                                1'

                   See  "John  Frame  on  Cornelius  Van  Til:  The  `Limiting  Concept"' -  p.  379


Vol. 72, No. 16
May X5,1996


 CONTENTS:                                                                                                                                                 May 15,1996
 I                                                                                                                                                                                                              J

 Meditation - Rev. John A. Heys
           Called to Come and Be Refreshed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..______._ _ . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
 Editorial - Prof. David J. Engelsma                                                                                                                                                                                 ISSNO362-4692
           A Defense of (Reformed) Amillennialism
                7. Matthew 24 (concluded) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .._............_.......................  365                                                                                         Semi-monthly, except monthly during June, July, and August.
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        I         -0  0 0 - __                      `1%

                                                                                              `ome                               `-
                                                                                         freshed .
                                                           I                                                                                       I
             "Come unto me, all ye that Iabour                  the descendants of Adam and Eve        on those not saved by Christ Jesus.
~       and are heavy laden, and  I will  give                  were born spiritually dead, even       Those not chosen in Christ are con-
        you rest. "                                             though they did for a time have a      stantly on their way to hell and all
                                  Matthew  11:28                physical life. Satan had caused        its torment.
                                                                them to die spiritually, and he            What is more, our God's name
I -I         In this verse we find a very                       moved them to try to become            is Jehovah, which declares that He
        comforting truth. Jesus Christ, our                     gods. But our Savior, here in the      never changes in His grace. Jeho-
        Savior, promises us a very impor-                       verse quoted above, promises to        vah means "I AM"; and that name
        tant and blessed gift. In our King                      God's elect spiritual refreshment.     denies that He for a time is gra-
        James version of the Bible we read                      He also promises enjoyment of a        cious to those not chosen in Christ.
        that Jesus here promises us rest.                       new spiritual life, wherein they       God never changes His mind, and
        That surely is a precious and                           will love God and serve Him with       plainly does not change His treat-
        blessed gift. However, the origi-                       heart, mind, soul, and strength.       ment of those not redeemed by His
        nal Greek word which our Savior                             Now the prefix "re" (with          Son. Jehovah never, for one split
        uses is not the word "rest." It is                      which this word refresh begins)        second, becomes the I Was Gra-
        the word "refresh." Christ here                         means "back again." Thus, in           cious. Satan likes to get people to
        promises those who come unto                            words such as repeat, return, re-      consider God to be changeable. He
        Him, that He will refresh them                          member, and many other words           is very, very crafty in his attempt
        when they come unto Him. A few                          beginning with "re," we have the       to turn believers away from God.
        did come unto Him; but very                             idea of becoming fresh once again,     And in the church-world Satan has
        many of the Israelites did not fol-                     as God had created Adam and Eve        gotten many lies taught, in his at-
        low Him as their Savior.                                spiritually fresh. Our Savior here     tempt to turn men away from God.
             That refreshment which our                         promises us that He will make us       Some call those who present the
        Savior promises is a most blessed                       spiritually fresh.  i                  lie about God Christians. But lit-
        gift. Jesus uses the same word                              By all means, we must deny         erally they are anti-Christians in
        which we find in I Corinthians                          that false doctrine called common      the sense that they fight against
        15:18, in II Corinthians  7:13, and                     grace.    It teaches that some of      Christ, the Son of God in our flesh.
        in Philemon verses  .7 and 20. Just                     those, not chosen in Christ, are       We do well to hold on to the name
        look up those verses. In them we                        dealt with by Him in His grace.        Jehovah. Let us  never  teach the lie
        read of refreshments, rather than                       For, indeed, He does give them         that Jehovah, the I AM becomes
        of rest. This means that He will                        many earthly possessions. But we,      for a while the I Was! Satan wants
        give us a fresh, that is, surely a                      as Protestant Reformed Churches,       us to do that. But let us hold on
        precious, gift.                                         came into being because God en-        tightly to that name I AM! That
             What we should bear in mind,                       abled us to maintain the truth that    name expresses the truth that He
        therefore, is that this word refresh                    God's grace does not deal at times     was never, in any way, the I Was
        refers to a spiritual gift promised                     with some of those not eternally       Gracious.
        by Jesus Christ, our Savior, to all                     chosen in Christ Jesus, our Savior.        Now the word "refresh" is in-
        the people who are eternally cho-                       God's grace is not temporally upon     deed an interesting and comfort-
        sen in Him to be members of His                         those not chosen in Christ. They       ing  *word here in our Savior's
        body, that is, to be His church. All                    may become millionaires while still    statement, calling us to come unto
                                                                remaining spiritually dead. They       Him, and thereby receive refresh-
                                                                are constantly under God's wrath,      ment. In John  10:9 we read: "I
                                                                even when they have what they          am the door; by me if any man
        Rev. Heys is a minister emeritus in                     enjoy for the flesh. Nowhere in        enter in, he shall be saved, and
        the Protestant Reformed Churches.                       Scripture can we find God's grace      shall go in and out, and find  pas-
             \
                                                                                                               May 15,1996/Standard  Bearer1363


ture."      In that verse we find the  ' self stated to Adam, in Genesis               to come. Many of these Israelites
truth revealing what it means that           2:17: "But of the tree of the knowl-      did labor. But the sad thing is that
He will give us rest. We are called          edge of good and evil, thou shalt         their labor was that of crucifying
to come unto Him, not because he             not eat: for in the day thou eatest       our Savior. As we read in Mat-
depends upon us, but because the             thereof thou shalt surely die." On        thew  27:l:    "All the chief priests
only way to refreshment is know-             that day. Adam and Eve did die            and elders of the, people took coun-
ing Him as our Savior, who earned            spiritually; and they could not           sel against Jesus to put Him to
salvation for us by His cross. He            bring forth any child that was not        death." We even read in Acts  9:l
does not depend on us. He does               by nature spiritually dead. Our           and 2 that Saul, who later on was
not wait until the moment that we            Savior Himself, born of Mary, had         called Paul, who was "breathing
come unto Him.                               no earthly father, and therefore He       out threatenings and slaughter
    What we should bear in mind              had a body that was holy, was not         against the disciples of the Lord,
is that our Savior promises to               guilty of sin, and was not unable         went unto the high priest" and de-
make us fresh spiritually. That re-          to walk in holiness before God.           sired to get men and women to be
freshment means that we will be                  We must, therefore, reject the        brought bound to Jerusalem. He
brought out of guilt and punish-             doctrine of Arminianism. Jesus            wanted to promote hatred against
ment. Refresh means to return to             does not offer salvation to any hu-       those who followed Jesus Christ.
spiritual freshness.       Our Savior        man being. For no one born to a           God did change Paul shortly there-
will make us like Adam and Eve               man and woman can in any way              after; but note that God changed
were before Satan got them to                     or for any brief moment want         him, and brought him that refresh-
turn away from God and to            _  1           salvation from sin. Indeed,        ment, so that he became fresh in
consider -themselves to be           Jehovah         he  ,would like to escape the     confessing Christ Jesus, and he be-
gods. Indeed He will make             never,         punishment for which guilt        came one of His apostles. Indeed,
us far more spiritually glo-         for One          calls; but he enjoys and         he was given refreshment. He did
                                   split second,
rious than Adam and Eve                               wants to stay in sin and         not refresh himself spiritually.
were. We will be eternally           becomes         guilt. And our Savior  de-            Indeed, all that we are spiritu-
free from Satan and his dev-        the I Was        clares  in our text what He       ally we have by our Savior, who
ilishness.                          Gracious.        does to those eternally' cho-     calls us to come unto Him. And
    We must reject the claim                        sen to be children of God. In      when He calls us to  come, He does
that we let Him change us spiri-                 John  14:6 Christ states that im-     not offer salvation. He commands
tually. Being by nature spiritually          portant and wonderfully comfort-          us to come. Our God does not
dead, we cannot refresh ourselves            ing truth: "I  am the way,  the truth,    offer salvation, and then present
spiritually. A  man  physically dead         and the life: no man  cometh unto         it after we ask for a spiritual re-
cannot, by his will and strength,            the Father, but by me."                   birth. We are all born physically
bring himself back to a holy, spiri-             We should, therefore, also hold       without our request. And, by all
tual life. In the text quoted above          on tightly to the truth that our Sav-     means, we are created spiritually
we do not ask our Savior to save             ior gives us refreshment. We give         as children of God, by His work
us, until He has already begun it            God nothing, even as far as our           in us. His grace enables us to de-
in us. He is our Savior because of           earthly lives are concerned. We           sire  and seek  salvation.  That He
what He does, not because of what            do not even want to come unto             reveals so clearly in the 14th verse
we by nature desire and do. As               Christ until He has already  come         in Psalm 139.  411 that we are we
we correctly sing  Psalter  number           into our hearts by His Spirit and         owe to God, as His gift of grace
383:1, which is based upon what              earned the right to do so by His          through His Son in our flesh. He
we read in Psalm  139:14:                    own suffering for our sins upon           commands us to come unto Him.
    All that I am I owe to Thee,             His cross. We have the desire for         But doing that in His grace, He
    Thy wisdom, Lord, hath fash-             every bit of salvation, because He        enables us to hear it and to act ac-
          ioned me;                          has begun it in us. Just go back          cording to it. We must thank Him
    I give my Maker thankful                 again to that blessed truth men-          for our desire and ability to come
      praise,                                tioned above: "All that I am I owe        unto Him.
    Whose wondrous works my                  to Thee."                                    Very correctly we, every Sun-
          soul amaze.                            Yes, we need to call our Sav-         day, sing:      "Praise God from
    Our God eternally decided                ior to come unto us in order to           Whom all blessings flow." Sing it
who would be refreshed. In fact,             receive that gift of refreshment.         every day, when you wake up in
that word "refresh" which is found           But we also need to be made by            the morning, and just before you
in Matthew  11:28 makes it very              God able and willing to come unto         go to sleep at night. God does not
plain that by nature we are wholly           Him. Indeed, there were very few          merely have His promises made
stale spiritually. Our God  Him-             Israelites who wanted our Savior          known to us, He also works that

364LStandard Bearer/May 15,1996


thankfulness for salvation in us as                       God calls us to come. We  de-                     all means, for the knowledge of
part of our salvation. Do not  for-                  pend entirely upon Him for every                       what He does in His grace, when
get that an important part of our                    bit of salvation, including the  de-                   He saves us, and makes us His
salvation is the joy and confidence                  sire for it. Thank God, not merely                     h o l y   c h i l d r e n .   Cl
of its blessedness.                                  for the salvation, but also, and by





              A Defense of ( eformed)
                                        AmilUennialism
                                             7. Matthew 24 (concluded)

     Standing decisively against J.                  "blended," to use Calvin's term,                       ferent explanation of "coming" in
Marcellus  Kik's interpretation of                   two events:           the destruction of               verse 27 and in verse 37 is espe-
Matthew  24:3-35, particularly                       Jerusalem and the end of the                           cially irresponsible in light of the
v e r s e   3 4 , i n   h i s   b o o k ,   A n      world. In answering the disciples'                     question of the disciples,  `I... and
EschatoZogy   of Victory  (Presbyte-                 question, Jesus also "blended" the                     what shall be the sign of thy com-
rian and Reformed,  1971), are the                   two events, and He did so from                         ing...?"
following considerations drawn                       the very outset of His answer.                              3) Similarly, Kik is forced to
from the passage itself.                             That His answer, already in verses                     explain "angels" in the passage in
     1)  Kiks interpretation ignores                 4-31, had in view, not only the de-                    completely different ways. In
that part of the disciples' question                 struction of Jerusalem but also the                    verse 31, "angels" have to be
that asks about "the sign of thy                     end of the world at His  -second                       preachers of the gospel. But sud-
coming, and of the end of the                        coming is indisputably evident                         denly in verse 36, they are the
world"  (v. 3). Again and again in                   both in verse 6 and in verse 14,                       heavenly spirits. Why? Because
his explanation of Matthew  24:4                     where He speaks of "the end."                          to let "angels" be `angels' in verse
31 Kik presents the question that                         2) Kik's interpretation is forced                 31 would imply that verse 31 is
Jesus is answering as though it                      to make two different comings of                       referring to the second coming of
were only the question, "When                        Christ out of the (identical) men-                     Jesus at the end of the world
shall these things (of the destruc-                  t i o n   o f   H i s   c o m i n g   ( G r e e k :    (which it surely is), and this would
tion of Jerusalem) be?" Kik be-                      parousia)  in verse 27 and in verse                    conflict with Kik's rule that every-
gins his treatment of Matthew                        37. In accordance with Kik's iron-                     thing preceding verse 34 refers
24:23-28,  e.g.,        with the words,              clad rule that everything before                       only to the destruction of Jerusa-
"The disciples desired to know                       verse 34 refers only to the destruc-                   lem.
when the destruction of Jerusalem                    tion of Jerusalem, the "coming of                           4) Kik's interpretation is de-
and its Temple would take place."                    the Son of man" of verse 27 is only                    molished by the obvious, incontro-
Not surprisingly, Kik immediately                    the judgment upon Jerusalem in                         vertible references in verses 431
adds, "In answer to that question                    A.D. 70, whereas the "coming of                        to events that take place  after the
Jesus first gave preliminary signs                   the Son of'man" of verse 37 is His                     destruction of Jerusalem.  Such is the
in verses 4-14." Kik then goes on                    second, bodily coming at the end                       reference in verse 14 to the preach-
to make Jesus' words in verses 23-                   of the world. This is arbitrary, il-                   ing of the gospel "in all the inhab-
28 also refer only to the destruc-                   legitimate exegesis, violating the                     ited earth (Greek:  oikoumenee)  for
tion of Jerusalem  (An  EschatoZogy                  canon of biblical interpretation that                  a witness to all nations." Such also
of  Victory,  pp. 121,122).                          insists that the same word in the                      is the reference in verses 29-31 to
     But the question of the dis-                    same context -must mean the same                       the catastrophes in the heavens;
ciples was not only about the de-                    thing, unless something clearly                        the sign of the Son of man; the
struction        .of    J e r u s a l e m ;   i t    makes this impossible. Kik's dif-                      mourning of all the tribes of the

