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                                  See "The Enduring Apostolic Address" - page 339

Vol. 72,15                                                      ii _                                                              1
May 2,1996


                                                                                                                                                                                                     Qj-&p                           - .-
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     p-it
      C O N T E N T S :                                                                                                                                May I, 1996                                   `<,+ fl+ ;
                                                                                                                                                                                                    1
                                                                                                                                                                                                            +`J'              STANDd\FaD
      Meditation - Rev. Kenneth Koole                                                                                                                                                                                             BEIREF?
             The Enduring Apostolic Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
      Editorial - Prof. David J. Engelsma                                                                                                                                                          ISSNO362-4692
             A Defense of (Reformed) Amillennialism
             6.                                                                                                                                                                                    Semi-monthly, except  monthly during June,  July,  and August.
                       Matthew 24 (cont.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  341         Published by the Refomxd Free Publishing Association,  Inc.,
      All Around Us - Rev. Gise J. VanBaren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343                                                    4949   lvanrest   Ave.,  Grandville,   MI  49416.   Second  Class
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      338lStandard Bearer/May I,1996


                    The En                                                                 ostolic

                                                 hatred for the true name of Christ          the Rock! - the name Christ gave
        "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,      Jesus, the Nazarene: Things were            to him. The name of a man who
     to the strangers scattered..., Elect ac-    building towards those "fiery tri-          made a rock-solid confession and
     cording to the foreknowledge of God         als," a regular bloodbath for the           was bold in the faith.
     the Father, through sanctification  of      early Christians. Peter writes to                   But that is not who Peter was
     the Spirit...: Grace unto you, and          prepare the church for that day.            in himself. He had been Simon,
     peace, be multiplied. "                         Today it might be argued that.          Simon the boaster, with as much
                                I Peter 19, 2    the name of Jesus is popular, never         natural courage as you could find
                                                 more so. But preach the Christ of           in any man.             Witness  Geth-
         Peter addresses the church uni-         Calvinism (and of Augustine and             semane's garden and who it was
     versal in a most significant and            Paul); preach the predestinating            who had swept out a sword and
     timeless way. He greets them as             God and a Christ who does not               gone head-hunting. But when
     "elect strangers." The true be-             love every man, but who died for            Christ disarmed him it was  an-
     liever and faithful church always           his own - and that spirit of toler-         other matter.
     confess this to be their true iden-         ante changes markedly.  Calvin-                    It was Simon who on the night
     tity. Those in the church today             ism as Christianity? It is much out         of Christ's betrayal had, in the
     who have no desire for these                of favor in religious society  to-                courtyard, denied his Lord with
     names, especially the first, have di-       day. "Beloved, think it not                          vigorous swearing. Spiritual
     vorced their identity from the              strange concerning the fiery-          Grace  _        courage forsook him. He
     name of Christ and the apostolic            trial which is to try you..."          has a           was embarrassed at being
     church.                                     (I Pet. 492).                                           identified       with      the
         The times in which the apostle              Those who bear the re-            way of
                                                                                       making            Galilean. Bearing Christ's
     wrote were strikingly similar to            proach of Christ need                 boasters          reproach had been be-
     our own.                                    much encouragement. To                 meek,            yond him.
         First, they were days of an as-         that end Peter writes. We              to the                 It is now this Simon
     tonishing deterioration in the              need encouragement to            astonishment            Peter who writes, know-
     whole moral fabric of Roman soci-           live in such a way that it             of all,           ing full well the difficulty
     ety. The pagan writers themselves           is apparent where our loy-        and making             of discipleship and of
     decried the loss of all regard for          alty lies, regardless of the           of the            confessing the Christ in a
     virtue and honorable behavior.              animosity and threats.            most timid             godless world, facing its
     There was loose and insatiable ap-          We are to be Christians,            s o u l s            animosity.       H-e knew
     petite for entertainment. The coli-         and not in name only.               men and              what it meant to cave in.
     seums were full. And the only                     XX*X**XXXtXXk*X*              women of            He sympathized.
     thing that satisfied was violence               The apostle greets the        remarkable                  Still, this Simon Peter
     and blood. In the theatres of that          church and blesses them.          conviction            was, in the end, willing to
     day, as in ours, that is what re-           "Grace . . . be multiplied              and            bear the reproach of
     ceived two thumbs up.                       unto you...."                                          -- .
                                                                                     strength.          Christ, even to martyrdom
         Second, there was a growing                 What a wonderful thing                            if need be. He became rock-
                                                 grace is. Not only for what it                      solid in his confession and in
                                                 forgives, great sins, but for what                courage.
     Rev.  Koole is pastor of  Faith Protes-     it makes of a man!                                 Peter is himself therefore a liv-
     tant Reformed Church in  Jenison,              I give you exhibit A  - Peter           ing testimony of the power of'
     Michigan.                                   an apostle. Petros! What a name,            grace and what it can make of a

                                                                                                         bhy1, i 996lStandard Bearer1339


L


man. Grace has a way of making             world, you cannot address the                       God's foreknowledge is not
boasters meek, to the astonishment         church. It's who she is made up                 simply "foresight" or "foreseen
of all, and making of the most             of, the elect of God.                           faith." This emasculates election.
timid souls men and women of re-               One's election is not unknown               Then Peter could better have writ-
markable conviction and strength.          to the child of God. It is some-                ten, "Elect according to your faith
Satan himself finally asks, "What          thing known and cherished. This                 foreseen" or "according to your
possesses these people!"; to which         the apostle himself declares in II              choosing," or "as you have shown
there is but one answer, "Christ           Peter  1:10.  `I... give diligence to           yourself worthy." Nothing of the
does. They are Spirit possessed."          make your calling and election                  kind. "Elect according to fore-
Grace puts brute strength to shame         sure.. . ." Be sure of your own elec-           knowledge."
time and again. It conquers.               tion. Not make yourself elect, but                  Foreknowledge is God's deter-
     Now we must notice to whom            give diligence to be sure of it. It             mining before time who would be
Peter addresses this epistle,              is knowable. It is knowable in the              His children, and who would come
namely, the  elect  sojourners or          pursuit of godliness.                           to know Him in love. That this is
strangers. In the Greek, the word              This knowledge does not hinge               the meaning of foreknowledge is
"elect" is first. In the interests of      on some mystical vision and sign,               plain from what Peter says a few
smoothness of translation the King         nor does it come via some extra-                verses later (v. 20): "Who verily
James has had to sacrifice some-           ordinary experiences in life that               was foreordained before the foun-
thing of the power of the original.        `only the elite receive. Peter ad-              dation of the world..." (i.e., Christ
That the word "elect" is first is not      dresses common children of God.                 as sacrificial lamb). The word
without significance.                      It becomes known by the testi-                  translated in verse 20 as "foreor-
    Striking, is it not, that election     mony of the Spirit in one's heart,              dained" is the same word trans-
is-the first thing the Spirit puts into    and in the way of godliness and                 lated "fore-knowledge" in verse 1.
Peter's mind when the apostle ad-          spiritual interests. That is why                Certainly Christ's death was not
dresses the saints of God; yet to-         mention is made in verse 2 of the               simply something God was able to
day it is the last thing mentioned,        "sanctification of `the Spirit." Do             predict. Such a view is unworthy
if it is mentioned at all. Reformed        not expect this testimony if you                of God's wisdom. The heart of
pulpits, silent on the truth of God's      live carelessly in sin. Then you                history was merely foreseen and
electing love, assure us it cannot         quench the Spirit. But by the                   predicted? Nor was your salva-
be preached, it has no real practi-        Spirit's fruits one may know him-               tion. Give the glory to God's elect-
cal value. Election is one of those        self elect, loved by God from be-               ing love, not to your imagined
great mysteries best left to God, it       fore the foundation of the world.               wise choice.
has no relevancy to the Christian              The truth of election is a prac-                Secondly, election means God
faith and life.                            tical truth. This is why when Pe-               determined everything about us.
    Really! How simpleminded               ter addresses the church he chose               Why are you who you are, what
the apostle was, not to have known         this word and not some other.                      you are, where you are, and
this. He must have attended the                First, Peter's purpose is to                     when you are? Why were you
wrong seminary.                            remind the saints that the               Our          born in the latter part of the
    The simple fact is that no less        source and fountain of all             faith           20th century and not in the
an authority than the apostle not          our salvation is of God. We           is not           1st century with the apostle
only mentions it, but opens by ad-         refer not just to the plan of         simply           Peter? That you were born
dressing the saints of God as the          salvation, to the way in            in election,       in the 20th century is not
elect. And we are to understand            which God will save men,             our faith         by chance or biological
that one's personal election cannot        but we refer to the personal           is in           quirk, some genetic coinci-
be known? That those to whom               salvation of each person                 the           dence. It was God's  fore-
Peter wrote could not be sure they         who shall be saved.      WhY         electing         knowledge.       Some were
were being addressed or not? And           have you been saved? Why               God!          formed to bear witness to
there is little practical value to this    have you been awakened unto                         Christ back in the 1st century.
fundamental truth?                         salvation and the confession of                 But you and I have been chosen to
    Preposterous!                          Christ? Because God so willed.                  bear witness over against this
    The reality is this: if you do         Not your wisdom, but God's deep,                present age's immorality and apos-
not confess and believe the elec-          gracious will is the origin.                    tasy. We have been appointed to
tion of God, which means that sal-             This is why Peter says, "Elect              stand rock-solid against these great
vation was determined not by               according to  &he foreknowledge  of             evils. It is no little honor to have
man's own will and choice but by           God the Father." This  demon-                   been chosen and formed to bear
the eternal selecting will of God          &rates  that one's salvation finds              the name of Christ in the close of
from before the foundation of the          its source in Gods choice.                      the New Testament age. As the

34QIStandard Bearer/May  1, 1996


elect of God, let us not become           God. The electing God would see
faint of heart.                           them through.  -
        And, finally, the practical           How well Peter knew this.
value of election is found in its             Peter had denied his Lord with
comfort and encouragement.                cursing and swearing. Yet he had
        Consider, whom Peter. ad-         not been disowned. He had been
dressed as elect. He was address-         kept and restored.
ing those who were going to en-               Why? Because he deserved it?
dure a bitter persecution, a great        No! His Lord's electing love.
trial of their faith. They were go-       "You are mine, given to me,
ing to be required to pass through        bought by my blood. I will never
fires for Christ's sake. What would       let you go." So the risen Lord
see them through? What hope had           sought him out and restored him
they?                                     again.
        This! They were the elect of          Election, beloved, electing love
I-&&~I&~
        ll__--l_-_               - - -                                             .II--_                               -!


              A Defense of (
                                 Amillennialism
                                          6. Matthew 24 (cont.)

