Introduction

I was a fourth-generation member of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) and proud of it. From a young age I knew the names Hoeksema, Ophoff, and Danhof like other kids might know Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Big Bird. If I had a favorite flower, it was certainly the TULIP. And if something called for a four-digit code, there was a better-than-average chance that it was set to 1-9-2-4. As the Jews of Jesus’ day boasted in having Abraham as their father, I had Hoeksema to my father.

Having grown up as a card-carrying member of the PRC, I am now in a position to reflect on the impact that had on my spiritual and doctrinal development. What was the gospel of the PRC? What was her gospel as that gospel came to and made an impression on a young mind? What was the fruit of that gospel in my own heart? Some reflection has shown me that answering these questions provides insight into the present state of doctrine in the PRC as that doctrine has been brought more and more to light amidst the recent reformation that led to the founding of the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC).

Active Faith

The best way I can think of to illustrate how the gospel of the PRC made an impression on my psyche is to begin with Lord’s Day 7. As I have known from childhood, true faith is

not only a certain knowledge…but also an assured confidence…that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are, freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits. (Confessions and Church Order, 90–91)

I can remember wrestling specifically with the matter of “not only to others, but to me also.” Oh yes, of course God has given true faith to “others,” and those “others” are saved. That is easy. If God saves anyone, then surely some “others” are saved. But also to me? How do I get that? How do I place myself in the same company as those “others”? Yes, yes, I believe the scriptures; yes, I believe that Christ is the only savior from sin and that he has effectually redeemed all of his own. Salvation is objectively a possibility, but how can I know that it applies to me?

This certainly made the “assured confidence” of faith to be something of a challenge. If I have true faith, why all my doubting? If I am able to muster up some sort of assurance, what if that is just my own psychology protecting me because the thought of not being saved is too awful to contemplate? I even pondered my deathbed. Knowing that doubt itself is a sin, what if I still have glimmerings of doubt in my final hour and, dying with that sin of doubt, go forever lost?

My solution—such as it was—to this wrestling was twofold. First, I knew that I was in the best church. The PRC had the truth; this I did not doubt. So, I reasoned that as long as I was a member of the best church, I could not go lost. What more can one possibly do than be a faithful member of the best church? Do being the operative word, I realize now that this was nothing more than works-righteousness. My church membership and my good standing therein are simply works. On the doctrine of true faith, which ought to be where the gospel is taught in its purest and simplest form, I had come to consistently look to and depend on my works for my comfort and assurance. Like I said, I grew up Protestant Reformed.

The other element of my solution had to do with the meaning and place of believing. Believing is not actually mentioned in question and answer 21 on true faith, but I knew that I had to believe. But how? Oh yes, Christ died to save sinners, those “others.” Objectively, there is salvation to be had out there, but on what grounds can I believe that it is also for me?

It appeared to me that believing was one of two possibilities. Believing could be a sort of blind, optimistic hoping that you are one for whom Christ died. This was unsatisfactory because it has no substance and absolutely nothing to stop doubt from constantly creeping in. The second possibility was that believing could be a sort of exertion of the mental faculties whereby one believes, perhaps with sweat beading on the brow and veins bulging on the forehead, that Christ is one’s savior. Perhaps by such a Herculean effort of believing, one could be assured that Christ indeed died not only for others but also for oneself, and in so doing kindle a flame of faith sufficient to finally dispel one’s plaguing doubts.

I am convinced that this latter depiction of believing is what is meant in today’s terminology by the proponents of “active faith.” Man, we are told, must do something to be saved, and that something is (among other things nowadays) believing. Actively believing. Believing that you must do because God does not do it for you! So man must (by grace, of course) muster up his believing, and by that believing he can finally obtain Christ and the assurance that all of Christ’s benefits are also for him.

The Philippian Jailor

To my chagrin, having arrived at the doctrine of active believing, I nevertheless was not carried aloft to the mountaintops of faith and assurance. In the process of time, I came to realize that the question with which I was wrestling was the same question as that of the Philippian jailor: “What must I do to be saved?” In the providence of God, I came to find Herman Hoeksema’s now-famous sermon titled “The Calling of the Philippian Jailor.” Readers of this magazine will be familiar both with the sermon and with the role it played in the recent doctrinal controversy that led to the formation of the RPC. But several years before the doctrine of that sermon was declared to be “Nonsense!” I was a teenager in my bedroom with tears welling up in my eyes, hearing for the first time, “Do nothing!”

