An Important Theology

In his 1953 examination Hubert De Wolf explained his theology to the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). Hubert De Wolf’s theology is exceedingly important. De Wolf took the conditional theology of Klaas Schilder and the Liberated churches and developed it for the Protestant Reformed Churches. Although two statements of Hubert De Wolf were subsequently condemned by the PRC, De Wolf’s theology as a whole has never been condemned by the PRC. In all of the great battles in the PRC against Klaas Schilder and the Liberated and in all of the PRC’s great documents, including the Declaration of Principles and the minority report written at the May 1953 meeting of Classis East, the PRC have not explicitly repudiated Hubert De Wolf’s theology. Not only that, but De Wolf’s theology is taught in the Protestant Reformed Churches today, minus only a word or two. De Wolf’s theology has very specific features that made it palatable to Protestant Reformed members in his own day and that make it palatable to Protestant Reformed members today. If we want to understand what Protestant Reformed theology is today, we must understand Hubert De Wolf’s theology in 1953.

Listening to the Protestant Reformed Churches, one would never know how important De Wolf’s theology actually is. The Protestant Reformed Churches are ignorant of De Wolf’s theology. That is, the Protestant Reformed Churches teach and believe De Wolf’s theology, but they are ignorant that it is De Wolf’s theology. They think that it is Engelsma’s theology. They think that it is Koole’s theology or Cammenga’s theology. But it is De Wolf’s theology. The only thing that some members might know of De Wolf’s theology is two sentences from two sermons that were protested to Classis East and that were condemned by Classis East. Those sentences are probably still taught in the Protestant Reformed seminary, maybe they are taught by an occasional minister to his catechism classes, and perhaps an exceptionally industrious member of the PRC has read a book that mentioned those sentences. But no one knows De Wolf’s actual theology.

This makes the recovery and publication of De Wolf’s 1953 examination even more important for the church today. The questions that were put to De Wolf were clear and sound and drew out of him a clear testimony of his theology. Understanding De Wolf’s theology as he expressed it in his 1953 examination, at the height of the controversy over conditions, sheds light on the current theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches.

A Mostly Candid Examination

In his 1953 examination Hubert De Wolf was mostly candid and open about his doctrine. It is true that he was also aware of the high stakes of his examination, and he knew that his theology was suspect among many of the elders of First Protestant Reformed Church. Therefore, he qualified and limited his statements whenever possible. For example, when asked whether the promise of the gospel was conditional, he complained, “This puts me on the spot.” When asked several other questions about the relationship between the promise and the call of the gospel, he said, “There is a [theological] problem here,” and “That question is not an easy question.” When asked to demonstrate upon which articles of the confessions he based his doctrine, he dodged and maintained that the burden was on his accusers to demonstrate which articles of the confessions he had violated. At the end of his examination, he announced to everyone, “I have done a lot of off-the-cuff speaking here,” with the plea that he not be held responsible for every word that he had said.

Nevertheless, throughout the examination De Wolf was candid that his theology was a conditional theology. He wanted to limit the specific respect in which his theology was conditional, but he frankly acknowledged that he had no problem with conditions, as long as they were properly qualified. This is remarkable, because by the time De Wolf was examined, the word condition was a lightning rod in the Protestant Reformed Churches. The Declaration of Principles, which had been adopted by the Protestant Reformed synod in 1951, condemned the idea that faith is a condition.

[The Protestant Reformed Churches] teach on the basis of the same confessions…that faith is not a prerequisite or condition unto salvation, but a gift of God, and a God-given instrument whereby we appropriate the salvation in Christ. (Confessions and Church Order, 416, 423)

By the time De Wolf was examined in February of 1953, the Declaration of Principles was well-known and hotly debated within the PRC. Everyone knew that protests against the Declaration were coming to synod that year. In that climate of tremendous conflict over both the word condition and the theology of conditions, De Wolf openly acknowledged that there was a certain sense in which the salvation of God’s people was conditional.

