The present battle in the Protestant Reformed Churches has been waged over one main theological topic: man’s experience of salvation and covenant fellowship with God. The topic is man’s experience: man’s experience of God’s friendship, man’s experience of salvation’s blessings, man’s experience of assurance and peace. Specifically, the conflict has been whether a grace principle or a works principle governs man’s conscious experience of the covenant and salvation. Is man’s conscious experience of salvation by grace or by works? Is man’s conscious coming to God by grace or by works? Is man’s assurance of his justification by grace or by works? Is man’s enjoyment of covenant fellowship with God by grace or by works? Is man’s confidence of prayer’s answer by grace or by works? In summary, does a grace principle or a works principle govern man’s conscious experience of salvation?

It is critical to identify the topic of controversy as man’s conscious experience of salvation because the controversy has been plagued by confusion on this very point. There are three main points to develop.

Point One. There is a distinction between the fact of man’s salvation on the one hand and man’s experience of his salvation on the other hand. Or, to say the same thing, we could speak of man’s salvation from an objective point of view (the fact) and subjective point of view (man’s experience of the fact). Or, to say the same thing, the Heidelberg Catechism often asks, “What is the meaning of…” to describe the fact of our salvation, and “What advantage or profit is it…” to describe our joyful, comforted experience of our salvation (for example, Lord’s Days 10, 14, 18–19).

The fact of salvation is that God has saved his elect people from sin and death and hell by his grace through Jesus Christ. It is a fact that God loves his people with an eternal and unbreakable love (Ps. 103:17). It is a fact that God establishes his eternal covenant of grace with them in Jesus Christ (Gen. 17:7). It is a fact that Jesus came in their flesh to redeem his people (Heb. 2:14–15). It is a fact that their sins are covered by the blood of Christ’s atonement (John 10:11). It is a fact that they have been given the Spirit of their Lord to unite them to their Savior (John 14:16–17). It is a fact that they have been regenerated and are new creatures (1 Pet. 1:23). It is a fact that they have been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light by the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and risen (1 Pet. 2:9). It is a fact that they have been united to Christ by faith and that they believe in him (Rom. 11:20). It is a fact that they are justified before God’s tribunal for the sake of Christ (Gal. 2:16). It is a fact that they are sanctified and made holy by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:11). It is a fact that they are preserved by God in a life of good works and that their salvation cannot be lost (1 Thess. 5:23). It is a fact that laid up in glory they have an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled and that fades not away
(1 Pet. 1:3–4). All of this is the fact of salvation.

On the other hand, God not only saves man from sin and death through Christ, but God also gives man the conscious knowledge and experience of his salvation. God has made man a rational, moral, spiritual, personal, passionate creature who personally has a soul and a mind and a will and emotions, so that he knows his salvation, is conscious of it, experiences it, and has various spiritual and emotional responses to it. Salvation is a fact, but it is a fact that touches man in his heart and in his mind. Man enjoys his salvation; he is assured of his salvation; he consciously knows his God and joyfully walks with him in the bonds of God’s covenant love. The fact of salvation: God forgives sins. Man’s experience of salvation: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven” (Ps. 32:1). The fact of salvation: justification. Man’s experience of salvation: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). The fact of salvation: the gift of faith. Man’s experience of salvation: “We believe that, to attain the true knowledge of this great mystery, the Holy Ghost kindleth in our hearts an upright faith, which embraces Jesus Christ with all His merits, appropriates Him, and seeks nothing more besides Him” (Belgic Confession 22). The fact of salvation: the gift of the Holy Ghost. Man’s experience of salvation: “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16). The fact of salvation: the covenant. Man’s experience of salvation: “What is thy only comfort in life and death? That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 1).

Point Two. Though there is a distinction between the fact of salvation and man’s conscious experience of his salvation, they are both equally and entirely the gift of God. The fact of salvation and the experience of salvation are both salvation. They are both the gracious work of God in Jesus Christ. God graciously accomplishes the fact of man’s salvation and God graciously bestows man’s experience of salvation. Inasmuch as salvation is all of God, both the fact of salvation and man’s conscious experience of salvation are all of God.

