Introduction

The doctrine of prayer is a spiritually thrilling topic for the elect child of God. This topic is of great interest to the church of Jesus Christ, as prayer properly belongs to her thankful worship of her covenant God. We pray to our covenant God, humbling ourselves before his divine majesty. “Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray” (Ps. 5:2).

Prayer is a type of speech in which God is glorified and adored. Singing the word of God is also a type of speech. Confession of faith in public worship each week is a type of speech. Our confessions combine the speech of the child of God as publicly calling upon the Lord (Lord’s Day 38, Q&A 103). Prayer, in whatever form it may take, is part of our thankful worship of the living God. In fact, it is the chief part of thankfulness, a fruit of faith, a good work. Prayer is the highest expression of what lives in the heart of the regenerated child of God who is filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It is in prayer that the child of God draws very near unto God by a true faith in full assurance to lay bare his soul and to drink deeply of the inexhaustible fountain of God himself in Jesus Christ. Simply stated, prayer is the joyful confession of the believer that God is good as his goodness is revealed to that believer in Jesus Christ.

Gross Distortion

The doctrine of prayer is a source of wonder, excitement, and rich depths; and it is also a doctrine that has been grossly distorted. In Lord’s Days 45 through 52, the Heidelberg Catechism gives its instruction on prayer according to the model prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in this model prayer that our master teaches us how to pray, that we might grow in our understanding of this holy art of prayer. And it was in these Lord’s Days that the then-Reverend David Overway and the “Special Classical Committee to Assist Hope” taught and defended conditional covenant fellowship in the way of good works as a matter of our experience and conscious enjoyment of that fellowship.

The order then is first, prayer; secondly, grace. That’s very obvious as we simply look at the answer of the Catechism. Prayer, and then grace…

We must pray—must pray. It’s required in order for us to enjoy God’s grace, in order for us to enjoy His Spirit, His blessing.¹

How do we come to the Father to enjoy His fellowship? In confidence, on the basis of the merits of Jesus Christ, in the necessary way of sanctified obedient prayer.²

Forgive others. Live in that obedience. Live out of those good works. And only in that way will you be assured that you’re forgiven, that you are justified by Jesus Christ your Savior.³

Prayer was made into a good work that obtained blessings of God. Prayer was no longer a matter of thankful worship but was distorted into a means to obtain the experience of the covenant and salvation, assurance of justification and remission of sins, and God’s grace and Holy Spirit in one’s consciousness. It is important to remember that this battle was fought in the subjective realm of one’s experience. How do Jesus Christ and all the blessings of salvation come into my possession consciously? In the “necessary way” of prayer, good works, and obedience? Or by the Holy Spirit applying Jesus Christ and all his riches to me according to the sovereign grace of God by faith alone?

It was this distorted doctrine of prayer that was defended by the special committee, who crafted the doctrinal statement regarding experiencing fellowship with the Father. That committee fell off the rails in section I.C of the doctrinal statement:

Furthermore Scripture and the confessions also emphasize the necessity of the exercise of faith in a holy life of obedience to enjoy the intimacy of the Father’s fellowship.⁴

And the committee then proceeded to ground that in Lord’s Day 45, question and answer 116: “Because God will give His grace and Holy Spirit to those only who with sincere desires continually ask them of Him and are thankful for them.”

The Protestant Reformed Synod of 2018 judged the following statements from various sermons of Reverend Overway to have used

improper and ambiguous language without clearly defining or explaining what is meant or what is not meant, which left his intentions and meaning in doubt and open to interpretation, particularly that a new “necessity” or purpose for good works was being introduced in Hope Church.⁵

We do good works to have our prayers answered…We do good works so that we can receive God’s grace and Holy Spirit in our consciousness. So that we can consciously and with awareness receive the grace and the Holy Spirit of God…Obedience is required here, obedience that I must perform in order to enjoy fellowship with God. We do good works. We can look at them. We see them. They’re obvious. They’re evident, much more so than faith is.⁶

But this false doctrine was never eradicated, and it continues to plague the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) like a swarm of ravenous locusts devouring the earth (Nah. 3:15).

