Dear Prof. Hanko,

With much reluctance we take up the pen against your forum letter, in which you make reference to us for “the lack of obedience and submission to the elders in a local congregation.” We are saddened that you regard us as rebels who flaunt at and ignore God’s appointed authority over us in the church.

2. We heartily agree with you that members of a congregation must submit to the authority of the elders, which is submission to Christ. Where we sharply disagree on is the extent of the elders’ rule and where and why members of the congregation must disobey their elders where God’s Word calls them to. It is precisely the matter which you do not wish to enter into in your letter that is the reason we must disobey—the doctrinal issues of the controversy.

3. We also heartily agree with you that Christ is the Head and Lord of His church. It is fitting that you quoted Matt. 28:18 (“All power is given unto him in heaven and on earth”) to establish the truth that Christ’s rule is absolute and sovereign. We disagree, however, that the rule of His appointed elders in the church is absolute and sovereign. The rule of the elders is derived from Christ and limited to the scope of His Word. Christ tells in that same passage that His disciples must be “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). The implication of Christ’s command is that the disciples must not and may not be teaching others to observe anything that Christ has not commanded them in His Word. Our Belgic Confession underscores this truth when it says that the rulers of the Church “ought studiously to take care, that they do not depart from those things which Christ, our only Master, hath instituted” (BC Art. 32).

4. Where God’s appointed servants exercise their rule in the church, they do so only in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. They speak in the name of Christ: “Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience” (James 5:10). They admonish in the name of Christ: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10). They command in the name of Christ: “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us” (2 Thess. 3:6). Thus the elders rule on behalf of Christ and with His authority only when they rule according to His Word.

5. The fifth commandment teaches us that we must “show all honor, love and fidelity, to my father and mother, and all in authority over me, and submit myself to their good instruction and correction, with due obedience” (LD 39). Where those in authority do not give good instruction and correction—instruction that is according to the Word of God—the believer’s duty is to reject such instruction and correction. He does so, not out of defiance against God’s lawfully appointed authority, but out of love for and obedience to a higher authority that is God and His Word. On this note, the Belgic Confession further instructs us to “reject all human inventions, and all laws…thereby to bind and compel the conscience in any manner whatever” (BC Art. 32). The believer’s conscience is subject to God’s Word alone.

6. The true church does not exercise absolute and sovereign rule over God’s people. In the true church, “all things are managed according to the pure Word of God, all things contrary thereto rejected, and Jesus Christ acknowledged as the only Head of the Church” (BC Art. 29). The false church, on the other hand, exercises absolute and sovereign rule by ascribing “more power and authority to herself and her ordinances than to the Word of God, and will not submit herself to the yoke of Christ”; relies “more upon men than upon Christ,” and “persecutes those who live holily according to the Word of God, and rebuke her for her errors” (BC Art. 29). Only where the true church is “governed by that spiritual policy which our Lord hath taught us in his Word…everything will be carried on in the Church with good order and decency” (BC Art. 30).

7. When the elders of the church abuse their authority by demanding of its members what is clearly forbidden by God’s Word, God’s people have a calling to disobey those wicked demands. Their calling is not to obey first, and then work with the church council by protest and appeal. When the church council commanded the apostles not to speak in the name of Jesus, the apostles “ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ” (Acts 5:42). When the church council threatened the apostles not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus, the apostles’ reply was: “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). When the authority of Daniel’s day forbade him to pray to God, Daniel disobeyed the wicked order and carried on praying as God’s Word called him to (Dan. 6:10). 

8. We in CERC started a Bible study group to study and to speak the truth of the PRC’s controversy. Out of love for God’s Word, out of love for God’s church, we are compelled to be a witness to His truth as that truth has been savagely assaulted over the last six years in the PRC’s controversy. When our elders forbade us to meet, we refused their demand, believing that God’s Word instructs to study and to speak His truth. “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”
(2 Tim. 2:15); “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 Jn. 4:1). Their response to our holy endeavor was to discipline us.

9. We are not creating divisions in CERC by starting this Bible study group to study the controversy. We are promoting true unity in CERC by calling members of the church to study the truth of this controversy with us, to discern for themselves what false doctrines have been taught and what wickedness has been perpetrated against God’s faithful servants. This unity is founded in Christ alone, Who is the truth. To continue keeping silent in CERC where the Session has persistently refused to give instruction on the controversy over the last six years does not promote true unity. It promotes a carnal, worldly unity based on ignorance and indifference to false doctrine and wickedness.

