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The Protestant Reformed Churches in America are nearly a century old. After the Christian Reformed synod in 1924 made its decision on the three points of common grace and subsequently expelled Rev. Herman Hoeksema, Rev. George Ophoff, and Rev. Henry Danhof on the grounds of ecclesiastical insubordination, the respective consistories of those three ministers banded together on March 6, 1925, and by an Act of Agreement formed the Protesting Christian Reformed Churches. Although the three ministers and their consistories were accused of schism, the Christian Reformed Church was the cause of that separation because the denomination had adopted the three points of common grace, which were Pelagian and Arminian in real tendency, and because the Christian Reformed Church was determined to shut the mouths of her faithful members who raised their voices in protest against that triple corruption of the Reformed truth. When it became abundantly clear that the Christian Reformed Church was hell-bent on maintaining the three points of common grace, the Protesting Christian Reformed Churches officially organized as a classis at the end of 1926 and adopted the name Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC).
Herman Hoeksema explained what the churches meant when they called themselves the Protestant Reformed Churches. By that name
the churches meant to express that they stand on the basis of the Reformed Churches of the Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, officially adopt the Reformed Standards as their basis of unity and are devoted to the maintenance and positive development of the Reformed truth as embodied in those Standards.2
For the occasion of this speech, I want to draw attention to what Hoeksema said in that quotation, for at the time of her formation in 1926, the Protestant Reformed denomination was devoted to the maintenance of the Reformed truth as embodied in the Reformed standards—namely, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dordt. The churches were devoted both to the maintenance and to the positive development of the Reformed truth.
I draw attention to Hoeksema’s quotation because for this speech I am not interested in providing a mere, academic survey of the theology of the century-old Protestant Reformed Churches in America. Rather, I am interested in examining the theology of the century-old Protestant Reformed Churches with a view to this matter: Is the denomination still devoted to the maintenance and positive development of the Reformed truth as embodied in the Reformed standards upon which she stood as the basis of her unity at the time of her formation? Does the theology of the century-old Protestant Reformed Churches reflect this maintenance and positive development of the Reformed truth? That is the question.
The answer to that question has this very practical application: if the present theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches reflects the maintenance and positive development of the Reformed truth, then the denomination manifests that her cause is Christ’s cause in the world. If by her present theology the Protestant Reformed denomination defends and promotes the truth and likewise exposes and condemns the lie, then all who oppose that denomination of churches will be smashed to pieces. All who oppose her will be smashed to pieces because they make war not against mere churches but against the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and they vainly attempt to thwart God’s decree.
However, if the present theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches no longer reflects such a maintenance and positive development of the Reformed truth, then her cause is become the very cause of antichrist. If the denomination has corrupted the Reformed truth upon which she once stood, then she has rebelled against the Lord and now opposes him. The churches of the denomination will surely come to naught. The denomination will be broken by the Lord’s rod of iron and dashed to pieces. If she no longer maintains and positively develops the Reformed truth, then the century-old Protestant Reformed denomination has cast out Christ and become the synagogue of Satan. That is the seriousness and application of the topic that you have given to me.
As one considers the state of theology in the century-old Protestant Reformed Churches, it is abundantly clear that the denomination has indeed willingly forsaken the old paths. She has deliberately rejected the glorious truths of the Reformed faith that were once taught in her midst. And she aggressively maintains and develops not the truth but the lie.
To prove that I do not need to examine all that the PRC has to say today about God, man, Christ, salvation, the church, and the end times. This is to say, to prove the assertion that the Protestant Reformed denomination aggressively maintains and develops the lie, I do not need to examine the Protestant Reformed Churches in all the loci of Reformed dogmatics. The truth is one. The truth is one because God is one. If there is any hardened and rebellious departure from any aspect of the truth, then that hardened and rebellious departure will necessarily permeate and corrupt her whole theology.
