Hello Sword and Shield Editors,

I compose this letter to you regarding our recent controversy about the relationship between repentance and forgiveness. I will also briefly discuss the other closely related topic of God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of the neighbor.

I write this letter for two reasons. First, I have heard many sermons and read many of the recent Sword and Shield articles relating to this issue, and I still am not certain that the teaching of the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) on this issue is entirely correct. This doubt is accentuated by my recent readings of renowned theologians, such as Calvin, Ursinus, and Herman Hoeksema, which seem to suggest that they held to a different position. Second, I have also researched this issue extensively by looking at Bible passages that directly talk about repentance and forgiveness, and I was surprised by some of my findings.

So, I have decided to share my thoughts on these issues. I will be dividing the paper into two parts. In Part One, we will look at some Bible passages that discuss repentance and forgiveness. In Part Two, we will examine the writings of some of our Reformed fathers about these issues.¹

Part One:
God’s Word on Repentance and Forgiveness

Forgiveness of Sins: Definition and Ground

So that we both have a clear understanding of my position on forgiveness and repentance, I will begin by defining the term under dispute, i.e., the forgiveness of sins. The gospel according to Luke is very helpful in this regard. In Luke 1:76-77 we read, “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission [forgiveness] of their sins.” This passage speaks of John the Baptist, who was Christ’s forerunner. As Christ’s forerunner, he would prophesy to the Israelites of the remission (forgiveness) of their sins in the coming and death of Christ.

This passage, therefore, teaches us that forgiveness refers to the knowledge of salvation. It refers to our conscious possession of our salvation (the experience and joy of salvation, our fellowship with God). Thus, we know of our salvation when God forgives us of our sins.

Also, Ephesians 1:7 and Colossians 1:14 teach us that the forgiveness of sins can be thought of as our redemption. However, it does not refer merely to the abstract reality that God has blotted out all the sins of his people for Christ’s sake. Rather, as we learned in Luke 1:77, forgiveness refers to our knowledge of our salvation. Thus, it is the application of that redemption to each child of God. It is the knowledge that Christ died not only for his people, but for me.

Ephesians 1:7 and Colossians 1:14 (along with other passages, such as Romans 5:1), also teach us the sole grounds of forgiveness. Nothing that the sinner does (whether that be his repentance, believing, or obedience) is ever the cause or grounds of his forgiveness. Rather, God eternally willed that he would forgive us our sins in Christ, and he merited this blessing in time by his Son’s death on the cross. It is by this redemption on the cross that God’s people also know of their salvation when God works faith in their hearts.

Forgiveness of Sins and Repentance:
The RPC’s Teaching

Now, I will describe how repentance relates to forgiveness. It is in this concept that I differ from the current teaching of the RPC. The RPC teach us that we have forgiveness without repenting. On page 43 in the March 15, 2022, issue of the Sword and Shield, Reverend Langerak quotes from Professor Engelsma: “‘In fact, the implication of the theology of the editor of ‘S&S’ is that the sinner has forgiveness without repenting. This, apparently, is now the gospel-message of the Reformed Protestant Church’ (Ignorant, Lying, or Merely Mistaken).”

Reverend Langerak replies to Professor Engelsma, “Yes, indeed. That is what we teach. We teach that there is forgiveness without repenting. We teach that repentance follows forgiveness.”

Forgiveness of Sins and Repentance: I Kings 8

I diligently searched the Scriptures, and I have concluded that the Scriptures may teach something different than the current RP position. Some of these Bible passages have been used before in this argument about forgiveness and repentance, but I want to shed some new light on these texts.

First, I will examine a passage found in the historical books of the Old Testament: I Kings 8 (parallel passage in II Chronicles 7). In this text, the temple has just been completed, and now the nation of Israel is dedicating the temple. Solomon, as king of Israel, prays to God that he may be pleased to dwell in the temple and to hear his prayer for Israel. He brings several petitions to God in his prayer, several of which deal directly with the issue of repentance and forgiveness.

I will give one example. In I Kings 8:33-34, we read, “When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house: then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land which thou gavest unto their fathers.”

I want to point out several ideas from this passage. First, Solomon testifies what would happen to the nation of Israel if they departed from God and walked impenitently in sin: they would provoke God to anger. In the Old Testament, God showed this anger by physical, visible signs that caused great harm for his people. In this case, God would cause Israel’s enemies to defeat them in battle and capture portions of the land of Israel. For the true believers in Israel, this punishment was God’s chastisement of them. For the reprobate in Israel, God used this punishment to harden them in their sin.

Second, Solomon contrasts God’s anger with his forgiveness of Israel. This forgiveness of Israel as a nation also would be accompanied by external signs. In the passage that I am discussing, God would again restore the lands that God had given to Israel’s enemies in his anger.

Third, and this is the crucial point, Solomon teaches Israel what they are called to do when God is angry with them: to confess their sin and repent in dust and ashes. Only when God caused Israel to repent would he forgive them of their sins and show His favor to them once again.

So, I believe that this passage teaches us that repentance is necessary for forgiveness, so that God does not show his favor toward his people while they walk impenitently in sin. However, this repentance is not the cause or the reason that God would forgive his people. Rather, Solomon gives the one ground of forgiveness at the close of his prayer in I Kings 8:51-53: “For they be thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron: that thine eyes may be open unto the supplication of thy servant, and unto the supplication of thy people Israel, to hearken unto them in all that they call for unto thee. For thou didst separate them from among all the people of the earth, to be thine inheritance, as thou spakest by the hand of Moses thy servant, when thou broughtest our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord GOD.”

Thus, Solomon says that God will hear the prayers of his people only for the sake of his covenant that God established with them. God is not a reactionary God who has to plead and beg with his people and who must wait upon his people to repent. Rather, he is the God who is eternally faithful to his covenant. Since he is our God, he also wills that his people know his love for them. Though for a time God may sovereignly will that his people walk in sin, he will infallibly cause them to see their sin, to repent of their ways, and be forgiven by him.

This ground of forgiveness would be clearly seen by the Israelites as they offered sacrifices in the temple. All these sacrifices pointed to the one sacrifice of Christ in whom there is forgiveness of sins. The Israelites would know that God would hear and answer all their prayers not because of anything in themselves, but only for the sake of Christ, who is the head of God’s covenant.

Forgiveness of Sins and Repentance: Jeremiah 36:1-3

I will briefly mention another passage from an Old Testament prophet. In Jeremiah 36:1-3, God commands Jeremiah to write a word of rebuke against Judah on a roll of a book. Jeremiah is to write in this roll of their impending destruction at the hands of the Babylonians.

I bring this passage up because of what God says in verse 3: “It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.” Notice here especially that God says he may forgive Judah their sins.