Reading De Wolf’s examination is refreshing. Not because of his abysmal conditional theology but because of his candor in acknowledging that his theology was conditional in a specific respect. There are a host of Protestant Reformed ministers today who teach conditional theology, as has been demonstrated on these pages again and again. But whereas the Protestant Reformed De Wolf was candid that he taught conditions, the Protestant Reformed ministers today are deceitful in saying that they do not teach conditions. They studiously avoid the term condition (most of the time, but not all of the time). They studiously avoid the term prerequisite (and instead prate on forever about man’s activity “preceding” God’s activity). They chant as their mantra, “In the way of, in the way of” (when they might just as well chant, “Because of, because of”). All the while they teach a conditional theology: If a man would be saved, there is that which he must do. But they will not admit that their theology is conditional. Hubert De Wolf was a more ethical and honest theologian than the Protestant Reformed theologians today. From that point of view, it is refreshing to read De Wolf. When his theology looked like a conditional duck, waddled like a conditional duck, and quacked like a conditional duck, he called it a conditional duck. When the theology of the men of the PRC today looks like a conditional duck, waddles like a conditional duck, and quacks like a conditional duck, they call it the unconditional quail of heaven.

The turkeys.

De Wolf’s Theology

De Wolf’s conditional theology was emphatically a theology of man’s experience. De Wolf took great pains throughout his examination to distinguish between God’s salvation of man from sin and death, on the one hand, and man’s conscious enjoyment of that salvation, on the other hand. Regarding God’s salvation of man, De Wolf insisted that salvation is absolutely and entirely unconditional. However, regarding man’s enjoyment of that salvation and conscious experience of that salvation, De Wolf insisted that it is conditional, with the condition being man’s activity of believing and turning.

Near the beginning of the examination, Chairman Rev. C. Hanko asked this key question: “Is, according to your conviction, the promise conditional?” In reply, De Wolf introduced his distinction between salvation in two senses. Although he did not yet make clear what he meant by salvation in these two senses, he was already making the distinction in order to teach that in one sense salvation is unconditional, and in the other sense salvation is conditional.

I would answer that question, Mr. Chairman, by saying that it depends on you mean (sic), in the first place, by “promise,” and in the second place, by “conditional.” If by “promise” you mean all that belongs to our salvation, including the Holy Spirit, regeneration, and faith, it is never conditional, never; and if you mean by “conditional” that God is dependent in the realization of salvation on what man of himself must do, that promise is never conditional.

However, I believe that you can find in scripture the promise of salvation in an eschatological sense of the word, and that that is often presented in a conditional form. I think that you have that in many instances.

Throughout his examination De Wolf would maintain and pursue this distinction between two senses of salvation. As the examination unfolded, it became evident that De Wolf was making a distinction between salvation, on the one hand, and the conscious experience of salvation, on the other hand. Regarding this distinction, he taught that salvation was unconditional, but the experience of salvation and enjoyment of salvation and conscious appropriation of salvation were conditional. In response to a question about Heidelberg Catechism question and answer 22, De Wolf answered,

Of course, no Reformed man will ever say that God promises to every one of you faith and the Holy Spirit, and I didn’t say that, Mr. Chairman. It certainly would have been ridiculous for me to say that. To say that God promises every one of you that if you believe, he will give you faith and the Holy Spirit, how in the world would that be possible? But I don’t believe that it is ridiculous to say that if you believe, you will be saved. Then that salvation must mean salvation as conscious reality. And I believe that in that conscious sense, as we experience salvation, that that salvation is contingent on our believing and that that believing of ours is, of course, again, the fruit of the grace of God which he bestows sovereignly upon his people.

In answer to the question whether the gift of the Holy Spirit is conditional, De Wolf said,

Mr. Chairman, that all depends on what specific aspect of the gift of the Holy Spirit is meant. If you mean in the initial sense, never conditional. Or, if you mean that the Holy Spirit can only do something if we do something, never conditional. God is never dependent on man.

I have never preached that. I don’t believe that. I would never preach that. God is never dependent on man.

But, Mr. Chairman, you do find in the Catechism that those who pray receive the Holy Spirit; that God gives his Holy Spirit only to those who sincerely desire that Holy Spirit; and that for that purpose prayer is necessary. And so I would say, from that point of view, you could possibly say in the sphere, on the plane of our experience, as we experience these blessings of salvation as rational, moral creatures; and because God has instituted means with which he has connected his grace and Spirit, that, therefore, yes, you could say, in a sense, that the gift of the Holy Spirit is conditional upon the use of those means.

In answer to the question whether assurance by the Holy Ghost is conditional, De Wolf said,

If it means, on the other hand, that in the initial sense, the Holy Spirit cannot assure us unless we first do something—if that’s the meaning of this question—is the assurance of the Holy Spirit that we are—that our salvation is wholly in Christ—if that assurance depends on something in you and me, then it is not conditional. Couldn’t be. That would simply be Pelagian.

