Introduction

The doctrine of the assurance of our election, the assurance of our salvation, the assurance that we are children of God is a treasured doctrine. It is a doctrine that we hold dear to our hearts, for it is our comfort, our peace, and our joy. “Knowing himself as claimed by a God of sovereign mercy, the redeemed one has peace, and joy unspeakable, and he glories in the cross and will glory in God forever more.”¹

Lord’s Day 7 teaches,

Q. 21. What is true faith?

A. True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart; that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are, freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits. (Confessions and Church Order, 90–91, emphasis added)

True faith is “an assured confidence.” True faith is assurance! It is assurance of my election, of my salvation, and that I am a child of God. True faith alone is assurance. This assurance is given solely by the grace of God, apart from my obedience and apart from my good works.

We are justified by faith alone. Alone safeguards the doctrine of justification from all corruption. The word alone clearly and simply affirms the biblical teaching that sinners are justified exclusively by means of faith in Jesus Christ. Alone denies that the good works of the sinner are the means that justify along with faith. Faith alone is the instrument whereby the elect sinner appropriates Christ and all of the benefits of salvation that Christ earned for his people. And one of the blessings of salvation is the assurance of it.

This beautiful doctrine of the assurance of salvation was stolen from us when we were members of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). And this doctrine has been and is being stolen from those who are still members of the denomination. The false teachers in various Protestant Reformed churches today do not want assurance for their members. These false teachers think that preaching assurance makes men careless and profane. Protestant Reformed ministers and professors persistently teach and defend their doctrine that the Spirit is sent into your hearts so that you can believe, so that you can obey, so that in the way of your faith and in the way of your obedience, you might have the joy of your salvation.

In direct contradiction to the teachings that your obedience and your law-keeping merit for you one of the blessings of salvation (assurance) that Jesus Christ earned for you on the cross is the gospel that we hear in the Reformed Protestant Churches each Sunday. “The sending forth of the Spirit [in Gal. 4:6–7], therefore, is the act of God to give unto you the experience, the joy, the assurance of your salvation.”² By the work of the Spirit alone, we have the assurance of our salvation. To give us the assurance of our salvation is to give us salvation!

The ministers and professors in the PRC set themselves up as preaching and teaching holiness, righteousness, and godliness in the church. But there is no joy and comfort in their preaching. They are robbing the people.

Martin Luther aptly describes these teachers as

only teaching their own dreams, which they do not understand and which only confuse the people, because they cannot show how one can achieve what they set forth, but only point to ourselves, and thus men are strengthened in their old nature and habit, whereas they ought to lead people away from it.³

And now the PRC’s preeminent theologian of false doctrine, Professor Cammenga, has set his sights on the children. In case his corrupt doctrines had not reached the ears of every child in the PRC, he has begun a campaign and doubled down on his efforts to teach the little ones to look to themselves for the assurance of their salvation. His campaign begins with writing a seemingly innocent little book titled The Ten Commandments for Children. Professor Cammenga is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And in writing a book with children ages six to nine in mind, the professor preys on the lambs.

The False Doctrines of Professor Cammenga

It is not my intent to write a book review proper of The Ten Commandments for Children, but I want to expose what I believe is the heart of Professor Cammenga’s book. Let us head straight to chapter six, which is titled “Knowing That We Are God’s Children.” After an orthodox first paragraph, Cammenga lays out his feast of false doctrine:

There is one more important reason that we obey God’s commandments. When we obey the law, God assures us that we are the children of God. Assurance means to be sure of something. The word “sure” is part of the word assurance. When you have the assurance of something, you know that it is true. You have no doubt about it. Children should have the assurance that their parents love them. They should have no doubt about that. God uses our good works to assure us that he is our God and we are his people. This assurance is also called knowing God. How can we know that we know God? The apostle John put it like this: “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (I John 2:3). When we keep God’s commandments and do good works, God strengthens our assurance.⁴

And there you have it. Do you see what he does? He adds to faith. He teaches that your obedience merits something, in this case the assurance that you are a child of God. It does not matter what orthodox doctrine precedes or follows this paragraph. Even the Protestant Reformed Synod of 2018 judged (weakly) regarding Reverend Overway’s sermons that “the orthodox statements in the broad context of these sermons cannot be used to justify these erroneous statements, but rather the orthodox statements are compromised by the erroneous statements.”⁵

Cammenga can write in the next paragraph that we are not saved because we obey God’s commandments and that every child of God knows that he obeys God’s law only because God works that obedience in him. But Cammenga has already laid out the poison, so it does not matter if dessert follows his main course.

