Introduction

The subject of this speech is “The Antithesis and Common Grace.” The topic is a massive one, with a wide range of material and potential applications. To keep us on track this evening, I intend to limit myself to the doctrines of the covenant and the antithesis and the false doctrine of common grace as it relates to the antithesis. Much has been said about the false theory of common grace, which the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) adopted in 1924. Ink has been spilled on this topic over the course of the last one hundred years. Thorough examinations of the theory and critiques on the basis of scripture and the Reformed confessions have been presented to refute common grace. But I am not interested in merely recycling what has been said already. There will be some history regarding 1924, but this speech is not a history lesson. There will be some restatement of the positive developments of the truth that came out of the controversy of 1924, but neither is this speech a class on the controversy of 1924.

My reason for choosing this topic is that the struggle that came to a head in 1924 is instructive for us. Our forefathers had to face the question of the covenant and the antithesis as it stood over against common grace. The development of the covenant as friendship and fellowship stood over against the theory of common grace, which theory was the ground that the church may have fellowship with the world of darkness. Common grace stood as the CRC’s unspoken ground for amalgamation with the world. Rev. Herman Hoeksema prophesied at the time that if the CRC adopted common grace, there would be a flood of worldliness in the church. His prophecy was true. If there is some good in man, whereby he can do the good before the sight of God, then the church may also desire and seek fellowship with the world, and such fellowship is not only acceptable but also ought to be celebrated and encouraged by the church.

There are two antithetical principles that exist in the world. They are not compatible. They cannot coexist. They cannot be harmonized or synthesized with one another. But in the world they are warring principles. These principles form the separation that God places between believers and the church and the world of the ungodly and unbelieving.

We are not here to celebrate 1924. Tonight is a sad, mournful remembering of the days gone by when faith was bright and there was a love of the truth. We mourn the sad state of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), who has so thoroughly rejected the truth that was developed in 1924. As in the days of the judges, a generation arose that knew not the Lord or his mighty works, and every man did what was right in his own eyes. The PRC has rejected the truth of the covenant, which was her glorious heritage. She did so at the very point of man’s experience and enjoyment of the covenant. She did so at the point of justification by faith alone, the heart of the gospel. The PRC was a beautiful woman, who has become a cankerous, used, old hag. God is finished with her. And all that remains is the crumbled rubble and smoking ruins of where she once stood. She has forgotten God and his truth. She has persecuted and cast out those who live holily and rebuke her for her errors. She has become an enemy of God and Jesus Christ. She has become the world. Our prayer this evening is that if there are God’s people in the bondage of the devil and dwelling within the synagogue of Satan, God will cut a hole in the net for them and deliver them by his mighty hand and outstretched arm into the rest of Canaan, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

And yet from the view of God’s particular goodness to Israel, this evening is a cause for celebration—a celebration and remembrance of God’s everlasting, covenant faithfulness toward his people. The battle belongs to the Lord. And the captain of the salvation of his people rides forth conquering all his and our enemies. We see in the history of the church such tremendous victories that God has given through immense struggle and controversy. And that is cause for celebration and hope for the future. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. The victory is already ours in Jesus Christ by faith alone. Reformed Believers Publishing and Sword and Shield carry out that warfare in the believer’s office of prophet, priest, and king, assured of a certain victory and that the truth will always prevail. The word of the Lord endures forever and his truth to all generations.

Historical Context

Leading up to the adoption of common grace in 1924 was the Janssen case. It is important to frame 1924 in the lens of that case because of the leftover animosity regarding the case’s result toward Rev. Henry Danhof and Rev. Herman Hoeksema. Dr. Ralph Janssen was the professor of Old Testament history at Calvin Theological Seminary. He was a higher critic of scripture, and he grounded his higher criticism in the theory of common grace. He established his rejection of miracles in common grace. For the professor the miracle of the water from the rock did not consist in water being created by God to provide for Israel’s thirst. Rather, Moses and Israel learned how to get water from rocks by studying the surrounding nations and their advances in science due to God’s operation of common grace. Moses learned how to strike a rock at the right place in order for water to flow out. The professor justified his position of miracles on the basis of common grace. He was simply applying the theory of common grace to exegesis and the interpretation of scripture. The professor was condemned by the CRC in 1922 for his higher critical view, but the leaven of common grace still festered in the denomination. His supporters remained in the churches, infuriated by the professor’s condemnation; and as fierce proponents of Kuyperian common grace, they became fierce opponents of Hoeksema and Danhof.¹

