The Protractor of Death

Most people think that Sword and Shield is an echo chamber of men’s own thoughts, a magazine that hardly anyone reads, and a magazine that the whole world passes by and continues on in ignorant bliss. I do not believe that, not only because of the agitation that the pure word of God causes to those around us who do not believe it and the gossip that men bear but also because the truth is a light that cannot be hid in this world of darkness. Christ will not have his truth unknown, for the whole world will one day confess him as King of kings and Lord of lords.

After not reading The Standard Bearer for a year or so, I recently scrolled through what has been written. Was I shocked? No, not at all. Were the writings interesting? No, not at all. Most of the articles are self-help instructions regarding how to be a better person and how, in some way, shape, or form, to be more pleasing to God.

In the May 1, 2025, issue of The Standard Bearer, Prof. Brian Huizinga has an editorial that explains how a Christian or an unbeliever falls by degrees.¹ The article is another exhortation “to vigilance in laying aside the least beginning of evil in our own lives”—that is, live less wicked and sinful lives in order to be more pleasing to God and therefore to be happier or at least less likely to freefall into sin. Really? Do Protestant Reformed ministers think that they somehow have the monopoly on how to get people to be more holy? Do the ministers not know that there are most likely countless people who “out-holy” the Protestant Reformed people every day by their so-called good works of giving millions of dollars to charities, feeding and clothing the poor and needy, ceaselessly praying, and unendingly reading the Bible and who put the Protestant Reformed people to shame ten times over? Since the beginning of time, men have been trying to earn blessings from God and to be more holy by their works. For example the Pharisees, the Roman Catholics, and the Netherlands Reformed congregations have been perfecting the teaching regarding that which man does to be right with God and to have more blessings! Now the Protestant Reformed Churches are teaching “that which man must do to be saved.” The problem with this teaching is that once the sheep stop “doing” what they are told to do (and this usually starts right away), then a murderous stranglehold must be enacted on them because power is the only thing people truly listen to.

It goes something like this:

Pastor: “To strive for the mark means to live a life that continues to get closer and closer with God, while recognizing at times how sinful you are and repenting of those times.”

Sheep: “But Pastor, I just can’t do enough. I work six days a week; I give food and clothing to the poor; I serve on all the fundraisers; I read the Bible every morning. I repent as much as possible, but I don’t feel like I am getting any holier!”

Pastor: “Well now, you are doing quite a bit. So you should be safe for the time being. But don’t get too comfortable, and make sure that you continue to strive for a more pleasing, God-honoring life because that is what God requires.”

Sheep: “And if I don’t?…What happens if I can’t keep up?”

Pastor: “You love your children, right?”

Sheep: “Of course, of course, I love my children. What are you saying?”

Pastor: “You know that without holiness no man shall see the Lord, right? Well, I can’t say for certain, but only those who strive for the mark will see God’s blessing on their children. You know, God uses your efforts as the means for their salvation.”

Sheep: “Oh, I will do anything for them! I love them dearly. I will give all that I have, so that God sees it, and the church sees it, and then I can know too that by my striving and by the cross of Christ, I and my children will experience God’s covenantal faithfulness and fellowship.”

Pastor: “That’s good and a right understanding of things too. God truly will help you carry this out.”

Since supposedly no one outside the Reformed Protestant denomination reads this magazine, only those inside the denomination will agree that this is the stranglehold of what we have experienced under the preaching in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). And having experienced that stranglehold, many saw what the experiences of their children would be if they and their children did not flee that plague of apostasy. Some picture a finely-dressed pastor in an expensive robe with a bishop’s hat who gives this type of cruel advice to a bruised and battered daughter or son of the congregation, but that is not the picture I have in mind. In my mind are ministers and elders in their relaxed khakis and sport jackets who visit in their offices or in the home of a beleaguered congregant—an intimate setting, where the cruelty is perhaps the sharpest. Now in the PRC the cruelty also takes place by pens and from the pulpits.

Brian Huizinga, professor of dogmatics and Old Testament studies in the Protestant Reformed seminary, writes about the importance of understanding the principle of a fallen person, specifically when and how one falls, either lamentably in this life or eternally. The context of the article is the phrase “by degrees is brought to ruin” found in the Reformed Form for Excommunication (Confessions and Church Order, 277). Huizinga depicts the idea of “ruin by degrees” by the visual aid of a semi-circular protractor, a tool used to measure and draw angles and marked with degree measurements from 0 degrees to 180 degrees. Professor Huizinga uses this tool to demonstrate how quickly one comes to ruin.