Children in elementary school are reading this book; little children are being read this book before bed; parents are using this book as a family devotional. One Protestant Reformed family wrote in a book review that this book is “a valuable book for all ages.” Many children are in grave danger.

Of course, Cammenga will have his defenders, who will claim that what I take issue with in his book is taken out of context and that I am making baseless and sensational charges. But the fact of the matter is that he clearly loves his false doctrine, and he preaches and teaches it perennially. This false teacher unabashedly and stubbornly maintains his false doctrine. In fact I am sure if anyone would ask the professor outright about any of his statements quoted in this article, he would agree that he preaches and teaches them. He is not subtle with his false doctrine; he is brazen and bold in teaching it. He is thoroughly Arminian and wants nothing of the doctrines of grace.

Professor Cammenga teaches three doctrines that are especially grievous. It is worth our time to prove these specific false doctrines of the professor, particularly as they are connected to the subject and content of his book, the law of God as laid out in the ten commandments.

First, Cammenga believes that the law is the gospel, that the law is a means of grace.

It has ever been the teaching of the Reformed that the law serves as an instrument of grace.⁶

God uses the preaching of the law…positively, as a means of grace.⁷

And under the preaching of God’s Word and, in particular now, under the preaching of God’s law, that new man in us grows and develops.

That small beginning grows and grows, and it does so under the preaching of the law. God does not only use the law to teach us our sin, but he uses the law in order that that new man in us may grow.⁸

For Cammenga the law is also “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” But Romans 1:16 does not say that the gospel and the law are the power of God unto salvation. The Holy Spirit says that only the gospel is that power. The gospel is what saves God’s people. The gospel gives faith and the Holy Spirit. The preaching of the gospel is the savor unto life. The gospel is that salvation is all of God and nothing of man, which salvation is freely given us because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith alone.

There is no power in the law. The law cannot make me live better; it cannot make me live a holy life. The law does not even motivate me to keep it! It does not give the Spirit. The law does not save. The law only condemns me. The law is always bondage and misery and terror of sin and of the judgment of God. The law only ever makes me ask if I did enough. And it only tells me that whatever I did do, I did not do it good enough.

The law only ever brings people under sin. The law never makes them holy. Only the gospel does this because the gospel brings the Spirit.

The preaching of the law is not the preaching of the gospel.

Second, Cammenga does not believe that Jesus Christ is a complete savior.

It is not enough for salvation that God has sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. It is not enough that there is a Jesus. It is not enough that this Jesus was born of a virgin; that this Jesus lived a perfect life; that this Jesus taught and defended the Word of God; that this Jesus suffered under the wrath of God in an atoning death; that this Jesus arose with his body from the grave on the third day; that this Jesus is ascended in power at the right hand of God in the heavens. Not enough for salvation. God must not only have sent Jesus into the world, but I must come and you must come to Jesus. I must become one with him so that I enjoy his fellowship and share in his salvation. For salvation it is necessary that I come to him. And if I do not come to him, there is no salvation and no enjoyment of the blessings of salvation.⁹

This heretical sermon was protested at the Protestant Reformed Classis East in 2004, but the sermon was never condemned as false doctrine. It never ceases to amaze me that this sermon still stands today in the PRC. Refusing to condemn this sermon is an indirect form of approval. This is such a vile paragraph that it cannot possibly be explained away or excused by anyone claiming to be a child of God. What Herman Hanko wrote about John Wesley’s Arminianism holds true for the PRC, that “denigration of the cross led to disinterest in doctrine.”¹⁰ This is clearly the case in the PRC, for how else can this sermon stand except that the denomination does not care about the truth?

Nearly twenty years later Cammenga reaffirmed what he truly believes about Christ’s work. In a sermon on Lord’s Day 11, which says that Jesus is a “complete Savior,” who “saveth us, and delivereth us from our sins,” Cammenga preached,

The Catechism is not teaching here that Jesus accomplishes himself personally every aspect of the work of our salvation. He does not! There are other works alongside the work of Jesus.¹¹

This bears repeating: “There are other works alongside the work of Jesus”! Hear again from Hanko: “The error of not giving the cross its full due leads to an emphasis on human effort that denies the cardinal doctrine of sovereign grace.”¹²

“It is not enough” means it is not sufficient that Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, died an atoning death, arose on the third day, and ascended into heaven. “Other works alongside the work of Jesus” means that something more is required besides Jesus’ work. But article 22 of the Belgic Confession states, “For any to assert that Christ is not sufficient, but that something more is required besides Him, would be too gross a blasphemy; for hence it would follow that Christ was but half a Savior” (Confessions and Church Order, 50).

