For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.—Romans 11:36

The doctrine of man in relation to the infallible fruits of election has become a battleground in pursuit of the truth in the controversy between the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) and the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). This doctrine of salvation, though such a simple doctrine, has been corrupted and distorted, twisted and turned in man’s pride. The Protestant Reformed Churches have been doing exactly that. They have taken the simplicity, joy, and freedom of the gospel and have formed it into no gospel at all. Their doctrines of man and of the activities of faith are doctrines of bondage and corruption and are ultimately from the devil. (For how can anything contrary to the gospel not be from the devil?) One might ask, what are the infallible fruits of faith, and what is their place in the life of a Christian? What about repenting? What about obeying in relation to the experience of God’s favor? In this article I hope to make plain the simplicity of this doctrine and the simplicity of the gospel and furthermore to push and preserve the Reformed faith.

For the past years I have heard a lot about man in my former denomination, the Protestant Reformed Churches. “Man does stuff, you know: he does repent, he does believe, he does do good works. He must do these things to be saved.” And I have heard, “I want to be told in sermons what to do”—give me a list of things I need to do in my life of holiness to check all the boxes. And I believe this was because ministers and professors were seeing unbelievable worldliness and wickedness in their congregations, so they thought, “Let’s bring the law, and then we will see the people bring forth the fruits of faith.” As Professor Cammenga said, “God uses the preaching of the law…positively, as a means of grace.”¹

What these men are blind to is the fact that you can’t incentivize or legislate holiness because man is nothing of himself. Only God can work holiness in his people, and this work is infallible. The PRC have perverted this doctrine by claiming that God justifies, but I sanctify myself—by his grace, of course. How did the PRC get all the way to this point? I believe God’s Spirit left the PRC a long time ago, and I am of the generation that arose and knew not the Lord.

In 2003 a sermon statement of Rev. Ronald Cammenga was protested by Marvin Kamps to his consistory at Southwest Protestant Reformed Church, and in May 2004 the protest was brought to the floor of Classis East. Classis agreed with Cammenga’s statement and upheld it. This statement has since become the official dogma of the PRC.

It is not enough for salvation that God has sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. It is not enough, that there is a Jesus. It is not enough, that this Jesus was born of a virgin; that this Jesus lived a perfect life; that this Jesus taught and defended the Word of God; that this Jesus suffered under the wrath of God in an atoning death; that this Jesus arose with his body from the grave on the third day; that this Jesus is ascended in power at the right hand of God in the heavens. Not enough for salvation. God must not only have sent Jesus into the world, but I must come and you must come to Jesus. I must become one with him so that I enjoy his fellowship and share in his salvation. For salvation it is necessary that I come to him. And if I do not come to him, there is no salvation and no enjoyment of the blessings of salvation.²

Christ is not enough. I don’t know what you think when you hear or read that Christ is not enough, but I shudder at this doctrine. I hate it and can’t stand it for a moment; it makes me spiritually sick when I read it. I have pity on those who can stand this doctrine for a moment. Yet this has been an official dogma for eighteen years in the PRC. Christ’s perfect work on the cross was not enough for our salvation. Christ’s full satisfaction for sins on the cross was not enough for our salvation. There is something yet that man must do for salvation.

This is semi-Pelagianism at its finest. “Of course,” Protestant Reformed people will say, “we are justified by faith; of course we are saved by grace; of course Jesus died for our sins; but you and I must come to Jesus, and if we do not come to him, we do not have salvation.” God desires to save his people; he does everything in his part for salvation; but now man needs to do his part for salvation.

What then does Romans 6:23 mean to the PRC, when the verse says that “the gift of God is eternal life”? They have to deny it. The Protestant Reformed Churches just cannot accept a gift. They don’t know what a gift is. They add man wherever they can and look to slip him into their doctrine. Eternal life is a gift of God, and we cannot lose that gift. God’s gift to his people is eternal life in heaven with him, and getting that gift is not dependent upon how well we obey or how much we repent, but eternal life is entirely a gift.

