Introduction

I consider it a great privilege and a unique opportunity to speak to you on the covenant controversy of 1953. I consider it a unique opportunity because the ecclesiastical climate of today is such that a speech on controversy is considered an absolute bore. There are many who are totally indifferent to the idea of doctrinal controversy. Yet this evening such a speech on doctrinal controversy is welcomed, and there are many who are excited about such a topic, and that is rare. That is a gift from God. There may be many who perhaps are nostalgic about controversy. They love to reflect about the controversy in the sixteenth century between the Protestants and Rome or the controversy in 1924 that led to the formation of the Protestant Reformed Churches out of the Christian Reformed Church. But as soon as controversy touches their own lives, they want nothing to do with controversy. As soon as controversy limits their earthly way, they do not want to speak about controversy. They do not want controversy to affect their pleasant lives, so they push controversy as far away from themselves as possible and refuse to talk about it. And so, to have a gathering where there are those who are interested, yea, excited, about controversy and about the covenant is refreshing.

I also consider it a great privilege and a unique opportunity to speak on the covenant controversy of 1953 because who else would speak on such a topic? I can think of perhaps three denominations. Perhaps the Liberated, whose offspring is the federation called the Canadian and American Reformed Churches, might be interested. Yea, it was the tide of the Liberated emigrants from the Netherlands that was the stimulus of the controversy in 1953. But I am not going to focus on the Liberated doctrine this evening. Really, by the time 1953 came about, dealings between the Protestant Reformed Churches and the Liberated were essentially over. After the Declaration of Principles had been adopted—which stood over against the Liberated doctrine that God gives an objective bequest of salvation, an objective bequest of the covenant, to the baptized child, which is realized when the child matures and accepts that promise by faith and repentance—Dr. Klaas Schilder in 1951 wrote an article in his Reformatie magazine titled “De Kous Is Af” (The Stocking is Finished).¹ From Schilder’s perspective a relationship with the Protestant Reformed Churches was over, and a year later he died. So perhaps the sons of the Liberated might have some interest in this topic but only incidentally.

The other denomination that might take an interest in the topic of the covenant controversy in 1953 is the Protestant Reformed Churches. But it has become abundantly evident in the deafening silence of the officebearers of the Protestant Reformed Churches and in the deafening silence of the Standard Bearer that these churches want nothing to do with that covenant controversy. Sword and Shield has contended time and again in many articles and in entire issues that the 2021 controversy of the Reformed Protestant Churches with the Protestant Reformed Churches was nothing but a continuation of the covenant controversy in 1953. And there is still an open request in Sword and Shield to the Protestant Reformed Churches to deal with that contention, to recognize it or to refute it. And there has not been a single response.

And that is not at all surprising. I say that that is not at all surprising based on my own experience as a seminary student in the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary. I go back now to March 2021, when I was in the second semester as first-year student. It was a time when classical agendas and synodical agendas had bloated to unprecedented sizes. By that time in March, Classis East had already concurred with the consistory of Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church to depose Rev. Andrew Lanning. And by that time in March 2021, a new denomination had formed. And if you had been in that seminary, you would have asked yourself, “Doctrinal controversy? What doctrinal controversy?” If you could have been with the students auditing the classes, or if you could have been with the students as they sat with the professors in the breakroom, or if you could have sat with the students during the Friday chapels, you would have asked yourself, “What doctrinal controversy?” That topic was strictly off limits. There was no talking about it, not even in the seminary! And in light of everything that was happening, I felt like a rubber duck tossed around on a tumultuous sea.

Finally, in March 2021, after the pleading of some students, it was agreed that a special student club meeting would be held “with the general topic being the current controversy in the PRC.”² The students were asked to submit “three to five of [their] most pressing questions about the subject.”³ And that was an exciting time, for we could finally talk about the controversy that was being completely ignored. We could finally discuss what was going on in the denomination.

And it was also in March 2021 when Sword and Shield arrived in my mailbox. And an article in that issue of the magazine laid out very clearly that what was going on in the Protestant Reformed Churches in 2021 was nothing less than a continuation of the covenant controversy that had taken place in 1953. More specifically, the controversy in the Protestant Reformed Churches was a continuation of and concerned conditional covenant theology applied to the daily experience of the believer. And the author of that article in Sword and Shield wrote that the Protestant Reformed Churches must reject “conditions for daily fellowship with God…by rejecting the emphases on man’s responsibility, man’s activity, and man’s obedience that so present the matter that God’s fellowship is effectively held in suspense until man acts.”⁴

So what was my most pressing question submitted to the student club committee? “Is that analysis correct? Is it true that what we are dealing with right now in 2021 is the same doctrine that the Protestant Reformed Churches were dealing with in 1953?” A simple question. But a question that the student club committee—a student club committee supervised by a professor—deemed inappropriate for group discussion, a discussion among professors and prospective ministers within the Protestant Reformed Churches! There was simply a refusal to talk about 1953. So I say that it is a great privilege and a unique opportunity to speak on this covenant controversy because such speaking will not happen in the Protestant Reformed Churches.

