Vol. 80; No. 5; December 1, 2003
One-year's trial
subscription—1/2 price!!
EDITORIAL POLICY
Every editor is solely responsible for the contents
of his own articles. Contributions of general interest from our readers and questions for
"The Reader Asks" department are
welcome. Contributions will be limited to approximately 300 words and must be neatly
written or typewritten, and must be signed. Copy deadlines are the first and fifteenth of
the month. All communications relative to the contents should be sent to the editorial
office.
REPRINT POLICY
Permission
is hereby granted for the reprinting of articles in our magazine by other publications,
provided: a) that such reprinted articles are reproduced in full; b) that proper
acknowledgment is made; c) that a copy of the periodical in which such reprint appears is
sent to our editorial office.
SUBSCRIPTION POLICY
Subscription
price: $17.00 per year in the US., US $20.00 elsewhere. Unless a definite request for
discontinuance is received, it is assumed that the subscriber wishes the subscription to
continue, and he will be billed for renewal. If you have a change of address, please
notify the Business Office as early as possible in order to avoid the inconvenience of
interrupted delivery. Include your Zip or Postal Code.
BOUND VOLUMES
The
Business Office will accept standing orders for bound copies of the current volume. Such
orders are mailed as soon as possible after completion of a volume year.
l6mm microfilm, 35mm microfilm and 105mm
microfiche, and article copies are available through University Microfilms international.
For new subscribers in the United States to the Standard Bearer, there is a special offer: a ½ price subscription for one year--$8.50. Those in other countries can write for special rates as well to: The Standard Bearer, P.O. Box 603, Grandville, MI 49468-0603 or e-mail Mr. Don Doezema.
Each issue of the Standard Bearer is available on cassette tape for those who are blind, or who for some other reason would like to be able to listen to a reading of the SB. This is an excellent ministry of the Evangelism Society of the Southeast Protestant Reformed Church. The reader is Ken Rietema of Southeast Church. Anyone desiring this service regularly should write:
Southeast PRC
1535 Cambridge Ave. S.E.
Grand Rapids, MI 49506.
Table of Contents:
Meditation - Rev. Ronald VanOverloop
Editorial - Prof. David J. Engelsma
Letters
Feature
Article – Herman Hoeksema
· The Covenant Concept (1)
Feature Article – Prof. Robert Decker
When
Thou Sittest in Thine House – Mrs. MaryBeth Lubbers
· Aging
All Around Us - Rev. Gise VanBaren
Search the Scriptures – Rev. Ronald Hanko
Ministering
to the Saints – Rev. Douglas Kuiper
· The Fundamental Work of the Deacons (1): An Overview
News From Our Churches - Mr. Benjamin Wigger
Meditation:
Rev. Ronald VanOverloop
Rev. VanOverloop is pastor of Georgetown Protestant
Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan.
Casting Our Burdens on the Lord
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” Psalm 55:22
David wrote this psalm because he experienced a great difficulty. He calls it a burden. The weight of this difficult problem was extremely heavy.
Every child of God knows the heaviness of trials and problems. In addition, the burden of sin can be very heavy. Every sheep of the Shepherd walks through the valley of the shadow of death. Every disciple of Jesus Christ is required to take up a cross.
But the question is not whether the child of God will have a burden; it is what does he do with the burden. The natural instinct is to try to deal with our burden by ourselves. Some try to carry it as quietly as possible, and others groan loudly under the weight of their burden. And when the burden seems to become too great for us to carry, then we all wish that the burden would just go away — or that we had wings, for then we would fly away and find rest. David wished just that (v. 6). But such efforts never succeed. Avoiding the difficulty or problem never solves it.
Rather, we are taught by God through David’s experience to cast our burden on the Lord. To cast one’s burden on the Lord is to pray. Not only is the whole psalm a prayer, but our text is a command to pray. This is not merely advice. Not even as the best of advice. It comes to us in the imperative, as a command: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.”
David had a burden that he was bearing. He was going through one of the most difficult times in his life. His beloved son Absalom had seized his throne from him. It is a most horrible thing to be removed from your position by a stranger. But when the treason is committed by your own son, to whom you have given only love, then the sword thrust into one’s soul is deep indeed.
Added to David’s grievous burden was the fact that Ahithophel, a wise counselor and close friend of David, turned his back on David to go with Absalom. The relationship between David and Ahithophel must have been very close. David speaks of him as “a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together and walked unto the house of God in company” (vv. 13, 14). If David was severely wounded by Absalom’s treason, then the turncoat actions of Ahithophel poured salt into those deep wounds.
The burden of David was heavier still. What greatly aggravated these wounds was David’s knowledge that they stemmed from his own terrible sins. When David confessed the sins of adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah and was told that God had forgiven him, then God used Nathan the prophet to inform David that his deeds would bear dreadful consequences in his own family. Yes, he was forgiven, but “the sword shall never depart from thine house”; and God would “raise up evil against thee out of thine own house” (cf. II Sam. 12:10-14). It was the knowledge of his sin, and that it was committed against the Most Holy and Most High Majesty of God who had only done good to David, that made David’s burden so heavy.
