Introduction

The believer is a member of Christ by faith and thus is a partaker of the anointing of Jesus Christ. The believer is a prophet, priest, and king. The believer executes his office in the world by confessing the name of Christ as a prophet, by presenting himself as a living sacrifice of thanksgiving to God as a priest, and by fighting against sin and Satan as a king. The office of all believer is of “Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father” (Rev. 1:5–6).

Jesus Christ is the officebearer par excellence, God’s perfect officebearer, eternally ordained to represent the invisible God, who revealed the will of God, consecrated himself to his Father, and stood as the almighty king, subduing sin and Satan. At his baptism Jesus Christ received from the Father the Holy Spirit without measure, who anointed and equipped Christ for his work that the Father had given him to do in behalf of God’s kingdom and covenant. In that work Jesus Christ was perfectly obedient and perfectly faithful as the servant of Jehovah. Jesus Christ revealed the Father in all his glory. He revealed to us God’s eternal plan of salvation. Jesus Christ is the exegesis of God. He is the explanation of all that God has decreed. Jesus Christ is the reason for all that exists and all that shall come to pass. He is the one for whom and by whom all things were made.

And Jesus Christ was faithful all the way to the death of the cross, where he drank the cup of God’s wrath down to its bitter dregs. Christ was faithful as God’s officebearer in the place of his people, who were nothing but unfaithful. Christ was born of a woman, under the law in the fullness of time. The Word became flesh! God became man. Christ entered into that flesh and suffered in that flesh. He entered into our death and misery. And he shed his precious blood as the perfect sacrifice for sin. Truly, it is finished.

And now, as the ascended priest-king, Christ stands before the face of God, presenting his perfect sacrifice as our intercessor. As king, he rules over all things by his might and over his church by grace. He is the glorious, exalted, risen king! What glory! What power! What honor forever and ever.

And as the ascended mediator, Jesus Christ received the Spirit and pours out that Spirit upon his church. The office of all believer became a reality at Pentecost. Christ, receiving the Spirit of the Father, in turn poured the Spirit out upon his elect people. All God’s people have the Spirit of Christ. And all God’s people are prophets, priests, and kings, partaking of Christ’s anointing by faith. They all have the anointing of the Holy One and are equipped to their office. “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20). You know all things! The union of prophet, priest, and king in the New Testament believer was realized at Pentecost.

16. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;

17. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

18. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:16–18)

Being members of Christ by faith, we have the privilege and the right to function as officebearers. We have the obligation and the calling. We have the volition and the ability to be and to function as God’s friend-servants in the midst of a perverse and ungodly world. We have the must, the may, the can, and the will of serving God in this holy office only in and through our Lord Jesus Christ by the operation of his Holy Spirit.

Who the Spirit Is

The Holy Spirit in scripture has many names that describe him and his work. The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter, for Christ promised the Spirit to abide in his church after his ascension. “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16). Christ would go away for a time, and he would ascend bodily into heaven to sit at the right hand of God. But Christ would at no time be absent from his people. He would abide with them by his Spirit, whom Christ would give unto them. The peculiar office of the Holy Spirit is to make God’s people partakers of Christ and all his blessings, including the knowledge and assurance that we belong to our faithful savior, Jesus Christ, which the Heidelberg Catechism explains as our only comfort.

The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth. The Spirit leads his church into all truth. The Spirit reveals to the church all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ. The Spirit does not speak concerning himself, but he speaks of what he has heard, which is the eternal Word. The Spirit then does not lead the church into the lies of man and salvation by man, but the Spirit leads her and guides her so that the church of all ages confesses the one faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness as the sanctifier. He is the agent or worker of salvation. In every step in the order of salvation, it is proper that we include in each definition the words, “…is the work of the triune God through the Spirit of Christ.” In regeneration, calling, faith, justification, and sanctification, the Holy Spirit of Christ applies to us and brings into our possession that which is stored up in Christ. As God, the Holy Spirit is absolutely above time, and every benefit of salvation that is given to God’s people is eternally perfect in the mind of God. You are elected from all eternity in Christ to be given salvation and all the heavenly blessings in Christ by the Spirit. Who would ever want man and his responsibility for salvation? If ever man and his responsibility begin to push out God and his sovereignty, pitch man and all his works out of the church. And let the charge come that the preaching is too one-sided, that there is too much about God and not enough about what man must do. The Spirit is the sanctifier. His work is not that he enables man to attain the next installment of salvation. The Spirit’s work is not that he gives man the power by grace to do what is required before God does something else. Then all you have are prerequisites and conditions for man to perform before God blesses a man. The Holy Spirit applies and brings into our possession consciously what we have by right in Jesus Christ. Being justified in Christ, we have the right to be delivered from the power and dominion of sin as a spiritual, ethical power, and the Holy Spirit realizes that deliverance.

