Introduction

The series of editorials, “Our Present Controversy,” has laid out the doctrinal controversy in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). The editorials have identified the doctrinal issue in the controversy: whether man enjoys covenant fellowship with God by grace or by works (July and August 2020). The editorials have identified the current state of the controversy, the importance of the doctrinal decisions of Synod 2018, and the ongoing threat to the PRC of the lie through the minimization of the error and the continuation of it (September 1 and October 2020). The editorials have also laid out the path for the PRC to rid herself of the lie and to come to blessed unity in the truth. This includes official instruction in the doctrinal controversy by consistories and vigorous polemics against the error (December 1, 2020), repentance by the leaders and members of the denomination for teaching, defending, and tolerating the lie (January 1, 2021), and the deliberate and explicit preaching of the controversy by Protestant Reformed ministers in their pulpits (February 2021).

Along the way these editorials have sought to instruct and warn the readership of Sword and Shield of the life and death seriousness of the lie that has infiltrated the PRC. The editorials have not minced words in identifying the lie as an error out of hell that stinks of the devil’s foul breath. The editorials have also sought to instruct and warn the readership of the life and death seriousness of eradicating the lie and standing for the truth in the PRC. The present controversy in the denomination is not a game; it is not a matter of misspeaking and misunderstanding; it is not a vain clash of personalities. Rather, the controversy is the devil’s all-out assault against the church of Jesus Christ, which assault aims at the utter destruction of the Protestant Reformed denomination. The devil’s current assault against the PRC takes the most deadly form of his warfare against the church: false doctrine. The devil is a master deceiver; there is no truth in him, and he is a liar and the father of the lie (John 8:44). He comes twisting the truth a little here and a little there to deceive God’s people, so that the people think everything is as it always was, while in reality the people are being taught the most monstrous perversions of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When the devil’s deceptions are finally pointed out and identified, the devil goes to work to convince the church that the perversions of the gospel were not that serious and that they certainly were not the biggest threat in the controversy. Through the leadership of the churches, the devil teaches that the biggest threat in the controversy is that people become suspicious of their leaders in the church. The denomination then mobilizes to preserve the empty reputations of men, thinking that by doing so it is doing God service. Meanwhile, the devil’s lie continues to be woven more and more into the fabric of the denomination’s thinking and teaching. But the people have been taught not to notice the lie and certainly not to say anything about it, lest they damage the names of the ministers, professors, and elders in the church who teach it and defend it.

In pointing out the deadly seriousness of the lie and the controversy, these editorials have brought hard words of reproof and rebuke against the PRC, including the warning that toleration of the lie will cause the denomination to be consumed by the lie and eventually to be destroyed by it. The editorials have been as clear and as sharp as this writer knows how to be. If anyone in the denomination is yet ignorant of the lie that threatens the PRC; if anyone in the denomination yet denies that such a lie existed or that it now exists; if anyone in the denomination yet believes the lie or is willing to excuse it or tolerate it as a minor matter; then when the denomination perishes in her generations someday for her unbelief and hardness of heart, the blood of the members and their children will be on their own heads. “Whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head” (Ezek. 33:4).

 

Christian Discipline

In this editorial I now come to the conclusion of the series, “Our Present Controversy.” There is one matter yet that belongs to the path forward for the Protestant Reformed Churches. That matter is the exercise of Christian discipline against the teachers and defenders of the lie.

When the church of Jesus Christ identifies false doctrine in her midst, it is her solemn, holy, and urgent duty to discipline the officebearers who taught and / or defended the false doctrine. The discipline that must be exercised is twofold.

First, the church must discipline the men with regard to their office in the church. By an official decision of the church through her consistory, the church must depose the officebearers, which deposition takes away the office of ministry of the gospel from the ministers and professors in the seminary and the office of elder from the elders in the consistory. The result of such discipline would be that the man who formerly was a minister is no longer a minister but a lay member of the church, and the man who formerly was an elder is no longer an elder. Such discipline with regard to a man’s office can take place whether or not the man repents of his false doctrine. By his false doctrine he has made himself untrustworthy and unfit to hold office in the church. By his false doctrine he has spoken perverse things that draw disciples away from Christ and unto man and thus has behaved as a wolf and not an undershepherd among the flock (Acts 20:28–30). He must repent, but even if he does, he cannot again be entrusted with the care of the souls of Christ’s sheep in the church.

