Introduction

The Reformed Protestant Churches were hanging on by a thread. As a denomination, we stood on the precipice of swallowing false doctrine and returning to the bondage of our mother, the Protestant Reformed Churches. But the Lord saved us. He cut a hole in the net and preserved us yet again. Jesus Christ preserved his church from the lie of salvation by man, specifically the experience of covenant fellowship at the point of the church’s singing, through the work of Christ-appointed elders, who stood as watchmen on the walls and who judged according to right doctrine. And Jesus Christ preserved his church from that lie with his powerful voice. His word swept through the denomination, and his Spirit blew through it like a fire. Christ spoke to his people in the sermon “The Indwelling Word.”¹ That sermon is as pivotal in our history as the sermon “Shepherds to Feed You.” The Lord God Almighty preserved his church powerfully. He saved us from the mutation of the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches that Reverend Lanning now teaches, the theology of which he was once an ardent and vehement opponent.

I began the first article in this series by stating that one man decided it was time for a new magazine.

Reverend Lanning, one man, decided that it was time for a new magazine. He has thrown off the yoke of the church of Jesus Christ. He attacks and despises the rule of Christ over him through the elders, who judged his doctrine as false. He has thrown off the yoke of a governing board and association. He contends against the counsel of God with his own wisdom and understanding (Prov. 21:30).²

One man also decided it was time to leave the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC). Reverend Lanning decided, and Deacon Keith Gritters would be the instrument of Reverend Lanning’s will.

On Sunday, May 21, 2023, Deacon Keith Gritters, claiming to be the last faithful officebearer in First Reformed Protestant Church, sent out the “Act of Separation and Joining” to the congregation, calling to the members to come out of her. And for what? Corrupting the gospel truth of justification by faith alone, which is the article of the standing and falling church and the hinge on which the church swings? The law of exclusive psalmody? That would make sense in light of the fact that Reverend Lanning’s sermons requiring exclusive psalmody based on the second commandment started the controversy in our churches. But no, Reverend Lanning’s charge against First Reformed Protestant Church and the RPC as a denomination is that they have exalted the will of man over the will of God. And this because the Reformed Protestant Churches rejected the doctrine of exclusive psalmody as required by the second commandment and the regulative principle. According to Reverend Lanning at the organizational meeting of the new church, everything done in the RPC will only be the will of man now. We are an affront to the eternal counsel of God. We might preach the Bible, and we might sing the psalms, but it will be only by our own will and not according to the will of God.

But my charge stands as before. Reverend Lanning contends against the will of God, and he and his church will reap the fruit of Reverend Lanning’s will. He destroyed in God’s temple with his false doctrine. That false doctrine divided Christ from his church. Unless Reverend Lanning turns by God’s sovereign grace, he will perish.

16. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

17. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. (1 Cor. 3:16–17)

Thus ended this whole shameful ordeal before even one article could be published in Sword and Shield in response to the developments in the RPC. God was pleased to use Reverend Lanning to lead his people out of the Protestant Reformed Churches and to reform his church, but God does not appear to be pleased to continue to use him for this glorious task of the ongoing reformation of his church.

The theology of Reverend Lanning and company is no different than the theology of our mother church. It is a corruption from the simplicity in Christ. The conditionalism of Reverend Lanning’s theology was exposed in a speech entitled “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow,” which was given by Rev. N. Langerak as an evangelism lecture at Second Reformed Protestant Church and part of which is published as his editorial this month. I do not intend to reiterate everything that was said in that speech. I will examine the false teaching of “singing with Christ” and the false doctrine that the church does not have Christ singing with her until she has kept the law of exclusive psalmody. I also intend to point out some of the abounding logical fallacies and the deceit that flow out of a doctrine that does not have as its foundation Jesus Christ and his truth. May God grant us his grace and Holy Spirit and make us men that have understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do (1 Chron. 12:32).

