Introduction

There is a stir in the city of Jerusalem. Though Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified, and though the hubbub surrounding his resurrection was quelled by the lies of the leaders of the Jews, there is nevertheless a new controversy that has set the pot to seething. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Pentecost, the Spirit of reformation is roaring; and no matter how the Jewish hypocrites try, they cannot silence him, for they cannot silence God.

Filled with the Spirit, called by Jesus Christ, and standing in their appointed offices as Christ’s watchmen on the walls of Zion, the apostles had preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this they had been arrested again and again and were brought before the rogue courts of the Jews. Rogue courts they are because the Jews have no authority. The Jews have no authority as given by God (for all authority is in him and is his to give) because Israel is no longer a nation and no longer the church. The Jews are pretenders in church and state, imagining that the Lord has not carried out against them his prophesied destruction of the nation. Defying him, the Jews maintain the appearance of an oppressive tyranny in Israel, but only according to the capricious tolerances of the Romans and only by what violence and force the Jews can muster.

Now, the stir in Jerusalem grows, and a keen edge of anticipation fills the streets. Violence and false accusations have become the favored tools of Caiaphas and his fellow pretenders in the Sanhedrin. By force they had imprisoned the apostles in the recent past. Somehow, inexplicably to the leaders of the Jews, the apostles escaped their bonds and were found preaching again in the temple.

Is it time for a more permanent solution?

Judging from the angry cries that ring out from the leaders of the Jews, there may yet be more blood. Jesus of Nazareth has unhinged them, so that it seems that there is no restraint to their reckless swinging of a sword and a duty too great for them. They hate these preachers, these so-called apostles. Especially the Jews hate the Christ these fellows are preaching and the salvation that they are promising in Christ’s name to all of his elect—to them who work not but believe! Is there a doctrine more antithetical to the Jews’ doctrine of the covenant of works? Cut to the heart, say the scriptures, the Jews take counsel to slay the apostles.

Then Gamaliel rises to speak; and as his words drift over the court, they seem, as they had so many times before, to carry a great weight, so that a spell falls over all who hear him. Gamaliel! All the Jews know him well: he is a great teacher of the Jews, a scholar without peer, an expert in law, and he possesses unparalleled wisdom. Man—exalted, praise-worthy man—surely, in him the Jews’ trust can rest secure. Surely, his words are words of the very wisdom of heaven.

But what is this? Gamaliel bids them not to push too far? Gamaliel advises caution? Gamaliel bids them to consider the possibility that these foul apostles of Christ could very well be of God? The whole court stutters and shudders, its confusion evident, its momentum uneasily stalled. Amazing, the power of Gamaliel’s words. No, the court decides, agreeing with this great teacher, previous convictions siphoned away. No, we will not kill these filthy apostles, but we will do what we can to silence them and humiliate them, and then we will release them. That will be enough for our purposes. That is all we should do.

Right? That is what you said, Gamaliel, is it not? Caution—yes, that is what we will call it. Caution.

And yet, even to those Jews, something must have seemed a bit off with Gamaliel’s advice. I pray that it seems off to us as well and for a better reason. Judging simply by effects, some have had a favorable view of Gamaliel’s advice—what wrong can there be with caution? Surely caution is no great sin.

Well, then, call it caution. But Gamaliel’s advice was unbelief, the unbelief of relativism. And as much as the effect of Gamaliel’s advice was to swerve the Jews into a new direction, halting their murderous hands (by the will of God and for the good of the church), Gamaliel’s unbelief lifts its stubborn, warty head as a persistent threat within the church, even—and perhaps especially—in times of reformation.

Relativism: Unbelief

Who is to say for certain?

Such was Gamaliel’s question, and such is the question of all relativists. As with all wisdom of man, the fatal error of the question is that God is not in it. “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts” (Ps. 10:4). A relativist treats the judgment of truth as if the truth were entirely subjective (dependent on the varied experiences of the ones making the judgment) and not objective (true regardless of and independent of experience). This philosophy lies behind the modern-day trend of every man having “his truth” to speak. Man has equated experience with truth to such a degree that when he says “truth,” he means experience; and when he says “experience,” he means truth.

