Hudsonville Protestant Reformed Church
5101 Beechtree
Hudsonville, Michigan 49426
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Vol. 8, No. 6
Table of Contents:
The Wonder of the Resurrection
God's Covenantal Promise (4)
Is the Use of Contraception Wrong?
The Wonder of the Resurrection
The resurrection of the dead is a miracle, a wonder-work of God that is understood and received only by faith. Unbelievers mock when they hear of it (Acts 17:32), heretics deny it (I Cor. 15:12; II Tim. 2:18), but to those who believe the promise of the resurrection of the dead is further proof that God is indeed the true God, the Almighty, the One Who does "great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number" (Job 5:9).
Not the least wonderful thing about the resurrection is that every person's own body shall be raised. The bodies of some have long ago turned to dust, so that not a trace of them can be found. Others have been eaten by wild beasts and by the fish of the sea. Some, like John Hus, have had their bodies burned to ash and their ashes thrown by their enemies into the rivers and the seas. Yet God, who knows all things, keeps tract of each body and gives it back to its proper owner in the resurrection. The resurrection is a testimony, therefore, to the faithfulness of God, Who does not forget even our dust.
That this is true is clear from Job 19:25, where Job, confessing his faith in the resurrection, does not say, "I shall see God in the flesh," but "in my flesh." II Corinthians 5:10 also reminds us of this. There we read that everyone shall receive in his body what he has done. It is true, as the italics in the AV show, that the word "his" is not present in the Greek, but the translators nevertheless understood the passage correctly when they added the word. Certainly the passage means that we shall receive our punishment or reward in the body in which we have done the good that is rewarded or the evil that is punished.
That the resurrection is a general resurrection is part of this wonder. The thought that everyone shall be raised almost leaves one breathless, for there are billions who have lived and died. To stand in a graveyard and believe that all who are buried there will come forth from their graves (Jn. 5:28-29) by the power of God to stand before Him can only leave a person amazed at the greatness of God and of all His works.
For believers, however, the most wonderful thing of all is that it will already be seen at the resurrection that they belong to Christ and will go with Him into eternal glory. They will still have to pass through the judgment, but with a body that is already raised incorruptible and glorious (I Cor. 15:42-44) - that is already changed into the likeness of Christ's most glorious body (Phil. 3:21). What great hope that will give in the judgment!
Those who believe the resurrection, believe it not only because it is promised in Scripture and because Christ, in our flesh, has already been raised (I Cor. 15:19), but also because the power of the resurrection has already been revealed in them. They are already in soul and spirit raised from spiritual death by the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and are now waiting for God to finish that work of raising them, body and soul. The resurrection has already begun to happen to them! There is an hour coming in which the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and live (Jn. 5:28-29), but there is an hour already come in which the dead hear His voice through the gospel and live in Him by faith. Having lived by His voice in that hour, we wait for the hour to come. Rev. Ronald Hanko
God's Covenantal Promise (4)
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. - Acts 2:38-39.
I have a few more remarks to make about this passage before I leave it. Perhaps some will say that an inordinate amount of time was spent on it; but my defense is that it is a significant and beautiful passage, and indeed a word of God that plays a major role in the whole Biblical doctrine of the covenant.
It must be emphasized that Peter is saying here that the children of believers are also heirs of God's covenant promises as well as believers themselves.
That means that God saves children. He saves His elect children, to be sure; but He saves children-infants if you will. And Scripture gives some indication of the fact that God even saves already before birth - as He saved Jeremiah and John the Baptist. This is God's ordinary way of working in the lines of the covenant.
If the gospel is preached on the mission field and through the gospel God's elect are gathered, they are to be baptized with their children, for the promise is to them and their children. That is Peter's clear word.
This principle that God saves believers and their children, is a principle of the entire new dispensation. This is taught clearly by Peter when he speaks of the promise being also to them that "are afar off."
The idea is not that three classes of people are mentioned here: 1) believers; 2) their children; and )3 those that are afar off. The meaning is rather that the same principle that believers and their children are the heirs of the promise is applied throughout our entire dispensation.
Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the whole world and whenever during the 2000+ years before the Lord comes back, the gospel is preached, the same will be true: The promise will be to believers and their children. This is the way it was in the OT; this way in which God works is not altered in the new dispensation.
We who believe may confidently know that our children are also the heirs of the promise. What a blessing that is.
But one more remark is added by Peter: "even as many as the Lord our God shall call." We must inquire as to the meaning of this.