                                                                                                                        May 16,1996/Standard  Bearer1365


earth; the coming on the clouds of         is what makes exegesis difficult,                              The Kikkian and Christian
the Son of man, visible to all; and        as every Reformed minister knows                       Reconstructionist interpretation of
the gathering of the elect from the        b y   e x p e r i e n c e .                            the chapter is a failure. Worse, it
dead by the angels with the sound                                                                 is grievous false doctrine that
of the trumpet. Kik's explanation             The  Postmille~al Problem                           makes the Lord predict the very
of these references, indicated ear-                                                               opposite for His true church of
lier, is nothing but allegorizing in               The interpretation of Matthew                  what He actually did forecast:
order to explain them all away.            24:34 by Kik and the Christian                         earthly victory in a carnal kingdom
     5) Kik's interpretation found-        Reconstructionists is a daring, if                     rather than spiritual victory
ers on verse 36: "But of that day          desperate, attempt to save the                         through tribulation.
and hour knoweth no man . . . .  II        postmillennial scheme of a future,                             Since postmillennialism, at
"That day" refers to some "day"            earthly, carnal kingdom.                               least the Christian Reconstruc-
that has been the main topic of the                Against their postmillennial                   tionist brand, by its own admis-
entire preceding discourse. This           enterprise stands the entire, mas-                     sion stands or falls with its inter-
is the "day" of the second, bodily         sive New Testament prophecy for                        pretation           o f   M a t t h e w   2 4 ,
coming of Jesus Christ, as verse           the church of apostasy, persecu-                       postmillennialism is now exposed
37 makes explicit. Jesus has been          tion, antichrist, and great tribula-                   as erroneous. Those holding this
setting forth this "day"in verses 4-       tion.       T h i s   p r o p h e c y   o f   t h e    view should repent of it, and aban-
31, typically in the destruction of        church's struggle and suffering in                     d o n   i t   forthw.ith  f o r   amillen-
Jerusalem and really in His sec-           the last days originates in Jesus'                     nialism.
ond coming. Kik's thesis, there-           eschatological discourse in Mat-                               But postmillennialism is fun-
fore, that Jesus begins to treat His       thew 24, 25. How to deal with                          damental to theonomic Christian
second coming only at verse 36 is          this? This is, indeed, the question                    Reconstructionism. Gary North is
shattered by "that day" in verse           for postmillennialism, especially                      certainly correct when he asserts,
36.  It is as if Jesus says in verse       that of the Christian Reconstruc-                      "Theonomy without postmillen-
36, "That day that you asked about         tionist stripe.                                        nialism is impotent...." ("Fore-
in verse 3  - the day of my second             Why,  :shove it all into the past                  word," in Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.,
coming at the end of the world, of         upon the Jews!                                         H e   S h a l l   H a v e   D o m i n i o n ,   p .
which the destruction of Jerusalem             But this demands a new and                         xxxvi). Therefore, Christian  Recon-
is a type  - and that I have been          different interpretation of Matthew                    structionism hereby falls.
talking about in verses 4-31 is un-        24, an interpretation that delivers
known as regards the exact time            the New Testament church from                                       A Practical Issue
of it, except by my Father."               last-days struggle with false doc-
    6) The device itself of separat-       trine and apostasy and from  end-                              The issue is practical.
ing Scripture's treatment of type          time persecution at the hands of                               Christ and the apostles warn
and reality in a passage by a neat         antichrist.                                            the church that she must expect
dividing-line, so that everything              Such an interpretation is pro-                     hard struggle in the last days  -
before the line is type and every-         vided in the explanation of verse                      our days  - with heretics, apos-
thing after the line is reality, is ar-    34 that holds that everything men-                     tasy, antichrist, and the great
tificial. It is wholly foreign to the      tioned prior to verse 34 happened                      tribulation.
actual way in which Scripture pre-         exhaustively, exclusively, and in                              The church needs this warn-
sents its prophecies, especially its       reality in the destruction of Jerusa-                  ing.
prophecies about the last days.            lem.                                                           More often! Louder!
Where in Psalm 2 is the neat di-               A stunning coup, if it could be                            Her salvation is at stake.
viding-line between David and the          carried off.                                                   This warning, with the encour-
Messiah? Where in Psalm 72 is                  It cannot.                                         aging comfort of the true church's
the neat dividing-line between the             In Matthew 24 our Lord Jesus                       preservation and spiritual victory,
kingdom of Solomon and the king-           Christ taught His church to expect                     Reformed amillennialism can and
dom of Jesus Christ? Where in the          spiritual struggle and physical per-                   does give.
book of Revelation is the neat  di-        secution to the very end in a world                            OnZy  Reformed amillennialism.
viding-line between the persecut-          that becomes increasingly evil and                                                                     cl
ing Roman empire and the king-             hostile.                                                                                        -  DTE
dom of the. beast, antichrist? Scrip-          Just as all the history of the
ture knows of no such neat divid-          church in the world proves.
ing-lines. It presents its prophecy            Just as we see today with our
as one whole, with type and real-          very own, Scripture-enlightened
ity interwoven throughout. This            eyes.

366lStandard  Bearer/May 15,1996


    To Keep the IReeor                                                                                                 ht
                                                         (3)
                                                                                                                                          1
    It was in the months following       Schilder said. But, if behind the        strants because we accept the doc-
                                                                                   trine of Prof. Heyns. (There may
Schilder's visit that the first indi-    words there were real differences,       be a difference in conception here
cations of difficulty began to come      as we felt there were, honesty re-       and there: in the main, all our
to the surface.                          quired that this be explained to         ministers are thinking in that di-
    The difficulty was first with        anyone intending to join our              rection.) You want to see only
Schilder himself. If he had really       churches. And so, from the start,         one line in Scripture, and there
believed our differences to be only      we followed the policy of carefully       are ten times as many texts that
a matter of terminology, was it not      explaining to everyone we worked          draw another line, repudiated by
to be expected that on his return        with, in as positive a way as we         you.... I therefore believe that we
to the Netherlands he would have         could, our commitment to particu-        must fully express ourselves
                                                                                   about this matter before we  can
begun to explain the essential simi-     lar grace, together with its confes-      fully recognize each other as sis-
larities between our positions, and      sional and biblical base, which           ter churches. Also in regard to
thus work toward developing a            they could expect to hear under           the advice which, for instance, I
common terminology which would           our preaching. But for them at            must give to our members in
bring us together? Instead, how-         that point this seemed to present         Canada  (SB, Oct. 1, 1948).
ever, his writings went on as            no problem (although later, of
though his trip, with all of its in-     course, under the tensions which        For Hoeksema this came almost
tense personal interaction, had          would finally develop, this would       with a sense of relief. In spite of
made no difference at all, and they      change). It was as though they ac-      his deep regard for Schilder, this
sounded as much like Heyns as            cepted Schilder's judgment, and         letter he felt came closer to reality
they ever had. It was almost as          were quite content with what they       than anything Schilder had said;
though, after Schilder pronounced        heard, so that in due time congre-      and he was relieved to hear that
his verdict, everyone was simply         gations  ,were formed, first in         someone in the Netherlands rec-
to accept things as they were and        Hamilton and later in Chatham.          ognized this as well. But, at the
everything would work out all                It was, however, in the fall of     same time, there was no eliminat-
right.                                   1948, just as Hoeksema was tak-         ing the seriousness of what was
    What he did do, however, was         ing up his work as editor of the        said. Here was an open acknowl-
to advise those who were emigrat-        Standard Bearer  again, that a let-     edgment of real differences by this
ing from the Netherlands to join         ter arrived with quite a different      Liberated clergyman (and, accord-
our churches, which for us actu-         tone; and, although it was a per-       ing to him, by the rest of them
ally presented a problem. On the         sonal missive, Hoeksema pub-            also) who was admittedly commit-
one hand, we were more than will-        lished it immediately (and, we          ted to the Heynsian view of the
ing to receive these people into our     might note, without complaint of        covenant, and who covered the
churches and to help them in ev-         improiriety from anyone). Writ-         problems by accepting the view
ery way we could. After all, we          ten by a Liberated pastor, it re-       that there were two conflicting
were small; and any growth of this       flected on Hoeksema's covenant          tracks of thought in the Word of
kind had its appeal. Nor would it        view in this way:                       God. Accordingly Hoeksema re-
have been a problem if our differ-                                               plied, after pointing out the seri-
ences were only in terminology, as           I am going to oppose that view,     ousness of his denial of unity in
                                           my colleague, because I am of the     God, in this way:
                                           opinion that this view is unten-
                                           able on the basis of the Word of
Rev. Woudenberg is pastor  of  the                                                    The matter of advising your
                                           God and the accepted  Confes-
Protestant Reformed Church  of                                                     members in Canada whether  or
                                          slons....    You  call us Remon-
Kalamazoo, Michigan.                                                               n o t   t h e y   o u g h t   t o   j o i n   o u r

                                                                                             May 15,19961Standard  Bearer1367


  churches is not up to you only,                      conflict with that principle upon              church; but that, they had been
  but also up to us. We do not want                    which our Reformed creeds were                 told, was impossible according to
  Heynsians in our churches, still                     built.                                         Article 31 of the Church Order
  less,    t o   o r g a n i z e   H e y n s i a n            But the  .problem had become            (which was explained to  them  .and
  churches in Canada.                 If your          even deeper than that. It was al-              which they came to understand
  members are really Heynsians,
  they must either become thor-                        most as though, after Hoeksema's               and appreciate fully, as is reflected
  oughly Reformed, or they better                      illness and Schilder's visit, a subtle         in Scheele's later letter to the Stan-
  join the Christian Reformed                          shift of loyalties had taken place,            dard Bearer  -  Vol. 27, pp.  104-
  Churches. In them there is plenty                    at least  ,with some. When for a               106). In turn, they were also quite
  of room.       Or, better still, they                short time it had appeared that                aware of the fact that both Rev.
  could organize churches of their                     Hoeksema would no longer be                    Kok and Rev. DeJong served on
  own, and call their own ministers                    leading the denomination, the vi-              the committee which had insisted
  from the Old Country.                                sion of a new leadership arose be-             on this. And thus Holwerda's next
                                                       fore the  :minds of some; and, par-            letter came with a shock, for it
Far  more important to Hoeksema                        ticularly with that sense of per-              read:
than gaining new members were                          sonal competence which Schilder
the biblical and confessional prin-                    had engendered in them, they saw                   Day before yesterday we held a
ciples upon which our churches                         themselves as a potential part of                meeting with Rev. Kok and Rev.
stood (and which, if one will, were                    it.     Thus, when Hoeksema so                   DeJong, the purpose being mutual
"settled and binding" in our                           quickly recovered to take over the               discourse.      We had a wholly
churches, as Art. 31 stipulates),                      helm again, their dream was                      openhearted        e x c h a n g e   o f
and this he wanted understood.                                                                          thoughts. They said this: Indeed,
                                                       dashed, but never really died. In
    If, however, few in the Neth-                                                                       we have much to be grateful for
                                                       any case, it was clearly evident
erlands       t o o k   s e r i o u s l y   D r .                                                       to Rev. Hoeksema. But his con-
                                                       that on the part of many the atti-               ception regarding election etc. is
Schilder's claim that our differ-                      tude toward Hoeksema was no                      not church doctrine. No one is
ences were simply in terminology                       longer what it had been, and ten-                bound by it. Some are emitting a
and emphasis, it was different                         sions began to develop.                          totally different sound. Their
here. Almost immediately after                                Then Holwerda's letter came.              opinion was that most (of the
his departure there appeared a                                It was the summer of `49, as              Prot. Ref.) do not think as Rev.
determined effort on the part                                    Hoeksema and Ophoff were               Hoeksema and Rev. Ophoff. And
of some to prove that, re-                                                                              sympathy for the Liberated was
                                                                  together on a preaching en-
gardless of what Hoeksema                        Far more                                               great  also  in the matter of their
                                                                    gagement in Chatham, that
and Ophoff might say, the                     important to                                              doctrine of the covenant. They
                                                                    they were shown it by Mr.
differences between our                        Hoeksema                                                 do accentuate  _ differently in
                                                                    `J. Koster. Actually, if I          America, considering their his-
churches were in termi-                       than gaining          understand it correctly,            tory, but for the conception of the
nology alone, and they                       new members             the letter had been writ-         Liberated there is ample room....
would do so by demon-                            were the            t e n   t o   M r .   Dingman      I believe that joining the Prot. Ref.
strating that the word                        biblical and          .Scheele  - a man I came            Church is calling. And let them
"condition" could be used                   confessional            ,to  .know well in later            then as Liberated preserve their
in a proper, Reformed                           principles                                              contact with Holland by all
                                                                    years, and with whom I
way. I remember it well,                      upon which                                                means, and also spread our lit-
                                                                    often reviewed the events
for my friends and I cut                      our churches                                              erature....    If Rev. Hoeksema's
                                                                   of those days. The group
our theological teeth on that                    stood....                                              conception was binding, I would
                                                                  in  Chatham   wanted to or-           say, Never join. Now I believe,
debate; and, if ever there was                                   ganize, but were intent on do-         however, that accession is calling;
a battle over words, that was it.                      ing it in the right way. Thus                    and then so that the Liberated also
But what few thought to consider                       Scheele, an unusually spiritual and             help to disseminate the dogmati-
were the deeper questions which                        gifted man, took up a correspon-                cal wealth of Holland in the Prot.
Hoeksema and Ophoff tried almost                       dence with Prof. B. Holwerda, the               Ref. Churches.
futilely to bring to the fore:                         results of which were then shared
whether the Liberated covenant                                                                        Now, I would suppose that, if one
                                                       freely among the members of the
view was not simply that of Heyns                                                                     chooses, this letter can be read as
                                                       Chatham group, as Holwerda cer-
with its implicit common grace                                                                        little more than a friendly greet-
                                                       tainly understood and encouraged.
base; and whether it did not rest                                                                     ing together with some interesting
                                                       It was no doubt as a result of this
upon a dual approach to Reformed                                                                      information; but I can assure you
                                                       that the  Chatham people asked to
theology, in which what was said                                                                      that Mr. Scheele, to whom after all
                                                       be organized with the provision
at one point might be properly                                                                        it was written, didn't see it that
                                                       that the Liberated view of the cov-
contradicted at another, quite in                                                                     way. To them in  Chatham at that
                                                       enant could be maintained in their

