Introduction

I want to welcome everyone who came tonight, as well as those who are listening online.¹

The origin of this speech was an email that I received from a concerned member of Sovereign Reformed Protestant Church, asking for a lecture on the school in light of the opposition that was being faced. That opposition came from the most curious source: the then and now former members of the consistory of Sovereign Reformed Protestant Church. The request for this lecture precipitated the series of events that exposed the deep opposition to the Christian school in the consistory at Sovereign. The school, then, as it has all through Reformed church history, also faces controversy in the Reformed Protestant Churches. It is the purpose of the speech tonight to address some of those issues.

I don’t have the time to deal with all of the issues, but I am going to deal with this issue in particular: that the school is the command of God and that the school, therefore, is necessary as the demand of God’s covenant. This means that the school institution—formed by parents, in which teachers are employed, and that is run by a board—is, in fact, commanded by God and is the demand of God’s covenant.

I want to begin by reading just two passages of scripture. I could read many more. The first is 1 Corinthians 15:50–58:

50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
51. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
55. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56. The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Then another passage, Philippians 2:1–11:

1. If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
2. Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
3. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
4. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7. But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
9. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
10. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

These passages and many other passages in the sacred scripture are about the school.

I want to make clear tonight at the very beginning that this speech is against homeschooling.

Many of you have probably read Reverend VanderWal’s post on his blog, in which he carves out a place for homeschooling. He also argues that the school as an institution, formed by parents for the purpose of educating their children, is not the demand of the covenant. Reverend VanderWal in that post presents the Protestant Reformed position on the school.²

The Protestant Reformed Churches in 2008 and 2009 gutted article 21 of the Church Order. Those churches gutted article 21 in that they removed the principal doctrinal basis of the good Christian school in the covenant and its demand for the education of the covenant children. Removing the principal doctrinal basis of the good Christian school, therefore, the Protestant Reformed Churches fatally injured the movement of the good Christian school.

That position I opposed. I was at Synod 2008 and Synod 2009, and I spoke against that position. I preached against that position. I gave speeches against that position, and I wrote against that position. I am opposed to everything that Reverend VanderWal proposes in his blog post. The position that he takes in that blog post is diametrically opposed to the truth of the scriptures and of the Reformed creeds. His position is diametrically opposed to what I believe, to what I have believed my entire life, to what I have taught my entire ministry, and to what I am going to present to you tonight.

The good Christian school as an institution is the demand of God’s covenant; and, therefore, the movement for homeschooling is contrary to God’s covenant. I am not opposed to a parent’s teaching his or her children schooling at home. I am not opposed to that as an emergency measure. What I am opposed to is the homeschool movement, which would give homeschooling an equal footing with the good Christian school, which would teach that the homeschool and the good Christian school are both demands of God’s covenant. I am opposed to that. Indeed, I cannot exist in the same denomination with the homeschooling movement. The homeschooling movement in all of its principles is opposed to the movement for the good Christian school. The homeschool, whatever the homeschool is, is not a school. A school is an organization formed by parents for the purpose of educating their children by qualified teachers. A home-school is not that. And a homeschool is, indeed, opposed to that. These two movements, the homeschool movement and the good Christian school movement, cannot coexist in the same denomination.

The homeschool movement comes with a plea for toleration. That plea for toleration was present at the recent Reformed Protestant classis. So the story went: All we are asking for is that the homeschool movement be tolerated in the churches. That plea was also present in Reverend VanderWal’s blog. All we are pleading for is that the homeschool movement be given an equal footing, recognized as a legitimate form of schooling along with the good Christian school. But I say to you that those two movements cannot coexist. The principles put forward for the good Christian school militate against the homeschool, and the principles put forward for the homeschool militate against the good Christian school. Toleration of homeschooling will not lead to coexistence. Toleration of homeschooling will lead to the destruction of the Christian school movement. I want to make clear tonight that, as much as I am promoting the good Christian school, I am opposed to homeschooling. Homeschooling is selfish, loveless, independent, and anti-covenantal, just as the school is self-sacrificial and full of love and flows out of God’s covenant. In our denomination they cannot coexist.

I do not want anyone tonight to use the word school—for I am going to speak of the school—as an excuse to say, “Well, homeschooling really fits in the definition of a school.” It is disingenuous on the part of the homeschooler to take the word school and to say that the word school really is the equivalent of the word education. A school is an institution. A school is an institution alongside the church and the home. That school as an institution flows out of the church and flows out of the home. That school as an institution is an expression of God’s covenant.

Furthermore, no one in the Reformed Protestant denomination ought to be surprised that there is a controversy in our churches about the school. Whenever there has been a reformation of the church, the schools have always been involved. And here, with regard to the specific doctrinal issue that resulted in the Reformed Protestant Churches, the schools are a part of that. The specific doctrinal issue was the life of God’s elect child in God’s covenant, whether that life is a life of unconditional fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. And the school belongs to that life.

