Brothers of faith in Jesus Christ,

Although I am not PR or RP, I still consider both of these fellowships as brothers and sisters in the Holy Catholic family of faith. My son and wonderful daughter-in-law and their family are represented in both. Thankfully, in spite of this division, they still enjoy family fellowship. This is the way it should be! However, in their broader family and church ties, there is separation, bitterness and anger over this divide, causing much pain, even in some marriages. I have many lovely relatives where this divide is having its negative impact as well. So sad! As an outsider, so to speak, and with others like me, seeing this causes us to shake our heads. Not so much that we think ourselves better but how the Devil must be rejoicing. His chief desire is to divide.

However, on a positive note, I appreciate the openness of the Sword and Shield to allow even outsiders to contribute to this discussion. It is hard me to understand your struggle and division when you all agree that works have nothing to do with salvation. This issue, the sovereignty of God over everything and the will of man under that sovereignty is an issue that individual Christians, churches and denominations, have struggled with since the beginning of time. Scripture is true in all of its statements about God. So when we read in Genesis 6:6 “The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain”, in Exodus 32:9-1 how God changed his mind in wanting to get rid of the wayward Israelites and starting a new nation with Moses, how God again and again got frustrated, angry, and grieved over Israel’s hardness of heart and in Rev. 3:20 Jesus patiently stands knocking at the door of His Church and waits for whomever will open the door so he can come in; these verses then are hard to explain when we know God’s divine plan has already been decreed before creation.  Do we take these sentiments of God seriously or do we just avoid delving into this realm?

Could these seemingly irreconcilable truths both be true for God? I think to be in tune with Scripture we may have to conclude that they both are true. This is where the sovereignty of God and mans responsibility seem to conflict. Sometimes we may have to let some of these seemingly inexplainable inconsistencies be what they are. God is way too complex for man to totally explain.

In regard to this, I was doing some thinking about the crucifixion of Christ. There were three crosses with three men, one on the right and the other on the left, with Jesus Christ in the middle. Three men hanging and all in excruciating pain! These three men seemingly were worth our moral wrath, however, the verbal abuse from those around the crosses were being directed towards the Man in the middle. One of the thieves suffering next to this Man was giving Jesus the same verbal abuse. Why the wrath concentrated mainly on this Man? This question had to be going on in the minds of the two men suffering alongside Jesus. By their comments they knew about Him, they had heard about His miracles and even His power to raise people from the dead, but watching Him—? He didn’t curse like those around and on the crosses did. In fact He prayed that God would forgive them because they did not know what they were doing. Then in all His pain, this Man cared deeply about his mother and her future.

These two thieves had to be doing some serious thinking. In fact one of them also hurled insults at Him, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” The other thief rebuked his fellow thief. “Don’t you fear God,” since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what we deserve. But this Man has done nothing wrong.” This man then said, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” Two men on crosses but only one acknowledged Him before men and asked Jesus for forgiveness. I would imagine Jesus was encouraged and pleased. Jesus whose image we are created in, had feelings!

Most of us would say, “This thief was saved totally by grace for he had no evident works.” He indeed was saved totally by grace; however, there were some very significant “works” expressed in his confession, (that is, if we can agree that even our written thoughts about Jesus are ultimately “works”.) This thief HUMBLED himself, RECOGNIZED his sinfulness, PUBLICLY confessed his sinfulness before men, CONFESSED Jesus as Lord and SOUGHT forgiveness! Five good “works’ that are absolutely necessary to be saved. These “works”, again of grace, shows the EVIDENCE of our salvation. Jesus, himself said that “He who confesses me before men, him will I confess before my Father who is in Heaven.” This thief couldn’t keep his mouth shut, for as Scripture says “Out of the abundance of the heart the  mouth speaks.” He recognized his unworthiness and recognized this very special Man as who He was, the only Man able to save! Jesus granted his request! The thief’s spoken “works didn’t save him, Jesus mercy did. But these thief’s “works” are recorded through all of history as a testimony of God’s purpose of coming to this earth. It is also a testimony of what happens to a person when the Holy Spirit comes to take over a persons life. Works are a natural result. As James says “Faith without works is dead.” This is why on the judgement day our works will be on display not for God to see but for us to see. Our works just show each person whose god we had been serving.

To sum up what I am trying to say; For the thief to declare what he did, he had to have  a heart softened by the Holy Spirit. Because of these good spoken “works”, this thief became the first recorded convert to recognize who Jesus really was. This thief was not a robot! We are not robots either. Living in the Spirit and the Spirit living in us, we have freedom to bring either praises to our God, or disappointment by silence and/or disobedience. It can’t be any other way! God has emotions. Being we are created in His image we were given that gift as well!? So may I strongly encourage each side to become Spiritually emotional. Help all who are involved in this controversy to see the pain in your fellowship and to pray for each other. Maybe pray a prayer something like Jesus prayed. “Father, please let us forgive each other for it seems we may be doing something contrary to your will. Others outside our denomination are watching and if we are desiring to represent Christ well, may our rhetoric with each other be brotherly and attractive. If differences arise as they will within any fellowship, help us to speak the truth in love. Lord, help us to let the Light of Jesus so shine before men that they may see our good works of gratitude and mirror your love and so to glorify You our Father who is in Heaven.”

