McGeown’s Fables (1)

Introduction

Such is the fearful warning that the apostle Paul exhorted upon his spiritual son Timothy.

The members of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) have itching ears and heap to themselves teachers to tickle those itches. The people desire ministers who tell them what they want to hear and not what God’s word declares. Rev. Martyn McGeown with his four recent sermons on the antithesis—although he never uses the term—does exactly that. In his sermons he tells his 

congregation exactly what he thinks about doctrine, the covenant, the antithesis, and God himself. All his sermons are attacks against the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) and her doctrine of the antithesis. Without ever once mentioning the RPC by name or interacting with her preaching and writing, he labels, slanders, and vilifies the church of Jesus Christ.

McGeown does not teach sound doctrine as the apostle Paul instructed Timothy but minimizes doctrine in favor of friendly relations with members of the United Reformed Churches, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the generally Reformed and Presbyterian community. He minimizes and dismisses doctrinal differences as if they were not serious at all. Certainly those differences are nothing that should separate families, churches, and denominations. And for McGeown, if you believe that doctrine is what separates families, churches, and denominations—which is what the Reformed Protestant Churches have taught from the beginning—then you are a bigot and a fanatic.

But doctrine is the lifeblood of the church. That is why the apostle so urgently exhorted Timothy, “Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” And as the reason, he states, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine…and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:2–4, emphasis added).

God is hastening the destruction of the Protestant Reformed Churches through this wicked and profane man who teaches fables. The word “fables” is a translation of the original Greek word mythos. You hear in mythos the English word myth. McGeown’s sermons are nothing but myths! They are inventions of his own mind and wisdom. He dreamed them and presents them as wisdom from God on high. He dares to preach these sermons as if they were the living Word of the holy God. He rips the holy God down from heaven and makes him to sit at a table with those who teach and believe that God’s grace is common to all men; that God has a well-meant offer for all men, if only they believe; that the covenant is conditional; and that not infants but believers must be baptized. He calls those who teach such lies brothers and sisters in Christ. He makes a mockery of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the sacred scriptures, and the Reformed confessions. But the Lord is judging in heaven. That he has given to the PRC such a false teacher is a testament of God’s hatred of that denomination. To watch the judgment being wrought makes me tremble. It is worse than any natural disaster or any calamity on earth. I am watching God carry out his righteous judgment on ungodly men and women who will not turn from the lie. They love the lie, and they will perish with the lie. McGeown and all who believe his doctrine will find nothing but destruction and damnation in it.

I intend to address McGeown’s four recent sermons one at a time, expose his fables, and declare the truth of God in each of the sermon texts. McGeown’s sermons are meant as a distraction for members of the PRC. No man can come against the doctrine of the RPC, and so McGeown sets out to make doctrine unimportant and to deride anyone who teaches sound doctrine. He minimizes the doctrinal differences that so deeply separate the Reformed Protestant Churches from the Protestant Reformed Churches, and in doing so he seeks to heap scorn on the church of Jesus Christ for being faithful to the sharp, clear word of God.

The Sword of Christ

McGeown’s first sermon was on Matthew 10:34–36 and the sword of Christ.¹ The text reads,

34. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

35. For I am come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

36. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

McGeown begins by explaining Christ’s warning in Matthew 10. Regarding the message that the disciples must preach, McGeown says that Christ warns them that

they must prepare themselves for opposition and persecution. Indeed, they must prepare themselves for this. The message that they bring, the gospel of Jesus Christ, brings or causes division.

One would think that with such a beginning that McGeown would have preached the gospel of the text and applied it sharply to the lives of the members of his congregation. But one would be mistaken. He is about to go to work reducing Christ’s sword down to a pool noodle. What is a pool noodle good for? It is something fun to play with in the pool and float around with on a hot summer day and to whack your friends and family with. McGeown has a fun toy noodle, but will he define the “sword” in the text as an instrument that spills blood? Hardly.