Not long after Synod 1922, a pamphlet titled Not Anabaptist but Reformed was penned by Reverend Hoeksema and Reverend Danhof in response to a pamphlet by Jan Karel Van Baalen titled The Denial of Common Grace: Reformed or Anabaptistic. In 1923 Sin and Grace was written by Hoeksema and Danhof in defense of particular and sovereign grace. Both pamphlets that were written by Hoeksema and Danhof were published and distributed as pamphlets because the Christian Reformed paper The Banner had closed off its magazine to Hoeksema and Danhof. The pen that controlled the magazine was then entirely in the hands of those who were panting after the false theory of common grace. The reason given for closing the magazine to Hoeksema and Danhof was that no one wanted the magazine to be filled with articles and discourses about common grace. That same censorship was performed years later by the PRC and the Reformed Free Publishing Association (RFPA) and The Standard Bearer against the defenders of the covenant of grace, and thus was born Reformed Believers Publishing. And the same blistering criticism that had been leveled against the RFPA at its inception was leveled against Reformed Believers Publishing at its inception: “This movement is revolutionary and can result in nothing but evil for the agitators and for those against whom the agitation is launched.”²

In 1924, against the sound, scriptural, and Reformed conception of particular, sovereign grace presented by Reverend Hoeksema, Reverend Danhof, and Rev. George Ophoff, the Christian Reformed Church adopted the three points of common grace. The points are as follows:

Concerning the first point, with regard to the favorable disposition of God toward mankind in general, and not only to the elect…it is determined that besides the saving grace of God, shown only to the elect unto eternal life, there is a certain kind of favor or grace of God which He shows to His creatures in general…

With respect to the second point concerning the restraint of sin in the life of individuals and society, Synod declares that…there is such a restraint of sin…

Concerning the third point, in regard to the doing of so-called civil good by the unregenerate, Synod declares…that the unregenerate, though unable to do any saving good are able to do civil good…³

First, there is a general or common grace of God toward the reprobate. Second, by this general grace, there is a restraint of sin in the world. Third, by this general grace natural man is able to do good things in society. The three points can be summarized this way: natural man is not that bad, but he actually has some good in him.

Not long after Synod 1924, the Protesting Christian Reformed Church was formed, and in 1926 the Protestant Reformed Churches were born.

The Idea of the Covenant

To understand, know, and love the antithesis, one must understand, know, and love the covenant.

“The doctrine of the covenant…is almost exclusively a plant out of Reformed soil.”⁴ The true covenant conception was formed almost exclusively by the Reformed church. The original idea of the covenant was understood as a bargain or pact, but through the controversy in 1924, the idea of the covenant was properly developed to be a relationship of friendship and fellowship. The essential idea of the covenant is that God’s people are his friend-servants, and his friends have the one, only triune God as their friend-sovereign. The covenant is not a cold, abstract doctrine, but it is a warm, intimate relationship that explains all God’s dealings with his people.

The covenant rests in the holy Trinity. God is a covenant God. He is a covenant God and a living God. Within his own divine being as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, he lives an infinitely blessed, divine life of love and intimate communion. He is not a lonely being, but he is the perfect family. The three persons are all partakers of the entire divine being, yet the persons differ from one another in their own individual properties. The oneness of the divine being is a perfect harmony of life and love between the three persons of the Trinity. That divine life is the basis of the covenant relationship between God and his people.

God eternally took counsel within himself. “I am a covenant God, and I will reveal my own covenant life. I will reveal my own covenant life in Jesus Christ and those in Jesus Christ. I will take up my chosen people unto myself, and they shall be my friends. I will send Jesus Christ to the cross. I will pay for the sins of my people. I will impute to them the very righteousness of God in the flesh. I will reconcile them unto me, who by their own sins have alienated themselves from my covenant life. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” God willed that covenant for his sake and for his glory.

Only in that relationship of fellowship and friendship with God in Jesus Christ does the elect sinner have rest. And in Jesus Christ alone, the elect sinner has fellowship and friendship with God. That is the covenant life God has bestowed graciously. Christ’s blood was the confirmation of the new covenant. Life in the covenant and the blessings of the covenant—namely, regeneration, calling, conversion, faith, justification, sanctification, and preservation—are particular. As members of the corporation of Jesus Christ, the elect child of God must receive all the blessings of the covenant. The God of your salvation is known, enjoyed, and experienced intimately as your covenant God in Christ. God’s friend is of God, through God, and to God. The elect child of God therefore shows forth God’s praises as one who has been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.

