Which Is Master

“There’s glory for you!”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice, “what that means?”

“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. “I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough of this subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.”

“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay it extra.”

“Oh!” said Alice. She was much too puzzled to make any other remark.¹

Prof. Brian Huizinga instructed his audience about the phrase in the way of recently in a series of eight articles published in the Protestant Reformed periodical, the Standard Bearer.² He wrote:

The concept “in the way of repentance” must be related to and distinguished from “in the way of obedience.” As was evident in protests to synod, confusion arises when it is wrongly assumed that repentance and obedience are one and the same, and that, therefore, the phrases “in the way of repentance” and “in the way of obedience” communicate the exact same meaning and can be used interchangeably. (222)

Positively, synod taught, “we experience covenant fellowship with God in the way of obedience.” (222)

When we say that “we receive remission in the way of repentance” we are also expressing a relation between two things…However, we do not merely mean that remission and repentance occur simultaneously (like fellowship and obedience), but we also mean that repentance precedes remission as the way unto it. (222)

Synod 2018…taught, “Obedience never gains us or obtains anything in the covenant of God. Though we may lose the experience of covenant fellowship by continuing in disobedience, we never gain it by our obedience, but it is restored by faith in Christ and in the way of repentance.” This statement from Synod 2018 very clearly teaches that while our good works of obedience are not the way back to the restoration of fellowship, repentance is. (222)

So to summarize: remission is in the way of repentance but not in the way of obedience. In this case in the way of means way unto, precedes, and sometimes simultaneous with. But fellowship is in the way of obedience, and presumably fellowship is also in the way of remission, which is in the way of repentance; but in this case in the way of means something different from fellowship in the way of obedience. In the case of fellowship in the way of obedience, in the way of means simultaneous with and not precedes or way unto.

We have not heard exactly what the relationship between remission in the way of repentance and fellowship in the way of obedience is. We presume that fellowship is also in the way of remission, which is in the way of repentance. In this case in the way of means precedes and not simultaneous with. Once you are repentant and have remission in the way of your repentance, which means remission preceded by repentance, then fellowship is in the way of obedience; but in this case in the way of means simultaneous with and not precedes. So, in the way of sometimes means precedes and way unto and sometimes simultaneous with. Sometimes in the way of can only mean simultaneous with (as in the case of fellowship in the way of obedience), and sometimes in the way of just means in the way of, which in that case means way unto.

“Thus, when we do our theology, it is good and necessary to strive for theological precision and to maintain distinctions established by the Word of God,” The Professor said, sitting on a very high and very thin wall (102).

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Obvious Development

Prof. Brian Huizinga has finally finished his series of articles on the doctrine of repentance and its connection to the phrase in the way of. Interested readers can read the whole series in the Standard Bearer. I caution you not to lose your faith. The articles, along with Professor Engelsma’s recent speech on antinomianism and his “privately published paper” “Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken,” which were treated in the last couple issues of Sword and Shield, have been instrumental in my thorough and complete rejection of the theology that they espouse and teach. I thought that I hated the theology before. After reading this series of articles though, I hate the theology espoused in them with all my being. I never want it to cross my lips. If some form of it ever has crossed my lips, I pray that the Lord will forgive me my sins and not impute my trespasses unto me.

Professor Huizinga’s articles also convinced me, if I needed more convincing, that the Protestant Reformed Churches cannot be saved. The man who wrote the articles teaches dogmatics at the Protestant Reformed seminary. He is young, and if he lives long, he will teach generations of young men this theology. These men will fill the pulpits and the souls of the listeners with this theology. The result will be even more ecclesiastical destruction.

