Vol. 79; No. 13; April 1, 2003
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Table of Contents:
Meditation - Rev. Steven Houck
Editorial - Prof. David J. Engelsma
Letters:
Feature Article - Rev. Angus Stewart
All Around us – Rev. Kenneth Koole
Go Ye Into All the World – Rev. Jason Kortering
Search the Scriptures – Rev. Martin VanderWal
A Word Fitly Spoken – Rev. Dale Kuiper
In His Fear – Rev. Richard Smit
Grace Life – Rev. Mitchell Dick
News From Our Churches - Mr. Benjamin Wigger
Meditation:
Rev. Steven Houck
Rev. Houck is pastor of Peace Protestant Reformed Church in Lansing, Illinois.
Saved by Grace
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man
should boast.”
Before we look at the positive meaning of this
passage, let us take note of the fact that Roman Catholicism teaches the very opposite of
what is taught here. Rome teaches that a
person is saved by means of works. Original
sin and the sins committed before baptism are forgiven by baptism. After that, a person can be forgiven only when he
earns forgiveness by doing good works. Penance
is doing the good works that the priest assigns at the time of one’s confession of
sin. These works are necessary for salvation.
Rome also teaches that the works of others may be applied to you. They believe that the virgin Mary and the saints
performed more good works than were necessary for their own salvation. Therefore, there is a large reservoir of works at
the disposal of the priest to apply to someone else.
An indulgence, which is the forgiveness of sin, is granted on the basis of these
good works. A person merely has to pay the
church, and the priest will grant an indulgence that will forgive all or part of his sins. Thus he buys the good works of the saints to gain
his forgiveness. Even though the Roman Church
speaks of Christ and of grace, Christ’s work and God’s grace are not sufficient
to save a person. There must also be works.
This view of salvation is wrong. It
is contrary to this passage. We read in verse
9, “Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Salvation
is not of works. A person does not earn
salvation by doing good works. Man’s
efforts are of no value when it comes to his salvation.
This is the teaching of all of Scripture. We read in
Galatians 2:16,
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law….” We read in
Titus 3:5,
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he
saved us….”
What saves us? We read in the passage,
“For by grace are ye saved….” Notice
first of all that we need salvation. The
Roman Catholic believes that man is not so depraved that he cannot help God save himself. Man can do good that will count toward his
justification. Man is not utterly lost. He has fallen, but not so far that he cannot climb
out of the pit into which he has fallen.
That is not the biblical view of salvation. Biblical
salvation implies that we are so utterly depraved that there is nothing that we can do to
save ourselves. We are so utterly sinful that even after we have been regenerated, we still can do nothing to save ourselves. We read in
Isaiah 64:6,
“… all our
righteous-nesses are as filthy rags….” How
can we earn salvation when all our works of righteousness are as filthy rags? The best that the regenerated man can do is not
good enough for God. Even the best of our
good works are defiled by our sin. That is
why we need salvation. Salvation must be all
of God and nothing of us. Thus we read in
Romans 9:16,
“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of
God that sheweth mercy.”
That is why salvation is said to be of grace in this passage, “For by grace
are ye saved….” It is not only this
passage that says that salvation is of grace. So does all of Scripture. We read in
Acts 15:11,
“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ we shall be saved.…” We read in
Romans 3:24,
“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”
(Rom. 11:5),
“…there is a remnant according to
the election of grace.”
What does it mean that we are saved by grace?
The word “grace” means “pleasantness, loveliness, charm, and
beauty.” That God is grace means that
God is in Himself lovely, charming, beautiful. God
is also gracious to us, His people. First of
all, God has a gracious attitude toward us. His
attitude is one of beauty and pleasantness. That
is why he has chosen us to salvation. Election
is the election of grace because it is His love and pleasantness toward us.
Secondly, God’s grace is also the power that saves us. Because God has a pleasant disposition toward us
and wants to save us, He does save us. God’s
grace is not weak. It is the almighty power
of God that always results in salvation for its objects.
That is what this passage declares, “For by grace are ye saved.”
In the third place, this grace of God that saves is undeserved favor. By its very nature it is not something that can be
earned or deserved. It is the free gift of
God. This idea is in the word
“grace.” God is gracious to one person and not another because of His own sovereign, free will. Grace has no works in it whatsoever. In
Romans 11:6
we read, “And if by grace,
then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace:
otherwise work is no more work.” Grace
and works are opposites. If it is of works,
it cannot be of grace. If it is of grace, it
cannot be of works. Salvation by grace means
that salvation is totally out of our hands. Only
God can save us and does save us.
Salvation by grace involves Christ and His suffering on the cross.
Romans 3:24,
“Being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Salvation has nothing to do with us and our work because it has everything to do
with Christ and His work. God forgives His
people and declares them to be righteous on the basis of the blood of Christ. That is why salvation is of grace. Someone else did what was necessary for us to be
saved. God Himself, in His only begotten Son,
purchased salvation for us. He gives
salvation to us as a free gift, because He did it all and we do nothing for it.
Grace
is not the only thing that is mentioned in this passage. We read, “For by grace are ye saved through faith….” Faith is necessary for salvation. No one can be saved without faith. Thus we read in
Mark 16:16,
“He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” That we are to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
means that we believe the truth concerning Christ that is taught in the Holy Scriptures. It also means that we trust Christ for our
salvation. We rely totally upon His suffering
and death as the only means of our forgiveness. We
are confident that Christ’s work alone was sufficient to pay the price of our sins
and merit for us righteousness and eternal life.
