A Connection to the Past

We are well familiar, I presume, with the pattern of the book of Judges.

The book opens with Israel’s abysmal failure to drive out all the inhabitants of Canaan. Judah did not drive out the mountain dwellers from the tribe’s allotted portion. Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites from Jerusalem. Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, Megiddo, and their respective towns. Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites in Gezer. And the list goes on…

One asks, where did that holy zeal of the Israelites under Joshua go? They had slain mighty kings, trampled down impenetrable fortresses, wiped out the formidable coalitions of adversaries, and cut off the fearsome Anakim. Even the hornets mustered their forces together and went before Israel to battle. The sun, moon, and stars joined with Jacob for the fight. Why did the Israelites not snuff out their foes altogether?

But it was at that point when the Israelites were strong and fierce that they laid down the sword and the shield. The desire for war against God’s enemies was swiftly quenched by the weariness of the flesh. A generation of hardened soldiers waxed old, and in their place a generation of soft diplomats arose. It was easier to subject the Canaanites into servitude and to dwell among them than to wipe them off the map. Peace over blood. Tribute over heads. Nice homes over solitude. And the nation despised Jehovah’s clear command to show no mercy but to utterly destroy.

Yet Jehovah God is sovereign, and his purposes are not thwarted by a rebellious people. His counsel stands forever, and he turns even gross disobedience for the advantage of his elect. Israel’s apostasy could not thwart his good pleasure but rather magnified the grace of election and the truth of his covenant. It was God’s eternal determination to use the peoples and nations remaining in Canaan to prove the Israelites and to teach the following generations to war.

All generations must war! They must war in behalf of God’s name and covenant, for to be separated unto God by promise and drawn into his fellowship is to stand at enmity against the world. His people are in the world but are not of the world. They are of God’s party to contend against and to destroy iniquity. Thus, as long as sons continue, they must war against the reprobate seed that stands over against God and his covenant. And God will teach succeeding generations in Israel. Until the consummation of all things, he will teach hands to war and fingers to fight, for the battle belongs to him.

The recurring pattern in Judges is this: there arose a generation that knew not Jehovah, nor yet the works that he had done for Israel. The Israelites did evil in his sight, serving idols that suited their lusts. They forsook Jehovah, the God of their fathers. And in judgment God delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them. He sold the people into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not stand any longer before their enemies. And then God raised up judges. He raised up judges, and he was with those judges all their days to deliver his people from their oppressors, to teach truth unto his people, and to cause the land to rest in him alone.

Israel was brought under the oppressive hand of Chushan-rishathaim for eight years, but God raised up Othniel, and the land had rest forty years. The next generation rebelled and was brought under the oppressive hand of Eglon, but God raised up Ehud, and the land had rest eighty years. Israel rebelled again and was brought under the oppressive hand of Jabin and Sisera, but God raised up Deborah and Barak, and the land had rest forty years…

So the cycle went until the time of Samson’s calling after Israel had been subjected to the oppression of the Philistines for forty years. Forty years! Two generations had arisen in Israel whose entire existence was under Philistine oppression. And lo! we never read of the Israelites’ crying unto Jehovah their God for deliverance. Rebellious they were, and rebellious they would have continued to be until the world had swallowed them up. So deep was their apostasy that they did not want deliverance. But for the sake of his promise and covenant alone, God dragged them out as a firebrand from the fire by a deliverer they did not want.

Captivating history? Certainly. And for many today the book of Judges is filled with good tales and moral warnings. But the mere recounting of good tales and instruction in ethics is not the mind of the Spirit. If all that Judges tells us is how (not) to live, then we want nothing to do with the book.

Rather, the book is the perfect record of the Spirit, who gives us a word about the history of the church from the beginning to the end of time. In particular, the book is a typical record of new-dispensational patterns within the church. All these things happened unto Israel “for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11).

According to God’s spiritual reality, permit me to draw the pattern of Judges into the early twentieth century, when the people of God were being oppressed by the Heynsian conception of the covenant.¹ Prof. William Heyns’ view of the covenant, which was more or less the representative view of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), was that the covenant is essentially a promise, a means unto salvation (and not salvation itself). Furthermore, Heyns taught that God’s covenant was a general promise, objectively bequeathed to every child unconditionally at baptism. The covenant was a general promise that was concretely realized in its full blessedness when a child had reached maturity and accepted God’s offer by grace.² This was the conception of God’s relationship with his people that the Calvin Theological Seminary students were being taught. And God’s people were being told that salvation in its final analysis depended upon their cooperation with grace. The doctrine was a nasty, oppressive foe.

