Three Blind Mice (1): Justification Did Not Happen at the Cross

Introduction

When Reformed Believers Publishing (RBP) was formed, it was deliberately and consciously formed to publish a fighting paper, Sword and Shield. At the time of the formation of RBP, the battle of Sword and Shield was with the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) while the members of RBP were still within the PRC. The denomination had corrupted herself from the simplicity of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. The men who began RBP were of the impression that the corruption was only within certain quarters of the denomination and that the weed of false doctrine was rather shallowly rooted. Their hope was that by writing in the magazine, the false doctrine would be brought to light and easily condemned. But once the battle was joined, the root of the PRC’s corruption was revealed to be very deeply set, and the noxious weed of false doctrine had spread itself throughout the entire denomination. It came to light that there was a deep-seated antipathy to Jesus Christ among the professors, ministers, and officebearers, as well as within the pews of the denomination. They hated Christ and his claim that he is the only way of salvation. The PRC had a treacherous heart, and she revealed that in her persecution of those who rebuked her for her covetousness and idolatry. Through the labors of Sword and Shield as a midwife at the delivery, a new denomination, the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC), was born—a denomination that was rooted in the truth of the Reformed creeds and the sacred scriptures.

The contention of Sword and Shield, Reformed Believers Publishing, and the Reformed Protestant denomination that the Protestant Reformed Churches are false churches is not inflammatory rhetoric intended merely to shock the hearer, although the words are truly shocking: false churches, enemies of Christ and his kingdom, dogs, evil workers, the concision, and the whore of Babylon sated on the blood of martyrs. The churches of Herman Hoeksema and George Ophoff that had stood against the world in the battle for sovereign grace in salvation have forsaken the truth.

Yet the condemnation and the names are grounded in fact. The issue in the matter of a true church and a false church is not feelings, the niceness of men, the respectability of the people, the pull of sentimentality, or relationships. The issue is not whether the professors, ministers, and teachers in a denomination make some true or factual statements, quote the Bible, reference the Reformed creeds, use the name of Jesus, or mention the Holy Spirit and grace. The issue is only whether a church preaches the pure gospel. The gospel is the proclamation that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation through his righteousness received by faith alone. The issue, in short, is the justification of the ungodly sinner by faith alone, so that the sinner has peace with God through his Lord Jesus Christ. This is the article of the standing and the falling church. This is the threshold that the true church crosses and by which she is transformed into the false church. Corruption of this article of the faith is in principle the corruption of the whole faith. Forsaking justification by faith alone, the church cannot have an election theology, a Spirit theology, and a sovereign grace theology. Such a church even does despite to the law, for all her talking about the law, for only the truth of justification by faith alone establishes the law (Rom. 3:31). Forsaking justification by faith alone, the church is left with man in his labor without rest, working for but never arriving at salvation and only heaping to himself a greater condemnation. Forsaking that truth, she forsakes God and Jesus Christ. Forsaking that truth, she is transformed from the beautiful bride of Jesus Christ into a gaudy whore.

The fact that the false church has forsaken this article of the faith also makes her the enemy of the true church. In love for the God of her righteousness, in thankfulness for God’s gracious justification of the ungodly, and in devotion to her Lord who saved her, the true church contends earnestly for the faith. This means that the false church in all her various forms is in fact the enemy of the true church, and the true church is bound to contend against the false church in every form she assumes.

Yet I contend that the Lord who formed us as his people has given to us a particular place in contending for the faith. This place is to recognize the false doctrine and corruption of the gospel in the Protestant Reformed Churches and to do battle with that denomination. The captain of Jehovah’s hosts gives to every denomination of true churches its theater of operation in the larger war against the lie. In her day the PRC was called to contend particularly against the Christian Reformed Church and her corruption of the gospel by common grace, the well-meant gospel offer, and the conditional covenant. Later, as an extension of that calling, the PRC had the liberated churches for her enemies because of their corruption of the truth of the covenant. And I maintain that such is the case with the Reformed Protestant Churches, Reformed Believers Publishing, and Sword and Shield. The Lord has given to us the calling to contend for the gospel against the particular form in which it is being corrupted by the Protestant Reformed Churches.

