Introduction

Prof. David Engelsma has come out with a speech on antinomianism and a letter criticizing Reverend Lanning’s summary of Professor Engelsma’s teaching about man’s being first. I will give my impressions.

I have a complaint—and this is generally for our Protestant Reformed opponents. They cite passages of scripture against us and our doctrine in support of their own statements but do not explain these passages and how they teach what our opponents say they teach. For instance, in his letter, Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken, Professor Engelsma writes,

I urge him [the editor of Sword and Shield] also to open his eyes to the fundamental Christian truth that God works in such a way that our repenting precedes our receiving the gift of forgiveness, so that the necessary call of the gospel is, “repent that you may be forgiven” (cf. Mark 1:15; Mark 2:17; II Cor. 7:10; Luke 13:3, 5; Luke 15:11–32).

Professor Engelsma cites the above passages against us and our theology, but he does not do us the courtesy of explaining how the passages condemn our theology. I do not believe that a single one of those passages teaches that the call of the gospel is “repent that you may be forgiven.”

In the Copy of the Lecture on “Antinomism” Given to my Reformed Doctrines Class on January 26, 2022 and in Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken, he accuses us of baseless name-calling, as if in our contentions against him and his doctrine and the doctrine of his denomination we were children arguing in a ball game about whether someone is safe at first base.

Let me assure everyone that we are not engaging in mere rhetoric or name-calling. We are doing polemics and now against him, his doctrine, and the doctrine of his denomination. In polemics it is necessary to point out error, who teaches it, its essence, and where it leads.

We believe that the doctrine the professor is now promoting brings conditions into the covenant and that at its essence the doctrine is federal vision, Arminian, and Pelagian. We believe our charges, and we stand behind them. We can prove them at even greater length and depth than we already have. We believe that this theology has destroyed and will continue to destroy the Protestant Reformed denomination. We understand full well the seriousness of the issues involved and of our accusations against him. We remind everyone that the ministers, officebearers, and members of the Reformed Protestant Churches have lost their ecclesiastical lives for their doctrine. We are not playing. The stakes could not be higher.

Professor Engelsma admits that if what we say is true, then the charges are “damning.”

His speech regarding antinomianism is inexcusable bragging and blatant hypocrisy. He does not reckon with the corruption that afflicts the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) from top to bottom and in every area of the church. Pedophiles, rapists, liars, sexual predators, homosexuals, and more, as well as those who knowingly cover for them or turn a blind eye to their sins, occupy offices in his denomination, hold influential positions, or sit comfortably in the pews of the churches secure in the knowledge that they will never be dealt with. Besides, false doctrine is routinely preached from the pulpits of his denomination.

Does he believe the false doctrines that we have pointed out? If he does not, then he tolerates doctrinal lawlessness. If he does, then he is guilty of doctrinal lawlessness.

The Lord Jesus Christ has been beating the Protestant Reformed Churches with a stick, and the only thing it has done to them is harden them in their vanity about their orthodoxy, of which Engelsma’s speech is a prime example.

Every mention of antinomianism by the Protestant Reformed clergy and seminary professors is hypocrisy. They are not champions against antinomianism, but they use the charge to attack the truth that they cannot stand or of which they are suspicious that it does, in fact, make men careless and profane.

In the letter Professor Engelsma tries to appear magnanimous and conveniently passes over his own condemnations of us. Where was such magnanimity when we were being cast out of the churches and the schools? Where was his magnanimity when we were being damned in public announcements, emails, letters, speeches, articles, and sermons? He tries to be magnanimous in the name of the PRC and as though that is how the denomination has treated us.

But I have never dealt with an angrier, a more vindictive, and a pettier people: from the Reformed Free Publishing Association, to the school boards, to the consistories, to the ministers and professors, to everyday run-ins with people. They are the antithesis of magnanimous. They show themselves to be vindictive, prickly, narrow-minded, and small-souled. I have received kinder treatment from unbelievers and long-standing antagonists against my preaching and writing than from the members of the PRC. Trying to instruct them was a thankless task as a minister, and trying to warn them of impending dangers was perilous and ultimately
deadly.

In Professor Engelsma’s failed attempt at being magnanimous, he is also directly and publicly contrary to the decisions of his denomination and the letters and announcements that declared us to be schismatic, rebellious, and insubordinate. His denomination and the decisions of his denomination do not allow him such magnanimity. We were suspended from office. That suspension ends in excommunication and is in principle excommunication. By our suspensions the Protestant Reformed Churches cast us out of the kingdom of heaven and delivered us to Satan for the destruction of our flesh. Professor Engelsma must reckon with that. He is all about the assemblies and their decisions, but he picks and chooses which ones he personally will follow.

I said before that one must choose whether what has transpired was reformation or schism. If Professor Engelsma says schism officially through his church but will not say schismatics about us in his writings, then he shows that he lies or does not believe the decisions of his own denomination. What was his involvement in those decisions? What is his view of those decisions? Let him come out and say that his denomination was wrong, that the behavior of the consistories and church visitors was reprehensible and ungodly, or let him condemn us with the charges of his denomination. But let him not pretend to be magnanimous when his denomination has cast us out as wicked men and when the clergy and membership will not recognize us as ministers or churches and can hardly say our names without spitting.