First, he describes a man who is at “0 degrees” on the protractor and who is “strong in the Lord”:

Every day, sins of infirmity spring from his sinful flesh and spots adhere to his best works. However, he lives by the power of faith each day. He humbles himself before God and flees for refuge to Christ crucified. He fights against temptation and mortifies his flesh by the Spirit of prayer and other holy exercises of piety. He walks in the light of God’s countenance, lives in the joy of his salvation, and seeks to remain patient in suffering. He strives to be faithful in all his relationships, loving and doing good to his neighbor for God’s sake. He presses toward the perfection that has been proposed to him in the life to come, living by the hope of reigning one day with the Lamb in heaven. Every week he gathers for public worship on the Lord’s Day and sits under the chief means of grace. This man is strong in the Lord.

That all sounds nice.

Second, Professor Huizinga depicts the man who is on the opposite side of the protractor at the “180 degree” mark and who is either a “defiant sinner” or a believer “who had a lamentable fall…into an enormous sin”:

At the “180 degree” mark is the defiant sinner who has been excommunicated for impenitently persisting in sin and rejecting the admonition of Christ through the consistory and congregation. Or, being under church discipline, but refusing to submit to Christ, he terminates the formal process of discipline by pulling his membership papers and leaving Christ’s church. He is a threat to the congregation as he embodies the pollution of the world. He is presently in ruin, enslaved by Satan in some sin (probably many sins), and apart from the outstretched arm of a merciful God rescuing him, he is heading straight for hell. How did this happen? Only a few years before his excommunication he faithfully walked unto the house of God with the saints and appeared to be an upright believer, devoted to the church and his family.

We could also think of the man at the “180 degree” mark as a believer who had a lamentable fall like David or Peter (see Canons of Dordt V.4–7). He fell into an enormous sin, very highly offended God, incurred a deadly guilt, grieved the Holy Spirit, interrupted the exercise of faith, very grievously wounded his conscience, and lost the sense of God’s favor. Until being renewed by God so that he returns into the right way of repentance, he is in the way of ruin. How did this happen? This brother not only appeared to be spiritually strong, but like David and Peter was strong in the service of the Lord.

Professor Huizinga explains what “the path from 0 to 180” looks like:

First, as the sinner begins moving away from “0” there is a diminishing of holy activities, which is why Jesus warns, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation” (Matt. 26:41). Prayer becomes less frequent and fervent, and Bible reading cold and mechanical. Sunday is less God’s holy day and more the sinner’s personal day. Worship is more and more formalism. But everything looks good externally.

He describes how easy it is for a sinner to fall from grace, to let sin reign in his heart, and therefore to head toward a freefall into destruction. The professor of dogmatics does a fine job of setting the stage for instruction within the instruction. First, he brings valuable proofs from Canons 5.4–7 about how lamentable the saints’ great falls into sin are; second, he brings passages of scripture that remind his readers that they all should push toward the mark of excellence in order to avoid the downward path by degrees; third, he adds that they should “fly for refuge to Christ”; and then he has the readers’ attention focused on how gracious God’s mercy truly is. Yet the instruction within the instruction does not stop there because the PRC does not believe that is where God leaves it. The PRC believes that to teach God’s all-encompassing grace as that which completely saves a sinner does not do justice to her view that the Bible teaches that the regenerated sinner can attain greater blessings and a fuller experience of salvation by his works, all by grace, of course.

Huizinga writes this regarding the Christian’s upward struggles and his freefall:

The figure of a protractor is so fitting for our purposes because the path from 0 degrees to 90 requires an upward climb along an arc, implying a struggle for the sinner against his conscience and admonitions. However, the movement from 90 degrees to 180 is downward in direction—essentially a freefall.

The problem with Protestant Reformed teachers is that, although they point people from time to time to Christ and his cross, they do not believe that the cross itself is enough for salvation. Thus they place a hurdle after the cross. How?

Let us take the example of the protractor to task. Why does Professor Huizinga say that a Christian should measure himself or herself by the degrees on a protractor? Because that is the PRC’s focus regarding the Christian life. At what degree are you on the protractor? Are you a strong Christian? Do you believe yourself to be at 0 degrees? Do you not want to be at 0 degrees? Why do you feel that you cannot be at 0 degrees on the scale of strongness in the Lord? Many will refute the claim that 0 degrees represents strongness in the Lord, and they will calmly put themselves at 10 degrees or 20 degrees or, God forbid, 45 degrees or more. The child of God who puts himself at 89 degrees is only one tick away from the start of an almost-impossible-to-recover downward spiral of sin.

The protractor that Huizinga depicts is exactly what Protestant Reformed people want and deserve who read these things and believe them to be true. Many who read Huizinga’s teachings want a number so that they can decide how far they need to go before they arrive at strongness in the Lord or to know how close they are to a freefall into destruction.

This teaching by Professor Huizinga is wicked and so deceptive. And it so easily appeals to the human natures of sinners, who want to be told that they are not the ungodly but that they are able to progress into a position of more godliness and strongness in the Lord, where there are more blessings and fellowship with God!

