Clever Piece

Rev. Martyn McGeown has written a piece on the blog of the Reformed Free Publishing Association (RFPA), entitled “Passive Faith?”¹ Why he put the title in the form of a question is not clear. Reverend McGeown does not believe that faith is passive, least of all in the matter of justification. It is not an open question for him whether faith is passive. He hates the concept of passive faith and rails against it.

I say his piece is the work of an eel or a snake. You can take your pick. He was nonexistent in the recent fight for the truth in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). He was languishing in Ireland under instructions from the Protestant Reformed hierarchy, as were all the denomination’s sister churches and ministers, not to write concerning—or “interfere with,” in the common terminology—the PRC’s doctrinal controversy. The instructions from on high were, “Stay out of it; do not get involved.” Even though the Protestant Reformed ministers were denying justification by faith alone, and Protestant Reformed classes and synods were right there with them, the instructions were, “Do not interfere; just some troublers in Israel; we will handle it.” Reverend McGeown was part of that, tucked away in Ireland. Now that he does not risk any trouble or death and has the backing of the same Protestant Reformed hierarchy, he slithers out of his hole or from under his rock to hiss and to spit at us.

People complain about my tone; but after reading his nasty blog post, I will not listen to complaints about tone again. His post is mockery, pure and simple. His blog is condescension and dismissal. His writing is the work of a very proud man. And that is unsurprising; his theology is a proud theology. He lays claim on God’s work as his own and boasts of his own activity of faith, of all places, in the matter of justification.

Remember, justification has always been the issue in the PRC’s doctrinal controversy. How does a man come to God? What is the way to God? The answer was Jesus Christ through his works that he works in you. That was the denial of justification by faith alone and the denial that Christ is the only way to the Father. Those who were teaching that in the PRC threw sand in everyone’s eyes by making it seem as though the issue was antinomians and those who were making men stocks and blocks and those who did not want the call of the gospel or the preaching of admonitions. But that was all distraction to hide the false doctrine that man, man’s spiritual activities, and man’s obedience are part of the way to the Father.

Reverend McGeown continues that and advances it by clearly teaching that faith is what man does to be saved. For him faith is not God’s work; it is emphatically man’s work and man’s work for justification and salvation. If McGeown will do that before God, then we should expect that he will also vaunt himself against his fellow man.

Also, his bantering style and false and leading questions reveal that theology is evidently a game for him and one that he is intent on winning. His cards are the terms; his audience, the dupes; and he is the dealer. What he has come out with is one of the cleverest pieces of writing that I have read in a long time.

Such cleverness is not always the case with Protestant Reformed theologians. Professor Cammenga comes out plainly with his false doctrine and slander of the gospel. He is more like a snarling jackal. He has no art, and he is not clever at all. He proclaims boldly that Jesus Christ did not personally accomplish every aspect of our salvation; that God condescends to us to use our good works to confirm our faith; and that it is not enough for our salvation that Christ was crucified, but we must also come to him. This is a naked two-track theology of God and man.

Reverend McGeown assures the readers of his blog post that no Protestant Reformed ministers believe that Christ is not enough for justification; but if he were not such a respecter of persons, he could listen to or read Professor Cammenga’s sermon on Lord’s Day 7 concerning justifying faith and see that Cammenga very definitely adds works to faith as the way to the assurance of salvation. Assurance of salvation is the chief fruit of justification, according to Romans 5:1, where the apostle teaches that being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But Christ is not enough for Professor Cammenga. He teaches doubting people to look at their works; they must work for their assurance. Once they have worked for their assurance, then they work some more to keep it; and if they stop working, they will not have assurance. You can see my previous articles for a summary of his false doctrine and his hypocrisy and lies.²

The point now is that Professor Cammenga’s denial of all the solas of the Reformation is very plain, unless one is blind. His writing and preaching are designed for the Protestant Reformed person who could not care less about doctrine, to let them know where the teaching of the churches actually is and that a little controversy has not put them off their game. Professor Cammenga would also be the first to admit that there is a huge divide between the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) and the PRC and that the divide is over doctrine. He is very open, if a bit vicious, that we in the RPC are all antinomians in our doctrine and that, by contrast, he represents the truth. He panders to his audience and peddles all the usual slanders of apostate churches during times of reformation. But at least he is open about what he believes. He and others of his generation, like Rev. K. Koole, in their writing and preaching are cut from the same cloth. They come out openly with their false doctrine.

