Introduction

The title of this article is the title of a lecture given in 1951 upon the request of the board for the Society of Protestant Reformed Men for Action.¹

I found this speech by Rev. Herman Hoeksema to be pertinent, reformational, and beautiful. I extend this review of his lecture to draw attention to the theology of Hoeksema regarding the promise and the relationship of the promise to the law and to faith in the old dispensation. This lecture, based on the teaching of Galatians 3, provides us with a biblical and creedal template whereby to judge each teaching, the preaching, and our own thinking to see whether they be of gospel or law. Just as Paul combatted the false doctrine of obedience to the law unto salvation in the epistle to the Galatians, so Hoeksema’s teaching sets forth the gospel promise of God so brightly that the law-preaching of his day—that the promise was conditioned on the act of believing (activity of faith)—was exposed and laid bare beside his teaching.

We combat the same error today in the form that the Christian must keep the law unto the experience of his salvation. By making the unnecessary distinction between objective and subjective, between salvation and
the experience of salvation, the age-old battle of works or grace continues.

In the introduction Hoeksema lays out a beautiful summary of the content of his speech. He sets the framework for the lecture with order and clarity, so that the listener is easily able to understand his theological instruction and at the same time be challenged to meditate more deeply on the truths he sets forth. He teaches that the church of the old dispensation was under the law, which necessarily meant that the church was under the curse of the law, for the law could never give life or salvation and could only curse. The promise of God came before the law was given, and the promise could not be disannulled or rendered void, not even by the perfect law of God. Further, Hoeksema establishes that Christ, as the legal and spiritual head of his people, was also under the law and the curse of the law. When the promise was realized in Christ, both the law and the curse of the law regarding the elect were abolished, and forever after the church was under grace.

In the new dispensation, therefore, the apostle argues and shows that we are no more under the law but only under the promise; or, in other words, we are no longer under the law, but we are under grace.²

The Promise

Getting into the substance of his lecture, Hoeksema gives attention to a thorough explanation of the promise.

The promise is always the promise of God, and the promise of God is always an oath, an oath of God. It can never be anything else. The promise of God is an absolutely sure pledge, as sure as God is sure, as faithful as God is faithful, absolutely pledged by God to his people without any conditions or requisites attached to it…

Or, if you wish, the promise is also most beautifully expressed in the well-known baptism form. In the first part of the form, we read, beloved, that the triune God is the God of the promise. The Father, according to that form, pledges and establishes an eternal covenant of grace with us, adopts us for his children and heirs, will provide us with every good thing and avert all evil or turn it to our profit. No condition in it. Absolutely unconditional. The Son, according to that same form of baptism, pledges and assures us that he incorporates us into his death and resurrection, that he delivers us from all the guilt of sin, makes us completely righteous before God. And the Holy Spirit, by that same baptism [form], pledges us that he will dwell in us and apply all the blessings of salvation to us from beginning to end. That is the promise.

This connection of the promise of God to the truth of God himself, in Christ, means that we can never make the promise something that rests in man or man’s activity. God alone can fulfill or realize his promise. Hoeksema properly distinguishes the part of believers in that promise by placing their part in the realm of the fruit of God’s work.

And you may not say that there is another side to that promise. That would spoil it entirely, beloved. The promise is the pledge of God, the sure pledge, the oath of God, to his people, to his elect, without anything attached to it. Although it is true that our part of that covenant is that we love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, that is not a condition, but that is the fruit of the fact that God realizes his covenant and promise in our hearts and in our lives. That is Reformed, nothing else.

Hoeksema also grounds the promise in the decree of God.

The promise is unconditional; and, therefore, the promise is for the elect only. Or the promise is conditional, and then you deny election. Those two are inseparably connected.