In all seriousness, I would like to hear one sermon by a minister in the PRC that has been in any way offensive. The gospel itself is offensive to man. If a minister would come up to a Protestant Reformed pulpit today and say to the congregation, “Beloved, you are ungodly and carnal, and this is why, and your only hope is Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life,” all the members would rise up in horror over the defamation of their names and honor. I personally have witnessed that offense of the gospel in sermons where I was not seeking out trouble. My aim and purpose always have been unity and peace. God is my witness to that. Men rose up in horror over their names when sermons made them to be nothing. In the PRC there would be a massive uproar over that, along with a slew of “but we are regenerated,” “but we are good people,” “but, but, but…” I can say this because that is what the Protestant Reformed Churches already did with the Truth. The Truth came and said, “You have displaced me. Repent!” And the whole denomination arose and kicked out the Truth. Protestant Reformed preaching today is nothing but watered-down Christianity that offends no one. The preaching in the PRC offends no one because her ministers do not preach the gospel. Protestant Reformed preaching carves out room for all sorts of ungodly relationships and makes the members very comfortable in their sins. None of the four sermons that McGeown preached are offensive to anyone, as we will see.

McGeown explains that Christ comes to bring peace according to the promise of God. He explains that Christ’s coming brings division. He explains the division between the elect and the reprobate. He explains that Christ is the one who brings that sword. So far, so good.²

But then he weaves in a fable.

We do not send or throw the sword. Christ does…If there must be division, let us not be its authors or its promoters. And that is important to note because there are some who seem to think that it is their calling to throw the sword, and they relish, it appears, fighting everyone about everything. And they seek to be as obnoxious as possible to stir up opposition against themselves, to destroy the relationships they have with other people, and then try to claim martyrdom as a badge of honor, saying that they are victims of the sword.

Without naming names, he is calling out the Reformed Protestant Churches. Ironic it is, for as he makes his charge against the RPC that she throws the sword, he engages in the same activity himself. Regardless, this is a slander. The RPC does not throw the sword of Christ wherever she likes. Never has the RPC said that she throws the sword of Christ. The RPC does not believe that she is throwing the sword. All her warnings are not bluster. We in the RPC mean exactly what we say. The PRC has displaced Christ, which is too gross a blasphemy. The PRC is the whore of Babylon. She has departed off the path of the truth and become false. Her doctrine is that there is that which man must do to be saved. Her doctrine is that there is no forgiveness unless or until man does something—by grace. We are not saying these things for the sake of making a racket and to be obnoxious. We have been clear from the beginning that our issue is strictly doctrinal. Our issue is not first with the rampant hierarchy that is a prominent feature of the denomination. Our issue is not even with all the sexual abuse riddled throughout the churches. But our issue is with the lie that gives man a place in salvation. The Protestant Reformed false doctrine is the root and cause of the sexual abuse and the hierarchy. False doctrine has always been the issue and will continue to be the issue that separates the Reformed Protestant Churches from the PRC. All the sermons, lectures, and writings of the RPC have been declaring that for years. The message has not changed. The message has not been altered. McGeown slanders the RPC by making it seem as if she were simply fighting over something trivial and meaningless. But doctrine means something to the church, and it should mean something to the PRC. McGeown slanders Reformed Protestant preaching and writing as if it were petty squabbling. That is not true. We in the RPC are concerned with nothing less than the salvation of those who are on a path to utter desolation. We are consumed in the hope that there is maybe, maybe, one child of God in the PRC whom God has yet to pluck out of these wretched churches.

The Athanasian Creed is profound, giving this warning in regard to confessing the doctrine of the Trinity: “This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully and firmly he cannot be saved” (Confessions and Church Order, 15). That is a massive statement by our early church fathers. If a man does not believe the doctrine of the Trinity, there is no salvation for him. The early fathers made believing and confessing the doctrine of the Trinity an issue of salvation itself. Imagine now the church as she made this statement—there were Arius, Nestorius, the Manicheans, who all in one form or another denied some aspect of Jesus Christ and therefore denied the Trinity.

You can hear Arius from the grave in McGeown’s sermon: “Those church fathers relish in throwing the sword about the Trinity and fighting everyone about everything. They are obnoxious and making a racket.”

