Professor Engelsma continues to publish articles in the form of letters to his family. In these articles the professor continues his teaching that man’s repentance (by the power of God) is a prerequisite for God to forgive man (in man’s conscious experience).
The professor’s articles are full of confusion and outright lies. But one thing has become abundantly clear through these articles: Professor Engelsma and the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) with him are firmly entrenched in their doctrine that some activity of man (in this case repentance) must precede some activity of God in salvation (in this case forgiveness). They are entrenched in the doctrine that repentance is a prerequisite for justification. I did not realize how firmly Professor Engelsma was entrenched in his teaching that man precedes God in salvation. I thought that Professor Engelsma had slipped last year when he started writing about man’s preceding God and that he had inadvertently backed himself into a corner that, because of age or infirmity or pride, he could not get out of. But a member of Second Reformed Protestant Church recently discovered a Beacon Lights article from 1967 in which Professor Engelsma (Reverend Engelsma at that time) was explaining James 4:8—“Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” In the discussion questions that he provided following the article, Reverend Engelsma asked the Protestant Reformed young people this: “In what way does our drawing near to God precede His drawing near to us?”1 Remember that this was in 1967. This was long before his sermon on James 4:8 in what was then South Holland Protestant Reformed Church. This was long before he began his attack on the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) over Malachi 3:7. Professor Engelsma’s theology in 1967 was already that, in some vital sense in salvation, man precedes God.
In his Beacon Lights article, Reverend Engelsma included a parenthetical explanation that James 4:8 could not be used to support the doctrine of free will. No doubt that parenthetical explanation assured everyone that Reverend Engelsma was not promoting Arminianism. In fact, that parenthetical explanation likely assured everyone that the PRC were vigorously battling Arminianism. After all, free will was being condemned! But what about the question? “In what way does our drawing near to God precede His drawing near to us?” The question does not ask whether our drawing near to God precedes his drawing near to us, so that the young people of the PRC could answer with a resounding, “NO!” The question does not ask why it is essentially Arminian to say that our drawing near to God precedes his drawing near to us, so that the young people of the PRC could reflect on the evil of Arminian contingency. No, the question asserts for the young people that there actually is a way in which man’s drawing near to God precedes God’s drawing near to man.
Did you know that this was Protestant Reformed theology? Did you know that this was Protestant Reformed theology for more than fifty years? Did you know that this was such an important part of Protestant Reformed theology that if some of the Protestant Reformed Churches’ spiritual children would ever reject it, the PRC would curse them as antinomians? Did you know that it was vital to the Protestant Reformed gospel that man in some sense must precede God? I did not know any of that. I thought that the defining doctrines of the PRC were sovereign grace and the unconditional covenant. But sovereignand unconditionalcannot be harmonized with this: “In what way does our drawing near to God precede His drawing near to us?” The fact that those cannot be harmonized is now being revealed in the Protestant Reformed Churches. What is the Protestant Reformed denomination fighting for tooth and nail these days? Not this: sovereign grace. Not this: the unconditional covenant. But this: man’s repenting necessarily precedes God’s forgiving. What is the legacy that the PRC will bequeath to the coming generations as a result of this controversy? Not Herman Hoeksema’s sovereign grace and unconditional covenant. But David J. Engelsma’s “our drawing near to God precede[s] His drawing near to us.” Since 1967 there has been a deadly cancer in the PRC, and we didn’t know it. But God did, and he is now bringing it to light.
Once again, because of Professor Engelsma’s distractions to the contrary, it is necessary to state the issue between Professor Engelsma and Sword and Shield. The issue is prerequisites for man’s salvation. Professor Engelsma teaches that there are prerequisites for man to fulfill first (by the power of God), after which God will bestow certain blessings of salvation (in man’s experience). Professor Engelsma began this battle between himself and Sword and Shield by teaching that prerequisites apply to all of man’s conscious experience of salvation—to God’s drawing near to man in man’s own conscious experience and to God’s returning to man in the fellowship of the covenant. Over the last year Professor Engelsma has done everyone the favor of striking to the heart of the issue by applying his doctrine to the blessing of justification. Professor Engelsma teaches about justification, which is the heart of the gospel, that man’s activity of repentance is a prerequisite to God’s activity of forgiving that man’s sins. For Professor Engelsma justification is not by faith alone in Christ alone but is by man’s repenting.
Professor Engelsma does not use the word prerequisite or condition to describe his theology. He uses the words precede and follow, first and then, in the way of, and, significantly, in order to and so that and for. By all these terms Professor Engelsma teaches prerequisites and conditions. Professor Engelsma will not use the words prerequisite and condition because those words are supposedly still a red flag in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Actually, those words are hardly even a yellow flag in the PRC anymore today. I assure Professor Engelsma that he could use those words and be perfectly safe in his churches. Some few feathers would ruffle, but Professor Engelsma would hardly be challenged on his use of those words. If there would even be a protest against him, which itself is doubtful, that protest would be kicked around the assemblies for years while at least some of those assemblies vigorously defended Professor Engelsma’s person and reputation, regardless of his doctrine. If an assembly finally would render judgment on his use of the words prerequisite and condition, it would do so in the most meaningless, convoluted language. But even while passing such judgment, the assemblies would do everything in their power to protect Professor Engelsma’s office and reputation. I can assure Professor Engelsma of this because that exact scenario already played out in the case of Professor Engelsma’s former colleague, Ronald Van Overloop.