Indeed, it is not at all an exaggeration to say that the lives of God’s covenant people revolve around the schools. For nine months out of the year, their entire lives are geared to the schools. The father wakes up in the morning to make money to pay for the school. The mother gets up in the morning to get her children prepared for the school. The children spend eight hours a day at the school. They come home, and they do schoolwork. They go to bed at a certain time because they have to get up for the school. The school is the life of the Reformed home.

We fought a controversy over that life, whether that life is a gracious gift from God to be enjoyed in Jesus Christ without any conditions. The covenant, as that covenant comes to expression in the school, also, then, was reanimated by that recovering of the truth of the covenant. God wanted the school issue to come up so that the school issue could be faced again in light of a fresh appreciation and a fresh understanding that the life of the covenant is an unconditional gift of God.

So we have controversy with regard to the school. I welcome the controversy. That controversy was present with us from the very beginning. In the very beginning of our churches, almost as soon as we signed the Acts of Separation, the issue of the school was present. The issue then was whether we were even going to have schools. There were those who said, “We are going to keep using the Protestant Reformed schools, and those who can’t use them can fend for themselves.” It was a disgusting and loveless display that characterized the beginning of the churches.

When it was settled that we were going to have our own schools, then the controversy became, are those schools going to be denominational in character? There were those who did not want the schools associated with the churches at all. “Keep the churches out of the schools” was the hue and cry. But the parents who take the vow of baptism to teach their children the aforesaid doctrine of the church that they attend have no other option but to send their children to a school that teaches them that doctrine. If that school doesn’t exist, the parents must form one. If that school exists, the parents must use it. 

And when that issue was settled, then this controversy came into the foreground and reared its head again regarding these questions: What is the specific basis of the school? Why do we form schools? Why do we maintain them? Why do we use them? Is the school demanded—if we would even use that word demanded—by merely practical considerations? By that I mean, is the school simply an extension of the reality and does it flow out of the reality that most parents cannot teach their kids in their homes? But homeschooling is really the ideal. If we could all homeschool, we should homeschool. Homeschooling is the best. And we really make a concession when we form a school. The school, then, is the next best option. Is that the basis of the school: a mere practical reality? We can go on with that line of reasoning. The complicated nature of life means that there must be qualified teachers, so we must have a school. Is the basis merely practical? Or is the basis doctrinal? Is the basis rooted in an eternal and an unchangeable principle? Which means that the basis of the school is rooted in God himself.

The answer of the Reformed Protestant Churches, and I believe the answer of the Reformed churches all through history, is that the school rests on an eternal and an unchangeable principle. That principle is the principle of God’s covenant. The school rests on God’s own nature as the covenant God. The school rests on God’s establishment of a covenant of grace with us. The school rests on the covenant. And so, really, the answer to the question of the command of the school is the covenant. The answer to the question of the necessity of the school is the covenant. The covenant, the covenant, the covenant: that is the basis, that is the demand, and that is the necessity of the school.

I want to establish that from scripture and the creeds, and I want to establish that from church history. The doctrine of the Reformed Protestant Churches on the schools is no new doctrine. It has been the Reformed position all through history.

The Command and Necessity

Now, we must understand that when we speak of the command and necessity of the good Christian school, by that word command we mean God’s command. God in Jesus Christ commands the Christian school. As God commands “Do not commit adultery” and “Do not steal,” God commands the good Christian school. As God commands “Go to church” and “Get married,” so God commands the good Christian school. 

When we say that the command for the good Christian school is from God, then we also free ourselves from the charge of legalism. Just as it is not legalistic for the church to preach, “You may not have idols; you may not have images; you may not commit adultery; and you may not steal,” so it is not legalism for the church to preach, “You must have a good Christian school.” That is not legalism because as we preach that you may not have idols, and you may not have images, and you may not commit adultery, and you may not steal, we preach those not as requirements for your salvation—the law is never a demand for salvation—but as the law is the guide of your thankful lives. The law expresses what is written by the Holy Spirit upon the heart of the child of God. I don’t have to have the preacher come to me to tell me, “You shouldn’t have an idol,” so that I need to be informed of that in the first instance. I already have it written on my heart. That is already the delight of my heart. And when the preacher says, “You can’t have any idols,” I say, “Yes, yes, I love that law of God. That is the delight of my heart.” So also with the school. God is a covenant God, Christ is a covenant Christ, and the Spirit is a covenant Spirit; and he writes the covenant and the love of the covenant on our hearts. And as far as writing the covenant on our hearts, he writes the school on our hearts. When the minister comes to you and says, “You must have a good Christian school,” you say, “Yes, yes, that is the delight of my heart out of thankfulness for God’s salvation of me and his promise to me and my children.” On our hearts we have written “Form a good Christian school,” so that we recognize that there is a command; but that command is not a legalistic command. That command is simply the teaching of the word of God, informing us of what God already wrote on our hearts by his Holy Spirit.

