If the Protestant Reformed Churches begin now to view their knowledge and confession of the unconditional covenant as a mere distinctive, it will go hard with them both in time and in eternity in the judgement of God.¹

Ominous, yet predictive, words from the once-leading theologian of the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). He wrote these words in defense of the church institute as faithfully expressed in the Belgic Confession, a confession to which many Reformed churches once subscribed. The Belgic Confession, as part of the three forms of unity, and the Westminster Confession and Second Helvetic Confession teach that outside a true church there is no salvation.

Nowadays, churches pop up here, there, and everywhere with different letters behind their names for one reason or another. Many times, these churches are independent churches that over the years have broken off from denominations for various reasons. While some churches have split due to poor relationships between leadership or the direction someone wanted to take the church, very rarely does a church reform over the doctrine of sovereign grace as expressed in the unconditional covenant. Division over doctrine is rare. Divisions are due almost exclusively to man’s desire to make a church according to his own personal ideas regarding what he wants God to say about man and salvation, trying to make God indifferent to his own covenant.

In 1953 Rev. Herman Hoeksema wrote about what Reverend van Dooren, a Liberated Reformed preacher from the Netherlands, and his fellow brethren ran into when they came to the United States and wanted to join a Reformed church. Reverend van Dooren complained that the PRC taught everything from the viewpoint of election, thus doing injustice to the covenant and God’s promise. Van Dooren went on to relate how the PRC’s teaching and preaching created a little door into the church—a little door for the Liberated’s conditional covenant teaching regarding infant baptism.

About this contention Hoeksema wrote,

I am, however, absolutely positive that if it is true what the Rev. van Dooren writes, that particular person never discussed that particular sermon he heard of me with me personally. I can, however, assure the Rev. van Dooren that I am quite sure that my preaching will find no grace in the eyes of the Liberated. The Prot. Ref. Church never believed in the Heynsian conception of the covenant and of the promise, as do the Liberated. According to our conviction, this conception is not Reformed, but principally Arminian. The truth as it is expressed in the Declaration of Principles is, and always was, the doctrine expressed in the Three Forms of Unity, and therefore the doctrine of the Prot. Ref. Churches. That doctrine the Prot. Ref. Churches zealously maintains and defends. And it certainly closes the door to anyone who does not subscribe to that doctrine. And I am very glad that the Rev. van Dooren, and others with him, at last have discovered that this is the truth, and that it certainly is not true, what the late Prof. Holwerda reported as the convictions of the Revs, de Jong and Kok, that there was much sympathy and plenty of room in the Prot. Ref. Churches for the Liberated doctrine. And why, pray, should we not close the door to the Liberated? Do they not close the door to us? Do they not pretend to be the only true church, while all the rest are false churches? They certainly must have nothing of our Prot. Ref. truth,  which they call worse than synodical. It stands to reason, therefore, that even if we did not officially close our church doors to the Liberated and their doctrine, they would never join our church communion.²

Hoeksema went on to write about a certain Rev. Lawrence R. Eyres, a pastor in a Reformed Presbyterian Church, who had some advice for one who is looking for a true church:

The Rev. Lawrence R. Eyres has a rather interesting article in the Presbyterian Guardian. He has several don’ts and several do’s by which one must be guided to choose the true church. One must not choose the church of his own choice. Nor must one simply go by the label, such as “evangelical” or “conservative.” One must rather look beneath the name for a church’s doctrine and practice. So, one must not choose a church which claims to have some rite or practice which is necessary to salvation. Nor must one choose a church which sets aside the law of God, or a church which does not proclaim the whole counsel of God. It is from one of these don’ts that we quote the following:

Don’t choose a church which teaches that you have some part in your salvation. We hear of “faith and evangelical obedience” as the ground, or necessary condition, to salvation. These people believe that the faith that saves is the work of man, not the “gift of God” (Eph. 2:8, 9), and that works (that’s what evangelical obedience is) are necessary to salvation. Of course, this rule excludes all modernistic or liberal churches as well as many which are commonly known as “evangelical” or “fundamental.”