366lStandard Bearer/May 15,1996


time something had to be wrong.                           Carl, William, Mary, I baptize               The friendship we had extended
They could hardly believe that Kok                        thee in the name of the Father,              to Schilder and the Liberated
and DeJong would have said what                           and of the Son, and of the Holy              churches had resulted in a sizable
Holwerda reported they did, in di-                         Ghost. Or, better yet, Jehovah              number of our men leaving our
                                                           does not repeat that word but  He
rect conflict with what so shortly                                                                     historical commitment to logical
                                                           continues to say if; if comes to us
before these  Same  men had pre-                          from His heart in unbroken power,            conformity in the Scripture, to the
sented to them as the position of                         seriousness and grace.                       point where they finally left us to
our churches; but neither could                                                                        join themselves, not to the Liber-
they believe that Holwerda would                             This was not just emphasis and            ated as might have been expected,
have misrepresented what went                            terminology; it was  common grace             but to the Christian Reformed
on. Quickly the letter was handed                        through and through  - not just               Church, which "out of conviction"
about; and it is not surprising that,                    the natural or cultural common                they had once left.
when Hoeksema and Ophoff ap-                             grace of Kuyper, but a                                          - - - - - -
peared, the letter was shown to                          soteriological common grace like                      Decades have now passed, of
them as well. Nor did they see                           that of Heyns, in sharpest contra-
any reason to keep it secret, for,                       diction to the Canons. Even those             1       Although we can not be sure, at
after all, it concerned a public mat-                    among us who were most sympa-                 this point we can hardly but consider
ter already being discussed by all.                      thetic to the Liberated were clearly          the possibility that, while Schilder was
Without hesitation they gave                             embarrassed by it.                            here and Hoeksema appeared to be
Ophoff a copy, dictating it word                             And with that, for all practical          permanently out of the picture, some
for word when the script proved                          purposes,  De  Kous  was  Af.2  Our           kind of an understanding was arrived
too difficult for him, and ex-                           men continued to go to Canada to              at between him and some of our men
pressed their full approval for him                                                                    that they would see to it that our
                                                         work; but wherever they went the
to do with it as he would.                                                                             churches would back off from their
                                                         question was the same.  Did our               historical emphasis on particular
     What followed, however, was                         churches have a covenant view or              grace, and he would work at bring-
a classic example of the old ad-                         not; and, if so, what was it? And             ing our two denominations together
age, "If you don't like the message,                     whatever answer was given, no                 in a sister-churches relationship, and
shoot the messenger." Immedi-                            one was satisfied. With the letter            direct their emigrants to join us when
ately protests began to pour in, not                     of Holwerda, our credibility had              they arrived over here. In turn, it
to what Holwerda had written, or                         been lost. Nothing could be done              would seem to have been that Kok
to what Kok and DeJong were re-                          but for the synod to speak, which             and DeJong, in traveling at the same
p o r t e d   t o   h a v e   s a i d ,   b u t   t o                                                  time to Holland as they did, had in
                                                         it was requested to do by the com-
Ophoff's publication of it. (Per-                                                                      mind to assure the leaders there that,
                                                         mittee in charge. And the result              in spite of what Hoeksema was say-
haps it was indiscreet, for he did                       was the Declaration of Principles,            ing and the official policy being fol-
soon apologize for having done so                        a simple restatement of what had              lowed, they had sufficient backing still
- at least as quickly as he had).                        been established at our inception,            to bring this about, which in the end
But the fact was that this letter and                    and was confirmed by numerous                 they certainly tried to do, and nearly
its publication brought to the fore                      ecclesiastical decisions all through          did.
a reality that had to be met. The                        the years, making it  "settled and
differences between our churches                                                                       2
                                                         binding" as Art. 31 requires such                     This is an allusion to a Dutch say-
were real, as everyone knew; and                         to be (if we need say it yet once             ing, De Kous is Af, which may be para-
there could be little question but                                                                     phrased to mean "the knitting of the
                                                         more).                                        stocking is stopped," which was used
t h a t   t h e y   w e r e   d i v i d i n g   o u r        But in actuality it came too              by Dr. Schilder as the title of a rather
churches and separating many                             late. Before one word of the Dec-             bitter article in which he terminated
from the principles on which we                          laration was ever penned, Rev.                his friendship with Herman  Hoek-
had always stood.'                                       Hettinga had  come  from the Neth-            sema after we had adopted the Decla-
     And then a second blow fell.                        erlands and was going about re-               ration of Principles. It was as though
From the Netherlands arrived a                           cruiting members           f r o m   o u r    he felt personally betrayed that we
b r o c h u r e   w r i t t e n   b y   D r .   C .      churches to organize a separate               had not accepted his verdict that our
Veenhof, entitled  Apptl!,   filled                      Liberated denomination  - which,              differences were only in terminology,
throughout with things like this:                                                                      and had not received his view of the
                                                         in terms of the Liberated concept             covenant as acceptable in our churches
                                                         of the church, could only be a  de                 - even though Hoeksema had often
     Baptism, which is being given                       facto declaration that we were to             reminded him from the start that the
  us by the Lord, always remains ef-                     them no longer a true church.                 adopting of that would have been the
  fectual,  every day, eve y hour,  unfil                    By that time, however, this had           equivalent of denying the principles
   OUY  death, yea, unto eternity....  Ev-                                                             to which our churches had been com-
   ery second Jehovah repeats it:                        become the least of our problems.
                                                                                                       mitted from their beginning.

                                                                                                                   May 15,1996/Standard  Bearer1369


course, and one would hope that                the need for logical consistency;           size once more that the stocking
the need for judgment or recrimi-              for, after all, if what is said at one      is not finished.       And if Dr.
nation may be left in the hand of              point  may  be contradicted at an-          Schilder feels that because of the
the Lord who alone can judge                   other (or, as Rev. J. Tuininga so           stand of our churches as revealed
                                                                                           in the Declaration of Principles he
aright. Still at times the dream               strikingly put it, that to be Re-           does not want to unravel the
lingers that someday we might be               formed is not to be a consistent  -         tangle and start knitting anew, it
able to sit down and discuss these             or "hyper"-Calvinist,   o r   a n          suits me. Nevertheless, I want to
things freely with our Liberated               Arminian, but both), what stan-             state that in that case I am disap-
brothers  - who still are reputed              dard can be left by which truth             pointed in him, and for the rest
to have remained, in the midst of              may be set forth. It would  seem            say, "Vale, Amice Schilder."
the apostasy of the Netherlands,               in the end Hoeksema's melancholic
among the most faithful to the Re-             last words to Schilder are still as           It was sad that it had to  come
formed faith. But realistically it is          much as can be said:                      to that within just a matter of
hard to see how it could be, at least                                                    months before Dr. Schilder was
as long as they continue to reject                 In conclusion, I want to empha-       taken to be with their God. Cl


                                                                                               :     .

                                               the cover, and all contained              their attack now at the founda-
n "Whom say the people                         lengthy articles as part of their         tions: the infallible Scriptures and
that I am?"                                    cover story  - all on the  same           the Christ revealed therein. This
                                               week. It was, of course, "Easter."        is nothing other than the attack of
     It was Christ Himself who                 This would be the most appropri-          Satan himself, who would seek to
asked the question of His disciples.           ate time for the appearance of such       destroy the foundation upon which
The answer, recorded in Luke 9:19-             feature articles  - but three at the      Christianity rests. This surely is
20,  was, "John the Baptist; but               same time? Although I read only           another sign of the end of this age.
some say,  Elias; and others say,              the article  in Time,  I understand       When one intends to destroy a
that one of the old prophets is                that the contents of the others were      castle, he cleverly seeks to under-
risen again. He said unto them,                similar. The articles  in Time  were      mine the foundation  - not simply
But whom say ye that I am? Peter               of a nature as to create doubt in         shoot at some of its towers.
answering said, The Christ of                  the mind of the reader concerning             But what are some of the
God."                                          the reliability of the biblical ac-       thoughts expressed in the secular
    Through the ages many have                 count of Jesus' life, death, and res-     press? What does  Time  magazine
sought to answer that question as              urrection. Though the article ap-         have to say? The heading of its
well  - though most do not give                peared to present "both sides" of         feature article says it all: "The
the answer of Peter. Who is this               the argument, still the preponder-        Gospel Truth?"
M Jesus"?     What did He really               ance of "evidence" was presented
teach? How many  still'today  be-              as favorable to those who ques-               . ..There are, after all, four Gos-
lieve that He is the Son of God                tioned the biblical accounts.              pels, whose actual writing, most
come into  our flesh? How many                     Another impressive fact is that        scholars have come to acknowl-
believe that the Word of God, Holy             those in the secular realm implic-         edge, was done not by the
                                                                                          Apostles but by their anonymous
Scripture, speaks infallibly and               itly acknowledge through such ar-          followers (or their followers' fol-
therefore reliably in answer to this           ticles the great importance which          lowers). Each presented a some-
question?                                      Christ has had in the history of           what different picture of Jesus'
    At the time of Resurrection                the world. The unbeliever may              life. The earliest appeared to have
Day, now several months ago, a                 deny the existence of Christ, or           been written some 40 years after
rather striking thing was observed.            question whether an individual             his Crucifixion. Which was most
The three major weekly news                    called Jesus actually did the              accurate? Even Luther had a fa-
magazines,  Time, Newsweek,  and               miracles reported or whether He            vorite Gospel (John) and appeared
U.S.  News  and World Report,  all             truly arose from the dead.       But       to regard the rest as less essen-
                                                                                          tial. And starting with the 1835
featured a "picture" of Christ on              these cannot avoid Him, nor the
                                               mention of His Name, nor the con-          critique  The Life of Jesus  by David
                                                                                          Friedrich Strauss, apostles of the
                                               sideration of  .His effect upon the        new scientific method raised ad-
Rev.  VanBaren is pastor  of  the  Prot-       history of `thisjworld.                    ditional questions with increasing
es tan t Reformed         C h u r c h   o f        A. third fact  &which  pne, notes      urgency: Might faith have caused
Loveland, Colorado.                            is that articles such as these level       the writers of all four Gospels to