And when we speak of the necessity of the good Christian school, then, we mean two things. First, we mean the obedience of covenant parents to God’s command to form a good Christian school. The necessity of the school is the demand of God’s covenant. God said, “Form a school,” and, therefore, that is the necessity of the school. God established a relationship of fellowship and friendship with us. God incorporated us and our children into that covenant. As part of our lives with God and with one another in the covenant, God commands—and we obey—to form good Christian schools.

That necessity of the good Christian school also includes the practical necessity of the covenant. What I mean by that is that the task of rearing the covenant child is the central work in the lives of covenant parents. That task of raising the covenant child is what the covenant parents swore before God and the church to do, so that when the covenant parents took their child for baptism, they said, “I will teach my child in the aforesaid doctrine, or help or cause him to be instructed therein, to the utmost of my power.” The parents took that vow before the entire congregation, so that the entire congregation is taken up into that vow. The entire congregation is obligated. The members are obligated, by virtue of having witnessed that vow, to help those parents. The congregation must do it. It is lovelessness; it is cruelty; it is disobedience; it is hatred for those parents not to do so. Members of the congregation who saw the parents take that vow and who nodded their heads at that vow in a figurative way when they watched those parents take that vow were saying, “We will help you.” Then when it comes to the school, they say, “Except for that.”

The task of raising covenant children is an all-consuming task. That task takes phenomenal resources not only of money but also of time and of talent and of information. The children have to be taught to be friends and servants of God in this world that we live in. This world develops, and this world increases in complication. To teach those children all that they need to know to live in this world takes the entire church. Out of that practical necessity and the fact that the church said, “We will help you,” the baptism form demands the school. You cannot read the baptism form any other way. The baptism form is not an individual’s coming up before an empty church, but it is an individual’s or a family’s coming before the entire congregation and that individual’s swearing to teach his children, and the whole congregation saying, “We will help you.” That is the necessity of the school. That is the demand of the school.

Then also, in connection with the practical necessity of the school, there is the very idea of the covenant itself. The covenant is life together. That’s simply what it is. We in common are partakers of Jesus Christ. Being partakers of Jesus Christ, we are his body, and we have fellowship one with another. That covenant is life together, and our children belong to that covenant. They must have a life together. They must have a life together as children of the church. If one is off homeschooling his children over there, and another is off homeschooling his children over there, and still another is off homeschooling his children over there, the children do not have a life together. They are not together. The homeschooling parent separates his children from the other children. He separates his children from the church and from fellowship with the other children of the church. Those parents by doing that teach their children, “You don’t need the church. You can be separate from the church six days out of the week.” And those children develop no practical relationships with their fellows. Why do you think God wants his children together as children? They are learning. They are not only learning math and science and Bible, but they are also learning how to be together as children. The homeschooling parent takes the children away from the other children of the church, and they don’t develop those relationships; so those children have no strong relationships with the church. And the parents who do that then have the temerity to complain, “Our children don’t have any friends at church.” Well, no kidding. The children don’t see each other for six days out of the week. What do you expect? I say the very idea of the covenant, of togetherness—not now as parents but as children—demands the school.

The school, then, is an exercise in love. The school is an exercise in love on the part of the whole church, the church that saw the parents take the vow at baptism. In love for those parents and in love for those children, recognizing that the parents are not going to be able to teach their children by themselves, parents band together to form a school. Where would be the love of a congregation that sees a mother come up who is utterly incapable of schooling her children, and the congregation watches her take the vow, and the members know she cannot teach her children math and science and writing? The members of the congregation know that. They watch her take the vow, and they say, “Yes, we will help you.” And they leave her to fend for herself. They say, “We are going to homeschool our kids because we know how to do that. We are going to homeschool our kids because we are capable of doing that. And you—we’re sorry about that—had better fend for yourself.” Where is the love in that? There is no love in that. Where is the love of the church for the mother of nine children who comes with her tenth to the front of church and has the child baptized and promises to teach that child, along with the other nine, the truth of God’s scripture as it applies to all the areas of life, and the members of the church say, “We are not going to help her at all”? Where is the love in that? She can’t teach all those children. There is no love in that. It is loveless; it is selfish; it is anti-covenantal. It is love for the children that you see those children as needing the other children of the church: needing to be with them, needing to play with them, and needing to learn with them. In love for that need, you form the good Christian school.

Taught in Scripture

Anyone who says, “There is no demand in scripture for the good Christian school,” is actually saying, “There is no verse in the Bible that says, ‘Thou shalt form a good Christian school.’” When they say that, they take me for a fool. There are many things in the Christian life where there is no verse in the Bible that says, “Thou shalt” or “Thou shalt not.” And it is a demand for all that. The demand of the good Christian school is everywhere that scripture teaches the covenant. If you sit down and think through the covenant for five minutes, you will say, “Yes, of course, we need a good Christian school. Our children need to be together. The covenant demands it.” Everywhere scripture teaches the communion of the saints, it teaches the school. Oh, the parents get to have communion, but the children don’t? If you think through the communion of the saints for five seconds, and you apply it to the children, you will see that the school is demanded. The children have to be together.