The reason that faith is necessary for salvation is that grace uses faith when it
saves. Grace saves through the
instrumentality of faith. There are many
passages of Scripture that connect grace and faith.
Romans 4:16
is just one of them. We read,
“Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace….” Faith is like grace. It has nothing to do with works. Faith is a totally different principle than works. That is why grace uses faith. When the Judaizer tried to get the Christians of
Rome to keep the law for salvation, they promoted a principle of works. But the apostle Paul admonished them that it is
not of works, but of faith. It is faith that is counted for righteousness
(Rom. 4:3).
That
makes salvation of grace.
Even though faith, like grace, is much different than works, there are many who
teach that faith is something that comes from within man, not God. Roman Catholics do not talk much about faith. Faith is not even a part of most of the works that
they perform. They partake of the Lord’s
Supper in a mechanical way. They eat Christ
with their mouths, not with faith. When they
speak of faith, it is not so much faith in Jesus Christ as it is faith in the church. Faith is considered the work of man. It is up to man himself to believe in the church
for salvation.
This is the common view among most who profess to be believers. A very prominent evangelical Greek scholar says,
“Grace is God’s part, faith ours.” The
idea is this. God provides the gift of
salvation for man by His grace, but man has to accept that gift by faith. This is free-willism. It is Arminianism.
It makes all of salvation dependent upon man and his choice rather than God and His
choice. They speak of salvation by grace, but
in reality it is a salvation by the free will of man.
This view, that faith is man’s work, makes the Arminian just as bad as the
Roman Catholic. Faith is made a work of man,
that is, a condition for salvation. This view
of grace is just the opposite of grace. It
has the sound of grace, but in reality it takes us back to salvation by works.
In this passage, the words “…that not of yourselves: it is the gift
of God…” modify the word “faith.”
Faith does not come from us. A person
cannot simply muster up some faith. The
Arminian and the Roman Catholic contradict what this passage says about faith. This passage says faith does not come from you. It does not originate in your heart. You have no
faith of yourself. Faith is the gift of God. A man can have faith only when God gives it to
him. Not only this text, but all of Scripture
declares that faith is a gift of God. We read in
Ephesians 1:19,
“… who believe, according to the working of his mighty
power….” We believe only because God’s mighty power has worked faith in us. In
John 6:44
we read, “No man can
come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.…” No one can go to Christ in faith unless the Father draws him to Christ by giving him faith in Christ.
Acts 13:48,
“… and as many as
were ordained to eternal life believed.” Only
those who were ordained to eternal life believed. They
believed because they were ordained to eternal life.
This is how salvation is by grace through faith.
God in His grace elected certain people to be saved.
In His grace He sent Christ to suffer and die for them so that He would merit
salvation for those chosen people. In His
grace God regenerated His elect people and put the power of faith in their hearts. In His grace He called that power into activity so
that the elect regenerated person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus salvation is by grace through faith because
grace gives the faith that is necessary for man to be saved. Not only is salvation all of grace and therefore
all of God, but even the instrument that grace uses is from God. Truly, salvation is of
the Lord.
Salvation
by grace through faith results in something very important. Before we see that, let us consider what is the
result of salvation by works. When someone
believes that he contributes to his salvation by his works or his faith, the result will
be that he boasts in himself. He will glory
in himself rather than in God.
The Roman Catholic will boast, “I have not missed a mass in 50 years. I am faithful in regularly going to confession. I have given thousands of dollars to the
church.” The Arminian will boast,
“I have chosen Christ. I have given my
life to Christ. I have freely accepted His
salvation.” But all of this is boasting
in oneself. When that happens, God does not
receive the honor and glory. To the extent
that man boasts in his efforts, he does not glory in God.
Salvation is by grace through faith so that the boasting will not be in man, but in
God. Look at the passage, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” We read in
1 Corinthians 1:31,
“…He that
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” We
are to boast. But that boasting is to be in
the Lord and only in the Lord. That is what
happens when salvation is by grace through faith. For
then we realize that we had nothing to do with our salvation. Then we realize that God and only God saves us. God does everything that is necessary for our
salvation. There is nothing left for us, and
so we praise Him. We praise God for choosing
us to be His children. We praise God for
sending Christ to suffer and die for us. We
praise God for regenerating us. We praise Him
for working faith in our hearts. We praise
God because we know that we do not deserve all of this grace. It is God’s undeserved favor.
When we boast in God for salvation, it is especially His grace in which we boast. Notice the first word of the passage,
“For.” This word connects the
passage with verse 7, “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of
his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” The reason that salvation is by grace through
faith and not of works is that grace might be displayed in all of its riches and thus God
will be glorified forever. God does not save
us as an end in itself. Salvation is a means
to an end. It is for the purpose of
glorifying God forever. It does that because
in salvation grace is displayed. God’s
grace is seen to be rich and abundant, for it brings with it such overwhelming kindness to
man. What wondrous grace that does everything
necessary for salvation. What great grace
that saves a sinner like me. What grace that
sacrifices God’s own Son for us. Salvation
by grace shows us just how wonderful God is, and it gives all the glory to Him.
Editorial:
Prof. David Engelsma
The Unconditional Covenant
in Contemporary Debate—and the Protestant Reformed Seminary* (7)
The movement in conservative Reformed churches denying not only
justification by faith alone but also all the doctrines of grace is, as it claims, a
development of the doctrine of a conditional covenant.