37QiSrandardBearerlMay15,.1996'


  embellish on actual fact? Did the                 Bible," he says. "In this world of          signed last week. Large govern-
  politics of the early church cause                mass ignorance, to have headlines           m e n t   s t o r e h o u s e s   o f   g r a i n ?
  them to edit or add to Jesus'                     proclaim that this or that fact             They're gone, too. Grain export
  story? Which parts of the New                     about Uesus]  has been declared             subsidies? They've been discon-
  Testament were likely to be                       untrue by supposedly scientific             tinued. And iron-clad conserva-
  straight reportage        rather than             inquiry has the effect of gospel.           tion programs that idled more
  pious myth-making?                                There is no basis on which most             land? Glickman altered those, to
        Depressingly few, the so-called             people can counter these authori-           allow planting on some  better-
 higher critics found. There are                    tative-sounding statements."                quality cropland....
  only two or three references to
 Jesus in six pagan or Jewish                            Hosea also declared, thou-                Another article in the  Denver
  sources, providing precious little              sands of years ago, "My people are          Post,  April  13,1996,  warned about
  corroborating data. Even if the                 destroyed for lack of knowledge"            the dire consequences of over-
  standard for authenticity were                  (Hosea   4:6). The ignorance of so
  agreement between the Gospels,                                                              population in the world with the
 there is less ofthat  than one might             many about the contents of the              headline, "Hunger poses peace
 imagine: the Prodigal Son and the                Bible leads increasingly to an ac-          threat, Wirth  says."
  Good Samaritan are just two of                  ceptance of what the "scholars"
 several parables that appear in                  have to say about it. If there was               Closing out the 48th annual
  only one version. By 1926, Rudolf               ever a time that the church with              Conference on World Affairs yes-
 Bultmann of Germany's Univer-                    its individual members must be                terday, former Colorado Sen. Tim
 sity of  Marburg,  the foremost                  well-grounded upon Scripture, it              Wirth left participants with a dire
 Protestant scholar in the field,                 is today. The attacks against the             warning about global overpopu-
 threw up his hands: he called for                                                              lation.
                                                  Bible and the Christ presented in
 a halt to inquiries regarding the                                                                 " I n   m y   o w n   l i f e t i m e ,   t h e
 Jesus of history.  &So unreliable                it will only grow in intensity. A             world's population has gone from
`. were the Gospel accounts that                  clever devil will surely attack               2 billion people to 5.6 billion
 `Nwe can now  -know  almost noth-                foundations, especially when he               people," Wirth told his audience
 ing concerning the life and per-                 sees the "lack of knowledge" so               at the University of Colorado's
 sonality of Jesus." He advised                   evident in the churches (and, per-            Mackey Auditorium. "And we
 good Christian scholars to concen-               haps, in our homes?).                         are scheduled to double again in
 trate on the Jesus of faith. But, as                                                           35 or 40 years."
 it turns out, they didn't....                    n                                               Overpopulation, he said, threat-
        . ..According to The Five                         High Grain Prices
                                      Gospels,                                                  ens peace around the world.
 only 18% of the words ascribed                                                                 "Empty stomachs in large cities
 to Jesus in the Gospels may have                        Farmers, obviously, rejoice in         lead to political instability."
 actually been spoken by him.                     reports of high grain prices. Re-
 John was eliminated csmpletely;                  ports of scarcities have raised                 Well, we've heard it all before.
 only one sentence in  Mark  met                  those prices.         The  Denver Post,     Over the past several hundreds of
 muster. Of the Sermon on the                     April 11, 1996, stated:                     years there have been warnings is-
 Mount in Maffhew, the only words                                                             sued about overpopulation and
 in red were "Our Father" and                            Not in 20 years has agriculture      famines which surely follow. Yet,
 "Love your enemies," and four                     seen anything like this: record
 other brief sayings.                                                                         at the same time, one wonders if
                                                    crop prices, booming farm ex-             these current,reports are not dif-
                                                   ports, raucous grain markets and
   However, some conservative                                                                 ferent.      The U.S. government no
                                                   farmers planting fence row to
scholars were also quoted and                                                                 longer has large grain surpluses.
                                                   fence row.
some good points were  made:                             It's a volatility that epitomizes    There is a real possibility of
                                                   the new world of American farm-            drought  - affecting future crops.
   Crossan  and other liberal Jesus                ing. For the last two decades, the         The world's population is truly
 scholars,  JJohnson]  believed, were              U.S. Department of Agriculture             large and rapidly increasing. Are
 exploring avenues "subtly con-                    has overseen a world of chronic            we not hearing the sound of the
 temptuous of the convictions of                   overproduction. Now the sudden             hooves of the black horse (Rev. 6:5-
 faith." As  long as the debate had                arrival of scarcity  - however             6) and, closely behind, that of the
 been quarantined in the corridors                 temporary  - is forcing the USDA           pale horse (Rev.  6:7-B)?  The signs
 of the academy, he had held his                   to look at the world anew. A re-           mentioned in Scripture are rapidly
 peace. The advent of the Jesus                    view of the department's arsenal           being fulfilled. Christ's return can-
 Seminar, however, marked a ma-                    of farm policies shows how much
 jor outbreak of what Johnson con-                 has -already  changed. '                   not be far behind!  Cl
 sidered a dangerous contagion.                    ' For years, the USDA required
 "Americans generally have an                      farmers to idle farmland. That's
 abysmal level of knowledge of the                 gone under in the  new farm law,
  :>                                               -1       .I     I     0,    '  0

                                                                                                           May 15,1996/Srandard  Bearer1371


1                   fj&&g~~@&*                                                      /,                     ,.i3i%!di~&&~ 1

                                      Man: Created
                                   in God's Image
                                                                             I                                                                      I


      When we discuss man's cre-              the animals all have one thing in                      Also man is united to the
ation, we are immediately drawn               common with man- they are all of                earthly creation. He is dependent
to the truth that man was created             the earth and earthly creatures.                upon it, inseparably related to it,
in the image and after the likeness               Man in the totality of his be-              can only live within it.
of God.                                       ing was created a part of this                         That is emphasized concerning
      We read in Genesis  2:26, 27:           earthly creation. He is organically             man when God tells us specifically
"And God said, Let us make man                united to this creation.                        that He formed man out of the
in our image, after our likeness:                 That organic unity of the cre-              dust of the earth. God did not
and let them have dominion over               ation  also explains the so-called              simply create man's body out of the
the fish of the sea, and over the             "balance of nature." Unbelieving                dust of the earth. That is not what
fowl of the air, and over the cattle,         scientists, because of their spiritual          Genesis  2:7 teaches. God formed
and over all the earth, and over              blindness, are all confused con-                man.  Man in his entirety, body
every creeping thing that creepeth            cerning the organic unity of cre-               and soul, was formed out of the
upon the earth. So God created                ation. They do not want God and                 dust of the earth. We are of the
man in his own image, in the im-              His revelation, so they look to evo-            earth earthy.
age of God created he him; male               lution for a basis for this unity.                     That is true of our body. We
and female created he them."                  After all, there are close similari-            are strictly dependent upon the
      A proper understanding of               ties between different kinds of                 earth for our physical existence.
man as God's image-bearer will                creatures. There are even crea-                 We eat from the earth, just as do
also take into account what we                tures which partake of the nature               the plants and trees and animals.
read in Genesis 2:7. "And the LORD            of plants and animals both. And                 The only difference is that we eat
God formed man of the dust of                 as you proceed upward in the ani-               prepared food.
the ground, and breathed into his             mal world, you seemingly get                           But also man's soul is of the
nostrils the breath of life; and man          closer and closer to man.                       earth earthy. We can only think
became a living soul."                            As we have stated before with               earthly things. We can only see
                                              no vague `language: evolution is a              earthly things. We can only speak
Man as a living soul                          theory of unbelief. Man did not                 earthly language.
      That man became a living soul           develop from a lower life form! To                     That, among other reasons, is
does not itself explain the differ-           the Bible-believing Christian such              why the so-called covenant of
ence between man and the ani-                 a thought is totally out of the ques-           works does not fit with the teach-
mals.      The expression "a living           tion! Nor do we have to ex-                             ing of the Scriptures.              The
soul" is not unique to man. For               pend our energies looking for                             covenant of works says
the Bible terms any creature that                                                         Man
                                              a missing link between the                                 t h a t   i f   A d a m   h a d   n o t
moves "a living soul." See Job                animals and man.  Unbe-                     in his          sinned, he would have
1290 and Revelation  16:3, for ex-            lieving scientists will look          e n t i r e t y , gone to heaven. The cov-
ample. Whether a canary, a carp,                                                  body and soul,
                                              in vain for that link until                                 enant of works says that
or a cow, the animals, along with             Christ returns in judgment.          was formed             if man had walked in
man, are living souls. That means                 But if the scientist                    out of          obedience to the  stipu-
                                                                                     the dust
                                              wants to know why the                                      lated regulations God set
                                                                                          of  the
                                              similarity between the crea-                               before him, he would
                                              tures, yes, even between man                earth.        have received the reward
Rev. Key is pasfor  of  fhe                   and the  ape,..the answer is
                                Profesfanf                                                            of everlasting life in  heav-
Reformed Church  of  Randolph, Wis-           found in Scripture: all of creation             enly glory. But he could not! That
consin.                                       is an organically created whole.                is clear from I Corinthians  15:47-

372lStandard BearerMay  IS,1996


       50. It is impossible for an earthly                  God created man  m'His own                of the image of God in man. His
       man to live in heaven. Flesh and                 image. And God created  man,  as              interpretation of God's image in
       blood cannot inherit the kingdom                 He had said to'Himself within His             man was this: "Ye shall be as God,
       of heaven. If man, if you and I,                 own Triune Being,  "after our  like-          knowing good and evil."
       are to go to heaven, a tremendous                ness. n That term  Iikeness  is a  fur-               The lie of the devil  notwith-
       wonder must take place. Christ                   ther description of the term  image.          standing, man is and remains a
       must come down to earth and                      God created man in His own  im-               creature.       There is only One of
       make a doorway through which                     age in a way that the image was               whom it is said, according to  He-
       you and I can go to heaven. And                  also a likeness, so that man in a             brews  1:3, that He  is the  express
       He must prepare us for that life                 creaturely way was not only  ca-              image of the essence of God. That
       outside the realm of our present                 pable   of bearing the image of                        is Jesus, the Son of God Him-
       earthly existence.         That is also          God, but actually carried that                          self. There remains forever
       God's eternally wise purpose, ac-                image. He was created  af-          Although             an infinite chasm between
       cording to Scripture. God created                ter Gods pattern.                  God surely             the being of God and that
       man unto that end.                                   That is rather difficult          dwells              of man. God is the  Cre-
           But into man's nostrils God                  for us to understand. We            with man,             ator; man is a creature.
       breathed the breath of life! By that             want immediately in our           He  is  always          God is absolutely indepen-
       act another aspect was added to                  own minds to try to make            infinitely            dent, the sovereign I AM;
       man's nature.                                    God like us. But that is to           above              man is dependent in all his
           W h e n   w e   r e a d   t h a t   G o d    twist things around. God is                him.          existence. That distinction
       formed man of the dust of the                    not like man. Man, rather, is                          must always be maintained.
       ground and breathed into his nos-                created in the image and after the            Although God surely dwells with
       trils the breath of life, we must not            likeness of God.                              man, He is always infinitely above
       think of God forming a lifeless clay                 This does not mean that man               him.
       statue and breathing into it in or-              was given a "divine subsistence."                     But Adam, as he came from
       der to make it live. Rather, there               Man is not God. Man is not di-                the hand of his Creator, was the
       is here one creation in which God                vine.                                         perfect man, endowed with the
       gives to man a physical and a spiri-                 That is an error that permeates           perfections of the image of God.
       tual side. By one unfathomable                   many of the Eastern religions. It             He was not only an image-bearer.
       creative act man was formed a liv-               is an error that stands as a  main            He was not only a creature capable
       ing soul with physical and spiri-                tenet of the ancient heresy of Gnos-          of showing forth some of the vir-
       tual parts that are so closely re-               ticism, which is the wicked phi-              tues of God in his own being. But
       lated that man is one personal,                  losophy underlying New Age                    Adam actually possessed the im-
       thinking, willing, rational, and                 thought in our day.      So, we are           age.
       moral creature.                                  told, God is within man. The his-
           Indeed, the Christian, under-                tory of man is merely the story of            The  image of God
       standing this truth, sings with the              man coming to consciousness of                        If we try to penetrate into the
       psalmist in Psalm 139: "I will                   his own deity. Christ plays a role            meaning of this image of God, we
       praise thee; for I am fearfully and              in this. That role is not to remove           learn from Ephesians  4:24 and
       wonderfully made: marvelous are                  our guilt by His atoning sacrifice.           Colossians  3:lO in particular that
       thy works; and that my soul                      That is said to be nonsense. There
       knoweth right well."                             was no such thing as guilt. Just a
                                                        lack of knowledge! The human                  1    Very striking is the fact that nearly
' .    Man as an image-bearer of God                    plight is not a matter of guilt and           80 years ago a young minister in the
           Man was created an  image-                   misery from the offenses against a            Christian Reformed Church, Rev. H.
       bearer, a creature adapted to bear               holy God, but ignorance of our hu-            Hoeksema, exposed this same error in
       the image of God. He was cre-                    man origins and potential, our                his position as editor for the depart-
       ated a rational, moral, willing, and             own divine subsistence.         Christ        ment "Our Doctrine" in The  Banner
       thinking creature. Of this capac-                came as a revealer of gnosis, to help         (October 3, 1918). Today the same
       ity to bear the image of God man                 man come to the consciousness of              error prevails and has been exposed
       can never rid himself. But not only              his own deity.'                               as inseparably connected with the
       was man created capable of bear-                     That is an error seen in New              New Age movement. One book in
                                                                                                      particular which treats this connection
       ing the image of God. Adam, as                   Age philosophy today, and even                is  The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back:
       he came from the hand of his Cre-                permeating a segment of the nomi-             An Old Heresy  for the New Age,  by
       ator, was the perfect man, en-                   nally Christian church, but one               Peter Jones. This book was reviewed
       dowed with the perfections of the                which had its origin with the devil,          in the  Standard Bearer,  February 1,
       image  of God.                                   who gave  .his own interpretation             1994.