Every follower of Jesus Christ has a burden. To be a disciple of Jesus requires not only self-denial but also the willingness to take up one’s cross (Matt. 16:24).
A part of our burden can be physical difficulties. Some of us come into this sin-cursed world with bodies and/or minds that are deformed. All others learn quickly that their apparently healthy bodies have innate weaknesses — even great frailty. When a flu bug strikes or we bend or lift wrongly, then an upset stomach, a severe headache, or a pulled muscle shows us how weak we are. We live in earthly bodies that are made out of the dust, and they evidence this fact in many ways as old age steadily creeps up on us. The body can quickly or gradually break down with illnesses, cancers, strokes, etc.
Another part of our burden is mental and emotional struggles. Anxiety and cares raise our blood pressure. Fears, doubts, and questionings can plague us. Worries about our job and the economy, along with a pile of bills and school tuition, can become a very heavy load for our minds. Also we have burdens that arise out of relationships: marital strife, difficult children, poor parenting, the refusal of someone to forgive. All of these and many more define “burdens.”
The heaviest part of the burden of God’s children is the consciousness of his sin. The spiritually sensitive child of God is always aware of the fact that if he were not a sinner he would not have a burden. In fact, as the child of God matures in the faith, this realization grows. The knowledge, not of others’ sins against us, but of our own sins and sinfulness makes us realize that we justly deserve eternal condemnation. This is a truly heavy burden!
What is most striking is the fact that David is inspired to use the word “burden” to describe his difficulty. As we have noted, this word emphasizes that we are carrying a load whose weight is extremely heavy and we feel ourselves being crushed beneath it. But less obvious and more important is the fact that the Hebrew word translated “burden” is rooted in the word “gift.” David is inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak of our burden as a gift! In two senses is it a gift (according to this particular Hebrew word). First, our burden is something that is given to us by God. It is God’s gift, the lot He has chosen to give us, His appointment for us. Whatever the burden may be (physical, mental, or spiritual) and whatever its weight, it is measured out to us by the all-wise, infinitely loving, and gracious God. And secondly, our burden is something that we are to ascribe or give to God. When we receive our burden as a gift from God, then we are to return it to Him.
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” David is inspired to command us to cast our burden upon Jehovah.
We have to be commanded to do that. Our nature is to try to take care of our burden by ourselves. Some of us try to avoid problems and trials by flying away. We try to make ourselves believe that they do not exist, either permanently or temporarily. There are many ways we do this. Some get high on drugs or alcohol, and for a while their burdens seem to have been taken away. Sometimes we try to forget our burden by seeking pleasures that can distract us, so we don’t think about the problem. Or we try to avoid even thinking about the burden, hoping that it will then just go away. Sometimes we are unable to admit the existence of emotional or mental burdens or addictions to pleasures.
Or we try to deny that the burden is ours by excusing ourselves and blaming others. We can become very adept at accusing and excusing, justifying ourselves, never wanting to acknowledge what we have contributed to making the burden, or to making it heavier. We can easily become so busy blaming others that we never admit and confess our sinfulness and sins that lie at the bottom of the problem.
Or we try to solve the problem by finding a way out by ourselves. This is trying to carry the burden ourselves — in our own strength. We think that no burden is too heavy for us. We convince ourselves that we can tough it out. By sheer will power we will take care of it. But whenever we try our own strength we only make the burden heavier and more complicated. Also, we set ourselves up to be sifted by Satan. Very often it happens that the Lord patiently shows us, in time, that the burden will crush us whenever we try to carry it in our own strength.
Instead we are commanded to cast our burden upon Jehovah.
The removal of our burden as a burden requires that we acknowledge the presence of a power that transcends our power. This greater power cannot be found in drugs and alcohol, nor in mystic religions or astrology. This power is Jehovah. It is only Jehovah.
The name “Jehovah” emphasizes to us that He is the sovereign I am. The Self-existent and Self-sufficient I am is the all-wise and almighty Lord of all. He created all. And He controls all — also (even) our burdens. And His control of all things is unto His own great and glorious ends, namely the glory of His name and the spiritual well-being (the good) of His children.
We are called to look up to the one who has gifted us with our burden. The presence of a burden in our life is not a mistake. It is not something given to us by the humans around us. It is not something the devil has planned to give to us. Each and every burden of each and every child of Jehovah is given by the all-wise and infinitely loving Jehovah. This God, who has established and who alone maintains a relationship of friendship and fellowship with His chosen children, is able to save to the uttermost. He wisely distributes burdens to His children so that each one of His children, upon experiencing the burden, will run to his heavenly Father, the Giver, the Helper, the Savior. By means of the burden each child is called to come experientially closer to his Father, to look nowhere else but up to his Father.
To cast our burden upon the Lord is literally to throw it. This is a most striking word to describe prayer. This whole psalm emphasizes prayer. The very first verses are a prayer about prayer. “Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me, and hear me: I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise.”