I can also assure Professor Engelsma that he may freely use the terms prerequisite and condition to describe his theology without fear of any consequence from his denomination because his sister church in Singapore is currently doing so boldly. Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church does not have a problem with conditions for salvation, as long as God is the one who enables man to fulfill the conditions. See the article from the saints in Singapore later in this issue.
But I can especially assure Professor Engelsma that he would not get in trouble for using the words prerequisite and condition because the people in the PRC are hungry for the theology that those terms represent. They savor prerequisites and conditions. When they finish one dish of prerequisites and conditions, they order up another. I know this because the Protestant Reformed theologians, with Professor Engelsma in the lead, along with Rev. Kenneth Koole, Prof. Ronald Cammenga, and others, have been serving conditional theology to the PRC as fast as they can make it, and the people in the PRC have devoured it. As soon as they finish wolfing down Reverend Koole’s plate of If a Man Would Be Saved, There Is That Which He Must Do, they gobble up Professor Engelsma’s platter of There Is a Sense in the Sphere of Salvation in Which Our Forgiving Each Other Is First and in Which God’s Forgiving Us Follows. The people in the PRC have already swallowed their meals of conditions and prerequisites, bones and all; they would not now choke over the terms themselves. And if anyone did happen to get that bone stuck in his craw, I am sure the Protestant Reformed theologians would take to pulpit and pen to assure everyone that prerequisite and condition only mean “A comes before B” and “B comes before C,” and all of A, B, and C are gifts of God anyway, so that prerequisite is orthodox and Reformed.
Nevertheless, Professor Engelsma has not used and probably never will use the terms prerequisite and condition to explain his theology. Whether or not it is a red flag for his denomination, it is apparently still a red flag for him. This is too bad, because condition and prerequisite are the precise and exact terms that he needs for his theology. His theology is that man’s act of repentance precedes God’s act of forgiving a man’s sins in such a way that God’s act of forgiveness waits upon man’s act of repentance. Thus: “The necessity of repentance in order to receive from God the forgiveness of sins.” And thus: “The necessity of repentance for the reception of pardon.” And thus: “The truth of the necessity of repentance for forgiveness.” And thus: “The order of this saving work of God is repentance/remission.” And thus: “The sinner’s confession precedes God’s forgiveness.” And thus: “Repentance in this important respect precedes forgiveness.” And thus: “God requires repentance of the sinner for forgiveness.” And thus: “The necessity of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” And thus: “Faith neither knows Jesus as one’s Savior nor trusts in Him for salvation unless one is burdened by the guilt of sin, which burden is that of repentance.”2
All of that is simply the doctrine of prerequisites: man’s (Spirit-wrought) repentance as a prerequisite unto God’s forgiving man’s sin (in man’s experience). That is simple. That is precise. And that is damning. The forgiveness of sins is justification. Justification (the forgiveness of sins in a man’s conscious experience) upon a prerequisite (repenting) is no justification at all.
This is the issue. Are there prerequisites for justification? Is repentance a prerequisite for the forgiveness of sins? Are there (Spirit-wrought) activities of man that must precede God’s remitting that man’s sin (in that man’s conscious experience) and upon which God’s remitting waits?
Professor Engelsma says, yes. “The necessity of repentance in order to receive from God the forgiveness of sins.” I say, no. As Professor Engelsma quotes me: “Repentance has no bearing whatsoever on that man’s remission of sins or his justification.” Or, if I may be permitted to quote myself:
Repentance is not a means of salvation. Faith alone—worked by the Holy Ghost in the elect sinner’s heart by the preaching of the gospel and confirmed by the use of the sacraments—is the means of salvation. Repentance is not a means unto the remission of sins. Only faith is. God does not grant justification through repentance but only through faith. God does not forgive our sins through repentance but only through faith. So also for all of the blessings of salvation: justification and sanctification are all through faith, not repentance. Though repentance springs from faith as its fruit from the very instant that a man believes, that repentance has no bearing whatsoever on that man’s remission of sins or his justification. The reason that God saves his people only through faith is because of faith’s object: Jesus Christ. The reason that God does not save his people through their work, including their work of love and their work of repenting, is so that no man may boast (Eph. 2:8–9). Faith in Jesus Christ is the means of salvation, and repentance is its inevitable, spontaneous, and instantaneous fruit.3
It is necessary to state the issue again because Professor Engelsma continues to throw up distractions, as he has done since last year, when he first accused me of developing an un-Christian religion. I must say that in his March 31, 2022, email article, the professor does stick closer to the heart of the matter.
What alone is important to me is the doctrinal issue. The latest writings of the editors of the magazine promote and defend a doctrine that is unchristian, to say nothing of un-reformed. I refer specifically to their denial of the necessity of repentance in order to receive from God the forgiveness of sins.
Yes! There is the heart of the issue: prerequisites for justification. The necessity of repentance in order to receive from God the forgiveness of sins. That is the theology that Sword and Shield has been condemning. Nevertheless, the professor’s paper is still full of smokescreens and distractions. He continues to try to make the issue something other than the issue of prerequisites.
