Introduction

Throughout the summer and fall, these editorials have been explaining the present controversy in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). The controversy is whether the believer’s fellowship with God is by works or by grace. Or, as these editorials have put it, the controversy is whether a grace principle or a works principle governs the believer’s conscious experience of salvation and fellowship with God. 

In the last regular issue, I began to lay out the path forward for the PRC to come to the end of our controversy and to be united in the truth. The first calling is for the churches officially to instruct their members in synod’s decisions regarding the controversy. The churches’ work is not finished when synod has made a decision regarding doctrine. That decision must yet be brought to the churches for their confirmation and establishment in the faith. This is the pattern given to us by the Holy Spirit following the Jerusalem council. 

22. Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren:

23. And they wrote letters by them after this manner…

30. So when they were dismissed, they came to Antioch: and when they had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the epistle:

31. Which when they had read, they rejoiced for the consolation.

32. And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words, and confirmed them.

33. And after they had tarried there a space, they were let go in peace from the brethren unto the apostles.

4. And as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem.

5. And so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily.

(Acts 15:22–23, 30–33; 16:4–5)

There is plenty of instruction possible, for our present controversy has come to five synods since 2016. If consistories want to begin with only one synod, they could profitably bring to their members Synod 2018, which dealt extensively with many of the threads of the controversy.

The second calling, which can be pursued right alongside the first, is that the churches fight against our own lie, which means fighting against our own selves. In order to finish the controversy, we must engage in the controversy. In order to come to the end of our fight, we must not stop fighting but fight harder. This calling to engage in internal polemics stands over against the idea that peace will be found through silence. Jesus Christ is our peace, and the lie has no place with him. Peace in the churches will not be achieved by finding a way for the grace principle and the works principle to live in silent harmony in the churches, but by the grace principle driving out the works principle. If anyone has been under the impression that it is gossip to discuss the controversy or that it is schismatic to speak against our own doctrinal errors where and when they appear, then remember how publicly the prophets and apostles spoke against false doctrine. It is not gossip or schism to speak about our own errors, to discuss them with family and friends on the phone and over coffee, to condemn them in the strongest terms, to abhor them, and to glory in the truth over against them. Our calling over against our error is not to keep silent but to fight with might and main for the faith. Our calling is earnestly to contend for the faith: “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3).

In the last editorial, I promised to turn our attention to the ways that we have minimized our doctrinal error as churches. In the meantime, Rev. Nathan Langerak has taken up that argument powerfully in his defense of Sword and Shield, which article occurs elsewhere in this issue. I highly recommend that article to our readership, with the prayer that God may use it to open our eyes to the danger in our churches and to the necessity of Sword and Shield.

In this editorial I continue to lay out the way forward for the Protestant Reformed Churches.

 

Repent

The way forward for the Protestant Reformed Churches is repentance. Let all of the members of the PRC, all of the officebearers, all of the men and women, the young and the old, hear this call: Repent.

Repent!

We are a denomination that has compromised the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are a denomination that has displaced the perfect work of Christ. We are a denomination that has compromised the truth of the unconditional covenant. We are a denomination that has compromised the truth of justification by faith alone. 

Do we know this? Do we believe this? We compromised the truth of justification by faith alone! False churches compromise the truth of justification by faith alone. Rome compromises the truth of justification by faith alone. And the Protestant Reformed Churches compromised the truth of justification by faith alone.

Repent!

Our compromise of the gospel was sin. Among other sins, it was the sin of lying, for we took the beautiful truth of Jesus Christ and his perfect work and twisted it into the grotesque lie of man’s works obtaining gifts from God. By teaching, defending, and tolerating this lie for years, the PRC did what God accused the prophets of Jerusalem of doing: walking in lies (Jer. 23:14).

De we know this? Do we believe this? The PRC walked in lies! The lie of false doctrine is a disgusting sin. God calls it spiritual adultery (v. 14). Even in our sex-saturated and divorce-riddled culture, we still find adultery to be a gross sin. This is how gross false doctrine is to God. Even more, God says regarding the lying prophets of Jerusalem and all whose wicked hands were strengthened by them that “they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah” (v. 14). How revolting were the homosexuals of Sodom, who were so filled with Sodomite lust that even after the angels struck them with blindness, they still wearied themselves to find Lot’s door so that they could force themselves on his guests. This is how revolting the teachers of false doctrine and the pupils of false doctrine are to God. And the PRC taught and learned false doctrine.

Repent!