The Holy Spirit is the promise. But how? Is not the promise Jesus Christ, as given in Genesis 3:15 and all the texts that reveal this one promise in its astounding depth? At his ascension Christ received the promise of the Father. The Spirit is called the Spirit of promise because it is by the Spirit that we receive the whole Christ, the Christ who came in our flesh, who was born in a lowly cattle trough and suffered all his life long, who suffered to the accursed tree of Calvary, who died and was buried and rose again the third day, and who ascended into heaven at God’s right hand and will soon return in judgment. The Spirit is the promise because the Spirit is how we receive Christ and how Christ abides and dwells in us.

The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God, for he is the true and eternal God. The Holy Spirit is God. He is the third person of the Trinity. He is coeternal and coequal with God. The Spirit is of the same essence, majesty, and glory as the Father. There at the beginning was the Spirit, brooding over the face of the deep. There at the incarnation the power of the highest overshadowed Mary. There in the New Testament church, the Spirit dwells in his people, in whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto a holy temple in the Lord, building for him a habitation.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of adoption, whereby the Spirit testifies with our spirits that we are the sons and daughters of God. The Spirit bears witness to our spirits. To bear witness means to say something and to be a surety for it. And the Spirit speaks to us so that we have assurance. He does not speak mystically, but he speaks in connection with the word. The Spirit takes the content of the word, and he applies that word to our hearts. The personal assurance of the believer is wrought by the Spirit, the content of which is the word.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of righteousness and judgment (John 16:8–10). When he comes, the Spirit reproves the world of sin because the world believes not. The Spirit reproves of righteousness because Christ went to the Father, and we see him no more. The Spirit gives the conviction of sin that man has no righteousness of himself and that he needs a righteousness outside of himself. The Spirit reproves of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. Christ alone holds the kingdom and has subdued and triumphed over Satan. Jesus Christ through his Spirit convicts of sin, declares righteousness, and judges all creatures in the light of the gospel. The gospel as it sounds forth is judgment, and the gospel judges all men and all creatures; there is no escaping that judgment. The proof is that Satan himself has not escaped that judgment and is judged. And the Spirit is the power of the preaching of the gospel. He is the efficacy of that gospel that realizes God’s decree of election and reprobation. The Spirit irresistibly advances the kingdom of God as an unstoppable force.

The Holy Spirit is called the eternal Spirit, the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of life. He is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge. All men by nature are ignorant and foolish, and we along with all men would ever only hold the truth under in unrighteousness to our damnation. But the Spirit searches the deep things of God in God’s own triune being, and the Spirit reveals those deep mysteries to us; the Spirit reveals all the spiritual things that are freely given us by God.

This truly awesome, marvelous Spirit the believer receives, partaking of the anointing of Christ by faith.

In Christ

The Holy Spirit is God. He is neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but he proceeds from both the Father and the Son. God the Father breathes the Holy Spirit to the Son, and the Son breathes the Holy Spirit back to the Father. The Holy Spirit is the consecration of the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is the bond of the Father and the Son in the Trinity. From all eternity the Son is in the bosom of the Father, embracing one another in the closest possible communion. The Son is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son. That “in-ness” of the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. That is the intimacy of the divine life. It is life in the Spirit. God with God in God. The Father and Son are in one another by the Holy Spirit.

And the incarnated Christ, who walked on the earth in our flesh, is in the Father. Christ according to his human nature is in the triune God. That means that our flesh is partaker of the divine life.

