I knew the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). I was a faithful, loyal son of the Protestant Reformed Churches. I knew her doctrine. I knew her history. I knew her people. I knew her life. I loved the Protestant Reformed Churches. The line of God’s true church ran through the denomination. What I can say will be the testimony of many others who left the Protestant Reformed Churches in 2021 in a secession from the denomination because of her doctrinal departure and hardness of heart in persisting in and developing that doctrinal departure. I know those churches no more.

It was that intimate acquaintance with, love for, and loyalty to the Protestant Reformed denomination that blinded me to her departure from the truth. From that knowledge of the Protestant Reformed Churches, I now say, without a shadow of doubt, “The Protestant Reformed Churches have become the churches of Rev. Hubert De Wolf.” This fact impresses itself upon me with ever-increasing clarity every day that passes, with every article I read, and from every Protestant Reformed sermon I hear. Faithful these churches are no longer, and De Wolf has won.

As a child, as a young man, and as a new minister, I believed the lie that I was taught that the Protestant Reformed Churches had cast off entirely De Wolf and his theology. But the wolf went into his lair only for a time and then worked more like a snake, and the poison of that snake has completely overcome the Protestant Reformed denomination. This is as lamentable as the fall of Saul and Jonathan, and their song could be sung over the Protestant Reformed Churches.

I do not intend in this editorial to establish by quotations and analysis that the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches today is the theology of Rev. Hubert De Wolf and the apostate ministers of 1953 who followed him. This has been demonstrated at length in the April 2022 issue of Sword and Shield and in other issues of Sword and Shield.¹ Anyone who is still interested in the PRC can read the articles cited.

There is not one Protestant Reformed man who has answered that charge. Where are the Protestant Reformed champions? The silence of the PRC is telling and damning. The Protestant Reformed men do not answer because they do not have an answer.

De Wolf’s theology was that there are activities of man that precede the blessing of God within the covenant of grace and without which activities the blessing of God does not come. De Wolf was an Arminian only in the sphere of the covenant. Everyone was in the covenant. Since they were all in the covenant, they were differentiated—made themselves to differ—by what they did. God did not make them to differ. They made themselves to differ, who were equally furnished with grace. De Wolf excused his rank Arminianism by appealing to grace: what is necessary for man to do to be saved, assured, or blessed is all done by grace. But such an appeal did not save De Wolf’s theology, and neither does it save the theology of the Protestant Reformed ministers and professors today who follow De Wolf. The theology is conditional. Man must do something before God gives what he promises. The theology of De Wolf and the theology of the present-day Protestant Reformed Churches is an election-less theology, if I may be permitted to coin a word.

That this happened to the Protestant Reformed Churches is unsurprising, as any student of church history is aware. There have been very few times, and those times were very short, when the true church has stood strong in the truth. What was true of Israel and Judah has also characterized the churches of the New Testament: there is a time of faithfulness, but invariably the apostate and reprobate element in the church attains the majority and the ascendency. The apostates and reprobate are always in the church, and they are always working their mischief to turn the church from the truth to the lie, from Jesus Christ to the world. That element, being the world and inviting the world into the church, works the doctrinal and spiritual destruction of historical denominations. Only because of the election and faithfulness of God and his having accomplished his purpose with that apostasy in the cutting off of many who are hardened in the lie and cannot hear the truth and hate it, the people of God after a period of departure are stirred up again by Jesus Christ and his Spirit to contend earnestly for the truth that was once delivered to the saints. In the nation of Israel, this was typified in the falling of the nation with ungodly kings—who were all the corrupt and wicked ministers who led the people astray—and the rising again of the nation through the righteous king of David’s line, who is Jesus Christ.

The scene written in the Old Testament as an admonition to us, upon whom the end of the world comes, is played out repeatedly also in New Testament church history. The churches of Athanasius became the churches of Arius. The churches of Augustine became in time the churches of Pelagius. The churches of Luther became the churches of Erasmus. The churches of Dordt became the churches of Arminius. The churches of the Afscheiding and of the Doleantie became, already in the lifetimes of their leading men and in some cases through their influence, the churches of conditions. So the history has played out in the Protestant Reformed Churches: the churches of Herman Hoeksema have become the churches of Hubert De Wolf. The ways of God are mysterious; and through them all, the truth marches straight on, victorious always in both the salvation of some and in the damnation of many others.