I cannot blame him. He is the product of the preaching of his youth. He grew up listening to Rev. K. Koole week after week. Koole makes a living preaching that there is that which man must do to be saved. Professor Huizinga’s dogmatics professor was Prof. R. Cammenga, who would not know the gospel if it bit him on the nose. He actually said that Christ did not personally accomplish all of our salvation. Professor Huizinga’s practical theology professor was Prof. B. Gritters, and Gritters lamented the decision of the Protestant Reformed Synod 2018 in his prayer right after the decision to sustain the appeal of Connie Meyer. He prayed about the dark clouds that had descended on the Protestant Reformed Churches. He was cagey because he would never come out with his position, but after his prayer there was no doubt where he stood on the gospel. And Professor Huizinga’s church history professor was Prof. R. Dykstra, who after Synod 2018 was finished could not wait to minimize in the Standard Bearer the false doctrine condemned by synod.

“The egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human.”³

I must confess that when Professor Huizinga was called to be professor of dogmatics in the Protestant Reformed seminary, I thought that perhaps he did know the truth but was only a coward. Nicodemus was a coward, but in the end he came to beg the body of Jesus. One day Joseph went away from Jesus sad because he (Joseph) would not pay the cost of discipleship, but Jesus loved Joseph, and in his own newly hewn tomb he buried Christ. I thought that perhaps Professor Huizinga was just a coward like Nicodemus but that he would eventually come to beg the dead body of Christ from the cross to which he had been nailed in the Protestant Reformed Churches. I thought that perhaps, like Joseph, the cost of discipleship made Professor Huizinga sad but that one day afterward he would bury the crucified Christ in the tomb of the professor’s ministry in the Protestant Reformed Churches.

When he officiated at Rev. A. Lanning’s relief of duties (actually suspension), I thought, “He is being used!”

And I thought similarly when the professor dutifully came to Crete Protestant Reformed Church to officiate at my suspension. After the sermon Professor Huizinga listened to the two elders—Steve Huizenga and Ryan Van Overloop—who were ringleaders in my suspension as they cried great, big crocodile tears to the professor. He told me how they had said that that Sunday was a terrible day for the church. But it wasn’t a terrible day for them. They hated my preaching and had attacked it viciously for months, while the other elders did nothing. Those two elders were as sad as those who sent presents to one another when the two witnesses in Revelation 11 had finally been murdered. “They…shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them” (vv. 7–10; emphasis added). I thought, “He has been duped!”

I felt sorry for him because he had the ignominious distinction of officiating at not one but two ecclesiastical murders, and I thought of the terrible grief of conscience that he would have to live with when he realized that he was both used and duped. Suspending two ministers unrighteously, betraying his friend with a kiss, and denying Christ publicly is not unforgiveable, but surely, as Peter, the professor would go out and weep bitterly.

But he was neither used nor duped. He was playing his role to perfection: the dutiful churchman carrying out a thankless task that someone had to do. 

Now he also reveals that he believes the doctrine that we condemned and were fighting against with all our might and at terrible cost. What is more, he is now developing and defending that doctrine. In the last article of his series, in particular, his scorn for the doctrine of the Reformed Protestant Churches comes out when he mocks it bitterly as leading to antinomianism:

If the theology of repentance and forgiveness is that repentance may not precede forgiveness but must always follow forgiveness, then consider how different our approach to sin would be…

If the consistory takes the alternative approach of “forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration, then repentance as the fruit,” they will forgive, reconcile and restore the man whether he repents or not…

If that backwards theology of man takes root in the church, it will work itself through and lawlessness will reign. (247–48)

A man who could write that after all we have written on the subject does not understand the gospel and takes the slander of the enemies of the gospel onto his own lips. He makes the gospel of grace appear absurd. He does what Paul’s opponents did to him: “Let us sin that grace many abound!”

The consistory, if it is a consistory of Jesus Christ at all, does not only say, “Repent” to an erring man, but the elders preach to him the gospel of reconciliation in Jesus Christ. It is that gospel which says that before one ever repents, before one ever believes, before one does anything at all, God has reconciled his people to himself in his Son Jesus Christ, not imputing their trespasses unto them. The consistory uses the ministry of the gospel! This the professor defames by mischaracterization, holds up to ridicule, and then mocks as lawless.