With this, of course, we can entirely agree. No works whatsoever, not even the works of faith, not even evangelical obedience, can possibly be a condition or prerequisite unto salvation. To teach this is certainly Arminian, and not according to the Holy Scriptures.³

Today the doctrine of the unconditional covenant has fallen into the mere-distinction category for many, if not most, in the Reformed church world and especially in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Proof that the unconditional covenant is viewed as a mere distinction between one church and another church is how the Protestant Reformed ministers cross the aisle with those who are against the so-called distinctives of the PRC. Recently in the PRC, ministers have left the denomination, and they received a mere sideways look or even a pat on the back, to the extent of being encouraged to join a church where they feel most comfortable. The ministers who have left now either fill pulpits in the United Reformed Churches or sit in other churches where they finally feel the liberty to speak and teach what they really believe.

The unconditional covenant, “a mere distinctive.”

I suppose that many in the PRC, and most likely the young people, are sick and tired of the words unconditional covenant. “Is the unconditional covenant all you can ever talk about? Is that all we are known for? Unconditional, like how God made us partners in his covenant according to the baptism form? Unconditional, like when we keep some of God’s commandments, then he is happy with us. But when we sin openly against one of his commandments, he is angry with us? Unconditional, like when I sin, then he withholds his salvation from my knowledge until I repent? Ugh! We all know that the teaching ‘if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do’ is just referring to believing; of course I believe!”

The phrase in the way of is a favorite, if not a foundational, Protestant Reformed catchphrase, which is taught to the masses to confer all manner of thoughts and inferences. I think that in the way of is really being taught from the idea that man “by his free will consents to the terms of salvation and actually believes in Christ” (Canons 3–4.14, in Confessions and Church Order). You cannot—no, you may not—have fellowship with God until you understand the terms of having this experience, that is, you have fellowship with God by faith alone and in the way of your obedience. Masterful wordsmithing.

Why the mastering of terms? Why the twisting of words and ideas into pretzels to get the point across?

Protestant Reformed ministers claim that all the emphasis of their preaching and of God’s word is that Christ is the basis of salvation, but they are quick to remind the people that a godly life matters for the experience of salvation! The ministers in the PRC preach that Christ is the basis and the author of faith, but to experience salvation and to really give credence to that gift, the people must work, and without that obedience they will not taste fellowship with God!

What about the experience of salvation? As if salvation and the experience of salvation were two totally different things! What good is knowing about the basis of our salvation if we do not get to experience salvation until we do something? I believe that the preachers in the PRC are asking the people in the pew: “What good is the basis of your salvation if you cannot experience salvation? Do you not want to experience God’s goodness? Then start living more holy; it is only in the way of living a holier life that you can experience your salvation for which Christ provided the basis.”

I refer back to the beginning words of Hoeksema, which apply not only to salvation but also to the experience of salvation:

No works whatsoever, not even the works of faith, not even evangelical obedience, can possibly be a condition or prerequisite unto salvation. To teach this is certainly Arminian, and not according to the Holy Scriptures.

The unconditional covenant, “a mere distinctive.”

The problem with preaching that uses phraseology that confers multiple interpretations and leaves the understanding to the whims of men is that it muddles the truth that God’s people enter into the kingdom of heaven by faith in Christ alone. By using phraseology that has many meanings, you could say that since good works must mark the Christian life, the Christian enters into the kingdom by faith in Christ and in the way of his obedience. Oh wait, Protestant Reformed ministers already do say this when they say that you enter into the experience of your salvation by faith and in the way of your obedience. The beauty of in the way of is that it can be defined however one wants: It does not mean because of, but it can sometimes mean when or by; it definitely does not mean that good works are the instrument by which one receives a blessing, but it is this incredibly graceful way of saying that good works are necessary in order to have what you need from God.

Prof. Brian Huizinga explained the meaning of the phrase in the way of in a lecture that he gave in Loveland Protestant Reformed Church.⁴ He taught his listeners that Christ is the door into the church building; but inside of Christ (or inside the church building), there are many pathways. Some pathways lead here, others lead there, and some pathways lead to God. I remember that many people left the lecture that night somewhat confused as to where they were in the pathway analogy. Some thought that maybe they were lost in some hallway; others thought that maybe they were stuck in a classroom or a bathroom. Certainly the best pathway to be on was the straight and narrow one. To be in Christ was not enough, one also had to be on the pathway that led to a better position to meet God, the Father. Who in the world would want to be stuck out back in some hall closet or in the bathroom? Only on the pathway of obedience could one truly abide with the Father because to be in Christ and to live in disobedience would mean that one does not have fellowship with God. Do you not want to experience your salvation? Professor Huizinga did not teach God’s law as a rule for the life of gratitude that flows out of being in Christ, but Huizinga taught the law as the means by which fellowship, the covenant of God, is established and maintained.