One way the doctrine of a conditional covenant implies justification by works is
its teaching that faith is a condition upon which the covenant, the covenant blessings,
and the covenant God Himself depend. Faith
itself is a human work contributing to covenant salvation.
It is a short, logical, and inevitable step to teach that also the works of faith
are conditions and, therefore, part of the sinner’s righteousness with God. This was the subject of the previous editorial.
Liberating the Covenant
A second way in which the doctrine of a conditional covenant necessarily implies
the denial of the gospel of salvation by sovereign grace is the conditional
covenant’s adamant refusal to have the covenant determined and controlled by
election. Defenders of a conditional covenant
state this refusal in a misleading way: “The
covenant is not to be identified with election.”
In fact, no theologian or church has ever been so doctrinally dense as to identify
covenant and election. What they mean, of
course, is that election, accompanied by reprobation, does not determine who they are with
whom the covenant is personally and everlastingly established. Neither does election determine the recipients of
the blessings of the covenant. Nor does
election determine who are saved in and by the covenant.
The accurate—and honest—way of expressing their position would be,
“The covenant with its blessings and salvation is outside the sovereign control of
predestination.” Or, “the blessings
and salvation of the covenant are broader, much broader, than election.” Or, “the grace of God in the covenant is
universal, whereas the grace of election is particular.”
The question that the liberators of the covenant from election never answer is,
“Whose will then does control and determine the covenant?”
A covenant liberated from election necessarily extends the covenant grace of God in
Christ to many more than those only who are finally saved by this grace, posits a death of
Christ for many members of the covenant who perish in the end, and allows for the falling
away of many who were once united to Christ by covenant grace. These implications of the doctrine of a
conditional covenant are boldly proclaimed today as a new orthodoxy for Reformed churches.
That the covenant is determined by election is the apostle’s teaching in
Galatians 3:16, 29:
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ.
And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
God established His covenant by promise
with Christ personally, who is the elect, and in Him with those who are
Christ’s, that is, all those whom the Father gave to Christ in the decree of election
(John 17:6ff.).
On this biblical basis, to the utter confounding of all the Presbyterians who join
in the hue-and-cry that “the covenant is not to be identified with election” the
West-minster Larger Catechism declares that “the covenant of grace was made with
Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed” (Q. and A. 31). This is clear.
This is decisive. This is the truth. And this is authoritative for all Presbyterian
officebearers.
Christ is the head of the covenant of grace, as the comparison between Adam and Christ in
Romans 5:12ff.
implies. “Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned.... Therefore
as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the
righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life”
(Rom. 5:12, 18).
If Christ is the head of the
covenant, then the establishment of the covenant, the blessings of the covenant, and the
salvation of the covenant are determined by election.
It is precisely the point of the apostle in
Romans 9:6ff.
that God’s covenant
salvation in the Old Testament had its source in, and was determined by, God’s
election. God’s covenant mercy was
particular: “I will have mercy on whom I
will have mercy” (v. 15). It was freely
bestowed only on the children of the promise, who alone were counted by God for the seed
of Abraham: “The children of the promise
are counted for the seed” (v. 8). And
the children of the promise, that is, those descendants of Abraham to whom alone the
promise was given and who were begotten spiritually by the power of the promise, were
determined by election (vv. 10-18).
Whenever in the history of the church the gospel of grace has been corrupted, the
cause has been fear or hatred of sovereign, particular, gracious election.
A Universal, Ineffectual Promise
The third way in which the doctrine of a conditional covenant implies universal,
conditional grace, and thus is responsible for the destruction of the gospel of grace that
is underway in conservative Reformed circles today, is its teaching of a universal,
conditional promise. According to the
conditional covenant, God directs His gracious covenant promise to all baptized persons
alike, if not to all who hear the preaching of the gospel.
The meaning is not that all hear the promise.
But God on His part promises to every baptized person alike that He will be his
God, that He incorporates him into Christ and the covenant, and that He will save him.
United Reformed minister John Barach spoke for the movement and, in reality, for
those who hold a conditional covenant when he said that baptism is God’s promise to
every baptized person that he is an elect.
This covenant promise is grace. Given
to all, it is grace to all.
But the gracious covenant promise depends for its fulfillment upon the condition of
faith. Depending as it does upon the
condition of faith, and even upon the works of faith, the gracious promise of the covenant
fails of fulfillment in multitudes of instances.
The source of Norman Shepherd’s total reconstruction, and complete
destruction, of creedal Calvinism, indeed historic Protestantism, is his covenant
doctrine. The heart of his covenant doctrine
is the teaching that the covenant consists of two parts, a gracious promise and the
condition of faith. The gracious promise,
made to many more than only those who are finally saved, is God’s part. The condition of believing is man’s part. Man’s part is not of grace. And upon man’s doing his part, God’s
part depends.
No one can examine this doctrine in the light of the Canons of Dordt and come to
any other conclusion than that the doctrine is Arminianism applied to the covenant.
This aspect of the conditional covenant, namely, a general promise that depends on the condition of faith, the apostle denies in
Romans 9:6ff.
The perishing of many Israelites in the Old Testament and the perishing of many
baptized members of the visible church today do not indicate that “the word of God
hath taken none effect.” The word of God
is the covenant promise. This promise was not
given to every Israelite. It is not given
today to everyone who hears the gospel, or who is baptized.