10. We believe this to be consistent with the actions of your teacher and ours, Rev Hoeksema, when he opposed the Three Points of Common Grace both in his preaching and in his writings in the Standard Bearer. The standard ought to be the truth as explained in our Three Forms of Unity and confessions, and not in Session’s decision when they are opposed to it. Having that truth, we witness and speak out against those that oppose it.

11. We plead with you as a father in Israel, one who has taught us precious truth, one who has been instrumental in helping us not only know but also love the Reformed Faith, one whom we respect highly for the Lord’s sake.

12. We plead with you not to be blinded by the false doctrines that continue to be taught in the PRC. We list a few outstanding statements taught by PR theologians demonstrating a conditional covenant fellowship theology that has taken hold of the PRC. We all know that this is not what you taught the denomination in your decades of service to the churches.

“If a man would be saved, there is that which he must do…For until a  man responds to the truth and call of the gospel by believing it, confessing it, he is not, and cannot be saved.”¹

“In fact, the more faithful the saints are to God’s law in the grace of Jesus Christ, the more they prosper in the great blessings of the covenant. They prosper in their marriages, in their family life, and in their church life. Above all, they prosper in the enjoyment of God’s covenant fellowship.”²

“Scripture teacheth that man must do something, that he may obtain the possession of the salvation purchased by Christ.”³

13. We plead with you to remember what you taught us in the Divorce and Remarriage controversy—that if we tolerate but one false doctrine, eventually the entire truth will be corrupted.

14. We plead with you to remember the sermon that you preached to us on the sin of Achan while you were here in Singapore—how the sin of but one man troubled the entire Israel because of corporate responsibility. With teachers of false doctrine running amok and not put out, why should judgment not fall upon the PRCA and us in CERC?

15. We plead with you to remember Eli—though he himself be a godly man and though rebuking his sons for their sins and yet, in not disciplining his sons, incurred the judgment of God in his generations. Today, false teachers are teaching us to commit spiritual adultery with works-righteousness, and are being tolerated. How shall we escape the judgment that must come?
(1 Sam. 2:25)

16. We plead with you to recognize that God has raised His Samuels in Rev. Lanning, Rev. Langerak and Rev. VanderWal who today preach the truth of which you yourself would preach and war against the false teachers as you yourself would in the past against false teachers in other churches.

17. We plead with you to acknowledge that the controversy is about doctrine, not about non-submission to elders.

18. We plead with you, in love for your mother (PRCA), to “Plead with your mother, plead for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight” (Hos 2:2).

19. We plead with you to see the truth of our position, and why it would be disobedience to God if we were to stop our private Bible study meetings to study and to speak the truth of the PRC’s controversy.

With love for the truth that you taught us,

Aaron

Tian Loong

Leh Wah

Iva

Letter from Prof. Herman Hanko

Dear Forum members,

I had only one short article left of our series on God’s covenant, but I am interrupting that series with an article on an entirely different truth of Scripture. So I ask you to bear with me as I have prepared and now sent to you an article that I consider to be of great importance in our churches. Please read it carefully, and if you have any questions about it, please feel free to write me. Your Session and Rev. Kleyn have approved of it.

The Authority of Elders

That there is trouble in our churches (PRCA, CERC, PRCP) no one can deny. Because of it some members have left the denomination to form groups or churches of their own. It is not my purpose in this article to enter into the doctrinal issues of the controversy, but it is my purpose to deal with a church political problem that is, from the church political point of view, the most important element in the split that a taken place. I speak of the lack of obedience and submission to the elders in a local congregation.

According to Scripture and our Church Order, the members of a congregation must submit to the authority of the elders whom God through Christ has set over the congregation to rule in Christ’s name. This is the teaching of Scripture, the Church Order and the Form for the Installation of Office bearers.

This is the arrangement of office bearers is the new dispensation’s rule for orderliness in the church of Christ who insists that all things in his church must be done decently ad in good order (I Cor. 14:40).  God established three offices over Israel in all the years of its existence: prophets, priests and kings.. That designation of offices in Israel was necessary to bring orderliness to the life of the nation. The prophets brought to Israel the word of God; the priests took care of the poor (among the duties of bringing sacrifices in the temple); and the kings were anointed to rule the nation.

In the new dispensation, this arrangement remained in principle with Christ Jesus, the Head and Saviour of the church possessing all three offices. He is our Prophet, our Priest and our King. But Christ appoints office bearers in the church to take the place of the office bearers appointed in Israel: the prophetic office became the office of minister of the Word; the priestly office became the office of deacons; the kingly office became the ruling office.