In the historical context in which he preached the sermon, Hoeksema’s “do nothing” was antithetical to the theology of Rev. Hubert De Wolf, which theology is most easily summarized in his infamous statement, “God promises everyone of you that, if you believe, you shall be saved.” The immediate occasion for Hoeksema’s sermon on the Philippian jailor was to answer the challenge of those De Wolf sympathizers who fled to Acts 16:30–31 as their doctrinal fortress. As perhaps the foremost text in all of scripture on the call of the gospel, this text represented the entire battle line of 1953. One side represented Hoeksema, the unconditional covenant, and the Reformed faith, while the other side represented De Wolf, conditions, and Arminianism.

So, too, in our recent controversy, Hoeksema’s exegesis of the Philippian jailor text was the tipping point. The disparagement of his exegesis in the Standard Bearer was the impetus that led to the formation of Reformed Believers Publishing with its magazine Sword and Shield. Flurries of articles and letters began to circulate as the sermon re-emerged into the spotlight. Today, just as when it was originally preached, where one stands with regard to that text determines whether one holds to the theology of Herman Hoeksema and the historical PRC or whether one holds to the doctrine of the PRC of today, which can be summarized most efficiently as “If a man would be saved, there is that which he must do.”

The Promise

It is no longer surprising to me that the battle lines in our recent controversy parallel so closely with those of 1953. With reflection I believe I have begun to grasp why this has been the case. The issue is the promise.

I remember having a discussion in high school with a classmate regarding what exactly was wrong with De Wolf’s statement, “God promises everyone of you…” It is a testament to the PRC’s rearing of my generation that we sincerely struggled to pin down the error. De Wolf’s statement was the arch-heretical statement from the history of our denomination, and we did not have an answer for it. Surely, we reasoned, God does not lie. It could never be that someone would believe and yet not be saved. God promises. If you believe, you will surely be saved. And if you do not believe, you will not be saved. That too is sure. God does not save unbelievers! It almost appeared like a rather banal statement of objective fact.

The promise was a mere, objective fact. That, I believe, was the central error to my own thinking growing up. That was what I had imbibed as the zeitgeist of the PRC I grew up in. The promise was out there. It was a thing that was true. It was often adorned with the most flowery language—marvelous promises, beautiful promises, joyful promises. And yet I never quite grasped what that was all about. I think I generally took it to mean that God said quite a lot of good and nice things to his people, and we were supposed to take those things as our comfort, hope, and peace as we lived our lives.

Of course, I knew that the promise had to do with Christ. Many of the passages that a person raised in the church is familiar with from a young age are those directly messianic prophecies that promise the coming Christ. But the effect of linking those two—Christ and the promise—in my mind was only to come to the understanding that Christ, too, was out there. In that connection I would say that it was embarrassingly late in life that I actually understood Christmas. A child can become so distracted by the presents and the carols and the trappings of Christmastime, and Luke 2 can be read so frequently that one becomes numb to it. So I can say that all I used to grasp was that Christmas was about the fact that Jesus was born.

The promise was a fact. The incarnation was a fact. So also Christ’s life, work, death, and all his saving benefits were all facts.

For whom do these facts actually avail anything in the realization of salvation?

To others? Certainly.

But also to me?

Hence I returned to the same mire that I had struggled in with regard to Lord’s Day 7. And same as her gospel of Lord’s Day 7, the gospel of the PRC of today with regard to the promise and to all the saving benefits of Christ is that of active faith. You must do something to be saved, to receive the promises, and to partake of Christ’s benefits. Exercise yourself in the activity of believing, and you also can be blessed.

Yea and Amen

In contrast to this stands the truth of the promise. The promise that always comes to the undeserving and the powerless and the wretched and promises unconditionally that which is utterly impossible. The promise to trembling Adam and Eve was that the head of Satan, their new rightful master and lord, would be crushed by the seed of the woman. The promise to ninety-year-old Abraham was that he would be a father of many nations by his barren wife, Sarah. The promise to the nascent nation of Israel was that the nation would inherit the land of Canaan, though the Israelites were as grasshoppers before the giants of the land. To Gideon, that it was a small thing to the Lord to deliver by many or by few. To David, that his son would sit upon the throne of David forever. To Naboth, that he had an everlasting inheritance in the heavenly promised land. To a deathly ill Hezekiah, that he would be restored. And to Mary, that she would conceive and bear a son, having not known a man.