The covenant word of promise concerns, and is directed to, “Israel,” that
is, the true covenant people of God according to election.
Though heard by them, and rejected, the covenant word of promise does not concern,
nor is it directed by God to, those who are only “of Israel,” that is, the
reprobate who live in the sphere of the covenant.
The covenant promise did not fail, though many physical children of Abraham went
lost in unbelief.
The gracious covenant promise is particular and unconditional. As such, and only as such, it is effectual. It establishes the covenant. It maintains the covenant. It begets its own children: “children of the promise.” It works faith in its children by (not: because
of ) which it can bestow, and the children can embrace, Christ and all the blessings
of the covenant. It bestows the blessings of
the covenant. And it saves every member of
the covenant.
The gracious, almighty covenant promise, that is, the Word of God, does all these
things in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The covenant promise depends upon nothing in the covenant people.
But the covenant people depend upon the covenant promise.
A general, conditional covenant promise, on the other hand, is ineffectual. It is
weak. It is as weak as the sinner upon whom
it depends. It cannot establish the covenant
with a man, or, if it does, it cannot maintain the covenant. It cannot bestow the blessings of the covenant
upon a man, or, if it does, it cannot assure their continuance. It cannot save the members of the covenant, or, if
it does begin to save, it cannot preserve them in salvation. A gracious covenant promise that is general and
conditional is quite “un-sovereign.” Contemporary
defenders of a conditional covenant are making this very clear.
What this doctrine of universal, conditional, losable grace in the (breakable)
covenant does to the assurance of salvation is dreadful.
It destroys all assurance. Are you
object of the gracious promise of God today? No
matter; tomorrow, you may be object of His just curse.
Are you in living communion with Christ as a baptized member of the church today? It means nothing; tomorrow, you may be cut off. Are you elect today? Never mind; tomorrow, you may be reprobate. But
this is the subject of another series of editorials.
Rooting Out the Heresy
The contemporary movement in reputedly conservative Reformed and Presbyterian
churches denying justification by faith alone and attacking all the doctrines of grace is
logical development of the theory of a conditional covenant. Therefore, it cannot be opposed, not effectively,
except by the repudiation of a conditional covenant.
There are theologians who are condemning the movement, although they are few. The silence of most Reformed theologians and
churches — silence in the face of one of the gravest threats to the gospel of grace
since Dordt! — is deafening. But the
theologians who do speak out mostly limit themselves to the error of denying justification
by faith alone. They do not get to the root
of the evil. They cannot. With the rare exception, they are themselves
committed to a conditional covenant.
One of two things will happen.
The theologians and the churches may reexamine their confession of a conditional
covenant. Pray God this is the outcome! Then, Reformed theologians and churches will at
last seriously confront these questions: Is
the covenant conditional, that is, dependent on what the sinner does? Is the promise of the covenant directed in grace
to all alike, depending for its realization on the sinner?
Is the covenant independent of election? Is
the covenant breakable in the sense that God establishes it with a man by gracious promise
so that he has the life and benefits of the covenant in his heart, but because of unbelief
and disobedience loses the covenant in the end?
If the Reformed churches face these questions, they will also be led to consider
whether the covenant is not a warm, living relation of love, rather than a cold contract;
whether the covenant in Scripture is not itself the highest good — the very
blessedness of salvation—rather than a mere means to some other end; and whether
Christ is not the head of the covenant of grace.
Or, the outcome of the present development of a conditional covenant will be that
Reformed and Presbyterian churches succumb to the movement and are destroyed as Reformed
churches altogether.
“… and the Protestant
Reformed
What has this contemporary debate over the covenant to do with the Protestant
Reformed Seminary?
Much in every way!
At this crucial hour for the gospel of grace, the Protestant Reformed Churches are
called to confess, explain, and defend the unconditional covenant. The defense must include exposure and condemnation
of the doctrine of a conditional covenant.
The Protestant Reformed Seminary has a vital role in this calling because it trains
men as pastors and teachers.
Certain reputedly conservative Reformed and Presbyterian seminaries are
fountainheads of the new departure from the gospel of grace. One of them has been a fountainhead of this
grievous error for the past thirty or more years (see Mark W. Karlberg, “The Changing
of the Guard: Westminster Theological
Seminary in Philadelphia,” The Trinity Foundation, 2001).
Inasmuch as the present attack on the gospel of sovereign grace, centering on
justification by faith alone, roots in a conditional covenant, one seminary in all the
world, so far as I know, equips preachers of the gospel to resist the modern assault on
sovereign grace. One seminary instructs
ministers of the Word and sacraments in the truth of the unconditional covenant. One seminary prepares men both to teach the
unconditional covenant and to warn against the doctrine of a conditional covenant.
I am emphatically not saying, nor suggesting, nor implying, that at this critical
hour for the Reformed faith — the very gospel recovered by the sixteenth century
Reformation of the church — everything depends on us.
In fact, nothing depends on us. This
is the humbling, yet liberating, implication of the truth of the unconditional covenant. All depends on the faithful God, who having made
His covenant with His chosen, Jesus Christ, will keep it.
All depends on the God of truth, who, having sworn unto David His servant, will fulfill His promise (
Ps. 89).