I can tell you what the state of theology is in the Protestant Reformed denomination simply by examining what she teaches today about faith. This speech will be about faith.
It is exactly regarding this particular doctrine of faith that the Protestant Reformed denomination has made a most dramatic departure from the Reformed truth as embodied in the Reformed standards. The PRC has corrupted the doctrine of faith in closest connection with the controversy that the Reformed Protestant denomination has with the PRC—namely, the controversy over how salvation is applied to the elect child of God and how the elect child of God possesses and experiences and enjoys his salvation that is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
By corrupting the doctrine of faith, the century-old Protestant Reformed denomination corrupts the whole doctrine of salvation, for the elect child of God is saved through faith. Through faith he is justified. Through faith he is sanctified. Through faith he is glorified. Through faith he receives all things. Through faith he is kept in communion with Jesus Christ and all his benefits. And all of salvation is corrupted by what the PRC teaches concerning faith.
But more than that, because the truth is one, the century-old denomination corrupts her whole theology. She corrupts the truth of election. She corrupts the truth of the cross. She corrupts the truth about man. She ultimately corrupts the truth of God. By her doctrine of faith, the century-old Protestant Reformed denomination no longer teaches the sovereign God who infallibly accomplishes his good pleasure in his elect and in all the world. The PRC pays lip service to the sovereignty and good pleasure of God, but by her doctrine of faith she teaches a god who engages in a mutually dependent relationship with man, so that there is a mutual interplay and interdependence between God’s blessings and man’s activities.
By her doctrine of faith, the PRC teaches a different god. By her doctrine of faith, the PRC manifests her whole theology. By her doctrine of faith, the PRC manifests that she has forsaken the cause of Jesus Christ and become fundamentally antichristian.
And so, for the purpose of this speech on the state of theology in the century-old Protestant Reformed Churches in America, I will address her doctrine of faith.
The ministers of the Protestant Reformed Churches have decided very recently to change their doctrine of faith. This change to the doctrine of faith is not the rogue action of a minister or two. This change to the doctrine of faith is not an unintentional teaching by a new minister fresh out of seminary. This change to the doctrine of faith is a calculated and deliberate and willful change to what the PRC taught from the beginning and which doctrine of faith was formerly maintained and positively developed.
The doctrine of faith was maintained and positively developed by the Protestant Reformed Churches especially during her controversy over the conditional covenant during the 1940s and 1950s. The doctrine of the conditional covenant insisted that God makes general and conditional promises for the blessedness of his covenant. And faith, as it was erroneously taught at that time, was the condition that God required of man to enter and to enjoy God’s covenant. That doctrine of the conditional covenant entered the Protestant Reformed Churches through the teachings of Dr. Klaas Schilder and the liberated churches from the Netherlands. Especially through this controversy the Protestant Reformed Churches maintained and positively developed the doctrine of faith.
Today, the ministers of the Protestant Reformed Churches have decided to change their doctrine of faith from what historically had been taught by them. This change to the doctrine of faith has to do with the essence and fundamental nature of faith.
When I speak about the essence of faith, I refer to what faith really is. The essence of a tree is what a tree really is. The essence of a horse is what a horse really is. The PRC has decided to change the essence of faith. This change to the doctrine of faith affects the answer to such questions as, what is faith? what is faith at its heart? what is the first thing that you think of when you say the word faith? and when scripture says that you are saved by grace through faith, what is it about that faith that you have in mind?
Today, the PRC consciously and deliberately rejects the truth about faith. The PRC rejects what she has been taught from her youth, in what she has been catechized, and what the ministers have taught from their pulpits for many years. The PRC teaches that faith is not a bond. Faith, as she now teaches, is not essentially and fundamentally the real, spiritual union with the Lord Jesus Christ—the living bond that unites the elect sinner to Jesus Christ.
