       The
STANDARD

        A  REFORMED  SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE                                          .





  In the course of this Divine predetermination God `:
elected or chose unto Himself a people, determining to.save
them in Jesus Christ. No, He  did not determine the salva-
                                                                           .i --
tion of everyone,- only of some. Those whom He did not
choose unto salvation He reprobated, determining to
destroy them in the way of their sin. This divine distinction
between men is not based on anything in man. Certainly-
                 .  _
God's choosing and rejecting is not on the basis of foreseen
good works -or faith. -God chose andrejected whom He did
                             r
simply on the basis of His sovereign good pleasure.
                                              See: Meditation, p. 314





                                              Vol.  LXIII, No. 14, April 15, 1987  -


                                                                 THE STANDARD BEARER




                               CONTENTS                                                                          THE STANDARD  BEARER
                                                                                                                          ISSN 0362-4692
                                                                                              Semi-monthly, except monthly during June, July, and August.
  Meditation  -                                                                                Published by the Reformed Free Publishing Association, Inc.
                                                                                                    Second Class Postage Paid at Grand Rapids, Mich.
     Making Our Calling And Election Sure . . . . . . 314                            Editor-in-Chief:  Prof. Homer C. Hoeksema
  Editorial  -                                                                       Deparhnent  Editors: Rev. Ronald Cammenga,  Rev. Arie den H&tog, Prof. Robert
                                                                                     D. Decker, Rev. Barry Gritters, Rev. Cornelius Hanko, Prof. Herman C. Hanko,
                                                                                                                                            . Kortering, Rev. George C. Lub-
     Why Evolution? (5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                Rev. Ronald Hanko, Rev. John A. Heys, Rev.
                                                                            316                                                        I
                                                                                     bers, Rev. Thomas C. Miersma, Rev. James S opsema, Rev. Gise  J. Van  Baren,
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MEDITATION
James D. Slopsema




         Making Our Calling And Election Sure


               Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure . . . .
                                                                                                                                      II Peter 1: 10


  Are you sure of your salvation?                                                     heaven for you in Jesus Christ and that when you
                                                                                      leave this life you will be taken up to the glory of
  Are you sure that Jesus Christ died for your sins                                    heaven?
and earned for you the salvation of God?                                                  What a wonderful joy belongs to those who have
  Are you sure that there is a place reserved in                                      this confidence!


                                                THE STANDARD BEARER                                            315



   And what agony of soul for those who earnestly          hearts of His elect exactly through the great call of
desire this salvation but are not sure!                    the gospel as it is accompanied by the inner work-
   Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to       ing of the Holy Spirit.
make your calling and election sure.                         In this saving sense also the saints to whom Peter
          * * * * * *  * * * *                             writes were called. Peter reminds them that they
                                                           "are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an ho-
   Election brings us back into the endless ages of        ly nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show
eternity when God eternally predetermined all              forth the praises of him who hath called you out of
things in His counsel.                                     darkness into his marvelous light" (I Peter  2:9).
   In the course of this Divine predetermination           And now Peter reminds them here of this saving
God elected or chose unto Himself a people, deter-         calling by which God brought them to faith and
mining to save them in Jesus Christ. No, He did not        salvation in Jesus Christ.
determine the salvation of everyone, only of some.                   * * * * *  *i* * * *
Those whom He did not choose unto salvation He
reprobated, determining to destroy them in the way           Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to
of their sin. This divine distinction between men is       make your calling and election sure.
not based on anything in man. Certainly God's                Certainly the meaning here is not that we must
choosing and rejecting is not on the basis of fore-        do something to solicit God's calling and election or
seen good works or faith. God chose and rejected           to make ourselves worthy of it. Have we not seen
whom He did simply on the basis of His sovereign           that election is not based on foreseen faith and good
good pleasure.                                             works but is solely according to God's eternal good
   Peter views those to whom He writes this epistle        pleasure? And have we not also seen that the saving
as the elect of God. This second epistle along with        calling is God's free gift in Jesus Christ to His elect,
the first are addressed to the "strangers scattered        who are of themselves least deserving?
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and            Nor is the meaning that we must do something to
Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of          maintain our calling and election, lest we somehow
God the  .Father . . .  ." And now Peter speaks to         lose them and ultimately perish. There are many
these spiritual strangers of their election.               things that we can lose; our election and calling are
   Peter also speaks of their calling.                     two treasures we can never lose.
   Usually when we think of the calling we think of          To make our calling and election sure means
the call of the gospel which comes to all men. God         rather that we come to the subjective, personal
wi 11 have the great gospel of salvation proclaimed to     assurance of our calling and election. This will
all. And in that gospel every hearer must be con-          become apparent if we understand that a more
victed of his sin; he must be called to repentance         literal translation of this passage is: "Wherefore the
and faith in Jesus Christ; and he must hear the            rather, brethren, give diligence to make your  call-
promise that there is salvation, full and free, to         i ng and election sure for yourselves". The meaning,
everyone who repents and believes on the Lord              quite obviously, is that we must make the fact of
Jesus Christ.                                              our calling and election sure in our own conscious-
   However, it is also true that the vast majority         ness. We must come to the personal assurance that
who hear this call to faith refuse to believe on our       we are called and elected of God.
Lord. They continue in their wicked and unbeliev-            We must understand that it is possible to be one
ing ways to their own destruction. This is due to the      of God's elect, to be called by God to faith and sal-
fact that many are called but few are chosen.              vation, and yet not to be sure of these things. There
   In order to heed the great call of the gospel to        was a time that the Psalmist David was not sure of
iaith, it is necessary to have the inner working of        his salvation. After his sin with  Bathsheba.  he
the Spirit. No one of himself can heed the call of the     wrote, "Cast me not away from thy presence; and
gospel. The call of the gospel can be heeded only          take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore to me the
when the Spirit of God accompanies that call and           joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free
works faith in the heart of the hearer. Faith,             spirit" (Psalm  51:12, 13). In Psalm  77:7 Asaph
remember, is the gift of God to His elect people.          wrote, "Will the Lord cast off forever? and will he
Through the gift of faith God will bring His elect in-     bc favorable no more?" In harmony with this ex-
to living connection with Jesus Christ and all the         perience of the Old Testament saints, there are
blessings of salvation. God works that faith in the        many in the church also today who have agonizing
                                                           doubts concerning their own salvation.
James D. Slopsema is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed      The Lord will have us be sure of.our own salva-
Church, Walker, Michigan.                                  tion. We may not accept doubt as the norm. Nor


316                                          THE STANDARD BEARER



may we make doubt a mark of true piety in the            the cross. Remember this so that you lay hold of the
church. God will have us be assured of our calling       cross and in its power live in all godliness." And
and election unto salvation.                             this is Peter's intent. But instead of pointing out
  And notice, we are to root our assurance of salva-     what is his obvious concern, Peter rather points to
tion in our eternal election. Salvation without eter-    the fruit of such a godly life  - the assurance of
nal, sovereign election is a salvation that can be       one's own election and calling. Peter's exhortation,
lost. It is a salvation that we may possess today but    therefore, is that in that power of the cross the
be without tomorrow. However, salvation rooted in        saints are to live in all godliness and thus make
the election of God is a salvation that is eternally     their calling and election sure.
secure. It is a salvation that not even the prince of      That we make our calling and election sure
darkness himself can take from us.                       through a godly life is consistent with the realities
  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to      of our calling and election. Scripture emphasizes
make your calling and election sure.                     that the fruit of election is godliness. Are we not
          * * * * * * *  * * *                           "elect . . . unto obedience" (I Peter  1:2)? Obedience
                                                         and godliness are the inevitable fruits of election
  We make our calling and election sure not by           exactly because those whom God chose unto salva-
waiting for some divine revelation from heaven.          tion He also calls out of darkness into His
The day of revelations is long past.                     marvelous light. And so it is through a godly walk
  Nor do we make our calling and election sure by        that we make our calling and election sure.
"inquisitively prying into the secret and deep             However, let us be warned of two errors.
things of God." (Canons, Head I, Art  12)                  Do not make the mistake of seeking the
  Rather, we make our calling and election sure by       assurance of these things by examining your past
living a godly life in the power of Jesus Christ.        life for the godly fruits of election and calling. The
  In the preceding verses Peter exhorts the saints,      more you look the more you will be filled with
to  grow'in Christian virtues and thus live a godly      doubts as you see your horrible sins. One's calling
life. They are to give "all diligence to add to their    and election are not made sure by looking back-
faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowl-     wards but by living every day in the godliness of
edge temperance . . .  ."                                the cross. For it is only in connection with a daily
                                                         godliness that the Spirit of God, Who alone can give
  Peter goes on to point out that those who lack         us assurance, grants this blessed assurance to us.
these godly virtues have forgotten that they were
purged by Christ from their former sins. The impli-        And be careful lest you also have too shallow a
cation is that having forgotten this they continue in    conception of what is the godly life to which the
their former sins.                                       cross of Jesus empowers us. The cross leads not to a
                                                         mere outward keeping the law. The cross is the
  Now in the verse we are considering, Peter             power to love the LORD our God with all our heart,
makes a sharp contrast to that: "Wherefore the           mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor
rather, brethren . . .  ."                               as ourselves.
  In the light of the preceding we would expect the
apostle to admonish the saints to a godly walk in          In that godliness live.
the power of the cross. We expect Peter to write,          And the Spirit of God will grant us the blessed
"Christ has purged you from your former sins at          assurance of our calling and election.
EDITORIAL


                                Why Evolution? (5)