Nevertheless, as the seminary God has made us by the Word and through our unique
tradition, we have a high privilege and a solemn duty on behalf of, and in, the covenant
of grace. We professors are called to teach
the unconditional covenant. The students must
learn the truth of the covenant so that they can hand it over to believers and their
children in sermons and catechism instruction. The
Theological School Committee is required to see that this teaching and learning take
place. The congregations are obligated to
support this work and avail themselves of it.
In this way, a witness goes out, in all kinds of ways, especially to the world of
Reformed and Presbyterian churches. It may be
that some will now hear the Protestant Reformed testimony to the unconditional covenant. Who knows, as Mordecai asked of Esther, whether we
are “come to the kingdom for such a time as this”? It may also be the case that at this late date in
history, when the rot of apostasy has reached the vitals of the best of the Reformed and
Presbyterian churches, there is continued resistance and even increased hostility.
The result is in God’s will.
Let us do our work. Let us make our
witness, whether men hear or forbear.
As for us, let us seek salvation for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren
in the God of the unconditional covenant, the God of grace.
And give Him, Him only, the glory.
Letters
The Unconditional
I
like to know what position you take on the question of God’s love for reprobates. In reading about the unconditional covenant in the
February 15, 2003 issue of the Standard Bearer, I am
not clear about your position. What do the
Reformed standards have to say on this question?
Jerry
Allie
Statesville,
NC
Response:
The doctrine of the unconditional covenant teaches that God, in pure grace and on
the basis of the (limited) atonement of the cross of Christ, establishes His covenant with
the elect in Christ, and with them only. The
foundation and source in God of His covenant with sinful men and women is His love for
them, the love that chose them in the eternal decree of election.
God does not love the reprobates, whom in hatred He has eternally appointed to
damnation.
That God does not love the reprobates who are born to believing parents and who have the sign of the covenant is the plain teaching of
Romans 9:13:
“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated.”
No Reformed or Presbyterian confession teaches a love of God for the reprobates.
All teach the hatred of God for the reprobates.
The Westminster Confession of Faith is representative. Having taught in 3.5 that God chose some persons
to salvation “out of his mere free grace and love,” Westminster confesses in
Article 7 that God passed by and ordained the others to dishonor and wrath for their sin, withholding
His mercy (love) from them as He pleases.
It would be quite a revelation if defenders of a conditional covenant made with all
alike were thus frankly to answer your question. “Does
God love the reprobates with whom He (conditionally) establishes His covenant? Does God love them, not, of course, with a
‘common grace’ kind of love, but with the love of the covenant?”
— Ed.
Feature Article:
Rev. Angus Stewart
Rev.
Stewart is a Protestant Reformed minister, presently working in Northern Ireland.
The Real Saint Patrick (2)
Patrick’s Life
Leading twentieth
century Patrician scholars reckon that he was born between c. 389 and c. 415 and that his
death was between c. 460 and c. 493. They
estimate Patrick lived between seventy and seventy-eight years. Many reckon that he was buried in or near
Downpatrick, Co. Down. His mission in Ireland
occurred between 430 at the earliest and 490 at the latest, and lasted at least thirty
years. Augustine of Hippo’s dates are
354-430, and the Roman Empire fell in 476. If
we think of Patrick laboring in Ireland from the death of Augustine to the fall of Rome
and perhaps beyond, we shall not be far wrong. Thus
he stands at or near the fall of the old world and the beginning of the dark ages. But it is doubtful how much he knew of Augustine
or of Odoacer’s conquest of Rome, for he was on the very periphery of the then-known
world.1
What of his family? Patrick was
born into a family with ecclesiastical connections. His
father, Calpornius, was a deacon, and his paternal grandfather, Potitus, was a presbyter
or elder (Conf 1). Hanson writes,
We should not be surprised that both Patrick’s father and grandfather were clergy; clerical marriage was countenanced in one form or another well into the Middle Ages, indeed as late as the eleventh century, and in Patrick’s day carried no particular stigma.2
Patrick’s father was a member of the local town council responsible for
raising taxes to finance local government under the administrative system of the Roman
Empire. He also owned an estate. Thus he was a member of one of the higher stratas
of Roman British society. In keeping with his
relatively high station in life, Patrick speaks of “the men and women servants of
my father’s house” and refers to his own “worldly position” and
“aristocratic status” (Letter 10).
Patrick did not live in one of the major population centers but in “the
village of Bannavem Taber-niae” (Conf 1).
We are unsure of its location but it seems safest to conclude that it was on or
near the west coast of Britain, either in Scotland, Wales, or England. This was the most accessible region to Irish
pirates, and it was through one of their plunderous raids that the sixteen-year-old
Patrick, “almost a beardless boy,” found himself a slave on Irish soil (Conf 1,
10).
Patrick, the young Briton, was sold as a slave by his captors and, like many
other men used in the gathering and preservation of the church, was employed for a time as
a shepherd (Conf 16). This must have
been quite a change for Patrick. Hanson
opines that Patrick was “perhaps spoiled” and “certainly waited on by
servants.”3 Now he was a servant not a master. He experienced many long nights “in the woods
or on the mountain ... in snow and frost and rain” (Conf 16). He was also a stranger in a strange land, for
Ireland was to him “an outlandish nation” (Letter 10).