                                                                                                                        -

    Matthew 24, 25 is Jesus' an-              Inasmuch as the destruction of       the life and reign of King David.
swer to the question of His dis-          Jerusalem was the type of the end,           But only typically. Not ex-
ciples in  24:3. The question was,        everything that Jesus has taught in      haustively. Not as to the reality.
"When shall these things be? and          the preceding verses can be said             The real happening of these
what shall be the sign of thy com-        in verse 34 to "be fulfilled," that      things  - the fulfillment  -. is in
ing, and of the end of the world?"        is, happen, in A.D; 70. "All these       the kingship of Jesus Christ.
The question combined the de-             things," happen  typically in A.D.           Similarly, the promise to
struction of the temple in Jerusa-        70. But these things do not hap-         Abram that his seed would receive
lem in A.D. 70 and the end of the         pen in A.D. 70 exhaustively. They        the land from the Nile to the
world at Jesus' second coming.            do by no means happen in reality         Euphrates was typically fulfilled in
Jesus' answer likewise combines           in A.D. 70. The reality of all these     the glorious kingdom of Solomon
these two events. The reason for          things will happen when Jesus            (Gen. 15:18; II Chron. 9:26).
the combination of these two              comes in the  body at the end of             But not in reality.
events in the great discourse by          the world.                                  The reality is the present ex-
our Lord on the last things                   It is the same with the destruc-     tent of the  ,spiritual  kingdom of
(eschatology) is that the destruc-        tion of Jerusalem and the end of         Jesus Christ, which worldwide
tion of Jerusalem was a historical        the world as it is with the fulfill-     kingdom is yet expanding and will
type of the end of the world.             ment of the other great prophecies       be perfected in all the universe at
   Throughout Matthew 24:4-31,            of the Scriptures. Balaam's proph-       the coming of the Christ.
Jesus gives instruction to His            ecy in Numbers  24:12-25  of the             The peaceful kingdom of
church concerning the end of the          king out of Jacob was fulfilled his-     Psalm 72 is, throughout the Psalm,
world, and the things which the           torically in David, the son of Jesse.    both the earthly kingdom under
church must expect before the end         The mention of the various hea-          Solomon and the spiritual king-
of the world, under the figure, or        then nations that the king would         dom of Jesus the Messiah. More
type, of the destruction of Jerusa-       subdue shows this. All the things        precisely, it is the spiritual king-
lem.                                      of Balaam's prophecy happened in         dom of Messiah foreshadowed in

                                                                                            May 1, 1996lStandard Bearer1341


the earthly kingdom under                  Matthew,  vol. 2, Kok, 1954, pp.        have contradicted himself,
Solomon.                                    157, 158,  in  Korte Verklaring;       having previously warned
                                            the translation of the Dutch is        them that the end was not yet;)
     The Reformed Tradition:                mine).                                 but, in order to encourage
       Ridderbos and Calvin                                                        them to perseverance, he ex-
                                              This was also Calvin's inter-        pressly foretold that those
    This explanation of Matthew           pretation of Matthew  24:34.  Be-        things related to their own age.
24:1-35  in terms of typelantitype,       cause Calvin's interpretation is         The meaning therefore is:
or figure/reality, is that of the         both clear and compelling; because       "This prophecy does not relate
solid Reformed tradition.                 it represents the Reformed tradi-        to evils that are distant, and
    Exactly concerning the diffi-         tion, indeed, the tradition of the       which posterity will see after
culty, how Jesus could say in Mat-        Reformation; and because it de-          the lapse of many centuries,
thew  24:34 that "this generation         stroys the novel interpretation by       but which are now hanging
shall not pass, till all these things     Kik and the Christian  Recon-            over you, and ready to fall in
be fulfilled," the Dutch Reformed         structionists, it deserves to be         one  mass, so that  there is no
exegete Herman Ridderbos wrote:           quoted in its entirety:                  part of it which the present
                                                                                   generation  will not experience."
  By "all these things" (rendered           Though Christ employs a gen-           So then, while our Lord heaps
  by Ridderbos as "dir alles," `all         eral expression, yet he does not       upon a single generation every
  this' - DJE) . . . (is) to be un-         extend the discourses to all the       kind of calamities, he does not
  derstood . . . the entire complex         miseries which would befall            by any means exempt future
  of the happening of the last              the Church, but merely in-             ages from the same kind of suf-
  time, including the coming of             forms them, that before a              ferings, but only enjoins the
  the Son of Man. In this con-              single  generation  shall have         disciples to be prepared for en-
  nection one must again take              been completed, they will learn         during t@em all with firmness
  into consideration the combin-            by experience the truth of what        (Commentary on a Harmony  of
  ing character of the represen-            he has said. For within fifty          the Evangelists, Matthew,
  tation of the future set forth           years the city was destroyed           Mark, and Luke, vol. 3, tr. Wil-
  here.... The startingpoint of             and the temple was rased, the          liam Pringle, Eerdmans, 1949,
  this whole discourse is in the           whole country was reduced to            pp. 151,152).
  destruction of the temple. And            a hideous desert, and the ob-
  because this, according to the           stinacy of the world rose up              Calvin's explanation of the re-
  nature of prophecy, is seen in           against God. Nay more, their          lated 14th verse of the chapter
  one and the same realm  ("in             rage was inflamed to extermi-         ("And this gospel of the kingdom
  een vlak") with the great future         nate the doctrine of salvation,       shall be preached in all the world
  of the Lord, it can be said that         false teachers arose to corrupt       for a witness unto all nations; and
  the generation which would be            the pure gospel by their im-          then shall the end  come")  is the
  witness of this destruction              postures, religion sustained          same. Calvin flatly denies that the
  shall not pass "till all these           amazing shocks, and the whole         reference to the end is exhaustively
  things be fulfilled." Here,              company of the godly was mis-         and exclusively a reference to the
  therefore, the great future is           erably distressed. Now though         destruction of Jerusalem, as is the
  again designated in a complex,           the same evils were perpe-            contention of Kik and the Chris-
  undifferentiated way. In the             trated in uninterrupted succes-       tian Reconstructionists. Calvin
  light of the fulfillment  it is evi-     sion for many ages afterwards,        points to the obvious fact that is
  dent that "all these things"             yet what Christ said was true,        basic to the right understanding of
  (-`dir  alles," according to             that, before the close of a single    the entire passage, namely, Jesus'
  Ridderbos - DJE) do not come             generation, believers would feel      "blending" of the destruction of
  all at once and, therefore,              in reality, and by undoubted          Jerusalem and the end of the world
  would be seen merely in part             experience, the truth of his pre-     as figure and reality.
  by the then living generation....         diction; for the apostles en-
  The exegesis (of Matt. 24  -            -  duredlthe  same things which         This is improperly restricted
  DJE) must also here adopt the            we see in the present day.             by some to the destruction of
  historical viewpoint, that is,           And yet it was not the design          the temple, and the abolition
  must proceed from the pro-               of Christ to promise to his fol-        of the service of the Law; for
  phetic form of eschatology.              lowers that their calamities           it ought to be understood as
  See also the commentary on               would be terminated within a           referring to the end and reno-
  2434 (The Gospel according to            short time, (for then he would         vation of the world. Those two

342lStandard Bearer/May I,1996


   things having been blended by               prize, before they had passed                The interpretation of Matthew
   the disciples, as if the temple             through many contests and                24:34 by J. Marcellus Kik and the
   could not be overthrown with-               dangers. In this manner, there-          Christian Reconstructionists as de-
   out the destruction of the whole            fore, we ought to explain this           manding that everything set forth
   world, Christ;in replying to the            latter clause: "The end of the           in Matthew 24:4-31  took place ex-
   whole question which had                    world will not come before I             haustively and really in the de-
   been put to him, reminded                   have tried my Church, for a              struction of Jerusalem is a radical
   them that a long and melan-                 long period, by severe and               departure from the historic Re-
   choly succession of calamities              painful temptations" (pp. 129,           formed explanation of the passage.
   was at hand, and that they                  1 3 0 ) .                                                                          cI1
   mustt not hasten to seize the                                                                                          - DJE





 1 "Leakage or Hemorrhage?"                    cost the CRC 24,619 members in             numbers stems from the fact that
     The Standard Beaver in Vol. 68,           four years - a loss greater than           the CRC is moving toward assess-
 p. 422 ("All Around Us," Prof. R.             the total membership of many de-           ing financial contributions based
 Decker), July 1, 1992, reported on            nominations with which the CRC             on the number of members rather
 an interview by the Grand Rapids              maintains fraternal relations.             than on the number of families in
 Press of a Calvin Seminary pro-                 According to official statistics in      the congregation. "Churches are
 fessor who was questioned about               the 1996 CRC yearbook, the de-             saying to themselves and to their
                                                                                          classes and to the denomination
 the many members who were leav-               nominational decline has now
                                               reached 9.2% of the CRC's high-            that we have `x' number of stu-
 ing the Christian Reformed                    water mark of 316,415 members              dents  who are college students or
 Church. This professor "down-                 in the 1992 denominational year-           who never attend, so our report-
 played the exodus from the Chris-             book  - a statistic representing           ing system, while never perfect,
 tian Reformed Church (CRC), call-             denominational membership six              is now undergoing some fairly
 ing it `leakage,' a normal occur-             months before Synod 1992's deci-           significant alternation directly re-
 rence in most, if not all denomina-           sion to allow women to do most             lated to the ministry share," said
 tions."                                       work of the ministry without or-           Engelhard....
     That comment must surely be               dination. Prior to 1992, the CRC             According to Engelhard, the de-
                                                                                          nomination has not yet drafted a
 one of the greater understatements            had never had two consecutive
                                               years of decline. However, one             plan to deal with its declining
 ever made.                                    bright spot in the numbers is that         membership.      "The Christian Re-
    Darrell Todd Maurina, Press                this  year's  loss of 2383 members         formed Church as far as I know
 Officer of the United Reformed                wasn't as bad as the three previ-          has made no particular decision
News Service, presented a report               ous years in which the CRC lost            to stem the decline," said
 concerning the seriousness of this            between five and ten thousand              Engelhard....
"leakage."                                     members annually.                            However, Engelhard saw rea-
                                                 At least part of the reduction in        son for hope in the fact that the
    When the conservative move-                the annual decline is due to the           Christian Reformed denomination
                                               decision of the Interclassical Con-        has more local congregations even
  ment warned that a move toward               ference, a gathering last Novem-           if it has fewer members. In 1996,
  ordaining women would prompt                                                            the CRC reported 991 local con-
  massive secessions from the                  ber attended by conservative
                                               members from 110 Christian Re-             gregations, 136 of which are
  Christian Reformed denomina-                 formed congregations, to ask               emerging mission churches or
  tion, one denominational leader                                                         specialized ministries - a net in-
  dismissed the possibility of seces-          Synod 1996 to revise Synod 1995's
                                               decision allowing women's ordi-            crease of ten churches during the
  sions by commenting that "all de-           nation rather than calling for an           same period that the denomina-
  nominations have leakage." No-              immediate secession....                     tion lost nearly ten percent of its
  body is calling the precipitous                                                         membership...."
  Christian Reformed membership
  decline "leakage" now that it has              The attempt still is to put the
                                             "best face" on the situation. States           Shocking though the 9.2% de-
                                             Maurina:                                   cline is, that really does not repre-
                                                                                        sent the true seriousness of the
Rev.  VanBaren  is pastor of  the Prot-         According to CRC General Sec-           situation. One would think that
es tan t Reformed       C h u r c h   o f     retary Dr. David Engelhard, some          only with internal growth (not
Loveland, Colorado.                           of the change in the reported             even now taking into account the