The baptism form demands the school. It doesn’t say, “Thou shalt have a school.” But the parents stand up in front of the congregation, and they take the vow to help or cause their child to be instructed. And the whole congregation says yes to that. That demands the good Christian school.

Everywhere the scripture teaches love. Love does not look on its own things. Love could never say this: “I’m going to teach my children, and you can fend for yourself.” That is a loveless, hate-filled statement. That statement is an attack on God and an attack on the covenant and an attack on the church. Love couldn’t say that. Scripture tells us what love’s attitude is. Love does not look only on its own things, but love looks also on the things of others. That is the mind of Christ. How do you know someone has the mind of Christ? They don’t look only on their own things; they look also on the things of others.

Apply that to the school. You do not look only on the things for the education of your own children, but you look also on the things for the education of all the church’s children. That is love. That is the mind of Christ.

Love, according to the book of Acts, has all things in common. The early church was one in doctrine; the members had one mind; they had one table; and they had all things in common. And that wasn’t teaching communism among the members of the church. They all had their individual possessions, but they so looked on the things of others that their things were the things of everybody else in the church.

Apply that to the school. It is as much an obligation for the church, for the families of the church, to educate one family’s children as another family’s children. We have all things in common, also the education of our children. We would even say especially the education of our children. Of all the consuming activities in the life of the child of God, that has to be central. Reformed parents expend themselves for the education of their children, and that in particular we must have in common.

Besides all these things, there are the passages in scripture that speak to Israel as a nation and address the fathers of the nation as the heads of homes and tell them, “Teach the children.” You do not need those passages to establish the school; you can establish the school without them. You can establish the school as the demand of God’s covenant on the basis of scripture’s teaching on the covenant, scripture’s teaching on baptism, scripture’s teaching on love, and scripture’s teaching on the communion of saints. Besides, there are all those passages in which God says to the fathers of the nation, “Now, teach the children,” and he obligates the entire nation in the task of educating the nation’s children. There are those who say, “Well, that only refers to the fathers themselves.” I would say that that interpretation reveals the anti-
covenantal mindset of the person who says it. Even if those passages are addressing an individual father, they address the individual father as he is part of God’s covenant, so that the calling of that individual father has to be interpreted in light of the entire covenant of God. Scripture teaches in multiple ways the school institution as the demand of God’s covenant.

The Witness of the Reformed Creeds

And because scripture teaches it, the Reformed creeds teach the same thing. 

First, in the Reformed creeds there is the explicit, black-on-white mention of the word school. That word is not up for grabs. It is a school. It is not a seminary school; it is a grade school or a high school, primary or secondary education. That is how the actual authors of the Heidelberg Catechism interpreted the term: a school. That the demand for the school is included in Lord’s Day 38 did not come about by happenstance, so that the authors said, “Oh, we haven’t mentioned the school yet in thirty-seven Lord’s Days. We’d better get a mention in.” But Lord’s Day 38 is where the subject of the school belongs. That is where the subject of the demand for the school belongs because, first, Lord’s Day 38 is in the section of the Catechism that teaches concerning the law, that teaches about God’s demands upon his people whom he has redeemed. And one of those demands is the school. Second, the school comes up in the context of Lord’s Day 38 because Lord’s Day 38 is about the covenant. You could preach a sermon on Lord’s Day 38 simply entitled “The Covenant.” That is the theme of the Lord’s Day. That is because the theme of the Lord’s Day is God’s rest. God in himself is a God of rest as the covenant God. As the covenant God, God has decreed to give rest to his people: rest from all their sins, rest from condemnation, rest from the dominion of sin and the devil, rest with God in covenant fellowship with him. And God gives his people rest. And in the fourth commandment, God always says this: “Enter into my rest!” For six days of the week, we enter into God’s rest. By faith we live out of the finished and completed work of Christ. We live out of that as one body, and on Sunday we come together as the body of Jesus Christ to worship God and to enter into the rest through the preaching of the gospel. And the school is simply the children’s entering into God’s rest. God, as it were, is saying in Lord’s Day 38, and the Reformed fathers were saying when they put schools in Lord’s Day 38, “Give your children rest. Let them enjoy God’s covenant. Let them fellowship together as fellow members of the church. Let them learn together. Give them rest.” That is why the school is in Lord’s Day 38. That is the logical place for God to teach the demand of the school as the demand of his covenant.

Second, by implication the school is also in Lord’s Day 21. We are all members of Christ. And with that statement the authors of the Catechism were saying that we are one body with Jesus Christ. We have all things in common in Jesus Christ, and that includes the education of our children. The school is not mentioned explicitly, but it is there. Imagine a builder who is going to build a house. That is a complicated and an all-consuming task for him. Imagine that the builder would say, “I can build the house myself.” Now, technically, that might be true. Maybe he can. Maybe he has that system figured out, and he doesn’t need any help. He can build the house by himself. The building of a house is a task that requires cooperation. The very nature of the task requires that. You need a framer; you need an installer; you need a finish carpenter; you need people to hold things while you nail and screw them together. That is a huge task, and so is the raising of our covenant children. It is an enormous task. The very nature of the task requires cooperation, mutual goodwill, mutual support, and sharing of resources. When Lord’s Day 21 mentions the communion of the saints and that we are all one body, by implication the Lord’s Day demands the school.

