The controversy of the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) with the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), in essence, is the PRC’s rejection of the truth that the believer is an instrument in the hands of the living God. Whether the Protestant Reformed ministers and professors admit it or not, they make man a party with God in salvation.

This article will show that the truth of the believer as an instrument was the teaching of our spiritual forefathers in the PRC, especially of Rev. Herman Hoeksema, and that this truth was also held by the church of the past.

What does it mean that the believer is an instrument? It is to confess that every detail of the life of the believer has been determined by God and that God in his sovereignty over the believer works all things in his life to the glory of God’s name. This is especially evident when it comes to the spiritual life of the believer. The believer is called to a life of thankfulness before God, and the believer shows this thankfulness in love for God and the neighbor.

The command of God to the believer is “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12). However, the question is, how can the believer who is totally depraved by nature work out his own salvation? Verse 13 answers that for us. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” This text is very clear. It is God who works both the willing and the doing in a man.

Why is it, then, that man does not want to be an instrument in the hands of God? Because man is proud by nature, and he wants to be a party with the living God. It is the age-old problem that man wants to be God.

Now, make no mistake. The believer has a part, but he is not a party. Rev. Herman Hoeksema made this clear when he taught the following in a sermon on Lord’s Day 11:

You know the baptism form is so beautiful, beloved…And then comes our part. Yes, our part. Not our party. And, beloved, there are people who also do not understand this, and they say this: “I believe that Jesus is a complete savior for us. I believe that he is a complete savior within us; but now when it’s finished, now comes our part.” And then they say, “But we must do this: that we walk in a new and holy life and bear fruits of thankfulness. That’s for us.” Well, beloved, those that say so are still Arminian, still do not understand the truth. Because the truth is this: that Jesus also bears the fruit. And that we are privileged to be instrumental in showing forth the fruits of Jesus Christ in our lives—that’s our privilege. That’s the truth. Jesus for us. Jesus in us. And Jesus through us…It’s all of God and none of us. That’s salvation, beloved.¹

Dr. Abraham Kuyper also taught that the believer is an instrument in the hands of God:

On the basis of Christ’s all-sufficient sacrifice, the Reformed church teaches a particular grace by which Jesus directs life, blesses the Word, opens the ear, and bends the will, but—and everything is dependent upon this—as instrument, so that he remains the one who does it, and the one to whom, therefore, is all the glory!²

One’s understanding of Philippians 2:12–13 is fundamental to a proper understanding of man’s relationship to God in salvation. Unbelief always shows itself in this specific area of salvation. How is God sovereign and man responsible? The argument is that because man is a moral, rational creature, he must do something for salvation or the experience of salvation. This is the theology being taught in the PRC; and at this juncture, one is either biblical and Reformed or Arminian and Pelagian.

The teachings of our spiritual forefathers in the PRC were that the whole of salvation is of and by the sovereign grace of God. Rev. Herman Hoeksema wrote this:

Thus He worketh within us to will and to do of His good pleasure. This, however, does not mean whatsoever that in establishing His covenant God deals with us as stocks and blocks. He always treats us as His moral, rational creatures. And therefore, in the covenant we are responsible for our part. But even this responsibility of the Christian does not stand in juxtaposition, next to, or over against the counsel of God. Nor is the relation such that the fulfillment of our part of the covenant is a prerequisite or condition for God’s fulfilling His part. Man’s freedom is never sovereign. And therefore the part which the child of God fulfills in the covenant is fruit of the part which God fulfills. God is first, and man follows. He works within us to will and to do of His good pleasure; and as a fruit we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.³

And Rev. George Ophoff wrote the following regarding the phrase “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”:

In other words, believe in God through Christ, crucify your members which are upon the earth and put on Christ, because it is God who, by imparting unto you the life of Christ and working in you both to will and to do, makes you to believe in God through Christ. Desire and will to walk in every good work and do walk in them actually, because it is God who maketh you so to desire, will and do. He worketh in you both to will and to do.⁴

God is always first! Man does and only can follow God’s work of salvation in man. Everything that the believer does is fruit and nothing more. This is because God’s sovereign grace is a power that works effectually in the believer’s life. Man is an instrument in the hands of God. Anyone who maintains that man is first denies God’s sovereignty.

