Rev. Martyn McGeown’s writing is slippery. Unless you grab him by the head, he will turn around and bite you or writhe out of your grasp. He switches seamlessly between true statements and false statements. This is again evident from his series “Preaching Repentance and Forgiveness,” published on the blog of the Reformed Free Publishing Association.¹

His purpose in the series is to explain Christ’s command to his church prior to his ascension to preach repentance and forgiveness in the whole world. That is the command, if nothing else, to proclaim God’s saving purpose and the saving work of Jesus Christ. That preaching is a proclamation about the work of God, the work of God to fulfill his promise.

However, for Reverend McGeown that preaching is about man and what man must do. In his series he sprinkles a little grace on the dish that he serves up. But the series is mostly about man.

Especially is his handling of scripture deceitful. I have complained about this before and will reiterate it again about Protestant Reformed writing: quoting a passage of scripture is not scriptural proof. One must explain the passage of scripture and how it applies to the issue at hand. Protestant Reformed ministers simply quote scriptural passages as though the passages alone prove the minister’s point. The ministers and officebearers do this in their synodical, classical, and consistorial decisions and in their writings. It is deceitful handling of the word of God.

I will get to Reverend McGeown’s quoting of scriptural passages in the next article.

In his series “Preaching Repentance and Forgiveness,” Reverend McGeown comes to explain his doctrine of conditional justification. He does so by means of a clever distinction. Protestant Reformed ministers are all about distinctions. They love distinctions. Distinctions are their theological bread and butter. By means of distinctions they confuse the people and steal away from them the truth. Reverend McGeown also has his distinctions. In his blog series “Preaching Repentance and Forgiveness,” he enlightens his readers about the distinction between justification and the forgiveness of sins. If you thought all of your life that justification and the forgiveness of sins are basically the same and that to say “Justification is by faith alone” and to say “Forgiveness is by faith alone” are to say the same thing, then you are in for a surprise because Reverend McGeown tells us that justification and forgiveness are to be distinguished.

This distinction is the key to understanding his doctrine of conditional justification, conditioned specifically on man’s act of repentance. He brings up truths, such as eternal justification and objective justification, but only to get them out of the way so that he can come to the real issue, which is man’s experience. Here he is typically Protestant Reformed: a conditional experience of salvation, specifically of justification and specifically conditioned on man’s act of repenting. The doctrine of justification by faith alone has no real place in his writing about the experience of salvation. Justification is something that happens once at some unspecified time, and then he can be finished with that matter of justification by faith without works, and he can get to the experience of salvation and the experience of justification in particular, which very much is by works, specifically the work of repenting.

Whenever I read and write about Protestant Reformed ministers and professors, I always remind myself of what has transpired in the recent warfare between the truth and the lie. It keeps me grounded. Protestant Reformed ministers and professors are magicians; and unless you keep your head and actually look in another place than they want you to, they will by means of feint, deception, misdirection, smoke, and mirrors steal the truth from you and cause you to believe their lies. I have never understood better than I do now what Jesus Christ meant in Matthew 24:23–24 when he warned his church that at the end of time and as a sign of his coming false teachers would arise.

Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

The message of the false teacher is that he brings Christ: Christ is with the false teacher, and Christ speaks through the false teacher. Thus he points here and there to Christ. The false teacher’s message about Christ is confirmed by signs and wonders. Signs and wonders are dazzling displays performed under the power of the lie in order to deceive you. I used to think that this meant that the false teacher would call fire from heaven or heal a sick person, and perhaps in the future that might be true. But I am certain now that signs and wonders also mean dazzling displays of words, intellect, rhetoric, and argumentation.

Professor Engelsma is adept at this, perhaps more than any other. A dazzling display of intellect, a turn of phrases, and theological acumen with a healthy dose of scorn and a little jocularity; but the power and purpose behind that are to bewitch you and to turn you from the truth. Believe it not!