We have on the pages of Sword and Shield demonstrated the Protestant Reformed corruption of the gospel.

We have pointed out and condemned the familiar corrupt statements and those who have made them. We know of Professor Engelsma’s doctrine that man repents and believes for his justification; that God cannot and will not forgive a man unless and until he repents; and that man is first, and God is second. We are familiar with slippery McGeown’s statement that faith is man’s act and not God’s act. We are familiar with Cammenga’s massacre of Lord’s Day 7 and its teaching about faith. We are familiar with Koole’s doctrine that faith is what man must do to be saved. We have shuddered at and condemned Gritters’ doctrine of unforgiveness: The elect are unforgiven in eternity; they are unforgiven at the cross; and they are unforgiven unless and until they actively repent and actively believe. And we are familiar with the Protestant Reformed doctrine of faith as that which man does to be justified, that man must be active in his faith to be justified. We have heard about the PRC’s foolish distinction between justification and forgiveness. And we are aware of the recent synodical decision that made official the Protestant Reformed doctrine that good works assure man of his justification, which is about the rankest denial of justification by faith yet to come out of these churches.

It is my intention in a series of editorials to demonstrate yet again that the PRC maintains all that false doctrine about justification; that the PRC as a denomination has been overthrown; and that the PRC’s gospel is no gospel. I intend to do that by the examination of three speeches given in September by Rev. Joshua Engelsma, Rev. Richard Smit, and Rev. Daniel Kleyn at an officebearers’ conference hosted by Crete Protestant Reformed Church. I preached in that church for nearly fifteen years. The members there heard my doctrine. I preached eternal justification. I preached justification at the cross. I preached to them the gospel of Jesus Christ and that the ungodly are justified. They rejected the preaching, and they murdered me and my family for my preaching. Crete’s council now promotes another gospel that is no gospel. That other gospel came out clearly through these three speeches.

The theme of the conference was “Justification and Forgiveness.” Thus the theme of the conference was the heart and soul of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Rev. Joshua Engelsma recognized the importance of the topic and said,

It’s obvious to us all here the significance of these doctrines from a theological point of view. As Luther said, we’re dealing with the article of a standing or a falling church. As Calvin said, we’re dealing with the chief hinge on which the Christian religion turns. This is the heart of the gospel of grace.¹

This is true. And by that measure then, the content of the speeches tells the tale that the PRC—as Babylon—has fallen. The three speakers together spoke a little over twenty thousand words. To put that in perspective, that is about four sermons’ worth of words, or it is nearly an entire Sword and Shield issue’s worth of words. In the entirety of their speeches, the phrase “faith alone” appears five times. It appears three times in Engelsma’s speech. In all three of those instances, the phrase appears only as a description of the doctrine of justification. The phrase appears not at all in Rev. Richard Smit’s speech! Mind you, part of Smit’s task was to describe the relationship between forgiveness and faith! In a conference on justification and with the task of describing the relationship between justification and faith, Smit does not use the phrase “justification by faith alone”—not even once! He cannot, does not, and will not say “justification by faith alone.” The three speakers do not believe in justification by faith alone, and they apparently see no need to use the phrase except as a kind of tagline.

All three speakers also take note of the slanderous enemies who accuse the PRC of denying justification by faith alone. Engelsma is representative:

I have in mind especially the enemies of the Protestant Reformed Churches who bring allegations and false charges against us as, um, denial of the truth of justification by faith alone [sic].