Second, the church must discipline the men who taught false doctrine with regard to their membership in the church. That is, the false teacher would be barred from the Lord’s supper and ultimately would be entirely excommunicated from the church. This discipline would be a testimony that the man is outside the kingdom of Jesus Christ and has no part with Christ or Christ’s salvation. Such discipline with regard to a man’s membership would take place only upon the impenitence of the man. If the man would repent of his sin by God’s grace, he would be readmitted to the Lord’s table and would not be expelled from the church. He would be a member in good standing with all of the rights and privileges and obligations of church membership. The only right and privilege he would lose permanently would be that of holding special office in the church, but his membership in the body of Christ would have been graciously preserved by his Lord.

Christian discipline must be exercised against the teachers of false doctrine. False doctrine is teaching that is contrary to the sound doctrine of scripture as that sound doctrine is set forth in the creeds and confessions of the church. Perhaps the false doctrine is present in all of a man’s preaching and writing. Perhaps the false doctrine is present only in a single sermon or a single article. Perhaps the false doctrine is present only in a single sentence or two. Perhaps the false doctrine was even an honest mistake due to a slip of the tongue or a momentary lapse in judgment. Especially when the churches are in the midst of doctrinal controversy, false doctrine in a single sentence or two can be all the more damaging, since it will be seen as unreasonable and harsh for anyone to take issue with it. The offending sentence sits there daring anyone to object, thus forcing many to become complicit in its error by their silence. But all false doctrine must be taken in hand by the church, and the teachers and defenders of it must be confronted. And all men who continually repeat the error, or who repeatedly defend the error, or who repeatedly refuse to acknowledge the heretical character of the error, must be disciplined by the church.

Christian discipline must be exercised against both the teachers and the defenders of false doctrine. The minister, professor, or elder who teaches false doctrine must be deposed and barred from the Lord’s supper. But also the elders in the consistory who defend the teacher and his teaching by their official decisions must be deposed from office and suspended from the Lord’s supper. This is the implication of the Formula of Subscription vow that every officebearer makes upon his ordination into office.

We promise therefore diligently to teach and faithfully to defend the aforesaid doctrine, without either directly or indirectly contradicting the same, by our public preaching or writing.

We declare, moreover, that we not only reject all errors that militate against this doctrine, and particularly those which were condemned by the above mentioned synod, but that we are disposed to refute and contradict these, and to exert ourselves in keeping the church free from such errors. (Confessions and Church Order, 326)

The elder who defends a minister who speaks false doctrine has violated his vow. That elder has not faithfully defended sound Reformed doctrine; he has not rejected the error in his own ecclesiastical house that militated against sound Reformed doctrine; and he has not refuted or contradicted the error when it appeared. By such a spectacular breaking of his vow, the defender of the false doctrine is also worthy of Christian discipline.

How serious a matter is false doctrine in the church! Not only the teacher who introduces it but also all those who become entangled in defending it make themselves the proper objects of Christian discipline. And how difficult it is to eradicate false doctrine once it has been introduced and tolerated even for the briefest time! In almost no time at all, there are many who have given their voices and their backing to the teacher of the error, so that it becomes an almost unthinkable task for the church to clear herself of the error through the discipline of so many.

 

The Requirement of Scripture and the Confessions

Scripture teaches the necessity of Christian discipline against officebearers who teach and defend false doctrine. In the Old Testament this discipline was carried out by slaying the false prophets. After Jehovah’s demonstration on Mount Carmel that he is the true God and that Baal is a lie, Elijah commanded that the 450 prophets of Baal be killed. “Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there” (1 Kings 18:40).

Elijah slew the prophets of Baal in obedience to the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 13:1–5 regarding false prophets.

1. If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,

2. And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; 

3. Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

4. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.

5. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

The killing of the false prophet was the Old Testament picture of the spiritual reality that God cuts off the speech of the false prophet from among his people and thus cuts off that prophet’s influence among God’s people. By slaying the false prophet, Jehovah ensured that the false prophet would no longer speak to God’s people and thus deceive them. The church cuts off the false prophet and his influence today by deposing the officebearer, thus taking away his speaking and teaching among the people of God.

The killing of the false prophet was also the Old Testament picture of the spiritual reality that God condemns the false prophet and punishes him with eternal death in hell. The church condemns the false prophet today by excommunication from the Christian church, which is the testimony that the impenitent man is outside the kingdom of heaven and under the curse of God.

Also in the New Testament, God teaches the necessity of Christian discipline against the teachers and defenders of false doctrine. The churches in Galatia were bewitched by the doctrinal error of the Judaizers. The Judaizers taught that a man is saved by Christ and by keeping the law. They presented their doctrine as the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul exposed their doctrine as a false gospel and as a perversion of the gospel of Christ (Gal. 1:7). Paul pronounced a scathing anathema on the Judaizers for their false doctrine. “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (vv. 8–9).

What Paul said about the false teacher, “Let him be accursed,” means the same thing spiritually as what Moses said, “That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death” (Deut. 13:5). Paul did not call for the physical killing of the false teacher, as Moses called for the physical killing of the false prophet. In the New Testament the types and shadows of the Old Testament are done away, including the physical killing of false prophets. Nevertheless, the spiritual reality remains. The church fulfills Paul’s anathema by disciplining the false teacher in the New Testament church. By the officebearer’s deposition from office and by his excommunication from the Christian church, he is accursed. God himself executes the full measure of that anathema by his destruction of the impenitent false teacher in his everlasting curse in hell, just as God in the Old Testament executed the full measure of the false prophet’s death by laying God’s eternal curse upon the man.

The Reformed confessions also teach the necessity of Christian discipline against the teachers and defenders of false doctrine. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches what is to be done with those who “under the name of Christians maintain doctrines…inconsistent” with Christianity.

Q. 85. How is the kingdom of heaven shut and opened by Christian discipline?

A. Thus: when according to the command of Christ, those who under the name of Christians maintain doctrines, or practices inconsistent therewith, and will not, after having been often brotherly admonished, renounce their errors and wicked course of life, are complained of to the church, or to those who are thereunto appointed by the church; and if they despise their admonition, are by them forbidden the use of the sacraments, whereby they are excluded from the Christian church, and by God Himself from the kingdom of Christ; and when they promise and show real amendment, are again received as members of Christ and His church. (Confessions and Church Order, 119)

The Reformed Church Order also teaches the necessity of Christian discipline against the teachers and defenders of false doctrine. The Church Order’s instruction is especially striking in that it lists false doctrine or heresy as the first gross sin that is worthy of being punished with deposition. Also noteworthy in the Church Order is the fact that Christian discipline of officebearers is not given as an option for the church to take or leave as she sees fit. Rather, the officebearer who has committed the sin of false doctrine must be suspended and deposed.

Article 79. When ministers of the divine Word, elders, or deacons have committed any public, gross sin which is a disgrace to the church or worthy of punishment by the authorities, the elders and deacons shall immediately, by preceding sentence of the consistory thereof and of the nearest Church, be suspended or expelled from their office, but the ministers shall only be suspended. Whether these shall be entirely deposed from office shall be subject to the judgment of the classis, with the advice of the delegates of the synod mentioned in Article 11.