Same Teaching Today

Prayer is still taught throughout the PRC as a good work that obtains blessings of God. Prof. Ronald Cammenga, in a recent series of sermons on Lord’s Day 45, continues to teach the same false doctrine as Reverend Overway. Professor Cammenga’s sermons are Christless sermons, focusing almost completely on man and what man must do. The sermons are also a mess from an organizational standpoint, jumping around and combining separate thoughts of the Catechism.

In a sermon on March 19, 2023, after quoting from Ursinus’ larger catechism (note: this is not a confession held by either the PRC or the Reformed Protestant Churches), Professor Cammenga says the following:

Are you praying? Do you want to pray? Do you pray frequently and fervently? Take that as an evidence that you are a child of God, adopted of God, a member of his covenant of grace. For you would never desire to pray if you were not a child of God.⁷

Professor Cammenga takes the doctrine of prayer in hand—prayer, which is a good work and the chief part of thankfulness—and he distorts that doctrine. He takes prayer, thankful worship, and makes that evidence of justification. He refers to the doctrine of adoption of children, which is part of the threefold content of justification.

Rev. Herman Hoeksema wrote regarding this: “Justification implies the complete forgiveness of sins…justification implies the adoption unto children…justification implies an eternal righteousness.”⁸ Justification implies the adoption unto children.

Never mind the fact that the quantity or quality of prayer somehow plays a role for Professor Cammenga, but the teaching that prayer itself is evidence of one’s justification is not confessional or scriptural (see Lord’s Days 22–23; Belgic Confession 22–24; Rom. 3:23–24; 4:25; 5:1).

Cammenga’s defense of this distortion of prayer is Lord’s Day 32, but Lord’s Day 32 is no bulwark for Professor Cammenga. This Lord’s Day is not teaching the believer to look at his good works, specifically prayer, as evidence of his justification. That is what Rev. David Overway taught and which Synod 2018 said introduced a new necessity or purpose of good works. If the PRC were honest, they would reinstate David Overway, as the doctrine he taught is the same as the doctrine that Professor Cammenga is actively teaching.

The evidence of justification cannot be obtained by good works, namely, by looking at the activity of prayer in one’s life. Good works cannot in any sense be part of our obtaining of salvation or the blessings of salvation, including assurance, or as evidence of sonship and justification. Lord’s Day 32 says that we do good works “because Christ, having redeemed and delivered us by His blood, also renews us by His Holy Spirit” (Confessions and Church Order, 120). Being united to Christ, the living vine, we bring forth fruit (John 15:5). Romans 8:14–17 teach that the evidence of our adoption unto children is by the Spirit of God testifying with our spirits not by our activity of prayer.

14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

15. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

16. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

17. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

It is the Holy Spirit who leads his people. He does so by the word of God. And the Spirit guides the children of God from within those children in their new hearts. The Spirit opens their hearts and causes them to see and seek after God. As many as are guided by the Spirit, they are the sons and daughters of the living God in Jesus Christ.

We receive the Spirit. This is the point of the text. We received the Spirit of God. God gave us the Spirit through Christ. He poured the Spirit out in the church. Why? What is the mission of the Spirit? The mission of the Spirit is to tell us that we are children of God and to make us children. God sends His Spirit, through Christ, into the church to assure His children that they are children.⁹

The Spirit testifies with our spirits that we are the sons and daughters of God; the Spirit gives evidence of that. The assurance of sonship has its deepest cause in the eternal decree of God, its foundation in the perfect sufficiency of the cross of Jesus Christ, and its manifestation by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the elect (Canons of Dordt 5.10). The evidence of sonship is not by the activity of prayer.

Sincere Desires

In Professor Cammenga’s second sermon in his series on prayer, which was adapted for the blog of the Reformed Free Publishing Association and published as a three-part series, he begins working with the idea of sincere desires. Question and answer 116 of the Catechism reads as follows:

Q. Why is prayer necessary for Christians?

A. Because it is the chief part of thankfulness which God requires of us; and also, because God will give His grace and Holy Spirit to those only who with sincere desires continually ask them of Him and are thankful for them. (Confessions and Church Order, 134; emphasis added)

Professor Cammenga provides the German translation of the Catechism’s answer as “because God will give his grace and Holy Spirit to those only who groan inwardly and pray continually.”¹⁰ He goes on to briefly state,

