The Only Way to be Happy in Jesus

The Doctrine of True Unity

The beginning of Belgic Confession article 23 positively and emphatically declares what man’s happiness is: “That God imputes righteousness to him without works.” I am going to emphasize that declaration of the Belgic Confession presently.¹

But before I proceed further, I remind you of what the Belgic Confession is. The Belgic Confession is one creed that belongs to what we call the three forms of unity. Alongside the Belgic Confession are the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dordt, so that together these three creeds make up the three forms of unity. These three creeds are called the three forms of unity because they teach the truth, which truth is the only basis of unity that the church institution possesses. The church’s unity is not found in solving social and family issues or in blood relationships and common experiences. The church’s unity is only found in the truth.

As Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 21 teaches: “The Son of God…gathers, defends, and preserves to Himself by His Spirit and Word, out of the whole human race, a church chosen to everlasting life, agreeing in true faith” (Confessions and Church Order, 104, emphasis added). “Agreeing in true faith” means that the church whom the Son of God gathers in this world is detected by this indelible mark: She confesses the truth. That the Son of God gathers a church agreeing in truth faith means that a church institution with a cacophony of conflicting doctrines does not have any true unity. That institution’s unity is something other than the truth. That institution’s unity is something carnal, sensual, and devilish. Because the Son of God gathers, defends, and preserves unto himself a church agreeing in true faith, this means that a church that departs from the truth of the three forms of unity is not merely un-Reformed, but it is also no longer the church.

Belonging to that true unity of the church is the teaching of Belgic Confession article 23, which I now quote at length:

We believe that our salvation consists in the remission of our sins for Jesus Christ’s sake, and that therein our righteousness before God is implied; as David and Paul teach us, declaring this to be the happiness of man, that God imputes righteousness to him without works. And the same apostle saith that we are justified freely by His grace, through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ.

And therefore we always hold fast this foundation, ascribing all the glory to God, humbling ourselves before Him, and acknowledging ourselves to be such as we really are, without presuming to trust in any thing in ourselves, or in any merit of ours, relying and resting upon the obedience of Christ crucified alone, which becomes ours when we believe in Him. This is sufficient to cover all our iniquities, and to give us confidence in approaching to God; freeing the conscience of fear, terror and dread, without following the example of our first father, Adam, who, trembling, attempted to cover himself with fig leaves. And, verily, if we should appear before God, relying on ourselves or on any other creature, though ever so little, we should, alas! be consumed. And therefore every one must pray with David: O Lord, enter not into judgment with Thy servant: for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified. (Confessions and Church Order, 51–52)

Again, what I bring to your attention is this article’s declaration about what the happiness of man is: “That God imputes righteousness to him without works.” The elect sinner’s happiness today, tomorrow, in the day of judgment at the end of this age, and everlastingly is “that God imputes righteousness to him without works.”

What article 23 teaches, first, is that the elect sinner’s happiness is that God forgives his sins: “We believe that our salvation consists in the remission of our sins for Jesus Christ’s sake, and that therein our righteousness before God is implied.” The word “remission” means forgiveness. Man’s happiness consists in the forgiveness of his sins because forgiveness implies that he is righteous before God. That is a very important implication in this article. Since God is a righteous God who loves the righteous and blesses the righteous and works all things in the world for the everlasting happiness of the righteous, then a forgiven sinner’s salvation is absolutely secure. God will infallibly lead that man through this life and bring him to glory. Oh, what happiness! When the sins of an elect sinner are forgiven, he has confidence, joy, peace, and assurance that God is his father for Jesus’ sake and that God will bring him to heaven.

And I can state this truth even more simply: Man’s happiness is that he belongs to Jesus Christ. The forgiven sinner’s happiness is that God no longer remembers the sinner’s sins because God did remember those sins against Jesus Christ. The forgiven sinner’s happiness is that he does not have a debt of sin because Jesus Christ has paid that debt in full with his blood. The forgiven sinner’s happiness is that he can never be punished by God’s wrath because God’s wrath has punished Jesus Christ.

But you must not stop there, for man’s happiness is that God imputes to him righteousness, which righteousness is the obedience of Jesus Christ. That is found in the previous article, Belgic Confession article 22: “Jesus Christ, imputing to us all His merits and so many holy works which He has done for us and in our stead, is our righteousness” (Confessions and Church Order, 50). What this means is that the elect sinner’s happiness is that he does not need his obedience and good works to be saved. Jesus Christ is that man’s holiness. The elect sinner’s happiness is that he does not need one good work to go to heaven because in his stead Jesus Christ has done all the obeying. The elect sinner’s happiness is that Jesus Christ so loved God in his lifelong suffering that the sinner’s love-debt due unto God has been paid in full. If Jesus Christ is the elect sinner’s righteousness, then that means that God imputes the obedience of Jesus Christ to the elect sinner and declares to that man in Christ, “You have rendered to me what my justice demands. I cannot be loved any more than I have already been loved. I am full of love.”

Very simply, man’s happiness is Jesus Christ.