What is being taught in the PRC is that there are conditions and prerequisites that one must fulfill before he has salvation or the experience of salvation. This is Rev. Ken Koole’s teaching:

I say again, “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.⁵

There is also Reverend Koole’s “available-grace” doctrine.⁶ And now Peter VanDer Schaaf is teaching

that God sovereignly works with His rational and moral elect that they experience His delight in a sequence of time and experience, in an organic way in which there is a mutuality of grace, obedience, and gracious reward.⁷

All this teaching is rooted in a man-first theology or a cooperation of God and man in salvation. This honors man as a moral, rational creature. I am reminded of the words of Prof. Homer Hoeksema:

It is indeed passing strange that man will grant that the existence and activity of a stone or a tree or any other brute creature can be subject to God’s sovereign control and direction, but that a man, just because he is a creature with mind and will, cannot be subject to such sovereign control and direction of the Almighty.⁸

What did the early church fathers believe about Philippians 2:12–13 and how God works in the believer?

Augustine taught the following:

We have to ask God that we may will as much as is sufficient for us to act willingly. It is indeed certain that it is we who will when we will, but it is he who causes us to will the good. It is indeed certain that it is we who act when we act, but it is he who, by providing the will with fully effective powers, causes us to act, as he says: I will cause you to walk in my commandments.⁹

In answer to his rival Pighius, Calvin wrote the following regarding the apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 2:13:

In response to Paul’s statement that it is God who works in us both to will and to do according to his good pleasure, he [Pighius] says that he too affirms this, but in such a way that the [human] will acts as well. With this twist he thinks that he has escaped, when I still have him held tight around the waist. For the question is not whether the will acts—which is beyond doubt—but whether it acts of itself or according to the measure of God’s action. Or (to use, if I may, a cruder expression) whether the action of the will is distinct and separate from the working of God or, as people say, subject to it. For who is not aware that it is by means of the will that man wills? But Paul is affirming in that passage that the will is directed by the Spirit of God to turn to the good and seek after it, and so any good which we conceive in our minds is [God’s] own doing. Therefore, Pighius’s answer is a puff of smoke.¹⁰

This is also the instruction of scripture. For example, in Psalm 143:8–11 the psalmist wrote, “Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness…cause me to know the way wherein I should walk…Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies…Teach me to do thy will…lead me into the land of uprightness. Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name’s sake” (emphasis added). The psalmist confessed that salvation in all aspects is completely the Lord’s work in him. We read in Jeremiah 31:18–19 regarding repentance, “Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented” (emphasis added). God must turn the sinner, or the sinner will never turn unto the Lord in repentance. Of himself the sinner can do nothing that is pleasing to God. As an instrument the sinner is totally and completely dependent upon God.

John Calvin wonderfully summarized this whole matter:

The psalmist says, “I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes alway” (Ps 119:112); meaning, that with willing and cheerful readiness of mind he had devoted himself to God. He does not boast, however, that he was the author of that disposition, for in the same psalm he acknowledges it to be the gift of God. We must, therefore, attend to the admonition of Paul, when he thus addresses believers, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12, 13). He ascribes to them a part in acting that they may not indulge in carnal sloth, but by enjoining fear and trembling, he humbles them so as to keep them in remembrance, that the very thing, which they are ordered to do is the proper work of God—distinctly intimating, that believers act (if I may so speak) passively inasmuch as the power is given them from heaven, and cannot in any way be arrogated to themselves.¹¹

That Calvin used the term “passively” is very striking. Obviously, Calvin was emphasizing that the entire work of salvation is of God. It is one-sided! This does not deny that the believer is active, as Calvin stated about David: “With willing and cheerful readiness of mind he had devoted himself to God.” But the believer is always made a willing instrument by the power of God’s sovereign, irresistible grace. It is always right here where man wants to take something for himself. I did it! I am not a stock and a block. What is interesting is that this charge of stock and block is rooted in a denial of the gospel. The charge comes only where the gospel is preached.