Our compromise of the gospel was a sin of the entire denomination and not merely of a few individuals. It was a sin of the denomination through the official decisions of classis, which, among other things, defended false doctrine by not sustaining appeals against that doctrine, adopted false doctrine by approving the work of the committee that wrote the doctrinal statement, and lied about an appellant by falsifying her words. 

Our compromise of the gospel was also a sin of the denomination through the attitude of many toward the controversy. Many dismissed the controversy as a clash of personalities or as a Grand Rapids problem that didn’t affect anyone else or as a debate merely about words. The gospel was at stake for the entire denomination, but many of us yawned it off as no big deal.

Our compromise of the gospel was also a sin of the denomination through the awful leadership of our ministers, elders, and professors. This is not any disrespect to our officebearers, who are appointed of God to their offices. This is simply a recognition of the fact that we officebearers did not lead the sheep well through this controversy. We who are watchmen were slow to recognize the danger, we were too often silent when the danger was identified, and we often played the part of the enemy by promoting and defending the lie and the liars. In fact, it is not impossible that some of the officebearers in the PRC through this controversy are actually wolves themselves, who have spoken perverse things against the truth of the gospel to draw away disciples after them. Don’t be shocked that this might be the case, for Christ’s apostle told us it would happen. In a life-and-death battle for the gospel of Jesus Christ, it behooves us as a denomination to be on the lookout for wolves in our midst.

28. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

29. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.

30. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

31. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

32. And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. (Acts 20:28–32)

Our compromise of the gospel was also a sin of the denomination through our wicked assumption that the protestants and appellants in the controversy were troublemakers. To this day, men and women in the PRC hate those humble saints who took a stand for the truth. Even after these protestants and appellants have been proven right, and even after God used them to preserve the gospel among us, men and women still speak of these protestants only to revile them and to tell the most slanderous stories about them. You protestants and appellants who have been reviled by the PRC for your defense of the gospel, you are blessed. Our Lord himself said so: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matt. 5:11–12). But we Protestant Reformed members who have both secretly and openly reviled the protestants, we are not blessed. We have murdered God’s people in our hearts and with our tongues. Our land is full of their blood, and our house is ripe for the judgment of God. “Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not. And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head” (Ezek. 9:9–10).

Do we know this? Do we believe this? As a body of churches united in a denomination, we share corporate responsibility for our compromise of the gospel. There may be no excuse by an individual that the controversy has nothing to do with him. Let the man who makes such an excuse reproach himself and be ashamed. Let him ask himself how his love for the gospel could be so cold that when the gospel was compromised in his own denomination, he said, “But that has nothing to do with me.” Let him ask himself how his love for his God and his brethren could be so cold that when men were compromising the gospel to their own destruction, he said, “But that is their problem, for I’ve always believed the right thing.”

Repent!

What is this repentance for our sin of compromising the gospel? It is to hear and to receive the rebuke of God’s word against our sin as a sword-thrust through our hearts. When we read in the Acts of Synod 2018 that “Classis East failed to deal with doctrinal error” (61), that is a rebuke to every single member of the PRC. On the basis of God’s truth, synod speaks through the months and years to us as we sit here today and says, “You did this!” Repentance is to hear that rebuke and to be pricked in our hearts (Acts 2:37). Repentance is to hear that rebuke and to be exposed by it, to be searched out and opened up by it (Ps. 139:23–24). Repentance is to hear that rebuke and to be pierced and divided by the word, even to the discerning of the thoughts and intents of our hearts (Heb. 4:12).

Being pricked by the rebuke of God’s word, we sorrow after a godly sort and are sorry after a godly manner (2 Cor. 7:9, 11). We cry and weep, though not with the empty sorrow and tears of the world, which are selfish and vain. Rather, we sorrow that we have sinned against our God. We compromised his gospel! How dare we! We displaced the perfect work of his Christ! How dare we! We compromised the truth of the unconditional covenant and justification by faith alone, both of which are rooted in the cross of his Son! How dare we! We have sinned, and we have sinned against our God! “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight” (Ps. 51:4).

Do we know this? Do we believe this? Our repentance as a denomination must be holy sorrow and must not be accompanied by a rickety wheelbarrow full of holey excuses. Repentance is defenseless, not defensive. Repentance says, “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me” (v. 3). Repentance does not say, “For I acknowledge my transgressions, but in my defense…” Excuses dull the heart of the child of God and dampen his spiritual sensitivity. Excuses steal the word away from the child of God, which word exposes him for his profit, and replace the word with man’s own earthly reasoning, which reasoning self-justifies him unto his destruction. A Reformed denomination that has walked in lies cannot hide her shame under the rotten rags of her excuses, for her rags are full of holes. Members of the Protestant Reformed Churches, rend your hearts.