Article 80. Furthermore, among the gross sins which are worthy of being punished with suspension or deposition from office, these are the principal ones: false doctrine or heresy, public schism, public blasphemy, simony, faithless desertion of office or intrusion upon that of another, perjury, adultery, fornication, theft, acts of violence, habitual drunkenness, brawling, filthy lucre; in short, all sins and gross offenses as render the perpetrators infamous before the world, and which in any private member of the church would be considered worthy of excommunication. (Confessions and Church Order, 402–3)

 

The Purpose

The purpose of the discipline of the teachers and defenders of false doctrine is the protection of Christ’s sheep from the insidious lie. The flock of Christ is vulnerable to the lie. The devil cloaks the lie in religious and orthodox language, calling his perversion of the gospel the true gospel (Gal. 1:7). The devil is subtle and beguiling, making the simple gospel confusing by his corruption of it. Satan’s servants transform themselves into the apostles of Christ and ministers of righteousness, following the lead of their master, Satan, who himself is transformed into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:13–15). God’s people have a hard time distinguishing these deceitful workers from true ministers of the gospel, with the result that God’s people are willing to bear a long time with him who preaches another Jesus than the true Jesus and with him who preaches another gospel than the true apostolic gospel (v. 4). The apostle Paul feared that while God’s people bore with the false teacher, their “minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (v. 3).

Jesus himself taught that the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees was leaven (Matt. 16:6–12). Just as leaven works unseen and undetected in the lump of dough, fermenting and fizzing away until the whole lump is permeated by the leaven, so false doctrine works unseen and undetected in the church. The false doctrine seems so innocent, especially when it is constantly anointed with the language of grace. The teachers and defenders of the false doctrine are likable men whom we have known our whole lives and who have even been spiritually profitable to us, so how could they be wrong? Meanwhile, the false doctrine fizzes and fizzes and fizzes its influence into the church. Imperceptibly it leavens the thinking of the members, so that they become confused and can no longer distinguish the truth from the lie. Subtly it leavens the sermons in the churches, so that the emphases of the preaching are man and his doing rather than the sound doctrine of the apostolic gospel of Jesus Christ and the Reformed faith. “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (v. 6)!

God warned Israel that the prophet who speaks false doctrine turns God’s people away from God. “He hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in” (Deut. 13:5). The result of the prophet’s teaching false doctrine will be that your own family members desire that false doctrine, which is to worship at the altar of strange gods.

6. If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; 

7. Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

8. Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him. 

How dangerous is false doctrine to the church! What a threat it is! How seductive, how appealing, how deceiving, how subtle, how imperceptible—and how deadly! Once it is introduced, it is almost already then too late! What shall the church do in the face of such a deadly menace? This: “That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death…So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee” (v. 5). And this: “Ministers of the divine Word, elders, or deacons” shall be “punished with suspension or deposition from office” (Church Order 79–80).

The Christian discipline of the teachers and defenders of false doctrine protects the flock from the lie. The discipline of the hireling heralds to every sheep in the fold that they are not to heed the doctrine of that teacher. By removing the false teacher, the church removes the false teaching that comes from his mouth.

Failure to discipline the teachers and defenders of false doctrine destroys the flock by the lie. The teachers remain among the flock, sowing their subtle and deceitful lie, which lie is deadly poison to the flock. The flock is even taught to be fiercely loyal to the hireling and to defend the hireling from the Shepherd’s rebuke, while all throughout the flock the sheep and the lambs slowly weaken and eventually begin to choke to death on the lie.

How necessary is Christian discipline against the teachers and defenders of false doctrine in Christ’s church!

 

The Present Controversy

Perhaps here more than anywhere else, the Protestant Reformed Churches have utterly failed in their present controversy. I do not write this with any relish but with profound grief and distress that renders me almost insensible. There has been no discipline of any sort against the teachers and defenders of false doctrine within the denomination. There has certainly been false doctrine in the PRC, as these editorials have demonstrated, but there has been no discipline whatsoever against it. The closest that the churches came to discipline was when Synod 2018 required that the then Rev. David Overway submit to a Formula of Subscription exam on the ground that “the challenged statements in the sermons give ‘sufficient grounds of suspicion’ of his ‘uniformity and purity of doctrine’ requiring a ‘further explanation of [his] sentiments’ as required by the Formula of Subscription” (Acts of Synod 2018, 84).

Even then, with the Formula of Subscription exam looming, the churches were instructed that the minister was not guilty of heresy and that he was not being disciplined. “Synod did not declare this error to be heresy. Synod did not state that this teaching denies the unconditional covenant or justification by faith alone. The minister will be examined, but he is not suspended” (Russell Dykstra, “Synod 2018: Obedience and Covenant Fellowship,” Standard Bearer 94 [July 2018]: 415).