This carnal philosophy of relativism arises also in the church. Unsurprisingly, when God reveals himself in his word, the relativist squirms away from that word’s piercing truth. The relativist cannot see himself as he is, and he cannot see God as God is. If he can the relativist plays games with the word, using sleight of hand to make the word oppose itself and subjecting the word to his favored contortions. In the end relativism as a term can be a bit of a distraction from the root issue: a relativist is really opposed to the idea that there is truth at all; and if the relativist concedes that there is indeed something that can be called truth, he hedges his concession by treating the truth as if it were unknowable, and he guts the truth of any absolute meaning. Considering that God himself is truth, a relativist is really a kind of atheist. The relativist defies God to his face and tries to restrain God with the subjective experience of the creature.

Who is to say for certain?

The true answer to the question is as simple as it is wondrous: Jehovah God! He has given a certain testimony and a living, powerful standard of truth: the word. Scripture is the exclusive word of God, and the doctrine of that word is the exclusive doctrine of God. This exclusivity makes men uncomfortable because it means that the truth is an either/or proposition. There is a standard, and it is God himself. All things are judged and exposed in his light. All things are revealed to be what they truly are. The first and final word belongs to God and to God alone.

Relativism in the Flesh

There is something about man’s nature that makes man wrap himself in relativism like a security blanket. Man, in his sinful nature, is a creature who loves to hide in murk and to lurk in shadows. He feels most comfortable in the gray, like a sleepy, darkness-dwelling catfish, slumbering under the riverbank. According to the flesh man is that miserable, twisted creature, hiding in the cold darkness of the mountain cave, living off blind fish that he finds in his filthy pond, and strangling other similarly miserable beings that stumble across his way.

When you stop man and ask, “Who is God? What is the truth of his word?” the miserable little creature that is man shrinks back and holds out his hands, muttering, “Who is to say for certain?” and slinks away into his precious shadows.

That picture cuts deeply, does it not? Such detestable little creatures we are in the flesh! All men are inclined to be relativists according to their natures. The gospel is declared powerfully in our midst, and we hesitate. The Spirit thunders in the pulpit and in our hearts, and we waver. The king of kings delivers from death and the grave, and we shrug, unsure of how to react in front of others. Old friends and family become enemies of the gospel, who scoff and jeer and lie about God and about his anointed, and we hide away in our little corners and soothe our consciences with cowardly, faithless platitudes. “I don’t want to be too one-sided; there is such a thing as balance after all…Maybe God’s word is true, but maybe we have to do justice to man’s perceived experiences…Maybe God is sovereign, but there is also the will of man to contend with…Maybe to love the brother is to rebuke him, but maybe to love the brother is to remain silent and let him carry on…It is easiest to stay quiet. It is safest not to act according to confession. False doctrine will not really do what God says it will and must do. We can just wait this one out; the storm will blow over, the music will play again, and the game will go on.”

The folly of Gamaliel is natural to the flesh, pleasing to the flesh, and comfortable to the flesh because the folly of Gamaliel was unbelief. We might be tempted to call Gamaliel’s folly by another name. In the past I thought that the caution of Gamaliel was perhaps even a godly humility. I thought he was near the truth because of his apparent trepidation in opposing it.

But at its root Gamaliel’s advice to the Sanhedrin was unbelief. His ultimate confession was that the truth is unknowable and that judgment is really impossible. The Sanhedrin was gathered to judge the apostles and their doctrine. The calling of the Sanhedrin, such as it was before the Lord, was to vindicate the right and to condemn the wrong. Righteous judgment would have been to declare that Christ indeed had been slain by wicked hands according to the foreknowledge and predeterminate counsel of God; that Christ was indeed risen, victorious over sin and death, exalted to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins; and that all these things were the fulfillment of God’s promised salvation. Righteous judgment would have been to aid and promote as much as the Sanhedrin could the furtherance of the glorious gospel of Christ and the protection of his church. When men gather to judge the gospel, this is always their calling before God.