And this attack on the gospel is the end result of a series of articles in which the professor set himself to promote confusion and false doctrine. Defending and teaching the doctrine “that there is an activity of the believer that is prior to the experience of a particular blessing from God” (79), he must attack the gospel, for the gospel of Jesus Christ is antithetical to that theology.

Nonsense

I can summarize the series of articles for you.

Article 1 is an introduction that tells us that he will develop the doctrine of repentance because this was the subject of recent synodical decisions of the Protestant Reformed Churches.

Article 2 states that the distinction between repentance and good works is necessary and that this distinction is scriptural.

Article 3 defines repentance and includes more distinguishing between repentance and good works, warns of the terrible dangers of confusing them, and seeks to prove that this distinction is found among Reformed writers.

Article 4 is an attempt at defining repentance narrowly as sorrow for sin according to scripture and then includes a list of the many things that repentance does. (It’s odd that something that does so many things is not a work!)

Article 5 states the sources of repentance.

Article 6 finally contains a statement of the real issue that brought the series to light, which is that repentance precedes and is unto remission.

Article 7 descends into the bizarre as the professor begins to explain still more that repentance precedes remission and how this is related to and distinguished from obedience that precedes fellowship.

Article 8 mercifully ends the series, but not before the professor takes up the slander and mockery of the enemies of the gospel onto his lips.

I was tempted to dismiss the theological musings of the Protestant Reformed professor of dogmatics in the same way that his colleague dismissed the theology of Herman Hoeksema about the salvation of the Philippian jailor: “Nonsense!” For Rev. K. Koole, in the March 15, 2019, Standard Bearer, Rev. Herman Hoeksema’s theology of the Philippian jailor was not just nonsense, but it was nonsense with an exclamation point! Reverend Koole spoke for many in the pew and many of his colleagues. I have their emails to prove it. The Protestant Reformed Churches believe Reverend Koole’s evaluation. That is why he said it.

Having dismissed the theology of Herman Hoeksema that the call of the gospel means do nothing, nothing but believe, the Protestant Reformed Churches are left with nonsense for theology. It is more than that, of course. It is confusing, false, dangerous, wicked, man-glorifying, God-denying, graceless, Christless, and damning. But it is at least nonsense. On many different levels it is just theological jabberwocky. One is left scratching his head and saying to himself, “What did he just say?” Some sentences you have to read ten times; and this reader, after reading many times, still cannot figure out what is being said.

If nonsense were all that one could say about the theology that is being taught on the pages of the Standard Bearer and that we know is being taught in the dogmatics room of the Protestant Reformed seminary, that would be reason enough to flee for your life. Speaking nonsense for sound theology is a dangerous practice that leads to speaking lies for sound theology. It comes perilously close to “the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. 4:14).

But nonsense is not all that we can say about this series of articles.

Misleading, Etc.

The articles are misleading. Whatever good there might be in the articles serves the false and serves to soften up the audience for the false. I think, for example, of the professor’s description of the source of repentance in article 5 of the series. That article functions as a kind of sleeping pill that is slipped into a drink to put one to sleep so that you can take that person where you want to.

I would like to think that the professor can be excused of the charge of deceit only because he first labored so hard to deceive himself. He has swallowed many of his own sleeping pills.

Besides, while he is playing in the bushes worrying the phrase in the way of and trying to talk it straight, his colleagues are making perfectly clear what they mean by in the way of. They mean that repentance is a part of faith; that faith and repentance are both means unto remission; that remission of sins waits on the believer’s love toward his neighbor in forgiving him; and that there are acts of man that not only precede the mercy of God but also upon which the mercy of God waits. In other words, his colleagues are busy espousing naked conditional theology in everything from justification to the covenant. They only will not use the word condition, although that word plainly and clearly expresses their theology. And so the professor’s articles, if they do nothing else, serve as a diversion from the advances that are taking place elsewhere.