It is because of the offense that this false doctrine has caused among Protestant Reformed people who still do care about doctrine and whose hair stands on end at the appalling statements of Professor Cammenga and Reverend Koole, that Reverend McGeown must come on the scene with his oily words to assure everyone that all is well doctrinally in the PRC. He craftily uses orthodox-sounding language and emphasizes many theological distinctions—such as basis of justification and instrument of justification—to assure the restless that the Protestant Reformed denomination, indeed, has every doctrinal i dotted and every doctrinal t crossed. He is clever and crafty in his doctrine. I am not sure if this is from long practice or whether this is a newly acquired art. Regardless, neither explanation is commendable. Perhaps, he did not write this clever piece and only put his name to it to protect the one who did write it. These kinds of things do happen. Such a thing would be dishonest, but we cannot expect honesty of everyone.

Regardless, he is now the newly anointed defender of Protestant Reformed doctrine.

Loyal Servant

To understand Reverend McGeown’s blog post denying passive faith, you have to understand what he wrote previously regarding faith in the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal and how he was used by the Protestant Reformed hierarchy.³

After Synod 2018, when the Protestant Reformed hierarchy was bound and determined to overthrow any good in the doctrinal decision against Hope church’s theology, Reverend Koole wrote an article in which he taught that there is that which man must do to be saved. What man had to do was faith and repentance. Koole grounded this in Acts 16:30–31 and the incident of the Philippian jailor. Koole was blatantly militating against synod. But when he was called out on that article, without blushing he lied and said that he had not militated, and he even promised to write a protest to the next synod if he disagreed with Synod 2018’s decision (secret revelation: the protest never materialized; it did not need to because the decision of Synod 2018 was dead on arrival). When Reverend Koole’s Arminian theology was pointed out, he defended it. 

Then, Reverend McGeown’s piece appeared in the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal to teach everyone that there is in fact—exactly as Reverend Koole had taught—something that man must do to be saved. What he must do is faith! But McGeown assured his readers that this faith was not a condition.

You can now read that journal article in installments on the blog of the RFPA, which is busy republishing the article as a great piece of orthodox writing.

Reverend McGeown, of course, is going to howl that he wrote that article long before Koole’s articles; but the fact is that if McGeown did not mean to defend Koole in that journal article, then when the editors of the Standard Bearer pointed to McGeown’s writing as proof that what Koole had written was orthodox, Reverend McGeown should have publicly and vigorously repudiated the association. He did not. He did not because he believes what Reverend Koole taught. McGeown believes, as does the PRC, that there is that which a man must do to be saved. McGeown provided the deceptive defense of Koole and showed himself a loyal servant of the Protestant Reformed hierarchy.

Besides, I know a thing or two about how that hierarchy works. The editors of the Standard Bearer did not point to McGeown’s article without his knowledge, and his article is not being republished as a series of blog posts on the RFPA’s website without the editors’ permission. I know from long experience that the RFPA is captive to the seminary and the editors of the Standard Bearer. A man might be able to get an article or two published by accident; but if the Protestant Reformed hierarchy does not approve of his writing, he will be maliciously charged with sin behind his back at the board meetings of the RFPA and at the Standard Bearer staff meetings, his writings will be privately slandered, and he will soon be banned from writing altogether or subjected to an obnoxious censorship. So Reverend McGeown is not writing without the permission of, if not with instructions from, the Protestant Reformed hierarchy. I do not believe for one moment that his article in the journal or his recent blog “Passive Faith?” on the RFPA website was published without passing through the censors at the seminary. He writes in his blog about what the Protestant Reformed denomination believes and what she does not believe; and he should be taken at his word, for if the denomination does not believe that, the censors would have shut him down.

He is a mouthpiece for others who have burned up all their capital. A new face and a new approach are needed. It would not do very well to trot out Reverend Koole or Professor Cammenga again. The line now is that whatever trouble the Protestant Reformed denomination faced was the unfortunate outcome of the older generation; the newer generation has it right and will lead the churches in a new direction. But McGeown writes the same old lie and the same old doctrine now that he defended in Reverend Koole: there is that which man must do to be saved.

