     / I' S'llYf4lUllmP





I


     Vol. 66, No. 6
     December 75, 7989


 C o n t e n t s                                           December 15,. 7 989                   THE

 Meditation  - Rev.  Jason  L. Kortering
    THE RISING OF THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS                                          i23

 EDITORIALLY SPEAKING..  .  - Prof. David/.  Engelsma                                       ISS N 0362-4692
                                                                                    125
                                                                                            Semi-monthly, except monthly during  june,  luly,
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   MISSIONS, A HIGH PRIORITY                                                        130    Critters. Rev. Cornelius Hanko, Prof. Herman
    WHAT NEXT FROM THE GKN                                                          131    Hanko, Rev. Ronald Hanko, Rev. John Her/s, Rev.
                                                                                           Kenneth Koole, Rev. Jason Kortering, Mr. James
   A NEW PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN ENGLAND                                             131    Lanting, Rev. George Lubbers, Mrs. Marybeth  Lub-
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122  I The Standard Bearer  I December 15, 1989


                                         The Rising of the
Meditation                               Sun of Righteousness
Rev. jason Kortering


   "But unto you that fear                 It is no different for the human        evil is affecting the church. We
my name shall the Sun of                 race. God has made the creation           are living in the day when the
righteousness arise with heal-           so intricately related that light         love of many has waxed cold,
ing in his wings; and ye shall           becomes the essence of life. In its       spiritual indifference abounds,
go forth and grow up as                  warmth and energy we are                  religious formality without true
                                                                                   commitment is evident. Those
calves of the stall" (Malachi            refreshed and strengthened.
4:2).                                    Foolish man who rejects the               within the church, who desire to
                                         word of God in creation, makes            be spiritually separate from the
                                         the sun a god and literally wor-          world, find increasing opposition
  Can't you just see those calves?       ships it. Others become sun-              within the church itself.
The dark, cool night of confine-         worshipers on the beaches of our            What gospel did Malachi bring?
ment in the stalls leaves them           land. We confess that God                   The Sun of Righteousness shall.
chilled and stiff. As the rising sun     created the sun, moon, and stars          rise with healing in his wings.
begins to warm the earth, the            on the fourth day as lights in the           This is a prophecy of Jesus in
farmer comes along and opens             firmament of heaven to divide             His coming.
the gate and the calves skip and         the day from the night, for signs            Righteousness! that is the key
frolic in the sunlight.                  and for seasons, for days and             issue. One must be right with
  Animals react to sunlight. Dur-        years, to give light upon the             God. God has established a boun-
ing the cool seasons of the year         earth (Genesis 1:14-16).                  dary within which He smiles in
the cattle, horses, cats, and dogs         The inspired prophet Malachi,           friendship and outside of which
all like to stretch out in the warm      draws from this realm of creation         he burns in His fury. God Himself
sunlight.                                a spiritual analogy. The church           is righteous. He loves Himself
  Little wonder, for from the sun        was experiencing a long, cold,            and He expects everyone else to
they absorb the energy of life.          dark night of sin and despair.            love Him. This love is expressed
That bright sphere in the                Apostasy had run rampant                  in the law and summarized by
heavens, ninety-three million            throughout all Israel. The                Jesus: "Thou shalt love God with
miles from the earth, so large           preceding chapters of this proph-         all your heart, mind, will, and
that 334,000 earths could be con-        ecy give the ugly details. They           strength, and love your neighbor
tained within it, generates              were offering to God the crippled         as yourself."
4,690,OOO horsepower of energy           and lame sheep (1:7, 8); they                No man has obtained that
in every square mile on its sur-         were guilty of intermarriage with         righteousness in human effort.
face.                                    their heathen neighbors (2: 11);             This righteousness must come
   Here on earth, our plants             they neglected their tithes and of-       from heaven. It is concentrated
reach to the east in the morning         ferings (3:s); and, worst of all, the     in Jesus even as the light is con-
and slope westward in the eve-           priests were the most guilty, be-         centrated in the sun. Hence He is
ning. What a silent testimony of         ing bad examples (2:7, 8).                called here, "Sun of Righteous-
absorbed energy.                           This sounds only too familiar           ness." He personally is righteous,
                                         in our day, does it not? In the           He is the source of righteousness
                                         closing years of human history,           for all those whom the Father
                                         do we not face the same burden            gave to Him. Righteousness
                                         that Malachi did? To be sure, the         shines forth from Him.
Rev. Kortering is pastor of the Prot-    ungodly increase in their iniquity,          This explains the double effect
estant Reformed Church of  Grand-        the blatant examples of their evil        of His rising as the sun. The first
ville,  Michigan.                        lusts are only too obvious. This          word of this text is, "But unto

                                                                                  December 15, 1989  I The Standard Bearer  I123


you that fear my name." The                       heed His wise commands.                when He sent Jesus to die upon
preceding verse is filled with the                   There was a handful of people       the cross. In Him justice is
other imagery of the sun. It will                 in Israel who thus feared God as       satisfied. His cry out of hell, "My
rise so hot that it will burn like                the last .prophet  spoke these         God, My God, why hast thou for-
an oven, and all who do wicked-                   words to Israel. There are such in     saken me," reached up to thle ears
ly shall be stubble and will be                   the midst of the church also to-       of the Lord of hosts and He
burned up completely, leaving                     day. Are you one of them?              answered. He raised Him from
neither root nor branch. The                         For such, the rising of the Sun     the dead and set Him at His own
righteousness of God demands                      of Righteousness produces heal-        right hand. Well may we focus
this. The soul that sinneth shall                 ing in His rays (wings). As the        our eyes of faith upon that cross;
die. All those in Israel and all                  calves leap out of the stall and       for in His death we have died to
mankind today that break the                      frisk in the sunshine, so we           sin, so that in His resurrection we
law of God and reject Gods way                    delight in the healing for our         may live unto God.
of life come under the wrath of                   wounded spirits.                         As we contend with the devil
His righteousness. The coming of                     When we fear Jehovah's              and deal with our own sinful
Jesus, both in Bethlehem and at                   Name, we learn to reverence the        nature, we grow weary with our-
the end of the ages, will bring                   holiness and righteousness of          selves. How often do we not cast
terrible judgment and hellish                     God. This is the great fault in the    ourselves down and cry out, "0
wrath upon them.                                  world, of course, but especially in    God, I'm weary of the struggle.
   But, to those who fear my                      the church of our day. To make         The good that I really want to
name, the Sun of Righteousness                    God acceptable to mankind, He is       do, I fail to do. The evil that I do
shall rise with healing in His                    presented as a Loving Father, a        not want to do, I find myself do-
wings.                                            gentle and compassionate Savior,       ing. 0 wretched man that I am."
   Are you one who fears                          a God who desires the com-             Sometimes we cry these words in
Jehovah's Name?                                   panionship of everyone and will        a rehab center, sometimes in a
   How can we tell? Fear, here, is                do anything to obtain it. This is      pastor's study. Most often we cry
not the fright that drives away.                  deceptive. This lacks the fear of      them in the dark hour of the
Such fear is reserved for the                     Jehovah. He is love, to be sure.       night when we are overwhelmed
wicked and for those who do not                   He is gentle and compassionate.        with our helplessness. Even then,
repent of their sins and seek for-                But He is this in the way of           we need not wait until morning
giveness. Well may they flee the                  holiness and truth. Justice is the     for the Sun of Righteousness to
terror of Jehovah's wrath and                     cornerstone of His kingdom. The        rise with His healing rays. Those
glory.                                            amazing wonder of His love is          rays are ours in the midnight
   To fear Jehovah's Name is a                    not that He denies justice, but        hour of despair. God is our
proper response to the majesty                    that He satisfies it. The healing      refuge and strength, our ever
and greatness of God. We realize                  we need for our guilty and             present help in time of trouble. In
that the prophet Malachi, by the                  wounded spirits, is derived from       Christ Jesus we can do all things
Holy Spirit, speaks of Jehovah's                  the rays of imputed righteousness      as He strengthens us. What
Name. He is not only the Creator                  which assure us of the satisfac-       words of encouragement, what
of heaven and earth, He is the                    tion of justice.                       hope for the troubled, *what heal-
Savior of His own. He is the God                    This righteousness forms the         ing for the downcast.
and Father of Jesus, Jehovah                      basis for the forgiveness of our         The righteousness of Jesus
Salvation. He is the God Who                      sins. How healing that is. Tears       Christ is healing for us.
keepeth covenant forever. By His                  stream down our faces, our               Malachi spoke of His rising:
revelation we come to reverence                   hearts palpitate from straining        :`. . . shall rise." Yes, Malachi was
Him, we bow before His majesty,                   under the burden of guilt, we          on the other side of Bethlehem.
and we praise Him for the great-                  grow weary from bearing the            He served Jehovah during a dark
ness of His power and the amaz-                   consequences of our sins before        period of Old Testament history.
ing depth of His love. We do not                  Sod. Jesus is the Sun of               The returned captives had not
tread lightly in His presence. We                 Righteousness with healing in His      learned their lesson. Only a few
come with a profound sense of                     rays. As we look upon Him by           feared the Name of Jehovah.
awe and wonder. This spiritual                    faith we see that He has crossed       Their hope was in the rising of
attitude forces us from within to                 the great divide that separates        the Sun of Righteousness. The
listen to what He has to say and                  the sinner in hell from the            dark hour of midnight would
take seriously His Word. It is our                Sovereign in glory. Jehovah            soon be overtaken by the dawn
inmost desire to obey Him and                     reached down into the pit of hell      of a new day.

124 I The Standard Bearer  I December 15, 1989


  In this season of the year, we        righteousness is not for the             preaching of the gospel. He
do well to reflect upon the mean-       world. It is for the shepherds, for      comes in all the events of
ing of the rising of the Sun of         the wisemen, for all who fear His         history. Soon He will come again,
Righteousness, as He was born           Name.                                    personally, upon the clouds of
into this world, took on our flesh        Every day He continues to              heaven. Then His healing will be
to obtain righteousness for us.         come. The Sun of Righteousness           complete.
There was little fanfare in His         rises higher and higher in the sky           Righteousness shall dwell upon
coming. Bethlehem says it all.          of Jehovah's mercy. He sends His         the earth. q
This was necessary, for His             healing rays through the




Editorially Speaking . . l

  The staff of The Standard             stallment in that series will run in      the Business Office (the address
Bearer  extends greetings of love       the January 15, 1990 issue of The         and phone number appear in the
to our readers in the Name of           SB, the Lord willing, with the            masthead), we will send an an-
Him Whose birth we celebrate at         third article following in the            nouncement of the gift in your
this time of the year - Jesus           February 1 issue.                         name to the recipient at once.
Christ the Lord. Our heartfelt            Our January 1, 1990 issue will         This should reach him by
desire is that you rejoice in the       be a special issue devoted to             Christmas. The subscription will
Savior and His salvation from sin       "The Reformed Christian's Hope            begin with the special issue of
and death, regardless of your           for the Future" - a timely sub-           January 1, 1990. The cost is only
earthly circumstances. In this          ject for the "New Year's issue."          $12 per year for 21 issues ($15
way, the triune God and Father            We ask our readers to consider          outside the U.S.A.).
of Jesus is glorified by His joyful     giving a year's subscription to              Will our readers also consider
people.                                 The SB as a gift at Christmas,           a year-end gift to The SB for the
  An editorial appropriate to the       especially to friends and relatives      promotion of the Protestant Re-
season interrupts the short series      outside the Protestant Reformed           formed witness to the Reformed
on "The Task of the PRC with            Churches. If you will notify us at       faith and life? q                        -DJE
Their Seminary." The second in-         once, either by writing or calling