Second, the Belgic Confession teaches us in article 23 that man’s happiness is that God imputes righteousness to him without works. Because the happiness of man is that God imputes righteousness to him without works, works do not factor into the explanation of why that man is happy. His happiness has nothing to do with his own activities. His happiness has nothing to do with his own obeying. His happiness has nothing to do with his own repenting. The Belgic Confession teaches that man’s happiness—the happiness that he experiences and the happiness out of which he lives every day—has nothing to do with his works. Nothing that man does through the power of the Holy Spirit, nothing that man does by grace enters into the explanation as to why he is made happy.

To make that point very sharp, if man tries to find any explanation for his happiness in what he does, he necessarily denies that Jesus Christ is the perfection of man’s happiness. If man tries to increase his happiness by his activities, he necessarily displaces the perfect work of Jesus Christ.

For any to assert that Christ is not sufficient [for man’s happiness], but that something more is required besides Him, would be too gross a blasphemy: for hence it would follow that Christ was but half a Savior. (Confessions and Church Order, 50)

An elect sinner’s happiness is that God imputes righteousness to the sinner without his works.

Man’s happiness is Jesus Christ alone.

The teaching of Belgic Confession article 23 is the teaching of the Old Testament and the New Testament, to which Belgic Confession article 23 directs us: “As David and Paul teach us.” What David and Paul teach us is found in Romans 4:6–8:

6. David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,

7. Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

What is that blessedness of which David and Paul speak? That blessedness refers to God’s entire gracious attitude toward an elect sinner and all God’s gracious dealings toward him. That blessedness is synonymous with happiness. That blessedness includes the elect sinner’s assurance and confidence before God that God is his God and that God is determined to do him good and that God will bring him all the way to glory. Blessed—happy—is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Not happy is that man if that man obeys. Not happy is that man if that man repents. Not happy is that man if that man walks in the way of good works. The happiness of man consists in this: That God imputes to him righteousness without his works.

The elect sinner has that happiness in Jesus Christ by faith alone—not by faith and repentance, not by faith and good works, not by faith and faith’s fruits. The elect sinner’s happiness in his own conscience and his own experience—his happiness that frees him from fear and terror and fleeing from God as did his first father, Adam—is by faith alone. By faith alone he is happy.

What must be emphasized when we say “faith alone” is that this confession takes away all man’s obedience, all man’s repentance, all man’s walking in a way of good works. Faith alone simply makes man empty. No, more than that, faith alone makes man an ungodly person in himself. 

That is Romans 4 as well: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (v. 5). Whom does God justify? One who is walking in a way of obedience? One who repents? One who is a believer, as such? No. God justifies and makes happy the ungodly. The word “ungodly” is bristling with wickedness and impiety. Ungodliness means that a man has assaulted the most high majesty of God, blasphemed God’s name and trampled it underfoot, exalted himself as God in God’s place, and broken all God’s commandments. That is what “ungodly” signifies. And it pleases God, who is holy and righteous and who cannot behold iniquity, to impute perfect righteousness by faith to the ungodly but elect sinner. God declares to him, “I do not remember your sins anymore. You have loved me. You have loved me so much that I cannot be loved any more than I already have been loved.” Oh, what happiness!

That happiness is received through faith alone because that faith unites the elect sinner to Jesus Christ. Faith joins that ungodly but elect sinner into the corporation of Jesus Christ, so that Christ is that man’s righteousness.

Is that not clear? That is the simple truth of scripture and the Reformed creeds. That truth belongs to the unity that the church possesses. Indeed, that truth is foundational to the unity that the church possesses. What is man’s happiness? It is that Jesus Christ is his righteousness, to the exclusion of all works. Jesus Christ is all that a man needs, now and forever.

The Refrain of Federal Vision Theology

Having that truth of man’s happiness set before us, it is clear how contrary to the truth is the popular, 140-year-old hymn “Trust and Obey.” Maybe you were taught it growing up. Its refrain is well known: “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way / To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”²

Can Belgic Confession article 23 and “Trust and Obey” be reconciled? No, they stand in the sharpest antithesis to one another. The former says that man’s happiness is Jesus Christ and his righteousness to the exclusion of all man’s works. Man is happy now and forever because he belongs to the righteous corporation of Jesus Christ by faith alone. The latter says that man’s happiness is that he trusts and he obeys. Man is happy now and forever by Christ plus man’s own obedience, Christ plus man’s own repenting, Christ plus man’s own walking in a way of good works. To trust and obey is a man’s happiness, and there is no other way to be happy. Apart from a life of repentance and obedience, man may not and man cannot be happy in Jesus.

That doctrine is wretched. “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way / To be happy in Jesus” turns the whole gospel over on its head. But that wretched hymn has instilled in countless souls that trusting and obeying is the only way to fellowship with God, joy, peace, assurance, enjoying a richer experience of God’s covenant, and ultimately the only way to enter heaven.