Considering the many corruptions of this text and similar ones, we must state that this promise was a particular promise. God here is not desiring that all members of Judah, head for head, repent and be forgiven by him. Rather, this promise is for the elect in Judah alone. For the elect alone, God would infallibly cause them to truly repent of their sins and have a renewed sense of his favor because that was his eternal will for them. For the reprobate in Judah, God hated them with an eternal hatred. God would use Jeremiah’s warning of their impending destruction at the hands of the Babylonians to harden them in their sins.

So, the phrase “I may forgive them” was God’s word of hope for the elect in Judah. This “may” does not indicate that God’s forgiveness was uncertain, as if God didn’t know whether he would decide to forgive Judah or not. It certainly does not mean that God’s forgiveness depended on Judah’s repentance. Instead, it is a promise to God’s people that when they heard Jeremiah’s warning and by that message were made truly sorry for their sins, that God would certainly forgive them. When God’s people were brought to repentance, they could freely ask God for forgiveness being fully confident of his mercy.

God also through the mouth of Jeremiah teaches that God does not forgive his people while they walk impenitently in sin. Rather, God chastises His people. God’s whole purpose in repentance is so that every day the child of God looks to him alone for all blessings, but especially for the forgiveness of his sins (and thus, his assurance of his salvation). Thus, it is only when we live a life out of repentance that we can know God’s favor.

Forgiveness of Sins and Repentance: Psalm 51

In the ancient heading attached to this psalm, we learn that it was likely composed by David after he had committed fornication with Bathsheba and God had sent Nathan the prophet to rebuke him. After hearing the rebuke of Nathan, David realized that he had sinned against God, and now in this psalm, he prays that God will forgive him.

Throughout the psalm, David uses many different expressions whereby he asks God to forgive him his sins. I want to focus on two of these expressions. First, in Psalm 51:8, David implores that God would “make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” Second, in close connection with the previous expression, in verse 12, David asks that God would “restore unto me the joy of my salvation.”

So, what does David mean by the breaking of his bones? Certainly, it doesn’t refer to a literal breaking of his physical bones by God. Rather, it refers to a spiritual breaking of his bones. David felt this breaking of his bones as God was chastising him for his sin with Bathsheba and after he was rebuked by Nathan the prophet. This expression shows the tremendous grief and anguish he felt after God caused him to see how wicked his sin truly was. He realized that his sin was so great that his soul was in danger of hell if he continued impenitently in his sin.

Seeing how his sin had robbed him of all his joy and brought upon him God’s heavy hand of chastisement, he prays that God will restore this joy of his salvation by forgiving his sin. David teaches God’s people that by a fall into sin, we grievously wound our consciences, and for a time may even completely lose the sense of God’s favor. This joy of our salvation can only be restored when God causes us to see how he is chastising us for our impenitent walk of life and makes us repent in dust and ashes.

However, once again, I want to reiterate that repentance is never the cause or the reason that God forgives us. David himself confesses this in the psalm. He does not pray that God will forgive him because of something that he has done. Rather, in Psalm 51:1, he prays that God will forgive him “according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies.”

Thus, every child of God prays along with David that God forgive us our sins because he is our covenant God. God wills that we know his favor and infallibly works a sense of this favor in our hearts. So, to assure us of our salvation, he cuts down all our pride and impenitence. He causes us to see how much he hated our sin by crucifying his own Son on the cross. There at the cross God also shows how much he loved us by sending his own Son to die in our place. And so, with the eye of faith, we also rejoice, knowing that in Christ alone all our sins are forgiven.

God’s Forgiveness of Us and our Forgiveness of
the Neighbor: Matthew 6:14-15

Now, I will move on and talk about another closely related topic: the relationship between God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of the neighbor. One of the clearest passages on this relationship is given in Matthew 6:14-15. Here, Christ says, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

One position on this text is that it refers to both the child of God and the reprobate. As the fruit of God’s forgiveness, the child of God will inevitably forgive his neighbor. For the reprobate, God has eternally willed his destruction, and so He does not forgive him. As evidence of his reprobation, the unbeliever refuses to forgive his neighbor when they sin against him.

However, I believe that Christ was teaching something more than this, though the above idea is certainly true. The reason for this is the context in which Christ makes these statements. Immediately preceding our passage, Christ recited the Lord’s Prayer. Christ taught us how we must begin our prayer: “Our Father which art in heaven.”

We must ask, who can pray to God as their Father in heaven? The answer to this question is crucial in determining what Christ means in verses 14 and 15 of this chapter. My answer is that only God’s people can pray to God as Father.

By virtue of his being made in God’s image, Adam was the son of God. However, by his fall, Adam rebelled against God and corrupted his whole nature. Since Adam was the head of humanity, all men by nature became children of the devil, and so are no longer children of God (see John 8:44, Ephesians 2:2, 3). Thus, they have no right to pray to God as their Father because he is not their Father.

However, God for Christ’s sake has adopted us unto sonship, so that we are again the children of the Highest. Now, we can truly pray to God as our Father in Christ and be fully persuaded that he will hear all that we ask of him in true faith. Thus, it is the child of God that Christ is talking about in verses 14 and 15.

Christ instructs us in these verses of the attitude we must have for God to hear our prayer. We must not hold any malice, hatred, or anger against the neighbor. Instead, we are called by God to always desire the neighbor’s salvation and to forgive them when they repent of their sins.

So, does this mean that God does not forgive us our sins when we walk in sin by holding anger or malice against the neighbor? Yes, I believe that is exactly what Christ means. However, when God causes us to repent of our sin and to again desire to forgive the neighbor, that is not the reason or grounds of God’s renewed forgiveness of us. Rather, by bringing us to repent of that sin, God forgives us. And as the inevitable fruit of God forgiving us, we have the renewed desire to forgive the neighbor.

God’s Purpose in Sanctification: Ephesians 2:10

We must ask, why does God not assure us of our salvation (forgive us) while we walk impenitently in sin? The answer can be found in Ephesians 2:10. In this verse we read, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” In the previous two verses, the apostle Paul had developed the wonderful truth of justification by faith alone. He showed that we are not saved by works, but we are saved by faith alone.

In this verse, the apostle Paul shows us the proper place of good works in the child of God’s life. We are not saved by good works. Rather, we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works”. This word “unto” indicates a purpose. That purpose is God’s eternal will for our sanctification. As we read in this verse, God has “before ordained that we should walk in good works.” In other words, God saves us in order that we may glorify his name by walking in all good works. By this walk, we show ourselves to be God’s children and we are a good witness to the world (see I Peter 3:14-16).

So, when we walk impenitently in sin, we rebel against God’s will for our lives as his people. We show our hatred of God and the neighbor, and we grieve the Holy Spirit (see Ephesians 4:30). Thus, the testimony of the Holy Spirit that we are sons of God only arises as we walk in thankfulness before God, and not while we walk impenitently in sin.