However, if you mean by assurance of the Holy Spirit the conscious personal assurance of our personal participation in that salvation, if that’s what you mean—but that’s really not what the Catechism is speaking of here. If that’s what you mean, then my answer is yes. It’s conditional. It is from the subjective point of view of our experience.

After quoting several passages from the confessions, De Wolf continued his answer:

Now, I believe that those articles show, Mr. Chairman, that the assurance of the Holy Spirit, that is, the assurance which the Holy Spirit works concerning our personal participation in that salvation, is conditional, from the point of view of our experience, upon many things—upon sanctification, I would say, as long as we remember—as long as we remember, Mr. Chairman, that persevering is always the fruit of preservation. That’s my answer.

In response to a question about good works, De Wolf answered,

Mr. Chairman, I have never contended that there are conditions unto salvation in that comprehensive sense of the word. I believe, however, that there are conditions to the enjoyment of our salvation, and I think that that can be shown upon the basis of scripture. And I say once again, Mr. Chairman, conditions which we fulfill by the grace of God, not that we do anything of ourselves, not at all.

Throughout his examination De Wolf openly maintained that salvation is unconditional but that man’s conscious enjoyment of salvation is conditional, with the condition being man’s activity of believing. As the examination moved to De Wolf’s statement regarding prerequisites, De Wolf maintained this same distinction. By prerequisite he meant the same thing as condition, with the prerequisite being the believer’s activity of conversion. To the question, “‘Do you maintain that our act of conversion is before we enter into the kingdom of God?’ That is, prerequisite?” De Wolf answered, “In the sense of our consciousness of entering in and being in the kingdom, it is. I would say that you may say that it belongs to our act of entering into the kingdom.”

Later, maintaining the same distinction, De Wolf said,

That means, Mr. Chairman, that every time the gospel is preached, the kingdom is opened to believers over and over again. Why? So that they enter in.

And, Mr. Chairman, I was speaking of the daily, conscious entering into the kingdom of God when I preached that sermon. I was not speaking of conversion in the initial sense. I wasn’t concerned about it, but I was speaking exactly of that fact.

As his answer to the twelfth and final question of the examination, and as his concluding word on the matter, De Wolf maintained the same distinction.

That question 12, my answer is this, Mr. Chairman, as I have explained before, namely, from the point of view of our consciousness—as the Lord plainly teaches us in the text of Matthew 18:1–4—the turning and humbling is necessary for the entrance into the kingdom, over and over and over again. And I believe that to deny this is to contradict the plain words of Christ: “Except,” etcetera.

Always for De Wolf, salvation was unconditional, while the conscious enjoyment and appropriation of salvation was conditional, with the condition being man’s activity of believing and turning. This is the hallmark of De Wolf’s theology. It is its identifying characteristic: conditional enjoyment of salvation.

Other Characteristics

The essence of De Wolf’s theology was the conditional experience of salvation. De Wolf’s theology had some other notable characteristics as well.

First, De Wolf maintained that salvation, the promise of salvation, and the experience of salvation were limited to the elect believer. De Wolf denied that salvation, the promise of salvation, and the experience of salvation were given universally to all men.

Well, I would like to say that I believe that I limited the “every one” by saying, “If you believe.” I certainly limited the “every one” to the believers.

As far as the really receiving the promise is concerned, the promise is given to the believers. Only he who is a believer can appropriate that promise, even though it was proclaimed to everyone in the audience.

Nevertheless, although God addresses this promise to the believer, let me read what I have here. (Reading) “This promise is proclaimed to the whole church every time the sacrament is administered. Nevertheless, only the believer receives it because it cannot be appropriated except by faith. Whether or not we consciously appropriate that promise, therefore, depends on the conscious activity of faith. You must believe in order to appropriate that promise.

Therefore, the act of faith may be said to be the condition for appropriating the promise. The act of faith may be said to be the condition for the appropriating of the promise, and faith is the gift of God to his elect.

The implication of this thing is, Mr. Chairman, that the natural man does it.

Now, I have never taught anything like that, never. I didn’t teach that in that sermon. I didn’t teach that a man by nature, a man totally depraved, is faced with the fact he must convert himself and that he can do it. I wasn’t even speaking of natural people. I was speaking of the people of God who are already in the kingdom.