The articles are barren. The author does theology the way a coroner performs an autopsy: cold and sterile. His polemics lack any real spirit. He supposedly contends for the gospel, but there is no slash, bite, or punch in his writings. His polemics are done with a wooden sword and are better suited for the parade ground or for the armchair general who will never contend in the battlefield at the expense of his own life but who has assiduously saved his life.

The articles are condescending to the people of God, whom he constantly chides, as a teacher would schoolchildren, that they must do theology with precision and with distinctions. He will show us the way. Would that the professor had taken his own advice. He would not have written those confusing, misleading, and barren pieces of writing.

Besides being barren, misleading, and condescending, the articles are oppressive. The author labors mightily to convince us that what he writes is the Reformed faith, the gospel of the scriptures, the old paths, and historical Protestant Reformed truth. He preens himself that his writing is even a development of the truth. He trumpets the many decisions of his synods but seems ignorant of the fact that Reformed men cannot be made by synodical decisions. In all of that he oppresses the heart of the believer with works. The professor is at pains to explain what repentance is and what it is not. While he is at it, he tells his audience all the many things that repentance does; and according to him, repentance does many, many things. It is a busy little thing, is repentance. Then he teaches his audience that repentance is not a work and that repentance precedes justification. Unless the believer repents, he does not have justification. His justification waits upon his repentance. That is soul oppressing.

Still more, even if nothing written in the eight-part series on the phrase in the way of was wrong, it was still a colossal waste of time. The recent history of the Protestant Reformed Churches has shown that corrupt ministers can drive a freight train full of heresy through that phrase. The professor of dogmatics majors in minors, if he does nothing else. He contends for the phrase in the way of as though it were the very essence, heart, and soul of a proper, indeed, a necessary expression of the relationship between repentance and remission and of the relationship between obedience and fellowship with God.

The recent history of the Protestant Reformed Churches should at least make any thinking theologian question the very use of the phrase. Not commenting now on the rightness or the wrongness of the various uses of the phrase in recent history; but if one minister, a consistory, and several classes and synods could use the phrase to bolster the heresy of a conditional covenant and justification by faith and works; then other synods could use the phrase to teach the proper place of good works; then protestants could use the phrase to contend that recent synodical decisions were a lie; and then still other synods could use the phrase to teach that there are activities of man that precede blessings of God; would not someone, anyone, especially a professor of dogmatics, say, “Maybe we should reconsider our use of this phrase”?

But there has not been any reconsideration. The professor contends for the phrase as though the doctrine of God’s gracious salvation of the sinner hinged on that phrase. Indeed, he says as much. He has a hermeneutic of in the way of. He cannot conceive of any other way to interpret many passages of scripture than in the way of this and in the way of that.

Dishonest

The series is also historically dishonest. Professor Huizinga states that “the origin of the dispute [concerning the doctrine of repentance] was the protest of a minister’s sermon on Proverbs 28:13” (77). True, that sermon was protested. But another sermon was protested too—the sermon on Lord’s Day 24, “The Reward of Grace.” These sermons were preached by Rev. David Overway at Hope Protestant Reformed Church after he had been examined by the Protestant Reformed synod for corrupting the doctrines of justification by faith alone and the unconditional covenant. The sermon on Lord’s Day 24 was so bad that even the sympathetic committee of Classis East wrote a secret but damning evaluation of that sermon. Perhaps one day someone will publish the so-called “Red Letter Report.”⁴ I believe it was authored by Rev. C. Spronk.

It is dishonest to say that the origin of this dispute about repentance was the sermon on Proverbs 28:13. The committee of Classis East that was brought in to help the consistory of Hope church saw the connection of the Proverbs 28:13 sermon and the Lord’s Day 24 sermon with the controversy that had been raging in the Protestant Reformed Churches for three years prior. The protests that brought these sermons to subsequent synods in 2020 and 2021 also stated what the origin of the dispute about repentance was. The origin was Reverend Overway’s preaching that Jesus Christ is the way to the Father along with the works of obedience worked in us by the Holy Ghost, a sermon on John 14:6 preached in 2015!