                                            THE STANDARD BEARER                                               317



properly view God's book of creation and history           Biblical  Vi&v" and follows this with "The Scien-
through the spectacles of the Scriptures. Instead, he      tific View."
constantly adjusts Scripture in the attempt to make          However, he dqes not present the "Biblical
it conform to his evolutionistic view of the               View" at all, but destroys it and substitutes a
universe. This has become evident in our consider-         pseudo-Biblical view, in order to make room for his
ation of Van Till's view of Scripture thus far in this     scientific opinions which conflict with the true
critique. It will become clearer as we proceed.            Biblical view.
   Now we should bear in mind that this is the fun-          This is the reason why I am preoccupied in these
damental issue in all consideration of the creation        editorials with a critique of Van Till's "The Biblical
versus evolution conflict.                                 View."
   One can, of course, bring many arguments                  There is an important lesson here for all of us,
against any evolutionistic approach to the natural         and especially for those of us who are confronted in
sciences. To me, a most interesting and  cogent            our studies or in our work by evolutionistic
argument has always been that of the unreZiabiZity of      science. The lesson is this. Negatively, you need
evolutionism, for example. On the question of the          not meet the evolutionistic scientist on his own
age of the universe evolutionism has changed its           ground, so to speak. You may very well fail if you
view many times. Theories have advanced from               attempt it. Creation cannot be scientifically proved;
millions to .hundreds of millions to billions to more      it can only be believed. Positively, your approach
billions. In fact, one can say that evolutionists can      must always be that of the testimony of infallible
change their theories in this regard almost as easily      Scripture; and you must be very careful to insist
as they can change their shirts. Evolutionistic            upon this testimony of Scripture and not to be mis-
science surely cannot boast a record of reliability!       led by any pseudo-Biblical view.
   Nevertheless, we should keep in mind the fact             Having made this point, I now turn to Chapter 3
that the one, fundamental, all-determining factor is       of Dr. Van Till's book in order to demonstrate that
the testimony of Scripture. One must beware of ad-         he does not really honor the testimony of Scripture
justing the testimony of Scripture to make it some-        though he seems to leave the impression, at least
how harmonize with the alleged results of scientific       superficially, of doing so.
investigation. That is putting the cart in front of the
horse. The matter stands just the other way around.          This chapter is entitled "The Heavens according
The question is: what does Scripture say? And for          to Scripture." It is not my intention to offer a
the Christian scientist this implies that if and when      paragraph by paragraph critique of this chapter, in
the results of his scientific investigations do not        which the author cites many passages of Scripture
conform to the testimony of Scripture, he must  u          concerning creation  - mainly passages from Job,
priori conclude that he has erred in his science.          from the Psalms, and from Isaiah, plus a few New
Even if he cannot discover his scientific error, he        Testament passages. Rather will I point  out three
nevertheless maintains that the testimony of Scrip-        fundamental errors.
ture stands.                                                 In the first place, Van Till's position with regard
   It is for this reason that I refuse to become in-       to Scripture is very plainly that of higher criticism.
volved in a discussion of the science of astronomy         What is higher criticism? Very briefly, it implies
in this connection. In such a discussion a lesser          that the interpreter places himself  crbove Scripture
light than Dr. Van Till could lose me in less than ten     rather than under Scripture and its authority.
minutes, I am sure. Nor do I have to disprove the            How does this become evident in this chapter?
scientific contentions of Dr. Van Till or any other
astronomer in order to disprove their evolutionistic         It becomes evident from the fact that Van Till
claims. The testimony of Scripture  stands  regard-        adopts, without criticism, the view that the Proph-
less!                                                      ecy of Isaiah is really  three  separate and distinct
                                                           books of which only the first (Chapters l-39) is of
  Now Dr. Van Till seems in his book to sense              Isaiah the prophet in the period from King Uzziah
something of all this. After all, he teaches at a          to King Hezekiah. "Second Isaiah," according to
Christian college; and he is obligated to teach in         this theory, is "The Book of the Consolation of
conformity with the Scriptures. He must needs              Israel," consists of Chapters 40-55, and is of
leave the impression that his teachings are in har-        unknown authorship. And Third Isaiah consists of
mony with the Scriptures. And this puts him in a           Chapters 56 to the end and is of still different
bind. What is he to do? He must somehow leave the          authorship. Here is the evidence. On page 43 Van
impression that he believes and holds to the               Till states in a footnote: "`Second Isaiah' is the com-
testimony of Scripture in his astronomical science.        mon designation of the unidentified prophet whose
  Hence, he begins his book by writing about "The          writings appear in chapters  4-O-55 of the book of


318                                                   THE STANDARD BEARER



Isaiah." And on page 47 he writes:                               done; he commanded, and it stood fast.") from
       Another portion of Scripture rich in references to the    Genesis 1, and it becomes impossible to understand
       Creator is "The Book of the Consolation of Israel,"       them. In other words, Van Till violates flagrantly
       chapters 40-55 of Isaiah. Written toward the end of       the principle that Scripture is its own interpreter, or
       Israel's exile in Babylon, Second Isaiah has as one of    that Scripture interprets Scripture.
       its principal themes the praise of Yahweh, who is now       I will be brief about my third objection. Dr. Van
       redeeming his created nation from a second captivity.     Till knowingly and arbitrarily decides upon the
       Israel evidently needed some reminders concerning
       the identity of their God, because the prophet (and       meaning of Scripture by arbitrarily deciding with
       skilled poet) repeatedly appears to address the ques-     what question he will approach Scripture (pp.
       tion of who Yahweh is and what he is like.                40-41). First he writes, "Instead, I believe we
   The reader should understand that by this theory              should bring appropriate questions to Scripture and
the very prophetic nature of Isaiah is denied. For               search for answers in a way that gives evidence of
example, according to this view the entire section               our taking the Bible seriously." Then he writes (and
concerning Cyrus, who is mentioned by name by                    correctly so): "It might be objected that even the
Isaiah long before he appeared on the stage of                   bringing of questions to Scripture gives opportunity
history, is changed from prophecy, proclaimed and                for human bias to enter into Bible study. The selec-
written beforehand, into history written after the               tion of which questions to bring allows for the exer-
fact. (cf. Isaiah 44, 45) Now it might be objected               cise of personal prejudice." Hence, he proposes
that this has nothing directly to do with the                    that the questions must be "appropriate." And then
passages which Van Till cites concerning creation                he proceeds to determine arbitrarily what con-
from this part of Isaiah. However, the important                 stitutes an appropriate question. That question, ac-
thing to remember is that it reveals Van Till's fun-             cording to him, is as follows: "I am convinced that
damental view of Scripture.                                      it is the question of their (the heavenly bodies,
                                                                 HCH) status." And to this question concerning
  In the second place, from his discussion of "The               "status" he gives the vague answer: "Stars have the
Heavens according to' Scripture" Dr. Van Till                    status of Creation." That is all. Thus he generalizes
adroitly eliminates a  priori Genesis l-3:                       and beclouds the testimony of Scripture concerning
         Now, where shall we look to find Scripture's            creation and eliminates all the detailed language of
       references to stars as Creation and its instructions      Scripture concerning this wonderful work of God.
       concerning what it means for something to have the          Again, of course, the fundamental error is that he
       status of Creation? I strongly suspect that most Bible    violates the rule that Scripture is its own inter-
       readers would look first at the creation narratives of
       Genesis 1-3. However, since these particular accounts     preter. Both questions and answers concerning Scrip-
       and their varied interpretations within the  Judeo-       ture must be derived from Scripture itself. But if
       Christian community play such a prominent role in         one arbitrarily and on his own authority ap-
       current discussions about creation (the revived crea-     proaches Scripture with questions of his own
       tion/evolution debate, for example) we will deal with     choosing and delimitation, he is bound to end with
       Genesis 1 in a separate chapter. In any case, the book    wrong answers. Thus it is that Van Till destroys the
       of Genesis is not the only place in which the Bible       testimony of Scripture under the guise of present-
       speaks of creation. The most extensive Old Testament      ing "The Biblical View."                         HCH
       references are found in Job, Isaiah, and the Psalms.
       We will explore these first, and then consider what is
       contributed by the New Testament.
  The fact of the matter is, however, that Genesis 1
is the only place where Scripture offers us a                       The Standard Bearer
historical account of creation. Van Till is going to
deny this in a later chapter and call Genesis 1-11                    makes a thoughtful
"primeval history" (whatever that may be) and he
is going to adopt the framework hypothesis with                                 gift for the
respect to the days of creation-week (and a
hypothesis it is, indeed!). But the fact of the matter is
that one can only properly understand the poetic                         sick and shut-in.
references to creation in the light of and on the
basis of the historical, prose account of creation                  Give the Standard Bearer!!!
found in Genesis 1. Divorce such passages as Psalm
33:6 ("By the word of the Lord were the heavens
made; and all the host of them by the breath of his
mouth.")  or Psalm  33:9 ("For he spake, and it was


                                                THE STANDARD BEARER                                           319


CORRESPONDENCE AND REPLY
Barrett L. Gritters




                           About Seminary Students
                           And Catechism Teaching


Correspondence                                              children in this important ministry of the church, if
Dear Rev. Gritters,                                         not in the office. God has given this work to the
                                                            ministers of the gospel, teaching elders. If the
   I enjoyed your article in the  Standard Bearer           minister is absent or the congregation vacant, the
relating to "Catechism: Official Ministry of the            ruling elders should take up the task. This happens
Church" in the February 15, 1987 issue. However,            in most churches. I remember well the times that
I have a question which I wish you would address            my father taught us in catechism when our con-
in a future article.                                        gregation was vacant or minister was ill. The  con-
   You state, " 1. Teaching catechism is the work of        sistory had no question that teaching catechism
the minister or elders in the local congregation."          was the work of the elders.
Then in the paragraph following "If, for some                 An answer to your first question is that, being
reason, the minister cannot teach, it is the duty of        neither ministers nor elders, seminary student
no one else but the elders to take over." Again in          teachers have a  unique  and  important  status.
the following paragraph, "As in the pulpit, we              Unique, because this is the only situation (besides
allow only ministers or elders officially called by         speaking a word of edification) that our churches
the church to bring the Word, so in catechism."             allow for non-ordained men to lead the official
   The question I have is this: What then is the            work of the church. Important because, even if it
status of the Seminary students that teach                  constitutes an exception to the general rule laid out
catechism classes in our churches? I think it is fair       above, the health of the churches requires this  exi
to say that all of our ministers taught catechism           ception.
classes while in seminary. And this was good for              I believe these reasons may be given to support
our churches especially during periods of vacancy.          the practice of seminary students teaching:
Good also for our students. But, they are not or-
dained to office. What should be the position of the          1. This has been done  historicaZZy  in reformed
elders in the case of a vacancy? . . . . .                  churches. Reformed people always ask this ques-
                        Your brother in Christ              tion of history first. Before they set aside the prac-
                        Phil Lotterman                      tice, they ask why the church has done it in the past
                                                            (see Van  Dellen and Monsma  The Church Order
                                                            Commentary on articles 2, 16, and 20 of the Church
Reply                                                       Order.)
Dear Phil,                                March 11, 1987      2. Article 20 of the  Church Order  says that
   Let me say first that, while perhaps it should not       seminary students "be allowed to speak a word of
have been, the matter of seminary students                  edification in the meeting for public worship." One
teaching catechism was far out of mind when the             of the grounds attached to this rule is that this is
statements were made regarding who ought to                 "for their own training." The instruction in cate-
teach. This gives you a hint whence I come in this          chism is considered, in reformed churches, preach-
response. My concern in that article was that not           ing for the youth. The  training  of seminary students
just any Tom, Dick, or Harry should instruct our            in preaching requires some "hands on" practice
                                                            not only in public worship, but also teaching cate-
Barrett L. Gritters is pastor of the Protestant Reformed    chism. That comes most easily  .in a catechism
Church of Byron Center, Michigan.                           room. For those who desire well trained ministers,


320                                             THE STANDARD BEARER



these practices ought not easily to be discontinued.         there that he has little aptitude to teach spells grief
Therefore, whether a church is vacant or not, if it is       for all involved. The qualifications for the ministry
in the location of the seminary, it is profitable for        can be determined in part in these catechism ses-
the church to let the seminary students take at least        sions if the elders and professors take the time to
some of the classes. There accrues a long term               look. (Our professors do.)
benefit for the denomination with this practice.               There are other possible ways to answer this
   3. Closely related to "2" is the fact that the Lord       question. This is the way with which I am most
would have the church judge the  quaZifications  of          comfortable.
men aspiring to the ministry. For the sake of the              Thanks for your interesting question.
student as well as the churches, there ought to be
some opportunity given for judgment of qualifica-                                 Cordially,
tion before he gets to synod or into a church. To find                            Barry Gritters
                                                                                  Byron Center, MI

