I would like to begin tonight by noting that these are wonderful, wonderful days in which we are living. And the Lord is being very good to us, very good to his people, good to his church. And the wonder of these days is that there are so many things happening we can hardly keep up with them, so that one day one email goes out, the next day another email goes out, and the next week it happens again. There are so many things for us to study, so many things for us to learn. And that is a wonderful thing for the church. Imagine if there were nothing for us to learn now, if there were no interest whatsoever in the things of the kingdom of heaven. What a dry and barren life that would be. God is being good to us in giving us many, many things to study.
And he is being good to us in making these wonderful days in the building of his church. And that building of his church is remarkable when we consider all of the things that the church has to face. We are really standing in the middle of a hurricane, and that hurricane blows this way and that way upon us. And what are we? We are a bunch of leaves sitting in our pews or standing in our pulpits and would undoubtedly be swept away before the gale force of that hurricane. And yet, here we are, and God continues to establish us upon the truth and upon his gospel.
So these are wonderful days, and whatever trial and affliction there may be in these days and whatever opprobrium and hatred and anger that you as the church bear in these days, remember that the church is built upon Christ, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.
I would like to speak tonight not about personal matters, although there are personal matters that have been raised in this week and last week. The issue before us is entirely doctrinal. I do feel compelled to state that some of the things said about me I find absolutely abhorrent, not from this point of view, that someone would say them, but abhorrent from the point of view that I might be accused of those things. For example, thinking that the church needs me or forgetting that I need the church as the church does not need me. I tell you that I abhor the idea that the church needs me. I detest that idea. I don’t believe that. The Lord could take me out with a heart arrhythmia tonight and lay me in the hospital and take my life. The church of Jesus Christ would be just fine, and there would be hardly an interruption and hardly a hiccup in the life of the church because you are founded on Christ and not on any man, even the man who stands in the pulpit.
But that being said, the issues before us are not personal issues. The issues before us are strictly doctrinal, and the doctrinal issue before us is covenant fellowship. That is striking because that is what the subject of our prayer meetings has been about—the doctrine of covenant fellowship. That is really at heart what the entire controversy has been about—covenant fellowship and the all-important question, is covenant fellowship conditional, or is it unconditional?
That means that the doctrinal question before us tonight is very instructive for us. And it is instructive for us along these lines.
In the first place, the doctrinal issue of covenant fellowship shows the divide that exists between the Protestant Reformed Churches and the Reformed Protestant Churches. There is a divide. The divide is not persons. The divide is doctrine, and it is this doctrine of covenant fellowship. Is it conditional, or is it unconditional?
In the second place, this doctrinal issue shows the Reformed Protestant Churches to be Reformed according to the confessions and scripture. The position that we stake out in this controversy, including the emails of this week, the position that we stake out is the Reformed position. And it is the biblical faith.
Then in the third place, these doctrinal issues are instructive because they show the Protestant Reformed Churches to be departing and to be apostatizing. That is something that probably everyone who is gathered in this room tonight has already seen. And perhaps those who are listening online are still wondering about that. But the doctrinal issues tonight show that the Protestant Reformed Churches are indeed departing; and, in fact, departing not only from the Reformed faith but departing from their own history and their own legacy—departing from things that Herman Hoeksema said.
And so, we welcome this controversy. We welcome emails and opportunities to speak to these matters.
The passage around which these emails center is Malachi 3:7. I would like to read that verse for us tonight, a verse that was preached a couple of weeks ago in this congregation—Malachi 3:7. God’s word to Israel: “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?”
As we look at this text, we see that there is indeed a call or a command in this text. And that is what the controversy in the emails centers around. It is the call or the command of the text. That call of the text is this: “Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.” Or that command or call can be summarized in one word: “Return.” That word “Return” means repent. That word “Return” was spoken to Israel in the midst of her departing, of her apostatizing. That word is spoken to a nation that had gone away. That is God’s accusation in verse 7: “Ye are gone away from mine ordinances.” And to the church that is going away and has gone away, God says, “Return.”
And the church had not gone away recently. She had gone away a long time ago. She had gone away in the days of her fathers. Her fathers were the first to go away, and Israel had continued in that going away: “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them.” To that long-departing church the call, the command, of the text comes, “Return.” Therefore, that is a call to the church, “Repent.” Or it is a call to the church, “Be converted,” which means return or turn around. It is a call to the church, “In that direction you are going, you are sinning. You must turn around from that direction and return unto me.”
