In the controversy between the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) and the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), there are a few articles of the Canons of Dordt to which the PRC regularly appeal. These articles are especially Canons 3–4.12, Canons 3–4.17, Canons 5.5, and Canons 5.7. In a brief series of editorials, I am explaining the doctrine of these articles, upon which doctrine the RPC squarely stand. I am also exposing the Protestant Reformed misuse of these articles, by which misuse the PRC condemn the gospel of grace and align themselves with the Remonstrants.

The editorial last month explained Canons 3–4.17, including its most famous line, “Grace is conferred by means of admonitions.”¹ This month we return to Canons 3–4.17 to see how entrenched the Protestant Reformed Churches are in their use—abuse—of this article.

A Review of Canons 3–4.17

Canons 3–4.17 reads,

As the almighty operation of God whereby He prolongs and supports this our natural life does not exclude, but requires, the use of means, by which God of His infinite mercy and goodness hath chosen to exert His influence, so also the before mentioned supernatural operation of God by which we are regenerated in no wise excludes or subverts the use of the gospel, which the most wise God has ordained to be the seed of regeneration and food of the soul. Wherefore, as the apostles and teachers who succeeded them piously instructed the people concerning this grace of God, to His glory, and the abasement of all pride, and in the meantime, however, neglected not to keep them by the sacred precepts of the gospel in the exercise of the Word, sacraments, and discipline; so, even to this day, be it far from either instructors or instructed to presume to tempt God in the church by separating what He of His good pleasure hath most intimately joined together. For grace is conferred by means of admonitions; and the more readily we perform our duty, the more eminent usually is this blessing of God working in us, and the more directly is His work advanced; to whom alone all the glory, both of means and of their saving fruit and efficacy, is forever due. Amen. (Confessions and Church Order, 170)

The article teaches that God is pleased to use the gospel as the means of grace by which he saves his elect people. The gospel by which God confers the grace of salvation is proclaimed in the preaching, in the sacraments, and in the administration of Christian discipline. The gospel of Jesus Christ includes the call of the gospel, “Repent of your sins, and believe in Jesus Christ crucified and risen.” Because the gospel is God’s means of grace by which he saves, the office of minister is to preach the pure gospel, and the office of believer is to hear and believe the pure gospel. Neither the minister nor the believer may attempt to separate the gospel from salvation. The foolish charge of the Remonstrants was that the Reformed doctrine of salvation by sovereign, efficacious grace without the cooperation of the sinner meant that there was no point to preaching the gospel. The Reformed answer is that of course there is a point to preaching the gospel, for God is a God of means. Just as he is pleased to use the means of food and drink to support our natural life, so God is pleased to use the gospel—in preaching, in the sacraments, and in Christian discipline—as the sovereign means by which he saves his people.

From beginning to end Canons 3–4.17 is about the gospel as God’s means of grace. At no point does Canons 3–4.17 introduce God’s good and holy law as God’s means of grace. The Canons rules out the law as the means of grace already in Canons 3–4.5: “Man cannot by this law obtain saving grace” (Confessions and Church Order, 167). The Canons establishes the gospel alone as the means of grace already in Canons 3–4.6: “What therefore neither the light of nature nor the law could do, that God performs by the operation of the Holy Spirit through the Word or ministry of reconciliation, which is the glad tidings concerning the Messiah” (Confessions and Church Order, 167). Canons 3–4.17 teaches the same doctrine as Canons 3–4.5–6. “So also the before mentioned supernatural operation of God by which we are regenerated in no wise excludes or subverts the use of the gospel, which the most wise God has ordained to be the seed of regeneration and food of the soul.” The gospel, not the law, is God’s means of grace and salvation.

When Canons 3–4.17 says, “Grace is conferred by means of admonitions,” it is still speaking about the gospel. The “admonitions” are the call of the gospel to repent and believe in Jesus Christ, which admonitions are the gospel. When Canons 3–4.17 says, “The more readily we perform our duty,” it is still speaking about the gospel. The “duty” is literally the “office” of the minister to preach and the believer to believe. Preach what and believe what? The gospel! Grace is conferred by means of the gospel. Let no one try to separate grace and the gospel.