The early fathers made this striking condemnation: “If you do not believe the doctrine of the Trinity as it is confessed here, you cannot be saved.”

Doctrine is serious. It was serious for the early church. The church today ought to be dead serious about the sin of false doctrine. McGeown is not at all serious. Doctrinal differences are something trivial and meaningless to him.

In Lord’s Day 8, before the Heidelberg Catechism’s exposition of the Apostles’ Creed even begins, our Reformed fathers inserted an article on the doctrine of the Trinity.

Q. 24. How are these articles [of the Apostles’ Creed] divided?

A. Into three parts: the first is of God the Father and our creation; the second, of God the Son and our redemption; the third, of God the Holy Ghost and our sanctification. (Confessions and Church Order, 92)

By this insertion the Lord’s Day teaches that the knowledge and believing of the Christian faith is the knowledge and believing of the truth of the triune God. The Christian faith in its entirety is nothing else than the truth of the triune God, from the doctrine of creation to the doctrine of the resurrection and everything in between. Connect that with the Athanasian Creed and the fathers’ serious warning comes into full view: “Except a man believe faithfully and firmly [this doctrine] he cannot be saved.” If a man believes common grace, he cannot be saved. If a man believes the well-meant offer, he cannot be saved. If a man believes there is that which man must do to be saved, he cannot be saved. If a man corrupts the truth of creation, he has corrupted God the Father and cannot be saved. If a man corrupts the truth of redemption—that God the Son fully accomplished our salvation—he has corrupted the doctrine of the Trinity, and he cannot be saved. If a man corrupts sanctification—adding a work of man to the work of God the Holy Spirit, he has corrupted the doctrine of the Trinity, and he cannot be saved. Corrupt any doctrine of the Reformed faith from creation to the final resurrection, and you corrupt the doctrine of the Trinity. The words in the creed “he cannot be saved” do not mean that he is absolutely depraved and that salvation is impossible for him, but they mean that if a man holds to that doctrine willingly or in ignorance, he will perish, lest he repents and believes.

What is criminal in McGeown’s sermon, and what contributes to its being a poor sermon, is that he never defines his terms. Defining terms is important. Defining terms makes the preaching clear to the audience. Friend and foe know exactly what is meant when the preaching comes. There is no ambiguity; there is no room for one’s own interpretation. The truth comes clearly, so that no one can say, “I do not know what he meant here.” The first point of his sermon ought to have explained what Christ’s sword is. McGeown says only, “The message that they bring, the gospel of Jesus Christ, brings or causes division.” He states this in the introduction, but he never develops, defines, or comes back to that thought.

What is the sword of Christ? The sword of Christ is the gospel itself. The gospel is the good news of the promise. The gospel is Jesus Christ in his person, natures, words, works, and significance. He is the fulfillment of the promise of God to save sinners. There you have the offense of the gospel. The gospel is offensive because salvation stands outside man’s willing and running, his choosing and his doing. The gospel is that the triune God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit justifies ungodly sinners in their hearts and lives apart from their activities, so that they have peace with God. God reconciles his enemies unto himself. He speaks peace to the heathen. The gospel is that there is nothing that man must do for salvation. The gospel is that man’s activities, working, labors, and faithfulness do not matter at all for salvation. Or as the apostle Paul wrote, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8). The gospel is that “it is finished.” That should have been the center of his sermon, but for McGeown it is not.

The next thought of the sermon ought to have been that the sword is the word of God. We read in Ephesians 6:17 of “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” With a simple review of Thayer’s Greek lexicon, McGeown could have seen that “sword” in Ephesians 6 stands in connection with Matthew 10. The sword of the Spirit is the word of God. At Christ’s ascension he and the Spirit simply became synonymous. They are identified together. Jesus Christ the man received the Spirit and poured out that Spirit upon his church. The Spirit does not bring anything else except the Word. The Spirit brings Jesus Christ crucified. The Spirit only works by the Word.