TAKING HEED TO THE DOCTRINE
Ronald J. Hanko





                                God Is The Creator (2)



   When we understand that the eighth command-                 The better understanding we have of the require-
ment is founded on the truth that "the earth is the          ments of the eighth commandment in light of this,
Lord's, and the fulness thereof," we will not only           its deepest meaning and significance, involves a
have a better understanding of what the eighth com-          clear insight into the fact that the commandment
mandment requires of us, but the only possible               does not only forbid outright acts of robbery and
motive for obeying it. We have seen that God's               theft, but also many other things that we do not
sovereign ownership of all things, as expressed in           usually think of in connection with the command-
this verse from Psalm 24 (vs. l), and His sovereign          ment. Certainly all forms of robbery that are
right in distributing them, are aspects of His glory         punished by the civil authorities are specifically
as Creator, and therefore that we confess the                forbidden by this commandment, but also those
sovereignty and glory of God as our Creator in a             forms of robbery that are practiced or legalized by
very practical way in obeying the eighth command-            the magistrates are forbidden. The most wide-
ment. We should also see that it is the knowledge of         spread violation of the eighth commandment
God as our Creator that must move us to obey this            which is practiced by the magistrates is in unequal
Commandment. It is from Him as Creator that we               and oppressive taxation, especially for the support
receive life and breath and all things. It is to Him as      of various social welfare programs, public educa-
a faithful Creator that we are able to commit the            tion, and assistance to the unemployed. Since the
keeping of our souls (I Pet. 4:19). And because the          civil government has no authority from God to be
eighth commandment is a revelation of God the                involved in social reform, education, and such-like,
Creator, our life of obedience to it is the way that         its support of them out of public taxation must be
we express our gratitude to Him for what He as               considered a form of robbery, and a violation of the
Creator has done for us.                                     eighth commandment. It represents the efforts of
                                                             wicked men to redistribute this world's wealth ac-
Ronald J. Hanho is pastor of  Trinity Protestant Reformed    cording to their own humanistic and godless prin-
Church, Houston, Texas.                                      ciples. It flouts God's sovereign right in ignoring or


                                            THE STANDARD BEARER                                               321



bypassing the means He has provided for the care          mandment.
of the poor and the education of children. It also ig-      To our condemnation of  labour  unions and
nores in many cases His command that  .the idle           gambling might be added a condemnation of the
may not eat (II Thess.  3:lO) and that the wicked         common practice of suing for huge sums of money
ought not be allowed to profit from his wickedness        by way of compensation for various injuries, real or
(Deut.  23:6, Mal.  3:13-15).                             imagined. In many cases at least this practice has
  It is quite a commentary on the perversity of sin-      nothing to do with justice and simply constitutes
ful men that in the areas where God gives the civil       another legalized means of robbery and of getting
government authority, i.e., to defend its citizens,       what God has not given.
wage war, and punish evildoers (Rom.  13:3, 4, Ps.          We might also notice in this connection, that
82:3, 4, I Tim.  2:1,  2), that authority is widely       because the truth concerning God lies behind the
denied. Where He does not give authority, wicked          eighth commandment, it is impossible that wicked
men  clamour for the civil government to take             men make good use of the gifts God gives them. I
authority or allow it to do so, without question.         Corinthians 13:3 teaches us that even if a man give
  All this does not mean, of course, that we may          all his goods to feed the poor, if he have not charity,
rebel against the authority of civil magistrates or       that is, the love of God, it profits him nothing. Then
seek to overthrow them for their evil practices. For      his "charity" is an abomination before God. Scrip-
that there is no warrant at all in Scripture. We may      ture even goes so far as to say that God's curse is in
not even rebel, so Scripture says, in refusing to pay     the house of a wicked man: that is, if we may put it
our taxes, in spite of the fact that they are misused     that way, in his pots and pans, upon his fork and
by the authorities. Paul specifically commands obe-       his table, in his chair and his bed, upon all his use
dience in the matter of taxes in Romans 13 although       of his possessions (Prov. 3:33). Even his plowing is
the government of his day was as much in violation        sin  (21:4).  David echoes this in Psalm 69 when he
of the eighth commandment with its program of             prays that their table may be a snare to them and
"bread and circuses" as our government with its           that which should have been for their welfare a
welfare programs, all supported out of the public         trap (vs. 22).
treasury. Therefore, though our understanding of
the evils that are practiced against the eighth com-        Another form of robbery which is practiced in
mandment by governments may not move us to                the name of Christ and His Kingdom is that of ex-
sedition, it certainly ought to give us pause in mak-     torting from widows and from the poor their very
ing use of these government "benefits."                   livelihood, by persuading and cajoling them into
                                                          giving everything they own "for the kingdom,"
  The civil government also legalizes disobedience        leaving them and often also their families in great
to the eighth commandment in its support of labour        need. The popular evangelists and so-called chur-
unions and gambling. The labour  unions have come         ches which do this not only shear the sheep for
to power and retained their power not so much             their own popularity, prosperity, and power, but
because they have struggled against injustice and         bring great dishonor to the name of God, especially
oppression in the work-place (and that in violation       when "the kingdom" only means fancy buildings,
of the fifth commandment), but rather because             enormous religion-factories, huge social projects,
they allow greed and discontent with one's  God-          showmanship, and waste.
given lot in life to proceed unchecked. That same
greed and discontent is the motive behind all               Much closer to home, the eighth commandment
gambling. Solomon might have been writing of just         also forbids various forms of stealing that cannot be
these things when he said that "hell and destruc-         punished and are not recognized by the civil
tion are never full; so the eyes of man are never         authorities. When we understand that  all we  have
satisfied" (Prov.  27:20). Gambling is, however, an       belongs to God, including our talents and time,
even greater evil against this commandment in that        then it is also clear that laziness, wastefulness,
it is an attempt to satisfy greed apart from the          miserliness, and all misuse of God's gifts are in
means that God has provided for the support of our        violation of this commandment. Jesus tells, for ex-
earthly life, really apart from God Himself. How          ample, of a steward who misuses his position as
different from Abram who refused to receive               caretaker in his Lord's house by wasting and glut-
anything of the riches offered him by the King of         tony. Jesus speaks of this in a "story" but the story
Sodom, fearing even the suggestion that he had            touches us too closely and is too real to be con-
sought or obtained any wealth apart from God. His         sidered among the parables of Jesus. In other
motive is clear in his confession of God as "the          words, it is not part of the "mysteries of the king-
most high God, the Possessor of heaven and earth"         dom" but a very plain and stern warning to us. The
(Gen.  14:21-23). We must have that same faith in         punishment of such an unprofitable .servant is just.
God as the power of our obedience to his com-             He has portion among the unbelievers, because he


322                                         THE STANDARD BEARER



does not acknowledge in his stewardship the                         . "Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned,
sovereign right and rule of his master (Luke              zdpgte this evil in Thy sight" (Ps.  51:4). And
12:42-48).                                                humbled before God by that knowledge of our sins
  Proverbs condemns the sluggard (the lazy man)           we flee to Christ, Who was crucified between two
as a brother to him who is a great waster  (18:9).        thieves, and for the salvation of one of them.
When we are idle we steal from God, for we misuse            To Him we go also for grace to live a life that is in
the time He has given us. There is certainly good         harmony with God's glory as Creator and Owner of
reason why Ephesians 4:28 says that the opposite of       all things. We need that grace because the calling to
stealing is labour  and doing an honest day's work.       be a steward in the house of God is a calling which
For that same reason the fourth commandment               requires a great deal of self-denial. The calling to
speaks not only of resting the seventh day, but of        use all that God gives for His glory in the work and
working the other six.                                    maintenance of the church, in the support and care
  Boasting in our wealth is also forbidden. The           of our families, in the Christian education of our
parable of the rich fool (Lk.  12:16-21)   brings that    children, and in the care of the poor, will often
point home to us. But Deuteronomy 8 makes that            mean that we have nothing extra for our own
boasting a matter of the heart also, so that although     pleasure and enjoyment. But even then we have the
we may not boast openly of what we have, we               promise of Jesus: "And every one that hath for-
nevertheless boast against God and commit great           saken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father or
sin against the eighth commandment when we                mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my
forget Him, especially as the One who gives us            name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and
even the power to get wealth (vss. 11-14, 17, 18).        shall inherit everlasting life."
We forget Him most of all when we do not bless              By that grace of our Lord we not only look for-
and thank Him for all the good He has given.              ward to inheriting the wealth of His heavenly king-
  The negative emphasis of the eighth command-            dom, but we are able now to enjoy what God has
ment is not directed, therefore, only at the ungodly      given us  - something the wicked man cannot do.
who openly practice their greed, but is directed to       All these things, Paul says, are created by God to be
us, that the wickedness of our own natures may be         received with thanksgiving of them which believe
corrected and admonished as far as this command-          and know the truth (I Tim.  4:3). There is, then,
ment is concerned. In light of the revelation of God      nothing better for a man in this life but to enjoy
that is given in the eighth commandment we cam-rot        what God has given, but this also is from the Lord
help but see our sin, so that in confessing our sin,      (Eccl.  3:12).

WALKING IN THE LIGHT
Herman C. Hanko





        Moral Aspects of Medical Technology
                                                    (151


  In our last article we concluded a discussion of           Four such subjects have often been treated by
various medical means which have been employed            ethicists as they ponder the problems which  ad-
to enable childless couples to have children. A few       vances in medical science have created. These four
other scientific techniques, techniques which we          are: frozen embryos, sex selection, cloning, and
have not yet discussed, are so closely connected          genetic alterations to improve the quality of life.
with this subject that they should be at least briefly    We shall deal with each separately.
addressed in connection with our broader subject.