That is what this issue is about. It is about that call or that command of the text to return.
Whether you term that a call or a command makes no difference. It is an imperative verb, so that we can call it a command, “Return.” Or we could term it a call, “Return.” The issue is not whether we term it a call or a command.
The issue is, what does it mean when Jehovah God calls or commands his church to return in this text?
Now in order to understand that call or command of the text, “Return,” we must see that there are two kinds of calls in scripture. There are two kinds of commands in scripture. There is, on the one hand, the call of the gospel or the command of the gospel. And on the other hand, there is the call of the law or the command of the law. Two different calls or commands in scripture, so that we are dealing here with a distinction between the law and the gospel. And these two calls—the call of the gospel, on the one hand, and the call of the law, on the other hand—are as different as night and day. The call of the gospel is not the call of the law. And the command of the law is not the command of the gospel. They are not the same thing, and they must be sharply and clearly distinguished.
The call of the gospel then is the call, “Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” That is the call of the gospel. You will find that call, for example, in Acts 16:30–31. When the Philippian jailor—who had just seen the earthquake of the Lord’s presence and was about to kill himself and was stopped by the apostle Paul—said to Paul, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” and Paul’s answer was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house,” that’s the call of the gospel.
Or that call of the gospel was issued by Peter at the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), when the men said to Peter after he had accused them, “You have crucified Jesus Christ. You have taken him by your wicked hands and slain him.” And they cried out to Peter, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” And Peter’s answer was the call of the gospel: “Repent, and be baptized…for the remission of sins…for the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” [vv. 37–39]. “Repent, and be baptized…for the remission of sins.” That’s the call of the gospel.
The call of the law, on the other hand, is what we might call the ten commandments or the many other commandments in scripture. The call of the law is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and thy neighbor as thyself.” And the call of the law is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The call of the law is, “Thou shalt not kill.” All of that is the call of the law. It is the commandment of God.
And that call of the law is found in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, just as the call of the gospel is found in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The call of the law is also found in Luke 10:28, where Jesus said, “Do this, and thou shalt live.” Do this, and thou shalt live. That’s the call of the law or the command of the law.
There is a call of the gospel. That is one thing: “Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” And there is a command or a call of the law, which is another thing: “Do this, and thou shalt live.”
There are very important distinctions between those two calls.
Essence
In the first place, the distinction between the call of the gospel and the call of the law is that they have a different essence. They have a different object. The heart and meaning of the call is different between the law and the gospel. The call of the gospel has as its essence Jesus Christ. He is the meaning of that call. When Paul said to the Philippian jailor, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” the essence of that call is Christ. That was the object that Paul brought the Philippian jailor’s attention to. And when Peter issued the call in Acts 2, “Repent, and be baptized…for the remission of sins,” it was Jesus Christ that was the essence of that call, as Jesus Christ is portrayed in baptism and as Jesus’ blood covers and remits our sins. The essence of the call of the gospel is Jesus Christ and him alone.
The fact that there is also an imperative verb, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, does not mean that the essence of the call of the gospel is what man must do. The essence of the call of the gospel is not man—not man at all but Jesus Christ and him alone.
The call of the law, on the other hand, has as its essence man and what man must do. That call of the law is found in the word thou. Thou shalt not have any other gods before me. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. You do this, and you shall live. The essence of the call and command of the law is the thou, or man. The essence of the call, then, is man’s working and man’s doing. The essence of the call of the law, that is, is man’s working and man’s doing.
That is a sharp difference. That is an essential difference between the call of the gospel, on the one hand, and the call of the law, on the other. They have a different essence or a different object.
Activity
In the second place, the distinction between the call of the gospel and the call of the law is activity. The activity of the call of the gospel is faith: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Or in Acts 2: “Be baptized…for the remission of sins,” which baptism was received by a believer, who believed the things of the gospel and believed in Jesus Christ. The activity of the call of the gospel is believing.
The activity of the call of the law is doing or working or obeying. Working is what the law calls for. “Thou shalt have no other gods.” That’s the work you are called to do. Do not trust in and worship some other god than me. That is your work. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” That’s your work and the activity that you’re called to do.