However, Gamaliel advised, “Do not judge, but wait and see. We cannot know if this thing is of God or not until earthly circumstances prove it.” This advice of Gamaliel was a subtle lie and a tacit admission that God errs when he gives his people the word and that God lies when he promises the Spirit to lead the church in the truth and to abide with her always. Relativism, the folly of Gamaliel, is a refusal to judge as God judges and according to his word, on the blasphemous basis that this truth cannot be certainly known. Gamaliel’s folly was the same as the historic unbelief of the Jews identified in 1 Corinthians 1:22. Gamaliel required a sign, an earthly demonstration, so that his judgment might rest not on the word of God but upon the observations of the flesh.

When Gamaliel opened his mouth and gave his advice, out came the same carnal wisdom of man according to which Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?”

Gamaliel’s folly was the antithesis of faith—it was unbelief.

The Confessions: Bane of Relativism

The unbelief of relativism is one of the primary ingredients in the stew that spawns the heretic and that rewards him with the followers he craves, who frolic in his wake along his evil way.

The false teacher becomes consumed by his own subjective experience, which inflates his ego, so that he comes to believe that he has some grand new thing to add to the old paths; accordingly, he will invariably butt up against the wide and unyielding stone that lies across his path and obstructs him from his goal: the confessions.

Rev. George Ophoff, warning the churches about those who demanded no creed but Christ, extolled the strength of the creeds in the face of relativism:

The creeds of Christendom may be called storehouses of truth mined through the ages from the word of God by the Christian church. They are the depositaries of the fruits of centuries of labor done by the Christian Church. It is these creeds that are making it possible for the church at the present time to be preaching on the great truths contained in Scripture as she does. Supposing that the minister of the Gospel enters upon his ministerial career, a total stranger to the teachings of the creeds of the church; that, so far as he was concerned, these creeds did not exist. Then he would be no further into the truth than was the church at the time of the death of the last apostle. But through the centuries the Spirit has been leading the church farther and farther into the truth. And what the church apprehended, she was also empowered to express in adequate language, to bring into being her creeds. And these creeds, being what they are, immediately lead into the truth as far as the church was led through the ages.¹

But the false teacher has the low view of the church’s creeds that Reverend Ophoff described previously in his article—the creeds are no rich heritage to the false teacher. For hundreds and even thousands of years before that false teacher’s existence, the church was led by the Spirit into a particular creed or confession. But the heretic becomes convinced that he is right to disregard this fact, drunk on the fermentation of his own insular thoughts. Ensnared by his false doctrine—and neglecting to judge it in the light of scripture and to submit to scripture’s condemnation of his false doctrine—the false teacher proudly proclaims his heresy to the sheep, targeting their fleshly vulnerabilities and leading many astray.

Let us say that a hue and cry go up and the denomination of churches to which the false teacher belongs proceeds to examine him. The confessions outline the parameters of sound doctrine in the churches, clearly showing the false teacher the lines that he trespasses and steadfastly aiding the churches in their judgment of heretic and heresy. As soon as he feels that he has been cornered by the creeds, the heretic will abandon or oppose them or even slyly subvert them. And if the pressure of the creeds is applied faithfully by the churches, the heretic then will have no option but to openly oppose the creeds, even at times becoming so self-assured and clumsy in his opposition that he changes the very words of the confessions or disregards whatever they have to say that does not fit his relative “truth.”

The false teacher will not suffer himself to be taught by the confessions, refusing to hear correction and refusing to heed admonition. To him the confessions are not a faithful summary of the word of God but rather a means to an end, and he will not submit to their yoke, no matter his vow before God and church. One so ensnared leaves the true church, for all his claims yet to represent it, and brings as many as he can deceive along with him.