                                                       THE STANDARD BEARER                                          323



       As we mentioned in an earlier article, various             wickedness of men so that the Church could be
techniques have now been developed whereby em-                    born and saved. But as we near the end and God
bryos can now be preserved through freezing. U.S.                 gives men over to the lusts of their flesh, nothing
News  & World Report  in the issue of Nov. 11, 1985               will be restrained from them so that they may fill
writes:                                                           the cup of iniquity.
          Through cryopreservation, eggs are fertilized and          That such processes, if possible, prove that em-
        cooled to minus-321 degrees Fahrenheit in liquid          bryos are not persons, we deny, because the Scrip-
        nitrogen. In that condition, embryos could remain         tures are unmistakably clear on this point - as we
        safe for centuries  - and a couple could have their       pointed out in an article on abortion.
        own genetic offspring even if one or both became
        sterile.                                                     There is something in this practice which, in its
                                                                  very nature, violates the moral sense of a person
          Yet frozen embryos present major ethical problems.
        "To whom do such embryos belong?" asks Michael            who is steeped in the Scriptures. He knows it is
        Flower, a professor at the University of California at    wrong, whether he can lay his fingers on the
        San Diego. "To living parents, to the estate of de-       precise reason or not. But a little thought will
        ceased parents, to the storage facility that maintains    quickly reveal to us why this practice is wrong.
        them, or to the state?"                                      We are not now immediately concerned about
       I have read reports, whether they can be con-              the legal problems which this practice involves  -
firmed or not I cannot tell, which state that this                which  U.S. News  & World Report  refers to  -
practice has already been tried and living and                    although the magazine calls them "ethical prob-
healthy babies produced by such means. In fact                    lems." Nor are we primarily concerned about the
some have even used the success of this program to                motives for doing this, although we cannot think of
prove that small embryos are not persons, but                     any good motives. Some have said, as we men-
nothing more than globs of tissue, for, they say, if              tioned in an earlier article, that this will guarantee
such an embryo were a person, it could not be                     the future of the race if this world and its popula-
frozen and put into a state of total hibernation.                 tion should be destroyed by nuclear warfare.
       Whether scientists have actually succeeded in              Others want to do this because they do not want
accomplishing this we are not sure. We do know                    any more children than they have, and take steps to
that God gives the wicked surprising room to                      make this impossible, but are concerned that in the
develop their science and enables them to perform                 future they might change their minds. All these
deeds which only fifty years or so ago would have                 points are worth considering, but are not the real
seemed impossible. Who of us, e.g., who lived dur-                reasons why this is so terribly wrong.
ing World War II would have believed that rockets                   In our last article we spoke at some length of the
would be made which could land men on the moon                    implications of the covenant for various techniques
for exploratory purposes? I well remember that                    which are now in use to give childless couples.
when moon flights were first mentioned in the                     children. The same truth of the covenant applies
news media, the editor of  The Banner  confidently                here. Children are given to parents by God. These
predicted that God would never allow men to do                    children belong to the parents who brought them
this. But they did, and space travel has become old               into the world and to no one else. They are given to
hat. If God also allows men to freeze embryos for                 parents to love and nurture, to bring up in the fear
later thawing and development, God is able to do                  of the Lord and to learn the covenant ways of God's
this. But it must be remembered that God allows                   precepts. When a husband and a wife, with the
such great sins to be committed by wicked men as                  children given them of the Lord, form a covenant
they make the powers of creation subservient to                   family, then in that family is the earthly picture of
their use in order that the full wickedness of men                the covenant-family life which God lives in
will be revealed. In this way the wicked become                   Himself. The motivation for bringing forth children
ripe for judgment and God is shown to be righteous                on the part of believers is always and only to bring
in His punishment of them. One thinks of what                     forth the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God said at the time when men pondered the                          It is not difficult to see that the freezing of em-
building of Babel's tower: "And the Lord said,                    bryos is in direct contradiction to this.
Behold, the people is one, and they have all one                           * * * * * * * * * *
language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing
will be restrained from them, which they have imagined
to                                                                  Various techniques have now also been devel-
       do" (Genesis 11:6). The confusion of languages at
Babel was God's providential restraint upon the                   oped which enable parents to determine the sex of
                                                                  a child before conception. We need not go into the
Herman C. Hanko is professor of Church History and New            scientific processes which are involved in this,
Testament in the Protestant Reformed Semina y.                    although up to this point, such efforts have had on-


324                                                    THE STANDARD BEARER



ly partial success. It is clear that some, even within            which might arise because of sexual imbalances in            I
the church, may consider this to be eminently                     the general population, but points out that no               ~
desirable. Usually parents are content with                       evidence of this exists.
whatever sex the Lord is pleased to give to parents,                 In spite of his approval, there are, I think, two
thankful when the Lord has made all things well for               considerations which enter into the picture. The
the mother and the new-born child. But sometimes                  matter of sexual imbalance in the population is, in
parents are, for one reason or another, bitterly dis-             spite of Davis' remarks, something that needs to be
appointed. How they desperately wanted a girl                     considered. I have read somewhere, although the
when they received a boy; or how they would have                  article is long lost, that over the whole earth slightly
liked a boy when they already have four girls. To be              more men are born than women. Although the
able to determine the sex of a child seems                        number of baby boys just about equals the number
desirable.                                                        of baby girls, a few more baby boys are born than
  I personally have no doubt that science will                    girls. If this is true, then one can see the wisdom of
perfect these techniques and will even make great                 God also in this. God sees to it that about an equal
use of them. It will, I fear, become very common                  number of both are born so that the population of
for parents to select the sex of their child in every             the world can remain in sexual balance. But a few
instance of conception and childbirth.                            more boys than girls are born because the life ex-
  Is this so very wrong?                                          pectancy of the male sex is lower than that of the
                                                                  female. Imagine what could happen if a  sizeable
  John Jefferson Davis in his book,  Evangelical                  fraction of the babies born are now chosen as to sex
Ethics,  gives his approval to this technique. He                 by silly parents who operate in their choices only
writes:                                                           on the basis of personal whims.
         At the personal level, it would seem that such              But another point has to be made. And I can
       techniques are a legitimate extension of the moral         make this point best by way of personal experience.
       argument for the proper use of contraception. Men          After three boys were born into our own family,
       and women as the image bearers of God have the             our fourth child was also a boy. We cannot deny
       responsibility to exercise their procreative powers for    that there was just a bit of disappointment involved
       the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom,
       and this includes exercising those powers in the light     in this, although we were thankful that the Lord
       of rational planning and forethought. The right of         gave us another healthy child. I remember my
       dominion would extend to the choice of seeking  a          father saying to us that we must be careful lest we
       desired gender balance within the family.                  question the wisdom of the Lord in this. He re-
  He includes, however, some qualifications. In                   minded us that when we try to determine the sex of
some instances, after a child is conceived, the sex is            an unborn child, what we are really doing is trying
determined by various tests. If the child is not of               to determine the entire life of that child, for the life
the sex the parents want, abortion is considered.                 of a girl would quite obviously be altogether dif-
This type of sex selection Davis condemns. He also                ferent from that of a boy. He warned us that this
points out that, while at present various methods of              determination of the life of a child is God's
sex selection have not been shown to produce a                    business, not our's. And so indeed it is.
greater number of birth defects, this still remains a                A consideration of the subjects of cloning and
possibility, and it, ought to be considered. He ad-               genetic manipulation will have to await a future ar-
dresses, too, the possibility of social problems                  ticle.

The first truth which we must somewhat understand                 the Father that in Him all fulness should dwell, and in
in this connection is that Christ is our salvation, and           Him does dwell all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
that all the spiritual blessings of salvation which we            [Colossians 1:19, 2:9) Our Lord Himself proclaims that
need to become and to remain children of God, re-                 He is the bread of life, so that if anyone cometh unto
deemed, delivered, sanctified, and glorified, are in              Him, he shall never hunger (John 6:35, 48); that He is
Him. This truth is frequently expressed in the Word of            the living bread, which, if any man eat, he shall live
God. The apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians 1:30 that           forever (John 6:51/; and He presents Himself as the
Christ Jesus "is made unto us wisdom, and righteous-              water of life, and calls the thirsty to Him that they may
ness, and sanctification, and redemption. " In Ephe-              drink. He is the light of the world; and he that follows
sians 2:14 he writes that Christ is our peace. In Him we          after Him shall have the light of life. (John 8:12) He is
have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of             the resurrection and the life; and he that believeth in
sins, according to Colossians 1:14; and in chapter 2:3            Him shall never die. (John 11:25,26) He is the way, the
of the same epistle we are told that in Him are hid all           truth, and the life. I/ohn 14.6)
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. For it pleased                       H. Hoeksema, The Wonder of Grace, page 34


                                               THE STANDARD BEARER -.                                         325



FROM HOLY  WRIT
George C. Lubbers





                  Believing All The Scriptures (7)



"THE RIVER OF GOD IS FULL OF WATER"                             It is likely that these two trees are placed there
                                (Gen. 210, Psalm 659)         by a special dispensation of God. It is beyond doubt
  When one reads Genesis  2110 there comes to                 the finishing touch of the prefiguration of the new
mind a beautiful symbolic picture of heaven's                 heavens and of the new earth. When God saw all
glory; it is the earthly picture of the heavenly              that He had made and "behold, it was very good"
paradise of God. Truly, we have here some indica-             this surely included the fact that the earthly would
tion of what makes paradise the garden of God's               serve the heavenly, and that indeed all things were
delight: Eden!                                                "made by Christ and for him," (Col.  1:6b). For the
                                                              eternal Son is the Firstborn of all every creature,
  There is great speech in this "river of God" in the         (Col.  1:15; Rev.  3:14 and I Tim.  1:17).
flowing of this river out of Eden to water the
garden. We read: "And a river went out of Eden to               Hence, we may indeed say that in Gen. 2:lO we
water the garden; and from thence it was parted,              read some wonderful revelatory language; the
and became into four heads."                                  Scriptures must interpret the Scriptures. We hear
                                                              the glad strains concerning the heavenly grace and
  Surely we ought to take notice of the teaching of           glory from out of God's holy temple.
the Bible concerning God's river in both the earthly
and in the heavenly paradise. Each had its own                  This is particularly true of what we read concern-
river, the one is an earthly, the other is heavenly.          ing the river which flowed out of Eden to water the
Howbeit, the earthly is a figure of the heavenly              garden. As we hope to point out, this river is very
river to come.                                                unique indeed. The water flowed out of the most
                                                              holy place in the garden of Eden; it went out to
  Surely this is not some fantasy of man, but it is           water the garden, and from thence watered the en-
really the warp and woof of the clear teaching of             tire earth. We ought to notice the following par-
the Bible. Without seeing this relationship in the            ticulars a bit in depth:
work of God we are unable to form any real knowl-
edge of the heavenly paradise. Also in the earthly              1. It is called a "garden eastward in Eden." It
Garden of Eden we see already something of the                faced toward the east, toward the rising of the sun.
hope of heaven and earth. Here in this earthly para-          It was, as such, the garden of God's delight. Here
dise there is nothing of the vanity of vanities yet to        the Lord of hosts placed, so to speak, His throne on
which the "creature" was subjected in hope.                   earth, as dwelt among man; it was His holy habita-
However, the basis of this hope of heaven and earth           tion on earth, where man could dwell with God,
was increated in Paradise, and that, too, possibly on         hearing his voice upon the wind of the day. Here
the third day of creation week, of what is called the         God walked with man, whom He had created in
Hexahemeron.  God created the world in six days.              His own image, in true knowledge, righteousness
On the third day He created grass, herbs, fruit trees         and holiness. Man might thus know his God and
yielding their fruit. Amongst all these trees stood           serve Him in love and have fellowship with God,
also the three of knowledge of good and evil, as              reading the Word of God in creation, (Gen.  2:19,
well as the tree of life.                                     20). This description of delight is picked up in the
                                                              Song of Songs by Solomon: "A fountain of waters, a
George C. Lubbers is a minister emeritus in the Protestant    well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
Reformed Churches.                                            Awake, o north wind; and come thou south: blow