                                                                                                                  May,I5,1996/Standard  +aye$U3I.


the image consists in spiritual per-           Adam, he named  them  perfectly.          creation, it was man's desire to do
fection and integrity. Specifically,           Today man looks at a cow and              the will of his heavenly Father. He
it consists in man bearing the true            never thinks about the word of            longed to live and to labor for the
knowledge of God, righteousness,               God in that cow. He thinks about          sake of his Friend-Sovereign.
and holiness.                                  how much milk or how much beef                And  man  was holy. That holi-
     The knowledge that belonged               he will get out of it; he thinks          ness  came  not in the way of a con-
to the perfect man consisted of the            about how much the price is for           stant battle of sanctification. But
clear and constant apprehension of             that milk or beef and how much            his holiness was that in-created
the revelation of God in the things            money he will profit  from  it. But       virtue of his whole nature, accord-
that are made. His mind was not                he never thinks of the word of God        ing to which in all things he longed
an empty vessel, to be filled by ex-           in that animal. How far we are            and thirsted for the living God and
perience. He was created with ac-              fallen from our original state!           consecrated himself to his Creator.
tual knowledge, true spiritual                 Adam knew. He instantly knew                  Yes, God created man good.
knowledge. He knew his God; he                 how every creature served to show         Man was created to fill the place
knew the world; he knew himself                forth the glory of its Creator.           which God had appointed for him.
in relation to God and to the                      And Adam was righteous. His           He was able to love the Lord his
world. As he looked over the                   righteousness was not an imputed          God with all his heart and soul
handiwork of God, Adam could                   righteousness, as is the righteous-       and mind, and his neighbor- his
understand the Word of God in                  ness by faith in Jesus Christ; nor        wife-as himself. A unique cre-
each creature. In the whole cre-               was it a righteousness acquired by        ation was man.
a t i o n   h e    t a s t e d   o f    the    Adam, established by the works of             And only in that way could he
lovingkindness of his God. He en-              the law. But as man stood in the          realize his calling as friend-servant
joyed life in the fellowship of his            image of God, his righteousness           of God, and have dominion over
Creator.                                       was that God-created integrity of         all things. Adam was equipped
    So clear was Adam's appre-                 his will and his whole nature.            with all that was necessary to re-
hension of that revelation of God              Man's life fulfilled God's perfect        alize his calling. He would serve
in each creature that, as God                  standard from the very  moment  of        and glorify his Creator -until the
brought the animals and birds to               creation. From the instant of his         fall into sin.  0
                                                                              i            &Rp&&q~*
i --                                                             i.

     The Foreign Mission Calling
                                        of the Church
    Christ's calling to His disciples          means through which He gathers            how shall they preach, except they
and to the church of all ages is               His church. What an awesome               be sent? as it is written, How
clear and unmistakable: "Go ye                 privilege! The preaching of the           beautiful are the feet of them that
into all the world, and preach the             Word by the church is the tool by         preach the gospel of peace, and
gospel to every creature. He that              which the elect are called and re-        bring glad tidings of good things"
believeth and is baptized shall be             ceived into the fellowship of Christ      (Rom.  10:13-15).  The elect will be
saved; but he that believeth not               and the reprobate are hardened.           gathered by the preaching of the
shall be damned" (Mark 16:15,16).                 The elect are gathered in no           Word. Christ, by His Spirit, ap-
Why such a calling? Christ has                 other manner!.          "For whosoever    plies the Word to the hearts of His
seen fit to use the preaching of the           shall call upon the name of the           sheep. "My sheep hear my voice,
Word by ordained ministers as the              Lord shall be saved. How then             and I know them, and they follow
                                               shall they call upon him in whom          me" (John  10:27).  Christ's sheep
Rev. Brummel, pastor  of  Edgerton             they have not  beheved? And how           must hear His voice! Christ places
Protestant Reformed Church, is  sec-           shall they :be!iFv,e in him of whom       the urgency of missions upon His
reta y  of  the Foreign Mission Com-           they have no; hea@: ! and how shall       disciples and upon His church.
mittee.                                        they hear w$hout F, preacher? And         Christ lays the urgency of missions,

374/StandardBearerlMay15,1996


upon the Protestant Reformed               should recommend to Synod  199%             material needs of the missionary
Churches.                                  that Ghana be declared a mission            and the field. We believe that such
   This  work of missions begins           field and a missionary be called to         volunteers are to be found in the
in the lives of each of the  mem-          labor there.                                midst of our churches, and that
bers of the church of Jesus Christ.                Our grounds for calling a  mis-     they would welcome the opportu-
Believers, knowing the joy of their        sionary are the following: 1) We            nity to serve the Lord in this man-
salvation, cannot be silenced. They        have found the field to be white            ner.
know the mercy of God toward                      for harvest and believe that God             All  of this work is the result
them in removing the shame                          has opened the door for our        of the faithful labor of a few of
and guilt of their sins. They                        work. 2) Many pastors and         our local congregations.              God
                                  This work
know God's overwhelming                               individuals have expressed       raised up men and women in our
love as manifest by the  sac-     of missions         their desire to be instructed    denomination who have a burden
rifice of His own righteous            begins          by us. 3) The Ghanians'         to witness beyond our congrega-
Son for their sins. The  be-      in the lives         lives are not adverse to the    tions to all the world. As a result
                                    of each
liever talks about the joy                             covenant.    The family is      of this burden, the work in Ghana
and peace which is his by              of the          considered even by the pa-      was started over 15 years ago. An
                                   members
grace. He talks to his  fam-                           ,gans there as an important     elder from one of our churches
ily, with his fellow workers,          of  the         structure of society. There     was in the hospital recovering
with his neighbors, all with        church            are many families,  includ-      from an illness. He asked for some
a goal of bringing them  un-       of Jesus           ing many young people,           magazines, and in one of them a
                                    Christ.
der the voice of Christ in the                       male and female, who are          note caught his eye. A man from
preaching. Some are gathered,                       interested in the Reformed         Ghana, Africa was asking for in-
some are offended. Some rejoice,           faith. The institution of marriage          struction in the Reformed faith.
others mock. God's will is accom-          is honored. 4) The government of            The elder decided to answer the
plished. God is glorified.                 Ghana is relatively stable, making          request. And what began as per-
   The work of missions is the             Ghana a safe place to labor. Al-            sonal correspondence soon became
work of the local church as she            though a local language would               a full+cale  tape and literature min-
preaches the Word to those who             have to be learned, English is the          istry. Later the FMC became in-
are brought under the preaching.           official language of the land and           volved, corresponding with vari-
The local church appoints an evan-         is taught in all the schools.               ous individuals, visits were made,
gelism committee to spread the                     We are proposing that the mis-      and now the FMC is proposing
Word beyond their own congrega-            sionary begin an independent la-            that our churches call a mission-
tion throughout the area. Contacts         bor in the city of Accra. This is in        ary to this land.
are made and groups of faithful            harmony with the work of the                        The FMC has also been busy
believers are located. The work            apostles, who began their labors            with contacts in other parts of the
then is passed on to the churches          in the population centers. We de-           world, especially in the Philip-
as a whole so that the entire de-          sire to begin our own labor with a          pines. The FMC believes that the
nomination might supervise and             few committed believers who will            contacts in the Philippines merit
become a part of this mission              be willing to be instructed by our          sending a delegation to investigate
work.                                      preaching and teaching in our               this potential field for labor.
   Currently the Protestant Re-            church structure. Others will be                    The work of the FMC in the
formed Churches have no foreign            admitted only after they under-             Philippines is also the ,fruit of dili-
mission field. We have no mis-             stand and believe what we preach            gent labor on behalf of local con-
sionaries in foreign fields. By            and teach.                                  gregations. The local evangelism
God's grace this may change in the                 We are recommending the ob-         committees of a couple of churches
coming year.     God has richly            taining of the labors of a volun-           made contact with some individu-
blessed the labors of some indi-           teer to accompany the missionary            als in the Philippines.            Tapes,
viduals and congregations within           to Ghana. This volunteer would              books, and pamphlets were sent to
our denomination.                          be a man, couple, or family, who            them, along with careful explana-
   The Foreign Mission Commit-             would go to the field for a mini-           tions of the Reformed faith. The
tee (FMC) sent a delegation to             mum labor of one half year at a             fruit of these efforts is that there
Ghana early this year in order to          time, preferably a year. We are             are pastors in the Philippines who
determine whether or not a mis-            recommending also that the call to          have grown in the truth of God's
sionary ought to be called at this         the field be made contingent upon           Word and have come to know and
time. Rev. Bill Bruinsma and El-           the obtaining of's& `volunteer la-          love the Reformed faith. The FMC
der Don Ver Meer concurred with            borers.  ,Their  .Iabor  would consist      is now planning, the Lord willing,
the former delegations that we             of ministering  to the  shysical and        to make a trip to the Philippines

                                                                                                   May 15,1996/Standard  BearerI375`


in order to evaluate the situation            dividuals are slowly built up in the     indigenous, that is, self-support-
and see how we as churches can                truth.                                   ing, self-governing, and self-propa-
be used to gather the church in                   The FMC cautions against             gating. We do not want to convey
that island country.                          sending money to foreign contacts.       a wrong idea concerning our in-
    The FMC is grateful for the lo-           We receive `hundreds of requests         tent and labor with them.
cal congregations and faithful men            for money and other personal                 The FMC sends a sincere thank
and women who witness on be-                  items. Although there is a valid         you to all who are assisting us in
half of our churches. Our experi-             place for benevolence, our primary       this important work on behalf of
ence certainly demonstrates that              calling  is  to bring the Word of        the church of Jesus Christ. The
God is pleased to use that kind of            Christ (Acts  3:6). We write these       FMC also wishes to encourage all
witnessing, by individuals and lo-            individuals and inform them of           of our congregations and all mem-
cal evangelism committees, to ini-            this primary responsibility. Good        bers of the church of Jesus Christ
tiate labor for the denomination              stewardship requires that we not         to be diligent in spreading the
through  its  Foreign Mission Com-            send money and other items to            wondrous truth of the gospel. The
mittee.                                       those whom we do not know.               work is difficult. The work is dis-
    If you as individuals or evan-            Even the deacons of our churches         couraging at times. But we do not
gelism committees have contacts in            distribute the mercies of Christ         perform it alone: "Lo, I am with
foreign lands, we encourage you               with wisdom and discretion only          you always, even unto the end of
to bring them to our attention so             to those whom they know have             the world" (Matt.  28:20b). The
that we can assist you in bringing            valid needs. Also, sending money         Word will not go forth void, but
the Word of Christ to them. We                to foreign contacts can hinder the       will accomplish its purpose.
patiently instruct our contacts in            work and make it difficult to de-            In the power of the risen Christ
the truth of Scripture by answer-             termine the sincerity of the con-        let us go forth to all the ends of
ing their questions with careful              tacts. The FMC has experienced           the earth, proclaiming the won-
biblical exposition. We send pam-             the difficulty of trying to deter-       drous truth of God's sovereignty
phlets, tapes, and books one at a             mine whether contacts were inter-        and the joy of our salvation. May
time, and only after the contacts             ested in the Word or simply moti-        we, as insignificant and small as
have grasped and understood                   vated by a desire for financial gain.    we are, be used to gather the
what we have sent do we send                  Our desire is to establish contacts      church. To God be the glory!  Cl
more material. In this way the in-            and organize churches which are





   Domestic Mission Committee
                                                   Report
                                         I                           I                                                     i