Too gross a blasphemy!

Third, Cammenga believes “another gospel: which is not another” (Gal. 1:6–7). The “assurance” that Cammenga teaches is no assurance at all. For Cammenga justification is not by faith alone, but justification is by faith and works, particularly the works of obedience. What he teaches regarding good works, obedience, a holy walk, and faith is un-Reformed; it is Arminian. Cammenga’s doctrine of assurance follows:

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.¹³

Only in the way of holiness do we enjoy the assurance, the assurance in ourselves, that one day we will come to the perfection that is proposed to us.¹⁴

Coupled with that infallible fruit of election [faith], as really the main fruit of election that the apostle refers to in the text [1 Thess. 1:4–6], he identifies two, closely related, additional fruits of election, by means of which they may know their election of God…The first of those other fruits of election is holiness. Holiness. Obedience to God by keeping his commandments and doing his will.¹⁵

This sermon is subtly treacherous because Cammenga’s false doctrine is tucked deep inside many orthodox statements. This subtlety is common with heretics: they teach their views, shrouded in Reformed language and sounding as much like the truth as they can, and they deceive many along the way. We must remember that the sermon is about the assurance of our election, and the only fruit of election that is a means is faith! Fruits as Cammenga means them, as good works, cannot be means. Fruits are only fruits. His subject matter is the assurance of our election, and he adds works to faith.

In addition to being motivated by the glory of God, the gaining of others and the strengthening of our own assurance of faith are legitimate motivations for doing good works.¹⁶

Now, because of the weakness of our faith, our God ordains certain means for the strengthening of our faith, the confirmation of our faith. And one of those things is good works. By the good works that the child of God performs, those good works that arise out of faith, those good works that are the fruit of the Holy Spirit living in your heart, we may be assured, says the Catechism, by the fruits thereof that we are the children of God.¹⁷

The doctrine of the circumcision taught by the Judaizers in Galatia was that something must be added to the work of Jesus Christ. You stand before God with Christ, but you must also do something, whether that be your coming to Christ or your activity of faith or your good works. Over against this false doctrine, Paul says in Galatians 2:21, “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”

The “gospel” of Professor Cammenga is that righteousness comes by the law. This is another gospel, a false gospel, which is no gospel at all.

The Truth over against the Lie

Let us now take a breath of fresh air and spend some time basking in the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Herein lies peace, comfort, and the assurance of salvation.

Scripture, the Reformed confessions, and the Reformed tradition all stand opposed to Cammenga’s theology. Over against Cammenga’s teachings that the law is the gospel, we see in Romans 8:3–4 the contrast, the distinction, between the law and the gospel.

3. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

4. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

The gospel is that Christ fulfilled the whole law.

As Martin Luther so beautifully wrote,

Therefore, keep these two [the law and the gospel] widely separated from each other…on the one side your life and holiness and the judgment seat, which demands and drives you to have a good conscience and live rightly toward men, but on the other side your sin before the mercy seat, where God will lovingly welcome you and take you into his arms like a beloved child with all your sins and frightened conscience and will no more remember any wrath.¹⁸

In his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, Ursinus wrote of several distinctions between the law and the gospel.¹⁹ In the section titled “In What Does the Gospel Differ from the Law?” Ursinus taught that the law was engraved upon man’s heart in his creation and therefore is known naturally, while the gospel is not known naturally but is divinely revealed to the church alone through Christ. Ursinus also taught that the law teaches us what we ought to be and what God requires of us, but the law does not give us the ability to perform it, and the law does not point out the way to avoid that which God forbids. The gospel, however, teaches us in what manner we may be made such as the law requires: the gospel proclaims unto us the promise of grace, by having the righteousness of Christ imputed to us by faith. The law promises life to those who are perfect. The gospel promises life to those who are justified by faith in Christ. The law is the letter that kills, and the law is the ministration of death (2 Cor. 3:6–7). But the gospel is the ministration of life and of the Spirit. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16).

