Finally, the doctrine before us in the current battle with Prof. David J. Engelsma and the Protestant Reformed Churches is justification by faith alone.

That justification by faith alone is the doctrine before us was made clear by Professor Engelsma in a September 8, 2021, blog post that began as a September 2 family letter intended for the general public.¹ The professor’s post was in response to the August 15 issue of Sword and Shield, which attacked his teaching that there is a vital sense in man’s salvation in which man’s activity precedes God’s activity. The purpose of the professor’s latest blog post was to accuse the Reformed Protestant Churches of committing the logical fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc. In trying to make this logical fallacy the issue, Professor Engelsma is carrying on his denomination’s favorite tactic of demolishing straw men. Other writers elsewhere in this issue expose that tactic well.

In the course of his argument and as the essential doctrine of his argument, Professor Engelsma comes to justification by faith alone. He states the doctrinal issue thus:

Justification, or forgiveness, follows faith, as the end follows the means. Faith precedes justification. Repentance precedes remission of sins. But because it pleases God to justify by means of faith (believing), and to forgive in the way of the sinner’s repenting, justification is not caused by faith. Neither is repentance the cause of forgiveness. Faith is the (God-worked) means. It is not the cause.

Shortly thereafter Professor Engelsma restates this as the doctrinal position of the Protestant Reformed Churches and issues a series of questions to the Reformed Protestant Churches.

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. Similarly, believing is the (God-given and God-worked) means unto justification; as end, justification follows faith.

Do the theologians of the RPC deny this? Do they deny that the end follows the means? Do they deny that the (God-worked) repentance of the sinner precedes forgiveness? Do they deny that an active faith precedes justification? Do they deny the teaching of James 4:8 that an important aspect of salvation has God’s causing us to draw nigh to Him precede His drawing nigh to us. Is this now the rock-bottom, doctrinal validation of their separate existence? Is this in the end their “here we stand”?

It is fitting that justification by faith alone is the doctrine before us. The battle between the truth and the lie with regard to man’s salvation always comes down to justification by faith alone. So let it come down to this in our battle as well.

Finally, Justification by Faith Alone

It is a relief that the doctrine before us is finally justification by faith alone. The relief is that the truth of justification by faith alone is simple and clear. Whether one is the mightiest theologian or only a small child, one can be an expert in the simple truth of justification. It is this: I am right with God because of what Christ has done and not because of what I have done. How lovely! How marvelous! In that fathomlessly deep but wonderfully simple truth is all the hope and happiness of the people of God.

The relief is also that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is a bright and shining beacon to every Reformed person. A Reformed man instinctively knows that he sails in serious waters when the doctrine before him is justification by faith alone. If a Protestant Reformed man has been asleep at the helm of his vessel until now in this controversy, then the fact that justification by faith alone is under attack must be to that man like the blinding flash of the lighthouse’s beam cutting through the night and like the deep boom of the foghorn resounding through the mist. However much a man might think of his church and his theologians, when justification by faith alone is compromised, that man must realize the deadly shoals into which his church has sailed herself. The wreckage of Roman Catholicism and Arminianism and conditional covenant theology and the federal vision are all piled on the rocks of their compromising justification by faith alone. Perhaps some Protestant Reformed men will yet take notice of their danger now that the theologian of the PRC for the past few generations has taken it in hand to compromise justification by faith alone.

It is also a relief finally to have the doctrine of justification by faith alone before us because this doctrine pins Professor Engelsma down in his corner and prevents him from dancing away from the implications of his position. I feel pity for my professor when I read his current writings, because he is obviously in a tight corner. He has loudly and repeatedly stated that there is a critical sense in which man’s activity precedes God’s activity in man’s salvation. For example: “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.”² Rather than acknowledging the implications of his tight corner by stating forthrightly that there are prerequisites to salvation after all, as his position demands, Professor Engelsma has ducked the issue.