The climax of Hoeksema’s first point, which point is despised and denied today, is that Christ himself is the promise. It is taught today that the promise can, in fact, be disannulled by the law. There is a mingling of that which belongs to the promise with that which is of the law. What that sounds like are the assertions of men who make the realization of the promise to come upon the believer in the way of his obedience, without which obedience the promise, or some aspect of the promise, will not come. The sounds of the mingling of law and promise are that obedience to the law, a grace-worked obedience, is necessary prior to the work of the Lord to apply the benefits of salvation to the elect; that the elect believer receives the promise in fits and starts according to the measure of his obedience; and that the law, properly preached, actually becomes the promise or part of the promise.

Some examples of this sound are the following:

Rev. Martyn McGeown writes,

God gives power to obey (his grace) by the command itself (admonition). God works faith through the call to faith. God works repentance through the call to repentance. God works sorrow for sin through warnings against sin. God preserves his people in holiness through commands to be holy. God preserves his people through warnings and threatenings…

Second, “the more readily we perform our duty, the more eminent usually is this blessing of God working in us.” This is not the condition that sinners must fulfill in order to have God’s grace work in them, for there are no conditions to grace. Rather, God blesses in the way of diligence. God does not bless apathy, laziness, carelessness, or disobedience. God blesses obedience, diligence, prayerful study, and the use of means, both in preachers and in hearers.³

Professor Cammenga writes,

After his baptism, as he matures in the faith, the child of God appropriates the spiritual significance of his baptism. At that point he “receive[s] of God the remission of [his] sins freely.” Once again, remission (forgiveness) of sins takes place during and not before the lifetime of the child of God.⁴

And Rev. Bill Langerak asserts, “Good works are necessary to enjoy or experience fellowship with God. Period.”⁵

The position of Hoeksema is that Christ, as the promise, includes every benefit of salvation, which includes all of salvation in every aspect, both objectively and subjectively. The line drawn at this point of the speech equips the believer to follow and contend for the creedal and biblical definition of the promise. Hoeksema quotes Galatians 3:16, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” Then Hoeksema teaches,

It is very plain in this verse that the promise and Christ are the same. Christ is the promise, and the promise is Christ. And not only that, but we must remember that this means, beloved, that the promise is Christ and all his implications and all his fullness. Not only the fact that Christ came but all that Christ is is the promise, both in the objective and in the subjective senses of the word. Christ as he was born as the Son of God come into the likeness of sinful flesh, born from a virgin; Christ as he grew up among men in this world; Christ as he revealed the Father unto us, especially during the three years of his public ministry; Christ who died on the accursed tree; Christ who rose again from the dead; Christ who ascended up into heaven and sits at the right hand of God—that whole Christ. Remember, that is Christ. That whole Christ is the promise…

Let me look at the cross. That cross as such as a historical fact has very little interest unless we see that cross as part of the realization of the promise of God. It is part of Christ, the whole Christ. As successively he appeared from the year 1 to 33—that whole Christ, the Son of God who died and rose and is in heaven. That whole Christ in all his significance, that is the promise. Don’t forget that. That is the promise.

But there is more. That is not the only thing because to that promise also belong all the blessings of salvation, which Christ from heaven bestows upon his elect. That is also the promise. Not only Christ, but also what Christ does for the church belong to the promise of God. Christ became the Spirit. “Now the Lord is the Spirit,” says the apostle in 2 Corinthians 3. The Lord is the Spirit. Christ became the Spirit, if you will. Christ received the promise of the Spirit. And Christ, having received the promise of the Spirit, poured that promise of the Spirit into his church; and through that promise of the Spirit, Christ realizes all the blessings of salvation. He regenerates us; he calls us; he justifies and sanctifies us; he preserves us; and finally he glorifies us all by his Spirit on the basis of his work. And that all belongs to the promise.

Faith and the Promise

In his second point Hoeksema addresses faith in relation to the promise. He remains grounded in the Heidelberg Catechism, which teaches that faith is first a bond of union with Christ, then also knowledge and confidence (Lord’s Day 7). Hoeksema does not teach that faith is man’s activity or that faith includes faith’s obedience to the law. He does not teach that faith relies on obedience to the law for any experience of salvation or for any part of the realization of the promise.

