On Sunday, December 24, 2023, many of us peacefully enjoyed Christmas Eve in God’s house as we sat in our pews in the Reformed Protestant Churches. Freely, we were fed with divine sustenance. The Spirit poured out from the preachers. The Spirit in our hearts received the Spirit. Our hungry and thirsty souls were filled with wonderful, spiritual food through the preaching of the gospel. The truth was proclaimed, and we delighted in it. While the themes and texts of all the sermons may have differed across our churches, at the heart of the gospel messages that we received was God’s comforting word to his people: God chose his people from all eternity and so loved us that he sent his Son to be born into the world to save us. Christ fully and completely accomplished all of our salvation at the cross, leaving nothing left for us to do. Throughout our churches we heard Christ and him crucified. What joy!

It was not so in Faith Protestant Reformed Church on that same sabbath day. That evening Rev. C. Spronk preached a sermon on Lord’s Day 38 that led his sheep upon dark and bewildering pathways, lighted only by the terrible gloom of false doctrine. There was no peaceful enjoyment of the gospel as the members sat in their pews. There could not have been, for in his sermon, “The Blessed Sabbath Day,”¹ Reverend Spronk bungled the law and the gospel so terribly that the perfect work of Christ on the cross was thrown squarely out of the church’s front door, and the people of Faith Protestant Reformed Church were left struggling under the cruel bondage of the law.

During the scripture reading, Reverend Spronk said this:

We do note that there is a law, a rule, for keeping the sabbath day holy. When we read of the Pharisees’ legalism, how they kept rules, one danger is that we respond in a rubber-band way, where we want to snap to the other side and have no rules. Well, the Lord gave us a law, a rule, to be a tool to help us rest, to rest in him.

Then later during the scripture reading, he said,

And notice that it’s not only the Pharisees who believe that the sabbath day must be kept lawfully but also the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not deny but he affirms the need to keep the sabbath day lawfully, to obey the fourth commandment.

But the problem, and I’ll say that before we read the passage, the problem with the Pharisees was, they didn’t see the rule as a tool. They didn’t see the rule as a tool for communing with God, for resting in God, believing in God. But they viewed the rule as an end in itself. You keep the rule just to keep the rule, in other words, just to check it off. And then the rule becomes legalistic. There’s no spiritual depth or meaning to it. So, on the one hand, we have to be careful [not] to say, “We don’t want any rules.” Those rules are tools to help us spiritually. On the other hand, we don’t want to say, “Well, we have to have rules; we have to keep them,” and forget the spiritual reason for the rule.

After listening to his introduction, I very much had the inclination to snap to the other side of whatever kind of strange doctrine Reverend Spronk was teaching. I could not rubber band there fast enough. When he redefined the law, which is a safe and necessary guide to our walk of loving gratitude to God, as a tool for communing with God, resting in God, and believing in God, it became clear that he was up to no good.² When Reverend Spronk then mischaracterized the Pharisees by explaining that the only reason they kept the law was to check boxes and not because they thought that doing the law made them righteous before God, it was apparent that he was setting the stage for a great confusion of the law and the gospel. Something was amiss, and a new and strange doctrine was being introduced, as if Christ himself were affirming it. In time Reverend Spronk revealed the purpose for his alarming introduction when he came to the third point of the sermon and said:

Now on that first day, beloved, there is a law. There is. Six days shalt thou labor; seventh day, rest. We don’t want to be legalistic, so you may be thinking, “Let’s be careful here, not make a list of rules.” Well, beloved, do not do what the Pharisees did and say, “There’s a fourth commandment, and now what we need to do is we need to make a whole pile of rules for the sabbath day, and then check them off. And then if you’ve done these things, you’ve kept the sabbath day.”

No, we need to remember that the purpose of those rules is so that we will commune with God, so that we will confess that we believe that he is the God who made the world, so that we will confess that we believe he’s the God of Jesus Christ, who has delivered us from our sins, and we want to rest in that.

And don’t, don’t [emphasis his] too quickly throw out all the rules. If the rule has become empty, whatever rule that may be—you have to be in church on Sunday twice. If that has become empty because you come to church and while you’re here you don’t commune with God, you don’t really soak in his word and embrace salvation in Jesus Christ, then the solution for you is not to give up the rule—I’m not going to go to church anymore on Sunday—but quit making the rule just an outward thing. Use the rule as the means that it’s intended for, to be for your spiritual benefit, so that you may spiritually commune with God.

By using the conditional language “so that,” Reverend Spronk taught in the quotation above that in order for you to receive communion with God, and in order for you to confess that you believe, you have to make rules—not just regular, empty rules but fancier rules that are inwardly spiritually beneficial. Further, he taught that these rules are the means whereby we embrace salvation in Jesus Christ. If that does not make you rubber band the other direction, I do not know what will. By these teachings Reverend Spronk truly confused the law and the gospel and did great evil against Lord’s Day 23, Belgic Confession article 22, and Canons of Dordt 5.4, along with many other articles in the Reformed confessions. Essentially, Reverend Spronk put the law in place of Christ and the cross. A person does not need Christ anymore as the way to the Father because the person has rules that will bring him to the Father. A person does not need the gift of true faith to embrace salvation; the law will do. A person does not need a covenant God to lovingly draw him into blessed communion, the person’s law-keeping will obtain God’s favor and fellowship. And in so doing Reverend Spronk asked of his congregation to do that which is an absolute impossibility. He asked them to accomplish their own salvation and told them that Christ is no longer necessary. Reverend Spronk failed to remember that according to Lord’s Days 2 through 5, no one could ever make enough rules to fulfill the law of God perfectly, “so that” one could be received into God’s favor—no one except Jesus Christ, the only perfect one. Reverend Spronk forgot that because of our sinful human natures, we only daily increase our debts. But Reverend Spronk did not forget about our natures altogether, for he had something to say about them that apparently solves the issue. Next he presented this:

And now you can apply that to many other things in your life on the sabbath day. Now I know that coming to church is going to be different from many of the other rules that you might have on the Lord’s day, and many a debate can be had in the back of church or at a Bible study. May you do homework on Sunday or not? Are there certain kinds of cooking methods you may use on Sunday or not? May you watch anything or listen to anything on Sunday or not? And it’s interesting that some of us may have a hard and fast rule about not using TVs on Sunday, but I wonder how many of us maybe could benefit from a rule: you’re not going to use a smartphone or a tablet or be on the internet or social media on Sunday.