I also criticize his method in both the speech and the letter as ecclesiastical grandstanding. He writes, as it were, with a sideways glance at the broader Reformed church world, which he informs us is watching from the sidelines. He acts as though he is interested in a serious debate, but he does not even do us the courtesy of writing in our magazine. He does not even bother to write into his own denomination’s magazine. He criticizes us and our magazine publicly but will not engage us. We have offered to publish him and to give him as much space as he wants. He writes from what amounts to a soapbox on a street corner, so that debate with him is impossible. He should write to a magazine, preferably Sword and Shield since the Standard Bearer does not allow controversy on its pages. Or he should take up our offer to debate. We have offered to debate the issues publicly with anyone who will do so. No one will take us up on that either.

In light of these things and others that I prefer not to say in public, I would like more than anything to ignore the letter and the speech. But I cannot ignore them. Professor Engelsma makes significant new advances in his doctrine of man’s activities preceding God’s activities, and his letter is being passed around and recommended as a good explanation of Reformed orthodoxy. I maintain that it is not and that, indeed, it will harden the Protestant Reformed denomination in its doctrinal departure.

Angry about Misrepresentation

Professor Engelsma is angry because we supposedly misrepresented him. If that is the case, then it is merely the pot calling the kettle black. He has engaged in almost nothing but misrepresentation since he started speaking on the issues that led to the split in the Protestant Reformed Churches.

About our supposed misrepresentation he writes,

His reference was to my assertion that in a certain aspect of God’s work of salvation God works in such a way that He moves us to act in order that He may then act in the way He has determined. In that particular aspect of salvation, God works in such a way that our activity (which He accomplishes) precedes His activity. The precise reference was to His act of the forgiving of our sins. Our repenting precedes His remission of our sins. My statement was as follows: “It pleases God…to forgive in the way of the sinner’s repenting…Neither is repentance the cause of forgiveness…[As an aspect of faith it is] the (God-worked) means. It is not the cause…The PRC teach that repentance is the (God-given and God-worked) means unto the remission of sins. As means, repentance precedes remission of sins; as end, remission of sins follows repentance. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

I will rehearse for the reader what Professor Engelsma wrote on this issue in June 2021 (emphasis added).¹

We do draw nigh to God; God calls us seriously to do so; and 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. (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum, June 14, 2021)

A member of the church, who considered himself the most orthodox member of the congregation and probably of the denomination, if not of the catholic church of all time, objected to my sermon because 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 and in which sermon I vehemently exhorted the congregation, including the ultra-orthodox member, to draw nigh to God. (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 16, 2021)

Even one who is “mentally challenged” can understand James to be teaching that it is our solemn, serious calling to draw nigh to God; that in a certain sense our drawing nigh to God precedes God’s drawing nigh to us; and that it is not Christian orthodoxy to deny our serious calling or that in a certain sense our drawing nigh to God precedes His drawing nigh to us. (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 16, 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. Let even the “idiot” Christians among us take note that the text plainly says so. (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 16, 2021)

Let all us “idiots” look closely at James 4:8. And let us see with the eyes of faith, not blinded by a man-made scheme of ultra-orthodoxy, eyes that understand the clear teaching of God’s Word, that 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. (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 16, 2021)

Question to AL: does he deny that God draws nigh to us in the way of His drawing us nigh to Himself, so that our drawing nigh to Him precedes our experience of His drawing nigh to [us]? (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 17, 2021)

God is always first in salvation, but with regard to the assurance of salvation He works in the order of drawing me to Himself as the way to draw nigh to me. (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 17, 2021)

Otherwise even AL will have to acknowledge to his congregation that there is a sense in which our returning to God, by the effectual power of the grace of God in the call, precedes God’s returning to us, who have gone astray. (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 17, 2021)

Let AL and his audience ask the question of himself and themselves in light of Malachi 3: does the passage not teach that there is a sense in which Israel’s returning to God, by His efficacious call, precedes Israel’s enjoyment of these blessings. This does not mean that man is first. To charge this against one who rightly explains Malachi 3 is not merely a reprehensible tactic by which one thinks to win an argument, but also the twisting of Holy Scripture by which one opposes the way of God’s saving work with His people. (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 17, 2021)

Presenting my thought as man’s preceding God is sheer falsehood. The truth is, as I also made plain, that our drawing nigh to God, by His effectual call, precedes God’s drawing nigh to us in our experience. (Professor Engelsma to the Engelsma Family Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 17, 2021)

The summary of Professor Engelsma’s theology as teaching that there are activities of man that precede activities of God is a fair summary. 