From beginning to end Canons 3–4.17 is about the gospel as God’s means of grace and salvation. At no point does Canons 3–4.17 introduce the law as God’s means of grace and salvation.

The Protestant Reformed Churches on Canons 3–4.17

The Protestant Reformed Churches introduce God’s law into Canons 3–4.17 as the means by which God confers grace upon his people. The PRC interpret the word “admonitions” to mean commandments or law. The PRC believe that the doctrine of Canons 3–4.17 is that grace is conferred by means of the law.

This is the position of the present dogmatics professor in the Protestant Reformed seminary, Prof. Ronald Cammenga, as demonstrated in last month’s editorial. Professor Cammenga teaches about this article that it addresses

the issue of God’s use of the preaching of the law, including its admonitions, rebukes, and threatenings. Article seventeen of the third and fourth heads of doctrine begins by asserting that as God uses means to support our natural life, so He is pleased to use the preaching of His Word as “the seed of regeneration and food of the soul.”

The article concludes,

For grace is conferred by means of admonitions; and the more readily we perform our duty, the more eminent usually is this blessing of God working in us, and the more directly is His work advanced; to whom alone all the glory, both of means and of their saving fruit and efficacy, is forever due.²

Presumably, Professor Cammenga teaches his theology to his students, which means that for the past fifteen or more years, Protestant Reformed seminary graduates have been sent into the pulpits of the PRC with the theology that salvation is by the law and that salvation by the law is the Reformed doctrine of Canons 3–4.17.

Rev. Martyn McGeown also introduces God’s law into Canons 3–4.17 as the means by which God confers grace. In a recent post on the RFPA blog, he explains the apostle Peter’s calling that we add to our faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity (2 Pet. 1:5–7). Reverend
McGeown has many things to say about this passage, but the heart of his doctrine is this: “Our effort fits with God’s grace” as that by which we obtain these virtues. By our effort and by God’s grace, we obtain these virtues. By God’s grace but also by our effort, we obtain these virtues. My issue with Reverend McGeown’s doctrine is not that he teaches diligent human activity or that he calls men to diligent activity. “Add!” says the apostle, and add we must, and add we do. Rather, my issue with Reverend McGeown’s doctrine is that he makes man’s diligent effort stand alongside God’s grace. For Reverend McGeown and for the PRC, man does not obtain salvation until both God’s grace has operated and man’s effort has operated.

Reverend McGeown grounds his doctrine of “our effort fits with God’s grace” in the Protestant Reformed misuse of Canons 3–4.17. In his appeal to Canons 3–4.17, he makes “admonitions” to be commandments and “performing our duty” to be obedience to the law.

Canons 3:17 express it beautifully: “Grace is conferred by means of admonitions—such as this admonition in 2 Peter 1:5–7—and the more readily we perform our duty (the duty here of adding virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity to our faith), the more eminent usually is this blessing of God working in us, and the more directly is his work advanced, to whom alone all the glory, both of means and their saving fruit and efficacy, is forever due.”

In this way, your life will be one grand choir or orchestra performed to the glory of God.³

What Reverend McGeown does to Canons 3–4.17 in his blog post he has done for several years already. In his 2018 commentary on the Canons of Dordt, Reverend McGeown makes Canons 3–4.17 teach the law as God’s means of grace and salvation.