Protestant Reformed Theology Resurrected

The theology of Reverend Lanning is the theology and doctrine of our mother, the Protestant Reformed Churches. It is the same theology that in order to have Jesus Christ, one must obey the law. In order to experience covenant fellowship, one must do good works. In order to have Jesus Christ in worship, one must obey the second commandment. For Jesus Christ to sing in the midst of the great congregation, the church must sing only the 150 psalms. Reverend Lanning was not content with the reformation of singing that had already been given to the church of Jesus Christ. It was not enough for him that the church had been given the gift of singing the psalms with understanding. He needed and wanted something more. He grounded the law of exclusive psalmody in the second commandment and then touted it as a reformation of the gospel. In doing so he has plunged himself deep into conditional theology.

The theology of Reverend Lanning hinges on Psalm 22:22 in connection with Hebrews 2:12. He has preached multiple sermons on Psalm 22 as well as a “meditation” in a video blog. Psalm 22:22 reads as follows: “I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.” Reverend Lanning’s theology of “singing with Christ” arises out of his exegesis of this text and others over the past two years. He repeatedly preached that Christ is in the midst of the congregation singing, and if the church wants to sing with Christ, then she needs to sing the psalms. He explained what he means by the word “midst” in a sermon and a video blog, teaching that Jesus says to his spiritually assembled church,

I am in your midst. I am next to you. I am on the seat to the left of you and the seat to the right of you. I am here with you. I am behind you, and I am before you. I am in the great congregation. I am right in her midst.³

You come sit here by me, and you hear me sing this to my Father, and I’m going to put that word in your mouth, and you’re going to sing with me about my perfect keeping of the law of God and the reward of righteousness that God has given me. And when I sing that my iniquities are risen up before me and my folly is before me, I’m going to tell you to come and sit next to me while I sing this, and I’m singing that about your sins that the Lord has imputed to me.⁴

How Reverend Lanning taught the word “midst,” I understand to mean with. The elect child of God is sitting in the pew, and Christ is in front of, behind, and to the left and right of him. Christ tells the elect child to come sit next to him. Christ is with the elect child of God in the sense that Christ is around his child. There is nothing in the immediate context of the sermon or video blog that would indicate how Christ is all around the child of God. Reverend Lanning here does not speak of true faith. Nor does he speak of Christ actually being in the believer by the Spirit of Christ.

This idea of “singing with Christ” is developed further.

And when the church sings something other than the songs of Zion, when she sings a hymn, a hymn made by man, Jesus is not singing that. A whole bunch of people sing that, but not Jesus. That’s the principle of psalm singing in the church. The principle of psalm singing is not first all what’s the rule. There is a rule: sing the psalms. But the principle is not first of all what’s the rule. The principle is this: what does Jesus sing. He only sings his own songs. He only sings the songs of Zion. That is what he sings in the great congregation.⁵

And when the church sings those psalms, the Lord Jesus Christ is right in the midst of her, singing along. The Lord Jesus Christ stands at the head of her and sings that song in the midst of his own church, in the midst of his own congregation. That’s Hebrews 2:11-12.⁶

Jesus Christ is “with” his church. He is in the midst of her singing psalms in worship. And Jesus only sings his own songs. So if the church wants to sing with Jesus, the worship leader, then she must also sing the psalms. Therefore, if the church does not sing exclusively the psalms but sings other portions of the word of God, then Jesus does not sing and will not sing with the church. For Reverend Lanning that is the meaning that the church sings “with” Christ.

If the church does not sing the psalms but sings a man-made hymn (a term left undefined), then Jesus is not singing with his church. For Reverend Lanning then, “The church sings alone.” When the church sings a man-made song, Jesus does not sing with her.

Man-made is a phrase being used as a scare tactic, when in fact the elements of our worship are made up of many “man-made” things. That something is “man-made” does not necessarily mean that it is a human invention and therefore will worship. A man makes a sermon. A man makes a prayer. Men wrote the Heidelberg Catechism. Men composed versifications of the psalms and put together The Psalter. These are things that the Spirit of Christ works in and through the regenerated child of God by the indwelling Spirit.