It is probably well enough agreed that the fact of salvation is entirely a gift of God’s grace in Christ. It is worth demonstrating that man’s conscious experience of salvation is also entirely a free gift of God’s grace in Christ. This truth is taught powerfully in the prophecy of the Lord’s Anointed in Isaiah 61. The prophecy of the Lord’s Anointed is one of the central prophecies of the Old Testament. This prophecy defined Jesus’ mission and work. It explained the purpose for which he was sent into the world. Jesus himself highlighted the importance of this prophecy at the outset of his public ministry. Entering the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus took Isaiah 61 as the text of his inaugural sermon. After reading the passage, he announced his own fulfillment of the prophecy: “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:21). What was the prophecy of the Lord’s Anointed? It was a prophecy that God would send his Anointed into the world to rescue his people and to make them happy. It was a prophecy that the Lord’s Anointed would give to man the conscious experience of his salvation.

1. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
3. To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. (Isa. 61:1–3)

Not only does the Lord’s Anointed liberate the captives, but he gives the oil of joy in the place of mourning and replaces the spirit of heaviness with the garment of praise. He gives the conscious experience of salvation!

The Heidelberg Catechism also teaches that the experience of salvation is a gift. It does this by describing the believer’s comfort as being entirely due to Christ and to Christ’s work.

What is thy only comfort in life and death? 

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with His precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him. (Q&A 1)

Man’s conscious experience of salvation is a gift of God’s grace in Christ. Therefore, the grace principle of salvation governs man’s conscious experience of salvation. Just as the grace principle of salvation governs the fact of salvation, so also the grace principle of salvation governs man’s conscious experience of his salvation. That is, man’s conscious experience of salvation is due entirely to God’s grace in Christ, is worked entirely by God’s grace in Christ, and is obtained entirely by God’s grace in Christ. Whatever the Bible says about salvation by grace alone also applies to man’s experience of salvation. “For by grace are ye saved”—and by grace do ye consciously experience salvation—“through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9).

This means that the works principle of salvation cannot and may not explain man’s conscious experience of salvation. Man’s good works do not produce man’s conscious experience of salvation. Man’s good works do not contribute to man’s conscious experience of salvation alongside God’s grace. Man’s good works do not bring him consciously into God’s fellowship or assure him of his justification or give him the confidence of prayer’s answer. Truly, good works are wonderful and enjoyable, and the child of God delights to do them. But man’s salvation, including man’s conscious experience of his salvation, is not due to his good works. The works principle of salvation cannot be applied to man’s conscious experience of his salvation any more than it can be applied to the fact of man’s salvation. Whatever scripture says to rule out salvation by works also applies to man’s conscious experience of salvation. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works”—your conscious experience of salvation is not of works either—“lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9).

The truth that man’s experience of salvation is a gift from God through Christ decides the controversy, because a gift is not earned. A gift cannot be earned, for then it ceases to be a gift and becomes a wage. Because man’s experience of salvation is a gift, it must be governed by the grace principle of salvation and not the works principle of salvation. All of man’s obedient working is as unable to gain him the experience of salvation as it is unable to gain him the fact of salvation. The Lord’s word to his servants applies also to the experience of salvation: “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10).

Point Three. The controversy in the Protestant Reformed Churches has been about this precise topic: Does a grace principle or a works principle govern man’s conscious experience of salvation? The reason it is so important to acknowledge this precise topic is that there is no controversy regarding the fact of man’s salvation. All are agreed and have always been agreed that the grace principle governs the fact of man’s salvation. All are agreed and have always been agreed that God accomplishes the fact of man’s salvation, and that man does not accomplish the fact of his salvation, nor does man contribute even the slightest to the fact of his salvation. All are agreed and have always been agreed that the works principle of salvation does not and cannot govern the fact of man’s salvation. 

The problem is that, to this very day, many assume that the only topic under discussion was the fact of man’s salvation. We fail to acknowledge that the controversy was never about the fact of man’s salvation. The controversy was always about that other topic: man’s conscious experience of his salvation. No one applied a works principle to the fact of man’s salvation, but many applied a works principle to man’s conscious experience of his salvation.