The speakers, who are cowards in their warfare, do not name these enemies. However, these enemies are not the United Reformed Churches and her ministers, whom Josh Engelsma refers to as brothers. These enemies are not the ministers of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, with whom Protestant Reformed officebearers sit cozily at the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC). These enemies are not any of the member churches of NAPARC, with their well-meant gospel offer, conditional covenants, and justification by faith and works, overrun as these churches are with federal vision theology. All these denominations are true churches, brothers, and friends to the PRC. Protestant Reformed people easily leave their respective congregations and sit comfortably in the pews of these denominations. So, to whom might these speakers be referring?

They are referring to the Reformed Protestant Churches. We have repeatedly accused the PRC of denying justification by faith alone. We have not merely accused the PRC of it by means of assertions, but we have proved it extensively in our sermons and writings. Sword and Shield has carried many articles by various authors proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the PRC has been overthrown as true churches because the denomination denies the gospel-truth of justification by faith alone and teaches another gospel that is no gospel. If what Josh says is true, that this doctrine is the heart of the gospel of grace, then the PRC has ripped the heart out of the gospel of grace, and thus she has no gospel of grace.

The source of this corruption was the theology of Rev. Hubert De Wolf from 1953 that never left the PRC and has taken over the denomination. De Wolf taught that in man’s daily experience conversion is a prerequisite to entrance into the kingdom. To enter the kingdom is to be justified (Lord’s Day 31). For De Wolf conversion was prerequisite to that. A man must first repent, and then he will be forgiven. This is the doctrine of the PRC because her doctrine of justification is that man is justified by faith and by repentance. Her doctrine explicitly is that a man must first repent and then he will be forgiven. That wording is simply a restatement of De Wolf’s theology.

The specific form of the corruption of justification by faith alone up to this point in the PRC is that man must first repent and then and only then can God forgive him; prior and prerequisite repentance unto forgiveness; good works as part of the assurance of justification; faith as man’s act, not God’s act; faith and repentance being two sides of one justifying coin that man puts into God’s vending machine of forgiveness; faith as that which man must do to be saved; justification and forgiveness of sins as different acts of God; and other similar errors. We have exegeted scripture to show this. We have explained the creeds to show this. We have used the words of Protestant Reformed ministers to demonstrate this. And it is obvious from the three speeches that the speakers have heard that condemnation, for it is nothing other than a condemnation. It is a condemnation with the anathema that the apostle Paul levels against every minister and church that teaches any other doctrine of justification than his doctrine of justification by faith alone.

But these impotent men only mention some slanderous accusations made against the PRC by some unnamed opponents. In response they do not answer the actual arguments made by these opponents nor correctly represent Reformed Protestant doctrine. The speakers set up some straw men to knock down. For that they are not only cowards—mice—but are dishonest theological opponents as well. Lying and slander are bad in any situation; they are gross wickedness in the realm of theological controversy. For men so vocally concerned about repentance, their behavior gives the lie to their concerns. They have no problem at all lying about, misrepresenting, and slandering their enemies and the gospel of grace.

What their speeches demonstrate is that they have become hardened opponents of Jesus Christ and his gospel. Their speeches show that they hate the gospel-truth of justification by faith alone and that they are determined to maintain and strengthen the overthrow of that doctrine in the Protestant Reformed Churches. That Crete Protestant Reformed Church hosted the conference and promotes it is further proof that the Lord has spewed her out of his mouth as a church disgusting to him because she says she is rich but knows not that she is naked, blind, and poor. She has rejected the gospel-truth of justification by faith alone that was preached to her faithfully for fifteen years and has become a synagogue of Satan. The three ministers who spoke are ministers of the same malignant spirit, and they serve as instruments to bind the Protestant Reformed Churches deeply in the strong delusion that the Lord Jesus Christ has sent over the denomination. The speakers have become hardened in their own conceits that they teach the truth of justification—I do not say “teach the truth about justification by faith alone” because they can hardly get those words across their lips!