It is interesting that Professor Huizinga does not tell his readers at what degree on the protractor he puts himself. I wonder why he leaves to the readers’ own impressions where he and other ministers and professors land—somewhere between 0 and 90 degrees, no doubt. Professor Huizinga sees himself not as the greatest sinner but as one who is climbing the mountain toward the top of holiness and strongness in the Lord. He is like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, tirelessly working to get to the top. Professor Huizinga prods himself and others to continue moving up the mountain. He tells the sinner that by grace he is able to overcome sin, that slowly his sin-burden will become less and less until he reaches the point where the mountain of sin on his back is not heavy and unbearable but is light because he has worked and persevered ever so strongly. But the difference between Christian in the book Pilgrim’s Progress and the sinner that Professor Huizinga portrays is that when Christian finally is confronted with the cross of Christ, Christian’s burden is completely removed, and he realizes that his salvation is complete in Christ alone. The teaching of the PRC and her ministers is that the cross gets a person halfway up the mountain, and if he wants to arrive before the throne of God without any dirt on his clothes, he had better take the trail that is free of any mudholes or obstacles to spot his clothing.

The teaching and preaching of the PRC resemble that of a popular con artist, namely, Joel Osteen. Many in the PRC can relate to his style of preaching, for it promotes active faith. In a “sermon” titled “Put Action Behind Your Faith,” Osteen says,

It’s one thing to pray about a situation. It’s one thing to believe that we’re going to get better. And that’s good. Pray’n, believe’n, hope’n, that’s all a part of faith. But there’s another step that we so often leave out. I believe it’s one of the keys to seeing God do great things. You have to put action behind your faith. You have to do something to show God that you’re serious about what you’re believe’n for.

You can pray all day long, “God, get me out of this problem. God, give me this promotion. God, help me to get well.” And that’s fine. But if you really wanna get God’s attention, if you wanna see God move in amazing ways, then take it one step further and do something to demonstrate your faith. In other words, you may have an addiction, but are you going to a recovery program? Are you in a support group? That’s a faith that God can see. Maybe you lost your job. Do you have your resume? Are you out knock’n on new doors?…That’s what allows God to do the extraordinary.²

Is this not exactly the same advice from Professor Huizinga?

Where is your heart today? Are you pressing toward the mark or sliding away, almost imperceptibly? How were your devotions this morning?

“But that is not fair,” you say? “Professor Huizinga is only encouraging those who struggle with daily sins not to give into those sins because that could send them into a freefall into the depths where they could lose their places in the church or possibly even be thrown into everlasting hell, and therefore…”

Therefore…?

Frustrate the grace of God? I do believe that is Huizinga’s point. He teaches a fear of the sovereign God of election and that by sinning against God one can frustrate what God in his counsel set out to accomplish.

The entire fifth head of the Canons of Dordt is not about how you can keep yourself out of hell or from losing your faith by how you live! In whatever article the Canons talks of guilt, shame, and falling by degrees, it does not point you to yourself as the one who can correct your course or keep you from falling. Does sin make you fall? Yes. Can you stop sinning? No. Partially? No. What about when you are feeling the closest to God, when, for example, you are sitting under the preaching of the gospel? No! Working out your salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12) is knowing who you are by nature—a totally depraved sinner—and living out of the reality that you are saved by grace alone. Working out your salvation is not a do-more-to-get-more-activity. But the PRC teaches that this verse means that you must get working on your salvation with utter fear and trembling that every step that you take could be, and most likely is, a step away from God and from his favor. Do you not want better than that?

Let us hear what Canons 5.8 says about this.

It is not in consequence of their own merits or strength, but of God’s free mercy, that they do not totally fall from faith and grace, nor continue and perish finally in their backslidings; which with respect to themselves is not only possible, but would undoubtedly happen; but with respect to God, it is utterly impossible, since His counsel cannot be changed, nor His promise fail, neither can the call according to His purpose be revoked, nor the merit, intercession, and preservation of Christ be rendered ineffectual, nor the sealing of the Holy Spirit be frustrated or obliterated. (Confessions and Church Order, 174)

The fearful doctrine preached off Protestant Reformed pulpits is that Christ’s preserving power is ineffectual and that the work of the Holy Spirit can be frustrated. It is a fear-based theology because it is a man-centered theology based on law, law, and more law—law because the keeping of the law along with the cross is the only way God’s grace is not frustrated by man. “Are you still at 0 degrees, brother? Or are you starting to move toward 1 degree? Did the devil get you yesterday, so that now you are at 3 or 5 degrees?”

If it were not so serious, it would almost be funny how little the PRC thinks of God’s election, preservation, and unending grace.

