From the Editor — January 2026

It has snowed! That beautiful white dust covering the ground reminds us that “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa. 1:18). Across the landscape is the God-wrought miracle of sparkling whiteness, indicating the God-wrought miracle of the forgiveness of sins, except where God’s work is fouled by the passage of man as he goes on his way in the streets.

“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” was the Lord’s thesis in the debate that he proposed with Israel through the prophet Isaiah. The Lord’s thesis was the free and gracious justification of an ungodly people, who are like Sodom and like Gomorrah, who are a rebellious people, a “sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters” who “have forsaken the Lord…provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, [and] are gone away backward” (Isa. 1:4). In this thesis there is nothing of man. There are no activities of man, no works of man, and no thoughts of man. But the Lord’s thesis is a promise of pure grace concerning free and full justification proceeding from God’s eternal thoughts and purposes in love toward his elect people in Christ.

Such was the thesis that the Lord proposed several years ago to the Protestant Reformed Churches, who like Israel had departed from the truth. When that thesis came, then far and away the majority of the members utterly rejected that word of the Lord in unbelief and in favor of their own thesis that there is that which man must do to be saved. They shouted down the Lord in their arguments with him just as loudly as Israel had shouted at the trial of Jesus Christ before Pilate.

But the Lord will not be shouted down. He will have his thesis heard. In January 2021 and later in May 2021, two acts of separation were signed by officebearers and members of the Protestant Reformed Churches to form God’s church anew in two congregations. Then those two churches signed an Act of Federation, and a new denomination was formed. Later, churches in Northwest Iowa; Southern California; Loveland, Colorado; and Alberta and Ontario, Canada joined the denomination.

It became apparent and is still becoming apparent that many who had joined the new denomination also rejected the Lord’s thesis in favor of a thesis of their imaginations: some arguing for this point and others arguing for that point. But the thesis of the Lord stands sure and steadfast in his counsel and in the cross and the resurrection of Christ for all his elect in Christ: God justifies the ungodly! That is the word that we trust will be at the heart of the message of Sword and Shield for another year by the grace of God alone. Will any stop shouting their own thesis and listen to the thesis of God? This only God knows and only God can work.

Of note for the reader is that Rev. Tyler Ophoff will give a lecture in January 2026 concerning the Act of Separation that was written and signed by those who were organized as First Reformed Protestant Church. The speech aims to prove the contentions of the Act of Separation and thus the righteousness of the cause of those who separated from the Protestant Reformed Churches. Attend in person or tune in online for what is certain to be an informative and invigorating speech. The reader will find more information about the speech in this issue.

Regarding the meditation, the reader should be aware that Herman Hoeksema originally wrote the meditation in Dutch as part of a series of meditations on the book of Zechariah published in The Standard Bearer in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The editor has translated the meditation into English. The first two translated meditations in the series can be found in the November and December issues of volume six of Sword and Shield.

This month the editor continues his treatment of three speeches given at a Protestant Reformed officebearers’ conference hosted by Crete Protestant Reformed Church. The speech analyzed this month was given by Rev. Richard Smit. His speech is a repetition of and an expansion on the abominable theology of justification by faith and repentance that was delivered by Rev. Joshua Engelsma in his speech, which the editor analyzed last month. The speeches show clearly that the theologians of the Protestant Reformed Churches have rejected the Lord’s thesis of justification by faith alone and are still shouting their own thesis of justification by faith and repentance.

Will any hear? Will any consider? God knows.

Reverend Ophoff in Understanding the Times takes on the wicked work of that slippery McGeown in his preaching to twist the word of God regarding the antithesis so that it has no real application to the life of the church.

Mr. Craig Ferguson in the Running Footmen rubric reflects on an implication of the Lord’s thesis in the antithesis with all that belongs to the theses of the world and of the false church. When the Lord’s thesis was recovered in the Reformed Protestant Churches, then the truth of the antithesis was also recovered. That antithesis is the Lord’s work when he saves his people and justifies them freely. He makes them of his party in the world and sets them in opposition to all who oppose the Lord and his thesis. He said that through Isaiah too: “The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant…” (Isa. 1:8–9). Being of the Lord’s party, the church is surrounded as a remnant by those who would overthrow her. Such is the position of the true church always in the world.