The Cross Was Not Justification

Josh Engelsma’s speech is easy to dissect, but it is not easy to listen to him. He has affected a breathy and sanctimonious preektoon (preaching tone) for one, and for another he denies the truth. His speech is titled “The Relationship Between Once-for-All Justification and Daily Forgiveness.” It is the task of his speech to establish that justification strictly means justification in the conscience of the believer and that this justification has two forms: the once-for-all justification at the moment of believing and the daily form of justification when the sinner repents and believes. This is justification for Engelsma, and there is no other sense of justification for him.

Regarding Engelsma’s speech, an important point to remember is that he makes both once-for-all justification and the forgiveness of sins to be justification.

Previously the PRC made a distinction between justification and forgiveness, but the distinction is idiotic. The PRC made that distinction in order to teach that a man is justified by faith and forgiven by faith and repentance. That distinction was deception and misdirection. The PRC wanted to say things about forgiveness that would be nakedly heretical if those things were said about justification. So the PRC made a distinction—the refuge of all good heretics—between justification and the daily forgiveness of sins.

But justification and forgiveness are the same thing.

In making that distinction, then, the PRC had tipped her hand to her heretical doctrine of justification in connection with her explanation of the daily forgiveness of sins, or as she says, “the experience of justification.” The PRC has said that the experience of justification is by faith and repentance or however many other ways that she has described it. What is important for the PRC is that repentance be included as the way to the forgiveness of the sinner. And that is then also the Protestant Reformed doctrine of justification.

In his speech Josh backs off that ridiculous distinction. Perhaps his thinking is that since Protestant Reformed ministers have established in the denomination that a man is forgiven by repentance and by faith, that now he can apply that theology to justification too. Thus he must join the two doctrines—justification and forgiveness—together again and say the same about both. Josh says concerning the forgiveness of sins, “To begin in explaining that, it’s necessary to state from the outset that this is the doctrine of justification.” Now that admission is important because justification is justification is justification. Justification is forgiveness, and forgiveness is justification. The experience of justification is justification. The assurance of justification is justification. The experience of forgiveness is justification. The assurance of forgiveness is justification. It is all justification. And one’s doctrine of daily forgiveness is then one’s doctrine of justification, or in Josh’s language his doctrine of daily forgiveness must be the same as his doctrine of once-for-all-justification.

Engelsma says about this once-for-all-justification, “We’re justified in our conscience the moment we’re brought first to conscious faith.” But he is not being honest here because he believes what the rest of those in the PRC believe and what the other speeches made plain, and this means that he has to add repentance. So later in the speech Josh says about the truth of forgiveness, “This is the comfort that we are privileged as pastors to preach…to the needs of God’s sinful, penitent sheep.” When he says “penitent sheep,” he means good people who are sorry for their sins and have a resolve to live a new, godly life. The Protestant Reformed ministers have the privilege to preach justification to those who are repentant and believing people. Forgiveness for Josh is the justification of the repentant and believing person. And this must also be his doctrine of once-for-all justification. This is justification for Engelsma, and there is no other sense of justification for him. The gospel for Josh is the justification of the repenting and believing person.

But the gospel is not that God forgives or justifies “penitent sheep.” The gospel is not either that God justifies believing, penitent sheep. The gospel according to the apostle Paul in Romans 4:5 is that “to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Nowhere in Josh Engelsma’s speech, nowhere in any of the three speeches, is the truth that God justifies the ungodly brought out or even mentioned. Josh Engelsma teaches that God justifies the believing and the penitent. He does not preach the gospel to sinners, but he preaches to repentant sinners and to believing sinners, even repentant sheep and believing sheep. He must see that evidence—repentance—before he will preach the gospel to them.

This statement by him is rich because the PRC has spent some amount of energy denying that she is hyper-Calvinistic, and here one of her leading ministers says that the Protestant Reformed pastors are privileged to preach the gospel to repentant sheep.