The PRC’s dogma is that Christ is not enough and grace is not sufficient to save. Those who disagree with the PRC’s dogma may not say, preach, or write anything against Christ is not enough. The PRC has adopted this semi-Pelagian theology into their preaching and writings, and it is blatantly evident. They have so completely destroyed the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ. Many of us in the PRC thought that this destruction of the gospel started with sermons in Hope Protestant Reformed Church, but it had started way earlier than that. The Protestant Reformed Churches have been so sick for a long time, and their members have been too blind to even see it. The denomination has displaced the perfect work and sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. It is true that the gospel was found in the PRC many decades ago, but now God’s judgment is upon these churches. God’s judgment is making itself known as the marks of the true church fade away. Out of Christ is not enough developed man-first theology.

But here is the truth of the gospel that God mercifully gave to the Reformed Protestant denomination: Christ is enough, and he is the perfect sacrifice. There is nothing man must do. This doctrine is nothing new. It is the old Reformed paths as taught by Herman Hoeksema.

Those who say that the PRC and the RPC teach the same doctrine must recant that saying. There is a fundamental doctrinal difference between the PRC and the RPC, and that is who man is and who God is. For the PRC it is Christ is not enough and man must do. Christ did his part, and now man must do his part for salvation and for his experience of salvation. For the RPC Christ is everything, and man is nothing. There is nothing man must do to be saved; that work of salvation was completely finished on the cross by Jesus Christ.

I ask each Protestant Reformed person who reads this, what do you believe? Where is your gospel and your hope? If it is Christ is not enough, then stay in the PRC. Openly confess that doctrine with all your heart and proclaim it unashamedly, being willing to lay down your life for Christ is not enough. If this is not your gospel, then I urge you to come out from that bondage and hear the gospel that Christ is everything and you are assured of your salvation. Your comfort in life and in death is Jesus Christ, and he alone is your comfort—not how much working or obeying you do. Christ is your comfort, and his work was enough.

As you can see, since 2003–4 God has been removing his Spirit from the Protestant Reformed Churches. And now you see professors and ministers writing and saying things as shocking as Professor Cammenga’s statements, and it is at a speed I did not see coming. It is as though after reformation came, God pushed them down the slippery path they were on, and now they can’t wait to deceive you.

So what about these inevitable fruits of election? In Canons of Dordt 1.12, we have these words:

The elect in due time, though in various degrees and in different measures, attain the assurance of this their eternal and unchangeable election, not by inquisitively prying into the secret and deep things of God, but by observing in themselves, with a spiritual joy and holy pleasure, the infallible fruits of election pointed out in the Word of God—such as a true faith in Christ, filial fear, a godly sorrow for sin, a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, etc. (Confessions and Church Order, 157)

These fruits of election are worked in the heart of the elect child of God through the Holy Spirit. That these are infallible fruits of election means that these fruits are inevitable in the child of God. The child of God can’t help but sorrow over sin, hunger and thirst after righteousness, and have filial fear. The child of God must do these things, and he will. This must is not a must of possibility. This must is not a must of you have to do this, and if you don’t you will not get or you have to do this to get that. Absolutely not! That is not the gospel; that is not the good news of the gospel, but man’s words. This must of the gospel is a must of inevitability. The man who is elected and engrafted into Christ must walk in these fruits because God preordained the elect to walk in them (Eph. 2:10; see also Phil. 2:13). The elect child of God will walk in these fruits all his life long. What a gospel that is! The child of God may, must, and will walk in repentance. It is absolutely impossible that the Spirit take abode in the heart of one of his children and then not work the willing and joy to walk in obedience to God. What freedom that is for the child of God! No more working to get, just resting in the finished work of Christ. That is the liberty of the gospel that has been lost and perverted in the Protestant Reformed Churches.