However, I also want to emphasize that sanctification is not something that we do, but rather it is the work of the Spirit alone. He is the one who causes us to walk in all good works. It is also the Holy Spirit who, when we walk in sin, causes us to repent and to again live rightly before God. All glory must go to God in our sanctification.

Conclusion

In this letter, I have stated my ideas on what the Scripture teaches about forgiveness and repentance, both negatively and positively. Negatively, God’s Word teaches us that God does not forgive us because we repent or that he waits on us to repent. Rather, God wills our repentance, and so he also infallibly works this repentance in our hearts. It is by that repentance that we look away from ourselves and we find all our salvation in Christ alone.

I also deny that God forgives us because we forgive the neighbor. Instead, we can forgive the neighbor only when we know in our hearts that God has forgiven us.

Positively, I have attempted to prove the following three ideas from God’s Word: (1) that repentance is necessary for forgiveness, (2) that a sanctified life of repentance is necessary to experience God’s favor and (3) that God only forgives us as we forgive the neighbor. I have tried to show that these ideas are not conditional, and they do not rob God of his glory. Rather, these beliefs give all glory to God alone as he works in us by the Spirit.

I am concerned that the RPC may deny these ideas. For, as I showed at the beginning of this letter, I believe that forgiveness refers to the assurance of our salvation. So, this whole debate boils down to one simple question: do I have the assurance of my salvation while walking impenitently in sin? The answer is no. That is why David prays to God that he would restore unto him the joy of his salvation.

The necessary implication of teaching that we have forgiveness without repenting, therefore, is that we do have the assurance of our salvation, even while walking impenitently in sin. And I believe that idea is contrary to the teachings of our Reformed fathers and to the Word of God itself.

I pray that God will use this letter to further develop his truth on these issues. And if I am in the wrong, I pray that God will cause me to repent of my false beliefs.

Yours in Christ,

Jacob Moore, member of Second RPC

Reply

I do not agree with the theology of the letter. The theology of the letter did not come from my preaching and writing. Neither did it come from an independent study of scripture, the creeds, and the Reformed fathers. The theology came from the Protestant Reformed Churches. The theology of the letter is the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches’ doctrinal statement that was adopted by Classis East. The writers of the doctrinal statement were never examined for the conditional theology that they espoused, and they were never disciplined for that conditional theology. The theology of the doctrinal statement is that to have fellowship with God, two things are necessary: God’s grace and man’s obedience.

I rejected that theology before I was suspended from Crete Protestant Reformed Church. I preached against it and wrote against it until the elders threw me out and, in the process, lied and bore false witness against me.

The doctrine written in the letter in its main contentions is the doctrine that is the antithesis of what I believe the Reformed creeds and faith and thus also scripture teach. The doctrine is the antithesis of what I preach and, I would maintain, what I have preached for my entire ministry in the main points of my doctrine. It is because of the clash between the truth of the gospel and the false doctrine espoused in this letter that a reformation has taken place. The letter brings up and espouses the points of doctrine that were the cause of the reformation.

The writer says, “I compose this letter to you regarding our recent controversy about the relationship between repentance and forgiveness.” But I remind him that he is a member of the Reformed Protestant Churches. There was no controversy in the Reformed Protestant Churches about these things. We were contentedly eating and drinking the gospel and busy rejecting the lie taught by the letter. With the letter there is now a controversy about the very issues over which we separated from the Protestant Reformed Churches. These points of doctrine are not issues that came up later through the writings of the Reformed Protestant Churches, as though we had a reformation and then some new points of doctrine were brought out. The points of doctrine rejected by the letter were fundamental to the reformation of the church of Jesus Christ that resulted in the formation of the Reformed Protestant denomination. This denomination has been in existence since 2021. The writings of members and the writings and preaching of the ministers of the Reformed Protestant denomination have been voluminous and clear on the issues that are raised by the letter, and they have with one voice rejected the theology espoused by the letter. We had a controversy with the Protestant Reformed Churches but not among ourselves.

With this letter we now do have a controversy in the Reformed Protestant Churches. The letter is a rejection of the doctrinal reformation of the Reformed Protestant denomination and all her theological convictions, as those are expressed by the writings and preaching of the members and ministers. At the heart of the matter is contingency in justification and thus also in the covenant of grace. Or to state the matter a different way: the heart of the matter has been contingency in the forgiveness of sins and the believer’s assurance of his salvation. The letter is virtually a lengthy statement of current Protestant Reformed dogma. That current Protestant Reformed dogma teaches that there are activities of man that precede the blessings of God. That current Protestant Reformed dogma denigrates—is terrified of—the decree and the reality of salvation at the cross. That current Protestant Reformed dogma teaches that there is not salvation until man performs his part. The letter brings in again all the Protestant Reformed arguments, all its talking points, and the letter quotes against us many of the same quotations that we have already dealt with and answered in our controversy with the Protestant Reformed Churches while we were still members and afterward when we were evicted.

The letter is the equivalent of a member of the Protestant Reformed Churches writing in to the Standard Bearer today and saying, “I wonder if the Protestant Reformed Churches might deny the historical Reformed faith that justification is by faith alone and that the assurance of our salvation is likewise by faith alone.” The Protestant Reformed Churches with malice aforethought, repeatedly and forcefully, have denied these things and have taught that a holy life of obedience is necessary to experience the covenant of grace, that faith is assured by its works, and that repentance is necessary unto the forgiveness of sins. A response of the editors of that magazine, if they actually would publish the letter, might be, “Where have you been, and why did you not leave with the rest of them? This battle has been fought. Do you not know that we believe that there are activities of man that precede the blessings of God?”

Or the letter is the equivalent of a member of the Protestant Reformed Churches in 1926 writing in to the Standard Bearer and suggesting to the editors that perhaps the Protestant Reformed Churches might deny the historic Reformed faith that there is something called common grace and then going about to prove that there is common grace. The response of Herman Hoeksema could have been, “Where were you for the last couple of years?”

Or perhaps the letter can be likened to a letter written to Herman Hoeksema in 1955, suggesting that maybe the Protestant Reformed Churches denied conditions in the covenant and then setting about to demonstrate that the Reformed fathers, scripture, and the confessions do teach that there are conditions in the covenant. The response could be, “What?”

The letter is nothing but a grief to me. Do we now have to go through this all again and with our own people and so soon? Why are we so scared of the gospel? Why do we want to go back to the rotten theology that we left that made salvation in all its joys contingent on what man does? We would be as dogs returned to their vomit and pigs to their wallowing.