It is at this point that we gain an insight into Patrick’s spiritual
condition. Although he was brought up in a
covenant home, he had not yet believed in the God of his fathers. Patrick speaks of the
days before his Irish captivity: “I was
not a believer in the living God, and had not been since my infancy, but I lay in death
and disbelief.... Then I used to take no thought even for my own [salvation]”
(Conf 27-28). At the time of his
kidnapping he confesses, “I did not then know the true God” (Conf 1). He was converted to God when a slave in Ireland (Conf
2). As an old man looking back on his life,
he understood that his Irish captivity was God’s chastening him on account of his
sins (Conf 1-3).
Patrick, however, was able to escape. Following
the guidance of a dream, he journeyed some 200 miles (Conf 17) to a coastal town,
where he managed to board a ship. A few years
later in Britain, Patrick received another dream.
I saw in a vision of the night a man coming apparently from Ireland whose
name was Victoricus, with an unaccountable number of letters, and he gave me one of them
and I read the heading of the letter which ran, “The Cry of the Irish [Vox
Hiberionacum],” and while I was reading aloud the heading of the letter I was
imagining that at that very moment I heard the voice of those who were by the wood of
Voclut which is near the Western Sea, and this is what they cried with one voice,
“Holy boy, we are asking you to come and walk among us again,” and I was deeply
struck to the heart and I was not able to read any further and at that I woke up (Conf
23).4
Patrick became a deacon (Conf 27)
and then a missionary bishop in Ireland.
Roman Catholic scholars have been especially interested in arguing that Patrick
received his theological training in Lerins in southern France. This would make it easier for them to unite him to
the Roman pontiff. However, Christine
Mohrmann, in her 1961 lectures at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, pointed out,
“There is nothing in [Patrick’s] language which supports the tradition of a
prolonged personal contact with Lerins or with any form of Continental monasticism.” She notes that the key traits of Continental
monastic writings, such as special monastic terms and very frequent reference to the
Psalms and demonology, are missing from Patrick’s writings.5
Patrick did, however, visit France (Conf 43; cf. 32); that much is
clear. But he was a British bishop sent by
the church of mainland Britain to Ireland. Hanson’s
conclusion bears repeating:
The internal evidence from Patrick’s own writing compels us to realize that he was educated for the ministry in Britain, spent his ministry between ordination and the mission to Ireland in Britain, was in fact wholly the product of the British Church, and that later tradition, which sends him with such imaginative abandon to Lerins or to Auxerre or to Rome or to an island in the Tyrrhenian sea, must be discounted.6
His thirty years or more of labor in Ireland saw much fruit. Paganism was dealt a mighty blow. Human sacrifice was all but finished. “Within [Patrick’s] lifetime or soon
after his death,” writes Thomas Cahill, “the Irish slave trade came to a halt,
and other forms of violence, such as murder and intertribal warfare, decreased.”7 Paganism was
not, however, completely vanquished. One
merely has to think of the abiding place of fairies and leprechauns in Irish thought.
Patrick writes of “large numbers” and “so many thousands”
of converts (Letter 2; Conf 14, 50), with not a few from amongst the ruling
classes. Patrick even takes the time to tell
us of the baptism of “one blessed Irish woman, an aristocrat of noble race very
beautiful and of full age” (Conf 42).8 At his death the
church in Ireland had been well established in many parts of the island and was served by
the many officebearers he and others had ordained. Some
form of monastic life had also taken root. The
church of Jesus Christ in Ireland, in whose formation Patrick was instrumental, was to
play a vital role in the evangelization of many parts of Europe in the dark ages after the
fall of the Roman Empire. Next time we shall
consider the gospel that Patrick preached, D.V.
4. It would appear that the Wood of Voclut
was the region where Patrick labored as a shepherd.
Its location depends on whether the Western Sea is to be understood as west with
respect to Ireland (the Atlantic Ocean) or west with respect to Britain (the Irish Sea).
5. Christine Mohrmann, The Latin of Saint
Patrick (Dublin: Dublin University Press, 1961), pp. 45-46.
8.
This reference to the attractive appearance of a female baptismal candidate is not
the sort of thing one finds often in the writings of the Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers.
All Around Us:
Rev. Kenneth Koole
Rev.
Koole is pastor of Grandville Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan.
Relentless
Pressure
As
we mentioned in a previous installment, there is progression in evil. The Evil One, as he plots his strategy, moves his
pieces square by square with his sights set squarely on eventually getting at the church. In harmony with this strategy, the political
liberals are in the process of pursuing legal concessions that in the end will give them
the right to curtail sharply religious freedoms for this nation’s citizenry and,
ultimately, to place restraints on the church’s right to govern her own affairs. David Limbaugh, affiliated with the Creators
Syndicate, Inc., alerts us to an interesting instance of this in connection with the legal
controversy in which the Boy Scouts organization has been embroiled over the last few
years, namely, the right to exclude homosexuals from serving as Scout leaders.
Liberal and pro-gay organizations have been using various ploys to challenge the
right of the Boy Scouts to determine their own membership.
They are seeking to prevail upon courts to declare such a ‘right’ as
being unconstitutional and discriminatory. To
this point they have been unsuccessful. This
has not, however, dissuaded various groups of lawyers (which in too many instances have
become synonymous with ‘liberal to the extreme’) from bringing pressure to bear
on the courts to reverse these decisions.
Regardless of how one views membership in the Boy Scouts, legal concessions made to
those who want to dictate to the Boy Scouts whom they may or may not exclude (on the basis
of morality) will have serious repercussions on religious freedom down the road. In an
article entitled “Tolerance, Liberal Style,” Limbaugh (who also happens to be an
attorney) points this out.