God realizes his covenant in the world according to his eternal counsel of election and reprobation. God created man as an organic creature in an organic relationship to the entire world. The regenerate and the unregenerate are inseparable as they exist organically in the world. The elect kernel and reprobate husk are bound together organically. The realization of the covenant follows that organic line in the world: one living from the principle of regeneration and the other from the principle of the root sin of Adam.

The elect and reprobate live in the same world. Yet each live out of two antithetical principles in this world. The elect, whom God has laid hold on and made his friends, live out of the principle of regeneration. That covenant relationship of friendship with God then governs every other relationship of the elect child of God. In every sphere of the believer’s life, his inclinations, will, desires, thoughts, words, and deeds all arise out of the root of regeneration. The reprobate, being cast out in hatred and only ever perishing in the world, live out of the damning principle of sin. With the development of sin in the world in its various connections and relationships, the principles of sin and grace are unfolded by God and lived out by the individual elect children of God and reprobate men according to the nature of each age, time, place, and circumstance.

When Adam, our legal head, sinned, the whole human race fell in him. In Adam, our organic head, the whole human race only ever can sin and develop that root sin of Adam. Man takes God’s good gifts, and man only ever uses and develops God’s good gifts for more sin. The gifts themselves are never grace to the reprobate man, even though he may have many of them. Neither are those good gifts of God to the elect any indication of God’s favorable disposition. The righteous and the unrighteous receive the same rain and sunshine. The reprobate, however, do not become better by these gifts, but they become even worse and more godless. Those good gifts of God are never grace to the reprobate. God only ever works death and destruction for the reprobate.

The Antithesis

Life in the world at times appears so similar for the elect and the reprobate. The elect and reprobate breathe the same air, eat the same foods, speak the same languages, drive cars, own homes, get married, and use God’s good gifts in creation. Their lives in the world together appear quite common; yet on account of their different spiritual relationships to God, God creates an absolute antithesis where he forms the separation between his elect and the world of the ungodly. The antithesis finds its roots in election and reprobation.

The question that must be asked is, why was the doctrine of the covenant developed positively as friendship and fellowship with the living God in Christ? In 1924 Hoeksema and Danhof were forced to develop the positive side of the covenant by developing the antithesis, which is the negative side of the covenant. The doctrine of the covenant was not developed in a vacuum. The reason for the development of the doctrine of the covenant is that the men in 1924 saw the influence that the false doctrine of common grace had upon the church. They saw the rejection of the antithesis in common grace, which gave the ground for the church and the world to be friends with one another and to have fellowship with one another. If there is some good in man, some natural glimmers of light whereby he can do good in the sight of God by an operation of common grace, then the church certainly may seek out such fellowship. In fact, such seeking of fellowship is to be commended and celebrated by the church.

What is the antithesis? My definition of the antithesis is as follows: the antithesis is the real, spiritual separation of the covenant friends of God in Christ from the world of darkness, arising from the principle of regeneration, according to election, with the result being inevitable warfare and conflict between the elect and reprobate for all time and history.

Antithesis is a theological term. The word itself never occurs in scripture, yet the antithesis is a scriptural and confessional doctrine. I am going to take a moment to demonstrate from scripture and the Reformed confessions the doctrine of the antithesis and then work through my definition of the antithesis that I just gave and prove it.

I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Gen. 3:15)

Israel then shall dwell in safety alone. (Deut. 33:28)

I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. (Ps. 101:3)

Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? (Ps. 139:21)

Can two walk together, except they be agreed? (Amos 3:3)

He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. (Matt. 12:30)

In the verses below the ground and reason for the separation is explicitly stated as the living reality of the covenant of God and his elect people in Christ. Being in covenant with God, the calling comes to the elect to separate from darkness, unrighteousness, idols, and the unclean thing.

14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

15. And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

16. And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

17. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. (2 Cor. 6:14–17)

11. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

12. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

13. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. (Eph. 5:11–13)

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. (James 4:4)

Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. (Rev. 18:4)

All of these passages listed—and more could be given, including the entire history of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament—teach a spiritual separation from darkness and enmity, a hatred of wickedness, a rejection of unrighteousness, standing against God’s enemies as God’s covenant friends, and having no fellowship with the works of darkness.

The Reformed confessions and minor creeds are explicit as well.