To groan inwardly implies that our prayers aren’t just words on our lips but that our prayers arise out of the depths of our being. They’re sincere. They’re the groanings that come from our hearts.¹¹

The professor does all the work of translating or finding the original translation and providing that striking detail to the congregation in his sermon. But he never dwells any further on those sincere desires as groanings from the heart in connection with the threefold groaning in Romans 8 of the creation (vv. 19–22), the child of God (v. 23), and the Holy Spirit (v. 26). He does not speak of the sincere desires as the Holy Spirit. Professor Cammenga is literally right there. He is inches away from opening the word of God in all its depths and riches to the congregation. He has a launchpad into the sovereignty of God, the purpose of God, the groaning of the creation as it waits for redemption, the groaning of the child of God as he longs for deliverance, and the groaning of the Holy Spirit and his mysterious, awe-inspiring work of making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Professor Cammenga misses the most important point that is staring him right in the face.

That he flies so close to the truth and steers away is because the Lord sent a dearth of hearing the words of Jehovah. The word is a closed book to the ministers in the PRC. “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11).

Instead of delving into the riches of Romans 8, Professor Cammenga is chomping at the bit to get to man.

Professor Cammenga plows ahead to immediately define those sincere desires as something the child of God must do in prayer. He makes sincerity in prayer to be man’s obedience and godly walk of good works.

When we pray, God is watching, and God is listening. He knows whether I am just saying words without thinking at all about the meaning of those words, maybe the same words and the same phrases that I’ve used over and over again in my prayers, so that without even thinking those words and phrases spill out of my mouth. He sees me during congregational prayer…whether I am sleeping or whether I’m thinking about other things…He’s watching and listening…He notices when you’re not following the prayer.

One very important part of sincerity in prayer is that when we pray we are walking in obedience to God’s commandments. To put it differently, sincerity in prayer is that we are not walking impenitently in disobedience to God while at the same time we’re praying.¹²

The sincere desires of the Catechism the professor understands as man’s acts, and the professor does not find the Holy Spirit and the sovereignty of God as the sources of all prayer and good works.

The activity of prayer must be grounded in the sovereignty of God and in his decree of election to have mercy upon his chosen people united to Jesus Christ. The only man that can and will pray is the elect child of God who is regenerated and given the gift of faith. Professor Cammenga never explains prayer from an election theology. He quotes Proverbs 15:8 and does not see election in the “upright” man. He quotes Psalm 109:7 and does not see the wicked man who tries to worship God in prayer as the reprobate man of verse 6. If the reprobate man does try to pray, he is a hypocrite like the Pharisee. But the impenitent child of God, living in sin, will be renewed to repentance and prayer because of the mercy of God toward him in Jesus Christ. Election governs what worship is pleasing to God. If that worship is done in true faith, then God delights in that prayer because he delights in his Son, with whom that elect child is united.

And if a requisite for prayer is that a man’s heart must be sincere by a man’s actions, how sincere must a man be in prayer before God will hear? If a man is doing really well in the battle against sin, is he sincere enough that now God will hear that prayer? Or what if that man is beset by sin, now is he not sincere enough? And who is judging when one is sincere enough and has adequately released his besetting sin out of his clutches? Because the standard is God himself and his perfection. One must be as sincere as God himself to be heard. If prayer to God depends on sincerity as Professor Cammenga defines it, then that one praying is destined for destruction. That one praying will never be sincere enough for God to hear him. The Christian prayer life would be an impossibility, as would be the inseparably connected Christian life.

Professor Cammenga makes the sincere desires entirely carnal. But he must be consistent and apply that also to all the inward and spiritual thoughts and desires as well. God does not demand just a little outward sincerity, but he demands absolute perfection in the entirety of man—in man’s heart, mind, and soul. If the one praying is not perfectly sincere, he is condemned. Matthew 5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

The Holy Spirit

The sincere desires or inward groanings of the Catechism are not what man is doing and are not man’s obedience to the law of God. Those sincere desires cannot be man’s emotions or feelings. Those sincere desires of prayer do not even have their origin and source in man. The elect child of God is given those sincere desires by the sovereign grace of God and the operation of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