But Jehovah raised up his servants. And Jehovah was with those servants all their days to deliver his people from their oppressors and to restore his people to the truth of his covenant and salvation. God gave his people rest—not rest in the historical sense but rest for their souls. No, the battles remained fierce, particularly in the late 1940s and early 1950s. After the Heynsian head of the conditional covenant monster was lopped off, many more sprouted up in its place to endorse the Schilderian form of the covenant. In the end the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) split in two, and the schismatic faction returned like a dog to the vomit of the CRC. But God’s people had rest from their oppressors…

…for a time.

For a time? Yes.

The enemy was never completely vanquished. During the heat of the battle, the conditional covenant monster sprouted another particularly ugly head. The head developed into the form of a conditional covenant promise for the daily experience and enjoyment of the covenant. This head was discovered but was left alone.³ Subsequent history and recent ecclesiastical events in our own time have shed light on 1953. Nineteen fifty-three has become another case study in winning the battle but losing the war, for the enemy was never fully vanquished but found places of refuge in the land, in its mountains and in certain cities. Idols were not rooted out but remained in the high places and in the homes. And soon strange altars appeared in the tabernacles and on the rooftops and in the streets.

How did that happen? Perhaps the desire for war against God’s enemies was quenched by the weariness of the flesh. Perhaps a generation of hardened soldiers waxed old and in their place a generation of soft diplomats arose. Perhaps it was the mentality. Peace over blood. Tribute over heads. Nice homes over solitude.

But soon there arose a generation—I speak now organically and not head for head, just as scripture does—that knew not Jehovah, nor yet the works that he had done for them. The people did evil in God’s sight, serving idols that suited their lusts. They forsook Jehovah, the God of their fathers. And in judgment God delivered them into the hands of spoilers who spoiled the people. And the people became sore distressed.

Some of the people cried unto God for deliverance. Others did not. I did not.

In a former time I wondered why Israel had endured the Philistines for forty years. How could they stand the oppression of the enemy for so long? Why did the Israelites never cry out to their God for a deliverer? I do not wonder anymore. For I was oppressed, and I never knew it. Oppression had become a mode of life. In fact, the rule of the oppressor was not so bad, for his strange altars appealed to the lusts of the flesh. Strange altars were erected in my own church, a church into which I was born and baptized and raised. I lived beneath those strange altars, and I worshiped willingly. I sought no deliverer. Then God came and dragged me out like a firebrand plucked from the fire.

Such is the pattern of the new dispensation, written large on the pages of Judges.

Such has become the pattern in our own history, written large on the pages of Sword and Shield. I am bold to draw the pattern of Judges into the present because of how clearly this magazine has demonstrated the doctrinal connection between 1953 and 2021.⁴ The underlying doctrinal problems of 1953 remained festering in the PRC and finally came to a head in 2021.

In particular, there is a Sword and Shield article entitled “The Majority Report.”⁵ The thesis of this article is that “the doctrinal issue faced recently [in the PRC] is in fact an extension of the doctrinal issue of 1953.”⁶ And I consider “The Majority Report” to be one of the most important articles in Sword and Shield to date.

I consider this article to be one of the most important articles to date not because it explained the present doctrinal controversy in the PRC for the first time. The initial series of editorials in Sword and Shield laid out the controversy at length.⁷ Neither is it the case that “The Majority Report” spoke of 1953 for the first time on the pages of Sword and Shield.⁸ Rather, as far as I can tell, “The Majority Report” was the first time that a definite doctrinal connection between 1953 and the present was established. Since the publication of this article, the magazine’s analysis of 2021 in light of 1953 has developed rapidly.⁹ I consider this article a major factor to the reason for this issue of Sword and Shield that you are reading now.

It is not my purpose now to reiterate what “The Majority Report” set forth. You may reread it yourself. But I do point out that the article’s analysis was—and remains—invaluable.

For, first, by tying the past to the present, this article has made unmistakably plain that the present controversy with the PRC is nothing but a continuation of a previous battle against an old foe. The language of today—that the covenant experience and the enjoyment of salvation is in the way of good works—is not the theological apparition of some man’s mind. Conditional theology did not arise out of nowhere. But it has been deeply entrenched in Protestant Reformed church history. Even after that monumental struggle of 1953, conditional covenant theology remained in the mountains. The conditional theology retained a place in some cities of the land. And the conditional theology quietly grew in the shadows, even while some in the PRC were busy taking the federal vision to task and hacking away at its root of a conditional covenant. “Take heed to that foe over the Jordan!” cried the watchmen. “Beware, lest it intrude itself into the land!” But all the while there was a more deadly threat within the PRC’s own camp.

