Loveland Protestant Reformed Church
709 East 57th Street; Loveland, CO 80538
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. June through August)
Vol. 6, No. 17 Pastor: Rev. Garry Eriks Phone: (970) 667-9481
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Contents:
The Gospel
The Signs of the Gospel (2)
What is Hyper-Calvinism?
The Gospel
The Church's great calling, really the church's only calling, is to preach the gospel. This is certainly the intent of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19. Few, however, seem to know any more what the gospel is.
We should remember that the word gospel means literally "good news" or in the words of the angel who announced Christ's birth, "glad tidings." And indeed, the content of the gospel is the best and most glad news that has ever been heard in this sin-filled world. It is good news because it speaks of salvation by free and sovereign grace.
Yet, there are many who change the message of the gospel so that it is no longer good news. By their errors the gospel becomes no better news than we read in the daily newspapers. This is especially true of those who pervert the content of the gospel in one way or another as to make salvation depend on our own works. That is very bad tidings, since the Bible assures us that all our works are evil (Acts 5:38; Ps. 14:1) and our righteousnesses as filthy rags (Is. 64:6; lit. "menstruous rags").
The gospel is no longer good news either, when it is suggested either in the message or in the way that message is presented, that salvation depends on the will, choice, and decision or the sinner. That is horrible news to changeable, indecisive, unwilling, disobedient creatures such as we are (Jn. 5:40; 6:44; 8:44).
Equally disturbing news, often published as the gospel, are such teachings as that Christ died for everyone and that God loves and wants to save everyone without exception. The former proclaims as "good news" that some for whom Christ dies end up in hell; the latter that God is not able to do or does not do what He wants. The former is bound to destroy all our confidence in Christ, the latter all our confidence in GOD. Good news?
Equally disturbing is the practice of reducing the gospel to a few truths, usually preached over and over again at evening worship, hung on different text each week, and addressed to the unsaved who may or may not be present. Related is the equally bad practice of avoiding certain truths as being inappropriate for the preaching of the "gospel."
There are several problems with this practice. First, all Scripture is gospel. There is no difference between "teaching" the truths of Scripture and preaching the gospel (cf. the Matt. 28:19, "go ye therefore and teach all nations;" and the example of the Apostles, Acts 2, 7, 13, 17, where Bible history, doctrine, poetry and prophecy are all preached as 'gospel' and every doctrine from the sovereignty of God over the wicked - Acts 2:23, to the doctrine of creation and providence - Acts 17:24, 28). Any truth of Scripture is good news to God's people because it announces Who and What God is in all the works of His hands.
Second, all God's people need to hear all the truths of Scripture. They need to be called to repentance and faith as much as the unsaved, and as long as they are sinners and their faith is weak, that is, as long as they are in this world. They must be comforted by its promise, admonished by its warning, and instructed by its precious truths. May God restore such preaching in the churches. Rev. Ronald Hanko
The Signs of the Gospel (2)
And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen. Mark 16:17-20
And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. Acts 2:43-47
In our last article we made some preliminary remarks about a question from one of our readers concerning the harmony of these two passages. In this article, I wish to say something about the meaning of the signs and wonders mentioned in both the passages.
The two passages harmonize in this way. The words of Mark 16 were spoken to the disciples during the appearance of the Lord at the time of His ascension. This is suggested by vs. 19, which begins: "So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven." However, this interpretation presupposes that Jesus gave His great commission twice: once when He appeared to his disciples in Galilee (Mt. 28:16-20), and the second time at his ascension. This is, of course, not at all impossible, and Jesus often repeated Himself when teaching His disciples about important matters.
At the time of the Lord's ascension He not only gave His disciples the mandate to go into all the world to preach the gospel, but he also told them what miracles He would perform to accompany the apostles as they preached the gospel everywhere. We have a record of every one of these miracles as actually happening during the apostolic age -- with the exception of "if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them," although Scripture's silence must not be interpreted as meaning that it never happened.
Mark also makes clear that the main work of the apostles was preaching; and it is added that the Lord confirmed their word with the signs of which He had just spoken (Mk 16:20). The narrative in Acts repeats this, and tells us that "many wonders and signs were done by the apostles;" and that the church flourished and grew and lived in blessed unity and peace.
And so the picture is one of the fulfillment of the Lord's Word as the apostles performed the work necessary to carry out the Lord's command; and the blessings on the church as they did these things.
