                     How necessay it was for our salvation
                            ttiat theSon of Godcome
                              ' in deepest hum&y,
                           Gorn in poverty andshame,
                    in order to take upon His mz@ty shoulders
                                   tke entire hrden of our sin
                                                     d
                                            andguiC$
                                       andto Gear it away
                                       even into the depths
                                           o f   helii

                                            See `!Zion Delivered of a
                                            -Man Child" - page 123



Vol. 69, No. 6
December 15,1992


CONfENTi:                                                     '                                                               December 15, 1992

Meditation - Rev. Cornelius Hank0
    Zion Delivered of a Man Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..*..*...                                             123
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122  lS@dard Bearer  I  december 15,1992


   Zion D.eliyered of a Man#Child

         Hear the word of the Lord, ye that      from captivity. He recognizes lead-         out: "Who has ever heard such a
 tremble at his word; Your brethren that         ers like Ezra and Nehemiah. He sees         thing? Who has ever seen such
 hatedyou, thatcastyououtformyname's             such prophets as Zechariah and              things?"
 sake, said, Let the Lord beglorified: but he    Malachi. He cannot fail to recognize                Jehovah is the God of the impos-
 shall appear to yourjoy, and they shall be      many believers who are of a contrite        sible, who performs wonder upon
ashamed.                                         heart and abroken  spirit, who tremble      wonder!  -
         A voice of noise from the city, a       in fear and reverence as they await                 A man child is born.
voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord       the fulfillment of the promise of the               Zion is His mother.
rendering recompense to his enemies.             birth of the Savior. Among them are                 Zion is the church of the old
         Before she travailed, she brought       Zacharias and Elisabeth, Simeon and         dispensation, the woman of Revela-
forth; before her pain came, she was deliv-      Anna, the Shepherds, as also Joseph         tion 12, Actually, you may include in
ered of a man child.                             and Mary.                                   that all the women of the old dispen-
         Who hath heard such a thing?. who              On the other hand, he hears the      sation who brought forth children in
hath seen such things? Shall the earth be        sneers of those who are content in          the hope of the coming of the prom-
made to bring forth in one day? or shall         their self-righteousness who-have no        ised Seed,, culminating i.n.Mary.-      .
a nation be born at once? for as soon as         need for a Savior. .He shudders at'the              The vision takes us to,the cattle
Zion travailed she brought forth her chil-       cold unbelief of the Sadducees,  who        stallinBethle.hem,whereMarybrings
dren.                                            were amongthe  rulers of that day.          forthher  firstborn Son, wraps Him in
                               Isaiah 66:5-8            His vision serves for the com-       swaddling clothes, and lays Him in a
                                                 fort, the peace and joy of the believers    manger.
         Christmas is the first of the se-       who eagerly awaited the coming of                   She represents Eve, who centu-
ries of Christian-holidays. Soon after           their Savior. It is also of comfo.rt and    ries before had beheld for the first
Christmas follows Good Friday and                joy to all who await the final coming       time the wonder of childbirth, but
then, in- rapid succession, Resurrec-            of the Lord.                                who also saw in that wonder the ulti-
tionsunday, AscensionDay,  and Pen-                    A noise like the rumblings of         mate fulfillinent in the promised Sav-
t e c o s t   S u n d a y .                      thunder comes from the Holy City,           ior. Many God-fearing women of
  -. One follows the other as cause              J e r u s a l e m :                         numerous generations stoodbetween
and effect, the birth of Christ, His                   More specifically, the noise          Eve and Mary, all looking forward to
death on the cross, His resurrection,            comes from the temple.                      the day when this Christ-child should
His ascension, and the outpouring of                   For those who have ears to hear,      be born.
the Holy, Spirit on Pentecost - all of           it is the powerful voice of Jehovah, the            The very fact that this line had
which reaches its climax in the return           Almighty God of all glory.                  continued throughout all those cen-
of Christ with the clouds and the                      As thepeople, filledwith.amaze-       turies is' a .wonder in itself. There
multitude before the throne in the               ment, hasten into God's house, they         were barren women in that line. It is
new creation`.                                   discover that a woman is sitting there,     amazinghowmany. YetGodbrought
         The prophet Isaiah saw all this in      thankful and rejoicing. She has just        forth, as was the case with Abraham
prophetic vision long before it hap-             given birth to a man child.                 and Sarah, life from the dead.
pened.                                                 But that is not the end of the                Centuries had gone by, count-
         He stands, asit were, in the midst      vision. Before the wondering gaze of        less prayers had gone up from those
of the Jews after they had returned              these witnesses another child is born,      who longed for and awaited His com-
                                                 and another, even a large number, a         ing.
                                                 whole nation, ultimately a multitude                Finally, in the fullness of time,
                                                 that is innumerable, like the sands on      exactly at the right time according to
Rev. Hanko is a minister emeritus in the         the seashore.                               God'sclock,JesusisbomofMary,the
Protestant Reformed Churches.                          In holy awe the prophet cries         most blessed among women.

                                                                                              December 15,1992  1 Standard Be&r I 123


         "Before she travailed, she                      Although four thousand years         rejected,andfinallycastoutasacrimi-
brought forth; before her pain came,             had elapsedsince the mother prom-            nal,worthy  only of death.
she was delivered of a man child."               ise had come to Adam and Eve in                      ButthewordoftheLordtoIsaiah
         This does not mean that Mary            paradise, although the believers in          stood firm, "He shall appear to your
gave birth to Jesus without the usual            the dispensation of shadows grew             joy, and they shall be ashamed."
travail. The birth of Jesus from a               weary as their cry went up to heaven,                His coming is not all joy - that
human point of view was undoubt-                 "Rise, help andredeemus, Thy mercy           is, not for His enemies.
edly perfectly normal, like the birth of         we trust," now when the fullness of                  Malachi had already spoken of
any child.                                       time is come all things happen within        that: "And who shall abide the day of
         The prophet is not speaking of          a short period of time. Thirty-three         his coming? and who shall stand
Mary, but of Zion, the church of the             years elapse between Christ's birth          when he appeareth? he shall be like a
old dispensation that brought forth              and the cross, but, soon after, Jesus        refiner's fire, and like a fuller's soap."
the Savior. It is the voice of the Lord          arises from the dead, forty days later
which speaks and creates. The same               He ascends to heaven, and ten days
voice that in the beginning called the           later the Spirit is poured out on Pen-         Unbelief deliberately denies
things that were not as though they              tecost, when the small group of 120 is                the virgin birth atid
were now speaks again. The same                  increasedbythree thousandconverts.
voice that governs and controls all                      These were the firstfruits of the              salvation by grace
creation performs the greatest won-              harvest that is being gathered in day                   through the cross
der of all in Bethlehem.                         by day. For the Son of man came to                       of Jesus Christ.
         Before the pain, before the travail,    seek and to save that which was lost.
this Wonder-child is born. His birth                     Must not the Christ have suf-
is entirely unique, since Mary's first-          fered all these things to attain His                 The coming of Christ is "a voice
born is also the Firstborn of God.               glory?                                       of the Lord that rendereth recom-
         At the annunciation the angel                   How. necessary it was for our        pense to his enemies."
Gabriel had assured Mary, "The Holy              salvation that the Son of God come in                Unbelief deliberately denies the
Ghost shall come upon thee, and the              deepesthumility,bominpovertyand              virgin birth and salvation by grace
power of the Highest shall over-                 shame, in order to take upon His             through the cross of Jesus Christ.
shadow thee: therefore also that holy            mighty shoulders the entire burden                   The unbeliever does just that
thingthatshallbebomoftheeshallbe                 of our sin and guilt, and to bear it         today. He loses himself in tissue
called the Son of God."                          away even into the depths of hell.           paper trimmings, commercializing
         We stand at that manger in fear                 Only as Son of God in our flesh      and feasting to drown out and deny
and reverence. For God lies there in             could He conquer Satan, sin, death,          the very signi&a,nce  of the Christian
all the weakness of mere flesh, flesh of         and hell, arise from the dead on the         holiday, to reject once more the Christ
our flesh, the Holy One born from the            third day, and triumphantly enter            of God.
unholy, Immanuel, God with us!                   into heaven to take His place in power               He proves that God is just in His
         "Unto us a child is born, unto us       next to the throne. He died for us, and      condemnation.  `
a son is given: and the government               now He lives for us. He gathers His                  But the Christ is come to your
shall be upon his shoulder: and his              church, even unto the day of His             joy-
name shallbe  called wonderful Coun-             coming.                                              We go toBethlehem to hear once
sellor, the mighty God, the everlast-                    The'culminationisreachedwhen         more the glad tidings of the angel:
ing Father, the Prince of Peace" (Isa.           we are united with Him before the            "For unto you is born this day in the
9:6).                                            throne. Yea, whenHe  makes all things        city of David a Savior, which is Christ
         But that is only the beginning of       new.                                         the Lord."
the wonder that is observed in the                       Yet unbelief sneers.                         We bow in worship before that
vision.                                                  Already in the old dispensation      Babe with the confession, "My Sav-
         Isaiah sees the Jews standing in        the unbelievers in Israel mocked at          ior, my Lord!"
rapt wonder as more children are                 the coming of the Lord. Sneeringly                   For we see beyond the manger
born. Not twins, not triplets, but "as           they said, "Let the Lord be glorified."      the cross, the empty tomb, the as-
soon as Zion travailed she brought               "It can't happen!"                           cended Lord. We now see Jesus
forth her children." A nation, the                       When Jesus came unto His own,        crowned with glory and honor, pre-
church of the new dispensation is                His own people did not receive Him.          paring Himself for His return in the
born.                                                    Soon after Jesus' birth, Herod       day of our final glorification.
         The birth of Jesus is but the be-       devised plans to kill Him, so that His               He is the Wonder of God, of the
ginning of a whole series of wonders             parents were compelled to flee with          God of our salvation!
that follow one upon another in rapid            the Babe to Egypt. All through His                   0 come, let us adore Him, the
succession.                                      earthly ministry He was despised,            Wonder of all wonders! 0

124 /Standard Bearer I December 15,1992


        The Death of Confessional
       ' Calvinism in Scottish
                                P'resbyterianism
                                                              0

     OurReformedreadersmayneed                     Our Presbyterian readers al-            whom the Father hath given unto
to be informed that it is the glory of        ready know this.                             him.
confessional Presbyterianism that it               The eternal particularity of di-
boldly proclaims the particular love          vine love and mercy in the counsel of           The particular, exclusive, effec-
of God. The eternal source of this            predestination is taught in the            tual savingworkof the Spirit through
particularloveis God's decree of pre-         Westminster Confession of Faith            the gospel is taught in the WCF, 10.1:
destination. The revelation of this           (WCF), 3.3,5, and 7:                         All those whom God hath predesti-
particular love is the definite, limited                                                   nated unto life, and those only, he is
atonement of the cross of Jesus Christ.            BythedecreeofGod,forthemani-            pleased, in his appointed and ac-
The realization of this particular love         festation of his glory, some men and       cepted time, effectually to call, by his
-its being shed abroad in the hearts            angels are predestinated unto ever-        word and Spirit, out of that state of
of the elect-is the call of the gospel,         lasting life, and others foreordained      sin and death in which they are by
                                                                                           nature, to grace and salvation by
effectual and irresistible in the power         to everlasting death.
                                                   Those of mankind that are pre-          Jesus Christ . . . .
of the Holy Spirit.                             destinated unto life, God, before the
     The glory of confessional                  foundation of the world was laid,             This truth of the particular love
Presbyterianism is the same as the              according to his eternal and immu-       of God is denied by influential Scot-
glory of the creedal  Reformed faith.           table purpose, and the secret counsel    tish Presbyterian theologian Donald
The Presbyterianism of the West-                and good pleasure of his will, hath      Macleod in his recent book,  Behold
minster Standards and the Reformed              chosen in Christ unto everlasting        Your God (BYG). Macleod teaches a
faith of the "Three Forms of Unity"             glory . . . .                            1oveofGodinChristandawillofGod
are confessional Calvinism. And the                The rest of mankind, God was
                                                pleased, according to the  unsearch-     to salvation that are universal. He
glory of confessional Calvinism is the          able counsel of his own will, whereby    proclaims a death of Christ for every
glory of Godin the sovereignty of His           he extendeth or withholdeth mercy        sinner without exception. He de-
particular love.                                as he pleaseth, for the glory of his     fends a gracious work of the Spirit in
     Confessional Presbyterianism               sovereign power over his creatures,      the gospel that is directedby the Spirit
teaches that God loves and wills to             to pass by, and to ordain them to        to all who hear.
save the elect; that Christ died for the        dishonour and wrath for their sin, to
elect; and that the Spirit calls the elect      the praise of his glorious justice.
through the gospel unto saving union                                                         The serpent in the Eden
with Christ. Confessional Presbyter-               In 8.5,  the WCF teaches definite,
ianismalso explicitly teaches that God        particular, limited atonement:                   of  Presbyterian truth
has eternally ordained others to dam-                                                              was the doctrine
nation in hatred; that Christ did not           The Lord Jesus . . . hath fully sat-
                                               isfied the justice of his Father; and               of common grace.
die for these reprobate; and that the           purchased not only reconciliation,
Spirit deliberately refuses to call the        but an everlasting inheritance in the
reprobate unto eternal life.                   kingdom of heaven, for all those               The doctrine of the universal,