No doubt, Calvin’s use of the word “passively” would be abhorred by many in the PRC because his use of “passively” involves the whole life of the believer. In order for the believer to fully understand that even all his devotion to God is the gift and work of God, Calvin went so far as to call even the believer’s acting a passive activity, so to speak. But Rev. Martyn McGeown rejected the idea that the believer is passive in justification when he wrote, “The faith by which we are justified is not passive.”¹² Recently he wrote, “I am intrigued to know from where the idea of faith as a subconscious, unconscious, passive bond came. I have not found it in theologians before Hoeksema.”¹³

I am not sure in what field Reverend McGeown is plowing because John Calvin wrote the following: “In regard to justification, faith is merely passive, bringing nothing of our own to procure the favor of God, but receiving from Christ everything that we want.”¹⁴ And Herman Bavinck wrote,

In this connection the older Reformed usually made a distinction between an active and a passive side to faith and confined themselves to saying that in justification faith only serves as a receptive organ or instrument, while in sanctification it functions as a work and as the principle of good works. Against this view, the Remonstrants asserted that faith, precisely as an instrument, is an act that we are obligated to perform and by which we accept Christ. Comrie’s position actually agreed with that of the Remonstrants: if we are justified by faith as an act, then justification is based on works. It is for this reason that in justification faith is not at all considered as act but solely as disposition (habitus).¹⁵

If Reverend McGeown had been at the Synod of Dordt, President Bogerman would have tossed out McGeown with the rest of the Arminians (Remonstrants).

The idea of one-sidedness is also rejected by the ministers and professors in the PRC today. They take great offense to one-sidedness. They deride it by saying that a balanced gospel is needed. I am not even sure what that means. The gospel is the good news that all of salvation has been accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ and that he sovereignly works this salvation in his elect children. Are we to understand that this balance means that God does half of the work of salvation and man does the other half? Whatever a balanced gospel is, it is not a gospel that proclaims salvation as entirely the work of God.

But you may ask, “What about 1 Corinthians 15:10? Did not Paul write, ‘I laboured more abundantly than they all’? Am I not called to labor? If so, is it not my will that causes me to labor? After all, I am not a stock and a block.” Again, we must see that this is the work of God in the believer. Calvin expressed it this way:

The grace of God was in me not without effect. But he [Pighius] ought to have noted the reason why [Paul] says this. The reason is that he has laboured more than all the rest. But lest, by boasting of his labours, he should seem to be claiming anything for himself, he immediately inserts a correction: Not I but the grace of God which was with me or which was beside me… But there was a danger that, after mentioning his own labours, he might give the impression, even by that single statement, that he was declaring that some portion of [his labours] at least was due to him. So he removes that suspicion by inserting the correction, saying that it had not been he who had laboured, but rather that this happened entirely as a result of the grace of God.¹⁶

The believer labors! Of course, he does. Every day he lives in the consciousness that God calls him to a life of thankful obedience. This is the believer’s obligation, as the baptism form reads. It is his heart’s desire to love God and his neighbor, and he does this every day, although imperfectly. And because the believer daily sins against his God, the Spirit continually works in the believer the good fruit of repentance and sorrow for his sins. And by faith—by faith alone—he has forgiveness in the blood of Christ (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 61). The believer hates his sin, and every day he lives in the consciousness of his total dependence upon the Holy Spirit to sanctify him. This knowledge keeps the believer before the throne of grace, beseeching God for his continued grace and Holy Spirit to fight the good fight of faith. With heartfelt desire he prays with the psalmist, “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11).

Why is all this true of the believer? Because God effectually works in the believer! None of this makes man a stock and a block, but this makes him a willing instrument in the hands of his God. This is very offensive to the natural man because he believes that he is the one who determines his own way and that his will is sovereign! But why would this be so offensive to one who calls himself a believer? This amazing gospel causes the true child of God to fall to his knees in humility and to cry out, “Why me, Lord? Why was I chosen to be an instrument of grace in thy hands?”