Many teach that the signs and wonders spoken of by the Lord still accompany the Church in its preaching today. The trouble is that the people who hold this view have become so enamored with their signs and wonders that they almost never preach any more, but lay all the emphasis on their signs. The Lord made preaching the important task; signs and wonders would go along with the preaching to confirm the truth of the preaching.
It was necessary that the preaching be confirmed because the Scriptures were not yet completed. How were people to tell that what the apostles taught was the truth? In some measure they could, of course, use the OT Scriptures as the Bereans did. But because of the difficulties of verifying the truths of the gospel by Scripture, God graciously gave miracles. Even Jesus Himself told the Pharisees that if they did not believe Him because of what He said, they ought to believe Him for His work's sake, for His works testify of Him.
The miracles were not arbitrary as is the case with those who appeal to signs and wonders. Every miracle spoke of some fact of the gospel. For example, the healing of blind people demonstrated in a remarkable way that salvation, preached in the gospel, gave spiritual eyesight to spiritually blind people.
Now that the Scriptures are completed, we are able to verify all the truth of Scripture with Scripture itself. Scripture is sufficient for our salvation. If we want more than Scripture, we not only make ourselves wiser than God, but we cast a slur on the Scriptures and we mock their greatness. Those who want signs and wonders despise the Word.
We ought not do this. We ought to be satisfied with the Scriptures. In them we ought to sink our spiritual roots. In them we will find salvation. H. Hanko
We continue here with the question: "What is hyper-Calvinism? How would you define it?" In answer we have shown in our last article that hyper-Calvinism is a denial of so-called "duty faith" and "duty repentance."
This denial is against Scripture. Scripture says in Acts 17:30 that "God now commandeth all men every where to repent." John the Baptist in his preaching even called the unbelieving Pharisees and Saducees to repentance (Matt. 3:8; Lk. 3:8). Jesus, too, called all to repentance in His preaching (Matt. 4:17) and upbraided the cities of Galilee because they did not repent (Matt. 11:20). When He sent out the 70 He sent them also to those who would reject the gospel and even warned them about this rejection (Mk. 6:10, 11), yet we read that they went out and preached that men should repent (Mk. 6:12).
Nor is there any evidence that when Peter, in the temple after the healing of the lame man, preached "repent ye and be converted" (Acts 3:19), that he was preaching only to "sensible sinners." Certainly, Simon the sorcerer was not a "sensible sinner" when Peter said to him: "Repent therefore of this wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee" (Acts 7:22).
Several of the passages already cited (Acts 3:19; 7:22) also imply that the gospel calls for faith on the part of all who hear. Faith is part of conversion, and one cannot pray God for forgiveness without also praying in faith. So, too, it is not possible that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for not believing if believing was not required of them (Matt. 21:25; Lk. 22:67; Jn. 10:25, 26).
The hyper-Calvinist gets around these verses by speaking of different kinds of repentance and faith. He speaks of "Jewish repentance," "reformation repentance," "circumstantial repentance," "collective repentance," etc., and claims that Scripture also calls for different kinds of faith. So he insists that many of the verses we have referred to call only for such kinds of faith and repentance, but not for saving repentance and faith.
We do not deny, of course, that Scripture speaks of "faith" and "repentance" that are not saving (Acts 8:13; II Cor. 7:10; James 2:19; Heb. 12:17). But these, as we know, are simply hypocrisy, and do not find favor with God. They cannot possibly, then, be something God calls for. How could God, Who does not lie, speaking through the gospel, call men to a repentance or faith which is not sincere and saving? There is not the slightest evidence in Scripture that He does so, either.
We believe, therefore, that the Word of God in Acts 17:30 must be taken seriously by those who preach the gospel. We reject the notion that the command to repent and believe savingly should be heard only by those who show some evidence of conviction. That would not only limit the preaching of the gospel, but would in the end destroy true gospel preaching.
As we hope to show in the next article, the command to repent and believe is an integral part of the preaching not only as far as God's elect are concerned, but also as far as the "reprobate" are concerned. All who come under the preaching MUST hear that command! Not only is it according to the will of God that it be preached to all promiscuously, but it is necessary as far as the gospel itself is concerned. To deny this is to strip the gospel of its power and make it an empty and vain show. Rev. Ron Hanko
You will want to read an interesting article in the Calvin (Seminary) Theological Journal by Prof. John Bolt in which he evaluates the actions of the Christian Reformed Church 1924-25 when Hoeksema, Danhof and Ophoff with their consistories were put out of the Christian Reformed Church. Check this in our web site: www.prca.org (under "News and Views"-one of the "Features").