This time the distraction is the professor’s wounded fixation on what he calls “the attack on my person” and “angry personal attacks” against him. He brings this up in almost every, if not every, new article that he writes. The more he declaims to his audience that he is above the fray and that he will not respond to personal attacks, the more he enters into the fray and laments all the supposed personal attacks. I for one would like to know where all these angry personal attacks against him can be found in Sword and Shield. Does the professor mean that we have analyzed his theology and found it to be essentially Arminian? Does the professor mean that we have warned men that they are not justified if they truly believe the professor’s theology that their work precedes God’s work in their justification? Does the professor mean that we have called men to let him be accursed for teaching a doctrine contrary to the apostle? If these are what he thinks are angry personal attacks, my response is that this is simply polemics. It is simply warfare on behalf of the truth and against the lie, just as Jesus waged it against the scribes (Matt. 23), as Paul waged it against the Judaizers (Galatians), as Professor Engelsma has waged it in years past against the federal vision, and as the professor has taught us by precept and example to do ourselves. If our engaging in polemics against him is what the professor means by “angry personal attacks,” then he certainly has given as good as he’s gotten, both in his controversy with Sword and Shield and throughout his ministry.
Or does the professor mean by “angry personal attacks” that I called him and his colleagues “turkeys” for not being as honest as Hubert De Wolf about the conditions in their theology? Admittedly, “turkeys” is not found in scripture. I could have used “dogs” or “sows,” which are. Or I could have used “ignorant pettifogger” and “unclean beasts” who “blattered in folly,” as John Calvin does.4 But I will stick with “turkeys,” which fit the fowl motif of the paragraph. Here also the professor must not take umbrage, for he has given as good as he’s gotten through the years. Was it not he who announced on the pages of the Standard Bearer to the entire Reformed church world that Dr. Jelle Faber of the Canadian Reformed Churches was in Alice’s Wonderland: Jelle In Wonderland? Was that to be considered an angry personal attack on Dr. Faber? I didn’t think so. I thought it was a perfect title and that those were excellent articles. Jelle was in Alice’s Wonderland! But let Professor Engelsma not now posture as if he were above all this fray, or as if Sword and Shieldwere just an angry attack on him, or as if Sword and Shield were doing something outside the pale of theological polemics.
The heart of the gospel is at stake: justification by faith alone. The souls of men are at stake, for no man is justified who truly believes that he is justified by his repenting. With the heart of the gospel at stake, “turkeys” is probably not nearly strong enough. Better this: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves” (Matt. 23:15).
Professor Engelsma’s wounded feelings are not the issue. The issue is prerequisites for justification, prerequisites for the remission of sins. After the smoke is cleared away, Professor Engelsma continues to be crystal clear that in order for a man to be forgiven his sins, he must first perform the activity of repenting. God’s forgiveness waits upon that man’s repenting. Professor Engelsma demands “the necessity of repentance in order to receive from God the forgiveness of sins.”
Professor Engelsma has his texts: 2 Chronicles 7:14; Isaiah 55:6–7; Luke 13:3; Acts 2:38; and 1 John 1:9. The professor interprets all of these texts as teaching “the necessity of repentance for the reception of pardon” and “the necessity of repentance for forgiveness.”
Professor Engelsma’s texts certainly establish the necessity of repentance for the child of God. Indeed, the texts establish the necessity of repentance for everyone who hears the call of these texts. God commands his people and all men everywhere to repent, to turn, to seek him. God commands all the wicked to forsake their wicked ways. God commands all the unrighteous to forsake their unrighteous thoughts. The necessity of repentance is that God commands it.
6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isa. 55:6–7)
However, Professor Engelsma’s texts do not establish the necessity of repentance in order to receive the forgiveness of sins from God. This is the question at issue. The question is not merely whether repentance is necessary. There is no controversy over this, any more than there is a controversy over whether obedience is necessary. Repentance and obedience are necessary as the commands of God, and they are necessary as the preordained fruits of our salvation. The question is not whether repentance is necessary. Rather, the question is whether man’s repentance is necessary in order to receive forgiveness. Is repentance necessary in order to be justified? The question is the relationship between man’s repentance and God’s forgiveness. Does man’s activity of repenting bring about God’s activity of forgiving? Does God’s activity of forgiving wait upon man’s activity of repenting? Is the necessity of man’s repenting that it obtains God’s activity of forgiving?
The professor thinks that his texts do teach that repentance is necessary in order to be justified. The professor offers these texts as proof that man’s activity of repenting precedes God’s activity of justifying in such a way that man must repent in order to be justified and in such a way that God’s justification of man waits upon that man’s repenting. The professor explains his texts as though they establish a prerequisite for forgiveness. Remember, the professor is teaching that repentance is necessary for forgiveness. “The necessity of repentance for the reception of pardon.” And: “The truth of the necessity of repentance for forgiveness.” Another word for necessary is requisite or required. The professor teaches that man’s activity of repenting is requisite/necessary/required beforeGod’s activity of forgiveness. “The order of this saving work of God is repentance/remission.” And: “In the inspired text, the sinner’s confession precedes God’s forgiveness.” And: “Our confessing our sins preceding God’s forgiveness of our sins.” Another word for before is the prefix pre-. When the professor teaches that man’s repentance is necessary (requisite) before (pre-) God forgives, he is teaching that repentance is a prerequisite for forgiveness. He insists that his texts teach this prerequisite. “The orthodox explanation lets the inspired order of the text stand—and teach us something.”