De Wolf returned to this argument several times throughout his examination. For De Wolf the question of conditions was strictly limited to the realm of the elect believer. The question was not whether there were conditions for an unregenerate man or a reprobate man to enter into the kingdom. Rather, the question was whether there were conditions for an elect, regenerated man to enjoy the kingdom and to experience his salvation. De Wolf’s answer to that question was that there were conditions for the elect, regenerated believer to experience his salvation, and these conditions were the man’s believing and the man’s turning.

Second, De Wolf maintained that the conditions and prerequisites for the enjoyment of salvation were given to man by God. Believing and converting were real conditions unto the enjoyment of salvation, but they were gifts of God to his elect people:

Faith is the gift of God to his elect.

Mr. Chairman, conversion is always, first of all, a work of God, always. You can’t have conversion if God doesn’t work conversion.

Mr. Chairman, my answer is that the act of man is always the fruit of the work of God, also when man fulfills conditions and prerequisites.

For De Wolf the question was not whether man must believe and turn to God of his own free will or by his own power. De Wolf maintained that God alone gave man faith, and God alone gave man conversion. Man’s activity of believing and turning was the fruit of God’s work of giving him faith and conversion. The condition for man’s enjoying salvation was fulfilled by man, but God enabled man to fulfill it by giving him faith and conversion.

De Wolf’s theology, then, was that the elect believer’s experience and enjoyment of his salvation were conditioned upon his faith and conversion, which faith and conversion were given to him as gifts of God. 

A Development of Conditional Theology

De Wolf’s theology marked a development of conditional theology. De Wolf’s theology was essentially the theology of Klaas Schilder but developed specifically along Protestant Reformed lines.

The theology that infiltrated the Protestant Reformed Churches in the late 1940s and early 1950s was the conditional covenant doctrine of Dr. Klaas Schilder of the Gereformeerde Kerken (vrijgemaakt) (Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, Liberated). Contact between the PRC and the Liberated had been established in 1939, when Schilder visited the United States and was invited to preach in Protestant Reformed pulpits. The Liberated and the PRC had great sympathy for each other due to their shared rejection of the theory of common grace and their shared Dutch heritage. Herman Hoeksema and Klaas Schilder had both been deposed from their respective denominations for their stand for the truth of the gospel. When a great tide of Dutch emigrants from the Liberated churches in the Netherlands arrived in the Unites States and Canada after World War II, they sought out the Protestant Reformed Churches. When Klaas Schilder visited the United States again in the 1940s, he was again invited to preach in many Protestant Reformed pulpits. It appeared that the Protestant Reformed Churches might be a home for the thousands of Liberated immigrants flooding into the United States and Canada.

However, it soon became evident that Schilder and the Liberated held to a doctrine of the covenant that was at odds with Hoeksema and others in the PRC. Schilder taught a conditional covenant. According to Schilder, God made a promise in baptism to every single infant, head for head, that God would be the God of that child on the condition that the child would believe in God and obey him when the child came to years of discretion. Schilder’s doctrine found widespread support in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Hoeksema, Ophoff, and those who would remain Protestant Reformed rejected Schilder’s doctrine as the conditional theology of the Christian Reformed theologian William Heyns applied to the covenant.

When the Declaration of Principles was drawn up in 1950 for use in Protestant Reformed mission work with Liberated immigrants, the battle lines were clearly drawn. The Declaration repudiated the teaching “that the promise of the covenant is conditional and for all that are baptized” (Confessions and Church Order, 424). The Declaration was adopted by Synod 1951, and the doctrine of the unconditional covenant ultimately prevailed in the Protestant Reformed Churches over against Schilder’s conditional covenant.

In the midst of all of this, Hubert De Wolf took the essence of Klaas Schilder’s conditional covenant and developed it in the Protestant Reformed Churches. The essence of Schilder’s conditional covenant doctrine was the conditional promise. Schilder taught that God made a covenant promise to every infant at baptism, which promise was conditioned upon the infant’s later taking hold of that promise by faith. De Wolf’s development was to take Schilder’s conditional promise to infants and apply that conditional promise in the realm of man’s conscious experience and enjoyment of salvation. For De Wolf, God’s promise that man would enjoy his salvation was conditioned upon man’s believing God and turning to God.

The questions that were put to De Wolf at his examination brought out that De Wolf was really dealing with a conditional promise, which was the essence of Schilder’s theology. “Is not this a general conditional promise (every one of you…if)?” And: “Is, according to your conviction, the promise conditional?” De Wolf’s answers revealed that he was indeed dealing with a conditional promise, but as that conditional promise applied to man’s experience of salvation.