And so it is no surprise that the hymn “Trust and Obey” becomes a predominant theme, sound, and refrain in the theology of those who hate and assault the truth of justification by faith alone and the truth that a man’s salvation and happiness consist in the remission of his sins for Christ’s sake. It is no surprise, for example, that federal vision theologians use that hymn as a sort of signature tune for their doctrine. It is no surprise that publications defending federal vision theology reference that hymn. In fact one such defender and proponent of federal vision theology, Ian Hewitson, titled his book “Trust and Obey.”³

I am not going to spend much time on the federal vision, for that is not my main purpose here.⁴ But I will point out that when federal vision theologians speak of man’s happiness consisting in trusting and obeying, they emphatically insist that man’s happiness is a gift of sovereign grace that God gives to whomsoever he wills, according to his eternal plan and purpose. Federal vision theologians insist that man’s happiness is all of grace from beginning to end. They insist that the faith by which man lays hold on his happiness is God’s gift to man. They give a vigorous denial of merit and human achievement in connection with man’s happiness. But—always there is that fatal disjunction—man’s happiness is not by faith alone. Federal vision theologians do not teach that man’s happiness is that God imputes righteousness to man without his works, as scripture and the Reformed creeds clearly teach. No, man’s happiness is by trusting and obeying. Man’s happiness is by faith and in the way of his obedience. Without faith and faith’s repentance, obedience, or good works, man cannot be happy. “Oh!” they exclaim, “God bestows his grace and Holy Spirit to work faith and faith’s fruits. Oh! It is all by grace. Oh! It is all God-worked. But…man must trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”

Radiating Devilish Love

Let me give a specific quote that illustrates this federal vision theology. This quote comes from a sermon on 1 John 4:7–11. First John 4:7 reads, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” In that sermon the minister taught the following:

[The apostle] John knew the wonder of being taken into the life and fellowship of the living, loving God. He knew that his salvation was entirely of grace, by Christ, and was his through faith. But [there is that fatal disjunction: But!] John also understood that the experience of that covenant fellowship with God and the joy of his fellowship, which is by faith, comes also only in a particular way of life, a life which reflects the love of God.

That is nothing less than federal vision theology. After all the necessary qualifications are given—that God is absolutely sovereign in salvation and that salvation is entirely of grace and received through faith—then there is the but. “John knew,” the sermon taught, “the wonder of being taken into the life and fellowship of the living, loving God. He knew that his salvation was entirely of grace, by Christ, and was his through faith. But...” But! Jesus Christ is not sufficient for man’s happiness by faith alone. But! “…but John also understood that the experience of that covenant fellowship with God and the joy of his fellowship, which is by faith, comes also only in a particular way of life, a life which reflects the love of God.” But. What the sermon made clear is that you can only have happiness and you can only experience the joy of God’s fellowship in a particular way of life, a life that reflects the love of God. Faith plus the obedience of faith is man’s happiness.

Or as the lyrics of that wretched hymn:

But we never can prove the delights of his love
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favor he shows, for the joy he bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

However, that sermon was not preached by a federal vision theologian. That sermon was preached by one who would himself say, “I am an opponent to federal vision theology.” That sermon, titled “Radiating Divine Love,” was preached on June 5, 2022, by Rev. Steven Key in Loveland Protestant Reformed Church.⁵

The words of that sermon stand in stark antithesis to the gospel, scripture, and the Reformed creeds, which teach that man’s happiness consists in this: That Christ’s lifelong suffering and obedience are all that is necessary to enjoy God’s fellowship and to enter heaven. Belgic Confession article 22 teaches,

For it must needs follow, either that all things which are requisite to our salvation are not in Jesus Christ, or, if all things are in Him, that then those who possess Jesus Christ through faith have complete salvation in Him. (Confessions and Church Order, 49–50)

The truth is that works are not the explanation as to why a man happily experiences covenant fellowship with God. In fact if good works are made part of the explanation as to why a man experiences covenant fellowship with God—as Reverend Key so clearly taught—those works necessarily take away from, displace, and cast away the perfect sufficiency of Jesus Christ, which is man’s happiness and man’s happiness alone. Reverend Key asserted that Christ is not sufficient but that something more is required besides him, which article 22 of the Belgic Confession condemns as “too gross a blasphemy; for hence it would follow that Christ was but half a Savior” (Confessions and Church Order, 50).

Reverend Key did not teach the truth about radiating divine love. The form of love taught by Reverend Key is a devilish kind of love, a form of love that displaces Jesus Christ and that does something to get something in return.

Unable to Exhort

This teaching was not just a one-time thing for Reverend Key. “Trust and Obey” is the leitmotif of his theology and preaching. In a sermon less than two months earlier, on April 23, 2022, Reverend Key spoke about the happiness of man. He preached on the fullness of the joy that belongs to God’s people, living in God’s fellowship. He preached about how God’s people are kept from wounding their consciences and from losing God’s favor. He preached about the certainty of being partakers of Christ’s grace, Christ’s strength, Christ’s life, and all Christ’s benefits. All these things belong to the happiness of man. And Reverend Key preached about this happiness of man in connection with the calling of the apostle John in 1 John 2:28 to abide in Jesus Christ: “Now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.” This is what Reverend Key had to say about this calling:

Abiding in Christ has to do with our conscious participation in that fellowship that is ours with him and therefore with God our Father.