The article ends with a beautiful explanation of the working of the grace of God. First, “grace is conferred by means of admonitions.” God gives power to obey (his grace) by the command itself (admonition). God works faith through the call to faith. God works repentance through the call to repentance. God works sorrow for sin through warnings against sin. God preserves his people in holiness through commands to be holy. God preserves his people through warnings and threatenings (1 Tim. 4:13–16).⁴

What Professor Cammenga and Reverend McGeown write about Canons 3–4.17 is the view of Protestant Reformed ministers and elders generally. This is evident, first, from the fact that no Protestant Reformed minister, professor, missionary, or consistory has risen up to condemn Professor Cammenga or Reverend McGeown for replacing the gospel with the law in Canons 3–4.17. If Protestant Reformed ministers or elders disagreed with the Protestant Reformed doctrine that the law is God’s means of grace, they would not be able to rest until they had driven that doctrine from their midst. The fact that no one in the PRC rises up is because the ministers and elders agree with Professor Cammenga and Reverend McGeown. They have made their peace with Cammenga’s and McGeown’s doctrine and in doing so have made it their own doctrine.

Second, that the introduction of the law into Canons 3–4.17 is the view of Protestant Reformed ministers and elders became evident at Synod 2018. There were several protests at that synod against Synod 2017’s confusion of the law and the gospel. Four delegates and a professor at Synod 2018—Elder Gary Kaptein, Rev. Rodney Kleyn, Rev. Bill Langerak, Elder Al Meurer, and Prof. Barry Gritters—were placed on committee three to bring advice regarding the protests. Committee three played games at Synod 2018, with the connivance and the support of the synod. The game that committee three played was to recommend sustaining some of the protests, which would make it look like synod maintained the confessional distinction between the law and the gospel, but at the very same time to maintain that the law is God’s means of grace to save his elect people. By this advice, found on pages 87–98 of the 2018 Acts of Synod, the Protestant Reformed Churches and the protestants would be led to believe that  the protestants’ doctrine was upheld. But by this very same advice, committee three would overthrow Reformed doctrine by introducing the law as the means of salvation.

Here is the doctrine of committee three: “All the ‘commands we preach’ from Scripture are also means of grace in salvation to the elect, regenerated child of God.”⁵ That is a naked statement of the law as a means of grace.

Committee three grounded its doctrine in the Protestant Reformed misuse of Canons 3–4.17.

1) Canons III/IV, 17 teaches that saving grace and the means of grace must never be separated, and these means of grace include admonitions:

a) Mr. Meyer is incorrect when he claims that these “admonitions” are not “addressing obedience (fruits of faith) to save.” The article explicitly states that these admonitions concern “the exercise of the Word…discipline” and the “performance of our duty.”

b) H.C. Hoeksema writes: “Admonitions of the Word…occupy a large place. How many an admonition is found in…Proverbs…in the prophets…various epistles…They occupy a strategic position in relation to the whole of the word of God. If the need and importance of admonitions are denied, and if even the possibility of admonitions is excluded, the effect is necessarily that the whole word of God is excluded as to its need and possibility…Who in the history of the Reformed churches has denied the necessity of the preaching of the word, of the whole counsel of God, including its admonitions?” (VOF, 558; 349–350).⁶

And what did Synod 2018 do with the advice of committee three? What did Synod 2018 pronounce regarding the doctrine of committee three? The delegates declined to judge that doctrine. Instead, they recommitted the advice to committee three. What came back from committee three was a purely formal and procedural recommendation. The false doctrine of committee three was allowed to slink back into the shadows with nary a challenge.

And why did Synod 2018 allow the doctrine that God’s law is the means by which he saves his people to slink away? Because the Protestant Reformed Churches believe that doctrine. They believe that grace is conferred by means of the law and that the more readily we perform our duty of obeying the law, the more eminent is this grace of God working in us. They believe what Prof. R. Cammenga, Rev. M. McGeown, Rev. R. Kleyn, and Rev. B. Langerak have been teaching them: grace is conferred by means of the law. And the PRC do not believe what the RPC have been telling them, both while we were in the PRC and now that we are out: grace is conferred by means of the gospel.