                                                                                          December 15,1992 / Standard Bearer / 125


ineffectual love of God for sinners,          short of saying that God loves it."            are lost (p. 153).
Macleod contends, is genuine Scot-            "His love extends to those who are                 The biblicalview . . . is that the
tish Presbyterianism.                         not yet reconciled to Him and even to          sending of preachers is an expres-
        I fear that this doctrine does in-    those who are yteuw reconciled (em-            sion of God's desire that all men
deed pass for Presbyterianismin Scot-         phasis his - DJE)."                            should be saved . . . (p. 131).
land today. If so, write "Ichabod"                                                               It is clear, then, that the love of
                                                      As Macleod makes clear in his.         God for all men as expressed in the
over         contemporary       Scottish      question about the extent of God's             free offer of Christ and His salvation
Presbyter&-&m ! For the glory has             love, a question directly linked with          is  something which  Reformed theol-
departed. Macleod's doctrines of a            the love of God of John 3:16, the love         ogy has been at pains to conserve
universal love of God, a universal            of God for all men is not merely a love        and even to emphasize (p. 153).
atonement, and a universal grace in           that gives all men earthly gifts. It is a
the preaching sound the death knell           love that wills the salvation of all               This now, apparently, is con-
for confessional Calvinism in Scottish        men:                                         temporary Scottish Presbyterianism:
Presbyterianism.                                                                           a universal love of God in Christ that
      The serpent in the Eden of Pres-          Most important, God's love for the         failsto secure the salvation of many;
byterian truth was the doctrine of              world means that He will have all          a death of Christ for all that fails to
common grace. In previous editori-              men to be saved (I Timothy                 redeem many; and a grace toward all
als, we saw that the doctrine of com-           2~4  . . . . God will have all men to      in the preaching that fails to callmany
mon grace led Professor Macleod to              be saved in the sense that He has          into union with Christ.
reject the doctrine of total depravity          provided a salvation suited to the
                                                needs of all. . . . Furthermore,                This doctrine of an ineffective
for the doctrine of partial depravity.          the salvation is offered to                universalism is directly related to the
This same intruder has corrupted the            all . . . . (God) has no pleasure in       glaring absence in the whole of
doctrines of predestination, limited            the death of the wicked, but longs         Macleod's book about God of the
atonement, and irresistible grace in            thattheyshouldtumandlive(Ezekie1           truth of reprobation. Macleod has no
the theology of Presbyterian Macleod.           3311) (pp. 150,151).                       place for an eternal, sovereign decree
      Having set forth, defended, and                                                      ordaining some persons to damna-
advocated common grace in chapters                    Thisaffirmationofuniversallove       tion. If there is such a decree in the
13-15 of BYG, in chapter 16 Macleod           is the denial of election. For election      God whom Macleod wants us to be-
applies this favor of God toward all          is selective love.                           hold, Macleod is ashamed of it and
humans to the love of God for sinners                 Denial of limited atonement fol-     hides it from our view. But the inevi-
in Jesus Christ. God's love is His            lows. Macleod quotes Preston with            table result is universal electing love,
outstanding perfection, writes                approval: "Go and tell every man             universal atonement, and universal
Macleod, and the love of God is su-           without exception that there is good         grace in the preaching. This is the
premely revealed at Calvary. The              news for him, Christ is dead for him."       death of the gospel of particular, sov-
Presbyterian theologian quotes and            Christ is the Savior of every human          ereign grace confessed by Dordt and
expounds John  3:16: "For God so              "in the deed of gift and grant to man-       Westminster.
loved the world, that he gave his only        kind lost." We may tell all sinners               Professor Macleod saves us the
begotten Son . .  ." (pp.  146-149).          without exception that "Christ loves         trouble of charging that this contem-
"Herein," he correctly states, "islove"       them so much that He offers to be            porary Scottish "Presbyterian&m"  is
(p. 149).                                     their Saviour and pleads with them to        nothing else than the heresy of
      And then comes the vital, ines-         accept Him" (pp. 152,153).                   Arminianism. He admits this him-
capable question:                                  This universal love of God re-          s e l f :
                                              vealed in the cross of Christ is ex-
  The biblical teaching on the love of        pressed in the preaching of the gos-           Arminianism  believes that God so
  God confronts the Calvinist with a          pel. The preaching of the gospel is an         loves all men that He has made their
  question of real urgency: What is the       offer of salvation to all sinners ex-          salvation possible, if only they be-
  extent of God's love? Whom does it          pressing the love of God in Christ for         lieve. It also believes that God so
  embrace? And is it at all possible,         them all and the desire of God to save         loves all men that He offers them this
  against the background of predesti-                                                        salvation freely. The Calvinist be-
  nation, to speak of God loving all          them all.                                      lieves all that and the Arminian  be-
  men? (pp. 149,150)                                                                         lieves nothing more (p. 154).
                                                   To evoke that response (of receiv-
     Macleod does not hesitate:                 ing Christ Jesus as Lord - DJE) we              This may be  contemporary Scot-
"There must be no hesitation. The               may tell them that Christ loves them
                                                so much that He offers to be their         tish Presbyterianism. But it is not
world is ugly and unlovely and some             Saviour and pleads with them to            confessiolzal Presbyterianism. If this
of its constituents will be finally and         accept Him. But they must come. If         theology represents Presbyterianism
irrevocably lost. Yet we cannot stop           the offering love is spurned-if the         in Scotland at the end of the 20th
                                                crucified Christ is rejected  - they

120lSfandard  Bearer I December 15,19!32


                                                                                                                           1
century (andIhave  not seenone  word         land.                                       and creedally Reformed believers
of protest coming out of Scotland),                   "Behold Your God"?                 cannot recognize our God in this the-           I
confessionalCalvinismis  deadinscot-                  We confessional Presbyterians
                                                                                                                               DJE       I




                              William T ndale:
        Father of the nglish
                                                                   2                          Bible-

Introduction                                 tion in England at this time. Henry         Preparation For His Work
     We all have many Bibles in our          VIII, husband of many wives, was on              Itwasin1521thatTyndalejoined
homes: our own Bibles and our                the throne. Dedicated Roman Catho-          the household of Sir John Walsh at
children's Bibles, as well as family         lic, but bitter enemy of the pope's rule    Little Sudbury Manor, a few miles
Bibles used for family devotions.            in England, Henry persecuted Prot-          north of Bath. Here he functioned as
Most of us have the King James Ver-          estants on the one hand, but sepa-          chaplain, tutor, and Secretary, but
sion of theBible, sometimes called the       rated the church of England from            also preached occasionally at Bristol
Authorized Version, prepared under           papal control on the other hand. The        where he expounded the Lutheran
the aegis of James I in 1611. It is a sad    church itself was rife with evil, wick-     doctrinesofjustificationbyfaithalone
fact that our Bibles often lie unused,       edness in high places, and fornication      and the free gift of forgiveness of sins
taken for granted, a somewhat pe-            of every sort. One of the chroniclers       through repentance. He was also a
ripheral part of our life. Yet behind        of the age characterized the priests as     frequent guest at the table of Sir John
our Bibles stands a story of great           running from the houses of prosti-          Walsh, where notable clerics from all
heroism, towering faith in God, and          tutes to the altar to perform mass;         over England often assembled. Their
drops of martyr's blood. The story is        incapable of understanding the Latin        sophistries and hypocrisies were ex-
that of William Tyndale, father of the       in which they mumbled their litur-          posed by Tyndale's bold appeals to
English Bible.                               gies; superstitious and worshipers of       Scriptural teachings so that, along
                                             such relics as a gown of the virgin         with his sermons, Tyndale's views
Tyndale's Early Life                         Mary, a piece of the burning bush of        aroused the hatred and fury of friars,
     WilliamTyndalewasbornsome-              Moses, straw from the manger at             abbots, and prelates.
time in the early 1490s on the Welsh         Bethlehem, and a complete skeleton                It was at one of these meals that
border into the home of a well-to-do         of one of the babies murdered by            Tyndale spoke to avisiting cleric those
farmer. He went to Magdalen Hall,            Herod the Great; drunkards and glut-        words for which he remains beloved
Oxford where he received his M.A.            tons whose wicked lives were sup-           by all succeeding generations of those
degree in 1515 and was ordained into         ported by the blood, sweat, and tears       who cherish Scripture: "If God spare
the Roman Catholic clergy. In that           of the common working folk.                 my life, ere many years pass, I wiIl
same year he transferred to Cam-                      The Universities, however, were    cause that aboy  that driveththe plough
bridge University, probably because          seething with the new learning of the       shall know more of the Scriptures
he had heard that the Greek New              Renaissance, the discoveries of Co-         than thou dost."'
Testament of Erasmus was available           lumbus and Cabot, and the teachings
there, and he was interested in read-        of Luther, the Reformer of Germany.
ing Scripture in its original language.               It was in Cambridge that
     One must understand the situa-          Tyndale was converted from his              `These words were an echo of the famous
                                                                                         wish of Erasmus, who in the preface of
                                             Romanism to Lutheranism. And it             his Greek New Testament wrote: "I would
                                             was in these ancient halls that Tyndale     to  God that the ploughman would sing a
Prof. Hanko is professor of Church His-      first became acquainted with Scrip-         text of the Scripture at his plough and that
tory and New Testament in the Protes-        ture in its original Greek, and not in      the weaver would hum them to the tune
tant Reformed Seminary.                      the fusty Latin of the Vulgate.             of his shuttle."
                                                                                           December 15,1992 / Standard Bearer / 127


      Warned by his superiors to de-        for reform in England. But he saw too       the London merchants in bales of
sist in his teachings, and resolved to     that no.reform  could possibly come          cloth, boxes of food, and other goods
begin the great work of making the          about without theBiblebeingthe stan-        of trade. Many of the copies were
Bible available to the people of his        dard of truth and life. And, undoubt-       confiscated and burned by the Ro-
beloved country, he set out for Lon-        edly persuaded by Luther's doctrine         man authorities, and many were
 don to secure permission from the          of the-priesthood of all believers, he      bought up by the church and burned
authorities in the church to translate     understood that the Bible had to be in       in St. Paul's by Cuthbert Tunstall. In
the Scriptures. This permission he          the hands of every believer, in a lan-      God's irony, the money gained by the
soughtfromCuthbertTunstalI,bishop          guage which he understood.                   sale of these volumes was sent to
of London, a scholarly man and close             All of this is obvious. What is so     Tyndale to be used for an edited'and
friend of Erasmus. But Tunstall, loyal     totally amazing is that Tyndale's con-       improved edition.
to Rome and afraid of the new              victions were so strong that he deter-             Tunstall hated the Bible and
Lutheranism, refused permission to         mined to devote his life to accomplish       about exhausted himself in curses as
Tyndale and became, in later years,        that goal. And he determined to              he. described it:
one of Tyndale's most vicious oppo-        devote his life to that goal in spite of
nents.                                     the fact that it would mean exile,                 [It is] intermingled with certain
      During his stay in London,           poverty, suffering, and finally a              articles of heretical depravity and
Tyndale lived with Lord Monmouth,          martyr's death. It was clear toTyndale         pernicious erroneous opinions, pes-
to whose house God graciously and          from the outset that he would eventu-          tilent, scandalous, and seductive of
providentiallybroughttheReformer.          ally be killed for what he determined          simple minds . . . of which translation
Lord Monmouth was an influential           to do. He went ahead with the work             many books, containing the pestilent
Lutheran; but, more importantly, he                                                       and pernicious poison in the vulgar
                                           anyway.
was a friend of the merchants who                                                         tongue,  have been dispersed in great
                                                 I-IistimeinEuropewasnotpleas-            numbers throughout our diocese;
operated the docks in London over          ant. He probably stayed briefly in             which truly, unless it be speedily
which poured a steady stream of            Wittenberg, where he almost certainly          foreseen, will without doubt infect
Lutheran literature. Tyndale was           met Luther. But the main work of               and contaminate the flock commit-
convinced that his endeavors would         publishingwas done in Cologne. The             ted to us, with the pestilent poison
never be successful in England: "Not       New Testament was ready for print-             and the deadly disease of heretical
only was there no room in my lord of       ingin1525-OnlyayearafterTyndale                depravity.
London's palace to translate the New       fled England. While the printing was
Testament," Tyndale wrote, "but also       in progress, an assistant spoke too               This was the opinion which the
that there was no place to do it in all    freely over his wine about the work,         church had of God's Word!3
England." The London merchants             and the news came to Johannes                     New and improved editions of
agreed to support the endeavor, and        Dobneck, alias Cochlaeus, a bitter           the New Testament were constantly
Tyndale left the country for Germany       enemy of the Reformation. A raid             being prepared by Tyndale, many
never to return. The year was 1524.        was arranged, but Tyndale was fore-          containing marginal notes, some of
                                           warned and succeeded in fleeing with         which were directed against the pa-
The Work Of Translating                    the printed pages and manuscripts.           pacy. But Tyndale also began work
      It might be well to pause for a            He settledin Worms, andin 1526         on the Old Testament. For this he had
moment and consider what Tyndale           the first complete edition of the En-        to learn Hebrew, which he did in the
was doing.                                 glish New Testament was published.           course of his wanderings in Europe.
     The Romish Church in England          It was smuggledinto England through          In1530thePentateuchwascompleted
had forbidden the Bible to be trans-                                                    and printed in Antwerp,  Belgium,
lated into the common tongue. The                                                       although Tyndale had to do the work
church was adamant about this and                                                       twice because, in traveling by boat,
did everything in its power to enforce                                                  Tyndale suffered shipwreck, and the
this rule. There is no question about                                                   first manuscripts were lost.
                                           *Quoted from The Lives of the British Re-
it but that the reason was simply that     formers, published by Presbyterian Board          Because the volumes continued
the Bible in the hands of the common       of Publicationsin Philadelphia. The book     to be smuggled into England and be-
people would reveal how totally cor-       is a collection of tracts put out by the     cause the authorities in England could
rupt the Romish church had become.         London Tract Society. Our readers will       not stop the steady flow and wide
The church did not want people to          be interested to know that one of the        distribution, their fury increased and
know this. One cleric with whom            nicest biographies of William Tyndale,       their determination to kill Tyndale
Tyndale spoke about translating the        usable by young people and adults, is        became an obsession. It was decided
Scriptures raged: "We had better be        God's Outlaw, by BrianH. Edwards; Evan-      to send men to Europe to catch
                                           gelical Press, 1988.
withoutGod'slaws than thepope's."                                                       Tyndale and arrest him. These efforts
     Tyndale saw the absolute need         3Quoted  from                                were, for the most part, unsuccessful.
                                                             God's Outlaw, p. 92.