Now, if the church does the good work of singing the psalms, then her voice joins with Christ’s in singing. She does not sing alone when she obeys the law. Is this not the same false doctrine over which we left our mother? Do good works; obey the law; and in the way of your obedience, you have covenant fellowship. Sing the psalms; and in the way of your psalm singing, Christ sings with you, and you have his covenant fellowship. It is a terrible and comfortless doctrine for the church. Singing is a good work, the end result and fruit of covenant fellowship and union with Jesus Christ. But for Reverend Lanning the church must obey the law before Christ will sing with her. This doctrine leaves the church trying to fulfill a law to have Jesus Christ sing with her. But more specifically, this doctrine leaves the church trying to fulfill a law to have Jesus Christ and his covenant fellowship. Obey the law; then you will have Christ singing with you. Obey the law; then you will experience covenant fellowship. The Reformed Protestant Churches rejected this doctrine of mother and condemned it as the theology of hell. So also the Reformed Protestant Churches, by God’s grace, rejected this new false doctrine, which smells like the sulfur from hell.

The law of exclusive psalmody is set forth as attainable for the church, as is all legalism. Man can obey this law. Man can attain Christ’s singing with him. All man needs to do is sing the psalms and nothing else. Man can attain covenant fellowship. All man needs to do is obey the law of God. Man can attain forgiveness of sins by his repenting. Man can attain salvation by his believing. It is all attainable by man. Forget that one must sing every song perfectly or be damned. Forget that one must repent perfectly or be damned. All one needs to do is sing, obey, or repent, and Christ will have covenant fellowship with him. Reverend Lanning attempts to hedge this and tries to make man nothing by saying things like “of course we do not sing the psalms perfectly” and “thankfully Christ worshiped perfectly for us, and that is our comfort.” However, man is still made something by the fact that he can fulfill a law and have Christ sing with him.

Reverend Lanning has tried to point to the fact that at the end of his May 12, 2023, sermon entitled “The Regulative Principle of Worship,” he preached that Christ fulfilled our worship and that Reverend Lanning did not put the membership of First Reformed Protestant Church under the bondage of the law. But the fact that Christ was added at the end of the sermon does not save the theology of Reverend Lanning. We have been through this argument with friends and family in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Reverend Lanning said what he said in the sermon, and it cannot be talked straight. The orthodox statements of a sermon cannot save the false doctrine. False doctrine corrupts the entire sermon.

The theology of Reverend Lanning is conditional, and his theology also makes the church’s singing with Jesus to be an offer or an invitation. Reverend Lanning, reviewing Michael Lefebvre’s book, Singing the Songs of Jesus, writes, “It is King Jesus who takes the Davidic Psalms to his lips and sings them ‘in the midst of the congregation’—and he invites us to join his songs with him.”⁷ Reverend Lanning cautions the reader regarding this invitation later in his book review, although he should have condemned that invitation unequivocally as it flies eerily close to the well-meant offer of the gospel. Reverend Lanning’s theology, which previously was airtight, has become sloppy. At the end of an article in the very next issue of his magazine, he tries to assure his readers who are overwhelmed with questions that there is one answer, and that answer is, “The sweet psalmist is singing in church, and he said that I may come and sing with him.”⁸ Jesus is the worship leader; Jesus is the worshiper; Jesus is singing the psalms—that is what Reverend Lanning taught as the gospel of worship.⁹ Won’t you come join Jesus in singing in the midst of the great congregation?

It is not just Reverend Lanning teaching false doctrine. Mr. Neil Meyer wrote the following in his protest to First’s consistory, which protest Reverend Lanning published without qualification in the Reformed Pavilion and thereby approved of the protest:

The doxology [“Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow”], in its content, excludes verses 13 and 14 of Psalm 148. The doxology does not take into consideration those last two verses of the Psalm.

13. Let them praise the name of the Lord: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.

14. He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the Lord.

Conclusion: The doxology does not sing verses 13 and 14. It leaves them out. It leaves Christ out. It leaves the saints out. We do not have access to the Father. The praise of His saints does not reach His ears. Jesus Christ is displaced.¹⁰

Does that not make the Reformed ear tingle? We do not have access to the Father. Those words should never enter into the heart of a Reformed man, let alone come across his lips or onto the printed page. The only way one can understand this statement is that “Praise God” somehow leaves out Christ by leaving out verses 13 and 14; therefore, when one sings “Praise God,” there is no access unto God. Is not all scripture Jesus Christ (John 5:39)? Is he not the eternal Word (1:1)? I do not even know how one could talk this statement orthodox. My singing is not my access to the Father. My singing all the verses of a psalm is not my access to the Father. I do not need to sing all the right verses to make sure I have access to the Father. The access of the elect child of God to the Father is through Jesus Christ by faith alone (14:6). The theology of Mr. Meyer is the theology of man. It is the same conditional theology of our mother that the way to the Father includes our obedience but now with the good work of singing as the way to the Father.