Professor Engelsma is entirely mistaken in his exegesis of these texts. His exegesis is sloppy. That itself is a shock to me because, before this controversy, I always considered him to be a sound exegete. I learned to exegete under his instruction. (I wonder again, where has my professor gone?) The fact remains, though, that Professor Engelsma has exegeted his texts in the most superficial way and thus has wrenched them into something grotesque. When the professor is finished with his exegesis, he emerges from his texts with a doctrine of prerequisites. “The truth of the necessity of repentance for forgiveness is…explicit biblical doctrine.” “In the inspired text, the sinner’s confession precedes God’s forgiveness.” When we object to his doctrine of prerequisites as false doctrine, he holds up his wretched exegesis and stamps his foot while telling us, “Read the text!”
It will not do for the theologians of the RPC to rave against this doctrine as obvious evidence that the PRC are now “accursed” heretics, whose heresy is that they put the sinner before God in the work of salvation. For the order, our confessing our sins preceding God’s forgiveness of our sins, is not the order of a PR theologian but the order of the inspired apostle John. Read the text!
All right then. I have read the texts. And I have read many more like them. Those texts do not teach what Professor Engelsma insists that they teach. There is nothing of prerequisites in those texts. There is nothing of man’s preceding God in those texts. There is certainly nothing that man must do as a prerequisite for his justification in those texts.
So what do those texts mean? Here are the texts (quoted without Professor Engelsma’s strange and ominous omission of baptism in Acts 2:38), followed by the proper exegesis of the texts.
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chr. 7:14)
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isa. 55:6–7)
I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. (Luke 13:3)
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 2:38)
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
First, all of these texts are the call of the gospel. That is, these texts address men with God’s call to them to repent of their sins and to believe in God, with the promise that God will save all those who come to him in Christ. This call of the gospel, including its promise and command, is described in the Canons of Dordt.
Moreover, the promise of the gospel is that whosoever believeth in Christ crucified shall not perish, but have everlasting life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and published to all nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction, to whom God out of his good pleasure sends the gospel. (Canons of Dordt 2.5, in Confessions and Church Order, 163)
Second, the order in these texts is the call to man to repent, followed by God’s promise that he will forgive. In the texts the call precedes the promise, and the promise follows the call. For example: “Let him return unto the Lord [call preceding], and he will have mercy upon him [promise following]” (Isa. 55:7). This order is characteristic of the call of the gospel throughout scripture, not only in these texts but in many others as well. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31). Often in the call of the gospel, the call for man’s activity comes first, and the promise of God’s activity comes last.
It is this order of call preceding promise and promise following call that the professor makes so much of. When he demands that we “Read the text!” he means that we should see this order in the text. When he insists that we let “the inspired order of the text stand,” he means that we must acknowledge and abide by this order. Well then, let Professor Engelsma, the Protestant Reformed Churches, and all men know that we have now read the texts. And let all men know that we see the order in the texts. And let all men know that we acknowledge the order to be this: call first, promise second; call preceding, promise following. We have always known this, but now you know that we know this. So let that be the end of your hollering at us to read the texts.
In their preaching of the gospel, the Reformed Protestant Churches issue this call of the gospel, and they issue it in the order of the texts. The RPC call men to repent and believe, and the RPC declare God’s promise that all who believe shall be saved. The RPC preach, “Repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” Anyone who has listened to even a smattering of Reformed Protestant preaching will have heard this. There is no need for Professor Engelsma to engage in his foolish speculations about what Reformed Protestant preaching must sound like, or how the RPC can do discipline, or how Reformed Protestant parents rear their children, or how Reformed Protestant missionaries would address the heathen. In all of these settings, we issue the call. I invite Professor Engelsma to listen to Reformed Protestant preaching. I daresay that he will hear the call of the gospel—and in the order in which he likes it—issued more often than he hears it in any church of his own denomination.
Third, the order of the call in these texts is not the order of God’s operation in salvation. In the texts the order is call first, then promise. But that does not mean that God accomplishes the salvation of his elect people in the order of man’s repentance first, followed by God’s forgiveness later. The reality is that God gives his people all of the promised blessings first. He gives them his mercy and his forgiveness and his pardon first. In fact, God gives these blessings in the very promise of the gospel itself. God’s promise in the gospel to pardon my sins is not the announcement of something that he will do later. God’s promise that he will pardon my sins is the pardon of my sins. The moment that God proclaims his promise, “I will abundantly pardon,” in that very moment I am pardoned of all of my sins in my conscious experience. I am pardoned in that very moment, before I ever repent or love God or do any other thing. I am pardoned before I can even assent to the fact that God’s promise is true. The declaration of the gospel is my salvation and the bestowal of my salvation in that moment. It is the bestowal of my salvation to me personally in that moment, so that I know it to be mine.
I will certainly repent. Inevitably, I will repent. The Holy Spirit gives the gift of repentance by the same gospel that forgives my sins. But God’s forgiveness does not wait upon my repentance. The forgiveness of sins in my consciousness is accomplished by God in the declaration of the gospel itself.
The explanation of this order of salvation (which is different from the order of the call) is that the gospel is Jesus Christ. The gospel is the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ alone. The call of the gospel proclaims Jesus Christ to me. The call of the gospel proclaims the merciful God of salvation to me. The call of the gospel, then, is not a prerequisite. It is not about what I must do in order to obtain what God will later do. The meaning of the call of the gospel is not essentially this: Thou shalt! Thou shalt repent, thou shalt believe, thou shalt turn, thou shalt draw near, thou shalt seek. Rather, the call of the gospel is essentially the declaration of what God has done. The call of the gospel is essentially this: Jesus Christ and his righteousness! His love, his grace, his incarnation, his suffering, his curse, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his baptism, his supper, his pardon. The gospel—and the call of the gospel—is not what I must do but what he has done. The gospel—and the call of the gospel—is not Me but He.