In this reappearance of the lie and its coming to ascendency in a church after the lie was once defeated, there is also the subtle morphing of the lie in order that it might appear again in a new form. But it is the same old lie. The lie is always the same. The lie is that God is not God, but man is God. The lie always denies the sovereignty of God and makes man the master of his own destiny. The lie always denies that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh; that is, the lie is always an assault on the person, natures, and perfect work of Jesus Christ, denying that he did, in fact, once and for all accomplish salvation for God’s elect and for them only. Jesus Christ did not merely provide an objective basis for salvation, as many speak of his work in order to speak also about what man must do to be saved. Such Christ-denying theology is the theology that speaks of our fellowship with God as being on the basis of what Christ has done, through faith, and in the way of our obedience. The devil is in the details. And here we do not have fellowship with God unless and until we obey. And then Christ’s cross is of none effect. He actually and really saved at the cross, so that he said, “It is finished!” The elect have righteousness, holiness, satisfaction, redemption, and reconciliation with God; and the gospel must be sent to the ends of the earth to declare this fact to the people and to bring God’s elect into possession of that salvation by faith alone as the gift of God to them. The truth is that God justifies the ungodly. He gives them faith and saves them wholly apart from a consideration of their works and worthiness or of a consideration of their disobedience and unworthiness. But the lie says that God justifies repentant believers who are active in faith and in repentance. It is always the same old form of the lie. The lie teaches salvation by works to the glory of man. The truth teaches salvation by grace to the glory of God. The worst form of the lie teaches salvation by grace and works. This form of the lie is a very vicious viper that, if you take it into your bosom, will bite and will poison and will destroy souls, families, generations, churches, and denominations. The raw contrast between grace and works that scripture speaks about is denied, and the two are combined; and that combination is designed by the devil to deceive the simple and the unwary.

However, in order to be accepted in the same churches after it has been first rejected, the lie must morph, change its form and language. The Pelagianism that Augustine defeated became the semi-Pelagianism of Rome. The conditional theology of the Arminians defeated at Dordt became the conditional theology of the covenant that has troubled Reformed churches since Dordt. This same thing has happened in the PRC. The lie that was once defeated by Herman Hoeksema and the other faithful ministers has morphed. It is the same old lie. Only now it wears different clothes and speaks in a slightly different dialect. But the same hiss of the serpent can be heard through the accent.

Through that departure from the truth, the Lord preserved a church, and he brought his church out of that departure and saved them. Through that departure and development of the lie, the Lord is cutting off many. They are deaf to it. They will not take the time to read and study the truth versus the lie. They are the blind who follow their blind leaders. And this too is in God’s sovereignty. For he did not determine the salvation of all but of some only, and the rest he hardens in many ways. The evidence of this hardening is all around. Protestant Reformed men make shocking statements now in their sermons and writings. The people are very comfortable with the snake that is in their bosom; they are overcome with its poison, and they will soon close their eyelids in a sleep from which they will never awake.

The Protestant Reformed Churches were the churches of Jesus Christ. They were the churches of Jesus Christ because they were the churches of the theology of Herman Hoeksema. Herman Hoeksema taught the truth of scripture, which is faithfully summarized in the Reformed creeds. Doctrine is what makes a church a true church. Doctrine is the only standard by which a church may be judged to be a beautiful wife or a disease-ridden, old whore in her relationship with Jesus Christ. Judged by her doctrine and over against her many enemies, the Protestant Reformed denomination was a true church of Jesus Christ.