Reverend McGeown is also adept at this black art. After I have finished reading his articles, I always say to myself, after a great contest, that I thank God that I did not lose my faith. Reverend McGeown is slippery. He piles on resources that make the reader suppose that the whole scripture and the entirety of the Reformed faith back up his theology. But he is a deceiver whose writings also stand in the service of turning you from the truth to the lie. Believe them not!

I find it to be profitable in order to understand the times in which we live to know what has transpired in the recent controversy. The Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) and her ministers are experts at the big lie and crafting the narratives to fit their purposes. Their purposes are to cover the lies that they teach and preach and to deceive the simple. Their past narrative explained that there was no doctrinal issue in the PRC, but the split in the PRC was the result of the misbehavior of some ministers. This narrative continued and said that the PRC really would like Andy, Nathan, Marty, and others to come back to the PRC and be a happy family again. Some were even reluctant to call the separation schism, even though all who left the PRC were charged with schism. The narrative explained that the separation was a rather unfortunate event, the result of stubbornness and recalcitrance on the part of the ringleaders, but there was essentially no doctrinal difference between the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) and the PRC. The ministers in the RPC especially were big meanies. So the narrative continued. Perhaps there was a tendency in the RPC toward antinomianism, but the two denominations were basically the same doctrinally. Then the narrative changed. After the split the RPC ministers were harsh in their rhetoric. The difference was only a matter of rhetoric, rhetoric that was over the top and unnecessary. Then the narrative changed again. There was, in fact, a doctrinal difference between the denominations, but the doctrinal difference was only perceived, a matter of misunderstanding and perhaps reactionary to a perceived threat to the gospel that did not in reality exist. Once again the narrative changed. While there was initially no doctrinal difference or only a perceived doctrinal difference, the continued writing and preaching in the RPC show that the Reformed Protestant denomination has developed her theology and is definitely antinomian, makes believers stocks and blocks, denies that repentance is necessary, and in reality denies the Reformed faith and really the entirety of the Christian faith. In addition, the Reformed Protestant ministers are still big meanies who use harsh rhetoric and attack people. This narrative developed, so that now the view is that there really never was a controversy at all in the PRC. The whole issue was manufactured. Thus those in the PRC now maintain that the denomination has held to the truth without change for the entirety of her existence. This narrative maintains that the controversy revealed that in the PRC the real problem has been radicals and those who do not love the church and those who have been plotting the overthrow of the PRC for years. Now thankfully the radicals and troublemakers are all gone from the PRC, so that the denomination can get on with her life. Many, many narratives! And I could give more. They change with the people with whom you talk and with the time of the day and month. The narratives change more frequently than changes of underwear. The purposes of all the narratives are to misdirect, confuse, and deceive.

And so it is good to remind ourselves that the narrative has not changed in nearly seven years. Indeed, the narrative has not changed for six thousand years. There is enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, between the truth and the lie, between the true church and the false church, and between a spiritual seed and a carnal seed, as the apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 4:29: “As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.”

The issue between the PRC and the RPC is doctrinal. The issue involves the doctrine of justification by faith alone, especially as that doctrine is applied to the experience of the believer and his enjoyment and assurance of his salvation. The false doctrine in the PRC taught that in addition to faith the good works, deeds, and activities of man are the way to God, especially in a man’s conscious experience of salvation. The sermon that brought the doctrinal issue to light in the PRC taught that faith in Christ and the good works done by grace in the power of the Holy Spirit are the way to God. Faith and good works are the way to peace, happiness, joy, assurance, and the experience of salvation. That was defended tooth and nail in the PRC. And it was finally codified as official Protestant Reformed dogma by Synod 2020, which taught that there are activities of man that precede blessings of God.

