Introduction

This article was originally a doctrine class given for the instruction of the members of First Reformed Protestant Church. The intent of the class was to give instruction regarding the preaching of the gospel and how it carries out the eternal will of God, to address the charges that have come against the preaching, and to explain the reality of the rejection of the gospel. The occasion for the class was the doctrinal controversy that had troubled First church for the better part of a year, which controversy culminated in schism, men’s rejecting the gospel, and half of the congregation leaving the Reformed Protestant denomination. Through this all the Lord preserved his church by his Word and Spirit against the fair words and vain speeches of ungodly men.

As I considered all the objections and opposition that the church has faced, there was one unifying subject: All the opposition centered around the preaching of the gospel. The word of God has gone out of God’s mouth from Sunday to Sunday in First Reformed Protestant Church, but those who opposed that word attempted to make the pulpit ineffective and to diminish the message of Jesus Christ from his ambassador. There were attempts to sow doubt and foment rebellion against that word. Lest anyone think that I am interested in defending my name and reputation, I am not. This ultimately has nothing to do with me. My name is already mud, and men revile it. They cast it out as an evil thing. Blessed are you when men shall revile you and say all manner of evil against you falsely. But the attacks moved from the irrelevant sphere of my name and reputation into a rejection of Christ and his gospel. If the attacks remained solely against my person, then we would have no need for this doctrine class.

It is the preaching of the gospel against which man rages and which word never returns to God empty. It is the preaching of the gospel that is a savor of life unto life and a savor of death unto death. It is into the sphere of the gospel wherein men had been brought and from which they turned away, of whom God says that it is impossible to renew to repentance. The preaching of the gospel always accomplishes God’s eternal purpose of gathering the elect and hardening the unbelieving and reprobate, especially in the sphere of the covenant.

Cain and Abel were both in the sphere of the covenant. They were both in the church. They were brought up in the same home, heard the same word, and had the same parents. You could say that they went to the same church, school, and catechism classes. They both heard the word of the gospel that God had delivered to Adam and Eve in the garden. One believed, and the other did not. Abel was elect, and he received that word of promise and believed in the bloody Lamb that was slain for the remission of sins. Cain was reprobate, and he brought to God of the fruit of the ground, his own works. And Cain slew Abel, seeing that Abel’s works were righteous. God’s elect are appointed to believe, and the rest believe not because they are not of Christ’s sheep.

The only scriptural explanation that the word of God gives for why men left the Reformed Protestant Churches is election and reprobation as both are carried out by the preaching of the gospel. Does that mean that I am calling this man or that man reprobate? or judging a man’s eternal destination? No. A believer can walk in a lie for a time. I do not doubt that at all. The believer has a flesh in which unbelief, carnality, and rebellion sit in the closest proximity to the new man in Christ. The believer can fall lamentably as David and Peter did and lose a sense of God’s favor for a time. The believer can live in that unbelief and carnality until the Holy Spirit renews him. God, who is rich in mercy, according to his unchangeable purpose of election, never wholly withdraws his Spirit. God preserves in his people the incorruptible seed of regeneration, and by his Word and Spirit, he effectually renews them to repentance. But they will be renewed. They will repent. Should they not be renewed, they will perish in their sins, revealing that they were never of God’s sheep. All of the opposition we faced centered around the preaching of the gospel, which carries out God’s eternal will. Always there is a twofold effect.

The Idea of This

What is the gospel? It is important to define terms. It has been alleged that we do not know what the gospel is and that we have some fictitious opinions about it. Negatively, the gospel is not about you. It is not about your working or efforts. It is not even about what you do by God’s grace. This is the definition: The gospel is the good news or glad tidings of salvation in Jesus Christ. God delivered that good news in Genesis 3:15 to trembling Adam and Eve in the garden. God gave his promise that he eternally conceived of, spoke, and realized there. The gospel is one thing: Jesus Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:23).

Therefore, the content of the gospel is the promise. God’s promise is that eternal decree of God whereby he swore by his own name, for he could swear by no greater. He promised to save his people from their sins. His promise is his holy oath. As God, he is powerful and almighty to realize his word of promise. Jesus Christ as the way of salvation for damnworthy sinners who are fallen hopelessly in sin is the good news. Jesus Christ is the promise of God. All the promises of God are yes and amen in him. All throughout the Old Testament, God further elucidated that promise. That promise was of an eternal king with an eternal kingdom. That promise was of the mediator who reconciled man to God. By promise God would establish his covenant between himself and his people in Christ.