The distinction between the call of the law and the call of the gospel is found in the activity. And that is a huge distinction because the activity of faith is exactly opposite of the activity of work. They are both activity. No one maintains that faith is not an activity. Faith is an activity, as obeying the law is an activity, but they are activities that are entirely distinct from each other. In fact, they are the exact opposite of each other because the meaning of “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” is that there is nothing for you to do for your salvation. That is what faith is. Faith is not a doing for one’s salvation. Faith is not a working for one’s salvation. But faith is a receiving and a trusting and a resting. That’s all faith is.
God designed faith to be that, to be that receiving and resting. God designed that activity to be the opposite of working. And he designed it to be that so that when a man is saved and receives all of his salvation by faith and by faith alone, then that man can never turn around and say to God, “But I may boast because I have done something after all. I have done this thing of believing after all.” The child of God is saved by faith, and God makes it that way that no man may boast (Eph. 2:8–9) and that all of the glory must go to Jehovah God.
That is a huge distinction between the call of the gospel and the call of the law. The activity of the one is faith, and the activity of the other is a diligent working in obedience to the law.
Power
The third distinction between the call of the gospel and the call of the law is that they have a different power. The call of the gospel has power, and the call of the law has power. But the power of those two is different.
The power of the call of the gospel is salvation. When the call of the gospel is made, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house,” a man is saved by that call. Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of [Jesus] Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” God himself descends in that call of the gospel. God himself takes hold of a man in his own heart by that gospel, and Jehovah God by the word and Spirit of Jesus Christ saves a man by that gospel. He gives that man Jesus Christ by that gospel and gives that man all of his salvation by that gospel. The gospel is “the power of God unto salvation.” That is the power of the call of the gospel.
The power of the law is not salvation. The law will never save a man. It never will. The law was not meant to save a man. It never was. God did not give the law to man and the command of the law to man so that man by his keeping of that law could be saved by it. The law’s power is not salvation in any respect.
When it is time for you to do a good work, the power to do that good work does not come from the law. Not only is the law powerless to save when it comes to the forgiveness of my sins, but the law is powerless to save when it comes to my obeying the law itself. God does not command, “Thou shalt have no other gods,” and that command itself gives you power to have no other gods. That is not the power of the law.
The law has power, but in no sense is the power of the law to save.
The power of the law, rather, is the power to expose sin. The power of the law is to convict a man that he is a sinner and expose a man in his iniquity. Romans 3:20: “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” That is the power of the law, and that is some power! When the law is preached to you, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength,” that law is like a mirror to you and to me. And when we look at ourselves in that mirror and we see that what is required is perfection—“Love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength”—the reflection that that law casts back to us is corruption. “Love God with all thy heart!” I didn’t. “Love God with all thy mind!” I didn’t. “And thy strength and thy soul!” And I didn’t. That is the power of the law, and that is great power, so that when the law says to us on a Sunday morning, “Thou shalt not kill,” the power of that law is to tell you, “You are a murderer.” And when the law says to you, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” the power of that law is to tell you, “You are an adulterer.” That is the power of the law. By the law is the knowledge of sin.
The call of the gospel saves. The call of the law does not save but exposes sin.
There is another use of the law that does not enter into the discussion here. But just to mention that use so that no one might accuse us of overlooking that use, there is another use of the law: to be the rule and the standard and the guide of the Christian’s life. That is, when it comes time for me by the power of the gospel to bring forth fruit of good works unto God, the law tells me what those good works must be. The law tells me how I am to show my gratitude to God.
The whole matter of fruit bearing for the Christian—doing good works, that is—the whole matter of fruit bearing or doing good works can be compared to a grapevine. That grapevine is planted in the ground, and it has a root. It has a vine, and it has all these branches. And these branches are to bear fruit. If that grapevine is left to itself, so that it tumbles over hill and dale, then it will put all of its energy into the expanding of those vines and will not bear good fruit. But when that grapevine is trained up along a trellis and pruned regularly, that grapevine will bear fruit. The power of fruit bearing is the root. That is Jesus Christ. That is the gospel. That fruit is borne by faith, which is the graft of each branch to the vine, so that each branch by faith in Christ bears its fruit. The trellis is the law. It is a dead trellis. That trellis does not give any life to the vine whatsoever. That trellis does not produce a single piece of fruit on the vine or on the branches, but that trellis is the rule, standard, and guide for which way the branches are to grow. That is the other use of the law. But all of the power of that fruit bearing, and all the life of those branches, is from the root and from the vine and not from the law.