                                                                                                 May 1 I 1996lSfandard Bearer1343


 mission labors), there should be        Post, February  29,1996, reported:           lapse were preceded by sexual
 conservatively speaking about a                                                      revolutions in which marriage
 2% annual grow& If such growth               The Denver Area Interfaith              and family were no longer ac-
 were estimated from 1992 and the          Clergy Conference yesterday                corded premiere status. To put it
 316,415 members, there is in fact         vowed to fight a bill that would           another way, as marriage and
 about 50,700 less than what one           ban same-sex marriages in the              family ties disintegrated, the so-
                                                                                      cial restraints learned in families
would anticipate - or about a 14%          state.
                                                                                      also disintegrated. Societal chaos
 decline. A few years ago, the CRC            The measure . . . won final ap-
                                           proval in the Colorado House yes-          ushers in tyrants who promise to
 Synod set a membership goal of            terday by the narrowest of mar-            restore order by any means.
400,000  by the year 2000. If that         gins, 33-31, after the second day            Self-governing people require a
were indeed a realistic goal, the          of emotional debate.                       robust culture founded on mar-
 decline assumes an even more se-             It now goes to the state Senate,        riage and family, which nurture
rious character.                           where it faces an uncertain fate.          the qualities that permit self-rule:
     Numbers, of course, do not            The Senate has a smaller, more             deferred gratification, self-sacri-
mean anything in themselves.               moderate Republican majority               fice, respect for kinship and law,
There were, after all, only eight          than the House.                            and property rights. These quali-
                                                                                      ties are founded upon sexual re-
who were saved in the ark. One               The interfaith organization,
                                           which includes Catholics, Protes-          straint, which permits people to
expects some to leave the church           tants and Jews, voted to oppose            pursue long-term interests, such
because they refuse to heed the            the bill shortly before the House          as procreating and raising the
preaching or godly admonitions.            voted yesterday morning.                   next generation, and securing ben-
Here, the sad situation is that it is        "It's a clearly vicious attack on        efits for one's children.
the "conservatives" who are leav-          a particular group of people, it's
ing. A sizable segment still in the        mean-spirited       and     wrong-           But the Word of God states it
CRC  have threatened to leave if           headed," said the Rev. Gilbert           infallibly and more clearly,
the Synod of 1996 does not alter           Horn, a co-pastor at Montview            "Wherefore God also gave them
its stand on women in office.              Boulevard Presbyterian Church.           up to uncleanness through the
                                           He also believes the bill is uncon-
What is left in the CRC? It is a                                                    lusts of their own hearts, to dis-
                                           stitutional.
church seriously weakened by                 Legislative opponents  of,the  bill    honor their own bodies between
such loss in numbers, but even             called it unnecessary and "a slap        themselves.... For this cause God
more seriously weakened when the           at gay and lesbian people."              gave them up unto vile affections;
more conservative, Reformed, tra-                                                   for even their women did change
ditionally CRC people leave. One             An update on the above report:         the natural use into that which is
can only anticipate an ever increas-     the Colorado House and Senate              against nature: and likewise also
ing descent into apostasy. But the       did pass, the above bill, refusing         the men, leaving  .the natural use
cry for repentance and return to         to recognize "same-sexN  marriages,        of the woman, burned in their lust
the "old paths" continues to fall        but the Colorado governor vetoed           one toward another; men with men
on deaf ears.                            the bill.                                  working that which is unseemly,
                                             It is one more step towards the        and receiving in themselves that
H Same-sex Marriage                      gross immorality which finally de-         recompense of their error which
    There is a growing outcry            stroyed Sodom and Gemorrah. It             was meet.... Who knowing the
against "same-sex" marriage.             is another of the marks of the end         judgment of God, that they which
However, even within the                 of the age in which gross immo-            commit such things are worthy of
churches there is the claim that as      rality abounds. It is an immoral-          death, not only do the same, but
long as there is lifelong "commit-       ity increasingly being promoted            have pleasure in them that do
ment," one's "life-style" ought not      also on TV dramas.           The AFA       them" (Rom. 1: 24, 26,27,32). 0
to be a hindrance to "marriage."         Journal, April 1996, includes this
    The problem which faces many         observation:
of the states today is that Hawaii
has legalized "same-sex" marriage.           As the research of the late
The states have agreed to recog-          Harvard sociologist Pitirim
nize the "marriages" performed in         Sorokin reveals, no society has
any of the other states. So, what         loosened sexual morality outside
if a  Usame-sexN  couple moves to         marriage and survived. Analyz-
                                          ing studies of cultures spanning
Colorado? Is this state compelled         several thousand years on several
to recognize such a "marriage"?           continents, Sorokin found that
    The subject has been debated          virtually all political revolutions
widely in the press. The  Denver          that brought about societal  col-

344lStandard BearerlMay 1, 1996


                                                                                                                                    1

                     Johannes Cocceius:
                      Biblical Theolo
                                                                                                                               1
Introduction                             as we would say, "the Cochs." So          ability to learn and a special apti-
    A few issues back we talked          all Johannes did was change this          tude for languages. Although he
about one of the great theologians       Latin plural into a singular and          studied theology, he also so com-
in the Netherlands during and            come up with Cocceius (pro-               pletely mastered Greek that he
shortly after t h e   S y n o d   o f    nounced: cot-say'-us).                    could read widely in Greek litera-
Dordrecht in 161%`19. His name               Bremen, though a part of Ger-         ture for pure enjoyment though he
was, as our readers will recall,         many, was solidly in the Reformed         was only a lad. Fascinated by an-
Gijsbert Voetius.                        camp. In fact, it had sent delegates      cient languages, he learned He-
    In that article we mentioned         to the Synod of Dort, although the        brew, Chaldee, and Arabic, mostly
the fact that Voetius engaged in a       delegates from Bremen were                on his own. While still a student
very bitter quarrel with Johannes        known by all at the Synod as be-          he wrote a Greek oration on the
Cocceius, a quarrel that continued       ing the weakest in their convictions      religion of the Turks and read the
beyond their lives and nearly tore       and the most sympathetic to the           Koran'in preparation for it.
apart the Dutch Reformed                 Arminians.                                    In 1625, at 22 years of age,
Churches.                                    The  ,Coch family was an an-          Cocceius went to Hamburg in Ger-
    In this article we want to talk      cient and honorable family that           many for Greek and Rabbinic stud-
a bit about that quarrel.                had a tradition of service to church      ies under learned Jews. But he
                                         and state, many of Coch's ances-          was most unhappy with university
Early Life and Education                 tors  hoIding high political and          life in Germany, chiefly, as he tells
    Cocceius was not even born in        ecclesiastical offices.                   us, because of the dissolute life of
the Netherlands, but in Germany.             Coch's upbringing was very            the students.
It was probably for this reason that     strict in moral and religious mat-            In 1629 he left Germany and
he never felt quite at home among        ters. The lessons .he learned ap-         went to the University of Franeker
the Dutchmen, although he spent          parently made a great impression          in the Netherlands. Here he stud-
a large part of his adult life with      on him. Later in life he began an         ied under Maccovius and William
them. He was born in Bremen,             autobiography which he never fin-         Ames, two men of whom we spoke
Germany on either August 9,1603          ished, but in which he tells us of        in earlier articles. He also studied
or July 30 of the same year. The         two incidents from his childhood          under a man by the name of
records contain both dates.              which illustrated the point.              Sixtinus Amana, a world-re-
    He was the son of the munici-            On one occasion, he was chas-         nowned Orientalist. Under him
pal secretary in Bremen,  Timann         tised at school for some boyish           the object of his studies was espe-
Coch. When he finally Latinized          falsehood; he tells us that after that    cially the Jewish Talmud.
his name, as so many did in those        incident he despised lying so com-           The learning of many of these
days, he did not change it much.         pletely that he gained such repu-         Dutch theologians is quite beyond
Johannes had one brother, and            tation for truthfumess that no oath       our comprehension. They devoted
from their early youth they were         was ever required of him. At an-          their lives entirely to studies and
together known as "Cocceii," or,         other time he used God's name ir-         the discipline of learning and had
                                         reverently at mealtime. His father        time for nothing else. The result
                                         hit him on the mouth with a spoon,        was learning beyond anything one
                                         and he never again took God's             could imagine possible in our day.
Prof. Hanko  is professor of Church      name in vain.
History and New Testament in the             From the early days of his edu-       His Academic Life
Protestant Reformed Seminary.            cation he showed a remarkable                From Cocceius' 27th year his

                                                                                            May 1, 1996lStandard Bearer1345


life was completed devoted to             of Scripture must be a man who           coming of Christ, and without any
teaching.                                 never imposes his own ideas on           force in the new dispensation. He
     His first teaching post was          Gods Word, but is willing, in a          was not opposed to Sabbath ob-
back in his native city of Bremen,        spirit of meekness and humility,         servance and the worship of God
where he was professor of Biblical        to bow before the Word of God.           on the Sabbath, but he claimed it
Theology and Philosophy for about             His studies of Scripture ranged      was a matter of expediency, not
six years. But the Netherlands            over the whole of the Bible, and         principle. For this he was charged
soon beckoned him, and he re-             he wrote commentaries on almost          with Antinomianism, i.e., with de-
turned to Franeker, where he              all the books: One biographer            nying that the law of God was
taught Hebrew and Theology. He            speaks of his exegetical abilities,      valid for saints in the new dispen-
stayed in Franeker for 14 years, af-      in an unforgettable phrase, as be-       sation as well as the old.
ter which he moved to Leyden. In          ing of "penetrating insight and ro-          But a story lay behind this po-
Leyden, after serving the churches        bust judgment."                          sition which Cocceius took. And
in that University for several years,         The greatest contribution of         some description of that story will
he died at the age of 66 on No-           Cocceius lies, however, in his work      be interesting to our readers.
vember 4, 1669, at the height of          on God's covenant. Although                  Up to the time of Cocceius, the
his powers. He was suddenly               much had been written on cov-            theologians in Europe and in the
struck by a fever, and after only         enant theology prior to his lifetime,    Netherlands were systematic theo-
19 days of illness he departed this       nevertheless, his contributions are      logians. That is, they worked hard
life to be with God.                      so respected that he is sometimes        to arrange all the doctrines of
     Cocceius spent all his life in       called the father of covenant the-       Scripture in a system of doctrine
academia and never knew the               ology.                                   in which all the relationships be-
burly-burly of the life of the pas-           I recently had opportunity to        tween various doctrines were set
torate  with its incessant demands,       hear a professor from the Nether-        forth clearly. They did work much
crowded schedules, and bitter             lands, an expert in the theology of      like the  Reformed Dogmatics  of
struggles in the forward trenches         Cocceius, speak on this aspect of        Herman Hoeksema.
of the spiritual warfare of the           Cocceius' work. This professor,              In the systematizing of doc-
church. But in the sheltered life         without being aware apparently of        trine, however, some theologians
of academia he drove himself re-          our own Protestant Reformed po-          were guilty of some exaggerations
lentlessly and produced an abun-          sition on the covenant, made clear       of this method. Instead of search-
dance of work which was to be of          that though Cocceius never com-          ing the Scriptures and working at
benefit to the church in subsequent       pletely escaped from the idea of         careful exegesis so that the doc-
years.                                    the covenant as a pact or agree-         trines of the Reformed faith could
     Cocceius was of the old Ger-         ment, he nevertheless spoke of it        be developed and enriched, they
man Pietistic tradition and re-           as primarily a bond of fellowship.       were content to systematize, to
flected that tradition in his life. He    For that reason alone we owe him         analyze what was already known,
was not only himself a godly and          a debt of gratitude.                     to pick apart and dissect by means
pious man, acknowledged by all                                                     of endless distinctions, and to raise
to be such, but he also gave a prac-      His Controversy                          objections against doctrines only
tical and experiential bent to all            Nevertheless, in spite of all his    then to show the error of the ob-
his writings.                             accomplishments, Cocceius will be        jections.
     He did extensive work in the         mostly remembered for his bitter             While this description is prob-
field of biblical interpretation and      quarrel with'voetius;  and we now        ably an exaggeration, the danger
developed such important prin-            turn to that quarrel.                    was indeed that doctrines became
ciples as: the organic unity of sa-           Strangely enough, the contro-        cold and sterile and lacked the
cred Scripture; interpretation of         versy centered in the question of        warmth and passion of confession
Scripture according to the analogy        Sabbath observance. Cocceius was         and life. And, when texts were
of faith; the importance of inter-        charged with being weak on the           referred to, it was often by way of
preting Scripture's passages in the       question of the Sabbath. This was        mere "proof-texting"; i.e., without
light of their context; and the rela-     surprising if we consider that           any solid exegesis, texts were sim-
tion between the Old and New              Cocceius was a godly and pious           ply used to "prove"> points.
Testaments expressed in the               man and probably observed the                Cocceius objected to this kind
rhyme: "The New is in the Old             Sabbath scrupulously. But the dif-       of work in theology and wanted
concealed; the Old is in the New          ficulty was in his theology, not in      something more warm, experien-
revealed."                                his practice. Cocceius taught that       tial, personal, practical. And he
    His piety manifested itself also      the Sabbath was Jewish, a part of        wanted to attain this by way of
in his insistence that the interpreter    Jewish law, abolished with the           exegesis. He was concerned that

