Statement

I believe, and I am convinced that the PRC as a whole believes that Jesus Christ has provided us with our complete salvation, along with all of its benefits, full and free. We do not; neither can we fulfill any conditions to obtain any part of that salvation.

This is true for all parts of our salvation, including two very important aspects of our salvation, namely our assurance, and our experience of fellowship with God.

Works can play no decisive role in obtaining either of these.

Works are produced by grace and are simply a necessary result of our salvation. Good works can never be a fundamental ground of assurance or for our experiencing fellowship with God.

It cannot be that salvation which is apart from works, is dependent on works as a condition for some parts of that salvation, namely enjoying assurance and fellowship with God. 

If we improperly give good works the role of a condition that we must meet in order to obtain these parts of our salvation we would inherently have the predilection to head down one of two paths. Either to become self-righteous and proud of our works that made it possible for us to have assurance or fellowship with God, or as would likely be the case for most, we will look at our feeble attempt to live a life of obedience and become depressed and forlorn and we will begin to spiritually doubt or salvation and our ability to have fellowship with the Holy God.

Questions

We know that our good works cannot be a condition for obtaining assurance or fellowship, but could God crown those works he performed in us by providing us with additional evidence that God is working in us, and thus confirms our assurance that we are alive in Jesus Christ both to us and others.

Could we then also say that a good prayer life, although not a condition, is a work that God uses to in some sense enrich that fellowship with Him?

Answer

If the answer can be yes to these questions, then what we have here is a mystery of God that cannot be fully explained. Somehow, mysteriously, God using our good works, not as fundamental grounds for parts of our salvation, but as a way to enrich our assurance and fellowship, not of merit, but of grace.

Even though the Holy Spirit produces the works in us, it is still biblical language to say that it is us, the Christian, who performs those acts of obedience, and who are then crowned with a richer Christian life. The Bible is full of texts describing the good works of believers. It also balances that with the truth of unconditional salvation.

Plea

If the answer could be yes to the questions above, as I suggest, then to emphasize the necessity and proper role of works does not mean that we are headed down the path toward conditional theology on one hand, or toward antinomianism on the other hand. The believer is just emphasizing one aspect of the mystery more than the other.

It would be radicalism to expect that solidly reformed believers use the exact wording that gives a complete explanation each time they speak of our necessary life of good works. The fundamentally reformed belief of unconditional salvation has been well documented amongst the Protestant Reformed Churches for many years and we must be charitable. Radicalizing the issue causes schism. Therefore we must temper our accusations, be cautious not to jump to assumptions, and remain humble of any ability we have to more consistently and precisely explain these issues.

On the other hand, the reformed believer who often emphasizes the necessity and importance of our works and rarely explains them in the proper biblical and creedal context, as I attempted to do in the ‘statement’ above, runs the risk of creating an unhealthy imbalance and even unconsciously having the effect of slipping into conditional theology.

We need solid balance, patience, clarity, a good dose of humility, and admission of error where error was taught or defended. Some need to be willing to listen without jumping to conclusions about what another saint means. Others need to be eager to emphatically endorse unconditional complete salvation to erase any doubt where doubt has been created during the current controversy.

We need to allow for that mystery, and to put aside arguing and division from amongst us. We can all enjoy the fundamental truth of unconditional salvation, including our assurance and our experience of fellowship with God, celebrating together with a godly life of obedience out of thanks to God. Then too, we can truly have fellowship again with one another as a united denomination.

—Rick DeVries

 

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REPLY

I take your letter to be a valiant attempt to unify the Protestant Reformed Churches. That attempt is much appreciated and warms my heart as one who loves the PRC. For all of us in the PRC, the unity of the denomination is precious and a worthy thing to endeavor to keep.

As your letter indicates, the unification of the Protestant Reformed Churches is necessary at present, because now there is arguing and division among us. You propose that this division is not due to doctrinal differences, but is rather a matter of balance and behavior. You write: 

I believe, and I am convinced that the PRC as a whole believes [the same doctrine]…We need solid balance, patience, clarity, a good dose of humility, and admission of error where error was taught or defended. Some need to be willing to listen without jumping to conclusions about what another saint means. Others need to be eager to emphatically endorse unconditional complete salvation to erase any doubt where doubt has been created during the current controversy.

Your prescription of “patience, clarity, [and] a good dose of humility” is always good medicine and is well taken. However, I am not convinced that you have accurately diagnosed the real source of division in the Protestant Reformed Churches. As I see it, the real source of division is doctrinal disagreement. To say the same thing, I believe the division in the PRC is between the truth and the lie, which are both vying for a place in the theology of the PRC.

At the beginning of your letter, you make a statement of doctrine. Your statement of doctrine is beautiful and sound. The entire statement is worth reading again and quoting at length, but let me quote just this part: 

Jesus Christ has provided us with our complete salvation, along with all of its benefits, full and free. We do not; neither can we fulfill any conditions to obtain any part of that salvation.

This is true for all parts of our salvation, including two very important aspects of our salvation, namely our assurance, and our experience of fellowship with God.

Amen and amen! That is the heart-gladdening gospel. That truth makes Jesus the Savior and denies that man is the savior. You apply that gospel truth to the exact topic that is so much at stake among us today: man’s conscious experience of fellowship with God. It is a wonderful and a sound statement.