He has ducked the issue primarily by insisting that the real issue is not whether or not man precedes God. Rather, according to the professor, the real issue is that I deny the call of the gospel, including the command to sinners to repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, with the promise that all who believe in Jesus Christ shall be saved. Never mind that I have affirmed the truth of the call of the gospel to Professor Engelsma clearly and at length, which affirmation apparently evaporated into the air for all the notice the professor took of it. Never mind the fact that I learned my doctrine of the call of the gospel from Professor Engelsma, that I love that doctrine, believe that doctrine, teach that doctrine, and practice that doctrine. Never mind the fact that I was deposed from the Protestant Reformed Churches precisely for issuing the call to the denomination to repent of her false doctrine, which call the denomination found highly offensive and for which call the denomination cast me away from herself as some wicked thing. Never mind the fact that the Reformed Protestant Churches continue to be the only denomination in all the world warning the Protestant Reformed denomination of her spiritual adultery and calling her members to repent by coming out of the denomination. And never mind the fact that Professor Engelsma himself has not and will not issue the call of the gospel to his own denomination or to his own colleagues to repent of their false doctrine, of which false doctrine he is well aware. And yet Professor Engelsma continues to insist that the issue is the call of the gospel. He writes about the officebearers in the Reformed Protestant Churches in his blog post as if they would have nothing to say to sinners.

He writes in his blog, “Let us suppose that these churches too have a member living impenitently in sin. The minister and an elder make a disciplinary call on the sinning member. What do they say to him?”

What do we say to him? This: “Repent of your sin; believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house.” Just what we have always said, both to impenitent individuals and to our churches, and just as Professor Engelsma has not said and apparently will never say to his denomination about her present departure, though he is well aware of her present departure.

Professor Engelsma has also ducked the issue by speaking in meaningless circles. Recognizing that his explanations to this point have not explained how man can precede God while also not preceding God, he offered this clarification.

Let me state this once again, more simply. In salvation as the matter of our consciousness, or experience, of God’s drawing nigh to us in the assurance of His love and the sweet experience of the covenant of grace, God draws us to Himself (thus He is first in the matter of experience) in such a way that we actively draw nigh to Him by a true and living faith (which faith as a spiritual activity of knowing Him in Jesus and trusting in Him), so that in the way of this our drawing nigh to Him He may draw nigh to us in the experience of His nearness in Christ. In this specific sense, our drawing nigh to Him precedes His drawing nigh to Him [sic (us)].³

That is theological nonsense. I do not say that lightly, and I am still astounded that those words must be written. I doubt that Professor Engelsma has ever uttered or written theological nonsense in his life, until now. But this is literal theological nonsense, meaning there is no sense or meaning in it. God is first, and man is first. God is first in the matter of our experience, and man’s activity precedes God’s activity in this specific sense of man’s experience.

Nevertheless, what emerges from this nonsense after all the qualifications have been made is the tight corner that Professor Engelsma finds himself in and from which he cannot escape: man’s activity precedes God’s activity.

In this specific sense, our drawing nigh to Him precedes His drawing nigh to [us]. This is the plain meaning of James 4:8: “Draw nigh to me, and I will draw nigh to you.” This is the plain meaning of the text as it stands in all its perfect clarity before every reader, especially before a minister of the Word. Our drawing nigh to God precedes God’s drawing nigh to us.⁴

No wonder that a man tries to escape the implications of that theology. Who in the whole readership of Sword and Shield—or the Standard Bearer or the RFPA blog, for that matter—wants to be stuck in that corner? What man who calls himself Reformed wants to try to defend our activity of coming to God as preceding God’s activity of coming to us in any sense whatsoever? A Reformed man instinctively knows that position to be indefensible. Everything about the Reformed faith speaks against man’s preceding God. God’s absolute sovereignty in salvation; unconditional election as the fount of every gift of salvation; God’s particular and efficacious grace; the unconditional covenant of grace. Where are you going to fit man’s activity preceding God’s activity in any of those pillars of the Reformed faith? If a man is attracted to the position that man precedes God, then he is not a Reformed man but an Arminian man.

