Dear Dr. Nathan Lanning and the Editors of Sword and Shield,

I wanted to thank you for the critique and analysis of Herman Witsius in the May issue of the magazine. This article was a necessary counterpoint to the articles in the Standard Bearer encouraging the PRC and Reformed community to seek doctrinal guidance from Herman Witsius regarding the covenant. Especially as those articles were instructing us in the utility of good works in the possession of the believer’s salvation.

When those articles in the Standard Bearer initially came out, I looked into who Witsius was. From what I was able to find it appears that he was a follower of the “further reformation” movement in the Reformed church world. This means that Witsius would be in the tradition of the Puritans and Netherlands Reformed Church. This is important because the “further reformation” tradition has a distinctively unReformed view of faith and the experience of one’s salvation. As pointed out in your article, Witsius held to this same erroneous view of faith and assurance in contradiction to Lord’s Day 7. This “further reformation” theology puts the believer on a quest so that by his striving and endeavoring and working he might finally come to have the “possession” or experience of his salvation.

It is incredible that a Protestant Reformed minister would send us to a “further reformation” theologian in order to show us the proper utility of one’s good works in regards to the experience of their salvation. We must beware whom we seek direction from. If the heart of their theology regarding faith and the experience of the believer is built upon false doctrine, then all of their theology regarding faith and the experience of the believer is subject to that same error. In this regard, it is good to remember the parable of Jesus in Luke 6:39: “Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?”

Rather than following Witsius who has shown himself to be blind with regards to faith and the believer’s experience, let us seek leaders whose eyes have been opened regarding this subject. Prof. Engelsma speaks to this experience of one’s salvation in his pamphlet The Gift of Assurance. “Puritan theologians and their followers speak anxiously of the ‘quest’ for assurance. Reformed orthodoxy thankfully rejoices in the ‘gift’ of assurance. The Spirit works assurance, not the believer himself” (44). “The Spirit assures elect believers of their salvation in the same way in which the Spirit saves them, namely, by faith in Jesus Christ, as He is preached in the gospel of the Scripture. Assurance is a gift of God in Christ to the elect child of God. It is a purely gracious gift…Assurance is not earned, or obtained, by works” (43).

Engelsma later goes on to explain that one’s assurance is only experienced within the sphere of holiness in the believer. However, unlike a “further reformation” theologian, who makes that holiness the way one comes into possession of their salvation, the truth is that because the Holy Spirit is holy those within whom He dwells He also makes holy. Further, when the Holy Spirit gives the gifts of salvation to the believer, He gives those gifts simultaneously. The believer is made partaker of Christ and all his benefits. Just as assurance is a gift, so too is our holiness and good works. These benefits are not doled out piecemeal and according to our works, but are generously and bountifully given freely to the believer all at the same time as his inheritance.

One other important point from your article that I found interesting was the teaching of Witsius “that the covenant is a mutual agreement between God and man.” A covenant that is a mutual agreement between God and man is a covenant that has two consenting parties. A covenant that has two consenting parties is a bilateral covenant. I understand that Witsius held to a unilateral covenant in its origin and establishment, but in its administration and application to a rational moral creature, he turned the covenant into a bilateral one. And a bilateral covenant is by necessity a conditional covenant.

This teaching of a bilateral covenant becomes even more troubling when you look at the April 5, 2021, Reformed Free Publishing Association blog post. Here a quote of Herman Bavinck was included without qualification and for the reader’s enjoyment. In this quote Herman Bavinck teaches that the elect in the covenant of grace “consciously and voluntarily consent to this covenant.” And that “in its administration by Christ, the covenant of grace does assume this demanding conditional form.” The believer most assuredly assents to the covenant that it is good and that he consciously and voluntarily will strive to do his part in the covenant as is his duty. But if man can and must consent to the covenant, this would make man a party alongside God. If the consent of the believer has any weight in the covenant then the covenant is no longer unilaterally established and maintained only by God, but it becomes bilateral and is maintained by God and man. Such a covenant would truly become a covenant of grace that assumes a conditional form.

Bavinck goes on to acknowledge that “the covenant of grace, accordingly, is indeed unilateral.” However, it would seem this unilateral nature of the covenant only goes so far. Bavinck continues in the very next sentence to say, “But [the covenant] is destined to become bilateral, to be consciously and voluntarily accepted and kept by humans in the power of God.” According to Bavinck then, the covenant in its administration, or maintenance, or in the believer’s conscious experience is bilateral. A bilateral covenant is a covenant between two consenting parties that are equals. A bilateral covenant is by definition then a conditional covenant.

That this quote was initially given without any qualifications and for the reader’s enjoyment on a RFPA blog post is astounding. In 1953, the forefathers of the PRC fought for a unilateral covenant especially as it pertained to the experience of the believer. I believe this quote of Bavinck was printed because it speaks to the believer’s duty and how God deals with His people as rational moral creatures and additionally because Bavinck speaks highly of the new life that the believer has whereby he can and does obey God. These issues are hot topics within the PRC at this time and it is good to discuss them. How-ever, to promote these issues as Bavinck did by asserting a bilateral covenant is to bring heresy into the church for the sake of promoting holiness of life. It was one thing for Bavinck to do this at his time in church history as the doctrine of the covenant had not yet been so fully developed as it is now, but for the publishing house of the PRC to favorably print this quote for the readers enjoyment without warning or comment is an entirely different matter.

To the RFPA’s credit on May 5, 2021, the RFPA published another post “as a commentary to a previous blog post published in April 5, 2021, titled Herman Bavinck on God’s Covenant of Grace.” This was an excerpt from the book Covenant and Election in the Reformed Tradition by Prof. Engelsma. In this excerpt Engelsma interprets what Bavinck is meaning to teach when he speaks of a bilateral covenant as the mutuality of the covenant, that is, man in the covenant has his part to do. Though Engelsma’s evaluation of Bavinck’s teaching may be correct, as we have learned in recent history, the orthodox statements do not explain away the unorthodox ones, but rather the unorthodox statements compromise the orthodox ones. Bavinck was wrong to speak of our consenting to the covenant. He was wrong to speak of the covenant in its administration as assuming this demanding conditional form. And he was wrong to speak of the covenant as being bilateral. No matter what Bavinck meant to teach when he wrote these things, these ideas have been rejected as heresy by the PRC. As such, it was wrong of the RFPA to initially post this quote from Bavinck for the readers’ enjoyment without commentary or qualification, as if he had something the PRC needed to hear and learn.

In light of these articles in the Standard Bearer on the relevancy of Witsius in the current debate within the PRC and this April 5 blog post by the RFPA, I am concerned that the RFPA and the PRC do not know and love their own history and doctrinal heritage as they should. Those who do not know their own history are in danger of repeating it. Also those who leave their first love are in danger of no longer being a true church of Jesus Christ (Rev. 2:4–5). It is also concerning that leaders in the PRC are using quotes and teachings of men that have been condemned in the PRC’s history in order to bolster their position regarding the place of good works in salvation. Once again it is good to hear the words of Christ on this matter, “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Matt. 15:14).

A brother in Christ,

Matthew Overway