It is the duty of all believers, according to the Word of God, to separate themselves from all those who do not belong to the church. (Belgic Confession 28, in Confessions and Church Order, 61, emphasis added)

Belgic Confession article 29, speaking of the marks of Christians, says,

When they have received Jesus Christ the only Savior, they avoid sin, follow after righteousness, love the true God and their neighbor, neither turn aside to the right or left, and crucify the flesh with the works thereof. (Confessions and Church Order, 63, emphasis added)

Belgic Confession article 34 speaks of baptism,

by which we are received into the church of God and separated from all other people and strange religions, that we may wholly belong to him whose ensign and banner we bear. (Confessions and Church Order, 68, emphasis added)

Lord’s Day 27 asks, “Are infants to be baptized?” Because infants are also included in the covenant, the Catechism answers,

Yes…they must therefore by baptism, as a sign of the covenant, be also admitted into the Christian church, and be distinguished [or separated] from the children of unbelievers. (Confessions and Church Order, 111, emphasis added)

And the third paragraph of the Form for the Administration of Baptism states that our part in the covenant is “that we forsake the world, crucify our old nature, and walk in a new and holy life” (Confessions and Church Order, 258, emphasis added).

The antithesis is first a spiritual separation. The antithesis is spiritual in nature. However, such a spiritual separation can and often does take a physical form. Believers do not send their children to just any Christian school, but together believers start their own school to teach their children the doctrine of the word of God as they believe it. The Christian school is really born out of the covenant and the antithesis, and the content of the education is governed by the covenant and the antithesis.

Yet it is not that we remove ourselves from the organic connection that we have in the world. We are in the world but not of it. The antithesis is world-fight, not world-flight. The charge leveled by proponents of common grace against Reverend Hoeksema and Reverend Danhof was that they were Anabaptists. It was a false and spurious charge. The Anabaptists were world-flightists. They attempted to physically withdraw from society and the ungodly world. The Anabaptists denied, among other things, the necessity of infant baptism and the legitimacy of the government. At root, they were extremists, revolutionaries, and rebels. The charge that was hurled by the CRC at the reformers in 1924 amounted to this: in your rejection of common grace and in your teaching of the covenant and the antithesis, you are radical and extreme because you teach that there is no good in the world and that we must not have anything to do with the ungodly world. The charge was effectively, “You are extremists and radicals.” It was patently false because to be covenantal and antithetical is to be Reformed and scriptural, not Anabaptist.

Within the organic connection of the elect church and the reprobate world, God’s regenerating Spirit creates and maintains an absolute antithesis between the two warring parties: those of God’s party and those who stand against God. God’s particular, sovereign grace distinguishes among men and makes that separation between objects of his grace and objects of his wrath. This organic connection to the world yet spiritual separation from the world brings inevitable conflict. The race of Adam is like a house divided against itself. One rises up against the other: brother against brother, mother and father against children, children against parents, and spouses against each other. There is ever-increasing warfare against sin, one’s own house, state and society, business, culture, entertainment, and in every sphere of the believer’s life. Humanity as an organism looks at the regenerated believer as a cancer that must be excised out of the body. The world is not passive toward Christ, the truth, and the church; but with all its powers and abilities in each time and circumstance as God sovereignly directs, the world seeks to eradicate such friends of God.

There is in that conflict the cross of your salvation. Jesus Christ in his organic relationship, his appointed time and place decreed by God, warred against iniquity. And the world, according to God’s determinate counsel, delivered him up to the cross to squeeze him out of the earth. The world hated Christ and in all its powers worked to destroy him. But at the cross, through the instrumentality of wicked men and the deep way of death and resurrection, God perfectly accomplished the salvation of all his own. Christ opened the new and everlasting way to the Father. Christ led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. And he poured out his Spirit to always dwell in his church.

That separation and warfare is ultimately of God. The warfare is between God, the holy, righteous one, and Satan, the liar and deceiver, that old serpent. The battle lines run through the world of the children of men. And God attacks Satan and the works of darkness in man and through man. God did so in the man, Jesus Christ. And God does so by the regenerated Spirit of Christ in the new dispensation. And in the warfare that God carries out and prosecutes in the earth, he never grows weary, suffers setbacks, or deviates. That the warfare is of God answers the question about how the antithesis is carried out in the lives of believers. It is not about what you want or think is right, but it is about what God says in his word and what God says is right.

The antithesis is an aspect of the covenant. As God’s friends, elect believers are of God, through God, and to God. As such, they cannot be the friends of God’s enemies, the unregenerate and unbelieving. But in the world God’s friends, having fellowship with the triune God in Jesus Christ, also have fellowship with God’s people. They are therefore the friends of God’s friends. Being God’s friend, the believer takes his place in the world with a reverent fear and trust in God, cleaving unto Jesus Christ alone as the one who conquered sin, death, the grave, and hell and vanquished all his foes; and the believer runs his course, fighting the battle of faith. His sole cause is the cause of the gospel, and for that gospel he contends earnestly.