Following such a false teacher inevitably brings one into a morass of confusion and conflagrations of conscience. The follower is tormented by the effects of relativism when he finds that he cannot articulate or understand the substance of the false teaching he has swallowed whole. He cannot bring with him a compass according to which he understands all of scripture, and every conviction he thought that he once had about God and God’s word slips out of his fingers like so many grains of sand. The conviction of faith is completely lost to him. Thoroughly bewildered and adrift from the moorings of sound doctrine, he settles for following the man he has chosen and reasons within himself, adopting the folly of Gamaliel for his own: “If this counsel is of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, who can overthrow it? If I am wrong, I can always come back to the truth at some time in the future.”

What folly! What unbelief! What carnality!

Understanding our own inclinations to consider God’s holy truth to be relative and our inclinations to be cowards in judgment, it is clear what a great gift and trustworthy help the church has been given in the creeds. The creeds are the Spirit-wrought fruit of the battles of the church in past ages that lend steel to our spines in the battle against false doctrine. Though they can never stand in the place of scripture as God-breathed, the confessions are nevertheless the fortifications of the church built up by the Spirit through the ages. The confessions faithfully summarize the word of God; their doctrine is divine doctrine. As such the confessions aid the churches in exposing and condemning the lies that men pass for truth; the creeds are spring-loaded jaws of steel that hem in the way of the marauding wolf in sheep’s clothing.

And perhaps just as importantly, the creeds give no room for our natural inclinations to treat the truth as relative and malleable. Considering the confession of the church through the ages—a goodly heritage marked out with gracious care—the Reformed church member will quickly and repeatedly find that he must have an opinion about the truth. By God’s grace and the effectual working of the Spirit, the Reformed church member will find that he is made to love the sound doctrine of God and to hate the lies of men and the devil.

False Ecumenism: Churches of Gamaliel

Relativism has a pervasive presence in the nominal church world today. This church teaches that, that church teaches this, and the new church on the corner teaches something else altogether. All these churches lay claim to the truth. Granted, their teachings are mutually exclusive, so that if one church’s doctrine is true, then the other churches’ doctrines must be false. However, where we would expect to see clear lines of demarcation, instead we find that each church gives the others a wide berth so that their doctrines never come into contact with each other. The ministers, under the banner of collegial appreciation, never contend with each other’s false doctrines. The members are happy to mingle together in the name of a counterfeit unity, despite the fact that their confessions are all discordant cacophony.

This phenomenon highlights the clamor for so-called positive preaching. Ministers are warned not to engage in polemics, for such warfare is negative, and negativity is a thing to be avoided—it makes people feel bad. Ministers who engage in polemical preaching and writing are dismissed as warmongers and quarrelsome. Often, all the angst of the churches is heaped on such misfit ministers, as if they were the troublers of Israel. These churches believe that it would be much better if pastors would merely preach positively and “leave people to make up their minds for themselves.” Much better if pastors would preach positively, even ignoring and holding back portions of God’s holy word for the sake of supposed denominational unity. A noble sacrifice, these churches would have us believe. Much better for us all if we can get Gamaliel on our pulpits and avoid all controversy.

If there is one chorus these churches sing in unison, it is, “Who is to say for certain?” We are left with a perplexing mess of churches—institutions claiming to have the truth about God and man, while simultaneously claiming to know nothing for certain at all. If they do not use the words, their silence in warfare speaks volumes—much can be confirmed by what they do not say and preach. The ministers of these churches speak glowingly of the gospel of sovereign, particular grace while cuddling up to the soul-consuming harlot of contingent works. The ministers go on about how marriage is the mystery of Christ and the church and that marriage is for life, while they lead their churches to commit spiritual adultery against the bridegroom, Jesus Christ. When such crimes are uncovered under God’s hand of judgment, the ministers are offended that the harsh judgments of scripture are brought to bear on their crimes and that God’s pronouncement of woe is declared. The ministers proclaim the need to keep the sword drawn and ready, but they conveniently avoid engaging in any meaningful battles. They condemn the evils of the outside world, while they forbid rebuke within the churches and zealously guard the honor of their own names. They preach a form of the antithesis to the sheep, while at the same time they crave the prestige and respect that one can only attain in the broader ecumenical councils.

