Form to mean: "if it pleases God to institute a
  2) Secondly, I wish to make it plain that to me the                  congregation where you were laboring." That this is
issue is  not  whether there may and should ever be                    not the  mean&g is plain from the fact that the Form
baptism on the mission field. On the contrary, I am                    goes on to say, "Furthermore, thou art called
thoroughly convinced that it is in harmony with the                    wherever it is necessary and possible to ordain elders
Form of Ordination, the Confessions, and Scripture                     and deacons . . ." sliowing  that there is no institute as
that there be baptism on the mission field. To me, the                 yet when the missionary is carrying out his second
question is: WHEN? Under what circumstances? May                       duty, namely, baptizing. "If it pleases God to make
a missionary baptize so-called converts at any time                    thy work fruitful unto the gathering of a church"
                                                                       means if God gives you the fruit on your preaching of
and indiscriminately? May he baptize even when                         sinners who repent and believe, which fruit has as its
there is no outlook for and no guarantee of the                        normal goal the gathering of a church in a certain
organization of a congregation? This, unless I cannot                  place. The Form refers to the fruit of repentance and
read, seems to be the position of the Study Report,                    faith; the sense is, "If there are converts." But it


 150                                                                       THE STANDARD BEARER


        views the conversion of sinners, correctly, as God's                                    3. The Report makes the negative statement: "It is
        gathering of a church. It is not the Form's intent to                                  not the Form's intent to prohibit the missionary from
        prohibit the missionary from baptizing until a con-                                    baptizing until a congregation is instituted." With this
        gregation is instituted. In addition to the fact that
        such an interpretation is ruled out by the Form's                                      statement I can agree if "is instituted" means "has
        speaking of an instituted congregation only in the                                     been instituted." In other words, I believe that the
        third duty, this is in conflict with the "institution of                               Form plainly teaches that baptism need not wait until
        the Lord" appealed to by the Form, which "in-                                          after organization. This, I remind you, is not the same
        stitution of the Lord," quoted by the Form during                                      as saying that baptism can take place at any time
        the  actual ordaining is: "Go then . . . and teach all                                 whatsoever, without limitation, before organization.
        nations, baptizing them . . ."                                                            My objection to the interpretation offered under
           Our Form reminds the missionary that the duty of                                    "1" and "2" is very simple: this is not the meaning of
        baptizing on the mission field includes baptizing the                                  the language, first of all. Nor can it be shown from
        children of believers when it states: "and the require-                                any dictionary that this is, or can be, the meaning of
        ment of the covenant." This was done by the
        apostles, as Acts 16: 14, 15 (the baptism of Lydia's                                   the language. "Vruchtbaar tot" and "fruitful unto"
        household) and Acts  16:30-34  (the baptism of the                                     means the same as productive oJ whether that refers
        house of the Philippian jailor) teach.                                                 to a crop or to other material things, or whether, as
                                                                                               here, it refers to a spiritual activity and its concrete
           It is worthy of note that the Reformed Churches
        of the Netherlands, at their General Synod of  Middel-                                 results. When is the labor of a farmer fruitful unto the
        burg in 1965-66, adopted a "Form for the Ordination                                    gathering of a harvest? When the entire ripe crop
        of Ministers of the Word for the Service of Missions"                                  stands in the field ready to be harvested. When is a
        that makes indisputably clear that the  missioriary's                                  householder's labor fruitful unto the building of a
        task is baptizing converts, not after an institute is                                  new house? When all his labors (the planning, the
        formed, but as part of the task of the missionary. (We                                 purchase of a lot, the saving of funds, the employ-
        translate) "The servants who are called to this task                                   ment of a builder, .etc.) have reached the point that
        have to proclaim the gospel in other parts of the                                      the house is ready to go up. When is a missionary's
        world to those who do not know Jesus Christ as their                                   labor fruitful unto the gathering of a church (con-
        Savior. They must administer Holy Baptism to those                                     gregation)? When a group of families of sufficient size
        who have confessed Jesus Christ as their Lord after                                    and with sufficient material for elders and deacons,
        they have given them instruction in the way of sal-                                    etc., is ready to be organized. This is the plain mean-
        vation. Moreover, they have the task to labor for the
        building up of the church there, too, where as yet no                                  ing of the language.
        congregation is present, to help install office                                          In close connection with this, in the second place,
        bearers.. .  ." (Cf. "Generale Synode Middelburg                                       let me point out that if it had been the intention of
        1965-66," pp. 19-22.)                                                                  the Form to say what the Study Report says, then it
     For the time being, we will pass by the evaluation                                        would have been very simple to do this; and then,
of the decision of 1956. Whether or not  this  decision                                        too, the Form is guilty of gross ambiguity and
was as incorrect as the Study Report pictures it to be                                         obscurity in us&g the language which it does use. The
i s   o p e n   t o   d e b a t e .   H o w e v e r ,   a t   t h e   m o m e n t   t h i s    Form could simply have said, "If it pleases God to
would lead us away from the main question.  We will,                                           make thy work fruitful unto the conversion of
therefore, return to the matter of the 1956 decision                                           sinners. . . ."
at a later time.                                                                                 In the third place, it simply is not true that the
     At present we must concentrate, first of all, on the                                      conversion of sinners is in every instance in which our
Study Report's explanation of the clause, "If it                                               missionary labors God's gathering of a church. That is.
pleases God to make thy  w&k fruitful unto the                                                 precisely part of the problem! It may very well be
gathering of a church." Concerning this limitation on                                          that there are one or two or a few converts in a given
the missionary's baptizing, the Report says the fol-                                           place, and that it is not at all God's intention to
lowing:                                                                                        gather a congregation there. And historically this is
     1. It  means: "if God gives you the fruit on your                                         the <background of our Form, which was originally a
preaching of sinners who repent and believe, which                                             f&m for ordination of missionaries to the heathen.
fruit has as its normal goal the gathering of a church                                         This Form carefully stipulates the duties of the
                                                                                               missionary. What is he to do when there are converts
in a certain place."                                                                           in response to his preaching? May he immediately
     2.  This  is simplified in the next statement to:
"                                                                                              baptize? May he baptize converts indiscriminately, so
  . . .the sense is, `If there are converts.' " And "fruit-                                    that the result might be after a while that there are
ful unto the gathering of a church" becomes: "But it                                           several baptized converts running around who have
views the conversion of sinners, correctly; as God's                                           no church connection, who are merely  baptized in-
gathering of a church."                                                                        dividuals, not baptized church members? Not at aJ.l!


                                             THE STANDARD BEARER                                                    151


The missionary must wait. When his work is fruitful         specifically the baptizing of children when it uses the
unto the gathering of a  congregation,  then he may         phrase "and the requirement of the covenant." It
and must baptize these previously well-instructed           does not exclude the children (infants); but it does
converts. For a congregation cannot be instituted           not point to them specifically. The simple fact is that
with unbaptized confessing members and elders and           baptism is "the requirement of the covenant" for
deacons.                                                    adults as well as for infants. Why? Because baptism is
  As I have already suggested earlier, this is much less    the sacrament of our incorporation into the covenant
of a problem  `on the home mission field.  Usually-         and church of God. And that, by the way, is also the
there are exceptions, of course-the problem does not        reason why baptism may not be administered to
involve unbaptized adults. And while the baptism of         anyone except in the church or at the precise point
infants could very well wait until after actual             when the church is about to be instituted.
.organization, there can be no objection to the                2. While I do not have much esteem for a decision
baptism of infants at this same point in time, that is:     of the Gereformeerde Kerken which has a date as late
when the missionary's labor has been fruitful unto          as 1965-66 (surely not the most flourishing period of
the gathering of a church, and when, therefore, a           Reformed theology in the Netherlands!), I see no
congregation is ready to be instituted.                     proof in the brief quotation given of the position of
  A couple of concluding remarks:                           the Study Report. On the contrary, this quotation, it
                                                            seems to me, is quite consistent with the position of
   1. I do not believe that the Form has in mind            our Form as I have explained it.

                                   Publications Note

  For a considerable length of time the little book         and a colorful paper binding in green and yellow,
The Five Points of Calvinism, originally published by       decorated with the. Calvinist Tulip, makes this an
our Mission Committee, has been out of print. The           attractive little book. The contents? Lectures by Prof.
R.F.P.A. Publications Committee advertised a reprint        Hanko, Rev. G. Van  Baren, and myself on the Five
in its latest catalog, expecting that the reprint would     Points... If you do not have this book in your library,
come from the press about the time when the catalog         start the new year out by adding this latest R.F.P.A.
was ready. However, we were disappointed in this            publication  - at a price of only  $1.95! Write to:
expectation.                                                Reformed Free Publishing Association, Box 2006,
We are now happy to announce that this book is              Grand Rapids, Michigan 4950 1.
again available. Printing errors have been corrected,                                                     H.C.H.

MYSHEEP HEAR MY VOICE


            Letter to the Members  eof the Church
                                           at Philadelphia

                                                                                            January 1, 1977
To the members of the church at Philadelphia,               the purpose of coming together with a small group of
  We were discussing together this increasingly com-        saints for Bible study and mutual edification.
mon phenomenon in the church which is  character-             It is necessary that you be warned of this, for it is a
ized by a withdrawal from the church institute for          dangerous and evil practice. You must not participate