The emeritus professor of dogmatics in the Theological School of the Protestant Reformed Churches, Prof. David Engelsma, has made clear that Protestant Reformed dogma is that there are activities of man that precede God’s justification of a man, so that those activities—forgiving the neighbor, repenting, believing with an active faith (active faith means faith as man’s act, not God’s act)—are unto God’s act of forgiving a man. By the word unto Professor Engelsma means that without which God may not forgive the sinner—that upon which God’s act of forgiving the sinner is conditioned. Professor Engelsma, more than any other, has advanced the doctrinal controversy and is responsible for the perishing of generations of people in the fires of false doctrine. His writing is an offense in the biblical sense of the term, that is, that by which many are hardened in their lies and many others stumble and break their spiritual necks. The false doctrine is conditional justification in man’s experience, justification by faith as man’s act and by man’s deeds and activities performed by grace. When the Protestant Reformed ministers use the words precede, unto, in the way of, and active, they mean condition and prerequisite. So when they say that there are activities of man that precede blessings of God, they mean conditions unto the blessings of God. When they say that repentance is unto forgiveness, they mean that repentance is the condition to forgiveness. When they say that fellowship with God is in the way of obedience, they mean that fellowship with God is conditioned on obedience. When they say that forgiveness is experienced by an active faith, they mean conditioned on faith as man’s activity. Man must repent in order that God may forgive him; man must forgive his neighbor in order that God may forgive him; man must believe with an active faith—faith as man’s act, not God’s act—in order that God may forgive him. Protestant Reformed ministers must preach as the gospel of grace to their congregations, and Protestant Reformed professors must teach as sound Reformed doctrine to their students, that there are activities of man that precede blessings of God. And they are. The Protestant Reformed denomination has been swallowed up by this false theology.

The issue, in short, has been and remains the corruption of the doctrine of justification by faith alone in the believer’s experience. Along the way, as the controversy was unfolding in the Protestant Reformed Churches, a whole host of statements were made, and related doctrines were corrupted. These statements have been quoted and analyzed on the pages of Sword and Shield. But I will briefly review some of the statements for the reader: if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do; in the matter of repentance and drawing near to God, in a vital sense man’s drawing nigh to God precedes God’s drawing nigh to man; regenerated man is not totally depraved; there is an available grace that is different from the irresistible grace of regeneration; man must work for his assurance; God uses man’s works to assure man of his salvation; Jesus Christ did not personally accomplish every aspect of our salvation; there are activities of man that precede blessings of God; the more one obeys, the greater are his blessings; faith and repentance are what man must do unto his justification; and the preaching of the law is the preaching of the gospel. The PRC yawned like a dog on a summer day also when ministers preached that there are conditions for fellowship with God (which was never declared heresy); justification in the final judgment is by man’s words and works; there are two rails to heaven that consist of God’s grace and man’s responsibility; in the end the choice of who to serve is up to man (by grace, of course); and it is not enough for our salvation that Christ died and arose, but we must also come to him.

A more thorough apostasy from the Reformed faith can hardly be imagined. Roman Catholic priests are not this bold in their denial of the gospel. Remember that none of the above has been repudiated as false and heretical. And you must remember these things whenever you read anything written by a Protestant Reformed minister. If he does not repudiate the above statements, then he believes them; and his writing serves the purpose to cover, reinforce, or direct your attention away from the appalling apostasy evident in the theology of the statements above. At the heart of every one of those statements is the doctrine of conditional fellowship with God, which is the doctrine of conditional justification in the believer’s conscience and experience.

This is true of Reverend McGeown’s writing too. He writes of election, the death of Christ, and even justification. And in the course of his writing, he may say some true things. But I have come to realize that he brings up the truth to cast doubt on it or to get past it so that he can come to his real point, which is what man does. He has never repudiated but has defended all the false theology of the PRC. And so whatever truth he writes in his series “Preaching Repentance and Forgiveness” serves the lie of conditional justification in the believer’s experience.