And by the way, if anyone wonders about committee three’s quote from Homer Hoeksema, committee three ignored the one line from Homer Hoeksema that settles the matter. The issue in the interpretation of Canons 3–4.17 is whether “admonitions” means law or gospel. The issue is not whether there are many admonitions in scripture, which Hoeksema says. The issue is not whether the admonitions are necessary, as Hoeksema also says. The issue is what those admonitions are. Are they the sacred admonitions of the law? Then grace is conferred by means of the law. Or are they the sacred admonitions of the gospel? Then grace is conferred by means of the gospel. Homer Hoeksema clearly identified those admonitions as the call of the gospel (which is the gospel) and not the commandments of the law. Here is the line from Hoeksema that settles it: “Always the admonition of the word of God, whether expressed or implied, is repent and believe.”⁷ There is Hoeksema’s interpretation of “admonitions” in Canons 3–4.17: “Repent and believe!” Not the law: “Do this and live.” But the gospel: “Repent and believe in Jesus Christ.” When the present-day PRC introduce the law into Canons 3–4.17, they not only depart from the Canons, but they depart from their father and thus show that they are not his sons. When the Reformed Protestant Churches maintain the gospel in Canons 3–4.17, they not only uphold the Reformed faith by God’s grace, but they also show that they are the true spiritual heirs of the old PRC.

Salvation by the Law Is Salvation by Man

The doctrine of salvation by the law is the doctrine of salvation by man. By their interpretation of Canons 3–4.17, the PRC reveal their doctrine of salvation. Their doctrine of salvation is that salvation is by the law. Their doctrine is that grace is conferred by the law. The PRC might also still teach that salvation is also by the gospel. This is not to the credit of the PRC, for any Protestant Reformed teaching that salvation is by the gospel only serves to deceive the unwary and the simple. For the PRC the real power of salvation is God’s law. For the PRC the real means of grace is God’s commandments. Protestant Reformed preaching and writing press commandments upon the people for their salvation. The issue is not that the PRC preach commandments. The law is God’s word and must be preached strictly. Rather, the issue is that the PRC preach the law for salvation. The PRC preach the law for the blessings of salvation. The PRC preach the law for the experience and assurance of salvation. The PRC preach the law for justification in the sinner’s experience of his forgiveness. In the PRC salvation and all of its goodness come by the law.

This doctrine is everywhere one looks in the PRC today. The Protestant Reformed doctrine of salvation by the law is found wherever the PRC make man’s doing the law to be that by which he is saved.

That the writers of the Canons insisted that the gospel preached was a necessary means of grace (cf. the opening sentence of Art. 17) means they confessed and taught that if a man with his household was to be saved and consciously enter into the kingdom, placing himself with his family under the rule of Christ as his Lord and Savior, he was called, he was required, to respond obediently to the call and command of the gospel—“Repent and believe, that thou mightiest (sic) be saved with thy house.”⁸

The Protestant Reformed doctrine of salvation by the law is found wherever the PRC make man’s good works in obedience to the law to be the means of man’s assurance.

Good works, holiness, piety, godliness, obedience are the means God uses to give the assurance of salvation…God uses them to give assurance.⁹

The Protestant Reformed doctrine of salvation by the law is found wherever the PRC make abiding in Christ, coming to Christ, eating Christ, drinking Christ, or any other description of faith in Christ to mean man’s good works of obedience to God’s law.

As such, therefore, abiding in Christ—that is, conscious participation in his fellowship by faith—is to hold steadfastly to his gospel, to live in complete dependence upon him in faith and hope, and to walk in faithful and loving obedience to him.¹⁰

The Protestant Reformed doctrine of salvation by the law is the explicit doctrine of the Protestant Reformed dogmatics professor.

It is clear, both from our Reformed confessions and from the teaching of our spiritual forebearers, that preaching commands, admonitions, prohibitions, warnings, and rebukes is a positive means of grace in the lives of God’s people. (Cammenga, 45)

Just as God is pleased to use commands for our justification, we should not wonder that He is pleased also to use commands for our sanctification. This is indeed the case. (Cammenga, 46)

The dreadful error of preaching the law for salvation is that it makes man the savior. If your salvation comes by your obeying the law, then your salvation comes by you. This is true for both justification and sanctification. If your justification comes by your obeying the law, then your justification comes by you. If your sanctification comes by your obeying the law, then your sanctification comes by you. If the law is God’s means of grace by which he confers salvation, then man’s obedience to that law is his salvation, and obedient man is his own savior.