Over against Cammenga’s teachings that Jesus Christ is not a complete savior, we read in answer 30 of the Heidelberg Catechism that

one of these two things must be true, either that Jesus is not a complete Savior, or that they who by a true faith receive this Savior must find all things in Him necessary to their salvation. (Confessions and Church Order, 95)

This is also declared in Belgic Confession article 22, which is worth reading again:

For it must needs follow, either that all things which are requisite to our salvation are not in Jesus Christ, or, if all things are in Him, that then those who possess Jesus Christ through faith have complete salvation in Him. Therefore, for any to assert that Christ is not sufficient, but that something more is required besides Him, would be too gross a blasphemy; for hence it would follow that Christ was but half a Savior. (Confessions and Church Order, 49–50)

Regarding Cammenga’s claim that the law is a means of grace, our Reformed confessions know of no such thing. Lord’s Day 25 teaches that “the Holy Ghost teaches us in the gospel, and assures us by the sacraments, that the whole of our salvation depends upon that one sacrifice of Christ which He offered for us on the cross” (Confessions and Church Order, 108). The preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments are the means of grace taught in our three forms of unity.

And over against Cammenga’s wretched doctrine of good works and assurance, we read in Romans 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God though our Lord Jesus Christ.” By faith we have peace with God. Assurance.

The peace of the child of God

is assurance of salvation—undoubted assurance of salvation—as the benefit of justification by faith alone, apart from the works of the believer…Any religion, including corrupted forms of the Reformed faith, that withholds assurance of salvation from believers, or grounds assurance elsewhere than in justification by faith alone, sins against genuine “experience.”²⁰

As Luther so ably put it,

[My faith] does not rest upon me and is not founded upon my works, as if that were why God should be gracious to me, as the false, feigned faith does by mingling together God’s grace and my merit.²¹

The Canons of Dordt teach beautifully that Christ’s death purchased faith for the elect and that Christ confers that faith upon the elect.

It was the will of God that Christ by the blood of the cross…should effectually redeem…those only, who were from eternity chosen to salvation and given to Him by the Father; that He should confer upon them faith, which, together with all the other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, He purchased for them by His death. (Canons 2.8 in Confessions and Church Order, 163–64)

God conferred upon us faith! That is the assurance of our salvation, and it is apart from anything we have to do.

The man who through faith is sure in his heart that he has a gracious God, who is not angry with him, though he deserves wrath, that man goes out and does everything joyfully. Moreover, he can live this way before men also, loving and doing good to all, even though they are not worthy of love. Toward God, therefore, he stands in a relationship of certainty that he is secure for Christ the Mediator’s sake, that he does not wish to cast him into hell, but rather lovingly smiles upon him and opens heaven for him.²²

Our relationship toward God is one of certainty and confidence, through faith, without our works of obedience.

So a man is made wholly perfect toward men through love, but before God, not through the law, but through Christ, whom he apprehends by his faith as the mercy seat, who lays down his holiness and gives it to me, so that in him I have what I need for salvation.²³

The believer’s assurance of his righteousness in Christ is strictly by faith, regardless of his works. The only thing that man is in salvation is ungodly. The ungodly are justified! Only the ungodly. The law justifies no one.

The true meaning of “that everyone may be assured” in answer 86 of Lord’s Day 32 has been corrupted. The PRC has snuck “salvation” into this Lord’s Day, as if we are assured of our salvation by our good works. But Lord’s Day 7 teaches faith in Christ to be our assurance and confidence of our salvation! Lord’s Day 32 is not attempting to teach the assurance of our salvation. It is teaching the assurance of our faith. Faith inevitably produces fruit. And that fruit is a mark of faith.

The truth about our good works, first, is that our good works are the purpose of our salvation. The reason that God saves us is that we may bear fruit, that we may do good works. Good works are the demonstration of our faith, so that God may be glorified!

Glory to God alone!

That is the purpose, and the sole purpose, of the good works of the Christian. This is also expressed in the Heidelberg Catechism, which teaches us that the purpose of good works is “that so we may testify, by the whole of our conduct, our gratitude to God for His blessings, and that He may be praised by us.” The glory and praise of God is not a purpose, nor even the chief purpose, but is the sole purpose of the good works which the Christian must and may and can perform.²⁴

Second, the truth about good works is that the child of God loves good works and wants to do them.