128 /Standard Bearer I December 15,1992


It is hard to know why. The spies                     about to let their quarry go now that         6000 that were printed in Worms are
were many and clever and Tyndale                      they had him in their grasp.                  extant. The 1534 edition, printed in
made no great efforts to keep his                          He was tried, defrocked, and             Antwerp,  is the last and the best. It
whereabouts secret. It is true that                   sentenced to death. In the early dawn         formed the basis for the famous
Tyndale had many friends, also in                     death was administered. He was                Coverdale Bible. Though Thomas
Antwerp; but it seems that we finally                 bound to a stake, an iron chain was           More, an English Roman Catholic and
must come to the conclusion that God                  fastened around his neck, a hemp              humanist, called Tyndale's Bible "The
watched over His servant in a special                 noose was placed at his throat and            Testament of Antichrist," it survived
waybecauseGodwasbringingrefor-                        brush was heaped about him. The               first in Coverdale's Bible. In 1537 (one
mation through His holy Word to                       executioner, with all his might,              year after Tyndale's death) it was
England.                                                                                            ordered by the king of England to be
                                                                                                    placed in every parish church in the
Tyndale's Martyrdom                                                                                 realm and made available to every
      But when God's work for                                                                           man, woman, and child within
                 'ATIC   mmn1cBt0a   l-ha
TyrAsln  1
   .LUUAs..      V"
                  Ui)      L"
                            ll.yaL.ru,         VYI
t o ok Tyndale out of this life;                                                                             Ninety per cent of Tyndale's
and God gave his faithful                                                                                     Bible passed into the KJV
servant the privilege of                                                                                       and 75% into the RSV. It is
leaving this life through a                                                                                     basically Tyndale's Bible
martyr's death. A worth-                                                                 bA                     which we use today. A
less no-goodby the name                                                                                          brief quotation from his
of Henry Philips thought                                                                       b                  Bible will show the simi-
toingratiatehimselfwith                                                                                           larity, although the quo-
the authorities of the                                                                                            tation is in the English of
church and perhaps win                                                                                            Tyndale's day. The pas-
fame and fortune by                                                                                              sage is Romans 12:1,2:
trapping Tyndale. He
was successful. He posed                                                                                        I beseeche  you therefore
as a friend, established a                                                                                    brethrenbythemercifulness
close relationship of trust                                                                                  of God, that ye make youre
with Tyndale, wormed his                                                                                   bodyes a quicke  sacrifise,  holy
way into the home of Poyntz                                                                              and acceptable unto God which is
                                                                                                       youre reasonable servynge  off God.
(with whom Tyndale was staying                                                                        And fassion note youre selves lyke
in Antwerp-although Poyntz never                                                                      unto this worlde. Butbe  ye chaunged
really trusted Philips), and, when                                                                    (in your shape) by the renuynge of
Poyntz was out of town, persuaded                                                                     youre wittes that ye may fele what
Tyndale to go with him for a walk.                                    William Tyndale                 thynge that good, that acceptable and
Leading Tyndale down a dark alley,                    snapped down on the noose and                   perfaicte will of God is.
he pushed the Reformer into the grasp                 within seconds Tyndale was
of some scoundrels no less evil than                  strangled. His limp body was then                  Not only ought the story of
Philips, who, hidden by a carefully                   burned as the pile of brush was lit.          Tyndale give us renewed apprecia-
prepared plan, seizedhim and turned                   His last words were: "Lord, open the          tion for our Bibles; it ought also to fill
him over to the authorities.                          king of England's eyes." With that he         our hearts with thanksgiving to God
       Tyndale was imprisoned in the                  fell asleep.                                  that He has given the church such
castle of Vilvorde near Brussels. Here                                                              men  of  courage and conviction that
he lived for one year and 135 days                    Our Heritage`                                 we can have God's Word today to
without heat or light from candles or                      The lasting monument to his              read, to study, to enjoy, to believe.
lamps, without sufficient clothing to                 martyrdom is our King James Ver-              When we read the beloved words of
keep him warm or food to sustain his                  sion of the Bible.                            our King James Version, we ought
weak frame, without friends and                            John Wycliffe had, two centu-            never to forget that these words were
books. His only visitors were tor-                    ries earlier, translated the Bible into       written with the inkof martyr's blood.
menters who bombarded him inces-                      English.Butithadneverbeenprinted,                                                         cl
santly with demands that he recant.                   and Wycliffe's translation was from
While Poyntz and friends in England                   the Latin Vulgate. Tyndale's was
did everything in their power to se-                  from the Hebrew and Greek. One
cure his release, the Romish authori-                 incomplete copy of Tyndale's Cologne
ties, thirsty for his blood, were not                 edition survives and two copies of the
                                                                                                      December 15,1992 I Standard Bearer / 129


                                                 D.octrinis                                     :
              The Hebrew word for doctrine means "to take, receive, seize"; then it means that which is received
         mentally, instruction. The Greek has a whole family of words relating to our topic: one means that which
        is taught; another refers to the one doing the teaching, the doctor or master;-the verb form simply means
         to instruct or indoctrinate. The word doctrine appears fifty-two times in Scripture, good evidence of its
         importance. Strikingly, when we read of doctrines in the plural the reference is always to strange
         doctrines, the doctrines of men, or the doctrines of devils. False doctrines are legion and contradictory,
        but true d,octrine is one, for it has its unity in Jesus Christ.
              The doctrine of God drops from heaven-as rain (Deut. 32:2), it,is pure and good (Job 11:4).; The
        people wereamazed at the teaching of Jesus, saying, "What'thingis this? What new doctrine is this?,For
        with.authority commandeth he . . ." (Mark 1:27). But Jesus did not teach new doctrine; it was not His
        but the Father's, and it agreed with the teaching of Moses (John 216-19).  The children of God obey from
        the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto them (Rom. 6:1,7). Since all Scripture is given
        by inspiration of God, it has the primary profit of giving us doctrine (II Tim. 3:16). Adding to the peril
        of the times in which we live is the fact that men "will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own
        lustsshall they heap to themselves teachers; having itching ears" (II Tim.  43). The purpose of God in
        giving ministers to the church is "that henceforth we be no'more  children, tossed to and fro, and carried
        about with every wind of doctrine . . ." (Eph.  4:14).  Of such central importance-is the truth that Jesus
        Christ, the Son of God, is come in the flesh that the.denial of thisis antichrist, and "if there come any unto
        you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed" (II John
         10). Christ is the Master, the Teacher, the Prophet sent-from God. When He was but twelve years old
        He was found in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions;
        already then the people were astonished at His understanding and answers (Luke 2:46). Six other times
       we read that men were astonished at His doctrine, for He taught with authority and not as the scribes.
         Christ declares the Father whom no man hath seen (John 1:18); He makes known unto us all that He has
        heard of His Father (John 15:15); He was ordainedto be our chief Prophet and Teacher to reveal to us
        fully the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption (L.D. 12).
              Because ministers are called by Christ in the-service of -His Word, they are given to the church as
        pastors and teachers (Eph. 4~11); teaching or indoctrinating is an important aspect of their work. Thus,
        ministers are to give themselves to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine (I Tim. 4~13); they are to take heed
        to themselves and the doctrine, by meditating upon these things and giving themselves wholly to them
         (I Tim. 415-16). Those who labor in the Word and doctrine are to be counted by the church as worthy
        of double honor (I Tim. 5:17). Great care must be taken that the name of God and His doctrine be not
        blasphemed.(I  Tim. 6:l). Sound doctrine is able to convince the gainsayers (Titus 1:9). All the minister's
        speech must be in harmony with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1,7). And the elders must be apt to teach
         (doctrine) (I Tim. 3:2).
              We are saved by doctrine, for by taking heed to and continuing in sound doctrine ministers save
        themselves and those that hear them (I Tim. 4:16). Some .will ask, "But are we not saved by faith in
        Christ?" Indeed. But who is Christ as to His Person and natures? What does His anointing consist of,
        and what is His place in the covenant of grace? What was the nature of His death and resurrection? For
        whom did He suffer, die, and rise again? And what is this faithi'and what does it hold for truth? Faith
        in the heart, embracing Jesus Christthe Lord as He is set forth, described, delineated in the doctrines
        of that Wordof God, fhat is able to make us wise unto salvation. To deny the importance of sound
       doctrine for our salvation is to fly in the face of the Scriptures and show ourselves either ignorant or
        unappreciative of church history. Controversies raged between adherents of the doctrines of men and
        the doctrine of God; confessions were written which condemned heresies and set forth the orthodox
        faith. Today we are called upon to contend earnestly for that faith because the great matter of salvation
        depends on pure doctrine, and the greater matter of God's glory is wrapped up in it. We must be of the


       Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

130 /Standard Be&x  / December 15,1992


         mind that characterized the writer(s) of. the Athanasian Creed when he wrote after. the Arian
         controversy,' "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that; he hold. the Catholic
         (universal) Faith, which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall
         perish'everlastingly."
               The doctrine of God our Savior, held to with iota-like precision, embraced with believing hearts,
         must be adorned with good works (Titus 2:lO). Here Paul shows the foolishness of trying to separate
         doctrine andpractice, or even preferring one above the other. Scripture is profitable for doctrine . . . that
        .we may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work. Doctrine is the root and branch; good works
         are the fruit. And there is a harmony and inner consistency between the two. True doctrine is itself
         beautiful, for it reveals God in Christ! When that doctrine brings forth good works by the Spirit, what
         adornment that is! How God is praised by it! Q




                                 Supreme Court:
               Graduation Ceremonies
             No Longer Have 3 Prayer

      We  recognize that . . . throughout      summer, the U.S. Supreme Court                  It was also the practice of the
the course of the educational process,         banned prayers at public school            Providence school ot%icials to pro-
there will be instances when religious         graduation ceremonies. A bitterly          vide invited clergy with a booklet
values, religious practices, and religious     divided court (5-4) held that a gradu-     entitled "Guidelines for Civic Occa-
persons will have some interaction with        ation invocation and benediction of-       sions," preparedby theNationalCon-
thepublicschoolsand theirstudents. But         fered by a clergyman selected by the       ference of Christians and Jews. The
these matters, often questions of accom-       school compelled students to partici-      pamphlet suggested that prayers at
modafion of religion, are not before us.       pate in a forbidden "state-sanctioned      nonsectarian civic ceremonies be com-
The sole question presented is whether a       religious exercise." But four justices     posed with "inclusiveness and sensi-
[nonsectarian prayer] may be conducted         filed a vigorous dissent arguing that      tivity."
at a graduation ceremony in circum-            such "nonsectarian" prayers are "an             Notwithstanding the Weismans'
stances where, as we have found, young         accepted part of our political and cul-    objection, a certain Rabbi Gutterman
graduates who object  are induced to con-      tural heritage" which involves no          was invited and offered the following
form. No . . . school can persuade or          coercion or compulsion of students         invocation at her graduation:
compel a student to participafe  in a reli-    who are present but choose not to join
gious exercise. That is being done here,       in the prayer.                                         I N V O C A T I O N
and  it is forbidden by the Establishment                                                      God of the Free, Hope of  the
Clause of the Firs~Amendme?k                   Civic Prayers                                Brave:
                    Lee v. Weisman, 1992.           The suit was brought by a Provi-           For the legacy of America where
                       (majority opinion)      dence, Rhode Island, public school           diversity is celebrated and the rights
                                               student and her father four days be-        ,of minorities are protected, we thank
      In a landmark decision early this        fore her middle. school graduation.        you. May these, young men and
                                               Deborah and Daniel Weisman ob-               women grow up to enrich it.
                                                                                               For the liberty of America, tie
                                               jected to the school district's custom       thank you. May these new gradu-
                                               of~ermittingprincipalstoinvitemem-          .ates grow up'to guard it.
Mr. Lanting, a member of South Holland         bers of local clergy to give invoca-            For the political process of
Protestant Reformed Church, is a prac-         tions and benedictions at middle and         America in which all citizens may
                                                                                            participate,foritscourtsystemwhere
ticing attorney.                               high school graduations.