The same “in-ness” that the Father and the Son have in the triune life, and the same “in-ness” that God and Jesus Christ as the Word become flesh have in the Holy Spirit, we also have. In John 14, in response to Philip’s question if Christ would show the disciples the Father, Christ said to Philip,

9. Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

10. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?…

11. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me…

And then later in the chapter, Christ promised the Comforter to the disciples and to his elect people. Although Christ would ascend into heaven to sit at God’s right hand, Christ would not leave his people comfortless but would send the Spirit of truth, whom God’s people know, for the Spirit dwells with them and is in them.

18. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

19. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

20. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

The Holy Spirit is the explanation of Christ’s words. Christ is in the Father, and the Father in Christ. You are in Christ, and Christ is in you. That is the Holy Spirit. He is found in the word “in.” “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

And so the elect sinner is in Christ. The elect child of God is made a member of Christ by faith and thus is made a partaker of Christ’s anointing. To be a member of Christ by faith is essentially synonymous with the scriptures’ oft-repeated phrase of being “in Christ.” “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:30). Or in Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Being “in Christ” is to be a member of Christ by faith.

For the believer to be in Christ and joined to him is to have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the bond; he is the union of the believer to Christ. When one of God’s elect children receives faith, then he has received the Holy Spirit. That child can never fall away or be stolen away. He can never be lost as a sheep in the fold of the Good Shepherd. He is in Christ. The believer is forever joined to Christ the head in the unbreakable, unshakable, immovable bond of the Holy Spirit. When we conceive of faith as a bond, therefore, we can say that faith is as strong as God himself because the bond of faith is God the Holy Spirit.

And the office of all believer is the fruit of this bond, this Spirit, this union to Jesus Christ. Why are you called a Christian? Because you are a member of Christ by faith and thus are partaker of his anointing.

Anointing Oil

In the Old Testament the officebearer was anointed with oil. The oil was poured over the head of the king, priest, or prophet, and the oil would run down his garments. And that man who was anointed was called by God to function officially in the kingdom as the visible representative of the invisible God.

The oil in that anointing was symbolic of the Holy Spirit. In Isaiah 61:1 the gift of the Holy Spirit is connected with the anointing of the officebearer:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.

The word “anointed” means to draw the hand over. In anointing Elisha, Elijah would have put his hand over Elisha, pouring the oil over him. Similarly, in ordaining a man to the ministry in the New Testament, the laying on of hands or drawing the hand over is symbolic of the anointing and equipping to that office by the Holy Spirit.

That anointing oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit is also the meaning of the vision in Zechariah 4.

1. And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep,

2. And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof:

3. And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.

4. So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord?

5. Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.

6. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

In this vision the prophet Zechariah beholds a candlestick with seven lamps. Above the candlestick is a golden bowl containing oil that is supplied by the olive trees; and pipes or tubes or literally, “pourers,” lead from the bowl to seven lamps of the candlesticks. The idea is that the lamps are continuously supplied with oil from the bowl so that the fire of the candlesticks might never burn out. Without that oil the candlesticks could not burn, and without that oil they would give no light. The angel himself interprets this vision as the Holy Spirit being the oil that inexhaustibly flows into the seven lamps.

And Zechariah beholds on each side of the bowl two olive trees connected with the bowl. In this vision, then, there is a candlestick receiving oil from a bowl above it, which in turn receives its oil from two olive trees. The prophet asks of the angel, “What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?” (12).

The angel answers, “These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth” (14).

These two anointed ones are also referenced in Revelation 11 as being the two witnesses; they are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks that stand before the Lord.

Who are the two anointed ones? The two anointed ones are the servants of God, who are officially called and ordained for the service of God. It is, first, a reference to true ministers of the word; and second, it is a reference to the church of Jesus Christ, which also serves the Lord. And putting all of this together, then, we have the meaning that it is the Holy Spirit who completes the kingdom of God. It is the Holy Spirit who gives power to the preaching of the servant of God in the instituted church. And the Holy Spirit is the power who gives strength to the church made up of believers. The Holy Spirit is the oil that causes the believer to burn in his zeal for God. The Holy Spirit is the strength of the office of all believer.