Sometimes scripture speaks not of a singular promise but of plural promises. When scripture does that, it is teaching the richness and depth of the promise. First, the promise is Christ for you. I mean that Jesus Christ, as the historical realization of the gospel, came to this earth on behalf of his people for the purpose of saving his people. Christ came in your flesh as very God and very man, united in the one person of the Son of God. Christ came under the law and was made a curse for you. Christ came while you were yet God’s enemies and reconciled you to God. Christ lived a life unto God the Father in which Christ perfectly loved God and was consecrated to the glory of God’s name. Christ saved you from your sins, accomplished your righteousness, merited eternal life, warred against sin, and earned a perfect victory. All salvation is finished in him. Salvation is wrapped up in the person, natures, words, and works of Jesus Christ.

The promise is also Christ in you. I mean that Jesus Christ, as he ascended into heaven, received the Holy Spirit, and Christ poured out his Spirit upon the church, so that his church receives all the riches that are in Christ. This is the clear teaching of scripture in Acts 2:39: “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Scripture simply equates the reception of the Holy Spirit and the promise. Christ in you is regeneration, calling, faith, conversion, justification, and sanctification. Those are the riches that are in Christ that come into your possession when you receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. When you receive those blessings of God, you have received the promise. The promise therefore does not include merely the objective accomplishment of your salvation, but the promise also includes the conscious experience of your salvation. It includes the application of salvation to the elect sinner. That is the realization of the promise in you.

It has been charged that the Reformed Protestant Churches do not preach sanctification. But the Reformed Protestant Churches preach sanctification properly. The charge stems from the idea that in sanctification we are no longer talking about what Christ did, but we are talking about what man must do. The issue for those who make this charge is that we preach that man does not have a part in his sanctification whereby he gains something with God by his works, and we ascribe the blessing of sanctification exclusively to God. God in Jesus Christ through the Spirit breaks the power and dominion of sin in you and renews you according to the image of Christ. Sanctification is a work of God on your condition. All the believer’s good works and acts of obedience remain strictly fruit. The Reformed Protestant Churches do not deny sanctification, but we preach that God sanctifies his people and that sanctification remains entirely outside the will and working of the sinner. Sanctification is a blessing of God that he gives when he realizes his promise in you. He makes you a holy people, the fruit of which is that you walk in all the good works that God has eternally determined.

The gospel of promise must be preached. The prophets, apostles, evangelists, and ministers are heralds or ambassadors of that good news of the promise. They bring a message from the king to his people. The preachers do not bring their own messages or wisdom, but they bring what God has revealed—nothing more and nothing less. The message is simple: Jesus Christ crucified. In that message God reveals his profound love for his people and unfolds his eternal mystery of salvation for the salvation of his people that he has chosen in love.

The preaching is the official, authoritative proclamation of the gospel by the instituted church through her officebearers in the service of the word of God through Christ. The preaching stands in the service of the word alone. Such preaching is carried out officially in the church through her ministers whom she calls and sends. The preaching is not merely about Christ, but Christ himself comes and preaches to his church. The preaching is not merely a message concerning Christ, but Christ comes to deliver his message. Christ’s voice is the only voice ever heard in his church. The preaching does not come from the will of man. Christ preaches in his church with authority. He says, “This must be believed; this must be rejected.”

God is pleased to use the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). The preaching is the wisdom of God. Man says about the preaching, “It is foolish.” Man counts it ridiculous. Man sees only a man. Man hears only a man. Man decides that he can take or leave the preaching. If a man likes what he hears, he says that it was Christ speaking. If a man does not like what he hears, he says that it was only a man speaking and dismisses the word. But the foolishness of preaching is God’s wisdom.

The preaching when it comes in the church authoritatively and officially is not at all the word of man. “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1 Thess. 2:13). The preaching is not inspired, of course. That is not the meaning of the text. Neither is it that every word of every sermon is perfect. But it means when that word is expounded, taught, and applied faithfully, then it is God’s word to his church at that particular time. This text is conclusive for the truth of applications in sermons. At best there has been some resistance to the applications made in the preaching at First church; at worst the applications have been rejected as the word of man. The fact is that if the application flows out of the text and is applied to the congregation, that application is God’s word too, and it may not be rejected. That application is the word of God to the congregation.