Let me prove to you that the perversion of the simple gospel has been full steam ahead. What do men in the PRC preach, write, and defend?

When criticizing the doctrine of the RPC and claiming that it is “unchristian” and “un-reformed,” Professor Engelsma wrote, “I refer specifically to their denial of the necessity of repentance in order to receive from God the forgiveness of sins.” “Repentance precedes forgiveness.”³

Reverend McGeown wrote, “One of the problems with an emphasis upon eternal justification is that justification by faith becomes simply a realization that we were always justified…This leads to the extreme view that we were always saved, never lost.”⁴

Reverend Key preached, “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.”⁵

These statements are shocking. How can one dare say these words and then boldly confess to be Reformed? How can one dare to bring this pitiful doctrine to the throne of God? Repentance can only and will only ever be a fruit. Repentance and confessing sins can and will only be good works of the child of God. The only thing we do is sin, sin, and sin some more. Our debt grows and grows.

An emphasis on eternal justification? Do Reformed Protestant people actually believe that? Yes, Reverend McGeown, we do believe that. That is the whole comfort of the believer: that he was predestinated and perfect in the sight of God from the beginning of the world. Man never had to do anything to realize that he was saved; he has always known his salvation through the bond of faith, which is also an assured confidence.

Faith is not the only way to experience God’s covenant fellowship; there is a certain way of life you have to live too? For Reverend Key there is a certain way of life you have to live; and if you don’t live a certain way, you won’t experience God’s covenant fellowship with you. This is heresy. God gives you faith, and through faith you have all your assurance. You can’t do anything to add to or complete your assurance, but faith is assurance and confidence that you are saved and that you have covenant fellowship with God. Our particular way of life is good works, which are the fruits of our faith—fruits that come out of our assurance and confidence. We can’t merit fellowship with God because of what we do, for what can we merit? Faith is our bond with Christ, by which all his blessings are bestowed upon us; and the child of God can’t help but live in the joy of God’s fellowship. Sin interrupts it, of course, but the child of God never loses God’s fellowship. How can he lose that fellowship? The Spirit lives in him always! Who can take the Spirit out of the heart of the believer? Satan? Our flesh? That can’t be, for we know that Christ overcame the devil and our flesh. We have experience through faith alone.

Why all this emphasis on good works and something that is not fulfilled in Christ? It is so that man can creep in and have some place in his repenting and have some doing in his salvation. Protestant Reformed men take the good work of repentance; and, though they do not say the word merit, they make that good work of repenting to merit. They teach that God makes our repenting merit forgiveness, and we do not receive or consciously experience forgiveness until we repent. Again, though repentance is worked by God, this does not mean that repentance is not a good work or that we have an excuse not to repent. Though worked by God, we do repent; and it is a fruit, though men try to tell you otherwise. The Belgic Confession says in article 24 regarding our good works that they are fruits: 

These works, as they proceed from the good root of faith, are good and acceptable in the sight of God, forasmuch as they are all sanctified by His grace; howbeit they are of no account towards our justification. For it is by faith in Christ that we are justified, even before we do good works; otherwise they could not be good works, any more than the fruit of a tree can be good before the tree itself is good. (Confessions and Church Order, 53–54; emphasis added)

This section of article 24 clearly states that we are justified before we can ever do a good work. Being justified means that we are made legally righteous before God. How can a totally depraved sinner be made righteous before God? We go back to the Belgic Confession for the answer. Article 23 says in its opening sentence, “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” (Confessions and Church Order, 51). Our being legally righteous before God has to do with the remission of sins. For the child of God to be justified, his sins must be forgiven and blotted out. On the cross Christ took and bore upon himself all the sins of his people in totality. There is not one sin that we now have to repent for that was left out on the cross. Christ is a complete and perfect savior. Christ paid for and covers all of our sins. God looks down upon us in love and in mercy before we can ever repent. God forgives us because he sees us in Christ. God never looks down upon his people in wrath or anger, for all that anger and wrath was poured out upon Christ on the cross. We are not justified in time or at a certain point in our lives, but we have been completely and eternally justified.

