July 11, 2020

To Rev. A. Lanning and Sword and Shield.

Having received the second issue of Sword and Shield and read your editorials in both issues, the first giving the reasons and purpose of your new organization and magazine, the second giving your views on decisions of ecclesiastical assemblies and the controversy in our churches, and since you welcome letters of criticism, please allow me to offer some words of caution.

If your purpose for existing as a separate magazine from The Standard Bearer, is to have freedom to speak publicly about ecclesiastical decisions and perceived views of brothers in Christ, with which you don’t agree, and you proceed to do that without following the Biblical principles and guidelines set forth for us in the Word and our Church Order on how to properly deal with one another in our differences, then your credibility as a separate magazine and organization falls away.

Troubling it is when you label the controversy in our churches simply as between grace and works. This strikes me as a gross misrepresentation of the issues involved and a slap in the face to every meeting of Classis and Synod since 2016. If the issue was as simple as you claim, it would have been settled in 2016. But this has not been the case. To my knowledge no one in our churches has taught that we are saved by our works instead of freely by grace, and yet you are ready to wield the sword against them as if they had, labeling them as heretical, worthy of suspicion, necessitating starting a separate publishing association and magazine.

A word of caution would seem to be in order. Let us beware that in our zeal for the truth that we not appear before Christ the King and Judge with the blood of the saints on our sword and suffer the rebuke He gave Peter in Matt. 26 : 52 (as if he needed Peter’s sword), “Put up your sword into his place for all they that take up the sword shall perish with the sword.” God doesn’t need our “extra” efforts to preserve His truth.

Perhaps that could have been added to your list of examples in your recent editorial of grace principles and works principles. I have in mind a works principle by which we become “Jacobs” and think we need to help God along by overstating differences in order to make them sound the worst as we can to strengthen the point we want to make. Or by not acquiescing to decisions of broader assemblies, but rather setting about publicly to stir up suspicions about other unnamed office bearers by insinuating that there are those in our midst who do not agree with recent synodical decisions (and that without proof). Or of not viewing one another charitably by reading the worst possible interpretation into statements made by others. It is as if zeal for the truth means we can dismiss all judgements of charity on statements of others and one can ignore the calling, if one has charges against another, to bring them in the Church Ordained way. Such is definitely not a grace principle. It becomes plain that in one’s zeal for fighting against error one can become guilty of the very “error” he opposes. I find it a bit ironic that in your zeal to oppose any suggestion that our salvation and God’s cause depends in any sense on mans works or activities, you do seem to think and are ready to concede and maintain that God needs your magazine and efforts, (your good work of opposing falsehood), if His truth is going to be preserved and defended. As if that is the only work that is praiseworthy and necessary in some sense.

Also another word of caution that we can, because of our sinful nature, easily move from being zealous for the truth to creating and promoting schism in the church. Once again our sinful nature gets the upper hand. By misusing or improperly using our sword we can make ourselves unfit and unprofitable servants and soldiers in the kingdom of Christ the King. Meantime the Devil stands by with glee as we kill each other and tear each other apart with our words. We make it so easy for him to disrupt the peace and unity of the church. Good brothers, we do well to heed the warning in the conclusion of the Canons. Having set forth the truth over against the error as to what effect that truth has on what we write and say, our Fathers advise that we “abstain from all those phrases which exceed the limits necessary to be observed in ascertaining the genuine sense of the Holy Scriptures.” This is wisdom, lest by what we say and write about brethren in the church,” we give occasion to those who would violently assail the doctrines of the Reformed faith.”

Consider.

Your brother in Christ,

—Michael Rau

REPLY

Your letter is certainly welcome, as is your criticism, as are your words of caution. It is good to have you and your letter here.

Your letter is a plea and an admonition to lay down the sword. Let us see about that advice.

Your starting point is that the controversy in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) is not between a grace principle and a works principle: “Troubling it is when you label the controversy in our churches simply as between grace and works. This strikes me as a gross misrepresentation of the issues involved.” You do not say what the controversy is, but you make it clear that the controversy is not two opposing theologies: 

If the issue was as simple as you claim, it would have been settled in 2016. But this has not been the case. To my knowledge no one in our churches has taught that we are saved by our works instead of freely by grace.