God’s salvation of the Philippian jailor powerfully demonstrates the fact that the order of the call is one thing, and the order of God’s operation in salvation is another thing. In Acts 16:31 Paul and Silas issued the call of the gospel to the Philippian jailor, and they issued that call in the order of the jailor’s calling first and God’s promise second. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” That was the call, and that was its order. But God’s operation upon the jailor was to save the jailor at that very moment. God’s salvation of the jailor was not some future event, whether a few days in the future or a few seconds in the future. God saved the jailor in that moment. God saved the jailor by the very declaration of the gospel, “Thou shalt be saved.” There was no activity for the jailor to perform first, after which God would proceed to the promised salvation. The call was the jailor’s salvation. The rest of the text bears this out. We don’t read of the jailor’s believing until the very end of that passage (v. 34). But before we read of the jailor’s believing, we read of his being baptized with all his house (v. 33). The call has its own order, and we call in that order; but salvation has its own order, which we also preach.
This is what makes Herman Hoeksema’s sermon on the Philippian jailor in 1953 so valuable.5 To the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Herman Hoeksema answered, “You must do nothing. Believe. Believe. Nothing. Do nothing but believe, believe, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Hoeksema’s sermon shows that there is an order to the call: Believe and be saved. Hoeksema’s sermon also shows what that order means: there is nothing for you to do to be saved, for it is already finished.
It is exactly here that Professor Engelsma’s exegesis of his texts is sloppy. The professor confuses the order of the call of the gospel with the order of God’s operation in salvation. The professor does not recognize that the order in the call of the gospel is one thing, and the order in God’s bestowal of salvation is another thing. All of his texts are the call of the gospel. They consist of the call to repent and believe first and the promise of salvation second. If Professor Engelsma had explained the texts this way—call first; promise second—we would agree. But Professor Engelsma explains the texts this way—man’s repentance first; God’s forgiving second. He takes the form of the call and makes it the order of God’s working. “The order of this saving work of God is repentance/remission. This is the way God works.” No, this is not the way God works. This is the way God calls, but the way God works is that he saves man first, and man’s activity follows as the fruit of that salvation. Listen to the Lord explain how God works salvation:
44. 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.
45. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. (John 6:44–45)
Or again, Professor Engelsma argues, “In the inspired text [1 John 1:9], the sinner’s confession precedes God’s forgiveness.” No, in the inspired text God’s call to the sinner (“If we confess our sins”) precedes God’s promise to the sinner (“He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins”), but this does not mean that the sinner’s confession precedes God’s forgiveness as a prerequisite.
One might ask, if the order of salvation is God first, then why does God issue the call of the gospel in the order that he does? Why does he first call man to repent and believe and then follow with his promise to save man? I have answered this question elsewhere, so I refer interested readers to an earlier email that I wrote to Professor Engelsma.6 Actually, it is not that long, so I suppose it doesn’t hurt to quote it here.
What of the fact that the wording of the call of the gospel has man’s activity preceding God’s activity? “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8). Simply this: The order in the call is not the order of God’s operation. Just because man’s activity is spoken first and God’s activity is spoken second, that does not mean that in the bestowal of salvation, man’s activity must precede God’s activity. The order of God’s operation in salvation is established throughout the scriptures to be this: “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36). In that order of operation, man’s activity can never precede God’s.
The order in the call is given the way it is to establish that it is indeed God’s serious call to man to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. The order also warns the departing hearer that there is no salvation in his departing. The order also assures the child of God that God is merciful and that he does indeed receive sinners who have gone away from him by their sin and rebellion. But the order in the call does not establish the order of God’s operation.
It has been a hallmark of Reformed exegesis to interpret the order of the call as establishing man’s duty, sounding a warning, and establishing God’s mercy, but not as establishing the order of God’s operation. In the order of God’s operation, God is first. For example, John Calvin on James 4:8:
Draw nigh to God. He again reminds us that the aid of God will not be wanting to us, provided we give place to him. For when he bids us to draw nigh to God, that we may know him to be near to us, he intimates that we are destitute of his grace, because we withdraw from him. But as God stands on our side, there is no reason to fear succumbing. But if any one concludes from this passage, that the first part of the work belongs to us, and that afterwards the grace of God follows, the Apostle meant no such thing; for though we ought to do this, yet it does not immediately follow that we can. And the Spirit of God, in exhorting us to our duty, derogates nothing from himself, or from his own power; but the very thing he bids us to do, he himself fulfils in us.7
In order to be faithful to the text, including the order of the call, there is no need to find a way for man’s activity to precede God’s activity in any sense, whether experience or otherwise.
In his March 31, 2022, article, Professor Engelsma finally gets around to dealing with the doctrine of God’s eternal election and the doctrine of Christ’s atonement for his people’s sins on the cross. I say that he finally gets around to it because his recent writings on justification took no notice of God’s election or of Christ’s atonement, except for perhaps a scanty mention or two. Professor Engelsma’s doctrine of the forgiveness of sins did not proceed from God. It did not proceed from election. It did not proceed from Christ. It did not proceed from the cross. Instead, Professor Engelsma’s doctrine proceeded from man. It proceeded from man’s activity of returning to God (in order that after man returned to God, God would return to man). It proceeded from man’s activity of drawing nigh to God (in order that after man drew nigh to God, God would draw nigh to man). It proceeded from man’s activity of repenting (in order that after man repented, God would forgive man’s sins). All we heard about was man and man’s activity, which activity of man would then draw some response from God. As the professor’s articles began to pile up, the absence of election and the atonement became striking and stark.