Through His Church

Jesus Christ does not sing “with” the church. Christ does not preach “with” the minister, as if Christ is to the left and the right of the minister and if the minister wants Christ to preach with him then he must preach what Christ is preaching. Christ actually preaches by his word and Spirit. Christ does not pray “with” the child of God. It is the indwelling Spirit of Christ who cries out, “Abba, Father.” Christ does not sing “with” the child of God. Jesus Christ does not do anything “with” his church in the way Reverend Lanning explains it. Jesus Christ does not stand with the congregation behind, in the front, to the left, and to the right. He is not with the church in that sense. Christ never does things with us, but he does things for us, in us, and through us to the glory of God. Christ does these things in and through his child by his Spirit.

That is the whole meaning of faith. The elect child of God is united to Christ, and the life of Jesus Christ flows in and through the child of God. Scripture repeatedly speaks of faith as being “into Christ” (Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27) or “in Christ” (Acts 24:24; 1 Cor. 4:17; Eph. 1:12). We are in Christ by faith alone. We are one with him as our covenant head and mediator. The church is the body of Christ, and she is one with her head. The two are indistinguishable from one another. Christ sings, and the church sings because Christ is singing through her by his Spirit. The life of the church is Jesus Christ living in and through her. His life courses through her body. Christ does not worship “with” his church, but he accomplished that worship for her and worships God through her by his Spirit.

How is Jesus Christ in the midst of the great congregation? Jesus Christ lives in and through his church by his Spirit, and the church of Jesus Christ worships and sings praises unto the name of God. The glorious means is a true faith whereby we are engrafted into Christ and receive all his benefits (Lord’s Day 7). This true faith, wrought in the heart of the elect child by the word of God and the operation of the Holy Ghost, regenerates him and makes him a new man, causing him to live a new life in love and service to God to glorify him as his friend-servant in the covenant (Belgic Confession 24). The purpose of singing is to glorify God. There cannot be anything further to our singing or obeying any law than to render thanksgiving (1 Thess. 5:18).

And Jesus Christ is the church itself. He is the glorious latter house of God (Hag. 2:9). Christ is the temple of God, and he builds up his church by his Spirit to be living members thereof (Eph. 2:19–22). Christ calls his church together. He compacts it as one body. He feeds his body with his own voice. He preserves his body to eternal life by the gospel.

The gospel of salvation regarding worship is that Christ worshiped perfectly for his people. He sang and prayed perfectly, so that there is not a condition that needs to be met in order to have Christ singing with his people or in order to have his covenant fellowship. Christ is our access unto the Father. “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand” (Rom. 5:2). He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). There is no obedience to the law that is necessary for any aspect of salvation. Further, without true faith one can never worship God in the way that is pleasing to him. We of ourselves will never be pleasing to God. It is only his Son who is pleasing to him.

Logical Fallacies Abound

There are two men who write in the Reformed Pavilion, and their writings are chock-full of logical fallacies and deceit in order to avoid answering important questions and to defend their false doctrine. False doctrine always makes men unethical, and their writings are the fruits of not having the truth or standing on right doctrine.

The principle of singing exclusively the psalms in worship leads to many uncomfortable questions for Reverend Lanning. Reverend Lanning studiously avoids answering these questions by erecting straw men. A straw man fallacy occurs when someone takes another person’s argument or point, distorts it or exaggerates it in some kind of extreme way, and then attacks the extreme distortion, as if that is really the claim the first person made. One such question was,

Is it really the sin of image worship to sing the Lord’s prayer or some other portion of scripture in worship, so that doing so is equivalent to the Israelites’ dancing naked around the golden calf?¹¹

Reverend Lanning’s answer should have been yes, it is idol worship to sing the Lord’s prayer. This should be one of the easiest questions to answer, according to the principle. But Reverend Lanning considered it the hardest question, one that he claimed to have wrestled with for weeks. Understanding the problem that he runs into by calling the Lord Jesus Christ’s perfect prayer set to tune and meter idol worship, he went to work dismantling the question:

The difficulty of the question is not that it makes a good point but that there are two subtle errors in the question.