Third, there is the baptism form. As I said, the baptism form, which requires the parents to take their vow before the entire church, never explicitly mentions the school, but the form demands the school, nevertheless. The entire church, after witnessing the vow, is involved in the raising of the covenant seed.

Because scripture and the Reformed creeds teach the school as the demand of the covenant, the Reformed fathers put schools in the Church Order as the demand of God’s covenant. They believed what scripture and the creeds say. Article 21, where the school is mentioned, has always been the object of the loathing of those who hate the Christian school. They want the article gone because that article makes explicit the school as the demand of the covenant. If English words have any meaning, that is what the article is teaching: the school as the demand of the covenant. And the Reformed fathers, without any shame and without any hesitation, put that into the Church Order so that the elders would see to it. Such an important task it is that the elders must see to the good Christian school.

The Reformed View

Thus the Reformed all through history had that view. I want to establish that tonight. The view of the Reformed Protestant Churches is not something new. The emphasis of the Reformed Protestant Churches upon the schools is not something new. This is Reformed. We would even say that it is Reformational. It is true that there has always been development in the doctrine of the schools. All through history there has been development in the doctrine of the schools. During the time of the Reformation, the Reformation with its recovery of the gospel not only reanimated the church but also reanimated the schools. That Reformation cause of the schools was taken up enthusiastically by the Reformed. The Reformed already at Dordt talked about the consistory’s seeing to it that there were good Christian schoolmasters who would teach in the state-run schools all the children of the Reformed faith. The Reformed fathers took up that demand of God’s covenant for the education of the children. They didn’t see clearly all of the issues involved with the schools. That had to come through controversy. There was always controversy over the schools.

The Reformed used the state schools in the Netherlands for years. When the Afscheiding came, then the Reformed fathers had to reexamine the schools. They saw that those schools should not be formed by the government but should be formed by the church, and they tightly connected those schools to the church and to God’s covenant. And they really said this: “Let there be a school formed by the church, and let it teach the truth of the church.”

Later on, when the Doleantie came with Abraham Kuyper, the Reformed fathers saw and realized that the school is not the work of the church institute but that it is to be the work of parents to form the school. And another advance was made in the doctrine of the school.

Then again, in the United States, when the Christian Reformed Church was formed, the Reformed fathers saw the importance of the school. So important was the school to them that the church could be split over it. It was not a matter that could be allowed to be an either/or in the church. The church could be split over the matter of the school because it involves God’s covenant. There is no more important doctrinal issue in the church than the covenant of God. And although the Christian Reformed Church did not mention the school explicitly in its Act of Separation from the Reformed Church in America, the school was the undercurrent. And as a Christian Reformed minister, Herman Hoeksema split his congregation over the school. He preached and preached and preached the school until the members of the church choked on it, and they left. Over half of his congregation left over the matter of the school. That was an advance in the doctrine of the school. So important is the school that when it is opposed and threatened, then you stand and fight for that school, even to the division of the church.

So also in the Protestant Reformed Churches of Herman Hoeksema, there was an advance through the struggle for the school. It is shocking to me, and it will remain shocking to me, that in the Protestant Reformed Churches it took so long to get Protestant Reformed schools. That was because there was an issue that had to be clarified. There had to be controversy over the schools. Protestant Reformed parents were using the existing Christian Reformed schools, just like Reformed Protestant parents wanted to use Protestant Reformed schools. That was happening. That happened for years, decades. And that instruction in the Christian Reformed schools was wrecking the church. There was a whole generation of children who were being taught Christian Reformed doctrine. And that affected the children. They were together with Christian Reformed children five days out of the week, and the Protestant Reformed children didn’t see any reason to be separate from the Christian Reformed for one day out of the week. That was wrecking the churches. That would have happened in the Reformed Protestant Churches too if we had continued to use Protestant Reformed schools. It was gracious of God that they threw us out the door because we would have stayed. And the very same thing would have happened to us as happened to the Protestant Reformed Churches. The use of those schools would have wrecked the churches. The schism of 1953 was the result of not only the infiltration of false doctrine into the Protestant Reformed Churches, but also it was the result of using Christian Reformed schools for decades. And that brought up an advance in the doctrine of the schools. Protestant Reformed parents were forced to reckon with the reality of their baptismal vows. In the Netherlands there was never any other option: the Reformed used the state schools; then they used the Afscheiding schools; then they used the Doleantie schools. There was no other option. In the States there was an option. Do we form Protestant Reformed schools, or do we stay with the existing Christian Reformed schools? And that forced the parents to reckon with the fact of what their vows were. They had vowed to teach their children the aforesaid doctrine, the doctrine of this Christian church. That is not a generally Reformed doctrine; that is the doctrine of this Christian church. That is the doctrine that comes off the pulpit that the parents hear every week. And that demanded a denominational school.