The command of the Spirit in our text is to go to God in prayer, to enter His presence, and to come before His throne of grace. Prayer is the burdened believer unburdening himself onto his God. Remember that the activity of praying (or even wanting to pray) is an act of faith. It implies that we believe that He is and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him. I added the words “or even wanting to pray” because there are times when the burdened and weary child of God does not know what or how to pray or has concluded that he cannot pray. Scripture encourages us to call then for the elders so that they can pray with and for us. The point is that prayer is the God-given (another gift from our Father!) means by which His children find relief.
We are to cast our burden upon the Lord. This is especially the case when the burden is the experience of our sin and sinfulness. Then our casting upon the Lord is our admitting and confessing that we have sinned, our expressing sorrow for offending Him, and our asking Him to forgive us for Jesus’ sake.
Casting our burden upon the Lord, when it consists of grievously heavy circumstances, means that we realize that He is Lord, that He is the Giver of the burden, that He is the God of all grace and comfort, and that He has promised to give grace that is always sufficient unto each day and for each burden. When we cast our burden upon the Lord, then He enables our faith to see that He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, and that He is able to do exceedingly abundant good with every trouble and trial. Then we see that He not only is able to make all things work together for good to them who love Him, to them who are the called according to His purpose, but He actually does so!
The promises God gives to those who cast their burden upon Him are truly wonderful. They are burden-lifting and burden-bearing.
First, the promise is “and He shall sustain thee.” To sustain someone is to support him, to hold or bear him up. It also has the idea of being provided for or nourished. As God uses food to sustain or nourish us physically, so here God promises to nourish us spiritually.
The heart of God’s promise to sustain is Jesus Christ. He and all the blessings of salvation that He merited in His life and death are the nourishment. We are sustained when we are forgiven and are assured that we are forgiven. We are sustained when we realize that we are not only forgiven but also are made to be righteous. We are sustained when we believe that God chose us in Christ precisely to be conformed to His image, and that our Almighty God and faithful Father uses all things (our burden too) to work unto the end of conforming us to the image of Christ, so we spiritually look more and more like Him. We are sustained with the gift of stronger faith in the wisdom of our Father, whose ways are higher than our ways. We are sustained when we lean not on our own arm of understanding but trust in Him to do all things right and to keep us in perfect peace.
The second promise is “He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” In this, God promises that nothing will happen in the future that will take away His support and nourishment. The reason this promise is so sure is that those who cast their burden upon the Lord are “the righteous,” that is, those who are given righteousness by God. Of them God has made a declaration that their sins are completely removed and that they are perfect, as if they had never done anything wrong, but only that which is right in God’s sight.
Those who are thus righteous will never be moved. They will never be moved from election. They will never stop being justified. They will never fall from grace. Oh, yes, the righteous, while on earth, still sin. And because of their sinfulness they will be surrounded by problems, and as disciples of Christ they will always be bearing a cross. But while the righteous are troubled on every side, they are not distressed; they may be perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed!
The result is that the burden is removed as a burden — it is no longer seen to be a burden. This is because the righteous are given to see, by faith, that they are given the ability to bear the burden. So, instead of being crushed by it, we find ourselves strengthened to carry or endure it.
On this side of the grave we will always have a burden. Cast your burden upon Jehovah. Give the gift to the Giver, and in doing so taste and see His goodness to sustain you.
Editorial:
Prof. David J. Engelsma
Remembering the Schism of 1953-- The Doctrinal Issue
Before the fiftieth anniversary year of the great schism in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) passes, reflection on the doctrinal issue that occasioned the split is in order.
Earlier editorials called for a denomination-wide remembrance of the schism, informed readers of a fine, new resource for study of the schism, and demonstrated that the dividing of the PRC was indeed schism on the part of the faction that left the PRC (Standard Bearer, April 15, May 1, and May 15, 2003).
The controversy that rocked the PRC in the late 1940s and early 1950s culminating in the schism of 1953 was doctrinal. Personality conflicts may have intruded, but the schism was not about personalities. The dark underbelly of the church may have surfaced in struggles for ecclesiastical power, but the schism was not political.
At issue was a doctrine. That doctrine was a fundamental truth of Scripture. It was the truth of the covenant of grace.
In the controversy leading up to 1953, it was not the case that two parties were struggling for control of the PRC. Rather, two teachings were contending for the soul of a denomination of true churches of Jesus Christ. One was the teaching that God establishes His covenant by promise with all the children of godly parents alike, indeed with all who hear the gospel, on condition that the children and those who hear the gospel will believe. The other was the teaching that God establishes His covenant by promise with the elect children of believing parents, as with those hearers of the gospel whom God calls (Acts 2:39).
The doctrinal issue in the schism of 1953 was the unconditionality of God’s covenant in Jesus Christ. The covenant with its blessings and salvation depends solely upon the sovereign grace of the promising God. It depends upon nothing in the sinner. Specifically, the faith of the covenant friend of God is not the condition upon which the covenant depends, whether for its establishment, its maintenance, or its perfection.