Professor Huizinga says that the origin of this dispute was the sermon on Proverbs 28:13 only because it serves his invented narrative, the narrative created by the Protestant Reformed hierarchy and dutifully parroted by the professor, that there were two ditches in the controversy over the preaching of the minister at Hope. There was the ditch of legalism, which the Protestant Reformed people all said they did not believe, and there was the ditch of radicalism and antinomianism, which they all swore represented a terrible threat to the Protestant Reformed Churches.

So following that narrative, the professor of dogmatics says that the origin of the dispute was a sermon on Proverbs 28:13 and that the protests of that sermon represented the other ditch of antinomianism in the controversy that raised its head after the Protestant Reformed Churches had successfully kept themselves from the ditch of legalism. So the story goes that the minister who preached that sermon had been successfully rescued from the ditch of legalism; and when he preached his sermon on Lord’s Day 24, he only preached what he did—a reward of grace by works; the more you do, the more you will get—to save the denomination from the other ditch of antinomianism. So the story goes that he was only emphasizing that there is a reward in the way of good works. In fact, this was the first point of the sermon.

However, the minister had been teaching wrongly about works for years, and with him many others did the same. The synod that saw yet another protest of a sermon by Reverend Overway should have hurled him into the ditch of antinomianism and told him to stay there until he understood the gospel. Or they could have suspended and deposed him. Neither of those things happened.

And now the professor of dogmatics brings up the sermon on Proverbs 28:13 as the origin of another and different controversy that had—thankfully—afforded the Protestant Reformed Churches a good chance to reflect on and develop the doctrine of repentance that radicals and antinomians had corrupted. The professor’s analysis is not even historically honest. It is very historically dishonest to serve a narrative purpose. That was evident in the first article. And you cannot expect much good to come out of a series that begins with dishonesty. But, as I said before, he can probably be excused of deception, only because he has taken such pains to deceive himself.

Self-serving

Besides the historical dishonesty there is also the self-serving use of history. For instance, that Rome is the great example of confusing repentance with works. You have to understand that his bogeyman in the articles is those who supposedly confuse repentance with works and so those who say that we are justified before we do any works, including repentance. They are the enemy because if repentance is a work, the naked conditionality of the gospel that Professor Huizinga promotes becomes apparent. If repentance is a work and the Protestant Reformed Churches are teaching that repentance precedes and is unto justification, then you have justification by faith and works. And so he attacks those who say that repentance is a work.

Strictly speaking, repentance is not to be put in the category of “good works.” When we think theologically, and think with precision, we ought to think of repentance as one thing, and good works as something else. (101)

The professor grants, “Merely labeling repentance a good work, or referring to repentance as a work when one is looking at repentance all by itself is one thing, a harmless thing” (101).

But we are told, “Scripture distinguishes repentance and good works” (102).

If in doing our theology, we do not maintain this biblical distinction between repentance and good works but conflate or confuse them in our thinking, then we run into problems interpreting Scripture. (103)

I note that there are problems with not distinguishing repentance and work, especially when one is trying to teach a theology in which repentance is prior to and unto the remission of sins. If repentance is unto justification, then repentance must be distinguished from works, in order supposedly to free oneself from the damning implication of corrupting the gospel. Professor Huizinga’s distinction does not save him in the end, but we will grant him the distinction for the moment. Repentance is not a work; for if repentance is a work, then works are prior to, precede, and are unto justification; which, of course, brings upon you the anathema of the Holy Spirit for corrupting his gospel; separates you from the entire Protestant Reformation; and puts you with Rome, the federal vision, and other deniers of the gospel.