We have been taught by our mother church that God accepts our imperfect works of repentance, obedience, and any other fruit; and by that we have experience of our salvation. The fact is, God cannot accept something that is not perfect, which means that God cannot accept any work except it is sanctified in Christ. The problem is that the PRC took those works and made it possible to have experience by them. We cannot experience God’s favor more by doing more, but good works are the fruits of having God’s favor upon us. Our works are filthy and disgusting, and the only work acceptable to God is Christ’s work. Christ is the one who gives us experience, and we have experience when we have faith. This is laid out in the Canons of Dordt 5.9–10. We cannot perform anything that will give us more experience of salvation. So what is our comfort? It is this: God, who is rich in his mercy, looks down on us as a just and faithful God and says to us, “I love you, and you are mine, and I will never leave nor forsake you.” Day after day we sin and sin; yet God is merciful, God is gracious, and God is just. This is grace upon grace.

The Belgic Confession goes on to teach that if we relied on our repenting, for example, we would have no hope or comfort in our Christian walk. Article 24 says this: 

Moreover, though we do good works, we do not found our salvation upon them; for we can do no work but what is polluted by our flesh, and also punishable; and although we could perform such works, still the remembrance of one sin is sufficient to make God reject them. Thus, then, we would always be in doubt, tossed to and fro without any certainty, and our poor consciences continually vexed, if they relied not on the merits of the suffering and death of our Savior. (Confessions and Church Order, 55)

It is impossible to find any good work, no matter how good of a work it is, as a part of our salvation. If our remission of sins relied on our repenting, then we would never do enough, much less know if we did enough repenting. In fact, we would be like Martin Luther, confessing every specific sin to God and then leaving the confessional only to walk right back in and say, “I have not repented perfectly. Lord, forgive me.” This is bondage and not how the work of repentance is manifested in the life of a Christian.

This is shown in the example of a baby. A baby has never done one good work nor repented for the sins that he has committed. God does not now work in some different way in an adult or have some different election for an adult. That would be impossible for God. For we know the doctrine of the Trinity: God is one person with one mind and one saving work. Not one person with two minds and two different saving works of election. Absolutely not.

Furthermore, with regard to election, article 16 of the Belgic Confession states that the elect have been “elected in Christ Jesus…without any respect to their works” (Confessions and Church Order, 41). God cleansed us in eternity; he forgave us in eternity; and he elected us in eternity without any of our repenting or any activity of faith. Everything was foreordained in eternity and accomplished on the cross. This means that all man’s activities are in response to what God has done. And if you think this makes man a stock and a block, then you do not know the gospel of Christ. Man can and will only ever respond to what God has done. Man without God is dead in sin and under the reign of the old man in his body; but through the cross and Christ alone, we are made new and are now no more under the bondage of sin, the law, and the old man but under grace. Under grace.

This is the gospel, the good news that leaves the child of God with unbelievable hope, peace, and comfort. Yes, there is the issued command to repent; yes, we do repent; but never do we base the obtaining of our forgiveness on that repenting, whether that means entirely or consciously/experientially. We love our repenting, and we love our good works; we just do not want to be saved by them or have them be the basis of our salvation. We now therefore don’t command God’s people to sin more so that grace may abound, and we do not tell them that it doesn’t matter if they commit sin because their sins are forgiven already. Of course not. Knowing that you have been elected does not make you desire to live like the world, nor can you, because you are elected in Christ. The gospel says, “Live freely in the gospel. Live a life of thankfulness and love for the Lord God your Father.” When the child of God hears that gospel, he will inevitably bring forth every good work because God put those works in his heart in eternity. The child of God does not hear the words “Live freely and live a life of thankfulness” as a command that he must do to be saved but as a manifestation of the working of the gospel in him and as evidence that he is saved. What a gospel that is! It is grace for grace. The works we produce, our election, our assurance—these are all of God’s grace. Then when we thank God for working that grace in us, we see God’s grace again in giving us thankfulness.