    "In response to the question:             ship (which offered the above  as-       persuasion." Familiar to our read-
`Is one missionary for all of Great           sessment of needs in the UK) was         ers, surely, are the biannual "fam-
Britain realistic?' the answer is             established in 1990 by a group of        ily conferences" sponsored by the
clearly, `No,' but we can hardly              Christians "concerned for the  de-       British Reformed Fellowship, the
expect the PRC to sanction more               fence and propagation of the his-        third of which will be held this
than one man!"                                toric Reformed Faith in the British      summer in Sussex, England, and
                                              Isles." One of their stated objec-       which will again feature Profs.
           ***    ***    ***                  tives is "to organize meetings, con-     Engelsma and Hanko as conference
                                              ferences, preaching services and         speakers. The  BRF's reason for ex-
    The British Reformed  Fellow-             other activities in order to further     istence can be found in the fact
                                              the Reformed Faith and to give           that, though there are few existing
Mr. Doezema is secretary  of  the Do-         practical expression to the unity        Reformed churches in the British
mestic Mission Committee.                     enjoyed by Christians of Reformed        Isles, there "are many true children

376lStandardBearerlMay 16,1996


of God who embrace the Reformed            Hanko, "continues to have an im-        Forms of Unity only. Further, af-
faith but live in spiritual isolation      pact much beyond Ballymena and          ter giving serious consideration to
deprived of Reformed ministry              even Northern Ireland."                 adopting a Constitution  based on
and fellowship." It was that real-             Hardly is it the case that Rev.     the Church Order of .Dordt, they
ity which prompted the BRF, a              Hanko does all the work of the          decided instead to adopt the
year ago already, to write to the          CRF. Typical of reports we have         Church Order of Dordt itself, with
Mission Committee that, while              received, oral and written, regard-     just two exceptions, viz., the elid-
they "appreciate the work being            ing the CRF is one received last        ing of Article 67 (worship services
performed by Rev. Ron Hanko in             summer from then-Candidate              on special days) and the modify-
N. Ireland, such is the nature of          Doug Kuiper, who had spent five         ing of Article 69 to limit the sing-
the need on the mainland that              weeks in Northern Ireland during        ing in worship services to the 150
nothing less than someone perma-           Rev. Hanko's furlough: "The             Psalms  - both exceptions reflect-
nently stationed in England will           people of the CRF are a well-read,      ing, by their own testimony, a dif-
really address the problem. More-          mature, and solidly Reformed            ference not of principle but of
over," they continued, "Rev.               people.... They are, furthermore,       practice.
Hanko is himself already highly            a very energetic group in promot-           In addition to the matter of the
stretched and is able to make no           ing their faith.... By this I mean      organization itself, there are two
more than a couple of trips to the         that they are active in evangelism,     related questions which must be
mainland each year."                       both with regularly scheduled           faced by Synod 1996. The first is
                                           mid-week meetings, and with             the relationship between the newly
           ***    ***    ***               open-air meetings in other parts of     organized congregation and the
                                           Northern Ireland. The Lord has          PRC in America. The intention of
    "Highly stretched" is no exag-         blessed, the CRF both with a siz-       the CRF is that the new church be
geration. In a single monthly  re-         able group and with men who are         the beginning, D.V., of an indig-
.port to the Mission Committee and         well qualified to serve in the spe-     enous denomination.             And the
calling church,, Rev. Hanko can            cial offices. This made it a joy to     preference of the CRF is that a tem-
write about four lectures, two spe-        work in their midst."                   porary relationship be established
cial Bible classes, and two  "open-            Not surprisingly, the Covenant      with the PRC which would pro-
air" services  - some of which ac-         Reformed Fellowship believes that       vide them opportunity to seek ad-
tivities brought our missionary "to        the  .time has come for them to or-     vice from Hudsonville PRC as a
the mainland": Morley, S. York-            ganize as a congregation. Three         kind of "neighboring consistory."
shire; and Wrexham, N. Wales.              years they have labored hard un-        They desire too that they and the
All of that . . . in addition to the       der the guidance of Rev. Ron            PRC may "continue to work to-
preaching, twice every Sunday.             Hanko,  iand have seen their mem-       gether more or less on the same
And that's just the speaking.              bership grow to eight solid fami-       basis as at present  ih the cause of
There's also the writing. In that          lies (not including that of Rev.        missions here in the United King-
same monthly report, Rev. Hanko            Hanko), seven individuals, and a        dom and Ireland." The carefully
makes passing reference to no              number of regular visitors show-        formulated grounds for this pref-
fewer than six articles written for        ing varying degrees of interest in      erence are these: "1) This [rela-
the News-sheet of the Covenant             the cause of this Reformed work.        tionship with the PRC] would
Reformed Fellowship (CRF), one             The recommendation of the call-         avoid in great measure the dan-
ad for  EvangeZicaZ  Times,  and an ar-    ing church and of the Mission           gers of independentism while at
ticle for  the Ballymena Guardian.  A      Committee is that Synod approve         the same time avoiding the diffi-
fruit of the advertising of the CRF,       the CRF's request for organization.     culties of the [new church] being
by the way, is the distribution of         The date for organization has been      part of the PRC. 2) In matters of
vast amounts of literature. On one         tentatively set for July 24, just       discipline particularly, this would
single day, Rev. Hanko mailed out          prior to the BRF Family Confer-         allow the [new congregation] to
1,200 pamphlets and 800 copies of          ence this summer.                       function in accord with the prin-
the News-sheet, and gave orders                In anticipation of that  long-      ciples of Reformed church order
for 10 books to the CRF bookstore          awaited event the CRF has made          and of Scripture. 3) This would
manager. Most of the requests              several important decisions. Late       avoid the difficult and even unde-
come from people in the British            last fall they reconsidered an ear-     sirable situation of the [new con-
Isles, of course, but the CRF has          lier decision to organize on the ba-    gregation] immediately passing
filled orders from Malawi, Kenya,          sis of both the Three Forms of          from complete dependence upon
and the Philippines as well. "Our          Unity and the Westminster Stan-         the PRC to complete indepen-
presence in the UK," writes Rev.           dards, and decided instead to or-       dence."
                                           ganize on the basis of the Three           Regrettably, there was  insuffi-

                                                                                              May 16,1996/Standard  Bearer1377


cient time, before the deadline for                 nati, OH/Florence, KY and Pitts-                     cially in the work of missions
material for Synod, to give the pro-                burgh, PA areas, the former being                    whenever and wherever the Spirit
posal of the CRF the careful study                  a follow-up on the evangelism ef-                    leads and gives opportunity  - "to
which it requires.           Hudsonville            forts of our South Holland congre-                   the measure of our God-given abil-
therefore, with the concurrence of                  gation. It's becoming increasingly                   ity," as the constitution of the Mis-
the Mission Committee, will ad-                     clear to Rev. Miersma and to the                     sion Committee has it. That same
vise Synod to postpone action on                    Mission Committee how difficult                      constitution assigns to the Mission
this longer term relationship until                 it is to do any kind of justice to                   Committee the duty "to find pos-
Synod 1997, meanwhile allowing                      calls for help in the east  - to say                 sible fields and recommend them
for the CRF, between the time of                    nothing of possibilities for labor in                to the churches." The Mission
their organization and Synod 1997,                  Canada  - while the home mis-                        Committees (foreign and domes-
to seek advice if necessary from                    sionary is laboring in Alamosa,                      tic) of the Protestant Reformed
the Hudsonville Council or from                     CO. Besides, the Domestic Mis-                       Churches do not take that respon-
two or three neighboring Protes-                    sion Committee must labor in the                     sibility lightly. May God grant us
tant Reformed Churches.                             context of commitments of our de-                    wisdom to decide among the op-
    The second question which                       nomination on other fronts. The                      portunities which are presenting
must be faced by Synod 1996 is                      commitment, for example, to call                     themselves in growing numbers.
the status of Rev. Hanko after or-                  another professor in 1996. The                       May God grant Synod the wisdom
ganization of the CRF. The CRF,                     commitment to consider seriously                     to evaluate correctly the recom-
after considering various options,                  a recommendation by the Foreign                      mendations it faces regarding mis-
offered their preference that Rev.                  Mission Committee to call a mis-                     sions, in the light of the utilization
Hanko remain as missionary pas-                     sionary or missionaries to Ghana.                    of denominational resources over-
tor of the PRC in Northern Ireland.                 Manpower, therefore, is already a                    all. And may we have such a heart
The calling church and the Mis-                     legitimate concern. But add to that                  for missions, and for all of the
sion Committee are of a mind to                     the expressed interest of-the FMC                    work of the church, that we will
recommend that arrangement to                       in investigating possibilities for la-               view even a sizable increase in a
Synod. It seems to us that the pre-                 bor in the Philippines . . . and the                 synodical  budget as evidence of
cedent of Singapore is applicable                   work of the Contact Committee,                       God's favor.
here. In both instances  - a com-                   especially in Singapore . . . and the
pelling need for continued pasto-                   expense involved in radio broad-                               ***    ***    ***
ral leadership and continuity in the                casting  (Dsnver, Houston, Long Is-
work. And in both instances  - a                    land). Financial resources also ob-                      We had intended to give in this
great, continued need for mission                   viously become a matter of con-                      article a broader overview of the
work. Hudsonville, in fact, in its                  cern.                                                work of the Mission Committee.
grounds to Synod, makes reference                                                                        But, after focusing first on the
to the "hundreds of good contacts"                              ***      ***      ***                    work in Northern Ireland, we find
which Rev. Hanko has "through-                                                                           we have already used up our space
out the UK." Hudsonville adds                           Manpower.               Financial re-            allotment. We wish however to
that    "t h e   e f f o r t s   b e g u n   i n    sources.                                             add just three things. First, a pub-
Portadown (NI) and Wrexham                              By these the mission labors of                   lic expression of the Mission
(Wales), as well as others, ought                   a federation of churches are nec-                    Committee's great appreciation for
to be nurtured. The BRF even re-                    essarily limited. These are factors                  the labors of Rev. Hanko and Rev.
quests of the Mission Committee                     that must be, and will be, part of                   Miersma; for the careful oversight
to consider sending another mis-                    the deliberation of the Mission                      of the calling churches; and for the
sionary to the UK."                                 Committee when decisions are fi-                     leadership provided by Rev.
                                                    nally made with respect to what                      Gritters and Rev.  VanBaren in
            ***     ***      ***                    we already recognize as legitimate,                  Hudsonville and Loveland respec-
                                                    urgent appeals for help  - from                      tively. Second, an acknowledg-
    Ah, yes, to send another mis-                   sources in the British Isles, in the                 ment of the generosity of the mem-
sionary to the UK. How we would                     eastern U.S., and more.                              bers of the San Luis Valley Mis-
like to do that!                                        T h e   P r o t e s t a n t   R e f o r m e d    sion. Their provision of funds for
    Immediately, however, ques-                     Churches cannot, and are not                         a down-payment on a house in the
tions arise. What about calls for                   called to, preach the gospel in ev-                  San Luis Valley has made it pos-
help in our own country? Earlier                    ery nation of the world. But they                    sible, at the time of this writing,
this year Rev. Thomas Miersma                       are called to use their resources                    for our churches to secure much
spent several weeks in the  Cincin-                 willingly, enthusiastically, sacrifi-                better housing for our  home-mis-


378lStandard  Bearer/May 16,1996


                                                                                                                                                -1





     sionary, at a cost which is well         and every other instance of the co-     pose, to prosper our efforts. Third,
     within our budget for renting.           operation we enjoy on every front       we covet your continued prayers
     This kind of commitment to the           the Mission Committee humbly            for us, to God, on whom we are
     cause is most gratifying. For this       thanks the Lord, who has been           totally dependent for every labor.
                                              pleased, for His own good pur-
                        r-





          John Frame on Cornelius Van fil:
                              The `"Limiting Concept"
                                               (A Review Article)