The letter says the issue is whether one has assurance while walking in impenitent sin. But this is not the issue. The issue is whether by holiness of life, including the act of repentance, one has the assurance of salvation. The issue is whether forgiveness of sins waits on the believer’s acts of repentance, love, and obedience. This is the issue. The issue is contingency in salvation; and because we are in the realm of assurance and experience, the issue is contingency in the matter of justification and contingency in the covenant of grace.

The Protestant Reformed synod of 2020 set down the Protestant Reformed dogma of salvation when it said that there are activities of man that precede the blessings of God.² The ministers and theologians of the Protestant Reformed Churches add all kinds of qualifications and denials to camouflage the nakedly Pelagian theology of the statement in order to deceive the simple, but the raw statement in all its ugliness stands. There are activities of man that precede the blessings of God. God may not forgive me until I repent. God will not forgive me unless I forgive my neighbor. A holy life of obedience is necessary to experience the favor of a reconciled God. All of these teach contingency. The ministers and theologians do not use the word contingency, but they should. Repentance, faith, forgiveness, and love all function as contingencies in these statements. And I find nothing really all that different in this letter. An offensive word perhaps is elided or changed, but the theology is the same.

I will respond to the letter at length, even though I could simply say, “Where have you been? Of course we deny the things that you set out to prove. A new denomination was brought into existence by Christ over these very issues. The issue is not whether repentance is necessary. That is a red herring. There are many things that are necessary. Repentance is necessary, good works are necessary, faith is necessary, the glory of God and the honor of Jesus Christ are necessary, division in the church is necessary, and false teachers and heresies also must come. It is how one defines the necessity that is the issue. Necessity must be described in light of God’s sovereignty, predestination, the irresistible power of the grace and will of God, the will and work of the Holy Spirit, and the perfect salvation of the elect church and the judgment of the world at the cross. If one believes that the decree of God is merely an eternal blueprint of that which will be built and made real in time, and if one believes that the cross of Jesus Christ merely provided the objective basis for salvation that will be made real in its application to the elect, then that person will never understand Reformed theology. Election is salvation in eternity, so that I was always saved. The cross is my salvation, so that I was saved at the cross. All that happens in time is the revelation and outworking of those two realities of my salvation before I was born, thought one thought, or performed one activity. So I say again, the issue is not whether faith, repentance, and good works are necessary. The issue is whether repentance is necessary as a contingency in the experience of justification. This is what Professor Engelsma, Reverend McGeown, Professor Cammenga, Reverend Koole, and Reverend Overway made the issue. We repent unto our justification, and without repentance God may not forgive us, and with repentance God may forgive us. This is the theology that we reject. And if the Reformed Protestant Churches do not, then why did any of us leave?”

I will respond to the letter, not with joy or relish but with great sadness of heart. I hate the theology now taught in the Protestant Reformed Churches. I am set against it. I hate that theology when it rears its head in the Reformed Protestant Churches. I am set against it and if necessary will lose my place in these churches in opposition to that theology.

In my response I do not intend to answer all the quotations that are given from the Reformed fathers. Giving long lists of quotations is a tactic that has been used against us before. Against that tactic I say that we can quote back and forth until the cows come home or Jesus Christ returns. I respect, I agree with, and I learn from the Reformed fathers. I would say about the particular quotations that are included in this letter that I agree with most of their words. But the Reformed fathers did not face the issues and men that we now face. The lie has advanced in its subtlety, and it is that subtlety that we oppose. Calvin used the word condition. That was found to be unsatisfactory, and the term was rejected as implying Arminianism. It is illegitimate for a proponent of Arminianism to dredge up out of Calvin all his uses of the word condition as supposed proof that he taught conditions. Calvin hated conditions in salvation. Likewise, Hoeksema used the phrase in the way of, but whatever he meant by it was not how the men today are using the phrase. It is completely illegitimate for men to dredge up quotations from Hoeksema as though he supported this wicked theology of contingency. The Protestant Reformed Churches when they use the phrase in the way of mean contingency—that without which another thing does not come—and Hoeksema absolutely rejected that thought. He said, and I paraphrase, that if he ever thought that God forgives sins because a man repents—that he repents unto his forgiveness, to use the language of today—then the man had better not repent. That is because Hoeksema did face in one form the very theology that we are facing today. It is the theology that in a certain and vital sense man is first in the matter of repentance. Rev. Hubert De Wolf said that in defense of his false doctrine in his Formula of Subscription examination before the consistory of First Church in the early 1950s. The Protestant Reformed Churches at one time in their history hated contingency and rejected it in one specific form. They rejected in that the idea that in a certain and vital sense man is first. Prof. David Engelsma has revived that theology; and following his lead and using his language, the whole Protestant Reformed clergy is unable and unwilling to teach anything else but that there are activities of man that precede the blessings of God. It is this theology that the letter also espouses and, I might add, ably attempts to defend.

The letter writer says,

Also, Ephesians 1:7 and Colossians 1:14 teach us that the forgiveness of sins can be thought of as our redemption. However, it does not refer merely to the abstract reality that God has blotted out all the sins of his people for Christ’s sake. Rather…forgiveness refers to our knowledge of our salvation.

The writer is in the process of teaching that the forgiveness of sins “refers to our conscious possession of our salvation (the experience and joy of salvation, our fellowship with God).” With this understanding of forgiveness, I agree. Forgiveness of sins is that by which we have joy, peace, happiness, blessedness, covenant fellowship with God, assurance, and hope in eternal life. What I disagree with is that in that context one would call the power of the death of Christ to blot out our sins “merely…the abstract reality.”

First, the experience of salvation cannot be opposed to the death of Christ by “Rather.” The death of Jesus Christ was the blotting out of sins. The death of Jesus Christ accomplished salvation. The death of Jesus Christ was not abstract in any sense at all. Abstract means an idea, quality, or state as opposed to what is concrete. The death of Jesus Christ was concrete. I absolutely reject in any sense that the death of Jesus Christ was abstract. It was more real and concrete than you are today. In this description of the death of Christ, I find the Protestant Reformed idea that the death of Christ did not actually save. The Protestant Reformed Churches teach this in their insistence that the death of Jesus Christ provided the objective basis of salvation but did not actually save us at the cross. Salvation is still at that point an abstraction until it comes into the sinner’s possession. But the question is, did Christ save us at the cross? Was I saved at the cross, so that I am more saved there than I am saved now, since my salvation there was a concrete and perfect reality? The answer is yes. Christ said that it is finished. I was saved at the cross. I was justified and made perfect there at the cross.

And along with that, I find in the statement what I also regard as a Protestant Reformed distinctive that salvation exclusively means the experience of it. The decree is a blueprint. The cross is an objective basis. Perhaps the Protestant Reformed will go on to say that we are united to Christ as an objective reality. But to know and experience salvation, to have and to enjoy salvation, you must do something—repent, believe with an active faith, and obey God.