152                                           THE STANDARD BEARER
I                                                                                                                      1

in these meetings, for the evil is so great that it            You may say that this is not a very great danger.
jeopardizes your very salvation.                            Perhaps it is not; and I hope it is not. But you must
     We have spent a little time in our last letter dis-    be made aware, of the fact nevertheless, that this
cussing a bit of the history of this movement; and          danger is always lurking around the corner. I think
that brief look at its history has already given us         the real point here is: what is your reason for forming
occasion to point out some of the evils which               such a group? Is the reason that you wish to spend an
characterize this movement. But we must now do this         evening (especially a Sunday evening) in good fellow-
in more detail and see how this movement is a               ship with God's people to learn more of the Scrip-
violation of the teaching of Scripture.                     tures? If it is, well and good. May God bless you in
                                                            y,our discussions. They are and can be spiritually
     I want to say a word first about groups which meet     edifying. Is your reason that you are dissatisfied with
together in private meetings while the members of the       the preaching in your congregation? and think that
groups retain their membership in local con-                you are not edified as you ought to be? Watch out!
gregations, and even go to church rather regularly.         The dangers then are very great. You are then sub-
There are several remarks which should be made              stituting these meetings for the preaching of the
about this first of all.                                    Word. That is dangerous business. Is your reason that
     In the first place, we must be careful to make         you are dissatisfied with the low spiritual condition
proper distinctions. There is a tendency, increasingly      of the congregation as a whole? This can happen, you
popular, to form what are often called "Discussion          know. Especially in these times  ,of worldliness and
Groups." Perhaps your congregation has them. I              carnal materialism (evils which  $nfect the lives of
know ours does. I do not want to criticize the people       God's people too), it is possible to become dis-
of God when, especially on Sunday evenings, these           satisfied with the spiritual cond$ion of the members
groups come together to discuss some worthwhile             of the congregation. It seems to you that the con-
question of the truth of Scripture and how it relates       gregation has lost her first love, has drifted into carnal
to our walk and calling in the world. I think this is       security, has become so attracted to the things of the
and can be a very good practice. After all, what pos-       world that the spiritual life of the congregation is
sibly could be wrong with a practice of having people       almost gone. Then, in despair over this sad state of
of God spend their time on Sunday evenings discuss-         affairs, you form such a group of people to discuss
ing matters of a spiritual character? I am in favor of      spiritual things, for you have learned to your chagrin
such "Discussion Groups" and I far prefer them to           that most of the things your fellow members talk
what oftentimes goes on when people of God visit            about are worldly, earthly, carnal things, and you
together on Sunday,or during the week.                      have no interest in them.
     But there are dangers involved; and you must be          If this is your reason for forming such a group,
aware of the dangers so that you can guard against          watch out! You are running grave risks. You can see
them. History has shown that these groups, by what-         why this is so if you think about it a little. I am not
ever name you may call them, often deteriorate into         saying that it is impossible for the `Church to' drift
groups which deal only with very subjective and             into such worldliness. and carnality. I am not even
mystical matters. If one is not on his guard, there is      saying that we have, so far, escaped from all this. I
always a strong tendency to begin to speak of per-          think it goes without saying that, we all are, more or
sonal experiences of faith and to let the discussion go     less, influenced for the bad by the worldly spirit of
in directions of mysticism and subjectivism. This           our times. Nevertheless, this may not be a motive for
happened, e.g., when what the Dutch call  "Gezel-           forming a Bible-study group. Why not? Well, in the
schappen" became meetings of the truly elect within         first place, the formation of such a Bible-study group
the church. These individuals, who had had a con-           is not a solution to the problem. You do not cure the
version experience, came together to compare such           worldliness of the congregation by'drawing off to the
experiences and to speak about them with others.            side by yourself and with a few like-minded people to
Then you had a situation in which the %ue kernel"           study Scripture "met een boekje in `n hoekje" ("with
of elect separated themselves from the ,"unconverted"       a book in a corner"). And .your concern must always
in the congregation and became a church within a            be for the congregation as a whole. But perhaps you
church. These groups were mystical and subjective           say, I do not know how to solve the problem; nor
and served to foster terrible pride. Others, yet un-        does it seem to me that there is any improvement no
converted, might come to these meetings, but they           matter how hard I or even the minister in his preach-
were expected to keep their mouths shut and learn           ing tries to correct these evils. What am I to do?
from the experiences of those who had arrived at a
height of holiness and assurance of faith to which            `Well, that brings me. to the second place. It is
many (if not most) in the congregation had not yet          exactly such a position as this which leads to the
attained.                                                   mysticism and subjectivism of which I spoke. You


                                                THE STANDARD BEARER                                              153


can see that it is only a short jump to the notion that,    gregation and denomination is hopeless because their
because the congregation is so worldly, most of the         denomination `has gone into false doctrine and
members are also unconverted. And, because you              officially adopted or condoned doctrines which are
protest such a situation, it must be that you and a         contrary to the Scriptures. These doctrines of a
few like you are truly converted. And, you see, there       heretical nature have had their effect upon the whole
you have it.                                                life of the church. The result is that false doctrine has
                                                            been and is being preached from the pulpits, and the
  This is closely connected with the idea of mysti-         preaching has become cold, lifeless, heretical, un-
cism and subjectivism. This has repeatedly happened         edifying, and unable to feed the soul of him who
in the church. The church falls upon bad times. There       hungers and thirsts after righteousness.
are those within the church who are concerned - and
justifiably so. But then the pendulum swings to the            These people have attempted to have wrongs cor-
other extreme. The concerned people feel that there         rected in the normal ecclesiastical way of protest and
is insufficient evidence of a genuine spiritual life, of    appeal; but they have gotten exactly nowhere. Now
godliness, of piety, of the fear of the Lord. And while     they do not know what to do. But one thing they do
their concern may be correct and entirely justified,        not want to do is go through the bitter agony of
the reaction is often to go to the extreme of em-           church  .reformation and separation. They have de-
phasizing such subjective piety as may be lacking in        cided that, at all costs, they are going to stay within
the lives of many. And so this piety is considered the      their mother church. But they crave food for the
                                                            soul. And so, while they stay within their mother
crucial thing. Perhaps people complain that the
Church has too long emphasized the doctrinal aspect         church, they organize such Bible-study groups in
of the truth and the intellectual part of faith, and the    order that they may have some means of spiritual
result has been ,a dead orthodoxy. And, in an effort        nourishment and some way of edification.
to right the balance, the pendulum swings to piety             Is not such a practice justified in the light of the
divorced from knowledge and to "evidences of con-           circumstances?
version." Of course, knowledge without experience is          Again, it is not.
barren and sterile. The knowledge of faith without
the works of faith is, as James says, useless. But            Apart from the dangers which I mentioned above,
experience divorced from true knowledge of the              these people become guilty of failure to perform their
Scriptures is subjective and mystical.                      God-given calling as `described, e.g., in Article XXVIII
                                                            of the Confession of Faith. And they must'not expect
  And these people who are concerned about the              a blessing of God upon their activities when they will
matter may go the next step - quite an easy step to         not obey God's commands to them.
take, and say: we who are concerned show by our
concern that we are genuinely converted. The others           This involves, of course, the whole question of
live in carnal security; we properly emphasize the          church reformation. I do not want to talk about this
Christian walk. And there again you have it.           "    matter at this time. It is an important enough ques-
                                                            tion, and certainly  .it deserves some extended dis-
  What then is, the basic error of such Bible-study         cussion. But the time is not now. I recommend to
groups? The basic error is that the solution is sought      you, if you can read the Dutch language, A. Kuyper's
in the wrong place. The solution is not to be found in      book: "Tractaat van de Reformatie der Kerken." This
a course of action which leads to' gradual spiritual        is required reading for all who find themselves in such
separation from the congregation. The solution              a position. But if you cannot read the Dutch, it will
cannot be found in establishing what amounts to a           not be of much help to you. Perhaps sometime it will
church within a church. The solution is to be found         be made available in English.
in exactly that place where all the solutions to the
problems of the church are to be found: in  ,the              I only want to say this - by way of conclusion to
preaching of the Word.                                      our present letter: if you take this position, you face
                                                            the judgment of God which He pronounces in the
   But to this we shall return presently.                   second commandment: "I will visit the iniquity of
                                                            the fathers upon the children unto the third and
  This brings up another question, however. Some            fourth generation of them that hate me. . ." You will
groups which are formed within a. congregation are          have to see the consequences of your disobedience to
formed out of a sense of hopelessness with the situa-       the command of the Lord in your children and
tion in the church of which they are members. This          children's children. And that is a dreadful thing. May
has happened in the past. It is happening today both        God spare you that.
in this country and in the Netherlands. These people                                   Fraternally in Christ,
are convinced that the situation within their con-                                    H. Hank0


154                                         THE STANDARD BEARER



T R A N S L A T E D   T R E A S U R E S   s




                  Acts of the Synod of Ddrdrecht
                                           H i s t o r i c a l   F o r e w o r d                      "
                                                          (4)
  Many among them also showed that this was their                Catechism were handed in to the  Classis. Then the
mandate from their Churches and also from the                    Delegates of each Classis answered that almost all the
States of their Provinces. This division of judgment             Ministers in the Classes had testified that they had no
and advice constituted a new obstacle to the National            objections against the adopted doctrine, but that
Synod. For those who up to this time had been                    those who testified that they had some objections
against the convening of the Synod, eagerly grasping             had not been willing to make them known, either
this opportunity, worked in every way to the end                 because they said that they were not yet ready, or
that the convening of the Synod, although promised,              that they did not deem it advisable. On this account,
might be prevented. In this gathering the other Pro-             the Synod again decided to order them anew that
fessors and Ministers pleaded with Arminius most                 they, without any excuses, refusal, and postpone-
earnestly that he would reveal to them, his fellow               ment, should immediately reveal all the objections
ministers, freely and fraternally what he had against            which they had against the -adopted doctrine, each
the doctrine expressed in the Confession and the                 one in his own Classis.
Catechism. They promised that they would be dili-                  It also became clear at the Synod that in every way
gent to give him full satisfaction. They promised that           the disagreements in the churches were increasing
he might be reconciled with his colleagues under                 greatly. It became plain that young men, coming
honorable conditions, and pleaded that they might                from the Academy of Leiden and the instruction of
from now on live peaceably. And they promised that               Arminius, having been called to the ministry of the
they would say nothing of that which he would reveal             Churches, when they were examined, hid their views
outside of this meeting, if reconciliation  -were                by -speaking ambiguously; but, having been admitted
achieved. He, on the other hand, said that this was              to the ministry, they immediately stirred up new
not advisable for him; and,he claimed that he was not            disputes, stood for new ideas, and boasted that they
bound to do this, seeing that this gathering was not             had various objections against the adopted doctrine.
called for that purpose.                                         It became manifest that in the Classes. and  Con-
  During the following summer, when they held the                sistories bitter disagreements and disputes concerning
annual Synod of the South Holland Churches at                    many points of doctrine arose among the Ministers. It
Delft, Uitenbogaard was admonished to give account               also became clear that among the people themselves,
to Synod of the reasons why, in the giving of advice             to the great damage and,disturbance  of the Churches,
concerning the manner in which they would hold the               various wranglings and' arguments concerning the
National Synod, he had sided with Arminius and had               doctrine were heard. Yea, the beginnings of schisms
differed with the other Ministers. The intention was             were noticed. Further, it came out that the Ministers
that Synod would consider these reasons and pass                 who were siding with Arminius often secretly held
judgment on this matter. Uitenbogaard answered that              various meetings where they laid plans concerning the
he was accountable only to the States, and not to the            advancements of their doctrinal.views.  And it became
Synod. Having been requested to state what he had                plain that the people everywhere were becoming
against the doctrine contained in the Confession.and             more and more divided. On this account, the Synod,
the Catechism of these Churches, he answered that it             judging that the remedy for this evil might no longer
did not appear advisable to him to do this in that               be postponed, and seeing that the hope of gaining a
gathering, and that he was not prepared to do this. At           National Synod was very uncertain on account of the
this Syn0d.inquir-y  was also made whether, according            divergence of advice and judgments, decided, upon
to the decision of the preceding Synod, any objec-               the advice of the Delegates, to request of the States
tions or comments concerning the Confession and the              of Holland and West-Friesland that from the two