Whatever the controversy may be, then, it is not a battle between the truth and the lie. In fact, the real danger in the controversy seems to be that we make a controversy where none exists; the danger of “overstating differences in order to make them sound the worst as we can to strengthen the point we want to make”; and the danger of “not viewing one another charitably by reading the worst possible interpretation into statements made by others.”

If there is no battle between the truth and the lie in this controversy, then there is no battlefield, and a sword does not belong here. In fact, a sword is dangerous and wicked here because it will only hurt the innocent. When Sword and Shield comes running to this non-battlefield hacking away with its sword, it does the damage that was feared. It delivers “a slap in the face to every meeting of Classis and Synod since 2016.” It wields “the sword against” the orthodox, “labeling them as heretical, worthy of suspicion.” The cautions are raised that “we not appear before Christ the King and Judge with the blood of the saints on our sword” and that we do not move “from being zealous for the truth to creating and promoting schism in the church.”

The sword of Sword and Shield has become the instrument of the enemy! “Meantime the Devil stands by with glee as we kill each other and tear each other apart with our words. We make it so easy for him to disrupt the peace and unity of the church.”

Best to lay down the sword, then. For the peace and unity of the church. Especially since there is no battle for the truth after all.

Brother, with all due respect and with all brotherly love, I will not be taking your advice. Not because I don’t need advice, but because the Captain of my salvation has forbidden me from laying down the sword. “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. And take…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:11, 17). Jesus’ rebuke to Peter that you cite from Matthew 26:52 is not a calling to put up this sword, but to put up any physical sword in the work of the Lord. But the spiritual sword that is the word of God must not be laid down, especially in the middle of a battle against the lie.

The problem with your advice is that your starting point is wrong. There is a controversy, and it is between the truth and the lie. It is between a grace principle and a works principle. And it really is as simple as that. Why it has taken us as churches so long to see such a simple truth is a good question and worthy of investigation. But that question aside, the controversy really is a battle between the truth and the lie. Synod 2018 ruled that “classis failed to deal with doctrinal error…The doctrinal error is that the believer’s good works are given a place and function that is out of harmony with the Reformed confessions” (Acts of Synod 2018, 61). Synod’s decision settles for us that there is indeed a battle and that the battle is between doctrinal truth, on the one hand, and doctrinal error, on the other hand.

This means that we are on the battlefield after all. And on the battlefield it is dangerous and wicked not to have a sword. God himself says so: “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood” (Jer. 48:10).

Sword and Shield is not harming the innocent, as you fear. First, no individual in the PRC has been labeled a heretic, as you charge. A theology has been labeled heresy, which is much different. Second, the writers in Sword and Shield have been decent and orderly, not schismatic, as you charge. Third, I do not think, concede, or maintain that “we need to help God along” or “that God needs [this] magazine and efforts…if His truth is going to be preserved and defended.” That is a charge so shameful and strange that I can only ask where the charity for which you plead has now gone.

And now permit me to give a little advice of my own to all who are reading this. Do not lay down the sword, but take it up. Theological battle is not easy or pleasant. It is not something that we naturally seek out. We prefer a quiet retreat away from the crash and din of the fight. On the battlefield a voice from behind the ranks calling us to lay down our sword is tempting. That voice slackens the hand of the soldier and weakens his resolve. After all, we want peace, don’t we? But know that that voice is deadly. There is no peace in turning from the fight, but only defeat for the generations to come. “The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle” (Ps. 78:9).

Do not lay down the sword, but take it up. And take heart that the victory is already won, for the battle belongs to the Lord, to his truth, and to the Captain of our salvation. Whatever happens to us, the Lord and his truth shall prevail. 

Let me conclude by quoting a little again from Rev. Gerrit Vos from the same article quoted elsewhere in this issue. 

There is just one ray of light in the dark picture, and it is this: whether we remain true to the truth or not…the Truth of God will continue its victorious pathway of shining light. “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth” II Cor. 13:8. (“A Letter,” Standard Bearer 27, no. 9 [February 1, 1951]: 201)