I do not know any other way that someone could say that the cross of Jesus Christ is “the abstract reality.” I find the very words offensive in connection with the cross of Christ. You cannot extol that cross too much. And calling it an “abstract reality” denigrates the cross. The apostle Paul’s attitude toward the cross is stated in 1 Corinthians 2:2: “I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” There is nothing worth knowing, and all wisdom and knowledge are nothing but foolishness, apart from the knowledge of Jesus Christ and him crucified. I regret daily that I do not know and extol highly enough Jesus Christ and him crucified. Galatians 6:14 also speaks of the apostle’s glorying in the salvation—the actual salvation—of the child of God at the cross: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

The correspondent goes on to write, “Rather, God eternally willed that he would forgive us our sins in Christ, and he merited this blessing in time by his Son’s death on the cross.” Herein perhaps lies the crux of the matter. The writer throughout does not seem to acknowledge any other sense of forgiveness than the forgiveness in our consciences. That forgiveness he makes contingent on repenting. God may not and God does not forgive apart from our act of repenting. But God did not only eternally will that he would forgive, but he also did forgive. He forgave perfectly and completely all my sins before the world was. He did so for Christ’s sake, who was with God as the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Revelation 13:8: “All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Jesus Christ was actually slain before the foundation of the world. The cross was already in the decree as that cross perfectly accomplished salvation. And God did not only merit the blessing of forgiveness at the cross, but he also forgave our sins at the cross, when the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world was crucified on Calvary and raised again the third day because of our justification. So the apostle wrote in Romans 4:24–25:

24. But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
25. Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

The imputation of Christ’s perfect righteousness to us and thus also the forgiveness of all our sins are based on the forgiveness of sins at the cross. We are forgiven of God at the cross of Christ. We are perfectly forgiven at the cross. Our forgiveness in eternity and our forgiveness at the cross are perfect, whereas in our consciences doubts arise and our justification is imperfect on account of the flesh and the imperfection of our faith. It is because of this forgiveness eternally and at the cross that messengers are sent into the world to declare these glad tidings. The forgiveness that comes to us in the gospel and gives to us the knowledge of our salvation cannot have any different explanation than the forgiveness in eternity and at the cross. There is one forgiveness. What is ours in eternity and at the cross comes to us and becomes ours without works at all, including works of obedience and repentance.

And I further see in this language of the letter the attempt, although not explicit, to distinguish between justification and forgiveness. It is as though justification is something that is without works; but forgiveness is experienced and so is with works or, as they say, in the way of faith and repentance. Justification and forgiveness are not to be distinguished. The Protestant Reformed theologians—I use the term loosely—and ministers teach this stupid distinction. Especially Reverend McGeown is fond of it and preens himself on having made it. But forgiveness is simply one part of justification. Sometimes scripture says justification, and sometimes scripture speaks of a part of justification—forgiveness—for the whole truth of justification. Sometimes scripture speaks of not imputing, again using a part for the whole. But whether we speak of forgiveness, not imputing, or justifying, we are talking about the same doctrine: justification. That justification is by faith alone and absolutely without works.

Now, insert the word justification everywhere the letter speaks of forgiveness. For instance, that repentance is necessary for/unto our justification before God. Now you have Roman Catholic doctrine. Forgiveness is apart from works, as is justification. Scripture makes plain that these are one and the same doctrine. In Psalm 32 David spoke of the blessedness of the man whose sin the Lord forgives:

1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 
2. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

This is a clear statement of forgiveness: transgression is forgiven, and iniquity is not imputed. The apostle Paul said in Romans 4:6–7 that this passage proves his doctrine of justification:

6. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
7. Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

This is a statement of justification, the imputation of positive righteousness, and the apostle proves it by reference to a passage that speaks only of forgiveness. Justification and forgiveness are the same doctrine. They are both absolutely without works.

In this same light the author of the letter points to my quote “We teach that there is forgiveness without repenting.” He ignores the scriptural texts on which that statement is based. Chief among them is 2 Corinthians 5:18–19:

18. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
19. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

All things are of God. The apostle meant by that eternally, from God’s decree. All things are of him. God and the decree of God are the necessity of all things, and the unfolding of that decree is the explanation of all things. And then the apostle applied that to reconciliation. God reconciled the world to himself. That reconciliation happened because God was not imputing their trespasses unto them. So we can say that this reconciliation is because of the forgiveness of sins. God forgave all their sins at the cross of Jesus Christ and so reconciled them to himself before they were born or heard a syllable of the gospel or repented or believed. They really, truly, actually had that forgiveness. That word that they have really, truly, and actually the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God is the word of the gospel. The word of the gospel is not that God forgives your sins if you repent and if you believe. The word of the gospel is that God reconciled his people to himself and forgave all their sins; now repent and believe. Repentance is indeed necessary but not for forgiveness, and that holds true for our knowledge of forgiveness or for the forgiveness of our sins in our consciences too. Whatever the necessity of repentance, it is not for/unto the forgiveness of sins. We have forgiveness. We will have that in our consciences as well without works, including the works of repentance. We have that by faith only because by faith we are engrafted into Christ and are partakers of his riches and gifts. That is the thing about repentance. It is not faith. However good and necessary repentance is, it is not faith. We have forgiveness by faith alone and without works, including the work of repentance.

Now, this is also the teaching of the Holy Spirit in Romans 5:1–2:

1. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 
2. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Peace with God is reconciliation with God. Or we can say the experience of God as a reconciled God. He reconciled us to himself. We have this because we are justified—which means forgiven—by faith only and without works. By Christ—only on the ground of his righteousness and our justification for his sake by faith alone without works—we have access into the grace wherein we stand. A more thorough statement of the experience of salvation by faith without works—including the work of repentance—can hardly be imagined. We have God as our God, we have peace with God, and we stand in God’s grace for Christ’s sake alone by faith alone and without works—including the work of repentance.

As I said, the issue is not whether repentance is necessary. Rather, the issue is whether repentance is the contingency of justification—which the letter calls forgiveness. The letter writer repeatedly posits a relationship between repentance and forgiveness that consists of dependence. He denies that this is the case, but that is how repentance functions in the letter: without repentance God may not forgive us. But such is not the relationship between repentance and forgiveness. Rather, God forgives out of his free mercy by faith only and without works, including works of repentance. And God manifests his children in the world by repentance. Repentance is a manifestation and an attestation of the children of God, who are forgiven.