The good news for many in the PRC is that they do not actually have to believe in the unconditional covenant as God’s great purpose in order to be a member in the PRC, to hold office, or even to preach. Rev. Arend Haveman, the current minister of Loveland Protestant Reformed Church, proved this when he preached this:

When one generation is faithful to instruct and raise up the next generation, that generation will be faithful to do the same, and God will establish his covenant through that means…When we are faithful to this [the calling to train our children], God will use that means so that the next generation also remains faithful.⁵

Reverend Haveman went on to say, “When fathers instruct their children, the blessing of God is that that next generation will often remain faithful.” So now God establishes his unconditional covenant through the means of the faithfulness of one generation to the next? This means that God’s covenant could and would fail if one generation did not train faithfully enough the next generation.

Reverend Haveman’s sermon conflicted with the teaching of Professor Engelsma in his pamphlet on the unconditional covenant, in which he wrote, “There is no work of the sinner that is a condition he must fulfill in order to have the covenant, or to enjoy its blessings.”⁶

Haveman’s conditional preaching also fulfilled Engelsma’s warning:

If the covenant of grace is conditional, all of salvation is conditional, beginning with justification; and if God’s will—election—does not govern the covenant, the only alternative is that the will of the sinner governs the covenant, specifically the will of the sinful child.⁷

What work the members in Loveland church have before them! What law-preaching in place of the gospel! It is not law-preaching that serves the gospel but law-preaching that claims to be the gospel! The parents and grandparents have not only a calling to teach the next generation the fear of the Lord, but they now also establish the covenant of God by their faithfulness to that calling! Election theology is the farthest thing from Reverend Haveman’s mind. He will make sure that man’s faithfulness is the means by which God establishes, maintains, and governs his covenant with his people.

This is the good news preached in Loveland church from Sunday to Sunday? Your faithfulness is the means by which God establishes his covenant with you; if you are not faithful, you can expect the generations that you raised to be unfaithful also. The frazzled mom who is at her wits’ end with continuous instruction of God’s ways to her children and who sees no outward improvement should not roll her burdens upon Christ, but she should bear the burden that the establishing of God’s covenant with the next generation depends on her and her husband’s faithfulness! At the end of their lives, the parents who see that all their children have departed from the truth look down and wonder, “Why were we not more faithful in our instruction?” The grandparents who look back on their children and grandchildren and see that many have left the church and few have stayed think, “Where did we go wrong? If only we…”

30. What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.

31. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.

32. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone. (Rom. 9:30–32)

I do not deny that God uses means to carry out his will for his people, but God does not depend on their faithfulness to carry out his will. God can reprobate in spite of many years of godly instruction, and he can save in spite of many years of neglect. God has promised to save his people in the line of generations, not based upon their faithfulness but upon his promise alone through his election of them.

If only Reverend Haveman would have inserted the treasured words in the way of, his preaching would have sounded less Arminian and would have carried all the false doctrine away from the ears of those listening in the pew.

Let us hear the same warning about a conditional covenant from Prof. Herman Hanko:

If the fundamental doctrine of the covenant as the great and glorious salvation of the elect is made conditional, then all salvation is conditional. If all salvation is conditional, then justification, too, is conditional. Then justification is not by faith alone but is conditioned on works, particularly the works of obedience. Then, too, the whole heritage of the Protestant Reformation is lost. Thus the way is paved to return to Rome’s Pelagianism and idolatry.⁸

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8–9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.” The apostle then explains that the Gentiles had been without Christ and were aliens from the covenant and promise. Then Paul continues,

13. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

14. For he is our peace [assurance], who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;

15. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of the commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

16. And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:

17. And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.

18. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

19. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God. (Eph. 2:13–19)

What we see in these verses is Christ establishing fellowship with his saints, giving and making peace with his people. The unconditional covenant jumps off the pages of the book of Ephesians, and men find only what man must do to experience peace with God. Men will not stop working for their salvation and simply live a life of thankfulness as that which God has foreordained. It is no wonder that men and women in the church world today are prescribed antidepressants left and right to help them combat the ever-constant worry whether they have done enough! No, you have not, so stop trying! Stop working to experience your part in the covenant and let God be God.