Opposed to this doctrine in the late 1940s and early 1950s, within the PRC, was the teaching of the conditionality of God’s covenant. The covenant depends, finally, not on God’s promise (which He is supposed to make to all alike), nor on God’s grace (which He is supposed to show and extend to all alike in making the promise to all), but on the child’s act of believing.
That the schism of 1953 was at its heart doctrinal and that the doctrine at issue was the unconditional covenant are beyond question. For several years before the schism in 1953, the two periodicals in the PRC, the Standard Bearer and Concordia, were full of writings about the conditionality or unconditionality of the covenant. In those days, as I myself remember, sermon after sermon dealt with the covenant. The covenant was the subject of discussion and often heated, passionate debate among the members of the PRC.
The division in the PRC crystallized in the contention over the adoption of the “Declaration of Principles” in the early 1950s. The “Declaration” explained the “Three Forms of Unity” as teaching an unconditional covenant promise to the elect children of believers. Half the ministers and churches in the PRC strenuously opposed adopting the “Declaration.” In their opposition to the “Declaration,” these churches expressed their own commitment to a conditional promise and a conditional covenant. The overture of the Sioux Center, Iowa PRC to Classis West, March 1951 and to Synod, June 1951 against adopting the “Declaration” is representative. The Sioux Center consistory asserted that it is not objectionable to speak of a “conditional offer” of the gospel. The consistory stated that “we cannot agree that the promise of the Gospel is not conditional. The covenant promise is indeed an oath of God unto the elect. But the promise of the Gospel is confrontation of all the hearers; the promise of the Gospel is preached to all promiscuously and consists herein, that whosoever believeth shall not perish, but have everlasting life…. Considering faith as condition only in the Reformed sense, it may therefore be said that from this aspect the promise of the Gospel is conditional. It promises life: the conditions is (sic) repentance and faith.”
Shortly before the schism took place, a Protestant Reformed church in Canada, whose consistory embraced the doctrine of a conditional covenant, summarily dismissed its minister for teaching the unconditional covenant.
When the split occurred, the immediate cause was a minister’s deposition for teaching the conditionality of the covenant. God, he taught, promises salvation to everyone on the condition of faith. This faith, he added, with the conversion it accomplishes, is a “prerequisite” to one’s entering the kingdom, or covenant, of God.
From the very beginning of their history, the PRC had rejected the doctrine of a conditional covenant, which was (and still is) the prevailing doctrine of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), whence they had been expelled. The PRC did not come to the conviction of the unconditional covenant in 1953. They had always confessed the unconditional covenant. As early as 1927, Herman Hoeksema had written the work on the covenant that would later be published as Believers and Their Seed. In this foundational work, he demonstrated that the truth of the unconditional covenant is more basic to the existence and nature of the PRC than is rejection of common grace.
Indeed, in an open letter to the Dutch Reformed theologian Klaas Schilder at the time of the controversy over the covenant in the PRC but before the adoption of the “Declaration of Principles” in 1951, Hoeksema contended that the PRC had already officially rejected the conditional covenant and adopted the unconditional covenant. Hoeksema’s argument was that the Churches’ rejection of the well-meant offer of the gospel, certainly an official position of the Churches, implied rejection of the conditional covenant. It is worth listening to Hoeksema on this point.
That conception [of the unconditional covenant] is binding in the PRC, not because it is the theological conception of one man, but rather because the conception of the Rev. Hoeksema is the official conception of the PRC, and the conception of the latter [the PRC], in distinction, at least, from the liberated view, has been adopted in their rejection of the first point [of common grace adopted by the CRC in 1924]. That first point maintained that there is a favorable attitude of God toward the reprobate. . . . They [the CRC] virtually declared that the preaching of the gospel is grace for all including the reprobate. And this “puntje van het eerste punt” [“real point of the first point”] was rejected by our churches even more emphatically than the rest of the first point…. Your [Schilder’s] churches still maintain “het puntje van het eerste punt” with application to the covenant. For what else is the conception that the promise is for all the children that are born in the historical line of the covenant than that of grace for all, elect and reprobate alike? Certainly, the liberated, however they may wish to separate election, and especially reprobation, and the covenant, cannot deny that there are reprobate in the historical line of the covenant. And if they maintain that the promise is for all, head for head, they at the same time maintain that God is gracious to the reprobate. And the rejection of the first point of 1924 makes it binding upon all our churches to reject this view of the Liberated (Standard Bearer, Sept. 15, 1949, p. 510; emphasis, Hoeksema’s).
Hoeksema was right. The rejection of universal, conditional grace in the preaching of the gospel—the well-meant offer—implies rejection of universal, conditional grace in the covenant. The “Declaration of Principles” then only made explicit what was already implicit in the PRC, namely, that the doctrine of the unconditional covenant is the official position of the PRC.
