Prof. B. Gritters of the Protestant Reformed Churches recently gave a speech about forgiveness at the behest of the evangelism committee of Grace Protestant Reformed Church.¹ The venue was interesting, to say the least. Grace is a comfortable home for many abusers in the Protestant Reformed Churches. These abusers can congregate in Grace and commiserate together and be protected and coddled by supportive family, friends, and officebearers. These abusers were led in that by the former minister of Grace, himself an abuser.

One would think that Professor Gritters would have been asked to give a speech on abuse—perhaps spousal abuse, child abuse, child sexual abuse, or abusive homosexuality in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). And if not these topics, then perhaps a speech on the lessons that had been learned from the fact that Grace Protestant Reformed Church stubbornly harbored and protected abusers. Or maybe a soul-searching speech on the corrupt and self-serving application of Matthew 18 and the subjects of forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation regarding abused women, boys, and girls.

The officebearers led the way in making the sin of abuse a matter of forgiveness on the part of the abused and gave aid and comfort to those who had abused them by means of that false application of the doctrine of forgiveness. I say this because in the speech Professor Gritters illustrated by examples what he was saying, and he used various scenarios in order to apply his doctrine.

However, he had a perfect opportunity to apply the subject of the speech to abused people in the Protestant Reformed Churches. In the PRC abused women were fed all kinds of false information about forgiveness. They were told to go back to their violent husbands and that they had to be more loving and forgiving and to keep on loving and forgiving. After all, these women had been forgiven a great debt! Before there was ever a stitch of true repentance on the part of the abuser, the elders would instruct about reconciliation of the abused with the abuser. The wife must take back her abusive husband. He is, after all, sorry. Members who had been molested as children were told that they had to go the way of Matthew 18! Some were actually put through surprise confrontations with their abusers because consistories had decided that the abusers were repentant and that to make things right, the abusers should say sorry to those whom they had abused. No victims were consulted on what they thought of the abusers. The consistories made those decisions on their own. I could multiply examples, and Professor Gritters also knows of these examples. He has been involved in them.

I find this aspect of the speech disgusting. Why was there no application to the current abysmal state of affairs in the Protestant Reformed Churches regarding abuse of all kinds—a state of affairs that was created by twisting, distorting, and misapplying the doctrines of forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation? The speech was entitled “The Confusion about Forgiveness,” and the subject of abuse is one area of life in which the Protestant Reformed Churches have actively sown massive confusion on the matter of forgiveness in order to cover up abuse, violent and sexual, in the PRC. And there was not a word about that from Professor Gritters.

The most he could muster was to tell a sexually abused person that he or she should not go to confront the abuser alone. So Professor Gritters said about Matthew 18 the following:

If you have been sinned against with sexual abuse, you don’t go by yourself. That is an exception. But any other sin, you go by yourself.

He just made up this exception. Why is it an exception? Notice though that, according to Professor Gritters, the sexually abused person still must follow the way of Matthew 18—just “don’t go by yourself.”

Let me say this: sexual abuse in the church is by its nature a public sin because it is an imminent threat to all the children of the church. Sexual abuse warrants an immediate report to the consistory, and the consistory must take up that report and investigate it. Instructing the sexually abused person to go the way of Matthew 18 all but guarantees that the issue will never come back to the consistory and will never be dealt with in the church.

Professor Gritters so graciously allowed an exception to the instruction of Matthew 18 that the one sinned against must go alone—he still has to go. But what did Professor Gritters advise about all the other forms of violence and abuse, for instance, child abuse or spousal abuse? He said, “Any other sin, you go by yourself.” The abused in those situations are on their own, according to Professor Gritters.

Some pastor. He did not preach the gospel of free forgiveness, and he did not deliver the weak from the hand of the oppressor.

In this light the speech, if nothing else, was a total dereliction of duty on his part, especially as the professor of pastoral theology in the Protestant Reformed seminary. The subject of the speech was right. The venue was right. The time was right. It was his calling. But there was no word from him. Still more, in its application the speech was dangerous because in the name of the truth it provided cover for the abuser in the church.

The application of the speech was bad because the doctrine was bad. The doctrine was bad because there was no basis for it in the creeds or in scripture.

One can summarize the doctrine of the whole speech in a few words. It was part and parcel of the Protestant Reformed theology that denigrates the decree of God, displaces the cross of Jesus Christ, ignores the work of the Holy Spirit, and makes the sinner’s possession and enjoyment of his salvation dependent upon what he does. The message of the speech was that there was no forgiveness in eternity. The message of the speech was that there was no forgiveness at the cross. There is no forgiveness until the sinner repents. There is no forgiveness for any sins of which the sinner does not specifically repent. A sinner can even remain unforgiven when he dies!

Unforgiven!