The covenant is fellowship and friendship. The covenant put negatively is the antithesis. If the covenant is intimate fellowship, the antithesis is separation and no fellowship. The word fellowship is the key. The believer still lives in the world. He has to work with his ungodly neighbor. He has to buy groceries from an unregenerate businessman. He might have to interact with his ungodly family members. But is he going out for drinks after work with them? Is he inviting them over for a fun night? Of course not! The church, living out of the spiritual principle of regeneration, cannot have harmony, concord, and agreement with the world that lives from the principle of sin. The believer’s entire life rises from the root of regeneration in every sphere. One who wills to be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. The believer is the friend of God, and by virtue of that, he is an enemy of the whole ungodly world and the kingdom of darkness. And being God’s friend, the believer has no fellowship with those who show themselves to be ungodly by their confessions and walks. Fellowship simply does not exist between the two. They have nothing whatsoever in common.

The calling then comes to be separate, for in reality you are a people separated unto God in Christ. The antithesis is first a doctrine and principle, and then flowing from that comes the calling. Because of the very reality of the antithesis that God places, God’s people will inevitably live antithetically according to that calling. What do you say to the one who does not? Do you maintain an unholy silence? excuse that behavior? Place the doctrines of the covenant and antithesis before him. Do you believe the doctrine of the antithesis? More importantly, do you believe the doctrine of the covenant? Do you believe the word of God and the Reformed confessions? There is a spiritual reality, and if you do not live according to it, what does that say about you? You show me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are. The believer is manifested in this life as a child of God by his confession and his antithetical walk. The believer is a pilgrim and stranger in this world. He is not friends with the world.

What is meant by no fellowship? Negatively, it does not mean shunning. The word “shun” is found in 2 Timothy 2:16: “Shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.” Literally, the word means to stand up and turn yourself around. The word “avoid” can also properly be translated as “shun.” Romans 16:17: “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” About the false teacher, who babbles about the law or vomits forth another gospel, which is no gospel, the word of God says simply to shun them and their doctrine. That is the doctrine of Professor Engelsma and all who teach prerequisite repentance. Stand up and turn your face from them. Do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they turn around and rend you.

Shunning is different than having no fellowship. They are not the same. In this spiritual warfare of the antithesis, no fellowship does not mean shunning. The two are not synonymous. It can mean that in the case of the false teacher. But if God gives opportunity and an open door to bring the gospel and the word sharply and antithetically, then you rush toward the conflict, “having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). No one is saying that you may not talk with someone. What I am saying is that you better not get together to break bread and drink wine with your unbelieving family or friends while Christ is left outside. The content of all visiting must be God’s truth.

To have no fellowship means that there is no communion that exists between the two—between light and darkness, Christ and Belial, righteousness and unrighteousness. Communion is eating and drinking together. Communion is having delight in one another. Can the light have communion, delight, and joy in darkness? Not at all because no agreement and concord exist between those two spiritual principles, but rather there is only conflict.

A man can be all about the antithesis until it comes to his family. A loved one manifests himself as an enemy of God, and a man can make all sorts of excuses. “He is a good person. I have known him my whole life. He really is not so bad. I know his parents. My kid played baseball with him.” No man can be friend of God and a friend of the world. The two principles of sin and grace do not and cannot exist together, but they are absolutely antithetical.

The gospel of grace makes a distinction according to God’s decree of election and reprobation. The gospel cuts and exposes men. The gospel manifests them because it is a discerning and judging voice in the church that justifies faith and condemns unbelief. And unbelief cannot stand the gospel and hates it. And then you will know too, when that time comes with family and friends, that any more visits or meetings are born only of the flesh. God speaks in the circumstances of your life and says, “Now you must let them go.” Matthew 10:36–39 rings true:

36. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

37. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

38. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

39. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

This view that I have explained of the antithesis, warfare, and separation characterizes the history of the church and explains all things. This view explains and gives meaning to all of history. The antithesis is really a world-and-life-view. The antithesis reaches all the way back to God’s eternal decree of election and reprobation and his purpose for all things. The antithesis has spanned all of history, beginning with the promise of the covenant in Genesis 3:15. God promised enmity, hostility, hatred, and separation. He carries it out in the earth. The antithesis will climax in the great tribulation and the murder of the church and her servants, and the antithesis will carry right into eternity when the righteous judge shall come down on the clouds of heaven, forever destroying his enemies and bringing his friends with him into eternal glory in the new heavens and earth. The scriptural truths of the covenant and the antithesis bring comfort to God’s people in the face of persecution and give courage to those who seek to live an antithetical life.