Salvation by man is indeed the doctrine of the PRC. The good things of salvation, especially the assurance of salvation, the experience of God’s fellowship and friendship, and one’s knowledge that his sins are forgiven, all depend upon man. This has been demonstrated on these pages with quotations, explanations, and polemics for more than two years now. Here is the doctrine of the PRC: if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do.

It is exactly to rule out salvation by man that God does not give salvation by the law but by the gospel. The gospel declares what Jesus Christ perfectly did (and what you did not do and could not do). The gospel declares Jesus’ perfect satisfaction for sin (which you did not accomplish and could not accomplish). The gospel declares Jesus’ perfect obedience (which you did not perform and could not perform). The gospel, not the law, is God’s power of salvation, in order that salvation might be of God and not of man.

19. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

20. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

21. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

22. Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference. (Rom. 3:19–22)

The Doctrine of Rome

The Protestant Reformed doctrine of salvation by the law is the doctrine of Rome. When the Protestant Reformed Churches teach the law of God as the means of grace, they are teaching Rome’s doctrine. When the Protestant Reformed Churches teach that salvation and its blessings come by obedience to the law, they are teaching Rome’s doctrine.

The similarity between the Protestant Reformed Churches and Rome in their doctrine of the law is not an incidental similarity. A church might find incidental similarities with Rome, such as Rome’s opposition to abortion. But Rome’s doctrine of the law is fundamental. Rome’s doctrine of the law is at the heart of Rome’s heresies of human merit and justification by works. Rome’s doctrine is that salvation is by the law. Because salvation is by the law, salvation is by the work and worth and merit of man in his obedience to the law.

According to Rome, what does the law do? The law itself confers upon a man grace and strength to obey the law.

[The law is called] a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments.¹¹

Rome uses all of the terms that will make its doctrine sound Christian: “grace,” “strength of grace,” “faith.” But Rome’s doctrine is that the law confers grace. For Rome God says to a man, “Do this and live,” and God’s law to that man confers upon him the strength to do what he is commanded to do and thus to live. For Rome the law as the law confers this strength.

Rome’s doctrine of the law as the means of grace is the Protestant Reformed doctrine of the law. Rather than teaching the Reformed doctrine that the strength to obey is from Christ and his gospel, with the law serving as the rule, standard, and guide of our thankful obedience, the PRC teach the doctrine of Rome that the law itself is the means of grace. From the law itself comes a man’s strength to obey.

Here is Rome: “[The law is called] a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments.”

And here is the PRC: “It is clear…that preaching commands, admonitions, prohibitions, warnings, and rebukes is a positive means of grace in the lives of God’s people” (Cammenga, 45).

And here is the PRC: “God is pleased to use the preaching of the commands of His Word in order to accomplish the obedience that He commands” (Cammenga, 53).

But now, according to Rome, that is not all that the law does. According to Rome, the law also brings people into the conscious experience of fellowship with God. Rome’s doctrine of the law is a doctrine of covenant fellowship and friendship. How does this work in Rome’s teaching? Rome teaches that the law enables us to do good works of love. By doing those good works of love by the power of the law, a man enters into the experience of friendship with God. By the law a man is empowered to obey, and by his obedience he enjoys God’s friendship.

Here is Rome:

[The law is called] a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity and, finally, lets us pass from the condition of a servant who “does not know what his master is doing” to that of a friend of Christ—“For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you”—or even to the status of son and heir.¹²

That is astonishing! Rome’s doctrine of the law is that the law empowers us or “inclines us” to love and that the law by which we love then lets us pass into the condition of a friend of Christ. This is conditional covenant experience, and it is exactly the doctrine of the Protestant Reformed Churches today.