The minister teaches true doctrine, and sound doctrine is elicited from scripture. God’s word teaches doctrine. This is what scripture means when it adds “the,” a definite article, to “faith.” For example, holding the mystery of “the faith” in a pure conscience (1 Tim. 3:9) or to earnestly contend for “the faith,” which was once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). “The faith” is the doctrine of the word of God; the whole body of truth that God has revealed, beginning in Genesis 1 and ending in Revelation 22; the objective content of the scriptures, which faith believes entirely and unquestioningly. According to Lord’s Day 7, faith holds for truth all that God has revealed in his word. Lord’s Day 21 teaches that the church agrees in true faith.

Christ sends a doctrinal sword upon the earth by the Spirit. He sends the sword of the word, which contains all the doctrine that God has revealed. And God has revealed clearly in his word who he is and what kind of God he is. Men do not get to pick and choose. Their opinions or thoughts about God are not decisive. The truth is an objective fact not subject to the capricious whims of men, who may try their best to get things right about God. There is no ambiguity in the scriptures. God through his Spirit leads and has led his church into all truth, so that the church has the Reformed confessions. Jesus Christ sends the sword when the scriptures are preached, when sound doctrine is taught and applied in general as well as in particular, and when the Reformed confessions are exegeted and explained, so that what comes from the pulpit is not the word of man, but as it is in truth the very word of God.

Still more, in John’s vision in Revelation 1, he saw standing in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, whose head and hair were white like wool and snow, with eyes as a flaming fire and feet like fine brass burned in a furnace, who had seven stars in his hand, and out of his mouth went a two-edged sword. The sword, the word, is in Christ’s mouth; it is Christ’s message; it is Christ himself. Christ comes with his gospel as the speaker of his own message and throws that sword on the earth. Jesus Christ comes today with a sword when the gospel is preached that man is nothing and God is everything.

McGeown does not preach the gospel to his congregation. He never comforts his congregation with the truth of Christ’s sword. Yes, he speaks some truth about the gospel, but he never preaches the gospel. It is striking how comfortless the sermon is. McGeown tells his congregation a lot of true things about the Bible and about the passage he is preaching on, but they are never in the service of the one message of the text: the gospel! Preaching is the official proclamation of the King to his subjects. To preach the gospel is not simply to say some things about what Christ did, but it is to declare that Christ did that for you really and truly.

Christ’s sending of that sword is your salvation! The sword came when Christ came into the world. No man could take a neutral position toward Christ. Men either hated him or believed in him. That hatred of Christ God determined to use for the salvation of his people. The false church and the world hated Christ. All men forsook him. And he was crucified for your salvation. That was the sword that pierced through Mary’s heart.

Christ’s sword today is an instrument that cuts you out of Adam and places you into saving communion with Christ. That is the gospel of the text. Yes, the sword divides families, churches, and denominations, but Christ’s sword cuts out his people from the guilt of their sins and declares to them the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Christ tells his people of his perfect work and obedience over against all their sins and depravity. God’s people come to church to hear Christ comfort them in their lives. They come to hear God’s verdict concerning them, to hear that they are righteous by faith alone in Christ and that God does not impute to them their sins. That is preaching the gospel. There is none of that in McGeown’s sermon.

The Division the Sword Causes

McGeown then tells his congregation how this sword divides when it comes.

His coming is designed to break up close family relationships…“I came not to send peace but a sword”—and a sword that cuts even through family relationships, breaks up homes and marriages and relationships between the closest of family members.

And he tells his congregation to imagine some scenarios as he brings them to the land of make-believe. He spends a quarter of his sermon describing various scenarios where this sword of the gospel could potentially have an effect. There is a household of unbelieving Jews, and the gospel comes and converts one of them. There is a family of Muslims or pagans who were previously united in their unbelief, and then one is converted. Now there is division between mother and daughter, wife and husband, or children and parents, where previously there was carnal peace.