Editorial                               Incarnation and Church

  It is common to lament weak-            The weakness is far more               ciliation with the Head, while liv-
nesses in the celebration of the        serious.                                 ing in a state of war with the
birth of Christ by "conservative"         It is a celebration of Christ's        body.
Christians. -There is indeed a defi-    coming, while neglecting the                Christmas is the church's free,
cient celebration of Christmas by       church for which He came; an             special observance at the end of
"conservative" Protestants, in-         honoring of Him Who, "being in           December yearly of the wonder
cluding Reformed and                    the form of God, . . . emptied           of the incarnation (literally, "in
Presbyterian Protestants. But it is     Himself and took upon Him the            the flesh"): The eternal Son of
not that they buy presents for          form of a slave" (Phil. 2:6ff.),         God became a real man, without
loved ones or, as some charge,          while despising the church that,         ceasing to be God. That which
that they observe an illicit holi-      bearing His Name, endures .His           was conceived in the womb of
day.                                    reproach; a delighting in recon-         the virgin and lay in the manger

                                                                                December 15, 1989  I The Standard Bearer  /  I:25


was God and man, divine and                        fession that Jesus possesses'two         wills to be enjoyed as He is pres-
human, in the union of the Sec-                    natures to the influence of Greek        ent within the fellowship of the
ond Person of the Holy Trinity,                    philosophy. They do not replace          church in the preaching of the
God the Son.                                       the atonement with men and               pure doctrine of the gospel <and
   The incarnate God - Jesus -                     women's feeling good about               the pure administration of the
is properly the object of worship                  themselves or with the revolu-           sacraments. He refuses to be
and adoration. The church does                     tionary liberation of the physical-      adored in splendid, but isolated,
well to magnify the grace and                      ly poor and oppressed as the pur-        exaltation, apart from His church.
power of the Triune God in the                     pose of Jesus' coming.                   He repudiates the praise of
incarnation, that greatest and                       This is commendable. For the           Himself, whether at Christmas or
most glorious of all the wonderful                 questioning of the incarnation,          at any other time, by the m,an .or
works of God. Rightly, the life of                 the denial of the Godhead of the         woman who declines to bow his
every living member of the                         baby Jesus, and the rejection of         or her neck under the yoke of
church is deepest thankfulness                     atonement as the purpose of in-          Jesus in the church. He denies
for the "unspeakable Gift" (II Cor.                carnation are unbelief. This un-         that anyone loves Him who
9: 15).                                            belief of theological "liberalism"       despises His church: "If you love
   For God sent His Son into the                   constitutes the presence and             Me," says Jesus, like the Good
world, as the Nicene Creed puts                    power of antichrist in the church.       Husband He is, "love My wife."
it, "for us men and for our salva-                 "Every spirit that confesseth not          The church is the one, holy,
tion." The Son of God came to                      that Jesus Christ is come in the         catholic, and apostolic body of
die. The virgin's womb was the                     flesh is not of God: and this is         Christ, chosen in Him in the eter-
way to the cross and the tomb.                     that spirit of antichrist, whereof       nal love with which God freely
The necessity of the incarnation                   ye have heard that it should             loved her, as she takes form.
was sin, our sin. There was no                     come . . ." (I John 4:3). Denying        always in the world in the local
other way for the church to be                     that the birth of Jesus Christ was       congregation of believers an.d
redeemed from the judgment of                      the coming of the Son of God             their children, instituted in the of-
the righteous God and to be                        from heaven to earth, "liberal-          fices of pastor, elder, and deacon
taken into His communion than                      ism" is itself the coming of anti-       and clearly distinguished as
the death of the Son of God. The                   christ to earth from hell. With its      Christ's church by sound
explanation, not only of the                       Biblical-critical knife, "liberalism"    preaching, proper administration
virgin birth, but also of the still                cuts the heart out of Christmas          of the sacraments, and faithful
more profound miracle of Gods                      (as out of Christianity), leaving        discipline. This congregation in-
being with us in the baby Jesus                    only empty words, hollow                 variably manifests the unity of
(the miracle of which the virgin                   ceremonies, and vain hope.               the church by her denominal-
birth is sign and means) is that                     What then is the weakness of           tional fellowship with other con-
this baby "shall save His people                   the "conservative" celebration of        gregations of the same faith.
from their sins" (Matt. 1:21).                     the birth of Jesus?                        "Conservative" Protestants, in-
   "Conservative" Protestants                        The fault lies in its practice of      cluding Reformed Christians in
confess all this.                                  church-life, and in the doctrine of      North America, Europe, South
   Personally, they marvel at the                  the church that lies behind this         Africa, and elsewhere, seriously
incarnation as a miracle. Individ-                 practice. Weakness here                  weaken their celebration of the
ually, each comforts himself or                    necessarily entails error in cele-       incarnation, despite their or-
herself in the incarnation inas-                   brating the incarnation. For the         thodoxy on the Person and
much as God sent His Son to be                     Son of God united to Himself             natures of Christ, by their woeful-
the propitiation for his or her sins               human nature  as the Head of the         ly deficient and disobedient
(I John 4:lO).                                     church (Heb. 2:14ff.). His purpose       church-life.
   They do not question the reali-                 in becoming flesh was atonement            We need not stay to notice the
ty of the incarnation, suggesting                  for the sins of His Church  (Eph.        dishonoring of the church's IHus-
that the doctrine of the incarna-                  5:25). The result of the incarna-        band by those who disdain mem-
tion in Scripture is only the early                tion is that Christ has united the       bership in the church altogether.
church's way of expressing that                    church to Himself as His body            It may catch the attention of such
she found Jesus to be a most                       and bride, by the Spirit: The            an arrant, arrogant individualist
unusual man. They do not                           church is one flesh with God in-         to hear that outside the church is
ascribe the Nicene Creed's con-                    carnate (Eph. 5:29ff.).                  no enjoyment of the peace on
fession that Jesus is fully God and                  Emmanuel wills to be honored           earth that the Son of God
the Symbol of Chalcedon's con-                     as the Head of the church. He            brought down from heaven.

126  I The Standard Bearer  I December 15, 1989


  We need not stay long in               cannot be God the Son!) are             any celebration of Christmas by
pointing out the vitiating of that       tolerated, as well as public prac-      professing conservatives, are the
celebration of Christ's birth that       tice of grossest rebellion against      easy forsaking of a true church
is part of the worship of a church       the Lordship of Jesus in His com-       by members for personal, purely
that proclaims Christ's birth as         mandments. They go on, year             selfish reasons; the criminal care-
His coming for the salvation of          after year, bitterly denouncing         lessness `of other members re-
all men without exception. Noisy         their own churches and office-          garding the peace of the church;
and elaborate as this church's           bearers, which by their own             and the breaking away of certain
celebration of Christmas may be,         church membership they                  factions for wholly inadequate
so far is it from being genuine          acknowledge as true churches            reasons (no cardinal doctrine of
homage to the Son of God that at         and officebearers of Christ. They       the faith being at stake), in order
its heart it is the denial of the in-    bless Christ, but curse His church      to start "our own church."
carnation. Who fails so miserably        and representatives. Some think            All these celebrate Christmas.
to carry out his will of saving all      to solve their "church-problem"            All are impeccably orthodox
and who is dependent in saving           by creating their own private,          with regard to Jesus' Person and
any upon the will of man cannot          quasi-ecclesiastical, but radically     natures.
be God in human flesh, but mere-         un-churchly organizations in the           But they are heretical with
ly a well-meaning man. Also the          bosom of the church, so that they       regard to Jesus' body. They
celebration of the individual who        now walk in revolution and              separate Head from body; the
personally confesses Christ as the       schism. They will not, for the life     coming of the Son of God from
One Who "shall save His people           of them, carry out their solemn         the object of that coming; faith i.n
from their sins" is vitiated by the      duty to join the church that clear-     the Word-become-flesh from the
Christ-denying worship of the            ly displays the marks of the true       works in church-life that ought tlo
church to which he willingly             church and body of Christ, as           show this faith; incarnation from
belongs.                                 though this were an option they         church.
  And this is the weakness of            were at liberty to choose or re-           This is at best a poor celebra-
much of the celebration of Christ        ject at their own pleasure. If a        tion of Christmas.
by "conservative" Christianity in        group does separate, they im-              Celebration of the incarnation
our time. Men and women insist           mediately create yet another            is not personal.
on remaining in churches which           denomination among all the ex-             It is ecclesiastical. It is celebra-
do not any longer acknowledge            isting churches, apparently             tion by the church. On the part
Jesus Christ as the only Head of         oblivious to the possibility that a     of the believer personally, it is
the church, in doctrine, sacra-          true, faithful church (of which the     celebration in the church, with
ments, and discipline, to the ex-        Head is the Son of God!) already        the church, and for the church.
tent that public denial of the           exists, which can and should be            "Love Me, love My church -
virgin birth and of the bodily           joined.                                 flesh of My flesh." q                 -DJE
resurrection of Jesus (without             Of a somewhat different
which birth and resurrection He          nature, but likewise a spoiling of




Letters

  Mr. John Hilton's article re-          without Jesus Christ, but so is the      articles taught here in this Chris-
garding our form for Confession          Christian life. Jesus is our             tian Church," without confessing
of Faith (Nov. 15, 1989) was right       strength, our hope, our joy. Yet         the name of Jesus, smacks of
on target. The name of Jesus             His name is not even spoken as           stagnant religiosity and not a
Christ certainly should be spoken        our young people make public             growing, loving, personal rela-
as public confession is made.            confession of their faith in Him.        tionship with our Lord Jesus
Jesus is the very center of the          How tragic.                              Christ. Yours in the Name of
Christian faith - for through               I sincerely love the Protestant       Jesus!
whom else can we be saved? Not           Reformed Churches. However,                        Shelly Start
only is salvation itself impossible      confessing only to believe in "the                 Hudsonville, MI

                                                                                December  15,1989 I The Standard Bearer  I1127


   I believe the  Standard Bearer                 about the issues or change direc-          It was predicted in Revelaltion,
fulfills a need and is a valuable                 tion.                                   wasn't it? Remember, when the
tool. It deals with principles and                  Sometimes I wonder how                collapse of the Roman empire
concepts in a "post-literature"                   many Christians are up-to-date.         was within sight, and the future
age when people listen and look                   Do they take note of the signs of       seemed to hold nothing, the Ad-
before they read. But I believe                   the times in which we live? Are         vent of our Lord Jesus Christ
both writers and readers want to                  many not indifferent or unable to       took place, changing the entire
be wise stewards of the resources                 listen to others? Do we still           world situation.
God has given us - talents, time,                 respect really the profession,            Let us encourage, inspire, sup-
money, patience, et cetera. I am                  knowledge, way of thinking, vi-         port, and stimulate each oth'er in
sure I am not the only one who                    sion, insight, and viewpoints of        the faith, in word and deed.
appreciates your efforts and who                  each other? Watching the world                 J.P. deKIerk
desires to be educated and alert                  we see great strategic issues at               Ashhurst, New Zealand 0
to the issues of the day. We                      stake and an entire belief and
should not reduce our concern                     concept.