The astute Christian Reformed theologian James Daane saw the relation between the doctrine of a conditional covenant embraced by the faction that broke with the PRC and the Christian Reformed doctrine of common grace. Writing soon after the schism of 1953 in the Reformed Journal, Daane, no friend of Protestant Reformed theology, told the faction that had left the PRC that their embrace of a conditional covenant implied acceptance of the theology of common grace, particularly the doctrine of the well-meant offer. Daane accurately predicted their return to the CRC. Theologically, they were one with the CRC.
The doctrine of a conditional covenant that threatened to take possession of the soul of the PRC in the late 1940s and early 1950s is at loggerheads with the Reformed faith. The Reformed faith, as the message of the biblical gospel, teaches salvation by sovereign, particular grace, having its source in divine election. The conditional covenant extends the grace of God to many more than the elect by its teaching that God, in His covenant grace, promises the covenant and its salvation to all the children of believers alike at their baptism.
Because the covenant and its blessings are rooted in the cross of Christ, which, as the Canons of Dordt teach, “confirmed the new covenant” (Canons, II/8), the conditional covenant necessarily implies a death of Christ for others than the elect.
According to the conditional covenant, the cross fails to accomplish the redemption of all for whom it confirmed the new covenant. Likewise, the grace of God in the covenant promise fails to effect the salvation of all the children to whom God promises the covenant and its blessings.
The gospel of a conditional covenant is essentially the same as the doctrine of conditional salvation.
The Reformed faith is the sworn foe of conditionality in salvation, whether mission-field salvation or covenant salvation. Once and for all at Dordt, the Reformed faith condemned conditionality, specifically the doctrine that faith is a condition and that God, the promise, and salvation hang on this condition. Faith is neither “a condition of salvation,” nor a condition of election (Canons, I/9, 10).
The hallmark of the false gospel of salvation by man’s works and by man’s will, Roman Catholic works-righteousness, and Arminian free-willism, is conditionality.
The Reformed faith, gospel of salvation by God’s mercy, says “no” to conditionality in all the saving work of God in Jesus Christ. The covenant is certainly the saving work of God.
Nothing less or other than this was the victorious struggle of the PRC in 1953. The churches were not merely struggling for their existence. They were struggling that the truth of the gospel of grace might continue among them.
Far more belongs to the truth of the unconditional covenant as held by the PRC than only that God establishes, keeps, and will one day perfect the covenant by grace alone. Christ Jesus is the head of the covenant. To Him is the covenant promise made, and with Him is the covenant established, as Romans 5:12ff. and Galatians 3:16, 29 teach. This honors Christ. To strip Him of His headship in the covenant is gross dishonor of the Son of God.
In addition, the unconditionality of the covenant permits the covenant to be a living bond of fellowship between God and His people and between God and each one of us whom He has called as friend and adopted as child personally. Basic to the doctrine of conditionality is the notion that the covenant is a business-like “bargain” between God and the sinner. This makes covenant life the dreary business of keeping one’s end of the bargain, with the terrifying possibility of coming up short always in the back of one’s mind. Covenant life is as little like a contract as the joyous, exuberant life of the Christian family is like the cold, formal, suspicious goings-on at the negotiation-table of the AFL-CIO and General Motors.
It is not the least of the glories of the unconditional covenant that it exalts and rests in divine election. The establishing of the covenant with us by gracious promise, the bestowal upon us of the blessings of the covenant, the saving of us in the covenant, and the privileging of us to believe the promise and obey the demands of the covenant are due to God’s election of us in grace, as the apostle teaches in Romans 9. Against this confession of election, the enemies of the unconditional covenant object in a surly statement that has become a mantra in Reformed circles, “The covenant is not the same as election.” What they mean, of course, is that reception of the covenant promise, the making of the covenant with someone, the enjoyment of the covenant blessings, and salvation in the covenant are not determined by God’s election.
To which the response is: “Whose will then does control the covenant? Whose will do you want to determine the covenant?”
The PRC did not arrive at the doctrine of the unconditional covenant in 1953. The unconditional covenant was their doctrine from the beginning of their history. In 1953, their covenant doctrine was preserved for them in the face of opposition. And 1953 put the truth of the unconditional covenant more deeply into the heart of the PRC, as only struggle—life-and-death struggle—for the truth can do.
That was a good thing.
The members of the PRC live the life of the gracious covenant, however imperfectly.
The PRC confess the gracious covenant in a church-world given over to conditions.
The doctrinal struggle for the unconditional covenant has equipped the PRC to withstand and expose the grievous, contemporary threat to the gospel of grace in virtually all the conservative Reformed and Presbyterian churches. This is the false doctrine of justification by faith and works on the basis of a conditional covenant. About this I have written recently in this magazine.
Whether God will use the PRC for the help of others, where the heresy of Shepherd, Schlissel, Barach, and many others is taught and tolerated, remains to be seen.
In any case, in the goodness of God, that false doctrine will get no foothold in the PRC.
As fire needs oxygen, that error needs conditions.