                                                THE STANDARD BEARER                                             155


South and North-Holland Synods a Provincial Synod          doctrine. This would be the best way, according to
might be authorized at the first opportunity for the       him, to bring out clearly at this, conference in what
quieting and removal of these difficulties (as had been    points they agreed or disagreed. He stated that as far
done before in similar difficulties). The Deputies of      as he was concerned, he would not refuse to declare
both Synods showed these daily increasing difficulties     his views concerning all matters of doctrine, as much
thoroughly to the States, and requested the imme-          as might be desired of anyone, to the full and forth-
diate convening of this Provincial Synod for the           rightly. But he said that also Arminius, if he wanted
removal of these difficulties. But although the Dele-      to present himself as a faithful Teacher, was obligated
gates, September 14, had given great hope, never-          to declare his views in the same way and no longer to
theless they were not able to obtain a Provincial          make use of such alibis. In spite of this, Arminius
Synod, due to the fact that there were negotiations        stuck to his original intention, so that he finally cried
under way with the enemy concerning a truce, and           out that he was amazed, considering the various
the States, being busy on this account with very           rumors of his false teachings flying through all the
important matters of the Republic, had not been able       churches, and considering that they said that the fire
to consider these ecclesiastical matters. Meanwhile        kindled by him was now bursting out above the roofs
Arminius, seeing that the Churches persisted in trying     of the Churches - that he was amazed that until now
to resolve matters through lawful ecclesiastical judg-     no one had been found who dared to present any
ment, wanted to escape this trap; and through re-          accusation against him. In order to counteract this
quests to the States, April 30, 1608, he managed to        boldness of Arminius, Gomarus took it upon himself
get his case treated by the Counsellors in the High        to prove that Arminius had taught one of the chief
Council by politicians (in distinction from ecclesias-     articles of our faith, namely, that of the justification
tics, HCH); and on May 14, Gomarus was ordered to          of man before God, in such a way that his doctrine
appear before them in conference with Arminius in          conflicted with God's Word and with the Confession
the presence of the Ministers who recently had been        of the Netherlands Churches. For proof of this he
in a preparatory gathering from South and  North-          adduced Arminius' own words from a document
Holland. The Deputies of the Churches, having under-       written in his own hand, in which he asserted that in
stood this, again requested the States of Holland and      man's justification before God the righteousness of
West-Friesland that the Provincial Synod might be          Christ is not reckoned for righteousness, but that
authorized instead of this conference before the High      faith itself, or the act of faith, through a gracious
Council, in order that at this Synod they might take       acceptance, is by God held and accounted for our
cognizance of and pass judgment concerning this            righteousness whereby we. are justified before God.
ecclesiastical matter. Their reason was that ecclesias-    When Arminius saw that he was trapped, and when he
tical persons, experienced in these things and lawfully    saw that because of the clear proof he could not deny
delegated by the churches and empowered  toipass           this accusation, then he began to consent to a dif-
judgment, should deal with this matter. The States         ferent method of procedure. He proposed that every
merely answered that to take cognizance of such mat-       one should put in writing and sign his opinions con-
ters was enjoined upon the High Council, and that'         cerning the chief items of doctrine about which he
judgment concerning these matters would thereafter         believed there was disagreement, should comprehend
be left to the Provincial or National Synod.               these views in certain Articles, and that thereafter
                                                           everyone would signify his objections from the
  At this conference they first debated at length con-     opposite side. This Conference being ended, the
cerning the order of treatment. Arminius asserted          Counsellors of the High Council gave a report of it to
that Gomarus must assume the position of accuser,          the States; and they said that they judged that, in so
and that he was only responsible to defend himself.        far as they had been able to gather from the Con-
Gomarus, on the contrary, thought that such a pro-         ference, the differences between these two Professors
cedure was both unfair and improper, especially in an      were not of such great importance, and that they
ecclesiastical matter before political Judges. Further,    consisted chiefly of some cunning disputes concem-
he said that he was indeed ready to show before a          ing predestination, which, through the exercise of
lawful Synod that Arminius had proposed doctrines          mutual  forebearance, could be overlooked. But
which were in conflict with God's Word and with the        Gomarus insisted that the difference in their views
Confession and the Catechism of the Netherlands            was so important that with the views of Arminius he
Churches, but that this could not be done there with-      would not dare appear in the judgment of God. More-
out pre-judgment of the case. Gomarus believed that'       over, he warned that unless they would in due time
this conference, in order to adhere to the purpose of      seek to remedy matters, it was to be feared that in a
the States, could better be conducted thus, that with-     short time the one Province would rise up against the
out mutual accusations each of them should present         other, the one Church against the other, the one City
and express clearly his views concerning every item of     against the other, and the citizens against one  an-


156                                           THE STANDARD BEARER


other. The States wanted the documents signed by            objections to  the'states. Thev reauested either that
both sides in this Conference to be kept in the High        both annual Synods, that of South as well as that of
Council until the National Synod, and they wanted           North-Holland, might be held as usual, or that from
the contents of these documents imparted to no one.         the two one Provincial Synod might immediately be
This Conference, however, had not removed the               authorized (as had also been requested previously). In
anxieties of the Churches, but rather increased them,       answer to this request, the States, June 28, 1608,
the more so because what took place at the Con-             declared that they intended to convene a Provincial
ference was not made known to the Churches. For             Synod for this purpose during the following October.
people, judged, not without reason, that this was done      When the Churches learned of this, all the Ministers
to favor Arminius, in order that his views would not        siding with Arminius were again admonished, Septem-
become revealed. The Churches meanwhile did not             ber 4 and 12, that they should reveal their objections
cease through their'Deputies earnestly to petition the      everyone in his own Classis, in order that these might
States that this ecclesiastical matter, which could ,not    be lawfully brought to the coming Synod. But just as
be postponed without great danger to the Churches,          before, so also now everyone refused to do this, with
might be immediately investigated and disposed of in        the usual alibis. And when it was almost October and
the gathering of a lawful Provincial or. National           the Churches persisted in the convening. of the
Synod. When Arminius learned of this, he brought it         promised Provincial Synod, it was again postponed
about through Uitenbogaard, whose influence at that         for two months; and meanwhile the Churches were
time was great with many Regents of the Fatherland,
that the States also ordered even the annual Synods,        allowed to hold the annual particular Synods, both in
both of South and North-Holland (the time of which          S,outh and in North-Holland, but with this condition,
was now approaching) to be postponed. Because this          that the matter of Arminius should not be treated by
could not be done without extreme damage to the             them, because this was to be reserved for the Provin-
Churches, the Churches made known  anew' their              cial Synod.

THEDAYOFSHADOWi



                      For Ten That  A,re Righteous

                                                Rev. John A. Heys




  The Church of God is an innumerable host.                 sheep is fully known -and completely His concern.
Through the ages God reserves for Himself the seven         And relatively, He Himself declared, she is a little
thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal, nor           flock, a handful in comparison with the host of un-
kissed the Antichrist. And for ten righteous He will        believers that are her avowed enemy. Yet it is a
save a city and a kingdom. How else will you explain        tremendously large Church that God has designed,
the rising of the sun each morning, the dawning of          and that will come to manifestation in the day of
each new day, the years rolling by, and that all things     Christ. So great she is that no man can possibly count
continue as they were? If you were God, would you           all, her members. God is not forced to settle for a
put up one minute longer with the bold and wide-            handful that "accept" His Son. He is not through the
spread evil that you meet everywhere you go?                ages striving to get as big a church as He can; and He
  When we say that the Church is an innumerable             will not have to settle for a little bungalow whereas
host we are speaking, as Scripture also does on this        His desire was to build a great mansion. It will be a
point, relatively and from the point of view of man.        mansion. It will be a vast kingdom. It will be a perfect
God knows exactly how many are in that Church;              body with an exact number of members, all "hand-
and Christ, the Good Shepherd knows every sheep by          picked," all eternally chosen by God so that it is
name. With Him it is not an innumerable host but a          complete and beautiful in every detail.
precious flock in which the care and need of every            At any given moment in time He has therefore His


