The doctrine in this special edition of Sword and Shield is the heart of the gospel: justification by faith alone. That doctrine is taken up on these pages in the relationship between repentance and remission of sins. Once again, this special issue is occasioned by the writings of Prof. David J. Engelsma, who is professor emeritus of dogmatics and Old Testament studies at the Theological School of the Protestant Reformed Churches.

Several people have reported that Professor Engelsma’s latest writings are being passed around as the definitive explanation of the relationship between repentance and remission of sins. It is also being reported that Professor Engelsma’s latest writings make the issue of repentance and forgiveness so clear.

However, the editors of Sword and Shield have not found his latest writings to be clear at all but to be full of error and confusion. We thought it worthwhile to address the doctrines of repentance and remission of sins, at least for our own benefit and understanding and hopefully for the benefit of the readers as well.

We have also heard that the same people who find Professor Engelsma’s writings to be so helpful are also discouraging everyone from reading Sword and Shield or other sources that are friendly to the Reformed Protestant Churches. This strikes me as very odd, although not entirely unexpected at this point. Weren’t these the same people in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) who constantly accused the Reformed Protestant Churches of following a man? But now when the doctrine of justification by faith alone is being subverted, the members of the PRC are told that they should only read one man?

This mentality is not unexpected because the Protestant Reformed denomination is very quickly adopting more and more of the characteristics of Rome. The PRC’s compromise of justification by faith alone is the heart of it, so it is no wonder that the members also now have a list of officially approved reading material and a list of forbidden reading material.

Contrary to the PRC’s prohibition against reading Sword and Shield, the editors of Sword and Shield, the board of Reformed Believers Publishing (RBP), and the association of RBP encourage the readers to read as widely as possible in this controversy and to discern the truth from the lie. In fact, this issue of Sword and Shield will print for your easy reference the two documents of Professor Engelsma in question.

The first document is Professor Engelsma’s approved transcript of his Reformed doctrines class in January 2022. This transcript was edited by Professor Engelsma and distributed to the email list of the Reformed doctrines class per Professor Engelsma’s instructions, from whence it was distributed far and wide.

The second document is Professor Engelsma’s privately published paper, Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken. In this document the professor takes issue with an article that the undersigned wrote in the February 15, 2022, issue of Sword and Shield. For the sake of easy reference, both the reply article and the letter that occasioned the article are reprinted in this special edition.

Finally, each of the editors of Sword and Shield contributes an analysis of Professor Engelsma’s doctrine and the PRC.

This special edition can be considered as part one. We plan to continue our analysis of Professor Engelsma and the Protestant Reformed Churches in the regular April edition of Sword and Shield. In light of the fact that this issue already has an abundance of material, we thought it best to hold some of it until the next issue. Rather than run another special edition in April, we will include that material in the regular April issue. All of this, the Lord willing.

There is nothing more important than the truth of justification by faith alone.

What Professor Engelsma and the Protestant Reformed Churches have done to this doctrine is stunning. 

Let the readers discern the truth and damn the lie.

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