Letters:
Still More on Lying
In the April 15, 2003 issue of the Standard Bearer Rev. Garrett Eriks’ article, “God’s Hatred of Lying,” raises some interesting questions.
For example, Eriks says, “… a murderer may be caught with a smoking gun at the crime scene with a motive for the murder. He knows he committed the crime. But when he is asked in court what he pleads, he responds ‘not guilty.’” Eriks calls this lying.
But had the defendant pleaded guilty, he would have forfeited any right to counsel, and to a trial by a jury of his peers, rights that are guaranteed by our laws. A trial might have uncovered any number of extenuating circumstances, and he might have been exonerated completely, or perhaps found guilty only of second or third degree rather than first degree murder.
Had the defendant been threatened by his victim? Did he have a history of mental illness? Was the victim armed? Could it have been self-defense? These factors would be brought out at trial, and could establish the extent of culpability, hence the appropriate level of punishment.
Our laws provide for degrees of both guilt and punishment, just as Old Testament laws did (e.g., Deut. 22:23-28).
If Rev. Eriks considers a plea of “not guilty” to be lying in his hypothetical case, that is his prerogative. But a guilty plea would not allow any extenuating circumstances to be considered, and would be very unwise given our system of jurisprudence.
“The authorities that exist have been established by God,” we are told, and they in turn have established our system of jurisprudence. Even Old Testament Israel had judges to hear matters brought before them.
Eriks also says that “When men teach that God loves all men and desires to save all men, they lie.” And again, “The teaching that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father is a lie.”
Now while I agree with his theology, I am reluctant to call these statements “lies.” They are expressions of a wrong-headed understanding of the Bible; they are hermeneutical error, but if we begin calling all men liars who disagree with our theology, on reasoned grounds, we are being far more strident than is called for. We must remember that those who disagree with us are not necessarily idiots, and are deserving of a certain measure of respect.
Eriks reminds us that we are to “speak the truth in love,” but there is not a great deal of “love” apparent in these pronouncements.
Ralph W. Hahn
Glenns Ferry, ID
Response:
I appreciate very much the questions and comments the reader raises about lying. But I do not agree that the two statements called into question are in error. Allow me to explain.
I can appreciate the comments and questions of the reader concerning my example of a murderer who lies. However, my example was not meant to include all men who might be on trial for murder and plead “not guilty.” The example is specific. If a man knows he has killed another man for whatever reason and he pleads “not guilty” and denies any involvement in the murder, this is lying. It could be a man pleads not guilty to a certain charge of murder (first degree or second degree) because he thinks he has not broken that particular law, but then he should not deny killing that man. To do so is to lie. Or maybe there is a man who pleads “not guilty” to murder because he was defending himself. If the man does not acknowledge what he has done, then he lies. The reader is correct that entering a plea of “not guilty” under these circumstances is not necessarily lying. But a man ought not to attempt to free himself from the punishment he deserves for a crime by lying. This was my point. There may be extenuating circumstances, but very often men abuse our legal system by lying in an attempt to dodge the punishment they know they deserve. This I call sin because Scripture calls it sin.
Secondly, I stand by the statements, “When men teach that God loves all men and desires to save all men, they lie,” and “The teaching that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father is a lie.” These teachings are lies because they are not in harmony with God’s Word, which is the word of truth (John 17:17). A teaching that is opposed to the Word of God is a falsehood or a lie. There is room for some differences of opinion on those things that are not clearly revealed in God’s Word. But it is clear that the above statements are lies.
Those who teach such things lie. This is not my conclusion but the conclusion of God’s Word. In II Thessalonians 2:11, 12 the truth and the lie are contrasted in connection with the coming of the Antichrist. This same contrast is found in Ephesians 4:14, 15: “That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.” Before stating the calling of the Christian to speak the truth in love, Paul warns the church against those who teach false doctrine. This is what he means by “every wind of doctrine.” These winds of false doctrine come “by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” Those who teach false doctrine are tricky and desire to deceive. They lie. Now I am not calling into question the salvation of those who might teach such lies. But Scripture clearly shows that those who teach false doctrine are especially responsible for teaching the lie. They are responsible because of what the reader said: they are “not necessarily idiots.” This is exactly right. They have the clear testimony of Scripture before them. They don’t just have a “wrong-headed understanding of the Bible,” or a “hermeneutical error,” but they promote the lie. We must call false doctrine what it is according to Scripture.
But understand also, I do not call all men who disagree with my theology a liar. In this connection, we should know that it is not about my theology or “our theology,” but the doctrine of God’s Word. Those who teach what is opposed to the Word of God are responsible no matter how they came to understand that false doctrine. The truth is before them in the Word of God.
The reader is right when he says that false teachers “are deserving of a certain measure of respect.” In fact, we must love even those who teach these doctrines. We don’t love them by tolerating their errors, but we speak the truth in love by pointing out those errors. We speak the truth in love by pointing out to the church the false doctrines being promoted in the church world.
May God preserve His truth!
