Prof. Ronald Cammenga of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) has played a leading role in the apostasy of his denomination. At the beginning of the controversy over justification by faith alone, Professor Cammenga took issue with Mr. Neil Meyer, who had faithfully protested against the Arminian doctrines of Rev. David Overway. Mr. Meyer was faithful to his vow as an elder in the church of Jesus Christ. He exerted himself in keeping the church free from error. Professor Cammenga despises Mr. Meyer’s doctrine and condemns it as antinomian to this day.

Igniting the controversy in 2015, Reverend Overway taught that our obedience is the way to enjoy covenant fellowship with the Father.

The way unto the Father includes obedience.

The way of a holy life matters. It is the way unto the Father.¹

Reverend Overway taught that if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do. He repeated the same false doctrine in many of his sermons that were protested at Synod 2018. In the judgment of Synod 2018, Reverend Overway’s doctrinal error “is that the believer’s good works are given a place and function that is out of harmony with the Reformed confessions.”² Synod 2018 also judged that Reverend Overway’s doctrinal error “compromises the gospel of Jesus Christ” and that by that error “the perfect work of Christ is displaced” (70).

Professor Cammenga, chair of dogmatics at the Protestant Reformed seminary, never said a word of condemnation against Reverend Overway’s false doctrine throughout the entire controversy. Professor Cammenga loves Reverend Overway’s Arminian doctrine. Professor Cammenga believes that man must do something to be saved, assured, and forgiven. After Synod 2018 had repudiated Reverend Overway’s Arminian doctrine, Professor Cammenga revived the same false doctrine and started teaching it on the pages of the Standard Bearer.

Lawless Militating

Synod 2018 singled out a heretical statement in one of Reverend Overway’s sermons on Lord’s Day 23:

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)

Synod 2018 condemned the above statement of Reverend Overway and laid out the truth of Lord’s Day 23:

If we are truly justified by faith in Christ alone, then true faith cannot look to its works to help find or maintain the assurance that is found in Christ alone…The experience and assurance of justification in one’s consciousness is justification, and justification is by faith alone in Christ alone (L.D. 23; B.C., Art. 23). Good works have a proper place and function in the Christian life but they do not function as helps for finding and maintaining assurance of our justification. (69)

Synod 2018 went further and condemned the doctrine that good works assure us of our justification. Synod 2018 quoted from the “Necessary Way of the Covenant,” a document drawn up by the consistory of Hope Protestant Reformed Church.

Justification, which includes the experience and assurance of justification in the sinner’s own consciousness, is by faith alone in Christ alone to the exclusion of all good works. (71)

Lawlessly militating against that good doctrine of Synod 2018, Professor Cammenga resurrected in the Standard Bearer the same false doctrine of good works’ assuring salvation. 

Good works are used by God the Holy Spirit to strengthen the assurance of believers…

God has determined that our good works, as the fruits of election and salvation, shall play a role in our assurance. They are mistaken who contend that our good works have nothing to do with our assurance.³

The presence of these good works in the believer’s life confirm his assurance of salvation…

The Reformed confessions teach clearly that the good works of the child of God are used by the Holy Spirit to confirm in the believer the assurance of his salvation.⁴

Reverend Overway had taught that good works are always of help in finding and maintaining the assurance of salvation.

Synod 2018 condemned Reverend Overway’s false doctrine and declared that good works do not assure us of salvation.

Professor Cammenga, lawlessly militating against his own synod and resurrecting Reverend Overway’s Arminian doctrine, taught that good works assure us of salvation. Professor Cammenga was criticizing Synod 2018 when he wrote, “They are mistaken who contend that our good works have nothing to do with our assurance.” Synod 2018, in his view, was mistaken when it judged that “good works…do not function as helps for finding and maintaining assurance of our justification” (69).

Professor Cammenga is the biggest hypocrite, bar none, in the PRC. He wickedly condemns members of the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) for not following the church-orderly way of protest and appeal, but he sees fit to ignore that church-orderly way himself. Rather than protesting against the decisions of Synod 2018 condemning the doctrine that good works assure us of our salvation, Professor Cammenga lawlessly has taught that good works assure us of salvation.

His lawlessness introduced schism—departure from Christ—into the PRC. His lawlessness plunged his entire denomination into further chaos and unrest. Developing in their apostasy, the PRC have advanced the doctrinal debate. The current Protestant Reformed dogma is that if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do. Since the good works of the believer assure him of his salvation, his good work of repentance is now needed for the forgiveness of his sins.