Failure to acknowledge the precise topic as man’s conscious experience of his salvation has plagued the controversy and continues to plague the controversy. The plague is that the Protestant Reformed Churches are largely unaware of how deadly was the error that they embraced. The thinking goes, “All of our Protestant Reformed ministers have always taught the same thing through this controversy, and no one has ever taught differently. The same goes for our consistories and other ecclesiastical assemblies. We have all always taught the same thing.” Well, yes and no. Yes, our ministers, consistories, and assemblies have all taught the same thing about the fact of salvation: it is governed by a grace principle. God be praised for this unity! But our ministers, consistories, and assemblies have not all taught the same thing about man’s conscious experience of salvation. When it comes to that precise topic, there have been two sharp, antithetical, and irreconcilable theological positions. One theological position is the works principle of man’s conscious experience of salvation. That is, man’s works obtain, contribute to, and secure his assurance of justification, his confidence of prayer’s answer, and his enjoyment of covenant fellowship with God. According to this principle, when it comes to man’s conscious experience, man saves himself. The other theological position is the grace principle of man’s conscious experience of salvation. That is, God’s grace alone obtains man’s conscious experience of salvation, with no contribution from or cooperation by man’s works. According to this principle, when it comes to man’s conscious experience of salvation, God saves man.

If the Protestant Reformed Churches fail to acknowledge the precise topic of theological controversy, they will be ignorant of the heresy that threatens them. Being ignorant of it, they will fall into it again and embrace it again. The urgent warning must be sounded to the churches: Be aware of this false doctrine! And beware lest it overcome you!

One might ask whether this analysis can really be correct. Has the controversy really been a works principle applied to man’s conscious experience of salvation? You don’t have to take my word for it. You can test it yourself with the Acts of Synod 2018, where the chasm between the two theologies can be most clearly seen. Synod examined and condemned sermons that taught the works principle of man’s conscious experience of salvation. The sermons taught, “We do good works so that we can receive God’s grace and Holy Spirit in our consciousness. So that we can consciously and with awareness receive the grace and Holy Spirit of God” (62). “Obedience is required here, obedience that I must perform in order to enjoy fellowship with God” (64). “If we but meet these requirements a little bit, by the grace of God, of course, and by God’s grace working them in us—if we meet these requirements but a little, then we will enjoy a little of God’s fellowship. That’s the truth. If we meet these requirements a lot, then we will enjoy much of God’s fellowship” (65). “We look at our good works in the same way. Never of any value to make me be declared righteous before God, but always of help in finding and maintaining assurance that God has justified me through Christ and Christ alone” (68).

Over against the works principle of those sermons, an appellant to Synod 2018 maintained the grace principle of man’s conscious experience of salvation. “The main teaching…that I object to is the concept that our obedience is a condition that we must perform in order to experience the fellowship of God. I consider this theology to be that of a conditional covenant” (103). “I believe that because the basis of our experience of the fellowship and covenant of God is Christ alone and His work alone, that makes the sole means to that fellowship be faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. I believe the fruit of God’s work of grace in us bringing us into His fellowship is obedience. In that covenant fellowship there will be and must be obedience therefore, but that obedience does not bring us into that experience of the fellowship of God because that obedience is the fruit of that gift and is only fruit” (103). “So the essential question that needs to be answered is this: Is our experience of the covenant conditional or not? Everything else in my protest hinges on that question” (103–4).

Synod agreed with and upheld the appellant, declaring, “The doctrinal error [of the sermons] is that the believer’s good works are given a place and function that is out of harmony with the Reformed confessions” (61). “The doctrinal error of the sermons then compromises the gospel of Jesus Christ, for when our good works are given a place and function they do not have, the perfect work of Christ is displaced. Necessarily then, the doctrines of the unconditional covenant (fellowship with God) and justification by faith alone are compromised by this error” (70).

This, then, has been the recent controversy in the Protestant Reformed Churches. On one side, the heresy that a works principle governs man’s experience of salvation. On the other side, the biblical and Reformed truth that a grace principle governs man’s experience of salvation.

Next time, we will examine the current status of this controversy in the Protestant Reformed Churches, sketching the two main phases of the controversy: the events leading up to Synod 2018 and the aftermath of Synod 2018.