When the minister later that same year preached the same false doctrine again, the churches still flatly refused to discipline the minister. Under duress from protests and appeals from God’s people, the denomination finally accepted his resignation under article 12 of the Church Order, which has nothing to do with Christian discipline, but she refused to depose the minister under articles 79 and 80. For at least five years the minister had taught false doctrine in Christ’s church, and for all of those years, the church through her leadership had refused to discipline him. How far the denomination has fallen from the word of God, which requires: “That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death” (Deut. 13:5).

Nevertheless, there is something for the members of the Protestant Reformed Churches to learn from the denomination’s refusal to discipline for false doctrine. There is a direct connection between Christian discipline and sound doctrine. Christian discipline reveals what a denomination thinks about her doctrine and about her doctrinal decisions. If a church loves sound doctrine and is convicted of her doctrinal pronouncements, then she cannot and will not tolerate deviation from that doctrine. In love for the truth as it is in Jesus, which truth is the very name of God himself, the church defends that doctrine against the lie and against all false teachers. When the lie springs up in her midst, she abominates it and removes the teacher so that the lie will not continue among her. She leaps to obey this word of God: “That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God” (Deut. 13:5).

If a church does not love sound doctrine and has contempt for the name of God and his truth, then she can tolerate false teachers for years and years. The false teachers do not bother her, and she gladly bears with them. She esteems men and instinctively protects their honor at the expense of the truth. Even when the denomination can be brought to condemn the error of the false teachers, largely through the work of the spiritual element in the churches that does indeed abominate the error, the denomination still finds reason to protect the false teachers in her midst. She not only fails to discipline them but also positively refuses to do so. God’s truth and God’s name are less important to her than the honor of the men she defends.

What does the state of Christian discipline in the PRC reveal about her attitude toward sound doctrine? Synod 2018 took doctrinal decisions. Synod 2018 identified “doctrinal error” and such doctrinal error as is astounding and monstrous to be found in a Reformed church. Synod 2018 took pains to state the doctrinal error: “The doctrinal error is that the believer’s good works are given a place and function that is out of harmony with the Reformed confessions” (Acts of Synod 2018, 61). Synod 2018 spelled out the spiritually disgusting nature of the doctrinal error: “compromises the gospel of Jesus Christ”; “the perfect work of Christ is displaced”; “the doctrines of the unconditional covenant (fellowship with God) and justification by faith alone are compromised by this error” (70). That is such strong language that both the ears of every Reformed man tingle when he hears it. Such were the doctrinal decisions of the Protestant Reformed Churches.

Now, a denomination that agreed with its doctrinal pronouncements and that loved the truth over against the lie would demonstrate its love and agreement by its application of Christian discipline to teachers and defenders of the lie. How could she not? How could a denomination declare that sermons in a congregation and the doctrinal statement of a classis compromised the gospel and yet fail to depose the ministers who preached that error, wrote that error, and defended that error? Compromise of the gospel is intolerable to a Reformed denomination! Compromise of justification by faith alone is anathema to a Protestant denomination! Compromise of the unconditional covenant should be heinous to the Protestant Reformed Churches! And displacing the perfect work of Christ? That is monstrous and unthinkable to a Christian! A denomination that believed its doctrinal decisions about the error could not possibly just go on as if nothing had happened. It could not possibly allow the teachers of the error to ascend the pulpit again or to sit in the elders’ bench again. If the denomination would allow this, she would demonstrate that she did not believe her doctrinal decisions and that she had no real use for the sound doctrine that those decisions represented. It would show that she was determined not to abide by sound doctrine or to abide by her doctrinal pronouncements. It would show that she had contempt for God himself, whose truth it is, and whose name, whose Son, and whose truth were blasphemed by the compromise of the gospel.