Professor Engelsma adds to all of these teachings now that God causes man to act that God may act. The professor makes qualifications because the offensive nature of the theology has been pointed out. But his qualifications are similar to saying that there are conditions in salvation and then adding that we fulfill them all by grace. That has been a refuge of those who have taught conditions throughout history and especially in the history of the Protestant Reformed Churches during 1953. I maintain that all of his qualifications amount to the same thing.

The bare statement is this: “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” (emphasis added). That statement cannot be saved. That cannot be talked straight. That cannot be qualified to make it right. That is conditional. And Professor Engelsma makes it clearer in his recent letter, as if more clarity were necessary.

A condition is that there is some blessing or activity of God that follows some activity of man and without which activity of man that blessing or activity of God does not come.

So infamously in 1953 it was said that “our act of conversion is a prerequisite to enter the kingdom.” Thus the entrance into the kingdom, which is surely God’s act, does not come about unless man converts. Some ministers tried to talk that straight by saying that a man converts by grace, but the fact is they were camouflaging the business. They wanted and they preached that man’s activities—God-given and God-worked—were decisive. That is conditional theology.

With this theology Professor Engelsma and the PRC will never again draw the charge of hyper-Calvinism. This is shameful, for that was their legacy. In the interest of the accolades of the broader church world, they have turned their backs on their heritage and on the reproach their fathers endured. They have stopped dwelling alone, and it will be to their destruction. What Reformed person of federal vision persuasion, what Reformed teacher of federal vision, or even Norman Shepherd himself would disagree with Professor Engelsma’s statement regarding the relationship between repentance and forgiveness?

A man once told me that the first rule of holes is that if you find yourself in one, stop digging.

But Professor Engelsma keeps digging and stubbornly defends his theology.

What is sad is that after everything he has written, this will be his legacy. Everyone will forget all of his qualifications. They will remember, and they will teach, that Professor Engelsma’s theology is that in a certain sense man’s activities precede God’s blessings and that God causes man to act so that God may act. They might not even say that. They will just say, “Man precedes God,” and they will become bolder and bolder in their conditionality.

Engelsma and the Ecclesiastical Assemblies

Professor Engelsma also makes clear that his teaching—man’s activities preceding God’s activities—was the burden of recent Protestant Reformed synodical decisions.

Despite the efforts of myself and of the assemblies of the churches of which I am a member, he does not understand that God works this aspect of salvation in such a way that He (sovereignly) moves the elect sinner to repentance so that, following this repentance, He may forgive. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

The language used in those synodical decisions was that there are activities of man—by grace, of course—that lead to God’s blessings and that there are degrees of fellowship on the basis of how many works man performs—and we would assume on the basis of how much he repents. By these decisions synod made official Protestant Reformed dogma that man in a certain sense precedes God. I am not quoting from the decisions, nor do I intend to waste my time quoting. Those interested in the decisions can find them in the Acts of Synod.

The point now is that Professor Engelsma says that what he is teaching about man’s activities preceding God’s activities is not merely his own private opinion, but that this was the point of all the many words, gallons of ink, and reams of paper that have been used in making recent Protestant Reformed ecclesiastical decisions on these matters.

The theology of the PRC not only unofficially in the pulpit but also officially in its decisions is Professor Engelsma’s doctrine about man’s preceding God.

Let everyone take notice: the Protestant Reformed denomination officially, by Professor Engelsma’s own admission, has adopted the dogma that scripture and the Reformed creeds teach that man’s activities precede God’s blessings and activities.

However, that doctrine is not Reformed at all.

I challenge anyone to prove that scripture and the Reformed creeds teach that in a certain sense man’s activities precede God’s activities or that God causes man to act so that God may act.

Repentance, as Aspect of Faith

About his view of repentance in relationship to faith, Professor Engelsma makes some startling admissions that are worthy of comment. He writes,

Neither is repentance the cause of forgiveness…[As an aspect of faith it is] the (God-worked) means…

Apparently the editor does not know that the Reformed tradition follows Calvin in regarding repentance as an aspect of faith. Repentance is not a “good work” of the sinner that is a “fruit” of faith produced by the sinner, but an element of faith itself (cf. his Institutes, 3.3.1: “Both repentance and forgiveness of sins…are conferred on us by Christ, and both are attained by us through faith…Repentance…is also born of faith”). The editor makes repentance a “good work” of the sinner, which greatly aids him in his (practically fatal; that is, fatal to Christian practice) denial that repentance is the way to forgiveness. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

Perhaps Professor Engelsma can point to an article in the creeds that establishes his doctrine that repentance is an aspect of faith.

Maybe the Heidelberg Catechism overlooked this part of faith in Lord’s Day 7.

Professor Engelsma’s making repentance an aspect of faith is a vital part of his theology of man’s preceding God in a certain sense. He hinted at it in earlier letters. He tightly joined faith and repentance and made them both means to the forgiveness of sins. But now he comes out and says that repentance is an aspect of faith.

Let everyone understand: we absolutely deny that repentance is an aspect of faith. He says that we are ignorant of the entire Reformed tradition for denying this.

Professor Engelsma does not prove his point at all from the quotation that he gives from John Calvin. At the very least, in that quotation Calvin distinguishes repentance from faith when he says that repentance is “attained…through faith.” 