We are interested in this article with the office of elder.

Elders rule over the church. They are, in the church, like the kings in Israel. They rule over the congregation, over the minister and over the elders themselves. (There rule over their fellow elders is why the Church Order provides for what is call censura morum (Art. 81).

The Biblical passages that explicitly teach this authority of the elders are Hebrews 13:7 and I Thessalonians 5:12-13. The latter text reads: “And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among them, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace among yourselves.”  Hebrews 13: 7 reads: “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto the word of God God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.”

These texts are very plain. The command of these texts is so urgent and compelling that to disobey them is great sin.

The point of these texts is exactly that the admonitions of the elders must be obeyed, because Christ who is the Head and Lord of his church rules his church through the elders. Christ’s rule is absolute and sovereign. All power is given unto him in heaven and on earth. He rules over all: presidents in the state, teachers in the school, parents in the home, bosses in the work place. That Christ rules through those appointed to positions of authority, means he rules in fact; and in the church, his rule through elders is his rule over us in fact. If you would consult the Form for the Installation of Elder and Deacons, you would learn that all that elders and deacons re required to vow before Christ and Christ’s church: “Do you believe that you are called by Christ’s church and therefore by Christ himself?”

We live in an age in which authority is flaunted and ignored. This disregard and rejection of Christ’s authority, exercised against men Christ puts in office has entered the church as well. It is a matter of no little concern to me that within our own churches (The PRCA) during the years of my ministry, no less than three ministers have either been deposed or separated from their congregations for refusal to bow before the authority of their elders. When I was ordained as a minister of the gospel in 1955, this disregard for authority was not so. Ministers were subject to the rule of their elders. We recognized that elders ruled also over us as well as over the congregation. It was our duty to obey. And it was our duty as ministers of the gospel, that this same principle held for the member of the congregation. To obey our elders was to obey Christ himself. To disobey our elders was to disobey Christ. This great truth is the ground for decency and good order in the church.

Supposing that members of the congregation possessed the right to disobey their elders when they disagreed with what the elders decided; supposing further they went their own way and did what the elders told them not to do; what would happen in the congregation? Everyone would do what he wanted and the congregation would lose the unity that Scripture says is Christ’s gift to the church (Ephesians 4:1-16). Then life in the church would become like life during the period of the judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). But now we have the Lord in heaven as our king. Do we know better than he? To do differently and go our own way is arrogance and disobedience to Christ. It makes me think of God’s word, through Paul in the first verses of Philippians 2 where we are enjoined to consider others in the church better than ourselves – just as our Saviour did! To do otherwise is to commit the sin with which Paul charges the Corinthians in the first chapter of his first letter: in Corinth there was party strife and it tore the congregation apart. It was enough to charge the church with schism. Now we say, “ I am for _______; I am for ________; I am for ________; I am for Christ. This is schism.

Those who claim to be acting in the name of Christ when they disobey their elders claim they have this right because they “must obey God rather than men,” But the question is: Is this true? And the answer is that their claim is not true. It is not true because the church of Christ provides ways and orderly means to bring their objections against the elders to the attention of the whole denomination. That way alone preserves the unity of the body of Christ. They protest to the Session; then, if not satisfied, to the Classis; and then, if necessary to the synod. The sister churches of the PRCA also have the same procedure available to them – as is stated in the agreement to become sister churches.

Those who are trying to gain as many as possible to their side object to this orderly procedure on the grounds that the assemblies are corrupt and will not submit to the Word of God; so it is no use to protest and appeal; so there is no use in appealing. 

There are two things wrong with this argument. One is that the objection shows no love for the church of Christ as Philippians 2 requires of us. If one loves the church rather than one’s own popularity, one does everything he possibly can to save it as it is represented in one denomination, which is his spiritual mother. Two, he sets himself up as judge of the whole church of Christ. After all, one must be prepared to say before the exalted Christ in that great day of Christ’s return that he humbly sought the welfare of Christ’s church for which Christ, the great Judge gave his blood. And if he is prepared to do this, then he doesn’t leave the church by taking as many of God’s people with him; he doesn’t shout bad names at the church; he doesn’t try his best to make divisions in the church; he leaves with great sorrow in his heart and many prayers for forgiveness. He does this weeping and praying that God will surely care for his church.

In that way one honors, respects and obeys the fifth commandment and truly shows that he loves the cause of Christ in the world, and that he has, in good conscience done all he could to promote the glory of God and the bride of Christ.