The PRC’s doctrine of obeying and repenting has been sliced and whirled together into a blended-up shake full of code words, good Reformed language, and man. You don’t even really know what exactly is being said, but when you hear it, it all sounds good and Reformed. You hear words such as cross, Christ, grace, faith, believing, God–worked, etc., as ministers think they can maneuver their way around into preaching the gospel. They think they can use good Reformed language to cover their preaching of man. In addition to this blended-up shake of false doctrine, the PRC look to have a “balanced, full-orbed gospel.” What? A balanced, full-orbed gospel? What gospel is that, which is no gospel at all? The Protestant Reformed ministers bring Christ into their sermons and proclaim him; but as soon as they do that, they pump the brakes, and in comes man and what he needs to do. By the end you will have heard a “balanced, full-orbed gospel” full of code words and Reformed language and, of course, man.

Giving man a place, even just a little place, in his experience of salvation or even in a part of his salvation is lethal. It is a doctrine that comes in like a silent, venomous virus and destroys a denomination. Satan uses this deadly virus in such a devious and slippery way that it comes unannounced and is undetected by almost any soul. Satan is on a mission to slaughter the sheep, and yet he does it so quietly that the sheep are oblivious to what is going on. He lures the sheep in by using language that the sheep hear often, which is good and lovely Reformed language, but then he puts his little twist on that Reformed doctrine. Satan adds man into the gospel: man and what he has to do to experience the favor of God; man and what he has to do to be forgiven. Satan craftily makes it sound good by saying that your obeying is all of grace and all God-worked. He makes sure his lie comes in not looking like a lie but looking like the gospel. Satan has masterfully lured in the sheep and has them suffocating spiritually by his silent, deadly virus. The sheep are dead before they even knew they were sick.

To say that man has to obey to experience the fellowship of God is blasphemy. This means that the more you obey, the more fellowship with God you have. It also means the opposite: the less you obey, the less fellowship you have with God. But obedience is a result of what God has done for you. Why do the PRC keep talking about obedience? Because they believe that sanctification is man’s work. Rather, obeying is a fruit and only a fruit of being in fellowship with God. Obeying can only ever be a fruit and the result of what Christ did on the cross. To make God’s fellowship conditional on how much you obey makes your obeying no longer a fruit but a work. A man with this belief will be constantly tossed to and fro due to the uncertainty of knowing whether he has done enough obeying. I ask someone who is entrenched in this doctrine, how are you doing in your spiritual life? Have you obeyed enough to experience more of the fellowship of God? Isaiah 64:6–7 says that even if we could “do” something, “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” Our obeying is nothing short of filthy rags; and to bring to God our filthy, bloodstained rags of obeying is utterly anathema to the most high majesty of God. We cannot so much as produce and bring to God one acceptable good work, for everything we do is polluted and tainted with sin.

The PRC have even gone so far as to permit the doctrine of a conditional covenant, though they will not use the term conditional. Reverend Key said this in a recent sermon on 1 John 4:7–11:

He [John] knew that his salvation was entirely of grace by Christ and was his through faith. 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. And specifically, the Holy Spirit accomplishes that work and brings it to expression in us and through us. He brings to expression in us and through us that radiation of divine love by the use of means. God brings to completion his sovereign work in us by the use of commands.⁶

Reverend Key corrupted the doctrine of the covenant. The establishment, maintenance, perfection, and enjoyment of the covenant are all gifts from God. God has a unilateral covenant. It is one-sided and all of God. The covenant never is nor can be bilateral. But to Reverend Key and the PRC, the enjoyment of the covenant is dependent on what man does in his life. They make the covenant bilateral. They put you under bondage by harping on the fact that if you do not live a particular way of life, you will not experience God’s fellowship. They make God’s fellowship a potential with this doctrine.