I cannot explain the depth of 1 Thessalonians 2:13. How is it that the minister prepares all week in his study and when he walks up to the pulpit on Sunday, the Spirit uses that man as an instrument to feed both the minister and the congregation? When I started preaching regularly while in seminary, I asked myself the question, “How am I going to be fed?” I prepared all week. I knew what was coming. I knew the text. That is part of the deep mystery of the preaching. It is not just for the congregation. The minister has to be strengthened and fed too. He has to be built up by the Spirit of Christ. Often the minister goes to the pulpit totally empty after being battle-bruised and weary from a long week of fighting against his own sin, the devil, and the world. And God fills him up. We are so carnal, and always our flesh wants to make the preaching a carnal thing. We see Reverend so-and-so, and we do not like how he said this or how he did that. It is very easy to criticize the preaching if we view it carnally. But the preaching of the gospel is the very word of God and not the word of man.

The gospel is also that God took you into his covenant fellowship in Jesus Christ. The covenant is the spontaneous relationship of fellowship and friendship in Jesus Christ. All of Christ’s work is for the purpose that you might have and experience fellowship with God. Christ brings you to the Father. Christ is the new and living way through the veil into the holy of holies and the presence of God. Christ’s name Emmanuel, meaning God with us, is a covenantal name. In Christ as your head, on the basis of his work as mediator of the covenant, he reconciled you to God. That is the gospel of your salvation. To be made a member of the covenant means that you have received salvation. The end or the goal of all things is the covenant, in which God will dwell with his people eternally.

The negative aspect of the covenant is enmity, or the antithesis. God made you his friends and therefore also made you enemies with the world. The gospel is also the preaching of the antithesis. God put enmity between you and the world, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Warfare results from the enmity that God placed. Jesus Christ warred on your behalf against his and your enemies. After I spoke at the Reformed Believers Publishing annual meeting this past October, there was a low murmur that my speech was not the gospel. Something supposedly was missing from that speech. Apparently I was supposed to say, “Jesus Christ fulfilled the antithesis.” But the charge that my speech was not the gospel is not true; that God made you his friends and therefore enemies of the world is the gospel. That has been determined in eternity and was established at the word of the cross. The cross of Christ was the culmination of his warring against your enemies: sin, death, your flesh, the devil, the grave, and the lie. Christ went down into the pit of hell for your salvation. And he came out of the grave utterly victorious when God raised him. Christ accomplished your warfare and pardoned all your sins.

However, the negative response to my speech led to the positive development of the antithesis in my theology. That response drove me to the word of God and the confessions. One particular aspect of development was the calling of the antithesis as it flowed out of the gospel of the antithesis. That calling was developed in the closest connection with the third doctrinal section of the Reformed baptism form. The baptism form is an incredible form. You can test all a man’s doctrine against that form. The third section speaks of our part in the covenant. It does not speak of us being a party with God. There is only one party, and that is God’s party. But our part in the covenant is the life of good works and thankfulness that God gives to his people. Still, this part is not about you, but it is about God and what he works in and through you. God works in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. It is a privilege that God gives to you a part in the covenant. It is impossible that one who is justified by faith alone and united to Jesus Christ does not bring forth fruit. For Christ is the living vine, and we are the branches, and his life flows through us.

Both the positive and the negative of the covenant and the antithesis are expressed in the baptism form. We are admonished of and obliged unto new obedience. We are exhorted and commanded positively to cleave to God; to trust in him; to love him with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength; and to walk in a new and holy life. We live lives consecrated unto God. We live lives of good works, which are done according to the law of God, out of a true faith, and to the glory of God. That is our part. We are called to that part, being made friends of God in the world and standing as his friend-servants.