Do you see what McGeown does there? He carefully limits this division to the early church or to the mission field. Here is another one of his myths: He makes this division take place a long, long time ago but not now. He makes this division take place far, far away on the mission field but not here. He dreamed this up. Does the word of God make that distinction in the text at all? Is that anywhere to be found in Matthew 10? McGeown never applies the word in particular to his congregation, and thus his preaching does not offend anyone.

Then McGeown moves on to a Christian family as his next example in the case of the sword’s exposing an adulterous husband. The sword of the gospel comes, and it exposes the heart of the husband, so that though he appeared to be a Christian, he now commits adultery. Thus there is division in the home. It is peculiar to me how suddenly the division caused by Christ’s sword is that a man commits sin. Is that what the sword does? It exposes a good family man as an adulterer? McGeown’s example is superficial. As far as sin goes, the elect child of God is a totally depraved sinner. And because he is totally depraved even after being regenerated, he is prone to hate God and his neighbor. He can fall into the same grievous sins as the man of the world. The child of God, in his flesh, can perform all sorts of wicked acts that would make even the world blush. For McGeown the gospel is really only for good, obedient, and repentant people.

However, the gospel is not for good people. The gospel is for sinners. The division that the sword causes manifests the eternal division between the elect and the reprobate. Christ comes with his fan in his hand, and he thoroughly purges his floor and gathers his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with an unquenchable fire (Matt. 3:12).

Then McGeown goes on to the child of a Christian family who apostatizes and says, “I reject Jesus Christ. I reject God. I reject a godly life. I want to live like the world.” Even this example, which is supposed to be the one that hits the closest to home, falls short. While perhaps the apostate child could come out and say “I hate Christ,” that is so far from what actually takes place. It is never that cut and dry. Apostasy is seen when a child leaves the true church for a false church. He still goes to a church and claims that he believes in Jesus, but he leaves the truth and his actions tell the story. This is what the apostle John explains clearly in 1 John 2:19: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” It is never so stark and obvious like McGeown tries to convey. All this belongs to not making these sermons offensive to anyone in his congregation.

But now we come to what McGeown has been after all along in this sermon. He has been chomping at the bit for what he says next.

But the sword of Jesus does not justify the behavior of some who cut off family and friends for theological differences or differences in church membership. It does not justify the shunning that occurs in some circles. It does not justify the refusal of family members to attend baptisms and weddings and confessions of faith and even funerals. It does not justify parents cutting off their children or grandchildren or those who will not permit their parents to see their grandchildren. It does not justify those who refuse to include family members at Christmas or Thanksgiving simply because there are some theological differences or differences in church membership.

Now, if a family member is openly walking in sin, some such measures may be justified at times and used wisely. But that is not what I am speaking of here. Not those who forsake the Christian faith. I’m speaking here of those who elevate theological differences as if they were the gospel itself, so that there is a cutting off of fellowship and relationships. You hold to common grace, I cut you off; you hold to the well-meant offer, I cut you off; you hold to a conditional covenant, I cut you off; you deny infant baptism, I cut you off; no more fellowship is possible between us; I view you as an unbeliever; the sword of Jesus has separated us—that is not what Jesus is speaking of here.

What a massive minimization of false doctrine! McGeown calls the well-meant offer, common grace, and the conditional covenant “theological differences.” He scoffs that anyone could ever consider these heresies to be touching on the gospel. If there ever were three false doctrines that touch on the heart of the gospel and that give the PRC her right to a separate existence in the world, these would be it!

What McGeown so casually dismisses and chides at is exactly what Christ is talking about in Matthew 10. The sword is a doctrinal one because it is the word of God. That should have been proved and explained earlier in the sermon. Christ’s point is that the gospel, which has real objective content, divides families. The sin of holding to and confessing a lie is dead serious. McGeown does not get to brush that away. For holding to false doctrine and disobeying the first commandment and then crafting an image after their own conception of God, three thousand Israelites were cut down by the Levites at the foot of Mount Sinai. The Levites heeded Moses’ call—“Who is on the Lord’s side?”—took up their swords, and cut down those Israelites who believed the lie. That was the Israelites’ sin.