                                                                                           December 1541992 / Standard Bearer / 131


  all may seek justice .we thank you.       ian'! references to Jesus Christ, for      cans religion is not to be practiced in
  May those we honor this- morning          example, are perhaps understandable        .secret.  Many  .people, he declared,
  always turn to it in trust.               but nonetheless misguided effortto         findit necessary to "acknowledge and
     For the .destiny of America we         construct a "civicreligion." The Court     beseech the blessing of God" in public
  thank you. May the graduates of
  NathanBishopMiddleSchoolsolive            ruled: "The suggestion that govern:        worship also.  Such.a  long-standing
 ,that they might help to share it.         ment may establish an official or civic    American tradition is, he concluded,
     Mayouraspirationsforourcoun-           religion as a means of avoiding the        merely an acceptable accommodation
  try and for these young people, who       establishment of a religion with more      of religion by the government.
  are our hope for the future, be richly    specific creeds strikes us as a contra-
  fulfilled. Amen.                          diction that cannot be accepted."          Ceremonial Deism
                                                 Secondly, the Court held that              It is difficult for the Reformed
     The Weismans later amended             even- nonsectarian prayers at such         Christian not to have mixed feelings
their suit to ask the courts also to bar    civic ceremonies constitute forbidden      regarding the outcome of the
such prayers at her future high school      "establishment" of religion because        Weisman case. On the other hand,
graduation. The lower courts ruled          the student present may have "a rea-       the majority's finding that some high
in favor of the Weismans and the            sonable perception that she is being       school students unwillingly partici-
school district then appealed to the        forcedby the state to pray in a manner     pate in these graduation prayers only
U.S. Supreme Court.                         her consciencewillnot allow." Citing       because of psychological coercion is
                                            references to adolescent psychology,       farfetched.
Establishment Clause                        the Court opined that students are              Moreover, the Weisman deci-
     The majority of the Supreme            often susceptible to peer pressure to-     sion gives additional concern to those
Court held that such graduation             wards conformity. Accordingly, since       who fear the Supreme Court is veer-
prayers violate the Establishment           such prayers at graduation ceremo-         ingfrom a healthy accommodation of
Clause of the First Amendment. The          nies constitute religious exercises in     religion to a latent hostility towardall
Establishment Clause prohibits gov-         which students are "coerced" by peer       religions. As Richard John Neuhaus
ernmental activity "respecting an es-       pressure to participate, such prayer       has argued recently, our courts are
tablishment of religion."                   `activityisthekindof "establishment"       wrongly insisting upon a "public
     But in what sense was the local        forbidden by the First Amendment.          square naked of religious symbol and
clergyman's prayer "governmental7                                                      substance."
activity? The  Weisman Court  held          Dissent                                         On the other hand, one wonders
that the rabbi's prayers were "state-        .' Justice Scalia, joined by Chief        what state government is doing issu-
sponsored religious activity" because       Justice Rehnquist, Justice White, and      ing guidelines for so-called
of the school district's direct involve-    Justice Thomas filed a. scathing dis-      nonsectarian prayers at its school
ment in the ceremony and its content.       sent, complaining that the majority        graduation ceremonies. Such generic
In fact, the Court found that because       opinion "lays waste" the "long-stand-      and meaningless (blasphemous?)
of the published prayer guidelines          ing American tradition, of                 prayers do conjure up the notion of a
given the clergyman, "the principal         nonsectarian prayer to God at public       sanitized civic religion, a ceremonial
directed and controlled the content of      celebrations generally." Scalia argued     deism that should be repugnant to all
the prayer." Quoting an earlier deci-       that the "history and tradition of our     evangelical Christians.
sion, the majority held that "it is no      Nation are replete with public cer-             But perhaps the fundamental
part of the business of government to       emonies featuring prayers of thanks-       problem here is not that prayers at
composeofficialprayers foranygroup          giving and petition."                      graduation ceremonies are inappro-
of Americans to recite as part of a              The dissent also ridiculed the        priate. The problem is that state gov-
religious program carried on by the         majority's no,tion that high school        ernment should not be conducting
government...."                             graduates are somehow psychologi-          graduations. The Court held that "it
                                            cally coerced into participating in        is not part of the business of govem-
A Civic Religion                            these prayers merely because they          ment to compose official prayers."
     But how does a nonsectarian            mayberequiredtostandinrespectful           True enough: But it is equally true
prayer at a graduation ceremony "es-        silence while the prayer is being of-      that it is not part of the business of
tablish" religion? The Court held it        fered. Rejectingthemajority's"psyco-       government to (educate and) gradu-
does so for two reasons. First, the         journey" into an analysis of adoles-       ate children: If the state would prop-
Court refused to recognize the exist-       cent peer .pressure, the dissent in-       erly relinquish this enterprise to par-
ence of so-called "nonsectarian             sisted that coercion has always meant      ents and teachers exclusively, the
prayers within the embrace of what is       "acts backed by threat of penalty,"        practice of offering appropriate and
known as the Judeo-Christian tradi-         not mere peer pressure.                    specific prayers at such significant
tion." The Court argued that such                Scalia concluded his dissent by       events         would    then    remain
prayers, purposely devoid of "sectar-       stating that for the majority of Ameri-    unchallenged. Cl

132  /Standard Bearer /December 15,1992


      It is absolutely essential to your    prove ourselves more than II theologi-       regions of thought through the church
spiritual and emotional health that         cal airheads," accepting things as truth     , of our day, and has wrought a major
-you have a properview of self. But,        just because some so-called expert           change. Ithasbroughtaboutachange
`more specifically, that view of self       has blown some hot air into our ears.        in belief and in approach to preach-
must be in harmony with God's view               For no other reason than a.lack         ing, to education, to the rearing of
of you. What good will it do me, if         of biblical sensitivity, Robert Schuller     children, to pastoral counseling, and
every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and all         has been somewhat effective in ac-           to the whole concept of Christian dis-
the Dr: Feel-goods are telling me that      complishing his desire for a reforma-        cipline. But has it brought a proper
I am good and ought to feel good            tion in the thinking ofthe church. In        change? Is this wind of doctrine true
aboutmyself,iftheendofallmygood             hisbookaptly titled&If-Esteem:  The          or false? It must be one or the other.
feelings is everlasting banishment          New Reformation,  Schuller asserts
from the fellowship of God?! For that       that there is a basic flaw in modem          The Origin of the
veryreason,myyouthfulbrotherand             Christianity. He finds that flawin the       Modeti Self-Esteem Movement
sister, you must not be gullible in         church's presentation of the gospel             ,Robert Schuller speaks of  self-
accepting the prevalent teachings           "inawaythatassaultsaperson'sself-            esteem as the New Reformation doc-
about self-esteem.                          esteem." He blows the trumpet blast trine. If Rev. Hoeksema could preach
                                            calling for a new reformation. Unlike        on "Proper Christian Self-Esteem"
The Self-Esteem of the                      the Reformation of the 16th century,         `back in the 193Os, what is this new
Dr. Feel-goods                              when the focus was on Scripture as           doctrine? Where did this "New Ref-
     The modern notions of self-es-         the only infallible rule for faith and       ormation" doctrine originate? Has it
teem promoted throughout the mod-           practice, Schuller calls for the focus of    come from the Bible? Is it a develop-
em church by such men as Robert             the new reformation to be on "the            ment of biblical truth? For us who
Schuller and James Dobson stand in          sacred right of every-person to self-        hold the Bible as the inspired and
stark contrast to those of the church in    esteem.". Moreover, he blames all            authoritative Word of God, that is an
the past. Far from being biblical, the      bad behavior on the church's 2,000-          important question.
teachings of these men and others           year stand- actuallyitismuchlonger                It soon becomes evident that the
concerning self-esteem  are. entirely       than that - calling God's people to          wholemodemconceptof self-esteem,
man-centered andcontrary to sound           repentance and emphasizinghow sin-           even in our own thinking, has been
biblical theology. Yet, by means of         ful they are. Such calls for confession      influenced; not by the Bible, but by
their television and radio broadcasts       of sin and repentance have destroyed         modem thought. And there is a clear
and hence large listening audiences,        emotional health- and self-esteem,           distinction between the two.
they carry away large numbers of            causing people to ,behave in a way                Robert Schuller unashamedly
church people with their thinking.          unacceptable by society. So says             confirms such to be the case. He takes
     It often strikes me that there are     Schuller. And this idea that people          the biblical concept of sin and com-
more people who accept as true what         will.behavebetterandperformbetter            pletely redefines it. Although salva-
is said by men of prominence, than          if only they have a high self-esteem is      tion from sin is necessary, he defines
who receive God's Word as truth. By         an idea that has permeated  a large          sin as "any act or thought that robs
all means let us prove ourselves dif-       segment of society, including the            myself or another human being of his
ferent.. Let us turn to Scripture and       realms of education, medicine, psy-          or herself-esteem." Hellis  simply the
                                            chology, child-rearing, -and the             -loss  .of pride. Schuller writes, "A
                                            church. No doubt you have heard it           .person  is in hell when he has lost his
                                            yourselves.                                  self-esteem." And that no one misun-
                                                 So there is a wind .of doctrine         derstand what he means`by self-es-
Rev. Key is pastor of the Protestant Re-    that has blown from Schuller's Crys-         teem, Schuller defines it as "the hu-
formed Church of Randolph, Wisconsin.       tal Cathedral, as well as from other         man hunger for the divine dignity

                                                                                          December 15,1992 I Standard Bearer I133


that God intended to be our emo-           is decidedly unbiblical. The philoso-         It is widely acknowledged that in
tional birthright as children created      phy of Schuller and his colleagues is a       many churches today sinis not ad-
inHis image . . . . Self-esteem then,      stark contrast to the gospel of salva-        dressed in the preaching. Preachers
or `pride in being a human being,' is      tion presented in the Bible.                  do not want their hearers to feel un-
the single greatest need facing the              I call your attention to this be-       comfortable, desiringinstead that they
human race today."                         causeIwouldnothaveyouledastray.               "feel good about themselves." Those
     Now, no matter whether a per-         I want you to understand clearly what         sitting in the pews have their pride
son believes the biblical teachingcon-     Scripture has to say about proper Chris-      stroked, at times are made to feel
cerning sin and hell, there is no deny-    tian self-esteem. But this modem              better than. those sitting- in other
ing that Schuller's definitions are not    unbiblical theory of self-esteem has          churches; but are not brought to their
the same as the Bible's. In fact, there    permeated the church to levels which          knees before the holy God and are not
is no` comparison between them.            are frightening. Even songs sung in           led to the cross either. And as a
Schuller - very dishonestly, in my         many churches and schools carry the           consequence something less than the
opinion-takes terms that have been         baggage of this man-made philoso-             full orbed gospel is preached, and
defined a certain way for thousands        phy. There is a popular contempo-             those who hear are deprived of a real
of years, and completely redefines         rary religious song written to nice           saving gospel  which glorified God
them.                                      -music and entitled, "They'll Know            and brings about proper Christian
                                           We Are Christians," whichcarries the          s e l f - e s t e e m .
The Influence of an                        line,  N. . . and we'll guard each                  You must recognize in your
Unbiblical Idea                            man's dignity and save each man's             youth the importance of having our
     Now, I have called your atten-        pride." Youprobablyknowthatsong               sins exposed to our own consciences.
tion to the self-esteem movement as        and others that express the same type.        There is a need for sharp preaching,
promoted by Robert Schuller. I have        of thinking if you only examine the           preaching that doesnot pander to our
done so because he has been the most       lyrics.                                       pride. Only such preaching will lead
prominent figure in this movement                But such thinking has also had          us to a proper Christian self-esteem.
within the church world. His influ-        devastating effects upon preaching.                                                 0
ence hasbeen great. But his approach