This message was in essence the same as Rome’s, according to the Reformed creeds. Professor Gritters said that he was not going to quote the creeds much. But if he had studied the creeds more on the matter of forgiveness, perhaps he would have noticed the eerie similarity between his teaching and Rome’s. Rome’s message, too, is that there is not forgiveness. Rome’s message is that there is not forgiveness unless…!

Answer 80 of the Heidelberg Catechism describes Rome’s doctrine:

The mass teaches that the living and dead have not the pardon of sins through the sufferings of Christ, unless Christ is also daily offered for them by the priests. (Confessions and Church Order, 116)

The gospel of Rome is that the living and the dead have not the pardon of sins through the sufferings of Christ. Rome’s message is unforgiven. Such is also the gospel of Professor Gritters. He said, “Forgiveness is not in eternity.” Forgiveness is not in eternity.

And later, when he was speaking of the cross, he said,

There are others who’ve said that 2,000 years ago was forgiveness in the cross and the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus…I understand why some say that’s forgiveness. But it isn’t.

The cross is not forgiveness.

Unforgiven!

It matters very little that Rome’s condition for forgiveness is the sacrifice of the mass and that Professor Gritters’ condition is the repentance of man. Their gospels are the same. The living and the dead have not the pardon of sins unless…! Rome spoke of those in purgatory and the living on the earth who have not the pardon of sins. Gritters spoke of the living who have not the pardon of sins because they do not confess specific sins, the dead infant who has not the pardon of sins because he cannot confess, and the dead motorist who has not the pardon of sins because he did not get a chance to repent. The gospel is the same for Rome and for Professor Gritters: unforgiven! Different from Rome only in the condition. The same as Rome in the content of the message. And, like Rome, Professor Gritters’ gospel is no gospel at all, but it comes under the dreadful anathema of the Holy Spirit and the apostle Paul.

Professor Gritters’ doctrine is repentance for remission. You repent and confess your sins, and then and only then does God speak to you and forgive your sins. The biblical basis—he didn’t quote the creeds much, although he did do some theology based on a psalter versification—of the speech was a deceitful handling of scripture.

In 2 Corinthians 4:2 the apostle Paul warned of such a thing:

But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

I call it an abuse of scripture. It is an abusive doctrine based on an abuse of scripture.

Professor Gritters maintained that there was no forgiveness in eternity and that there was no forgiveness at the cross. There is forgiveness when God says, “I forgive you.” Gritters cites as proof the story of the prophet Nathan’s confrontation with David after his sin with Bathsheba:

When David committed the horrible double sin of adultery, which we ought to call rape, and murder—the adultery with Bathsheba; she had no choice; it was rape; and the murder of her husband—David lived for a year miserable. And we need to say about David, he was in that time unforgiven. And then God’s forgiveness came to him in the form of a prophet named Nathan, who convicted David of sin; and after David was convicted the prophet Nathan said, “The Lord hath put away your sin; you will not die” (2 Sam. 12:13). That’s why I used that expression that I did at the beginning: “I have put away your sin.” God’s declaration from his mouth through the voice of a prophet—often—into the ear of the guilty sinner that goes down into his heart that embraces that truth by faith.

Remember Professor Gritters’ doctrine is first repentance, and then and only then forgiveness; repentance is for the remission of sins; repentance is unto the remission of sins. There is no forgiveness without repentance. There was no forgiveness in eternity and none at the cross.

However, there are two words in 2 Samuel 12 that he did not deal with. I quote the passage: “David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die” (v. 13).

The first word that the professor did not deal with is “also.” The word “also” does not mean that David repented, and God then also forgave. The word “also” must be interpreted in light of the other word that Gritters did not deal with: “hath.” So that Nathan said, “Hath put away thy sin [forgiven].” The specific form of these words indicates a past event with a present significance. In the past, before Nathan said a word and before David said a word, Jehovah had forgiven David his sin. Since the cross was not yet, except in promise, the meaning is that Jehovah, by an unchanging and eternal word, had forgiven David his sin. And that unchanging word of forgiveness explains the word “also.” The meaning is that Jehovah, according to his unchanging word of forgiveness, had given to David his repentance too. Jehovah had not done that so that he might be able to forgive David. Jehovah already had forgiven David and given to David his whole salvation, repentance, and forgiveness. It was not Jehovah’s will that David continue in his sin, and thus Jehovah had granted repentance to David. Eternally, Jehovah had willed repentance for David, and thus Jehovah worked it. He also eternally had willed David’s forgiveness and thus spoke to him. There is no forgiveness for repentance in 2 Samuel 12. There are two benefits that Jehovah gave to David, or a twofold grace: the one repentance and the other forgiveness. Both proceeded from God’s eternal good pleasure for David’s salvation. The one was not dependent on the other, but both were dependent on the mercy of God alone.