Today, the PRC consciously and deliberately teaches that faith is only man’s activity of believing. In the year of our Lord 2024, the PRC teaches that faith is essentially and fundamentally not a bond but man’s activity of believing and trusting in Jesus Christ. Most emphatically, the PRC now insists that faith is not a bond. Most emphatically, the PRC insists that faith is not union between Jesus Christ and his elect people. Rather, most emphatically, the PRC insists that faith is merely man’s activity of trusting in Jesus Christ.
I give two examples from the past month.
Rev. Martyn McGeown, the minister of Providence Protestant Reformed Church, wrote the following:
The Holy Spirit creates a spiritual, living connection between Christ and the sinner at regeneration. That union with Jesus Christ takes place not when we believe, but when we are regenerated, that is, when we are given new life by the Holy Spirit and cease to be dead in trespasses and sins. That union, however, is not faith. It is a confounding of concepts to call it faith. We should reserve the language of faith for the activity of believing. 3
Reverend McGeown made very clear that faith is not the living bond and union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Reverend McGeown made very clear that the term faith is to be used exclusively to refer to the activity of man. Faith is no union. Faith is essentially and fundamentally man’s “activity of believing.”
But Reverend McGeown is not the only one who is teaching this. Rev. Joshua Engelsma, the minister of Crete Protestant Reformed Church, preached this new doctrine of faith less than a month ago in Loveland Protestant Reformed Church, while providing pulpit supply. He preached this new doctrine of faith in connection with Lord’s Day 7.
Lord’s Day 7 is that grand exposition of the doctrine of faith in the Heidelberg Catechism. Lord’s Day 7 is composed of the following two questions and answers:
Q. 20: Are all men then, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ?
A. No, only those who are ingrafted into Him, and receive all His benefits, by a true faith.
Q. 21: What is true faith?
A. True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart; that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are, freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits. (Confessions and Church Order, 90)
Here I need to point out that the literal reading of this Lord’s Day in the German language makes very clear that faith is a living bond that unites the elect sinner to Jesus Christ. The literal reading of answer 20 is this: No, only such as by true faith are engrafted into him, and receive all his benefits.
By faith, the Catechism says, we are engrafted into Jesus Christ. By faith we are made one plant with Jesus Christ, one living organism.
The language of engrafting brings us into the world of horticulture. I do not know if any of you have experimented with grafting branches into a trunk. There are many reasons that someone would take a branch from one tree and engraft it into the trunk of another tree. For example, you could use a single tree trunk and engraft branches that yield different kinds of fruit, so that you could yield multiple types of fruit from a single tree or even yield different kinds of fruit throughout multiple seasons. Or you can engraft a pollinating branch into a fruit tree to increase the yield of the tree or to avoid the need for a separate pollinating tree. And the reasons for engrafting go on and on. For the engrafting process, you take a branch and cut a wedge into its base; then you take the trunk of the tree and make a receiving cut into it; then you insert the branch, secure it, and cover up the joint that was made between the branch and the trunk. And not long after that engrafting process, you can remove whatever covering there was over that joint between the branch and the trunk, and you will discover a living bond—a graft—that exists between the branch and the trunk.
With this picture in mind, we can understand what the Heidelberg Catechism means when it explicitly states that we are engrafted into Jesus Christ by means of a graft, which graft is faith. Just as the graft is the living union between the branch and the trunk—so that when the graft develops, there is real, organic unity between the branch and the trunk; they are one plant, and the life of that trunk is life for the branch—so too faith is that living union between Christ and his elect church. Through faith we are united to Christ, really and spiritually, such that we are one organism. We are branches cut out of the corrupt and rotten trunk of Adam, and we are engrafted into Christ through faith, so that his life is in us.