Third, the truth about good works is that they are necessary. God commands that we do good works, but they do not earn us anything. Good works are only ever fruit. It is a monstrous lie on the part of Professor Cammenga to teach that good works are not only fruit but that they have other functions too, specifically the function of assuring one of his election and salvation. The professor despises the doctrine of free salvation.

Neither does he

understand the marvelous mystery of justification by faith.

For rather than causing men to rest secure in their sin so that they become careless and profane in their walk and conversation, the power of justification has the effect that it causes men deeply to abhor sin, to repent in dust and ashes, and to walk as children of light in the midst of this world.²⁵

Because of the glorious truth of justification by faith alone, we are in a relationship of peace with God, and we are assured of our blessedness and God’s favor. We are assured of our salvation. God walks with us by his Spirit and speaks to us by his gospel. That is how we know that we are children of God. That is how we are assured of our salvation, and we have this assurance before we ever do one good work.

Teaching the Children

The false apostles written of in the book of Galatians cast the people’s assurance back upon man—upon man’s obedience, upon man’s righteousness, upon man’s activity. And this is exactly the corruption that Cammenga teaches in his Ten Commandments for Children. It is a hallucination, a delusion, to believe for oneself and then to teach one’s children that, though we are not perfect, and we cannot achieve perfection, we are still something before God; that we can merit something by our good works; that we can look to ourselves and look at our good works to be assured that we are children of God. It is a sin to believe this. It is an offense to God.

Cammenga is offended by grace. He believes that the gospel will make the little children careless and profane. Cammenga believes that if he teaches the children the law, teaches them to look to themselves for the assurance of their salvation, that he will make spiritual people. But spiritual people are not created by the law. They are created by the gospel. Teaching someone not to steal, not to murder, or not to covet does not make that one spiritual. The law is not the gospel. The law cannot give anyone the power to obey it. The law is weak through the flesh. The children do not need to become obedient; they must become ungodly. Romans 4:5: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” This doctrine makes spiritual people.

Cammenga troubles the children (and believers of every age!) when he teaches them that the assurance of their salvation depends on what they do. He troubles them by making them think that they have to be something! He makes the children to labor for their salvation! Even a child can look within himself and see the evil. A child knows himself to be born in sin; he knows that he continually sins and that he is unable to produce what the law demands. No one keeps the law because the required obedience is perfection! And no child can attain perfection.

Cammenga fills the little children’s backpacks with bricks, then sends them on their way. And those heavy backpacks are crushing the children with their burdens. The weight is unimaginable. There is no rest for these tired little souls.

Rev. J. A. Heys very clearly laid out that burden when he wrote,

If I have to do something before I can enjoy the consciousness of my salvation, then I tremble with fear, and I have no joy or certainty of salvation. Conditional theology exactly takes all my joy away, for it takes Christ away. And He is my righteousness which exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees. When I am afraid of the terrible wrath of God, then I can only find one place to hide and where I can breathe freely and where I can find peace. And that is behind Christ. He must be before me, must be between me and God. And I must be in Him and know that God judges me in Him. But if I have to hide behind a work of mine that God requires of me, if I have to believe that there is a condition that I must fulfill, I will never be conscious of any salvation.²⁶

The children need the gospel. Only justification by faith alone affords peace of conscience. Only that truth will remove the heavy burden placed upon their backs.

Teach the children that they are nothing, that they are ungodly, that they are disobedient, that they are empty in and of themselves. Teach them that when they obey, Christ is their righteousness. And teach them that when they disobey, Christ is their righteousness.

Teach the children that keeping the law is not attainable. We are in captivity to the law of sin, which is in our members (Rom. 7:23). When the law is preached, sin is revived! Teach the children that God freely forgave their totally depraved natures and forgave all of their sins because Jesus Christ is the perfect man. He died for all of their sins and imperfections. Christ fulfilled the whole law.

Teach the children the proper place of the law in the life of the child of God. The law is not the gospel. But the law is the source of the knowledge of our misery. The law is also the rule for our lives of gratitude. Christ poured out his Spirit on his church; he gave us himself in our new, regenerated hearts, so that we love and delight in that law. Our hearts are filled with thankfulness for our salvation.

Teach the children that they are imperfect perfect Christians. How imperfect is a perfect Christian? He delights in God after the inward man; and at the same time, everything he delights in, he does not do! Everything he hates, that he does. Can the regenerated child of God keep the law? do the good? No! He wills the good in his perfect heart, but he does not do the good. He hates sin in his heart, but he still sins.