I would say that in light of our baptismal vows, even if we could, it would be entirely illegitimate for us to use the Protestant Reformed schools, the Christian Reformed schools, or the Reformed schools. It would be entirely improper. Our vows will not let us. We are going to teach our children the aforesaid doctrine. Then you cannot put them in a school for five days out of the week where they do not learn the aforesaid doctrine. In the public school they learn the world’s doctrine. The world has a doctrine, and the children are being taught something, but it is the world. And in the apostate Christian schools, the children are being taught apostate Christianity. And so also in this connection has been an advance. 

Always the Reformed had to face the issue of the school. Always there was controversy over the school. And always there was an advance in the doctrine of the schools. That we have to fight about the schools is not any new thing.

Here we have to face the question of the specific doctrinal basis of the school. It is a gracious gift of God to us that we can have this controversy, so that the school can be established on the doctrinal foundation and so that we can be one together on this issue. If someone does not believe that the school is the demand of the covenant, just leave. Leave. But I’m never going to stop preaching the school as the demand of the covenant. If your church does not believe that the school is the demand of the covenant, and you ask me to come and preach for you, you are getting two sermons: “The School as the Demand of the Covenant (1)” and “The School as the Demand of the Covenant (2).” And you will get those sermons until you either throw me off the pulpit or you start a school. We must be one on this.

Nothing New

This insistence that the school is the demand of the covenant is not new. It is not new in my ministry. No one should ever be surprised that when Reverend Langerak became a Reformed Protestant minister, he preached the schools. You cannot be surprised at that. This is not the first speech that I gave on the schools. This is not the first speech that I gave in northwest Iowa on the schools. In 2009 I spoke to the then high school association in northwest Iowa. The subject of my speech was “The School as the Work of the Lord Jesus Christ.” My text was 1 Corinthians 15:58. The risen Lord Jesus Christ has only one work. The risen Lord Jesus Christ’s work is the perfection of his covenant, which is the bringing of the kingdom of God, so that God be all in all. And I said this, and I’m going to quote what I said in 2009 in Iowa about the schools.

Related to these two great aspects of the work of the Lord in the church and home is the work of the organic life of the church in the schools. The institutions of grade and high schools run by school associations through their duly elected boards and filled with hired teachers and students are not the church, and they are not the home. Yet those institutions are intimately connected with both. They are part of the threefold cord of church, home, and school that is not easily broken. To the church the school is connected as a work of the organic life of the church, growing out of the church’s belief in the covenant with believers and with their children and demanding a specifically Christian and distinctively Reformed education in obedience to the command of God and the oath of baptism to instruct these children in the aforesaid doctrine.

I spoke that in 2009. I also said this:

It [the school] is the labor of the church, inasmuch as it is the church’s children who are being instructed. And the baptism form gives not only to the parents the responsibility to educate their children, but the very questions themselves give also to the church institute a vested interest in what and in how her children are educated. As an old Reformed consistory stated: “Our Christian schools are the feeders of our Christian churches.” The elders considered that axiomatic. Where the schools prosper, so does the church of Jesus Christ. He sees to it, for it is his work.

And to the home the schools are connected as the necessary means whereby parents carry out their God-given right to instruct their children through doctrinally steadfast and doctrinally unmovable teachers, who function in the schools in the place of the parents and teach the children what the parents themselves would teach them. In the place of parents, the teachers give the children an education in every subject from Bible to physical education on the basis of the truth that the parents, who formed those schools and hired those teachers, believe to be the truth of the word of God. We must not take it for granted that the work of education in the schools is viewed by all as the work of the Lord in his covenant and kingdom.

There was a threat; there always is a threat to the Christian school by those who want to rip away the school from its foundation: the covenant and the kingdom.

Christian education is an application of the text. That that work is Christ’s means that the risen Christ—who has only one great, grand, and glorious work—labors in the school to perfect his covenant and kingdom to the glory of God. Christ is Lord of all; yet all his labors aim at that goal. There is no other work of Jesus Christ. This includes the work of the church institute and the home. Because the school is related to both, the labors of the school are the work of the Lord for his covenant, church, and kingdom. The schools are the work of the risen and exalted Christ. The schools are the work of the risen and exalted Christ in his covenant and kingdom. The labor in the Christian schools is his work entirely. It is his work in the sense that he gave those schools as gifts. It is his work in the sense that in those schools and by means of those schools, the risen Lord Jesus Christ carries out his work, causing the coming of his kingdom, increasing and building up his covenant, and strengthening his church.

Then this:

If parents, teachers, and churches are not convinced that the Christian school is the work of the Lord and the work of the Lord for his covenant, then they have fatally compromised the Lord’s work in the school. They undermine by their doubts the efforts and sacrifices of the association for the existence and support of those schools, the work and decisions of the boards who run those schools, and the labors of the teachers who teach in those schools. They even undermine the zealousness and attitudes of the students in their studies. If one does not believe that those schools are the work of the Lord in the interest of his covenant, kingdom, and church, then one cannot abound in that work. And, in fact, he does not even have the right to engage in that work.