I ask, why all this wordiness and difficulty about faith, a doctrine that is simple and easy to understand? Why does Reverend McGeown and with him the PRC have to write so many words to explain something so simple as faith? The doctrine of faith is simple. It is a living bond with Christ by which the elect are made members of his corporation; if you live long enough to become an intelligent and thinking human being, then that bond manifests itself in you as the knowledge of God as the God of your salvation and the assurance that Christ is yours, and so is heaven. Faith is an activity of the whole soul. And with regard to every aspect of faith, God gives it, confers it, breathes it, works it, and whatever other phrase you can think of to give God all the glory for faith. Because faith is all of God and none of man, all of salvation is unconditional. Now, this is all very simple. But McGeown makes it complicated in order to confuse the people.

So let us examine his doctrine.

Mark of the Dragon

Reverend McGeown has a Pelagian and Arminian view of man and of the work of grace. You must remember that Pelagianism and Arminianism are essentially the same. That is why the Canons of Dordrecht can condemn Arminianism as “the Pelagian error” brought up “out of hell” (Canons of Dordt 2, rejection 3, in Confessions and Church Order, 165). 

Throughout church history that Pelagian error has taken various forms and showed itself again and again. At the time of the Reformation, the Pelagian error was represented by the Roman Catholic Church. Erasmus, who recognized all the abuses of Rome, nevertheless stayed in Rome because he was one with Rome in her Pelagian doctrine. Consequently, Erasmus wrote against Luther and Luther’s doctrine of gracious justification as the linchpin of the doctrine of a wholly gracious salvation. Then, at the time of the Synod of Dordrecht, Arminius dressed up the same theology in different clothes. His theology found expression in the well-meant gospel offer and in the conditional covenant theology of the Liberated Reformed. Our fathers condemned all of this as Arminianism and Pelagianism.

Of course, the proponents of these errors yelped like beaten dogs when they were accused of Arminianism and said that they were not Arminians. They were only interested in a full-orbed gospel and in doing justice to the responsibility of man, were concerned not to make man a stock and a block, or merely had an interest in the holiness of the church.

But history has proven that the analysis of our fathers was right and true, and those things invariably developed into full-blown Pelagianism and Arminianism. So, for example, the Arminianism of common grace during the early 1920s in the Christian Reformed Church developed into the full-blown Arminianism of Harold Dekker in the 1960s in the Christian Reformed Church. This same thing has happened in the PRC and will continue to happen because the theology is likewise fundamentally Arminian and Pelagian. To be sure, those who promote and teach this theology, as for instance Reverend McGeown, will insist that they are being Reformed; indeed, they will insist that they are most Reformed according to the best writers. They will have their scripture passages, and Acts 16:30–31 is emerging as one of them. They will have their quotes from Reformed writers. McGeown even takes passages from Herman Hoeksema to overturn Hoeksema and does no differently than Hoeksema’s own students did with Hoeksema, as though he were a friend of their theology of man. Likewise, the Protestant Reformed theologians will have their passages from the creeds. Canons 3–4.12–14 and 17 seem to be favorites. These are creedal articles that through tricks of logic they use to prove the responsibility and work of man in salvation. All of this is nothing new. There is no new error. It is the same old error. It is Pelagian and Arminian.

And if we must seek for the signs of Pelagianism and of Arminianism, what are the signs? The Bible teaches us that the one who looks like a lamb speaks like a dragon. He has marks that betray him in spite of his deceptive looks. Pelagianism and Arminianism betray that they are of the dragon because they always have as their chief concern what man must do. They come with the slander that the truth makes man a stock and a block. That is an Arminian slander, do not forget. It came in the mouths of the Arminians against the truth. It is a slander of the truth, but the proponents of Arminianism speak about making man a stock and a block as though it were a real danger instead of a cleverly disguised attack on the truth of God’s sovereignty. Because their chief concern is what man must do, they corrupt the truth of the grace of God. When they speak of the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, it is always to enable man to do what man must do to be saved. The scripture teaches that the law serves Christ; but the Arminian and the Pelagian make Christ serve the law. Grace enables man to fulfill the law so that man can do what man must do to be saved. Man, man, man: that is the main concern of Arminianism. Grace, God, and the Holy Ghost are enablers of man. 

I maintain that this is the essence of all Pelagianism and all Arminianism. That doctrine places the activities and works of man alongside of and in consequence of the works of God, and together those two works—man’s and God’s—achieve salvation.

It is true that the work of grace as something supernatural is basically nonexistent in Pelagianism. The grace of Pelagius was external through the law, which showed man what was right and wrong so that man could do the right and avoid the wrong. Still, the main issue was the same: grace enabled man to do what man must do to be saved.