Second, the analyses of “The Majority Report” and all similar articles remain invaluable, for they bring the fathers’ methods of warfare, the strategies of battle, into today’s fight. Our fathers have crafted weapons for us—a whole storehouse of ammunitions—and we must take them up against the enemies who remain in the land. Our generation must war! God will have it so. “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed” (Gen. 3:15). God will have our hands to war and our fingers to fight, for the battle belongs to him. And the weapons of our fathers—the truth of scripture as it is systematically set forth in the Reformed confessions—are not carnal but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.

The Centrality of the Promise in 1951

And now I ask, dear Reformed reader, do you insist that the covenant of grace is unconditional? Unconditional in its establishment with the elect, that is, with Jesus Christ and—by virtue of God’s decree to give him a body—with all his members? Unconditional in its maintenance with the elect? Unconditional in its perfection with the elect? Do you likewise insist that the elect experience the covenant unconditionally?

Indeed, I trust that you do.

Then, dear reader, I urge you to pause and to reflect upon these following questions. What is the experience of Jehovah’s unconditional covenant? What is it that you experience?

I ask this not without reason. I ask these questions in all seriousness on account of my own vague understandings—yea, misconceptions—about the covenant experience while under the intoxicating drink of Protestant Reformed preaching. Over and over again in the preaching, I heard about the experience of the covenant and the enjoyment of salvation. This terminology became the language of the day.

This was the language of the doctrinal statement that a classical committee drafted and offered to Hope Protestant Reformed Church’s consistory in order to “settle” the doctrinal debate around Reverend Overway’s sermons:

Scripture and the confessions also emphasize the necessity of the exercise of faith in a holy life of obedience to enjoy the intimacy of the Father’s fellowship…

When the Scriptures, therefore, emphasize the need for a holy life of obedience to experience the fellowship of God, it does so to emphasize the necessity of a living, sanctifying faith for such fellowship.¹⁰

This was the language of Synod 2018:

Though we may lose the experience of covenant fellowship by continuing in disobedience, we never gain it by our obedience, but it is restored by faith in Christ and in the way of repentance.¹¹

Properly expressing the relationship between obedience as the necessary way of the covenant and the experience of covenant fellowship is: We experience fellowship with God through faith (instrument), on the basis of what Christ has done (ground), and in the way of our obedience (way of conduct or manner of living).¹²

This was the language of Synod 2020, which Synod 2021 championed:

The fact that an activity of the believer may occur temporally prior to the experience of a blessing from God does not automatically make such activity a condition or prerequisite for earning, gaining, or meriting the blessing from God.¹³

And this was the language that apparently sent the PRC into the uncharted territory of profound theological constructions. The Standard Bearer emphasized 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?¹⁴

This terminology of the experience and enjoyment of covenant fellowship had sent us into deep theological waters, so we were told. Yet we lay folks were supposed to receive the preaching of these terms, understand what they meant, and obtain this experience. But what was it that we were supposed to experience and enjoy?

Speaking for myself, the experience of covenant fellowship became synonymous with good feelings. Do I feel good? I must be enjoying God’s fellowship and my salvation. Do I feel bad? Well, since fellowship with God is in the way of good works, I had better get doing. Thus my experience of God was reduced to warm, fuzzy emotions and lots of good works.

Perhaps you say, “That sounds a little crass.” Perhaps you say, “That is not what Synod 2018 intended by its mantra that covenant fellowship is in the way of good works.”

Well, this is what Protestant Reformed preaching impressed upon me. And that is because the Protestant Reformed denomination has given up the doctrine of the covenant promise that was defended by her fathers during Synod 1951.

What is it that we experience in God’s unconditional covenant? It is the promise! God’s promise is the covenant experience, and the covenant experience is God’s promise. Yea, to speak more precisely, our experience is the realization of what God promises and nothing less or more.

This is simple. And now let us put this in the doctrinal formulations of the day:

Scripture and the confessions also emphasize the necessity of the exercise of faith in a holy life of obedience [for the realization of the promise]…

When the Scriptures, therefore, emphasize the need for a holy life of obedience [for the realization of the promise], it does so to emphasize the necessity of a living, sanctifying faith for [the realization of the promise].

