A Bag of Dirty Tricks

I have been treating Prof. Ronald Cammenga’s diatribe that the members of the Reformed Protestant Churches are a pack of antinomians. All throughout the controversy that finally gave birth to the Reformed Protestant Churches, Cammenga was the slanderer in chief. Indeed, his whole ministry has been nothing but a quixotic quest for antinomians. In light of Professor Cammenga’s preaching and writing, no one would ever think to ask the question whether anyone listening to him might sin that grace may abound. The only question anyone would ask is, what more must I do to be saved? Cammenga’s theology is all do, do, do. His is not a grace theology. His theology is a works theology. For a couple of issues of Sword and Shield, I took a break from examining his nauseating, dishonest, and disgraceful writing, and now I return to finish analyzing his theology. It is his theology. It is not Reformed. He is not Reformed at all.

Remember that Professor Cammenga’s theology is that faith and repentance are first, and then comes the forgiveness of sins. It is a purely temporal and sequential theology: first man does this (by grace, of course), and then God can do that. With regard to the subjects of forgiveness, repentance, and faith, Professor Cammenga denies that there is any sense in which there is the forgiveness of the sinner apart from and before the sinner’s repentance. God does not and God cannot forgive the sinner his sins unless and until the sinner repents.

One should beware of a couple of tricks that Cammenga has up his sleeve as he deals his theological cards.

The first trick is that faith and repentance are two sides of one coin. Where the creeds teach faith alone, Cammenga—the snake—slips in repentance. He writes this:

After asking in Q. 76 what it is to eat the crucified body and drink Christ’s blood, the Catechism answers that it is “to embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ,” and in that way “to obtain the pardon of sin and life eternal.” Faith in Christ, which is always accompanied by repentance, clearly precedes “obtain[ing] the pardon of sin and life eternal.”¹

Do you see what Cammenga does there? He simply adds repentance to faith. Faith and repentance are a package. Faith without repentance does not obtain anything, especially pardon of sin and life eternal. He is not teaching simply that the believer also repents. But Cammenga is teaching that faith does not do anything by itself until the believer repents. And note well that Cammenga does this in answer to the Heidelberg Catechism’s question about what it means to eat Christ. Eating Christ is the personal appropriation of Christ and all of Christ’s salvation. Eating Christ is life, salvation, glory, and blessedness. Belonging to the believer’s eating Christ is the personal experience of the believer’s justification that all his sins are forgiven and that he is righteous before God and an heir of eternal life. One could say that to eat Christ is to know, experience, and be assured of the forgiveness of sins. The Catechism says that the believer eats Christ by faith alone, but Cammenga with his trick simply adds repentance. He has the believer eating Christ by faith and by repentance, and that is the denial of justification by faith alone. That is Roman Catholic. That is not Reformed at all.

Further, the quote above demonstrates another of Cammenga’s tricks in his use of the little phrase in the way of. He is arguing about what comes first and what comes second or what is before and what is after. He is arguing that before the sinner repents, God cannot forgive the sinner. He is arguing that without A being first, then B cannot come. And then he slips in an in the way of: “And in that way to obtain the pardon of sin and life eternal.” So Professor Cammenga says that in the way of believing, we obtain the pardon of sin and life eternal. So, first, he teaches that in the way of believing we have justification.

Now, that is not right. We have justification by the instrument of faith: by faith. We are justified by faith alone. Faith is not a way unto justification. Faith is not a road. Faith is a bond, knowledge, and assurance. Faith is the only instrument of justification. And faith justifies because it places us in communion with Christ and his righteousness, which when they become ours, are more than sufficient to acquit us of all our sins.

Second, Cammenga adds to his confusion by adding repentance to faith. So we obtain pardon of sin in the way of faith and in the way of repentance. Now let us assume that by in the way of faith, Cammenga means by the instrument of faith. That would be a charitable reading. But when he adds repentance to faith and says that in the way of faith and in the way of repentance, we obtain pardon of sin and life eternal, then he has two instruments of our justification. Now we are not justified by faith alone at all, but we are justified by faith and by repentance. And that is Roman Catholic. That is not Reformed at all.