The New Testament reality is excommunication. If a man holds to a lie in disobedience to the first commandment, he is disciplined. The Heidelberg Catechism in its exposition of the first commandment states among other things that “I…learn rightly to know the only true God.” The knowledge of the triune God is by the doctrine that God reveals in his word. The doctrine that a man believes shows what God he believes in. The Heidelberg Catechism in its exposition of the ninth commandment states among other things that “I love the truth, speak it uprightly, and confess it” (Confessions and Church Order, 124, 133). Holding to false doctrine is sin against the first and the ninth commandments. That is dead serious.

Lord’s Day 30, question 82, asks, “Are they also to be admitted to this supper, who, by confession and life, declare themselves unbelieving and ungodly?” (Confessions and Church Order, 117). The first thing listed is “confession.” The question is, confession of what? Confession has to do with doctrine. A believer confesses doctrine. He confesses the truth. He speaks the truth. His confession is what God says about himself in the word. If a man’s doctrine is a lie, he may not be a member of the church. He walks in a lie, and he needs to repent of that lie. He cannot come to the Lord’s table with me. If I cannot eat at the Lord’s table with such men and women, how can I eat with them at the table in my home and go to their weddings, confessions of faith, baptisms, funerals, and holidays? As the Catechism says, eating and drinking at the Lord’s table is fellowship with Christ. Because I eat and drink at the Lord’s table, I am not going to eat and drink at the table of devils.

McGeown invokes the name of Rev. Herman Hoeksema to prove the point that “shunning” those who hold some doctrinal differences is something that must be rebuked and is unchristian. McGeown buries Hoeksema six feet down on every doctrine that Hoeksema taught, wrote, and preached but resurrects this little excerpt. When it suits his fable, McGeown appeals recklessly to Reverend Hoeksema.

Here is the quotation from Reverend Hoeksema that McGeown uses:

For although I certainly did not agree with him [Dr. Klaas Schilder of the liberated churches] in regard to the question of the covenant and the promise, I nevertheless esteemed him for his works’ sake, esteemed him too as a highly gifted scholar, and above all as a brother in Christ.

I wondered when someone in the PRC was going to bring this up. I have had a long time to consider this. I love Reverend Hoeksema, and I love his theology and doctrine. I lean on them heavily in my preaching and writing to glean definitions and ideas on certain subjects. But I must subject everything in the Reformed tradition to the withering critique of the scriptures and the Reformed confessions. To do this, instead of blindly following what men have said in years past, is exactly what Reverend Hoeksema did in his ministry. That is what made him such an excellent theologian. He took the then Reformed idea of the covenant, critiqued it by subjecting it to the teaching of scripture and the confessions, developed it, and brought the churches to a correct understanding of the covenant. Out of that doctrine of the covenant came his doctrine of marriage. I subject Reverend Hoeksema’s teachings to the critique of the scriptures and the confessions. That is not dishonoring him but honoring him. If he were alive he would expect nothing less of the church today. I expect the next generation, when I am dead and gone, to take what I have written, said, and preached and to critique it according to the scriptures and the confessions.

Now, looking back on this period of history before 1953, I have the advantage of hindsight. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. What Reverend Hoeksema did in cozying up with Schilder almost destroyed the entire PRC. Hoeksema pushed for relations with the liberated that completely undermined the entire reformation and development of the truth at that time. The liberated theology festered and sizzled like leaven in the PRC. Very telling it is that the liberated ministers were allowed to preach on Protestant Reformed pulpits but not the other way around. The PRC’s ecumenical relationship with the liberated and Schilder ended in two-thirds of the Protestant Reformed members and churches leaving the denomination.

The calling of the PRC was to be a separate nation from all the other nations that surrounded her, like Israel in the Old Testament. When Jehoshaphat was determined to have a relationship with apostate Ahab, Jehoshaphat brought the nation to her knees. The effects of false ecumenical relationships are devastating to the church. God in his mercy saved Judah, and in his mercy he saved his church in 1953. The effect was a devasting split in the denomination, but God was purifying and refining his church.