The Central Issue

It is well known that the covenant controversy in 1953 had to deal with the unconditional covenant. I could say more specifically that the controversy of 1953 had to deal with the nature of God’s covenant promise. Now, having myself studied the primary sources of that time—in light of all the Standard Bearer articles that were written during that time; in light of the debate that took place on the floor of Synod 1951, when the final adoption of the Declaration of Principles was being discussed; in light of the majority report and the minority report of Classis East when it dealt with Rev. Hubert De Wolf’s sermons;⁵ and in light of the examination of Reverend De Wolf⁶—it has become apparent to me that the controversy of 1953 had to deal with the nature of God’s covenant promise, particularly as that applied to the preaching. It was at the point of the preaching of God’s covenant promise where all of this came to a head. How will God’s covenant promise be preached?

That the preaching of the promise was, indeed, central to the controversy is evident in the Declaration of Principles. In the first head under D, it was the assertion of the Protestant Reformed Churches in 1951

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. (Confessions and Church Order, 413)

The Declaration was interested in the preaching of the promises of the gospel.

I am not going to spend time this evening on the debate that took place on the floor of Synod 1951. That debate was recorded by a scribe and published in the Standard Bearer.⁷ You can refer to those articles, or if you want a document of all those articles put together, my grandma Evelyn Langerak made such a document, and you can reach out to her. The men who were involved in that debate were very concerned about how they should preach God’s promise. How will God’s covenant promise be preached to God’s people? How will it be preached to the church?

And that the 1953 controversy had to deal with the nature of God’s promise in the preaching is evident in that Reverend De Wolf manifested his view of God’s promise in his preaching itself. He proclaimed, “God promises every one of you that, if you believe, you shall be saved.” And it was in the preaching that Reverend De Wolf said, “Our act of conversion is a prerequisite to enter into the kingdom of God.”⁸

It was in the preaching of the covenant promise of God that many manifested their false doctrine.

On one side of the controversy were those who wanted to maintain a conditional promise. And in 1953 it was ministers within the Protestant Reformed Churches who were enamored of Schilder’s presentation of the promise who wanted to maintain a conditional promise. They did not care so much about Schilder’s insistence that God gives a general promise to all the baptized children, which promise is realized finally when those children mature and accept that promise by faith and repentance. But those ministers had become enamored of Schilder’s presentation of God’s promise, particularly regarding the preaching of that promise. They were mesmerized—you might say blinded—by all the demands and all the responsibilities and all the duties that scripture presents to man, which to those ministers were necessary to be fulfilled before God’s covenant would be ministered unto a person. And so they wanted conditions in the preaching of God’s promises but only in a certain sense.

You have to understand, of course, what those ministers meant by condition. They always insisted that salvation was unconditional. Salvation was absolutely unconditional. They would say that over and over and over again. They just wanted to maintain the sense of a conditional promise when that promise was preached, when that promise confronted the child of God. What they meant by condition is writ large in the writings from that time. For those ministers a condition was “the confrontation of God’s demand which God annexes to the promise.”⁹ A condition was merely a preceding demand that comes with God’s promise. A condition was a prerequisite, something that is required, before God’s promise is fulfilled.

Although it is like pulling teeth today to get men to admit what a condition is, that idea of a condition from the conditional-covenant men of 1953 is all you need to know. That is what they were teaching in 1953. Or to put it this way—which, again, has been written over and over and over on the pages of Sword and Shield—a condition is A that precedes B; and without A preceding B, B cannot come. You can have a whole list of what A can be. A is whatever you want to throw into A. A is man’s activity; A is man’s willing; A is man’s repenting; A is man’s believing. Make these A. And B is God’s covenant blessedness, all the blessings of the covenant. And you can enumerate the blessings. Do you want a blessing to be forgiveness? Do you want a blessing to be comfort? Do you want a blessing to be assurance? Do you want a blessing to be knowledge that God is your God? Make these B. And now, A precedes B; and unless A precedes B, B cannot come. That is a condition. You can say that man’s activity is caused by God’s grace. You can say that man’s activity is caused by the Holy Spirit. Regardless of how many qualifications you give to such a statement, you still have a condition.