The professor does not tell his audience that. He does not, in fact, tell anyone in the whole eight articles why in his theology repentance cannot be a work. Repentance cannot be a work in his theology because then he has obedience unto remission. He wants us to think that repentance and works must be distinguished so that we can call people to repent in order to be justified. But the fact is that if repentance is a work and repentance is unto remission, you have a very clear false doctrine of justification by faith and by repentance. The professor, therefore, insists that repentance is not a work. He grants that you can call repentance a work if you are just talking about repentance by itself, and we thank him for allowing us this dispensation. But obviously if you make repentance unto justification, then you cannot call it a work, and so it is not a work.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

To make repentance a work is a grave sin for the professor. And he cites Rome! Rome! Rome is the example of those who have committed this sin of conflating repentance and works.

Speaking of Rome, if there is a well-established historical example of a detrimental confusing of repentance and good works…Rome turned repentance into works. Most egregiously, Rome turned repentance into a whole elaborate system of meritorious works. (103)

The root of Rome’s error was not turning repentance into a work. Rather, Rome made repentance external and equated it with doing penance. Another of Rome’s errors was teaching that faith does not justify without faith’s works. Still more, Rome made repentance a part of justification. Doing penance was a good work by which one received the assurance of forgiveness. By her doctrine of repentance, Rome overthrew justification by faith alone. But now Rome is pressed into the service of illustrating the dangers of conflating repentance and work. Rome! Rome is now the example of one who failed to make a distinction. This distinction between repentance and works must be very important indeed; for if you do not make the distinction, you can become legalists like Rome or antinomians like the protestants that he ridicules. This use of Rome is simply self-serving.

There is also the professor’s use of John Calvin. Using Calvin as proof for the professor’s contention that good works and repentance are to be distinguished, he quotes Calvin’s commentary on Matthew 3:8:

It ought to be observed, that good works…are here called fruits of repentance; for repentance is an inward matter, which has its seat in the heart and soul, but afterwards yields its fruit in a change of life. But as the whole of this part of doctrine has been grievously corrupted by Popery, we must attend to this distinction, that repentance is an inward renewal of the man, which manifests itself in the outward life, as tree produces its fruit. (103)

So Calvin is supposed to support the Protestant Reformed Churches’ doctrine that repentance is not a good work. But anyone can see that Calvin was not sharply distinguishing repentance from works, as the professor contends; but Calvin was noting the corruption of Rome that made repentance an external act, while the word of God makes repentance an internal and invisible grace that manifests itself in good works. Calvin in other places simply called the whole holy life of the believer repentance because repentance is the inward source of good works, and the attitude of repentance characterizes the whole Christian life.

Creeds Not Standards

Professor Huizinga’s handling of the creeds is worse, if that were possible. He exhorts his audience to be sharp and precise and says that not doing this can easily lead to errors. He grants that we are permitted on occasion to speak broadly about repentance as the Christian life. Remember, he had said previously that this use of repentance as a synonym of the Christian life is imprecise. Now it is merely used broadly. But we are permitted to speak this way about repentance if we are only considering repentance by itself. Speaking broadly—and imprecisely—he grants that repentance “includes the concept of the quickening of the new man and a walk in a holy life” (126). And then what does he give as an example of this imprecise way of speaking about repentance? He cites the Heidelberg Catechism! “The Heidelberg Catechism permits the use of the term ‘repentance’ in this broader [read, imprecise] sense” (126).

The Heidelberg Catechism uses the word repentance in Lord’s Day 33 to refer to the believer’s whole life of gratitude! The Catechism, the professor admits, calls repentance work. So we are also permitted to speak that way; if, of course, we want to speak imprecisely and loosely and broadly, and only if we are not considering repentance as the way unto the remission of sins. For, obviously, if repentance is the believer’s whole life of gratitude out of a renewed heart, then you have works as the way unto justification, and that is a serious problem, which the professor knows.

And he knows that the whole scripture and all of Reformed theology condemn that theology as no gospel at all. So the professor insists that loosely, broadly, and imprecisely, repentance is the believer’s life of gratitude. But not when repentance is unto the remission of sins. Then repentance is not one’s life of gratitude. Then repentance is to be distinguished.