Still more in his bag of tricks, Cammenga substitutes in the way of faith and repentance for the word “precedes” or the word before. He says that faith and repentance precede justification. That is his theology. Man must repent and believe first, and then and only then can and may God forgive that man. Then Cammenga wants to make this equivalent to in the way of faith and repentance we are justified. But in the way of and before are not synonyms. Before means that unless and until one repents, he cannot and may not be forgiven. In the way of means at the very least that there is a path that must be traveled from one place to another. What Cammenga is doing is corrupting how the phrase in the way of was used previously, and he is trying to give his doctrine of repentance by man before God may forgive a pedigree. The phrase in the way of ought to be discarded, if for no other reason than what Professor Cammenga and others are doing with the phrase. And what they mean by in the way of is condition. They will not come out and say that, but obtaining pardon of sin in the way of faith and repentance means that without faith and repentance, God cannot and may not forgive. That is conditional.

Another trick of Cammenga and of other Protestant Reformed men is to make a distinction between forgiveness of sins and justification. But the reader should note that there is no distinction between forgiveness and justification. Forgiveness of sins is one side of justification. All that one teaches about forgiveness of sins must likewise be said of justification. Professor Cammenga’s doctrine of forgiveness is his doctrine of justification. By that measure his doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone but justification by a repentant and obedient faith. Those who listen to Cammenga and other Protestant Reformed men generally should beware of all these tricks, lest the hearers are taken in and tossed to and fro on the winds of false doctrine and are taken in by the sleight of men and by cunning craftiness as those men lie in wait to deceive.

In his diatribe Professor Cammenga seeks to prove his doctrine from the creeds. As seen above, his treatment of the creeds is shameful. He adds to the Reformed creeds and takes from them as he sees fit. He does the same with other creeds. He cannot find anything in the creeds but a man-first theology.

He writes,

I want to show that the teaching that forgiveness precedes repentance is contrary to the Reformed confessions. The Reformed confessions bind every Reformed officebearer, presumably the leaders of the RPC as well. If a teaching is contrary to the confessions, the presupposition is that it is contrary to Holy Scripture. What do the confessions have to say about the relation between forgiveness and repentance? (470).

Indeed, what do the Reformed confessions say? I will examine the creedal articles that Cammenga draws to our attention as teaching his doctrine.

The “Before” of Article 24

Before I do that, though, I would point him to one article in the Belgic Confession, which he seems to have missed, that explicitly speaks of the relationship between faith, repentance, and forgiveness. Belgic Confession 24—the article on sanctification—says,

For it is by faith in Christ that we are justified, even before we do good works; otherwise they could not be good works, any more than the fruit of a tree can be good before the tree itself is good. (Confessions and Church Order, 53–54)

“Even before we do good works,” we are justified. Now, herein is another warning about the tricks of Protestant Reformed men with language. They will say, “But repentance is not a good work.” For them repentance is in a category by itself. Repentance, as Cammenga says, is the other side of faith. And according to his argument, when article 24 of the Belgic Confession says “faith,” the article also means repentance. Thus Cammenga would have to explain the article this way: even before we do good works, we repent and believe, and in that way we are justified.

Over against Cammenga’s denial that repentance belongs to our works but is the other side of faith, I note that it has been Protestant doctrine—not merely Reformed doctrine but Protestant doctrine—that “when our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”² Repentance is the life of the believer. Such also is the view of the Heidelberg Catechism that treats the entire third part of the Catechism, which contains instruction on good works and prayer, under the theme of conversion, one part of which is repentance. Repentance belongs to conversion, and conversion describes the believer’s whole thankful life.

So the meaning of article 24 of the Belgic Confession is that we are justified before we do good works, including repentance. Now, how is that to be understood? It must be remembered that in the Belgic Confession justification is the experience of it; justification is the experience of the forgiveness of sins; justification is the experience of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the believer. Thus also in this life, it is constantly the experience of the sinner that he knows and is assured of everlasting righteousness and eternal life before he does good works. That word “before” in article 24 so separates works—including repentance—from faith and justification that the justification of the sinner has nothing to do with works; it is as if works do not exist yet. The one who is justified is an ungodly person. The word “before” itself is not even temporal; “before” is logical. When the sinner is justified, it is by faith alone. Leave works and repentance out of justification.

To include repentance along with faith as the way to obtain pardon of sin is to teach justification by faith and works. Justification by faith and works is Roman Catholic doctrine. Rome was the great proponent of justification by faith and repentance. And now Cammenga is a great proponent too, and he has brought that very doctrine into the Protestant Reformed Churches. Let him deal with that statement in article 24 of the Belgic Confession before he starts barking about the Reformed creeds and how his doctrine is found in the creeds and about how creeds are supposed to bind officebearers. Why will he not be bound by that statement in article 24? He contradicts it with his doctrine that faith and repentance are before justification and forgiveness.