                                              THE STANDARD BEARER                                                157


seven thousand who have been kept faithful by Him.           not, as Peter declares, slack concerning His promise as
These are not seven thousand that managed to resist          some men count slackness. He is willing - and He is
the devil successfully, made God's cause a success,          never frustrated in that or in any other desire that He
and came forward to assist His faltering cause. Unto         has  .-- that all of us, to whom in Christ He is  long-
Elijah, when he became a despondent reformer after           suffering, should enter into that glory. He will not
Jezebel threatened him with death, God said that He          destroy the world, or a city or a country, until this
had left Himself seven thousand`who remained faith-          purpose of His is reached. Sin develops. Men become
ful. The Almighty, Who needs no man, and upon                bold inI their wickedness. Created in the image of God
Whom all the faithful depend for their faithfulness,         they behave more basely than the beasts of the field.
reminded the despondent prophet that He reserves,            But He' waits, and meanwhile uses them, until He has
that He keeps faithful, and that is why the number is
seven thousand. `This is an exact number, and al-            worked all the things necessary for His people, who
though it must not be taken literally it must be taken       are affected by these things, to bring them into that
as a testimony that God has determined a perfect and         blessedness of His covenant.
complete Church, and that this church is safe and               In that light we-must also see Lot in Sodom, and
sure because it is the church of the Almighty. Even
here, however, seven `thousand is a relatively small         Abraham praying for ten righteous in that godless
number in comparison with those  .who do bow the             city. Having told Abraham again, and Sarah per-
                                                             sonally; that they would bring forth Isaac through
knee before Mammon and seek the things below.                whom `would come Him Who would bring true,
There were, if you please, four hundred and fifty Baa1       spiritual laughter to all God's people, the Angel of.the
prophets in the land and four hundred prophets of            Lord also informed Abraham of the coming destruc-
the groves. That makes almost one'thousand prophets          tion of Sodom and Gomorrah. These cities, and above
and gives a little idea of how many `were sinfully           all Sod,om, were steeped in sexual perversity. It was
served by these false prophets.                              not the "normal" driving passion of the flesh of the
  But the point is that, because of the presence of          natural man that resulted in adultery and fornication
these  members of His Church upon this earth, God            in their simplest forms and what we might even call
still upholds it in its present form, sends His rain and     natural forms. But as the Apostle Paul reveals in
sunshine,  seedtime and harvest, winter and summer           Romans 1: 26, "for this cause God gave them up unto
follow in their proper order, and the day of judgment        vile affections: for even their women did change the
is not yet upon us. Does not Paul in Romans 8:28 say         natural use into that which is against nature: and like-
that all things work together for good to those that         wise also the men, leaving the natural use of the
love God? And they work together only because God            woman, burned in their lust toward one another; men
is working through and with them. There is a master          with men working that which is unseemly, and re-
plan behind all that happens. There is an extremely          ceiving in themselves that recompense of their error
detailed counsel of God that is being executed by            which was meet." We live in such a desperately
every drop of rain and flake of snow, by every virus         wicked world-and this spills over into the  church-
and disease germ, by every event in history, yea by          world, sad to say-that the homosexual is rated less
every creature, material and spiritual, solid, liquid,       evil than the adulterer or fornicator who takes an-
and gaseous, visible and invisible, large and small. And     other man's wife or defiles a virgin. Such are called
all this is for those that love God. The good that all       sick; and we are cautioned not to call such sinful.
these things serve is the good that God's love has           Such, we are told, may be considered for offices in
designed for those that love Him: the everlasting            the church; and each must be allowed to do his thing.
fellowship of God's covenant in the new Jerusalem,           All this in spite of the fact that Paul presents this as
when the tabernacle of God is with men and we know           baser, more vile, more despicable in God's sight than
God in that we know by experience the blessedness            adultery and fornication in their natural forms. Even
of His love and grace, and thus have everlasting life.       Lot, a spiritually weak man, reveals his revulsion
All is designed to bring us there. All is good because it    about such matters when he presents to the men of
serves that purpose. And nothing hinders, nothing            the city his daughters for them to commit what he
delays, nothing even threatens our arrival in that           considered the lesser sin. And it was not simply be-
glory because the Almighty is in it all, designed it all     cause these were strangers whom he must befriend. It
in inscrutable wisdom and executes flawlessly His            was not simply that he would  ,protect those who
eternal counsel. We may therefore be- assured that all       came to his home. He realized the awfulness of the
things will continue as they were until God has used         sin, how revolting it is to God Who made man for
them to bring His Church into that life in His king-         other purposes and designed man's body for other
dom. When He is through using them as means and              reasons and purposes.
tools to bring us there, He will discard them; and the
wicked He will cast into everlasting punishment. He is          That, the sin was not only great but practiced on an


158                                            THE STANDARD BEARER


almost unbelievably large scale, is evident in that we       Genesis  19:27 that Abraham got up early in the
read in Genesis 19:4 that "The men of the city, even         morning to look and see whether the city were stand-
the men of Sodom, compassed the house round                  ing.
about, both old and young, all the people from every            For the sake of His Church God would spare the
quarter." Yes, the young-and we may believe from             city; and that is comforting to know, for judgment is
the earliest ages of their ability to do so-were there
with the old. Here we have not sin in that private           coming upon this land of ours, and upon our cities
bedl;o`om, secluded spot in a dark comer, behind walls       because of their sins, some of which rival and surpass
that `hide from view, sin that one is - at least in years    the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. They had not the
gone. by-ashamed to have others know that one                filthy magazines of today or the means to produce
practices. There is such an awful boldness of sin here.      them. They had not the immoral TV programs and
They come like a herd of animals that know no                movies which are condoned by governmental regula-
shame before men, wear no clothes, seek no privacy,          tions. Pornography is defended and presented as art.
and are driven by nothing more than beastly passion.         Scenes not to be seen by children, nor by anyone
                                                             because they simply. excite and incite to leaving the
  Lot knows all about this. He had seen it all before.       natural use of the sexual powers God has given man
He dared, however, to try to bring up his daughters in       to burn for the flesh, are shown without shame, and
that kind of environment; and were it not for the fact       posed for without qualms. Plastic devices for such
that Scripture says that he vexed his righteous soul,        sins which Sodom could not make are a million dollar
you would never guess it, except perhaps for the fact        business, all without governmental restraints or
that he does here try to spare these "strangers" this        objections. With Sodom it was "young and old"; and
vile treatment. And Abraham knew about it, and his           in our land it is those in high offices over us as welI as
thoughts often went forth to Lot in that wicked city.        thbse of low social standing.
He had entertained angels unawares in his .kindness             But the day will soon be here when there are not
and awareness of his calling before God. But his con-        ten righteous on this earth; and most of the in-
cern for this brother is Christ, this relative of his, he    numerable host are already in the glory of heaven.
has not forgotten either. We must entertain strangers,       The God of this innumerable host, the God of this
but by all means we  must pray for our brothers in           exact number of the figurative seven thousand, this
Christ. And Abraham does.                                    Good Shepherd who knows each sheep, loves each
                                                             one of these sheep. And when He will not spare the
  Being told that God is through using Sodom, and is         city and country because there are not the figurative
come to destroy them for their sins, Abraham begins          ten righteous in them, He will perform another work.
to .pray for fifty righteous in the city. He took in this    He will rescue that one, or those two or three, before
quite an optimistic position not only'but reveals that       He comes in the fire of His judgment. For ten right-
he was deeply concerned about Lot. He had to come            eous He will spare the city. The one righteous He will
down to only ten, in five steps, and further he dares        deliver out of that city before His wrath falls upon it.
not go being sure in his soul now that there were not        And this He will do because His wrath fell once on
more than ten. Whether he actually rested assured            His Son for all the sins of that one, and because by
now that the city would be spared because there were         His death and obedience He has made that one to be
ten righteous in it or not; we are not told. It is to be     righteous. He makes us to be righteous; and He saves
doubted that he had that confidence, for we read in          us for the sake of His righteous Son.

GUEST ARTICLE


 Fundamentalism and Our Reformed Heritage
                                               Rev. Arie den Hartog




  One of the most significant phenomena of the               churches growing rapidly while those churches which
modern church world is the increasing predominance           hold to the truly Reformed faith are often declining
of fundamentalism. We often see fundamentalist               or struggling to maintain an existence. Furthermore


                                              THE STANDARD BEARER                                                   159


we often see many who have, been historically Re-                The third characteristic of fundamentalism is the
formed leave the Reformed Churches for such  fun-             superficial way in which it interprets scripture. This is
damentalistic churches. In our area many who have             the result first of all of coming to the scriptures with-
left the Reformed churches have so swelled the num-           out a doctrinal basis or framework. The funda-
bers of one such fundamentalistic church in particular        mentalist places great emphasis on learning isolated
that it now has plans for the construction of a new           texts of scripture, but puts forth little if any effort to
building capable of holding 1500 people. Also we              come to understand the scriptures as a whole, or even
more and more see many Reformed churches for-                 to understand one doctrine of scripture thoroughly.
saking their lieritage  to take on a more fundamental-        Often the fundamentalist takes texts completely out
istic character. Does fundamentalism pose a challenge         of the context of scripture in which they are found,
to our Protestant Reformed Churches?                          in order to use such a text to support a particular
  Before we answer that question let us briefly out-          notion he may have. One of the most classic examples
line what is meant by fundamentalism. The adjective           of this kind of interpretation is the passage in Revela-
fundamentalist is usually used to describe those who          tion 3:20, when this is interpreted as though Jesus is
hold to the fundamental or basic truths of the scrip-         standing at the door of the heart of the sinner, knock-
ture such as the infallibility of the scriptures, the         ing because He desires entrance. Furthermore, the
truth of creation, the virgin birth, the divinity of          fundamentalist is usually individualistic in his inter-
Christ, the atonement of Christ, salvation through            pretation of scripture. That is, he cares not very much
faith in Christ alone, the resurrection of the dead, life     what others have said about a certain passage of
everlasting, and the literal, personal return of Christ       scripture nor about the history of the understanding
bn the clouds of heaven. In this sense we surely              of scripture on a certain subject. The all important
would classify ourselves as fundamentalists, except           thing to him is, what does this text mean for me now.
that we would add to the list of fundamental truth,3         . Related to this, he is often subjectivistic in his inter-
many more truths, such as the truth of sovereign              pretation of scripture. More important than what the
predestination, the truths of the five points of Calvin-      text of scripture really means and what all of the
ism, `and the truth of the covenant. Nor would we            concepts mean in the text is the subjective question
criticize those churches that are fundamentalist              "what does it mean for me?" If you think this is too
churches for holding to these fundamental truths of           harsh a' criticism, you need only to pick up one of the
scripture; in fact, in this regard these churches put to      vast majority of books on the market today that are
shame many churches who go under the name Re-                 supposed to be used as study aids of scripture and
formed while denying these fundamental truths of              you will find exactly that question over and over. The
scripture.                                                    result  df this method of interpretation is that there
                                                              can be a host of different meanings given to a par-
  There is more to what is usually known as. fun-             ticular passage of scripture, with all of them being
damentalism than this, however, and it is especially to
this broader conception of fundamentalism. that we            considered equally valid. The standard of what is
wish to address ourselves in this article. We can best        right is merely what one happens to understand as the
explain what fundamentalism is by describing some             meaning of the text.
of the major characteristics of it. Most characteristic          Characteristic of fundamentalism is also the great
of fundamentalism is a disregard for the creeds and           emphasis on the New Testament and the lack of
confess&s of the church. They espouse the state-              emphasis on the Old Testament. The Old Testament
ment that no creeds are necessary for we have Christ          is regarded as being, for the most part, for the nation
and the scriptures and these are sufficient. Maintain-        of the Jews and no longer applicable to our present
ing such creeds only brings about division in the             dispensation. In fundamentalist circles we therefore
churches, they say, and obstructs the free interpreta-        rarely find preaching on the Old Testament, or if
tion of the scriptures.                                       there iS such preaching it is reduced to a mere moral
  Related to this there is among fundamentalists a            lesson or Sunday School story. There is very little
de-emphasis or even a disregard for the doctrines of          understanding, if any, of the fact that the Old Testa-
scripture. The doctrines of scripture are perhaps             ment in all of its pages also contains the gospel of
something that belong to the theologians but they are         Christ Jesus.
of no significance or importance for the ordinary be-           Another characteristic of fundamentalism is the
liever in this day to day life as a Christian. Doctrines      lack of emphasis on or appreciation for the doctrine
for the most part are irrelevant. Furthermore, a per-         of the church as taught in scripture. Usually funda-
sistent emphasis on doctrine only brings about                mentalist  -churches are  undenomination$  churches
division in the church that is  .not at all necessary.        because the whole question of denominations is con-
Many even make a mockery of doctrinal controversy             sidered unimportant. The various denominations are
in the  .church  as being. mere foolish wrangling.            considered merely as different spokes of a wheel that