Professor Cammenga’s Doctrine of Justification

Professor Cammenga recently wrote a series of articles on the supposed antinomian doctrine of the RPC. According to the professor, repentance is necessary for the forgiveness of sins. Without man’s prior repentance, God’s forgiveness of that man’s sins will not follow.

That forgiveness follows repentance is the teaching of Scripture. The Bible clearly teaches that God’s forgiveness follows God-worked repentance.⁵

Forgiveness actually takes place when by faith in Jesus Christ, God declares in our consciousness, “Thy sins are forgiven.”⁶

The teaching that God forgives sin apart from and prior to repentance, that He forgives the sinner in eternity long before he sheds a single tear in sorrow over sin in his lifetime, has been the teaching of the antinomians in the past…

Forgiveness of sins takes place in time and history, therefore, and not in eternity antecedent to the gathering of the church.7

According to Professor Cammenga, the teaching that God forgives sin apart from and prior to repentance is antinomian. Professor Cammenga proudly but falsely announced that

this idea that forgiveness precedes repentance never has been the teaching of the PRC and cannot be demonstrated ever to have been a distinguishing doctrine of the PRC…No PRC theologian has ever taught that God’s forgiveness of us precedes His work in us to bring us to repentance.⁸

Professor Cammenga should charge his predecessor at his seminary, Prof. David Engelsma, with antinomianism. Professor Engelsma taught eternal justification—the doctrine that God’s forgiveness precedes our repentance, the doctrine that God forgives us apart from and prior to repentance.

Eternal justification, or justification in eternity, if a reality, is the decree in God’s eternal counsel imputing the righteousness of Christ to the elect, forgiving all their sins, and adopting them as his children for the sake of Christ’s death. It is not a decree that God would, in time and history, reckon Christ’s righteousness to their account. But it is a decree actually reckoning the righteousness of Christ to their account. According to eternal justification, by virtue of the decree the elect are righteous with the righteousness of Jesus Christ before they are born, indeed before the creation of the world.⁹

Scripture clearly teaches a justification of sinners outside their own experience, a justification that does not take place by means of their faith, a justification that is a reality prior to the life and faith of New Testament Christians.¹⁰

Eternal justification confesses the grace of God in justifying the guilty sinner apart from anything in the sinner himself that is the ground or reason for the divine act of justifying. The thinking that regards eternal justification as antinomian must also regard justification by faith alone as antinomian. It is thinking that is offended by grace. The doctrine of eternal justification is not routed by the illicit charge of antinomianism.¹¹

Professor Cammenga should also charge with antinomianism his denomination’s founding father, Rev. Herman Hoeksema, who strongly advocated for eternal justification.

First, we certainly may speak of our justification from eternity. We are justified in the decree of election from before the foundation of the world…Evidently afraid to over-emphasize the counsel of God, some maintained that one could speak only of justification by faith. They denied eternal justification. But it is very clear that this is not correct…God knew the elect in Christ as justified from all eternity.

The elect do not become righteous before God in time by faith, but they are righteous in the tribunal of God from before the foundation of the earth. God beholds them in eternity not as sinners, but as perfectly righteous, as redeemed, as justified in Christ.

He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel (Num. 23:21).¹²

 

Theological Development in Sister CERC

Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church (CERC) in Singapore, sister to the PRC, has taken notice of Professor Cammenga’s new doctrine of repentance preceding justification. Professor Cammenga’s theological student, Rev. Josiah Tan, candidly admits that one thing necessarily preceding another thing is a condition: “One thing must be before something else will follow.”¹³ Conditions are used “in a formal sense” in scripture because God has made some things “to precede other things” (5). In salvation man’s activity of believing and repenting must precede God’s activity of saving, justifying, or forgiving. If a man would be saved, there is that which he must do.

Jesus Here is teaching, that for salvation/justification/forgiveness of sins to follow, something must happen prior, that is a man believing in Jesus. That is a man, abasing himself and casting himself completely on Jesus. Without this, salvation will not follow. (5)

Reverend Tan openly admits that these are conditions that man fulfills by God’s grace. He says, “There is no condition in which man fulfills on his own power, therefore it is ALL OF GRACE” (5). Reverend Tan attempts to deflect the charge of Arminian conditional theology by stating, “Faith is not a condition in which one must have faith of one’s own ability” (5). But faith is nevertheless a condition because God has made faith to precede justification. Man fulfills the condition of faith by God’s grace. Reverend Tan made it clear: “Is faith a condition for justification or forgiveness?…Is faith a condition? Yes, it is necessary.”¹⁴

One thing preceding another thing is a condition. 