This relationship between God and man is not a mutual relationship, a mutual affection toward one another. By definition the idea of mutual requires two parties, not two parts. Salvation is entirely one-sided. It is all of God. Rev. Herman Hoeksema gave a lovely and beautiful description of this truth:

Of him it is that we love him. For our love of God, of God who is really God, the infinitely good, the overflowing fountain of all good, is not in us by nature. By nature, oh awful folly of sin, we hate God and love the devil, we hate righteousness and love iniquity, we flee from the fountain of good and seek death. Neither is our love to God our own response to his love to us, a love wherewith we meet his love. But it is the vibration of his own love to himself, which by his grace he causes to pass through our hearts, the divine love-current, in which we are caught up, returning to its source.¹⁷

This idea of mutual was not foreign to Reverend Hoeksema. In 1952 in defense of the unconditional covenant, he wrote the following:

And the relation between those two parts of the covenant is certainly not that of mutual stipulations and conditions. But it is such that the realization of our part of the covenant is the fruit of the part which God fulfills in us and through us. And that there is such a second part of the covenant possible is only because God realizes His covenant in us and through us not as dead stocks and blocks, but as rational, moral creatures.¹⁸

But what about the good works of the believer? Is it not at this point where man’s will is decisive?

Calvin described the relationship between good works and man’s will this way:

If, when engrafted into Christ, we bear fruit like the vine, which draws its vegetative power from the moisture of the ground, and the dew of heaven, and the fostering warmth of the sun, I see nothing in a good work, which we can call our own, without trenching upon what is due to God. It is vain to have recourse to the frivolous cavil, that the sap and the power of producing are already contained in the vine, and that, therefore, instead of deriving everything from the earth or the original root, it contributes something of its own. Our Savior’s words simply mean, that when separated from him, we are nothing but dry, useless wood, because, when so separated, we have no power to do good, as he elsewhere says, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matt 15:13). Accordingly, in the passage already quoted from the Apostle Paul, he attributes the whole operation to God, “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13). The first part of a good work is the will, the second is vigorous effort in the doing of it. God is the author of both. It is, therefore, robbery from God to arrogate anything to ourselves, either in the will or the act.¹⁹

And Calvin wrote,

For he [Pighius] is leaving out the principal and more necessary part of its [scripture’s—TB] teaching [Pighius taught that scripture was clear that man had a free choice based on all its commands, threats, etc.—TB] which is contained in the promises of grace; when this is recognised, he achieves nothing by his claims. For after God has commanded us to walk in his commandments, he promises that he will cause us so to walk, that is, he will give us the mind and feet. But all the law, all the commands, as well as all the exhortations, rebukes, and threats, direct us and as it were lead us by the hand to the promises, where God reduces all our goodness to nothing by attributing every portion of our good works to himself and his grace. So, therefore, he who measures human powers by the law and the commands betrays the fact that he does not yet grasp the first principles of the faith.²⁰

Calvin gave the church a beautiful description of the purpose of all the commands, rebukes, and exhortations that must and do come to the church through her preaching: “All the law, all the commands, as well as all the exhortations, rebukes, and threats, direct us and as it were lead us by the hand to the promises.” The law, the commands, and exhortations do not give you grace.²¹ They do not give you the promise, which is Christ, but they lead you to the promise. And it is Christ (by the power of his grace alone) that “will give you the mind and feet.”

Rev. Herman Hoeksema wrote the following regarding the admonitions in Ephesians 4:25–27:

The old man must be suppressed, must be laid aside, and his works must be put to death; the new man must rule, must reveal himself more and more, must always be on the throne, and must walk worthy of the calling wherewith God has called him, unto the praise of his grace. Not as if it were the apostle’s meaning that the accomplishment of sanctification would be the work of the child of God; that is and remains until the very last gasp the work of divine grace.²²

It has always been the teaching of our fathers that salvation in its entirety (including our good works) is the work of God and that man is and only ever will be an instrument. This is humbling and of great comfort to the believer! Salvation in every aspect is not dependent upon the believer. Does not the Spirit use this knowledge of Christ, which is the gospel, to cause the believer to strive to live a life in thankful obedience to God? Indeed, the Spirit does! This is the experience of every child of God who comes under the preaching of the gospel. It is impossible that the preaching of the gospel will cause the believer to live a careless and profane life or to lead an unfruitful life. For one to believe otherwise is not only to deny the work of the Spirit of Christ in the life of the believer, but it is also to show that he has not tasted of the Spirit of Christ.