3461Standard  BearerlMay  1, 1996


the proof-texting that was often        such a method of doing things                  Perhaps the most serious of all,
used did not do justice to the his-     loses the unity of the truth. Sys-         the real weak spot in Cocceian the-
torical development of God's rev-       tematic theology shows how all the         ology, but something which flowed
elation in the four centuries of the    truth is one because God is one            directly from Cocceius' position,
Old Testament time of shadows,          and the truth is of God, Biblical          was Cocceius' teaching that the
which development culminated in         theology does not do that.                 justification of the Old Testament
Christ. For example, theologians            But, more seriously, such a            saints was imperfect, for it was by
would quote a text from the time        way of doing things really divides         way of promise, administered
of Abraham without taking into          the Old Testament from the New             through the sacrifices, and was not
account that Gods revelation then       and makes a separation between             the perfect justification of the new
was not as full as in later Old Tes-    the two. This is what Cocceius             dispensational saints.
tament times and in the new dis-        did. And, especially when he was               The controversy actually died
pensation. Cocceius wanted ex-          busy developing the doctrine of            out of itself after many years. And
egesis to be honest with the text       the covenant in the way he did, he         it only died out because, for one
in the sense that it was explained      made such separation between the           thing, the combatants wearied of
as it was meant in the time it was      two dispensations that he became           the battle, and for another thing,
given to Israel.                        a  .dispensationalist  of sorts. And       the church became so liberal that
    To accomplish this end              because he was a dispensationalist         it didn't really care any more for
Cocceius did not write a "System-       of sorts, he denied the validity of        such problems.
atic Theology" but a "Biblical The-     the Sabbath for New Testament                  But the question is still on the
ology." That is, he started at Gen-     times.                                     agenda of the church, though
esis  1:l and worked his way                The quarrel was prolonged              mostly fought out in seminaries.
through the Bible from beginning        and bitter and did not end with            We may be thankful that our
to end in such a way that his the-      the death of Cocceius and Voetius.         churches, under the leadership of
ology followed the order of bibli-      In fact, after their death it only in-     our spiritual fathers, have a sys-
cal books.                              creased in intensity and became,           tematic theology given to us as our
    Some of his objections to the       at last, so bitter that `it nearly tore    heritage which does justice to ex-
theology that was written at that       the church apart. At times, if             egesis `in both Testaments, and
time certainly were valid. But          Cocceians were in the majority in          which is warm and vibrant. And
Cocceius did not really solve any       a University, all the Voetians were        the warmth and vibrancy of our
problems. Such a method of work-        expelled. And if Voetians gained           theology is surely due to the place
ing at theology as Cocceius em-         control, Cocceians were driven             which the doctrine of the covenant
ployed, though still practiced to-      out. It got so bad that the govern-        holds among us, a doctrine which
day by some and though used in          ment forced the universities to ap-        was developed so fully by Herman
some seminaries, has serious            point an equal number from the             Hoeksema, but which  came,  in
weaknesses. We cannot go into all       Voetian and Cocceian parties as            part, from Johannes Cocceius. Cl
of them here, but, for one thing,       professors in the schools.





        To Keep the Record Straight (2)

                                            As our last article we  pub-           letter of Prof. B. Holwerda. This
                                        lished an editorial by Dr. J. DeJong       is well; but, if we are to gain a
                                        from  the Clarion  magazine  of the        correct perspective on this letter, I
                                        Canadian Reformed Churches,  re-           believe it is necessary to review
                                        fleeting on what I had written in          the history behind it, which I will
                                        the Christian Renewal. In this edi-        try to do as briefly as I can,
                                        torial Dr. DeJong focused on the                         _-----
Rev,  Woudenberg  is pastor of the      historical aspect of our studies,              To begin, it is important to un-
Pvotkstant  Reformed Church of          and especially on what I had said          derstand that the Protestant  Re-
Kalamazoo, Michigan.                    about the centrally important 1949         formed denomination originated
                                                                                            May 1, 1996lStandard Bearer1347


out of the Christian Reformed            cussion,  later summarized his in-      1945, that the real reason' was
Church as a result of the common         troduction of this lecture 0y point-    learned to be Schilder's view of the
grace controversy of 1924, and           ing out that this invitation:           covenant, nearly identical with
thus with a specific commitment                                                  that which Prof. W. Heyns had
to the principle that grace is al-         was not at all based on the sup-      taught for years at Calvin Semi-
ways particular, which position            position that he (Schilder - BW)      nary, and which lay at the root of
therefore has the weight of consti-        was in agreement with our con-        what we considered to be the most
tuting our first and formative             ception of the matter.... Nor did     objectionable part of the CRC view
ecclesiastical decision, which, ac-        Dr. Schilder's acceptance of our
                                           invitation put him under any          of common grace. Still Hoeksema
cording to Article 31 of the Church        moral obligation to cater to our      defended Schilder vigorously, if
Order of Dort, is therefore "settled       view. He was perfectly free to        not for his doctrinal position, be-
and binding" among us, even as is          express his own views, free even      cause of the unjust way he had
every final decision of a Reformed         to give the Standard Bearer a         been treated by the synod.
ecclesiastical church body. This           thrashing, if he were of a mind to            For the next year the pages of
does not mean that everyone be-            do so. And he [Hoeksema - BW]         the  Standard Bearer  were filled
longing to a Reformed denomina-            invited the audience to give the      with reports and analyses of ev-
tion is required to believe or agree       speaker their honest attention and    ery aspect of this conflict, includ-
with each decision, or that they           not to listen with the question in    ing the similarity between the
may not discuss or question its            their heart and uppermost in their
                                           mind whether the speaker's views      views of Schilder and Heyns, and
wisdom or propriety, for that              were in agreement with their own      of our objections to them. All was
would constitute the kind of "im-          (Vol. 15, p. 244).                    said kindly and with concern and
plicit faith" against which Calvin                                               clearly in the hope that eventually
so often railed. Rather, inasmuch        And, in fact, when everything was       a serious theological discussion of
as an ecclesiastical decision is only    said and done, Schilder did in his      these matters might be aroused,
to concern ecclesiastical matters,       lecture set forth a view of com-        especially with Dr. Schilder. But
and is always to be in conformity        mon grace in nature, somewhat           little was heard on this level until
with the Word of God (which is           akin to that which Abraham              it was learned indirectly that Prof.
what Article 30 implies when it          Kuyper saw in culture, but dis-         Schilder had actually made a
says, "In these assemblies ecclesi-      tinctly different from the Three        speech in Kampen repudiating the
astical matters only are to be trans-    Points of the CRC, which alone          theory of common grace. This was
acted, and that in an ecclesiastical     saw it in salvation as well. That,      gratifying in its way, but also per-
manner"), the members of a de-           however, was not the point. Hoek-       plexing, as Hoeksema went on to
nomination by common consent             sema, with his desire to promote        say:
agree to act in conformity with          free and open discussion, was only
what is decided, and not to mili-        too pleased to have someone of                  We wonder in how far the Re-
tate against it "unless it be proved     stature willing to discuss these          formed Churches (Art. 31) in gen-
to conflict with the Word of God         matters with him; and  tine result        eral digest and accept the views
or with the articles of the church       was a friendship between the two          now propounded by Dr. Schilder
order," in which case, of course, it     of them that continued for over a         as in the above mentioned speech;
is to be changed. It is these two                                                  and also how they will ultimately
                                         decade  - although, sadly, not            harmonize this with the Heynsian
articles, 30 & 31, which constitute      quite to the end.                         conception of the covenant so
the heart of Reformed church pol-            Shortly after Dr. Schilder re-        generally adopted by them. To
ity, inasmuch as it is through them      turned to the Netherlands, the Sec-       me it seems that the two are dia-
that the unity of the church can be      ond World War began, cutting off          metrically opposed  (SB, Jan. 15,
maintained.                              not just correspondence, but all          1947).
    Now, beyond this, our rela-          news from the Netherlands. In
tionship with the Liberated              fact, in the fall of 1944, when a       And so he concluded with a plea
Churches had its roots in the visit      rumor came through that Dr.             for further discussion on these
of Dr. Klaas Schilder to America         Schilder had been deposed by the        matters, and particularly with an
in 1939. At that time Dr. Schilder       Gereformeerde Kerken,  Hoeksema         invitation for Dr. Schilder to come
met Rev. Hoeksema and was in-            chided the editor of the Banner for     and visit us once again for this.
vited to speak in the large audito-      speculating that it must have been        This time, however, his plea did
rium of the First Protestant Re-         over common grace and Schilder's        not go unheeded. On the one
formed Church on the subject of          friendship with men such as Hoek-       hand, the Rev. L. Doekes  began a
common grace. This he did; and           sema: and it was not until nearly       series of articles in De Reformatie
Hoeksema, always a believer in the       a year later, in the late summer of     with the purpose of evaluating our
importance of open and free  dis-                                                view of the covenant - which ar-

348lStandard Bearer/May 1, 1998,


titles Hoeksema published in both        traveled with him all through the          Never did there seem to be a prob-
Dutch and English in the Standard        denomination, giving him a full            lem left. This was Schilder's hour;
Bearer with the intent of respond-       and free opportunity to speak as           and it was almost as though the
ing to them once the series was          he would, but also then providing          absence of Hoeksema added to its
ended; but that never happened           an analysis of our problems with           power. Schilder passed through
due to the intervention of a mas-        what he said. It was something to          our little denomination like a con-
sive stroke with which Hoeksema          which everyone had been looking            quering hero, with none to detract
was struck that summer. Before           forward with eager anticipation.           from his endless rounds of impres-
that happened, however, Schilder         But now, as by the hand of God,            sive accomplishments.
also replied with an acceptance of       Hoeksema's trumpet-like voice                  And then the unexpected hap-
his invitation to come again to          was silenced, perhaps never to be          pened: Suddenly Hoeksema was
America, at which point Hoeksema         heard again; and Schilder traveled         back. Within five short months he
remarked:                                among us alone.                            was out of his bed and able to take
                                             Still, the event itself was far        part in the final, climactic,  three-
    Dr. Schilder . . . knows that we     too significant not to engender ex-        day conference on that most cru-
  do not agree with their covenant       citement. Schilder went from one           cial subject of the covenant.
  conception, and that we take the       end of our denomination to the             Clearly Hoeksema's illness still re-
  same stand as they, church politi-     other, preaching, lecturing, and           stricted him as he struggled, both
  cally. He is assured too that, in
  spite of our differences, our          teaching with all his amazing              to remain polite, and yet to present
  churches will give him a hearing.      thetic  powers, that is, his amazing       the difficulties he saw in Schilder's
  He trusts that we still love him,      ability to take any subject, almost        covenant view, and which he had
  and that we will give him a warm       without notice, and expound upon           waited so long to have discussed,
  reception. In this, I think he will    it with poetic flourishes and in-          while Ophoff did what he could
  not be disappointed (SB, Vol. 23,      sights which held every audience           to drive each point home. But the
  p. 243).                               in rapt attention literally to the last    day belonged to Schilder, and he
                                         word. But perhaps even more im-            was equal to it all. With his gift
This visit, of course, did take          portant were the private visits            for molding an audience, he easily
place, but only after Hoeksema's         which took place in nearly every           parried each problem, or suc-
stroke prevented him from taking         pastor's manse. These were men             ceeded in laying it aside, until it
an active part in it, that is, until     with little higher education beyond        was left for him to wrap every-
the very end. It was this visit,         that which Hoeksema and Ophoff             thing up by laying out three suc-
however, that undoubtedly consti-        had provided them; and they were           cinct conclusions:
tuted the pivot point in the whole       being privileged to host and hold              1. The covenant is always to
of our relationship with the Liber-      private theological discussions                be identified directly with the
ated Churches.                           with one of the most learned and               promise of God and the de-
    To begin with, one can hardly        profound thinkers in all of mod-               mands or conditions which
overestimate the significance of         ern Europe. And, even as they did              must accompany it.
Hoeksema's stroke, less than two         so, Schilder had that ability to en-           2. The Liberated view of the
months prior to Dr. Schilder's ar-       gender within all of them the feel-            covenant was to be distin-
rival. For twenty years Hoeksema         ing that their thoughts and their              guished from that of Prof.
had been the dominating figure           opinions were as valuable and                  Heyns because they did not in-
within our small denomination,           valid as those of anyone else, after           clude in their view a prepara-
and its leading theologian. He           which he would respond with an-                tory grace for everyone.
had waged the battle for particu-        other of those soaring rhetorical              3. There were no essential
lar grace which had given birth to       flourishes which left everyone                 differences between our view
it,. had edited the Stadard  Bearer      breathless and without further an-             of the covenant and that of the
which spoke for it, had taught all       swer. This was for many of them                Liberated, other than in termi-
of the young pastors who minis-          the experience of a lifetime; and it           nology and emphasis due to
tered within it, organized nearly        had its effect. Carefully, almost              the different histories through
every congregation which be-             gingerly, each would lay out the               which we had passed.
longed to it, and in general had         problems he thought Hoeksema               And then, to the surprise' of nearly
given wise and discerning direc-         would have presented, particularly         everyone, he laid out two personal
tion at every point along its way.       regarding that crucial matter of the       goals, and in such a way as though
He was its father figure, loved and      covenant; but Schilder was equal           they had been agreed upon by all:
respected by all. And so it was to       to each of them, as thetically he          first, that we should work `to bring
be expected that, on Schilder's ar-      brought both views together as             our two "denominations into cioser
rival, he would have met him and         though they were actually one.             union as sister-churches so that