The theology of Reverend Haveman is no different than the Liberated’s theology of the conditional covenant. The Liberated—really Klaas Schilder and those who followed him—taught that God in the covenant of grace promised to save all the children of believing parents, conditioned on the children’s believing and accepting God’s promise. The PRC and Reverend Haveman teach that God has a covenant of grace from one generation to the next that is fulfilled and blessed on the condition of the obedience of the parents: “When we are faithful to this [instructing the children], God will use that means so that the next generation also remains faithful.”

Of course, we have a duty before God to present our lives as living sacrifices unto him. This includes the raising and training of our children. Yet the burden is not on any part of our faithfulness for the establishment, maintenance, or experience of God’s promise. What does one tell parents in the PRC when most of their children, if not all their children, depart from the truth? The parents in Haveman’s sermon were told in no uncertain terms, “If you would have been more faithful, God would have used those means to give to you a faithful generation!” The PRC teaches that God will see and bless man’s righteous and noble desire to help God, but it all is an affront to God! It is to bring an offering of man’s own works, which is a pungent smell to God. All God ever wants and desires is the sweet-smelling savor of the shed blood of his beloved Son. And God has that eternally. What Reverend Haveman missed in his sermon was the doctrine of election. The doctrine of election governs the covenant, so that covenant preaching and teaching must be from the viewpoint that God’s promise is made effectual apart from man’s faithfulness, and the covenant doctrine cannot and may not be taught differently.

Romans 9:11–13 is a beautiful passage of scripture regarding God’s decree of election and God’s faithfulness to his promise as it pertained to Abraham and Isaac.

11. (For the children [Jacob and Esau] being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)

12. It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.

13. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

The teaching of Reverend Haveman’s sermon, which he undoubtedly was taught in the Protestant Reformed seminary, is the exact teaching of Reverend Overway that was supposedly condemned by the Protestant Reformed Synod of 2018. That poor man just could not connect the dots correctly and therefore was released from the ministry in the PRC. On December 20, 2015, Reverend Overway preached a sermon titled “Good Works Required,” in which he gave the following reason for performing good works:

We do good works so that we can receive God’s grace and Holy Spirit in our consciousness. So that we can consciously and with awareness receive the grace and Holy Spirit of God.⁹

Overway went on to explain the negative side of doing good works.

We do good works also negatively, so that we are not destroyed in our generations. What a motive that is. What a serious motive that is to us to do good works. Those who walk unrepentantly in sin, those who do not strive for sanctification, God says those are cut off in their generations. That’s the Word of God, the unyielding Word of God. Walk in good works then, that your generations may thrive and flourish in God’s land.

The devil loves to see men and women working not only for their part in the experience of salvation but also for their children’s part. The devil knows that if he can twist scripture so that people turn their obedience from thankfulness for salvation to obtaining their experience of salvation, then he has taken something away from Christ. Christ then is taken down a notch, and in reality he is taken off his throne. The devil wants nothing more than to take Christ off his throne and supplant Christ as the king of this world.

Makes sense, the unconditional covenant, “a mere distinctive.”

The truth of the unconditional covenant is that God is pleased to save his people through the merits of Jesus Christ alone, merely of grace, according to his gracious promise in election, completely apart from their works.

The lie of the conditional covenant is that God is pleased to establish his covenant by the power of his grace, through the promise that his salvation (or the experience of salvation) is upon the basis of the cross of Christ and through the means of your faithfulness. By exercising your faith and in the way of your obedience, God will give you that joy in your conscience.

Yet in scripture the cross is taught simply. “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” (Eph. 2:4–5).

I will teach my children the Reformed view of the scriptures that God accomplishes every aspect of salvation and that man is not a party with God in salvation but is incorporated unconditionally into God’s fellowship completely apart from man’s works. Not in the way of man’s works but because of God’s promise. I will teach my children that their believing and repenting does not open and shut the kingdom of heaven, but the grace of God alone does. Why then will I teach my children to repent? Well, from the understanding that they should get on their knees every day in thankfulness to God for sending his dear Son to come into human flesh and to die for sinners such as them! I will teach them that election is the fountain of all blessings, from which flows God’s unwavering promise to his people. I will teach them relentlessly the so-called twisted understanding that the cross is enough for salvation, that they can know this through faith alone (which is God’s act, not man’s), and that they do not also need to come to Christ to experience this. I will teach them that there is no truth like the Reformed truth, which extols the life of the covenant as it is beautifully expressed in the Christian school and which promotes the seriousness of joining oneself to a true church where these truths are preached. I will teach them that the only preaching to sinners that should include “unto” is preaching that teaches a life of thankfulness for the salvation freely given to us, that we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Eph. 2:10), and that life flows inevitably from the gift of faith.