It might be easier to stomach liberals sermonizing about tolerance, inclusion and religious freedom if they didn’t come to the tolerance table with such thoroughly unclean hands.
Just as the best way to confirm that a pathological liar is lying is to see his lips moving, the surest sign of liberal intolerance in progress is a liberal’s denunciation of conservative intolerance. The louder he protests, the more certain you can be of his own culpability.
Two current news stories illustrate the point. One involves liberal mania over the freedom of California judges to associate with the Boy Scouts of America. The other concerns the controversy over President Bush’s nomination of a conservative Christian physician to serve on a Food and Drug Administration advisory commission.
(Please note, in this article we are
concerned only with the case involving the Boy Scouts.)
Two California bar associations are pressuring the California Supreme Court to amend California’s Code of Judicial Conduct to prohibit judges from associating with the Boy Scouts. The Los Angeles Bar Association and the Bar Association of San Francisco claim that if judges affiliate with the Boy Scouts, they will create a perception that they have an anti-homosexual bias.
Why? Because BSA has a policy — ruled legal by the United States Supreme Court — of excluding homosexuals as scout leaders. Presently, the California Judicial Ethics Code prohibits judges from belonging to organizations that practice “invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin or sexual orientation.”
“Nonprofit youth organizations” are an exception to this rule, but the two bar associations are determined to close this “loophole.” They are saying, in effect, that California judges should be denied their right to participate in groups whose policies reflect values with which they disagree.
Now notice, as Limbaugh perceptively
points out, where this challenge will inevitably lead if adopted as law.
What’s the difference between affiliation with the Boy Scouts and membership in a church that not only excludes homosexuals as pastors but openly condemns homosexual behavior as sinful? You can be sure there are plenty of such churches. Does that mean that California judges should not be allowed to be members of those churches lest they give the impression that they may carry the church’s values (biases) into the courtroom?
You can dress this up however you want to, but what this boils down to is militant liberal thought police trying forcibly to impose their secular values on our society. If you dispute this, then tell me whether you think these groups or others like them, would be in favor, for example, of barring the judges’ membership in “gay”-rights organizations. Couldn’t an argument just as reasonably be made that a judge’s affiliation with such organizations would create a perception of his anti-Christian bias?
No, these groups are not champions of tolerance, inclusion or religious freedom, but a certain set of politically correct values. And if you don’t share those values, you will not be tolerated, included or accorded religious freedom, much less freedom of choice or association.
This is perceptive. This is
frightening. Even should those who are
challenging the right of an organization such as the Boy Scouts to
“discriminate” on the basis of ethics (excluding from membership due to behavior
defined as sinful) be defeated this time, the reality is, it is this mentality of
intolerance of freedom of religion and conscience that is gaining the day and that is
going to prevail in the end. In time, not
only will one be prevented from being a judge if one belongs to an organization (a church)
that discriminates against various sinful “lifestyles,” but pressure will be
brought to bear upon every work-place that dares hire those who are members of such
“intolerant, bigoted organizations.” The
days are coming. The handwriting is on the
wall.
A Casino
Coming
Recently
approval of building a local casino has been a lively issue in the West Michigan area. Actually, it is now all but a foregone conclusion
— a casino to be built with state approval; and that despite the citizens of the area
who opposed the project, followed the lawful way all the way to the state legislature, and
secured a favorable vote to prohibit building said casino in the area. It did not matter.
Those in power have ways and means to dismiss the will of the people and to impose
their own will. Some Indian tribe will get
its wish to build a casino in our “backyard.”
They are an “oppressed minority,” after all. What exactly is oppressive about keeping their
casinos out of a given area is another question. But
this is becoming common practice across this great land of ours.
Be that as it may, it might be well to remind ourselves of the sinfulness of
gambling and its attending evils. Gambling
has become an American way of life, from the local convenience store to the gas pump. Lotto tickets anyone? Ronald A. Reno, in an article entitled
“Gambling’s Impact on Families” (on CitizenLink, a web site of Focus
on the Family), points out what deeply rooted evils the sin of gambling begets. We do well to be warned.
The tragedy of gambling addiction reaches far beyond the more than 15 million Americans who are problem or pathological gamblers. Employers, work associates, friends, and taxpayers often pay a steep price as well. However, it is family members who bear the brunt of the pain and misery that accompanies this addiction. In addition to material deprivations, family members frequently experience the trauma of divorce, child abuse and neglect, and domestic violence.
Divorce:
* In a survey of nearly 400 Gambler Anonymous members, 28 percent reported being either separated or divorced as a direct result of their gambling problems.
* The number of divorces in Harrison County, Mississippi, has nearly tripled since the introduction of casinos. The county, which is home to ten casinos, has averaged an additional 850 divorces per year since casinos arrived.
* A nationwide survey undertaken for the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that “respondents representing 2 million adults identified a spouse’s gambling as a significant factor in a prior divorce….”
Child Abuse and Neglect:
* In Indiana, a review of the state’s gaming commission records revealed that 72 children were found abandoned on casino premises during a 14-month period.
* Cases of child abandonment at Foxwoods, the nation’s largest casino in Ledyard, Conn., became so commonplace that authorities were forced to post signs in the casino’s parking lots warning parents not to leave children in cars unattended….
Domestic Violence:
* According to the National Research Council, studies indicate that between one quarter and one half of spouses of compulsive gamblers have been abused.