But Reverend Engelsma rejected this clear teaching of the Catechism when he preached on Lord’s Day 7, thereby departing from the maintenance and positive development of the Reformed truth. He preached the following:
First of all, question and answer 20…speaks of those who are engrafted into him. And that’s the language of union to the Lord Jesus Christ. To be engrafted into him is to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ. When we speak of being united to the Lord Jesus Christ, it’s not faith that establishes that living bond. Faith is not something inherent in us. It’s not some natural ability in us, whereby we bring ourselves into union to the Lord Jesus Christ. 4
You must see what Reverend Engelsma did there. His doctrine is much more subtle than Reverend McGeown’s, which I detest. Reverend Engelsma knows full well that he is altering the doctrine of faith that was taught for years in the Protestant Reformed Churches, but he cloaked his departure from the truth under very smooth speech. He spoke like the serpent. He employed the cunning art of misdirection. His argument was that faith cannot be that bond with Jesus Christ. Why? Because faith is not something that is inherent in us or some natural ability.
Well, of course faith is not some natural ability that is inherent in man! That is obvious. Faith is a gift. But Reverend Engelsma used this simplistic and irrelevant argument to discard the idea that faith itself as to its very essence is a living bond and union with Jesus Christ. And Reverend Engelsma went on to say,
Now, when the Holy Spirit unites us, that living union to Jesus Christ, he works in us then and gives to us the seed, or the faculty, or the power of faith. Something that’s bestowed to us by the Spirit in our regeneration. I’m not talking now about the activity of that faith, but the seed, the power, the faculty of faith as that’s given to us freely, graciously of God, by the working of the Holy Spirit.5
Reverend Engelsma, in his insistence that faith is essentially the activity of man, said that faith comes like a seed and is worked by the Holy Spirit. What is that seed? That seed is the capability or the potential to believe on Jesus Christ. That seed is the activity of man that will eventually develop and come to conscious expression.
What Reverend Engelsma said sounds very nice on the surface, but it is an astounding overthrow of the doctrine of faith. In the end Reverend Engelsma emphasized that faith is man’s activity, and he quietly rejected the idea that faith is essentially and fundamentally union with Jesus Christ.
What these two examples illustrate is a calculated and deliberate and willful change to the doctrine of faith from what the fathers in the Protestant Reformed Churches always taught.
For example, Rev. Herman Hoeksema wrote the following on Lord’s Day 7, question and answer 20:
The Catechism here offers a profound spiritual conception of saving faith: it is the means whereby we are united with Christ, the spiritual bond whereby we are made one body, one plant with Him, so that by faith we may live from Him, draw our all from Him, and thus receive all His benefits…
And the spiritual bond that so makes us one plant with Christ that we live out of Him, is faith.6
Further, I quote from Prof. Herman Hanko regarding faith:
Faith is, in its essential nature, the bond that unites the believer to Christ…
Faith is not, first of all, believing. But it is, first of all, the living “connection” between Christ and His people…
This idea of faith as a bond lies behind the truth that faith is the gift of God. The union which is formed between Christ and His people by which they become one body with Him is not a union created by man; it is God’s work entirely. This bond is established between the living Christ, in whom are all the blessings of salvation, and the dead sinner in whom is not a spark of spiritual life…
As that faith comes to consciousness in the life of the child of God, it always remains the bond of union with Christ…7
That faith is essentially a bond was the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches in previous generations. But in the century-old Protestant Reformed Churches today, this is no longer her theology.
To prove further that this change to the doctrine of faith is a calculated and deliberate and willful change on the part of Protestant Reformed ministers from what the Protestant Reformed Churches used to teach, I briefly point out that Reverend McGeown and Reverend Engelsma used to insist that faith is a bond.
Back in 2013 Reverend McGeown wrote the following:
In salvation, the Holy Spirit takes a sinner—who is like an old, dead, withered stick lying on the ground, severed from the only source of life—and He unites that sinner to Jesus Christ (John 15:1–2). The sinner certainly does not have any power of himself to unite himself to Jesus Christ. Nor, in fact, does the sinner even desire it. He is dead! The Holy Spirit gives to the sinner the life of Jesus Christ in uniting him or her to Jesus Christ.