The fact is that Professor Engelsma could not develop his doctrine of man’s repenting preceding God’s forgiving in the light of election, because it is exactly the doctrine of election that exposes his doctrine as un-Reformed. When a Reformed man hears that there is a certain vital sense in which man’s activity in salvation precedes God’s activity, the Reformed man instinctively knows that something is wrong because of the doctrine of election. God chose his elect in eternity unto salvation. There is nothing of the activity of man in eternity but only the activity of God. There is nothing of man first and God following but only God first and man following.
Professor Engelsma also could not develop his doctrine of man’s repenting preceding God’s forgiving in light of the cross because the cross also exposes his doctrine as un-Reformed. When a Reformed man hears that God’s forgiveness of sins waits upon that man’s activity of true repentance and that remission of sins comes by means of man’s activity of sincere repentance, the Reformed man instinctively knows that something is wrong because of the doctrine of the atonement. Christ died for the sins of his people and entirely accomplished their forgiveness at the cross. There is nothing of their repenting at the cross but only the finished work of Jesus Christ. There is nothing of man first and God following but only God first and man following.
Any reader who would like to know how the doctrines of election and the atonement relate to the truth of our forgiveness of sins can read this in Rev. Nathan Langerak’s article in the March 15, 2022, Sword and Shield.8 It was this article that drew Professor Engelsma finally to glance in the direction of election and the cross.
But when Professor Engelsma now finally does get around to noticing election and the atonement, he shows a remarkable disdain for them. Professor Engelsma does not bring up election and the atonement in order to work with them but in order to dismiss them. Election and the atonement are fatal to his doctrine of man’s preceding God. Election and the atonement are fatal to his doctrine of prerequisite repentance for forgiveness. Therefore, election and the atonement must be dismissed.
Professor Engelsma dismisses election and the cross in three ways.
First, he accuses the editors of confusing the concepts of election, redemption (or the atonement or the cross), and the forgiveness of sins.
One fundamental error of the editors of “S&S” in this debate over repentance, against which shoddy work in exegesis I and the other professors in seminary warned them, is their confusion of “concepts.” Election and redemption are not the same as the forgiveness of sins.
When Professor Engelsma says that we have confused the concepts of election, redemption, and forgiveness, he means that we have equated election with forgiveness and equated redemption with forgiveness. He means that we have taught that election is forgiveness and that redemption is forgiveness. Over against our supposed confusion of concepts, Professor Engelsma admonishes us to distinguish the concepts: Election is not forgiveness of sins, and redemption is not forgiveness of sins. Election is election. Redemption is redemption. And forgiveness is forgiveness.
When Professor Engelsma accuses Sword and Shield of confusing election with forgiveness, he is using an age-old tactic to discredit and dismiss election from the equation of salvation. The doctrine of election establishes that salvation is of the Lord and not of man. The doctrine of election will not allow for any conditions or contingencies in salvation. Therefore, those who teach a condition or a contingency must dismiss election. They cannot allow election to govern salvation. One way that they have done this is by accusing orthodox Reformed Christianity of confusing election and salvation. In years past this was the charge of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands (Liberated) against the Protestant Reformed Churches. The Reformed Churches of the Netherlands (Liberated) held to a conditional covenant, which covenant is promised to every baptized child alike, whether elect or reprobate. When the Protestant Reformed Churches insisted that the covenant is established only with the elect, the Liberated accused the PRC of confusing election and the covenant. When the Liberated admonished the PRC not to confuse election with the covenant, the Liberated really meant that election must be divorced from the covenant. Election must not be brought to bear on the covenant. Election must not govern the covenant. By this the Liberated were dismissing the doctrine of election from the doctrine of the covenant.
Now Professor Engelsma takes up the very same tactic of the Liberated and uses it against the Reformed Protestant Churches. Professor Engelsma admonishes us not to confuse election and the atonement with the forgiveness of sins. The fact is that the RPC are not confusing concepts. One only has to read the articles again to see that. What Professor Engelsma really means is that election and the cross must not govern God’s order of operation in the forgiveness of sins. Whatever order of operation happens in election, that must not be the order of operation in the forgiveness of sins. And whatever order of operation happens at the cross, that must not be the order of operation in the forgiveness of sins. In election man does not precede God, but God precedes man, and that is fine for election. In the cross man does not precede God, but God precedes man, and that is fine for the cross. But in the forgiveness of sins, according to Professor Engelsma, man does precede God. “Repentance in this important respect precedes forgiveness.” Sword and Shield brought the doctrine of election to bear on Professor Engelsma’s doctrine of forgiveness to expose the professor’s doctrine as false. Sword and Shield brought the doctrine of the cross to bear on Professor Engelsma’s doctrine of forgiveness to expose the professor’s doctrine as false. Professor Engelsma’s response is to admonish the editors not to confuse election and redemption with forgiveness. By this admonition Professor Engelsma sets election and the cross aside.
