Introduction

The Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) today have overthrown the theology of Prof. Herman Hanko. Professor Hanko—one of the theological giants in the PRC—has served the PRC as a minister of the gospel for ten years and as professor of New Testament and church history for thirty-three years.

Professor Hanko’s successors at the Protestant Reformed seminary, however, have disavowed his theology. Together with their colleagues in the ministry, the professors come out in the open, mocking his theology as antinomian.

Forgiveness Is a Declaration not a Decision

In their departure from Professor Hanko’s theology, the Protestant Reformed ministers and professors invent a new doctrine of forgiveness. This new doctrine defines God’s forgiveness of sins strictly in terms of a declaration, not as an act or a decision. Prof. Barry Gritters invents this new doctrine by teaching that God’s forgiveness of our sins is neither a decision nor an act of God. He claims that forgiveness is a “declaration not a decision.”¹

God’s forgiveness of us is a declaration He makes to us. To be sure, God’s forgiveness has an eternal source—His decree; but this decree is not yet forgiveness. God’s forgiveness has a judicial ground—Christ’s sacrifice to pay for sin; but neither is this forgiveness. Forgiveness is God’s declaration to a man’s consciousness, in the forum of his conscience, “I forgive you.”²

Forgiveness from God is His declaration to repentant sinners based on the satisfaction of His justice in the cross: “I release you from responsibility to pay for your sin.”³

Professor Gritters’ teaching is that God’s eternal decree to forgive his elect people is not forgiveness (the decree is only the source). Professor Gritters teaches that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is not forgiveness (the cross is only the judicial ground). Forgiveness is strictly God’s declaration to a repentant man’s conscience that God forgives that man’s sins. Apart from that declaration, that man remains unforgiven.

Professor Hanko had a different doctrine of forgiveness.

Professor Hanko spoke of forgiveness fundamentally as the payment of a debt. In forgiving his people on the cross,

Christ assumed responsibility for the debt which his people owed to God and took upon himself the payment of that debt…Christ paid all that debt when he endured the horrors of hell on the cross…It is paid so completely that not one small particle of that debt remains to be paid.⁴

In forgiveness God also imputes the righteousness of Jesus Christ to the elect sinner.

In God’s work of justification, imputation means that God declares the sinner to be totally without sin. Upon close examination and after a lengthy trial in which all evidence has been considered with care, God finds the sinner in the dock to be totally in conformity with his divine being. The sinner is therefore innocent of any crime, guilty of nothing, completely without sin.⁵

For Professor Gritters forgiveness is a “declaration not a decision.”⁶

For Professor Hanko forgiveness is much more than a mere declaration. Forgiveness is the payment for the debt of sin. Forgiveness is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the sinner. Forgiveness is an act and a decision.

Eternal Forgiveness Is Antinomian

In their overthrow of Professor Hanko’s doctrine of forgiveness, the Protestant Reformed theologians today condemn the doctrine of eternal forgiveness as antinomian. Professor Cammenga leads this charge in his recent series in the Standard Bearer:

The teaching that God forgives sin apart from and prior to repentance, that He forgives the sinner in eternity long before he sheds a single tear in sorrow over sin in his lifetime, has been the teaching of the antinomians in the past.⁷

To teach that forgiveness precedes repentance is historically antinomian.⁸

Professor Cammenga even makes the audacious but false claim, “No PRC theologian has ever taught that God’s forgiveness of us precedes His work in us to bring us to repentance.”⁹ Professor Cammenga must have forgotten that his own seminary professor taught exactly that. Professor Hanko was a proponent of eternal forgiveness:

From the viewpoint of God’s counsel, this forgiveness is eternal. When Balaam was asked by Balak, king of Moab, to curse Israel, God changed Balaam’s cursings into blessings. Balaam was forced to say, among many things, “He [God] hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them” (Num. 23:21). The idea is that God never sees iniquity in his people.¹⁰

To Christ were imputed all the sins of all the elect whom God had given Christ eternally. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).¹¹

God has no need to be reconciled to man, because God is eternally reconciled to his people. God loves his people with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3), and God’s covenant is an everlasting covenant (Jer. 32:40).¹²

For Professor Cammenga the doctrine of eternal forgiveness is antinomian.

For Professor Hanko the doctrine of eternal forgiveness is Reformed and scriptural.

The Cross Is Not Forgiveness

Grossly departing from Professor Hanko’s doctrine of forgiveness, the Protestant Reformed theologians today make the cross of Jesus Christ of none effect. Professor Gritters makes the claim that the cross of Jesus Christ cannot be equated with the forgiveness of our sins.

God’s forgiveness has a judicial ground—Christ’s sacrifice to pay for sin; but neither is this forgiveness.¹³

Others refer to the satisfaction made at the cross as forgiveness and see forgiveness as an event of 2,000 years ago. To speak so may be legitimate if the cross represents forgiveness in a figure of speech, as hand means help in “give me a hand,” or wheels means car in “I like your wheels,” or the crown means the king.¹⁴

Professor Cammenga echoes the same doctrine that the cross is only the basis for our forgiveness; the cross is not to be equated with forgiveness. Forgiveness takes places only after man repents.

On the cross, the Lord Jesus made satisfaction and atonement as the basis for God’s forgiveness of our sins. Forgiveness actually takes place when by faith in Jesus Christ, God declares in our consciousness, “Thy sins are forgiven.”¹⁵

Although God has eternally decreed our forgiveness, as well as our repentance, and although the basis for that forgiveness is grounded in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s decree is realized in time. This is the order that He has determined in time that His forgiveness follows upon our repentance.¹⁶

Professor Hanko’s doctrine of the cross is a far cry from the theology of the current Protestant Reformed theologians. For him Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the cross accomplished the forgiveness of our sins and the removal of sin.