The errors that Hoeksema’s instruction battles can include any teaching that sounds like these quotations from Reverend McGeown:

Justification is God’s act of declaring believers righteous, while faith is our activity of trusting Jesus for salvation, which is not God’s act.⁶

In the Bible and in the confessions the emphasis is on faith as the activity of believing. The Catechism [in Lord’s Day 7] defines faith not as a bond, and certainly not as a passive, lifeless bond, but as an activity.

But does not the Catechism in LD 7 speak of being “ingrafted” into Christ by faith? It does, but the…word…ingraft[ed] does not refer to, or even imply, a passive, subconscious bond…We become members of Christ’s body or one plant with Him by believing in Him…

The Bible and the confessions know nothing of a passive receiving of Jesus Christ. According to LD 7 we receive all of Christ’s benefits by a true faith, which the Catechism defines as an activity…

The divine order: First, a sinner believes by the grace of God, who gives him faith as a gift; then, he is saved or comes into the possession and enjoyment of his salvation.⁷

In contrast to these errors, Hoeksema teaches,

Faith in relation to the promise is a God-given means. Faith belongs to the promise. Faith is part of the promise. The promise includes faith. When God promises us salvation, he promises us faith too; in order that by the power of faith, we might be united with the promise. And the promise is Christ. The promise is Christ. Faith is the power given by the promise, whereby we are united with the promise, with a living power. As the Catechism has it: faith is knowledge, spiritual knowledge—spiritual knowledge implanted by the Spirit in our hearts. Knowledge of what? Knowledge of spiritual things, knowledge of the promise. By faith we know the promise, not so that we can understand it intellectually, but so that we can apprehend it spiritually. By faith we know the promise as our promise. By faith Christ is our Christ, not only as he is objectively before us as he is depicted in the scriptures, but by faith we know that Christ is our Christ. By faith we know that all of the promises in Christ are our promises, so that we are living parts of Christ, so that we are living members of Christ, so that we have all of the blessings of salvation. We know spiritually all of the blessings of salvation as our own.

Hoeksema draws in Hebrews 11, the great New Testament commentary on faith in the old dispensation:

The epistle to the Hebrews speaks of faith especially as an evidence of things unseen and the substance of things hoped for, or as I would translate it: as the assurance of things unseen and the subjective ground of the things hoped for. That is the meaning of that verse undoubtedly in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews. And that is always the case, of course. Faith is always the assurance of things that we do not see. That is always the case. No question about that. That is the case now too. That will be the case until we finally shall enter into glory and see face to face. We cannot see Christ. We cannot see the promise. We cannot see the cross. We cannot see the resurrection. We cannot see the ascension. We cannot see the exaltation of Christ. We cannot see anything of it. Faith is the assurance of things unseen, and faith is the subjective ground of things hoped for. It is simply so that without faith we have no connection with any of these things that are unseen. But in the old dispensation that was emphasized. In the old dispensation, beloved, the promise was not yet. It was not yet. Nothing was realized yet. Nothing. Christ had not come. The cross and the resurrection and the ascension had not been realized. They all simply waited for the realization of the promise. And, therefore, especially the saints of the old dispensation had faith, the same faith we have; but, nevertheless, that faith always assumed the form of the assurance of things not seen, more than in the new dispensation. That, then, is the relation of faith and the promise.

Christ and the Law

This lecture goes on to give instruction on Christ’s relationship to the law. It is specifically striking how Hoeksema explains that Christ was the head of his elect at Sinai when God gave the ten commandments.

But that is why the apostle says in this third chapter [of Galatians]—because of that very fact that Christ was under the law together with his people—the promise could never be annulled by the law. The promise was first, and the promise could never be disannulled by the law because of Christ. That was the case in the old dispensation. Do not forget it.