In Rev. Herman Hoeksema’s Reformed Dogmatics in the chapter on preservation and perseverance, he speaks to the folly regarding what the Arminians proposed that scripture truly teaches regarding the falling away of saints:

It seems that Scripture teaches the possibility of a falling away of those who have been purified by the blood of Christ, who have known the way of righteousness and have walked therein, who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gifts, and who have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come. According to Scripture, they fall away so definitely and so finally that their end is worse than their beginning, they increase in ungodliness, and they can never be brought again to repentance.

Besides, the Remonstrants argue that the doctrine of the certain perseverance of the saints simply makes careless and profane men. This objection also seems to have considerable weight. The Scriptures admonish that we must watch and pray that we may not fall into temptation (Matt. 26:41). We are called to be faithful even unto death, keeping that which we have, that no one take our crown (Rev. 3:11). We shall not be highminded, but rather fear, seeing that we also may be broken off as branches from the olive tree (Rom. 11:20, 21). The Arminian argues that if it is established a priori that the believer can never fall away from grace finally and completely, these admonitions of Scripture lose all their seriousness. If it is established beforehand that saved once is saved forever, why should we still fight the battle in order to be saved? Therefore, it appears indeed as if the doctrine of the preservation and perseverance of the saints must make men careless and profane.

A doctrine that is based on such an ungodly conception certainly cannot have the truth of Scripture for its foundation.³

Then Hoeksema destroys the Arminians’ argument:

As to the argument that the Scriptures admonish the believers to stand fast and not to fall away from the faith, but to persevere, we answer that this in no way militates against the truth of the preservation and perseverance of the saints. Even as conscious faith is wrought through the preaching of the word and by the Holy Spirit, so also the perseverance of the saints is a fruit of the operation of the Holy Spirit through the same word. We must remember that grace does not destroy the rational and moral nature of man, but preserves it.⁴

Professor Huizinga throws a small slight at the truth when he writes,

Neither does the pure worship of a church of true believers become damnable and its holy doctrine heretical in one year. There is only one way from 0 to 180, and it is by degrees.

You are right, Prof., a church that worships purely does not ordinarily become heretical in one year. A church holds onto false doctrine in her belly for years and slowly squeezes out the life of the bride of Christ until God delivers her from absolute destruction and leaves the bride who years before held to the truth to be just a sideshow.

35. Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord:

36. Thus saith the Lord God; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them;

37. Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness.

38. And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.

39. And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare. (Ezek. 16:35–39)

Through all her unrighteous decisions, from her despising of God’s covenant in the opening of the door for homeschoolers, to the approval of false doctrine by her synods and  refusal to submit herself to the yoke of Christ by her constant panting for man and denominations who have given themselves over to man years ago, the PRC has not fallen quickly but surely by degrees in her pride, so that now she thinks that her robes will not be washed by the blood of Christ alone but by Christ and in the way of her repentance and obedience.

Let us remember what Jesus spoke in Luke 18:9–14 in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican.

9. He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:

10. Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.

11. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

12. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

13. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

14. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

The teaching from Professor Huizinga will not let you, or the denomination, become the greatest of sinners. The protractor measurement will keep you looking over against your brother and at yourself regarding where you are on the scale of godliness. All the teachings of man and what he must do and how faith is his act and not God’s act only lead to a high-mindedness, a prideful life, and ultimately to hell itself.

The publican went home justified not because he humbled himself but because he was given to see that his salvation was only in the cross of Christ. That is the result of hearing the gospel and seeing your salvation by faith. The child of God comes before his king and sees himself as he truly is and goes home completely justified in his subjective consciousness. This happens no other way than by faith in Christ alone—faith, the bond by which we receive all of Christ’s righteousness.

John 8:11 tells us that Jesus forgave the woman taken in the very act of adultery when he said to her, “Go and sin no more.” Did Jesus tell her that in order to put a millstone around her neck for the rest of her life, so that if she sinned she would once again slide back down to the state of being unjustified or to a special state of being justified but not tasting God’s goodness? Did she then live her life desiring to sin so that grace would much more abound? Would she live a careless and profane life? Impossible! Did she leave her Lord and savior justified and knowing and tasting the mercy of Christ, longing to live out of that justification as forgiven, hating her sin yet being still a sinner, not looking over her shoulder and wondering where she was on a scale of godliness but living every day and seeing herself as an unworthy, redeemed child of God’s free grace? Certainly!

Child of God, quit measuring yourself with a ruler or protractor. Quit looking at the law as a measuring stick of holiness before God. Look at the law as that which you desire to do, not as that which you can do. Become nothing before God. Become the greatest sinner that ever was. Become the readmitted excommunicated sinner by grace in Jesus Christ. Know this by faith alone, not by your holy living. Stop trying to be so holy! You want to measure yourself with something? Go to the cross and see where your savior hung, bled, and died. See where you died, where your sins were nailed, and where your justification was accomplished. The elect stand in the perfect man, Jesus Christ! He fulfilled the law! Through his weakness, we are made alive! “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you” (2 Cor. 13:4).