Negatively, the baptism form commands and exhorts that we forsake the world and crucify our old natures. First, I briefly note that repentance is found here in the third part of the form as a fruit of faith. Crucifying the old nature is repentance. Second, that exhortation to forsake the world is the calling, demand, and command of the antithesis. We are called to forsake the world of sin, apostate Christianity, and friends and family who live in unbelief. Exclusive rebukism is a made-up term that men are trying to place in our mouths. I think that they could have found something that rolled off the tongue better. Regardless, they must grapple with the third section of the baptism form and attempt to wedge their man-centered theology into it that allows them to live entirely how they want. The believer always, in every sphere of his life, is a servant of his sovereign friend. His sovereign friend is holy. The lie is profane and unholy. If a believer’s friends and family hold to a lie, they are the unfruitful works of darkness. The calling is to have no fellowship with them but to reprove (bring to light and expose) the darkness by the light. That is the clear word of God in Ephesians 5:11. Let the opponents of our doctrine wrestle with that text. There is room for sanctified wisdom in what manner the word of God is to be brought by the believer. Do not use that as an excuse to put away God’s word, but God reveals in the circumstances surrounding one’s relationship if positive instruction can be brought or if a sharp reproof and a call to repentance are necessary. The circumstances may vary, but the calling remains the same. And never is the relationship itself the end or goal but God’s glory.

The preaching of the gospel carries out God’s eternal will of election and reprobation. Canons of Dordt 1.8 is the Reformed confession’s teaching on election. Election determines not only who God’s people are but also the content of what God bestows upon them. They are elect; therefore, God draws them into his covenant and gives to them life. He gives to the elect the riches that are in Jesus Christ, and God saves the elect for the demonstration of his mercy and the praise of his glorious grace.

Canons 1.15 is the Reformed confession’s teaching on reprobation. Reprobation is the definite appointment of certain persons to destruction. It is a pity that we have a poor translation of article 15. We have the carryover translation of the Reformed Church in America. The article in its present reading smacks of single predestination. In the original, however, the article is strong on double predestination. God does not reprobate men by simply passing them over. He eternally damned them, and his wrath eternally stood on them. They only ever perish in the world. On the ground of man’s sin and unbelief of the gospel, God sends them to hell. God loved Jacob, and God hated Esau before either did good or evil. 

The gospel carries out that eternal decree of double predestination. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to those who believe (Rom. 1:16). The main point of the apostle Paul in Romans 1:16 is that the gospel is the power of God. Because it is a power, the apostle was unashamed of it and was ready to preach it in Rome. Power is the ability to accomplish some purpose. The gospel is the power of God to accomplish his purpose to save his elect people. The salvation the apostle has in view is the justification of ungodly, elect sinners. God sends the gospel whithersoever he wills for the purpose of his eternal will for the salvation of his people. Implied in that the gospel is a power of God unto salvation is the truth that the gospel is also the power of God unto the damnation of the reprobate.

Both election and reprobation glorify God. That is made explicit in 2 Corinthians 2:14–17:

14. Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

15. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:

16. To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?

17. For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.

The word of the gospel comes to God’s elect, and it is a savor of life unto life. The same word of the gospel comes to the reprobate, and it is savor of death unto death.

Before God man is nothing but a festering, putrid, stinking object. Man is not sweet and savory, but he is disgusting to God and is a wretched smell that wafts up to God’s nostrils. But then comes the sweet savor of Christ. Christ is a savor infinitely sweeter than the sweetness of Adam in the garden. That is because in and through Christ there is the knowledge of God. Christ knows God. Christ declares God. Christ exegetes God to us. Through Christ the believer knows how indescribably lovely and good God is in the sending of his Son to hell for you. Is there anything sweeter than that? We have that knowledge of God only through the revelation of himself in Jesus Christ.

The savor is in those who perish and in those who are saved. Both are facts. Men are perishing, and men are being saved. There are men and women who through the gospel come into the closest contact with the sweet savor, Jesus Christ, with the only result being that they become deader than they were before. The truth of the matter is that the sweeter the thing you give to the wicked, the more wicked he becomes. Christ with all his divine and heavenly flavor works death unto the reprobate. That is the way it has been all throughout history, and that is the way it is now. But in those who are saved, Christ is the sweet savor of life unto life. The elect child comes to church alive in the Lord, and hearing the gospel, tasting that the Lord is gracious, he leaves church more alive in Christ. In those who are perishing, in those who are being saved—in both the word of the gospel through the apostle is a sweet savor.

That word of the gospel is a savor unto God, which means that the twofold effect is pleasing to him as the realization of his eternal will. We like to present the matter as if someone can be neutral over against the gospel. With every sermon that is preached, two things infallibly are happening. The elect child of God increases a little more in the knowledge of God, and the reprobate man perishes a little more. And the sweet savor of Christ, whether it kills or whether it quickens, is always a sweet savor unto God. It is as such because it always accomplishes God’s will.