Search the
Scriptures
Rev. Gise VanBaren                                "Greetings!"

   We begin a study of the epistle                cepted practice, of course. He          unto God through Christ's com-
to the Philippians. In this study of              identifies himself first of all (in-    pleted work. His address is to be
the book, we will be considering                  stead of signing the letter at its      distinguished from that position
sections at a time. In this article               end). Then he identifies the ob-        which would address most in the
we look at Philippians 1:1-l 1.                   jects of the letter: "The saints in     church as unconverted and
One need not feel compelled to                    Christ Jesus which are at Philippi,     unbelievers - until they have
finish the section in one society                 with the bishops and deacons."          had their "conversion ex-
meeting. It can be treated as                     Timothy is identified with Paul,        perience."
quickly or as slowly as is con-                   not as a co-author, but as an             Paul mentions also the
sidered most profitable for the                   associate of Paul who worked            "bishops" and "deacons." Com-
society. It must be remembered                    closely with him at Philippi  and       pare this with the other epistles
too that this article serves only                 even now was with Paul in               - does he do it there too? The
as a guide to study. It is not                    Rome. Throughout the letter,            church at Philippi  through its
designed to be a detailed ex-            .        Paul uses the first person singular     elders and deacons had repeated-
egetical study of the book, nor                   rather than the plural.                 ly assisted the apostle Paul both
will it attempt to exhaust possible                 His address to the "saints" at        with prayers and also with
questions which might be raised.                  Philippi  ought to be noted. He         physical provisions. Therefore he
If it promotes careful study and                  does not address here the most          also especially notes their labors
encourages lively discussion, it                  holy of that church while ignor-        and position within the church.
will have served its purpose.                     ing the vast majority of those            The customary benediction
  Paul addressed the church at                    who had membership there, but           follows in verse 2. He speaks of
Philippi in the customary man-                    he addresses the whole church.          Gods "grace" (undeserved favor
ner. That differs from our ac-                    All are "saints." This does not         shown centrally in the cross
                                                  mean that they are without sin or       towards Gods people) which
                                                  had attained to perfection.             necessarily is followed by
                                                  Rather, Paul addresses the              "peace." This "peace" is not a
Rev. VanBaren is pastor of the Prot-              church as  organism.  That              relationship first between nations,
estant Reformed Church of  Hudson-                organism consists of "saints" in        nor even between individual
ville,  Michigan.                                 Christ Jesus. These are separated       people, but between God and His

128  I The Standard Bearer I December 15, 1989


people. Christ removes that bar-       "preservation of saints." God had        connection with knowledge and
rier to proper fellowship with         begun that good work of salva-           "judgment" or "deep insight."
God' and thereby makes peace           tion in them (through regenera-          Knowledge without love is
(check other passages of Scrip-        tion, calling, and conversion);          nothing; but proper knowledge
ture which speak of "peace").          now, so Paul affirms, He will            promotes love. In love, there is
This great benefit comes from          "perform it" or "carry it on" to         also discernment of spiritual
the Triune God ("our Father")          its completion until the day of          things. This sort of love shows
through Jesus Christ the Lord -        Jesus Christ. This day of Christ is      itself in spiritual activity men-
it is wholly of God and not of         the day of His glorious return on        tioned in verses 10 and 11.
man's invention.                       the clouds of heaven. Gods work             Paul prays that the love in the
  Next, the apostle expresses his      in His people will continue so           church may show itself in the
thanksgiving to God for the saints     that these are preserved through         way of approval of the excellent
of Philippi. He remembered them        every trial, in every temptation,        things. Love tests all things and
often - and as often would             in all persecutions u.ntil Christ        seeks that which is right and
thank God for them. From the           returns in glory.                        proper according to God's Word..
time of their first organization,        Verses 7 and 8 express Paul's          In the way of such testing, the
they had shared with the apostle       own longing after the church in          members of the church are
the "fellowship in the gospel."        Philippi. Paul has reason to feel        "sincere" (pure) and "without of-
Lydia, whose heart the Lord            as he does, for he has this church       fence" (blameless) even until
opened, believed. Soon others          ever in his heart. The heart is          Christ's return. That they are
did too. That small gathering          one's spiritual center. The apos-        pure points to the refining fire
must have observed the beating         tle, therefore, considers the            which destroys the dross and
endured by the apostle after he        church at Philippi  in the very          leaves the gold. These continue
healed the demon-possessed girl.       center of his being. And no              to stand before God as holy and
They suffered with him when he         wonder this church was so close          blameless in God's sight. That is
was cast into prison. They re-         to Paul, for they had shared in          the situation for this church, so
joiced with him when the Philip-       the grace of God to the apostle.         Paul prays, until the day of
pian jailor with his household         They had assisted Paul both              Christ's return.
were added to the church. The          while he was bound and when he              In connection with that love,
memories of these great works of       was free to go forth to preach           there is the positive truth of the
God had knit together these            the gospel. Very really, there was       "sincerity" and "blamelessness":
saints of God with the apostle         fellowship between them -                fruits of righteousness. One can
Paul. And even to the time of the      which involved a partaking of            find these beautiful fruits listed in
writing of the epistle from prison,    the grace of God.                        passages such as Galatians 5:22,
Paul had enjoyed the "fellowship          Paul yearned for that little          23. These fruits are the result of
in the gospel" with them. The          church even as Christ does. He           Christ's perfect work and must be
church had come to his aid             speaks of the "bowels of Jesus           done to the glory of the
repeatedly. They had joyfully          Christ." That is a strange expres-       Sovereign God. What a beautiful
provided for his physical              sion to our ears but does em-            prayer for the church at Philippi
necessities. How encouraging to        phasize Christ's own affection for          and for the church today!
the apostle, in all of his mission     His church. Even so (and God             Questions:
labors, to have such a church          could testify to that) Paul longed         1. *What is the difference be-
"back him up" in the work God          for the church too.                           tween "slaves" and "ser-
sent him to do.                          Verses 9 through 11 express                 vants"? Which is preferable
  In all of the above, the church      Paul's prayer for that church in              in the text - and why?
of Philippi  had persevered in the     Philippi. He prays that their love        2. How can Paul address
faith. This first church on the        may abound yet more and more.                 "saints"? Are members of the
continent of Europe had con-           He had himself experienced their              church truly saints?
tinued in the doctrines of Gods        love - toward God but also                3. The text speaks of "bishops.`"
Word which they first heard of         towards himself. It was the                   What are these? Are they the
the apostle Paul.                      spiritual, godly, love which finds            same as "elders"? Find the
  However, the explanation of          joy in the spiritual perfections of           references in the N.T. to both
their perseverance is that God         another. It was the love of I Co-             of these.
Himself has preserved them.            rinthians 13 - without which all          4. Does the passage confirm the
Verse 6 expresses this very truth      other activities are as nothing. In           institution of the office of
and is often quoted to show the        Philippi, this love abounded in

                                                                              December 15, 1989  I The Standard Bearer  /1:29


      "deacons"? When did this                             What is this doctrine? How is    11. How does the Christian
      office begin?                                        it related to perseverance?            prove the things excellent?
  5. Note the address of this                              What other Scriptural pas-       12. Point out other of the "fruits
     epistle. Compare this with                            sages prove the doctrine?              of righteousness" mentioned
      other of Paul's epistles. What                       What do the Canons, Head 5,            in Scripture.
     are the differences? Similari-                        state about the doctrine?        13. After studying the introduc-
     ties? What is included in                      9. It would be of interest to                 tion, could you affirm that
     "grace" and "peace"?                                  check into the idea of the             Paul would address your con-
  6. Show Paul's concern and                               word "heart" and "bowels"             gregation (and you) in the
     love for this church as he in-                        as used in the passage. How           same way that he did thle
     dicates that in the epistle.                          would we express the same             church of Philippi?
  7. What is included in the "fel-                         thing today?                     14. What does the doctrine of
     lowship in the gospel" in                     10. What is the relationship be-              "perseverance of saints"
     verse 5?                                              tween "love" and "knowl-              mean to you? Can one then
 8. Verse 6 is often quoted to                             edge" (vs. 9)? What does              sin as he pleases - yet be
     prove preservation of saints.                         I Corinthians 13 say of this?         assured of salvation? Cl

                                                   Missions, A High Priority
                                                   What Next From the GKN
                                                   A New Presbyterian Church
All Around Us
Prof. Robert Decker                                         in England

Missions, A High                                   gress on World Evangelization            Christians  - over half of these are
Priority                                           which met in Manila, the Philip-         believers in faith and practice.
                                                   pines in July. The theme in                  There are more than 1,500,000
   The World Council of Churches                   Manila was "Calling the whole            worship centres,  churches and con-
(WCC) sponsored a "Conference                      church to take the whole gospel          gregations scattered around the
on World Mission and Evangeli-                     to the whole world." More than           globe - and 1,600 new churches are
zation" early last summer in San                                                            started every day.
                                                   3,500 participants from 190 coun-
Antonio, Texas. Missions also                                                                  There are over 1,450 Christian
                                                   tries attended. This conference,
received a great deal of attention                                                          radio and television outlets touching
                                                   called "Lausanne II" because it
from the 240 delegates represent-                                                           990,000,OOO  people every month.
                                                   continued the legacy of the 1974
ing the 170 member churches of                                                                 Over lll,OOO,OOO Bibles or por-
                                                   Conference held in Lausanne,             tions of Scripture are distributed an-
the World Alliance of Reformed                     Switzerland, had as its goal to          nually in thousands of languages.
Churches (WARC) which met in                       complete the task of evangelizing           Each year more than 45,000 dif-
Seoul, Korea this past August.                     the world by the year 2,000. The         ferent Christian book and magazine
While little can be expected from                  conference represents much of            titles come off printing presses.
either the WCC or WARC, these                      the evangelical and more conser-            Over two billion people have no
meetings do indicate that even                     vative churches and denomina-            witness to the Gospel.
among the more liberal churches                                                                The world's population will double
                                                   tions throughout the world. (The
there is a renewed interest in                                                              to 10.2 billion people in the next 100
                                                   Church Herald,  December 1989)
missions.                                                                                   years since currently 2.5 million
                                                     Lausanne II reported some
   Of greater interest to us is the                                                         children are born each week.
                                                   fascinating facts and statistics.
meeting of the International Con-                                                              By the year 2000 up to 83% of the
                                                   Among these consider the follow-         unreached will likely live in countries
                                                   ing:                                     closed to traditional missionary ac-
Prof. Decker is professor of Practical               Of the world's five billion people,    tivity.
Theology in the Protestant Reformed                one third today call themselves             Although Hindus, Muslims and
Seminary.                                                                                   Chinese make up about 75% of the