If the school is not the demand of the covenant, if the school is not the work of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, you may not even engage in that work because Christ has only one work. That is the work of his covenant. It is exactly because the school is the work of the risen Lord Jesus Christ for his covenant—it is exactly because the school is the demand of the covenant—that we engage in that work.

That is what the Reformed fathers believed. That was clear by their decisions. They told their ministers to preach the school. You cannot tell a minister to preach something that is not the word of God. That is wickedness. Ministers do not bring their opinions; they bring the word of God. When the Reformed consistories said to the ministers, “Preach the school,” they might not have said, “Because it is the demand of the covenant,” but they were saying that when they demanded that the school be preached. When the Reformed fathers gave to the consistories the mandate to see to the schools, those fathers were teaching that the school is the demand of the covenant. When Christian parents engage in the schools with all of their blood, sweat, and tears, they do not do that for practical reasons. They are Reformed. Reformed men and women live out of only one thing: God’s covenant.

And that conviction expressed itself in the reformers. I can prove that. A church historian, Philip Schaff, stated the following in his eight-volume work on the Reformation and church history: “Education [by which he meant schools] and the advance of true religion are inseparable.” “Church and school go together.” And again, “The Reformation gave a powerful impulse to common schools.”³ The Reformation was as much about the school as it was the church. Then there is church historian Merle d’Aubigné, who wrote, “It was not the public worship alone that the Reformation was ordained to change. The school was early placed beside the church, and these two great institutions were equally reanimated by it.”⁴

You want to know why we are talking about the school? Because we just had a controversy about the doctrine of the covenant. The church was reanimated by that. And the school was reanimated by that too.

In 2008 and 2009 the Protestant Reformed Churches killed the schools. They killed them. The schools are dying a slow death. And they will die because the Protestant Reformed schools are not based on God’s covenant. The Protestant Reformed people fill their schools with their lies and their filth.

The Gospel Reanimates the School

The school had to be reanimated. We had to be filled again with the conviction that the school is the demand of the covenant, so that we zealously engage in that labor and so that we oppose all that is opposed to it. That is what the gospel does.

All the major reformers wrote treatises on the schools. Luther wrote two. In 1524 he wrote the tract “To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools.” If you replace the word “Councilmen” with “parents with the encouragement of the consistories,” then you have the two main parts of article 21 of the Reformed Church Order. Melanchthon wrote so many textbooks for the schools that he was simply called the Schoolmaster. Ulrich Zwingli wrote two treatises on Christian education. From Luther we read this:

Because they are not willing to support and keep the honest, upright, virtuous schoolmasters and teachers offered to them by God to raise their children in the fear of God and in virtue, knowledge, learning, and honor by dint of hard work, diligence, and industry and at small cost and expense, they will get in their place incompetent substitutes, ignorant louts, such as they have had before, who at a great cost and expense will teach the children nothing but how to be utter asses and beyond to dishonor their wives, daughters, and maidservants, taking over their homes and property as has happened before. This will be the reward of the great and shameful ingratitude into which the devil is so craftily leading them.⁵

The people would not start schools, and Luther clubbed them. He also laid his finger on one of the reasons that there was resistance to the school. Luther, if nothing else, was shrewd. The people would not bear the cost. Sometimes the opposition to the school is that vulgar. It is simply a matter of dollars. They won’t pay for the school. Sometimes the opposition to the school is vulgar in another sense. The school does not have the right program; the school involves sacrifices for my brilliant student, who has to sit with idiots. And such parents, who have no love for the school and oppose it, teach their children no love for the school. That position is carnal and vulgar. And Luther laid his finger on that.

Luther went after the nobles too. They were the ones who had the money to start the school. Today we would say that Luther went after the rich men, the rich men who had the money to start the school but who would not do it. They would not put their necks to the labor. Luther went after them.

We admit, you say, there should and must be schools. But what is the use of teaching Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and other liberal arts? Could we not teach in German the Bible and God’s word, which are sufficient for salvation? Yes, I answer. I know well, alas, that we Germans must ever be and abide brute and wild beasts, as the surrounding nations call us. The arts and languages, which do us no harm, nay, which are a greater ornament, benefit, honor, and advantage both for understanding Holy Writ and for managing civil affairs, we are disposed to despair. And foreign wares, which are neither necessary nor useful, which moreover peel us to the very bone, these are not willing to forego.⁶

Those nobles wanted to spend their money on everything else but the school. And Luther again laid his finger on one of the points of opposition. It was as vulgar as a dollar. They simply did not value education. They did not see it as necessary.