326                                         THE STANDARD BEARER



upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow          Eden, the center of the garden, where stood the tree
out. Let my beloved come into my garden, and eat          of life. It appears that the river which flowed from
his pleasant fruits", (Song of Solomon 4:15, 16).         Ed&n into the garden to water it had its fountain-
  2. Now we read that God "planted the garden             head at the tree of life. In a sense this water, too,
eastward in Eden and there He put the man whom            was water of life - life, earthly life for man, beast,
he had formed." The enfire earth was for the animal       and all the other trees of the garden. For this water
world and for creeping things, but the garden was         and this river were quite different from any river
the habitat of man, in the covenant of fellowship         which we know. Let us attend to the following mat-
with the living God, creator of heaven and earth.         ters:
The garden was the dwelling place of Adam, the               1. There was only one river which flowed from
son of God, (Luke 3:38b).                                 the garden. It had its source from one fountain, and
  3. It is quite clear from the description of Para-      only one. There is not evidence in all of the Scrip-
dise that that which made Eden such a wonderful           tures prior to the flood to believe that there were
place, was that it was the center of the earthly crea-    other rivers in existence.
tiop. All life, joy, and peace for the creature came        2. It was one river that watered the garden. After
from out of God's holy place. It all proclaimed that      if left the garden it became into four heads of four
the world and its history was God-centered. Here          rivers to irrigate the earth. It was God's great irriga-
stood the tree of life; it was a tree and not a mere      tion system.
vine or shrub. It was something great and royal.            3. These heads which controlled this great irriga-
The tree in Scripture is a picture of a place where       tion system are four in number. Yes, these were
man, animals and birds seek and find shelter.             very literally, historically four branches of the one
Besides, it was  fruit  tree. It was the tree which       river of God. At the same time the number four in
yielded life to those who ate from it, (Matt.  13:22;     Scripture often symbolizes the four corners of the
Dan.  4:12-14).                                           earth, to the east, west, north and the south. All the
  4. It is safe to say that this tree was indeed a        earth surrounding Eden and the garden of God was
Wonder Tree; it was different from all other trees in     watered by these rivers. Yes, the river of God was
the garden. However, it found its antithesis in the       here, too, full of water. There was abundance for
tree of knowledge of good and evil And the wonder         the creature; not a groan or a sigh was heard from
of this tree of life was that it was connected with       the throat of man or beast or bird. There was no
the Word of God to Adam. It was not standing there        evidence of the vanity of vanities of which the
as a mere enigma for man to decipher, but it was          Preacher speaks, (Ecclesiastes  1:2-l 1).
connected with the Word of God as He called                 These rivers, spoken of in Gen.  2:10, did not
Adam unto obedience of love and godliness. Adam           empty into the sea, nor did they have their source
stands here not merely as an individual, but he           high up in the mountains, as do the great rivers
represents Eve his wife, and the entire human race.       which we know in every continent of the world!
He is their legal head, (Rom. 5:12).                      Our State of Colorado has evidently more rivers
  5. All other trees were made with the seed in the       starting in it than any other state in the United
fruit. These trees all propagated themselves. Not so      States. Rivers from both the east and the west start
this tree of life. This tree was not designed for         at the continental divide where we find the never-
becoming other young saplings, which would                summer range of snow and ice. These rivers run
grow into "tree of life" species. It was a one-time       down the mountain-sides, gathering momentum as
tree. Its fruit was more wonderful than the manna         they proceed. Unless these waters are arrested by
which later fell from heaven in the desert. One ate       dams, harnessed in water canals, they serve no
of the bread from heaven and died in the wilder-          useful purpose for any farmer or industry. Not so
ness (John  6:31-33). Not so this fruit of the tree of    this river of God flowing from out of Eden's foun-
life. When one ate of this tree he would not die          tain near to the tree of life. These were indeed not
physical death. It had life-sustaining power. It was      like the restless waters of the sea which cannot be
indeed a Wonder tree, different from all other            quieted; they were not angry waters. Here Adam
trees. It stood in the holiest place of God in the        could jubilate: 0, God, thou leadest man and beast
garden. It was a "figure" of the tree of life in the      and bird besides still waters! What a feeling of quiet
heavenly Paradise of God (Rev.  2:7;  22:2, 14). The      and security Adam must have experienced beside
entire symbolism of Rev. 22:7 is based upon, finds        these waters which flowed from out of the earthly
its picture in what we.read of the earthly paradise       holy place of God unto the four corners of the
in Genesis 2 and 3.                                       world!
  In close connection with the foregoing is what            Yes, these waters were in a sense the archetypical
we read concerning the river which flowed from            prefiguration of the waters which would one day


                                                    THE STANDARD BEARER                                                           327



flow from out of the heavenly temple of God  -                  longed to the earth which was cursed for Adam's
from under the east gate of the temple as  envi-                sake. Judgement ever begins at the "house of God".
sioned by Ezekiel. For these waters were not                    This is also true at the time of the fall of man. Also
murky, death-infested waters due to  malaria-                   here in the garden of Eden God visited Adam and
carrying mosquitoes. They were not the waters of                Eve. However, He did so in such a way that the
Egypt turned to blood, nor the waters as in the                 earth, the creature, was subjected to vanity in hope
cursed Dead Sea, (Ex. 7: 19-25; Gen.  19:23-25).                of one day sharing in the redemptive labors of
Thanks be to God, they were not like the waters of              Christ, who is the Firstborn of all creatures,  as  the
land, sea and rivers spoken of in Rev.  8:6. They               Firstborn out of the dead! God removed these
were pure life-affording waters. Death and sorrow               waters of the garden of Eden. (Col.  1:18).
were not aided by these waters. They were pristine                This too belonged to the things which shall be
waters, abundant waters flowing from the fountain               shaken that God might bring in the inheritance
of God's love, fresh and clean!                                 which cannot be shaken or moved, yea, the River
  If we keep the foregoing in mind we shall also be             of God which is full, and which shall never go dry,
able to see, that when God subjected the earth to               (Ps.  65:5 ff.; Ezekiel 47: 1 ff.; Rev.  22:1-6).
vanity, this subjecting of all things had its starting-           Yes, these sayings are faithful and true!
point in the Garden of Eden. This Eden, too,  be-

ALL AROUND US
Gise J. Van Baren





                             Church Union in the Netherlands
                                To Pav Or Not To Pay (Quotas)



Church Union in the Netherlands:                                     Australia have had close ties with both church groups.
                                                                     It was as follows: in the beginning of the 19th century
  The  CZarion,  Feb. 2, 1987, quotes from an                        the [old] Reformed Church had seriously deviated
Australian church magazine,  Una  Sancta,  Dec. 20,                  from the way of God's Word and the Confession. The
1986, concerning the developing church union be-                     result of a heavy struggle was that in 1834 under the
tween the (synodical) Reformed Churches and the                      leadership of Rev. H. de Cock the  separation  took
state church, the Reformed (hervormde) Church.                      place. The faithful people who left the old church con-
The article correctly points out that this union can                 tinued their church life under the name of  the Re-
surely not be reason for any kind of joy in Re-                     formed Churches in the Netherlands.
formed churches. Rather, it is part of the continu-                    Unfortunately, years later the Reformed Churches,
ing activity of the churches of the world to seek                    too, came into serious crisis of unfaithfulness. In the
union - not on the basis of the truth, but simply to                 years about 194411945, again, a separation took place,
erase all distinctiveness.                                           the so-called  Liberation of  1944. The people who
                                                                     wanted to remain faithful to the Reformed Confession
      Two large church groups in the Netherlands have                continued their church life under the name of  the
                                                                    (Free] Reformed Churches.
    reached the final stage of their preparations for unifi-
    cation. The (synodical) Reformed Churches and the                  So, the two large church groups which are prepar-
    (old) Reformed (hervormde) Church are the two part-              ing the above mentioned unification are churches
    ners in this historical process. In the past our  (Eree)         which in the past had left the way of the Scriptures.
    Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and in                     After many years they try to re-unite, to become one
                                                                     again.
Gise J. Van Baren is pastor of the Protestant Reformed                 Recently, a so-called  Combi-Synod was. held; that is a
Church of Hudsonuille, Michigan.                                     sort of combined Synod from both groups. That


328                                                      THE STANDARD BEARER



       meeting decided that both churches are now  in the             ~. Calvin College:  A number of college professors
       process  of unification.  The decisive step has been made.      teach evolution which members of the denomination
       There is no way back. Soon, the  - what they call  -            believe to be in open conflict with Scripture and our
       unity, will be a fact. It means that after the final date       confessions. Yet on numerous occasions the Executive
       both churches will discontinue their existence; they            Committee of the College Board through the Board's
       will establish a new church with a new name; and                secretary has defended the views of the professors as
       another identity.                                               biblical and reformed.
         It is certain that several of our brothers and sisters          The Banner:  Over the years the editor of  The Ban-
       will feel this development as a painful experience.             ner has unashamedly used its pages to promote his
       The church to which they have belonged seals and                conviction that women ought to occupy all offices in
       confirms its way of apostasy by an amalgamation                 our church. In an editorial in the December 1, 1986
       which has no Scriptural basis, does not lead to a real          issue of The Banner entitled, "Poles Apart" he reveals
       unity in truth and confession, and is not a fruit of a          how biased he is on this issue. Open defiance of the
       sincere conversion from ecclesiastical injustice and            church order at Eastern Avenue CRC is discussed as
       un-Scriptural manipulations. Both churches ignore the           normal. The Banner has contributed much to the con-
       unrighteousness which in the past has caused much               fusion surrounding such issues as abortion, homo-
   bitterness, pain and disunity. In this atmosphere,                  sexuality, and more recently via the article by Prof.
       there is no reason for joy. On the contrary, this               Stek written about common-law marriages. An at-
       development increases the darkness in a country in              tempt by  Classis  Florida requesting the editor to ac-
       which the unfaithfulness, ungodliness and                       count for some of his views and practices ended in
       normlessness have already reached an alarming level.            frustration and red tape . . . .
To Pay Or Not To Pay (Quotas):                                           Home Missions:  Meadowvale Community CRC was
                                                                       started as a Home Missions church in Mississauga,
  One hears increasingly of the withholding of                         Ontario. During the last number of years this church
quotas within the Christian Reformed Church as a                       has distinguished itself by being more Pentecostal
means of protesting actions which some regard as                       than reformed both in its teachings and conduct. The
anti-Scriptural and anti-confessional. The with-                       practice is allowed to continue. As a matter of fact,
holding of such quotas is having a definite effect                     Meadowvale is in the process of urging others within
upon some of the agencies within that church. And                      the denomination to move in a similar direction. It has
while one can sympathize with the agony of soul of                     even started faith healing sessions. Unordained
many who deplore the drift in the CRC, still the                       members preach from its pulpit on a regular basis.
question does arise whether this is the proper                         Why would anyone within the CRC want to support
                                                                       this kind of activity with quota support to Home Mis-
method of protest. If one does not gain relief from                    sions?
the church bodies, does not one either have to sub-
mit  - or withdraw from the denomination? Even                           We have come together to be a church. And we
                                                                       have agreed to be reformed in doctrine and practice.
while withholding quotas, one remains part of the                      We don't have to be. But we have agreed that is what
larger body, and thus also corporately responsible                     it means to be CRC. The centrality of the proclama-
for the actions of the body. The anguish is ex-                        tion of the Word, God's Word and not the personal ex-
pressed in an article appearing in Christian  RenewaZ,                 periences of one minister or another. We confess
Feb. 23, 1987 (Rev. John  H&ink):                                      belief in God the Creator, not God the evolutionist,
         . . . May our synod and may our church visitors in-           and we take Genesis literally. Published materials
       sist that it is the obligation of the individual churches       prepared by CRC Publications should be in harmony
       to pay its quotas 100 percent regardless of what is be-         with Scripture and our confessions. So why would we
       ing taught? Why would a congregation want to pay                want to give quota monies to causes which teach and
       church quotas to a cause which it sincerely believes is         practice otherwise? . . .
       undermining the reformed character of the denomina-
       tion? Whom must it obey? God or man?
         But hold it a minute, you say! Are there actually in-
       stances where a cause we support is in conflict with                  During this busy
       what we believe? Friends, there are so many instances
       that it is dizzying. Here are just a few.                        Spring season, make
         Calvin Seminary: The Board ,of Calvin Seminary
       recently hired Dr. Henry De Moor. They hired him to
       teach church polity at the seminary. Dr. De Moor has           time to read and study
       written a dissertation in which he argues, very elo-
       quently, that women should occupy all offices in the            the Standard Bearer!
       church. De koor's  views are in fundamental conflict
       with the position taken by the denomination. Yet the
       Board has chosen to hire him without a word of ex-
   planation to the denomination.