It never seemed to have crossed the professor’s mind—or maybe it did, and he dismissed the thought as inconvenient—that the Catechism describes the believer’s whole life of gratitude and that the Catechism does it almost offhandedly because the professor’s distinction is a worthless distinction. It does not seem to have entered his mind—or maybe it did and he wrote it off—that the Catechism calls the believer’s whole life of gratitude repentance because repentance is not faith.

Repentance Is Not Faith

This is the important distinction. Repentance is not faith! Whatever else repentance is—work, activity, or standing on your head—it is not faith! We are saved by faith alone. We are justified by faith alone. And repentance is not faith. It never seemed to have crossed the professor’s mind that his sharp distinction between repentance and works of obedience that he insists is necessary is not, in fact, necessary at all. This distinction between repentance and works in his hands and in the hands of the other Protestant Reformed ministers is yet another distinction by which they undermine the gospel.

The Catechism calls our life of gratitude repentance because it is not necessary at all to make a sharp distinction between repentance and good works. The Catechism is not merely speaking broadly—and imprecisely and loosely—but giving the doctrine of scripture. Repentance and obedience can perfectly well be treated as the same thing, and the Catechism does because scripture does. Professor Huizinga shamefully treats the Catechism and those who wrote it and those who approved it for the churches, while he is busy overthrowing the doctrine of grace in the creeds by means of his distinction between works and repentance.

“You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,” said Alice. “Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabberwocky’?”

“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I can explain all the poems that were ever invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.”

This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“That’s enough to begin with,” Humpty Dumpty interrupted: “there are plenty of hard words there. ‘Brillig’ means four o’clock in the afternoon—the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.”

“That’ll do very well,” said Alice: “and ‘slithy’?”

“Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.”

“I see it now,” Alice remarked thoughtfully: “and what are ‘toves’?”

“Well, ‘toves’ are something like badgers—they’re something like lizards—and they’re something like corkscrews.”

“They must be very curious looking creatures.”

“They are that,” said Humpty Dumpty: “also they make their nests under sun-dials—also they live on cheese.”

“And what’s the ‘gyre’ and to ‘gimble’?”

To ‘gyre’ is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To ‘gimble’ is to make holes like a gimlet.”

“And ‘the wabe’ is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?” said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

“Of course it is. It’s called ‘wabe,’ you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it—”

“And a long way beyond it on each side,” Alice added.

“Exactly so. Well, then, ‘mimsy’ is ‘flimsy and miserable’ (there’s another portmanteau for you). And a ‘borogove’ is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round—something like a live mop.”

“And then ‘mome raths’?” said Alice. “I’m afraid I’m giving you a great deal of trouble.”

“Well, a ‘rath’ is a sort of green pig: but ‘mome’ I’m not certain about. I think it’s short for ‘from home’—meaning that they’d lost their way, you know.”

“And what does ‘outgrabe’ mean?”

Well, ‘outgrabing’ is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you’ll hear it done, maybe—down in the wood yonder—and when you’ve once heard it you’ll be quite content. Who’s been repeating all that hard stuff to you?”⁵

The jabberwocky of the poem and Humpty Dumpty’s definitions are about as clear, whimsical, and arbitrary as the theology of Professor Huizinga’s articles. The phrase in the way of has about four or five different meanings in at least two different contexts. Repentance is a work if you are speaking about it all by itself, imprecisely, loosely, and broadly. The professor acknowledges that the creeds do speak this way, so you are permitted to as well—a gracious dispensation from the professor. But when your doctrine of repentance preceding remission and being unto remission—but not simultaneous with remission, although sometimes it is simultaneous with remission—is charged with making works unto justification, then repentance is most definitely not a work. Then it is an activity. Granted, it is a very busy activity, but it is most definitely not a work, that is, if you want to be sharp and precise. And you must be sharp and precise because remission is in the way of repentance. But then remember that in the way of means that repentance is unto and precedes remission. But fellowship is also in the way of obedience, but then in the way of means simultaneous with or just plain in the way of.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Jabberwocky!

I will evaluate the Jabberwocky next time.