Its Power

Because the office of all believer is a Spirit-filled office, it is an office of great power. When the church has abandoned the word of God and the rule of man is enthroned, then the believer has the right, calling, and ability to form the church anew, simply from the fact that the believer is anointed with the Spirit of Jesus Christ by faith.

But this original authority, common to all believers, again begins to function directly and without the guidance and authority of these office-bearers, in case these office-bearers become unfaithful to their charge and refuse to amend their neglect and errors.¹

New office–bearers may be elected by a Church, a body of believers, if at any time their present office-bearers become unfaithful and untrue.²

The significance here is that if the officebearers have corrupted themselves with the lie and the officebearers persist in that lie, then the office of all believer has the right and calling to depose those in the special offices and to elect new officebearers within the church itself, if possible. But as is usually the case in apostasy, the carnal element often claims the majority and casts off Jesus Christ, and reform from within is no longer possible. Then the office of all believer may and must reinstitute the church anew.

History proves this. From the corrupt institution of the Roman Catholic Church sprang the churches of the Reformation. From the corrupt state church of the Netherlands sprang the Afscheiding of 1834 and the Doleantie of 1886. From the corruption of the Reformed Church in America sprang the Christian Reformed Church. From the Christian Reformed Church arose the Protestant Reformed Churches in 1924 over the false doctrine of common grace. And from the corruption of the Protestant Reformed Churches, God formed the Reformed Protestant Churches in the year 2021 over the life-or-death issue of unconditional covenant fellowship. That is our controversy with the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). How do you experience the covenant, justification, and salvation? by labor and working? or by grace alone? by obedience and good works? or by faith alone in the blood of Jesus Christ?

What gave all these churches the right to split off from the denominations to which they had belonged? The answer is the word of God, which the believer holds in his hand and whereby he judges all things in his office as prophet, priest, and king. No one may deny the believer this right.

In January 2021 when God formed the Reformed Protestant Churches, even if there was not one faithful officebearer, believers in their offices of all believer could have joined together to reinstitute the church. They could have elected elders and deacons from among themselves. They could have invoked article 8 of the Church Order to call a man to the ministry who was especially endowed with the gifts of the Spirit to preach the gospel. And not one thing would have been taken away from this reformation.

The fact is that God, as a gift of grace to his church, did give to the Reformed Protestant Churches faithful officebearers who could lead his people out from the bondage of Egypt and the doctrine of man’s working in salvation, which displaced Christ as the perfect mediator. The fact that God gave faithful officebearers was utterly gracious and stands as powerful evidence that the formation of the Reformed Protestant Churches was reformation and not schism.

Spirit-Less

The Holy Spirit is the bond between the Father and the Son, between God and Jesus Christ, between Christ and the church, and between the believer and Christ. If you are joined to the living God of heaven and earth, the God of the sacred scriptures, the God of the decree, and Jesus Christ; then you will love the truth, confess it, and defend it. And you will hate the enemies of God and the lie that strips God of all his sovereignty and fashions him as an idol god of man’s imagination.

The current state of the Protestant Reformed Churches clearly reveals that she is Spirit-less. There is always a spirit present, but it is not the Spirit of Christ. There is no power of the Spirit there, and that is clearly evidenced in her preaching. A minister is a herald and an ambassador for Christ, who is commissioned to cry forth the good news of the free forgiveness of sins that is in Jesus Christ. For the Protestant Reformed minister today, where is that fire of the Holy Spirit? Where is the zeal for the name of God? Where is the love of Christ as he is revealed in sound doctrine? Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. But in the Protestant Reformed Churches, there is no Spirit, and there is no fire. Not only are most sermons full of false doctrine but they are also boring to listen to. Even if a minister might still preach true things, where is the condemnation of the lie? There is no righteous anger, no holy horror, over the fact that God’s name is trampled on time and time again and that the sheep are being scattered by false doctrine. The task of the minister is to preach the truth of the word of God over against the errors within and without; his task as a shepherd is to protect the sheep. This does not happen by a group of shepherds meeting together and pondering over whether they saw a wolf within their flock or not. “These things take time,” they say. No matter that the sheep are being torn apart. “We must make sure that we actually saw a wolf.” But it looks like a wolf; it sounds like a wolf. “But the howl was a bit muffled,” they say. “It was not a very clear howl. Perhaps he did not mean to howl like that. Or perhaps he is not a wolf after all. We will let him be for now.” No, the shepherd protects his sheep and drives away the wolves and even lays down his life for the sheep.