160                                           THE STANDARD BEARER


lead to the same hub. Which church one belongs to           tion and understanding of scripture there is continual
therefore is not considered of great moment, as long        reference made to our confessions.
as one holds to the so-called fundamental truths of            Secondly there is in. our midst a great emphasis on
scripture. The whole notion of a church institute is        doctrine. We have much doctrine in our preaching.
not considered very important anyway. Much of the           Our young people study Reformed doctrine in
life  of' the Christian has nothing to do with  ,the        Catechism classes. Much labor in the seminary of our
church as'an institute. Also with respect to the doc-       churches is spent in the maintenance and develop-
trine. of the church the fundamentalist is individualis-    ment of dodtrine. Our magazines and other publica-
tic. He is a church for the most part by himself, or        tions place `great emphasis on doctrine. There is much
perhaps with two or three more of his fellow Chris-         controversy between us and othkr denominations and
tians. He does not need the rest of the church as           theologians on questions of doctrine. This doctrinal
institute and does not believe that the body of Christ      controversy is engaged in not only by the theologians
and all its members exists in such a church. He does        and ministers of our churches but also by the laymen.
not feel a responsibility or obligation to a specific       We insist very strongly on the great importance of
church institute, nor does he feel at all that he is        maintaining sound and pure doctrine.
corporately responsible for that which is taught at
such a church.                                                ,In the interpretation of scripture great labors are
                                                            spent by our ministers in carefully exegeting the
  Related to this characteristic is of course the  de-      scripture. Our ministers work within a doctrinal
emphasis on the special office in the church, and also      framework whenever they come to the scriptures. By
for the preaching of the Word as the central means of       the grace of God our ministers have been taught to
grace. Much more important than the authoritative           exegete and expound the scriptures as few if any have
preaching of the Word of God from Sabbath to                been taught. In our interpretation of scripture we
Sabbath are various Bible studies and fellowships that      stress the importance of understanding the scriptures
one is a member of and which one seeks as the source        as a whole and of developing a complete understand-
of his spiritual growth.                                    ing of the doctrines of scripture. In our understanding
  Finally, characteristic of fundamentalism is the          of. scripture and the doctrines of scripture we cherish
great emphasis on evangelism. The chief calling of          very highly what we call the Reformed heritage that
every individual is to be a preacher of the gospel.         has been passed down to us. By that we mean that we
There is little regard for the ordained office in the       believe that the Holy Spirit, according to the promise
church; almost anyone can be such a preacher of the         of Jesus Christ, leads and guides the church into all
gospel. The emphasis in this  `evdngelism is to bring       truth through history. The result of this work of the
about as many conversions, or so-called .decisions  for     Spirit is that the church through history possesses
Christ, as possible. To be sure, we do not criticize        more and more an understanding of the riches of the
evangelism as such; there is surely a great urgency of      doctrines of scripture. And each generation benefits
the church to be engaged in evangelism. However, the        from the understanding of the previous generation
emphasis is often so exclusively on evangelism that         and so we develop in our understanding of scripture.
there is little regard for the equally urgent necessity     It is therefore of great importance that, when we
for the Christian to grow daily in the faith and the        study the doctrines of scripture, we take into account
knotiledge of the scriptures, and that this growth is       the rich heritage of the faith that is handed down to
accomplished through growth in understanding the            us. When we exegete scripture we have been taught
doctrines of the scriptures.                                to labor diligently with each of the concepts in a text;
  Let us now contrast this fundamentalism briefly           and the standard of what the true interpretation of a
with the relevant aspects of our Reformed faith or          passage of scripture is must be found in scrij$ure it-
the Reformed heritage that we possess by the grace of       self.
God. We are a confessional church. We hold to the              we have in our churches much Old Testament
historic creeds of the Reformed churches, the three         preaching.  .The Old Testament is considered as
forms of unity: the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons        important as the New Testament and as truly con-
of Dordt, the Belgic Confession. These creeds are           taining the gospel of salvation. Through the heritage
diligently taught to us. The Heidelberg Catechism is        of the Reformed Faith delivered unto us we have an
preached from Sunday to Sunday in our churches,             understanding of and appreciation for the unfolding
and this preaching involves centrally the exposition of     and realization of God's covenant, as this is so im-
the Catechism. Our children are required to learn the       portant in the understanding of the Old Testament.
Heidelberg Catechism in catechism classes. Our creeds
are further emphasized when from time to time they            We place a great emphasis on the doctrine of the
are explained in our Standard Bearer, as Prof. Decker       church. We believe that the earthly and institutional
is presently doing for us. Further,  in our  interpreta-    manifestation of the church is of great importance for.


                                                THE STANDARD BEARER                                                  161
*

the life of the child of God. We insist that there is in      gathered centrally  in'tlie line of continued genera-
history a church that is the closest manifestation of         tions. Therefore we consider it of primary importance
the true church here on earth and that it is the calling      that the children of the covenant are first of all `in-
of the child of God to join himself with that church.         structed in the doctrines of the Word of God and
To leave such a church is a very grave and serious            nurtured in the fear and love of the Lord. For this
matter. We consider it of great importance to main-           reason we place much emphasis on catechism classes
tain the doctrinal purity of this church, and we be-          and Christian Day Schools.
lieve that this is the corporate responsibility of every         In a world in which we daily come into contact
member of the church. We consider the maintenance             with so many other Christians and with so many dif-
of doctrinal purity to be a matter of such great im-          ferent churches and find ourselves often so entirely
portance tliat we  .are willing to be excluded from           unique, we always have to evaluate the validity of the
many associations, even of Reformed churches, be-             Reformed heritage. Why do we place so much
cause of our insistence on doctrinal purity. We have          empha&s on the Reformed heritage and the various
insisted on the importance of doctrinal purity even           things that we mentioned? Why do we maintain so
when it often means that we stand alone as a separate         steadfastly the urgency of sound doctrine in the
and small denomination.                                       church? Does the child of God in the world really
     Furthermore, we believe that the institute church        need to be concerned so much with doctrine? Could
is the spiritual mother of the saints of God here on          we not better busy ourselves with more important
earth. The preaching of the Word is considered of             matters than with doctrinal controversy? Perhaps
central importance as the chief means of grace, and           even more important, do we have a real appreciation
the life of the institute church stands at the  ver$          for our Reformed heritage? Do we see the urgent
center of our lives -as Christians in the world..             -need of maintaining it? Are we knowledgeable about
                                                              that heritage and do we love and cherish it in our
     With respect to the question of evangelism, we con-      hearts and souls? Can we and do we give a living
sider evangelistic work to be of great importance but         testimony of the Reformed heritage in our confession
surely secondary to the daily spiritual nurture of the        and life? How must we give such a testimony in an age
church of Christ that is already gathered. We believe         of diminishing knowledge of the Word of God and
that the church is not merely. an aggregate of in-            lack of understanding of and appreciation for the
dividuals but an organic whole of the body of Christ,         Reformed Faith? It is only when we answer questions
chosen in Him from before the foundations of the              such as these that we can properly meet the challenge
world. Furthermore, we believe that the church of             of fundamentalism in our day. In our next article we
God according to the gracious covenant of God is              shall try to answer some of these questions.



                                          Book Review
                                                     ProJ: H. Hanko



PAUL: AN OUTLINE `OF HIS THEOLOGY,  by                        gians in this country have paid homage to some of the
Herman Ridderbos; translated by John Richard de               views advanced by .Professor Ridderbos, and we may
Witt; William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975;               expect that the book will continue to have an impact
$12.95,587  pp.                                               upon theology in this country arid abroad. Whether
                                                              the  influence of this book is good or bad is quite
     This massive work by Professor Ridderbos,. pro-          another question.
fessor of New Testament for many years in the
Theological School of the Reformed Churches of the              There are niany interesting and excellent features
Netherlands in Kampen, first appeared in the Dutch            about the book, and anyone interested in recent
language under the title, Paulus.' Already in the Dutch       developments in theology will have to read it. The
edition it created a considerable stir both .in the           commendable aspects of the bdok are easily enu-
Netherlands .and in America. It will, no doubt, attract       merated. It treats in some detail higher critical
much more attention now that it has been translated           hermeneutics and has some important information to
into English. There is no doubt about it that it is an        offer in this field. It is a thorough treatment of all the
important work. Already several Reformed  theolo-             main themes in the writings  of the apostle Paul and