Judged by her doctrine today as heard in her sermons, found in her synodical decisions, and read in her writings, she is an unfaithful and whorish woman. Garishly adorning the tombs of her prophets, she gives thanks that they are dead. Herman Hoeksema would have no place in the PRC of today. Over against the very same false doctrine that we face, he proclaimed the gospel, “Do nothing, beloved!” The PRC damns that as nonsense and antinomian. He taught salvation by grace alone, and the Protestant Reformed ministers and professors teach salvation in the way of obedience—which is the deadly poison of salvation by grace and works. They teach assurance in the way of obedience. Blessing in the way of obedience. Justification in the way of obedience to the command to repent and believe. Everything is in the way of obedience, whether that obedience is defined as man’s act of faith, man’s act of repentance, or man’s acts of faithfulness and obedience to the commandments of God. Man is what matters.

Rev. Herman Hoeksema, Rev. George Ophoff, and Rev. Henry Danhof were instrumental in the formation of the Protestant Reformed Churches in 1924–25 because of the ministers’ opposition to common grace adopted by the Christian Reformed Church, in particular the ministers’ rejection of the well-meant gospel offer. There were three points of common grace. The second and third points taught that the unregenerated, under the influence of the Holy Spirit and through a mitigation of man’s natural depravity, can do real good, good in the eyes of God. The first point taught that God has a general attitude of favor toward the reprobate. As evidence of this general attitude of favor, the Christian Reformed Church pointed to the supposed well-meant gospel offer. It was Arminianism officially adopted by the Christian Reformed Church. It was in essence an election-less theology that put salvation in the power of man’s decision. God’s offered grace and man’s believing response were the sources of salvation. Those faithful ministers rejected this election-less theology as denying that God is God, God’s sovereignty in salvation, and man’s spiritual inability on account of his total depravity. They condemned the theology as Arminian. The Christian Reformed Church proves the truth of that now as a thoroughly Arminian denomination. Out of that controversy the Protestant Reformed denomination was formed and stood for the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. God is God. Man is not God.

The commitment of the Protestant Reformed Churches to this truth was put to the test in 1953 through her controversy with the theology of Rev. Hubert De Wolf, then one of three pastors serving the large First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The controversy had been brewing in the Protestant Reformed Churches since her contact with the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands (liberated), the churches of Dr. Klaas Schilder. Through his visits to the United States in the late thirties (1939) and late forties (1947), Schilder infected the Protestant Reformed Churches with his particular brand of Arminian conditional covenant theology. For Schilder all the baptized children of believers were included in the covenant and received the offer of salvation. It was an election-less theology of the offer as applied to the covenant. The source of salvation in Schilder’s covenant was God’s offered grace and the child’s response of faith and life of faithfulness.

Many of the Protestant Reformed people and ministers were enamored of Schilder’s election-less theology of the covenant. Among them was Rev. Hubert De Wolf. It was his task, and he did it well, to make Schilder’s covenant theology palatable to Protestant Reformed people. It was the insistence of Hoeksema that the rejection of common grace and the well-meant gospel offer in 1924 was in principle the rejection of the theology of conditions in the covenant that Reverend De Wolf and his pack were trying to bring into the Protestant Reformed Churches. The controversy was long and drawn out. After the dust had settled, Reverend De Wolf’s theology was rejected and not without many casualties. After the controversy the Protestant Reformed Churches were smaller by two-thirds.

The word was that Reverend De Wolf and the lie had been defeated. In that controversy the Protestant Reformed Churches were supposedly inoculated against the theology of conditions. But the denomination was not. The theology—not the word condition—the theology of conditions never left. The theology of conditions is that man does something to get something; the theology of conditions is that there is that which man must do—man must do—to be saved; the theology of conditions is that A—what man does—is before B—what God promises; the theology of conditions is that without A—what man does—then B—what God promises—never comes about. The theology of conditions expresses itself often as blessing in the way of obedience. That theology of conditions never left.

I believe that there are at least three main reasons for that. The first reason is that the phrase in the way of was allowed to be a substitute for the word condition. Instead of using the offensive word condition, the ministers used the words in the way of as a simple substitute.