What are those sincere desires? What is the inward groaning of the child of God? It is the Holy Spirit that indwells the believer. God gives his elect child a new heart of flesh, and God puts his Spirit within him (Ezek. 36:26). God plants in that elect child the incorruptible seed, the Word that lives and abides forever (1 Pet. 1:23). The Holy Spirit groans or sighs in that regenerated child of God. There is the constant, unbreakable bond of the Holy Spirit to Jesus Christ whereby the elect child of God remains in never-ending communion and fellowship. “The Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually binds us to himself.”¹³ The Holy Spirit who takes up his abode in the child of God is continually seeking after God. The Spirit searches after the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10). The Holy Spirit in the new heart cries out to God. Galatians 4:6: “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” That crying of the Holy Spirit comes to conscious expression in the child of God by a true faith, whereby he knows he is a beggar; he knows his great need and sinfulness; he confesses his dependence upon the grace of God; and in thankful worship he praises and adores his maker. The prayers of the children of God are confessions that “everything good in us is a fruit of his grace.”¹⁴ The Spirit works all prayer in us as a fruit of the grace of God.

Our prayers come to expression from the new, regenerated heart by a true faith, but our totally depraved natures and flesh pollute those prayers. We do not pray for the things that God commands, and we pray for our own carnal desires, but the Holy Spirit offers the perfect prayer to God.

26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

27. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. (Rom. 8:26–27)

More prayers arise from our regenerated hearts than we are ever conscious or aware of. The Spirit of Jesus Christ utters groanings to God. He knows just what we need continually at every moment of our lives. The Spirit knows exactly what must be done in order for God’s kingdom to come, for his name to be hallowed, for his will to be done, and for his purpose to be realized. The Spirit prays for saints with infinitely perfect knowledge of God’s purpose for God’s glory.

And the reason for the Spirit’s intercession is because of our infirmities.

The Holy Spirit comes to help our infirmities, in us to pray for us, as tho it were our own prayer.

The Holy Spirit prayed therefore for and in him with groans that cannot be uttered.¹⁵

The context of Romans 8 is the longing of the children of God for the fulfillment of our hope for complete and final redemption, where our bodies and the entire creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption. Our problem in this life is that we are imperfect. We are carnal, sold under sin. And because we are so utterly earthly, we cannot take our eyes off the things that we can see. The Spirit helps our infirmities. He prays for all the details that we simply could never express in our carnal minds. We do not pray for the things that we ought. We often pray only generally and broadly, but the Spirit prays for all the perfect details. God gives to his people exactly what the Spirit sighs to God. The Catechism is rightly laying its finger on the sincere desires as the Holy Spirit who dwells in the regenerated heart. The Holy Spirit is the author of faith. The Holy Spirit produces the prayers of the child of God, which God has before ordained that he should walk in (Eph. 2:10), and the Holy Spirit also continually utters to God prayers that never arise to the consciousness of the child of God.

Prayer is the chief part of thankfulness. Prayer is the chief part of the walk of the elect child of God in the midst of this world. The believer, redeemed by the cross of Jesus Christ, is renewed by the Holy Spirit to be a living stone. God dwells in that believer by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. “Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Cor. 6:16).

The regenerated child of God must pray, he may pray, he can pray, and he will pray. The must, the may, the can, and the will are all in harmony within the regenerated heart of the elect child of God. Prayer and all the good works of a believer’s lifelong worship to God can be summarized in this simple statement.

Fully Persuaded

Professor Cammenga’s doctrine of assurance is well known at this point.

Although God works the assurance of faith under the preaching of his word, we are active in this whole matter of the assurance of faith. God does not drop assurance out of the sky on us, and now we have it forever, can never be taken away from us, and we have nothing to worry about as regards this matter of the assurance of our faith; but God’s people are active, busy in this whole matter of the assurance of their faith.¹⁶

Professor Cammenga does not teach that faith is fully assured and fully persuaded in prayer. That would go against his false doctrine of assurance by good works. But the only way that the believer can approach unto God is fully persuaded (LD 45, Q&A 117). He must come into the holy sanctuary of the living God in full of assurance of faith. Hebrews 10:22: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”

Professor Cammenga references Hebrews 10:22 as proof that the heart of the child of God must be true and sincere in the way he defines sincerity, which is man’s obedience to God’s commands. He never mentions faith. But this text proves that faith is assurance, which the professor has bristled against repeatedly. Faith is fully assured. It must come before God in that way. Faith is not half assured whether God will hear or not. Faith does not doubt or wonder whether God will answer our prayers or not. Faith is a certain confidence, as Lord’s Day 7 explains it. And we are fully persuaded that God will certainly hear our prayers and answer us for the sake of Jesus Christ and his perfect work alone.