                                                                                             May 1, 1996lStahdarbi Bear&34~


our preachers might pass freely           yet come to be.                         (Acts  of  Synod 1949,  p. 50). Nor
back and forth between them both;              Still, underneath there were       could they feel anything but un-
and secondly, to encourage those          some, along with Hoeksema, and          comfortable with his claim that our
emigrating from the Netherlands           especially Ophoff, who felt a lin-      differences were simply in termi-
to join our churches when they ar-        gering sense of uneasiness. In          nology and emphasis, for that was
rived on our shores. For our men,         spite of Schilder's striking rheto-     the very thing we had been hear-
few things could have seemed              ric, when it came down to it the        ing for years out of the CRC con-
more gratifying. Here was the             real problems had not actually          cerning common grace, and it was
most pre-eminent of Dutch theo-           been grappled with, and had cer-        hardly reassuring to hear it now
logians, having come to know each         tainly not been resolved, as Ophoff     from the lips of Schilder regard-
of them personally, expressing his        was later to reflect in speaking of     ing our covenant view as well.
complete confidence in them, and          the Liberated view of the covenant,         Nevertheless, those were
expressing his intention to direct        "It is the very doctrine he ex-         pleasant days which Schilder spent
his own people to come under              pounded on our meetings with            in our midst, and a genuine sense
their preaching and care. At last,        him. But he did so in a kind of         of sorrow was felt when the time
by his good graces, it seemed that        veiled speech so that we didn't         came  for Dr. Schilder to depart our
our long'longed-for growth might          know what, he was driving at"           shores once more. Cl





       The Gifts Neces                                                                         r the
                              Office of El

    In the previous article we ex-        ety means that he must be a child       man in whose heart burns the love
amined in- some detail the gifts          of God. It is true that there may       of God in Christ so that he loves
necessary for the office of elder as      be hypocrites among the elders.         God and God's people, God's
these are presented in I Timothy          We are warned in Scripture that         church and cause. Without the
3:1-7 and Titus  1:5-g. If we con-        just as there were false prophets       love of God in his heart, the elder
sider these gifts as a whole we may       in the Old Testament era so there       may speak with the tongue of men
conclude that the elder in Christ's       will be false teachers in the church    and of angels, but he will become
church must possess certain quali-        today.' God even used a Balaam          as sounding brass or a tinkling
fications or gifts of the Holy Spirit     to bless His Old Testament church.      cymbal. He may have the gift of
of Christ. These are: spirituality        Two things  may  be said of these       prophecy and understand all mys-
or genuine piety, humility, sym-          false teachers. They never last.        teries and all knowledge, but if the
pathetic understanding, courage or        Sooner or later, but inevitably,        elder lacks God's love, he is noth-
boldness, knowledge of the truth          they are exposed. When that hap-        ing."
of Holy Scripture. To this must           pens they either leave the church           Closely related to spirituality
be added the fact that Scripture          or are put out of office and the        is the gift of humility. There is no
teaches  that the elder must be an        church by means of discipline.          room for pride in the elder. Pride,
example to the people of God.             These hypocrites are not the rule,      the Bible says, goes before destruc-
    That the elder must possess the       but the exception. The man who          tion.3 Self-seeking pride, selfish-
gift of spirituality or genuine  pi-      would serve the church as an el-        ness, the seeking of the praise of
                                          der, either ruling or teaching, must    men - these are abominable sins
                                          be a spiritual man. He must be          among God's people, especially
Prof. Decker is professor of Practical    pious.and  godly, a man saved by        among the elders. The elder must
Theolog  in the Protestant Reformed       grace through faith in Jesus Christ,    be a humble man. Just as were
Semina y.                                 God's gift. The elder must be a         the apostles, so must the elders be

35OlStandard Bearer/May 1 I 1996


     servants (the word in the Greek is         for he too needs boldness to do                    "Do as I do, speak as I speak, live
     "slaves") of the Lord Jesus Christ         the work. To hold fast the truth                   as I live." The holy apostle  ad-
     and His church. The elder must             in an age of apostasy, to insist                         monishes us to be followers
     give his life in the service of God's      on obedience to the law of                                ("imitators" is the literal
     church. This means the elder must                                                      If
                                                God in a lawless age, to in-           he is               translation) of him and his
     be a man of prayer. If he is not to        sist on good, expository            to contend             co-workers. Many walk as
     think of himself more highly than          preaching which presents             earnestly             enemies of the cross of
     he ought to think, the elder must          the truth antithetically in an        for the              Christ. Their end is destruc-
     know that all that he is and all that      age in which people despise                                tion. We must imitate the
                                                                                      faith,
     he has, and that includes the of-          preaching, to discipline the         the elder             apostles and their co-labor-
     fice which he occupies, is the gift        wayward even to the point           must know              ers because their  conversa-
     of God's grace. The elder must             of applying the "last  rem-                 the            tion (citizenship) is in
     know that he cannot watch for the          edy," excommunication, in              faith.             heaven, from whence also
     souls of God's people, admonish            an age of permissiveness -            '                   they look for the Savior, the
     one wayward saint, visit one af-           all this takes boldness. The el-                        Lord Jesus Christ.g  The apostle
     flicted child of God, or counsel one       der, together with the minister and                Paul exhorts his spiritual son
     troubled saint apart from God's            deacon, stands in the front line of                Timothy, the young preacher, to
     grace. If anyone in the church             the battle of faith. This takes great              "be an example of the believers,
     needs to pray without ceasing, it          courage!                                           in word, in conversation, in char-
     is the elder. He needs God's grace                The elder needs to know the                 ity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."*O
     and Holy Spirit to enable him to           doctrines of the Word of God as                    To cite no more, the apostle Peter
     "shepherd the flock of God . . . tak-      these are summed and presented                     exhorts the elders of the church to
     ing the oversight thereof, not by          systematically in the Reformed                     shepherd the flock of God, "... not
     constraint, but willingly; not for               confessions. He must be  thor-               as lords over God's heritage, but
     filthy lucre, but of a ready                       oughIy steeped in the Re-                  being examples to the flock."l'
     mind;  Neither as being lords                      formed faith, Constantly the                    The man of God whom the
     over God's heritage, but be-        anyone         elder must grow in the grace               Lord calls to this sacred office
     ing examples to the flock."4          in the        and  knowIedge  of the Lord               trembles when he ponders all this.
         Sympathetic understand-           church        Jesus Christ. If he does not              "Who," he asks with Paul, "is suf-
     ing must also characterize            needs         he will surely fall from his              ficient for these things?"l*  The an-
     the elder. Jesus, the Son of        to pray         own steadfastness and be led              swer is, only the man whom God
     God, our great High Priest         without          away with the error of the                in His mercy has blessed with the
     who is passed into the heav-       ceasing,        wicked.7 If he is to contend               calling and the gifts to serve Him
     ens for us, is able to be           it is the      earnestly for the faith, the el-           by serving His precious and be-
     touched with the feelings of          elder.       der must know the  faith.s If              loved church in Jesus Christ. Cl
     our infirmities, and He was                       he is to shepherd the flock of
     tempted in all points like as we,               God by means of teaching the
     yet without sin.5 If Jesus is able to      people of God, he must know the
     be touched with the feelings of our        doctrine of Gods Word. He must
     infirmities, then surely the elder         know the history of the church
     who is the servant of Christ must          generally, but he must especially                                  Endnotes:
     have sympathetic understanding of          know the history of the Protestant
     God's people. He must know                 Reformed Churches. The elder                       1    II Peter 2 l-3; Jude
                                                                                                                    :             3-4,17-19.
     God's people: their needs, their           must know the struggles and                        2    I Corinthians  13:1-2.
     struggles, joys, afflictions, sorrows,     battles of the church which make                   3    Proverbs 16:18.
     weaknesses, and sins. The elder            her what she is today. The elder                   4    I Peter 5:1-3.
     must "fee1 with" the people of God         must be able to discern the truth                  5    Hebrews  4:14-16.
     so as to be able to bring the Word         and distinguish it from the lie. An                6    Ephesians 6:18-19.
     of God which meets  their need.            elder who is ignorant of all this                  7    II Peter 3:17-X3.
I        To serve in the office of elder        will never be able to govern and                   8    Jude 3.
     requires courage or boldness. The          lead the people of God in the way                  9    Philippians  3:17-20.
     apostle- Paul asked the saints in          of the truth.                                      lo I Timothy  4:12.
     Ephesus to pray for him that he                   Finally, the elder must be an               ** I Peter  5:1-3.
     might have boldness to open his            example to the people of God. His                  l2 II Corinthians  2:16.
     mouth to make known the  mys-              actions must never contradict his
     tery of the gospel.6  The elder must       teaching. Always the elder must
     emulate the apostle in this respect,       be able to say to the congregation,

                                                                                                             May I, 1996lStandard Bearer1351


 h !%s F@@lr                                                                                 R@\Y., Am@ d@nElglTt@g


 He that Sitteth in the Heavens
                                     Shall: Laugh (1)

    I have chosen the theme for         It is consummate folly. It is mon-             newspapers of the world one can
this article from Psalm 2, verse 4:     strous wickedness. It is outra-                read of the raging of the wicked
"He that sitteth in the heavens         geous depravity to make a tumult               world.
shall laugh: the Lord shall have        against the Holy One, the Lord of                   According to Psalm 2, all this
them  in derision." Certainly this      heaven and earth.                              raging and tumult in the world has
is one of the most fearful passages         Psalm 2 gives a description of             a very definite purpose. It is all
of all of Scripture. God is laugh-      the history of the world, the                  against  the Lord and  against  His
ing at the wicked! This laughter        wicked world in which we live.                 anointed! That is the shocking re-
is not one of joy and pleasure but      From the time of the Fall until the            ality of it all. It is an attempt to
one of holy wrath and of scorn and      end of this age this world is en-              break the bands of the Lord and
derision. God laughs at the hea-        gaged in tumultuous raging                     cast away His cords. Wicked men
then and at the wicked who are          against God. "The kings of the                 do not want God to rule over
arrayed in rebellion against Him.       earth set themselves, and the rul-             f&em. Under the instigation of the
The Lord enthroned in the heav-         ers take counsel together, against             devil, wicked men rebel against
ens laughs at the utterly vain pur-     the Lord and against his                           God. They refuse to submit
poses of the heathen and the            anointed, saying, Let us break            -          themselves unto His holy
wicked to oppose God, and at their      their bands asunder, and cast             VW         commandments. We must
attempts to frustrate His counsel       away their cords from us."          modem             understand clearly what is
and overthrow Him. How can              The whole wicked world is          civilized             going on with all of this.
man ever hope to destroy the Al-        arrayed as a vast army of            world               We must understand who
mighty? How can puny man de-            millions and millions of sol-      is making             all is involved in the raging
throne the King of all the universe?    diers against God. Included        a tumult              of the wicked world. We
How can he succeed in establish-        are the kings of the earth and      against           must be very clear that what
ing the throne of man and of the        the rulers of the world, and              God,       the psalmist speaks of is re-
devil against God's purpose here        under them the millions and                          ally going on even today in
on this earth? The sovereign, al-       millions of ungodly men. The                      the ungodly world in which we
mighty God laughs at it all. The        devil, the great enemy of God, is              live. Our modern civilized world
holy God of righteousness and           the prince over them all.                      is making a tumult against God.
judgment laughs as He prepares              The raging tumult is seen in                    Wicked men violate every or-
His judgment for the wicked. This       the violence and wickedness of the             dinance of God. They refuse to
laughter should strike terror in the    world. It is seen in the social strife         acknowledge Him as God. They
hearts of the men of this world.        and conflict that characterizes the            do not glorify Him as God, nei-
    "The heathen rage, the people       history of this world. It is seen in           ther are they thankful to Him.
imagine a vain thing." The psalm-       the crime and murder that fill the             This is not because they are igno-
ist is amazed, he is shocked and        streets of our cities. It is seen in           rant of God. God clearly reveals
dismayed. Therefore he asks the         the thousands and thousands of                 Himself in His creation, in the
question, Why?" The whole thing         wars that the world has engaged                things which He has made. He
is insane. It is ludicrous madness.     in throughout history. There is no             declares His sovereign Word in the
                                        peace in this wicked world. There              world. He has written the works
                                        never will be. There cannot be.                of the law in the heart of every
Rev.  denHartog   is pastor of Hope     All of this is the characteristic of a         man. But the world hates God. It
Protestant Reformed Church in           world that has rebelled against                refuses to glorify Him. In proud,
Redlands, California.                   God. Every day in the leading                  assumed wisdom this world rejects