And that’s evident from the fact that in chapter 2:28, the call to abide in him, that’s an admonition or an exhortation. The call to abide in him is a verb form of a present active imperative. Yes, that call to abide in him is a call to activity, something which appears to be anathema to those who have left us…

Let me pause there. When Reverend Key spoke about “those who have left us,” he was referring to the Reformed Protestant denomination. Apparently, it is anathema for Faith Reformed Protestant Church to preach exhortations and admonitions. I will address that charge by Reverend Key presently. The quote continues:

God, by his Holy Spirit, efficaciously calls us to the activity of faith and the fruits of faith, which not only keep us from wounding our own consciences and losing the sense of God’s favor, but more positively, by which our faith is strengthened and confirmed by those fruits as that which show it’s a genuine faith, so that we know the fullness of the joy that is ours, living in God’s fellowship.

As such, therefore, abiding in Christ—that is, conscious participation in his fellowship by faith—is to hold steadfastly to his gospel, to live in complete dependence upon him in faith and hope, and to walk in faithful and loving obedience to him.⁶

Let me summarize that: If we hold steadfastly to the gospel, if we live in complete dependence upon Jesus Christ, and if we walk in faithful and loving obedience to Jesus Christ, then and only then will we be happy as those who know that we partake of Christ and all his benefits. If we trust and obey, then and only then will we be happy in Jesus Christ. If we trust and obey, then and only then will we know the fullness of joy that is ours, living in God’s fellowship. If we trust and obey, then and only then can we be certain that we partake of all the blessings of grace. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus.

There is another stanza to that wretched hymn that harmonizes perfectly with Reverend Key’s theology. That stanza goes like this:

When we walk with the Lord in the light of his word,
What a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will, he abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

But that is not the truth of 1 John 2:28.

Let it be known that those who left Loveland Protestant Reformed Church and reconstituted as Faith Reformed Protestant Church do not consider exhortations and admonitions as anathema. Faith Reformed Protestant Church preaches admonitions and exhortations. She just does not preach them as the only way to be happy in Jesus and as that which gives man his blessedness. Let me explain the idea of 1 John 2:28.

That call to abide in Christ must be framed in its proper context within the chapter. First John 2 makes clear that already at the time of the apostles, the church was plagued by false teachers, so that John says, “Even now are there many antichrists” (v. 18). John is warning the true church of Jesus Christ about the phenomenon that is antichrist. John says, “Ye have heard that antichrist shall come” (v. 18). And in the context the apostle John is warning against that final manifestation of antichrist that is pictured in Revelation as the beast that rises out of the sea. It is the deified state at which the man of sin, that son of perdition, stands at its head. But John says, “Even now are there many antichrists” (v. 18). That refers to the whole phenomenon of antichrist as false teachers continue to lead a history-long opposition to God and his Son, Jesus Christ. The false teacher that appeared in the time of John and the false teacher that appears in our age is antichrist. The false teacher is antichrist because he denies that Jesus is the Christ, which is the essence of all heresy. All heresy attacks the truth that Jesus is God’s authorized and equipped man to serve God in behalf of God’s covenant and that Jesus is entirely responsible to administer to the elect the life, joy, and happiness of that covenant. And John says that that plague of false teachers was widespread. Many antichrists were already in the world.

Then too in the context, those antichristian false teachers are the explanation that “they went out from us” (v. 19). There was this movement of people out of the true church, out of “us.” The “us” is the church that agrees in true faith and cleaves to the truth. And there is a history-long movement—a movement in John’s day and a movement today—where there are many who go out of the church. “They went out from us,” the apostle John says. “They had to go out from us to make manifest that they were not of us. They had to go out in order to manifest that they belong to the world.”

And now, as it were, John asks the church, “Why is it that you do not go out? Is it because you trust and obey? Is it because you hold steadfastly to the gospel, live in complete dependence upon Jesus Christ, and walk in faithful and loving obedience to Jesus Christ? Is that why you do not go out?” What does John say? “They went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us, but ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (vv. 19–20, emphasis added). Why is it that one cannot go out? Why is it that one cannot be deceived no matter how seductive, enticing, and beguiling false doctrine and the false teacher are, no matter how the false teacher clothes himself as an angel of light? Why is it that one abides in Jesus Christ? Why is it that one cleaves to the truth? Why is it that one can never depart from the truth? John says, “Ye have an unction from the Holy One.” That is the Spirit. John says, “You have the Holy Spirit who abides in you. The Spirit—the Spirit—is the one who makes you abide in Jesus Christ. Not you. Not you and your obedience. You have an unction of the Holy One.”