This denial that salvation is not entirely dependent upon the sovereign power of God’s grace alone was shown by Rev. Ken Koole when he taught the members in the PRC that grace is available:

Beloved, the question is, are you seeking the grace that is available?…I am not talking about regenerating grace. That’s sovereign grace that renews a man. I’m talking about the grace of which the Heidelberg Catechism speaks: he will give his grace and Holy Spirit to those only who ask him in sincerity for them. That’s the grace and Holy Spirit, beloved, to withstand temptation. And we don’t have that automatically!²³

Koole was careful to distinguish between regeneration and the work of sanctification. In regeneration this grace is irresistible (with which we agree), but in the believer’s life of sanctification, then this grace is available. What is so amazing about this distinction is that there are two different kinds of grace in the PRC: an irresistible grace and a resistible grace. This second, resistible grace is available to the believer. I would argue that this resistible grace is not only available, but also it can be understood to be an offer. God makes grace available or offers it to the believer. It is an impotent, resistible grace that depends on the believer’s asking for it.

The teaching of available grace also shows that the work of salvation in the PRC is presented as having the possibility of not happening. This idea was already being taught by Rev. Ronald Cammenga in a sermon in 2003. After preaching that Jesus Christ is not enough for salvation, Cammenga said,

I must become one with him so that I enjoy his fellowship and share in his salvation. For salvation it is necessary that I come to him. And if I do not come to him, there is no salvation and no enjoyment of the blessing of salvation.²⁴

This was a conscious and deliberate separation between what God had joined together. Jesus cried, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Christ’s gospel of this text was not “I did not do enough, so you must now decide whether or not you are going to come to me. And if you do come, then I will give you rest.” No, this same Jesus by the power of his sovereign, irresistible grace in the gospel draws his weary and heavy-laden sheep unto himself. He makes them willing. Reverend Cammenga’s presentation of the “gospel” was that the gospel is powerless and depends on man for its fulfillment, ably assisted by grace, of course.

Now it should be clear to everyone that the PRC has a powerless grace. What is worse is that it is a grace that becomes effectual only when man asks for it. This is a complete denial of irresistible grace. The problem for men like Reverend Koole is that they do not believe that all grace is irresistible. They do not understand that the believer in his life prays for the grace of God as a fruit of the irresistible grace that God already is working in the believer.²⁵ It is impossible for the believer not to pray for God’s grace and Holy Spirit. The believer knows his own inability to fight against his threefold enemy; and in this consciousness, which is worked in him by God, the believer desires and seeks through earnest prayer the grace and Holy Spirit of God and is thankful for them. As Reverend Hoeksema wrote, “As soon as you have rendered thanks unto his holy name, you are already under obligation to fall back on your knees and thank him for your gratitude.”²⁶

The PRC has a man-first theology with the effectiveness of salvation and sanctification in the hands of man. Man must do something for his salvation or the experience of his salvation. This is a complete denial of what grace is. Grace is the irresistible and sovereign power of God to work all of salvation in the heart and life of the believer.

