Dear Forum and Terry,

Someone has brought to my attention the lecture of Andy Lanning (hereafter AL) criticizing my e-mails explaining James 4 and by implication Malachi 3.

I attach this e-mail to an earlier e-mail of mine on the two biblical passages so that all who read this e-mail can easily check what I say in this e-mail against what I said along the same lines in the earlier e-mail, which AL condemns.

Before the requests come, I permit all of you to distribute this e-mail to whomever you please.

I will not stoop to retaliate the name-calling with name-calling of my own, or even to respond to the name-calling. I am determined to stick closely to the fundamental issues themselves. This is profitable. Besides, if I at this stage of my ministry, which has been public and open to all who are interested in this controversy, there are those who are open to AL’s charges against me, nothing I now say could convince them otherwise. A “federal visionist”? A “Pelagian”? The very charges refute themselves.

The issue, as AL’s handling of Malachi 3 and James 4 clearly shows, is whether there is a call of the gospel that effectually draws God’s elect people to God—in a true and living faith—so that they experience that God draws nigh to them. The issue is not, as AL completely erroneously (whether by mistake or malice) presents it, whether man is first in any aspect of salvation, or whether God is first. As a matter of simple, plain fact, I did not write that in James 4 or in Malachi 3, “man is first.” I wrote and explained that in the important matter of the experience of salvation, particularly on the part of the elect’s having departed from God, God’s first act, prior to giving us the assurance of His drawing nigh to us is that He draws us nigh to him. We draw nigh as the text in James 4 clearly states, by the effectual call of God (as I plainly stated in my e-mails), and in this way experience God’s drawing nigh to us.

Question to AL: does he deny that God draws nigh to us in the way of His drawing us nigh to Himself, so that our drawing nigh to Him precedes our experience of His drawing nigh to Him? Does he deny what James 4 is teaching? What is his explanation of the clear doctrine of the text?

To present the faithful interpretation of James 4 as the heretical doctrine that man is first in some aspect of salvation is unworthy of a theological exegete. The truth is that God works in a certain order. In order to assure me that He is nigh me as my Savior God, which gives me the experience of His communion with me, He draws me to Himself, by the effectual call of the gospel. This drawing by God is the working in me of a true faith, that rests upon Jesus Christ. God is always first in salvation, but with regard to the assurance of salvation He works in the order of drawing me to Himself as the way to draw nigh to me.

To avoid this reality and promote his new theology, a theology that presents itself as more orthodox than that of the PRC from which AL has departed and which departure he must now justify, AL explains the call of Malachi 3, “return unto me,” as merely a legal demand—the “law,” intended to harden all those who come under the legal demand, not the gracious call of the gospel. Otherwise even AL will have to acknowledge to his congregation that there is a sense in which our returning to God, by the effectual power of the grace of God in the call, precedes God’s returning to us, who have gone astray. He denies that there is any grace or Christ in the call of Malachi 3. I therefore demolish AL’s theology (I hope in his own understanding) when I now demonstrate that the call, “return,” in Malachi 3, is not to the true Israel of God the law setting forth merely the duty of that Israel, with the purpose to harden, so that the response of Israel is not that they return, but that they harden themselves in their departure. Does AL claim that there is no grace or Christ in this call? The call of Malachi 3, as of James 4, is grace from beginning to end. It is drenched with the blood of the Savior. First, it reveals that it is the will of God that Israel, or Judah, return to Him. This is a gracious will, unless God has a will to save and be the God of the reprobate, who do not come to Him for salvation. God wills the return to Him of the Judah/Israel to whom He says, “return,” in Malachi 3. This divine will originates in eternity in election in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It is founded upon the cross that gives the Judah to whom God speaks in Malachi 3 the right to return. The call is made effectual by the Spirit of the Messiah promised in the OT. God makes this effectual call to Judah appealing by the promise of the blessings He will heap upon them when they return—in the way of His drawing them to Himself. Just read verses 10ff. 

Presenting my thought as man’s preceding God is sheer falsehood. The truth is…that our drawing nigh to God, by His effectual call, precedes God’s drawing nigh to us in our experience. 