You can about imagine Josh Engelsma, with his breathy preektoon, all his canned hand gestures, and his choreographed head movements, standing in for Peter on the day of Pentecost: “Now, I want you all to know that you did very badly, and you need to repent and show yourself to be sheep. Then I will extend to you the gospel of Jesus Christ and his forgiveness of you.” Before Peter saw one evidence of repentance, he preached Christ crucified and risen, which was to preach to the people the gospel-truth of justification by faith alone. He preached to justify the ungodly. And he taught them that this is God’s promise to his elect everywhere: God justified the ungodly and reconciled his people to himself in Christ and has shed his Spirit abroad! Be reconciled!

In this justification of the penitent and believing, all three speakers are one. Richard Smit’s speech brings out clearly that the gospel of forgiveness in the PRC is for the penitent, converted, and believing sinner. Daniel Kleyn’s speech reinforces this and really adds the thought that the gospel is for working and obeying sinners. All the speeches proclaim that as the gospel of the PRC. These speeches, beginning with Engelsma’s, are nothing more than a repetition of the main points of the PRC’s corruption of the doctrine of justification that we have contended against on the pages of this magazine for years.

To teach that justification is strictly in the conscience of the repentant and believing person, Josh Engelsma must mount an assault on the truth that there is a justification of the elect before they were born, had one thought in faith, or shed one tear of sorrow for sin.

He begins his assault with eternal justification. Of note is that he cannot even define eternal justification properly. It is either that or he deceptively redefines it for his audience, so that he can pretend to hold to the doctrine of eternal justification or at least to make his denial of it look less offensive. He says, “It is significant with respect to the doctrine of justification that we say that this is something that takes place in the forum…of the believer’s conscience.” True enough. The elect sinner is justified in his conscience. Then Josh asks, “What does that mean with respect to justification in eternity?”

He says,

Then we certainly believe and maintain that justification, like all God’s works in time and every aspect of salvation, has its eternal source in God’s decree of election. From eternity in his decree of election, God determined to justify his people.

Josh’s “justification in eternity” is a decree to justify those who repent and believe in time. Engelsma knows full well that a decree to justify in time when God’s people repent and believe is not eternal justification.

Eternal justification has been clearly defined by Herman Hoeksema in his Reformed Dogmatics:

First, we certainly may speak of our justification from eternity. We are justified in the decree of election from before the foundation of the world. About this truth there was at one time a dispute in the Reformed churches. Evidently afraid to over-emphasize the counsel of God, some maintained that one could speak only of justification by faith. They denied eternal justification. But it is very clear that this is not correct. In his eternal counsel God has ordained Christ as mediator and head of all the elect. Therefore, it must be true that God knew the elect in Christ as justified from all eternity.²

Then Hoeksema adds very strongly, “The elect do not become righteous before God in time by faith, but they are righteous in the tribunal of God from before the foundation of the earth.”³

Hoeksema does not mean by this that there is not a justification of the elect in their consciences, but he means very pointedly to deny what Josh Engelsma is keen on teaching, that the “initial” and “definitive” justification of the elect takes place at the moment they are brought to conscious faith. Hoeksema means that the elect were justified before that and apart from that.

Hoeksema also preached eternal justification. In a sermon on Lord’s Day 23, he said,

In the old country, in former years, when there was still sufficient interest to discuss these things, beloved—which I doubt whether there is now, but when there was still sufficient interest—there was a controversy about the question whether we may speak of eternal justification or whether justification is only by faith in time. I’ve always taken the position that it is absurd to speak of justification only by faith in time that is not grounded in the justification in eternity. We are eternally justified, or we are not justified at all! In election, and without election you cannot even speak of justification, in sovereign election God chose us in Christ. And in that sovereign election, God always looked upon us in Christ—never in any other way. He chose us in Christ, the church, the elect. He chose them in Christ. He considered them in Christ. He never looks upon them in any other way than in Christ. And therefore, in eternity they are looked upon as justified sinners, in Christ. That first of all. That’s the ground. That’s the firm ground.⁴