The tragedy for Professor Engelsma is that he did not have to be stuck in this corner trying to defend man’s preceding God. The tight spot that he is in is entirely of his own making. I remind our readers that Professor Engelsma landed in this corner when he volunteered to condemn my sermon on Malachi 3:7. I interpreted that text as the law that exposed Israel’s inability and unwillingness to return to God. “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?” God intended this command of the law as a sharp and piercing rebuke to Israel for her apostasy from him. That sharp rebuke would show Israel, who was self-righteously ignorant of her own sin of departing from Jehovah, that she was unable and unwilling to return to God. In light of that law, and in light of Israel’s utter unwillingness and inability to return, Israel’s only hope would be the condescending mercy and grace of God to deliver her from her sin and guilt.

Admittedly, my interpretation of Malachi 3:7 as the command of the law appears to be the minority view. Happily for me, this minority view was also Martin Luther’s.

7. Return to Me, and I will return to you. These words seem to support the free will of man. They are, however, words of the Law, upon which the ability to obey does not immediately follow. After all, He has already said that they had never kept the Law, even if they were eager to keep it. To be sure, God is a good Lawgiver, but we are lazy doers of it. The Law tells us what we should do. He says, “Return to obey Me, and I will return to you to bless you. I will be your kind Father of mercies.”

How shall we return? The prophet has to deal with holy hypocrites, who are unwilling to accept rebuke and who are unaware of any sin or turning away from God.⁵

The alternative to interpreting Malachi 3:7 as the command of the law is to interpret it as the call of the gospel. This appears to be the majority view. As the call of the gospel, God’s word, “Return unto me,” would powerfully work Israel’s turning away from her apostasy and Israel’s return to Jehovah.

This is where things could have ended. Whether one interprets Malachi 3:7 as the call of the law or the call of the gospel is an exegetical question on which Reformed believers can disagree. No doctrine of the scripture is at stake in either interpretation because both interpretations teach that Israel’s salvation is of the Lord. Whether the call is intended to expose Israel’s inability (law) or whether the call is intended as the power to bring Israel back (gospel), Israel’s return to Jehovah is worked by God. This would be a profitable debate at a Bible study, but it is not a theological controversy.

Nevertheless, Professor Engelsma made it a matter of the truth versus the lie when he responded to my sermon by insisting that there is some vital sense in which man’s activity precedes God’s activity. The controversy had to come to this development of the lie. The matter before us could not rest as two differing but orthodox interpretations of a passage. It could not rest there because the Protestant Reformed Churches and her theologians have committed themselves to the false doctrine of conditional covenant fellowship. Those theologians and members who think that they are not committed to this false doctrine are currently tolerating it as it openly and obviously runs rampant in their denomination. Therefore, this false doctrine of the PRC had to be drawn out into the open yet again and had to be brought to a further stage of development.

That further stage of development is now before us. Finally, the doctrine is justification by faith alone. Here there are no more evasions. Here the doctrine that man’s activity precedes God’s activity bears its evil fruit of making man’s activity of repenting and believing a prerequisite for God’s activity of justifying man and remitting his sins.

The Means of Justification

Let us read once again from his blog Professor Engelsma’s statements about justification.

Justification, or forgiveness, follows faith, as the end follows the means. Faith precedes justification. Repentance precedes remission of sins. But because it pleases God to justify by means of faith (believing), and to forgive in the way of the sinner’s repenting, justification is not caused by faith. Neither is repentance the cause of forgiveness. Faith 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. Similarly, believing is the (God-given and God-worked) means unto justification; as end, justification follows faith.

Do the theologians of the RPC deny this? Do they deny that the end follows the means? Do they deny that the (God-worked) repentance of the sinner precedes forgiveness? Do they deny that an active faith precedes justification? Do they deny the teaching of James 4:8 that an important aspect of salvation has God’s causing us to draw nigh to Him precede His drawing nigh to us. Is this now the rock-bottom, doctrinal validation of their separate existence? Is this in the end their “here we stand”?