                                                                                                                                           I

                                              area of apologetics as to leave an      unregenerated sinner is totally de-                       J
     Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis  of       outsider `wondering whether cer-        praved.         Depravity affects the
     His Thought,  by John M. Frame.          tain  "gnesio  (`real')-Van Tilians"    sinner's mind so that he can know
     Phillipsburg, NJ:  P  & R Publish-       might not charge Frame with             nothing truly.             It is senseless to
     ing, 1995.  463~~. $24.99 (cloth)/       apologetical apostasy.                  reason with him, appealing to his
     $19.99 (paper).                              The value of Frame's magiste-       mind and attempting to prove the
                                              rial study is that it presents the      verities of the Christian faith to
         In commemoration of the one          whole of Van Til's thought in a         him on his own grounds. Worse,
     hundredth anniversary of the birth       systematic manner, making the           this approach is the acknowledg-
     of Cornelius Van Til, Professor.         distinctions, venturing the defini-     ment of his autonomy.
     John Frame has written what must         tions, and offering the careful ex-          The trouble is that Van Til,
     be the definitive single-volume          planations of difficulties that are     rather than consistently holding
     analysis of his mentor's thought.        lacking in Van Til's own writings.      the Reformed, biblical doctrine of
     Frame is a sympathetic analyst.          Van Til becomes intelligible.           total depravity, compromises the
     He acknowledges Van Til as "the             Frame devotes some 240 pages         doctrine by his "limiting concept,"
     major theological influence upon         to Van Til's theology, including his    common grace. Common grace is
     me" and lauds him as "the most           doctrines of the Trinity, the sover-    fundamental to Van Til's theology
     important Christian thinker of the       eignty of God, revelation, the an-      and apologetic. There is a gracious
     twentieth century."                      tithesis, and common grace, before      operation of the Holy Spirit "`deep
.        Indebtedness and admiration          treating of Van Til's "apologetics      down' in the heart of the unbe-
     do not, however, blunt Frame's           proper." He concludes with some         liever" that produces knowledge
     critical faculty. He recognizes Van      observations on Van Til's succes-       of  Gqd in him. This is the "point
     Til's weaknesses, e.g., his lack of      sors and influence.                     of contact" in the natural man for
     clarity in teaching and writing; his         Of greatest interest is Frame's     t h e   p r a c t i c e     o f   R e f o r m e d
     related failure to define terms; and     explanation, defense, and criticism     apologetics (p. 206).
     his heavy-handed, take-no-prison-        of Van Til's presuppositionalist             This work of grace in the un-
     ers conduct in the controversy           apologetics. Van Til "believed that     believer occurs with and through
     with Gordon H. Clark. Frame suf-         God's revelation has absolute au-       the revelation that God gives of
     ficiently differs with Van Til in the    thority (and thus a certain prior-      Himself in creation, according to
                                              ity) over, all human thought" (p.       Romans  1:18ff.  - "general revela-
                                              135). With this, Van Til urged the      tion." There is grace in the rev-
                                              reality of the antithesis between       elation spoken of in Romans
     Prof. Engelsma is professor of Dog-      believer and unbeliever. Spiritu-       1:18ff., according to Van Til, so
     matics and Old Testpment in the Prot-    ally, believer and unbeliever have      that the knowledge of God that the
     estant Reformed Seminary.                n o t h i n g   i n
                                                              common.          The    ungodly has from creation can

                                                                                                  May 15,1996/Standard  Bearer1379


serve the revelation in Scripture.                   toward Van Til's weakening of his            it implicitly teaches everything,
At least, it can serve as a positive                 own  antithqtical  stance by means           and therefore nothing. The pres-
                                                                                                  ence of contradictions in Scripture
point of contact for the Reformed                    of the  "limrtmg  concept" of com-           would entirely invalidate the
defender of the faith or evange-                     mon grace. The vehemently anti-              statement of the Westminster
list: "all men know the true God                     thetical Van Til is troublesome to           Confession that the counsel of
through natural revelation, to                       Frame. In this connection, Frame             God is to be found in the "good
which special revelation adds                        shows himself soft on  Armin-                and necessary consequences" of
supplementary content" (p. 248; cf.                  ianism:                                      Scripture as well as in Scripture's
pp. 116-119).                                                                                     explicit statements. If there are
    But this is nothing other than                        Arminianism . . . (has) much in         contradictions in Scripture, then
the natural theology of  semi-                            common with the Reformed faith          everything, and therefore nothing,
                                                                                                  is a  "good and necessary conse-
Pelagian Rome. There is no point                          at the deepest level.... I am con-
                                                          fident that Reformed believers          quence." . . . apparent contradic-
of contact in the natural man for                         are, in generaI, of one heart with      tion poses the same problems as
the gospel, whether the gospel is                         their Arminian brothers and sis-        real contradiction for the logical
being defended or proclaimed.                             ters (p. 212).                          analysis of Scripture.... If we are
The unregenerated sinner is dead                                                                  to draw logical inferences from
spiritually. The gospel finds noth-                         That Van Til holds, or claims         Scripture, as the Westminster
ing in the unbeliever, appeals to                    to hold, both the antithesis and its         Confession prescribes, will we not
nothing in the unbeliever, attaches                  opposite, common grace, points up            find ourselves in the same bind,
to nothing in the unbeliever,                                                                     deducing nonsense from appar-
                                                           the contradictory nature of Van        ently contradictory premises? . . .
builds on nothing in the un-                                  TiI's theology. This is the         if  "all teaching of Scripture is ap-
believer. In the unbeliever                        The         significance of "limiting con-     parently contradictory," then  any
whom God has chosen to                     "limiting            cept" in Van Til's thought.       logical deduction from scriptural
salvation the gospel  creates              concept,"            Every doctrine is contra-         premises would seem to be ruled
its contact by the regener-               in rea liiy,          dicted by another doctrine        out. Since there are apparent con-
ating Spirit. We call this                 does not             that is its "limiting con-        tradictions not only in the doc-
contact faith, and faith is                  limit,             cept." The "limiting con-         trine of the Trinity, but also in the
the gift of God (Eph. 2:8).               but contra-           cept," in reality, does not       doctrine of the divine attributes
    The knowledge of God                     dicts.                                               and the doctrine of God's overall
                                                               limit, but contradicts. Not        relation to the world, how can we
that the pagan has from cre-                                  some, but "all teaching of          draw any logical inferences at all
ation is at once held under in                       Scripture is apparently contradic-           from biblical teaching? (p. 160)
unrighteousness. Not for one split                   tory" (cited in Frame, p. 159).
.second does, or can, the                            "Apparently" is misleading. For                 Fair enough, although Frame
unregenerated sinner use this                        there is no possibility of reconcil-        ignores the implications of the
knowledge rightly. The sole pur-                     ing the contradictions. Nor does            charge, or admission, that "all
pose of God with this knowledge                      Van  Til  :make any effort to dem-          teaching of Scripture is apparently
is to render the pagan inexcusable.                  onstrate the real harmony of the            contradictory" for one's doctrine
This knowledge, turned as it is im-                  apparent contradictions.                    of Scripture.     If the entirety of
mediately into the lie of idolatry,                         There is no difference between       Scripture is contradictions, can
is never a  point of contact,  but al-               Van Til's theology in this funda-           Scripture be divine revelation?
ways a  point of conflict.  It rages                 mental respect and-the  neo-ortho-          Can the Word of God be essen-
against the gospel; the gospel wars                  dox "theology of paradox" that              tially apparent contradictions
against it. There is no room in the                  Van Til castigated as the `new mod-         throughout?
inn for Christ.                                      ernism.                                         Frame tries to mitigate the se-
     Our Reformed criticism, there-                       Contradictory thought makes            riousness of Van Til's view of
fore, of the apologetics of Van  Til                 knowledge impossible. A theol-              Scripture by observing that, in fact,
is not at all that this apologetics is               ogy of contradiction makes the              Van Til is usually quite logical in
presuppositional and antithetical,                   knowledge of God impossible.                his theological work. But this only
or even that it is too  presuppo-                           Frame recognizes the gravity         suggests that, in accordance with
sitional and antithetical. Rather,                   of the problem in Van Til.                  his view of truth, Van Til himself
the criticism must be .that Van Til's                                                            is paradoxical:       affirming one
apologetics is not presuppositional                       Once we allow that Scripture con-      thing, namely, the contradictory
and antithetical enough. Van Til                          tains contradictory teachings, we      nature of all truth, he proceeds on
h a s   c o m p r o m i s e d   R e f o r m e d           must also admit that anything at       the basis of its opposite, namely,
apologetics by the semi-Pelagian                          all may be validly deduced from        that truth is logical.
notion of common grace.                                   Scripture. Indeed, if Scripture            This paradoxical position  en-
     Frame, however, is favorable                         contains even one contradiction,

38OlStandard Bearer/May 15,1996


ables Van Til to inhabit the best of     Til's controversial statement that                     Frame thinks that such a for-
all possible theological worlds.         God is one person as well as three                mulation is "valuable in curbing
When teaching, he can be logical         persons.      Frame's defense com-                human intellectual pride." In fact,
to a point (and how else can one         pounds the confusion. For Frame                   such contradiction amounts to
teach?). But when someone chal-          proposes that "it is also orthodox                nonsense. It makes mockery of the
lenges one of his teachings, e.g.,       to say that God is one substance                  sanctified mind of the Christian,
that the predestinating God also         and three substances."                            reduces theological affirmation to
loves all men and sincerely desires           It is surely not orthodox to say             meaninglessness, and destroys
to save all, he can readily take ref-    this, but heterodox. Orthodoxy for                faith's knowledge of God in His
uge in the "apparent contradic-          Presbyterians is determined by the                trinitarian life.
tion."                                   Westminster Confession of Faith,                       The source of this bad theol-
     Frame too opts for the para-        and the Confession clearly says,                  ogy is "the idea of the apparently
doxical nature of truth. He does         "In the unity of the Godhead there                contradictory" (pp. 65-71).
so in a statement that ranks with        be three persons, of one sub-                          I challenge any practitioner of
the classic examples of paradox:         stance..." (2.3). To say that God is              Reformed apologetics, whether
"revelation presents apparent con-       one person as well as three per-                  presuppositionalist or  eviden-
tradictions to our minds, while          sons and that God is one substance                tialist, to explain, defend, and pro-
also qverwhelming us with its own        as well as three substances creates               mote such a doctrine of the Trin-
logical unity" (p. 175).                 mass trinitarian confusion. Now                   ity to an unbeliever, cultist, or her-
     Say what?                           we have a purportedly Presbyte-                   etic:    one person and three  per-
     For Van Til and Frame, the          rian doctrine of the Trinity that                 `sons; one substance and three sub-
first and fundamental contradic-         teaches that God is one person and                stances. Will they not say that the
tion is the biblical doctrine of God     three persons, as well as one be-                 defender of the faith is mad? Q
as Trinity. Frame defends Van            ing and three beings.


                                                                           j;
/  &@&&g&%9                                                                /'
I                                                                          ,                                                                      I


Fighting the Good Fight: A Brief         ter including its education pro-                  W e s t m i n s t e r   S e m i n a r y ,   b o t h
Histo  y  of the Orthodox Presbyte-      gram, its worship, and its struggle               formed at the time of the struggle,
rian Church,  by D.G. Hart  & John       with how to define and respond                    were independent of the church
Muether.  Philadelphia, PA: Com-         to social issues.                                 and were, therefore,  para-ecclesi-
mittee for the Historian of the               In the first section, which deals            astical organizations. But they jus-
OK, 1995. 217 pp. $11.95 (pa-            with the origin of the OPC, the au-               tify the formation of such institu-
per). [Reviewed by Prof. Herman          thors point out how the OPC was                   tions on the grounds that "emer-
Hanko.]                                  born out of the modernist contro-                 gency situations require unusual
                                         versy of the early part of our cen-               tactics" (32).
     The authors have produced an        tury.  They demonstrate the ter-                       In the chapter on Missions, the
excellent work in their description      rible hierarchy and boardism                      authors have included a fascinat-
of their church:     the Orthodox        found in the apostate Presbyterian                ing discussion of the work and suf-
Presbyterian Church  (OX). It is         Church which led to  Machen's                     ferings of Bruce Hunt, missionary
eminently readable; it is informa-       ouster.     And they describe the                 to Korea prior to World War II.
tive; it is a solid defense of the       struggles of the new denomination                 Also described are the many dis-
place in the ecclesiastical world        which began with 34 ministers and                 cussions held in the OPC over mis-
which God has given the OPC; and         17 elders and which was soon torn                 sionary methods.
it is even-handed in its evaluation      b y   t h e   s p l i t   w i t h   MacIntyre,         The chapter on Ecumenicity
of the OPC and her work.                 Buswell,        a n d   MacRae  o v e r           was very interesting to me. This
     The book is more than a his-        premillennialism; the authors char-               is partly due to the fact that the
tory in the strictest sense; it in-      acterge this split as being basically             Clark case was discussed under
cludes a description of the mission      a split with Fundamentalism which                 the heading of Ecumenicity (some-
work of the denomination, its de-        threatened the church.                            thing of an eye'-opener in its own
velopment and struggles in fulfill-           The book is not uncritical of                right and indicative of what the
ing her ecumenical calling, and the      the fact that the Independent                     authors consider to be the essen-
"ministry of the church," the lat-       Board of Foreign Missions and                     tial character of that struggle). But

                                                                                                      May 15,1996/Standard  Bearer1391


                                                                         .


the interest of the chapter is also                 sues of the day. These efforts, ac-                    denomination, only a bit younger
due to  a rather extensive treatment                cording to the authors, have been                      than our own. And learning about
of the so-called Peniel Case, a                     successfully resisted as the OPC                       the OPC, one can learn about the
struggle to repudiate `charismatic                  defined her calling in the light of                    struggle of one church in her ef-
thought and practices which ap-                     her character as the church of                         forts to remain faithful to her call-
peared in the church.                               Christ.                                                ing and to "fight the good fight."
     R e p e a t e d l y   t h e   O P C   w a s          The book is filled with infor-                   The book can be ordered from the
tempted to involve itself and be-                   mation about the OPC for anyone                        publisher as listed above, P.O. Box
come more active in the social is-                  who wants to learn more of this                        48, Coraopolis, PA 15108. Cl