McGeown takes Hoeksema’s words and further thrusts them into the service of his theology:

Klaas Schilder, the conditional covenant theologian of the 1950s, a brother in Christ—can you say that about those with whom you disagree theologically? Or will you cut off family members because they’re not members of the—in your view—correct denomination, the PRC? Or if they join another denomination of true Christian churches—the URC, the OPC, the PCA—do you cut them off because they deviate from the PRC’s doctrinal convictions? I hope not.

I hold to the PRC’s doctrinal convictions. I reject the three points of common grace. I reject the well-meant gospel offer. I hold to the unconditional covenant of grace. But I will not refuse fellowship with a member of another denomination. I’ll not call him antichristian because he disagrees with me on some points of theology, as important as they are. Nor am I saying that theological differences are unimportant or should be ignored. But shunning a family member who attends a different church or denomination is not the sword of which Jesus speaks. That’s the sword of a fanatic who inflicts damage on the church of Jesus Christ and destroys relationships with reckless abandon. And don’t try to justify that by looking at Jesus’ sword of division in the text.

McGeown calls us in the RPC “fanatic[s] who inflict damage on the church.” McGeown does not call merely the ministers and the members of the RPC fanatics, but he also calls Jesus Christ a fanatic. Fanatic is not a scriptural label or term. But if McGeown means irrational, insane, extreme, intolerant, or zealous, the meaning is the same as what the religious leaders said of Jesus: “He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?” (John 10:20). The religious leaders would have said what McGeown said: “Jesus is a fanatic. He is insane. He is mad and extreme.” McGeown stands in bad company with those who would soon put Christ to death and nail him to the cross.

Let me use a few biblical terms for him. McGeown is a whitewashed sepulcher that garnishes the tombs of the prophets, but kills the prophets. He is an agent of the devil for the destruction of the PRC. McGeown displaces Christ in his preaching and writing. He is a dreamer of dreams. McGeown by his preaching is not only being actively destroyed by the Lord, but McGeown will be responsible for the souls that perish under his preaching. The Reformed Protestant ministers, officebearers, and members have not destroyed in God’s house, as McGeown claims, but he by his fables has destroyed. Woe unto him and to the PRC in that final day.

In his sermon McGeown proves nothing from the scriptures or the confessions. He crafts a fable out of his own mind and his own wisdom. He claims to hold to certain doctrines. He says that some points of theology are important—after minimizing doctrine in his entire sermon—but he never identifies which doctrines and says why they are important. Let me fill in the gaps as to why holding to right doctrine is important. Doctrine reveals about the worshiper who he worships. Does he rightly know God? Does he confess the truth? Because to hold to a lie means that you do not have faith, and if you do not have faith, then you will not be saved in the day of Jesus Christ. Let McGeown explain to his congregation why doctrine and doctrinal distinctives are important.

The Purpose of the Sword

McGeown garnishes the remainder of his sermon by speaking about the purpose of Christ’s sword. He talks about election and reprobation, but he does not ground the separation that the sword brings in election and reprobation. He talks about separation between the church and the world and also about separation within the church. But that is all lip service at this point. He guts the whole text of its significance.

Christ’s sword comes and divides family relationships. The gospel comes according to God’s eternal counsel and saves one of a city and two of a family, and the rest are hardened. This division really happens still today between those who confess the Christ of the scriptures and the unbeliever who confesses a universal Christ, a grace common to everyone, and a God who is not sovereign to save sinners but who depends upon man.

Every time the gospel is preached, Christ comes to save his elect and to harden the reprobate. Some believe the gospel because they are appointed to belief of the truth. Many do not believe the gospel because they are appointed to destruction. There is the divine reason for belief and unbelief all through the church and until the end. God in the gospel carries out his eternal will of election and reprobation. He infallibly saves his people, and they confess the truth. And many others perish in the lie. The preaching of that gospel through human instruments is a savor of life unto life and a savor of death unto death.

Next time, the Lord willing, I intend to take up McGeown’s second sermon, titled “Hating Our Family.”