What the early users of the phrase meant by the phrase was simply that God deals with man as a rational and moral creature. God calls, admonishes, rebukes, and otherwise addresses man with regard to his calling. The phrase acknowledges that there is a preceptive will of God that points out man’s duty and calls man to the duty. The phrase does not mean and cannot be pressed into the service of teaching that there is a certain order that God works, the order being that man is first (by God’s grace, of course) and that God responds or follows with his blessing to what man did (by grace, of course).

What the modern-day users of the phrase do is to use it to express what man must do to be blessed, assured, or saved. They use in the way of as an apparently pedigreed way in which to introduce man as an agent in his own salvation. For the PRC it makes a huge difference whether you say, “Your act of conversion is a prerequisite to enter the kingdom,” or if you say, “In the way of your act of repentance, you enter the kingdom.” But there is no difference. It is one and the same theology. It is equally election-less.

This analysis can be demonstrated, but that is not the point of this editorial. Anyone can go to the home page of about any Protestant Reformed church and choose at random any sermon and listen, and it is highly likely that one will hear the phrase in the way of connecting some activity of man with the blessing of God. God promises. Christ died to merit. But you experience the blessing only in the way of your obedience, repentance, or act of faith. This is standard Protestant Reformed theology. The ministers and professors do not know and do not care to preach any other way. This is their gospel: there are activities of man that precede the blessing of God. The fact is that in sermons where in the way of is used, that phrase could be substituted with the word condition or prerequisite, and there would be no change in meaning to the sermon. The sermons are conditional through and through because they are election-less. Man makes the difference in the sermons.

But there is no legitimate substitute for the word condition. And whether the word is used or not, the theology sounds the same. Condition is a word that has come to embody a theology in which God and man—enabled by grace—function together for man’s salvation. What man does must come first before God does what God has promised. God has promised to draw near? Man must draw near first. God has promised to forgive? Man must first repent. God has promised to bless? Man must first believe. God has promised to assure? Man must first obey. This is the theology of conditions. After De Wolf no one in the PRC could say, “God draws near to man conditioned on man’s drawing near to God.” The theology stayed, but it changed its tone and said simply, “God draws near to man in the way of man’s drawing near to God.” Or more boldly: “Man draws near to God first by God’s gracious operation upon that man, and then God draws near to man in the way of man’s drawing near to God.” It is election-less theology. Man makes the difference.

Besides, this allowance by the PRC for a simple substitution for the word condition never dealt with the reason that the word condition was used in the first place.

The word condition was used because of a theology that rejected the sovereignty of God and placed the activity of man on a parallel track to the sovereignty of God. Conditions arise out of a double-track theology. A double-track theology views salvation as the result of God’s sovereignty and man’s grace-wrought activities. God promises, and man must perform his part in order for the promise to come into effect. This sort of theology can dodge and excuse itself. But when man’s activities—also those by grace—come before the possession of God’s promises, then you have such a double-track, conditional theology. Double-track theology is in the end a single track of man’s deeds and activities as decisive in salvation. Man makes the difference.

Second, the theology of conditions never left because De Wolf himself gave the cleverest defense of his language. When pressed on his use of the words condition and prerequisite, then De Wolf simply made a distinction in salvation between salvation as objectively bestowed and salvation as experientially enjoyed. So he said during his exam when he was questioned about the promise being conditional,

Now, I do realize, Mr. Chairman, that the promise referred to here in question 22 [of the Heidelberg Catechism] may very well, and I believe it does, I think I would be ready to say that, and I haven’t looked up my sermons that I preached on this particular question; but I think the usual interpretation is that this promise includes all that God has promised in his word, in the comprehensive sense of the word, from the very beginning, including the cross of Christ and his resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and all that God has promised; and that including also the gift of the Holy Spirit and faith.

Now, of course, Mr. Chairman, I have never contended that that would be conditional. Never. I wouldn’t say that now. I simply don’t believe that. That would be Arminianism. That would mean that the Holy Spirit and faith depends upon something that man does.²

Sounds very good.