Another point to remember before I get to my analysis of his series is that he has been exposed already as a false teacher and a crafty one too. His doctrine of justification is that God justifies the believer. Paul says that God justifies the ungodly. Reverend McGeown’s doctrine of justification is that God justifies the believer because faith for McGeown is man’s act, not God’s act. Faith is what man does to be justified. I wrote against his blog “Passive Faith?,” and I remind the reader both about what he wrote and my analysis of it.

I wrote,

So for McGeown faith and repentance are not God’s acts. But note well: McGeown does not say merely that faith and repentance are man’s activities. They are man’s activities, which are not God’s acts. So then also when McGeown says that faith and repentance are “God-given” and “God-worked” activities of the believer, he is simply speaking nonsense and deception. Whatever “God-given” and “God-worked” activities are for McGeown, they are not God’s acts.²

I wrote,

Faith is an activity of man that “is not God’s act.” That is bold. That is a total corruption of the Reformed idea of faith as a gift. Whatever Reverend McGeown means by faith as a gift, it very definitely does not include faith as an activity. That “is not God’s act.” There is for McGeown some aspect of faith—its activity—that “is not God’s act.” This is also what Reverend McGeown means then by “active faith.” He means that the activity of faith is not God’s work. (16)

Reverend McGeown wrote,

There is a difference between the PRC and the RPC on the instrument of justification…The difference is not that PRC theologians teach that justification is by means of works, which would be false doctrine and heresy. The difference is concerning the activity or passivity of faith in justification. Is faith an active or a passive instrument?³

I wrote,

We then allege that with his idea of active faith, that it “is not God’s act,” and with his rejection of passive faith, he establishes the Protestant Reformed position that makes faith man’s work and what man must do for justification. In making faith what man must do for justification, the PRC add to the ground of justification and deny Christ’s work alone as the only ground of justification. (14)

The same basic issue was present in McGeown’s writing on repentance in his blog “Passive Faith?,” in which he wrote,

Repentance is a God-given and God-worked activity of the believer, the activity of sorrowing over sin and turning from it, which God does not perform for us, and without which God does not forgive sin (Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 3:19; 2 Cor. 7:10).

My analysis was as follows:

Reverend McGeown creates a contrast between God’s gift and man’s activity. For McGeown, man’s activity “is not God’s act,” and God “does not perform” it. There are two tracks in McGeown’s idea of spiritual gifts. There is God’s gift, and there is man’s performance. Man’s performance is not the inevitable fruit of God’s gift. Man’s performance is not what God gives. God gives, and man must perform, and together this is repentance. (15)

Then Reverend McGeown added these words: “Without…repentance”—God-given but not God’s work, but man’s activity—“God does not forgive sin.” Forgiveness is the blessing that comes to man as he performs—man performs, not God—repentance.

I wrote,

If Reverend McGeown is not to be branded as a false teacher, let him repudiate his doctrine that faith “is not God’s act,” and with that let him repudiate his evil doctrine that there is that which man must do to be saved and his defense of Reverend Koole’s theology that there is that which man must do to be saved. Until Reverend McGeown repudiates his deceptive theology, he is to be branded as a theological huckster with no Reformed credibility at all, as a deceiver, and as a dead branch.

He pretends to be Reformed. He uses Reformed language. But he is Arminian and Pelagian in his doctrines of grace. Consequently, he is Arminian and Pelagian in his doctrine of faith. Being Arminian and Pelagian in his doctrines of grace and faith, he corrupts the Reformed doctrine of justification and brings up again the wicked doctrine of justification by works. (19)

I review all of this because Reverend McGeown has not repudiated his false doctrine, and thus he stands exposed as a false teacher. Faith and repentance are what man does to be justified in his conscience and experience. It is justification by faith and works. And in his blog series “Preaching Repentance and Forgiveness,” he tells us about a new distinction between justification and forgiveness and by means of that distinction defends his doctrine of justification by faith and by works. One thing is to be said for Slippery McGeown: he at least admits that the issue is justification in the warfare between the truth and the lie.

I will begin an analysis next time of his doctrine of justification and with it his doctrine of faith and repentance.