We call that vital connection, bond or union faith.8
Reverend McGeown went on to write, “That aspect of faith is much neglected today by many who see faith simply as something we do.”9 That is what Reverend McGeown used to teach. Now he teaches exactly what he condemned earlier—namely, that faith is only an act of man and that the creeds and scripture do not teach that faith is a bond. I say, then, that this change to the doctrine of faith is a calculated and deliberate and willful change.
Reverend Engelsma too in previous sermons on Lord’s Day 7 insisted that faith is a living bond, a real union to Christ, so that he is in us and we are in him.10 Now Reverend Engelsma does not.
Now the question is, why? Why such a calculated and deliberate and willful change to what the PRC has taught from the beginning?
It is my judgment that this departure from the truth is God’s judgment upon a denomination that has been clamoring for more of man’s activity in her theology. God is giving the denomination over to her proud lusting for more of man’s responsibility in the preaching and, consequently, over to her rejection of the absolute sovereignty of God to bestow salvation according to his decree of election and the perfect sufficiency of the cross of Jesus Christ. The Protestant Reformed ministers pay lip service to the sovereignty of God and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they eagerly develop the idea that the covenant is a mutually dependent relationship of God with man, so that there is a mutual interplay and interdependence between God’s blessings and man’s activities.
This departure from the truth of the doctrine of faith is not at all surprising. This change to the doctrine of faith is simply the evil fruit of what the PRC has been working toward for years.
You really need to trace this recent development back to what Rev. Kenneth Koole, an emeritus minister in the Protestant Reformed Churches, wrote in the Standard Bearer in 2018.11 Reverend Koole despised the doctrine of faith taught in a sermon by Rev. Herman Hoeksema on the Philippian jailor in Acts 16.
You will recall that the Philippian jailor, shaken to the core of his existence by all that had transpired in the middle of the night, cried out to Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Paul and Silas declared, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”
Reverend Hoeksema rightly interpreted the essence of their response as this: “Do nothing! But believe.”12 That believing was a doing nothing to be saved. That believing was a resting in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, who came to the jailor in Philippi through the apostles and through the earthquake and who himself spoke in that call of the gospel.
But Reverend Koole despised that exegesis of Reverend Hoeksema on Acts 16 and called it “nonsense.” For Reverend Koole, the jailor asked what he must do. And the apostle responded, here is what you must do. And the jailor did what he must do. Reverend Koole insisted that there was an activity of man that was necessary to perform before the jailor enjoyed his salvation. And that jailor did what he was supposed to do.
Now, Reverend Koole’s article caused quite a stir within the Protestant Reformed Churches in 2018 and in 2019. Rev. Nathan Langerak and Rev. Andrew Lanning and Rev. Martin VanderWal and even Prof. David Engelsma all wrote into the Standard Bearer to criticize Reverend Koole’s mockery of the truth of faith. But the PRC continued her agenda to make faith what man does for salvation, to make faith all about man’s activity and man’s responding to the preaching of the gospel.
A few months later Reverend McGeown quickly came to Reverend Koole’s defense by publishing an article in the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal to emphasize the activity of believing and to belittle the idea that faith is a bond. McGeown wrote,
While it is true that God works faith and repentance in us…we still believe and repent.13
And further, he wrote,
The call to faith in the gospel comes to every sinner. That call came to the Jews in Acts 2:37- 41, and they obeyed that call, believed, and were baptized; and that call came to the jailor of Philippi in Acts 16:30-34, and he obeyed that call, believed, was baptized, and rejoiced with his household. They did those things by the grace of God, but they still did them. They did not sit idly waiting for God to save them—they heard the call to repent and believe and received the “end of their faith, even the salvation of [their] souls” (I Peter 1:9).14
Oh, Reverend McGeown at that time would talk about faith as a bond. But this speaking about faith as a bond was already a ploy to cover what McGeown really wanted to say: that faith is activity, activity, activity of man, man, man. And that drive in the Protestant Reformed Churches to make faith all about man’s activity and not at all that living bond with Jesus Christ was strengthened.