Engelsma is free—foolish, but free—to throw off his heritage and the truth that his Reformed father taught him. But he is not free to redefine terms. It would have been honest for Engelsma to acknowledge what Hoeksema said and then to disagree and show why. The fact is that for Josh there is no such thing as eternal justification. It does not exist. It is a fiction, an invention. He should have been honest and said to the people gathered at the conference, “There is no such thing as eternal justification!” He is offended by it because it is a justification apart from man’s activities, and this he will not have. Man must first repent. Man must second believe. Man must do these things in order to be justified and in that order. But if eternal justification is true, then there is a complete and perfect justification of the elect sinner before he is even born, has one thought, or sheds one tear. And the implication of this doctrine is that this is also what it means to say that the sinner is justified in his conscience by faith alone: He has as little to do with that as he has to do with his eternal justification. And that offends Josh. Grace offends Josh. Free justification offends Josh.

Then he slanders the doctrine and those who teach it, including his spiritual father:

To speak only of eternal justification to the exclusion of speaking of what happens in our life and experience as believers is not to deal honestly with the teaching of the word of God or of the Reformed confessions.

Here Josh sets up one of those straw men. No one has ever spoken of eternal justification to the exclusion of what happens in the believer’s life and experience: His spiritual father Herman Hoeksema certainly did not, and the RPC does not. Josh knows that. Those who teach eternal justification argue for it based on scripture, and they make clear that this doctrine has a definite implication for how they speak of justification by faith alone in the conscience. But Josh does not have even the common decency to deal with their arguments. He just slanders those who teach eternal justification. For Josh there is no eternal justification. For him when scripture speaks of justification, it speaks only of what happens in the believer’s life and experience after he repents and after he believes. And so Josh means that it is dishonest in light of scripture and the confessions to speak of eternal justification at all! Justification is strictly what happens in the conscience when the sinner repents and believes.

For the sake of argument, I will grant the pious fraud that the doctrine of eternal justification is based on good and necessary consequence. Passages of scripture must be compared with others, and from this comparison the doctrine emerges. For instance the eternal and unchanging God says that he has not beheld iniquity in Jacob nor seen perverseness in Israel (Num. 23:21); the eternal and unchanging God says that no one is able to lay a charge against God’s elect because it is God who justifies—no one can lay a charge against them as elect because God justified them as elect (Rom. 8:33); and God reveals Christ as the lamb slain in the counsel of God before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Perhaps some may think that this fact, that the doctrine is derived by good and necessary consequence, renders the doctrine less important or perhaps less sure. But I remind the reader that the doctrine of the Trinity is derived by good and necessary consequence too, and the Athanasian Creed says about the doctrine: “Except every one do keep whole and undefiled [this faith], without doubt he shall perish everlastingly” (Art. 2, in Confessions and Church Order, 13). What is derived by implication from scripture is as bindingly the truth as what is explicitly said in scripture.

One of the passages that is used to derive eternal justification from scripture is Romans 4:25: “Who [Jesus our Lord] was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” The argument goes like this: If we are justified at the cross, and if the cross according to Revelation 13:8 is eternal, then our justification at the cross is eternal.

Engelsma, of course, has to deal with this passage because it makes a very significant and irrefutable declaration that contradicts the whole premise of his speech, that there is only justification in the conscience and that there is no justification outside the activities of believing and repenting. Romans 4:25 says explicitly that justification happened outside the elect sinner, before he was born and before he believed. His justification happened at the cross. This Josh cannot have. For him justification is strictly in the conscience. He has to have that doctrine because he is a good Protestant Reformed minister, and Protestant Reformed ministers have to justify active believers, who are also actively repentant, in order to receive their initial justification and who throughout their lives can be forgiven by their active faith and active repentance. Protestant Reformed ministers cannot have anyone thinking that man is a stock and a block! Faith and repentance are necessary unto justification. Both man’s active repentance and active faith must be present, and in that order, for him to be justified and forgiven. Josh wants the doctrine that God does not and God cannot forgive a man unless and until he repents and believes—and in that order! After all, Protestant Reformed ministers are privileged to preach forgiveness to “penitent sheep.”