Denied by Common Grace

The doctrines of the covenant and the antithesis are denied by the false theory of common grace. In fact, common grace obliterates the absolute antithesis that God has placed between his people and the ungodly world. Common grace teaches, at its root, that there is some good in man. If there is some good in man, then that is the ground for joining with the world, having fellowship with the world, and seeking out the world.

In 1924 our spiritual forefathers were battling mainly the desire of the CRC to amalgamate with the world in culture, entertainment, arts, and sciences. The evil fruit of common grace can be seen on the pages of The Banner yet today. The Christian Reformed Church’s magazine is replete with talk of redeeming the culture for Christ, reviews of movies and entertainment, and nonsense and worldly garbage.

Does the separation and antithesis that God places cut through more than the ungodly world and the church? Does it also cut through the true church and what calls herself church? Yes!

There are many who call themselves church. The PRC calls herself church. Those who are members of the PRC call themselves believers. But when their faith, which believes all that God reveals in his word, is put to the test, do they believe in Christ? They do not, though they boast of him in words. They have rejected the gospel. They have not the love of the truth that they should believe a lie.

The PRC, as an institution and as seen widely in the speech of her members, simply cannot condemn anyone anymore. In joining hands with those who do not confess the truth, her unstated ground is common grace. The language goes like this, “Even though the United Reformed Churches, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and other denominations might have some things wrong, there is still some good in them.” If those churches have a lot of things right and only a few things wrong, that is tantamount to saying that there is some good in them. Common grace stands as the unstated ground of the ecumenical movement in nominal Christianity, Reformed churches, and the PRC. The PRC in that way has denied 1924.

If the PRC still believed in particular, saving, efficacious, and irresistible grace and the reality of the unconditional covenant, then she also would reject and hate God’s enemies and engage in warfare against them. Protestant Reformed churches would not be commending their blessings when members leave. The denomination would not be holding hands with the Bekennende Evangelisch-Reformierte Gemeinde (BERG) or the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia (EPCA). Unity Protestant Reformed Church would not be having a speaker come from another denomination to speak to the youth. Unity would not have adopted a “Pray for Me” prayer campaign that comes from some non-denominational ministry leader. Reverend Spronk would not be encouraging Protestant Reformed members to attend the colloquium doctum of Rodney Kleyn in the United Reformed Churches. If the PRC believed the truths of particular grace and the covenant and the antithesis, the PRC would be carrying out warfare against God’s enemies, and she is not. The PRC is the world. The PRC is the false church. She and her members are the enemies of God.

What is true of the PRC is true also of the man who seeks fellowship and friendship with God’s enemies. A man says about an enemy of God, “He might reject the truth. He may have cast out God’s servants. He might not believe exactly like I do. He doesn’t like it when we talk about the truth and when I bring that truth to him sharply. But I can still see him. We can get together. We can have a good time. We can have drinks and open presents.” A man might confess with his mouth the doctrine of particular grace, but by his walk he might as well believe in common grace. The unstated ground of such fellowship is common grace because in that unbelieving family member or friend, there really is something good and desirable. There is some good in that man or woman who rejected the gospel. The result is a total breakdown of the antithesis.

I warn the Reformed Protestant Churches: if you reject the antithesis as it is preached in our churches and slander it as radical or extreme, then you will also reject the covenant. And God will spew the churches out of his mouth, for they are neither hot nor cold. There will be nothing but a flood of worldliness and carnality because in effect you will have adopted common grace.

And I offer this encouragement: preach the covenant and preach the antithesis in all its force without dithering or backsliding. Defend that preaching. Uphold that preaching. Demand that preaching. You will not win many friends. In fact, the foundations likely only will get smaller. As such, it is a sign that the end draws nigh and that Christ is coming quickly. God placed the separation; he did so by his particular, electing grace. And he made you enemies of the ungodly world, which has no grace. All things are common in the world except grace. And all that is not of Christ will be burned with a fervent heat in the day of judgment. And in that day God will reveal before the whole rational, moral world his righteous verdict: “You are my friend for Christ’s sake. I have justified you in him. And you shall dwell with me in perfect covenant fellowship eternally.”