Then De Wolf continued in his explanation of the promise:

But, Mr. Chairman, you do find in the Catechism that those who pray receive the Holy Spirit; that God gives his Holy Spirit only to those who sincerely desire that Holy Spirit; and that for that purpose prayer is necessary. And so I would say, from that point of view, you could possibly say in the sphere, on the plane of our experience, as we experience these blessings of salvation as rational, moral creatures; and because God has instituted means with which he has connected his grace and Spirit, that, therefore, yes, you could say, in a sense, that the gift of the Holy Spirit is conditional upon the use of those means. I think you may say that, but in the sense that the Catechism means it here, my answer is no.³

And De Wolf said again in answer to a question about whether assurance is conditional,

If it means, on the other hand, that in the initial sense, the Holy Spirit cannot assure us unless we first do something—if that’s the meaning of this question—is the assurance of the Holy Spirit that we are—that our salvation is wholly in Christ—if that assurance depends on something in you and me, then it is not conditional. Couldn’t be. That would simply be Pelagian.

However, if you mean by assurance of the Holy Spirit the conscious personal assurance of our personal participation in that salvation, if that’s what you mean—but that’s really not what the Catechism is speaking of here. If that’s what you mean, then my answer is yes. It’s conditional. It is from the subjective point of view of our experience.⁴

De Wolf had two different doctrines. One mattered, and the other did not. He could with some umbrage parrot some truth when pushed on his theology of man’s conditional experience, as if he were insulted that he could even be questioned on his commitment to Reformed theology. He could speak about election and reprobation, and he could speak about salvation being unconditional. But it did not matter when it came to his preaching the gospel. His theology of preaching the gospel is what mattered; and in that theology, the conscious activity of the sinner and the conscious experience of salvation came in the way of man’s doing what God required first (of course, by grace) and before God did what he had promised. De Wolf was not condemned after his examination. I am not sure of the reason. Perhaps there were not the votes. The consistory of First Protestant Reformed Church was deadlocked by that time, and motions routinely failed on a tie vote. However, this distinction that De Wolf made was picked up and codified in May 1953 at Classis East in the infamous majority report, which sought to explain how De Wolf ’s two erroneous sermon statements could be understood properly as being Reformed. This report was never officially rejected by the Protestant Reformed Churches.

As a result the Protestant Reformed Churches were populated by ministers who could speak out of both sides of their mouths. On the one hand, they could speak about election and reprobation and deny conditions. Yet when it came to preaching the application of salvation and the commands and demands of the gospel, they taught conditions without ever using the word. For these ministers there were two tracks. For these ministers there were God’s works and there were man’s works performed by grace. It became almost a mantra: “But, of course, we do this all by grace, beloved.” Their theology was conditions fulfilled by grace by another name. De Wolf’s theology was an election-less theology, and the theology of the PRC today is the same election-less theology.

Third, the reason that De Wolf’s theology never left is that there were those who were enamored of his theology as a balance—corrective?—to Hoeksema’s theology of God. They stayed in the PRC out of loyalty to the denomination, to Hoeksema, to the other minsters, or for some other reason. To them De Wolf was definitely wrong when he said, “Our act of conversion is a prerequisite to enter the kingdom,” or so they said. But Hoeksema was wrong when he said, “Do nothing!” They did not say that, but they let Hoeksema’s sermons rot on their desks, waiting for the right moment to come out of the closet. They could not say that because Hoeksema made it clear that the two positions were as antithetical as heaven and hell, Christ and Belial, and the church and the world. To them Hoeksema was too one-sided, emphasized the sovereignty of God too much to the exclusion of man’s responsibility. Not understanding either God’s sovereignty or man’s responsibility—which is forever hemmed in by the sovereignty of God and apart from that sovereignty can never be talked about—they sought to thread the needle between De Wolf’s conditions of man and Hoeksema’s sovereignty of God. They wanted to strike a balance. To them De Wolf was on to something about the experience of salvation. They were embarrassed by ministers whom they supposed played only a one-string fiddle of God’s sovereignty. They were afraid of the gospel and thought that it had to be guarded by a healthy dose of man’s doing things to get blessings (all by grace, of course). They were motivated by pride that they could reconcile these two emphases of God’s sovereignty, as it was supposedly represented by Hoeksema, and man’s responsibility, as it was represented by De Wolf. Looking back, I say that Prof. David Engelsma falls into this category. There are others, but he led the way, and the Protestant Reformed Churches would not be where they are today without his leadership. The theologian led the way to the demise of the Protestant Reformed Churches.