Such churches will never reform. Such churches can never reform. Such churches are not Reformed churches. Such churches do not have the Spirit of Christ in them.

When we find to our grief that a church trumpets the uncertain sound of a relative gospel, we should not think that such a church is just confused or in need of instruction or improvement. We are not witnessing a church in its death throes. We are not witnessing a church as rigor mortis sets in. But we are witnessing a church already issuing forth the decay of death. Unbelief is preached off her pulpits! Unbelief dominates in her pews.

Woe to the church that boasts of Christ in words but denies him in her actions! Woe to the church that shrinks back in the day of battle! Woe to the church that chafes under and ultimately abandons the confessions. Woe to the church that will not judge as God judges. She manifests her unbelief and exposes that she has long ago fallen from grace.

The Spirit of reformation roars, and the thundering of his voice is magnificent to behold. All those who belong to the Lamb rejoice in that roaring and dance in that thunder. The true church of Christ races into the battle after her king, her heart alight with the certain victory of the Lion of Judah and his anthems rolling ceaselessly and shamelessly from her lips.

But the church of Gamaliel shrinks back. She wrings her hands, lisping her toothless lisp and scowling at those she considers fools, and—stuffing cotton in her ears to mute the dreadful racket—she shambles back into the shadows to drift off to sleep once more.

She never wakes up.

Relativism: Lawless, Loveless

“In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6).

This verdict of the Spirit captures the essence of Gamaliel’s folly, but its summary of the spiritual condition of Israel during the time of the judges directs our attention to a bitter fruit of relativism in the church. The spirit of relativism corrupts and even entirely subverts Christian discipline because if the truth is relative, there can be no such thing as judgment: “In those days there was no king in Israel.” And the spirit of relativism, as it consumes the believer’s knowledge of his God, also devours the believer’s love for his neighbor.

Relativism is a sly and shifty assassin, its presence often only apparent after the damage has been done. You think all is well; and then suddenly, there is only coldness where there should be fire, apathy where there should be zeal, and indifference where there should be love.

I heard this complaint many times when I was a member in the Protestant Reformed Churches: “The great threat to the Protestant Reformed Churches is dead orthodoxy. Doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. We know it so well, but we have to live it—where is that?” Many agreed that this was a great concern. What was the solution from the ministers’ studies, from the consistory rooms, and from the pulpits? Law, law, law: the law wickedly and falsely preached. There is that which a man must do to be saved. Christ and our obedience are the way to the Father. Man is not totally depraved; our works have some merit after all as regenerated believers.

Before we knew it, our beloved denomination had gone from claiming to uphold and to preach the whole gospel of sovereign, particular grace to being a carnal institution that manipulated the sheep into thinking that God would dwell with them in fellowship if only they performed some more good works. God raised up men to speak a word of rebuke—a word of love that sought the ultimate and everlasting good of their brothers and sisters—and those men were slain for it.

So where is judgment today? Where is love?

To this day that apostate denomination is riddled with the disease of the unbelief of relativism. Professors and ministers proclaim false doctrine with no fear of reprisal. The same men write books and articles that stamp their false doctrine on the very forehead of the denomination. Ministers, elders, and deacons abandon the offices that they claim to have received from Christ by his Spirit’s speaking through his churches to elect these men. Abuse and the corruption of righteous judgment run rampant, while the blood of wives and children runs in the streets. And tucked away in their safe little corners, the members and ministers who claim orthodoxy do nothing about the mockery of God that sounds forth from the mouth of their denomination, nor do they regard the peril to the souls of false teachers and sheep alike. Christ called all of his own to come out of that denomination, and no member can pretend to be of a neutral opinion about that call.