In that sense the Protestant Reformed error is more Pelagian. It is Professor Cammenga’s doctrine, the doctrine of the theological school committee, the doctrine of the Protestant Reformed synods, and the doctrine of the majority of the ministers that the preaching of the law is a means of grace. This is their doctrine because it is the doctrine of Professor Cammenga, and he is not and indeed never will be disciplined for it; he is allowed to teach it to class after class of seminarians. This teaching of the law as a means of grace makes the Protestant Reformed error more Pelagian even than Arminian. But the issue in all of the various forms of the Pelagian error is the nature of grace. In the Pelagian error, grace is an enabling power so that man can do what man must do to be saved. The error is not merely that grace enables man, but it is also that grace enables man to do what man must do to be saved. The issue is always man and what man must do for salvation.

All recognize, of course, some measure of spiritual inability in man, but grace swoops in as the theological Deus ex machina that delivers man from his spiritual inability so that man is able to do what man must do to be saved. That is the Protestant Reformed doctrine. That is Reverend Koole’s doctrine by explicit admission, which doctrine led to the formation of Reformed Believers Publishing, led to the formation and publishing of Sword and Shield, and led to the discipline of three ministers who would not stand for that doctrine. That doctrine of Reverend Koole led to those ministers being driven out of the PRC and led to the formation of the Reformed Protestant Churches. Let history note that it was Reverend Koole’s doctrine more than any other that led to all these things. His doctrine tore and divided. His doctrine destroyed and ruined. He bears the blame, and for it he will be judged. His doctrine is that there is that which man must do to be saved. Man does it by the enabling power of the Spirit;  he does it by grace; but man does it, man must do it, and man cannot be saved without man doing these things.

Faith Not God’s Act

That is also the doctrine of Reverend McGeown’s earlier journal article on faith that was pointed to as a defense for Reverend Koole’s theology. McGeown has never repudiated that association; indeed, he defends it; and he is now republishing that article in installments on the RFPA blog. That is the theology of Reverend McGeown in his blog post “Passive Faith?” That is what is behind all his language of active faith. He is not merely defending that faith is a spiritual activity of the whole soul, but he is teaching faith as what man must do to be saved. Oh, to be sure, faith is an activity of the whole soul of the believer, by which he clings to Christ; but that activity is not of himself; it is not man’s fulfillment of the command to repent and believe; it is not what man does to be saved. But that is offensive to Reverend McGeown, and he reacts against it with mockery. His faith is like the working of Pelagius and the faith of Arminius and the faith of the well-meant gospel offer and of the Liberated’s conditional covenant view. Reverend McGeown’s faith is that which man must do to be saved. McGeown’s faith is what man does to be saved, and included in that faith is works, and these are what man does to be justified. He does it by grace, of course, because grace must swoop in to rescue man from his inability; but do it man must. Man must exercise his faith, must do faith, must believe, and must be active, must do this, and must do that. McGeown’s whole blog post “Passive Faith?” is nothing but the glorification of man and the work of man and the doing of man, so much so that one wonders whether McGeown has ever understood what the gospel actually is, whether he has ever tasted its sweetness and glory as the proclamation of what Christ did to the exclusion of what man does, and whether he understands the apostle’s contrast at all between faith and working.

Reverend McGeown openly admits this when he rejects what I wrote in Sword and Shield: “No one is denying that faith precedes justification…Is faith, as man’s activity now, the means unto justification?…I deny that faith as man’s activity, faith as what man does, is the means unto the end justification.”⁴ If he rejects this, then for him faith as man’s activity, as what man must do, is the means unto justification. That is McGeown’s doctrine, that is the doctrine of the PRC, that is the doctrine with which I disagree and that I call Arminian and Pelagian.

McGeown expresses a great distaste for saying that faith is passive. Then, this much is true: the PRC does not want passive faith. The churches do not want that in any sense, not—and especially not—in the matter of justification. In shocking language he gives us his doctrine of faith: “Justification is God’s act of declaring believers righteous, while faith is our activity of trusting Jesus for salvation, which is not God’s act.”⁵

Wow! How far they have fallen from the gospel. That is the doctrine against which we contend and because of which a separation was necessary.

Then, not content to make faith man’s act for, unto, and in consequence of which man is justified, the Protestant Reformed error adds law-keeping to faith for assurance and for the experience of salvation. The denomination is awash in man and man’s works and man’s activities.

We will examine Reverend McGeown’s doctrine of faith more closely next time.