God will open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing. All nations will call Israel blessed. Let AL and his audience ask the question of himself and themselves in light of Malachi 3: does the passage not teach that there is a sense in which Israel’s returning to God, by His efficacious call, precedes Israel’s enjoyment of these blessings. This does not mean that man is first. To charge this against one who rightly explains Malachi 3 is not merely a reprehensible tactic by which one thinks to win an argument, but also the twisting of Holy Scripture by which one opposes the way of God’s saving work with His people. “Return unto me, and I will return unto you,” and when I do return unto you in the way of your returning unto me, I will pour out blessings upon you. Let all who sat under AL’s thunderings against “man first,” as though this had anything to do with the issue, read Malachi 3:7-18. Second, God accomplishes the return to Himself that He calls for in Malachi by the power of the Spirit of the coming crucified and risen Messiah. This is Christ Jesus. Christ is in the passage, dominating it, if the passage is rightly viewed as the call of the gospel. And third the alluring blessings that constitute the promises of the gospel-call are all the blessings of the Savior, Jesus the Christ (cf. vss. 10ff.). They are the forgiveness of sins; holiness; joy; peace; and more. Christ is in the passage. Every Reformed minister and believer ought to be able to see Him there.

As for Israel’s natural response to the call, “return,” it is rejection of the call. This is their and our natural response. So depraved, foolish, and rebellious we are. But we do not have the last word. When God issues the effectual, gracious call of the gospel to His own, not they, but He has the final word. How does the passage end? “Then shall ye return,” etc. (v. 18). When God says “return” in the gospel-call to His elect Israel, we return—actively—and thus experience the blessings of salvation.

AL’s explanation of Malachi 3 is wrong, dead wrong, and, by implication, his understanding of James 4 also.

This would not be so serious, although it is serious enough.

But there is reason to fear that this twisting of such a passage as Malachi is basic to his reactionary theology. Fear, whether grounded or ungrounded, of weakness in the PRC concerning an (illegitimate) role of humans in salvation causes a denial of the nature of the effectual call of the gospel as making us active (by a living faith) so that by actively believing we receive the blessings of salvation. The disguise of this fatal error not only in theology but also in regard to God’s way of saving us is to rave against “man first,” which is a bogeyman. What AL’s error amounts to theologically is a reaction against the well-meant offer, or free will, that takes form in a sort of hyper-Calvinism.

It remains merely to call attention to statements and charges that are false, false in the sense mostly that they are invented by AL to lead astray from the real issue and to make his (supposedly) doctrinal reformation seem sound.

Defending his rejection of the call in Malachi as a gospel-call, AL shouts that we will never “respond to the call in our own strength!” Who ever has said so? Is the call to return in Malachi 3 an invitation to Israel to return “in their own strength?” To try to make this the issue is pure deceit.

Similar is his harping on the axiom that “man is never first in salvation,” as though this is what I said and teach. I did not say, and James 4 does not teach, that man is first in the matter of fellowship with God. I said that in James God draws nigh to us in salvation by effectually calling us to draw nigh to Him. The order is that in which God works. Theologically, the truth is that God saves us by faith, which faith He works in us by the effectual call and which faith is active. Does AL deny that God draws nigh to us in salvation, specifically salvation with regard to assurance and experience, in the way of calling us unto a drawing nigh to Him? Let him say so. And then let him tell us how God does draw nigh to us.

Presenting my thought as man’s preceding God is sheer falsehood. The truth is, as I also made plain, that our drawing nigh to God, by His effectual call, precedes God’s drawing nigh to us in our experience.

And then drawing nigh to God in James 4 is not obedience to the law, but the activity of faith. God works faith in us by the call of the gospel. Does AL deny this? Is he so fearful of the activity of faith? Is he afraid to confess and teach that God saves His people by exhortations and threatenings? I warn him that this is a religion contrary to the Canons of Dordt.

Finally, when I said that Andy needs the church, whereas the church does not need Andy (or anyone of us), I was referring to Andy’s need of the PRC, not his need of the RPC. He left the PRC, which might have restrained his doctrinal deviations, as the church of Christ serves as a restraint of us all, lest we go off on our own peculiar crusades.

Love,

Dad