Evangelism Activities                               Fook Meng spoke at Southwest                           the good times he had, he is al-
    The Evangelism Committee of                     Church on "Mission Opportunities                       ready making plans to attend next
the First PRC in Grand Rapids, MI,                  for Singapore." A week later he                        year, D.V.
in its ongoing efforts to advertise                 made that same presentation for
and publicize the mission and call-                 the Byron Center, MI congregation                      Denominational Activities
ing of First Church in the north-                   and the  .Adult Bible Study of the                         The Reformed Witness Hour
east and east part of Grand Rap-                    Grandville, MI PRC.                                    Radio Committee invited members
ids, decided to advertise an invi-                                                                         of the Michigan churches to join
tation to attend both their Good                    Young Adult Activities                                 them for a night of celebration and
Friday and Resurrection Sunday                            The Young Adults' Spring Re-                     thanks to our God for 55 years of
services.     This was done in part                 treat was held this year again at                      broadcasting.      This celebration
by placing that invitation in a lo-                 Covenant Heights Conference Cen-                       took place at the Faith PRC in
cal area newspaper the week of                      ter in Estes Park, in the shadow of                    Jenison, MI on April 18. Part of
April lst, and it also involved the                 Long's Peak of Rocky Mountain                          the program that night included
congregation by encouraging them                    National Park, near Loveland, CO.                      the recording of a half-hour broad-
to invite their families and neigh-                 This year's retreat, sponsored by                      cast of the RWH marking that an-
bors to those services. On Good                     the Young Adults of the Loveland                       niversary. Rev. C. Haak, the ra-
Friday, First presented a service                   PRC, was held April l-4 under the                      dio pastor of the RWH, spoke on
commemorating Jesus' death on                       theme, "Conquering in the End                          the gospel message, "That All the
the cross. It was entitled "Truly                   Times," based on Romans  8:37-39.                      World May Know," based on I
this was the Son of God," based                     T h e   s p e a k e r s   w e r e   R e v .   G .      Kings  8, and stressing God's faith-
on Matthew  27:54. That was fol-                    VanBaren, who spoke on "Our                            fulness for the past 55 years of
lowed Resurrection Sunday with                      Preparation for the End Times,"                        broadcasting.  He also  urged the
a service entitled "Jesus is Risen,"                followed by Rev; Doug Kuiper,                          RWH to continue proclaiming the
taken from Matthew  28:1-S.                         who spoke on "The Assurance in                         one great truth of the Bible, that
    The Evangelism Committee of                     the End Times." There were also                        Jehovah is God.
the Southwest PRC in Grandville,                    scheduled discussion groups on                            In Rev. Haak's closing re-
MI sponsored the area-wide an-                      witnessing. We can add, from                           marks, after the taping of the
nual Spring Lecture this year. On                   talking to one young adult who at-                     broadcast, he asked those who
April 19 Rev. R. Cammenga, pas-                     tended this year's retreat, that                       were there to consider two re-
tor at Southwest, spoke on "Prom-                   there were about 60 who attended                       quests. First, he asked that our
ises, Promises, Promises... (A Re-                  this year's conference, and that                       churches continue to maintain the
formed Look at Promise Keepers)."                   some of the other activities that                      truth of the Scriptures, and second,
    On April 12 Seminarian Cheah                    week included a debate, and time                       that we continue to pray for the
                                                    spent hiking and snowshoeing                           work that is being done by the
                                                    around the mountains, with lots of                     RWH. And we could also add
                                                    v o l l e y b a l l   a n d   b o a r d   g a m e s    here a third: continue to support,
Mr.  Wigger  is a member of the  Prot-              squeezed in between. This indi-                        financially, the RWH.  Thej com-
es tan f Reformed            C h u r c h   o f      vidual also went on to say that,                       mittee would like to expand our
Hudsonville,  Michigan.                             with all the friends he made and                       evangelical outreach. Your  con-

382lStandard Bearer/May  15,1996


tributions are their only means of                    Ave. in Wyoming, MI. This school              Congregational Activities
support.                                              sits on 10.5 acres of land, with 4.5                 The choir of the Randolph, WI
    On April 16 the Mr. and Mrs.                      of those acres wooded. Since the              PRC presented the cantata, "Hal-
and Adult Bible Societies in and                      school has only four large class-             lelujah, What a Savior," on April
around Grand Rapids, MI were in-                      rooms, with two other smaller                 14.
vited to attend their semi-annual                     rooms, the school society is look-                   The Choral Society of the Peace
.League Meeting, held this year at                    ing at purchasing three portable              PRC of Lansing, IL presented an
the First PRC in Grand Rapids.                        classrooms for the coming school              Easter Singspiration after their
Prof. D. Engelsma spoke on "Lov-                      year. Adams has also hired an ar-             evening service on April 7.
ers of Pleasure More Than Lovers                      chitect to draw up plans for                         The Choral Society of the Faith
of God."                                              needed additions to the school                PRC in Jenison, MI gave their an-
                                                      building in the coming year.                  nual spring concert on Sunday,
School Activities                                                                                   April 21.
    At a school society meeting                       Mission Activities
held in early April, the Adams                            Rev. W. Bruinsma, who earlier                           Foodfor Thought
School Society voted to purchase                      this year spent a month in Ghana,                    "Heaven will pay for any loss
a school building from the Free-                      presented a slide program on his              we may suffer to gain it; but noth-
dom Baptist Schools, located at the                   trip to Africa in late March at the           ing can pay for the loss of heaven."
corner of 56th and Byron Center                       Hope PRC in Walker, MI.                       - R. Baxter  Cl




   WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
    On May 14, 1996, our parents,                                                                                   N O T I C E ! ! !
grandparents, and great-grandpar-                                                                   Rev. Carl Haak has a new tele-
ents,                                                                                               phone number. Please make note
         MR. and MRS. GERALD                                                                        of this change:
              BOUWKAMP,                                                                                          (847) 524-4676.
celebrated their 50th wedding an-
niversary. We are thankful to God
for the faithfulness He has shown
through their love, guidance, and
prayers. May our heavenly Father                      WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
continue to bless them to each                            On May 21, 1996, our parents
other and to us. "I will sing of the                  and grandparents,                                    WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
mercies of the Lord forever: with                        MR. and MRS. JAMES RAU,                           On May 9, 1996, our  parents
my mouth will I make known thy                        will celebrate their 25th wedding             and grandparents,
faithfulness to all generations"                      anniversary.                                   MR. and MRS. JOHN TOLSMA,
(Psalm 89:l).                                             We, ,their children and grand-            of Lynden, Washington, celebrated
@ Henry and Shirley Bergman                           children, are grateful to God for His         their 50th wedding anniversary.
         Barb and Randy  Moorman                      gracious care in the past 25 years.                  We thank God for these years
           Stephanie and Matt                         Above all we are thankful for their           they had together, and it is our con-
         Tom, Julie, Dan                              love and guidance, and it is our              stant prayer that God will continue
@ Gary and Rachel Bouwkamp                            prayer that God will continue to              to bless and keep them in His care.
@I Bill  and`Ruth Rutgers                             bless and keep them for many                         "For the Lord is good; his
         Pam, Sandee, Ruthie, Katie,                  years to come.                                mercy is everlasting; and his truth
                                  Billy, Chad             "I will sing of the mercies of            endureth to all generations" (Psalm
@ Garry and Kathy Schut                               the Lord forever: with my mouth               100:5).
         Doug, Todd, Kyle                             will I make known thy faithfulness            @I Sid and Emma Top
@I Dave and Dawn Bouwkamp                             to all generations" (Psalm 89:l).             @I Jerry and Henrietta Kaptein
         Jeff, Courtney, Joshua                       @ Dan and Carol Bouve                         @ Harold and Winnie Tolsma
d Dave and Carol DeVries                              Q Kimmy and Cheryl Kooiker                    @ Dick and Olga VanderKooi
         Kim, Matthew                                       Christina and Brady                     @ Frank and Sheryl Tolsma
@I Kelly and Lori Ellerbroek                          @ Jeff and Kim Scholten                       @I John and Carolyn Tolsma
         Bradley, Rebecca                             @ Rodney Rau                                          43 grandchildren
                            Hudsonville,  Michigan                             Jenison, Michigan               12 great grandchildren

                                                                                                               May 15,1996iStandard  Bearer1383


                                                                                                                                     SECOND CLASS
     EW
      DLs LID  D                                                                                                                     Postage Paid at
                                                                                                                                     Grandville, Michigan
     P.O. Box 603
     Grandville, MI 49468-0603

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            CALL TO SYNOD!!                       WEDDING ANNIVERSARY                                 WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
      Synod 1995 appointed South-                  On May 8, 1996,                                         On May 15, i996, our parents,
west Protestant Reformed Church,                       MR. and MRS. HENRY                          parentsTin-law, and grandparents,
Wyoming, MI, the calling church for                       VANDERKObK                                       REV. and MRS. GEORGE
the 1996 Synod.                              celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.                                     L A N T I N G ,
      The Consistory hereby notifies         We, their children and grandchildren, are             celebrate their 50th wedding anni-
our churches that the 1996 Synod             thankful to God for their many years to-              versary. We celebrate with them
of the Protestant Reformed                   gether and their Christian example to us.             and thank God for preserving them
Churches in America will convene,            May the Lord continue to keep them in                 in the way of truth in His church
the Lord willing, on Tuesday, June           His care.                                             and in His covenant. Our prayer
11, 1996 at 9:00 A.M. in the South-               "All the paths of the Lord are mercy             for them is: "The Lord bless thee,
west Protestant Reformed Church,             and truth unto such as keep his covenant              and keep thee: the Lord make his
Wyoming, Ml.                                 and his testimonies" (Psalm 2511).                    face shine upon thee, and be gra-
      The Pre-Synodical Service will         @ Jerry and Shirley VanderKolk                        cious unto thee: the Lord lift up
be held on Monday evening, June              @ Jim and Kathy VanderKolk                            his countenance upon thee, and
IO,  a t   7:30  P . M .     Rev. Gise       8 Mike and Linda Zuverink                             give thee peace" (Numbers 6:24-
VanBaren,  president of the 1995                       16 grandchildren                            26).
Synod, will preach the sermon.                                               Zseland.  Michigan            10 Children
Synodical delegates are requested                               NOTICE                                            29 Grandchildren
to meet with the Consistory before                With thankfulness to God, the faculty of                                                 South Holland,  tllinois
the service.                                 the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary
      Delegates in need of lodging           inform the churches that they have licensed
should contact Mr. Clare Kuiper,             seminarian Martin VanderWal to speak a word
2669 Byron Center, Ave. S.W.,                of edification in the meetings for public wor-                        CASSETTE TAPES
Wyoming, Ml 49509. Phone:                    ship. The scheduling of his speaking in the                                       on
(616) 534-0098.                              worship service of the congregations will be                            Promise Keepers
                            Consistory of    done by the rector of the seminary.                                    Lecture available.
                Southwest PR Church                                        For  the faculty,
              Mr. Clare Kuiper, Clerk.                            Prof. David J. Engelsma,                         "Promises, Promises,
                                                                                       Rector                          Promises . . .
                                                                                                                    A Reformed Look
                                                  WEDDING ANNIVERSARY                                              at Promise Keepers"
                                                  On April 29, 1996 our parents,
     RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                   MR. and MRS. PHILIP KRAIMA,                                   by Rev. Ron Cammenga
      The Martha Ladies' Aid Soci-           celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary.                    delivered at a public lecture
ety of the Hull PR Church express            We give ttianks  to our heavenly Father                                on April 19, 1996.
their sincere Christian sympathy to          who has blkssed us with God-fearing par-
their fellow member Mrs. Lois                ents who have guided and instructed us                                   Available from:
VanMaanen in the loss of her                 in love through these years. We pray                                 Evangelism Committee
brother,                                     that the Lord will continue to bless them                            Southwest PR Church
        MILTON SANDBULTE.                    in their  life,together.                                             4875 lvanrest Avenue
      May she and her family find                 "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord                         Grandville, Ml 49418
comfort and peace in God's Word,             forever: with my mouth will I make known
"But though he cause grief, yet will         thy faithfulness to all generations" (Psalm                              $3.00 per tape
he have compassion according to              89:i).
the multitude of his mercies" (Lam-          d Marty and  Tricia  VanderWal                                       Pamphlet of the lecture
entations 3:32).                                       Catherine Joy                                                  also available
            Rev. Richard Moore, Pres.        @I Arthur and Andrea Kleyn                                                on request.
             Mrs. Pete Brummel, Sec.                   Ruth
                                                                           Grandville, Michigan


384/StandardBearerlMay15,1996