And that Reformation insistence was taken up by the Dutch. H. Bouwman, Church Order commentator during the time of Abraham Kuyper’s Doleantie, wrote in his Church Order commentary this:

Initially, the fight was only for the Christian school, that is, the school with the Bible, but through force of circumstances the question of the independent, free school comes up. With the development of the controversy, it was necessary that the Christian schools be established and maintained by associations. The rule ought to be that the school comes from the parents, according to the ordinance of God’s covenant. [There he lays his finger on it.] The full task of rearing children rests, first of all, with the parents. It follows from this that the school must stand on the self-same foundation as the Christian home. That is to say, on the basis of the covenant.⁷

When he mentioned controversy, Bouwman meant that when the Reformed churches came into existence in the Netherlands, there was immediately controversy about the school. What are these schools going to be? And he says that through that controversy the Reformed came to understand not only that there had to be schools but also that those schools had to be started by parents. And those schools had to stand on the foundation of God’s covenant.

A similar thing happened in the United States in the Christian Reformed Church. The Christian Reformed Church came out of the Reformed Church in America. The Christian Reformed Church was started by men who left the Netherlands because their ability to form Christian schools had been hampered. They wrote that “they wanted freedom to establish their own Christian schools…and to enjoy the great privilege of having their children taught in Christian schools.”⁸ That is what they wanted, and that is why they came to the United States. In the 1848 minutes of the original Classis Holland of the Dutch immigrants who came to western Michigan, there is this decision:

Art. 6. Rev. Ypma proposes that the interests of the schools shall be discussed. The discussion takes place, and the judgment is: the schools must be promoted and cared for by the church, as being an important part of the Christian calling of God’s church on earth. All lukewarmness and coldness toward that cause must be condemned and rebuked.⁹

The school issue is one of the reasons that the Christian Reformed Church separated from the Reformed Church in America and started a new denomination. And the early minutes of the synods and classes of the Christian Reformed Church are full of references to the schools.

In 1870 the Christian Reformed Church said that “the school is the nursery of and for the church, and that every congregation was called to open a free school.”¹⁰

In 1873: “They obligated consistories to establish free Christian schools.”¹¹ They obligated them. You must do this. And what was the source of that obligation? The source of every obligation in the life of the child of God: the covenant. That is what the baptism form teaches. God’s covenant obliges you to new obedience. And the Reformed fathers used that language with regard to schools.

Then in 1892 the church insisted that “the congregation take steps to bring such a school into being.” Again, the church advocated the establishment of school societies.¹²

In 1898: “The general synod declares that Christian education according to Reformed principles is the incontrovertible duty of Reformed Christians.” And by “Christian education,” you understand, the Reformed fathers meant schools. It is the “incontrovertible duty.” And the synod warned all the ministers, “All ministers and elders are to work for the cause of Christian education in every place where such is at all possible.” Then the synod grounded that. Why are we telling the churches to start schools?

One, God’s word demands that our children be trained in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Two, the promise of the parents at the time of baptism. Three, there may be no separation between civil, social, or religious life, education, and training. Four, the honor of our king demands it, since all power is given him in heaven and on earth, also in the realm of education and all knowledge.¹³

The same synod also said about the necessity of starting schools that we “must recognize the covenant relationship in which God has placed his children.”¹⁴

Is that any different from what we are saying? It is not any different at all. That was the position of the Christian Reformed Church way back in 1898. It was under those convictions that the Christian Reformed Church without any hesitation changed the wording of article 21 of the Church Order to read that the consistories shall see to it that there are good Christian schools established according to the demands of the covenant.

Then in 1936 the Christian Reformed synod was addressed by a church of one of its classes, which asked about the questions of article 41. These questions of article 41 were the origin of the suspension and deposition of two officebearers from Sovereign Reformed Protestant Church. That is how the matter came to classis. That was perfectly legitimate. And the meaning of those questions was also before the synod of the Christian Reformed Church in 1936. What does that question mean about the consistory’s supporting the good Christian school? And they said, “Schools in article 41 refer to the Christian, primary, grammar, and high school.”¹⁵ Not homeschools.

That is the ploy of many. They want to take all of this history and every reference to Christian education and schools and say, “Well, that applies to a homeschool.” The Christian Reformed Church defined schools as grammar and high schools. Schools. And then the Christian Reformed Church said, “The expression support means the duty of the consistory to use every proper means to the end that a Christian school may be established where it does not exist.” And about article 21: “They must give wholehearted and unreserved moral backing to the existing Christian schools and a measure of financial help in case of need.” And then in response to the question, “What should we do with a consistory that will not do that?” they said, “Admonish them to repent.”¹⁶ It was a matter of repentance when one would not support the good Christian school. Repentance! You’re anti-covenantal. You’re full of hatred toward your neighbor. You’re an independent. You’re selfish and loveless. Repent. That was the Reformed position. That was the Reformed position from the beginning.

The school as an institution is the command of God. The school is necessary as a demand of God’s covenant. And that is what you must understand from the speech tonight. The necessity of the Christian school, the demand of the Christian school, the command of the Christian school, the basis of the Christian school is the covenant, the covenant, the covenant, the covenant.

I thank you.