This special edition of Sword and Shield takes the field to fight in the present-day controversy over whether man’s activity of drawing near to God precedes God’s activity of drawing near to man in man’s conscious experience of covenant fellowship with God. Is there some specific, important, vital sense in the experience of man in which man’s activity precedes God’s activity? 

This controversy has been given fresh legs in recent weeks by Prof. David Engelsma’s public and vigorous condemnation of a sermon on Malachi 3:7 preached in First Reformed Protestant Church by the undersigned. Professor Engelsma damned the sermon as teaching a new religion, which new religion is supposedly an activity-denying, hyper-Calvinist, stock-and-block theology. Over against the theology of the sermon, Professor Engelsma stated his own theology of covenant experience: “There is a vitally important sense in which, in our salvation, our drawing nigh to God precedes God’s drawing nigh to us” (Professor Engelsma to Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 16, 2021).

Such a statement, asserted repeatedly in the following pages, is astounding. It is astounding because of who makes it. Professor Engelsma is a Reformed theologian of the highest caliber. He knows better than what he is now teaching and defending. He must know better! Mustn’t he? In all the hours I have spent under his instruction, under his preaching, reading his articles, and reading his books, I would never, never have characterized his theology this way: Man. Never would I have said that at some vital point in Professor Engelsma’s theology, man precedes God. Always, always I would characterize his teaching this way: God. God first and middle and last. God the Alpha and Omega. God the Beginning and the Ending. Who would ever have said any differently? Any number of our readers would have either laughed at you or fought you if you had suggested that at a critical point in Professor Engelsma’s covenant theology, he made man precede God. And yet here it is: “There is an important sense in which our drawing nigh to God, by the effectual allure of the promise that in this way God will graciously draw nigh to us (than which experience nothing is more precious), precedes God’s drawing nigh to us” (Professor Engelsma to Forum and Terry Dykstra, June 16, 2021).

But never mind the man. Whether a theological colossus like Professor Engelsma or a theological garden gnome like myself, any of us can err. So never mind the man. What about the theology? What about the theology that says that at the vital point of man’s experience of God’s drawing nigh to him in love and salvation and mercy, our drawing nigh to God precedes God’s drawing nigh to us? This theology is devastating. It is so devastating because it is the resurrection of prerequisites. When man’s activity precedes God’s activity, and God’s activity waits upon man’s activity, that is a prerequisite. Prerequisites are back. And with prerequisites comes the whole conditional covenant theology that makes so much of them.

The essence of this controversy is as ancient as can be. In every attack upon God, his Christ, his Spirit, his church, and his salvation, the point of conflict has been man. The error exalts man; the truth abases man. The lie flatters man and inflames his pride; the truth exposes man, that God alone may be glorified. In the controversy as it is carried on in these pages too, the lie would fill man with himself by making man first in the specific and vital matter of his experience of covenant fellowship with God. Always and forever the lie enthuses over man, man, man, and more man.

The essence of this controversy is also as familiar as can be to readers of Sword and Shield. This is the controversy that has been fought in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) for some six years, that has been carried on in the pages of this magazine since its inception, and that has resulted in the separation of the Reformed Protestant Churches from the Protestant Reformed Churches.

But the controversy has now been carried forward to another stage of development. The theologian of the Protestant Reformed Churches has weighed in and has shown by his own teaching what lies at the heart of the PRC’s error of conditional covenant fellowship: man’s preceding God.

The documents that follow are given in their chronological order. To this point, the controversy has been carried out in a sermon, emails that were widely distributed, a speech, and open letters. We pray that the reader profits from having these previously scattered documents gathered in one place for his study and reflection.

Finally, I would like to echo Rev. Nathan Langerak’s invitation to Professor Engelsma to write. I would like to extend that invitation to others as well. The matters are vital. We will publish you. In an entire special edition if need be. Even in a jumbo edition if need be.

May God speed the truths written herein to your heart and the next issue into your hands.