And now, beloved, in the old dispensation the people of God were under the curse, under the law. The law had not yet been fulfilled. The church, all the elect, were under the curse. And they were under that curse together with Christ. Christ was accursed in the old dispensation. The law said to the people of God, “Cursed is everyone that does not abide in all that is written in me.” That was the law. “Cursed is everyone.” But do not forget, the law said that not only to the people of God as such, but as the people of God were in Christ. All through the old dispensation, they were in Christ. Christ was there. Christ said, “I represent them. I cover them,” in the old dispensation. And, therefore, the law said to Christ, God said to Christ, beloved, “I curse thee. I curse thee unto eternal death.” That is what God said to Christ and the law and to Christ and the elect. And Christ, representing the elect, heard that sentence of God throughout the old dispensation: “I curse thee. I curse my only-begotten Son in the flesh, Christ.”

Again, Hoeksema grounds his theology in the decree of God:

He chose Christ even before he chose the elect. The elect were chosen in Christ. They were chosen into Christ from before the foundation of the world. Christ is the elect. And because he was the elect and because he was the elect representing all the elect and because the elect lay under the curse, therefore, Christ bore before God all through the old dispensation the curse of God—all through the old dispensation.

A commonly held error is that the law in the old dispensation could give life and salvation to the people of God. That wrong thinking can be carried into an erroneous view of the relationship of the law to the New Testament church. There are also errors today that separate the whole Christ into bits and parts. We recognize and appreciate the many aspects of the whole Christ—for example, his incarnation, his suffering, his death on the cross making full atonement for sin, and the glorified and risen Christ. But Protestant Reformed ministers and professors make much of these distinctions to render Christ’s whole work of salvation incomplete and unfinished at certain points. And they dangle future benefits of salvation before the eyes of the people to maintain and keep before the people’s minds and hearts their necessary acts of faith and obedience in order to receive these future benefits. These errors rob from the people the spiritual reality and significance of the cross and the whole Christ.

In a lecture in which Professor Gritters claimed to clear up much confusion regarding the forgiveness of sins, he took the whole Christ and made him but half a savior, who at the cross accomplished only a mere “provision” for forgiveness.⁸ Gritters did that when he made exactly such a distinction between the provision or basis for forgiveness that Christ made at the cross and the actual reception of that forgiveness into his people’s hearts, which forgiveness Gritters conditioned on the people’s confession and repentance. In Gritters’ doctrine of salvation, forgiveness is a benefit of salvation that is received in fits and starts; forgiveness is never realized and enjoyed in complete fullness by the people of God. Forgiveness is only God’s response to men after and in measure to the people’s acts of confession and repentance. Still more, Gritters denied the reality and harmony of the decree of God when he severed the decree from its realization. Gritters presented God as one who is powerless and ineffectual at the point of the forgiveness of the sins of his people and as a god who begs and waits upon men. Gritters asked the question, “What is God’s forgiveness of us?” He then explained that

God’s forgiveness of us is a declaration to us from his mouth to our ears that goes down into our hearts that embrace that declaration by faith…

And the declaration that comes from the mouth of God, that comes into our ears and goes down into our hearts is on the basis of the provision that he makes in the cross of his own Son…

Forgiveness is not God’s decree to forgive us…Forgiveness is not in eternity…I see why some want to say that’s forgiveness. But it isn’t. Forgiveness is in time and history and comes from the voice, the mouth of God, to my ear.

There are others who’ve said that two thousand years ago was forgiveness in the cross and the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. I understand that too. That’s the judicial basis for forgiveness…I understand why some say that’s forgiveness. But it isn’t.

The decree is the eternal root; the cross is the judicial ground; but forgiveness is in time and history…

That declaration comes to us after confession and repentance…

The New Testament makes that very, very clear—the same order. First repentance, then forgiveness. Always that order…

For those who don’t repent, God stands silent…

Why the cross? You have to ask yourself that question. Why the cross? And the answer is, because your sins deserve what he got. And you’re going to get his blessing only when you acknowledge what he got should have come to you. You’re not going to hear God speak unless you acknowledge that…

And Gritters claimed that the Old Testament sacrificial system confirms his teaching that forgiveness comes after repentance and confession and aims at reconciliation. In reference to the Israelites’ seeing through the priest the altar of substitutionary atonement and the satisfaction for sins, Gritters taught that

when they saw that and embraced that blessing with believing hearts, they didn’t turn around and leave, but they went in to God’s presence. They lived with him because God is symbolizing in that: “I want you to come back and be with me. But it will only be via the forgiveness of your sins. Come back, come back.”