Professor Engelsma is working with the doctrine of the means or instrument of justification. The means of justification is that gift of God through which God bestows Jesus Christ and all his merits upon the elect sinner. The means of justification is faith, and faith alone. In the term justification by faith alone, the instrument of justification is expressed in the phrase by faith alone. Article 22 of the Belgic Confession defines and explains this doctrine of faith as the instrument of justification.

We believe that, to attain the true knowledge of this great mystery, the Holy Ghost kindleth in our hearts an upright faith, which embraces Jesus Christ with all His merits, appropriates Him, and seeks nothing more besides Him…

Therefore we justly say with Paul, that we are justified by faith alone, or by faith without works. However, to speak more clearly, we do not mean that faith itself justifies us, for it is only an instrument with which we embrace Christ our righteousness. But Jesus Christ, imputing to us all His merits and so many holy works which He has done for us and in our stead, is our righteousness. And faith is an instrument that keeps us in communion with Him in all His benefits, which, when become ours, are more than sufficient to acquit us of our sins. (Confessions and Church Order, 49–50)

The significance of faith as the means of justification is faith’s all-important object. The object of faith is Jesus Christ. Faith “embraces Jesus Christ” and is “an instrument with which we embrace Christ our righteousness” and is “an instrument that keeps us in communion with Him in all His benefits.” The significance of faith is not man and what man does. The significance of faith is exclusively Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ has done.

For that reason, faith is not work but the opposite of working. Emphatically, faith is not work.

3. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. 

4. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. 

5. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Rom. 4:3–5)

Also for that reason, faith is not of man but of God. Emphatically, faith is not of man. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9).

Because faith is not work and is not of man but is the gift of God by which he gives Jesus Christ to an elect sinner, man’s righteousness before God is nothing of man but only of Jesus Christ and all his merits.

This is where Professor Engelsma goes wrong as he works with faith as the means or instrument of justification. He makes faith to be man. He makes the significance of faith as the means of justification to be man. He makes man’s active faith preceding justification to be the prerequisite of justification. Surely Professor Engelsma would declare his disagreement with this analysis, but that is what he has done all the same. Backed into his corner and having to explain his doctrine that in some vital sense man’s activity of coming to God precedes God’s activity of coming to man, Professor Engelsma makes justification by faith alone to mean that man’s active faith is a prerequisite for his justification. There are especially three ways that he does this.

First, he makes the significance of faith to be man’s activity of believing. It was the professor’s concern from the beginning that the activity of man be defended and protected. In his first letter to his correspondent, Professor Engelsma wrote about my sermon on Malachi 3:7, “Not to be overlooked is that his peculiar interpretation of the Malachi passage is the denial of spiritual activity on the part of the believer.”⁶ As I and others have pointed out repeatedly, Professor Engelsma is wrong to say that I deny spiritual activity on the part of the believer. But the point now is that Professor Engelsma makes man’s activity of faith and man’s activity of believing to be essential for man’s justification. In his latest blog post, Professor Engelsma demands, “Do they [the theologians of the RPC] deny that an active faith precedes justification?” For Professor Engelsma, man is justified before God by means of man’s active faith.

In justification, it is wrong to make the significance of faith to be man’s activity of faith. The significance of faith in justification is not at all or in any way man’s activity. The significance of faith in justification is only and strictly faith’s object, which is Jesus Christ. To insist on man’s active faith and man’s activity of believing as the means of justification is to make faith into a work. It is to import into the righteousness of Christ something of man.

We could go so far as to say that in justification, faith is utterly passive. I recognize that faith is active in embracing and knowing Christ, for example. But those activities of faith are not the significance of faith as the instrument of justification. Therefore, even when we speak of the activities of faith, such as coming to Christ, abiding in him, embracing him, knowing him, trusting him, and receiving him, justifying faith is passive. Faith does not give anything to Christ, does not contribute anything to one’s righteousness, and has its meaning only in its object and not in itself.