We have seen so far the distinction between the call of the law and the call of the gospel. There is the distinction in essence: one shows us Christ; one shows us us. The second distinction is the activity: one calls for faith; one calls for work. And there is a different power: one is the power of salvation; one is the power to expose sin.
And now the issue in the law and the gospel is this: how are you saved? From which of those does your salvation come? From the law or from the gospel? Are you saved by your law keeping according to the command of the law, or are you saved by Jesus’ law keeping according to the command of the gospel?
And the obvious answer is that we are not saved by the law. We are saved by the gospel. And that is captured in Romans 6:14: “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Your way to heaven is not through that iron dome of the law, which constantly thunders down to you, “Do this. Do this, and thou shalt live.” There is no way to heaven for you if you are under the law. But being under grace, under the gospel—which proclaims Jesus Christ and him crucified, Jesus Christ in all his perfection and all of his perfect obedience to the law, for he was under the law, made of a woman, made under the law, and he obeyed it and went right to heaven through it—that gospel that you are under, that grace that you are under, is God’s work of reaching down, taking hold of you, taking you through Christ and his cross of grace right into heaven. That is the issue. Are you saved by that law, or are you saved by the grace of the gospel? “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
This whole teaching is not a new religion, as has been charged. This teaching that the call of the law does not save but only exposes my sin is not a new religion. It is the religion of Jehovah God. It is the religion of the scriptures. This is God’s teaching in Romans 8. At the beginning of the chapter, Romans 8:3: “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.” God’s own word is that the law cannot save. It could not do it, and it was no fault of the law. It is your fault, and it is my fault, that the law cannot save. That law is weak through the flesh. We are fallen in Adam and are unable to keep that law. Even as regenerated Christians we are unable to keep that law perfectly so that by that law we could be saved. The law is weak through the flesh and could not save us. What the law could not do, that God did by the sending of his own Son in the flesh and for sin—condemned sin in the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is your salvation: the Son of God, not the law.
This teaching is also confessional: explicitly, shockingly confessional, unmistakably confessional. Lord’s Day 2 of the Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer 3: “Whence knowest thou thy misery? Out of the law of God.” This is its power, after all. That power of the law is to make me know my misery, to make me know my sin, to make me see I cannot do what the law commands me to do. “Whence knowest thou thy misery? Out of the law of God.”
Then a couple of pages later, in question and answer 19: Whence knowest thou thy salvation? Or as it is worded here: “Whence knowest thou this,” that is, Jesus Christ the mediator? Whence knowest thou Jesus Christ? “From the holy gospel.” From the holy gospel. That is how I know my salvation.
That law and that gospel are different. They are distinct.
Then the Canons of Dordt, heads 3 and 4, articles 5 and 6:
Article 5. In the same light [the same light as man’s mind and will, which cannot save him, just discussed in article 4. In the same light as man’s powerless mind and will] are we to consider the law of the decalogue, delivered by God to His peculiar people, the Jews, by the hands of Moses. For though it discovers the greatness of sin [that is the power of the law: discovers the greatness of sin], and more and more convinces man thereof [that’s the power of the law], yet as it neither points out a remedy [it doesn’t say anything about Christ, doesn’t say anything about my Savior. It only says something about me: “Thou shalt, and thou shalt not.” As it neither points out a remedy] nor imparts strength to extricate him from misery [I cannot get strength to obey from the law. I need the law to show me my sin and to show me the rule of my gratitude, but I can never get strength from the law to obey. That comes from the gospel and comes from Christ. It does not impart strength to extricate him from his misery], and thus, being weak through the flesh, leaves the transgressor under the curse, man cannot by this law obtain saving grace.
Article 6. What therefore neither the light of nature nor the law could do, that God performs by the operation of the Holy Spirit through the Word or ministry of reconciliation, which is the glad tidings [the gospel] concerning the Messiah, by means whereof it hath pleased God to save such as believe, as well under the Old as under the New Testament.
That’s the biblical, confessional distinction between the law and the gospel.
And now we face the exegetical question in Malachi 3:7: what is that call? What is it?
There is a call there. The call is “Return.” Is that the call of the law or the call of the gospel?
