The Antithesis of the Declaration of Principles

In 1951 the Protestant Reformed synod adopted “A Brief Declaration of Principles of the Protestant Reformed Churches”¹ as a uniquely Protestant Reformed document. The Declaration of Principles is a distinctive document because the Declaration sets forth the truth of the unconditional covenant against the conditional covenant and all its implications. The Declaration is a document that God used to purify his church. 

The Declaration has a rich history that we can apply to the church today. Just as she is now, the church of the 1940s and 1950s was full of controversy. In the years leading up to the adoption of the Declaration, there was an antithetical separation between not only the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (liberated) and the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) but also among fellow members of the PRC. 

The years following the decision were also characterized by division and separation within the PRC. That division was a historical fulfillment of the promise that Jehovah God had given to Adam and Eve in the garden: “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). This promise God fulfilled by his grace alone. He worked in his church a love of the truth and a hatred of the lie. He worked in his church by his Spirit a love of God that was appalled by false doctrine and that stood antithetically over against all false doctrines regarding particular, sovereign, irresistible grace.

In order to understand properly how the Declaration relates to the antithesis, we need to first understand why the Declaration was necessary. The idea of the Declaration of Principles was born when the Protestant Reformed mission committee requested that a document be made that expressed the official, binding Protestant Reformed view regarding the covenant. Dutch immigrants coming from the liberated churches had been encouraged by both the liberated ministers and ministers within the PRC to join themselves to the PRC even though the immigrants’ doctrine of the covenant was different than Hoeksema’s and thus different than the historical Protestant Reformed position. The ground of this encouragement to join the PRC was that there was room in the PRC for a different covenant view than Hoeksema’s. The Dutch immigrants were told that their view of the covenant was well supported by current members and ministers of the PRC. The clearest example of this is found in a letter from Professor Holwerda, a liberated professor, to a member of the Protestant Reformed mission field in Canada. What follows is a portion of the letter:

I received your letter yesterday, and a direct reply per airmail is in order. Day before yesterday we held a meeting with Rev. Kok and Rev. De Jong [Protestant Reformed ministers], the purpose being mutual discourse. We had a wholly openhearted exchange of thoughts. They said this: Indeed, we have much to be grateful for to Rev. Hoeksema. But his conception regarding election, etc., is not church doctrine. No one is bound by it. Some are emitting a totally different sound. Their opinion was that most (of the Prot. Ref.) do not think as Rev. Hoeksema and Rev. Ophoff. And sympathy for the Liberated was great also in the matter of their doctrine of the covenant. They do accentuate differently in America, considering their history, but for the conception of the Liberated there is ample room.²

Another example that demonstrated the room for liberated theology in the PRC was the visit of Klaas Schilder. Schilder, a leading theologian of the liberated churches, came to America and had the opportunity to meet and fellowship with almost every minister in the PRC. He also gave speeches and preached on Protestant Reformed pulpits. In addition Schilder and Hoeksema had multiple conferences during which they laid out their views of the covenant and debated which view was correct. The result of these debates was that there was quickly a clear doctrinal divide between Schilder and Hoeksema and thus between the liberated at heart and the PRC at heart. Many in the PRC received the doctrine of Schilder. Soon there were articles in Concordia, a magazine that was birthed due to the differing covenant views, beginning to defend Schilder’s views and to question Hoeksema’s. In this tumultuous atmosphere the liberated, Dutch immigrants sought the possibility of membership in the PRC, and the Protestant Reformed mission committee requested the synod’s help in stating the official Protestant Reformed doctrine of the covenant.

Let us now focus on the two opposing covenant viewpoints that were taught. First, there was the liberated view as taught by Schilder. Schilder’s view of the covenant was of the same cloth as Prof. William Heyns’ view. Heyns was a Christian Reformed professor in Calvin Theological School who applied the heresy of common grace to the covenant pre-1924. Schilder and the liberated were guilty of the same doctrinal heresy. Schilder’s doctrine said that there were conditions in the covenant that all baptized members of the church had to fulfill in order to maintain the covenant. He taught a two-track theology in the form of a bilateral covenant in which man and God cooperated for man’s salvation. Schilder believed that all those who were baptized were brought into the covenant but that it depended on each baptized child—by grace—to stay in the covenant. The condition for staying in the covenant was faith. Faith was made to be man’s act by which man fulfilled—by grace, Schilder would say—the condition of the covenant that God set before him in the preaching. In Schilder’s doctrine the essence of the covenant was first a promise, then a condition, and finally a penalty or reward, depending on whether the baptized child fulfilled the condition of faith. The promise was that God would save his elect, the condition was faith, and the reward was eternal life or, for those who did not fulfill the condition, the penalty was eternal judgment. At the heart of this covenant view is a well-meant offer of God to all those who hear the word preached. God wills to save all men, but his will is frustrated by those who reject his well-meant offer. Ultimately, Schilder’s doctrine was that God is a weak and beggarly God who has no power to save a man. God might promise salvation to those who hear the word, but he cannot fulfill his promise. Instead, God pleads and pleads with man to believe, so that man might be saved. In opposition to such a conception of God that was held by the liberated and many in the PRC, the Declaration was born.