The gospel makes man nothing. It makes our children nothing. The gospel is not for a good person or an obedient person. God justifies the sinner! God shows his power and greatness by utterly transforming the ungodly, filling the lives of the church with love. Of ourselves, there is no desire for God; our flesh dominates. God gives us his Spirit; and because we have that Spirit, we will walk in that Spirit. It is inevitable! The Holy Spirit is the power in our lives. There is no peace, no joy, and no assurance apart from the glorious doctrine of salvation by grace alone, in Christ alone, by faith alone.

Fallout in the Denomination

The grievous consequence for the PRC’s tolerance of false doctrine is a rapid departure from the truth. The Protestant Reformed Synod of 2018 has been heralded within the denomination as the synod that finally called out the false doctrine that had been disturbing the peace of the denomination. Supposedly, Synod 2018 rooted out that which had compromised the gospel of Jesus Christ and exposed the doctrinal error that “when our good works are given a place and function they do not have, the perfect work of Christ is displaced.”²⁷

But here we are, over five years later, and those same good works are still commonly given a place and function that are not found in scripture and the confessions. In the way of your obedience is now a corrupted phrase that did not help the PRC back to the path of right doctrine. It is a phrase that allows false teachers to peddle their wares of good works attaining the assurance of salvation. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. And the leaven of false doctrine was not hated for the lie that it is; the leaven of false doctrine was not rooted out; and it has now permeated every congregation. Christ has been displaced for years and years.

Practically speaking, when a denomination harbors false doctrine long enough, the people naturally become tolerant or indifferent. And many are ignorant, for how can they recognize false doctrine when their ministers and professors either love the false doctrine or are too afraid to preach clearly against it?

I would like to point out some of the practical consequences of false doctrine having a home in the PRC for so many years, which I believe are further evidences that the denomination has left the truth.

Professor Cammenga is a seminary professor of dogmatics in the theological school of the PRC, who regularly preaches and writes false doctrine. Yet classis after classis and synod after synod goes by with nary a protest against him. The PRC has departed from the truth.

This same theologian has now written a children’s book on the ten commandments. This coming from a man who believes that the law is the gospel! Who believes that your obedience to those ten commandments will assure you of your salvation!

But let us not kid ourselves; Cammenga is not the only professor who holds these beliefs. Let us hear from Professor Dykstra:

Everything points to Jesus Christ, the savior, and because the law points to Jesus Christ, the law is gospel. It is gospel. It isn’t that we say, “Oh, we have a gospel, and we have a law,” and try to separate the two. The law is gospel to us. It’s setting forth Jesus Christ crucified, the Lord of all, our king.²⁸

And we cannot forget about Professor Gritters:

So for the praise of God, the assurance of my own salvation, and the good of the neighbor, we must be doing good works.

If perhaps you are doubting your salvation…then your pastor or someone else may say, “But look at what God has produced in you in your life.” You’ll have all kinds of objections to that kind of reasoning, but that’s not a bad method to use with someone who doubts his salvation. “Look at your fruit.”²⁹

This is the comfort that Professor Gritters brings to the troubled saint: “Look at your fruit.” Clearly, the PRC has departed from the truth.

In publishing Professor Cammenga’s book, the Reformed Free Publishing Association has dusted off a project that was shelved years ago due to, among other things, doctrinal concerns. But the board members who were troubled by the manuscript that would become this book are no longer members of the PRC, having fled to the Reformed Protestant Churches. Which means that there was no time like the present to roll out the red carpet for Cammenga’s book for children. Clearly, the PRC has departed.

This same publishing house then went on to host a book release party for The Ten Commandments for Children. Captured in photos is a room full of standing adults and many children sitting at the feet of Professor Cammenga while he reads his false doctrine to the little ones. Clearly, the PRC has departed.

Furthermore, this false doctrine for children has extended past use by parents in the home to semi-official instruction in the church. I was made aware of a note in the bulletin of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in June of this year that “the Sunday School students are asked to meet briefly after the morning service today for their papers. The Pre-K/Kindergarteners won’t have any papers. Instead, they will be reading from Prof. Cammenga’s new book The Ten Commandments for Children each week.” I shuddered when I read that. Now, we are talking about four-, five-, and six-year-olds! Did Southeast’s consistory put a stop to the use of that book? Were there any parents who were troubled by the use of that book? Did parents allow their children to sit under the teachings of that book?