If a man with his household was to be saved and consciously enter into the kingdom, placing himself with his family under the rule of Christ as his Lord and Savior, he was called, he was required, to respond obediently to the call and command of the gospel—“Repent and believe, that thou mightiest (sic) be saved with thy house.”

The effect of this doctrine is that men cannot and will not seek their salvation in Christ, but they seek their salvation in the law. Men cannot and will not seek the power to believe and obey in Christ, but they seek the power to believe and obey in the law. Men cannot and will not seek their covenant fellowship with God in the finished work of Christ, but they seek their covenant fellowship in their own obedience.

No wonder the Reformed faith so clearly rejected the doctrine that the law is God’s means of grace! No wonder the Canons so strongly insisted that God by the gospel gives the salvation that man by the law could never have. Grace is conferred by means of the gospel.

The Doctrine of the Federal Vision

The Protestant Reformed doctrine that the law is the means of grace is also the doctrine of the federal vision. When the PRC teach that the law is good news for the believer as a positive means of grace in his justification and sanctification, they are teaching federal vision
theology.

The federal vision is well known for its rejection of the Reformed distinction between the law and the gospel. The Reformed distinction is that the law is one kind of word of God, and the gospel is another kind of word of God. Both law and gospel are the word of God. Both law and gospel are inspired and infallible. Both law and gospel must be preached. Both law and gospel are good. But law and gospel are distinct words of God that each have its own specific use.

The law is the word of God that tells us what we are to do. The law says, “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not.” The use of the law is to expose our sin. The use of the law is also to be the rule, guide, and standard of our grateful lives. The use of the law is not to save. The use of the law is not to tell us what a good job we are doing in obeying the law. The use of the law is not to empower us in any sense in our salvation. The law cannot do these things because the law does not tell us about Christ. The law only tells us about ourselves: thou shalt, thou shalt not.

The gospel is the word of God that tells us what Christ has done according to the good pleasure of God. The gospel says, “It is finished.” The gospel is glad tidings of what another has done that I could not do. The gospel does not announce us, but it announces Christ’s free and gracious salvation.

In this distinction the law is not good news for the believer. Oh, yes, the believer loves the law. He delights in the law. He meditates upon the law. He will not tolerate any belittling of the law. It is the law of his God! But the law does not announce the believer’s salvation. Only the gospel tells the believer that God has reconciled his fallen people unto himself through Jesus Christ. That gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news.

The federal vision rejects this distinction between the law and the gospel and teaches instead that the law also is good news for the believer. The men of the federal vision stated their objection to the law and gospel distinction in their 2007 document entitled A Joint Federal Vision Profession.

We deny that law and gospel should be considered as hermeneutics, or treated as such. We believe that any passage, whether indicative or imperative, can be heard by the faithful as good news, and that any passage, whether containing gospel promises or not, will be heard by the rebellious as intolerable demand. The fundamental division is not in the text, but rather in the human heart.¹³

The federal vision makes the law to be good news. As long as a person is “faithful,” which is federal-vision-speak for “keeping oneself in God’s covenant favor by one’s faithful obedience to the law,” the law is good news. This is the doctrine of the Protestant Reformed Churches. The law comes to the PRC as a means of grace. It comes as that by which God confers grace and salvation upon them. The law comes to them as that by which they are justified—good news! And the law comes to them as that by which they are sanctified—good news! This is how Protestant Reformed people are taught to seek their welfare and their salvation. Do you want to prosper more in the great blessings of the covenant? Obey the law more! Do you want to obtain the forgiveness of sins? Obey the law by forgiving your neighbor! The law is held before the PRC as good news, by the keeping of which they may obtain the good things of their salvation.

But according to the Reformed confessions, we have all the good things of our salvation by Christ and Christ alone, through faith and faith alone, that it might be by grace and grace alone. The glad tidings of our salvation are not the law but the gospel of Jesus Christ. “The Word or ministry of reconciliation…is the glad tidings concerning the Messiah, by means whereof it hath pleased God to save such as believe, as well under the Old as under the New Testament” (Canons 3–4.6, in Confessions and Church Order, 167).