And the necessity of this repentance is not for justification, forgiveness, or the experience of salvation, but the necessity of this repentance is the eternal will of God. This is the teaching of Ezekiel 33:11: “Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” The pleasure of God in the text is that the wicked turn from his way (repent) and live. The life of the text is the life of the justified who live with God and who stand in his grace and who have peace with him. That is God’s eternal good pleasure. God does not have pleasure in the death of the wicked. He desires that the wicked live. That pleasure of God is not an impotent wish. It is not a will of God that is contingent on repentance, so that God may not grant life until the wicked repent. The pleasure of God is the sovereign and powerful will of God, who does all his pleasure infallibly. Because it is the will of God, God works that. There is no relationship of dependence between repentance and life. There is the necessity of the will of God. The issue, again, is not the necessity of repentance but whether repentance is necessary for justification, for life, and for fellowship with God.

The letter writer turns to 1 Kings 8:33–34 to prove his point that repentance is necessary for justification, which I say is to teach that justification is contingent on repentance. The passage reads,

33. When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house:
34. Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land which thou gavest unto their fathers.

He interprets the passage this way: “Only when God caused Israel to repent would he forgive them of their sins and show His favor to them once again.”

This statement I reject as flowing from the false doctrine that repentance is necessary for (the contingency of) forgiveness. The statement loses sight completely of the unchangeable nature of God, of the decree, of the faithfulness of the promise of God, and of the organic conception of the covenant. I find that the statement also arises out of the Protestant Reformed idea that there are activities of man that precede the blessings of God. These activities are supposedly God-wrought and God-worked. The activities here are to repent and to pray. And then, and only then, would God forgive. But Israel was a nation of elect and reprobate. God was always and ever favorable to Israel as the elect heart of the nation. In his favor God always forgave his Israel. He never beheld iniquity in Jacob. Because he forgave elect Israel, he instructed Israel to pray, repent, and by implication believe. God was not saying that this was what Israel had to do before God would forgive Israel. But he told Israel to pray and repent because in the midst of the severe chastisements, that is how God’s elect people were distinguished from the reprobate shell, and that is also how God’s forgiveness of his people became evident.

Considering the same passage, the letter writer says, “So, I believe that this passage teaches that repentance is necessary for forgiveness, so that God does not show his favor toward his people while they walk impenitently in sin.”

I find the statement chilling and utterly reject it. I have heard statements like this from Protestant Reformed ministers, and I find that they teach a totally different God than I believe in. The Protestant Reformed Churches say that they do not have losable grace, but they do. They lose the grace of God daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and perhaps eternally because they do not repent. Listen: “God does not show his favor toward his people while they walk impenitently in sin.” You have grace when you repent. You do not have grace if you do not repent. This is conditional, contingent theology expressed clearly by the correspondent.

He supposes that he escapes the charge. He writes his characterization of conditional theology: “God is not a reactionary God who has to plead and beg with his people and who must wait upon his people to repent.” But this is precisely the kind of God that he is proposing when he says that God does not show grace to his people while they walk impenitently in sin. To state it differently, God does not show grace to his people until they repent. The grace of God is contingent on their repenting. That the writer says that this repentance is caused by God does not free him from the charge of conditional grace. It really only exacerbates the problem, for now God cannot do something (show grace) until God does something else first (cause the people to repent). God gives God a condition. Which is pure nonsense, and the name of God is only used at that point as a justification and an excuse for man’s having a condition.

God is the God who brings to pass. God does not show grace when his people repent. God shows grace eternally and unchangeably. In his eternal and unchangeable grace toward his people, he brings to pass his will for their salvation. Applying this to forgiveness, he brings that to pass; he forgives by faith alone without works, including works of repentance. He also causes them to repent, but not so that he can show grace or so that he can or may forgive, but because he willed it and works it so that they become manifest in the world as his children saved by grace. No matter how much the elect in Israel sinned, they could never not have the grace of God; they could never forfeit their state of justification; and thus also God infallibly renewed them to repentance—not in order that they may be forgiven and not so that God might forgive them, but because Jehovah had forgiven them all their sins.

In the same vein the writer says, “Though for a time God may sovereignly will that his people walk in sin, he will infallibly cause them to see their sin, to repent of their ways, and be forgiven by him.” I suppose the statement could pass muster by itself. But in light of what he has written before and after the statement “and be forgiven by him,” he means consequently or thus. That is also what he wrote in a previous version of the letter: “He will infallibly cause them to see their sin, to repent of their ways, and thus be forgiven by him” (emphasis added). I do not know why he took out the word thus in his final letter, but he should have left it in because it expresses exactly the theology of the letter. The word thus means consequently. There is a relationship of dependence expressed by the word. So forgiveness is the consequence of repentance. That is the theology of the whole letter, regardless whether the word thus is included or not.

And that is the expression of the theology that I reject regarding repentance and forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins is not the consequence of repentance. Forgiveness is not even the consequence of faith. And so when the correspondent says that repentance is not the cause or ground of forgiveness, that does not mean anything. It is simply an empty denial. Repentance is functioning in his theology as that without which forgiveness does not come, and forgiveness is the consequence of repentance. This is teaching that forgiveness is contingent on repentance. But whether you repent or not is not the explanation of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the work of the free mercy of God.

And this brings up the larger point that the theology espoused in the letter, along with the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches of which it is a part, does not know what the word and means. God calls us to repentance and faith. God grants faith and repentance. The writer says that God “will infallibly cause them…to repent of their ways, and be forgiven by him.” Now, that word and in all these instances is a verbal coupler. It joins together two things without stating the relationship between them. But this theology takes and to mean result or consequence, so that repentance and forgiveness come to mean forgiveness that is the result of repentance or forgiveness that is a consequence of repentance or repentance that is unto forgiveness. But result or consequence is not the meaning of and when repentance and forgiveness are placed together. The word and indicates two works of grace. The one is to forgive without works, including works of repentance. The other is to work repentance as that by which God’s children are manifest in the world. But the concept of repentance for forgiveness—and I add the similar concepts of repenting in order that you may be forgiven and repenting and consequently being forgiven—is nowhere in scripture or in the Reformed creeds. The practical effect of that false doctrine is that the one going to God for forgiveness inevitably looks somewhere else besides Christ. He looks at his repentance specifically, and then there can be no stability or confidence before God.

The author of the letter contradicts his own theology later when he writes,

The Israelites would know that God would hear and answer all their prayers not because of anything in themselves, but only for the sake of Christ, who is the head of God’s covenant.

That is correct. Before the Israelites went to God in prayer, they were confident of forgiveness. There is real, actual forgiveness at the cross of Christ, and because I trust that mercy of God to me in Christ, then as the ungodly I go to him. I do not go as the repentant, as the believing, or as the obedient; but I go as the ungodly, confident that God justifies the ungodly.