All of God’s promises are essentially Christ. Christ is both the possibility and the certainty of all of God’s impossible promises because Christ is God in the flesh. If the infinite God can be united to a finite human nature; if the holy God can dwell on this sin-cursed earth; if the exalted, independent God can become a sucking child who can hunger and thirst and weep and die; then you are saved. Then every barren womb is made fruitful, every giant is slain, every sickness is healed, and you will go to heaven. All of our barrenness and death and emptiness is on account of our sins. But if God came in the flesh, your sins are forgiven, and every blessing of salvation is yours. Thus Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day and was glad.

By her doctrine of active faith, the PRC denies this reality. I participated in that ecclesiastical pride whereby if I knew anything at all, it was that the PRC was the best church. In the PRC was the truth. But by the doctrine of active faith, that truth does not avail in salvation. The truth of scripture and the promises of God are merely objective facts and possibilities, which are made of effect to you once you exert yourself in the act of believing. How often was not the exhortation heard that we must not just have heads full of doctrinal knowledge but that we must have a knowledge that comes from the heart? Many times I heard this, and I would stumble over it. What does heart knowledge look like? Surely I had the head knowledge, probably more than my peers, but what of this heart knowledge? Was I missing some component of emotional fervor or inward piety that I ought to have had bubbling out of my heart?

I was missing the gospel. I was being made to look at what I was doing, what I had to add to make saving faith effectual. But the gospel is that heart knowledge is not what you do. Oh, true enough, no one is saved by a headful of facts. Saving faith is a matter of the heart. But that is not what you do. That knowledge of the heart is the work of the Holy Spirit whereby the savor of the knowledge of Christ is made to be a savor of life unto life in the elect (2 Cor. 2:14–16). The savor of the gospel wherein Christ is set forth as the heart of God’s counsel to be the mediator of the covenant and the savior of the elect church is spread abroad in the proclamation of the gospel, and the Spirit causes that to resonate in the hearts of his elect. Thus the elect believe on Jesus Christ, in whom all the promises of God are yea and amen, and the elect rest and rely alone on Christ’s perfect work. They do nothing for their salvation, confessing that by Christ’s work alone salvation is accomplished.

Death unto Death

That same gospel is a savor of death unto death. The reprobate to whom the gospel comes have all the same facts and all the same head knowledge that the elect have. But that those facts and knowledge do not avail unto salvation is not because the reprobate fail or refuse to actively believe them. It is because they do not believe them at all. They deny the truth of the doctrines they purport to confess.

When you believe that man must first act before and so that God can bestow some benefit of salvation, you deny the incarnation. If man’s role is decisive in the reception of the promise, then there may as well have been a role of a man in the incarnation as the central realization of the promise. Then Jesus is indeed the carpenter’s son. If you believe that sins were not actually forgiven at the cross, you deny the resurrection, for Christ must remain dead and buried if his people were not justified by his atoning death.

Q. 30. Do such then believe in Jesus the only Savior, who seek their salvation and welfare of saints, of themselves, or anywhere else?

A. They do not; for though they boast of Him in words, yet in deeds they deny Jesus the only deliverer and Savior; for one of these two things must be true, either that Jesus is not a complete Savior, or that they who by a true faith receive this Savior must find all things in Him necessary to their salvation. (Confessions and Church Order, 95)

Those who insert the work or activity of man into the accomplishment or reception of the promise deny Christ, the gospel, and all the doctrines of the gospel. Notwithstanding their claim to a doctrinal pedigree and their profession to love the truth, their doctrine reveals them as unbelievers. When the sweet savor of the gospel comes to them, they reject it, add to it, or otherwise mutilate it. To them it is not the promise of the free forgiveness of sins and everlasting life, so that they rest and rely on Christ alone. It is instead a condemnation of all their pride, their self-righteousness, and their refusal to become nothing before God. It savors to them of their certain destruction.

Peace

Belief of the gospel proceeds from God’s eternal decree. The gospel sets forth Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all of God’s promises and declares that all of salvation is in him, apart from anything that man does. All of God’s children whom God has eternally chosen and has engrafted into Jesus Christ receive the Spirit of Christ in their hearts; and by the work of the Spirit, they believe. Not as their work, their activity, or as a process of mental deduction or exertion, but as the Spirit’s work in them to cause them to know and delight in Christ as their savior and in God as the God of their salvation. So the Christian’s assurance must be rooted in the decree of election. Out of this assured confidence flow all the fruits of the Christian life, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. Out of this assurance also flows the peace of God that passes understanding, that his promise is sure, though all things may appear to be against us. For Christ, who has fully accomplished our salvation, now sits exalted at the right hand of God and directs all things for the salvation of his people and the perfection of his covenant.