Faith is a condition that man fulfills by God’s grace.

Further developing his esteemed professor’s doctrine of repentance preceding justification, Reverend Tan mixes faith and repentance together, so that they become one entity. According to him, “Repentance is part of faith…you can’t have faith that lays hold of Christ without repentance” (14). Reverend Tan’s and CERC’s doctrine of faith and repentance is that you cannot receive Christ by faith alone without repentance. You receive Christ by faith and by your repentance. Repentance is the condition for receiving Christ.

It has been more than a year since Reverend Tan made those theological developments in the PRC’s controversy. Professor Cammenga’s silence is a tacit approval of his student’s doctrine. Just as the professor did not condemn Reverend Overway’s Arminian doctrines, so the same professor does not condemn his student’s Arminian doctrines. Professor Cammenga loves his student’s conditions. Let the professor come out in defense of his student’s theological developments, or let him condemn them, but let him not stay silent.

Principles Work Through

Professor Cammenga made a shocking revelation about his Arminian doctrine: repentance is the necessary condition for the forgiveness of sins. If repentance is not needed, repentance will ultimately be dispensed with.

Therefore, if sins are forgiven apart from repentance, repentance will ultimately be dispensed with.¹⁵

In this statement Professor Cammenga revealed his blatant Arminianism. Man’s work of repentance is necessary to accomplish God’s forgiveness of that man’s sins. If repentance is not necessary, then it will be dispensed with. The same principle applies to the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone without works. If a man is justified by faith alone apart from works, then by the professor’s logic, good works will ultimately be dispensed with. Man must be justified by faith and works if works are not to be dispensed with. If a man would be saved, there is that which he must do.

God’s forgiveness of sins must be accomplished by the will and work of the sinner.

God’s salvation of a sinner must be accomplished by the will and work of that sinner.

Professor Engelsma was right when he said that

the thinking that regards eternal justification as antinomian must also regard justification by faith alone as antinomian. It is thinking that is offended by grace.¹⁶

Because Professor Cammenga judges eternal justification as antinomian, he must also judge justification by faith alone as antinomian. Professor Cammenga’s thinking is offended by grace. For him and his Protestant Reformed colleagues, if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do. 

The RPC’s Confession

The Reformed Protestant Churches confess that our good works do not assure us of our salvation. The RPC maintain the good doctrine of Synod 2018 that “the experience and assurance of justification in one’s consciousness is justification, and justification is by faith alone in Christ alone” (69).

The RPC repudiate Professor Cammenga’s Arminian doctrine that repentance is necessary for the forgiveness of sins. Lord’s Day 7 teaches that the Holy Ghost works faith in my heart by the gospel to know that “remission of sin…[is] freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits” (Confessions and Church Order, 90–91). Lord’s Day 21 teaches “that God, for the sake of Christ’s satisfaction, will no more remember my sins…but will graciously impute to me the righteousness of Christ, that I may never be condemned before the tribunal of God” (Confessions and Church Order, 105). Lord’s Day 30 teaches that God’s people “are truly sorrowful for their sins, and yet trust that these are forgiven them for the sake of Christ,” not for the sake of their repentance (Confessions and Church Order, 117). They do not trust in their repentance for the forgiveness of their sins. Lord’s Day 31 teaches that whenever God’s people “receive the promise of the gospel by a true faith, all their sins are really forgiven them of God, for the sake of Christ’s merits” (Confessions and Church Order, 118).

With this Arminian doctrine of repentance preceding forgiveness, the Arminian professor cannot pray the Reformed prayer of baptism:

Almighty God and merciful Father, we thank and praise Thee that Thou hast forgiven us and our children all our sins through the blood of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and received us through Thy Holy Spirit as members of Thine only begotten Son, and adopted us to be Thy children, and sealed and confirmed the same unto us by holy baptism. (Confessions and Church Order, 263)

The Reformed church confesses in this prayer that our children receive the forgiveness of their sins through the cross of Jesus, apart from and prior to their repentance.

Repentance is the necessary and inevitable fruit—not the condition, prerequisite, or cause—of God’s gracious forgiveness of our sins.

Professor Ronald “Arminius” Cammenga’s Arminian doctrine is now entrenched in his denomination and in his sister church. If a man would be forgiven, he must first repent. If a man would be saved, there is that which he must do.

To man belongs all the glory for salvation in the PRC. 

From this evil doctrine God has delivered the members of the RPC.