The confessions are exceedingly clear on the point that the significance of faith in justification is not man’s activity of faith itself, but only Jesus Christ.

To speak more clearly, we do not mean that faith itself justifies us, for it is only an instrument with which we embrace Christ our righteousness. (Belgic Confession 22, in Confessions and Church Order, 50)

Why sayest thou that thou art righteous by faith only?

A. Not that I am acceptable to God on account of the worthiness of my faith, but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my righteousness before God; and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only. (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 61, in Confessions and Church Order, 107)

Second, Professor Engelsma makes the doctrine of faith as the means or instrument of justification to be a doctrine of temporal order. For him justification by faith alone must be explained in the language of “precedes” and “follows.” He writes in his blog,

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. Similarly, believing is the (God-given and God-worked) means unto justification; as end, justification follows faith.

Do the theologians of the RPC deny this? Do they deny that the end follows the means? Do they deny that the (God-worked) repentance of the sinner precedes forgiveness? Do they deny that an active faith precedes justification? Do they deny the teaching of James 4:8 that an important aspect of salvation has God’s causing us to draw nigh to Him precede His drawing nigh to us. Is this now the rock-bottom, doctrinal validation of their separate existence? Is this in the end their “here we stand”?

The error of this approach is that it inevitably and invariably makes man’s preceding activity the prerequisite for God’s following activity. It makes man’s activity of drawing nigh to God in an active faith to be the prerequisite for God’s drawing nigh to man in remitting man’s sins. This is a corruption of the doctrine of the means of faith. The doctrine of the means of faith is that our righteousness is entirely the righteousness of Christ and not at all our own righteousness, and that God graciously grants us that righteousness through faith, which faith itself is not a work but a gift of God. Nowhere in that teaching is our faith a condition or prerequisite for our justification. In Professor Engelsma’s approach, we must now explain justification by faith alone as a matter of man’s activity preceding God’s activity and God’s remitting of our sins following man’s active faith. This makes faith a prerequisite instead of an instrument. Man’s active faith precedes, and God’s forgiveness of sins follows.

In this regard, Professor Engelsma wrongly applies all of the passages that he cites. He quotes portions of Matthew 9:2; Acts 2:38, 10:43; James 4:8; and Galatians 2:16 as if Jesus and his servants were making the point in these passages that man’s activity of faith precedes God’s activity of forgiving. The point of all of these passages is not that man’s activity is first and God’s activity is second. Rather, the point of all of these passages is that the elect sinner’s righteousness and forgiveness are entirely due to the mercy and grace of God and on the basis of the perfect righteousness of Christ. In Matthew 9:2, for example, the point of Jesus is not that the man sick of the palsy and his friends first believed, and then Jesus’ activity of forgiving followed. Rather, Jesus’ point is that the object of the sick man’s faith—Jesus Christ—was the reason for the sick man’s being forgiven. The passage is not about the sick man’s activity as such but about the object of the sick man’s faith; not the faith in itself of the sick man but Jesus, to whom the sick man looked. When the passage says, “Jesus seeing their faith,” we could read that according to its meaning: “Jesus seeing himself and his righteousness, which was the object of their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.”

Third, it is an error to make repentance to be the same as faith. Repentance is not faith, and faith is not repentance. I believe that Reverend Langerak is covering this error elsewhere in this issue, so I only mention it here.

The result of Professor Engelsma’s approach to the means of justification is that he has turned faith from the instrument of justification into a prerequisite for justification. This is where the doctrine that he has been teaching lately must invariably lead. If one will maintain that there is a vital sense in man’s salvation in which man’s activity of coming to God precedes God’s activity of coming to man, then one has made man’s activity a prerequisite. The false doctrine of faith as a prerequisite must carry through into justification by faith, as it now has.

Let all who have been asleep at the helm in the Protestant Reformed Churches and elsewhere take heed. You have now lost justification by faith alone, which has always been the article of the standing or the falling church.