130  I The Standard Bearer  I December 15, 1989


non-Christian world, only 5% of to-      pected doorbraak [break-through] in-        the church in East Lancashire will be
day's expatriate missionaries live       to ecumenicity never happened.             part of that, rather than the EPC . . .
among them.                                Unity failed partly because               The next landmark in the PAES
  Large numbers of Christians            ministers and bishops couldn't agree        development is the installation of the
presently live under conditions of       on an agenda. Representatives of the       Rev. lain Murray as minister of the
harassment and persecution and           GKN wanted to discuss pastoral              Cambridge Presbyterian Church, a
these numbers are increasing as          questions such as mixed marriages,          congregation planted by the PAE
evangelistic activity grows.  (TROWEL    Roman Catholics and Protestants,           and constituted as a church in May
and sword, July 1989)                    whereas the bishops wanted to talk          1988.
  Can anyone doubt the truth of          about theological questions such as            Rev. Murray is known to many
Jesus' words: "The harvest truly         "What is the Church?"                       of us as the former editor of The
is plenteous, but the laborers are         Koffeman would like to see more           Banner of Truth Trust.  We shall
few"? (Matthew 9:37). Ought not          attention given to theological issues       continue to watch these develop-
we who are Protestant Reformed           in further talks with Roman                 ments with a great deal of in-
and to whom the Lord has given           Catholics. He believes all churches         terest. Will a strong Presbyterian
                                         should pay more attention to the
in His grace the precious heritage       World Council of Churches' docu-            Church, fully committed to the
of the Truth of His Word, ought          ment on baptism, eucharist,  and            Westminster Standards rise again
not we be fervently praying to           ministry.                                   in England? Cl
"the Lord of the harvest, that he          So much has happened in the                                                         I
will send forth labourers into his       GKN since World War II that one                  Precious Thoughts
harvest" from our own churches?          is no longer surprised or shocked.
                                         But now they are going to court            0 how precious to me are songs in
What Next From                           the Roman Catholics? What next?               the night;
the GKN                                                                             When darkness surrounds me, the
                                         A New Presbyterian                             Lord is my Light.
   The Banner  (November 13,             Church in England                           In hours of loneliness, heartache,
1989) reports that:                                                                     and tears -
  Despite ecumenical efforts of             Clarion  (November 24, 1989)            Alone in the stillness my Savior
organizations such as the World          reports on the formation of a                  is near.
Council of Churches (WCC), more          new Presbyterian Church in
churches today are emerging, and         England.                                    0 how precious the Word with its
less are uniting.                          In a large Victorian Hall in a               promises true:
   That means the WCC should try         northern English town, on Friday            "I'll never forsake,`1 am always
harder, says Rev. L.J. Koffeman,         September lst, a sizable crowd                 with you."
newly appointed director of interna-     gathered from many parts of                To know that He loves me and He
tional ecumenical affairs in the         England, as well as Wales, Northern
Reformed Churches in the Nether-         Ireland and the Netherlands.                   understands -
lands (GKN). (This is the church of      Members of the Reformed Churches            To feel in the darkness the touch
our fathers, R.D.D.) The goal of         (Liberated), the Evangelical Presby-           of His hand.
ecumenicity must remain primary,         terian Church of Northern Ireland          0 how precious the lessons I've
he says.                                 (EPC), and the Presbyterian Associa-           learned at His side:
  At the same time, Koffeman thinks      tion in England (PAE) met to witness
it may be time for his church to con-    the constituting of the East Lan-          To be patient in trouble, to trust
sider withdrawing from the Re-           cashire Presbyterian Fellowship as a           and confide;
formed Ecumenical Council  (REQ.         mission-church of the EPC, and the         To know that without Him I surely
Koffeman believes the GKN has            installing of Rev. Norman Green as             would fall -
received too much from the REC on        its first minister . . . The East Lan-      But when He is with me I can dlo
issues such as homosexuality. If the     cashire Church is now a part of the            all.
REC doesn't change its attitude          EPC, which has recently ordained
toward the GKN by 1992, Koffeman         two new ministers, is showing in-           0 how precious is Jesus, my Savior
will recommend withdrawal.               creasing interest in evangelism and            and Friend!
   While pulling back from one ec-       church-planting, and has committed          I know that His love for me never
clesiastical body, Koffeman plans to     itself to support and oversee the new          will end!
move toward another  - the Roman         church. But the EPC is also working         I know that someday on the clouds
Catholic Church. Koffeman regrets        in the closest possible co-operation           He will come -
that the euphoric atmosphere that        with the PAE. Rev. Green is now a           How precious the thought of my
was created in 1986 when a delega-       Council member of the Association.             heavenly home.
tion of Dutch ministers and Roman        It is recognized by all that as the
Catholic bishops visited the Vatican     PAE grows and is able to be formed                              Annetta Jansen
has completely vanished. The ex-         as a full-fledged English Presbytery,                           Dorr, Michigan 0

                                                                                   December 15, 1989  / The Standard Bearer  I131


                                                  The Psalms,
                                                  Metrical Psalmody,
 Contribution
Rev. Kenneth Hanko                                and the Psalter
PART l-                                           ing the most common). It is, for       lengthy for the longer Psalms,
The Texts of The Psalter                          this reason alone, plainly not         but they are easier than cha:nt,
   A comparison of the texts of                   suited to the singing of the ir-       and, if well done, eminently
The Psalter with the texts of the                 regular stanzas and lines, and         suitable for shorter Psalms.
Psalms in the KJV reveals not on-                 prose rhythms of the Psalms as           Second. The English hymn has
ly that our versification of the                  found in most English transla-         rhyme. Rhyming is a difficult art
Psalms are loose but also that the                tions. It makes some para-             even in a hymn, but in Psalrn
theology of the authors was not                   phrasing necessary,                    versification, where one has the
in all respects soundly Biblical. I                  It was not always so. The Jews      additional requirement of faithful-
do not mean to say that a signifi-                and the church of the New Testa-       ness to the words of Scripture, its
cant portion of the words of The                  ment up to the time of the Refor-      demands are harsh. Extensive
Psalter is objectionable. There is                mation chanted the Psalms; that        paraphrasing and inversion of
little that is. Rather I mean to say              is, they sang them as written in       word order are necessary in
that the approach to psalm-                       the original language or as found      order to make passable use of
singing taken by the authors, and                 in an accurate translation. John       even the easiest rhyme scheme.
that therefore the  underlying,                   Calvin introduced metrical               In this the compilers of The
rather than expressed, theology,                  psalmody into the church, and          Psalter have followed the Refor-
is unsound. The words, if they                    the Reformed and Presbyterian          mation tradition. All the early
were found in hymns, would be                     churches since that time have          English psalters, as also the
acceptable. As paraphrases of                     followed his example. The              Genevan Psalter, were rhymed.
Scripture they are faulty, and                    Roman Catholic Church and the          Rhyme was, at that time, con-
reveal the unsound theology of                    Church of England still chant,         sidered indispensable to poetry,
their authors.                                    and some more recent hymnals           and an insistence on rhyme con-
   1) The loose paraphrasing is                   and psalters of Reformed and           tinued almost unbroken to the
due in part to the fact that The                  Presbyterian churches include a        twentieth century. But 1) rhyme
Psalter, like just about every                    few examples of chant, but most        is no longer considered to be a
other psalter ever produced in                    congregations today consider it        necessary part of English poetry,
the English language, is metrical.                too difficult.                         2) rhyme has no place at all in
In metrical psalmody the ir-                        Perhaps today there is some          Hebrew poetry, and 3) accuracy
regular lines, stanzas, and                       movement away from the                 ought to take precedence over
rhythms of the Psalms are re-                     metrical Psalm. There is much          rhyme, no matter how important
duced to the form of the English                  popular music, not I think suited      we may consider rhyme to be.
hymn. This form adheres inflex-                   to worship, which uses the exact         Third. Since about 1700, com-
ibly to three things.                             words of Scriptures. The Book of       pilers of English hymnals and
   First. It has a regular meter                  Psalms for Singing,  the psalter of    psalters have demanded smooth
(such as L.M., S.M., 8787, etc.),                 the Reformed Presbyterian              English. Now this is a much lmore
and a regular rhythm (iambic be-                  Church of North America, has           admirable and desirable thing
                                                  some non-metrical settings of          than the desire for hymn tunes
                                                  Psalms or parts of Psalms: 41C,        and rhyme, but because we have
Rev. Hanko is pastor of the Prot-                 72D, 891,  lOOC,  106G,  117B,         always pursued it in connection
estant Reformed Church in  Norris-                134B, 150B. It is obvious that         with these two it too has forced
town, Pennsylvania.                               such settings would be too             us into paraphrase.

132  I The Standard Bearer I December 15, 1989


  Again it was not always so.           description. Poetry is a way of         Testament characters and na-
The two psalters which were             seeing life through rose-tinted         tions, and even events, are
most widely used in England             glasses. The poetry of The Psalter      almost always removed
from the time of the Reformation        is so bland that it can be called       altogether or made general. See
into the 1700s (Sternhold and           poetry only by virtue of a poetic       especially Psalms 60, 83, 108,
Hopkins, and Tate and Brady,            form. Psalms 7, 10, 22, 35, 38,         136.
both of which use rhyme with            55, 58, 59, 68, 73, 74, 75, 77,            However, it must be admittecl
the metrical form) and the Bay          110, 129, and 149 and good ex-          that The Psalter does not go as
Psalm Book (the psalter of the          amples.                                 far in this direction as Isaac
New England Puritans, and the             Psalm 136, as found in The            Watts and others. Watts' "psalter"
first book published in North           Psalter,  shows a similar dislike       bears the title  The Psalms of
America) insisted on accuracy at        for Hebrew poetry. This is the          David Imitated in the Language
the expense of smoothness. The          psalm in which every verse ends         of the New Testament and
result was almost always awk-           with the refrain, "For his mercy        Apply'd  to the Christian State and
ward, frequently difficult to           endureth forever." Our compilers        Worship. In one place he claims
understand, and sometimes com-          thought this a bit much. In the         to have
ic. Numbers 53 and 268 in The           first versification, Number 376,        brought down the royal author into
Psalter are examples of this sort       the refrain appears after every         the common affairs of Christian life,
of versification. The Scottish          fourth verse. In the second ver-        and led the Psalmist of Israel into
Psalter was even more inflexible.       sification it appears after every       the Church qf Christ without any-
All the Psalms were written in          second verse. In the third ver-         thing of a Jew about him.l
common meter (8686, the ballad          sification it appears after every       Of his versification of Psalm 119
meter), and were sung for a long        verse, but in two forms.                he says
time to fewer than ten tunes.             Some psalms make effective            I have collected and disposed of  thle
  In 1719 Isaac Watts, an               use of repetition. Psalm 118: lo-12     most useful verses under 18 different
                                                                                heads, and have formed a divine
Englishman who was dissatisfied         is a good example. The compilers        song upon each of them. But the
with the Tate and Brady psalter,        of The Psalter don't like it, and       verses are much transposed to attain
published a new metrical version        do away with it wherever it is          some degree of connection.2
which maintained a high stan-           found.                                  The well-known Christmas carol
dard of English at the expense of         Here, then, is some of that bad       "Joy to the World' is part of
accuracy. There were other              theology mentioned in the para-         Watts' versification of Psalm 98.
things at work here, and I will         graph at the beginning of this             4) The versifiers apparently
have something to say about             section. Modern ideas of poetry         thought that some Psalms or
them later, but what moved              take precedence over the words          parts of Psalms are not applicable
Watts to do his work was the            of Scripture. Our "refined tastes"      to Christians. We see this, first, in
crudeness of the verse in the           are allowed to dictate how we           the summarizing of. the historical
psalters then in use. The Psalter       treat the Psalms and what we            Psalms: 105, 106, and especially
has plainly been influenced by          sing.                                   78. We also see it in the soften-
Watts in this respect. Its verse is       3) Bad theology also shows            ing of the imprecatory Psalms.
smooth, and its versification           itself in the tendency to Chris-        This has been accomplished in
loose.                                  tianize the Psalms. It is not con-      several ways. Sometimes the im-
  2) The relative smoothness of         sidered appropriate that New            precations are omitted altogether:
the verse does not imply the con-       Testament Christians sing the           Psalms 137 and 139. Sometimes
clusion that the poetry of The          language of the Old Testament.          they are shortened: Psalms 69
Psalter is good. It is not. The ver-    Therefore the versifiers in some        and 109. Sometimes the wordin.g
sifiers frequently lose the             places substitute the name Christ       is changed to something less
parallelism, the most prominent         for references to the Anointed,         forceful. In Psalm 28, for exam-
characteristic of Hebrew poetry,        etc.: Psalms 1, 22, 45, 72, and         ple, a prayer against the enemiles
and reveal a fastidious and re-         110. The word church appears            is changed to a statement about
fined distaste for the color and        several times. When "burnt offer-       God coming in judgment. In
earthiness of Hebrew imagery. It        ing and offering for sin" are men-      Psalm 18 the psalmist's celebra-
is plainly not appropriate, by          tioned in the Psalms, The Psalter       tion of the victories given him is
their standards, to talk about          always uses more general                almost entirely lost..
worms, bulls, bottles, beds, teeth;     language: sacrifices, offerings,           There is a theology of Psalm-
etc. in poetry. The mundane has         etc. See at least Psalms 40 and         singing which may be called Re-
no place or must have a poetic          66. Specific references to Old          formed. It recognizes that the