Who Stands with the Canons?

The Protestant Reformed Churches have labored to convince men that the Reformed Protestant Churches are dissatisfied with the Canons of Dordt and that the RPC will likely discard certain articles of the Canons. This is a particularly clever tactic of the PRC because it teaches men to think the opposite of reality. If there is anything that the RPC have stood for, it is salvation by grace—exactly the doctrine of the Canons. If there is anything that the RPC have condemned, it is salvation by the will and work of man—exactly what the Canons condemns. Isn’t this what the Reformed Protestant denomination is known for, even by her opponents? Making “too much” of grace? Making “too little” of man? But that is exactly the Canons! The Canons makes everything of grace for man’s salvation, and the Canons makes nothing of man for man’s salvation. The RPC stand doctrine for doctrine and article for article with the Canons of Dordt.

But the PRC have cleverly attempted to sever the RPC from the Canons in the minds of men. The PRC persuade the public that the RPC are dissatisfied with the Canons and that they are busy opposing the Canons. They persuade the public that the Reformed Protestant doctrines of eternal justification, passive faith, justification by faith alone without prerequisite repentance, and salvation by the gospel and not by the law are all departures from the Canons. The public is taught that just as the RPC have left the PRC, so the RPC have left the Canons of Dordt.

Well, it is true that the RPC left the PRC. But it is not true that the RPC left the Canons. In fact, the RPC left the PRC in order to maintain the Canons’ doctrine of salvation by grace alone. That doctrine was being picked at and pecked at for many years, and we did not know it. Now the PRC are swallowed up in their denial of salvation by grace alone. They bring the law into Canons 3–4.17, which is a terrible twisting of Canons 3–4.17. Teaching that the law is God’s means of grace to save is a denial of the Reformed faith as taught in the Canons of Dordt. And yet the PRC brazenly claim that it is the RPC who are dissatisfied with the Canons!

One startling evidence that the RPC stand doctrine for doctrine with the Canons of Dordt is that the RPC bear charge for charge the accusations of the calumniators against the doctrine of the Canons. The opponents of the Canons tried to 

persuade the public: that [the Reformed doctrine of salvation by grace alone proceeding from God’s eternal predestination]…renders men carnally secure, since they are persuaded by it that nothing can hinder the salvation of the elect, let them live as they please; and, therefore, that they may safely perpetrate every species of the most atrocious crimes. (Conclusion of the Canons, in Confessions and Church Order, 179)

When the Canons taught predestination as the salvation of man without his works, the enemies slanderously accused the Canons of teaching “Perpetrate every atrocious crime!” When the RPC teach the very same gospel of eternal forgiveness without man’s works, our enemies slanderously accuse us of teaching “Sin freely!”¹⁴ Our opponents are hell-bent on persuading the public that our doctrine of eternal forgiveness means that men should sin as they please. So much do they wish to persuade the public of this that in the very same breath as they acknowledge that we do not explicitly teach men to sin, they insist that our doctrine of eternal forgiveness must make men sin as they please.

Although it is true that the RPs have not gone so far as to teach that believers need not confess their sins or pray for forgiveness, this is the necessary implication of their teaching that forgiveness precedes repentance. Forgiven sin is no sin, and if there is no sin, then sin as you please because your sin has already been pardoned eternally.¹⁵

It is striking that our opponents make this charge against our doctrine. They “persuade the public” that our doctrine of salvation by grace alone encourages men to sin freely. This is exactly the charge against the Canons’ doctrine of predestination. The calumny of the enemies was that this doctrine “by its own genius and necessary tendency, leads off the minds of men from all piety and religion” (Conclusion of the Canons, in Confessions and Church Order, 179). Though I tremble for those who make this charge, for they are enemies of the gospel, I rejoice that the RPC may so closely stand with the Canons of Dordt. Doctrine for doctrine, right down to the very accusations of our opponents, the RPC stand with the Canons.