So later in the speech, in his analysis of David, Professor Gritters specifically and pointedly contradicted Nathan the prophet and the Holy Spirit. Professor Gritters said,

People ask, “Really? Wasn’t David forgiven for that whole year?” because they have in their mind the idea that forgiveness is something God decided to do in eternity or that Jesus paid for 2,000 years ago; and David prior to Christ presents another problem; but the fact of the matter is, people say, “Really? You’re saying that for a whole year David wasn’t forgiven?” and the answer is a very simple yes. Yes. Because forgiveness is the declaration of God to him about that sin, “I don’t hold that against you.” And for a year he did not hear that. For those who don’t repent, God stands silent. And that’s why David’s bones waxed old in their roaring. He was miserable on account of that.

Nathan said, “The Lord also hath put away thy sin.” That is a blessed gospel to sinners. Professor Gritters preached his gospel of unforgiveness: David was unforgiven for a whole year. If Professor Gritters understood that Nathan said, “The Lord also hath put away thy sin” and also understood that David was forgiven 2,000 years before Christ, then David’s forgiveness would not be a conundrum to Professor Gritters. David was forgiven on the word of promise, which word is as sure as God is sure and as eternal as God is eternal. According to Titus 1:2, that word of promise God spoke before the world began: “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” Eternal life comes by righteousness (or forgiveness of sins). If God promised eternal life, he promised (or spoke) the word of remission too.

Professor Gritters also maintained that his gospel of repentance for remission of sins is the gospel message of John the Baptist and the apostles.

So the New Testament makes that very, very clear—the same order. First repentance, then forgiveness. Always that order. John the Baptist preached repentance for remission, remember (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). After Jesus’ resurrection and before he ascended, he said to his disciples, “Repentance and remission must be preached” and in that order. In that order (Luke 24:47). And so in Acts 2:38, in that first sermon of Peter, Peter said to the people, “Repent for the remission of sins.” First repentance, then remission. And then in the next chapter in the book of Acts, after they healed the lame man and the people stood astonished—“How did you do that?”—then Peter preached another sermon, and he said in that sermon, in Acts 3:19, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, so that your sins may be blotted out.” They weren’t yet. God determined to do that in eternity; Christ, a little while before, had died for those sins; but they were not yet blotted out for those people who had not yet confessed and converted.

Notice that Professor Gritters argued about order: one thing must come before another. First repentance, and without it there is no forgiveness. Repentance is for remission. And then he brought in the heavy artillery of Acts 3:19: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, so that your sins may be blotted out.” So all of that was to establish the point that without repentance there is no forgiveness and that repentance is very much for/unto the forgiveness of sins. Thus that is an established fact for Professor Gritters.

But let me examine the passages on which he based his theology, and let us see whether that is, in fact, what they mean. We read in Mark 1:4, “John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” Luke 3:3 says, “He [John the Baptist] came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” Professor Gritters said that John preached “repentance for the remission of sins.” But in fact, what John preached was the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Now, whatever the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins means, what is clear is that if Professor Gritters’ understanding of the texts is correct and they are teaching that remission is prior to forgiveness, then the texts prove too much because in the texts it is not only repentance that is prior, but baptism is then also prior.

But I can also say something about the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. This phrase must be understood in light of what Matthew 3:2 says regarding what John the Baptist preached: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The kingdom of heaven is the same as the forgiveness of sins. God takes his people into his kingdom when he freely forgives their sins. The Heidelberg Catechism says in answer 84 that the kingdom of heaven is opened

when…it is declared and publicly testified to all and every believer, that, whenever they receive the promise of the gospel by a true faith, all their sins are really forgiven them of God. (Confessions and Church Order, 118)

Forgiveness of sins is the entrance into the kingdom. And I remind everyone that this means in one’s experience. I enter the kingdom in my experience when the gospel of the remission of sins is preached.

So you could understand John’s baptism this way: the baptism of repentance for the kingdom of God. That is how Professor Gritters would have us understand John’s preaching. He preached that in order to enter the kingdom of God you must first repent. And then Professor Gritters would have to understand Matthew 3:2 in a similar way: repent so that when the kingdom comes you may enter in. So after all this time in the PRC, repentance is still a prerequisite to enter the kingdom of God.