The Protestant Reformed Churches are Spirit-less, and that is also evidenced by her membership, which to this day continues to be sound asleep. Hardly anything can stir the membership up at this point. Certainly not doctrine. But what can stir up the members? Mention a third-party investigation. The Protestant Reformed denomination feels a lot like the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in many ways. The CRC and PRC continue to fight against symptoms of their false doctrine. The CRC is fighting against homosexuals in office but has long ago forsaken the truths of marriage, the family, and the covenant. The PRC is fighting against systemic and institutional abuse but embraces the idol god of a conditional covenant theology. But both denominations should be fighting the false doctrine that is the root of their issues. Christ reigns in his church and rules in truth and equity. He is the righteous judge who rules by his word and Spirit. Where there is the lie, there is no rule of Christ. The PRC along with the CRC will never fix their problems. A third-party investigation will never solve a thing for the PRC, much like the CRC will never rid itself of homosexuality.

It is interesting to note that the Protestant Reformed theology of repentance and forgiveness is exactly the same as Christian Reformed theology.

Each one of us can enter that doorway to experience fully this promised joy of God. After all, Jesus promised that our repentance is a pathway to experiencing the good news in the here and now. So let us fully experience that promise by regularly repenting and forgiving one another.³

That is Protestant Reformed theology. The experience of the forgiveness of sins is in the way of man’s repenting or along the pathway of repentance. The PRC has no right anymore to a separate existence. They should, as did Reverend De Wolf and his churches, return back to the CRC. This is the trampling of God’s name and the cross of Jesus Christ that causes the Spirit-filled church and Spirit-filled believer to rise up in holy horror.

The spirit that rules in the PRC is not the Spirit of Christ. That is evidenced by how the PRC is defining love too. It is not a love that reveals itself in hatred for sin and the lie, but it is a twisted version of love that is identical with what the world calls love. That love is not of the Spirit but of the devil. It is a fake love based on emotion, feeling, and toleration.

The Spirit of Christ is not neutral toward the truth or the lie. The Spirit is the bond of love in the triune God. Love is the consecration of the three persons in the Trinity. And those in Christ, who have that Spirit in them, burn as a blazing fire in love for God and his Christ and against all idolatry and idol worshipers, including against the believer’s own flesh. Because the Spirit is not neutral, therefore neither is the believer neutral. The believer who has been united to Jesus Christ and anointed with his Spirit burns with zeal for the truth, and that truth bubbles up inside of him, causing him to confess the truth, to serve God, and to fight against sin.

The Reformed Protestant Churches are the true spiritual sons of Rev. Herman Hoeksema and Rev. George Ophoff. If those men were alive, they would be Reformed Protestant. I can be so bold, too, to say that if Noah or Abraham or David or the apostle Paul or John Calvin or Hendrik de Cock were alive, they too would all be Reformed Protestant. I can say that because they all confessed the same truth: the truth of the unconditional promise; the truth of unconditional covenant fellowship, apart from man and his working; and the truth of justification by faith alone and the free forgiveness of sins, which are the truths of the scriptures and of God. And that is the truth that is clearly sounded forth and confessed in the Reformed Protestant Churches today. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph. 4:5–6). All that is left for the PRC and every other false church is the judgment and wrath of God.

The office of all believer is not found outside the church of Jesus Christ. This doctrine is of no aid or comfort for the man or woman who decides that he or she does not need church membership in a church or who sits in the false church. That one abuses this doctrine and lives in disobedience and rebellion against God. It is in the true church where Christ speaks and creates and strengthens faith, of which faith the believer partakes of Christ’s anointing and is equipped by the Spirit to fulfill his office. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and those who reject the truth are not of the Spirit.

And second, the office of all believer does not give a person the license to speak whatever he wants. It is the right and privilege of the child of God to speak the truth of the sacred scriptures and that truth as it is systematized and laid out in our Reformed confessions.

Next time, the Lord willing, I will examine closely the office of all believer as that office is executed and carried out by the believer through the Spirit of Christ.