God sees his people as those who belong to Christ. Their forgiveness was historically realized on the cross of Christ. Christ assumed responsibility for the debt which his people owed to God and took upon himself the payment of that debt. He was able to do this because he endured the punishment of eternal hell when he suffered and died. Though each sin we commit deserves eternal hell, and though the number of the people of God is very great, Christ paid all that debt when he endured the horrors of hell on the cross…Thus he paid the debt for all God’s people. It is paid so completely that not one small particle of that debt remains to be paid.¹⁷

Peace comes only when sin is removed, and sin is removed through the cross of Christ…Thus peace is God’s gift to the church through the Lord Jesus Christ, given by means of the forgiveness and removal of sin.¹⁸

That he gave himself for our sins means that he took our sins on himself, was made sin for us, assumed full responsibility for every sin, and did so in the full consciousness of God’s holiness that requires even one sin to be punished by an eternity in hell. That meant that Christ had to pay uncountable eternities for the sins of an innumerable host of elect. Only his perfect sacrifice could pay such a price. That he paid for our sins means that they are gone forever, erased from the mind and heart of God, and that we are no longer responsible for them.¹⁹

Christ died on the cross and made the perfect sacrifice for sin. He bore the guilt of sin for all his people. He endured the suffering of hell, where the wrath of God became a whirlpool of suffering, for it burned black and murderous. He suffered in the place of his own; he stood where they ought to have stood and accomplished what they could never accomplish. He paid for their sin and guilt and earned for them the perfect righteousness of God.²⁰

The current Protestant Reformed theologians teach that the cross is only the ground or the basis for forgiveness. The cross only represents forgiveness in a figure of speech. The cross did not accomplish the forgiveness of our sins.

For Professor Hanko our forgiveness was historically realized on the cross of Christ. Our “forgiveness is an objective fact in the cross of Christ and in the mind and heart of God.”²¹ The cross accomplished our forgiveness.

A Corrupt Sister

The PRC’s false doctrine of forgiveness and the cross has borne fruit in her sister church in Singapore, Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church. The cross and forgiveness have no effect until man repents.

Her Arminian pastor Rev. Josiah Tan openly teaches that there are conditions in scripture that man fulfills by God’s grace. Reverend Tan disguises his conditional theology by explaining it as God’s orderly way of salvation. In his doctrine of salvation, Reverend Tan teaches a certain order of God’s salvation in which man’s believing and repentance must precede God’s salvation, justification, and forgiveness of sins.

Jesus here is teaching, that for salvation/ justification/ forgiveness of sins to follow, something must happen prior, that is a man believing in Jesus. That is a man, abasing himself and casting himself completely on Jesus. Without this, salvation will not follow.²²

Long ago Professor Hanko condemned this conditional theology in which man’s believing precedes God’s salvation of that man.

What is meant when the term “condition” is applied to the work of salvation?

When faith is made a condition, the meaning is that salvation will not be granted to anyone unless he fulfills the condition of faith. Man must first believe for salvation to be given to him.²³

 

“If a Man Would be Saved, There Is That Which He Must Do”

The current Protestant Reformed doctrine of forgiveness and repentance stands in the service of the doctrine that if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do. If a man would be forgiven, he must first repent.

Rev. Kenneth Koole has vigorously articulated and defended this doctrine.

I say again, “If a man would be saved, there is that which he must do.” Which is to say, there is that which he is called to do. For until a man responds to the truth and call of the gospel by believing it, confessing it, he is not, and cannot be saved. Understood properly, a perfectly orthodox statement. “Repent and believe, or perish!”²⁴

Professor Hanko condemned the view that if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do. God’s salvation of a man is absolutely not dependent on what that man does or does not do.

From God’s point of view, He works all things sovereignly so that all salvation is given graciously as a gift. Nothing is left to us which makes His salvation dependent upon what we do. We can do nothing, for we are sinners, dead in trespasses and sins.²⁵

Arminianism and Pelagianism have always been plagues in the church. Ever and again attempts have been made to preserve some glory for man. Always trying to salvage some last remnant of his sinful pride, man has tried constantly to take from God that which rightly belongs to Him alone and to give it to himself. Predestination stands in the way of all this. If God sovereignly elects and reprobates, then the whole work of salvation belongs to God alone. There is no room left for man and his work.²⁶

For the PRC today if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do.

For Professor Hanko God sovereignly accomplishes the entire work of salvation—nothing is left for man and his work.

Conclusion

Professor Hanko today condemns all who left the Protestant Reformed Churches for the Reformed Protestant Churches as rebellious schismatics, even though they remain faithful to the theology that he taught them. But then let Professor Hanko affirm what his theological successors are now openly teaching: God’s eternal decree to forgive is not forgiveness; the cross of Jesus is not forgiveness; if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do.

If he will not affirm that theology, then let Professor Hanko condemn these evil doctrines being taught in the PRC. After all, Professor Hanko taught us that the “truth of the gospel was more important than any man and his reputation, more important than anything else in the world.”²⁷

There is no room in Scripture for tolerance of wrong doctrine. A faithful minister and church are intolerant of corruptions of the truth, for these are corruptions of the truth of the God whom the saints love and serve.²⁸

Let Professor Hanko be

an Athanasius contra mundum (“against the world”), a Luther at Worms, a martyr burning at the stake, a slave of Jesus Christ. That was all that counted. He [Paul] was the kind of man the church so desperately needs today.²⁹