It is not the RPC who have left the Canons of Dordt but the PRC. The Protestant Reformed Churches’ appeal to the Canons is superficial and deceitful. The PRC obscure the meaning of the Canons by their appeal to a word or a phrase here and there. But the Canons does not teach what the PRC say that it teaches. The doctrine of the Canons could be summarized this way: salvation is of God alone. The doctrine could be summarized this way: salvation is by grace alone. The Canons is at pains to declare that salvation is not of man or man’s doing but only of God and his grace. Pick any article in the Canons, and you will find God and his gracious work, not man and any kind of cooperating work.

However, when the PRC search the Canons, they can only find man, man’s doing, man’s contribution, and man’s honor. They can hardly find God, except in passing, and then only as a foil for the real hero of the Canons: man. The PRC in the year 2022 are insane for man. Man is the fever in the Protestant Reformed brain. Man is the dream of the Protestant Reformed soul. In fact, the PRC are being trained to read scripture and the confessions with an eye out for man. If you want to see this present-day Protestant Reformed training in action, take a look at the September 1, 2022, issue of the Standard Bearer. Professor Cammenga’s article is a master class in teaching people to read the confessions to find man’s doing. The articles from the confessions that Professor Cammenga cites all teach God and his grace. But Professor Cammenga trains a compliant readership to find man and man’s activity in those articles, in the service of teaching the people that man’s activity precedes God’s activity in justification.

This method of reading the Canons is the deceptive method known as “proof-texting.” In proof-texting one does not come to the Canons to learn the doctrine that the Canons actually teaches. Instead, one comes to the Canons knowing what doctrine he wants the Canons to teach and then twisting the Canons to agree with him. When he lands on a word or a phrase in the Canons that sounds something like what he wants, he cites that phrase as a proof text for his position. This method of proof-texting makes it possible for anyone to find anything in scripture or the confessions. With this method of proof-texting, every heretic can have his text.

This method of proof-texting can be exposed by stepping back to view the doctrine of the Canons as a whole. The doctrine of the Canons can be compared to a mighty, rushing river. That river flows without diversion in one direction only. The doctrine of the Canons is the gracious salvation of God. That salvation flows inexorably from God as its source and flows inexorably to God for his glory. That this is the doctrine of the Canons is evident from the “five articles which have been controverted” (Conclusion of the Canons, in Confessions and Church Order, 179) that make up the Canons: TULIP—or ULTIP, in the order of the Canons—unconditional election, limited atonement, total depravity, irresistible grace, and preservation of the saints. Those five articles are the doctrines of grace. The doctrines of grace! Not the doctrines of man. Not the doctrines of man’s doing. Not the doctrines of man’s contribution. Not the doctrines of man’s glory. But the doctrines of God’s grace! Nothing in the Canons flows contrary to that river of grace. There is no little eddy here and there flowing backward to the glory of man. From beginning to end the Canons are the doctrines of God’s sovereign, irresistible, saving grace that delivers elect and fallen man from his sin and death through Jesus Christ according to God’s eternal good pleasure and decree.

Now, in such a confession, does anyone imagine that he will find the following teachings? If a man would be saved, there is that which he must do. Or: in a vital sense in man’s salvation, man’s activity precedes God’s activity, and God’s activity follows man’s activity. Or: justification in man’s conscious experience is by means of repentance (not faith alone). Or: faith is man’s activity and not God’s activity. Or: God uses the commands of his law to justify his people. Or: the Reformed faith safeguards God’s sovereignty in salvation by trumpeting as loudly as possible the activity of man.

When the PRC teach all these things, they are swimming in a different river than the Canons. It is the river of Man. When the PRC from their opposite-flowing river reach over into the Canons to pluck out the phrase “grace is conferred by means of admonitions,” they are only proof-texting. They are not dealing with the actual doctrinal flow and substance and meaning of the Canons.

Here is the Canons: salvation by grace.

Here is Canons 3–4.17: grace is conferred by means of the gospel.

May God preserve that precious gospel among us.