My exegesis of that passage in the sermon a couple of weeks ago—which exegesis I maintain—my exegesis was that the call in Malachi 3:7 is the call of the law, the command of the law. That call “Return” is a bare call, a bare command, in this text. Sometimes, that call “Return,” or “Repent,” is indeed part of the call of the gospel. Acts 2, for example, when Peter said, “Repent, and be baptized…for the remission of sins.” There is the call “Repent,” or “Return.”
It is possible that that call be a call of the gospel, so that it would be possible to have an orthodox, true explanation of Malachi 3:7 as the call of the gospel. But then that explanation would have to include in the word “Return” the call to faith and the call to believe, so that returning would not be repentance but repenting and believing. And then any suggestion that there is something that man does first and that God does second must be kept out of that text. It must be kept strictly out of it. If one is going to exegete Malachi 3:7 as the call of the gospel, that would be possible.
But my exegesis of Malachi 3:7 is also possible, and I believe preferable, and I believe correct. In the first place, there is no mention of the Savior in this call, “Return to me, and I will return to you, saith the Lord of hosts.”
In the second place, there is no mention of faith. If one is going to find faith in Malachi 3:7, he must find it in the word “Return,” where it is not automatically found. There is no explicit mention of faith.
In the third place, the text gives a bare command, “Return to me. Return.” And I hear in that bare command the thundering of the law. “Thou shalt return. Thou shalt do this thing.”
Then in the fourth place—and in my own judgment this was decisive for me—the ending of the verse shows what this call worked for Israel. It reveals that Israel’s response to the call was hardness of heart. Israel’s response was, “Wherein shall we return? You call us to return, to come back to you, God, but we never left you. Your call is nonsense. Your call is meaningless. We never left you. Wherein shall we return? What have we ever done wrong?” And I believe that that ending of the verse and the response of Israel is meant to illustrate the purpose and the point of the call, “Return,” in Malachi 3:7. It is to illustrate to you, Israel, and to me, Israel, that when the call of the law comes to us, “Return,” we will never do it. We will never do it by our own strength. We will never do it in obedience to that call by the power of that call. Our response will be a refusal like Israel by nature. When the call comes, “Return,” and we see how Israel responded, then we say, “But God, just like Israel cannot return on her own, neither can I. I cannot.” That call is meant to break me. It is meant to show me my inability and my unwillingness even to acknowledge my departure from the days of my fathers. That is the power of that call. That’s the command of the law.
And that explanation of the text is Reformed. That is not a new religion. That is Canons of Dordt, heads 3 and 4, articles 5 and 6. That is Romans 8:3. There is no threat to the Reformed faith but a faithful explanation of the Reformed faith in this call. And the importance of that call of the law is so that I see my only hope is outside of me. My only hope is in another, whom the Lord must provide. My only hope is that there is something other than “thou shalt return” that I may hear and by which I may be saved. And that something other than “thou shalt return” that I may hear is this: “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” It is this: “The messenger of the covenant, at the beginning of the chapter, whom I will send unto you and who shall come to his temple swiftly.” That is the other message, the message of the gospel. It is the message of God’s work in salvation by Jehovah God.
If that were all this controversy were, that would be the end: whether we are going to exegete Malachi 3:7 as the call of the law or the call of the gospel. That would be the end of this. But that may not be the end of this because the explanation of Malachi 3:7 and like passages that has been proposed in the emails is false doctrine. It is the false doctrine of man’s salvation of himself.
And that false doctrine is evident in the insistence by the professor that there is a sense in which man’s work precedes God’s work.
In this whole matter of the call, mind you, and remember that the significance of the question of the call is, how are you going to be saved? Are you going to be saved by your obeying the law? Or are you going to be saved by Jesus’ gospel? That is the issue: how will you be saved? When the explanation then of the call is made, there is a sense, whatever sense that may be, in which man precedes God, that is false doctrine. That is salvation by the law.
In the emails there has been a repeated insistence on that fact. The original email that was sent out to many was a question from a member of the Protestant Reformed Churches to Professor Engelsma. The second email was the response of Professor Engelsma to that member of the Protestant Reformed Churches.
There was an additional email that was sent out after that by Professor Engelsma to a family forum. That email to the family forum, whether it was intended to be public or was not, left that family forum and has been emailed around, so that I received several copies from various members in my inbox. So I take that email to be public.
There was a third email that was sent out from Professor Engelsma to the family forum today. And in that email, which is intended to be public, there is a further explanation of that family email.