Yet this is exactly what the PRC did. Not a shred of discipline was administered against the teachers and defenders of the lie. All of them are, or could be, officebearers in good standing in the churches today. What is more, they are the leaders, the church visitors, the synodical delegates, and the classical and synodical officers. By keeping them in office, the denomination reveals its disdain for the truth and its regard for men. The denomination reveals its rebellion and disobedience to the word of God that requires: “That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God” (Deut. 13:5).

Adding sin to sin, the Protestant Reformed Churches not only have neglected to discipline the teachers of false doctrine, but they have also consistently disciplined those officebearers who have stood for the truth over against the lie. Then Elder Neil Meyer first brought the controversy to light in the PRC in 2015 by his protest against the heretical preaching of his minister. His consistory at Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan, responded by deposing him from office and cruelly barring him from the Lord’s table for more than three years. In 2019 Rev. Martin VanderWal and Deacon Craig Ferguson joined several other men in criticizing the Standard Bearer for undermining the theology of Herman Hoeksema. The editors of the magazine responded by bringing formal charges of slander and schism against them to their consistory at Wingham Protestant Reformed Church, with the result that the pastor and the deacon were disciplined by being relieved of their duties. These men have all since been exonerated of the charges against them and are members in good standing in their churches. Most recently, the undersigned was deposed from the ministry of the gospel in Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church for my sermons that rebuked the PRC for her false doctrines and lies and that warned the denomination of the dangers of those errors. The content of the sermons was essentially what has been written in Sword and Shield since its birth last June. Yet the denomination counted those rebukes against her to be the sin of schism and has cast me out. Elder Dewey Engelsma and Elder Bryan Van Baren were also placed under discipline for a time by the consistory of Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church by being relieved of their duties for their objection to my suspension.

How is it that the same denomination that never once disciplined any teacher or defender of false doctrine in more than five years of doctrinal controversy has consistently disciplined those officebearers who opposed the false doctrine in the denomination? The explanation is simple, though it is grievous. By its discipline the denomination shows what it thinks of the truth. By its discipline the denomination shows whether it is for or against sound doctrine. The denomination was and is willing to bear with those who taught another Jesus and another gospel (2 Cor. 11:4). But the denomination will not suffer the reproving, rebuking, and exhorting of sound doctrine against her errors. By this the denomination reveals her contempt for the truth, which is contempt for God, whose truth it is, and for Christ, who is the truth. The truth does not rouse the denomination to vigorous action against the lie. She sees no need to stop the mouths of the liars but can live comfortably with them. But when the truth rebukes her, the denomination is roused to vigorous action to stop the mouths of those servants who bring the truth. She will not endure the reproofs, rebukes, and exhortations of the word of God. By that the Protestant Reformed Churches reveal that the time has come when they will not endure sound doctrine (2 Tim. 4:3).

God is very angry with a denomination that reveals its contempt for the truth by such an approach to discipline. When a church will not contend against her errors through discipline, but instead contends against the defenders of the truth, God himself will come to contend against that church. And his contention will be severe and devastating. “Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city” (Matt. 10:14–15).

 

Conclusion

Is there a path forward yet for the Protestant Reformed Churches in her present controversy? It is the conviction of the undersigned that the Protestant Reformed Churches have been overthrown in their controversy. Especially by their refusal to discipline false teachers and by their persecution of faithful teachers, they have taken on one of the most stark and visible marks of the false church, for the false church has always been infamous for its persecution of the prophets of Jehovah (see Matt. 23:29–39). If any readers are not similarly convicted, then I advise you to take careful note of which officebearers the Protestant Reformed Churches have not disciplined, which officebearers they have disciplined, and which officebearers they shall yet discipline. By observing something as obvious and public as the discipline of officebearers, you will be able to tell what the denomination thinks of the truth. If there is a path forward yet, then the denomination’s turn will be radical and stunning as the denomination puts out those who taught and defended the lie, thus stopping their mouths. But if the denomination continues on its current path of contempt for the truth, that will be obvious as well through the denomination’s stopping the mouths of those officebearers who rebuke her for her errors.

Whatever the case, this is no time to sit back but to watch and read and study. The life of a denomination is at stake, as are your lives and those of your generations.

“Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:26–27).