The next major push for the rejection of faith as a bond came after the formation of the Reformed Protestant Churches out of the Protestant Reformed Churches. That next major push for the rejection of faith as a bond came in connection with a Reformed Protestant doctrine class in late 2021 on the topic of passive faith. In this class Reverend Lanning taught that the faith that justifies and the faith that saves is a passive faith.
And that is very true. Faith is passive because faith only receives the fullness of salvation from Jesus Christ. Faith gives nothing for that salvation. Faith offers nothing for that salvation. Faith does not offer even its own believing for that salvation. Faith only receives Christ and all his fullness. This idea of faith does not deny that faith is most vigorous activity, the activity of the believer’s whole soul. But this activity of faith is of an entirely different sort. It is the activity of doing nothing for salvation but resting in Christ and receiving his fullness.
And I note in passing that the Protestant Reformed fathers were not afraid to speak of faith as passive. Here is a quote from Reverend Hoeksema, commenting on Lord’s Day 7:
Notice that faith here is the spiritual means or, as it is often called, the instrument, whereby we are ingrafted, incorporated (ingeljfd, einverleibt) into Christ. This is an entirely passive notion. Man has nothing to do with it.15
But this teaching of passive faith was called heresy off the pulpit by one Protestant Reformed minister. I know this because I was in that Protestant Reformed church when the truth of passive faith was called heresy. Reverend Mahtani preached,
It is explicitly denied [by the Reformed Protestant Churches] that faith, the instrument through which we are justified, is an active faith. It is said instead that that faith is completely passive or utterly passive. While that sounds like a wonderful defense of gracious justification, this is heresy.16
And once again Reverend McGeown quickly rose up to condemn the whole idea of passive faith in a blog post.17 There was one statement in particular made by Reverend Lanning that Reverend McGeown found very odd. Reverend Lanning said, “When we are talking about [faith as] the instrument of our justification, we are still talking about what God does.”18 That statement quickly caught the attention of Reverend McGeown. It was strange to him to think of faith as “what God does.”
That statement caught Reverend McGeown’s attention because for him faith is all about man’s activity. Faith is activity. It is activity. It is activity. Reverend McGeown went on at length in the same blog post to defend faith as man’s activity. Faith, though a gift of God and wrought by the Holy Spirit, must be presented, according to Reverend McGeown, as an act of man.
So it becomes clear that this departure from the truth of the doctrine of faith in the Protestant Reformed Churches is not at all surprising. This change to the doctrine of faith is simply the evil fruit of what the Protestant Reformed denomination has been pushing toward for years. If you gut faith of its essence as the living bond whereby the elect sinner is engrafted into Jesus Christ, then all you are left with is man’s activity. And that is exactly for what the PRC has been clamoring. This new doctrine denies the bond of faith in order to emphasize the necessity of man’s activity in salvation and in order to exclude any passivity of man in being saved by faith.
What do the Protestant Reformed Churches teach concerning faith? This: God gives man his activity of believing, but this activity is man’s, not God’s. God gives faith only to the elect, but man must first exercise his faith to enjoy salvation. Man is passive in his regeneration, but man is never passive in faith. Man is united to Christ, but this union is most definitely not faith. Faith is not a bond. Faith is only man’s activity of believing. Faith is that which man must do, and without man’s doing it, there is no salvation.
I say, this is the state of theology in the century-old Protestant Reformed Churches: Man’s activity. Man’s activity. Man’s activity.
But now as a refutation of this new doctrine of faith proposed by the century-old Protestant Reformed Churches, let me substitute her new theology of faith into various passages of the creeds and of scripture. Let me substitute the PRC’s doctrine that faith is fundamentally man’s activity of believing for the word faith in some passages, and ask yourself, does this sound Reformed at all?