You hear in 2 Corinthians 2:14–17 an echo of Isaiah 55:11: “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Isaiah told Israel that the word of God never returns unto him void. The word that goes forth in the preaching of the gospel comes out of God’s mouth—not a man’s mouth—and that word never returns to God void or empty. The word of God goes forth either unto hardening or to making tender. Every word God speaks accomplishes his eternal good pleasure of election and reprobation. No man has a neutral reaction to the gospel. Man either believes it or rejects it. And that response of man is the direct result of God’s eternal will. But either way the gospel shall prosper in the thing whereto God sent it. That is the comfort for the poor preacher. He is killed and abused for Christ’s sake. Men hate Christ, and they hate the preachers for preaching Christ. The deepest reason for that hatred is that they hate God. For all things are unto God, and he is the ultimate end of all things, both in heaven and in hell.

Men are called and separated unto the gospel to preach it. As far as the preacher is concerned, he would like to be a savor of life unto life to his whole congregation. Not one preacher enjoys being a savor of death unto death. But the minister bows his head to God’s will, brings the word of God, and spreads the savor of the knowledge of God in Christ. For the minister knows that God will prosper the word, realizing his purpose and accomplishing his eternal will, for the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It is a sweet savor of life unto life and a sweet savor of death unto death.

Lastly regarding the preaching of the gospel, the preaching of the gospel opens and shuts the kingdom of heaven as one of the keys of the kingdom. In the matter of the keys, we tend to underestimate the preaching and to overestimate discipline. The kingdom of heaven is opened and shut not only by Christian discipline but by the preaching of the gospel too. The gospel is declared and publicly testified to every believer, that whenever he receives the promise of the gospel by a true faith, all his sins are really forgiven him of God for Christ’s sake. Christ comes through his church and opens to his people the kingdom of heaven. He throws open the gates of heaven.

On the contrary, it is declared and publicly testified to every unbeliever and such as do not sincerely repent that they stand exposed to the wrath of God and eternal condemnation, so long as they are unconverted. The preaching of the gospel, which pierces through man, does what Christian discipline often cannot do. Man often can maintain just enough religious piety to escape the formal discipline of the church, but he cannot escape the discipline of the preaching of the word of God. God himself exposes hypocrites in the church through the preaching.

There is an objection to this truth of the preaching that goes like this: “You may not pray Psalm 59:13, that God might consume our enemies in his wrath. God’s wrath is only on the reprobate. Therefore, you are calling me and everyone outside the Reformed Protestant Churches reprobate. You as a shepherd must only pray for our repentance.” The objectors must grapple with God’s word throughout the psalms and with Lord’s Day 31, which, answering how the kingdom of heaven is opened and shut by the preaching of the gospel, states that those who do not believe that gospel “stand exposed to the wrath of God and eternal condemnation, so long as they are unconverted” (Confessions and Church Order, 118). The reality is that God’s word came to men, and they rejected it. My word and your word as a church is that all who have left us stand exposed to God’s wrath and to eternal condemnation for their wicked sin of schism in attempting to divide the body of Christ here in this place and destroying in God’s house. They left a true church of Jesus Christ. You simply cannot hedge and make excuses for them. Do not take away from what God’s word clearly reveals. If you believe that this congregation is a true church and that the pure gospel is preached here according to scripture and the confessions, then all who have left us God has set outside the kingdom of heaven, and they stand exposed to the wrath of God.

Slanderous Charges Refuted

There are slanderous charges centering around the preaching of the gospel. The first is that the preaching is comfortless. Comfort is the knowledge and assurance of a great good that stands antithetically over against a great evil. Comfort is a good so great that it affords the one who possesses it unspeakable joy and peace. Comfort is a good so great that it overcomes the evil. Comfort is a good so great that the evil stands in the service of the good. The result of possessing this great good is that a man can bear evil happily.

Christ comes and speaks in his church to war against the lie and against sin, and that is comfort for God’s people. The evil in the congregation needed to be brought into the light. The light needed to shine on that darkness. The gospel stands at the center of that. Christ shone the light of his truth against the wickedness of man. Christ came for the sake of the truth, for he is truth. You as God’s people are engaged in a mighty conflict. Christ comes to tell you that you have the victory. And to encourage and strengthen you in the spiritual battle, Christ comes to arm you for that warfare.