In those family emails, the teaching of the professor is this: “There is a sense, a certain, specific sense, in which our drawing nigh precedes God’s drawing nigh to us. To deny this is to contradict the inspired Word of God.”
In the next email: “I did justice to the obvious truth that there is a sense—one, specific and very important sense—in which our drawing nigh to God, in the language of the text, precedes God’s drawing nigh to us.” Then again: “It is our solemn, serious calling to draw nigh to God.” Amen. We are all in agreement. It is a solemn, serious calling. This next part: “That in a certain sense our drawing nigh to God precedes God’s drawing nigh to us.” No! No! Then later in that same email:
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. Let even the “idiot” Christians among us take note that the text plainly says so. 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.
Then at the end of that email:
There is an important sense in which our drawing nigh to God, by the effectual allure of the promise that in this way God will graciously draw nigh to us (than which experience nothing is more precious), precedes God’s drawing nigh to us.
In these emails the professor is working with James 4:8: “Draw nigh to me, and I will draw nigh to you.” The professor, though he is working with that text, applies everything that he has to say about that text to Malachi 3:7. He sees them as the same thing. In Malachi 3:7, therefore, the teaching, according to the professor, is that in a certain sense our returning to God precedes his returning to us.
Now notice in which arena, or in which sense, this happens. The arena is man’s experience. The arena, or the sense, is man’s enjoyment of his salvation. It is his fellowship, his friendship, his communion with God. So that in this controversy regarding Malachi 3:7, we are in that same arena that we have been in through most of this controversy: covenant fellowship and man’s experience of covenant fellowship and man’s enjoyment of the salvation of God in that fellowship and communion with God. That’s the sense that the professor insists in which we draw nigh to God first, or return to God first, and then he returns to us. That is too far. That’s too far.
It did not have to go that far. If he would have stopped with this: The call of the gospel is effectual and powerful, so that by that call of the gospel, effectual and powerful, God creates faith in the heart of the believer; and by that call of the gospel, God draws that believer to himself, so that by that faith the believer experiences all of the fellowship with God; we could all say, “Amen,” and we could all go home from this controversy. But he did not stop there. He did not say, “God is first in every sense.” But he said, “There is a very real and specific sense in which man is first.” And that is a denial of the gospel.
The doctrine that man is first and God is second is conditional theology. It is conditional theology. Never mind how man gets to be first. Never mind whether man is first by his own innate power, as a Pelagius would have taught; or whether man is first by the grace of God that operates upon him to free him to choose by his will for God. Never mind where the power comes from. The moment man precedes God, that’s conditional.
And I ask you to test that very simply. Have you ever in your life known the Reformed faith ever to teach man preceding God? Have you ever known it to teach man first, then God? I dare say every one of us recoils at that teaching and abhors that teaching.
And that teaching that man is first and God is second is essentially the teaching of every false doctrine in the realm of salvation from the beginning of the world until now. It is Pelagianism. It’s Roman Catholicism. It is Arminianism. It is federal visionism. And whether one who teaches that wants to go into all of those things and be part of all of those things is not the question. We all know how vociferously the professor would deny Roman Catholicism and federal visionism, but the system he has set forth is essentially the same error as all of those. It is conditional salvation: man first, then God. And whatever arena you teach that in—whether it is the arena of receiving all of the blessings of salvation or covenant fellowship or experience or whatever it may be—when you have man preceding God, you have conditions.
This is instructive for us because it shows the divide between the Reformed Protestant Churches and our mother, the Protestant Reformed Churches. The Protestant Reformed Churches by their teaching—which by now is becoming a flood, and by the most prominent men, whom we are bewildered to see espousing it—are teaching that in some specific, important sense man precedes God.
By God’s grace the doctrine that we teach, and only by God’s grace, is that God always, always, always precedes man.
The Protestant Reformed Churches have taught in a formula we could probably repeat in our sleep that God’s covenant is unconditional in its establishment, in its maintenance, and in its perfection. It is unconditional in its establishment, in its maintenance, and in its perfection. But now the question is, what about in its experience, in its fellowship, in its enjoyment? Is it also unconditional there? And to put man before God there is to have conditions in the fellowship.
This rejection and repudiation of that teaching does not in any way jeopardize the call of the gospel or the call of the law. The call of the gospel is serious, and the call of the law is serious. There is a must in the call.