But Cammenga says that his doctrine is in the creeds, so I will examine his use of the creeds to support the idea that faith and repentance are before forgiveness, which is one part of our justification before God. I will not treat all the creeds that he quotes, but I will treat only some to point out that what Professor Cammenga finds in the creeds is not there and that the creeds actually stand against him in his doctrine that God cannot and does not forgive the sinner’s sins unless and until the sinner repents and believes. This doctrine Cammenga phrases as repentance and faith before forgiveness or faith and repentance as the way to obtain pardon of sin.

Forgiveness at the Cross

In his use of question and answer 56 of the Heidelberg Catechism, Cammenga shows that he does not allow in any sense at all that there is forgiveness unless and until the sinner repents. Question and answer 56 are the Heidelberg Catechism’s treatment of the confession that we believe the forgiveness of sins. Cammenga writes,

The confession of “the forgiveness of sins” belongs to that which every believer confesses to be the proper work of the Holy Spirit. It is positioned between the confession of the holy, catholic church and the communion of the saints and “the resurrection of the body.” This indicates that forgiveness of sins takes place simultaneous to the gathering of the church and prior to the final resurrection. Forgiveness of sins takes place in time and history, therefore, and not in eternity antecedent to the gathering of the church. (470)

There is a lot of just plain nonsense here. Professor Cammenga points out that the forgiveness of sins is placed between the communion of saints and the final resurrection. Then he draws the asinine conclusion that the order of the creed establishes a temporal order of salvation. By that kind of argument, then, Jesus descended into hell after he was buried. Then also according to this very question and answer, the Apostles’ Creed establishes that there is first a church, then a communion of saints, and then forgiveness. And Cammenga, recognizing that all of this is silly, simply contradicts his own argument and says that this forgiveness “takes place simultaneous to the gathering of the church.” Well, Professor Cammenga, which is it? Is the Catechism talking about what is before and after, or is the Catechism talking about what is simultaneous?

But Cammenga’s main point here is not that repentance and faith are before forgiveness, but his point is that there is no forgiveness at all except in time and history. And he does not mean simply in time and history, but he means that there is no forgiveness until the sinner repents and believes; God does not and God cannot forgive the sinner unless and until the sinner repents.

But Professor Cammenga must have forgotten to check the proof texts that the Catechism includes with its statement of doctrine. The creed cites 2 Corinthians 5:19, 21 where we read,

19. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

21. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Therefore, what the Catechism is not teaching in its statement of doctrine is that there is only forgiveness if and when the sinner repents. But the Catechism is very much teaching that God at the cross did not impute the trespasses of his people unto them. This is a summary in a few words of their forgiveness and justification at the cross. In other words, when the Catechism teaches that we confess the forgiveness of sins, it means that the church of the saints confesses that at the cross of Christ forgiveness and justification were accomplished and that this truth is declared to the church in the gospel as that in which the saints’ salvation consists. There is forgiveness! We are saved! At the cross! There is forgiveness as a certain reality for the church. It is not that there will be forgiveness if and when and only after repentance. There is forgiveness of sin. This does not mean that there is forgiveness available for the sinner only after he repents. This is really what Cammenga must teach. He must teach that the cross of Christ made forgiveness available for all those who repent and believe. But that is just sheer Arminianism. The Reformed faith is very different. The cross of Christ accomplished the forgiveness of the elect church. The elect are forgiven from Calvary. I am not here making the argument about forgiveness in eternity. Cammenga hates that doctrine and views it as antinomian. But he will not even confess that there is forgiveness at the cross of Christ. For Cammenga there is not and there may not be forgiveness of the sinner unless and until the sinner repents.

This is not the meaning of question and answer 56 at all. They are a confession of the church that she is forgiven at Calvary. That is the nature of a confession of faith. “I believe that there is a holy, catholic church. I believe that there is the communion of saints. I likewise believe that there is the forgiveness of sins because of the cross of Christ. I believe that God will not remember my sins as an abiding fact because I believe that Christ died on the cross.” I will sin. I sin all my life long. I sin in all that I do. I have to struggle with my sinful human nature all my life long. But this fact remains true and unchanging: God will not remember my sins or sinfulness. He has imputed to me Christ’s righteousness. He will do that because he has already done that at the cross, where God did not impute my sins to me, but God imputed my sins to Christ in order that I be made—at the cross—the righteousness of God in Christ.