And God has brought the Reformed Protestant Churches to contend with the unbelief of relativism as well.

“The teaching of the school as a demand of the covenant is law threatening gospel.”

Such was the claim of Rev. Martin VanderWal, Jeff Andringa, Darrell De Vries, and their followers. The whole school controversy in the Reformed Protestant Churches was a stunning display of the lovelessness that relativism condones and fosters. The relativist cannot understand how the law could possibly be a law of liberty, nor can he understand how love is the fulfillment of that law. He looks at the law, and he cannot concede that the law is good. He must add to the law his own inventions, or he must take away from the law that it is lovely and pure.

When the law teaches the relativist that love for the neighbor means that the child of God bears his fellow members’ burdens and spends his life for their needs, the relativist cries out angrily, his precious threatened, “But what about me and my wants, me and my children, me and my money, me and my time? Oh, God may be love but surely not to that degree, surely not in that way! Surely we cannot be so precise in our confession of the keeping of the Sabbath! Surely here the Spirit erred! Surely my liberty in Christ is violated if I am not free to scorn the needs of the members of his body. No one may come into my home and tell me what I am to do with my children!”

Or the relativist says, “Well, no one denies that a school is a good thing. There are so many benefits. But for all that, you may do what you like, and I am free to do as I like. And if some of us like to educate our kids together, that is great. And if some of us like to live apart from the body, minding only our own things, with no thought for the rest of you, that is great too.”

Or when questioned, “Would you rebuke those who have left a true church and now sit in their houses for worship?” the relativist answers, “I would encourage them.”

Do you notice again and again the shying away from the absolute standard and authority of God’s word? notice the inability to make a biblical, confessional judgment? notice again and again, the careful protection of self and the things of oneself? notice the violent reaction against the requirement of love? What a world of iniquity opens to swallow the relativist whole! But perhaps that is yet a little too far away from us, the pew-sitters.

We have to look no further than our own offense at the judgments of Jehovah God.

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, emphasis added)

“We think that we have the truth, but so do they…Who am I to judge?”

“I don’t like naming names. I know it may be true, but do I have to actually call anyone an unbeliever?”

“Do we really have to judge at all? Can’t we just reform positively?”

“I like many of the people over there. It would be easy to judge them if I despised them, but I don’t, so I’ll just keep to myself. I can’t really see how discipline is love—they don’t need me preaching at them.”

“I want to leave the door open, and judgment closes it. If I call sin sin, they will not hear me anymore. That will only make them angry.”

God have mercy on us and set our hearts to wisdom’s ways! The lawless, loveless folly of Gamaliel is not so far from home.

The Unshakable, Inerrant, Powerful Word of Life: Jesus Christ

What is the final word on this matter of relativism then? Is there any hope for us, or is there no hope?

Of course there is hope, and the hope of the Christian is always his Lord. Faith in Christ is not a matter of intellect, logical syllogisms, or rational deduction. Faith in Christ is not a matter of having the right answer and being able to tell everyone else how wrong they are. Faith is not a matter of studying many books and reading many theologians and getting a piece of paper that says that you are qualified to have an authoritative opinion.

Faith is none of those things, for then faith would be easily shaken as a weak and pathetic thing. Like science, faith would be dependent on the flows and gatherings of data; the interpretations of data; shifting and changing understandings, perceptions, and observations; and the trending philosophies that shape the way that men think in any given age.

Q. 21. What is faith?

A. True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart; 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)

Do you see, then, how faith is antithetical to Gamaliel’s folly?