                                                                               December 15, 1989  I The Standard Bearer  I133


 Psalms as written, with all their                  Psalter is poor and poorly                his tunes shows a combination of
 references to Old Testament                        selected.                                 seductive melody with a clearly
 history, Old Testament rites, and                     1) Almost without exception            discernible structural failure . . . .
 no longer existing persons and                     the music comes from the nine-               The secret of his style is, of course,
nations, with all their fierce                      teenth century. Three things may          the concert-goer's attitude which had
hatred of the enemies of God and                    be said about this, First, the. nine-     infected the Victorian parish church.
His church, with all their earthi-                  teenth century is not known for           Hymns were made not to sing but
ness, and with all their real and                   good music, and that is putting it        for people to listen to choirboys -sing-
supposed difficulties, are the                                                                ing. 6
                                                    mildly. The Victorian Bad Tune is         And of the music in general,
poetry of the Spirit of Christ                      notorious among modern musi-
designed for the edification and                                                                 Victorian church music . . . is com-
                                                    cians. Erik Routley, who has writ-        posed with an eye to the "atmos-
worship of the church. There is                     ten several books on church               phere" required by the church, and
another theology of Psalm-                          music, and is a well-respected            with an eye to the agreeable sensa-
singing, which began to develop                     twentieth century musician, says          tions which it would produce in the
during the decline of Calvinism in                     The vice of Victorian music is         ears of the worshippers.  It was com-
England and was both influential                    often said to be `Sentimentality': and    posed in a self-conscious way which
in and influenced by the develop-                   if sentimentality is emotional content    was unknown to the composers of
ment of hymnody, which forces                       backed by no solid truth, a show of       the Puritan psalm-tunes or the music
the Psalms into a form thought to                   feeling with no intention of conse-       of the Wesleyan revival.?
be more suitable for New Testa-                     quent honesty, the description is an      Secondly, there is good music
ment Christians. The Psalter is                     accurate one . . . it was music com-      available to us from every age of
more heavily influenced by the                      posed in order to create irresponsible    the church's history. To ignorle it
                                                    emotion and an unreal sense of well-
latter than the former.                                                                       in favor of music from only one
                                                    being . . . .                             period, and that a destitute one,
                                                      But this music, the secular music       is foolish. Thirdly, even with the
 PART 2 -                                           of the salon, was not the final           addition of a few "Genevan
 The Music of The Psalter                           degradation. It remained for the          tunes" at the end of The Psalter
    Music is, of course, an area in                 church to debase music to the limit.      our own heritage is very poorly
which my knowledge is so                            For music designed to create mere         represented. It is a rich one. The
limited that there are very few                     natural emotions such as sorrow or
                                                                                              Genevan Psalter is of the high.est
things I can say. I have received                   pity, or peace of mind has at any
                                                    rate what a celebrated broadcaster        quality. But let us beware. Most
considerable help from Mr.                          call "animal content". But the hack-      of these tunes as they appear in
Roland Peterson and from a few                      music of the church, of which our
books which I read on this sub-                                                               The Psalter  have been thorough-
                                                    hymnals (and  The Psalter)  are still     ly corrupted. Some have even
ject, but three or four months is                   full, and which our churches are on-      been made unsingable, e.g.,
not sufficient for an education in                  ly now beginning to abandon, music        #432.
music, or even the more limited                     designed to produce not natural              2) Some of the music is plainly
field of church music. Therefore                    emotion but (save the mark) religious     too difficult for a congregation to
others must receive the credit for                  emotion - this was music at its           sing: Numbers 16, 18, 22, 24, 42,
what is true and accurate in the                    lowest ebb.3                              59, 81 to name only a few from
following paragraphs, while I                         He later says of this same              the beginning of 
must bear all the blame for                         music that it "is prone to diverge                             The Psalter.
                                                                                                 3) Some tunes are unsuited to
mistakes.                                           from even the serviceable ideal           the texts with which they are
   The whole subject of music is                    in the directions of supreme              matched. Now this is not an e;asy
further complicated by the fact                     tedium or of shameless                    matter to judge (because the
that our liking for some tunes                      vulgarity."4 English composers            standard cannot be entirely
and dislike for others are so                       abandoned "all contrapuntal and           objective: there is always some-
seldom based on objective stan-                     harmonic integrity in favour of a         thing of personal preference in-
dards. We tend,. probably partly                    musical sensationalism which              volved in such judgment), and I
because most of us are not musi-                    transgresses the bounds of good           do not want to get into argument
cians, to like what we are used to                  taste with dreary regularity."5 Of        here about specific cases. Never-
rather than what is good.                           J.B. Dykes, one of three com-             theless there are some cases
   On the basis of such                             posers who have more tunes                regarding which few would
knowledge as I have and as is                       :han any other represented in             disagree: for example, Psalter
readily available to anyone un-                     The Psalter, he says,                     Y136.
educated in music, it is possible                    He gathers his material from the
to say that the music of                            :ontinental  opera, and every one of
                                 The

134 I The Standard Bearer  / December  15,  1989


       4) If I say at this point that     PART 3 - Recommendations                      1) This will make the task
25% of the tunes are unquestion-          1. That we use the following                      of typesetting and revi-
ably bad, any musicians among               guidelines for the format of a                  sion easier.
us will probably raise a howl of            new psalter.                                2) It is generally agreed
rage. By objective standards prob-          a. That the psalter be bound,                   that it is easier to sing
ably much more than 50% can                    at least at first, as the                   with understanding if
be called unquestionably bad, but              Church Orders are bound.                     the words are not found
1 am not a musician and cannot                 1) This will allow Synod to                 between the clefs of
judge such matters. In the 25%                    approve the work in                       music.
fall only those tunes which we do                 small pieces.                 2. That we use the following
not use, which we sing only with               2) This will also allow the          guidelines for texts.
great difficulty, or which we do                  churches to begin use of          a. That, as much as possible,
not sing correctly.                               it before it is complete.             we sing the Psalms rathei
       Let us also note that there are         3) This will make further                than paraphrases. That ac-
about 19 Psalms that we never or                  revision possible if the              curacy and completeness
rarely sing because of the tunes                  churches should find the              not be surrendered for the
to which they are set. They are                   choices unusable.                     sake of rhyme, or for the
Psalms 3, 10, 13, 20, 28, 41, 52,           b. That the versifications be               sake of a metrical version if
54, 58, 59, 60, 74, 105, 112, 114,             numbered following the ex-               a good, singable, and more
120, 129, 131, 134. In addition                ample of The Book of                     accurate non-metrical ver-
there are parts of 16 other                    Psalms for Singing, the                  sion be available.
Psalms which we do not sing for                psalter of the RPCNA.                b. That The Psalter be so ar-
the same reason. They are found             c. That the headings of the                 ranged that there be at
in Psalms 9, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37,               Psalms (not the titles given             least one setting in which
43, 44, 68, 69, 95, 106, 107, 118,             in The Psalter) be included.             each Psalm may be sung
119, 136. That means that there                These are sometimes help-                completely. One exception
are 35 Psalms (again nearly 25%)               ful in understanding the                 to this may be Psalm 119,
which we do not sing, or do not                Psalm.                                   which can be treated as f!2
sing completely, because of the             d. That the psalter include the             Psalms.
music to which they are set. If                following indexes:                   c. That a high standard of
we add to these the parts of                   1) Index of Authors, Trans-              English grammar and sty1.e
Psalms which are altogether miss-                 lators, Sources. NOTE:                be maintained. We canrmt
ing from The Psalter we come to                   There is no index of this             expect to reach the stan-
the conclusion that at least one                  sort in our present                   dard of the KJV, but.we
third of the Psalms cannot be                     psalter because the                   can certainly do better than
sung or cannot be sung complete-                  authors, etc. are mostly              The Psalter. We do not
ly.                                           u n k n o w n .                           want to lose the,poetry of
       The music which we use in the          2) Index of Composers,                    the Psalms, the parallelism
singing of the Psalms is not, of                  Sources, Arrangers.                   and the vivid imagery. We
course, as important as the                    3) Metrical Index. NOTE:                 ought to avoid as much as
Psalms themselves. It does not                    There. are many errors                possible the awkwardness
exist for its own sake, but is                    in the present metrical               of the early psalters.
strictly subordinate to the text.                 index.                            d. That repetition of lines and
Nevertheless it is important. I                4) Index of Tunes.                       choruses not be used ex-
When it is bad or unsuitable it                5) Index of First Lines.                 cept when justified by the
will call attention to itself rather         : 6) Index. of Important                   text of the Psalm. These
than the text. It will divert our                 Words. NOTE: This in                  things come from the
thoughts and emotions from                        place of the subject in-              Revival and Gospel songs
Scripture, and demean the con-                    dex found in The Psalter              of the nineteenth century,
gregation's praise. At its best it                and most hymnals. The                 and were originally de-
will enhance our understanding                    present subject index is              signed to allow the "con-
and help us to perfect our praise.                very poorly done.                     gregation" to join a soloist
It ought, therefore, to be care-            e. That tunes and words be                  in at least part of the sing-
fully chosen.                                  printed separately, as in                ing.
                                               English hymnals.                 3. That we use the following
                                                                                    guidelines for music.