However, Calvin states the matter clearly when he comments on Acts 20:21: “Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Calvin writes,

There he reckons repentance and faith as two different things. What then? Can true repentance stand, apart from faith? Not at all. But even though they cannot be separated, they ought to be distinguished…So repentance and faith, although they are held together by a permanent bond, require to be joined rather than confused.²

Repentance and faith: Joined. Not confused.

Professor Engelsma charges us with dispensing with repentance because we will not confuse it with faith. Repentance is not faith, and repentance is not an aspect of faith.

Calvin agrees with us.

Regarding the Reformed tradition on the matter, Heinrich Heppe gives the consensus when he writes,

Faith is always bound up with repentance, but it is not a part of it. Faith is primarily a relation of man to Christ. Repentance on the other hand is a relation, resting on faith in Christ, of man to God and to God’s will. Therefore repentance can only enter in, where faith is already present as its presupposition.³

To prove his point Heppe quotes from the Leiden Synopsis, a document written shortly after the Synod of Dordt in 1618–19 to explain its doctrine.

If the word repentance is taken strictly [that is, as our sorrow for sin]…then it is usually distinguished from faith, as are cause and its proper effect and fruit, and so Scripture distinguishes it in different passages.⁴

The Reformed tradition is on our side too.

The reason, at least in part, that faith and repentance are to be distinguished is because if you confuse them, then you have justification by faith and works. You take the eye of faith off its proper object and introduce another object. The sole object of faith is the goodness of God, and you can say in short that the sole object of faith is Christ. Where scripture says, “Faith alone,” you cannot say, “Faith and repentance,” for then you say, “Christ plus something.”

It is Christ alone who justifies through faith alone.

Repentance, Not Love for God

Professor Engelsma also criticizes the idea that repentance is love of God. He writes, quoting from the Westminster Confession of Faith,

Having established that repentance is “an evangelical grace [not a ‘good work’ of the sinner—DJE],” and that it definitively consists of “grief for and hatred of sins, [not the ‘love of God,’” which is rather the source of repentance than the identity of it; cf. II Cor. 7:9–11—DJE]…(Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

Along with this Professor Engelsma ridicules the idea that repentance is a work. He writes,

The editor makes repentance a “good work” of the sinner, which greatly aids him in his (practically fatal; that is, fatal to Christian practice) denial that repentance is the way to forgiveness. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

The activity of repentance involves works. Professor Engelsma’s criticizing repentance as being a work in contrast with its being grace calls into question what he understands by works of the sinner. All the works of the sinner are God’s gifts to him and what God works in and through the sinner. My works as a believer are God’s gifts to me that he before ordained that I should walk in them. These works are the fruits of repentance. Repentance is simply designated by its fruits.

That repentance is love for God (and work) is not the novel doctrine of Reformed Protestant radicals, as Professor Engelsma makes it out to be. Both ideas about repentance can easily be established from the tradition of the Reformation.

Luther’s well-known first of his Ninety-five Theses states, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” The just shall live by faith, and repentance is the tear in the eye of faith.

Heinrich Heppe, giving the Reformed consensus, writes, “Repentance is thus a gracious power, bestowed on the elect, by which they lay aside the life of sin and busy themselves with righteousness.”⁵

Heppe quotes from Reformed theologian Cocceius, who describes the two parts of repentance—the mortification of the old man and the quickening of the new man:

These parts go together. But as regards the order of nature, although newness is subsequent to oldness, yet the newness of love of God is the cause of the abolishing the oldness of enmity of God.⁶

Cocceius simply uses “love of God” as a summary of repentance.

In his criticism of us, Professor Engelsma is also on the dangerous ground of openly criticizing the Reformed creeds.

Lord’s Day 33 asks about the conversion of man and answers that conversion

is a sincere sorrow of heart that we have provoked God by our sins…It is a sincere joy of heart in God, through Christ, and with love and delight to live according to the will of God in all good works. (A 89–90, in Confessions and Church Order, 121–22)

Repentance is very often designated as conversion and conversion as repentance. The creed says that conversion is “joy of heart in God,” which is surely love of God, and the Catechism mentions this love of God as that which characterizes the believer’s life of obedience to God’s law.

The Reformed tradition and the creeds are on our side.

Repentance basically consists of two parts: the mortification of the old man and the quickening of the new man. The mortification of the old is the negative side and involves the believer’s hatred of sin. The quickening of the new man is the positive side and involves the believer’s love for God and delight to walk in good works. We can also make the point that the love of God is chief. I never hate sin so much as when I am in the presence of the gracious God.

Ungoding God

In an often overlooked article of the Canons of Dordt, 1.11, the creed says, “As God Himself is most wise, unchangeable, omniscient, and omnipotent, so the election made by Him can neither be interrupted nor changed, recalled or annulled” (Confessions and Church Order, 157). The article teaches that one’s doctrine of salvation must harmonize with one’s doctrine of God. The application to this controversy is this: As God is sovereign and independent, so man cannot be first, and God cannot will to make man first, and God does not work to cause man to act so that God may act. Whatever freedom man has as a rational, moral creature, his actions and activities as a rational, moral creature must be strictly subscribed by and understood within the sovereignty of God.