To deny the clear teaching of Romans 4:25, Engelsma plays in ambiguities in the English translation and performs a little theological legerdemain. The King James Version has “raised for our justification.” And he knows that this can be understood in English to mean “in order to provide the basis of our justification that will take place later on.” Or more simply, it can be understood as “he was raised because at his cross he provided the basis for our eventual justification.” This is Josh’s position: Christ provided a basis for a future justification. Josh says,

We firmly maintain the one basis of our justification being in the cross and in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 4, of course, makes that inseparable connection.

In the speech Josh does no exegesis. Perhaps he is flagrantly incompetent, in which case he should leave the ministry, especially if he cannot explain correctly one of the central passages regarding the truth of justification by faith alone. In the speech he just quotes Romans 4:25 as though it were perfectly self-explanatory and has the meaning that he wants put on it. This is incredibly dishonest. He should not be lecturing people about honesty because right here he handles the word of God deceitfully. It is bad enough that he deceitfully handles the writings of his spiritual fathers and that he deceitfully handles the writings of his theological opponents, but to handle deceitfully the word of God is to mark yourself as a false teacher.

Romans 4:25 does not simply teach that Christ’s cross is the basis of our eventual justification when we repent and believe. But the apostle in the passage speaks in a strict parallel. The first part of that parallel is the statement “who was delivered for our offences.” The meaning of the phrase is that our offenses are the judicial ground of the act of God to deliver Christ over to death. The parallel statement “raised for our justification” then means that Christ’s work to accomplish our justification and God’s declaration of our justification at the cross were the judicial ground of God’s act to raise Christ from the dead. There is a justification at the cross, and that cannot be gainsaid. There is a justification of the whole elect church and of every individual elect child of God from all sin without repentance, without faith, and before each one was born.

But Engelsma cannot wait to denigrate what Christ accomplished. He says,

That being said—maintained—at the same time the emphasis of the word of God in speaking of justification is not what happened at the cross but what happens in the life and the experience of the believer.

Josh does not mean “emphasis,” but he means and says that there was no justification at the cross. Justification at the cross is as fictional and nonexistent as justification in eternity is for him. Here he is bold and just says the blasphemous words: Justification is not what happened at the cross. He stumbled. It is hard so blatantly to make the cross of Christ of none effect, but he actually gets these words across his lips: Justification is not what happened at the cross.

But if Christ did not justify us at the cross, then such is the force of the apostle’s argument that Christ is still in the grave, according to Josh Engelsma. He can speak all he wants about a resurrected and an ascended Christ, but Josh’s doctrine of justification does not allow it.

If there is no justification at the cross, there is no salvation at the cross, and Josh makes Christ a liar, who said, “It is finished.” Among those things that Christ finished was our justification.

Josh also makes the apostle Paul a liar, who says about the cross of Christ, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19). God reconciled his whole cosmos and all his elect to himself at the cross, and he did that exactly because at the cross he justified them. So the apostle says, “For he hath made him [Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (v. 21). The thought of the apostle is that at the cross and by Christ’s suffering at the cross, two things happened. First, Christ was made sin. At the cross he became as it were sin itself, the very object of the wrath of God. And, second, through that we became the righteousness of God in him. That startling language, became the righteousness of God, means that in Christ—that is, in Christ by election—the righteousness of Christ is so identified with us that we become it. You might say that Christ’s righteousness is all that God can see. But more, it means that on the ground of God’s righteous justification of us at the cross, we are also justified in our consciences and then conformed to the image of Christ by his Spirit, so that the very righteousness of God is fulfilled in us. To preach this justification at the cross is the specific charge that God and Christ give the ministry of reconciliation. The minister of reconciliation must declare in his preaching that God has reconciled—justified—his elect church to himself at the cross, and so they must be reconciled to God in their minds, that is, justified by faith. By that ministry they are justified and reconciled, for God works by the gospel in them what he declares in the gospel. But this justification at the cross Josh will not preach, and so he is faithless in his office as well.