The letter writer turns next to Jeremiah 36:3 to prove his doctrine of justification contingent on repentance, which he phrases as repentance being necessary for forgiveness and which others have stated as repentance being unto forgiveness or repentance in order that we may be forgiven. Jeremiah 36:3 reads, “It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.” The correspondent writes, “Notice here especially that God says he may [bold and underlined by the writer] forgive Judah their sins.”

I do not have any doubt that he picks up on the word may because it was chosen by Professor Engelsma to express his doctrine of conditional justification: that we repent in order that God may forgive us. I attacked that specific word in my writing against Professor Engelsma. So contra Reverend Langerak, we now supposedly have proof that in fact scripture does teach the concept that we repent in order that God may forgive us. But I reject that as emphatically as I did against Professor Engelsma. The letter writer’s picking up on that word may is telling for his whole theology. Forgiveness is contingent, and you do not have it until you do something. He gives his own interpretation of the word may: “God also through the mouth of Jeremiah teaches that God does not [bold and underlined by the writer] forgive his people while they walk impenitently in sin.”

I reject this interpretation of the text. It can be heard on Protestant Reformed pulpits every Sunday, and it fills Protestant Reformed writings. Besides, the interpretation does not state the real point of the author, which is that God does not forgive his people unless and until they repent. This is supposedly taught because the text says that God may forgive Judah. He may only forgive when Judah repented. Forgiveness was contingent on repentance. God’s act was contingent on man’s act. And the correspondent says with emphasis that there was not forgiveness while Judah walked in impenitent sin. This is the expression of the conditional justification theology of the letter. I say that there was forgiveness while Judah walked in impenitent sin; and if there was not forgiveness while Judah walked in impenitent sin, then Judah would forever perish in her sins, and God’s will and purpose would be unfulfilled, made shipwreck on man’s failure to repent.

The translation of the text in question is as follows: “Perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I think to do to them in order that a man turn from his evil ways, and I will pardon their iniquity.” The word “perhaps” expresses a wish or desire. The wish or desire here is the wish and the desire of God. It is the divine wish; it is his infallible purpose. You can understand the text this way: “It is my infallible purpose that Judah hear the evil that I think to do and that a man repent.” The word comes to all, to the whole house of Israel. God’s purpose is particular, namely that “a man,” one chosen of God, repent. The text is about God’s sovereign purpose that his people repent. His people were part of, indeed the elect kernel of, the house of Israel. They were the true Israel of God, and they were the true house of Judah. God was not at all expressing that he did not forgive while Judah walked in impenitent sin. He was not expressing that he would forgive when Judah repented. He was expressing his sovereign purpose for his people’s salvation, which includes their repentance. He willed then that in the writing of all the evil that he would do to the house of Israel, his people in the house of Judah would hear. They would hear not only with the ear but with the hearing of faith. That hearing of the man who repents is not merely hearing the judgment but hearing in that pronouncement of judgment that there is only one way out, and that is the promised righteousness of Jesus Christ. God’s will was that they hear judgment and hear that God’s gracious will was that they repent, and so they repented. What the King James Version translates as “that I may forgive” means “and I have forgiven.” It is a form of the word forgive that is called the prophetic perfect. It was a word of God that was so sure that when the prophet spoke it, it was as though it had already happened. So that prophetic perfect can be translated without any violence to the words as “and I have forgiven.” All the activity of writing and causing to hear and causing to repent came out of God’s free mercy that forgave. He forgave Judah. That was the reason Judah was not destroyed. That was why God granted repentance to life. He forgave! He never did not forgive. This is what Canons 5.6 means when it says that we never “forfeit the state of justification” (Confessions and Church Order, 174). The elect child of God is always, constantly forgiven. Thus Jeremiah 36:3 does not teach what must take place—repentance—before God may forgive. But the verse teaches what God’s purpose and forgiveness work in his people, namely repentance and the knowledge of their salvation.

It is in light of the writer’s doctrine that God does not forgive while his people walk impenitently that I also point out his statement “Rather, God chastises.” So the full statement is “God does not forgive his people while they walk impenitently in sin. Rather, God chastises His people.”

I find this statement to be of a piece with the one made earlier: “So, I believe that this passage teaches that repentance is necessary for forgiveness, so that God does not show his favor toward his people while they walk impenitently in sin.” This is chilling and cruel theology. I find these statements Christless, graceless, and decree-less. The theology behind this statement is brutal and leads to brutality in the church. If God deals with his people in this way, then he is not the God I know; and if we deal with each other in this way, then the church will be nothing but a bloody den of cruelty. So the thinking goes, I do not forgive, and so I chastise, which means nothing more than loveless beating up of the neighbor. It is what the servant in Christ’s parable who was forgiven a great debt did to his fellow servant who owed him a little debt. He beat him up. There is no love in that statement whatsoever.

First, the statement that God does not forgive (or show grace) while his people walk in sin is simply wrong. As the passage in Jeremiah 36:3 teaches, he has forgiven, also when Judah was walking in sin. God’s forgiveness of his people belongs to his unchangeable will. They can never, no matter how much they sin and how little they repent, ever forfeit the state of justification.

Second, if God does not forgive but chastises, this is horrible. The judgment is not chastisement any longer but punishment by a holy and just God on men who deserve it. The very facts that God forgives and his people never forfeit the state of justification make it so that God chastises and does not punish. If he judges and does not forgive, then he damns. God chastises because he forgives.

The writer concludes his treatment of Jeremiah 36:3 with this statement: “Thus, it is only when we live a life out of repentance that we can know God’s favor.”

I have treated this concept at length elsewhere, so I will be brief. The thought is completely contrary to the doctrine of justification by faith alone and the practical application of that doctrine to the conscience and life of the child of God: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly…” and “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 4:5; 5:1). God does not justify working people, penitent people, or loving and obedient people. He justifies those who do not work but believe on him who justifies the ungodly. God justifies ungodly, disobedient, and loveless people. These people, being justified, have peace with God. They know the favor of God, to use the language of the letter writer. They know that favor without works.

I also point out in this connection that the letter writer has been arguing that repentance is necessary to have the favor of God. Now he adds yet another condition to salvation, and that is a life out of repentance. The whole godly life now is a condition to know the favor of God. Rather, we live our lives out of faith in the gospel. Those lives are lives of repentance, so that we hate sin and love righteousness. We have the favor of God without works; and having that, in thankfulness we live in that favor. We do not live and we cannot live before God without the righteousness that is imputed without works. Repentance and the whole life of repentance are the manifestations of my faith and thus my knowledge of God’s favor that I have apart from works of repentance.

The author of the letter turns next to Psalm 51 to prove conditional theology. He focuses on two phrases in the psalm: “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice” and “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation” (vv. 8, 12). Regarding the first phrase, the letter writer simply makes up a scenario to fit the theology that he is advocating. He writes,

This expression shows the tremendous grief and anguish he felt after God caused him to see how wicked his sin truly was. He realized that his sin was so great that his soul was in danger of hell if he continued impenitently in his sin.