The Catechism is not teaching anything even remotely approximating what Professor Cammenga is teaching. He corrupts the Catechism and robs the believer of his only comfort of belonging to Jesus Christ, in whom the believer has now and forever the forgiveness of sins. Cammenga writes, “Clearly, forgiveness follows and does not precede repentance.” Clearly, this is not the point of the Catechism at all. Clearly, the Catechism teaches that there is forgiveness at the cross. Clearly, the Catechism backs this up with a reference to 2 Corinthians 5:19, 21. Clearly, Cammenga is not Reformed at all.

A Liberated Covenant Doctrine

Professor Cammenga’s treatment of question and answer 70 shows that he is not only Roman Catholic in his doctrine of justification, but he is also liberated Reformed in his doctrine of the covenant.

First, I quote the Catechism:

Q. 70. What is it to be washed with the blood and Spirit of Christ?

A. It is to receive of God the remission of sins freely, for the sake of Christ’s blood, which He shed for us by His sacrifice upon the cross; and also to be renewed by the Holy Ghost, and sanctified to be members of Christ, that so we may more and more die unto sin and lead holy and unblamable lives. (Confessions and Church Order, 109)

I quote in full what Cammenga writes about question and answer70:

Q&A 70 of the Catechism speaks of the spiritual reality of baptism, which applies to the elect who are baptized. For them baptism is “to be washed with the blood and Spirit of Christ.” And what does that entail? “It is to receive of God the remission of sins freely, for the sake of Christ’s blood, which He has shed for us by His sacrifice upon the cross.” After his baptism, as he matures in the faith, the child of God appropriates the spiritual significance of his baptism. At that point he “receive[s] of God the remission of [his] sins freely.” Once again, remission (forgiveness) of sins takes place during and not before the lifetime of the child of God. (470)

This is a total corruption of the Reformed doctrine of baptism, the covenant, and the promise. This total corruption is thoroughly Schilderian and liberated in its conceptions. The subject here must be applied to the infant. Professor Cammenga himself has in view the infant. This infant is baptized. In that baptism there is a promise of God: “I will forgive your sins.” This promise is rooted in election and made sure at the cross of Jesus Christ, where Christ accomplished that forgiveness. The sacrament of baptism itself is the seal of the righteousness that is by faith alone without works. But according to Cammenga the child does not have this forgiveness until he believes. And remember that for Cammenga repentance is the other side of faith. Until—and you must say if—the child repents and believes, he has not received the remission of sins. This is now a fully conditional promise in the covenant of grace. The promise of God for the remission of sins waits on and is dependent upon the child and the child’s faith and repentance. Notice how explicit Cammenga is: “At that point he ‘receive[s] of God the remission of [his] sins freely.’” The infant child does not have the remission of sins until the point of his faith and repentance. If words have meaning, this is what Cammenga wrote: “At that point…” Not before this faith and repentance of the child, but “at that point” of his faith and repentance, the child “receive[s] of God the remission of [his] sins freely.” The promise of forgiveness here does not actually apply to the infant until he matures in the faith and responds to the promise in faith and repentance. Apart from his faith and repentance, the infant does not have remission. The baptized person has forgiveness only in the way of his faith and repentance. And so when Cammenga adds, “Once again, remission (forgiveness) of sins takes place during and not before the lifetime of the child of God,” Professor Cammenga is dishonest. Forgiveness for Cammenga is not only restricted to the lifetime of the child of God; but also during that child’s lifetime, forgiveness is restricted to the moment of his faith and repentance. Cammenga writes, “At that point he ‘receive[s]’…” The infant does not receive remission before that, regardless of the fact that God promised remission, and regardless of the fact that Christ accomplished remission at the cross. And this means for Cammenga that God’s promise in the covenant is, in fact, a conditional promise. And that is not Reformed at all.

The baptism form says about infants,

Although our young children do not understand these things, we may not therefore exclude them from baptism, for as they are without their knowledge partakers of the condemnation in Adam, so are they again received unto grace in Christ. (Confessions and Church Order, 259)