            A Comforting Shadow
                                  of God's.%race

     For the well-being of his life,       (Gen. 25:26). Our God had through             until I have done that which I have
Jacob needed to leave the land of          Isaac pronounced the covenantprom-            spoken to thee of" (G&:28:15).  When
Canaan and flee to the land from           ise upon Jacob. And, as God's coun-           we turn to Genesis 29 wefind our God
whichhis grandfather Abraham came.         sel was being fulfilled, that which           giving Jacob a God-fearingwife. Esau,
This flight was not because of the         Isaac promised Jacob caused.Esau  to          his brother, had taken two Hittite
unbelieving Gentiles, who considered       sayin his heart, "The days of mourn-          women to be,his wives. In Genesis
the land of Canaan to be their prop-       ing for my father are at hand; then wilI      26:35  we read that this was "a grief of
erty. He had to flee from his own twin     I slay my brother Jacob" (Gen. 27~41).        mind unto Isaac and Rebekah." These
brother, Esau, on whose heel he,Jacob,          In His grace and mercy our God           two children of God were greatly
had at birth been clinging physically      caused Jacob in a dream to know that          saddened to learn that their son Esau
                                           all is well. In that dream He declared        hadmarriedunbelievingwomen. But
                                           to Jacob; "Behold I am with thee, and         our covenantGod keepsHis+omise.
                                           will keep thee in all the places whither      Having assured. Abraham that He
Rev. Heys is a minister emeritus in the    thou goest, and will bring thee again         would. establish His covenant with
Protestant Reformed Churches.              into this land; for I will not leave thee,    him and his seed, He in His counsel

134 /Standard Bearer I December 15,1992


designed all the things that caused           the'truth, which we today find in            one sin, and that moment they died
Jacob to go -where. his grandfather           God's Word, the Holy Scriptures.             spiritually. Every sin, no matter in
Abraham had'been born; and He ar-                  Jacobwas a believer, who would          what form it comes, is an act of hatred
ranged all.things  for Jacob to receive       instruct his childrenin the truth which      against God. Every sin reveals that
abelievingwifefromLaban,whowas                we findin Scripture. And we have no          we do not want what God wants.
a brother of Rebekah, Jacob's mother.
 1,                                           evidence that .Rachel opposed his            Sinning against the one true God calls
       1. Another amaiingiy striking          teaching to his children. His twelve         for His holy wrath and everlasting
thingis  that which reveals Gods grace        sons were believers. Ten of them             punishment. As God said to Adam,
as well as His providence.,. The very         were sons of Leah, her maid, and             "The day thou eatest thereof thou
first `woman that Jacob met-in that           Rachel's'maid.  Joseph, of whom we           shalt surely die."
"land of the peo$e of the east" was           read very much in Genesis 39-50, was              Jacob did find fault with Laban
one -whom our ,God used to bring              ason of Rachel. So was B,enjamin  her        for his deceitful act. But Jacob did not
believing seed untoJacob. Three men           son,' given her the day that she-died.       say to Laban: "This I deserve, for I
were waiting at a well, because in that       (Gen. 35:16-19).  She-called himSon of       deceived my blind father into think-
day the custom wasto wait until all           &!ly Sorrow, in the Hebrew name              ing that I was Esau, in order to get the
the shepherds had come with their             Benoni. But Jacob' called him Ben-           inheritance he intended to give to my
flock, with a"iriew'.to  giving them          jamin, which means Son of the                brother Esau." How often is it not
water. These men told Jacob that the          R i g h t h a n d .                          true that we can see and hate the
woman;whowasnqwcomingwitha                         The comforting truth here inthis        deceitfulness of others, but consider
herd of' sheep,- was Rachel, Jacob's          section of the day of.shadows  is the        to be good a sinful work which we
cousin and the daughter of Laban, his         sovereign grace of our God, and of           have performed? Jacob sees Laban's
u n c l e .                                   His tender mercy. For Jacob must flee        deceitfulness, but not his own.
        r\jow;whether  or not we take the     from the land of Canaan, which was                AndhowcanwedenythatJacob,
position, which some do, that'Rache1          promised Abraham and his seed. He            by his lie, had no tight to that cov-
was not a' believing child. of God,           had to flee because of his sin of lying      enant promise and its blessedness?
Jacob was deceived and caused to              to his father, claiming to be Esau, and      How can we deny that Laban was
marry Leah, Rachel's older sister.            seeking that which his father revealed       deceitful? He promised Jacob this
Laban,the father of these two daugh-'         he would give to Esau, the firstborn of      wife after seven years of work- and
tens, .deceived Jacob;- and had `him          the twins. E.sau.claimed  in his soul his    noton  condition that Leah.would by
marryLeahratherthanRachel,whom                right to that which Isaac- agreed to..       that timebe takenb.y some otherman.
he  loved; and' for whom he had               present;" And Jacob did commit a sin'. ,BecauseLeahwas"tendereyed,"and
worked for seven years. Even if Rachel        by putting on somaof Esau's raiment,         Rachel was "beautiful and well
was not a believer in the one and only        and skins of the,kidsof  the goats upon      favoured,;' Laban may very well have
God, the fact is that our God didby           his hands, and liponthe  smooth part.        had fear. of never getting Leah mar-
His grace bring forth from her a be-          of his neck: `Allthis was a sinful act of    ried to bring forth grandsons to him.
lieving child. It does please our God.        Jacob, as well as @his mother, who.          (We lie when we speak an untruth as
to gather at times His elect out: of          .ordered `him to-do this. Because of' being the truth. But we can also
familieswherebothfatherandrnother             that lie and deceit he.did notdeserve        commit the sin of lying, by not saying
are unbelievers. We are children of           to have the covenant blessing. He            the truth which is necessary for one's
God, not by what our parents gave us,         behaved as an unbeliever, revealing          well-being. In Genesis 29:27  we find
but by:His Spirit `and in His'grace.          himself by nature: to be no different        what was in Laban's  heart. He said to
Our God usually does gather His elect         from Esau, the unbeliever.                   Jacob, "Fulfill her week, and we will
out of believing parents; who can                  Still more, Lab& Jacobs uncle;          give thee this also for the service which
teach their children the truth; but the       caused Jacob to takeleah  as his wife,       thou shalt serve with me yet seven
Spirit is sent with a spiritual life which    thinking that she wasRachel.  Isaac          other years." He wanted more work
Heimplantsin those eternally chosen           blessed Jacob thinking that he was           from Jacob. He could stress the need
in Christ: And here we have Jacob -           Esau-  Jacob takes-Leah  as his wife,        of Jacob doingwhat was right, namely,
who was ,a reborn, believing child of         thinking that she is Rachel. Jacob           marry his firstborn daughter; but he
God, and through whomour God did              sinned before his. father; and Laban         wasnotlookingforthatwhichisright
bring forth the twelve men who be-            sinned giving JacobLeah,  making him         in God's eyes. He was looking at
came the heads of the twelve tribes of        believe that she was.Rachel.  Sin, sin,      benefit for his own flesh, namely, get
Israel. It is necessary for the elect         and more sin was beingperformed in'          Jacob to work for him another seven
child tobe brought where he is taught         the church of thatday!  And we should        years. And, if that actually was the
the, truth about his]sins and of his          bear in mind, and tightly hold'on to         law in the land that Leah must first be
salvtition by God',s  grace. And every        the truth, that one sin is enough for us     married, he should have told Jacob
elect child of God will be' brought           to be sent to everlasting punishment         that he could notworkfor Rachel, but
where he does come in contact with            in hell! Adam and Eve committed              must do so to obtain Leah as his wife.

                                                                                            Decembe;  15,1992 1 Standard Bearer I135


      Go back to verse 19 of this chap-        thenitisnotofhim  thatwilleth,norof              Never claim to have salvation
ter. Seven years before this marriage          him that runneth, but of God that           because of what you did. Never think
to Leah, Laban  said to Jacob, "It is          sheweth mercy." And here in Gen-            for a moment that you deserve salva-
better that I give her to thee, than that      esis 29 we read of God fulfilling His       tion because you did what the world
I should give her to another man:              promise to Abraham, as is presented         does not and cannot do. Instead, sing
abide with me." Jacob had promised             in Genesis 15:5. There we read the          the truth of Psalm 139:14, which is
to work for seven years in order to get        awesome and comforting truth:               presentedinourPsalternumber383:1,
Rachel as his wife. That was Jacob's           "Look now toward heaven, and tell           namely, "All that I am I owe to Thee,
revelation of how strongly he wanted           the stars, if thou be able to number        Thy wisdom, Lord, hath fashioned
Rachel, and his willingness to work            them . . . . So shall thy seed be."         me; I give my Maker thankful praise,
for seven years to get her as his wife.        And here in this incident presented in      Whose wondrous works my soul
But  Laban undoubtedly has before              Genesis 29, using Jacob, Leah, and          amaze."
him the desire to have Leah married            Rachel, and their servants, our God              Things may hurt our flesh; and
to Jacob, and was not concerned with           brought forth sons for Jacob, who           we may lose our earthly goods and
the "law" that he might not let some-          became the heads of the twelve tribes       life, because Satan is using the world
one marry Rachel before Leah was               of Israel.                                  against us. But salvation is by God's
married.                                            In His mercy, and by His grace,        grace. And God's grace deals with us
      But what we should see, and              our God gave Jacob believing sons.          in love and mercy, not to any degree
what is presented here in Holy Writ,           And here, indeed, we have a beautiful       in His hatred.
is the grace and mercy of our God.             shadow of what He is doing today,                Let this truth be presented, but
Were it not for what He realized by            and is in the New Testament dispen-         also maintained:
His Son in our flesh, and what we              sation presented by Paulin Ephesians          By God's grace all is well;
receive in His mercy and grace, be-            2:8,9, where we read that comforting          Not one elect will go to hell.
cause of what His Son did for us, we           truth: "By grace are ye saved through         In His grace God gave what we can:
would not and could not be Christ's            faith: and that not of yourselves: it is          not  earn;
bride. In Romans 9:16 we read, "So             the gift of God."                             And causes us for such salvation to
                                                                                                 yearn.                                0




                          "The Declaration of
                Principles" and Its Work

      But that which ye have . . . holdfast                  friends and I, having wit-         1. The first was church political.
till I come.                                   nessed the vote of Synod, spent sev-         It claimed that the request for this
                         Revelation  2:25      eral weeks traveling from Hull to the         form or declaration had not been
                                               West coast. On the way we reflected           legal inasmuch as it had not come by
      The "Declaration of Principles"          often on what had happened; and we           way of consistory and classis,  as Ar-
was adopted by the Synod of 1950               saw little reason why this declaration        ticle 30 of the Church Order requires.
                                                                                            It had originated with synod itself,
with what appeared to be a unani-              should cause any great degree of prob-        which was wrong.
mous vote (later one person claimed            lem. After all, it contained nothing             2. The second had to do with its
to have dissented). This adoption              other than what had been taught in            status, claiming that this declaration
was not final. First it was sent for           our churches all along. But once we          constituted in effect a fourthform, or
evaluation to the churches; but its            arrivedin California at Bellflower and       a uniquely Protestant Reformed
reception there was hardly the same.           Redlands, it became evident how              creed. This could only serve to sepa-
                                               wrong we had been. We met a whirl-           rate us from a true Reformed heri-
                                               wind of objections; and the same was          tage, and particularly from the Lib-
Rev. Woudenberg  is pastor of the Protes-      soon true throughout our churches.            eratedchurcheswithwhomwewere
                                                                                            working, and whose immigrants
tant Reformed Church  of  Kalamazoo,                The objections fell basically along     were being organized into Protes-
Michigan.                                      three lines:                                  tant Reformed churches in Canada.
136 /Standard Bearer I December 15,1992