That same Spirit who causes you to abide in Jesus Christ also teaches you the truth, so that “ye know all things.” Because of this unction, you know that truth in a most profound, spiritual way, for that truth reigns in your heart. That is the great work of the Spirit. The great work of the Spirit is not so that you can speak in all sorts of different tongues or perform all kinds of miracles. The great work of the Spirit is so that you know the truth, and that truth grips you. Why is it that you abide in Christ? Because of the Spirit.

“The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you” (v. 27). “The Spirit abides with you,” John says to the church, “not just for a month and not just through a controversy. He abides with you forever. That is why you abide in Christ.”

That is the context for this exhortation in 1 John 2:28 to abide in Jesus Christ. What then of this exhortation?

We observe that this calling comes to one in whom the Spirit dwells and reigns, one whom the Spirit has united to Jesus Christ. This calling comes to one who already knows the truth that by faith alone Christ is his righteousness before God. This one knows himself to be an ungodly sinner whose sins God forgives and to whom God imputes a heavenly righteousness without works. Because he belongs to the righteous corporation of Jesus Christ by faith, this one already possesses and experiences the fullness of joy of covenant fellowship with God. This calling comes to one who is already confident and assured that God is his God, that God is determined to do him good, and that God will bring him all the way to glory. He is a perfectly happy man.

Can this exhortation then be unto man’s happiness? Can it be that faith’s activity and faith’s fruits strengthen (increase) the “fullness of the joy that is ours, living in God’s fellowship,” as Reverend Key teaches? Impossible! Certainly, this exhortation is a call to activity. Man’s activity is not anathema to the Reformed Protestant Churches. But when man’s activity is made part of the explanation as to why a man is happy in Jesus, the Reformed Protestant Churches consider that a gross blasphemy, for that implies that Christ is but half a savior.

But what is this exhortation? This exhortation pertains to the life of gratitude for a man who seeks nothing more besides Jesus Christ for his happiness. This exhortation to abide in Jesus Christ is the fruit of already abiding in Jesus Christ by the work of the Spirit, which Spirit abides with the church forever. What John means by this exhortation is this: Abide in the truth of Jesus Christ. In the light of the context, this exhortation calls those who are perfectly happy in Jesus by faith alone to defend the truth against those who would try to introduce happiness-quenching false doctrine into the church. Implied by that exhortation is the calling to continue speaking the truth in love for the truth and to contend for the truth. The church’s thankful life includes fighting against all that is not the truth of Jesus Christ, against those very same antichrists who run rampant in the world. That is the exhortation.⁷

That is not my own private exegesis. My interpretation agrees with the exegesis of Rev. Herman Hoeksema, from whom Reverend Key departs. This is what Rev. Herman Hoeksema taught:

“Abide in him.” That means, of course, that we abide in the truth…It means also that we constantly abide in Him, that we do not depart from the truth, and therefore do not depart from Him.⁸

Ironically, the exhortation in the text is to oppose, fight against, and flee from the exact same thing that Reverend Key preaches. Oh, the Reformed Protestant Churches preach exhortations, just not unto man’s happiness and blessedness. It is Reverend Key who cannot preach the exhortations of scripture properly and in harmony with the Reformed creeds.

A Laver of Terror

But Reverend Key has retired, and a new minister, Reverend Haveman, has taken the pulpit of Loveland Protestant Reformed Church. One might hope that this new minister would rise up in holy horror against what Reverend Key has preached, that Reverend Haveman would condemn the lie, and that he would teach the truth about man’s happiness. One might hope…

But in fact the preaching at Loveland Protestant Reformed Church has become worse, if that were possible. Not content with having his congregation believe that Jesus Christ is not sufficient for their happiness but that obedience is necessary for full joy and happiness, Reverend Haveman has decided to heap the curses of God’s law upon his congregation if they do not obey enough. I have two sermons to prove that.

The topic of the first sermon was the laver, the massive basin of water that was in the courts of God’s sanctuary. In this sermon Reverend Haveman rightly emphasized that the laver testified of God’s holiness. The significance of the laver, he taught, was that God’s people “are again reminded just how holy God is.” Furthermore, he preached,

Why was it that the priests had to continually wash themselves day after day after day? Why could they never come into the tabernacle and go about their work while they were unclean? It’s because God is holy…The priests had to wash. They had to do so because God is holy. They could not come before him as unclean. If they did, they would be destroyed. Destroyed. If they did not wash with water, God says he would destroy them. They would die…And God had this laver to make his holiness known.⁹

That is the significance of the laver. But this too belongs to the significance of the laver, according to Reverend Haveman:

[A new] life [of holiness] we must see is necessary. The laver drives that home as well. It was not an option for the priests to wash themselves. They had to wash themselves. They had to be holy. If they were common or unclean, they knew they would be destroyed by the holy God. And it’s just as necessary for us to wash ourselves, to live a holy life. We know who God is. We know the life that is pleasing unto him. We know the seriousness with which he takes sin, and so we know we cannot live as we please. We cannot live like the world. We cannot live common and unclean like those who are without, but we must, like those priests, be washed.¹⁰

Let me repeat what Reverend Haveman taught: Just as the priests had to be holy by washing themselves—else they knew they would be destroyed by the holy God—so it is just as necessary for us to wash ourselves, to live a holy life. In other words the motivation for a holy life is the threat of being destroyed by God.