Southeast church filled the children’s backpacks with bricks. The shoulders of preschoolers and kindergarteners are being made to bear the crushing weight of a doctrine that is an offense to God.

Rev. Herman Hoeksema wrote in his Reformed Dogmatics, “We know very little of an infant’s life, but it is certain that long before what is usually considered the age of discretion there can be and is a decided influence of the Word of God upon the covenant child.”³⁰ The flip side of that coin is the influence of false doctrine, which may not and cannot be overlooked or minimized. False doctrine also has a decided influence on young minds.

The decomposition we have witnessed since leaving the Protestant Reformed denomination is unimaginable. There is no “safe” church within the denomination. Every minister that I am aware of who has preached false doctrine makes his rounds on the various pulpits. Reverend Koole and Professor Cammenga, who many even in the denomination recognize to be the chief offenders of the gospel of peace, regularly preach all over the country. Every minister partakes of the sin of departing from Christ in doctrine by silence or connivance. “Silence is also a denial of God’s truth, whatever a man may hold in his mind.”³¹ There may be a minister who does not preach false doctrine himself, but because he will not preach explicitly against the lie that is taught within the denomination, he is only half a minister.

To those still listening in the PRC: Don’t you want your minister to warn you about the lie? especially the lie within your midst? Don’t you want your elders to keep you and your children safe in the truth of the gospel? Don’t you desire a consistory that will not tolerate false doctrine for a moment, in any way, shape or form? especially if the form is a children’s book? This has not been the case! And you should be filled with a holy anger, especially for your children.

But here is the rub: If a minister perhaps recognizes the horror of little children being subjected to the deadly false doctrine taught in The Ten Commandments for Children, how could he stop it? To challenge the book would be to challenge the professor. And then there is a real problem. Because challenging that false doctrine would require losing one’s life. And that is a very high cost. But no cost should be too high when the gospel is at stake. Where is the love for the truth in the PRC?

Professor Cammenga is a teacher of false doctrine, but the other ministers and professors in the PRC are the grand compromisers, willing to sell their convictions for the price of peace with a heretic.³²

Clearly, the PRC has departed from the truth.

Conclusion

The Ten Commandments for Children is sinful indoctrination of little ones. I can only pray that God opens the eyes and ears of the parents in the PRC so that they recognize the terrible lie of conditional theology taught in that book: that “when we obey the law, God assures us that we are the children of God”; that “God uses our good works to assure us that he is our God and we are his people”; that “when we keep God’s commandments and do good works, God strengthens our assurance.”³³

To anyone who still has an ear to hear: recognize Cammenga’s doctrine for the filth that it is, namely, Arminian conditional theology. Recognize that doctrine to be the same doctrine that the former Rev. David Overway preached. Recognize that there was, at one small moment in time, a holy horror that that theology was taught in the PRC. Are there yet any souls who are troubled by the lie and its steady beat in the PRC?

To the people whose souls are vexed because they see the false doctrine that is taught within the walls of the PRC: do not linger! Especially for the sake of your children!

The big tent that is now the Protestant Reformed Churches has covered the masses from the weather, and they are now soothed to sleep by the sweet sound of raindrops. They think all is well. But false doctrine abounds under this tent. And Professor Cammenga is ready and willing to teach the children to look to themselves for the assurance of their salvation.

It is fitting to conclude with words from men of God who faithfully taught and continue to teach the flocks that God entrusted to them.

Regarding the false teachers in the PRC,

Let them remain in their vicious circle until they too humble themselves; we, however, will not remain in that circle, but step out of it as far as ever we can, into that free circle and place where stands the mercy seat. And we appeal to it with full right, because we did not invent it with our own brain. It is rather [God’s] own Word which declares it and threatens stern, terrible judgment upon them who come with their own holiness, as if they could stand before God with that, and pay no regard to the mercy seat of Christ.³⁴

Over against the wicked teachings contained in The Ten Commandments for Children is the truth that

assurance is not found in the way of your obedience. Assurance is found in the cross of Jesus Christ and is the gift of the Spirit of the risen Lord sent into your hearts by the God of your salvation, who willed that you know his love and have the peace that passes all understanding. That assurance is the irresistible work of the Holy Spirit, and he frees us from the bondage of the law, so that we walk at liberty.³⁵