     3. And finally, the third objection     shall be dealt with as could not be          application of the Three Forms of
 had to do with its doctrinal content.       finishedinminor assemblies, or such          Unity to a particular problem which
 Few thought to criticize its doctrines      as pertain to the churches of the ma-        had arisen concerning the churches in
 generally, for our churches had been        jor assembly in common." Besides             common. There was a real need for
 built on them; but there was a grow-        perhaps Article 51 of the Church
 ing sympathy for the ideas of condi-                                                     clarification as to what constituted
                                             Order pertains to the same matter:
 tions in theology, which the declara-       "The missionary work of the church           our distinction as a unique denomi-
 tion so emphatically condemned.             is regulated by the general assembly         nationin America,and  what we taught
                                             in a mission order." The Mission             concerning certain crucial points of
The result was a furor of writing that        Committee, therefore, certainly had         doctrine. It was, after all, a simple
filled most of the following year.            the perfect right to appeal to synod        matter of honesty for the sake of those
         ****+**                              for a form that may serve as a basis        with whom we were working to in-
     It was in the July 1,195O  issue of      for the organization of Churches.           form them what they could expect
                                              And the synod did nothing that was
the Standard&aver  that "The Decla-                                                       within one of our churches. Upon
                                              church politically out of order, when
ration of Principles" first appeared;                                                     final adoption, of course, this docu-
                                              it drew up a declaration of prin-
andbymidSeptember the objections              ciples.                                     ment wouldbecome binding in those
began to come in. They first were                Let me, however, explain this            situations to which the synod applied
found in a letter-to-the-editor which         matter a little more in detail, espe-       it; but that is true of every decision of
led into one of the more balanced of          cially to show what motivated the           synod by reason of Article 31.
all the exchanges that were to come. It       Mission Committee to come with                    The furor, however, was not to
consisted of a series of questions sub-       such a request to synod.                    be silenced; and the same objections
mitted by the Rev. J. Blankespoor.               The Mission Committee is a syn-          continued to come over and over
His first question read as follows:           odical committee that serves synod          again. In fact, this declaration did
                                              and all our churches in the interest of     little to change our relationship to the
                                              our mission work. Its purpose is
  1. I am informed that the Mission           through our missionaries and in co-         Liberated churches; for, concerning
  Committee requested Synod to draw           operation with the calling church to        that, the die was already cast. What it
  up a form regarding our principles          propagate and disseminate the pure          did serve was to bring to the surface
  for those (especially in Canada) who        Reformed truth (which to us is the          the underlying division that hadbeen
  request organization. On the basis of       same as Protestant Reformed truth)          smoldering for some time in our own
  this Synod drew up this declaration.        outside of the pale of our churches         midst. And, in turn, for the first time
  Now my question is this: Is it church       and to bring to manifestation the
  politically correct to make such a                                                      there began to emerge suggestions of
                                              purest manifestation of the body of
  declaration on the basis of a request                                                   a split.
                                              Christ in the world (which to us is the                 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
  of a committee? Doesn't this violate        Protestant Reformed Church). They
  the rule of Reformed Church Polity          have not the calling, therefore, to               Within the first two decades of
  that matters must come to Synod via         organize any group of people, re-           our denominational existence there
  Consistory, Classis,  etc?                  gardless of their doctrinal convic-         had been a distinct development of
                                              tions, but only such as are sufficiently    doctrine and ecclesiastical identity
To this in the next issue, October 1,         acquainted with our Protestant Re-          which took place. Our growth in
Rev. Hoeksema gave an answer which            formed truth and are willing to sub-        numbers was hardly dramatic or
perhaps presents most succinctly the          scribe to its main tenets.                  rapid, not nearly what somemay  have
original design and purpose of the                                                        expected; but there was development.
Declaration. It read as follows:                  Rev. Hoeksema's point was well          We did not remain in a mere negative
                                            taken. The origin of this declaration         stance of rejecting Common Grace,
  Synod, in my opinion, did not vio-        was not irregular. The fact was that          for which we had been cast out of the
  late any rule of Reformed church          the Mission Committee had run into            ChristianReformed  Church. Extraor-
  polity by acceding to the request of      a very real problem in its work; and it       dinary theologian that he was, Rev.
  the Mission Committee for a form or       had every right to appeal to Synod for
  declaration which might be used in                                                      Hoeksema had gone on to develop
                                            assistance. And this synod had moved
  the organization of churches. It is                                                     our focus on particular grace into a
  not true that it is a rule of Reformed    to provide. Moreover, recognizing             complete and unified theological ap-
  church polity that all matters must       the importance of what it was doing,          proach, carefully steering clear of
  come to synod via consistory  and         it was careful to send its proposal for       some of the pitfalls of the past, and
  classis.  The article of the Church       evaluation to the churches at large           with distinct applications to the rela-
  Order that pertains to this matter is     prior to its final adoption and imple-        tions of life which had never been so
  Article 30, which reads as follows:       mentation, observing thereby both             clearly distinguished to that time.
  "In these assemblies ecclesiastical       the letter and the spirit of Article 30.      Moreover, on a practical level, he had
  matters only shall be transacted and            In turn, this declaration hardly
  that in an ecclesiastical manner. In                                                    taken a sizable group of young men,
                                            constituted a fourth form. Rather it
  major assemblies only such matters                                                      most with little academic training,
                                            was in fact a derivation from and an          and molded them into preachers who,

                                                                                            December 15,1992 I Standard Bearer / 137


for the most part, had gained a high        turn, to us it was perfectly evident         ficed for the sake of working with the
degree of proficiency in their pastoral     that the Liberated, while claiming to        Dutch,andtheinfluxintoourchurches
work as well as in their preaching.         deny Common Grace, were insistent            that might result?
The sermons they produced consti-           on a view of the covenant which pro-              It was the answer to this ques-
tuted exegetical, doctrinal discourses      posed a grace common to every bap-           tion which, according to the provi-
based on sound Reformed principles,         tized child, elect and reprobate alike.      dence of God, the Declaration of Prin-
and with apt applications to life. This     And, finally, there was one over-            ciples was to serve to bring about. 0
work again was not spectacular. It          whelming disappointment, one which
avoided that. And it accordingly did        may have been for Rev. Hoeksema
not draw large crowds. But it served        greatest of alk in spite of the prom-
well in feeding the people of God.          ises, the Liberated theologians in The
And, meanwhile, we had succeeded            Netherlands evidenced no real inter-
in building an ecclesiasticalorganiza-      est in the doctrinal teachings which
tion, with assemblies that functioned       we had worked to develop, and to
well. We had developed our own              which Rev. Hoeksema had given his
distinctives, which we fondly referred      life. Although Dr. Schilder had as-
to as "Protestant Reformed truth."          sured us such interest was there, no
     But this did not mean that all         meaningful discussion of our teach-                 Because He Loved Me
was well. With some, as might be            ings was ever found in The Reforma-
expected, disillusionment had set in.       tion, their church paper. In fact it         Jesus in a lowly manger
There were those who had engaged            appeared that, without study or con-             On a night so long ago
themselves in ecclesiastical skir-          sideration, andin spite of Hoeksema's        Took on Him my human nature
mishes, and lost, leaving hurt feelings     careful distinctions, the Liberated              Just because He loved me so!
that did not go away. Others began to       were quite ready to dismiss our work
see themselves as theologians in their      as nothing more than reworked                In a world of sin and sorrow,
own right, but with little room for         Kuyperianism, when this was exactly              In a vale of tears below,
recognition in so small a group as          what Rev. Hoeksema had worked so             He, the sinless, willed to suffer
ours. And there was always the dis-         carefully to avoid.                              Just because He loved me so!
appointment that our churches did                Thus, while their synod in 1948
not grow and prosper as had been            made a decision to seek correspon-           On the cross, despised, rejected,
thought. Under the hardships of the         dence with us, their committee made              All those pains we cannot know!
Great Depression, and through the           no effort to contact us until, over a        There He bore God's great displea-
restrictions of the war years, these        year later, they met with two of our               sure
things had tobe endured; but with the       ministers who happened to be visit-              Just because He loved me so!
flush of post-war victory new and           ing their land, and elicited from them
optimistic plans and anticipations          some kind of an assurance that the           From the grave He rose triumphant
began to emerge.                            doctrinal teachings of Rev.Hoeksema              Over death, a mighty foe,
     It was into this that the pros-        were not those of our churches at            My arisen Lord and Master -
pects of a coalition with the Liberated     large, and that at least some of our             Just because He loved me so!
churches in The Netherlands had             ministers were quite ready to leave
brought great hope. Here was the            them behind. The result was the              Now to heaven He has ascended
possibility at last not only of recogni-    disastrous letter of Prof. Holwerda in           To prepare for me a home,
tion within the theological circles of      which he advised the immigrants with         Sent the Spirit for my comfort
Europe, but also of growth into a           whom we were working to join our                 Just because He loved me so!
sizable denomination through the in-        churches, but in doing so, to reject the
flux of immigrants which had already        teachings of Rev. Hoeksema, and              Now in gratitude I'll serve Him
begun.                                      bring their Liberated theology into              And His love to others show,
     The problem was, however, that,        our midst. Clearly, it seemed, al-           Pray all nations soon may know Him
although we had much in common              though these Dutch theologians may               Just because He loved me so!
with the Liberated people because of        have desired an American connec-
the similar way in which we had all         tion, they had no real interest in the       Then, when every eye shall see Him,
been evicted from our mother                distinctives to which we had come.               And I hear His trumpet blow,
churches, the doctrinal stances we               And this left us with a crucial         Up above I'll praise Him ever
held were quite different. The Liber-       question: how important were these               Just because He loved me so!
ated theologians saw our theology as        historic, doctrinal positions to us?
little different from that of the           Weretheysomethingtobemaintained                                    StandardBearer
Synodicals who had cast them out. In        at all cost, or could they wellbe  sacri-                      December 15,1932

138 /Standard Bearer / December 15,1992


                                            News From
               The Contact Committee
     The Contact Committee hasbeen                Because Rev. Korteringis aware        rian Church of America. There are
busy with some matters of impor-            of the fact that much of his work will      seventeen denominations which are
tance to our churches since the last        involve mission labors, he has taken        invited observers.
Synod met in June of this year.             every opportunity to acquaint him-               This visit by an observer from
      Of most importance and of most        self with this kind of work. He at-         our churches was authorized by our
interest to our people is the work of       tended a meeting of the Overseas            Synod in June.
Rev.  & Mrs. Kortering in Singapore.        Missionary Fellowship and met mis-               Prof. Decker had the opportu-
While Rev. Kortering has made a val-        sionary families from many parts of         nity to observe the meeting of the
iant effort to keep our people informed     t h e   O r i e n t .                       Interim Committee which prepares
ofhisactivitiesvianewsletterswhich                The main responsibility of the        resolutions for the Council, and the
havebeendistributed throughout the          Korterings is the work in Covenant.         meeting of the Plenary body wmch
denomination, we will try to add a          Rev. Kortering is, in effect, their pas-    makes decisions.
few things in this article.                 tor, although his labors are by no               Perhaps the most important de-
     When the Korterings arrived in         means limited to that congregation.         cision that was made was concerning
Singapore after a brief stopover in               One of the highlights of his la-      the decisions of the Christian Re-
Hawaii, they were received by a large       bors so far has been a trip to India        formed Church on women in ecclesi-
group of saints from both Covenant          UndertakenwithPastorMahtani.  The           astical office. The Council had pro-
and First Evangelical Reformed              trip was planned in the light of an         tested to the CRC the decisions of
Churches, even though the time was          invitation from a group of Sindhi           1990; but in this year's meetings, it
past midnight. The saintsinSingapore        Christians in the northern part of In-      expressed satisfaction with the deci-
usually meet visitors from the States       dia asking Pastor Mahtani to speak          sions which the Synod of the CRC
in this way. They themselves cannot         for them. The reports of Rev.               took last summer.
know how much this means to those           Kortering's  trip are only beginning to          The Council also received a re-
of us who have traveled there. To be        trickle in since they have only re-         quest from the Reformed Church in
met by the smiling and eager faces of       cently returned after being gone an         the United States (what some of our
fellow people of God when one ar-           entire month. You will be kept in-          readers know as the German Re-
rives in a strange airport, in a strange    formed through other articles and           formed Church) to become a mem-
land, among a strange people, is like       newsletters.                                ber. This request was postponed for
water to a thirsty soul.                          The Lord willing, a student from      a year.
     The Korterings have by this time       the ERCS will be coming to our coun-             One valuable benefit of attend-
found good lodging. The flat which          try to study in our, Seminary next          ing these meetings is the possibility of
has been rented for them was in need        school year.                                contact and conversation with other          '
of extensive cleaning and renovation;             We need to be reminded of how         conservative Presbyterian and Re-
but this has now been accomplished,         important it is that we bring the work      formed men.
and the Korterings are comfortably          of the ERCS and of Rev.  & Mrs.                  The week of November 16 Prof.
settled in their home away from home.       Kortering to the throne of grace.           Decker and Elder John Flikkema II
The renovation consisted of painting              To turn to a different subject:       will be attending the meeting of the
the entire apartment, finishing floors,     Prof. Decker has recently returned          Alliance of Reformed Churches which
sanding bedroom floors, installing          from a visit to  NAPARC (North              will be held in Lynwood, Illinois. An
kitchen cabinets, and cleaning tile.        American Presbyterian and Reformed          opportunity to tell our readers of this
                                            Council). The meeting was held at           meeting will come later.
                                            Bonclarken, North Carolina. To this              The Contact Committee received
                                            organization belong six denomina-           a letter from the Session of the Protes-
Prof. Hanko  is professor of Church His-    tions, among which are the Christian        tant Reformed Church of New
toy and New Testament in the Protes-        Reformed Church, the Orthodox Pres-         Zealand where Rev. Rodney Miersma
tant Reformed Semina y.                     byterian Church, and the Presbyte-          labors. A few excerpts from this letter