Well, first of all it is clear that Peter refers to those who are called in the same way as those in Peter's audience have been called. Through Peter's sermon God had called His own. The result of that call was that they had cried out in consternation: What shall we do? Always God calls in this way. The fruit of the call is always a consciousness of sin. This is important, for only those who know they are sinners will know their need of the cross, and will flee to that cross.
Secondly, it is clear that the efficacious call of the gospel is meant here. It is the same call mentioned so often in Scripture. It is the call of Isaiah 55:1-2. It is the call of Jesus in Mt. 11:28. It is the call of which Jesus speaks in John 6:44. It is the irresistible call by which God gathers His church.
That call comes to the elect only, for "whom he did predestinate, them he also called" (Rom. 8:30). It is a particular call, sovereignly efficacious, accomplishing its purpose - even though it comes through the external call of the gospel which is preached to all men. And, let it be understood, it is the call which comes to believers and their seed.
Again, the Baptists in their efforts to escape the clear teaching of this passage, want to read the passage as if it said: "Although the promise is to you and to your children, it is only to your children when they are no longer children, because as children they cannot respond to the call of the gospel." That surely is a strange way to read the text. But it is a wrong way.
By this limitation, therefore, Peter means two things. He means in the first place that only the elect are heirs of the promise. The elect are the called ones, and they are the ones to whom the promise is given.
It means in the second place that the calling is the way in which God makes His elect heirs of the promise. When they are efficaciously called, they are given the promise. What a wonderful truth! They are overwhelmed with the consciousness of their sin, and cry out, What shall we do? God speaks to them of Christ and His work, and brings them to repentance. Hearing the promises of the gospel, they apply those promises to themselves and lay hold by faith on what God says, "Surely blessing I will bless thee…."
Do you say, Yes, but children cannot do that?
I say, How do you know that? Scripture tells us: "Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of God."
God calls them too. He calls them in earliest infancy. He calls them through the preaching, through baptism, through the songs and prayers of the church, through covenant instruction in the home, through all the means of grace which they come under.
Yes, He calls them according to the measure of their understanding. So be it. But He calls them. And so they too learn to lay hold on the promises of God which are for them. For God saves believers and their seed. Prof. H. Hanko
Is the Use of Contraception Wrong?
One reader sent the following query: "The Pope says 'No' to contraception; what do Protestants say?" - a difficult and controversial question.
That the Pope, in spite of much opposition from within Roman Catholicism, forbids all use of contraception is well known. What Protestants say varies from church to church and from individual to individual, and very often what they do say and what the ought to say are two very different things.
There is only one example of any form of contraception in Scripture, and in that case the man who practiced it was slain out-of-hand by God (Gen. 38:8-10). We should note, however, that he was killed not first of all for the use of "contraception," but for rebelliously refusing to fulfil his obligation to raise of seed to his brother. And, if this passage does not apply, then Scripture says nothing directly about contraception.
Some forms of contraception are no doubt to be repudiated by Christians because they involve that sin of murder. Abortion is the worst form and a blatant violation of God's command not to kill. It is a reproach beyond belief to Western nations that this type of "birth control" is legalized, resulting in a "holocaust" not unlike that of Hitler's Germany.
There are other forms of so-called "birth-control," however, which are in less obvious way also a form of abortion. There is the "morning after" pill, the I.U.D., the progestogen-only pill, and the Mirena, which do not prevent conception but destroys the foetus soon after it is conceived. These, for the same reasons as abortion, ought to be shunned by Christians.
We would also point out that the use of most forms of contraception have sinful motives. They are used to allow wicked men and women to satisfy their lusts without suffering any undesirable consequences, or for selfish and covetous reasons. Because of this, it is a great temptation to say that they are wrong altogether.
That children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb His reward (Ps. 127:3), and that God Himself promises children to His people as one of the blessings of His covenant of grace, ought to make Christians far more wary of using contraception than they are. Few today pay any attention to what Scripture says about children and about the calling of believers to bring forth children.
More than that, in the bringing forth of covenant children the way is prepared for the coming of Christ! Through the bringing forth of covenant children, many of God's elect will be born into the world, and when the last of the elect has been born and brought to faith, then our Lord will come again as He has promised (II Pet. 3:9).
Nevertheless, we are not ready to say that contraception is always wrong, since the Bible itself does not say this. We fear to fall into the legalism of which popery is guilty in this and in other matters. There may be occasions where it is necessary for Christians to make use of these means, but that is not an excuse to use them selfishly, covetously, and to satisfy lust, as all too often happens.
The answer to the widespread misuse of contraception, even by Christians, is that we learn and believe what Scripture teaches about God's covenant and about the place of children in that covenant. Then we will begin to see that children are a blessing and not a curse and will not make unnecessary use of these things. Rev. Ronald Hanko