Reverend Lanning waxed eloquent for two and a half pages without ever directly answering the question.¹²

A simple yes or no would have sufficed. Reverend Lanning erected a straw man, and then he whacked away at that straw man. It is a faulty question. Whack. It makes a false equivalence. Whack. It is backward reasoning. Whack. Doesn’t this feel familiar?

Reverend Lanning also falls victim to the red herring fallacy, which is a diversionary tactic that avoids the key issues, often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them. A great example of this is calling valid questions about exclusive psalmody “yabuts” and “wuddubouts.”

There are many, many questions being asked about exclusive psalmody that take the form of, ‘Yeah, but what about…?’ They are a whole class of questions that we could call yabuts and wuddubouts. These questions raise some apparent difficulty with the principle of exclusive psalmody in order to probe the principle or even to deny the principle.¹³

Instead of answering the difficult questions, he dismissed them altogether.

Reverend Lanning is scared of questions in an environment he cannot control. Previously, he would welcome questions and controversy. At the organizational meeting of First Reformed Protestant Church in 2021, Reverend Lanning and the elders dedicated the majority of the meeting to answering questions from friend and foe alike. How things have changed. Look no further than the night of the “Act of Separation and Joining” meeting. An open invitation had been sent to the entire congregation of First Reformed Protestant Church to attend the meeting and have an opportunity to ask questions. I took the invitation at its word, as did many other members of the congregation. But Reverend Lanning, in a masterful way, swept us all aside by proclaiming that only those who intended to sign the “Act” may ask questions. Stunning. Political. Deceitful. Reverend Lanning would not allow us to ask questions. He was still our minister at the time, and we were still his sheep; yet he showed no love for his flock. If he were standing on the truth, what would there be to fear? The truth shouts from the rooftops. The truth is like a lion; it does not need defending; it needs to be unleashed. He did not want any questions because he does not have any answers.

Mr. Dewey Engelsma is not immune to the slew of logical fallacies. He has resorted to conducting ad hominem attacks and making hasty generalizations. Ad hominem means against the man, and this type of fallacy is sometimes called name calling or the personal attack fallacy. This type of fallacy occurs when someone attacks the person instead of attacking his or her argument. An example would be saying that Reverend Langerak engineered the whole controversy and that Reverend Bomers and myself were doing his bidding.

Mr. Engelsma makes a lot of hasty generalizations. A hasty generalization occurs when one makes a conclusion based on insufficient or biased evidence and then rushes to that conclusion before one has all the relevant facts. Mr. Engelsma writes as though he were present at all the meetings and deliberations of the consistory when, in fact, he was not present at all. All he has done is take in biased information from the three elders and Reverend Lanning. Mr. Engelsma cannot possibly give an honest account of what happened. His judgment of what occurred in the consistory room is obscured. Mr. Engelsma can distort, twist, lie, and deceive. No need to gather the complete facts. He has justified himself in his own actions and behavior, but he condemns his opponents’ supposedly distasteful behavior.

Mr. Engelsma claims that First Reformed Protestant Church is full of bloody crimes and violence. He writes,

It is striking how easily the members of First RPC step over the bodies of Reverend Lanning, Steve VanDyke, Paul Starrett, and Neil Meyer on their way into church. It reminds you of another denomination with which we are very familiar.¹⁴

Is that an accurate representation of what happened or a caricature of the events? The consistory judged Reverend Lanning’s doctrine as false according to the word of God and the confessions. Reverend Lanning was suspended for that false doctrine. Deuteronomy 13 is a scriptural description of what really happened, but I quote only verses 10 and 11:

10. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

11. And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.

What about Mr. Meyer and Mr. Van Dyke? They also were stoned to death righteously. These two men resigned their Christ-appointed offices and were deposed for faithless desertion of office. Mr. Engelsma and Reverend Lanning proclaim that these men were cut down defending the truth. But these men fled the battlefield, and now that behavior is being justified and actively defended. “The consistory behaved so unrighteously that two other elders, Elder Meyer and Elder Van Dyke, had to resign. This is understandable.”¹⁵ When things get too tough, it is okay for elders to resign? They may lay down their Christ-appointed offices? It is understandable that they resigned, according to Mr. Engelsma, because of such unrighteousness.