And in harmony with that significance of the laver, Reverend Haveman drew this practical application:

Knowing our God, knowing what he has done for us, knowing the salvation he has given us in Jesus Christ, and knowing who he is truly by faith, we’ll worship him with fear and reverence. We’ll come to worship him with clean hands and pure hearts. We’ll come hating sin, turning away from it, and seeking his face in our worship and in our whole life of worship…The Lord Jesus Christ covers us, washes us clean in his blood from all sin and imperfection. But [there is that fatal disjunction again: but!] yet knowing that, we still also come to worship Jehovah God with this: He hates sin. He is a holy God. And he will have us to be a holy and a clean people. And so as we go into our lives in all aspects both as a congregation, as a body, and as individuals, as families, as husbands and wives, whatever station and calling we might have, we come and we worship God with this reality of the laver set before us: God will have us to be clean.¹¹

 I do not care what Reverend Haveman said about the forgiveness of sins. That simply does not set the sermon straight and does not fix the atrocious doctrine that he heaped upon the congregation as a tremendous soul-crushing burden. This is what he taught his congregation: How you come before the holy God, who is a consuming fire against all uncleanness, and seek his face—both in public worship and in your whole life of worship—is through Christ’s clean hands and pure heart plus your own clean hands and pure heart. You do not come before God only through faith in Jesus Christ, which faith embraces Jesus Christ with all his merits, appropriates him, and seeks nothing more besides him (for to say that Christ is not sufficient but that something else is required besides him would be too gross a blasphemy; for hence it would follow that Christ is but half a savior), but you come with Christ’s holiness plus your own new holy life of obedience.

What Reverend Haveman taught is not the truth. What Reverend Haveman taught stands in stark antithesis to Belgic Confession article 23:

This [obedience of Christ crucified alone] is sufficient to cover all our iniquities, and to give us confidence in approaching to God; freeing the conscience of fear, terror, and dread, without following the example of our first father, Adam, who, trembling, attempted to cover himself with fig leaves. And, verily, if we should appear before God, relying on ourselves [relying upon our own new lives of obedience; relying upon something that we did in our lives: our own thoughts, our own purposes, the intents of our hearts] or on any other creature, though ever so little [though that be one little tear that we shed in hatred of sin, though that be one little tear that we have over the filth of our own lives], we should, alas! be consumed. (Confessions and Church Order, 51–52)

But that is not what Reverend Haveman taught. What Reverend Haveman taught can be summarized by that wretched hymn:

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Then in fellowship sweet
We will sit at his feet,
Or we’ll walk by his side in the way…

Yet there is something that is missing from those lyrics that Reverend Haveman could have added this:

But then if you don’t trust,
Yea, and obey enough,
Then you’ll find yourself to be destroyed.

And let me show you precisely how the truth of man’s happiness was corrupted by Reverend Haveman. He taught that the believer’s sanctification is not merely the fruit of the believer’s justification, by which justification the believer is perfectly happy. Instead, what did Reverend Haveman do with the forgiveness of sins, in which man’s happiness consists? What did he do with the forgiveness of sins, which is the elect sinner’s happiness today, tomorrow, all the days of his life, in the day of Jesus Christ, and forever and ever? For Reverend Haveman the forgiveness of sins serves chiefly to make the believer’s new life of holiness functional in his salvation to grant him full happiness. In essence Reverend Haveman said, “You must trust that God forgives the sins that adhere to all your works and that God accepts those imperfect works as perfect in Christ. Now you must come with your works and your new life of obedience because the knowledge of your happiness—the knowledge and the confidence that you can have that God is your God—can be only in the way of obedience.”

Furthermore, what Reverend Haveman had to do was to make the law doable for blessedness, happiness, and fellowship with God. But the terror that arises from Reverend Haveman’s teaching is this: How much must one obey? How much must one flee from and hate sin? How much must one turn from the filth of this world to have happiness? How much, so one can enter and seek God’s face? These foolish questions always arise when Christ, the elect sinner’s righteousness, is displaced.

A Faithless Instructor

Not content with corrupting the truth of his adult congregants’ happiness, Reverend Haveman also preached that children’s happiness—their happiness today, tomorrow, and everlastingly—depends upon their parents’ faithful instruction. Parents not only have to obey the law in order for themselves to be happy in Jesus, but parents also have to instruct their children well enough in order for their children to be happy. That is what Reverend Haveman preached in a sermon on Psalm 78, titled “Teaching the Generation to Come.”