Before noting what the Catechism tells us about faith itself, note, first, faith’s source: “True faith…the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart.” Faith comes from God himself, and the Holy Ghost works that faith in our hearts by the gospel. The working and the giving and the increasing of faith are all performed by the Spirit by the gospel. There is no contingency given in all of faith to the effort and striving and working of the believer. While relativism consists of all the uncertainties and doubts produced by the weak and sinful mind of man, faith is the working of the almighty, inerrant, unshakable one, whose will cannot be deterred and who is the truth, the way, and the life. While relativism is reflexively self-obsessed, faith is the gift of God: an alien gift uniting us with an alien righteousness. And the Spirit works by the gospel, that is, the Spirit works by the word of God (especially in the preaching), which word is brilliant, purely without shadow of darkness, lie, or uncertainty.

Second, it is easy to consider the “certain knowledge” of the Catechism’s answer to be some kind of mere, rational assent to a convincing proposition. If we do so, we miss the point the Catechism is making. Read answer 21 again: the “certain knowledge” of the answer is the certain knowledge of God’s revelation of himself in his word. God is not an idea: God is a someone—three in person, one in essence! The certain knowledge of faith then is not that I believe a bunch of facts to be true (though the believer believes all of scripture) but that I know and understand scripture to be the very name of my God, in all of his works and ways! And God shows himself to me by his gift of faith, by his work in my heart by the Spirit.

Consider your relationships, particularly the relationships you have where one reveals oneself to you. Those are rare, intimate relationships. The intimacy of the marriage relationship leaps to mind—the revealing of the husband of himself to his wife and the wife to her husband. The two know each other so intimately and so lovingly that they cannot be indifferent to each other. When someone speaks a wicked word about the husband to his wife, she will not stand for it, and she does not assent to it for a moment but silences the evil speaker. When someone speaks a wicked word about the wife to her husband, his will to fight rises almost immediately in his breast, and his passion is stirred to protect her. Such is faith’s knowledge of God as God reveals himself in his word by the operation of the Spirit: real, intimate, and true.

One might scoff and say, “Are we to trust subjective experience or are we not? He is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.” Do not misunderstand—we do not arrive at the assured confidence of faith through subjective experience. The confidence of faith is not dependent on experience, even if by faith we are given the right understanding of experience. The assured confidence of faith is worked by God through the Spirit by the gospel. That is not subjective, dependent on our lived experiences, but it is an assured confidence that comes straight from the source of all that is true. Though it is extremely personal and intimate, it is nevertheless arrived at through an inerrant revelation of what is objectively, everlastingly true.

Finally, the “assured confidence” of faith strikes at the quivering, cowering heart of all relativism. This “assured confidence” is never severed from its source and object. As stated by Ephesians 3:12, which the Catechism explains, this assured confidence is confidence in the person and work of Jesus Christ! Faith is confidence because, by the Spirit and the word, I know it is true that all my sins are forgiven and that all working for my salvation is complete. Faith is assured because all of salvation all depends on Jesus, my savior! He is not half a savior, but he is a complete savior, as his resurrection and exaltation prove.

Who is this Jesus? What does he reveal in his word, and what truth is made known by the Spirit to all the elect?

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

There is no other way. There is no other truth. There is no other life.

The devil, the world, and his own sinful flesh rise up to tempt the child of God. His own fleshly inclination to a relativist denial of God makes him wrestle with being ashamed of the gospel, to doubt it, to waver, to halt between two opinions, and to ask, “Who is to say for certain?”

The threefold enemy bears down on the Reformed church, howling at it to cloak the brilliant light of the word with all kinds of shadow; to bow to the ascendancy of the wisdom of man; to be enamored of man’s ideas; to dissemble before the fearsome faces of angry scorners; and to be done with judgment, discipline, and love.

But, while we have good cause to be warned of the dangerous unbelief of relativism and to examine our own hearts with a view to this sinful inclination of our flesh, we have no reason to fear. Our faith is not of us but of Christ, and our continued confession of the truth is all dependent on our God and the working of the Spirit by the word. Therefore, it is certain that he shall preserve us unto the end. It is of this same Spirit that our savior spoke:

7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

8. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

9. Of sin, because they believe not on me;

10. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;

11. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

12. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

13. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

14. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

15. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

16. A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.

33. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:7–16, 33)