I don’t believe that it is ridiculous to say that if you believe, you will be saved. Then that salvation must mean salvation as conscious reality. And I believe that in that conscious sense, as we experience salvation, that that salvation is contingent on our believing and that that believing of ours is, of course, again, the fruit of the grace of God which he bestows sovereignly upon his people.

Along the way, De Wolf cleaned up in Schilder’s theology certain matters that would be objectionable to a Protestant Reformed congregation. Whereas Schilder’s conditional promise was universal to all baptized infants, elect and reprobate alike, De Wolf’s conditional promise (as he explained it) was particular to elect believers. In addition, De Wolf made sure to emphasize that the believer’s believing and turning, by which he fulfilled God’s conditions and prerequisites, were the gifts of God to him.

De Wolf’s development of Schilder’s theology is devastating for the child of God. De Wolf’s theology sends the child of God to his own believing and to his own turning from sin unto God for his comfort and peace. Whether the believer can enjoy salvation and experience salvation and be sure of salvation now depend upon whether the believer has performed enough active believing and whether he has done enough active turning.

But the believer never believes well enough. The Lord’s rebuke of his disciples always rings in the believer’s ears: “O ye of little faith” (Matt. 8:26). The believer always says with tears to his Lord, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24). The believer always comes to the Lord’s supper confessing, “We have not perfect faith” (Form for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, in Confessions and Church Order, 269). And the believer never turns far enough. From the height of Peter’s confession of Christ as the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16), Peter becomes Satan, who savors not the things that be of God but those that be of men (v. 23). If the believer must fulfill the condition of believing and turning—even if God gives him his believing and turning and even if the person is an elect, regenerated believer—the believer can never have the comfort and joyful experience of his salvation. His believing is never done well enough, and his turning never goes far enough.

The only theology that can bring peace to the believer is the gospel. It is the theology that the believer’s salvation and the believer’s enjoyment of his salvation are Jesus Christ. The believer rejoices in the Lord, not in himself (Phil. 4:4). The believer’s peace with God is through the Lord Jesus Christ, not through himself (Rom. 5:1). And the faith by which the believer is justified does not refer to man and what man is doing and what man is believing, but it refers to Jesus Christ, the object of faith, in whom all of the believer’s righteousness is found.

Never Officially Condemned

De Wolf’s development of Schilder’s theology made conditional theology palatable for the Protestant Reformed Churches in De Wolf’s day. He had many able defenders in the PRC, some of whom repudiated Schilder’s theology but were willing to defend De Wolf’s theology. A learned document known as the majority report was drawn up for the May 1953 meeting of Classis East, defending and explaining and excusing De Wolf’s theology.¹ The document had many ardent supporters at classis and by all accounts could have carried the day at classis. It is probably not too much to say that the only earthly reason this document in defense of De Wolf was ultimately defeated is because De Wolf himself spoke up to dismiss the document.² The Protestant Reformed Churches barely, barely condemned De Wolf in 1953.

In the end the Protestant Reformed Churches only officially condemned two statements of De Wolf. The May 1953 meeting of Classis East adopted the minority report, which called De Wolf’s two infamous statements from his sermons “literally heretical” and “Arminian.” By this the minority report implicitly repudiated all of De Wolf’s theology. But even the minority report did not explicitly repudiate De Wolf’s theology as he had maintained it in his 1953 examination. In fact, the minority report rejoiced in De Wolf’s examination and strictly limited its condemnation to the two sentences from De Wolf’s sermons that had been protested.

In our opinion both the statements which the protestants condemn are literally heretical regardless of what the Rev. DeWolf meant by them, regardless of how he explains them and regardless of however much we may rejoice that his examination shows that he does not believe the heresy implied in them.³

Neither does the Declaration of Principles explicitly condemn De Wolf’s theology. This is not the fault of the Declaration, since it was written with an eye on Schilder and the Liberated doctrine of a conditional covenant. As such, the Declaration very clearly condemns the Liberated view of conditions. “We repudiate…The teaching that the promise of the covenant is conditional and for all that are baptized” (Confessions and Church Order, 424). But the Declaration never enters into De Wolf’s particular development of Schilder in the realm of man’s experience.

Flourishing Today

De Wolf’s theology of conditional experience flourishes in the Protestant Reformed Churches today. On these pages it has been demonstrated that the theology of the PRC is that of conditional covenant experience.⁴ The new point to make here is that the denomination’s present-day doctrine of conditional covenant experience is De Wolf’s theology. The only difference between the Protestant Reformed De Wolf and the Protestant Reformed theologians of today is that De Wolf honestly spoke of conditions and prerequisites. While the Protestant Reformed theologians teach conditions and prerequisites, they will not use those terms.