Here is Lord’s Day 25, question and answer 65: “Since then we are made partakers of Christ and all His benefits by our activity of believing only, whence does this faith proceed?”
Here is Belgic Confession, article 22: “And man’s activity of believing is an instrument that keeps us in communion with [Christ] in all His benefits, which, when become ours, are more than sufficient to acquit us of our sins.”
Here is Ephesians 3:14–17: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… that Christ may dwell in your hearts by your activity of believing.”
Here is Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by my activity of believing on the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
And of course, here is Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace are ye saved through your activity of believing.”
Now faith is certainly an activity. We do not minimize this activity. Faith is an activity of the whole man. Faith involves the faculties of man’s soul: his mind and his will. But faith is a wholly different kind of activity, that of receiving everything from Christ and not giving anything to Christ.
What we do not allow is for faith’s activity to push into the background that faith is a real, spiritual union with the Lord Jesus Christ. This idea of union with Jesus Christ is where the Catechism begins in Lord’s Day 7. Where do you begin with faith? You begin with the truth that faith is union with Christ. You begin with the truth that saving faith is a bond to Jesus Christ. That is the essence of faith. Just as the essence of a horse is what a horse really is, so the essence of faith is that we are united to Jesus Christ. Those elect children of God who perished in Adam are saved when they “are ingrafted into Christ by a true faith.” That is the Reformed faith that is rooted in the Reformed standards.
Our understanding of faith must not be this (and now I am describing the preaching to you as you would hear it in the Protestant Reformed Churches): God in the preaching of the gospel gives you grace, God brings you the gospel and works in your hearts by the operation of the Spirit, but you must believe.
No, our understanding of faith is this: you will believe. If you are a child of God and you come under the preaching of the gospel, then faith can do nothing else but hear and trust and rely upon Jesus Christ. Why? Because the faith that hears and trusts and relies upon Jesus Christ is the very same faith that has already united the believer to Jesus Christ!
And this truth of faith is of utmost comfort for the child of God. That bond of faith, according to God’s covenant promise, is established even with little infants in the womb. The life of Christ is in the child even before he or she does anything spiritual. That little child is as much a partaker of salvation as adults are with all their thinking and willing and doing. As the baptism form says, the little infants are sanctified in Christ. How is that possible? They did not know anything. They were not assured of anything. Where is their activity of faith? But they are sanctified in Christ because they are sanctified by faith. They are sanctified in Christ because they have a real, spiritual union with Christ by faith.
This truth of faith means that the person who lies on the hospital bed as a vegetable with no brain activity whatsoever is as much a partaker of salvation as you and I. What can such a person do for salvation? What believing can such a person do? Yet Christ is in him by faith.
And since the strength of that bond is not you but the almighty Lord, the Spirit of Christ, the Lord and author of faith, nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. Faith cannot fail. Men may fail but not faith. Faith is not weak. Men are weak but not faith.
And what now shall we say about the state of theology in the century-old Protestant Reformed Churches? This: by her doctrine of faith, the century-old Protestant Reformed denomination no longer teaches about the sovereign God who infallibly accomplishes his good pleasure in his elect and in all the world. The PRC pays lip service to the sovereignty and good pleasure of God, but by her doctrine of faith she teaches a god who engages in a mutually dependent relationship with man, so that there is a mutual interplay and interdependence between God’s blessings and man’s activities. By her doctrine of faith, the PRC teaches a different god. By her doctrine of faith, the PRC manifests her whole theology. By her doctrine of faith, the PRC manifests that she has forsaken the cause of Jesus Christ and has become fundamentally antichristian.
It is very clear by this calculated and deliberate and willful change to the doctrine of faith that God is judging the Protestant Reformed Churches and giving the denomination further and further over to her folly. God is hurling the PRC down the road of apostasy. So we urgently warn those in the churches of her pernicious ways. We call them to repent and call them to join us where Christ maintains and Christ develops the Reformed truth by his grace and Holy Spirit.
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