The second viewpoint was the historically Protestant Reformed view of the covenant as taught in the Declaration. The Declaration brought no new doctrine into the PRC. The Declaration was definitely not a new creed. Rather, the Declaration simply expounded upon certain creedal doctrines taught in the already-binding three forms of unity and the Reformed liturgical forms, such as the Form for the Administration of Baptism. The Declaration was formatted with small sections of doctrinal positions each followed by a plethora of clear and irrefutable confessional grounds. The main points that the Declaration covered were the rejection of the three points of common grace; the doctrines of election, the covenant, and faith; and a small portion on the autonomy of a local congregation. The following quotations are some of the doctrinal positions found within the Declaration.

Over against this [the three points of common grace] they [the PRC] maintain:

1. That the grace of God is always particular, i.e., only for the elect, never for the reprobate.

2. That the preaching of the gospel is not a gracious offer of salvation on the part of God to all men, nor a conditional offer to all that are born in the historical dispensation of the covenant, that is, to all that are baptized, but an oath of God that He will infallibly lead all the elect unto salvation and eternal glory through faith.³

This article [Canons of Dordt 2.8] very clearly teaches:

1. That all the covenant blessings are for the elect alone.

2. That God’s promise is unconditionally for them only: for God cannot promise what was not objectively merited by Christ.

3. That the promise of God bestows the objective right of salvation not upon all the children that are born under the historical dispensation of the covenant, that is, not upon all that are baptized, but only upon the spiritual seed.⁴

It follows from this that both the sacraments, as well as the preaching of the gospel, are a savour of death unto death for the reprobate, as well as a savour of life unto life for the elect. Hence, the promise of God, preached by the gospel, signified and sealed in both the sacraments, is not for all, but for the elect only.⁵

The doctrine laid out in the Declaration does not need a lengthy explanation. Instead, the Declaration speaks for itself. The Declaration made clear the position of the Protestant Reformed Churches on the doctrine of the covenant as it is taught in the creeds. The Declaration left no room for conditions within the covenant. Instead, the Declaration trumpeted that election governs the covenant. Election. Election. Election. Election is why some people are in the covenant, and reprobation is why some people are not. The Declaration taught that God is sovereign in his eternal counsel and that he promised salvation to some, while he promised eternal destruction to others. The Declaration taught that God’s eternal, unchangeable, and everlasting will establishes and maintains his covenant. The Declaration set forth the beautiful truth that man is nothing. There are no conditions that man needs to fulfill in order to stay in the covenant. Rather, man is in the covenant because God works according to his own will of election.

Additionally, the Declaration made the antithesis the work of God alone. The Declaration taught that from eternity God loved some and hated others. The Declaration taught that God uses the gospel to draw his elect unto him, while the same gospel damns the reprobate. The Declaration taught that only for the elect infant is there God’s undeserved favor. Upon the reprobate there is only God’s everlasting hatred. The Declaration explained the sole reason that some hate the truth and others love it. The Declaration gave a solid foundation for the child of God who sees family or friends depart from the truth almost inexplicably. Why is there this hardening? It is because of God’s work of election and reprobation as he carries out his decree in time. The same is true when a child of God observes in himself the work of the Holy Spirit. Why does the child of God hate sin? Why does the child of God love his neighbor? It is because God elected that child. That is the only reason. God saw that child in Christ from eternity and deals with that child in mercy.

The logical conclusion of the liberated’s doctrine of the antithesis differed drastically from the Declaration’s. The liberated taught that man maintained the covenant. It was up to man to be a friend of God and of his church. Therefore, man also maintained the antithesis. It was up to man to be an enemy of sin and an enemy of God’s enemies. More than that, the logical conclusion of liberated theology is that man decides who are the enemies of the church. If it is not God’s will that makes a divide between the elect and the reprobate, then it is man’s will. This is true of all those who teach conditional covenant theology.