Rev. Garry Eriks
Feature Articles:
The Covenant Concept (1)*
Herman Hoeksema
* Recently, I discovered this article in my files as an old, yellowed manuscript. How and where I got it, I do not know. The manuscript bears the title under which we publish the article, “The Covenant Concept.” In addition, the manuscript states that the article was “dictated by Herman Hoeksema in 1943.” The date is important. In 1943, the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands were debating the doctrine of the covenant. By this article, which undoubtedly circulated among the ministers in the Protestant Reformed Churches, if not also among the people, Hoeksema carefully and clearly laid out the Protestant Reformed covenant conception. A few years later, the Protestant Reformed ministers who introduced the doctrine of a conditional covenant into the Protestant Reformed Churches opposed the “covenant concept” that had prevailed in the Protestant Reformed Churches at every point. To my knowledge, this article has not previously been published.
— Ed.
All of the views of the doctrine of the covenant (in fact, all views possible in this connection) can be comprehended under two heads: a) those that consider the covenant as a means to an end, and b) those that consider it an end in itself.
According to the first conception it is termed a “way to salvation,” an “agreement,” a “promise,” or, perhaps, an “alliance” (cf. A. Kuyper, Dictaten Dogmatiek).
According to the second conception, the covenant is essential and an end therefore in itself. It is that living relationship of most intimate fellowship of friendship that is a reflection of God’s own triune life, according to which He makes Himself known to and blesses His people and they know Him and find their delight in His fellowship and service. This idea of the covenant is founded upon Scripture. Allow us to point out the following:
1. The covenant with Adam (which certainly was not any agreement at all, nor an alliance between God and Adam, an agreement made after his creation) was a relationship that was given with Adam’s creation after the image of God. God reveals Himself to Adam and speaks to him, while Adam knows God as he speaks to Him in the garden “in the cool of the day.”
2. We find support in what we read of the covenant people in their relation to God: “they walked with God” (Gen. 5:22; 6:8) — to walk with someone is an act of friendship and fellowship. We read that they talked with Him, and God revealed thereby His counsel to them and hid nothing from them (Gen. 6:13; 9:9; 18:17ff.). Moses knew and saw God face to face (Deut. 30:10), and Abraham was called the “friend of God” (Is. 41:8; James 2:23).
3. It is this idea of friendship and fellowship that is symbolized in the tabernacle and temple.
4. This idea is literally expressed in many texts: Psalm 25:11; Isaiah 55:3; 61:8; Jeremiah 32:40 (the “everlasting covenant” cannot be a means to an end); Ezekiel 37:26; John 17:23 (intimate communion of life); II Corinthians 6:16 (the tabernacle and God’s dwelling with us); Revelation 21:3 (the final realization — the tabernacle is with men).
In connection with the establishment of the covenant, it is a much discussed question whether the covenant is unilateral or bilateral (monopleurisch or dupleurisch). Is the covenant established by God alone, or by an act of God and man? This question is closely related to the other, which was a bone of contention in the Netherlands not so long ago, viz., whether we may speak of “parties” in the covenant, or only of “parts.” Of course, if the idea of the covenant is that of an agreement or alliance, it would seem to follow that 1) the covenant is established by the agreement or alliance, and, 2) that there must be at least two agreeing or contracting parties. However, the general answer of Reformed theologians is that the covenant is unilateral. In the establishment of the covenant, at least, God alone acts, not God and man. This is certainly the view of the Reformed confessions in as far as they speak of the covenant. How could the Heidelberg Catechism speak of the baptism of infants on the ground that they as well as the parents are in the covenant, if God alone had not established His covenant with them? The unilateral conception is also very strongly emphasized in our Form for Baptism. According to this form, God the Father makes an eternal covenant of grace with us, God the Son washes us in His blood from all our sins, and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies us and dwells in us. And this is quite well maintained by Reformed theological leaders in recent years (cf. Kuyper, Bavinck, Berkhof, etc.).
Yet, this was not always clearly maintained in the development of the idea of the covenant in Reformed theology, and still less in Reformed preaching. Professor W. Heyns, in his Gereformeerde Geloofsleer, strongly emphasized that the covenant is unilateral, but you discover that by this nothing else is meant than that God alone establishes the promise, and that now it depends upon the acceptance of that promise on our part whether the covenant is to be realized. Those who favor the view that the covenant is a pact or agreement often present it as conditional. God alone establishes all the conditions and obligations as well as the benefits of the covenant, but the realization of the covenant requires acceptation and consent on our part.
We must, however, maintain the fundamentally Reformed view: God alone, and unconditionally, establishes His covenant. It is strictly unilateral throughout. This ought to be evident from the following:
1. From the very idea of the covenant, especially if we conceive of it as the living relationship of friendship. How could man, either as creature or as sinner, secure for himself any right, or have any power to enter into that relation, or make himself the friend of God? It is evident that the relation, as well as his being taken into that relation, must be of God only.