And in 1953 a conditional promise was explicitly preached that way: “God promises every one of you, that if you believe, you shall be saved.” That is not how a conditional promise is going to come today; at least I do not expect it to come that way. A conditional promise today is taught whenever you are left with the impression that your activity in some respect affects God’s bestowal of the promise. If the preaching of God’s covenant promise comes to you, and you are left with the impression, simply the impression, that your activity affects in any respect God’s bestowal of the promise, you have been taught a conditional covenant promise. And you can take that positively, and you can take that negatively. If some good that you will or desire or do positively affects God’s bestowal of God’s promised blessings, you have been taught a conditional covenant promise. And you can take that negatively, so that if your sins or your evil desires affect God’s bestowal of God’s promised blessings, you have been taught a conditional covenant promise.

In 1953 there was a term that exposed the lie. That term exposed where there was division within the Protestant Reformed Churches. And that term was that God’s covenant promise is absolutely unconditional. And what this means is that when God comes to realize his covenant promise and bestows covenant blessings, this does not take into account any of man’s activity, whether positive or negative. That is what absolutely unconditional means. And that term exposed the ministers in 1953 who wanted a conditional promise. They hated the truth of the absolutely unconditional promise; they did not want that truth. In their preaching they wanted to confront their congregations with God’s demands, so that the congregations understood that without the fulfillment of those demands God’s blessings could not come. That term absolutely unconditional exposed those ministers. They did not want it. When the Declaration of Principles was under discussion on the floor of Synod 1951, they were trying to weasel clauses into the Declaration that God’s promise is conditional in a certain sense.

The term absolutely unconditional today exposes the Protestant Reformed Churches too. That God’s covenant promise is absolutely unconditional exposes them in their preaching; the term exposes them in their synodical decisions. And now I mention specifically the Protestant Reformed synodical decisions of 2018 and 2021. In 2018 synod taught, as everyone well knows, that the covenant fellowship of God is “through faith (instrument), on the basis of what Christ has done (ground), and in the way of our obedience (way of conduct or manner of living).”¹¹ Consider how God’s covenant promise should be preached in light of that declaration: “God promises covenant fellowship in the way of your obedience.” That preaching brings into view man’s activity, such that without man’s activity there is no covenant fellowship. That is what preaching in light of the 2018 synodical decision does. Why does one have covenant fellowship? Because he is walking in the way of obedience. Why does one not have covenant fellowship? Because he is not walking in the way of obedience. That kind of preaching denies that God’s promise is absolutely unconditional.

Or what about Synod 2021 that asserted that there are activities of man that precede the blessings of God?¹² How is that preached? “God will give you some promised good, but man’s activity must come first.” Man’s activity then obscures God’s promised good. That preaching brings into view man, what man does, what man wills, and that denies the absolutely unconditional nature of God’s covenant promise.

What Absolutely Unconditional Means

Over against any idea of a conditional covenant, what was taught by the orthodox fathers in 1953 and what is being taught in Sword and Shield today is that God’s covenant promise is absolutely unconditional.

Let me give you an analogy. Let us say that there is a rich man who decides to bestow a large sum of money on another person, some beneficiary. But if you say that the beneficiary receives all that money only in the way of his doing something, you would say that his activities are determinative for his receiving that good. Or let us say that this beneficiary is going to receive a large amount of money, and he must first do this or that before he receives the money; you would say that his activities determine whether or not he is going to receive that promised good. Over against these ideas, absolutely unconditional means that this beneficiary receives that rich sum of money absolutely freely, without any respect to what that man has done or will do. His works absolutely do not come into view.

That God’s covenant promise is absolutely unconditional is abundantly evident in the mother promise. When God came to trembling Adam and Eve, who had just transgressed God’s good commandment and had spit in God’s face and had desired Satan and not God, God declared to man’s enemy, “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). That is the mother promise. Where were Adam’s activities when God came and declared that mother promise? Where was Adam’s doing—Adam’s doing whether good or Adam’s doing whether evil? Adam’s doing simply did not come into view when God gave his covenant promise. And just as every creature that has ever existed on earth can only beget creatures of the same kind, that promise could only beget children of the same nature. Throughout the Old Testament that mother labored in birth pangs. Every time God came to speak his promise, God rent the heavens and sovereignly declared, “I will establish my covenant” and “I will make a new covenant” and “I will be their God.” That mother labored in pain until, in the fullness of time, Jesus Christ came—Jesus Christ, who came without the will of man and without any respect to what man had done. That is the nature of God’s promise.