352lStandard BearerlMay  1 s 1996


  God and makes idols of their own           dustry, together with the mass me-         wicked men making a tumult and
  vain imagination.                          dia, promotes blatant immorality           raging against God.
      This is not done only in the           day after day. Any attempt to                  The heretics in the church who
  uncivilized heathen world far              curb or to limit this in any way is        are seeking to overthrow all the
  away. from us, and perhaps long            met by vehement insistence on the          fundamental doctrines of the Word.
  ago, but also in the modern-day            "American right" of the freedom            of God and to subvert whole de-
  world of America and Europe,               of speech. Evil men imagine that           nominations to the evils of mod-
  Australia, and. all over the globe.        they -can violate God's law with           ernism and worldliness are raging
  This is done in a world that boasts        impunity. They imagine that man            against God. Man makes a god of
  of great learning, technology, sci-        was placed on earth only for law-          His own imagination, one which
  ence, and astounding inventions.           less, selfish, immoral pleasure, to        loves all men and winks at sin, a
  The idols that the modern-day              gratify his own lust. Christians           god who serves the whim and
  world makes are of man's wicked            ought not to make watching this a          fancy of men doing whatever man
  humanistic philosophy and learn-           form of entertainment and relax-           pleases. He will not have a God
  ing, of boasted power and human            ation  but'recognize  it for what it       who rules over man and who has
  greatness and glory. They are the          really is, raging against God!             established His holy law for man
  idols of materialism and covetous-              The skyrocketing divorce rates,       to live by. How awful all of this
  ness, of pleasure and lust, of the         the ease of contracting one mar-           is! What grief it causes to those
  worship of man and the glorying            riage after the other, is a shocking       who truly love God.
  in man. These idols are just as            example of wicked men raging                   We need to bring this matter
  stupid and dumb and evil as those          against God. The refusal of man            even closer to home however. Our
  of heathen nations. Their being            to limit sexual activity to the op-        sinful nature is prone to hate God
  clothed with the great learning and        posite sex within the holy bond. of        and our-neighbor. We have within
  supposed intelligence of modern            marriage,. the horrible depravity of       our own being and person a rag-
 man does not make them one whit             homosexuality, the defiant insis-          ing and tumult against God. Ev-
' better, but in fact even worse. The        tence that such activity is a legiti-      ery true Christian is aware of this
  more "intelligent" man becomes in          mate alternate life-style that we to-      raging within his own breast. All
  his denying and rejecting God and          day must simply accept, whether            men in the world, also we our-
  rebelling against Him, the more of         we like it or not, is raging against       selves according to our sinful na-
  a consummate fool in reality he is.        the Holy God of .heaven and earth.         ture, are included in the vast
      The tumult and raging of man,               The refusal of women to sub-          armies of millions and millions of
  wicked man, against God is seen            mit to their husbands in the home,         men who have set themselves
  in every violation of God's com-           and their insistence that they must        against the Lord, and who imag-
  mandments. The constant blas-              have places of authority in the            ine a vain thing against Him.
  phemy of God's holy name by                         church, involves them in rag-         The culmination of the raging
  wicked man is tumult and           mr                in& against God. The  ter-       of the wicked world against the
  raging against God. The            lne more           rible evil according to         Lord and against His anointed
  desecration of the Lord's        "intelligent"         which these women insist       came at the cross of Christ Jesus.
  day for sports and  plea-       man becomes            on the "right" to be able      The inspired writer Luke under-
  sures  is wicked .man's  tu-    in his denying         even to abort and murder       stood that the cross was the ex-
  mult against the God of         and rejecting           their unborn children, be-    treme fulfillment of Psalm 2.
  heaven who has ordained                  God            cause they wilI not accept    Therefore he quotes this Psalm to
  this day for man to rest        and rebelling           the responsibility of         explain what took place at the
  and come to the house of        against Him,            motherhood, is raging         cross. Who can fathom the shock-
  God to worship and              the  more  of  a       against God.                   ing wickedness of the crucifixion
  thereby     acknowledge          consummate             The wickedness of our         of the Holy Son'of God!?
  Him as God and to glory         fool in reality       courts, the judges and ju-         It was not because of some
  in Him. The lying,  steal-          he, is.           ries which refuse to con-       great evil that Jesus had done that
  ing, and corruption of man                           demn and punish even the         He was condemned to be crucified.
  in business is man's tumult                     most evil criminals of our so-        That is impossible, for He is the
  against God.                               ciety, is in reality raging against        Holy Son of God. It was not be-
      The refusal of man to live in          God. The youth gangs, with their           cause He had rebelled against the _
  the bonds of holy marriage is rag-         drug culture and violent crime and         Lord, or because He was the leader
  ing against God. The brazen wick-          cold-bloo'ded murder, their songs,         of some social or political revolu-
  edness of the fornication and adul-        their entertainment, the whole of          tionary movement creating confu-
  tery of this world is raging against       their philosophy of life  - all these      sion and strife in the world. Jesus
  God. The whole entertainment  in-          are an outrageous example of               was the Lord's anointed. He was
                                                                                                May 1, 1996lStandard Bearer1353


the Holy One. Maintaining and            folly of the raging of the wicked              ridiculous folly to imagine that
establishing the holiness of God         world against the Lord. The Lord               man can free himself from His rule
was the great occupation of His          is the sovereign God of heaven and             and escape His judgment.
whole earthly career. He came as         earth. He created heaven and                       God's people are often greatly
the prince of peace, not worldly         earth for His own glory. He                       distressed because of the  rag-
peace, but the true peace of God         gives to every creature its                         ing of the world. In the midst
based on righteousness before            very existence. He gives all             In       of the tumult of the world
Him. Jesus was perfectly righ-           things to all creatures. How'     the midst           against the Lord, the church
teous in all that He did. He went        incomprehensibly wicked it             of all         often suffers persecution.
everywhere preaching the truth           is for the creature to rebel      the raging           It seems to us that the
and righteousness of God. He did         against its creator. The                 of            truth and righteousness of
good all His life, healing the sick,     Lord rules among the na-              wicked           God is overthrown. It
making the blind to see, the deaf        tions. He sits on the circle           men,            seems as  though the king-
to hear, the lame to walk, even          of the earth. Before Him                 God           dom of God is destroyed.
raising up the dead. The words           the nations of the world are          remains         We are deeply grieved by
of His mouth were words of peace,        as nothing, as dust in the       sovereign.           the wickedness of the
and of love, and of mercy and            balance  .and as a drop on a                        wicked and their blasphemy
kindness. What an  amazing  and          bucket, as less than nothing..                     against God. We are grieved
wonderful thing the life of Jesus        How futile and ridiculous for this             by the apparent prosperity of the
was, when compared to all the rag-       world to make a tumult against                 wicked. We are grieved by the
ing of this wicked world. Jesus          Him.                                           apostasy of the church. We won-
was perfectly obedient unto God.             In the midst of  all the  raging           der how wicked man can appar-
He loved God. He served God.             of wicked men, God remains sov-                ently succeed in their evil purposes
He submitted Himself completely          ereign. The versification  of Psalm            against God and His truth.
to the will of God.                      2 in  our  Psalter  says, "Calm He                 Psalm 2 is written for the com-
     Yet Jesus was hated. He was         sits enthroned on high.". God is               fort of God's people. God remains       -
despised and rejected of men. He         enthroned in quiet, undisturbed _ enthroned in the heavens through
was called a son of Beelzebub. He        sovereignty. What a glorious pi&               all the history of the raging of the
came to His own and His own re-          ture of the absolute reign of God.             wicked in this world. We are told
ceived Him not. The religious elite      He sits in the heaven and laughs.              of the absolute sovereignty of God
of the day, the leaders of the           He holds the wicked in derision.               in realizing His sovereign decree
church, the chief priests, the           He is not disturbed by all their rag-          and in His coming to judge the
scribes and Pharisees, opposed           ing against Him. He laughs at its              world in His Son Jesus Christ.
Him, hated Him, and contradicted         folly. He remains God from eter-               Psalm 2 ends with an exhortation
Him. In the most atrociously ille-       nity to eternity. It is utterly im-            to God's people to bow before the
gal court in all of history they with    possible for all the raging of mil-            fearful, sovereign God so vividly
one consent condemned Jesus to           lions and millions of wicked men               described in this passage of God's
be worthy of death. They consid-         of the world to move this God                  Word. "Serve the Lord with fear
ered Jesus to be so evil that He         even one iota from being the abso-             and rejoice with trembling."
had to die the accursed death of         lutely sovereign One. It is the                    (We shall return to consider
the cross. The world of the Ro-          height of stupidity to-imagine that            some of the rest of this Psalm in
man empire, notable for its system       this God can be destroyed. It is               our next article, D.V.)  0
of law and justice even today, this
world through its infamous repre-
sentative Pontius Pilate sentenced
Jesus to be put to death. Pilate                     Why do the hea then rage, and the.peopl;! imagine
did this after repeatedly declaring
that he could find no fault in Him.
Yet he condemned the Holy Son
of God to be worthy of death.                    r~hws tak$e counseCtogether,  against ttie Lord and
Pilate gave Jesus over to the evil               against his anointed;. . .
multitudes who were screaming
for His crucifixion. This was the                    Xe,that  sitteth in the heavens shalllaugh: the
most monstrous of all raging                     tordshaC&have  them in derision.
against the Lord and His anointed.
    Psalm 2 emphasizes the unbe-                                                                      Psalin  2:1-4 .
lievable wickedness and extreme

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                 Love and, the Husband