 162                                         ,THE STANDARD BEARER


 summarizes what Paul's epistles have to say concem-        Hoekema can maintain his thesis that a Christian
 ing many of the important articles of the Reformed         must have a positive self-image only by interpreting
 faith. In some respects certain doctrines, emphasized      Romans 7 in this  way. In several articles in the
 in Paul's writings, are extensively treated and devel-     Reformed Journal which formed the basis for Hoek-
 oped, and the book is a valuable aid in getting these      ema's book, he tells us that he gained this insight into
 doctrines clearly before one's mind. Perhaps the most      Romans 7 from Ridderbos' book which we are now
 interesting feature of the book, and also the most         reviewing. Ridderbos writes:
 valuable, is the detailed exegesis of many passages in            Finally, as regards the much discussed difference
' Paul's epistles. Oftentimes this exegesis contributes         of opinion - which to the present day has not been
 valuable insights in the meaning of the text. The book         brought to a solution that is in some degree generally
 is a scholarly exegetical discussion, and shows Pro-           accepted - as to whether the discord delineated in
 fessor Ridderbos' profound exegetical skills. A de-            Romans 7: 14ff. is to be understood as pertaining to
 tailed textual reference in the back of the book will          the remaining struggle against sin in the Christian life
 aid the student of Scripture in finding those passages         or whether Paul here intends to represent the im-
 of Scripture which Ridderbos takes the time to  ex:            portance of the ego outside Christ and the power of
 plain.                                                         his Spirit, we have elsewhere chbsen  with conviction
                                                               for the latter view on the ground of a detailed anal-
   E. g., I found the discussion on the following sub-         ysis of the context and the text of Romans 7 and wish
jects of special interest: the discussion of Romans             to maintain that with undiminished force.  (p. 126,
 5 : 12ff. which treats of the imputation of Adam's sin;        italics is ours.)
 the discussion of the forensic aspect of justification;      It lies outside of the scope of this review to ex-
 the discussion of the relation of the church to the        amine in detail the arguments which Ridderbos
 magistrates; and the discussion of the expression          advances in support of his position. I have done this
 "body of Christ" as used by Paul, etc.                     at some length in several articles in the Theological
   All these things and many more make the book             Journal,  and the material need not be reproduced
instructive and fascinating. The rather steep price of      here. (Cf. Theological Journal, Vol. V, 1; VI, 1; VII,
the book is worth the investment.                           1). There are, however, a couple of remarks concern-
                                                            ing this that ought to be made. In the first place, it is
   Nevertheless, the book has serious faults. There         interesting that  Jacobus Arminius was first  sus-
are, of course; a number of places where one would          picioned of heresy by his colleague Plancius in the
disagree with Ridderbos' exegesis and with his in-          congregation of the Reformed Church in Amsterdam
terpretation of Paul's writings. This is bound to           when he took the same position as Ridderbos on this
happen. No one can write a book with which every            passage of Romans 7. The views of Arminius and his
 one would agree in +ll its details. We are not inter-      followers were later condemned by the Synod of
ested in these things; nor do they subtract from the        Dordrecht, 16 18-' 19. Interestingly, neither Ridderbos
significance of the book. But there are several very        nor Hoekema makes any reference to this historical
important faults in the book which are worth our            fact. Theological integrity within the sphere of the
 closer attention. Two of these faults are wrong inter-     Reformed faith would Seem to require that they
pretations of Paul's writings at key points; one is         would do this.
 what I consider to be a serious mistake in method-
 ology. The first two have to do with Paul's doctrine         In the second place, it is really impossible to main-
 of the old and new man and Paul's doctrine of eternal      tain the view that Paul is speaking in Romans 7 of
 election. The third has to do with the whole approach      himself before his regeneration unless one does be-
to Scripture which is implied in "a theology of Paul."      come an Arminian in this key point of his theology.
To each of these we turn our attention.                     Paul writes: "For the good that I would I do not." If
                                                            this is true of the unregenerated Paul, then it follows
   Dr. Anthony Hoekema, in his book "The Christian          that P&l could will the good before he was regener-
 Looks At Himself," takes the position that the Chris-      ated. This is exactly Arminianism. And into this
 tian makes a serious mistake if he thinks of himself as    Arminianism Ridderbos falls. On p. 128 he writes:
 a wretched sinner. He must, asserts Hoekema, have a
 more positive opinion of himself. Hoekema correctly               1i1 our judgment too little account is taken in this
 points out that this question involves an interpreta-          way of what we have already observed above concern-
 tion of Romans 7: 14-25 where Paul concludes a                 ing the differentiated and shaded picture that the
                                                                apostle gives of the bondage of sin and its corrupting
 discussion of his own spiritual experience with the            operation in man. Romans 7 does not fall outside
 words: "0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver            that, but brings it out in still fuller relief. The idea of
 me from the body of this death?" Hoekema tells us             and zeal for the good have not been quenched in the
 that this passage must be interpret&`d as a description        same way in all men, Jew and gentile, under the law
 of Paul prior to his regeneration. It is obvious that          and without the law. It is in harmony neither with


                                                       THE STANDARD BEARER                                                         163


    the teaching of Jesus nor with that of Paul to  deny          of course, not only implies a denial of reprobation,
    zeal for the law or desire for the good to every man          but implies an acceptance of the basic Arminian
    outside Christ, or to consider such impossible in him.        position on predestination. A few additional quotes
    (Italics ours)                                                will senie to bring this out.
  By taking  this position Ridderbos clearly agrees                      God is free to have mercy on whom he will; on the
with the theology of Arminianism, and, to the extent                  othe; hand  he is free to pass by  otheis  with  this
that he does this, he puts himself outside of the camp                mercy and even to harden them in their sin. Paul is
of Reformed theology.                                                 not guided here by an abstract concept of divine free-
  The second. point that needs emphasis is Ridder-                    dom, but by the freedom of God's grace as this has
bos' treatment of the doctrine of predestination.                     revealed itself in the history of Israel. The apostle
  There are one or two remarks about this which we                    observes a clear divine intention in it. . . .God is free
ought to make before a more specific examinationis                    to maintain the validity, not of human effort or
                                                                      strength, but of his grace only. He is also free, there-
made of `Ridderbos' views. In, $he first place, it seems              fore, to make the resistance of others, in this case of _
incredible that in a book written on the "theology of                 Pharaoh, subservient to the sovereignty of his grace
Paul" by a "Reformed" theologian, there are only                      and the glory of his name revealed therein by harden-
about 15 pages at the most out of 560 dealing with                    ing them in this resistance.
what anyone knows to be the central doctrine of                     Although somewhat unclear, this is not so bad yet.
Paul's writings. This is more than passing strange.               But then he shows that he does not want to refer all
Even the relatively unimportant doctrine of the rela-             this to an eternal decree when he writes:
tion of the Christian to the magistrate receives almost
7 pages. In the second place, the discussion, especially                 If the potter is free to give the objects he makes of
when Ridderbos sets forth what he believes  cpn-                      clay the destiny that seems best to him in the con-
cerning predestination, is vague. It is not easy to                   duct of his work as  `a potter, would God then not be
                                                                      free, in order to show the power of his work and the
know from what he writes exactly what his view is.                    riches of his glory on those whom he has destined to
This is strange when one is treating a doctrine which                 that end, not as yet to give up immediately to  judg-
is so much the heart and core of the Reformed faith.                 ment those to whom his wrath goes forth (because  of
  To turn more specifically to this question, one                     their sin)  and who are therefore ripe for destruction,
thing is clear: Ridderbos rejects the doctrine of                    but first to demonstrate to them the power of his
eternal and sovereign predestination. His view is quite               grace on his people?
similar to that of Berkouwer. In fact, I have heard                      The purport of Paul's argument ii not to show that
that Berkouwer was surprised and pleased to discover                  all that God hoes in history has been fore-ordained
that Ridderbos did agree so closely with him on this                 from eternity and therefore, so far as his mercy as
matter because, as Berkouwer claims, both arrived at                 well  as.his  hardening is concerned, has an irresistible
their views independently. However this may be,                      and inevitable issue.  Rather, it is  his intention to
neither one of these two theologians, leaders in the                 point out in the omnipotence of God's activity the
Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, want this                       real intention of his purpose. (p. 345, italics ours)
doctrine.                                                                . . . It is evident that one may not identify the
   Ridderbos first of all denies that Romans 9 teaches                omnipotence and sovereignty of God's grace thus
election and reprobation. He writes:                                 upheld on the one hand and of his reprobation and
       (In this passage) a "natural" birth does take place,          hardening on the other with irrevocable "eternal"
    but God once more intervenes by designating, not the              decrees, in which God would once and forever have
    elder, Esau, but the younger, Jacob, contrary to all             predestined the salvation or ruin of man. (p. 345)
    custom and expectation, as the continuation of the            In commenting on Ephesians 1:4, he writes:
    holy line of the people of God.
In a footnote to this passage, Ridderbos adds:                           Here again it. is a matter, as always with election,
                                                                     not simply of a decree of God that only later comes
       That this is the point in question and not "election          to realization, but of the actual appropriation of the
    and reprobation" as the denotation of the eternal                 church to himself before the foundation of the world.
    destiny of both is clearly apparent from the words of            (P. 347)
 the divine statement: "the elder shall serve the                       What prompts Paul to hark back again and again to
    younger." In vs. 13, too, Jacob and Esau are spoken              the divine purpose is not an abstract  predestinar-
    of as two peoples, in harmony with Mal. 1: 2ff.                  ianism or reference back to God's decrees as the final
   It is clear from this that Ridderbos denies not only              cause in the `chain of events, but the designation of
that Romans 9 speaks of sovereign predestination, but                sovereign, divine grace as the sole motive of his work
that he also interprets this as many before him have                  of redemption in history. (p. 350)
done, as referring to God's choice of the nation of                     When  - as, for example,  in the  so-called catena
Israel as a special nation with a special destiny. This,             aurea   (golden chain, HH) of Romans  8:29ff.  - Paul