                                               TH-E STANDARD BEARER                                          329



THE DAY OF SHADOWS
John A. Heys





              The Certainty of a Perfect Church



   There are certain truths that are taught in Scrip-      the people of Nineveh needed Jonah, and he need-
ture which must be borne in mind, if one is to             ed them.
understand and appreciate the book of Jonah. And             Consider also the truth that God designed that
having followed the incidents recorded in that             body, even as He designed the bodies of Adam and
book, we do well to look at the entire book in the         Eve. They had bodies with exactly so many fingers
light of all that happened before the days of Jonah,       and toes, arms and legs, eyes and ears, teeth and
happened afterward in the Old Testament times, is          bones. And these differ not only in size but also in
recorded in the New Testament Scriptures, but also         color, shape, and in the work they will perform. All
is the situation of the church of today.                   was designed in God's wisdom and realized in His
   Let it first of all be recalled what we read in Col-    power. And although Jonah questioned not the in-
ossians  1:18, where Paul wrote: "And He is the            clusion of some Ninevites into that body, he sinned
head of the body, the church: Who is the beginning,        against members of the same body to which he
the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He         belonged when he took ship to flee to Tarshish. He
might have the preeminence." Plainly Paul is               sinned against the body to which he belonged, and
speaking about Christ, for surely He is the begin-         in doing so hurt himself. A finger that pokes its own
ning, the firstborn from the dead. And He is the           eye hurts itself.
Head of the body, that is, the church.                       Jonah, therefore, deserved that storm of Gods
   Now turn to I Corinthians  12:l.Z18. There we           wrath at sea. And it was God's grace that kept him
read, "For as the body is one, and hath many mem-          from dying in his sin. He was saved through the
bers, and all the members of the body, being many,         cross of Christ, to which his own three days and
are one body, so also is Christ . . . . For the body is    three nights in the belly of the fish pointed, even
not one member, but many . . . . If the whole body         though it did not take place yet for many years. It
were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole          did picture what God would do in His grace for the
were hearing, where were the smelling? But now             members of that body of Christ, and how there
bath God set the members, every one of them in             could be such a body. Jesus Himself pointed to this
the body, as it hath pleased Him."                         in Matthew  12:40. It was the same grace that God
   These passages plainly teach the truth that the         showed to the elect in Nineveh. And even as He
church is the body of Christ and has many mem-             brought Jonah safely to land, He spared the city,
bers. These members are not alike but differ in            wherein these Ninevites lived, for their sake.
many ways. Bear in mind also that the members of             It is also worth noting that by sending Jonah to
that church who dwelt in Colosse and in Corinth            Nineveh, God was teaching the church of that day,
were not Jews but Gentiles, even as the saints in          but also teaching us, that a number of Gentiles
Nineveh who were converted through Jonah's                 were going to be added to the body of Christ. Jonah
preaching were Gentiles. All believers then, regard-       did not see that or want a prophet sent to gather
less of nationality and genealogy, belong together;        them; but the time was getting ripe'for such an ad-
                                                           dition to the body of Christ. The shingles of a house
John A. Heys is a minister emeritus in the Protestant      cannot be laid before the foundation is dug and the
Reformed Churches.                                         walls are erected. A child is born without teeth, and


330                                          THE STANDARD BEARER



they come in manv months later. A beard does not           Had God in forty days overthrown Sodom, these
appear on the face of a man for many years after           wicked inhabitants would have gone to hell. But
the day of his birth. So there is a time when this and     their degree of punishment would not be as great as
that member is added to the church and can be add-         it now is. It is not grace to give sinners more oppor-
ed to it. And the time had come for certain                tunity to sin. It increases their punishment.
Ninevites to be added.                                       No, God had that body of Christ in mind when
  Not only does the church which God eternally             He spared Nineveh from overthrow. At the right
planned call for more Gentile converts to be added         time He gathers the right people and implants them
to it than in the Old Testament dispensation; but it       in the church, the body of Christ. And we do well
is an undeniable fact that the nation of Israel, out of    to hold on to the truth of His omnipotence and
which the overwhelmingly larger number of                  wisdom as well as His grace. He may take a loved
members to that body of Christ were joined, was            one away from us by the cold hand of death. But
becoming more and more wicked and like unto                He does it.at the right moment and in the right way,
Nineveh. After the death of Solomon, the kingdom           because the body of Christ in glory needs that per-
was divided. A relatively small group from two             son at that time. It may be an infant that is only a
tribes formed the Kingdom of Judah and continued           few minutes old, or an aged person who has spent
to worship God in His temple, as He taught them            many years as a helpless invalid in a nursing home.
through Moses. Ten tribes formed the Kingdom of            But the particular place in that body of Christ that
Israel and initiated a national idolatry of  worship-      God eternally designed determines when that per-
ping God by golden calves, as Aaron had taught             son with this or that nature - which is now sancti-
them at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Then their King Ahab        fied  - with these talents, of this color, race,
turned them into greater idolatry by turning them          brought up in this culture, having this language and
completely from God to serve Baal. It did not take         psychological makeup, realized by being born from
long before Judah's king, Jehoram, married the             this and that man and woman, will be brought into
daughter of Baal-worshipping Ahab and Jezebel              it. All is in the wisdom of God. It is not what He
and introduced  Baa1 worship into the Kingdom of           finds, but what He planned and made that assures
Judah. And what Jonah failed to see was that his           us that a perfect body of Christ will appear in the
own nation with Baal-worshipping kings was                 day when He returns upon the clouds of heaven.
becoming so much like Nineveh. It was not too long         Everything, without the smallest exception, hap-
after his days that God, Who did not overthrow             pens in our lives with a view to that day. We are be-
Nineveh, overthrew not only Israel but also Judah,         ing trained and prepared in this life, with a view to
and sent the two tribes into Babylonian captivity.         that life to come. With God there are no mistakes.
Jonah should not have been surprised that God              And He is never frustrated in gathering the mem-
would send him to Nineveh to preach.                       bers of that body of Christ. Not one of the innumer-
  Now we do well to bear in mind the fact that the         able host - innumerable as far as man is concerned
Nineveh, to which we belong, is being spared for           - will fail to reach the place eternally planned for
the sake of the members of Christ's body who are           him, and he will be there to do exactly the work in
in it, or will be born in it, and it must be spared for    that new Jerusalem that God in His wisdom eter-
them to be gathered into His church, and many              nally planned. A perfect church is coming!
Jonahs must be sent to bring them to repentance              Moved and guided by the Spirit, the psalmist in
and faith. A Rahab had to have spies sent to her. A        Psalm 107: l-3 wrote, "0 give thanks unto the Lord,
Ruth had to have a family from out of Israel come          for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever. Let
into Moab to teach her, and a Lot and his daughters        the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath re-
had to be spared the overthrow of Sodom. And               deemed from the hand of the enemy. And gathered
Jonah should have gone to Nineveh without com-             them out of all lands, from the east, and from the
plaint. God also asks him, "And should I not spare         west, from the north and from the south." And
Nineveh?" He does not ask, "And may I not spare            surely there is something prophetic here. For today
Nineveh?" Jonah did not question God's right but           Jesus' words in Matthew 28: 19 are surely being ful-
His wisdom.                                                filled. He said unto the disciples, "Go ye therefore
  And let it be stated here that, though it may have       and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
looked that way to Jonah, it was not a "common             the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
grace" that spared Nineveh. It was for the sake of         That is being done today. And with much improved
these believing children of God, not for the wicked,       means of transportation and communication, the
unbelieving element in that godless city. In fact it       church is being built up, with the members of
would look more like "common grace" for God to             Christ's body that were eternally decreed being
destroy the city! Now they were given added years          contacted with the Word of God. There are people
and added earthly goods with which they sinned.            east and west of the land of Canaan, north and


                                              THE STANDARD BEARER                                              331



south of no matter where you stand, and from this         first. The unbelievers are here to serve that church,
race and that race, this color and that color brought     even though it may look to us, with our limited vi-
not only much closer by jet aircraft transportation,      sion, as though they are ruining the church of God,
but by means of radio and television are contacted        and are keeping Christ's body from being perfect.
from a point that may be on the other side of the         Nothing is farther from the truth. They look to us as
world. The God Who sends His Jonahs today also            a hammer and saw, fire and storm; and we feel the
led man into all these discoveries and inventions,        pain of being pounded, cut and burned. But rest
because He is going to bring forth a perfect church,      assured that they are completely under God's con-
the body of Christ with no members missing; and           trol and do not hurt His church one bit. As God
no overthrow of any nation, no nuclear devastation        used the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, to-
that would take away the life of one of those             gether with Pilate and the Roman soldiers, to get
decreed members of that body before the right time        Christ on His cross, so it is with all the unbelievers.
and before that one has been brought to conver-           They serve the fulfillment of God's counsel, not
sion, can or will take place.                             only to prepare the way for Christ to return, but
   What happened Nineveh is normal, even though           also to do all that is necessary to every member of
Jonah considered it abnormal. Look at the church,         the body of Christ, so that he reaches his place.
not at the world, if you want to see the wisdom of          Jonah did not see how the sparing of Nineveh
God as well as His grace, mercy, kindness and             would be good for the church; but it, was. As Paul
slowness to anger. It was for the sake of the church,     encourages us with the truth that all things work
not for the sake of the enemies of that church who        together for our good, and that nothing separates us
were living in Nineveh, that God spared it.               from the love of God, so it is. The church of Christ
   The book of Jonah ends with silence on Jonahs          will have all of its members in a perfect condition
part. He has nothing to say that should be said,          and in the right places as members of the body of
unless it is to praise and thank God. There is no         Christ. When that day comes, we will see the
room to complain or question what God does.               wisdom of God and what a wonderful plan He had
Before we speak, we had better change our minds           eternally with Him and executed perfectly in the
as to what ought to be done. God's church comes           smallest detail.