                                                                               December 15, 1989  I The Standard Bearer I135


    a. That it be possible for a                       5) In metrical versions the               associated with familiar
        congregation to sing.                             tunes ought to be                      hymns and carols.
        NOTE: an average congre-                          syllabic or near syllabic,        f. That faddish and popular
        gation ought to be able to                        i.e., there should be only             music be avoided.
        learn the tune in four or                         one note for each                 g. That it not be offensive in
        five tries, according to                          syllable sung.                         its associations (if it has
        some musicians.                                6) The four parts ought to                any) with ungodly amuse-
        1) There ought to be no                           sing together. Tunes like              ments and ungodly texts.
           difficult leaps up and                         #254 call attention to           If we undertake this work we
           down.                                          themselves, rather than       must be prepared to devote years
       2) The range of each part                          to the words.                 to the task. Some work, especial-
           from lowest to highest                   b. That it be suited to the         ly on the texts, will have to be
           note ought to be within                     text. This is, as I said         original. Getting copyright per-
           the capacity of unskilled                   above, somewhat subjec-          missions takes time. Good wojrk
           singers. I have been told                   tive. But let us remember        cannot be done overnight. But I
           that this implies a range                   that the Psalms are not          believe that it is possible for us,
           from low B flat to high                     sweetly sentimental ditties.     even with our limited resources,
           E flat.                                     If they were, perhaps Vic-       to produce a psalter of much
       3) There ought to be no                         torian church music would        higher quality than the one
           complexities of rhythm                      be more suitable for singing     presently in use. 0
           or meter that make it                       them.
           impossible to sing the                   c. That it be attractive and of
           tune as written. The dot-                   high quality in both melody      1. Quoted from Henry Alexander Glass, The
           ted eighth with 16th, fre-                  and harmony according to            Story of the Psalters: A History of the
                                                                                           Metrical Versions of Great Britain am!
           quently found in The                        agreed standards of music.          America,  London:  Kegan, Paul, Trench  &
           Psalter, is one example.                 d. That there be variety: from         co., 1888, p. 48.
       4) The tune ought to be                         every period of church           2. Ibid. p. 178.
                                                                                        3. Erik Routley,  The Church and Music,
           transposed up or down if                    history, of as many dif-            pp. 179, 180.
           necessary to bring the                      ferent forms and meters as       4. Ibid., p. 180.
           highest or lowest notes                     possible.                        5. Ibid., p. 181.
                                                                                        6. Ibid.,  182, 183.
                                                                                                 pp.
           within the range of un-                  e. That there be as little use      7. Ibid., p.183.
           skilled singers.                            as possible of tunes



 Into AI/                                          A Return Visit
 the World
Rev. Arie denHartog                                to Singapore

   It was with great joy and ex-                   providence of the Lord we (my        morning, there was a group of
citement last summer that we ac-                   wife and I) were able to spend       church members at the airport to
cepted an invitation from the                      the last two weeks of October        greet us. From the time of OUI
Evangelical Reformed Churches                      among the beloved saints there.      coming to the time of our depar-
in Singapore to come to Singa-                     Our trip was sponsored entirely      ture we were kept very busy, to
pore to speak for their Reforma-                   by the churches there. It has        say the least. Our whole itinerary
tion Day Rally in October. In the                  been almost exactly three years      had been planned by a commiit-
                                                   since we returned to the U.S.        tee of the church ahead of time
                                                   after our years of missionary        and included activities morning,
Rev. denHartog  is pastor of the Prot-             labors in Singapore.                 noon, and night of every day. In
estant Reformed Church of Ran-                       Though we arrived in Singa-        fact, looking back I am really
dolph, Wisconsin.                                  pore just past midnight Saturday     amazed at all the things which

136  I The Standard Bearer  I December 15, 1989


we did during our short stay. We      lectures many people thronged
visited many homes and talked         around book tables, and sales of
to many, many people. We were         good Reformed books were brisk.
shown the most wonderful Chris-       Many present were new to the
tian love and hospitality. The        truths of the Reformed faith.
nights were spent at the home of      There was a good time of fellow-
Pastor Mahtani and Elder Ong.         ship following the lectures, and
Because of the busy schedule it       many church members spent
seemed we were using these            long periods of time discussing
homes for little more than hotels.    various aspects of the Reformed
We had to guard jealously our         faith with friends and visitors.
times of private fellowship with        On Friday evening and Satur-
the Mahtani and Ong families.         day morning we spoke for a
  It was wonderful to see the         Family Living Conference. Most          Pastor Mahtani and family
changes that had taken place in       of those in attendance at this
the church in the three years of      conference were young families.         almost an hour and a half. This
our absence. The most obvious         The topics which had been               was in typical ERCS fashion.
change in the church is the           assigned to us were of very great          With great interest we saw the
presence of so many covenant          relevance to the many young             new church premise of the Cove-
children. The oldest of these         couples struggling with recently        nant Evangelical Reformed
children are already in primary       established homes, and the birth        Church for the first time. You
school. Almost every month new        of children and the problems of         must not imagine that it is
ones are being born and added         raising these children in the fear      anything like our church build-
to the church. To give you an in-     of the Lord. Interest in questions      ings because it is not. It is actual-
dication of this, a couple of         of Christian living in the home         ly a renovated terrace house. But
months ago the First Church had       was phenomenal. There was such          it is very nicely renovated and
a baptism service at which nine       a nice spirit of enthusiasm and         suits well for the purpose of wor-
covenant infants were baptized.       joy. Sherry also gave a short talk      ship and other church activities.
It was a real joy to see how the      on Saturday morning. At the             It is nice to have as members of
Lord had blessed the homes of         afternoon meeting Sherry and I          the church those who are
many couples for whom we have         were placed on the stage and we         qualified in architecture and
in past years had the privilege of    had a session of answering ques-        design. I enjoyed preaching in
conducting marriage ceremonies.       tions from the floor on a wide          Covenant on the two Lords Days
  There continues also to be          range of subjects that lasted for       we were in Singapore. Pastor
steady growth through new
members that the Lord adds to
the church. There were quite a
number of new faces in the au-
dience. The audience I preached
for at First Church the last Lords
Day we were in Singapore
numbered about 225. Most of the
new people are single young
people. A few new families have
also joined.
  There were two successive
nights of Reformation Day cele-
brations where I was asked to
speak. The audience included a
large number of visitors. The zeal
and enthusiasm was again won-
derful to experience. Many of the
church members were actively
involved in the various works
related to the smooth running of
events at the lectures. After the     Covenant ERCS

                                                                            December 15, 1989 I The Standard Bearer  I  I37


Mahtani is the faithful minister of                                                      it basic to the existence of any
this congregation. Though the                                                            congregation. Just imagine to
congregation is smaller than First                                                       have to continue year after year
Church, the pastor and other of-                                                         without a church building. The
fice bearers of the church are                                                           World Trade Center conference
kept very busy because of the                                                            room in which they were
nature of the work in a new                                                              meeting at the time of our visit
church and because of the con-                                                           was in itself a nice meeting place.
tinued active involvement of the                                                         There were great problems, Ihow-
church in the work of                                                                    ever, regarding atmosphere for
evangelism. The fellowship after                                                         worship with all the surrounding
the worship services was very                                                            busy, busy worldly activities go-
good. We remember fondly the                                                             ing on at the same time. Sunday
enthusiastic and moving descrip-                   Pastor and Mrs. Lau in their          is often the time when there are
tion of one member of the                          home.                                 all kinds of conferences and fairs
church who told of how his                                                               going on at the center. Findmg a
parents and whole family had                       Center. None of these places will     parking place for your car can
come to know the Lord. After                       give the church a long contract.      often be very difficult.
the evening service on the first                   So they have to keep moving             Pastor Lau is the faithful and
Lords Day Pastor Mahtani                           from place to place. Continued        very busy pastor of First Chu.rch.
showed slides and told of a re-                    attempts are being made to pur-       There are just so many things to
cent trip to India and his                         chase a suitable church building.     do in a church such as this. We
teaching and preaching to a                        You have to be in Singapore to        had two occasions to visit in the
number of small groups of in-                      know how hard that is and how         home of the Lau family. The of-
terested Christians there.                         extremely costly. Many places         fice bearers have a very large
   First Church is no longer                       which are considered have to be       work load of visitation and
meeting in the kampong that it                     dropped because of the refusal of     pastoral work as well as leading
met in all the years we were still                 the Singapore authorities to give     the church in making decisions
in Singapore. That kampong has                     approval of the place for public      on many and varied issues that
now finally been demolished. Ac-                   worship services. Search for a        continue to arise in the church.
tually we kind of missed the                       suitable place has been going on      On the first Lords Day, I
nostalgia of meeting in the old                    for many years. Because of the        preached at a service where a
kampong. The congregation is                       size of the congregation it is im-    new deacon was ordained. Office
experiencing great hardships in                    possible to meet in a renovated       bearers who are elected into of-
finding meeting places for wor-                    house like Covenant Church            fice must first go through a
ship. The church regularly rents                   does. In our churches we take         period of study of the confessions
hotel rooms and conference                         the matter of our own church          of the church before they are or-
rooms at the World Trade                           building for granted. We consider     dained. Pastor Lau has been in-





First ERCS

138  I The Standard Bearer  I December  I.51989


vited to speak regularly for a          those experienced by our families      gave to us in our visit to Singa-
small independent church group          in the U.S. Because many of the        pore. We have seen some of the
which he hopes will in the Lords        young people are all at once in        problems and difficulties which
providence be led to the Re-            the same situations, the members       the churches in Singapore face.
formed faith.                           of the church are a great en-          There is no church without such
   It was not long after our ar-        couragement to each other and          problems and struggles as long as
rival in Singapore that we could        there is a lot of sharing of prob-     the church is on earth and not
sense very really again some of         lems and supporting each other.        yet made perfect. Each church
the struggles and difficulties of       This whole situation makes a           faces its unique struggles, and we
Christian living which the saints       seminar on Christian family living     must pray for one another. We
there experience. Life is really in     every year an excellent church         have also seen again what won-
the fast lane in Singapore. What        activity. There is a great emerg-      derful things the Lord continues
a difference from quiet Randolph!       ing need of some form of               to do in His church in Singapore
It is probably even.faster paced        systematic instruction for the         and are greatly encouraged by
than most of our metropolitan           children similar to our catechism      this. We hope that our visit and
areas. Many of the members of           program. I had opportunity at the      involvement in various activities,
the church have good jobs with          family seminar to tell about the       in the churches in Singapore will
large multinational corporations.       catechism program of our               be used of the Lord also to bring
The demands that these corpora-         churches in the U.S. A difficulty      our respective denominations
tions make on their employees           faced in Singapore is how to get       closer together. It is also our con-
are tremendous. In the midst of         children of families scattered all     tinued hope and prayer that
the great busyness of life it is        over the island together for a         some day in the Lord's provi-
hard to find time for family            systematic program of covenant         dence our Protestant Reformed
obligations and church activities.      instruction. Though distances are      Churches can again be actively
One really has to be a strong           not that far compared to those in      involved in the work of missions
Christian to stand in the midst of      America, nevertheless transporta-      in Singapore and the Far East,
all of this and keep his priorities     tion presents a real problem in        working in some way together
in life straight.                       the Singapore context.                 with the churchezsof  Singapore. Cl
  The new and growing families            We are very thankful to the
have struggles very similar to          Lord for the opportunity that He