That is lovely! That is Reformed! That is comforting! That is God-first, God-centered theology. That is grace! The children partake of condemnation in Adam, and they do not know a thing about it. The children partake of justification in Christ, and they do not know a thing about it. They have forgiveness because God promised it. They have it without a tear of repentance and without one word of faith. They have it because they are incorporated into Jesus Christ by election and by faith. And being members of Christ’s body by faith, all of Christ’s righteousness is abundantly sufficient to acquit them of all their sins, original as well as personal, and most of which they have not even committed yet. Parents are duty bound, according to the form, to instruct their children herein. The children are to be instructed in the reality of their forgiveness that they had when they could not even repent and when the only reality of faith for them was that it was their bond with Christ. Cammenga does not tell us what happens to children who die in their infancy. Perhaps he resorts to the same sort of theology that Professor Gritters recently sucked out of his thumb, in which Gritters had infants repenting in heaven because, after all, there is no forgiveness without repentance. Can no one in the Protestant Reformed Churches see, and does anyone in the churches care that this is the same covenant theology that was rejected in 1953 in the Protestant Reformed Churches? Cannot anyone see, and does anyone care that Cammenga is teaching a conditional covenant in which the baptized child has the promise, but the promise does not come into the child’s possession until he repents? Cannot anyone see that this is not a stitch different from the liberated covenant theology of Klaas Schilder and company?

Leaving Out Election

Professor Cammenga finds the same sort of man-centered theology in the Canons. He refers the readers of the Standard Bearer to Canons 2.5. Remember that he is proving the theology that faith and repentance are before remission. Remission does not happen in eternity. Remission does not happen at the cross. Remission does not happen even when the infant is baptized. God can promise remission to the infant, but the infant does not have the promise unless and until he matures in the faith and repents and believes. I can be brief here.

Cammenga writes,

The command to repent and believe must be accompanied by the promise of the gospel. The promise is that they who “believe in Christ crucified shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” The promise of everlasting life is joined to the command to repent and believe. Only they whose sins are forgiven enter into everlasting life; those whose sins are not forgiven perish. The promise, therefore, is essentially that those who repent and believe will have the forgiveness of their sins. Having the forgiveness of the sins over which they have repented, they will enter into life everlasting. Forgiveness follows repentance and precedes everlasting life. Repentance, followed by forgiveness, followed by everlasting life—this is the biblical order. (471)

But Cammenga leaves out of the biblical order something very important. It is something that the Canons do not leave out. That is election. The point of the Canons is that the gospel must be preached wherever God in his good pleasure sends the gospel. The gospel does not come to an undifferentiated mass of people, along with the command to repent and believe, and then men distinguish themselves. The preaching of the gospel proceeds from God’s eternal decree. The gospel efficaciously comes to those whom God has from eternity loved and whom he has at the cross already reconciled to himself. So in explanation of the coming of the preaching and as an explanation of faith in Christ, who is preached, the Canons say in 2.8,

For this was the sovereign counsel and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father, that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of his Son should extend to all the elect, for the bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith. (Confessions and Church Order, 163)

The order is not, in fact, as Cammenga states, “Repentance, followed by forgiveness, followed by everlasting life.” The order is election! Election! Cammenga constantly leaves out election. Along with that he leaves out the saving efficacy of the death of Christ. Note well, the Canons teach that the death of Christ was efficacious, and what that means is not simply that on the basis of Christ’s death the elect will be justified when they repent and believe. But the efficacious death of Christ means that he accomplished fully and completely the justification and salvation of the elect at the cross, which salvation is extended to the elect through the gift of justifying faith. That this is the viewpoint of the Canons in this article is made plain later when the same article says that “the Father…should confer upon them [the elect and them only] faith, which, together with all the other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, He purchased for them by His death” (163–64). In the language of the Canons, the death of Christ purchased faith and all the other saving benefits, including the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness was as real at the cross as the elects’ union with Christ and as his suffering and atoning death. The elect had been forgiven long before they repented. God brings the elect to repentance not so that he can forgive them, but because it was his will that they have all that Christ purchased for them, including the knowledge of their salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.

When Professor Cammenga actually gets around to talking about election, he deprives election of all force. So he writes,

According to Canons III/IV.10, that some obey the call of the gospel and are converted “must be wholly ascribed to God, who as He has chosen His own from eternity in Christ, so He confers upon them faith and repentance, rescues them from the power of darkness, and translates them into the kingdom of His own Son.” God’s conferring “faith and repentance”—the two always together—is the beginning of the deliverance of His elect people. That beginning is followed by rescue from the power of darkness, which includes certainly forgiveness of sins. The divine order of repentance followed by forgiveness is confirmed once again. (471)

The beginning of the deliverance of God’s people is surely not God’s conferring on them faith and repentance. If that were the case, that would make the decree as good as a dead letter. The beginning of the deliverance of God’s people is, in fact, an eternal beginning. That was the issue with the Arminians at Dordt. When they would speak of election, they made it a dead letter. The beginning of man’s deliverance was in time for the Arminians. The beginning of deliverance was in time according as man responded to the call of the gospel. Time was what mattered to the Arminians, and they denigrated eternity. Cammenga does nothing different. He is not Reformed at all. What Reformed man could say that the beginning of the deliverance of God’s people is repentance and faith? The decree is their salvation. The cross is their salvation. They are saved before they shed one tear. The Reformed fathers insisted that the beginning of deliverance was in eternity and that this beginning is the cause of all that follows.