Gritters’ doctrine of a fractured Christ was taken up by Rev. Ryan Barnhill, who robbed his congregation when he preached a distinction between forgiveness and Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross:

Let me say what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not Jesus Christ dying on the cross two thousand years ago. You mayn’t put an equal sign between those—forgiveness equals Christ dying on the cross, shedding his blood there. Those are not the same thing. That’s not what forgiveness is. And I think sometimes when we pray, that’s what we are thinking about. When I say, “Forgive my sins,” that I am really saying, “I thank thee that Jesus died for my sins two thousand years ago.” But that’s not right.⁹

Hoeksema contends,

And finally, of course, and that was the end of it: he finally came to the cross. That cross was a curse. You know, it is very strange, but it is true nevertheless: God loves his people. He loved them from before the foundation of the world. He loves them with an unchangeable love. That love of God for his elect never changes. God never says to his people, “I hate thee.” God never hates his people. He never hated his people at all. He loves his people, and he loved his people from eternity. So, he loved Christ. God never said to Christ, “I hate thee,” although he stood before God as the sinner of sinners. That was the case. Christ was before the face of God the sinner of sinners. He was the greatest sinner of all, although personally he was without sin, although as far as his human nature is concerned, he had no sin and no blemish. Nevertheless, juridically he stood at the head of all sinners. And, therefore, he was the sinner of sinners. But God never said to Christ, “I hate thee.” He said to Christ, “I love thee, and I pour all the vials of my wrath over thee. I love thee, and I curse thee. I curse the object of my everlasting love. I love thee, and I curse thee unto everlasting death, eternal death. To that I curse thee.” That is the cross. That is the cross. The Son of God in human nature, of whom God said from heaven more than once, “This is my beloved Son.” That Son of God stood at the head of the elect and bore all their sins and all the wrath and all the curse of God forever on the cross. And on that cross, God himself poured out all the vials of his wrath over the head of his only-begotten Son in the flesh, so that he really said to Christ, “I love thee. I do not hate thee.” He loved Christ. He loved Christ even when Christ said at the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” God said in his heart on Golgotha there, “I love thee, but nevertheless I pour out all my wrath over thee, and I curse the object of my love.”

And Christ could do that, beloved. Christ could. Golgotha was possible because God of God himself in human flesh represented his people, because it was God of God in human flesh that represented his people and that received the curse of the law, the wrath of God. Therefore, because it was God of God, that Son of God could be obedient unto death and live. Only because of that, Christ was obedient unto death, unto eternal death. He bore the eternal wrath of God for one moment on the cross, and he descended into the depths of eternal death, and he lived. Why? Because, beloved, on the altar of hell—that was the cross—on the altar of hell, Christ laid the sacrifice of willing obedience even unto death, and that sacrifice was sufficient and approved. And Christ, through sin and through the curse of God upon the sin of his people, became the righteous one, as was declared in the resurrection. That is the cross.

And now, beloved, because that Christ…stood at the head of the elect [and] was in the loins of the elect throughout the old dispensation, the elect could bear the curse of the law and live. The promise could not be disannulled by the law. That is my answer to the question, what, then, is the relation between Christ and the elect and the law under the old dispensation?

The law served Christ, the promise, as the way that God decreed that Christ would be the only, full, and complete savior of the elect. The elect, being dead in sins and trespasses, which sins came by the law, could not then be made alive by that law. However, the elect became dead to the law when Christ fulfilled the law and paid the full price of all their sins and trespasses in their place and gave his perfect obedience, righteousness, and holiness to his people. Christ gives his people full and free salvation, both objectively and subjectively. Reverend Hoeksema battles hard against false teachings about the role of the law and beautifully clarifies the relationship of the law to the faith of the saints in the Old Testament church. This truth declares the union of the church in every age to her head, Jesus Christ, by faith alone. It also destroys the argument that the law ever held the power to give life, salvation, or a benefit of salvation to the elect.