When the Declaration of Principles was adopted in 1951, in principle it put an end to the covenant controversy within the PRC and between the PRC and the liberated churches. The Declaration made clear that the doctrine of the PRC was antithetically opposed to the doctrine of the liberated. The Declaration left no room for an honest liberated man to have his papers in a Protestant Reformed church. A liberated man could no longer make confession of faith or baptize his child in the PRC because each Protestant Reformed church, minister, officebearer, and member was bound to uphold and defend the doctrine of the Declaration. The history following the adoption of the Declaration proves this.

In the same year that the Declaration was adopted, Schilder wrote an article in De Reformatie that brought an end to his relationship with the PRC. Among many other things he wrote about the binding nature of the Declaration. The following excerpt is his words with my own emphasis in italics. I believe Schilder’s words do not need to be commented on but that they speak for themselves regarding the antithetical position of the Declaration.

He [Hoeksema] helped to draw up a “Declaration” and recommended it to the church—a “Declaration” which I dealt with at great length (you will soon be able to buy what I have written about this matter in the form of a separate publication) arguing that it is not necessary, that it does not represent a good interpretation of the Confessions, and that, insofar as it proposes to sharpen or clarify the Confessions through new formulations, it labors under certain delusions which, if the “Declaration” is once accepted, will create a little church with a narrow basis. The basis would be so narrow that, note well, because of what has “ecclesiastical validity” for this small group (I can already hear the jeers from the Dutch synodocracy in The Hague!), this small church would have to start “dealing with” people, people who simply want to affirm what our revered fathers affirmed before us and placed in the preface to the Statenvertaling’s New Testament.

And it has come to pass. The Declaration has been definitively accepted. The able theologian Hoeksema allowed himself to become entangled in a system in which contra-Kalamazoo manipulations (rather than anti-Kalamazoo achievements) could be produced—and those manipulations became unavoidable. Alas, we are already hearing about discipline exercised against people who dared to continue speaking the language of the Statenvertaling and have not a drop of Arminian blood in their veins. I do not propose to pass judgment on all the possible stories of which the ins and outs are not known to us here in the Netherlands. I am passing judgment only on the consequences of accepting the Declaration.⁶

It took a decision of Classis East regarding protests against sermons that were Protestant Reformed in name yet liberated in heart for the spiritual divide within the PRC and the members who were not truly Protestant Reformed at heart to be manifested. This brings us to the well-known history of the split of 1953. In 1953 Classis East condemned Rev. Hubert De Wolf’s statements to be literally heretical. The two statements were “God promises every one of you that, if you believe, you shall be saved” and “Our act of conversion is a prerequisite to enter into the kingdom of God.”⁷ The classis tied these doctrinal statements to liberated doctrine, and thus stood with the Declaration, when it decided that De Wolf’s statements were not concise statements of the truth and were literally heretical with one of the grounds being that “we believe this is necessary for us to state in the light of our past experiences and history with the Liberated Churches who use these Arminian expressions.”⁸ When the classis said this, it really condemned the statement of De Wolf as liberated theology. This condemnation confirmed the spiritual divide that was within the PRC. As a result, quickly thereafter the PRC split physically. About half the churches left with De Wolf, while the others stayed faithfully in the PRC.

Today, as we analyze and apply the doctrine and events surrounding the Declaration, we come to one conclusion: The covenant and the antithesis are the work of God alone. It is God who elects some to be in his covenant and who passes by others. It is God alone who establishes and maintains a relationship of friendship and fellowship according to election. It is God alone who works in the elect a love for God and a hatred of sin. It is God alone who creates a spiritual warfare within his elect children. God gives to his elect the holiness of Christ so that his children might delight in holiness and hate and flee from all wickedness. It is God who creates and maintains the unity or division between churches, family, and friends. It was God who made certain men his friends and led those men to create the Declaration of Principles. It was God’s doctrine that was laid out in the Declaration, and it was God’s division that he carried out within and without the PRC.

The doctrine of God’s sovereignty in election and reprobation gives unspeakable comfort to us today as we go through our lives. Without this doctrine we would surely despair. We would despair when we consider how sinful we are. We would despair when there is any controversy in the church. To know that the division in our lives is because of sovereign election and particular grace is a joy to the child of God. When we see the infallible fruits of the Spirit, such as a hunger or thirsting after righteousness or a hatred of sin, we know that it is God’s work. When we see the differing reactions to sermons, we know that God is working a savor of life unto life and a savor of death unto death. We rest in that. We rest, knowing that we do not create the antithesis between us and the world. We rest, knowing that we do not create unity within the church. We rest, knowing that no matter how much we have sinned, no matter how weak our faith is, God is faithful to his elect.