Professor Engelsma attempts to save his doctrine of man’s preceding God by an appeal to the way God works.

God saves. God is not only first in our salvation; He is exclusive in our salvation. That is, He alone saves; He saves in the entirety of salvation. Neither do we save ourselves in any respect, nor do we cooperate in our salvation, nor does salvation depend on us. God saves, and He saves in a certain, important order of this salvation, specifically in that aspect of salvation that consists of the forgiveness of sin. He is pleased to forgive in the way of moving us to repent of our sins. Therefore, He sovereignly causes us to repent. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

It must be understood that in this paragraph the word, “He is pleased to forgive in the way of moving us to repent of our sins,” are to be read as Professor Engelsma explained Malachi 3:7: there is a certain and vital sense in which man precedes God. “In the way of” means that God works in such a way that man is first and that God causes man to act so that God may act. Speaking that way while making appeals to God’s decision to work in such a way is not legitimate. It makes God ungod himself. God cannot ungod himself. God’s decree is not an exercise in God’s ungoding himself. Can God decree to work in such a way that Christ gives up his divine attributes? Can God work in such a way that he makes the creature first before God? That is not God. God brings to pass what he decreed.

What is really offensive about Professor Engelsma’s theology is that man is now first in the matter of repentance and that man’s activities are the may of God’s activities.

Man is not even first in the matter of sin! Did God make Pharaoh first in the hardening of his heart? First, Pharaoh hardened his heart, and then God hardened Pharoah’s heart? God was first. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Did God make Adam first in the fall? First Adam fell into sin, and then God came with forgiveness. God decreed the fall. God was first. God realizes his covenant in the way of sin and grace. God determined sin as the way to the revelation of his glorious grace! God is first. And did God cause Adam to draw near to God so that he could draw near to Adam? If that were the case, salvation would never have happened. Adam fled from God, and God drew near to Adam.

The truth of God is one-sided. It proclaims the sovereignty, the absolute sovereignty, of God. The truth does not ignore that man is a rational, moral creature, but the truth circumscribes man’s choices and decisions by the will of God. God is sovereign: God is sovereign over the salvation of sinners; God is sovereign over the damnation of sinners; God is sovereign even when devils and wicked men act unjustly. God is sovereign over man’s repentance. God causes man to repent, not in order that God may act in a certain way, thus binding his activity to man’s activity; but in the unfolding of God’s eternal decree, he causes man to repent so that the one whom God determined to save he saves; and he draws near to that one to make that salvation a reality. God is first also in drawing near to man. Man is never, not even in his sin and wickedness, first. Man is not first in apostasy. Man never precedes God, not even in his sin and wickedness, let alone in the grace of repentance. God ordained the revelation of his glorious grace in the way of sin. It is not at all wrong to say that God’s covenant is realized in the way of sin. Adam fell according to God’s decree. In the language of Paul, “In the wisdom of God the world by [God’s] wisdom knew not God” (1 Cor. 1:21).

And Professor Engelsma wants man to be first in repentance, of all things!

Saying that God orders repentance and God causes man to be first so that God may work in a certain way is bad theology in almost every word. God binds himself not to be God in a certain instance. That is impossible. Man first in any instance is God not being God. Man as something in the matter of salvation makes God nothing in salvation. God is first because God is God.

God causes man to repent not so that God may then act in a certain way. God causes man to repent in accordance with God’s eternal will for the life of the sinner in whom he delights.

Is that not what Ezekiel says in Ezekiel 33:11? “Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” God’s eternal delight in the life of the wicked, a delight in which he chose them and appointed them to salvation, is the source and power of the repentance of the wicked. There is no man’s preceding God in that.

God precedes man eternally. And on account of that eternal preceding, God comes, and he turns man, as Jeremiah says. “Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God” (Jer. 31:18). Thou art Jehovah my God. Jeremiah grounds the fact that Jehovah turns him in Jehovah’s being Jeremiah’s God, and Jehovah is the God of men and women from eternity. Experience or otherwise, Jehovah is first because Jehovah is God alone, and man is not god, and the true God cannot give his glory to another by making man first, any more than Jehovah can decree to give up his perfections.

Denying What Christ Said

Professor Engelsma excoriates us and mocks us that we deny the plain words of scripture. It is incomprehensible, he says. It is so obvious that “idiots” can understand this. I warn him that idiots have done many terrible things with the plain words of scripture. Indeed, if you want—on the basis of the plain words of scripture, of course—you could teach that there is no God. Does not scripture say that there is no God? Even an idiot can see it.