Professor Cammenga’s whole handling of the Canons is laughable. Remember that the Reformed fathers were arguing against the Arminians, who made faith and the imperfect works of faith, including repentance, to be conditions. Man must do the works first, and then God will give what he promises. And that is the theology that Cammenga finds in the Canons. One would think that the Reformed fathers lost their minds. Is it really the case that they were arguing first repentance, then forgiveness, and then eternal life? They, in fact, argued the opposite. They insisted on an election theology and also then the inevitability of the salvation of God’s elect people. The Reformed fathers were arguing not for what man must do to receive a certain blessing of God, but they were insisting that all salvation and all its benefits proceed from divine election. The fathers insisted not on what man must do, but they insisted on the inevitability of what the elect do: repent and believe. The fathers were not arguing about what came first, second, third, and fourth, but they were arguing that all salvation proceeds from election as salvation’s cause! And the fathers were intent on showing over against the Arminians’ slander—which is really in essence Cammenga’s slander—that while man does repent and believe, that his repenting and believing are of God, who works in his people both to will and to do of his good pleasure. The Arminians would never have had a problem with Cammenga’s Canons. After the Arminians finished talking about everything man must do, they could get back to election. But the problem of the Arminians, which is the same problem as Cammenga’s, was that they did not begin with election. Repentance first. Then forgiveness. Then eternal life. Then election.

So much for the Reformed creeds binding every officebearer. Apparently, the creeds do not bind Professor Cammenga. He should know that for ages there have been Reformed officebearers who have paid lip service to the creeds. And he is one of them. He takes what he wants from the creeds and changes what he does not want.

Sounds Arminian

Still more in light of Cammenga’s before and after language—repentance before forgiveness—he should know that the Canons of Dordt put this language alongside the language of conditions as equivalent expressions and that the Canons of Dordt put both this language of before and after and the language of conditions in the mouths of the Arminians. So says Canons 1.9,

This election was not founded upon foreseen faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality or disposition in man, as the prerequisite, cause, or condition on which it depended; but men are chosen to faith and to the obedience of faith, holiness, etc. Therefore election is the fountain of every saving good, from which proceeds faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation, and finally eternal life itself, as its fruits and effects, according to that of the apostle: He hath chosen us (not because we were, but) that we might be holy and without blame before him in love (Eph. 1:4). (Confessions and Church Order, 157)

Homer Hoeksema, in his commentary on the Canons, notes a major translation issue with the opening sentence of Canons 1.9 as translated in our English version:

This election was not founded upon foreseen faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality or disposition in man, as the prerequisite, cause, or condition on which it depended; but men are chosen to faith and to the obedience of faith, holiness.

Hoeksema proposes instead this substitute translation:

This same election was not accomplished out of foreseen faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, or any other quality or disposition, as the cause or condition required beforehand…in the person to be elected, but is unto faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness.³

Canons 1.9 is Dordt’s attack on the main Arminian redoubt in the teaching of election by foreseen faith. The Arminians at Dordt taught that faith and the other activities are the condition of election that is required beforehand and that which God also then sees beforehand.

I might remark here that when conditional theology makes faith the condition, the theology cannot ever simply stop at faith, but conditional theology keeps adding conditions. There is condition after condition after condition that is added. To faith the Arminians added holiness and perseverance. We had a perfect example of that with Reverend Koole’s false doctrine. In October 2018 he taught that faith is that which man must do to be saved. By November 2020 he was teaching that works are also what man must do to be saved. The error of conditions always eventually takes over all of salvation and finally all of theology, so that conditional theology reconstructs the doctrine of God too. So soon as faith is admitted as a condition, the God of sovereign election becomes the idol god of open theism, who has a mutual relationship with man and responds to him.

I note here too that the fathers at Dordt put the language of conditions in the mouths of the Arminians and condemned that language. There was no excuse in the Reformed churches after Dordt for Reformed men to use the word conditions. And there are no conditions in a Reformed sense. Nothing that man does is the condition or cause of what God does.