The basis of the covenant, the life of the covenant, and the experience of the covenant are all governed by election. The Canons of Dordt perfectly and properly teaches the establishment of God’s covenant:

For this was the sovereign counsel and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father, that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of His Son should extend to all the elect, for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring them infallibly to salvation; that is, it was the will of God that Christ by the blood of the cross, whereby He confirmed the new covenant, should effectually redeem out of every people, tribe, nation, and language all those, and those only, who were from eternity chosen to salvation. (Canons of Dordt 2.8, in Confessions and Church Order, 163)

I really feel sorry for many in the PRC, for this type of balance-beam walking of doing good works for salvation is impossible, especially for the young people. Today’s churchgoers have to defend what people a hundred years ago believed to be life and death, while the meanings and understanding of words have changed. Condition did not mean condition, until it did. In the way of did not mean in the way of, until it did.

That is why I do not blame so many fleeing the PRC to other Reformed churches that in reality teach the cross of Christ more simply than the PRC does. Members flee from the PRC because they feel betrayed by those who are supposed to clearly and simply bring them knowledge of God. They run to churches who have open arms to accept this, that, and the other thing, making a melting pot of human reason and acumen. The danger of these churches to which many flee is that they teach a grace that is wider than election; they teach a resistible covenant of God; they believe in divorce and remarriage; and their confessions unapologetically teach a covenant of works and the well-meant offer of the gospel. But at least these false doctrines are taught in a concrete form with which the people can wrestle.

It is going to be almost impossible for the PRC to maintain her distinctions in this day and age. Really, the only differences the members can hold onto is divorce and remarriage and possibly that they attend church twice each Sunday. But if divorce and remarriage is what they are going to hang their hat on until Christ returns, it will be a trojan horse. They will hold onto the idea of marriage as that which separates them from the world around them. In the end they will be just where they want to be and separate for only that position. Why? Because they do not truly believe or care anymore about the unconditional covenant, God’s one great truth on this earth, which he has given his people to understand only by his grace. The preachers and members of the PRC denigrate the truth that God graciously made his people his friend-servants and brought them into covenant fellowship and that by the Holy Spirit’s continued work here on this earth, they know, believe, and experience that grace through faith in Christ alone, completely apart from their works.

Professor Engelsma wrote that it would go hard for the PRC in time and in eternity in the judgment of God if the unconditional covenant were ever considered to be “a mere distinctive.” By his good pleasure God gave to the PRC leaders who would stand by and watch in the day of battle and turn around. God gave to the PRC leaders who would show that they had no love for this distinctive and beautiful understanding of God’s covenant of grace. God gave to the PRC leaders and men who would trade the truth of the unconditional covenant for anything good that came around. Many would jump at the chance to get this defining distinction turned into “a mere distinctive” by giving man his due.

God’s covenant is not thwarted, and his grace is not frustrated at the hands of men. God’s love and jealousy for his covenant continue unabated in spite of the whims of men. God continues to gather his people unto himself and incorporates into Jesus Christ those who are his and those with whom he shares his mystery, his secret. What a wonderful truth this is! How amazing is God’s grace, that he would dwell with sinners such as us!

Is that enough, people of God? Is it enough that Christ offered himself upon the cross for you and me? Is it enough that God elected us and made us partakers of his covenant? Is it enough that your part in God’s covenant of fellowship and friendship is thankfulness? Is it enough that you have peace with God by his one perfect sacrifice on the cross? Is it enough too, then, that you wearily yet joyfully bear the burdens of this life’s trials every day? That you see friend and lover forsake the truth of God’s wonderful covenant for a mess of porridge? Though the whole world be against us, by God’s grace it is more than enough that he not only establishes but also maintains his unconditional covenant with us by his word and power and that we know, believe, and experience this truth through faith alone. This one great truth of God’s unconditional covenant that is for God’s elect people is not just “a mere distinctive,” but it is life itself.