     In the home the husband is        the model provided by Christ.           love. Repeated obedience to God's
head, according to God's com-          Learn fram Christ. Seek to reflect      command makes for the powerful
mand.        This means that the       (as much as you can) His love for       habit of love.
husband's responsibility to love       the church as you live daily with           True love of a wife is essen-
has precedence. The husband is         your wife.                              tially not different from, but the
the `source of the love of the mar-                                            same as, love of God and of the
riage, of the home, and of the fam-           +++  +++  +++                    neighbor.         Anyone who is
ily. Love is a force which the hus-                                            hardhearted toward his duty of
band in the home is primarily re-          To love your wife sounds easy       loving his wife, will also be
sponsible for originating, and is      when you are engaged and first          hardhearted toward his calling to
primarily responsible for perpetu-     married. At other times, in every       love God. In fact, not loving the
ating.                                 marriage, this love seems impos-        wife is proof that there is no love
     To love is the law of a mar-      sible. In both cases something is       for God. True love of a wife must
ried man's life. His duty to love      wrong. In both cases love is im-        be with Christian love  - a love
comprehends all of his responsi-       properly defined and understood.        which has God for its object. It is
bilities.                              It is thought that love is primarily    a great appreciation for what God
    How are you doing? Is this         a sentiment or passion, emotional       has done and is doing in her. It is
how you view your responsibility?      feelings of attraction. This kind       great appreciation for what God
                                       of "love" can be very sacrificial,      has done, is doing, and will do for
          +++  +++  +++                but it often is twisted, in that it     him through God's use of her.
                                       gives in order to receive, or (worse        Real marital love does not keep
    The husband's responsibility to    yet) in order to possess. This kind     springing from feelings for her, but
love is clearly taught in Ephesians    of "love" can easily fade, so we        has its origin in the Lord.
5:25,  28,33. "Husbands, love your     find ourselves saying (or thinking),
wives, even as Christ also loved       "All the love is gone," when what               +++  +++  +++
the church, and gave himself for       is meant is that the feelings, the
it." "So ought men to love their       emotions, are no longer present.            Real love, arising from humble
wives as their own bodies. He that        True love includes feelings and      and grateful obedience to the heav-
loveth his wife loveth himself."       emotions, but it is not to be iden-     enly Father, says much about the
"Nevertheless let every one of you     tified with them. Also, true love       kind of authority the husband ex-
in particular so love his wife even    does not depend on feelings. The        ercises as the head of -his home.
as himself."                           feeling or emotion of love must be      Love determines the nature of his
    Husbands are to love their         educated: by a conscience and con-      authority. Love tempers his au-
God-given wives  because  Christ       trolled by a will. This conscience      thority `with grace.
loved the church. Also, they are       and will must be taught by the              Does your love do that to your
to love their wife  in the manner      Scriptures and guided by grati-         authority? Or do you exercise au-
Christ loved.                          tude. The conscience and will           thority without evidence of love?
    How are you doing? Follow          which educates and controls love        Believers are under the authorita-
                                       must be taught God's will. We           tive rule of Christ, but that does
                                       are to love because we know this        not humiliate us.          Because a
                                       is what our good God demands of         husband's rule of his home comes
Rev.  VanOverloop  is pastor  of       us and because we want to show          from God, he must exercise his au-
Georgetown Protestant Reformed         our gratitude to Him.                   thority with tenderness, without
Church in Bauer, Michiian.                God commands husbands to             humiliating. The husband's  au-

                                                                                        May 1 I 1996lStandard Bearer1355


thority is founded on his love for         and understand her. True love re-       mean that he is to love his wife as
his wife. His authority must be            spects her as a fellow-saint, as one    he loves his own body. Rather it
administered in the spirit of love.        bought with Christ's most precious      means that he must love his wife
                                           blood  (s,o she must be most pre-       because she is his body. ' You and
         +++  +++  +++                     cious), as clothed with His righ-       your wife are one flesh; and one
                                           teousness, and as bound for             part of the body cannot say to an-
     Consider the love of Jesus            heaven. `True love, then, will work     other part, "I have no need of
Christ for His church in order bet-        to come `to grips with her feelings,    you." Originally God took the
ter to know how the husband must           will value what she says, and will      wife out of the man's body. Even
love his wife.                             respect: her opinion.       Love is     though the wife exists apart from
     Consider the free, electing love      gentle, comforts her, prays for her,    her husband, with her own -per-
which chose us. It was a totally           and helps her use her talents.          sonality, marriage puts the woman
undeserved love. It was a com-                 The purpose and goal of a           back into a union with the man.
pletely unconditional love. He did         husbandis love is not simply to sat-        Therefore the husband must
not choose us because we were              isfy her,, or to keep peace. Many       strive to include his wife in as
better or greater or more lovable.         times a husband will be silent be-      many of his activities as possible.
He chose us simply because He              fore his wife when she is nagging.      He should not talk about "my"
loved us.                                  The thinking is, "Just be quiet and     child or "my" house, etc., but
     Also consider that Christ's           she will get over it." But Christ       about "our" child and "our"
headship is rooted in His sacrifi-         loved in order to sanctify the          house. He should not.think  of his
cial love for His people. Jesus.           church. So a husband must seek          time away. He may not live be-
humbled Himself in order to iden-          his wife's spiritual well-being,        side her without involving her. A
tify Himself with us, and this He          whether she responds or not.            married man may not live as if he
did because He loved us.                       True love of a husband con-         is still single, as if he is free to
     The highest demonstration of          siders the real needs of his wife       pursue his own interests and am-
God's love for us is that while we         and places those needs above his        bitions. He must not neglect  her,
were yet sinners Christ died for           own.. It is thinking (next to his       but must communicate with her
us. Christ loved (sacrificed Him-          commitment to Christ) first of his      about his own personal life and
self for) His bride, not because she       wife's well-being (more than of         about matters of mutual interest.
was so attractive, but when she            self, friends, work, or hobbies).           We cannot be perfect in loving
was filthy.                                Love moves the husband to seek          our wives, as Christ was and is in
     The aim of Christ's love was,         to meet his wife's needs, which are     His love for His bride. But that
is, and will be to sanctify and            first spiritual.                        the Spirit of this Christ dwells in
cleanse His people. Christ's act of            A husband's love may not be         us means that we can begin to ap-
love took the impure church and            controlled and governed by the be-      proximate His loving leadership.
cleansed her and made her beauti-          havior of his wife, for Christ loved    We must follow our Lord's ex-
ful (without blemish). Christ's            and loves His bride uncondition-        ample, by striving more and more
love manifested itself when we             ally. The husband is commanded          to reflect His perfect love. It is
were yet sinners. A greater and            to love her - even if she does not      possible to love our God-given
more profound example of love              notice or respond. She may have         wife through the power of the
cannot be found.                           character traits or weaknesses that     Spirit who dwells in us. We must
                                           irritate, but he may not become bit-    pray for insight and wisdom to see
        +++          +++            +++    ter, as Christ is not. A loving hus-    where our love is lacking. We
                                           band will have patience, which          must pray for God's Word to
    Similarly, a husband's  head-          does not mean he silently puts up       shape our thoughts, words, and
ship stems from his love (the sac-         with, but calmly talks to her about     actions.
rifice of himself) for his wife. This      her weaknesses and sins.                    Loving your wife is not op-
may involve the big things of life.            You must constantly ask, "Do        tional. It is one of the chief ways
But more often it's the little things      I love my wife in the way my Lord       in which a Christian home is dis-
of life which are so important to          demands of me? Am I following           tinguished from an unbeliever's
the making of a relationship (un-          the example of Christ?"                 home. It is also one,  .of the most
noticed by others, often even by                                                   evident ways in which a husband
the wife).                                        +++  +++  +++                    demonstrates his faith.
    True love is a commitment                                                          Husbands,. love your wife for
which seeks what is good and ben-              Husbands are commanded to           the glory of God. 0
eficial for the wife ("gives honor,"       love their wives "as their own bod-
I Peter  3:7). Love seeks to know          ies" (Eph.  5:28). This does not

356lStandard Bearer/May  1, 1996


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                             Trying; the Spirits

    "Beloved, believe not eve y spirit,      ceptance  of any particular matter            of trying the spirits. In this ar-
but ty the spirits whether they are of       has foundation in God's Word of               ticle, and in two to follow, there
God: because many false prophets are         truth.                                        are four sub-points that I would
gone out into fhe world."                             It is a common conception in         have you consider with me in this
I John 49                                         our day that men may simply be-          connection. We will consider, first,
                                             lieve what they wish. After all,              the necessity of trying the spirits;
    The subject that we consider             "We're all on the same road to                secondly, what are these "spirits"
is a matter of critical importance.          heaven; just headed there in dif-             that we are to try; thirdly, how we
The fact that the call to discern-           ferent  ways."                                are to try them; and finally, to
ment is issued throughout the                         But I John 4:1, like all the rest    whom this calling is addressed.
Bible, in the Old and New Testa-                  of Scripture, teaches quite the op-
ments, the fact,that  repeated warn-         posite.                                       The Necessity
ing is given concerning the rise of                   The apostle Peter, in reflecting         Spiritual discernment, trying
false teachers and the increase of           upon the Old Testament, said in II            the spirits, must be a vital concern
attacks upon the church in the last          Peter 2, "But there were false                for us as officebearers, and for our
hour, the fact that I John 4:l calls         prophets also among the people,               Protestant Reformed churches and
us to specific action, namely, that               even as there shall be false teach-      people. Certainly one of the chief
of trying the spirits, demonstrates               ers among you, who privily shall         concerns that we have as pastors
that discernment is a matter of              bring in damnable heresies, even and elders is that God's people be
critical importance for the church                denying the Lord that bought             discerning Christians. That is and
today.                                       them, and bring upon themselves               must be our concern, because all
    Constantly we are being con-                  swift destruction. And many shall        too often the people of God show
fronted with "new" teachings,                follow their pernicious ways; by              themselves sorely lacking in this
"new" religious movements, dif-                   reason of whom the way of truth          virtue. That has always been the
ferent ways of doing things. What                 shall be evil spoken of. And             case. The examples and the many
shall we say? Shall we condemn                    through covetousness shall they          admonitions of Scripture pertain-
things simply because they are dif-          with feigned words make mer-                  ing to this subject show that the
ferent? Shall-we cast off anything                chandise of you: whose judgment          people of God are inclined toward
that threatens change? Or, on the            now of a long time lingereth not,             spiritual laziness.            And  office-
other hand, shall we accept things                and their damnation slumbereth           bearers in the church are not im-
simply because they are taught and                not" (II Pet. 2:1-3). That hardly        mune to such a lack of virtue in
take place within the confines of                 speaks of those on the same road         this area.
Christianity and more particularly                to heaven.                                   If we begin simply by focus-
the Reformed faith?                                   Repeatedly Scripture warns us        ing on ourselves and our people,
    Critically important it is that               that there is a standard that must       some of that spiritual laziness
we be discerning Christians, discern-             be applied to every teaching and         arises out of an intense loyalty to
ing  church leaders. Critically im-               every way. It is the command of          our churches  - a loyalty which
portant it is that we not merely                  God that we  not  believe every          on the one hand is a commend-
criticize, but that we carefully                  spirit, but that we try the spirits      able thing, when it is rooted in a
evaluate and pass judgment and                    whether ,they be of God. And the         desire to stand steadfast in the
be careful that our rejection or ac-              standard, that must be applied to        truth.
                                                  every teaching and every move-               But it is easy in such a case to
Rev. Key is pastor                                ment is the standard of God's Holy
                       of  the Protestant                                                  take the attitude that, "Well, all
Reformed Church                                   Word, the truth of Holy Scripture.
                    of Randolph, Wis-                                                      our ministers preach the  same
consin. This article is the substance             That is, in very brief sum, what         thing, we all believe the same, we
                                                  we are taught in I ,John 4:l.
of the opening address given by Pas-                                                       have the truth; therefore we are
to7 Key at an  Officebearers'  Confer-                But we want to consider in a         invincible. There is no danger that
eke in Pella, IA, on March 5, 1996.               little more depth the importance         we be misled by any false teacher."
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       It is a kind of "the enemy is        with rationalism, with holding to                 always attempting to rob us of the
  all out there" attitude.                  a dead: religion, with legalism,                  gospel, and to wreck our Chris-
       The problem is that such an at-      with sectarianism, separatism, and                tian testimony and the witness of
  titude tends to neglect the calling       many other less than favorable                    the truth, our peace and our joy.
  set before us in the example of the       terms.                                            The history of the church has al-
  Bereans, who searched the Scrip-              Of course we must be critical                 ways seen the same thing.
  tures daily to see whether the            of any dead orthodoxy in our                         And if we look at Johns warn-
  things that the apostle Paul              midst. We must  war against  any                  ing in the broader context of his
 preached were true. Such an atti-          pharisaical attitudes. We must                    epistle, we see the danger of false
 tude actually breeds spiritual leth-       preach that there must be more to                 prophets and the importance of
  argy, a lethargy rooted in spiritual      our reiigion than mere head                       trying the spirits. Error in either
 pride.                                     knowledge. But, at the same                          doctrine or life is destructive
      That is a grave danger to us.         time, we must hold forth the                            of fellowship with God. And
 It is a grave danger because the           importance of God's truth!          The vast             fellowship is the  aEostle's
  devil not only attacks the church             The, necessity of trying        majority              primary concern.  z
 with spirits of false doctrine, but        the spirits is clear, espe-              in the                  To put it in terms
 he attacks the church just as vig-         cially throughout the              nominally               of that truth which we .as
 orously with spirits of worldliness        New Testament Scrip-               Christian               churches hold so dear:
 and carnality,. spirits of disobedi-       tures, but also in our                  church             John's fervent desire is
 ence to God's truth, spirits of a life-    own experience. The                of  our day              that those to whom he
 style that does not conform to the         church is constantly con-                  are              writes know the cov-
 spirit of Christianity.                    fronted `with false teach-        unconcerned               enant,  not only doctri-
      So the apostle Paul wrote to          ings and practices that          with doctrine.             nally, but as a matter of
 Timothy in II Timothy 3:1-5: "This         are contrary to the stan-                 Their             their own experience.
 know also, that in the last days           dard of God's  Holy               one interest              They must know the fel-
 perilous times shall come. For             Word. Almost all the               is to have               lowship of God's love,
 men shall be lovers of their own           epistles call attention to          a church                that blessed relationship
 selves, covetous, boasters, proud,         that in one way or an-            where they               with the Triune God,
 blasphemers, disobedient to par-           other.                            can function             which relationship is
 ents, unthankful, unholy, without              The apostle Paul               in a social            ours in Christ Jesus, and
 natural affection, truce-breakers,         wrote frequently of the          communitu....           which is reflected in the
 false accusers,- incontinent, fierce,      churches being troubled by                        ~J~~~~ fellowship we have one
 despisers of those that are good,          certain teachers who had fol-                          with another.
 traitors, heady, high-minded, lov-         lowed after him, imitating his                         So John writes in I John 1:3:
 ers of pleasures more than lovers          preaching and his gospel in many             "That which we have seen and
 of God; having a form of godli-            respects, but adding to it their own         heard declare we unto you, that
 ness, but denying the power                particular teachings. The result             ye also may have fellowship with
 thereof: from such turn away."             was often confusion in the                   us: and truly our fellowship is
 The devil will do whatever it takes        churches, and, even more, depar-             with the Father, and `with his Son
 to lead astray the members of the          ture from the faith. The apostle             Jesus Christ."
 church.                                    did  not, hesitate to expose these                   But while the great blessedness
      That there is a tremendous and        things as the works of the devil,            of the Christian life is that cov-
 appalling indifference to sound            the father of lies.                          enant fellowship with God through
 doctrine today is clearly evident.             He warns us of false teachers            Jesus Christ and, as members of
 The vast majority in the nominally         with these words (II Cor. 11:13-15):         His body, one with another, there
 Christian church of our day are            "For such are false apostles, de-            is something most destructive to
 unconcerned with doctrine. Their           ceitful workers, transforming                that covenant fellowship. That is
 one interest is to have a church           themselves into the apostles of              the lie. "The spirit of error," as
 where they can function in a so-           Christ. And no marvel; for Satan             John refers to it in verse 6 of chap-
 cial community, feeling good about         himself is transformed into an an-           ter 4, in all its different forms, mili-
 themselves, and improving those            gel of light. Therefore it is no great       tates against our enjoyment of that
 good self-feelings by their cloak of       thing if his ministers also be trans-        fellowship.
 religiosity. "Doing" is the name           formed as the ministers of righ-                     For that reason we must be
of the game. Social action is where         teousness; whose end shall be ac-            vigilant in our watchfulness and
 it is at!                                  cording to their works."                     our defense of the truth. For the
      So it is not uncommon that we             Satan attacks the church, and            truth shall make us free.
 who love the truth are charged             us who are members of the church,                              (to be continued) Cl