The promise, then, does not rest in us. It does not rest in us, who by nature are totally corrupt, inclined to all evil and sin. The promise does not rest on anything you do or will, whether good or evil. Upon what does the promise rest? That one, Jesus Christ. The promise is absolutely unconditional and does not take into respect any of your works because the promise rests on Christ’s perfect work. And here you see that you can never get away from that glorious doctrine of justification. Justification is not as it was taught to me one time in the preaching. I was told that we walk past the gates of justification, and then we are in this new realm, the new realm of sanctification, this new realm of man’s activity. No! When one walks in God’s kingdom of blessing, he is always standing on the ground of Christ’s righteousness. That one never leaves it, whether he is walking on the golden pavement or whether he is walking alongside the river that issues forth from the throne of God. One is always standing on the work of another—the work of Jesus Christ. That is why the promise is absolutely unconditional.

But you may not stop there. Many are content with leaving Christ as the basis. That is all they want with Christ. But Christ continues to be Christ. Christ is not one who only lays the immutable and everlasting righteousness of that kingdom, but he is a risen and exalted Christ, who ever abides as the head of the covenant to bestow that covenant, to give every blessing of that covenant, to give God’s promised good to all the promised seed. Christ ever lives as head of the covenant. He is the Christ who is seated at the right hand of God as our prophet, as our priest, and as our king. And this means that he is responsible. He is responsible as the chief prophet and teacher to send the word of the promise into the world and to give what that promise speaks to his people. He is responsible as the priest who ever lives to make intercession on behalf of God’s people. He lives to make intercession. That is his very breath in heaven, constantly interceding with the Father on our behalf, just as God ordained. “Father,” he prays, “behold this one offering that has perfected forever those who are sanctified. Behold this offering and fill me with good.” And it is Christ who is full of that covenant blessedness and bestows it upon his church as our priest. He raises his hands ever in heaven to bless his church. And he is the risen and exalted king too. Understand that. He is responsible for that covenant promise as king, so that now he holds the very reins of this world and has been endued with all power and all authority to put all things into the service of God’s covenant and to protect God’s promised seed. He spends nations and kingdoms and peoples for God’s promised seed. Does man’s activity come into view here? Absolutely unconditional means that there is only one whose work matters, one who determines everything, and that is Christ.

But that is not the end of it. Why is the promise of God absolutely unconditional? Jesus Christ, having ascended into heaven to be seated at God’s right hand, has received the promise of the Spirit, so that the Spirit is that Lord. It is that Spirit who in God’s own covenant life is the rich gift of the covenant, the personal embrace of the Father to the Son and the embrace of the Son to Father, the gift of love. Every blessing of the covenant is the Spirit. And now with the rending of the heavens by the promise, the Spirit of Jesus Christ swoops down with all the fullness of Christ. Christ and every blessing of the covenant swoop down in the irresistible and sovereign breath of God to succor those who are in need.

And absolutely unconditional means that there is only one explanation for why one man receives God’s promise and why another does not, only one explanation for why one man is blessed and another is cursed. Who receives that perfect work of Christ? For whom does Christ minister at the right hand of God? Who receives that gift of the Holy Spirit and every covenant blessing? The elect and the elect alone. Whenever a conditional covenant promise comes into the church, it is because man hates election, and man hates reprobation. And man will not let God decide according to God’s own good pleasure who receives the promise and who does not. Why do some believe and others do not believe? Why are some assured of their justification and others are not assured? Why do some have peace and others do not have peace? Why do some have joy and others do not have joy? Because God said so. Because God decreed it. Because God chose a people in Jesus Christ from before the foundation of the world without any respect to what they would do. And because many others he did not choose but hated and appointed to destruction from before the foundation of the world without any respect to what they would do. The promise simply does not depend on men. God’s sovereign decree of election and reprobation determines God’s bestowal of the promise.

And that is what must be known in the preaching. That is what God’s people must taste in the preaching. Understand, you and I cannot be humbled enough when it comes to our view of ourselves and our pride. You are blessed, you are only blessed, because of God’s decree and not in any respect to what you have done and who you are. You have not distinguished yourselves in any respect based on what you have done. You and I need to know that. You and I need to hear that week after week. So proud, so conceited, and so foolish we are. We need to know that too for our comfort. What you do does not affect God’s bestowal of his promise. He will give to all of his elect the full blessedness of the covenant apart from anything they do.

Why do I have joy and another does not? Why do I have peace and another does not? Why do I have forgiveness and another does not? If you have preaching that comes to you so that the impression is left that you have distinguished yourself in some respect for these things—if your response has to do with “I”—you have been taught a conditional covenant promise. Unless the preaching of God’s covenant promise leaves you wondering, “Well, why must I do good works?” then you have been taught a conditional covenant promise.