This scenario stands in the service of making David’s plea the plea of the one who did not know the forgiveness of God apart from his act of repentance. The correspondent writes, “This joy of our salvation can only be restored when God causes us to see how he is chastising us…and makes us repent in dust and ashes.”

But this is entirely false. First, the scenario does not fit the historic record of scripture. David prayed in Psalm 51 as the man to whom Nathan the prophet had said that God forgave. David thus prayed in the knowledge of God’s mercy and the forgiveness of his sins. He was praying as the impenitent who realized all of a sudden the peril in which he stood. He was praying as the forgiven man to whom the Lord imputed no iniquity and whose transgressions the Lord had forgiven. God broke David’s bones when he was ignoring his sin, and God troubled David in his sin. Those broken bones God began to heal the moment Nathan said that God forgave David. What David was praying in this passage was for the gospel that alone heals broken bones. He was not praying from the standpoint of one who does not have God’s favor and who comes into that favor as he repents. David was praying from the standpoint of a child of God whom God forgave but whose bones the Lord had to break. That expression is expressive of the wound of the conscience that does not heal immediately. Thus David spoke of the lingering, ongoing, continual need of the gospel of Jesus Christ that God justifies the ungodly.

Second, the letter writer makes the expressions in Psalm 51 about David’s repentance, but they are about the ongoing need of the gospel. We need that gospel every day, week, month, and year. The joy of salvation given to a wounded conscience is not received by repenting but by hearing, or we would say by faith only. What is specifically heard is the glad tidings of the gospel and the joy of salvation to the ungodly whom God justifies. The letter writer can say in defense of his theology “that repentance is never the cause or the reason that God forgives,” but that is not the issue. In the letter and in his explanation of this passage, repentance is that without which God does not give salvation’s joy. Rather, God restores salvation’s joy by causing us to hear the blessed news of the gospel.

The writer goes on to treat the fifth petition of the Lord’s prayer. He finds in this petition a ground for his doctrine that God does not forgive—that is, give us his grace—until we forgive. He writes,

So, does this mean that God does not forgive us our sins when we walk in sin by holding anger or malice against the neighbor? Yes, I believe that is exactly what Christ means. However, when God causes us to repent of our sin and to again desire to forgive the neighbor, that is not the reason or grounds of God’s renewed forgiveness of us. Rather, by bringing us to repent of that sin, God forgives us.

Here again is a statement of the theology of the whole letter: God does not forgive unless and until we forgive. God does not forgive unless and until we repent. Repentance—God-wrought, of course—is the contingency of our forgiveness. This is an expression of the Protestant Reformed idea of repentance and forgiveness. Anger against the neighbor turned off the spigot of grace. Repentance turns the spigot back on. But we never forfeit the state of our justification. We are always forgiven of God. The perfectly acceptable and Reformed explanation of the passage in Matthew 6:12, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” is Lord’s Day 51. Christ was not teaching in this petition what we have to do to have forgiveness. He was rather teaching the sure relationship between God’s forgiveness of his people and their forgiveness of their neighbors. These two forgivenesses are the same in character, and the one is the inevitable fruit of the other. God forgives us, and the evidence of this grace in us is that we forgive the neighbor. That is Reformed.

Following his treatment of the Lord’s prayer, the writer moves on to Ephesians 2:10. His theology of the Lord’s prayer is that God does not forgive our sins and thus assure us of our salvation while we walk in sin. So he asks, “Why?” He finds the answer to this question in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” The two previous verses in Ephesians 2 read,

8. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

About these verses he writes, “In the previous two verses, the apostle Paul had developed the wonderful truth of justification by faith alone. He showed that we are not saved by works, but we are saved by faith alone.”

By limiting these verses to justification, he guts the meaning of the text. All of salvation—union with Christ, regeneration, faith, calling, justification, sanctification, and glorification—is not by works at all but by faith alone. That is because all of salvation is in Christ, and we become partakers of Christ by faith alone; and being joined with Christ, he is made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).

The writer’s purpose for limiting the glorious statement of the apostle about our gracious salvation becomes clear when he writes,

In this verse [Eph. 2:10], the apostle Paul shows us the proper place of good works in the child of God’s life. We are not saved by good works. Rather, we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works” [bold and underlined by the letter writer]. This word “unto” indicates a purpose. That purpose is God’s eternal will for our sanctification.

However, works are not included in sanctification any more than they are included in justification. Works are the fruit of sanctification that is wholly by grace and not at all by works.

He writes, “Thus, the testimony of the Holy Spirit that we are sons of God only arises as we walk in thankfulness before God, and not while we walk impenitently in sin.”

But this does not follow from his previous statements. His previous statements mean that we can be justified and not know that we are sons of God. This knowledge comes only after we obey. So he means that we do not have the assurance that we are sons of God until and unless we obey.

This I deny. I have peace with God and thus the assurance that I am God’s and he is mine by faith and without works. By grace I am saved and not by works. Because I am Christ’s and because I am made a member of Christ, the Spirit testifies with my spirit that I am a son of God and an heir of the world. This same Spirit produces in me fruit of my salvation, which is obedience. Salvation and the experience of salvation and the assurance of salvation, which to me are the same thing, are not contingent.

There are two contingencies in this letter: “Repentance is necessary for forgiveness” and “A sanctified life of repentance is necessary to experience God’s favor.”

I deny both of these contingencies. The reformation that led to the formation of the Reformed Protestant Churches fought over these ideas that we rejected. I charge those ideas that are argued for throughout the letter with teaching contingency and with turning again to Protestant Reformed false doctrine. When I wrote that we have forgiveness without repentance, then I threw out repentance as a condition. And it should stay out. The theology of the letter is thoroughly Protestant Reformed. The word condition is not used. The word condition is denied. But repentance and obedience function as conditions: they are those things without which God may not, cannot, and will not forgive. To that all I say that if God does not, may not, cannot, and will not forgive me until and unless I repent, then I better not repent, for my repentance in that case is nothing but wickedness.

It is this doctrine espoused and argued for in the letter that we reject and with us does the whole Reformation. John Calvin said it best:

Repentance cannot be the cause of the forgiveness of sins: and we also did away with that torment of souls—the dogma that it must be performed as due. Our doctrine was, that the soul looked not to its own compunction or its own tears, but fixed both eyes on the mercy of God alone.³

We likewise have done away with that dogma of repentance as that which is due. And if that holy and godly work of repentance cannot be a condition unto justification and the knowledge of our salvation, then nothing can. We have abolished the dogma of anything that is due for salvation and the assurance of God. We are justified and have peace with God by faith only because of the mercy of God in the cross of Jesus Christ.