And I want to make a note here that the language of “required beforehand” is also put in the mouths of the Arminians and condemned. Really, with that phrase “required beforehand,” we have the Reformed definition of what a condition is. A condition is that which is “required beforehand,” so that an activity of man is required before God can perform what he performs.

Note that and see that this is very relevant. We are doing battle with a theology of conditions that cleverly disguises itself as interested in merely what is before and what is after. But you have to ask those who teach this theology, why is what is before and what is after so important? And they will expose themselves when they say that faith and repentance are required before God can do what he promised he will do. By that explanation they also expose themselves as conditional. The Protestant Reformed ministers and professors can talk only about what is required beforehand: repentance is required before forgiveness; faith is required before justification; a life of good works is required before blessing. This language is fundamentally Arminian and has completely lost sight of God’s decree. The Reformed language speaks of election as an inexhaustible fountain out of which flows from God to his people all that he has decreed to give to them.

Homer Hoeksema also takes note, and I point out too, that heretics and false teachers always play hocus-pocus with words. The men whom we are dealing with in the Protestant Reformed Churches are always playing hocus-pocus with words too. So they mention election, grace, Jesus Christ, covenant, repentance, and faith, but they are constantly injecting new meanings into these terms, and you always have to ask, “But what do you mean by that?” So they say that we are saved by grace alone, and everyone thinks that everyone else is saying the same thing; but in reality what I mean by saved by grace alone is that I am not saved by works at all; and what they mean by saved by grace alone is that God enables a person to believe, and God enables that person to do good works, and that person is saved by his act of faith and in the way of his obedience. Heretics trade in words like a card shark trades in cards.

So the Arminians played word games too. The Arminians spoke of an election to faith; they spoke of faith as a gift of God; but they would never say that God gives faith to whomsoever he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. They would never say that faith flows out of God’s eternal decree of election. Hoeksema makes a very important point: the lie while claiming to make theology simple makes theology a muddle. The Arminians multiplied conditions. They multiplied decrees of election. They multiplied meanings of words.

So also today the Protestant Reformed ministers and professors multiply distinction upon distinction, and their words can have so many different meanings. And if you ask the average people in the pew what their church teaches, they would be unable to tell you except to say that they are saved in the way of obedience. They show that they have caught the drift; and without all the clever distinctions made to cover the lie, they state the lie baldly. They have been taken in by the cunning craftiness of men.

Election the Cause

The Reformed make election the cause of faith and of every saving benefit. The Reformed say in Canons 1.9, “Therefore election is the fountain…from which proceed faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation…as its fruits and effects” (Confessions and Church Order, 157). That word “effects” is important. These things are fruits of election, so that election is a kind of root that bears fruits in the hearts and lives of the elect. Election is also a cause and effect of every saving good mentioned by the Canons: “faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation, and finally eternal life itself.” Election is no mere dead decree or mere impotent will, but election is the living will of the living God. And what God decrees is perfect in him; and what God decrees, he carries out, so that his will bears fruit and has effects in the lives of the elect. Election is unto faith. Election is unto holiness. Election is unto eternal life. Remember those three kinds of expressions used by the Canons to express the relationship between election and salvation or between election and faith, obedience, holiness, and eternal life. Election is a fountain. Election bears fruits. Election causes an effect. Let us just speak, for example, about faith. Election is the fountain of faith, so that faith flows out of the fountain into the elect like waters from the fountain. Election is a kind of eternal root that bears the fruit of faith in the hearts of the elect. Election is the cause of the effect of faith in the hearts of the elect. And then we must never lose sight of the truth that the decree is the decreeing God, so that the overflowing fountain, the deep source, and the divine cause of salvation is God in every respect. It is simply impossible in light of Canons 1.9 to maintain that there are things that man must do before God can do something else. You simply have a different god—not merely a different doctrine of salvation but a different god—at that point. He is a god whose saving work is out of man just as the god of Arminianism has his decree out of the activity of man.