IN HIS FEAR
Arie den Hartog





                                           Worldliness



  Worldliness is one of the greatest dangers that         worldly, she becomes the object of mockery to the
constantly faces the individual Christian and the         world, and the occasion of reproach of the name of
church as a whole. Many a Christian has been              the Lord she worships and serves, and of the truth
ruined by worldliness. Whole churches have been           she confesses. Scripture warns us so very strongly
destroyed by it. When the Christian or the church         against the evil of worldliness. "Know ye not that
becomes worldly it loses its testimony in the world,      the friendship of the world is enmity with God?
it is no longer worthy of the gospel of the Lord Jesus    Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is
Christ, it ceases to be the salt of the earth and the     the enemy of God," James  4:4. "Love not the
light of the world. When the church becomes               world, neither the things that are in the world. If
                                                          any man love the world, the love of the Father is
Arie den Hartog is pastor of the Protestant Reformed      not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of
Church of Randolph, Wisconsin.                            the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of


     332                                           THE STANDARD BEARER



     life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the    above. Our whole conversation as Christians must
     world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he            be heavenly in perspective. This alone by the grace
     that doeth the will of God abideth for ever," I John        of God will keep us from worldliness. We must
     215-17. How very serious these passages of God's            always remember that we are but pilgrims and
     word are! There is an absolute antithesis between           strangers in this world. We have the hope of the
     the love of the world and the love of God, so much          glorious inheritance that is reserved in heaven.
     so that anyone who loves the world is called an             Because of this hope we have to forsake the world
     enemy of God. AZZ that is in this world, the lust of        and its lusts and keep ourselves pure and holy unto
     the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of         the day of the coming of our Lord.
     life, is not of God. What absolute language. There
     can be no compromise. The Christian must con-                 Worldliness is a subject little spoken of in
     stantly maintain the absolute antithesis with the           modern day churches. It is considered to be a sub-
     world in which he lives. There can be no engaging           ject which the old Puritans discussed and wrote
     in and taking pleasure in the things of this world. In      books about but which is not very relevant for to-
     the measure in which the Christian does this he             day. It is considered a matter of greater urgency for
     does not possess the love of God. The great call of         the church to accommodate as much as possible to
.    the Lord is, "come out from among them, and be ye           the world and seek to be relevant to the people of
     separate," II Corinthians 6: 17. And again in Revela-       the world. At all cost the modern day church does
     tion  18:4 we read this warning from the Lord;              not want to be considered too conservative and out
     "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not par-            of step with the times. The church must bend over
     takers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her          backwards to prove to the world how tolerant it can
                                                                 be and how free in permitting any and all sorts of
     plagues." These are words of warning given in con-
     nection with the announcement of the fall of the            life styles that men might choose for themselves.
                                                                 Discipline and excommunication from the church
     Babylon of this world. Constantly, and under the            because of worldly and ungodly living is almost
     instigation of the devil, the world is seeking to build     unheard of. We must tolerate all things in the sup-
     its Babylon. The purpose of the devil is to try to get
     as many of the members of the church as possible            posed "love of Christ" spirit. Because of the awful
     to become citizens of Babylon. His purpose is as            state of gross worldliness in so many churches, it is
     much as possible to obliterate all distinction be-          necessary for the true church of Jesus Christ to
     tween the world and the church. His purpose is              maintain a separatist stand. We as Christians and as
     somehow to tempt every Christian to follow after            churches must condemn the great evil of worldli-
     the abominations of the world.                              ness that is so prevalent in many churches. We
                                                                 must not imagine that all who call themselves
       God Himself has made us to differ from this pres-         Christians are truly people of God whose teaching
     ent evil world by the wonderful work of His grace           and example we can follow.
     and Holy Spirit in us. Scripture often reminds us of
     this. It speaks of the wonderful and absolute dif-            Besides taking a separatist stand over against the
     ference that God has made. "And you hath He                 modern apostate church and condemning the
     quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;            worldliness in her midst, we must also be constant-
     wherein in time past ye walked according to the             ly on our guard against worldliness coming into our
     course of this world, according to the prince of the        own lives as Christians, and into our own churches.
     power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the        In order to do that we have to identify worldliness
     children of disobedience; among whom also we all            in our own life and in our own midst. Worldliness
     had our conversation in time past in the lust of our        takes on many forms. Each age brings new forms of
     flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the       worldliness. It is not good enough to imagine that
     mind; and were by nature the children of wrath,             we have kept ourselves from worldliness if we have
     even as others," Ephesians  21-3. That must all be          merely avoided the areas of worldliness which
     left behind us. We have now been made new                   have for many years been condemned, such as
     creatures in Christ Jesus, fashioned after the image        worldly entertainment, dancing, and movie atten-
     of Christ Jesus, renewed in the true knowledge of           dance. There are many more forms of worldliness
     God and created in true righteousness and holiness.         than these. It is often the case that people who con-
     We are called to walk in the good works which God           demn worldliness in these areas are grossly guilty
     has ordained for us and to show forth the glorious          of it in other areas of their lives.
     praises of our God who called us out of darkness in-          We must maintain our doctrinal foundations if
     to His marvellous light. We will never do that if we        we are to stand fast against the tide of worldliness.
     are worldly. We must be  a. separate, holy, and             The origin of our churches had to do with the
     peculiar people unto the Lord our God.                      whole issue of common grace. One of the great
       We must not set our affection upon the things in          reasons why our spiritual forefathers condemned
     this present world, but on the things which are             the teachings of common grace is because this false


                                           THE STANDARD BEARER                                                 333



doctrine seeks to make a compromise between the           always also to take heed to the warning of the apos-
Christian and the world, between Jerusalem and            tle Paul that we use not our liberty as an occasion to
Athens. We must maintain steadfastly the doctrinal        sin.- We must not excuse in our life what is clearly
heritage of our church. But we must also maintain         condemned in the Word of God. With this in mind
our doctrinal position in our practice lest we com-       we seek to consider some of the areas of worldli-
promise the very thing which our forefathers              ness that threaten us, and by contrast how we as
fought so hard to maintain by the actual conversa-        children of God ought to live.
tion of our life. We must always ask the question           We are called to live in spiritual separation from
very directly; "Are we becoming worldly?" It is           the world as the holy and peculiar people of the
with this in mind that we purpose to write some-          Lord. Separation is first of all a matter of the heart
thing further on this subject in coming installments      of the child of God. He must not love the world nor
for this department.                                      set his affections upon the things of this world. We
  We are aware of the great dangers involved in ap-       must separate ourselves spiritually from the world
proaching this subject directly and from a practical      in its worldly purposes and objects and desires. We
perspective. The whole matter of worldliness and          must be absolutely separate from the materialism,
our calling to be separate from the world has often       selfishness, man-centeredness and covetousness of
been misunderstood. Many well-meaning Chris-              the world. We must be separate from the lust and
tians have failed to see that the antithesis between      adultery and fornication that characterizes so much
the world and the Christian is not a physical but a       of what the world does. We must separate our-
spiritual one. These have advocated that we must          selves from the ungodly speech of the world. Our
totally isolate ourselves physically from the world,      whole life must be different: all our goals and pur-
restricting as much as possible any contact we have       poses. Our conversation must be different. The
with the world. This of course is wrong. This kind        things we spend most of our time and money on
of teaching does not guard against real worldliness.      must be different. This must be real and evident. If
History has proven again and again that advocates         our conversation is largely about the same things as
of such a position have often themselves lived in         our neighbor's, who is not a Christian, then we are
the grossest worldliness. The Lord calls us to live in    in danger of becoming worldly. If most of our talk
the midst,of this world and yet be truly spiritually      is about making money, about our businesses and
separate and distinct from it. The real test of the       farms, about sports and vacations, then we are in
Christian life comes as we live next to and in the        danger of becoming worldly. The question of
midst of the world. There we must bear our Chris-         worldliness must be answered on the basis of how
tian testimony and there we must show forth the           we spend our time, what brings us the greatest joy,
distinctive virtues of the grace of God in our lives.     what is the chief interest of our life. Is the Lord real-
There have also been many advocates of separation         ly central in our life? Are our hearts and souls and
from the world who have in fact been nothing but          conversation filled with the things of God and of
legalists and Pharisees who have sought to restrict       His truth and kingdom? Do we know the statistics
again the liberty which we have in Christ. We may         of our favorite sports heros but very little about the
not lay upon the conscience of the Christian any          truth of the Bible? Then we have become worldly
burden which our Lord Himself does not give to us.        in that area of our life. As we continue to consider
The position of legalism will only lead to a spirit       this subject in future articles, let us humbly ex-
and attitude that is judgmental of our fellow saints.     amine ourselves before the Word of God. May the
There are things of our Christian life that belong to     Lord by His grace make us more truly  God-
Christian liberty. On the other hand we need              centered and less worldly in all our life.




                                        Book Review

SALVATION  - THE GIFT OF GOD OR THE                       North Road Chapel (Evangelical) in Bideford,
CHOICE OF MAN?  by W. H. Mollahd;  A.                     England, along with the note: "This . . . book just
Wheaton  & Co. Ltd., Exeter. 86 pp., 3 pounds             published . . . has been written out of a deep  con-
(paper). (Reviewed by Prof. H. Hanko)                     tern as to the need in this present day for a clear
  This book was sent to me by the pastor of the           statement of the `Doctrines of Grace.' If after


334                                        THE STANDARD BEARER



       Directory, Protestant Reformed Churches
       (For our readers who may be traveling or may wish to visit one of our churches in their area.)