Repent!

Away with the excuse that the protests and appeals were too long. After Classis East had failed to deal with doctrinal error, thus defending and tolerating the compromising of the gospel; after Classis East itself had displaced the perfect work of Christ by its doctrinal statement; and while an appeal against the heresy of Classis East was coming to Synod 2018; the popular mind of the PRC, as represented in the Standard Bearer, could only be roused to say this about it all:

Also at Synod are four protests of statements or actions of the Synod of 2017, and an appeal of a decision of a classis. These protests make up 264 pages of the 427-page agenda. Synod may be forced to appoint a study committee to address the problem of ballooning protests and appeals. There is no good reason that protests or appeals should number in the scores, much less hundreds of pages. All consistories are willing in good faith to assist members so that they can bring the clearest, most precise protest/appeal with all the supporting documents needed. It is positively detrimental to overload the ecclesiastical assemblies with a mountain of documents. To put it into perspective, how many of us recently picked up a book of 427 pages, and not only read it in a month, but studied it in order to be qualified to discuss and make decisions on its content? That is what we are asking all the delegates to synod to do. (Russell Dykstra, “PRC Synod 2018, Agenda,” Standard Bearer 94, no. 16 [May 15, 2018]: 367)

While the denomination was actively walking in lies! While the denomination was busy selling its Reformed heritage of sound doctrine for the sickly poison of salvation by works! And what were we revolted by? Not by the error! Not by that false doctrine that stank of the brimstone of the pit! No, we were revolted that the documents were too long. And so important did we consider that point that it was the one and only thing that we could say about all of the controversial material coming to Synod 2018. But true repentance does not and will not cast blame on the protestants’ documents.

Repent!

Away with the excuse that the doctrines were too deep. After Synod 2018 had condemned the lie and had set forth the truth, a popular explanation of the doctrinal issue included this:

Let it be stated at the outset—these are some deep theological waters, for many of the terms in the controversy have not been defined in Protestant Reformed theology or even discussed in the Reformed confessions. The experience of covenant fellowship? The enjoyment of covenant fellowship? Are these the same as simply “covenant fellowship”? How is our experience of or enjoyment of fellowship with God related to a life of obedience? (Russell Dykstra, “Synod 2018: Obedience and Covenant Fellowship,” Standard Bearer 94, no. 18 [July 2018]: 415)

Whatever theological questions may have been raised in the course of the controversy, the heart of the issue was as simple and as clear as could be: Is fellowship with God by works or by grace? I daresay most elementary school children in the denomination could answer without hesitation: “By grace!” The appellant—a housewife and mother in Israel—understood the controversy in its simplest terms from the beginning: “So the essential question that needs to be answered is this: Is our experience of the covenant conditional or not?” (Acts 2018, 103–4). It should be instinctive for members of the Protestant Reformed Churches to answer that question, “No! Nothing about the covenant is conditional!” The problem in the controversy is not that the doctrines are too deep to understand. Oh, yes, certainly, it is necessary to study, to read, to analyze, to meditate, to pray. Even the simplest theology cannot very well be digested and comprehended during commercials between innings. But the doctrinal issue itself is the ABC’s of the gospel and the 123’s of the covenant: Fellowship with God is by grace and is unconditional. For us to say, after the fact, that we compromised the gospel because the theology was so deep is just an excuse, and a rather silly one at that. The controversy did not reveal that the theology is too deep, but that our denomination is too shallow. Beware lest we fall into a puddle and drown.

Repent!

Away with the excuse that the decisions of Synod 2018 constitute the repentance of the Protestant Reformed Churches. This is perhaps the most popular of all our excuses. When someone calls for the PRC to repent of our false doctrine, almost immediately someone else calls back, “But we already did that. Synod 2018 corrected the error, and now it is finished.” It is true that God gave the PRC a marvelous victory of the truth over the lie at Synod 2018. It is true that Synod 2018 set forth true doctrine over against the false doctrine that had infected the PRC. But as important and good as synod’s decision was, synod’s decision is not repentance. Your repentance and mine does not happen on the pages of synod’s paper but in our hearts. Repentance is a piercing and pricking and exposing and dividing and rending of our hearts. Repentance is sorrowing and prostrating and confessing in our hearts. 