 164                                                     THE STANDARD BEARER


   joins God's purpose, predestination, calling, justifi-           of Paul. There is an underlying assumption here
        cation, and glorification in one indissoluble bond, this    which is wrong.
        is not an abstract pronouncement concerning the
        immutability of the number of those predestined to             The underlying assumption is that Scripture is not
        salvation, but a pastoral encouragement for the per-        an organic whole. Or, to state the matter positively,
        secuted and embattled church, based on the fixed and        the underlying assumption is that Scripture can be
        unassailable character of the divine work of redemp-        chopped up into segments, each of which can be dis-
        tion. This fixed character does not rest on the fact        cussed independently from the rest of the Word of
        that the church belongs to a certain "number," but          God. This assumption is wrong.
        that it belongs to Christ, from before the foundation         We ought to develop this a bit more.
        of the world. (p. 350)                                        The truth concerning the organic unity of Scrip-
  From these quotes  it is obvious: 1) That Ridderbos               ture, in brief; is this. Scripture taken as a whole is one
maintains that Romans 9 speaks neither of sovereign                 book, though it contains many different parts. The
election nor of sovereign predestination, but of a                  principle of this organic unity of Scripture is the
choice of a nation for a definite historical purpose; 2)            truth that Scripture is the infallible record of the
that Ridderbos denies sovereign reprobation, and will               revelation of God in Christ. Even as all the revelation
speak of reprobation, if at all, only as conditional.               of God is in Christ, so also is Christ Himself the one
This is Arminian theology. 3) That even election does               principle of the whole of Scripture. All Scripture
not refer to an immutable decree of God which fixes                 speaks only and everywhere of Christ.
eternally the number of the elect and who they are,'                  ,It is true that Scripture is the record of a revelation
but only emphasizes that salvation is by grace. How                 that is progressive. Principally and seminally all the
Ridderbos harmonizes salvation by grace with an                     revelation of God in Christ was given already in those
Arminian conception of predestination is not ex-                    first words spoken to our fallen parents through
plained in the book. 4) That even Romans 8:29ff. is                 God's Word to the' serpent: "I will put enmity be-
not dealing with predestination as such, but is only                tween thee and the woman, between thy seed and her
"pastoral encouragement." How there can be any,                     setd . .  ." Genesis 3 : 15. All revelation from that
"pastoral encouragement" for the people of God if                   point on was the progressive development of that
`their salvation is not rooted in the certainty of God's            fundamental and principle truth until all revelation
eternal and unchangeable decree, is a question which                was fulfilled in Christ Himself Who came into our
Ridderbos does not face.                                            fl&h, suffered and died for the sins of His people, and
   By this flagrant denial of sovereign predestination              rose again and ascended into heaven fron whence He
Riqderbos has broken with the Reformed heritage of                  shall come at the end of time to judge the living And
the truth, and without really coming with anything                  the dead. Because Scripture is ,progressive, the Scrip-
new, has reverted back to the old error of Arminius.                tures record that revelation in a progressive way. But
   Finally, we must say something in this review con-               this does not alter the fact that the one principle of
cerning Ridderbos' methodology.                                     unity in the whole of Scripture is Jesus Christ, the
                                                                    fulness of the revelation of God.
   It is becoming increasingly popular today in the
field of theology to abandon the time-honored                         `Furthermore; the organic' unity of Scripture means
method of "Systematic Theology" or Dogmatics                        that the whole truth of God always comes to ex-
which "systematizes" the truth of all Scripture, and                pression in every single passage of Scripture. No in-
to develop the truth of a particular part of the Word               dividual text can be interpreted without taking into
of God. George Eldon Ladd's "The Theology of the                    account the whole of the Bible. The whole Word of
New Testament" is an example of this; so also is the                God comes to its own unique focus in every text.
book of Ridderbos. The question is whether it is                    And the central truth is again, Christ, the revelation
proper and in keeping with Scripture itself to speak                of. God as the God of our salvation. One does serious
of a "theology" of only a part of Scripture. It is my               injustice to a text when one interprets a given text
contention that it is not.                                          only as it stands by itself. One does serious injustice
                                                                    to a text when one interprets a text only in the light
  This must be clearly understood. In a certain                     of' its immediate context. Even, one does serious in-
limited sense it is not wrong to discuss in a book what             justice  %o a text when one interprets a text in the
e.g., the New Testament teaches in distinction from                 light of only part of Scripture. In Hermeneutics class
the Old. Nor, I suppose, would it be wrong in itself to             in Seminary we stress the fact that every text must be
discuss in a book some of the chief doctrines which                 interpreted in the light of its context, in the light of
the epistles of Paul treat.' But one must be very care-             the book in which it was written, in the light of the
ful when one does this, for the dangers are very great.             Testament in which it appears, but also in the light of
And it is quite a different matter to develop a                     the whole of Scripture. This follows from Scripture's
"theology" of the New Testament, and a "theology"                   organic unity.


                                              THE STANDARD BEARE'R                                                              165


   An approach to Scripture which speaks of a                    In the second place, there is very little in the whole
theology of the New Testament, or a theology of the          book about our Reformed Confessions. Ridderbos
apostle Paul denies this by its very methodology. And        might object and say: I was not writing about the
because this is denied, serious' errors follow - errors      Confessions; I was writing about Paul's epistles. And
which are also evident in this book by Ridderbos.            that, of course, is obvious. But it remains a fact that
  What are these errors?                                     no Reformed man can write theology and not pay
                                                             attention to the Confessions. This approach is  un-
   In the first place, there is an implicit denial of the    Reformed. A Reformed man comes to Scripture with
truth of inspiration. How can this be? Consider the          the confessions. He does this, not because he gives to
fact that there is, according to Ridderbos, a                the Confessions an authority higher than Scripture,
"theology of  ,Paul." This means that there is also a        but because the Confessions are the fruit of the work
theology of Peter, a theology of James, a theology of        of the Spirit of truth Who led the Church in the past
Matthew, a theology of Isaiah, etc. But is this true?        to the knowledge of the truth of Scripture.
Where, in all this, is there room left for the most
important of all? - a theology :of the Holy Spirit? Is           But Ridderbos' approach, by definition, precludes
not the Scripture God's infallible record of His own         the possibility of using the Confessions,. How can he
revelation? Is not the Scripture therefore God's             use the Confessions? The Confessions, profoundly
"theology"? - a theology which He reveals of Him-            aware of the organic unity of Scripture, carefully
self?                                                        develop' each doctrine of the Christian faith as that
                                                             doctrine is taught in the whole of Scripture. If
  It is very striking that there is, in this entire book,    Ridderbos wants to write a theology of a part of
not one single reference which I found which em-             Scripture, it is obvious that he can make no use of. the
phasizes that God is speaking in Paul's writings. We         Confessions. But the Confessions are right; Ridderbos
have repeatedly what Paul teaches, but there is never        is wrong. Scripture may not, be chopped up into small
any reference to what God teaches. The doctrine of           parts - each with its own theology.
inspiration and the fact that Scripture is God's Word
to us is, so far as I could determine, not so much as            In the third place, this approach must necessarily
mentioned.                                                   lead to an incomplete development of Scriptural
                                                             truth. When one reads Ridderbos, one continuously
   You may perhaps argue that this is all implied, that      gets the feeling that there is only a partial treatment
it is, after all, a truth assumed. But this is not the       of key Scriptural doctrines. There is an incomplete-
case. There are several references in the book which         ness and there are always important questions un-
clearly indicate that Ridderbos does not accept the          answered. Ridderbos is talking about Paul's theology
doctrine of infallible inspiration as this has been          all the time, not the theology of the Holy Spirit. And
traditionally accepted by the Church. I cannot go            Paul's theology is a partial and incomplete theology.
into detail on this, but a few instances will suffice. On    Ridderbos' fear of. going beyond anything which Paul
p. 489 Ridderbos speaks of the fact that Paul had a          says leads to this incomplete treatment. of the truth.
mistaken notion concerning the nearness of Christ's          One keeps wondering if perhaps Paul's theology does
coming: ". . . Romans 13: 1 ff. . . . points to the fact     not  co?zflict  with the theology of Peter or James in
that the apostle did not expect Christ's coming to be        certain important areas.
in the distant future." Paul's erroneous conception of
Christ's coming, therefore, has crept into the Scrip-            And so we must conclude by saying that. Ridder-
ture. On p. 521 Ridderbos, asserts that we cannot            bos' methodology is basically a denial of the true
identify the man of sin spoken of in Thessalonians           character of Scripture. Therefore, this book, while in
because of the genre of apocalyptic writings which           many `ways fascinating reading, does not stand in the
Paul uses here. On p. 533 Ridderbos writes: "In the          tradition of, nor does it contain Reformed theology.
manner of apocalypses it places these within the             It is, especially in the points discussed above, an in-
framework of the world picture of that day."                 novation, a heretical innovation.
  The point is that if one emphasizes to the                                       W E D D I N G   A N N I V E R S A R Y
exclusion of the authorship of the Holy Spirit that              On December  19,1976,  our parents, Prof. and Mrs. H.C. Hoeksema,
these letters are Paul's letters from which can be dis-      celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. We turn to our covenant
covered Paul's theology, then one will also find that,       Father in thanks for He has spared them these many years that they
                                                             might see His covenant faithfulness revealed from generation to genera-
because Paul was `mistaken on certain points, there          tion. Our prayer is that the Lord will continue to bestow on them t4is
are errors in Scripture. In other words, the only way        richest blessings.
                                                                                                Rev. and Mrs. Mark Hoeksema
to defend the truth of inspiration as Scripture is to                                             Stephen and Michael
emphasize that God through the Holy Spirit of Christ                                            Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Kuiper
is the Author of Scripture. A "theology of Paul" rests                                          Mr. and Mrs. Carey Kamps
                                                                                                  Matthew
upon an assumption which denies this.                                                           Candace.


     166                                                   THE  STANDARD.BEARER


     ALL AROUND US
                                             The Awfulness `of Abortion
                                                  Bureaucratic Intrusions
                                                             Rev. G. Van Baven

                 THE AWFULNESS OF ABORTION                                  Woman's Hospital in New York City, where he over-
       A horrible crime is being committed daily in our                     sees a special medical unit devoted to the sophisti-
                                                                            cated testing of unborn babies in the wombs of their
land. Lives are being snuffed out. Well over a million                      mothers.
lives are destroyed annually. Why is so little heard of
i t ?                                                                      Dr. Nathanson, in the beginning, took the position
                                                                        that "what was in the womb was a `blueprint,' a
      We decry the horrors of the concentration camp                    model for what would be, but not the real thing." In
and the. executions of Nazi Germany. Rightly so. We                     New York, the Legislature passed a law in 1970
speak of those who had perpetrated such crimes as                       allowing abortion on demand up to the twenty-fourth
"criminals" and (to put it mildly) "uncivilized." And                   week of pregnancy. Nathanson became director of
who would disagree?                                                     one of the largest abortion clinics in New York.
       Yet millions are being destroyed in our land - and                  But things did not go well within the clinic. Those
who-says much of it?                                                    who thought that the aborted fetus was not the "real
       Organizations rally to fight to prevent the taking               thing," nevertheless showed some signs of uneasy
away of the life of one criminal in Utah. It is said that               consciences.
capital punishment does not preserve the "dignity" of                             "The pressures, external as well as internal, on
life. His case is reported in all the newspapers and                        evejone were just enormous," (Nathanson) recalls.
news broadcasts. It is remarked that should this one                        Doctors regularly worked 12-hour shifts.
man be executed, hundreds more sentenced to die                                   But it wasn't just a matter of overwork. Psycholog-
might soon be led also to their legally appointed                           ical factors, stemming perhaps from subconscious
death.
I                  I                                                        guilt and inner misgivings, must also have been play-
       But these millions? Who defends them? How can                        ing a part. Doctors began "losing their nerve in the
such crimes be perpetrated daily - and little is done                       operating room," Nathanson says.
to stop the horror? What blood already rests upon the                             "I remember one sweating profusely, shaking bad-
soul of the nation! Where are the noted lawyers of                          ly, nipping drinks between procedures." Heavy drink-
the land who are so ready to defend the poor and                            ing became a problem with several. Some doctors and
helpless criminal? Where is the righteousnkss  of this                      nurses complained of deep depression, and some were
land which has by so many been labeled "Christian"?                         plagued by terrifying recurring nightmares. One doc-
                                                                            tor's worried wife cornered Nathanson at a party and
       The blood of the destroyed unborn cries out to                       anxiously reported that her husband was dreaming
heaven. And the consequences of such awful crime                            continually  of blood.
are yet fully to be seen within the land.                                  The doctor had second thoughts. He took another
       Even those who at first advocated the right of                   position, where his task was rather to preserve the
abortion, are having second thoughts. Some of these                     lives of the fetuses. He began to wonder why, on the
changing attitudes were reported in the March 1976                      one hand, so many  of. these could simply be de-
issue of Good Housekeeping. Some of the comments                        stroyed, while, on the other hand, so much effort
were as follows:                                                        would be expended to preserve them in other situa-
               One of the most dramatic turnabouts in recent            tions. His attitudes changed. Although he does not
            years is that of Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson. Once a           take any sort of a Christian position on the subject,
            militant crusader for abortion on demand and direc-         he has realized some of the evils of the murder which
            tor of a pioneer clinic where upwards, of 100 preg-         is abortion.
            nancies were terminated each day, Nathanson now                       "I said to myself: `All that propaganda you've
            marches to a very different tune.                               been spewing out about abortion not involving the
               He has come to believe that abortion "is the taking          taking of human life is nonsense. If that thing in the
            of human life," and that a legal climate that is                uterus is nothing, why are we spending all this time
            "complefely  permissive" on that issue may be a                 and money on it?' "
            threat to the very fabric of our society.                             "I became convinced that as director of the clinic I
               Dr. Nathanson is now assocjated with St. Luke's              had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths."