But I have another plain word of scripture for Professor Engelsma, which will be my fortress against his theology, and that is the word of Christ: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). There Christ says that all drawing near to God and coming to God is the drawing of the Father. That is what angered the Jews. It was not merely that Christ made salvation exclusive to himself, for the Jews made salvation exclusive to those who obeyed the law. But the issue was that Christ made salvation exclusive to himself, and then he said that no one can come to him apart from the sovereign will of God; so that Christ put salvation—also its experience—in God’s power and in his sovereignty. And I will state the obvious: Christ did not say that God draws near in the way of man’s drawing near first. God draws man, and he comes to God. God is first.

And not denying merely what Christ said but also the truth about Christ’s very coming. In the coming of Christ, God drew near to his people. He drew near to accomplish their salvation in fulfillment of his covenant promise made to Adam in the garden, to Noah, to Abraham, to David, and to all the patriarchs. The coming of Christ is the promise. He is our forgiveness, our repentance, our justification, and our sanctification, as Paul says. “Of him [God] are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). Christ, when he comes in the incarnation and to us in our experience, is the promise in every respect. Our whole salvation is in him; and when we are united with Christ, we receive all that salvation. Of God we are in Christ Jesus. 

Does not the coming of Christ himself refute the idea of man first? Did the coming of Christ and forgiveness in his name result from Israel’s obedience? Did the coming of Christ and forgiveness wait on Israel’s repentance? Or did the promise of Christ’s coming stand in Israel’s love for God? Christ’s coming and forgiveness stood on the basis of God’s unchanging being. Was it not exactly Israel’s disobedience—her monstrous, history-long disobedience and utter failure to repent—that magnified the grace of God in sending Christ? If Professor Engelsma is correct, then Christ could never come, for Israel did not repent first.

Outside the Declaration of Principles

Professor Engelsma has trumpeted his denomination’s document, the Declaration of Principles. His theology of man’s preceding God is not in harmony with that document’s viewpoint of man’s activities in relationship to the promise and sovereignty of God. The Declaration of Principles says,

1. That God surely and infallibly fulfills His promise to the elect.

2. The sure promise of God which He realizes in us as rational and moral creatures not only makes it impossible that we should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness but also confronts us with the obligation of love, to walk in a new and holy life, and constantly to watch unto prayer. (III.B.1–2, in Confessions and Church Order, 426)

The promise of God is sure. It does not come about because man does something so that God may do something else. God realizes his promise and all of salvation, and repentance is included in that promise. Where is man first in all that? God’s infallible fulfillment of his promise is the reason for the call to thankfulness. Man’s obligations are the fruit of God’s fulfillment. Man’s obligations are not those activities upon which the blessings of God wait, even if those activities of man are the work of grace.

Man’s activity is not the issue.

God’s fulfillment of his promise is the issue.

Lord’s Day Fifty-One

Professor Engelsma hangs his argument now on another text. This is the fifth petition of the Lord’s prayer.

This mistake is serious enough [the mistake for which Engelsma criticizes us]. It stands uncomprehending before the petition of the model prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” To say nothing about the obvious relation between our forgiving each other and God’s forgiving us, the petition has the penitent sinner requesting forgiveness of God. The penitence that prompts the request for forgiveness precedes God’s forgiveness of the penitent sinner…

This order of God’s work of salvation is not an arcane mystery for learned theologians to puzzle over, but the daily confession and experience of every believer. It confronts every believer daily in the petition of the model prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Leave out of consideration that forgiveness here follows the believer’s activity of forgiving his neighbor: “as we forgive our debtors.” The main thought of the petition is that the penitent sinner asks for forgiveness: forgiveness follows penitence; repentance precedes remission of sins. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

So according to Professor Engelsma, the fifth petition of the Lord’s prayer means that we do not experience God’s forgiveness of us until we forgive our debtors and that we do not experience forgiveness until we ask for forgiveness. The main thought of the petition, according to him, is that “forgiveness follows penitence.” We draw nigh to God, and then and only then does God draw nigh to us. We turn to God, and then and only then does God turn to us. This is supposed to be the obvious meaning of the fifth petition.

But Professor Engelsma should know that the Reformed faith has an interpretation of the fifth petition in Lord’s Day 51. 

First, the Lord’s Day occurs in the third section of the Catechism. The third section comes after the stirring close to the second section, in which the believer knows with absolute confidence that he is forgiven for Christ’s sake alone. The believer knows that; and because he knows that, when he sins he goes to God for forgiveness. 

Second, the Catechism’s explanation of the fifth petition has sinners saying, “Even as we feel this evidence of Thy grace in us, that it is our firm resolution from the heart to forgive our neighbor” (A 126, in Confessions and Church Order, 139; emphasis added). The sinner knows his forgiveness. He knows it, and knowing it he asks for it. And having that grace, he also is resolved to forgive his neighbor.

The explanation of the sinner’s experience by Professor Engelsma bears no resemblance to this explanation of the Heidelberg Catechism.

1953 Redivivus

Professor Engelsma sounds like the 1953 men. I will note that he does not, in fact, answer the question of his questioner that was the occasion of his antinomianism speech. The questioner asked about conditions on the basis of some biblical texts. Professor Engelsma talks about 1953 and its rejection of conditional theology.