We [have the reality of the promise] through faith, on the basis of what Christ has done, and in the way of our obedience.

The fact that an activity of the believer may occur temporally prior to the [realization of the promise] does not automatically make such activity a condition or prerequisite for earning, gaining, or meriting the [promise] from God.

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 reality of the promise]? [The reality of the promise]? Are these the same as simply [the promise]? How is the [realization of the promise] related to a life of obedience?

All that we were dealing with in 2021 was how God realizes his promise in his people. Or, if you will, the subjective sense of God’s promise. And all of this had already been settled in 1951.

The controversy on the floor of Synod 1951 was all about God’s promise. This is evident by the countless articles found in the Standard Bearer that dealt with the nature and content and efficacy of the promise. This is evident by the adoption of the Declaration of Principles, which dealt extensively with the promise. The document opened with an assertion about the promise—proclaimed in the preaching of the gospel¹⁵—that it is

not a gracious offer of salvation on the part of God to all men, nor a conditional offer to all that are born in the historical dispensation of the covenant, that is, to all that are baptized, but an oath of God that He will infallibly lead all the elect unto salvation and eternal glory through faith.¹⁶

And after Synod 1951 Hoeksema wrote that this synod was vitally important for the reason that the churches had

officially declared what according to their conviction is the truth as expressed in our confessions, especially concerning certain fundamental principles, all concentrating around the promise of God and the preaching of the gospel.¹⁷

It must be stated at the outset that the covenant is not essentially a promise. The essence of the covenant is an everlasting relationship of friendship between the triune God and his elect people in Jesus Christ their Lord. It is a family relationship. It is a marriage relationship. It is warm and intimate and living communion. As to its essence, the covenant is not a promise. This truth the PRC maintained over against Heyns in 1924 and Schilder in 1953.

Rather, the promise is an oath. It is “an oath of God that He will infallibly lead all the elect unto salvation and eternal glory through faith.”¹⁸

And the promise of God, which promise scintillates into rich variations of language in scripture but remains essentially one, has three irreducible or simple elements: (1) the content of the promise, (2) the good will of God to give what he promises, and (3) the fulfillment or realization of the promise.¹⁹ Since all of these elements came under attack in one way or another during the heat of the controversy leading to 1953, we examine these in their own historical context.

First, the promise has content. The promised content is expressed by Jehovah’s oft-repeated and marvelous words, “I will be a God unto you and to your seed, and you shall be unto me a people.” The content of the promise is, therefore, the covenant, the covenant in all its fullness. The covenant is perfect salvation as that salvation draws the recipient of the promise out of the lowest depths of hell and into the consummation of the covenant in the everlasting kingdom of God. Or in the words of the Declaration: “God…will infallibly lead all the elect unto salvation and eternal glory.”

Leading up to 1953 the fathers contended with men who insisted that the content of God’s promise was strictly defined by Canons 2.5, which says, “The promise of the gospel is that whosoever believeth in Christ crucified shall not perish, but have everlasting life” (Confessions and Church Order, 163). That the content of the promise should be strictly understood as everlasting life, that is, a final realization of salvation, was the contention of Dr. Klaas Schilder. This narrow view of the promise also appeared on the floor of Synod 1951, for several Protestant Reformed ministers insisted that they were bound to this definition and none other.²⁰

Although the Declaration did not make its purpose to explicitly set forth all the rich content of God’s promise, the Declaration did make frequent references to articles in the Reformed confessions where the content of that promise is taught. And Rev. Herman Hoeksema spent a considerable amount of time on the floor of Synod 1951 laying out what the Reformed confessions teach regarding the content of God’s promise.²¹

The reason such clarification was needed was that Schilder and those sympathetic to Schilder in the PRC used the narrow understanding of the promise as defined by Canons 2.5 in the service of teaching a conditional promise. “The promise,” they said, “is to those who believe.” There in Canons 2.5 they found supposed proof that the promise is in the form of a condition. God demands something of man—faith. If man does not believe, then he does not receive the promise. If he does believe (by grace and the Holy Spirit), then he receives the promise. “This is nothing other than conditional language!” they insisted.

But Reverend Hoeksema had none of this.

For an examination of the entirety of the Reformed confessions prohibits such a limited view of the promise. God’s promise is not merely the final realization of salvation. The promise encompasses the whole of salvation and every aspect of covenant life.