 When Thou
Sittest in                              Husbands, love
 Thine House                            Your Wives . . .
Rev. Kenneth  /Coo/e


   It is my understanding that          Adam, and hence to man. That              The place of the wife in the
before this article appears in this     this should appear first is very       family is of central significance.
rubric dealing with the Christian       good and highly appropriate. The       This is not only true biologically
Family another article written by       simple fact is that until woman        (man being incapable of "being
a "woman" will have appeared;           (Adam's wife Eve) appeared on          fruitful and multiplying" without
and I understand it will deal with      the scene there could be no fami-      woman) but this is also true
the giving of woman as wife to          ly, period. The woman came             psychologically. The woman God
                                        first, then the family. You can        gavest thee comes first!
                                        not talk about "the family" until         This means two things. It
 Rev. Koole is pastor of Faith Prot-    you have a "woman" (as your            means she is to come first in her
 estant Reformed Church of Jenison,     wife).                                 husband's love. (The same of
Michigan.                                                                      course is true of the wife for her

                                                                              December 15, 1989  I The Standard Bearer  I139


husband, but we are concerned                    can undo, all that the man wants        his children. And he was to
now with ourselves as men. The                   done to his children as she has         "love" Eve not simply because he
believing man apparently stands                  set her mind to do. This is her         wanted children, but for Eve's
more in need of the admonition                   God-given strength for good or          sake herself. They were made
"Love your wife" than wives                      for evil.                               one, with a view to becoming
their husbands.) And by "love                       Is this of practical importance      more and more one. Love
first" we mean not only "in                      to the God-fearing man? You had         enables two to do that.
time," but also "in                              better believe it is. This is why          One can have many children
consideration."                                  one is to look for a God-fearing        and love them all. I do not know
   And secondly, this "coming                    wife, a wife whom one can               of anyone who has been very
first" means the woman is indis-                 marry in the Lord. This is why          successful in loving more than
pensable to the family as family                 one is to have an eye for the in-       one wife at a time. It has some-
and to the home as a God-fearing                 ward spiritual adornment rather         thing in common with Christ's
home. This the man, young or                     than the outward adornment of           statement about trying to serve
old (those who are looking for a                 mere appearance. What is                two masters. "Either one will
wife, and those who have a wife),                painted on the outside is not go-       love the one and hate the other,
must keep in mind.                               ing to help the family one bit,         or . . . ."
   There is no position more im-                 but what is on the inside certain-         Besides, one is called to leave
portant to the stability and order               ly will.                                father and mother, whom one
of the home than the God-fearing                   Secondly, we stress that the          loves, for the sake of one's
wife and mother. You might as                    wife is to come first in our love.      betrothed. But Scripture never
well put a sailboat out on rough                 She is to be first in our considera-    calls one to leave one's spouse
seas without a keel and proper                   tion. This is to be the deepest         whom one loves. One may not
ballast and expect to escape be-                 kind of love. She is to be closest      (unless sin has grown to the most
ing swamped, as trying to live a                 to one.                                 monstrous of forms in the
stable, well-ordered family life                   Perhaps you have debated              spouse).
without the wife and mother oc-                  with others which is the strong-          Now it is true that often you
cupying her proper place in the                  est, deepest relationship of love:      find homes where clearly a man's
home. Things will be very                        the relationship of husband and         love for his children is deeper
unstable indeed.                                 wife, or that of parent and child?      than his love for the spouse.
   How vital the woman is to the                 Some have asserted that it is the       There is little love lost (meaning,
God-fearing family can be seen in                love of parent and child, because,      concern expressed) between the
the instance of a mixed marriage,                after all, as husband and wife we       two. Perhaps they are remaining
that is, a marriage between a                    become one flesh, while a parent        married only for the sake of ithe
believer and unbeliever. This is,                and his/her child clre one flesh.       children. This is a sad situation.
of course, always a sad situation,               Children are our own flesh and          These usually end up competing
with more grief than one not in                  blood, ergo, the bond is the            for the love of their children as
the situation can imagine. But it                strongest and the love the              well.
has been my pastoral experience,                 deepest. Surely, in today's society       But the point is, this is not how
with respect to "mixed mar-                      it is much more common for              it was meant to be. This is the ef-
riages," that the home where the                 people to divorce their spouse          Feet of sin, sin which entered into
God-fearing parent is the wife                   than to disown their children.          marriage and disrupted love right
and mother is much better off as                 And if it is more common, it            at the very beginning. This sin
a place of spiritual growth and                  must be easier, and the bond less       lad to be dealt with if the self-
stability than the home where                    strong.                                 denying love of marriage was to
the believer is the husband and                    With this I beg to differ. Love       le restored. In and by Christ it
father. A family can weather an                  for one's children may be the           ras been.
unbelieving father much better                   most natural of loves, but it is          This means that the love we
than an ungodly, worldly-minded                  not in the believing family meant       n-e talking about is love where
mother. The mother, the woman,                   to be the deepest of loves, the         qace is at work and two are
is the one with the greatest in-                 most basic. This is the honor           urned towards each other in
fluence on the development and                   reserved for the love of marriage,      their common faith. It is here
perspective of the child. She is                 for the spouse.                         that you find love of the deepest,
the one who spends the most                        This is how it was from the           inseparable sort.
time with the children in the                    beginning. Adam's love for Eve            This is the love celebrated in
home. She can strengthen, or she                 was to come before his love for         Scripture. The great anthem of

140 I The Standard Bearer I December 15, 1989


love, love in its most fiery,           simply for one's children, what             way that words can not express.
possessive expression is set forth      we can give them, how we can                They can not even think or make
in the Song of Solomon 8:6, 7           gain their affection. The spouse            plans.without  considering the
which speaks of love in terms of        had better take us as we are. In            spouse. So much they have
coals of fire which burn with a         the world? Oh, we are Dale                  grown to be one. The death of
most vehement flame, a flame            Carnegie II. In the home, we are            the spouse will leave them
which many waters can not               irritable bears.                            almost directionless in life.
quench. And Solomon describes             These are unhappy marriages.                 That is the love I am talking
here not the love of the parent-        Hopefully, not our own. But if              about. That is the marriage.
child bond, but that of the             this does describe ours to a                   That is the power of the God-
husband-wife bond. This, where          degree, we must ask ourselves,              fearing and Christian home.
it comes to proper expression, is       "Whom have I been putting first,              And this is why so many
the deepest of all loves in human       and how much consideration                  families are in a crisis situation
relationships. It is that because it    have I shown my God-given                   today. The heads of homes have
is the most intimate - intimate         spouse?" In this, the man, as               not made the needs of the wife
not simply in terms of sex, but in      head of the home, must take the             the first consideration in their
terms of conversation and com-          lead. The believing wife will               lives. The wives respond perhaps
munion of life. This love is first,     respond.                                    in kind. Then cracks and fissures
therefore,,and is to come before          This ideal of "Love in the                appear in the home. And if these
all others in the home.                 Lord' is not impossible. I have             are not dealt with through reflec-
  We assert all this for practical      seen the amazing unity of the               tion, resulting in rededication to
reasons. The family is in crisis to-    husband and his wife. They have             "the woman thou gavest me," the
day - Reformed families even,           raised their family. They have              whole structure is doomed to
families of believers.                  grown old together. And even                failure.
  The cause? In large part, the         though all their children have left           Husbands, love your wives!
cause is one's failure to consider      the home, yet they have each                For this is right. It is also wise.
the spouse before self. One finds       other. That is their great happi-           Such love will pervade the whole
oneself living not for one's wife       ness. They love their children;             home. The greatest beneficiaries
(or for one's husband), but for         they adore their grandchildren;             will be the children born in this
one's own business ambitions, or        but they cherish each other in a            love. 0
                                                                               -                                           -


                                        Dr. Dad
Dr. W. David Gamble                     Contra Mundum

  A long time ago, there was a          the church, would have                      silence. Who would defend the
pernicious fellow named Arius           destroyed Christianity.                     deity of Christ?
who troubled the church. He               The Council of Nicea met in                 A relatively young man, small
taught that our Lord Jesus Christ       325 A.D. to resolve the                     of stature, great in faith and in-
was not the eternal God, the            challenges put forth by Arius.              tellect, was in attendance,
Second Person of the Trinity, but       Over 300 leaders of the church              Athanasius by name. Technically,
rather was a created being, not         gathered; some were followers of            he attended as a scribe, not as a
of the same essence with the            the heretic Arius, others held to           leader of the church. When
Father. Arius wrote, "The               the orthodox doctrine. Arius and            others were silent, Athanasius
Unbegun made the Son a begin-           his disciples were eloquent in              arose and delivered a powerful
ning of things originated; and ad-      their defense of their blasphemies          irrefutable defense of the or-
vanced Him as a Son to Himself          - so eloquent that some of those            thodox doctrine. This great
by adoption." Needless to say,          who believed the orthodox doc-              champion of the faith won the
this foul heresy, if accepted by        trine were intimidated into                 day, and the Nicene Creed pro-

                                                                               December 15, 1989 I The Standard Bearer  I141


claimed, "We believe in one God                   Athanasius no doubt could have            arise to defend Gods Truth?
the Father Almighty, Maker of all                 lived a quiet, peaceful, comfort-         Perhaps we will not have,our
things visible and invisible. And                 able life, except for one little prob-    names written in the history
in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son                 lem - he believed something.              books, as did Athanasius, but
of God, the only begotten of the                    (I suppose it is really not cor-        every father can stand before his
Father, that is, of the essence of                rect to say that men today do not         family as Gods representative,
the Father, God of God, Light of                  believe anything. The politicians         and proclaim and defend Gods
Light, very God of very God,                      in the statehouses believe in the         Truth. Perhaps our efforts will
begotten, not made, being of one                  results of the latest Gallup poll,        not influence the entire church,
substance with the Father."                       the intellectuals in the univer-          as did Athanasius, but our efforts
   During this tremendous                         sities believe in the latest revi-        can bless and prosper our family.
challenge to the faith, Athanasius                sions of Darwinism, Marxism,              Perhaps we will not turn back
virtually stood alone. Others                     and Freudianism, the theologians          the forces of darkness from (every
believed as he did, but none                      in the seminaries believe every-          corner of the world, but we can
fought as he fought. At one                       thing but the Bible, the educators        say, "In this my house, Gods
point, a friend said to him,                      in the schools believe in the             Truth will be established, and
"Athanasius, the world is against                 Gospel according to St. John              honored, and praised. The
you." This warrior replied, "So be                [Deweyl, the leaders ot religious         blasphemies of the world will not
it. Then Athanasius is against the                organizations believe they had            breech the sanctity of this place.
world!" Athanasius contra mun-                    better not offend their big               When the pagan philosophies of
dum - Athanasius against the                      donors, and the average guy               our age seek to capture my fami-
world.                                            subscribes to the creed of the            ly, I will stand against them, and
   Well, that's all fine and dandy,               bumper sticker, "Everyone needs           by the grace of God, defeat .them,
we fathers say. The guy lived                     something to believe in: I believe        and destroy them."
1650 years ago, and confronta-                    I'll have another beer." Not an              Athanasius went to the Council
tion was expected then, but we                    Athanasius in the bunch.)                 of Nicea as a scribe, and a
have progressed to the point                        Athanasius believed something,          helper. He left as the champion
where we look upon that sort of                   and thus was willing to defend            of Gods Truth. He was prep,ared,
thing as being a bit uncivilized.                 that which he believed.                   and his preparation was re-
We fathers don't want to have a                   Athanasius believed something,            warded. Every father has a little
reputation for being contentious.                 and thus there was no thought             flock to guard, and nurture, and
`Tis best, we fathers believe, to                 given to his own personal com-            cherish. Dr. Dad must be pre-
roll with the punches, and try to                 fort when the object of his               pared, must study Gods Truth,
get along. We thus make an in-                    belief was attacked. Athanasius           because the enemy will seek to
teresting little observation: we                  believed something, and that              snatch the lambs from the little
fathers no longer have the                        something was the Truth of God,           flock. Little lambs can't fight this
strength of our convictions                       and thus he received grace to             fight; they need a shepherd, a
because we no longer have con-                    stand against the world in                guardian, a champion, a warrior
victions.                                         defense of God's Truth.                   to protect them. They need
   Athanasius seems strange to us                 Athanasius believed something,            someone to stand, if need be,
today because he believed some-                   and that made a difference.               against the world.
thing. He believed something,                       The twentieth century, no less             Dr. Dad contra mundum. Dr.
and believed it to the point of,                  than the fourth, has heresies             Dad against the world.
shall we say, personal inconve-                   which would supplant the Truth
nience. He almost single-                         of God, idols which would                 Reprinted with permission from American
handedly defended the orthodox                    receive the worship which is due          Reformation Movement, 7341 Clairemont
doctrine at Nicea. He boldly                      to God alone, pagan philosophies          Mesa Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92111.
challenged the ambi.valent                        which would deform and destroy
Emperor Constantine, who                          the people of God. In the fourth
wanted Arius Ye-admitted to the                   century,  one  mcln prepared
church. Athanasius was falsely                    himself to stand for God, and the
accused of sabotage, witchcraft,                  purity of the church's doctrine
graft, murder, was attacked in his                was preserved. Today, there are
church several times, and was                     innumerable abominations which
banished from the realm on at                     would seek to capture the minds
least five separate occasions.                    of Gods people. And who will