What you see if you read Psalm 78 is this: Generation upon generation in Israel failed abysmally in their instruction of their children. All that you see in this psalm is man’s failure. And in light of that very sobering reality, Reverend Haveman taught that Psalm 78 sets forth the seriousness of instructing the next generation. He preached:

That serves as a warning for us, a warning of the consequences of failure to be faithful to this calling. But it also serves to show us the blessing of being faithful, the blessing which God gives unto his people, when one generation does in fact train the next generation in the fear of the Lord, then [the next generation] will not be a stubborn and rebellious generation. They will not forget the ways of God.¹²

Reverend Haveman looked at Psalm 78 and said, “See all these examples of the abysmal failure of Israel? Oh, that is a warning. It is a warning of what happens if you do not train your children well enough and give them the proper instruction.” He did not see that all these examples of Israel’s abysmal failure demonstrate the necessity of God’s appointment of his servant David “to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance,” who then “fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands” (vv. 71–72). Reverend Haveman did not see that Psalm 78 emphasizes how necessary it is that the seed of David, Jesus Christ, be our chief prophet and teacher. No. Reverend Haveman simply taught that parents today must be more faithful than the people of Israel in the old dispensation.

Ask this question of Reverend Haveman once: “How well do you have to train your children?” For according to Reverend Haveman, Israel did not meet the standard that was necessary to have faithful children. “Israel’s failure in Psalm 78 is a warning,” he said. “But if you train your children faithfully…” How faithfully? Give it your best shot? Do your best, and Jesus will fill up the rest? Reverend Haveman does not say. But this much he makes clear: If you train your children faithfully enough, God is going to bless that, and then your children will be happy.

Thus there are more soul-crushing burdens for the members of Loveland Protestant Reformed Church. They must not only be very diligent in the way of obedience in order to have full happiness, but they must also be very diligent to train their children in order to keep their children happy too. It is a wonder that every member of Loveland church is not mentally depressed! How are the members not crawling on their hands and knees into church to worship? How are they not weeping when they leave church? In his sermon even Reverend Haveman recognized the burden that he had just loaded upon his congregation:

“The reality is although that calling is hard, although it’s daunting, although it’s intimidating, intimidating for the parents and intimidating for the whole church…”¹³

Well, of course, it is daunting and intimidating! Yet Reverend Haveman did not even preach the full weight of what God requires in the instructing of covenant children. Reverend Haveman made the law doable. Here is what the law of God requires:

6. These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 

7. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deut. 6:6–7)

God requires that you teach your children every single moment of every single day. God requires that you teach your children without fail and without failing to point everything to God and how all things relate to Jesus Christ as the first begotten of the dead. Do not fail to do that because God always demands perfection! He is righteous. Anything less is not righteous.

What Psalm 78 teaches, if it teaches anything, is the impossibility for parents to instruct their children as God requires. Parents realize that they cannot sooner enter hell in themselves than by the instructing of their children. Each and every child would be like a millstone hung about the parents’ neck to sink them down into destruction. If parents are honest with themselves, they admit that they fail abysmally. They fail daily. They probably realize their failures mere minutes after their children get out of bed.

Now, of course, there are parents who heard Reverend Haveman’s preaching who will sit back and think, “You know what? We have done a pretty good job. We have been faithful according to our own standard of faithfulness.” And that standard of faithfulness is usually this: “Those parents over there are not so faithful, so at least we are more faithful than they are. We have faithfully trained our children. Now we can expect that God will bless that, and our children will walk in the fear of the Lord.”

What about Rebecca? What about Rebecca, who gave the same covenantal instruction to both Jacob and Esau, who taught Jacob and Esau all about God’s promise and of God’s intent to destroy the serpent with the seed of the woman? What about Rebecca, who, after giving all that instruction, had one profane son who forsook God’s glorious promise for a measly bowl of pottage, while the other son strove for God’s covenant? How do you explain that, according to Reverend Haveman’s sermon?

What is the happiness of the parents who must raise their children according to the demands of God’s covenant? Their happiness is that Jesus Christ is their righteousness, so that no matter how they have failed—and I mean it—when they come before God as miserable failures, through faith God always declares to them, “What sin? I do not see any sin. You have loved me perfectly. I declare that to you for the sake of Christ to whom you belong. He is your righteousness. You are perfect.” That is the parents’ happiness.

And the happiness of the parents concerning their children is that God promises in Christ to gather believers and their seed. That was God’s promise—his holy oath—through Peter on Pentecost. What is a promise? A promise is this: It is God’s holy oath that he will save the seed of believers. And when God gives a promise, he does not take into consideration any doing of the recipient of the promise. For example, consider marriage. Marriage involves a promise. The promise of marriage is “I love you. And though it comes to pass on the day after we are married that you become a vegetable, lying on a hospital bed for the rest of your life, I am going to love you, and I am going to cherish you, and I am going to seek your good. And though you suddenly begin to turn against me and hate me, though you consider me the most despicable person that has ever lived, I am going to love you. I made a promise to you, and that promise does not take into consideration anything that you are going to do.” That is a promise. And when God says “I am going to save believers and their seed,” that promise does not take into account how well parents instruct their children.