If one is pleased, he may make a further study of Hoeksema’s thorough analysis of the content of the promise, which he presented both on the floor of Synod 1951²² and in a later series of editorials.²³ At this point I only highlight that the reverend continually emphasized that the content of the promise is nothing less than the whole blessedness of the covenant. One example will suffice.

Belgic Confession 35, dealing with the doctrine of the Lord’s supper, teaches that

Christ communicates Himself with all His benefits to us, and gives us there to enjoy both Himself and the merits of His sufferings and death, nourishing, strengthening, and comforting our poor comfortless souls by the eating of His flesh, quickening and refreshing them by the drinking of His blood. (Confessions and Church Order, 72)

About this article Hoeksema wrote, “The full promise includes the whole of salvation, objective and subjective. It includes faith. And it includes the application of all the blessings of salvation in Christ to the elect.”²⁴ The promise is not only that which is objective (outside us), but the promise is also subjective (within us).

In the context of 1953, this comprehensive view of the promise was necessary to contend with the liberated theology. The liberated wanted faith as the necessary condition unto the realization of the promise. But the fathers argued that the promise includes the Spirit! Since the promise of God includes the Spirit, the promise must also include the gift of faith, for the Spirit is the author of faith. If faith is included in the promise, then faith cannot be a condition for the realization of the promise—not in any sense. It is simply illogical to teach that God promises faith to those who will believe.

In the context of today, we also insist that the promise includes the whole of salvation, objective and subjective. We insist that the promise includes the application of all the blessings of salvation in Christ. We insist on this, lest there be any ambiguity as to what the experience or the enjoyment of the covenant is. The experience or the enjoyment of the covenant is comprehended in the promise. When God realizes his promise, man enjoys God’s fellowship.

Second, the promise includes the good will of God to give what he promises. Space fails me to elaborate on this. I only point out that this good will of God is to be found in his decree of election. God is favorable to the elect alone. He has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he wills he hardens. In the Declaration this element of the promise was subsumed under the second head, which refuted the liberated idea that God’s good will extends to every baptized child, head for head.²⁵ Today, if one preaches the promise of God while failing to tie it to election, he leaves himself open to the charge that God’s good will extends beyond the elect. That man has essentially taught a well-meant offer of the promise to all who hear.

Finally, the promise includes the realization or fulfillment of its content. God infallibly saves, according to the Declaration. God swears that he will infallibly save. God swears that he will infallibly save through faith.

It was this element of the promise especially that received vicious assaults. Along this line deep trenches were dug. Along this line the guns blazed.

On the one hand, this element was attacked by Dr. Schilder and the liberated, who maintained the idea that “the promise of the covenant is an objective bequest on the part of God giving to every baptized child the right to Christ and all the blessings of salvation.”²⁶ Schilder insisted that the promise always comes with the demand of faith and repentance.²⁷ The promise is realized when man responds to God’s demand for faith and repentance.

On the other hand, this element was attacked by ministers of the PRC who, under the influence of liberated theology, could not get past the demands of God that are found together with God’s promise. Did not God say to Abraham, when God promised to make his covenant with Abraham, that Abraham must walk before God and be perfect? They said that God confronted man with his responsibility and duty. Man on his part must fulfill those demands—always, of course, by grace and the Holy Spirit—to enjoy God’s promise. There are conditions in the covenant. There are conditions not in the objective sense of the promise, but there are conditions in the subjective sense. There are conditions not in the initial realization of the promise, but there are conditions that enter in afterward for the continued realization of the promise.

And understand what those Protestant Reformed ministers meant by condition: a preceding demand. That is all they meant by condition and nothing more. And that is very evident by the discussions that took place on the floor of Synod 1951.

Rev. L. Doezema wanted to make this amendment to the Declaration:

There are conditions in God’s Word, the confrontation of God’s demand which God annexes to the promise, in order to bring out clearly His unconditional grace and mercy, as well as His just wrath and man’s inability to fulfill them.²⁸

Reverend Doezema was then given the evening to submit confessional grounds for his amendment. The next morning he presented his grounds to synod, and I mention a few.