142  I The Standard Bearer  I December 15,  19


                                  - I News From.
Mr. Benjamin Wigger                      Our Churches

                     December 15,1989       Early Saturday morning, the 75        with a speech on the spiritual
CONGREGATIONAL                           or so who registered for this con-       condition of the church able to
HIGHLIGHTS                               ference met over coffee and cin-         evangelize. The church that is
  On Friday evening, November            namon rolls for an hour of Chris-        most effective will be character-
10, and all day Saturday,                tian fellowship. Then at 9:00            ized by certain principles. The
November 11, a Conference on             A.M., our missionary, Rev. Steve         church must be a praying church,
Reformed Evangelism was held             Houck, addressed the group on            it must have faithful office
at the Byron Center P.R.C. in            the subject of the Biblical prin-.       bearers, it must be familiar with
Byron Center, Michigan spon-             ciples and methods of                    the Bible, and it must have godly
sored by Byron's Evangelism              evangelism. Pastor Houck                 fear. In closing, Rev. Van
Society.                                 pointed out that the primary             Overloop emphasized that the
  First up on Friday evening was         means of evangelism is the               church will sow seeds, and we
Prof. David Engelsma' who spoke          preaching, but that the preaching        should pray that God will bless
on the necessity of the local            must be supported in the life of         this work. We should also pray
church doing the work of'                the congregation. Rev. Houck             that God will continue to hold
evangelism. Prof. Engelsma               gave ten principles for effective        our congregations steadfast.
stressed that there is indeed such       evangelism, starting with making            A special word of thanks to
a thing as Reformed evangelism           personal contact, to using the Bi-       Byron Center, for hosting a very
and that every believer is in-           ble in presenting the truth, to ex-      worthwhile conference, and to
volved in this aspect of the             pecting to find people with many         those who came from five dif-
church whether consciously or            problems, and finally to letting        ferent states (CA, IA, IL, PA, and
unconsciously. He also pointed           your motivation be the greatness        MI) to attend this conference.
out that it is the calling of each'      and the glory of God.                      Somewhat connected to the
local church to do evangelism.              Rev. Barry Gritters then hosted      above, there was a note in our
  This speech was followed by a          an Ideas Workshop. For this             South Holland, IL P.R.C.`s bulletin
workshop on how to organize an           workshop, members of many dif-           concerning evangelism news.
evangelism committee. Rev.               ferent Evangelism Committees            Their evangelism committee
Jason Kortering hosted this part         from our churches presented one         received their first request from
of the program. He pointed out           aspect of their work so that            Poland. A person from
that an organization will combine        others could learn from their ex-       Warszowa, Poland requested the
and unify the efforts in the local       periences. These presentations in-      pamphlet, "The Church Today                .
church, but however this work is         cluded, among others, the radio         and the Reformation Church: A
organized, the congregation must         broadcast of local worship ser-         Comparison."
remember that the Lord does the          vices, publishing and publica-,            South Holland's Evangelism
work.
   :        ,.                           tions, and the distribution of          Committee also sponsored a lec-
                                         pamphlets to local businesses.          ture in Fort Wayne, IN on
                                            This workshop was followed           November 8. Rev. Steve Houck
                                         by an excellent (and I mean ex-         spoke on "A Christian Evaluation
                                         cellent) brunch, featuring              of the New Age Movement."
                                         scrambled eggs, ham, and muf-              Mrs. Helen Schipper, wife of
Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Prot-      fins.                                   the late Rev. Marinus Schipper,
estant Reformed Church of  Hudson-          Rev. Ron Van Overloop                was hospitaIized in late October
vil[e,  Michigan.                        brought the conference to an end        after suffering a light stroke.

                                                                                December.15, 1989  I The Standard Bearer I143


                                                                                                                              -:
                                              _
  7HE                                                                                                                    !
STANDDARD                                                      --                                                                   SECOND CLASS
                                                                                                                                    Postage Paid at
 BELZRER                                 1                                                                                          Grand Rapids, Michigan
 t?O. Box 6064
Grand Rapids, MI 49506


There was some paralysis, which                    .' "Know therefore that the
                                                    ._                                                     WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
already by the end of the first                    LORD thy God, he is God, the                               On November  22,1989 our
week was lessening. The prog-                      fa'ithful Cod, which keepeth                            parents: MR. AND MRS.
nosis is very good and she                         covenant and mercy with them                            WILLIAM K.  KOOIKER cele-
hoped to return to her own home                    that love him and keep his com-                         brated their 40th Wedding anni-
in the near future.                                mandments to a thousand                                 versary. We are thankful  to our
   "The Priesthood of All                          generations." (Deuteronomy  7:9)                        Heavenly Father for the many
Believers" was the topic of a lec-                 Gordon  & Elaine Ondersma                               years He has given them to
ture given by Rev. Dale Kuiper                     David  & Nancy Ondersma                                 each other and to us their
and the Immanuel P.R.C. in                         Harvey  & Marilyn Holstege                              children and grandchildren. It is
Lacombe, AB, Canada in obser-                      Raymond  & Barbara  VanTil
                                                          21 grandchildren                                 our prayer that God will  co,n-
vance of Reformation Day.                                  4 great grandchildren                           tinue to bless them with good
CHURCH ACTIVITIES                                                               (Hudsonville, Michigan)    health and spiritual blessings.
   The Reformed Witness Com-                                                                               Doug and  Karla Kats
mittee of our Doon, Hull, and                      RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                                  Ken Kooiker
Edgerton P.R.C.`s in Iowa and                              The Martha Ladies Aid Socie-                    Dave and Aletha Croeneweg
Minnesota sponsored a Fall                         ty of the Hull Protestant                               Wayne Kooiker
                                                                                                           Lyle and Pam Kooiker
Reformation Day Lecture. Rev. R.                   Reformed Church express their                           Nick and Janet Kooiker
Dykstra spoke on the topic, "Civil                 heartfelt sympathy to our presi-                        Tricia  Kooiker
Disobedience and the Christian:                    dent, Rev. Richard Moore, Mrs.                            13 grandchildren                    (Hull, Iowa)
An Unholy Mixture."                                Moore, and family in the death
   In an effort to keep track of all               of their mother and grand-                              ANNOUNCEMENT
the dates of the special activities                mother, MRS. STELLA U.                                     The Northwest Iowa Prot-
of our churches, schools,                          MOORE. May they be com-                                 estant Reformed Christian
societies, etc., Judi Doezema,                     forted by the words of our Lord                         School of  Doon, Iowa is in need
secretary of our seminary, has                     when He said, "I am the resur-                          of one teacher for grades 3, 4, 5
produced a monthly schedule of                     rection and the life: he that                           for the 1989-1990 school year.
all events in our Grand Rapids                     believeth in me, though he were                         Please contact Mr. Chester
area churches and schools. She                     dead, yet shall he live." (John                         Hunter (106 5th Ave.,  Doon, IA
can tell what activities are                       11:25)                                                  51235;  [712]  726-3381),   ad-
planned for a given day or pro-                    Mrs. Peter D. Westra, Vice President                    ministrator, or Mr. Robert
                                                   Mrs. Ralph Brummel, Secretary
vide a printout of all these                                                                               Mantel (RR2, Box 92, Hull, IA
organizational activities for the                                                                          51239;  [712]  726-3478),  BoarId
                                                   WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
month in question. Cl                                                                                      President.
                                                          On December 21, the Lord
                                                   willing, our dear parents, KEN-                         RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY
                                                   NETH AND JOYCE  RIETEMA                                    The consistory and congrega-
                                                   will celebrate their 40th wed-
WEDDING ANNIVERSARY                                                                                        tion of the Randolph Protestant
                                                   ding anniversary. We are thank-
  On january 1, 1990, the Lord                                                                             Reformed Church extends Chris-
                                                   ful to God for having given
willing, our dear parents and                                                                              tian sympathy to Mr. Pete  Tam-
                                                   them to us and pray He will
grandparents, MR. AND MRS.                                                                                 minga and to Mr. and Mrs. Tim
                                                   bless them in the future. The
SIMON ONDERSMA will cele-                                                                                  Tamminga and family in the
                                                   lines are fallen unto me in
brate 50 years of marriage. We                                                                             passing away of their wife and
                                                   pleasant places; yea I have a
rejoice with them, and are                                                                                 mother and grandmother,  M,RS.
                                                   goodly heritage. (Psalm  16:6)
thankful to our Lord for the                                                                               H I LDA TAMMI NCA. "Precious
                                                   ,vlichael  & Brenda Engelsma
many years together and pray                                                                               in the sight of the Lord is the
                                                   Henry  & Bonita Boyd IV
that they may continue to ex-                                                                              death of His saints." (Psalm
                                                   Bruce  & Barbara Bomers
perience the blessings of our                      Ken  & Cathy Rietema, jr.                               116:15)
faithful God in the years that                     James  & Ronda Slendebroek                              Rev. A.  denHartog,  President
                                                                                                           Mr. Don  DeVries,  Clerk
He may give them.                                         14 grandchildren  (Grand Rapids, Michigan)


144  I The Standard Bearer I December 15, 1989