Calvin rejected the idea that grace is available or is an offer:

The human will is of itself evil and therefore needs transformation and renewal so that it may begin to be good, but that grace itself is not merely a tool which can help someone if he is pleased to stretch out his hand to [take] it. That is, [God] does not merely offer it, leaving [to man] the choice between receiving it and rejecting it, but he steers the mind to choose what is right, he moves the will also effectively to obedience, he arouses and advances the endeavour until the actual completion of the work is attained. Then again, that [grace] is not sufficient if it is just once conferred upon someone, unless it accompanies him without interruption.²⁷

This is the amazing wonder of salvation! God’s grace is always conferred upon the believer without interruption. And this is because grace is only and ever an irresistible grace! Who can fully comprehend this wonder of grace in his life? The believer is never without the grace of God working salvation in his life. For the PRC God’s operation of grace (regeneration excepted) is not irresistible but is dependent on man’s activity. Or to say it another way, man must do something to obtain or to experience God’s grace or mercy. The ministers and professors in the PRC just cannot bring themselves to teach that God is working every aspect of salvation by his grace. They just cannot see that the believer’s entire life is the fruit of the sovereign, irresistible grace of God. Why cannot they say with Calvin, “[God] steers the mind to choose what is right, he moves the will effectively to obedience…”? This is the wonder of the eternal decree of election that is taught in the Canons:

Men are chosen to faith and to the obedience of faith, holiness, etc. Therefore election is the fountain of every saving good, from which proceed faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation, and finally eternal life itself, as its fruits and effects. (Canons of Dordt 1.9, in Confessions and Church Order, 157)

Election is a fountain from which all the blessings of salvation flow to and through the believer!

The ministers and professors in the PRC will not teach that God actually works all of salvation in the believer by God’s sovereign, irresistible grace. Why? Evidently, they are afraid of this wonderful and amazing gospel. Or worse, they believe this gospel will make men careless and profane. But then, as Calvin would say, “[They] don’t yet grasp the first principles of the faith.”

Protestant Reformed men are fond of saying that “by grace” we do this or that. But grace is merely some assistance. To them grace is like a crutch to a man who needs help walking. What should be obvious to all is that they are not teaching that God’s grace is sovereign and irresistible! If they were teaching irresistible grace, then they would have to teach that every aspect of salvation will be and is accomplished in and through man because it is God’s work. But if man is a party, then man must be reckoned with. Then the possibility exists that maybe man will not do what is required. After all, “Christ is not enough!” Man must cooperate with God in his salvation. Do you not know that man cannot be a stock and a block? There is a work for man to do in order to get this or that. Then one immediately falls into a salvation by grace and the works of man.

Rev. Gerrit Vos had this to say about such an “obnoxious mixture” and those who speak about man’s doing something for his salvation:

[An] obnoxious mixture…is when you mix grace with works.

You do that when you say, “Sure, sure, sure, sure, God works salvation by His marvelous grace. But we must also do something.” We are responsible creatures, you see. God gave us much, oh so much. And we must get to work, ably assisted (they will insist on that) by the grace of God. The Arminians almost wore out the word grace in their foul productions.

Then you have salvation by a mixture of grace and work.

And Satan smiles.

But God is furious.²⁸

Rev. Herman Hoeksema also wrote regarding those who teach that preservation, redemption, and election— or salvation in its subjective application—are all of works. These teachers make salvation to be dependent upon an act of man, yet they say that salvation is all of grace.

They would fain leave the impression that they attribute everything to grace. Strongly they emphasize that the Christian is surrounded by mighty powers of temptation and destruction, over against which he would not be able to stand for a moment if it were not for God’s preserving grace. Without Christ the child of God can do nothing. Continually he must receive grace from God in order to stand. But whether he will receive this preserving grace continually, that depends once more upon an act of his own will. He must be willing to persevere, to stand, to fight the battle of faith. He must earnestly seek that preserving grace of the Lord. Then God will keep him. And then he will persevere, God helps those that help themselves! And thus, they overthrow once more all that they first confessed concerning the grace of God. It is of works, not of grace!²⁹

Reverend Hoeksema also had this to say in a lecture given in 1961.

Pelagianism means, beloved, oh, to be sure God works the work of sanctification only. No question about that. Pelagius said that too. God works the work of sanctification by grace. It’s all grace. Of course! Pelagius said that too! Do not think that you meet with any Reformed man because he says that all the work of salvation is the work of God’s grace. Oh, no, no, no, no! But Pelagianism says, beloved, that God will work that work of sanctification in the heart of anyone, provided that one wills God to so work! That’s Pelagianism. No question about it. We must be willing to be sanctified, and we must be willing to walk in all good works—willing—and then the Spirit of Christ will work in us. Nevertheless, the will of man is first. That is contrary to all scripture, and it is certainly contrary to all our Reformed confessions.³⁰

The reality that salvation is completely the work of God through the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ is the experience of every child of God.³¹ The believer confesses with immense joy that God is pleased to use him or her as an instrument. How humbling this is for the child of God.