So why is one child saved, and another is not saved? (This was completely missing from Reverend Haveman’s sermon.) Why does one child inherit the promise and another becomes profane? Because God in his love elected one, and God in his hatred rejected the other. That is the truth. But for the parents who sit under the instruction of ministers like Reverend Haveman and have a child who departs, then that becomes an unconsolable grief for those parents. Their failures as parents sink them down their whole lives. And this is the doleful tune that resounds in their minds:

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

And now for Reverend Haveman’s sake, I have expanded on that refrain:

Trust and obey, for if instructing your sons
Is not faithful enough, then you won’t save a one.

Believing that he properly set forth the urgency to give faithful instruction to the next generation, Reverend Haveman actually has become an addendum to the list of faithless instructors in Psalm 78.

The Conclusion

Now we must draw a conclusion. We must judge this preaching at Loveland Protestant Reformed Church. All are called to judge. And if you have the Spirit, you judge all things. If you have the Spirit, you have the truth and you know the truth and that truth grips you because the truth reigns in you. By the Spirit you can judge all things. If you do not have the Spirit, you cannot judge anything. What is our conclusion?

Our conclusion is that the preaching at Loveland Protestant Reformed Church is not in agreement with Belgic Confession article 23, which declares this to be the happiness of man: “That God imputes righteousness to him without works.” Our conclusion is that the preaching of Loveland Protestant Reformed Church is in harmony with that wretched hymn: “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way / To be happy in Jesus.” And because the church that Jesus Christ gathers—the church that is chosen to everlasting life—agrees in true faith, and because Loveland Protestant Reformed Church has departed from the three forms of unity, Loveland church not only manifests herself as un-Reformed but also as not church. Satan came, even years ago, and erected idols in the front of Loveland church—that is what he did when that false teaching was being proclaimed—and those idols have never been torn down. Those idols are only multiplying, and the people love to have it so.

To speak specifically about the ministers of Loveland Protestant Reformed Church: They are antichrist. They belong to the movement of antichrist because they displace Jesus Christ. They detract from the saving glory of Jesus Christ and his sufficiency for man’s happiness, and they ascribe the glory to man and man’s obedience. Such teaching is not the work of the Holy Spirit. Such teaching is the work of a spirit out of hell.

You must remember the description of the apostate church and her ministers in Revelation 13, that beast that comes up out of the earth. That beast looks like a lamb, which implies that you cannot distinguish the apostate church with your eyes. The apostate church has preaching and sacraments. She appears enthusiastic about worship. Her ministers and professors seem very kind, pious, and helpful. You cannot recognize the apostate church with your eyes, for she looks like a lamb. But she speaks like a dragon. You must distinguish her by her speech, for even Satan dresses himself as an angel of light. And what does Loveland Protestant Reformed Church say? She says that man’s happiness is not Christ alone through faith alone. She says that man may not and man cannot be happy apart from man’s obedience too. Loveland church detracts from the saving glory of Jesus Christ, and she ascribes it to man’s doing. And right there you have something that looks like a lamb but speaks like a serpent. That speech is fundamentally antichristian.

The Call

And so this call comes to the members of Loveland Protestant Reformed Church: Come out from among them and be ye separate. It is your duty to separate from all that is not church and to join yourself to the true church, whithersoever God has established her. And God has established that church: She is Faith Reformed Protestant Church.

Faith Reformed Protestant Church does not preach “trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus,” for that is not the gospel. She preaches the gospel that is Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life; the gospel that is Jesus of Nazareth—who was born of the virgin Mary, who suffered all his lifetime, who was crucified on the cross of Calvary, who was buried, who descended into the depths of hellish agonies, and who was raised again on the third day—that he is the Christ and the seed of God’s promise. Jesus Christ is the seed of Genesis 3:15, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David. As God’s promised seed, Christ suffered, died, fulfilled all righteousness, and rose again the third day as a real, righteous man. And at his resurrection Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power, so that all he did in his life—all his obedience and all his suffering—he did as God. Jesus’ whole life was the divine work of God in human flesh. God obeyed in man’s flesh. God suffered in man’s flesh. God died on the cross to pay God what God was due. Jesus Christ is himself very God and very man.

Faith Reformed Protestant Church preaches the gospel that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all God’s promises. Christ is every last jot and tittle of the law of God—its fulfillment and perfection. Christ is the end of the law of God for righteousness. Christ is righteousness himself, so that a man needs no more righteousness than Christ. In Christ God accomplished all God’s promises. All God’s “I will do this” and “I shall do this” are found in Jesus Christ and in him alone. Therefore, Christ is all that matters for man’s happiness. Man’s happiness consists in nothing that he does. Man’s happiness consists in Christ. That is what is preached at Faith Reformed Protestant Church, a church that the Son of God has gathered, agreeing in true faith, chosen unto everlasting life.

If you are sick of going home unjustified, unsatisfied, and unhappy; if you are sick of being made miserable and of burdens being heaped upon you that you cannot bear; if the truth that I have preached to you tonight has stirred your heart, flee! Flee, because God’s judgment has already come upon Loveland Protestant Reformed Church. God’s judgment is her ministers. Flee! And join the true church.