But the two positions are incapable of reconciliation. And in the attempt to reconcile them, there was in reality the casting off of the truth. In the very attempt to reconcile the two positions, one must lose the truth because God does not play second fiddle to man, ever. Man’s responsibility must in the end always mean God, God, God. God determined before he made the world who would and who would not be saved. God’s decree as the living will of God determines all his commands, promises, admonitions, threats, and blessings. These commands, promises, admonitions, threats, and blessings cannot ever be preached from any other standpoint than that of the election and reprobation of the sovereign God. In the very attempt to reconcile these two irreconcilable positions, one must also adopt the election-less theology of De Wolf.

Those who teach an election-less theology do not deny election and reprobation in so many words. It must be remembered that election-less theology is also a theology without reprobation. Often in the rise of this election-less theology, the preaching of reprobation disappears first. The preachers of election-less theology pay lip service to the truth of election, but it plays no decisive part in their preaching of the gospel. The preaching is cut free from election and reprobation, and indeed those who teach this election-less theology really view the preaching of election and reprobation as an intrusion into the preaching of the gospel, the commands, demands, and warnings of scripture. For this theology the preaching of the gospel is the presentation of Christ crucified with the calling to repent and believe as that which man must do to be saved. For this theology in order to preach the commands, admonitions, and promises of scripture, one really cannot preach election, for it takes the edge off the urgency, and thus might make men carnally secure as well as careless and profane.

De Wolf stated as much in his December 14, 1959, letter to his consistory.⁵ De Wolf was working on taking the churches he led back to the Christian Reformed Church. His consistory objected. In response De Wolf wrote a letter to the consistory, in which he also stated his election-less theology:

From the point of view of the preaching of the gospel there is no a priori differentiation [of the hearer]. When the gospel confronts a man it does not confront him first of all as an elect or a reprobate but as a sinner. He is certainly one or the other according to God’s eternal predestination. But what he is does not become apparent before the gospel is preached to him. Mankind, therefore, becomes a historically differentiated mankind only after the gospel has been preached and its effect has been revealed in man’s response to it. The gospel does not come to a man and say to him first of all, “You are an elect” or “You are a reprobate” but “You are a sinner who is in need of salvation. And here is the Christ standing before you in this word. Believe on Him and you will be saved.” Only after he believes does he have the consciousness and assurance of election, and only through faith can he apply to himself what God declares to and concerning the elect.⁶

Having deceived many, De Wolf then let his loathing of election in connection with the preaching come out. He meant in this letter that when viewed from the viewpoint of the historic preaching of the gospel, one cannot proceed from the assumption of election and reprobation. The minister and the church cannot do its preaching from that standpoint. The audience before the minister is an undifferentiated mass of sinners. But what that does is make election a hypothetical and reprobation come about by result of failure to respond positively to the preaching of the promise. The undifferentiated mass of the audience becomes differentiated by man’s response. Man’s response, not God’s election and reprobation, brings the blessing promised.

I maintain that this is also the way that Protestant Reformed ministers preach admonitions, callings, commands, and blessings in the covenant of grace with regard to man’s experience. They will speak about election and reprobation (maybe). But when it comes to man’s experience of salvation, his assurance of salvation, his blessing from God, and his hope in eternal life, then it is not election and reprobation that matter but man’s response, his repentance, his obedience, and his acts of faith and faithfulness.