But it is an impossibility that the child of God does not live in fellowship with God. The life of the child of God is inevitably a life of good works. Through faith we know and experience our fellowship with God. And faith’s object is always Christ. The confessions beautifully teach us that our election will bring us fellowship and the experience of it before we even do a good work because faith is a certain knowledge and an assured confidence. Isn’t that true? You grow up and know God’s forgiveness, and you know God’s drawing you to repentance. That is because of election theology, which is gone in the PRC. Canons 1.7 reads,

This elect number, though by nature neither better nor more deserving than others, but with them involved in one common misery, God hath decreed to give to Christ, to be saved by Him, and effectually to call and draw them to His communion by His Word and Spirit, to bestow upon them true faith, justification, and sanctification; and having powerfully preserved them in the fellowship of His Son, finally to glorify them for the demonstration of His mercy and for the praise of His glorious grace. (Confessions and Church Order, 156)

We are irresistibly called by God’s grace and given all the benefits of salvation. In question and answer 31 of the Heidelberg Catechism, we read that Christ preserves us in “the enjoyment of” our salvation (Confessions and Church Order, 96). The Catechism makes it so clear that when we are elected we have “the enjoyment of” all the benefits of salvation. The life of fellowship with God is the great blessing of being members of God’s covenant. Those who are elected are brought into the covenant and never leave it. Your sins cannot take you out of the covenant. God still loves you when you are sinning all day long. Isn’t that the most amazing and gracious thing? That is God’s promise to his people throughout scripture. Being in the covenant means we never lose God’s fellowship with us, nor do we do anything to experience it, for we already experience God’s fellowship with us. Though sin interrupts that fellowship, we as God’s people can never lose it. That is impossible. We experience God’s fellowship with us by faith alone in Christ alone. Through faith we are given all the blessings of salvation on account of what Christ has done for us. Our particular way of life is thankfulness to God, and that thankful living is the fruit of being in fellowship with God.

And here is the biggest difference for me between the RPC and the PRC. In the PRC you have to work to get something or feel something from God, whether it be his favor (because you are told you don’t always have it) or whether it be assurance or peace (because you are told you can’t just have that as a free gift; you must do something). No! The glorious truth of thankfulness has been restored. Stop working! Salvation, and the blessings of salvation, is finished! Rest in Christ’s work! There is freedom; there is joy. It seems, as they say, “too good to be true.” That is the good news of the gospel. The whole life of the elect child of God is a life of fruits. The “good” that a child of God does never benefits him or gains him anything but is the result of what God has done and works in him.

I urge the members of the PRC to get out from this bondage. Leave Babylon and the yoke that she places upon you. Come hear the gospel of Jesus Christ! Be freed and liberated in the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ that he has done it all and there is nothing left for you to do unto salvation.

I write this article not out of pride, nor do I write this thinking that I am better than anyone. I am the chief of sinners and completely deserving of hell. I write this article out of love for those in the PRC and with great thankfulness to God for opening my eyes when I am so undeserving. I love my mother church, and I love the members there, but I hate the doctrine that she promotes and defends. I have sorrow over those who are in the PRC and hear from Sunday to Sunday that Christ is not enough and that there is still something man has to do to experience God’s favor. I have sorrow over those members because of the great and glorious joy I have in hearing the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I have joy in hearing that all of my sins are forgiven and that no matter what I do, I cannot lose the favor of God. I may lose the sense of God’s favor when I sin; but I can never, no matter how unfaithful I am, lose that favor. I now know that this does not make me careless and profane, but it makes me willing and wanting to serve Christ. I have joy in hearing that Christ is my all in all and that I do not add anything to my salvation. I have joy in knowing that I do not work to experience God’s favor but that I already have it through faith. There is no greater joy than to hear the gospel and to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Look to Christ for your salvation and for your hope, for he alone has the words of eternal life.

“Peace if possible; truth at all costs.”—Martin Luther