My brothers and sisters of faith, let us all seek to mirror Jesus Christ well!

Humbly submitted,

Carl Smits

REPLY

I agree that division in the church of Jesus Christ is indeed a grievous matter. So grievous is it that it represents one of the severest temptations that ever confronts officebearers and church members.

It is true that the unity of the church is a precious gift from the head of the church himself, who suffered and died on the cross for his one bride. It is true that the unity of the church is the fruit of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:11 that those whom his Father had given to Christ “may be one.” It is true that the church is enjoined in Ephesians 4 to maintain the unity of the church in the bond of peace. It must also be recognized that the unity of the church of Jesus Christ is of great benefit to the members of the body of Christ. That unity is an important part of the strength of the church as the body of Christ. In that unity the members are able to rejoice in one another and serve one another. That unity is a powerful testimony to the world of the power of God’s grace to fill his people with love for one another, a love that is clearly not of this world.

However, Jesus also said something about division. He spoke about division not merely as an effect of his coming into the world; he spoke of it as his purpose. Matthew 10:34 is first a denial: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth.” He even repeated it: “I came not to send peace.” That sharp, repeated denial Jesus followed with an emphatic affirmation: “I came…to send…a sword.” That division, which Jesus said he came to send, is the deepest kind of division. It is exactly the division that you mention in your letter. “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (vv. 35–36). In the following verse Jesus identified that division as a temptation: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Then Jesus spoke of the bearing of that division as a cross. “He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me” (vv. 37–38).

This purpose of Jesus in coming into the world is directly connected to his cross. As you mentioned the two thieves on the cross, the cross of Christ itself was the division between the two. Before their crucifixions the two were united. They were united in their crime, united in their condemnation, and united in their blasphemy of Christ for a time (see Mark 15:32). But then there was division, a division wrought by the cross and which was the fruit of that cross. The two were divided by the sword that Christ came to bring. The cross of Christ turned the thieves’ friendship into enmity. The regenerated, converted thief rebuked his fellow thief, “Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?” (Luke 23:40).

The cross of Jesus Christ is this division for two reasons.

The first reason is that the cross is not the redemption of all men. It is not the redemption of all the Jews. It is not the redemption of every human being in the world. It is the redemption of only the elect, those given by the Father to the Son before the world began. Their redemption by the cross is the cause of division. They are redeemed out of the world of darkness and sin to be a peculiar people, children of light. As the world hated Christ, so the world must hate those who are of Christ.

The second reason is that the cross is itself offensive. The scandal of the cross is that it is the necessary ground of the redemption of ungodly sinners. “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31–32).

However, the question still remains: Is the grievous division you address in your letter the above kind of division, or is it another kind? Is it caused by the offense of the cross? Or is the division caused by quarrelsome, brawling persons who have been so caught up in their quarrel that the result has actually been a church split? Is the division the cause of persons who have been so unable to “forgive and forget” that they have ruptured a denomination by their desire for revenge? Is the division the result of a magnification of personalities, egos grown to such a size that they simply cannot dwell under the same roof?

I want to assure you that if the cross of Jesus Christ is not the cause of this division, it can only be sinful. This division must then be repented of. Everything must be done to heal the breach in the glorious name of the head of the church, in whom the body has all its unity. If I were for a moment doubtful whether the truth of the gospel were not at stake in this controversy, I would never have participated in it, and I would be laboring with might and main to end it. But let me be clear: I am convinced that there is ultimately one reason for all the action taken against me and others, ecclesiastical and otherwise. That one reason is the gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ, the cross that redeems not good men but sinners. Men were targeted and ultimately cast out of the Protestant Reformed Churches because they publicly labored to have the decisions taken by the Protestant Reformed Synod of 2018 carry their weight and force through that denomination for the sake of faithfulness to the gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ.

I find it noteworthy that the various points you make in your letter can be applied also to the controversy with Arminianism that led to the Synod of Dordt. Some of your points can even be applied to the controversy of the Protestant Reformation. They can be found in the histories written about the beginning of the Protestant Reformed Churches and the split of those churches in 1953. God is sovereign, but man must be
responsible.

You write, “I think to be in tune with Scripture we may have to conclude that they both are true.” You write, “Five good ‘works’ that are absolutely necessary to be saved.” But then you write, “The thief’s spoken ‘works didn’t save him, Jesus mercy did.” You need to choose, Carl. Both cannot be true. Are you going to choose the cross or “Five good ‘works’ that are absolutely necessary to be saved”?

The last part of your letter is most poignant. What you write is true: “Others outside our denomination are watching.”

What are they seeing? If they are looking through carnal lenses, they must see only reason for the further deploring of the church and its treasure of the gospel of the cross. They will see nothing at stake and contemptuously wonder why men are sacrificing so much for nothing at all.

But if they are looking spiritually, they will understand that this is the division promised by Christ. They will rejoice to see that in these latter days there are still those who magnify that grace by bearing their crosses, while feeling in their hearts the sharpness of the sword that their savior came to bring.

“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Ps. 126:5).