This also does not jeopardize the teaching that man is active. Yes, man is active. He is a branch in the vine. How could he not be active? And man is active in the bringing forth of his good works, of his fruits. And he is active in seeing to it that those good works are brought forth according to the law that God has given him. He is active. There is no denial of that. And so all of the insistence that this, that, and the next article of the Canons has been violated is all beside the point. The point is not whether man is active. The point is not whether the call is serious. The point is this: is man before God or not? That is the point.
And what do the confessions teach about man before God or God before man? The confessions teach that it is through Christ alone, by faith alone, that we have these blessings from God. The Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer 37:
What dost thou understand by the words, “He suffered”?
That He, all the time that He lived on earth, but especially at the end of His life, sustained in body and soul the wrath of God against the sins of all mankind; that so by His passion, as the only propitiatory sacrifice, He might redeem our body and soul from everlasting damnation, and obtain for us the favor of God, righteousness and eternal life.
He obtained for us “the favor of God.” And that cannot mean that he obtained for us the love of God for the first time, as if God did not love us and did not favor us, but then Christ died and God started to love and favor us. That phrase, “obtain for us the favor of God,” must refer to experience. He obtained for us “the favor of God.” He obtained for us the knowledge and enjoyment of the favor of God in covenant fellowship with God. That is God first! That is God first all the way. That is God first through the cross of Jesus Christ, by which that favor, that experience of favor, was obtained. The confession in Lord’s Day 15 teaches this matter of God first.
Also in the Belgic Confession, article 24, which deals with our good works, we read at the end of that article:
Moreover, though we do good works, we do not found our salvation upon them; for we can do no work but what is polluted by our flesh, and also punishable; and although we could perform such works, still the remembrance of one sin is sufficient to make God reject them. Thus, then, we would always be in doubt, tossed to and fro without any certainty, and our poor consciences continually vexed, if they relied not on the merits of the suffering and death of our Savior.
That paragraph is obviously dealing with the experience of the child of God and his poor conscience, which would be continually vexed. When would his poor conscience be continually vexed? When would he never have the experience of his salvation and fellowship? If he founded his salvation, in any sense, if he founded his salvation upon those good works, upon his returning and upon his obeying and upon his doing all the things of the law. If the child of God says, “I must first do, and then I will have from God,” then the question that will plague him until he dies is, “Did I ever do enough? Did I ever do it?” His conscience would be continually vexed.
So also the Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer 30:
Do such then believe in Jesus the only Savior, who seek their salvation and welfare of saints, of themselves, or anywhere else?
They do not; for though they boast of Him in words, yet in deeds they deny Jesus the only deliverer and Savior; for 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.
Not only your “salvation” but your “welfare,” that is, your enjoyment and your experience, must be found by faith in Jesus Christ, the complete savior, alone, and not in yourself and your obeying and your doing something first.
This matter of putting man first, even in the realm of experience, is fatal. And it is fatal because when we are in the realm of experience, we are in the realm of justification. Justification by faith alone is a matter for the realm of experience—justification by faith alone and the peace with God that we have by that justification.
And if a man insists that in this realm of experience then, and his peace with God, that man must be first in some obedience to the law first, then that man and all who follow that man are debtors to do the whole law without fail. That is Galatians 3:10: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” To teach that by the law, which we do first, God returns to us, which is second, is to put a man in debt to do the whole law, which law will curse him if he fails to obey one of its commandments.
We are dealing with justification by faith alone and the peace with God that the child of God has in that justification by faith alone.
Let me read to you the way the Protestant Reformed Churches sounded many decades ago. Herman Hoeksema:
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And that same Christ preached to him, “This you must do: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” That means, beloved, you must do nothing. Believe. Believe. Nothing. Do nothing but believe, believe, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
Herman Hoeksema again:
Listen. We must believe? Oh, that’s true, but is that the gospel? Is that the gospel? We must believe? We must believe? If that were the gospel, beloved, that gospel could never be realized. I say once more: to be sure, we must believe. But there is no hope in that statement, and there is no salvation in that statement. Because if you only say that we must believe—which means, of course, that nobody has the right not to believe, and nobody has the right to be an unbeliever—then we are bound before God to believe. Yes, yes, yes. There is no hope in that. That is not the gospel.1
That is the position that was taught in the Malachi 3:7 sermon and the position that the Reformed Protestant Churches stand for.
May God strengthen us to continue that witness, which is not to our glory but to his glory alone.
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