Second, Professor Engelsma dismisses election and the atonement by mocking God’s gracious forgiveness of the sinner. Professor Engelsma will not allow God to forgive the sinner unless the sinner has first repented of his sins. And if God would dare to forgive Professor Engelsma without Professor Engelsma’s first repenting, Professor Engelsma would mock God’s forgiveness of him.
My response to an act of God forgiving me, apart from my repenting of my sins, would be, “No doubt, I am to be thankful to Thee, but for what?”
Not this: “I thank thee for thy gracious forgiveness of me!”
Not this: “I thank thee for Jesus Christ and his blessed cross!”
Not this: “I thank thee for thy eternal love and good purpose to deliver me from all my iniquity in spite of my unworthiness and rebellion!”
But this: “Thankful for what?”
Should this have been the response of the man sick of the palsy, whom Jesus forgave without the sinner’s repenting (Mark 2:1–12)? “Thankful for what?”
Should this have been the response of the woman taken in adultery, whom Jesus forgave without the adulteress’ repenting (John 8:1–11)? “Thankful for what?”
Should this be the response of the Reformed believer who hears the declaration of God in Lord’s Day 23 that he is righteous in Christ before God with all of his sins remitted, which declaration does not include a single word about his repentance? “Thankful for what?”
What blasphemy.
Inasmuch as God’s gracious forgiveness of the sinner is grounded in Christ’s cross and has its source in election, the professor’s mockery of forgiveness is a mockery of the cross and a mockery of election. For Professor Engelsma election, the cross, and forgiveness can wait their turn. God can wait his turn. Professor Engelsma will first repent. And Professor Engelsma will not allow any of God’s election, Christ’s cross, or the forgiveness of sins to mean anything to him until he first does his activity of repenting. Until Professor Engelsma repents, his word to the forgiving God is, “Thankful for what?”
What utter blasphemy.
Third, Professor Engelsma dismisses election and the cross by including repentance as a prerequisite in both of them. The professor cannot leave his prerequisite repentance out of it even for a moment. When he defines the doctrine of election, he must define it with prerequisite repentance firmly in place.
Election is the eternal decree appointing some to salvation (which salvation according to the decree will be by way of repenting of sins).
Why the parenthesis? The parenthesis does not belong there. Election is not defined in terms of man’s repenting whatsoever. In the professor’s definition he has God decreeing salvation, and he has God at the very same time decreeing a prerequisite for that salvation. This is essentially conditional election.
When the professor defines redemption, he must define it with prerequisite repentance firmly in place.
Redemption was the saving work of Jesus especially on the cross, of purchasing the elect from their guilt unto God by the offering of Himself as the sacrifice that atoned for their sins and obtained for them the right to be the children of God (which redemption God would apply to them in the forgiveness of their sins in the way of their repenting).
Again, why the parenthesis? The cross is not defined in terms of man’s repenting whatsoever. In the professor’s definition he has Jesus’ atonement waiting to become effectual until man repents. This is essentially conditional atonement.
Having cast election and redemption aside under the guise of distinguishing them from forgiveness, the professor then defines forgiveness. And when he does so, he must define it with prerequisite repentance firmly in place.
Forgiveness, in distinction from election and redemption, is the living Word of the gospel to the elect, redeemed, and now by grace penitent sinner absolving him of all his guilt.
The essence of Professor Engelsma’s teaching in his definitions is not salvation by grace but salvation by penitence. God elects the penitent. Christ died for the penitent. And God forgives the penitent. The truth of salvation by grace is that God elects the ungodly (Rom. 11:5), Christ died for the ungodly (5:8), and God forgives the ungodly (4:5). Their repenting and all of their other obedience are the fruits of their election, the fruits of Christ’s cross, and the fruits of God’s forgiveness of them. But in election, at the cross, and in justification, they are the ungodly, not the penitent.
The remainder of Professor Engelsma’s article and his addendum are more quickly dealt with. First, Professor Engelsma misrepresents the Synod of Dordt, as he misrepresents our objection to his theology. The professor maintains that “the Synod of Dordt did not object to the doctrine that God requires repentance of sinners…” Neither do we object to this. God requires repentance of sinners. The question is whether God requires that repentance as a prerequisite for their forgiveness. We say, no. The professor says, yes.
The professor also maintains that “the Synod of Dordt did not object…to the doctrine that repenting is the way to forgiveness.” But what the professor has meant by “repenting is the way to forgiveness” is that repentance is a prerequisite for forgiveness. The Synod of Dordt certainly never taught repentance as a prerequisite for forgiveness. The professor also maintains that the only issue at the Synod of Dordt that is relevant for this controversy was man’s free will. “Not the necessity of repentance, but whether repentance was a condition to be performed by the free will of the sinner was the issue at Dordt.” The professor is mistaken. Dordt certainly denied the free will of the sinner, which was a vital element in Arminian theology. But Dordt denied free will as a sub-point in the service of Dordt’s main point, which was that salvation is of God alone. Salvation is by grace alone without the cooperation of the sinner. Salvation is not contingent upon man. Salvation is not conditioned on man. Arminian theology did not merely teach the free will of man, as horrendous as that doctrine is. Rather, Arminian theology taught, and teaches, that salvation is contingentupon man. Arminian theology does not allow salvation to be of the Lord but makes salvation in its appropriation to be of man. Therefore, Dordt did not merely deny “a condition to be performed by the free will of the sinner.” Dordt denied a condition, period. Dordt denied contingency, period. A quick glance through the Canons will reveal Dordt’s hatred of conditions, period, regardless of whether or not those supposed conditions are fulfilled by the free will of man. For example, see Canons 1, rejection of errors 2–5, 7, 9 (Confessions and Church Order, 160–62).