Men did not like that warring and denied the reality that the church was engaged in spiritual warfare. They did not like the sharp sermons and the applications. They wanted the pulpit to shut up about the controversy that our church was facing, and they began slandering the preaching as comfortless.

The next charge is that the pulpit is abusive. The preaching made men nothing. It was especially in the sermon “The Carnal Church” that the word of God came and was applied in the sharpest possible way. God in that sermon said that the congregation was carnal and babyish. Many received that word and loved it. They rejoiced in Jesus Christ as their perfect savior over against their nothingness. Some bristled and railed against that word, claiming that they were not carnal or babyish. They would not allow Christ to make them nothing.

Also, when the law is strictly preached, it makes you nothing. The law serves the gospel in that way. The law serves the gospel in emptying you, showing you more and more your sinful nature, and driving you to Christ for righteousness by faith alone. Properly preached, the law empties you of all your piety, works, and religiousness. You and I must be made nothing. In Galatians the law is called a schoolmaster, and it is not a kind one, but it is cruel. That is the first use of the law. It is not supposed to make you feel good. It is supposed to empty you. But if man thinks he is something, and the law comes and makes him nothing, then man will cry out that the preaching is abusive.

I imagine the charge of the preaching being abusive also centers around tone and manner. “The minister did not say things in a nice or pleasant way. The minister was ranting. His tone was not what I wanted. His manner was poor.” My tone and manner, however, are not the standard of my preaching. My tone and manner do not drive away the sheep. The truth cannot ever drive away the sheep. The Lord did not make me a nice, pleasant man on the pulpit. He made me a fiery preacher. All my vehemence is for the truth of God and against the lie that opposes Christ. Do not mistake the minister’s vehemence for anger. I do not preach angry. I testify here and now that I am happy and content with God’s will. Yet with every sermon I preach with urgency, concerned with the eternal destination of your souls.

The third charge is that the sermons are Christless. I do not have much to say here. The pulpit preached Jesus Christ crucified as the only way of salvation. There was never a sermon without Jesus Christ. Neither was anything you do made the way unto a blessing or fellowship. Nor did I create a law regarding the calling of the antithesis, but I grounded it firmly in the law starting at Lord’s Day 33 on true conversion all the way to Lord’s Day 44.

However, I understand the charge this way. The minister in the preaching did not meet some checklist that men had in their minds. The minister has to say this thing, that thing, and the other thing; then it is the gospel. I have to hear these special words, or it is not the gospel. In the case of the antithesis, the magic words were that Jesus Christ fulfilled the antithesis. And then that was supposed to release men and women from the calling to be at war; they could go and socialize with the world without ever bringing God’s word to bear on sin, and they did not have to feel guilty. The gospel declared in the preaching that God is everything and man is nothing. I never preached anything different than that. Those who make the charge that the preaching is Christless did not hear in the preaching the Christ they wanted and desired. They wanted a nice Christ and not the Christ of the scriptures.

The final charge against the preaching is that the preaching is Spiritless. The charge is that because I use material from The Triple Knowledge and from sermons by Rev. Herman Hoeksema and Rev. Nathan Langerak, I am Spiritless, and thus there is no gospel preached at First Reformed Protestant Church.

This charge of plagiarism—theft—is proof to me of carnality in how men view the preaching of the gospel and the word of God. They view it as some earthly good to be appropriated and stolen from the neighbor for earthly gain. The Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 42 speaks of God’s gifts and earthly possessions and that we do not take them for ourselves in hatred of the neighbor for God’s sake. In the gospel a man is not speaking, but it is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. When I listen to Hoeksema and Langerak, I am not hearing the man but the Spirit of Christ. I hear the truth, which cannot be stolen.

This action on the part of the minister is legitimate. First, 2 Timothy 1:13 teaches, “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” This was the apostle Paul’s instruction to his spiritual son Timothy: to hold fast the form of sound words. “The form of sound words” first means the doctrine that Paul taught Timothy. But second, it means the very expressions, words, and phrases that Paul used. Sound doctrine has a form, or literally it has a pattern or a copy. That form itself is passed down. How the sound words are even spoken is passed down. I do not have to come with a new definition of justification. I simply take what Reverend Hoeksema wrote in Reformed Dogmatics. I do not need a new definition of faith, but I take what was taught to me in seminary.