Hebrews 10:22 gives the reason that faith is fully assured. The heart of the regenerated child of God is purified and cleansed from an evil conscience. He is not condemned by his sins when he comes to God in prayer. He is not cast away from God in his conscience even though he has committed all evil, is totally depraved in all his members, and is insincere in all his desires. God has redeemed that ungodly elect child of God with the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross, Christ’s blood sprinkled on that child’s heart to cleanse it from the consciousness of sin. And all the terror that the believer should have in his coming before the all-consuming God is removed entirely.

And Hebrews 10:22 states next that our bodies are washed with pure water. And that refers to the Holy Spirit and our lives of sanctification. Faith is full assurance and fully assured, being justified by Jesus Christ alone and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In principle the child of God is holy and consecrated to God. He has the principle of the new life in him. That principle never grows, but the intensity of the warfare between the flesh and the Holy Spirit increases as the child of God walks through this life.

Hebrews 10:22 does not prove Professor Cammenga’s assertion that the sincere desires are the good works that man does or the evil that he avoids to have God hear his prayer.

Professor Cammenga turns next to Job 11:13–15 to prove his point about sincerity. One of Job’s friends, Zophar, gave Job counsel in this text.

13. If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him;

14. If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles.

15. For then thou lift up thy face without spot.

It is important to remember Job 1:1 as one considers Job. Job was “perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.” God had declared Job righteous in the blood of the promised lamb. Job had the Holy Spirit in his new heart. He was justified by faith alone. And he did good works that testified of his faith to those around him (James 5:11).

The book of Job is first and foremost about the sovereignty and righteousness of God to do what he pleases because he is God. The calamities that befell Job occurred because God said so. All God’s ways are righteous, and all his works are good and eternally known unto him (Ps. 145:17). All those things befell Job, and God never told Job why. Job’s sincerity and life of good works had no effect whatsoever on the counsel of God to afflict Job.

When all those calamities befell Job, his friend Zophar told Job that he must be doing something wrong. Zophar’s advice was that if Job was sincere enough in his prayers and repentance, then God would bless him and take away the calamities.

Professor Cammenga is a lot like Zophar. Professor Cammenga read Zophar’s bad advice to Job and preached it to his congregation as the truth. Professor Cammenga would be a comfortless friend, as Zophar was, to put it charitably. Picture it today: Here comes a wounded sheep who is troubled by many earthly cares and spiritual needs. That sheep is bleating, looking for comfort. He is bruised by his sin and wickedness, and the thought of God brings him no peace. And Professor Cammenga tells that sheep, “You are not sincere enough in your prayer life. When you are sincere enough, then God will look upon you with favor, and you will experience his intimate fellowship.” And Professor Cammenga sends that sheep away to rummage for some good works and to conjure up some sincerity. That sheep will despair because he knows he will never be sincere enough. He knows that he is a hypocrite and liar in his flesh.

Job’s response to the wicked counsel of Zophar and his two other friends is found in Job 13:4–5: “Ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.”

Conclusion

The wonderful truth of the gospel is that all our sins are completely paid for in full by Jesus Christ alone. He took the full weight of God’s wrath, died for our sins, and drank those bitter dregs to the complete end. Jesus earned for us his perfect righteousness and clothed our nakedness. We are justified by faith alone, and being justified we have peace with God (Rom. 5:1). The truth of justification by faith alone without works is the foundation of prayer and of the Christian life. And we come before God confidently and boldly, fully persuaded in true faith that he will hear our prayers. Even though we are unworthy of ourselves to receive any good thing, God will grant us all things necessary for body and soul, for the sake of Jesus Christ in whom God is well pleased.

Lord willing, next time we will examine the Catechism’s explanation of prayer in Lord’s Day 45 as to its necessity, its principles, and its content and continue to work through Professor Cammenga’s distorted view of prayer.

“Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you: and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith” (2 Thess. 3:1–2).