Second, Professor Engelsma tells an outright lie about the Declaration of Principles and the Reformed Protestant Churches. The RPC have not rejected the Declaration. The RPC have not virtually or secretly or deceitfully rejected the Declaration. The RPC have not put distance between themselves and the Declaration. The RPC love the Declaration of Principles. The RPC embrace the theology of the Declaration of Principles.
The Reformed Protestant Churches likely will not be adopting the Declaration of Principles, just as the Protestant Reformed Churches did not go back and adopt all of the previous synodical decisions and synodical documents of the Christian Reformed Church in 1924. There is nothing sinister or devious about this. There is certainly nothing of a rejection of the Declaration in this.
Professor Engelsma’s wicked charge will likely be the last word on this for the Protestant Reformed Churches. From now until those churches are cast into the abyss, they will repeat the lie that the RPC have rejected the Declaration of Principles. The Lord knows, and that is enough for me. If any reader would like to investigate the documents of the Reformed Protestant classis where these things are laid out, I would be happy to provide you with them.
Third, Professor Engelsma continues his dogged insistence that repentance is faith. This time he imagines that he finds this fiction in Lord’s Day 7 of the Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer 21. Lord’s Day 7! Lord’s Day does not breathe a word about repentance. Not a word! Lord’s Day 7 defines true faith, and it teaches justification by faith alone. For the professor to introduce repentance into Lord’s Day 7 is shameful. It is a shameful betrayal of the Reformed doctrine of faith, and it is a shameful attack on the gospel of justification by faith alone.
The Protestant Reformed Churches are no friends of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, which is the heart of the gospel. Protestant Reformed theologians have been perfectly comfortable with justification by sanctifying faith (Revs. James Slopsema, Carl Haak, Ron Van Overloop, and Garry Eriks).9 Now they are perfectly comfortable with justification by repentant faith (Prof. David J. Engelsma).
Such is the intimate relation of repentance and faith in Scripture, particularly with regard to the forgiveness of sins, that justifying faith is always accompanied by repentance. Therefore, even if repentance is not an element of faith, but “only” an inseparably related spiritual perfection, there is never the forgiveness of sin without repentance.
But why does the professor stop there? Are not obedience and good works also “inseparably related spiritual perfection[s]” with faith? Is not justifying faith always accompanied by good works? Why does he not then make good works to be a prerequisite for the forgiveness of sins as well? Why not have justification by obedient faith and justification by working faith to go along with justification by sanctifying faith and justification by repentant faith? And then the PRC may as well give Norman Shepherd and the federal vision a call to see if they have any more exciting kinds of faith to suggest for justification.
I don’t think that there is much more to say on the professor’s monstrous confusion of repentance with faith. See past issues of Sword and Shield for our rebuttal. All I can say is, “Run from the professor’s doctrine. It will take you to hell.”
Fourth, Professor Engelsma did take my previous advice to climb into heaven and say something to God’s face about Professor Engelsma’s repentance. I thought this would illustrate to the professor how impossible it is for man to precede God. But, astoundingly, when Professor Engelsma got before the feet of Jesus, he boasted. He turned to another miserable sinner, which sinner had been drawn there by the gospel of his savior, and Professor Engelsma boasted to that other sinner of the professor’s repenting and sorrow and longing. After which Professor Engelsma chased the other sinner away.
Should I meet a member of the RPC at the feet of Jesus, I would readily explain my presence there as repentance over my sins, including sorrow over my sins against God and longing for the healing of forgiveness from the Great Physician. I would then ask him or her, “Why are you here? What brings you here?” He or she would be speechless.
This fits remarkably well with the professor’s other blasphemy, “Thankful for what?”
And I hurriedly advise Professor Engelsma to stop climbing into heaven and to stop appearing before God if he can. That would be better for him.
Fifth, the Westminster Standards and the Second Helvetic Confession are not my confessions. If Professor Engelsma is going to continue with them, he will have to take another look at them. They do not teach what he thinks they teach. Beyond that, I am not interested in exegeting or debating these confessions with him.
Sixth, Professor Engelsma is wrong in his recollections of our private meeting. This could be demonstrated objectively from certain details that the professor has confused in his recounting. But Professor Engelsma makes the point now publicly that he made privately in the meeting. This is the point: The only way for me as a minister in the Protestant Reformed Churches to pursue controversy was through protest, not through the pulpit. To call one’s own denomination to repent is to judge the churches, which judgment belongs only to the assemblies.
As for following the Church Order, here is the Church Order article regarding doctrinal controversy in a denomination, as that controversy applies to a minister’s calling.
To ward off false doctrines and errors that multiply exceedingly through heretical writings, the ministers and elders shall use the means of teaching, of refutation or warning, and of admonition, as well in the ministry of the Word as in Christian teaching and family-visiting. (Church Order 55, in Confessions and Church Order, 397)
At this point I feel like I am repeating everything from the last two years. So let me finish. Here is the one thing to remember about Professor Engelsma’s doctrine of prerequisite repentance. It is not the apostolic faith but another gospel. Salvation is of the Lord.
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