                                                        THE STANDARD BEARE'R                                                          167


            He elaborates: "AS early as six weeks we can                  But the careful respect by the government for the
      detect heart function in embryos, with an electro-              ) independence of the educational world is long gone.
      cardiograph. We can record brain activity at  eight              Non-involvement has changed to intrusion, respect to
      weeks.                                                           financial and regulatory control. The extent is fright-
            "Our capacity to measure signs of life is becoming         ening.
      more sophisticated every day, and as time goes by we                President Bok reports that compliance with federal
      will undoubtedly be able to isolate  .these  signs at            regulations in 1974-75 at Harvard consumed over
      earlier and earlier stages in fetal development. To              60,000 hours of faculty time. President Willis
      vehemently deny that life begins when conception                 Weatherford of Berea College says that one-fourth of
      begins is absurd!                                                his time this past year has been spent on govern-
            "The product of conception is a human being in a           mental matters . . . .
      special time of its development, part of a continuum                Someone may say that the schools deserve their
      that begins in the uterus, passes through childhood,             fate because they were foolish enough to accept
      adolescence. and adulthood, and ends in death.                   federal funds. A number of administrators felt that
            "The fact that a fetus depends on the placenta for         with federal money would come controls, and so they
     life and  can't  survive independently doesn't nullify its        courageously resisted the urge to enjoy the benefits
      existence as a human being. A diabetic is wholly                 of government aid. It is instructive to see how they
      dependent on insulin, but that doesn't make him less             have fared. One regulation from the Department  of.
     human."                                                           Health, Education, and Welfare on July 21, 1975,
                                                                       simply redefined the term "recipient" of federal
                BUREAUCRATIC INTRUSIONS                                financial assistance. Title IX of the Education
                                                                       Amendments of 1972 declared any institution to
   Christianity Today, Nov.  5, 1976, contains an                      which "federal financial assistance was extended
 article entitled, "Of Equal Opportunity and Other                     directly or through another recipient" (italics by au-
 Bureaucratic Intrusions" by Dennis F.  Kinlaw. The                    thor) to be officially and legally a recipient of
 article contains some interesting observations con-                   federal aid and thus bound by all the governmental
 cerning governmental intrusion into higher education.                 regulations that control such recipients. To have
 We, perhaps, do not always recognize the extent of                 one veteran attending on the G.I. bill puts the
 governmental control and regulation in such institu-                  institution in the "recipient" category. No insti-
 tions. Often we consider governmental assistance to                   tution is now exempt. President  Kingman Brewster
 our own schools as an ideal way of lifting some of the                of- Yale suggested that the government's philos-
financial burden from Christian parents. And perhaps                   ophy is, "Now that I have bought the button, I
 even now we have already received enough govern-                      have a right to design the coat."
 mental assistance which will permit government to                    The article points out that now our government "is
 demand increasing controls over our schools as well.               becoming the judge of matters of deep religious im-
 The article points out that a little more than 20 years            port." An institution receiving government assistance
 ago, our government tried to steer clear of support of             may not inquire into the marital status of its em-
 higher education:                                                  ployees. Pregnancy outside marriage of any of the
            As late as the 1930s the federal government had         employees may be considered only as a "temporary
     little or no control over higher education. Laws such          disability," not basis for dismissal from a job. None
     as those providing for social security, workmen's              may discriminate against an employee or applicant
     compensation, and unemployment insurance, binding              for "termination of pregnancy." One may not legally
     upon almost every other sector of society, specifically       make distinction in work between male and female.
     exempted educational institutions.                             In short, governmental regulations prevent institu-
            Just a little over two decades ago the Commission       tions receiving governmental assistance from operat-
     on Financing Higher Education declared that the               ing according to Scriptural principles in many in-
     strength of higher education was in its freedom and            stances. The author concludes:
     that this freedom "must be protected at all costs." It
     predicted that federal financing would bring federal                 Academic freedom and religious liberty have been
     controls that would be destructive to originality and             vital parts of the atmosphere that has enabled Amer-
     diversity and would finally produce uniformity,                   ican democracy to flourish. Both are fragile and need
     mediocrity, and compliance.                                       some protection. It is an illusion to think that
   Soon, however, changes were seen. Increasingly,                     political liberty will long survive if these freedoms go.
government was asked to help institutions of higher                    Today the balance that has made possible American
learning. And they gave this help - albeit, with atten-                academic freedom and American religious liberty, to
                                                                       the envy of much of the world, is threatened. How
dant controls. And even the institutions which                         tragic if in the fight for social reform, very valid in its
shunned this assistance, found that the government in-                 own  fight, we should destroy the integrity of the in-
sisted upon controls over them as well. The author                     stitutions essential for achieving social justice and
writes :                                                               equal opportunity.


THE STANDARD  BliARER
       P.O. Box 6064
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506





j68                                           THE  STANDARP  BEARER
                                News From Our Churches
   It is of course normal practice for our churches to        The "Reformed Witness Committee" of  our  Hope
schedule Thanksgiving Day services on the morning of        Church in Walker, Michigan also issued a newsletter
Thanksgiving Day. This year our church in Hull, Iowa        concerning their work of late. The committee had
scheduled their Thanksgiving service on Thanksgiving        been publishing a series of meditations in area shop-
eve. The reason for this seemingly strange schedule is      ping newspapers. This program was canceled by the
that Hull was without a pastor at this time. Rev.           committee last September. "It was not that the med-
Kamps from the neighboring congregation in  Doon            itation didn't meet otir expectations, or do a good job
agreed to conduct services in Hull on the night before      of witnessing, but rather that we could not continue
Thanksgiving. Hull's pastor elect, Rev. Mark Hoek-          financing its enormous appetite. The reason for this is
s&la, plans to arrive  jn Hull on December 14. The          that our tape program has grown to such an extent
installation service is scheduled for December 17. The      that continued financing of each program was decid-
congregation  sch'eduled a welcome program for              edly impossible. Rather than cutting down on both of
December 20. To get everything in good order, the           them, we decided to  .drop one, and expand our
annual church cleaning was planned for December 7           efforts in the field which showed the most promise.
in Hull. This must be quite an event as even dinner is      That field, is a field which has expanded across the
provided for the "cleaners."                                globe and which is now bringing the truths of God's
   Our church in South Holland,  Illinois'has had an        word to those who appreciate it and thirst after it."
active evangelism committee for some time. The              The tape packages which the committee sends out
committee has been engaged in radio broadcasting in         consist of transcriptions of the Hope Church Sunday
the  DeMotte, Indiana area for a time, The first fea-       services, the Reformed Witness Hour, and lectures of
ture of the radio series was a number of broadcasts on      our ministers and professors. These are sent to New
the general topic of "Fundamentals of the Reformed          Zealand, South Africa, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong
Faith." This was followed by a number of messages           K?ng, Australia, and Indonesia as well as from Maine'
originally prepared by their pastor, Rev. David             to Montana in the U.S. As regards practical matters,
Engelsma, for the "Reformed Witness Hour." The last         the committee states that "these efforts, `although
series of messages concerned the topic, "The Doctrine       they may bring peace and contentment to the re-
of the Last Things." In a recent newsletter to the          cipients, also bring bills to us. Our tape program cur-
congregation the committee says that they "did nbt          rently costs approximately $70 per week." Both of
expect that we would be overwhelmed by response to          these committees are putting a lot of effort intd'their
these broadcasts, we did expect that there would be         work, but they also seem to be enjoying some "fruit"
at least an inkling of some interest in such vital and      on their labors.
timely topics. This especially in light of the fact that      Several of our churches have enjoyed  Singspira-
we were convinced that the programs were broadcast          tidns of late. The South Holland Ladies' Auxiliary
in an area where we expected the listening audience         sponsored a Singspiration featuring special numbers
to be composed of those we like to refer to as the          by the Choral Society and the Men's Quartet. The
`Reformed Community.' However, the response was             Randolph ,Ladies' Society sponsored a Thanksgiving
practically  non&&tent. Consequently,. we  have             Singspiration (held on the Friday evening after the
decided to switch our coverage from the  DeMotte            holiday) which featured congregational singing, and a
area to an area roughly covering the western suburbs        special speaker, Mr. Truett Hugg. Mr. Hugg is now
of Chicago. We are at the present time attempting to        enrolled in our Seminary. The Loveland Ladies' Circle
locate a station which can give us the radio, time we       also sponsored a Singspiration in November. Our
desire." A series of sermons originally preached by         correspondent there reports that this was a "German"
Rev. Engelsma was broadcast by the Family Radio             style event, with no director, and all songs sung sit-
Network of stations on the East and West coasts. To         ting down. Perhaps they could invite Mr. Ed Ophoff
this series of broadcasts the committee received an         sonic time to lead them in a "Grand  Rapids-Dutch-
excellent response. The sermons were on marriage            American" style spirited singspiration!
and family life as based on the book of Ephesians.
The committee plans to prepare another series of
tapes for this work.                                                                                       K.G.V.