Doezema appealed to question and answer 86 of the Heidelberg Catechism, saying,

This question and its answer again mentions the confrontation of the law of God. According to the answer we can have the assurance of faith only by its fruit. Good works are required of us. The fulfillment of them is the condition to the assurance of faith.²⁹

Doezema appealed to question and answer 116, saying, “Here again we are confronted with the demand. Prayer is a condition for Christian living.”³⁰

Doezema appealed to Canons 1.3, asserting that the article

speaks of the calling of the preaching to repentance and faith. These therefore come in the form of a demand. And again, therefore, you have a requisite or condition to the enjoyment of salvation in this article.³¹

Doezema also appealed to the third section of the doctrinal section of the baptism form, which treats our obligation to new obedience. He stated,

Here you have once more the confrontation of the law and the admonition and demands. This is all in a conditional form, so that unless we do this, there is no enjoyment of salvation…You see here the unbreakable chain according to which God gives His unconditional mercy on condition of our fulfilling the demands of His covenant.³²

Let us also hear from Reverend van Weelden, who insisted that he was convinced about the unconditionality of salvation, yet at the same time he felt

that there are conditions in Scripture in a certain sense…Faith is no condition to the covenant, but a condition in the covenant. It is the way for the enjoyment of all the blessings of the covenant. The confrontation is very strong in Scripture. God confronts us, places before all who hear the demand to repent. This element we must keep. I agree that salvation is unconditional, and that faith is no condition unto salvation. But this idea in conditions we must retain.³³

We only want to do justice to what God demands when he gives his promise! We only want to maintain a sense in which man’s activity precedes the realization of the promise. And we must keep that idea!

The consistory of Pella, in its overture to synod that objected to the Declaration, contended that the Declaration “expresses itself in re the promise and salvation, but leaves out of consideration entirely the pedagogical aspect or approach of salvation.”³⁴

We only want to do justice to how a person engages with the preaching of God’s promise!

Over against these doctrines of the promise, what did our fathers teach? That the promise was absolutely unconditional. Absolutely unconditional over against the idea that man must first do something for God to realize his promise with his people. The promise of the experience of the covenant, our fathers insisted, was unconditional through and through.

Those words—absolutely unconditional—are very purposeful.

Those words were formulated against the idea that God’s decree of election is unconditional but that the promise is conditional. Reverend Gritters argued, “It is true that our Confessions condemn the term conditions. But they speak of conditions only with relation to election, and not in relation to the promise.”³⁵

Perhaps it may not be clear what Reverend Gritters was trying to promote, but Hoeksema understood it well. And he replied,

I want to call attention to the statement of the Rev. Gritters that the Confessions speak of conditions only with a view to election. Election is unconditional. But the promise may be conditional. Now this certainly is not correct. Our fathers clearly maintained that the application of salvation is just as divine and unconditional as election itself…In Canons II,8 we have the presentation of the counsel of God in its execution, that is, the application of the blessings of salvation…The unconditionality of salvation does not refer only to election, but also to the application of all the blessings of salvation to the elect only. And therefore also in this article of the confession the promise of God is sure, and for the elect, and unconditional.³⁶

In other words, the opponents of the Declaration were willing to grant that God’s decree was unconditional, but how God realized his promise in time was conditional. God’s unconditional decree also decreed a conditional experience of the promise. God decreed the realization of the promise in such a way as that God would give man grace for man to fulfill the demand of God’s promise, and then man would enjoy his salvation.

But the promise is absolutely unconditional. The realization of the promise is absolutely unconditional. The promise, as it is realized in time, cannot differ from the promise as it was decreed by God. Said Hoeksema,

The promise in the decree is the same as the promise in its execution. If the promise in the decree is absolutely free and sovereign, only founded upon God’s own sovereign will, it must be the same in its execution…If the promise in the decree is absolutely unconditional…it must be unconditional in its application. For what God decrees He also fulfills. And He fulfills it in the very manner that He has decreed it.³⁷

And this:

Just as the beginning of the realization of the promise, namely, that the Holy Spirit will dwell in us, is sovereign and unconditional; just as in that realization of the promise in its beginning God is absolutely first, and man always follows; so also in all the rest of the application of our salvation by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the elect God is, and remains, first, and we follow…

The whole of salvation, therefore, from beginning to end, is absolutely unconditional and sovereign. God is always first, and man always follows.³⁸

What did absolutely unconditional mean to the fathers in 1953? That God is and remains first. God is absolutely first. Man always follows. That is the experience of the covenant. That is the promise.

And now, this is our heritage as Reformed Protestants. Now, armed for the battle, let us war and not grow weary in the fight! God has restored unto us his truth and has caused us to rest in him. God will have our hands to war and our fingers to fight, for the battle belongs to him.