2. From the covenant as God established it with Adam. There is no reciprocal action recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, or in the immediately subsequent chapters, on the part of God and Adam to establish or to realize any covenant relationship. God simply created him a covenant creature after His image, and He placed him in the proper relation of such a creature to Himself. Adam functions on the basis of that which God has made him as the friend-servant of his Creator.
3. From God’s dealings with Adam after the Fall, especially from Genesis 3:15. God offers nothing, and makes no conditions to fallen man, but simply declares that in spite of the work of Satan and of Adam He will maintain His covenant and will put enmity between man and the devil in their generations, an enmity the positive notion of which is friendship with God.
4. From the teaching throughout Scripture: “I will establish my covenant…” (Gen. 6:18 — Noah; Gen. 17:7ff. — Abraham); “I will make an everlasting covenant of peace with you” (Is. 55:3; Ezek. 37:26); “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel…” (Jer. 31:31; Heb. 8:8-10).
5. From the vision of Genesis 15 especially. Abraham is commanded to take sacrificial animals: heifer, she-goat, ram, turtle-dove, young pigeon, “and he divided them into halves and laid the two halves of each animal over against each other in two rows,” and the Lord under the symbols of smoking furnace and burning lamp passed between the pieces. The meaning of the vision is plain. The passing between the halves of the slaughtered animals signified or symbolized the ratification of the covenant. It was a testimony on the part of the parties of a covenant, that they would be faithful in the covenant even unto and, if need be, through death. Naturally, in the case of a man’s covenant, both parties would pass between the halves of the slaughtered animals. But in this case Abraham is a witness, God passes through alone. The covenant is His and He establishes it. It is based upon His faithfulness, and He will maintain and realize it even through the death of His Son.
As to the realization of this covenant, we can speak of its objective and subjective realization. To the objective realization belongs:
1. The eternal ordination of Christ as the Head of the covenant (institutio mediatoris) and the election of His people in Him, so that they are one body with Him legally and organically in their election.
2. It is centrally realized in the Incarnation, which can be viewed as the ideal realization of the covenant. There we see the union of God and man in most intimate fellowship. In Christ, God dwells with us.
3. Through the cross and the resurrection, by which is established the necessary basis of righteousness for this relation of friendship.
4. It is centrally perfected in Christ’s exaltation, by which the covenant-fellowship is raised to the heavenly level.
5. This central perfection of God’s heavenly tabernacle will ultimately be realized at the coming of Christ and the public adoption unto children.
The subjective realization of the covenant takes place through the Spirit of Christ. We are by nature not friends but enemies of God, dead in sin, not only unworthy to be received into the relationship of God’s friendship, but also wholly unfit for and spiritually unable to fellowship with the living God. If the covenant were an agreement, we could not possibly agree; if it were an offer, we could not possibly accept; if it were conditional, we would be wholly incapable of assuming any obligation or of fulfilling any condition. It cannot be, therefore, that God realizes the covenant objectively in the death and resurrection of Christ, while the subjective realization of that covenant depends in any way upon us. On the contrary, it is all of God, who makes us His friends and receives us into His own party. This He does through His Spirit and Word, whereby He regenerates us, calls us, gives us the true faith whereby He justifies us, delivers us from sin and its dominion, preserves us in the midst of the world, and finally makes us completely like Christ, receiving us into His everlasting tabernacle.
Now, Reformed theologians have usually said that, although the covenant is unilateral in origin, it becomes bilateral in operation and manifestation. In the true sense, this is also expressed in our Baptism Form, for after it has developed the truth that the triune God establishes His covenant with us, it continues to teach that “in all covenants there are contained two parts,” our part consisting in this: “that we love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, forsake the world, crucify our old nature, and walk in a new and holy life.” These, then, constitute our “covenant obligations,” yet we hasten to add that we must be very careful when we speak of these “covenant obligations,” lest we should turn in the direction of synergism. These obligations are not conditions either to enter or to remain in the covenant relation, but they constitute our calling, resulting from our having been received into God’s covenant. This calling we can fulfill only because God has realized His covenant within our hearts. The relation is as it is expressed in Philippians 2:12, 13: we work out what God works within us. God’s sovereign covenant of grace does not destroy us as rational, moral beings, changing us into “stocks and blocks,” but rather makes us His co-workers, or imitators, “that we may be followers of God as dear children” (Eph. 5:1). These obligations must not be understood, therefore, in the sense of another law imposed upon us from without as a burden, but rather as the expression of a law that God has written in our hearts, the fulfilling of which becomes our greatest delight.
…
to be concluded
Committing
the Truth to Faithful Men (2)
Prof. Robert Decker
Prof. Decker is professor of Practical Theology in
the Protestant Reformed Seminary.
* The
text of the sermon preached at the combined seminary convocation/installation service (for
Prof. Barrett L. Gritters) on September 4, 2003.
* In the previous
installment of this sermon (Nov. 15, 2003) we answered the question, “To whom must
the truth be committed?” In this
installment we answer two questions. The
first is, “What must be committed to these men?”
The second is, “How is it possible to commit the truth to these men?”