But is it really true that everyone in the PRC would agree with that truth? Not everyone agreed with that truth leading up to Synod 2018. Large segments of the denomination set themselves against that truth and at least tolerated—and in many cases outright defended—the opposite of that truth. Even now, after Synod 2018, I wonder whether everyone really would agree with the truth as you set it forth in your statement. Elsewhere in this very issue of Sword and Shield is a letter that argues that the grace principle and the works principle are not mutually exclusive when it comes to experiencing God’s fellowship, and that experiencing fellowship with God is both by grace and by works. That is not doctrinal agreement but doctrinal division.

But let us assume for a moment that everyone in the PRC does agree with the truth as you have set it forth in your statement. Let us assume that everyone confesses “that Jesus Christ has provided us with our complete salvation, along with all of its benefits, full and free.” Is that sufficient for a denomination? Is it sufficient that everyone confesses the truth positively? Isn’t it also necessary that the church identifies and condemns the lie that militates against the truth? Isn’t it necessary that the church makes this negative confession right alongside of, and in service of, its positive confession?

This negative confession is what every member of the PRC vowed at his confession of faith.

Have you resolved by the grace of God to adhere to this doctrine; to reject all heresies repugnant thereto; and to lead a new, godly life? (The Confessions and Church Order of the Protestant Reformed Churches, 266) 

Not only to adhere to this doctrine, but to reject all heresies repugnant thereto.

This negative confession is also what every officebearer in the PRC vowed in his signing of the Formula of Subscription. 

We declare, moreover, that we not only reject all errors that militate against this doctrine, and particularly those which were condemned by the above mentioned synod, but that we are disposed to refute and contradict these, and to exert ourselves in keeping the church free from such errors. (Confessions and Church Order, 326)

It is in the matter of this negative confession where I see the greatest doctrinal division in the PRC at present. Many of us are not yet sure whether the controversy in the PRC was between the truth and the lie. We are not yet sure whether we may call the error that was among us “the lie” or “false doctrine” or “heresy” or “an error out of hell.” We draw back from saying it that plainly or are deeply offended if someone does say it that plainly. In fact, many of us are quite sure that the controversy in the PRC was not a matter of the truth against the lie. We assure each other that we all believe the same thing and that we have always believed the same thing. We gut synod’s words, “doctrinal error,” of their meaning, so that they come to mean only “mistake” or “misstatement” or “lack of clarity.”

With this approach to the controversy, we are unable to make the necessary negative confession. We are unable to “reject all heresies repugnant thereto” because we cannot bring ourselves to call it heresy. We are unable to “exert ourselves in keeping the church free from such errors” because we do not believe they were “errors that militate against [creedal] doctrine.”

How deadly for the church! And what division follows! The church’s negative confession that repudiates the lie as the lie is part and parcel of the church’s positive confession of the truth as the truth. If the church will not make her negative confession, then she cannot truly make her positive confession either. The church that only says positively, “Salvation is by grace alone,” but will not also negatively condemn the lie in her midst as the lie, is not really confessing, “Salvation is by grace alone.” The lie is always content to skulk in the corner, ignored and tolerated, until a generation that has grown accustomed to its presence invites it to sit at the table.

If I may quote and paraphrase Rev. Gerrit Vos from almost seventy years ago, he captures what I believe is the situation in the Protestant Reformed Churches at present. My paraphrases are in brackets:

And the point I wish to make in this connection I consider important. It may remove all manner of misunderstanding. It is this: I believe with all my heart that every one of our ministers teaches what brother [Rick DeVries] quotes in this sentence. That, my dear brother, is not the question which is disturbing our churches. That which you outline is the positive side of our preaching. What divides us, according to the way I see it is this: we do not all condemn, as vigorously as we ought, the heresy of [the works principle in man’s experience of salvation]. I would like to point out that such negative confession, the condemnation of all errors repugnant to the above quoted confession, belongs to, is an integral part of our duty. The [works principle] militates against brother [DeVries’] confession, as we quoted same. (“A Letter,” Standard Bearer 27, no. 9 [February 1, 1951]: 200–201)

As for the rest of your letter, just a couple of comments. First, you write of “emphasis” and “balance.” That at least implies that, in this controversy, our task is to strike the right balance between the doctrines of grace, on the one hand, and man’s calling to work, on the other hand. Such is never the case. The doctrine of salvation by grace alone does not need to be balanced with man’s calling to work. Rather, man’s calling to work flows from the doctrine of salvation by grace alone.

Second, with regard to the role of good works, you write about good works’ confirming assurance and enriching life with God. Whatever we say about good works must be consistent with the truth that good works are always the mark of faith, but never the object of faith. Good works always demonstrate true faith as the fruit of true faith and therefore as the evidence of true faith. But the object of true faith is always Jesus Christ, revealed in God’s word. Faith looks to Christ and to Christ alone, embraces him, and finds all things necessary for salvation in him alone.

Back to your main point: By all means, let us seek the unity and peace of the Protestant Reformed Churches. Let us seek that unity and peace upon the only foundation that it can be found: Jesus Christ and his truth. Where we are yet unsure of the controversy, let us become sure. Where we are yet tolerating the error as some minor thing, let us now roar against it. To close with your closing line: “Then too, we can truly have fellowship again with one another as a united denomination.”