                                                                                         December 15,1992 I Standard Bearer / 139


will give you a bit of an idea concem-                   source material. . . . Our tape             Evangelical Presbyterian Church of
ing the work there.                                      libraryalsoenjoyscontinuedusewith           Australia. In addition to attending
                                                         hundreds of titles available.               themeetingsourpastorhad  theprivi-
      Our church is small and we live                       With respect to our membership           lege of preaching twice on the Lord's
  in a land which has apostatized to                     we have had our disappointments.            Day, which preaching was received
  the point when one wonders whether                     Two of our youth have left for for-         verywell. Asfruitof thatcontactand
  there is yet any faith . . . . Aware                   eign lands . . . . On the brighter          as indication of closer ties the Tasma-
  of [our] calling we have been active                   side we have had a gentleman wor-           nian Presbytery has asked us to send
  in trying to bring God's Word to all                   ship with us since February of              our pastor to Tasmania to preach for
  parts of New Zealand. In addition to                   1990 . . . and comes faithfully             the congregation in Bumie for two
  the preaching here in Wellington                       twice a Sunday . . . . Society life         months and for the congregation in
  twice each Sunday  dur pastor will                     continues from about mid-February           Launceston for one month. We have
  have lectured seven times in the                       to mid-December each year. Four             assented to their request and count it
  `months from March until Novem-                        families meet each week in the              a privilege to be able to help our
  ber . . . . Our pamphlets are ad-                      Wellington area, and the Bible study        fellow saints there in this most im-
  vertised regularly in a Christian pa-                  by the Inskeeps  further north is held      portant way. (The Miersmas will be
  per . . . , which has resulted in                      every two weeks with several visi-          in Tasmania, the Lord willing, from
  large numbers of these pamphlets                       tors attending regularly. A Bible           December 10 through the month of
  being mailed to literally all parts of                 History, Heidelberg Catechism, and          February. H.H.)
  the country. . . . In addition to                      Pre-Confession class are held each
  the seven families of our church there                 week for the catechumens.                      So that gives our readers some
  are thirteen others who are subscrib-                     Turning to contact with other          idea of the work in New Zealand.
  ers to  the Standard Bearer.  Our                      churches we can report significant             Webidyouallfarewellwhilewe
  Bookshop continues to sell books to                    activity. Earlier in June our pastor      seek your prayers upon our work
  m o r e   t h a n   t h e   c h u r c h   m e m -      and his wife traveled to  Rock-                                In Christ's service,
  bers . . . . Some`[ministers]  have                    hampton, Queensland, Australia                         The Contact Committee,
  preached through the entire Canons                     where our pastor attended as ob-
  using The Voice of Our Fathers as                      server the Presbytery meeting of the           Prof. Herman Hanko, Secretary



We and Our Children: The Reformed                      by the Christian Reformed Synod                  I include this history in my cri-
Doctrine  of  Infant Baptism  (Grand                   because of his rejection of common          tique because it enriches the biblical
Rapids, MI: Reformed Free Publish-                     grace.                                      meaning of the Covenant of Grace as
ing Association, 1981) by Herman                            Although Hoeksema highly  es-          set forth in the, book. We and Our
Hanko. 118 pp., $5.95 (paper). [Re-                    teemedAbrahamKuyper,herejected              Children, by Herman Hanko, who
viewed by Henry Pieter  Kik, Western                   hisviewpoint on God's covenant with         had Herman Hoeksema as his men-
Theological Seminary*.)                                Noah, which was not the covenant            tor. (Reverend Herman Hanko is
                                                       established with the church, but a          professor of church history and New
      My selection of thebook  Weand                   covenant of common grace established        TestamentintheProtestantReformed
Our Children, by Herman Hanko, was                     with every human being, with the            Theological Seminary.) In covenant
in no small part due to my interest in                 wicked world as such. It is at this         theology as revealed in Scripture and
the Protestant Reformed Churches                       juncture that the Christian Reformed        expounded by Calvin, the grace of
with their strong position on the bib-                 Synodformulatedthe'ThreePoints":            God is not inclusive but particular,
lical doctrine of "The Covenant of                          l.That the grace of God is not              The strength of this treatise is
Grace" and Herman Hoeksema's                           particular, not for the elect alone, but    found in the fact that it deals with
"battle" with Abraham Kuyper on                        sustains a certain covenant of friend-      those Baptists who claim they are
covenant theology. This eventually                     ship with natural man.                      truly Reformed  in their theology. In
(1924) led to Hoeksema's deposition                         2. That immediately after the fall     western Michigan we have "The Re-
                                                       in paradise a certain operation of          formedBaptist Churchof GrandRap-
                                                       grace,thoughnotregeneratingaman,            ids." In this context Professor Hanko
*This critique of Prof. Hanko's book was               prevents him from becoming as cor-          writes that this has forced "all de-
given recently by the Rev. Henry Kik,                  rupt as he would have become with-          fenders of Paedobaptism to take a
minister of Congregational Care Laketon                out this operation of grace.                second look at their position and
Bethel Reformed Church of Muskegon,                         3.That with this operation of
Michigan. Because of the nature of the                                                             examine it in the light of Scripture."
                                                       "common grace" in natural man he
critique and because of the importance of                                                          The author not only does this, but
                                                       can do very much that is good. He
the issue, we publish this critique for the
benefit of the readers of  the  Standard               leads a relatively good life in this        1 Therefore Have ISpoken,  Hoeksema,
Bearer.                                      - Ed.     earthly sphere and relationships.'          G., 1969.

140 /Standard Bearer I December 15,1992


does it well. He makes his conclu-                The Reformed Baptist, as repre-            Apostle Paul gives to the concept of
sions by evaluating the "Reformed            sented by Kingdon, certainly repudi-            "the seed of Abraham" establishes
Baptist" position as set forth in the        ates the dispensational position and            the principle that the ordinance of
book written by David Kingdon en-            rebukes his fellow Baptists for hold-           baptism should now be applied only
titled                                                                                       to those who show credible evidence
           Children of Abraham2              ing to it. Kingdon  does this in his          of  being in union. with  Christ, for
      This small book, Hanko claims,         effort to affirm the unity of the old           only those in union with him are
is  the most articulate and best rea-        and new dispensations for the pur-              Abraham's           seed (Galatians
soned of all defenses of the Reformed        pose of affirming the unity of the              3:29) . . . . The New Testament
Baptist position. Hanko holds that:          covenant. His view of circumcision is           leaves us in no doubt that such is
                                             that it is of national and spiritual            nothing other than a credible profes-
   . . . the defense of Paedobaptism         significance. He really departs from            sion of faith in Christ.
  is not always what it ought to be.         the Reformed position when he con-              Hanko: The serious mistake which
  Many who have written extensively          tends that the seed of Abraham be-              Kingdon makes is the error of mak-
  in this field have presented argu-         long only to those who are true be-             ing separation between the two  dis-
  ments which are less than convinc-                                                         pensationseventhoughhemaintains
  ing to a committed Baptist because         lievers. For this reason Reformed               that there is unity in some respects.
  they have failed to understand the         Baptists believe that repentance and            The whole Baptist position.hangs  on
  Scriptural idea of the covenant of         faith are necessary for one to belong           this point and any refutation of the
  grace . . . . Failing to see that the      to the covenant. Hanko rightly ob-              Baptist position must show that the
  covenant is always organic, they have      serves:                                         unity of the two dispensations is far
  left large loopholes in their argu-                                                        greater than Kingdon  will acknowl-
  ments and have givenBaptists  abun-          Kingdon fails to deal with this typi-         edge . . . . This . . . means that
  dant opportunity to criticize their          cal character of the old dispensation.        the covenant is one and the promises
  position on various counts.3                 He fails to see that the land of Canaan       of the covenant are one; but that they
                                               was but a type and picture of heaven.         are differently  administered . . . .
In his thesis Hanko makes the follow-          He fails to see that Israel itself was a      This is not difficult to prove. 6
ing statements:                                picture of the church of every
  1. A Reformed Baptist is really an           age . . . . Thus the essence of the         The Covenant with
  impossibility.                               covenant and of the promise of the          Believers and their Seed
  2. TheBaptist  who defends freewill,         covenant remained the  same.'                        One issue that seems to be con-
  man's initiative in the work of salva-                                                   stantly active is the issue of whether
  tion, resistible grace, the altar call,         On the basis of Scripture (Gal.          God saves His church in the line of
  the free and well-meaning offer of         3:23-29;  49-7)  Ha&o comes to amean-         continued generations.
  the gospel, is the Baptist who is wn-      ingful conclusion on this matter:
  sistent.                                     It is clear from the passage that Paul        Kingdon:  Since I maintain that chil-
  3. The Baptist, on the other hand,           compares the church of the old  dis-
  who maintains the doctrine of grace,                                                       dren as such no longer have  cov-
                                               pensationwith that of the new under
  and repudiates ciispensationalism  is                                                      enantal significance it follows . . . (say
                                               the figure of a  chiid who grows to           some), that I deny that God works
  iticonsistentinhistheology-hemay             manhood. The church of the old                along the lines of generations, and
  claim that he is a Calvinist . . . he        dispensation is like a small child who
  may repudiate dispensa-tionalism-                                                          that therefore I am guilty, in the end,
                                               needs instruction. He is indeed the
  but he is guilty of a happy inconsis-                                                      of maintaining a purely individual-
                                               heir of all the possessions of his fa-
  tency for all that.                                                                        istic doctrine of conversion . . . .
                                               ther. But he cannot have this inherit-        I fail to see that because I reject the
These keen observations by Rev.                ance yet for he is but a child and will       baptism of infants that I am obliged
Hanko are basic to a real understand-          not know what to do with it. And so           to deny that God works in families.
ing of the Scriptural doctrine of the          he is under a schoolmaster. . . .             Hanko: That God saves His people
covenant of grace which he sets forth          Throughout the whole old dispensa-            in the line of continued generations
with Scriptural conviction and as the          tion the church was under the in-             is clearly taught in Scripture. The
believers' response to the truth of the        struction of the schoolmaster of the          first line of proof lies in the fact that
covenant of grace.                             law. . . . But God continued to               repeatedly in Scripture specific com-
                                               give this church His instruc-
      The student who seeks to ex-             tion . . . (until) the church became,
plore the doctrine of infant baptism           in the fullest sense of the word, sons
would profit greatly from reading              and heirs of God through Christ.5
Hanko's book, We and Our Children.                                                         2 University Tutorial  Press Ltd.,
One will appreciate the extensive                 Theinstructive thrust of the "de-        Foxton,  England.
quotations from Kingdon's book,              bate" between Professor Hanko and             3 We and Our Children, I-Ianko, pp.
Children  of  Abraham.  This affords         Kingdonismostrewardingtofollow.               IOff.
the reader an unusual opportunity of         In part:                                      4 Ibid., pp. 22ff.
sitting in on a great debate on the                                                        5 Ibid.;pp. 23ff.
subject of Paedobaptism.                       Kingdon:  The interpretation that the       6 Ibid., pp. 26ff.