Faith and the Law

Hoeksema’s last point is the relationship of faith to the law. He states that in the narrowest sense the meaning of the word law is the ten commandments.

Lastly, the question is, what, then, is the relation of faith and the law? The question, nevertheless, remains, beloved, was there in the old dispensation, was there under law, any revelation of Christ and a revelation of the promise? If you mean by the law the decalogue, the answer is, of course, negative. There is no revelation of Christ in the law, not in the law of the ten commandments. There is no Christ in that law, not whatsoever.

He explains the gospel of Christ as it was manifested in the broadest sense of the law, including the ceremonial laws.

But that was not all. If you take the law in the broadest sense of the word, then it includes all the shadows. The people of God were not left under the curse of the law without Christ. Christ was there too in all the shadows of the old dispensation—in the temple, in the tabernacle, in the altar, in the sacrifice.

Therefore, beloved, faith in the old dispensation is principally the same as faith in the new dispensation. There is no principal difference whatsoever. Just as faith in the new dispensation is faith in Christ, just as faith in the new dispensation says, “Thou art the God of my salvation in Christ Jesus, my Lord,” so faith in the old dispensation had the same language, looking at the Christ as he was represented in the shadows. In the old dispensation there was the shadows; in the new dispensation there is the reality; but it is the same Christ. Just as faith in the new dispensation says, beloved, “In Christ is all my confidence,” so faith in the old dispensation said, “My hope and my confidence are in the Christ that is revealed in the shadows of the temple and the altar and in all the shadows of the old dispensation.”

And, therefore, the people of God were under law. Faith was under the law. The promise was under the law. But, nevertheless, beloved, the promise could never be disannulled by the law. And the people of God were saved even under the law by the promise. And that promise is Christ. And when Christ finally came and bore the curse of the law and removed the curse of the law, he removed the law for all of his people forever. We are no more under the law but under grace only; and we are free forever, free from the law, free in relation to the law, free to serve God in the law—not as a condition but as the free servants of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord in the covenant.

In contrast to the preaching and teaching of the Protestant Reformed Churches, Hoeksema’s instruction stands as a bold and glorious declaration of the full and free gospel of salvation. We cannot help but hear a stark difference in the sound of Hoeksema’s doctrine in his lecture and the doctrine trumpeted off many Protestant Reformed pulpits and written on the pages of the Standard Bearer. A few Protestant Reformed members seem to be willing to admit and even have drawn attention to the shift in doctrine and to the contradictions between the Protestant Reformed teaching of today and the historically Protestant Reformed instruction as given by the late Rev. Herman Hoeksema. There are more today who still claim and profess to hold to the same theological positions as Herman Hoeksema. May we all study and rejoice in the biblical and creedal theology of Herman Hoeksema, but “woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous” (Matt. 23:39).

What Hoeksema brings in this lecture is the straightforward presentation of the gospel, the one gospel of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. This speech flatly contradicts any preaching or teaching that misrepresents the place of the law and God’s purpose with it, the disparagement of election, the perversion of faith’s meaning and character, and the unbiblical distinction between objective and subjective, between salvation and the experience of salvation, which distinction is made in order to insert man’s activity into salvation. By this speech we are equipped for the battle against works-righteousness, and our spirits are filled with Christ as the full and complete savior of the church of God—the Christ of both the old and new dispensations. We are challenged to thoughtful contemplation of deep matters regarding the promise of God. The beauty and rich depths of the decree of God for the salvation of his people are impressed on our minds. Our hearts are light as we are reminded that the burden of law-keeping is removed, that we are freed to love the law as that which served Christ and our own salvation in him, and that we have the full assurance of salvation in Jesus Christ’s work alone. There is no room in this lecture for anything but the glory of God, and the listener’s attention is lifted above men up to heavenly and spiritual realities, and they are lovely.