The apostle continues, “Which thou hast heard of me.” Timothy was to learn from the apostle’s mouth, and this refers to the entirety of the sermons and lessons that Paul preached and taught. Timothy learned from Paul by listening to him preach, and Timothy preached that himself. And Paul adds “in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” The very act of Timothy’s teaching what he had heard from Paul was in love for the flock and for Jesus Christ. Timothy taught to the congregation what Paul had taught him. To hear the truth, to have the truth deposited in you, to believe that truth, and to teach it that way to God’s people are acts of faith and love. And Timothy was to “hold fast” and not to depart from the pattern, system, and form of Paul’s instruction.

Second, 2 Timothy 2:2, the classic text for seminary instruction, says, “The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men.” Again, what Timothy heard from Paul, he was to teach—not only the doctrine but the form and phrases of the doctrine. What Timothy preached and committed to others was the “same,” even the same form, that he had heard and received from the apostle. Timothy did not speak anything different. The truth never changes.

The inspired writers of the New Testament took extensively from the Old Testament. The apostles were taught by Jesus Christ himself. Timothy learned everything he knew from Paul. Calvin took his theology from Augustine. Hoeksema took his theology from Calvin and Kuyper. Reverend Langerak took his theology from Hoeksema and Engelsma. The theology that I have learned and am still learning is taken from Reverend Hoeksema and Reverend Langerak. I do not preach anything new and novel. The truth has not changed. This charge of sin cuts the minister off from the church of all ages and is a rejection that the Spirit leads the church into all truth. The truth is simply deposited and passed down from age to age to the next generation. The very work that I am doing is the work demanded of me as a theologian and preacher to take the truth and bring it a higher state of development. In order to develop it, I first have to fully grasp it.

Paul adds “among many witnesses.” Those witnesses, when they heard Timothy preach, would have heard the same things that Paul preached. They would have said, “Timothy’s doctrine and the form of his doctrine is the same as Paul’s.” And the congregation would have rejoiced that there was nothing new and novel in Timothy’s preaching but that God had deposited in Timothy the same doctrine and form of doctrine as Paul’s through the teaching of Paul as spiritual father and Timothy as spiritual son.

Lastly, 2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” All that I have explained does not preclude “rightly dividing the word.” The word has to be divided and cut up and fed to the congregation, so that they understand it. The word has to be put in a form such that the congregation can grasp the concepts and be fed that nourishment of the gospel. Nothing at all is taken away from the spiritual science of biblical interpretation whatsoever. The minister puts in the time and energy exegeting the word of God and drawing out the Spirit’s sense and meaning in a text. The exegete applies and uses the spiritual-grammatical-historical method of interpretation in his labor to draw out and cut up the meat, so that the congregation can feed on Jesus Christ. And the text says “unto God.” The minister ultimately stands before God in all his labors, depending upon him and waiting upon him. The minister listens to the Spirit, waits upon the Spirit, and meditates in prayer and throughout the day on the text.

Practically now, the fact is that in his first few years as a minister preaching through the Heidelberg Catechism, the minister preaches The Triple Knowledge and develops and applies what he reads to what the church is facing. He begins to develop and expand. That is right and proper. The minister is learning on the job how to teach. It is not realistic for a minister on day one to simply open the Bible and craft masterful sermons. He has to learn what to look for and how to exegete.

Proving to you that this is not new or novel, in an interview with the editor of the Beacon Lights, Rev. Bernard Woudenberg said,

[Prof. Herman] Hanko was a year ahead [of me in seminary]. So we made our first sermons, and in January we preached in Oak Lawn. A few weeks later, HH [Herman Hoeksema] said to us, “Each of you has to go to Hull for six weeks. Who’s going first? (laughter). We said, “We only have two sermons!” So he went to his file cabinet and started digging around. “You can use this one, you can use that one, no, better not use that one, use this one.” So we went away with a pile of his sermons.¹

Woudenberg continued by saying that it was their first year, and they had little seminary instruction. I also had two years in seminary and was sent out. I have to learn, grow, develop, and study the speaking of the Spirit in the preaching. Our fathers rejoiced and freely acknowledged that they continued in and built upon the foundation of their fathers. They were not ashamed of their instruction and openly acknowledged their reliance upon it. This charge of taking material from my spiritual fathers in my own preaching is an attack on the gospel by attempting to make the sermons a lie, and therefore a word that man does not have to listen to and can depart from.