                                                                                            December 15,1992 I Standard Bearer I141


  mands of God come to children as             Thrbugh Christ's Word: A Festscrift                    ference in 1868  which was later pub;
  well as to adults. And the important         ForiDr. Philip E. Hughes,  edited by                   lished (along with the other'papers)
  and interesting part of these com-           W. Robert Godfrey and Jesse,L. Boyd                    under the title,,`The  Manifold Grace
  mands of Jehovah God is that these           III; IPresbyterian  & Reformed Pub-                    of God." This chapter is a mod&&
  commands are given on the grounds                                                                   tion and expansion of that original
  that children as well as adults are          lishing Co., 1985;. 252 pp., $10.95(pa-                                                     . .  "
  included in God's covenant.'                 per). [Reviewed by Prof. Herman                        p a p e r .
                                               Harjko.]                                                      W. Stanford Reid talks about the
          The  scriptures cited by Profes-          /                                                 influences of Calvin's earlylegaltram-
sor Hanko are abundant. They weave                  i  Dr. Philip  Edgcumbe' Hughes,                  ing on his reformatory work. Roger
a golden thread of covenant grace              visiting Professor of New Testament                    Nicole has an interesting  ar&le on
into a meaningful pattern of both the          a n d   R e f o r m a t i o n   S t u d i e s   a t    Friedrich Spanheim,  Calv@t theo-
sign and the seal of the covenant. For         Westminster Theological Seminaryin                     logian in `Geneva and Leyden. W.
me it struck a response of thank@+             Philadelphia, has earned an intema-                    Wilson Benton,  Jr., has an :excellent
ing and praise, for it is not what we          tional reputation as a widely learned                  article on federal theology in the 16th
whozrebelieving  parents have done,            scholar in the fields of exegesis, theol-              and early 17th century,  tvith a pen-
but rather what our sovereign,God              ogy{ and church history. This book,                    etrating analysis of* the covenant of
has done. This is expressed,by  Hanko          containing essays by his friends and                   works and the idea of the covenant as
when he writes:                                colleagues, is written in his honor.                   an agreement between God and man:
                                                   i The book is divided into four                    JohnN. Akers has an article on South-
  So it is with God's covenant. That           parts: New Testament Studies, Old                      em Presbyterians and Slave Missions;
  stream of God's covenant began al-           Tesfament' Studies,, Historical and                    and W. Robert Godfrey has-a  valu-
  ready at its source in paradise. with        Theological Studies, and a bibliogra-                  able article on the idea of the relation
  Adam. As it runs throughout his-             phy of Dr. Hughes' writings.                           between church and state in Dutch
  tory, many new streams of new gen-                / The first two sections are of in-               Calvinism.
  erationscomeinto thatcovenantfrom            terest to and can only be, for the most                       Buy the book and read this ex-
  theoutsidewheretheylose  theirorigi-         part, understood by' scholars who                      cellent section. H         :
  nal identity and become the people                                                                                  :
                                               work in colleges, universities, and                                                    :
  of God!                                      seminaries. They also are often writ-                  Cbnfessions  an<  Catechi&   bf  the
          The strength of Hanko's book is      ten from the viewpoint of literary-                    Reformation,ed.itedbyMarkA.Nod
that it answers the position of..the           historical criticism of Scripture.                     Grand  ,Rapids:  Baker-Book-House!
"Reformed Baptists" - and if .you..               : The third section is the one for                  ,l991.   232.pages,   .$12.95,  pal+.  [Re-
can answer them, you will have little'         me,andtheonewhichwillbebfvalue                         viewed,b'y  the Editor],  :             . . "  -'
                                                                                                       `.                                  ~._.      ,I.
trouble answering the regular Bap-             to any who wish to delve into mstori-                                       :  .:  `I  ,_:;.
tists!                                         cal and theological studies.                                  This is a useful collection of ten
          In conclusion I quote Hanko:                   J. I. Packer has. an essay .on dif-          confessions, or confessional-type
                                               ferent kinds of Arminianism and the                    statements, from the era of the Refor-
          And so we baptize'infants. It is     differen,ces between these  .Armin:                    mation.  Inclu'ded  are "The  ,$mety-
  the command of God through all               ianisms  and Calvinism. The essay is                   five Theses of.MartinLuther  (1517)";
  age?.: Those who fail to do this must        so good that it is worth the price of the              "The Sixty-Seven Articles of Ulrich
  recognize that they live in disobedi-        book Packer deals with the Arminian                    Zwingli (1523)"; "The Schleitheim
  ence to the Lord. They have no true          controversy in The Netherlands in                      Confession (1527)"; "MartinLuther's
  conception of the covenant.. They            the latter 16th and e.arly  17th century               Small Catechism (1529)";. "The Hei-
  cannot avoid dispensationalism.              and, with theological ,insight, ,ana-                  delberg Catechism'(1563)`:;  "Canons
  They remain individualistic in their         lyzeatheissues.  But he moves over to                  and Decrees of the Council of Trent
  thinking. And they do injustice to           England and. discusses the. cliff erent                (1545-1563)"; "Profession' ,of the
  the children God has given to them.
          To the people of Godin  every age    kinds  of  Arkinianism  that appeared                  Tridentine   `Faith (1564)"; and "The
  it is a great comfort that God indeed        in that land, carefully,analyzing  their               Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of
  saves them and their children. It is         erroneous theologies. He demon-                        England (1571).",
  God's unfailing mercy and grace., To         strates clearly how even such well-                           "The'Schleitheim  ConfessiorV is
  Him be the glory forever?  W                 known Puritans as Jeremy Taylor,                       the confession  .of the  Anabaptists;
                                               Thomas Goodwin, and Richard                            spiritual ancestors of today's Bap-
                                               Baxter movedinto the Arminiancamp                      tists. The first article of their faith
                                               with their views of justification on                   concerns baptism. The second sen-
                                               grounds other than Christ's perfect                    tence of. this first article runs,. "This
' Ibid., pp. 43ff.                             atoning sacrifice.                                     excludes all infant baptism, thehigh-
8 Ibid., p. 87.                                          Dr. Packerdelivered a paper on               estandchiefabominationofthe~ope."
9 Ibid., p. 90.                                the same subject at the Leicester Con-                 This lays bare  Anabaptism."  The

142 /Standard Bearer I December 15,1992


          _'                                                     .
Augsburg Confession is the creed of              "Our Father who art in heaven. "            gently attend church, especially on
the Lutheran churches. The Canons               What does  this mean?                        the Lord's day... (p. 159).
and Decrees of the Council of Trent             Answer: Here God would encour-                  My  concern here is not with the
and the Profession of the Tridentine            age us to believe that he is truly our     translation, "Christian education," al-
Faith areRoman  Catholic confessions.           Father and we are truly his children       though this is a dubious rendering of
Only excerpts from the lengthy Can-             in order that  `we.may approach him        the German, die Schukn, "the schools."
ons and Decrees of the Council of             boldly and confidently in prayer,            The reference of the Catechism is not
                                                even as beloved children  approaih
Trent are given. These excerpts are                                                        to some form of Christian education
                                                their dear father (p. 69).
taken from the doctrinal portions of                                                       of its members by the church, but to
the<Roman  creed. The other confes-                Reading through the confessions         the seminaries and, by implication, to
sions appear in their entirety.               as they appear in this collection re-        the Christian day schools. What is
          "Brief introductions set the        minded me that the Reformed be;              objectionable is the translation of the
documents inhistorical and theologi-          liever does ,well to be suspicious of        German,  Feiertug, as "Lord's day."
cal perspective."                             modern translations of the creeds,           Feiertug  means "sabbath," or "day of
          Especially those who do not have    even as he does well to be suspicious        rest." To substitute "Lord's day" for
access to 5ome or even many of these          of modem translations of Holy Scrip-         "sabbath" in Question 103 of the Cat-
confessions in other volumes will             ture. Other principles of translation        echism is to obscure a truth that is of
welcome this collection. It will be           prevail nowadays than the principle          crucial importance for Reformed
useful for reference. Those who have          of scrupulous faithfulness to the origi-     Christians, and one that is well-nigh
never read Luther's ninety-five the-          nal text. `An instance is Allen 0. Miller    lost today, the truth, namely, that
ses and small catechism, Zwingli's            and M. Eugene Osterhaven's transia-          their behavior on the first day of the
sixty-seven articles, and the Genevan         tion of Question103 of theHeidelberg         weekis  sabbath-observance. To put it
Confession will want to -do so for            Catechism:                                   differently, the Catechism's deliber-
sheer edification. Here is the begin-                                                      ate use of Feiertag in Question 103
ning of the section in Luther's small           What does God require in the-fourth        makes clear that the Lord's day is the
catechism in which the Reformer in-             commandment? First, that the  min-         New Testament sabbath and that the
structs fathers how to teach thelord's          istry of the gospel and Christian edu-     fourth commandment of the law is
Prayer to their families:                       cation be maintained, and that I dili-     still in force, requiring observance of
                                                                                           a day.  0



School Act&es                                 principleof the glory of God. SoliDeo        motion: "In light of our calling in
     The'Hope  PR Christian School            Gloria was the starting point of all         Article 21 of the Church Order, the
in Walker, MI presented their annual          Calvin's theology;.and  it is this basic     consistory expresses its unanimous
all-school program entitled  Sola Deo         truth, so completely scriptural, that        support to the three proposals from
Gloria on Friday, November 13, in the         has characterized the Reformed faith         the school board."
First Jenison CR Church.                      up to the present."                               Besides that, the congregation
      The students divided their pro-              On November 3 the Randolph              was also requested to assemble on
gram into four parts: Grace Alone,            (WI) PR School Society held a special        November 12 in their sanctuary to
Faith Alone, Scripture Alone, and God         meeting,  at which the society was           hear their pastor, Rev. S. Key, address
Alone;*  Woven throughout the entire          asked to approve three proposals sub-        them concerning "Why PR Educa-
program were, of course, songs intro-         mitted by their school board. 1) That        tion?" A question and answer period
ducedby different narrations. A nar-          -we express commitment to beginning          followed.
ration from the StandardBearerwrit-           classes for the i993/94  school year,             Evidently these three proposals
ten by.l?rof. H. Hanko perhaps best           should the Lord continue to open             were adopted at that November 3
expresses the theme. "The heart of            doors for us. 2) That we conduct a           meeting, since we, like all our PR
the tradition which we have received          fund drive within our own congrega-          families here in North America, re-
from the Calvin Reformation is the            tion and by letter to the membership         ceived letters in mid-November  lay-
.,  .,                                        of the PR churches. 3) That a PR             ingouttheplansforbeginningaChris-
                                              schoolbegin only when tangible.prop-         tian school in Randolph. Perhaps
                                              erty is owned- either  land or perma-        reading this will jog your memory
                                              nent classroom facilities.                   about their financial need. What a
Mr.. Wigger is an elder in the Protestaizt         In connection  with these three         great opportunity. We have been
Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michi-        proposals, the consistory of the             asked to take this step in faith with
g a n .                                       Randolph, WI PRC also adopted a              Randolph. Let us not miss it!

                                                                                            December 15,1992 I StandardBearer  I143


               PE
           STANDARD
              BFARER                                                                                                        SECOND CLASS
                                                                                                                            Postage Paid at
                                                                                                                            Grancivi//e, Michigan
              P. 0. Box 603
             Grandville, Ml 49468-0603


       Young People's. Activities                      just for the experience. He also writes,
              ;-; Accordingto the 1991 Yearbook.       "We, have become fairly well accus-
     z-. of our churches, the Young People's           tomed to driving on the `wrong' side          ~ooff~or l7iougtit:
I          Society of the Pella, IA PRC consists       of the road, using the steering wheei                  fl Wouldst thou know when thou
           of 14 members. Well, these young            which is on the right side of the car."       hast been humbled enough on ac-
           people recently sponsored a fund-                 You are encouraged to write the         count of sin? When thou art willing to
     raiser for next year's convention by              VanBarens  while they are in North-.          let go thy sins."
      first selling and then'making over 600           em Ireland. Their address is:                                       -Thomas Watson
           sub sandwiches. Not a  badday's                   3 Sunnyside, Doagh  Road                                                              0
      work. Now if we could only get them                 I Newtownabby, Co. Antrim
           to clean their rooms . . . .                                 BT36 8BL
                 The Federation of P..R.Y.P. Soci-                 NorthernIreland.
           eties sponsored a Fall Retreat for
           young adults 18 and older at Camp
           Michawana near Hastings, MI on
           November 6 and 7. Rev. B. Gritters
      spoke to the 50 or so young adults on              RESOLbTlON OF SYMPATHY                                       NOTICE!!
           Friday evening concerning one's re-               The Council of the First Protes-                 Classis East will meet in regular
           sponsibility to handle the Word of          tant Reformed Church expresses its            session on Wednesday, January 13,
           God properly. He based his remarks          sincere Christian sympathy to fellow          1993, at the Faith Protestant Re-
           on II Timothy 2:15; especially the last     officebearers, Mr. and Mrs. Charles           formed Church, at 9 A.M.
           phrase: "rightly dividing the word of       Kregel and Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth                                           Jon J. Huisken
           truth."                                     Velthouse and families in the loss of                                       Stated Clerk
                Besides the profitable discussion      their mother and grandmother,
           of this theme, other activities included           MRS. LENA WYNSMA.                           WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
           a huge bonfire Friday night, followed       "And the peace of God, which passeth                   On December 4,1992,  our par-
           by activities Saturday morning too          all understanding, shall keep your            ents,
           numerous to list.                           hearts and minds through Christ Jesus"                   GORDON AND JUNE
                                                       (Phil. 4:7).                                               VANOVERLOOP,
           Mission Activities                            Rev. M'eindert Joostens, President          celebrated their 45th wedding anni-
                 Rev. G. VanBaren, presently                           Ronald VanPutten, Clerk       versary.
           servmg'the Covenant Reformed Fel-                                                                  We thank our covenant God for
           lowship in Lame, Northern Ireland,                                                        the way in which He has used them to
           writes to  ,his congregation in               RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                      teach and train us in His fear. Their
           Hudsonville, MI that IIthe services on            The Mary-Martha Society of the          presence, council, and example are
           Sunday have been going well. There          Redlands Congregation would like to           what we value most. Their labor in the
           is an average attendance of about 40.       express their Christian sympathy to           Lord has not been in vain.
           There are five committed families and       theirfello.w member Marty Mantel and                   It is our prayer that the Lord will
           four individuals. In addition there         her family in the death of her grand-         continue to bless us through them in
           are two families and several indi-          mother,-                                      the days ahead.'
           viduals who attend rather regularly               MRS. KATHERiNE SAUL.                    $        Ron and Sue
           on Sunday evening.."                        May she and herfamilyfind cot-hfort  in       *        Jim, and Linda, who has gone to
      -        `Rev.' VanBaren also includes a         God's Word "...they shall obtain glad-        be with her Father in glory
           few comments about a coal stove in          ness and joy; and sorrow and mourn-           *        Tom and Vicky
           their "manse." 0It was smoking quite        ing shall flee away. I, even I, am he         *        Greg and Vicki
           a bit on Sunday morning,~,but  we           that .comforteth  you'? (Isaiah 51 :l 1 b,    *        Randy and Ellen
           seem to have made adjustments nec-          12a). -.                                      *        David and Julie
           essary to keep that to a minimum."                      Pastor denHartog, President                 and their 25 grandchildren.
           They have cooked some meals on it                  Tammy VanUffelen, Secretary                                         Hudaonville, Michigan


           144 /StandardBearer  I December 15,1992