What do the creeds say about the cross?

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 and given to Him by the Father; that He should confer upon them faith, which, together with all the other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, He purchased for them by His death. (Canons 2.8, in Confessions and Church Order, 163–64)

God’s will and Christ’s work at the cross were to purchase all the saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, which certainly means that Christ purchased justification. He accomplished it at the cross. If salvation is not real and whole in him already, it cannot be bestowed. He confirmed the covenant at the cross, which certainly means that he justified his people at the cross, or else there is no covenant because the righteous Lord loves the righteous.

Listen to Isaiah: “He was bruised for our iniquities!” (Isa. 53:5). Was Christ bruised but did not justify in that bruising? Josh has a beaten Christ who has not justified his people.

What does Guido de Brès say in the Belgic Confession about the cross of Christ as the confession of all the Reformed martyrs in the Lowlands?

He called out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? and hath suffered all this for the remission of our sins…

Neither is it necessary to seek or invent any other means of being reconciled to God than this only sacrifice, once offered, by which believers are made perfect forever. (Art. 21, in Confessions and Church Order, 48–49)

It was the specific point of Christ to suffer for our justification in our place, for our sakes, and to accomplish for us the remission of sins.

And the Heidelberg Catechism says that Christ by his death accomplished both “righteousness” and “obedience” for his people (Lord’s Day 23, in Confessions and Church Order, 107).

What does the passage of scripture that was read right before Josh’s speech say? “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Rom. 8:34). This verse is simply the application to believers of the comfort of Romans 4:25. There is no condemnation to us at the cross of Christ. We are justified at the cross of Christ! God testified of this in the resurrection! That is what believing the resurrection means. It means believing that God at the cross justified me by Christ’s blood.

And I say about Josh Engelsma that he cannot agree with baptism, which is a sign and seal of the righteousness that is by faith. And you will say to me, “See, yes, that is what Engelsma is saying! There is a promise to the baptized child that when he repents and believes he will be justified.” And I say to you that he is a conditional-covenant theologian, and he cannot agree with the Form for the Administration of Baptism when it says that baptized infants are “sanctified in Christ” (Confessions and Church Order, 260). Without their knowledge—faith as knowledge—they are received again unto grace in Christ. Surely grace in Christ means justification! Just as they fell through condemnation in Adam, so they are received through justification in Christ. And by the power of that righteous declaration that God makes over them, he sanctifies them to be members of Christ.

Then Josh has no ground either for his assertion that there is a definitive and unlosable justification when a man believes, and then there is a daily reapplication of that justification to the believer when he repents and believes. A justification of the penitent and believing without that justification existing first in Christ means that justification is rooted in man’s own activity and is not rooted in Christ. Justification comes into existence only through man’s repenting and believing. Justification then becomes simply a response of God to man’s repenting and believing. This means that justification does not exist in Christ and become one’s possession when he is united to Christ, but man brings justification into existence. If justification comes and only comes by repentance and by faith, then justification is lost the moment a person sins or is unbelieving. And he can get justification back only by more repenting and more believing.

I can summarize very easily Josh’s doctrine without all his subterfuge. God does not justify you unless and until you have repented and believed! And you had better keep doing that, or you are unforgiven! Josh can deny that formulation, but his doctrine demands it.

Nothing more needs to be heard from a man who can say that justification is not what happened at the cross. Josh condemns himself with his own words. He is just another Gritters. And Josh’s theology is an unforgiven theology. The elect are unforgiven in eternity. They are unforgiven at the cross. They are unforgiven unless and until they repent and believe.

The more you look at this theology of Josh Engelsma, the more loathsome it and the man who teaches it become. He is a viper, and his words are poison. He should have entitled his speech “Justification is Not What Happened at the Cross!”