 Covenant Prot. Ref. Church            First Prot. Ref. Church             Southeast Prot. Ref. Church
 454 Pulis Ave.                        2800 Michigan St., NE               1536 Cambridge, SE
 Franklin Lakes, N.J.                  (l/2 Mi. SW of  196/M44             Grand Rapids, MI
 (Meeting in United Methodist          interchange)                        Services:  9:30  & 5:00
 Church)                               Grand Rapids, MI                    Phone: (616)  452-7047
 Services:  11:30 & 7:00               Services:  9:30  & 6:00
 Phone: (201) 790-4732                 Phone: (616) 247-0638, 245-4339     Grandville Prot. Ref. Church
                                                                           Wilson Ave., SW
 Byron Center Prot. Ref. Church        Southwest Prot. Ref. Church         Grandville, MI
 8840 Byron Center Ave.                4875  Ivanrest Ave., SW             (Meeting in Grandville High
 -Byron Center, MI                     Grandville, MI                      School)
 (Meeting in Byron Center Chr.         Services:  9:30  & 7:00             Services:  9:30  & 7:00
 Jr. High School)                      Phone: (616) 532-6876, 532-4846     Phone: (616) 538-2575
 Services:  9:30  &  500
 Phone: (616) 878-3255, 534-1927       Faith Prot. Ref. Church             Hudsonville Prot. Ref. Church
                                       7194 20th Ave.                      5101 Beechtree Ave.
 Hope Prot. Ref. Church                Jenison, MI                         (1 Blk. East of Public High
 1580 Ferndale, SW                     Services:  9:30  & 7:00             School, 32nd Ave.)
 (Corner of Riverbend  &               Phone: (616) 457-5848               Hudsonville, MI
 Ferndale)                                                                 Services:  9:30  & 7:00
 Walker, MI                            First Prot. Ref. Church             Phone: (616) 669-0755
 Services:  9:30  & 7:00               290 E. 18th St.
 Phone: (616) 453-3253, 453-2524       Holland, MI                         South Holland Prot. Ref. Church
                                       Services:  9:30  &  6:30            16511  South Park Ave.
 Kalamazoo Prot. Ref. Church           Phone: (616) 396-8303               South Holland, IL
 4515 Green Acre Dr.                                                       Services:  9:30  & 6:00
 Kalamazoo, MI                         Pella Prot. Ref. Church             Phone: (312) 333-1314, 596-3113
 Services:  9:30  & 6:00               410 Franklin St.
 Phone: (616) 381-3385, 349-4420       Pella, IA                           Trinity Prot. Ref. Church
                                       Services:  9:30  & 7:00             2 14 Barker-Clodine Rd.
 Randolph Prot. Ref. Church            Phone: (515) 628-4747               Houston, TX
 229 Hammond St.                                                           Services:  9:30  & 6:00
 Randolph, WI                          Doon Prot. Ref. Church              Phone: (713) 492-0844
 Services:  9:30  & 2:00               6th Ave. & N. 2nd St.
 Phone: (414) 326-5642                 Doon, IA                            Edgerton  Prot. Ref. Church
                                       Services:  9:30  & 2:00             3rd & Maple St.
 Hull Prot. Ref. Church                Phone: (712) 726-3382               Edgerton, MN
 1204 Third St.                                                            Services:  9:30  &  7:30 (March to
 Hull, IA                              Loveland Prot. Ref. Church          Nov.) 9:30 & 2:00 (Dec. to Feb.)
 Services:  9:30  & 7:00 (May to       709 E. 57th St.                     Phone: (507) 442-4441
 Sept.) 9:30 & 1:30 (Oct. to April)    Loveland, CO
 Phone: (712) 439-1326, 439-1283       Services:  9:30  & 6:00 (Oct. to    First Prot. Ref. Church
                                       May) 9:30 & 7:00 (June to Sept.)    11533 135th St. (Mt. Zion
 Hope Prot. Ref. Church                Phone: (303) 667-1347               Lutheran Church)
 Isabel, SD                                                                Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
 Services:  9:30  & 2:00               Lynden Prot. Ref. Church            Services:  11:15  & 3:00
 Phone: (605) 466-2450                 108 Beernink Lane                   Phone: (403) 455-9803
                                       Lynden, WA                          (also a service in Trinity
 Hope Prot. Ref. Church                Services: 10:00 & 8:00 (summer)     Lutheran Church, 5259 49th St.
 1307 E. Brockton Ave.                 10:00  & 2:00 (winter)              Lacombe, Alberta, 7:30 P.M. on
 Redlands, CA                          Phone: (206) 354-4337               2nd & 4th Sundays of month)
 Services: 10:00  & 7:00
 Phone: (714) 792-0307, 792-4923


                                             THE STANDARD BEARER                                             335



reading it, and should you consider it worthy, any             We recommend this book to all who love the
publicity or recommendation which you can give,              truths of salvation by sovereign grace. It is simply
would be much appreciated."                                  written and easily  .understandable and can well
  I consider the book worthy indeed of recom-                serve as an introduction to those who know not
mendation. It is written by one who himself has              these doctrines. That is, it can be used by those
come out of Arminianism and is a clear exposition            who encounter Arminians and are looking for an
of the five points of Calvinism. Particular attention        easily understood book on the truth of Scripture.
is paid to the truth of limited atonement, mainly            The book has John Bunyan's famous "Map Show-
because, while people can be found who have part-            ing the Order and Causes of Salvation and Damna-
ly abandoned Arminianism and hold to one or more             tion" appended to the back. It can be obtained
of the five points, almost none of these will admit to       from: Mr. G. Jackson,  Bookroom Secretary, 7  Stan-
the truth of limited atonement. This is often the            hope Terrace, Northam Road, Bideford, Devon
stumbling block. Not only is the author thoroughly           EX39 3JZ. When ordering, add 5Op for postage and
Biblical in his development of these five points, but        packaging.
he also takes specific issue with Arminian errors
and points out their unbiblical character and their
danger when taught in the church. He even does                        Take the time to
this with the error of the well-meant offer of the
gospel, though not in detail.                                              read and study
  The only criticism I have of the book is that in its
treatment of election, the author has nothing to say                 the Standard Bearer
about reprobation. It seems as if he believes this
doctrine, for passing reference is made to it
elsewhere, but the truth is not developed, even               with your family today!
though it has been a part of the historic faith of the
church.


                             News From Our Churches
                                                     Ben Wigger

                                                   April 15, 1987


  The Church Extension Committee of our Ran-                hope very much to invite some people from our
dolph Church reported to their congregation                 community to our church for this meeting. We are
recently on some very ambitious plans. "We want             also working on plans to hold Bible discussion
to continue to emphasize in our congregation the            groups especially adapted to invite non-members of
need for doing the work of evangelism in our com-           our church."
munity. In the past we have sponsored lectures to              And some news from Kalamazoo similar to the
which we have invited people of our community.              above. A committee there has begun to lay out
Though the fruit of our efforts has been small by           plans for a series of seminars during the month of
human standards, let us not be discouraged. We              May.
must continue to do the work which the Lord calls
us to do. For this reason we have planned several              I would say to you all; watch this news column
programs for the future. We plan some time in the           for more details as they become available. It sounds
beginning of April to conduct a short series of study       like some exciting times coming in these two con-
classes dealing with the subject of personal                gregations.
evangelism. After this short series of studies we              The  Building Committee of First Church in
want to have a special community evening at our             Grand Rapids brought a proposal to their Council
church where Pastor den Hartog will present a pro-          last July to air condition the church sanctuary and
gram on the work of our churches in Singapore. We           narthex. This proposal was voted down at the
                                                            Council's February meeting. One can only wonder
Ben Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church    how the vote would have gone if the Council had
of Hudsonville, Michigan.                                   voted on a hot summer night instead of a cold


                                                                                                           THE STANDARD BEARER
                                                                                                                P.O. Box 6064
                                                                                                        Grand Rapids, Michigan 495 16





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                                                         .  --' `-'


3     3    6     '                             THE  STAN@RD.BEdkER

winter one.                                                             And the  .Y:P. of Randolph also invited their
     The Building Committee also is examining the              fellow members to a Soup Supper on Friday, March
pros and cons of selling their present parsonage and           27. The Y.P. promised that this year they won't run
building a new parsonage on the church grounds.                out of soup.
     The Consistory of Byron Center has given their                     Parents and Grandparents Visiting Day was held
Building Committee permission to do minor site                 March 18 at N.W. Iowa Prot. Ref. Christian School
                                                               in  Doon. And in connection with Christian Educa-
improvements on their land purchased on 84th
Street. Though plans for building are not finalized,           tion Week, Heritage Chr. School in Hudsonville
the Building Committee is working on them and                  also invited parents, friends, and grandparents to
they should be presented to the congregation for               come and visit their school. Along with visitation
suggestions and response soon.                                 they held an Art Fair so the students could display
                                                               their art work, projects and crafts. On Tuesday, the
     Byron Center also held their Church Potluck               31st, those who were visiting were invited to an all
Supper-Volleyball Night on March 31, all those 9th             school assembly. During this assembly the students
Grade through adult were invited.                              sang,          spoke and performed on musical in-
     Rev. R. Dykstra was the featured speaker at the           struments.
Spring Ladies League Meeting held in  Doon, Iowa                        And one last item to leave you with, taken from
on April 2.                                                    the Reflector, a school paper published by the Prot.
     Rev. M. De Vries gave the Meditation at  the-             Ref. Christian School in South Holland,  111.
Men's Lenten Breakfast on Tuesday, March 17 at                             Be careful of the words you say
the First Ref. Church. All the men of the congrega-                        Keep them soft and sweet
tion in.Edgerton were invited to attend all of these                       You'll never know from day to day
breakfasts.  i'                                                            Which ones you'll have to eat.
     The Ladies of our  Doon congregation  havz a
Cash-for-Trash project for the Organ Fund of their                                              NOTICE!!!
church. For those of you who may not be familiar                        The  Northwest%lowa  Protestant Reformed Christian School is in
with what this is, it is simply saving your wrappers,           need of two teachers for the 198788 school year. One of these
                                                                positions is for Grades 3,  4;- and 5, and the other is for the kinder-
boxes, labels, etc., and turning these items in to              garten. Please contact Mr. Hunter, Box 67,  Doon,  Iowa 51235,
their respective companies for cash `refunds.                   phone 1712) 726-3381 (home) or (712) 726-3200  (.schoofJ  or Mr.
                                                                A. Bleyenberg, Box 151,  Doon, Iowa 51235.
     As the ladies of Doon no doubt know by now, it
is a lot of work but well worth the'lffort.                                    ANNIVERSARY ANNOUNCEMENT
     As this year's Young Peoples Convention looms                      On March 18, 1987, our parents, MR. AND MRS. G.J.  MAAT-
closer and closer, our churches' Young People's             - MAN, celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary.
Societies are gearing up by sponsoring many varied                      We rejoice with them and are thankful to our Lord for covenant
fund-raisers.                                                  parents who sought to teach us the way of God. We pray that they
                                                               will continue to experience the blessings of our faithful God in the
     March 21, the Faith Church Y.P. held a pancake            years that He may give them.
breakfast, which also featured  french  toast and             `Norm and  Jacque Maatman                     1 1 grandchildren
sausages at the Hope Christian School gym.                     John and Jackie Kucaj                         3 great-grandchildren
                                                               Fiodger and Sharon Maatman
     March 26, Southeast's Y.P. sponsored a pot luck
supper. After dinner the young people also auc-                                                NOTICE!!!
tioned off their services.                                              Classis East will meet in regular session on Wednesday, May 13,
     Southwest's congregation was also reminded                 1987 at the Southeast Protestant Reformed Church. Material to be
                                                               treated at this session must be in the hands of the Stated Clerk at
recently to attend their Young People's Societies'             least three weeks prior to the convening of this session.
Soup and Sandwich Supper, also held at Hope                    Jon Huisken
School.                                                        Stated Clerk