* Domestic violence shelters on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast reported increases in requests for assistance ranging from 100 to 300 percent after the introduction of casinos.
* A University of Nebraska Medical Center study concluded that problem gambling is as much a risk factor for domestic violence as alcohol abuse….
And the beat goes on. What galls one
about this whole matter is that our society and its politicians are well aware of these
studies with their alarming findings. Yet
they continue to approve the building of casinos left and right. These are the same men who for their own political
ends can fume about the evils of big tobacco companies with sanctimonious concern for
their fellow man. Yet they blithely ignore the statistics that expose the even greater
dangers and evils of the gambling industry. If
these same evils showed themselves every time a certain Sunday School program established
itself in an area, you may be sure such would be shut down within a week and inspectors
would be visiting local churches to make sure none was teaching this curriculum behind
closed doors. The media would be relentless
in its scathing exposés of the evil loose in the land.
But when it comes to gambling casinos, not a word.
Why not? Because gambling is a vice
and satisfies a sinful appetite. Satisfaction
of carnal appetites is something our society will not deny itself, no matter who is
damaged and destroyed. To engage in sinful,
anti-biblical behavior is an inalienable right, after all.
Much like homosexuality and abortion, for all their attendant evils. Ask almost any lawyer loose in the land.
The hypocrisy of it all.
Go Ye Into All the World:
Rev. Jason Kortering
Rev.
Kortering is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches.
Mission Preaching in the
Established Church (2)
The Biblical Perspective of the Local congregation (concl.)
Having set forth different views of the congregation and the
problems associated with them, we now turn to the correct view, which is called the
“organic” view of the church. This
term was coined by Herman Hoeksema, especially in his book Believers and Their Seed. Let’s allow him to speak for himself as
we quote a short segment from this work. We
begin on page 114.
God’s people in this world are pictured to us in nature as a plant, of which some of the branches bear fruit and others do not. You are acquainted with such plants. Think, for example, of our well-known tomato plant. You have there an organism, growing out of one root. The entire organism is called by the name of the fruit-bearing plant. As such, it is fertilized; as such, it receives rain and sunshine. But when presently the organism of that plant has developed, then you discover that there are nevertheless two kinds of branches shooting forth on that one plant. There are fruit-bearing branches; but there, between them, you also find suckers, which indeed draw their life-sap out of the plant, but which never bear any fruit. Such shoots and suckers are then also cut out, in order that the good branches may bear more fruit. Thus it is with many plants. Thus it is also, for example, with the cucumber or with the grapevine. And in this you have the Scriptural figure of the people of God as they exist in the world. God forms His covenant people in the line of believers and their seed. As such, they manifest the figure of such an organic whole. He, then, who would refuse to call that people by the name of the people of God, he who would refuse to address them as God’s people, he who would refuse to assure them as God’s people of the riches of God’s promises in Christ, he who would refuse to point them as God’s people to their calling as those who are of the party of the living God in the midst of the world, but who would rather treat them as a mixed multitude, without any spiritual character or stamp – that man would surely err sorely. Yet on the other hand, he who would think that he may presuppose that there are absolutely no unregenerate and reprobate individuals among that people, and who therefore would refuse to proclaim woe as well as weal to them if they do not walk in the paths of God’s covenant, that man would err just as sorely. No, that entire people must be addressed, treated, comforted, and admonished as the Israel of God. And yet, at the same time, you may never forget that not all is Israel that is called Israel. There are branches which never bear fruit, which bring forth wild fruit, and which are presently cut off.
This organic view of the church relates not only to the local congregation, but
also to the church throughout the entire world. She
is to be viewed as one organic whole, living out of Jesus Christ and in Him bearing much
fruit. At the same time, she is not the
church triumphant but the church militant, still doing battle against sin and death,
without and within. Therefore, it is proper
that whether the established church is within a mission setting such as Singapore, or
within a mature denomination such as the Protestant Reformed Churches in America, the
pastor views his congregation in this manner.
The Bible sheds abundant light upon this subject.
The prophet Isaiah used this language in
Isaiah 5:1-7:
Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now, go to: I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard; I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.
Even though Israel/Judah had
apostatized and made themselves ready for judgment, yet God approaches her as “my
well-beloved.” For among them rest the
remnant of grace out of whose body shall come forth the promised Messiah.
The Lord Jesus uses the same approach in His ministry. This is found in
John 15:1-6:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
Here He pictures the church as a living
vine made up of many branches. Some of the
branches must be cut off because they do not bear fruit.
Others must be pruned so they bear more fruit.
The church is viewed as such a vine, upon which the Father as husbandman performs
all his work of gathering the fruits.
Paul follows this same example when he refers to the church throughout all of history as an olive tree (cf.
Rom. 11:16-27).
We
will summarize the teaching of the inspired apostle.
He sets forth the church as being one church, made up of natural olive branches
(believing Jews) and wild olive branches that have been engrafted into the olive tree
(believing Gentiles). God is constantly
working upon this olive tree by the preaching of the gospel. This activity of God was not to eliminate the
Jews. Rather, He included believing Gentiles
in this one tree to provoke the Jews to jealousy, so that they might in turn also embrace
Jesus Christ, and in this manner both “all Israel is saved” and the
“fullness of the Gentiles” is come in. The
entire church of all ages, made up of believing Jews and Gentiles, is viewed as the one
olive tree.
This explains why the same apostle, in his letters, addressed the churches as “the church of God.”