And it is Professor Cammenga’s corruption of God and God’s decree that comes out clearly in his articles. Cammenga has cast off decretal theology. The pressing question is, why is it so important for Cammenga that repentance, as he says, is before forgiveness? Cammenga asks some questions in his articles that shed light on how far he is from the Reformed faith when he says that repentance is before forgiveness. He asks,

Why ought the sinner to repent if his sin is already forgiven? Why ought the church member under discipline repent of sin on account of which he is going to be excommunicated if his sin is already forgiven by God? Why ought there be any call to repentance in the preaching of the gospel if forgiveness has already been granted by God? Why ought there be any warning that, if the sinner does not repent, he will perish if God has from eternity forgiven the sinner? Why should the child of God at day’s end humble himself before God and plead for the forgiveness of the sins committed against His most high majesty if he already enjoys the blessing of God’s forgiveness of his sin?⁴

Then, as the very last sentence of his seventh article, he asks, “For if forgiveness takes place in eternity, what need is there for repentance in the lifetime of the Christian?”⁵

That is a full-throated attack on the decree by means of questions that for Professor Cammenga are rhetorical. The answer of Cammenga to the question of why the sinner should repent if he is already forgiven in eternity and at the cross is that the sinner need not repent. The sinner need not ask for forgiveness of sins. He need not repent. He need not turn if he is under discipline. And those questions show that Cammenga has never tasted the gospel and knows nothing of the decree of God. The need and necessity of all these things is the decree and the decreeing God himself. Because God willed these things, he also brings to pass what he willed. And those questions of Cammenga also point out that the decree for him is a mere potentiality—the decree is not real at all until time.

Those questions are an attack on the very concept of God’s decree. The questions are anti-decretal, and they come from a mind and out of a heart that is anti-decretal as well. The questions come from a conception of the decree of God as a mere blueprint of what God will do, a blueprint that becomes real and actual only when God does what he decrees. And that is the most charitable reading I can place on Professor Cammenga’s words. I say that in reality the questions are anti-decretal. They are fundamentally Arminian in their conceptions and origin. You could just as well ask the question, “If Christ was crucified in eternity, then why did he even bother about dying in time?” Indeed, in light of what Cammenga says, you must ask that about the entire decree of God. If God decreed salvation in eternity, then why bother with time? And Cammenga denigrates the whole decree and the whole Reformed conception of the decree. Cannot anyone see that this is the viewpoint of Cammenga? How could this pass in the Protestant Reformed Churches if the whole denomination is not exactly where Professor Cammenga is? He has taught an entire generation of men this viewpoint, and with this viewpoint they no longer have a decree. The decree of God does not do anything in their theology. And with that kind of a decreeless theology, they also have a different god.

I would also point out that this view of the decree is entirely different from Herman Hoeksema’s view. Cammenga barks about Hoeksema and the Protestant Reformed fathers, but Cammenga must not have a clue about what they actually taught. Anyone with a stitch of honesty would know that Hoeksema and the rest of the orthodox fathers would never have asked such a question as, “If God forgave sins in eternity, then what need is there of repentance?” They would have reprobated such a viewpoint as entirely unreformed and Arminian, and so it is. Specifically, with regard to the decree and the forgiveness of sins, Hoeksema wrote,

God is an eternally active God. His works are not only known unto Him from all eternity, but are also in Him eternally perfect…His works are from eternity to eternity perfect in Himself.⁶

God not only knows the works, that is, he knows what will happen by virtue of having decreed it, but also those works are perfect in him! That is glorious! God is the rock, and all his works are perfect.

Applying that viewpoint of the counsel to salvation and specifically to the forgiveness of sins, Hoeksema wrote,

First of all, we certainly may speak of our justification from eternity. We are justified in the decree of election from before the foundation of the world…In His eternal counsel God has ordained Christ as Mediator and head of all the elect. And therefore it must be true that God knew the elect in Christ as justified from 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.⁷

Is that not altogether lovely and comforting? Does that not trumpet God as God? And that bears no resemblance to Professor Cammenga’s question, “If God forgave sins in eternity, then what need is there of repentance?” I do not know if Cammenga will ever get around to trying to prove that Protestant Reformed theologians taught what he teaches, but he should save himself the embarrassment of trying.

The Protestant Reformed denomination can perish with Cammenga and his theology, and she will. But the ministers and professors should stop barking about being Reformed and about being the spiritual heirs of Protestant Reformed theology. A truly Protestant Reformed man who believed Protestant Reformed truth would never ask the questions that Cammenga does. Cammenga is not Reformed. He is not historically Protestant Reformed either. He is Arminian and Roman Catholic to the core. And he is an antinomian too because he took a vow to defend the churches from the very theology that he embraces and with which he sullies the churches, contrary to his vow.

His theology has no grace in it. It is a theology of works. And that theology is not Reformed at all.