Now I’m touching on many things, beloved, where we might have some disagreements here in the congregation and in our families [about] how are we going to implement the fourth commandment? But in order to say, “Here is the way of wisdom!” don’t make rules for the sake of rules that don’t mean anything but appreciate the role that rules can play to help you really keep the sabbath day, to rest in the perfect work of Jesus Christ and in peace with God.

So just take for example, the smartphone. My wife and children can tell you that I don’t have a rule for myself or for them that you may not use your phone at all on Sunday. But when I think about it, beloved, a rule might be very helpful to me. You see, it’s not natural for us, it’s not natural for us after the fall into sin, to want to rest on the Lord’s day, to meditate upon spiritual things and to enter into spiritual communion with God. It takes discipline. And what I’m suggesting, beloved, is that maybe in reaction to legalism— which we don’t want any legalism, perhaps we’ve become too licentious, demanding too much freedom—that it may be good for us and for our children and young people to have some discipline, making a rule—making a rule not to be a Pharisee, making a rule not to be harsh on you, making a rule because we really pray, and we really hope that this rule will be a tool that will help you not to waste this day but to use it to really commune with God in the good news of Jesus Christ, that we may rest not only today but— well that rat race is going to start tomorrow. Well, we have Christmas day tomorrow, maybe not—Tuesday. But be able to begin our work in this world in the faith and in the salvation we have in Jesus Christ and say, “I’m not part of the rat race anymore; I have rest and peace with my God.”

What, as maintained by Reverend Spronk, is the solution to overcoming our totally depraved human natures that do not want to rest on Sunday in order to enter into spiritual communion with God? What is the way in which we really soak in the word and embrace our salvation in Jesus Christ despite our utter sinfulness? He stated, “It takes discipline.” And then later, he said, “To have some discipline, making a rule.” As taught by Reverend Spronk, the way in which we enter into blessed communion with the Father is not by faith but by our diligent obedience to the law, or discipline. Therein is his great confusion and bungling of the law and the gospel. He put the law as a condition on salvation and then made the law “really” attainable, if we obey it rigorously enough. Consequently, he lifted man up in sinful pride, leaving no room for grace. He did not even bother to mention “by grace” in the sermon. He tossed Christ out like an unclean thing and left his sheep under the law without an escape. He overlooked the Reformed confessions, which teach that no amount of following of rules—no matter how many are made, and no matter how disciplined a person becomes in following them—will ever be enough for complete satisfaction for sin.

In his explanation of Lord’s Day 5, Herman Hoeksema wrote,

God will have His justice satisfied! Somehow we must make satisfaction, full satisfaction of the justice of God. Yes, but this means that we can never escape the punishment of sin, for to make satisfaction implies that the punishment be endured to the end. And again, this also implies that on the sinner’s side the way is closed forever. He cannot make this full satisfaction. We cannot even see a possible way of escape. If salvation is to come to us, it must come from above, and it must come in the way of a wonder of grace. The way of escape, if there be any, belongs to those things which eye hath not seen, and ear hath not heard, and that have never arisen in the heart of man. It must be opened by Him Who quickeneth the dead, and Who calleth the things that are not as if they were. Salvation does not lie within the scope of humanly conceivable possibilities. And this we must learn to acknowledge, not only as a matter of doctrine, but in true, heartfelt humiliation. We must indeed become nothing; Christ, the revelation of the wonder of God’s grace, must become all. We must come to the hearty confession that with us the way of escape is impossible, and that all our works and efforts, all our wisdom and philosophy, even all our piety and religiousness, mean absolutely nothing and are of no value whatever as far as obtaining again the favor of God is concerned. All boasting must be excluded. No flesh must glory in the presence of God. We must cast ourselves unconditionally upon Him Who alone doeth wondrous things.³

The Lord has a word for Reverend Spronk and for all those who maintain the doctrines that are taught in “The Blessed Sabbath Day.” Repent and hear God’s word. The voice of Jehovah thunders from heaven his beautiful and unmistakable truth: “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy”! (Rom. 9:16). God will have his chosen people saved not by their doing of the law but only by the shedding of Christ’s innocent blood on the cross. God will not have us embrace our salvation by the law but by the gift of a true and living faith. We cannot satisfy for all our sins to obtain anything; only Christ can. And he did! God showed mercy to poor and wretched sinners. Christ suffered and died on Calvary, where he wholly accomplished every aspect of our salvation. All of it, finished. The victory, completely and entirely won. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only perfect one, perfectly accomplished the law for us, perfectly atoned for all of our sins, and perfectly saved his people to life everlasting with him. And because of that work and because God loved us and chose us from all eternity, we may walk freely and thankfully with God’s law as our guide, joyfully saying, “O how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day” (Ps. 119:97).

21. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

22. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

23. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

24. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7:21–24)

1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (Rom. 8:1–2)