And God will not be glorified by a conditional covenant promise. God, who has determined the end from the beginning; God, who freely and sovereignly bestows his covenant and all of its blessedness—this God will not be worshiped or called upon or known as the God who bestows what he promises because he has first enabled man to do something that is necessary to receive the promise. That is no God. If that is your god—a god who has bestowed the promise because he has enabled man to do first what man needs to do before god bestows the promise—you have fashioned for yourself a stock, and you worship an idol. God will be glorified, and God will be known as the one who sovereignly, irresistibly, absolutely unconditionally bestows his covenant. That is what the orthodox fathers taught, and that is what they defended in the covenant controversy of 1953.

Effects of Defending the Truth

And now before I close, I want to remind you of what the Protestant Reformed Churches endured in 1953 for her defense of that truth. The Protestant Reformed denomination suffered immense earthly loss. The denomination was reduced by two-thirds—two-thirds of her ministers, two-thirds of her members, and two-thirds of her churches. And it was not that mere loss that was painful. In doctrinal controversy there is terrible carnage. A war leaves no family untouched. Sons are slaughtered by the enemy and perish in the trenches. Some flee from their place on the front line and obtain the punishment for desertion. In battle none return home without some lasting trauma and stress. Such is the nature of warfare. And it is no different in doctrinal warfare, in maintaining the truth over against the lie. There will be carnage, and there will be earthly loss. There will be suffering. Such is the nature of warfare. In this life we are not promised earthly peace; we are promised a sword. To minimize and to shame the expected carnage in battle are to abysmally weaken the forces in their stance over against the lie.

The Reformed Protestant Churches were mocked in a letter from Professor Engelsma, who wrote,

Neither of your leaders cares a snap about the peace of the churches. Let the churches suffer. Let marriages and families be further divided “You can stick your principle [for which you fight] where the sun doesn’t shine.” I have a greater and more glorious principle…the unity of the church.¹³

That mentality is fatal. That mentality will lead swiftly to the destruction of a denomination, for there is no unity except in the truth. There is no peace except in the truth. If that is the mentality and if that is the unity you want, you share that same ambition with the antichrist, who needs that kind of mentality and that unity to establish his antichristian kingdom.

In this life we have not earthly peace but a sword. Such was the case in the covenant controversy in 1953. Not only that, but those who stood for the truth and the denomination that stood for the truth became the butt of jokes, the reproach of the Reformed church world. There were many loud voices that had much to say about persons and personalities and who had not a clue about the doctrine involved in the controversy. The same voices are heard today. Many in the Protestant Reformed Churches clamor for peace and say, “There is no difference between what Sword and Shield witnesses and what is held to in the Protestant Reformed denomination.” They say that because they have not made it any of their business to understand the doctrine. They do not care about doctrine. They are not interested in doctrine. Doctrine does not mean anything to them because they do not care about the glory and beauty of the living and holy God.

And it is that doctrinal indifference that destroys a denomination. It is that doctrinal indifference that is written all over the report of the Protestant Reformed Classis East that just came out this past week. The officebearers at the classis refused to deal with the doctrine. Why? Because distinctive Reformed doctrine does not mean anything. They do not see the glory of God in it.

And that leads to rapid apostasy. That happened in 1953—astoundingly rapid apostasy. Those who wanted to maintain a conditional covenant promise and separated themselves from the Protestant Reformed Churches, within a few years, just a few years, were already having ecclesiastical contacts, not with the Liberated but with the Christian Reformed Church. And as those who left the Protestant Reformed Churches considered joining themselves with the Christian Reformed Church, they were confronted with the labor union and with the adultery of divorce and remarriage. It was coming out at that time that the Christian Reformed Church wanted theistic evolution, and certain circles denied the infallibility of scripture. But those who left the Protestant Reformed Churches still went to the Christian Reformed Church! Why? Because when people have been confronted face to face with the glory of God in the truth of Jesus Christ, when they have been confronted with the glory of God’s absolutely unconditional covenant promise and reject that, they crucify Christ anew, and they mock and spit at God. And God sends them on their way to swift destruction, mocking and laughing at their demise.

The truth has been brought. The truth has been witnessed to. And that truth has been rejected. Thus our continued warning to anyone who has an ear to hear in the Protestant Reformed Churches is, “All you can expect is massive, swift apostasy. Get out!”

But God maintains his truth. By God’s grace he has given witness to that truth through Sword and Shield. And that witness in Sword and Shield does not depend on men. That witness does not depend on the labors of men. God’s testimony to his truth and his witness of his truth absolutely do not rest and rely on the labors of men. That is our confidence because God gives an absolutely unconditional covenant promise.

Thank you for your time.