Fifth, the texts do not teach a conditional theology, because a conditional theology makes salvation depend upon the sinner. This was the nature of the theology that the Protestant Reformed Churches rejected in 1953. It was, and is, a theology that has God graciously promising salvation to, with a will to bestow salvation upon, every baptized person. Whether this promise and will are realized, however, is said to depend upon the baptized sinner’s fulfilling the “condition” of faith and obedience. The passages referred to by my questioner do not teach such a conditional salvation. Rather, they teach the way in which it pleases God to save His elect, redeemed people, and the way in which He accomplishes their salvation. (Lecture on “Antinomism”)

The question was about conditions, but he talks about conditional theology. But the Protestant Reformed Churches in 1953 rejected conditions, period. Any and all conditions—whether one used the word condition or not and in whatever sense anyone tried to defend conditions—were rejected.

Professor Engelsma has conditions. This God-worked thing in man precedes this God-given blessing.

But it is more than mere temporal preceding. He writes,

His [the editor of Sword and Shield] reference was to my assertion that in a certain aspect of God’s work of salvation God works in such a way that He moves us to act in order that He may then act in the way He has determined. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

Engelsma writes again,

Despite the efforts of myself and of the assemblies of the churches of which I am a member, he does not understand that God works this aspect of salvation in such a way that He (sovereignly) moves the elect sinner to repentance so that, following this repentance, He may forgive. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

He explains what the minister proclaims in the name of God:

Does he not urgently call them to repent so that they may be forgiven? Does he not call them to repent in so many words? Does he not utter the promise of the gospel that everyone who repents is (then, and in this way) forgiven? (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

Professor Engelsma says also,

I urge him also to open his eyes to the fundamental Christian truth that God works in such a way that our repenting precedes our receiving the gift of forgiveness, so that the necessary call of the gospel is, “repent that you may be forgiven.” (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

God may forgive! Repent that God may forgive!

Professor Engelsma writes, “God…moves us to act in order that He may then act in the way He has determined.” May is a verb that expresses ability, or potentiality, or the absence of prohibitive conditions. Man’s activities are the actions that make the potentiality of God’s counsel real. God’s counsel does not become real except through man’s activities. So it is not only that God makes man first—which God cannot do—but also that the activities of man are that upon which God’s activities depend and that make God’s counsel real. Man’s activities do not only precede God’s activities; but on Professor Engelsma’s presentation, man’s activities are also necessary so that God acts or that God may act in a certain way. This is conditions.

Those conditions necessarily involve an offer, and here we have the offer. God wants to forgive. God may forgive. Forgiveness is available. God purposes to forgive! Forgiveness is a divine potentiality. What stand between God, the sinner, and the reality of forgiveness are the sinner’s own deeds and acts. That is an offer, and that is conditional.

Here we have an example that, after all, the works that God works in us—now also repentance—are the way to the Father. Professor Engelsma says it. God graciously causes us to repent in order that God may fellowship with us. God graciously works repentance in us that he may draw near to us. God graciously works repentance in us that he may forgive us. The divine potentiality of forgiveness is realized by man’s activity. That is conditional, and that is an offer in the matter of the experience and application of salvation. 

That was Rev. David Overway’s exegesis of John 14:6. The works that God works in us are the way to the Father, and it is thus not Christ alone who is the way because it is not faith alone by which we are justified. 

Engelsma’s letter is nothing more than Overway’s exegesis of John 14:6 raising its head again. We are dealing with a Hydra in the Protestant Reformed Churches. After we chopped off one head, another head grew up. Now another head has sprouted from the stump, and the heads are getting fiercer. That is what we are seeing now.

Where is God’s eternal decree? Professor Engelsma writes like the rest of the Protestant Reformed ministers. It is about man, man, man. His letter and his speech are about man. Where is election in his speech and letter? Where is election, not merely as a mantra about an elect sinner? He will say elect sinner, elect sinner, elect sinner. But where is election as it controls exegesis and theology in his letter? Election is nowhere to be found. And neither then is the glory of God found.

Professor Engelsma says that whoever repents may be forgiven. That is to make the promise of God and the certainty and realization and blessed enjoyment of that promise stand in man’s repentance. It makes that promise stand in man’s act by God’s grace. Did man believe enough? Did he repent enough?

However, the certainty of the promise, its realization, and its blessed enjoyment stand in the faithfulness of the promising God and in his eternal decree. The promise of God is not may; it is shall, and the promise includes faith, repentance, and all the rest of salvation. The promise is sure because God is sure. The promise is real in God’s counsel and as it is unfolded in time.

Mystified

Professor Engelsma says that he is “mystified” about where the doctrinal difference lies and that others in Reformed churches are mystified as well.