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Evangelism Activities                        much of the effort being done with      faced with that same question:
    The Evangelism Committee of              the Christian S.I.N.D.H.I. organi-      may we in any way participate?
the Randolph, WI PRC sponsored               zation, or Sindhi International Net-        Sunday evening, March 24, the
a Spring Lecture again this year.            work  Discipling  Houston's Indi-       Hudsonville Choral Society from
Prof. H. Hanko, of the Protestant            ans. This effort of Trinity received    Hudsonville, MI PRC gave their
Reformed Seminary, spoke on                  a boost this past month when ap-        annual Spring Concert with a nice
March 25 in Randolph on the                  proximately twenty young people         selection of songs commemorating
broad theme of Church Unity and              from our Georgetown PRC in              the death and resurrection of our
Ecumenism.                                   Hudsonville, MI spent their spring      Lord Jesus Christ.
    In an attempt to stir up a little        break at Trinity, taking part in a          The Men's Society of the Hull,
interest in good Christian books,            week-long Evangelism Seminar en-        IA PRC invited the men from their
the Evangelism Committee of the              titled, "Reaching the Nations-with      two neighboring congregations, the
Immanuel PRC in Lacombe, AB,                 the Gospel of Grace." Not only          Doon, IA and Edgerton, MN PRCs,
Canada asked some thought-pro-               were the young people kept busy         to join with them in a combined
voking questions about creation.             the entire week with a wide range       meeting. Bible discussion centered
Had anyone there ever wondered               of activities, from Sunday worship      on Genesis 39, with an after-recess
about dinosaurs . . . or about where         services with Trinity's congrega-       program looking at the subject of
all the water of the Flood came              tion, to evangelism meetings with       "Christian Liberty," what it is and
from . . . or if it is true that Noah's      the Christian  SINDHI's  and Rev.       what it means for us.
ark had been discovered? To help             T. Miersma, our denomination's
answer these and many other                  home missionary, but they also          School  Activities
questions, they recommended that             had time to tour different areas of         Our Covenant Christian School
members of their congregation get            interest in and around Houston,         in Lynden, WA has formed a spe-
and read The Flood, by Dr. Alfred            including, China and Indian Town,       cial committee to study the use of
Rehwinkel.     Possibly you might            in addition to enjoying a meal at       their school facilities and possible
consider doing the same;                     Akbar, an Indian restaurant.            future expansion. This committee
    In a follow-up to a recent                   The young people also spent         will consider the limitations of
"News," w e   .note  t h a t   o u r         the better part of a day working        their present property from the
Edgerton, MN PRC has prepared                at a spring clean-up around the         standpoint of physical room and
a pamphlet, patterning it after the          Trinity church building.                governmental regulations. A can-
model of some of our other                                                           vass of young families regarding
churches, which will serve as a              Congregational Activities               interest and future enrollment was
nice, concise. introduction of                   The Council of the Hope PRC         also planned.
Edgerton and our churches, to                in Redlands, CA was so impressed           The students of the Hope
anyone interested. The Lord will-            with a paper given by Rev. Ron          Christian School in Redlands, CA
ing, a copy of this pamphlet was             Cammenga on the subject of              presented their All-School Spring
to be mailed to every household              "Promise Keepers" at this year's        Program on March 22 under the
in Edgerton, Woodstock, Chandler,            officebearers' conference, that they    theme, "Jesus, the Chief Corner
and Leota.                                   decided to put it to further use,       Stone."
    Many of our regular readers              particularly because of its imme-
will remember that our Trinity               diate relevance. There was a mas-       Minister Activities
PRC in Houston, TX has been busy             sive rally of Promise Keepers be-          Rev. and Mrs. M. Dick, of the
the past couple of years with evan-          ing planned for Southern Califor-       Grace PRC in Standale, MI (the
gelism work with the large Indian            nia in April. For that reason           Lord willing), were blessed with
population in the Houston area.              Redlands' Council decided to            the birth of a baby boy, Nathaniel
This work continues today, with              make copies of that paper avail-        William, on March 25. Rev. Dick
                                             able so Hope's membership could         was scheduled to preach his fare-
                                             be informed about this latest, sen-     well sermon at Immanuel PRC in
                                             sational movement that continues        Lacombe, AB, Canada on March
Mr. Wigger is a member of the Prot-          to sweep into many churches.            31, with an anticipated  move to
es tan t Reformed       C h u r c h   o f    Quite honestly, not just Hope's         Michigan the second week in April
Hudsonville, Michigan.                       congregation, but all of us are         and installation at Grace planned

                                                                                                May 1, 1996lStandard Bearer1359


                                                                                                                                           S E C O N D   C L A S S
                                                                                                                                          Postage Paid at
                                                                                                                                           Grandvile,  Michigan
   P.O. Box 603
   Grandville, MI 49468-0603
                                                        I
  _-                                                                                                                                                                  1
for April 21.                                     And from those three they  ex-                                                  good-for Thought
        Related to the above news                 tended a call to Rev. Bekkering.                                       "There are two ways of going
about Rev. Dick, we learned that                      The vacant  Doon,  IA  congre-                                 to hell; one is to walk into it with
our Immanuel PRC announced the                    gation has extended a call to Rev.                                 your eyes open . . . the other is to
following trio:              the Revs.            K. Koole.                                                          go down by the steps of little sins."
Bekkering,  denHartog,  and Key.                                                                                                              - J.C. Ryle Cl
                                                                                                              -__
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                                                                                                                                                           -1


        WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
        On May 10, 1996, the Lord will-                      CALL TO SYNOD!!
ing,                                                  Synod 1995 appointed Southwest                                  RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY
        MR. and MRS. EDWARD                       Protestant Reformed Church, Grandville,                                The consistory and congrega-
              CAMMENGA                            Ml the calling church for the 1996 Synod.                          tion of the Loveland Protestant Re-
will celebrate their 45th wedding                     The Consistory hereby notifies our                             formed Church express their deep
anniversary.                                      churches that the 1996 Synod of the Prot-                          sympathy to Mr. and Mrs. Tim
        We, their children and grand-             estant Reformed Churches in America will                           Griess in the death of their still-
children, rejoice with them in this               convene, the Lord willing, on Tuesday,                             born son,
momentous occasion. We thank the                  June 11, 1996 at 9:00 A.M. in the South-                                 ZACH.ARY RICHARD,
Lord for His covenant faithfulness                west Protestant Reformed Church,                                   on March 21. They and we find
to them and commend them to His                   Grandville, Ml.                                                    comfort in the assurance of the
care in their future. We are grate-                   The Pre-Synodical Service will be                              psalmist, "Precious in the sight of
ful for their godly instruction and               held on Monday evening, June 10, at 7:30                           the Lord is the death of his saints"
example, which have meant so                      P.M.  Rev. G. VanBaren, president of the                           (Psalm  116:15).
much to .us over the years. ' "But                1995 Synbd, will preach the sermon. Syn-                                Rev. G. VanBaren, President
the mercy of the Lord is from ever-               odical delegates are requested to meet                                              Mr. R. Brands, Clerk
lasting to everlasting upon them                  with the Consistory before the service.
that fear him, and his righteous-                     Delegates in need of lodging should                             RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY
ness unto children's children; to                 contact Mr. Clare Kuiper, 2669 Byron Cen-                             The Men's and Ladies' Society
such as keep his covenant, and to                 ter Ave. S.W., Wyoming, Ml 49509.                                  of the First Protestant Reformed
those that remember his command-                  Phone; (616) 534-0098.                                             Church of Holland, Ml expresses
ments to do them" (Psalm 103:17,                                                                   Consistory of     their sincere Christian sympathy to
18).                                                                             Southwest PR Church                 Clarena Hirdes in the death of her
@I Rev. Ron and Rhonda                                                        Mr. Clare Kuiper, Clerk.               husband,
                             Cammenga                                                                                             JOEL HiRDES.
@I Randy and Joyce Cammenga                                                                                             May she find comfort in the
#I Rev. Ron and Nancy Hanko                                                                                          knowledge that God works all
@I Tim and Sandy Sale              '                   CHANGE OF ADDWESS:                                           things together for good to them
@ Bob and Shelley Cammenga                                   Rev. Jason Kortering                                   that love Him (Rom. 8:28).
@I Tom and Cherie Cammenga                                      6 Sunrise Place                                                          Alan Elzinga, Pres.
         28 grandchildren                                     Singapore 806412                                         ; Mrs. LaVerne Casemier, Sec'y.
                                                  Please make a note of the change.
                             Holland, Michigan




                                                  - Have YOU returned the "Help Wanted" card from
                                                  your April 1 issue ? Many have already responded.
                                                  Thank  iyou!! We  need  your help!


36OIStandard  Bearer/May I,1996