The Living Reality

The living reality of all these charges is that men hated the preaching. They hated the sermon preached on October 20, 2024, titled “The Carnal Church.” They hated the word of God as it came in the pulpit of First Reformed Protestant Church and in the denomination. They were determined to make that message ineffective, sow discontent with the ministers, and snatch the word away in the back of church and in their gatherings.

Hebrews 6:4–8 is a sobering passage in the word of God that we do well to note. How do we explain this text? The text speaks of men who were once enlightened, that is, they received the light of the gospel. Intellectually they understood the truth of the word of God. They apprehended its importance. They even tasted of the heavenly gift—not that they possessed it, but they tasted it. These men were partakers of the Holy Ghost. Still more, they tasted the good word of God. The word of God, which is good because of the blessed promise of eternal life. They tasted the powers of the world to come, that is, the glorious kingdom in which Christ is Lord and in which all his people reign with him over all things. The text therefore does not speak of true believers, but it speaks of men in the church of Jesus Christ who have come very near the kingdom of God, have apprehended intellectually the kingdom of God and its blessings, and have tasted of the powers of salvation without ever having a spiritual part in the kingdom.

That this is true is evident from the rest of the text, which says that after these men have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance. Spiritually, this means that it is impossible to make a new man out of an old man, to change the natural man into a spiritual man, to change an unbeliever into a believer, and to change the unregenerate into the regenerated Christian. The text says that it is impossible for those men to be renewed again unto repentance.

The text does not mean to say that these men were true, converted believers, and now they are not. But the inspired writer has in mind their former state as they appeared in the church. They were members of the church. They made grand confessions. They brought meals. They spoke the same language of faith. Yet they only ever had an outward show of repentance. And now they have definitely fallen away even from that outward show. They have become unbelievers. They have become part of the antichristian kingdom. They have become wicked outwardly now too. The text says that it is impossible to renew again unto repentance those who so fall away from their apparent former membership in the body of Christ.

The case of these men therefore is hopeless. Their falling away is final. They can never return. It is impossible for man because man cannot bring himself to repentance. It is impossible for God, not because he is not powerful but because he is not willing. They have become manifest as reprobates. Therefore, reprobation is the deepest cause of both their falling away and the impossibility of bringing them again to repentance.

For God’s elect, God’s people never come so close to the kingdom and then fall away deeply and hopelessly. The elect can never fall away. Only the reprobate—in order that they become manifest as profane—are ever placed in such a relationship with the church and the kingdom of heaven. And then God actually makes them manifest as antichristian. Verse six says that they crucify Christ afresh. They despise Christ and treat him as a criminal. They round Christ up and set him again before earthly judges to try him, which is what men are doing right now. They blaspheme Christ and his gospel. They put Christ to an open shame. They take part with the enemies of Christ.

The writer of the text gives an illustration in verses 7 and 8 of a field. If no rain came upon the ground, then neither the good seed nor the thorns and briars would ever become manifest. But through the rain—the word of the gospel—the good seed is manifest as the good crop, and the bad seed is manifest as thorns and briars. For the wicked that rain is a savor of death unto death, and for God’s elect it is a savor of life unto life. That is the sobering exegesis of Hebrews 6 for the church of Jesus Christ. That is the explanation of those who reject the preaching of the gospel.²

And so the question must be asked. Why are you here? Why did you stay? Why have you not gone away like the others? Why do you not also depart? Will ye not also go away?

60. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this [Jesus’ teachings to the Jews in the synagogue that unless you eat and drink him, you have no life in you], said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?

61. When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?

62. What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

63. It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

64. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

65. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

66. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

67. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

68. Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

69. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. (John 6:60–69)

You are not here because of something in you. It is not due to your will, intellect, or abilities. Your flesh hates the truth. Your flesh hates the gospel and Jesus Christ. Your flesh squirms at the hard words that it deems offensive. The only reason you are here is that you were given to Jesus Christ by the Father in election. You were appointed to believe the gospel. God loved you, and the fruit of his love for you is that you love him. You hear Christ and see the power of the Spirit. And you rejoice in the preaching of the gospel and its twofold effect.