There is no discernible theological difference between what De Wolf said in his examination—right down to the texts to which he appealed—and what the PRC are saying today. For example, in a stunning passage in De Wolf’s examination, he said almost word for word what Prof. David Engelsma is writing today. De Wolf was asked whether the promise is conditional. In his answer De Wolf said that although he did not originally intend to teach a conditional promise, he was willing to defend that idea. As his defense of God’s conditional promise, De Wolf said,

I believe that there are also many instances in scripture in which God assures us that he will do something if we will do something. At least, I say, that that’s the form which it comes to us in scripture. You have that, for example, in Malachi. Malachi 3:7, in the last part of verse 7: “Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.” I say that that is the form, that comes to us in this form, that if we do something, God will do something. You have in verse 10, where the Lord says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

I find the same thing, Mr. Chairman, in James 4:8 and 10: “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” In some sense, Mr. Chairman, there is an action of God that follows upon our action. Verse 10: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”

Compare that with Professor Engelsma in 2021.

First, to repeat, there is a vitally important sense in which, in our salvation, our drawing nigh to God precedes God’s drawing nigh to us…Second, this sense has to do with our experience of salvation, which is not an unimportant aspect of our salvation. When we draw nigh to God, by faith including faith’s repentance, God draws nigh to us in our experience. We have the consciousness that God is our near-by friend and that we are close to Him, in His bosom, which is Jesus, so to say.⁵

In another stunning passage from De Wolf’s 1953 examination, he spoke at length about the theological problem that he was trying to solve of “the chronological order of events, with a view to [the sinner’s] entering into the kingdom.” De Wolf carried on at length about “the order” of salvation and what things “follow upon” others; about what is “first” and what is “before” and what happens “then.” And De Wolf made man’s faith and repentance precede God’s translation of man into the kingdom. “Notice that this article [Canons 3–4.10] says first that God confers faith and repentance and that then he translates them.” The whole passage irresistibly reminds one of Professor Engelsma’s latest discourses on man’s activity preceding God’s activity and God’s activity following man’s activity. But De Wolf had the honesty, as Professor Engelsma does not, to call man’s preceding God what it is: a prerequisite. “And then, Mr. Chairman, conversion is prerequisite to entering into the kingdom.”

A Glorious Label

The theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches today is not that of Herman Hoeksema but that of Hubert De Wolf. Though the members of the Protestant Reformed Churches boast of an unconditional covenant, their covenant doctrine is that of conditional covenant experience. In this they show themselves to be the theological children of Hubert De Wolf.

This is significant for the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC). The PRC are crying as loudly as they can to anyone who will listen that the theology of the RPC is antinomian, hyper-Calvinist, and stock-and-block theology, and that the denomination in her repudiation of Arminianism has fallen into the ditch of antinomianism on the other side of the road.

But who is making the charge? It is Hubert De Wolf! It is Hubert De Wolf’s theological heirs. The PRC have to make this charge against the RPC because conditional theology must always accuse unconditional theology of being antinomian. The Pharisees accused Jesus of it. The Judaizers accused Paul of it. And the PRC accuse the RPC of it. When the Professor Engelsmas and all the rest make the charge, “Antinomian!” against the RPC, let the members of the RPC not be troubled by it but realize that they are merely hearing the howl of De Wolf.

In fact, when one’s theology is labeled as “antinomian” by one who teaches conditions, that false charge is a powerful commendation of one’s theology. The truth always draws such a charge from the lie. I hope that the RPC never stop drawing that charge until Christ returns. And if the RPC ever stop drawing that charge, then let the RPC examine whether the denomination has lost the gospel of grace and has adopted the false gospel of man and his doing.

The label “antinomian” when it is falsely applied is glorious. It is not a label to try to avoid. It is not a charge that should cause one to adjust his theology so as to escape the charge. Let the charge come. And let the church wear that false charge without shame. I’m tempted to say, “Print it on a t-shirt.” If I had a boat, I would be tempted to name my boat with the charge.

The Hyper-Salmonist.

The Ancho-Nomian.

The Ditch on the Other Tide.

Let the church not recoil when she is charged with these things. For her accuser is De Wolf, and De Wolf teaches conditional theology.