I hope nothing too difficult makes its way into the consistory room of Reverend Lanning and the new church. I ask anyone who has joined themselves to this new church, do you want elders who will abandon you when men act too “unrighteously” against them?

Now Mr. Meyer and Mr. Van Dyke are playing elder. They resigned from their Christ-appointed offices and now intrude into the office. Christ will not use these men in his church. Every vow they take on their lips is blasphemy against the name of God; every vow they ever take on their lips will mean nothing.

Every officebearer in the Reformed Protestant Churches has made a vow before the face of God, and what that means is when we sign that Formula of Subscription, we are attaching Jehovah to our vow. Jehovah and our vow are united. Jehovah and our vow are inextricably linked—that’s what we are saying when we say, “Before the Lord…”

The then elders [of Sovereign RPC] almost immediately left the church, almost immediately. They took their papers and were gone. That’s not what they vowed to do. They live today as impenitent oath breakers. Impenitent oath breakers. They blaspheme every morning when they wake up. Every breath they draw is blasphemy against Jehovah…

They took the name of God and tied it to their promise, “I will acquiesce,” which means by not acquiescing, they declare with every word they speak, “God is a dirty liar.” That’s all he is; he’s a dirty liar…

God will make it impossible for vows to mean anything in those churches. You can count on that. God will make it impossible for vows to mean anything because that church or that denomination or whatever comes of it, was formed through impenitent blasphemy, impenitent vow-breaking. Baptism vows will not mean anything; they can’t; God won’t let them. Marriage vows won’t mean anything; they can’t; God won’t let them. Ordination vows won’t mean anything; they can’t; God won’t let them. I tremble when I say that because I’ve taken vows too and you have too.

What a thing to stand before the face of God and man and to say, “I know what I’ve vowed, but I don’t care. I’m going to do what I want now.”¹⁶

Now, the opponents will holler that this sermon was referring specifically to the Formula Subscription vow. That may be so, but a vow is a vow. And when an elder is ordained, he makes another vow, that is, that he is lawfully called of God’s church, and consequently of God himself to his respective holy office. He promises agreeably to said doctrine [of the Old and New Testament as the only Word of God and perfect doctrine of salvation] and to discharge his respective office as described in the Form for Ordination. He vows to walk in all godliness and to submit himself, in case he should become remiss in his duty, to the admonition of the church. These men broke these vows by resigning and therefore deserting their Christ-appointed office.

Mr. Engelsma hurls a lot of slanderous accusations against the church of Jesus Christ. Mr. Engelsma’s articles are full of this type of writing. But they are all noise and no content. The best thing he can come up with is to say that we sound like the Protestant Reformed Churches. Mr. Engelsma can call us the Protestant Reformed Churches and claim that our tone and manner are worse, but his theology is the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches. He was never rid of the Pharisaism of mother (Prov. 26:11). Mr. Engelsma has his foot-washings now; he has his law (Matt. 15:1–9). Let Mr. Engelsma thrash around on the pages of the Reformed Pavilion.

Conclusion

The theology of Reverend Lanning and his church is the same conditional theology of our mother. He took his false doctrine and deceived a slew of men, women, and children into believing the lie. Everything that he has done over the past couple of months has been his own will, and he contends against the church of Jesus Christ.

Let Reverend Lanning and Mr. Engelsma heed the words of Theodore Beza:

It belongs, in truth, to the church of God, in the name of which I address you, to suffer blows, not to strike them. But at the same time let it be your pleasure to remember that the church is an anvil which has worn out many a hammer.¹⁷

Reverend Lanning and Mr. Engelsma can keep pounding away at the church of Jesus Christ with the hammers of their own wills, but the church of Jesus Christ will wear out these men.

This is all I intend to write on this topic for the time being. I had intended to write more, but the theology of Reverend Lanning is a mess; it is a Gordian knot. And the best thing to do with that knot is to cut it off and throw it away. There is no need to continue to wallow in the mud. His theology is now the theology of mother. The gospel is beautifully simple, and Reverend Lanning has been corrupted from that simplicity.

May the Lord preserve us in the gospel of sovereign grace to his glory alone.