I confess to feeling foolish in belaboring this fundamental truth of the Christian faith, especially in the awareness that some of the Reformed churches are following the schism in the Protestant Reformed Churches and who are probably as mystified over the purported doctrinal difference as am I. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

Where the difference lies is not hard at all: we deny that man’s works done by grace are the way to the Father; we deny that grace is available; we deny that there are conditions for the experience of salvation; we deny that regenerated man is not totally depraved. These are all things that Protestant Reformed ministers teach and preach. Now also we deny that in a certain sense God causes man to be first so that God may act; we deny that repentance is part of faith; we deny that the call of the gospel is repent that you may be forgiven. We deny that. We deny that emphatically. It is Arminianism; it is Pelagianism; it is federal vision; and it is modernism; and no appeals to grace or to God’s supposed order of working can change that assessment. I will say that until I die, and I will say that because I believe the Reformed creeds say that, and I believe scripture says that, and I believe Christ in the last judgment will say that about this theology.

Man first in any sense is false doctrine, and those who teach it must repent of it and condemn it.

And cannot Professor Engelsma see that those who follow him are going to jettison all his clever distinctions and just state baldly, “Man is first, and man acts that God may act”?

Did not the question that occasioned his antinomianism speech cause chills to run down his spine? Did the question not give him any pause? At a Protestant Reformed event, someone asked whether some if passages in scripture teach conditions! That issue was settled decades ago, supposedly. But there in Professor Engelsma’s class conditions came up. And he did not pause? He gave no indication that he even considered that the question regarding conditions might reflect the theological climate in the PRC. Rather, he launched into a furious attack on antinomianism.

We are opposed to that doctrine and will oppose it, God being gracious, until we breathe our last.

The Reformed Protestant truth is that God is first from beginning to end in salvation; that he is first also in the experience of salvation; that he is first in repentance, in forgiveness, and in all the benefits of salvation; that he does not work in such a way that man is first and God is second; and that he does not work in man so that God may act in a certain way. Whatever the mysterious relationship of God’s decree to man’s actions are, it is not that God may act in a certain way because that would be for God to deny himself.

Forgiveness without Repentance

Professor Engelsma accuses us of turning biblical theology on its head for denying that man’s activities precede God’s activities and for denying that God causes man to act that God may act:

To deny that forgiveness follows repenting leads to the conclusion that repentance follows forgiveness, thus turning a basic biblical truth and Christian reality on its head: “be forgiven in order to repent.” In fact, the implication of the theology of the editor of “S&S” is that the sinner has forgiveness without repenting. (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

He accuses us of teaching forgiveness without repenting:

Forgiveness without repenting is not the Reformed faith. Having established that repentance is “an evangelical grace [not a ‘good work’ of the sinner—DJE],” and that it definitively consists of “grief for and hatred of sins, [not the ‘love of God,’” which is rather the source of repentance than the identity of it; cf. II Cor. 7:9–11—DJE] the reformed Westminster Confession of Faith states that repentance is “of such necessity to all sinners, [so] that none may expect pardon without it” (15.1–6). (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken)

He writes, “Forgiveness without repenting is not Christianity: ‘Forgive us [penitent believers—DJE] our debts, as we forgive our debtors’ (Matthew 6:12)” (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken).

Making his point again, he writes, “In fact, the implication of the theology of the editor of ‘S&S’ is that the sinner has forgiveness without repenting. This, apparently, is now the gospel-message of the Reformed Protestant Church” (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken).

Yes, indeed. That is what we teach. We teach that there is forgiveness without repenting. We teach that repentance follows forgiveness. We trumpet that message. That is the order of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:

18. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 

19. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 

20. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. 

21. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

The ministry of reconciliation, which is the glorious office that God gives to every minister of the gospel, is to proclaim that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself and that this involved his not imputing their trespasses unto them. Before the ministry of reconciliation preached one syllable, God forgave his elect all their sins and did not impute those sins unto them without a single tear of repentance. They were forgiven. That is the glorious message of the gospel that goes out into the world. God in Christ reconciled his church to himself. She is beloved of God, and all her sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Be reconciled, for you are reconciled. Be reconciled, for you are forgiven. That is a beautiful message. That is the message of the Reformed Protestant Churches, God being gracious to us.

And this was the doctrine of the apostle Paul also in Romans 4:25–5:2:

25. Who [Jesus our Lord] was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. 

1. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 

2. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Justified and forgiven at the cross of Calvary without any repentance.

This was the comfort of the apostle Paul to the church: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1).

There is not now, there never was, and there never will be condemnation, for the church is forgiven!

This was also Peter’s doctrine in 1 Peter 1:

18. Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things…

19. But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 

20. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

Christ was foreordained as the lamb with his precious blood. He was eternally slain. And we were eternally justified without repentance.

And this was the doctrine of the apostle John: “All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).

A lamb slain before the foundation of the world means justification before the foundation of the world and therefore that there was forgiveness before repentance and without any repentance at all.

Let everyone hear, and let them agree or disagree; let them believe it or not believe it.

This is the gospel message of the Reformed Protestant Churches. The sinner has forgiveness without repenting. This is the gospel message of scripture. This is God-first theology. That is our gospel. God first. And we deny that in any sense whatsoever man precedes God.