Why does the PRC find this so offensive?

I might add here that there are those in the PRC who say that we in the RPC deny the experience of salvation in the life of the believer or that we deny the work of the Spirit. However, the very statements themselves show those members’ theology. Those members in the PRC believe that they must do something in order to create this experience of salvation.

Dr. Abraham Kuyper gave a beautiful explanation of the experience of fellowship that the believer has with God.

If it’s your praying, reflecting, striving, and loving that you think establishes your fellowship with the eternal, holy, completely blessed being we call God, you’re being completely misled. And that’s the truth! You contribute nothing whatsoever to establishing fellowship between God and your own soul. Only God can do that. All your praying and loving and praising do not create that fellowship. That’s not what constitutes that fellowship! And where that fellowship does not exist, least of all can these make it happen. At most they are the flowering, the fruit, and the consequence of that fellowship.³²

You have fellowship with God! You have that because you are engrafted into Jesus Christ by faith alone. God gives this to the believer to know and experience by faith. Your good works are the fruits of that fellowship with God. What an amazing and humbling reality that is for the child of God. Rejoice in that! Confess with the apostle Paul, “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36).

Rev. G. Ophoff had this warning for the preacher:

To separate in the preaching the exhortations of the Scriptures from the Gospel, the obedience of the believers in repentance, faith, conversion and their holy conversation from the Gospel that God works in them both to will and to do, to fail always to set forth in the preaching how things here are related, or even to lay one-sided emphasis on the exhortations of the Scriptures and the obligations under which they bring men, and definitely the believers, is not to preach the Scriptures…the work of God whereby He works in His people both to will and to do, and the fruit of this work of God in them are always linked together. In combination, the one with the other, they constitute the Gospel of Christ to the believers.³³

Yes, this is the gospel of Christ. And where you do not have this instruction, you do not have the gospel! This has been lost in the PRC. Worse yet, it has been rejected.

The theology that the believer is only an instrument has been rejected in the PRC as antinomian. The ministers and professors believe that if they do not teach that man is a party in salvation, then they will make men to be careless and profane. But the charge against the gospel that it makes men careless and profane is always in the mouth of the Arminian. The apostle Paul dealt with that, and our fathers rejected this charge against the gospel in Lord’s Day 24 and Belgic Confession, article 24.

Why did the men in the PRC completely reject this teaching of our fathers? Our spiritual fathers were faithful to scripture and the creeds in their explanations of God’s sovereign work of salvation in his covenant people. Our fathers were fond of saying, “Man is nothing, and God is everything!” This, in essence, was to teach that it is God who works in a man both the willing and the doing. I believe the words of the apostle John: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). The Spirit of God did that in the PRC many years ago, and that truth has been rejected. The only explanation is that God has given the PRC over to her false doctrine of man. She loves this doctrine of man. She cannot imagine that man is only an instrument in the hands of the living God. For whatever reasons, the PRC continues to insist that man is not just an instrument but is a party with God, though the PRC will try to deny this. The PRC finds the idea that man is nothing and God is everything to be repulsive.

Those of us in the RPC love the historic Protestant Reformed faith not only because it was taught to us by our spiritual fathers but also because it is the teaching of scripture and the Reformed creeds. It is the doctrine that man is an instrument in the hands of God that gives all the glory to God! May God preserve this truth in our midst as Reformed Protestant Churches. May it always be our joy to praise God for the great salvation that he has given and worked in us, his covenant people. And may God by his sovereign, irresistible grace continue to humble us with this confession: “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” And may we always confess that we are instruments of grace or vessels of honor in the hands of our heavenly Father, to whom alone belongs all the glory now and forever.

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).