This is election-less theology. There is no mention of conditions. There is no mention of prerequisites. But the sound is unmistakable: it is Arminian to the core. Election and reprobation are from the viewpoint of the preaching—the preaching of Christ and the preaching of the command to repent and believe—immaterial. What is important is simply presenting Christ and calling on man to believe. This is the important thing because man’s response is what differentiates elect men and women from reprobate. Then and only then do election and reprobation come in, if they ever get preached at all.

Among De Wolf’s two heretical statements for which he was condemned, he said in a sermon on Matthew 18:3, “Our act of conversion is a prerequisite to enter into the kingdom of God.”⁷ De Wolf was not such an amateur and so unfamiliar with his audience as to teach that conversion was a prerequisite to enter the kingdom as an unregenerate. As he repeatedly insisted, he was not an Arminian. He explained what he meant.

CHAIRMAN HANKO: Do you maintain that our act of conversion is before we enter into the kingdom of God? That is, prerequisite?

REV. DE WOLF: In the sense of our consciousness of entering in and being in the kingdom, it is. I would say that you may say that it belongs to our act of entering into the kingdom.⁸

Note that in the question, prerequisite and before are simply synonyms. Whether you say prerequisite or before makes in the end no difference for the doctrine. Note also De Wolf’s defense of his doctrine. He does not make a long appeal to explain how prerequisite might properly be used. But he speaks of our conscious entering. The natural man cannot enter the kingdom by conversion; but the regenerated child of God, by his act of conversion, by the power of grace, enters the kingdom. This is De Wolf’s prerequisite. Before a man enters the kingdom, he must convert himself.

Let me put that in other terms. Before a man is forgiven, he must repent. Before God draws nigh to a man, man must draw nigh to God. This is De Wolf’s theology in different terms; and as the pages of this magazine have copiously demonstrated, this is the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches. The Protestant Reformed denomination has two different theologies. One matters, and one does not. Protestant Reformed ministers and professors might speak of Christ’s death and God’s election, but this is a ploy. It is the same effective ploy that De Wolf used and that fooled many of his followers when he denied that he was an Arminian and that he was strictly Reformed when it came to the doctrine of salvation. But that side of his theology did not matter to him, and it does not play any practical part in the theology of Protestant Reformed ministers and professors either. The theology that matters is the theology of experience: the experience of forgiveness; the experience of assurance; the experience of consciously entering the kingdom; the experience of nearness with God. And for all of these experiences, man must do something before God gives the experience. All of this is the same election-less theology of De Wolf. In the matter of experience, what matters is not God’s election, but what matters is man’s activity. What differentiates the undifferentiated mass of sinners that make up the audience of the preaching is not election and reprobation but man’s activities performed by grace.

But the Reformed faith knows of no different doctrine of salvation. Entering the kingdom according to the Heidelberg Catechism is the knowledge of the forgiveness of sin.⁹ Can you imagine that a man would say, “Before you are elect you must repent”? Or, “Before you are justified you must obey”? This is the rankest Arminianism and Pelagianism and modernism. So then are the statements that you must first draw near to God, and he will then draw near to you; that you have your assurance and blessing in the way of your obedience; and that in order for a man to consciously enter the kingdom, there is that which he must do. The churches in which this is preached are De Wolf’s churches, and like him they are thoroughly Arminian.

The reformation of 1953 was continued in 2021. It needed to be. The line of the true church has passed out of the Protestant Reformed Churches into the Reformed Protestant Churches. There is no difference between the theology of Reverend De Wolf and company and the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches as represented by men like Professor Engelsma, Professor Cammenga, Professor Gritters, Professor Huizinga, and the rest. They are teaching what De Wolf taught. When it comes to man’s conscious experience of salvation, the appropriation of salvation, the enjoyment of blessing, the assurance of eternal life, the forgiveness of sins in his conscience, and his being a saint, man is first. Man must be first and must do many things; and without doing those many things, man does not receive the promised blessing. And if you believe this, then you are the same as those who followed De Wolf.

There was in the reformation that God gave in 2021 in the Reformed Protestant Churches a recovery of the Reformed doctrine of salvation in our experience by sovereign grace. And that begins by having the doctrine of the experience of salvation governed by election and not by man’s activity.