Not only that, but when a denomination compromises the gospel with such vigor for so long, she has a serious spiritual problem. She does not compromise the gospel out of the blue, but her compromise of the gospel is a symptom of an existing spiritual problem. What is our existing problem in the PRC? Is it that we have lost our first love (Rev. 2:4) and that we received not the love of the truth (2 Thess. 2:10)? That would explain the strong delusion sent upon us, that we should believe a lie (v. 11). Is it that our denomination has grown tired of being hated of all men for Jesus’ name’s sake (Matt. 10:22) and that we are finally ready for all men to speak well of us (Luke 6:26)? That would explain our toleration of false prophets (Luke 6:26). Is it that our hearts are waxen fat with the pleasures of this earth (Deut. 31:20; 32:15)? That would explain why we forsook God who made us and lightly esteemed the Rock of our salvation by displacing his perfect work (Deut. 32:15). What is it with you and with me? What is it with our denomination? Don’t point to Synod 2018 as the end of the matter, but as the beginning of our spiritual self-examination and repentance.

Not only that, but it is possible for a denomination to have a right decision without living up to that decision. She makes her decision more or less because she feels she has to, but she immediately moves on from her decision as though it were a distraction from the real problem that she imagines in the churches. From the very beginning of our controversy, there were Protestant Reformed men proposing that our real problem in the PRC is antinomianism. These men were rebuffed time and again at synods. These men could not move on fast enough from Synod 2018. Now let the PRC listen and read. You will hear once again men gnashing their teeth on supposed antinomians. A new project in the PRC is getting underway to hunt antinomians, which is just the continuation of the old project that was interrupted for a spell by synod. That project reveals impenitence and unbelief with regard to the gospel. Don’t point to Synod 2018 as the end of the matter, but live up to that decision as the revelation of the true doctrinal error in the PRC. Not antinomianism but works righteousness.

Repent!

The repentance of the PRC will show itself. Repentance is always manifest in the actions of the penitent child of God. He does not have to be dragged to repent, step by step, sullen and recalcitrant all the while. He does not take umbrage at one who rebukes his sin. He does not respond to a rebuke with the observation that his rebuker has sin as well. When he does repent, he does not merely say a few words and shed a few tears, which are easy, and then carry on with his sin, which is easier. He does not repent as a ploy to make a counter-charge against another, playing the game of, “Here’s my apology; now where’s yours?” Rather, he is grieved by his sin and ashamed of his sin; he bemoans his sin; and he turns from his sin. An onlooker does not even have cause to wonder whether the penitent child of God is truly sorry, for the repentant sinner leads the charge against his own sin. Christ’s apostle describes it thus:

9. Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.

10. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

11. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter. (2 Cor. 7:9–11)

To illustrate this, imagine that the PRC had fallen into the false doctrine of evolution. Imagine that a Protestant Reformed minister taught evolution repeatedly in sermons, that consistories and a classis defended and tolerated those sermons, that a classis wrote a doctrinal statement that also taught evolution, and that finally a synod declared that evolution was a doctrinal error that was out of harmony with the confessions. What would the response of the PRC be to such a decision? Would we draw fine distinctions between error, false doctrine, and heresy and try to fit evolution into one box but not the others? Would we declare that, although the doctrinal error was out of harmony with the confessions, it did not contradict the confessions? Would we allow the minister to teach evolution again, and then start the whole process of defending and tolerating his errors all over again? Would we allow the men who wrote the doctrinal statement in favor of evolution and the men of the classis that approved such a thing to melt away into the background, only for them to reappear as church visitors and presidents of synods? And on the other hand would we badger and hound and finally kill the servants who called us to repentance? If we did all of that, we should not be surprised if an onlooker would conclude that our denomination was not repentant for our sin of false doctrine. We should not be surprised if an onlooker would conclude that we had uncircumcised ears (Jer. 6:10), that we had hard and impenitent hearts (Rev. 2:5), and that we were a spiritually adulterous denomination: “Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness” (Prov. 30:20).

However, if we were truly repentant, we would be filled with zeal and indignation against ourselves. An onlooker would not even have time to tell us how to rid ourselves of the error of evolution, for we would be exacting godly revenge against ourselves in holy fear. We would be deposing officebearers who taught and defended evolution. We would be insisting on the preaching and teaching of the truth of creation. We would be clamoring for our seminary and our magazines to teach us the truth and to condemn the lie. We would probably even start a new magazine that would have a special interest in the controversy. Pierced with the rebuke of our sin, sorry before God for our transgression, we would bring forth fruits meet for repentance (Matt. 3:8).

Which of those scenarios best describes the Protestant Reformed Churches, five years into our actual controversy?

Repent!

Let everyone hear this call: Repent.

And let everyone that has been pierced by the word and brought by God to smite upon his thigh in sorrow for his sin be bound up with the balm of his Savior:

28. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

29. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

30. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matt. 11:28–30)