But what John meant when he preached is perfectly clear. He meant that those whom God freely adopted as his children and brought into his kingdom by faith only, these he also delivers from the power of sin and causes them to repent. But you do not have to take my word for it. Listen to John Calvin, who was not a Reformed Protestant radical:

Repent ye [in] Matthew differs from the other two Evangelists in this respect, that he relates the substance of John’s doctrine, as uttered by John himself, while they relate it in their own words; though Mark has one word more than Luke: for he says, he came Baptizing, and preaching the baptism of repentance. But in substance there is the most perfect agreement: for they all connect repentance with the forgiveness of sins. The kingdom of God among men is nothing else than a restoration to a happy life; or, in other words, it is true and everlasting happiness. When John says, that the kingdom of God is at hand, his meaning is, that men, who were alienated from the righteousness of God, and banished from the kingdom of heaven, must be again gathered to God, and live under his guidance. This is accomplished by a free adoption and the forgiveness of sins, by which he reconciles to himself those who were unworthy. In a word, the kingdom of heaven is nothing else than “newness of life,” (Romans 6:4) by which God restores us to the hope of a blessed immortality. Having rescued us from the bondage of sin and death, he claims us as his own; that, even while our pilgrimage on earth continues, we may enjoy the heavenly life by faith: for he “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” (Ephesians 1:3).²

Calvin said here that when John mentioned the kingdom, he meant that we are brought into that kingdom freely by the mercy of God through the forgiveness of sins. There in the kingdom God gives us new life, which includes our repentance. We do not come into the kingdom by repentance but by forgiveness. But if repentance is unto forgiveness, then we come into the kingdom by repentance and forgiveness. Or, according to Professor Gritters, we must first repent, and then God will forgive. Since our entrance into the kingdom is by forgiveness, then Professor Gritters has two causes for entrance into the kingdom: repentance and forgiveness; or, better, just repentance. Repentance is the act that is necessary to enter the kingdom (and I emphasize in one’s experience).

But what is the connection between forgiveness and repentance? Again, hear John Calvin:

From this doctrine [of the kingdom of God], as its source, is drawn the exhortation to repentance. For John does not say, “Repent ye, and in this way the kingdom of heaven will afterwards be at hand;” but first brings forward the grace of God, and then exhorts men to repent. Hence it is evident, that the foundation of repentance is the mercy of God, by which he restores the lost. In no other sense is it stated by Mark and Luke, that he preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance is not placed first, as some ignorantly suppose, as if it were the ground of the forgiveness of sins, or as if it induced God to begin to be gracious to us.

We could add as well that repentance is not put first, as some ignorantly suppose, because repentance is unto forgiveness or because John was interested in a strict temporal order. Repentance is put first because it is the evidence of God’s free grace that brings a man into the kingdom. Again, hear Calvin:

Though John, when he introduces the mention of the grace of God, exhorts men to repentance, yet it must not be forgotten that repentance, not less than the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom, is the gift of God. As he freely pardons our sins, and delivers us, by his mercy, from the condemnation of eternal death, so also does he form us anew to his image, that we may live unto righteousness. As he freely adopts us for his sons, so he regenerates us by his Spirit, that our life may testify, that we do not falsely address him as our Father. In like manner, Christ washes away our sins by his blood, and reconciles our Heavenly Father to us by the sacrifice of his death; but, at the same time, in consequence of “our old man being crucified with him, and the body of sin destroyed,” (Romans 6:6) he makes us “alive” unto righteousness. The sum of the Gospel is, that God, through his Son, takes away our sins, and admits us to fellowship with him, that we, “denying ourselves” and our own nature, may “live soberly, righteously, and godly,” and thus may exercise ourselves on earth in meditating on the heavenly life.

There are two graces of God that he bestows on us. The one is the free pardon of our sins by the mercy of God. The other is our renewal, by which we repent of our sins. Repentance is the sure proof that one is forgiven and has been brought into the kingdom of God. These two John put together not to establish that repentance is first and then God forgives or that repentance is unto the forgiveness of sins but to teach that these two belong together and cannot be separated and that those who are baptized and confess faith in Christ also are by the grace of God turned away from sin to a new, holy life.

Professor Gritters’ use of Acts 2:38 can be refuted similarly. First, the passage does not read as he said:

And so in Acts 2:38, in that first sermon of Peter, Peter said to the people, “Repent for the remission of sins.” First repentance, then remission.

Such is the supposedly simple meaning of the passage for him. But the passage reads as follows: “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

I can be brief in establishing the falsity of Professor Gritters’ interpretation. If the meaning were repent for the forgiveness of sins, then he must also add baptism, so that the full thought would be repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. And if we take the passage in light of Professor Gritters’ doctrine, then the meaning is that God will not forgive you until you repent and until you are baptized. But this is nonsense and Roman Catholic. Baptism itself is the seal of the forgiveness of sins received by faith only and not by faith and repentance. Then Professor Gritters also left out of view that Peter spoke not only about the gift of forgiveness but also added the promise about the Holy Spirit. So if Professor Gritters’ meaning is correct, that it is repentance (and baptism) first and then remission, then one also has to add to that the promise of the Holy Spirit. So the full thought of Professor Gritters’ interpretation is that it is first repentance and baptism, and then God will give forgiveness and the promise of the Holy Ghost. With that interpretation Professor Gritters also has the promise conditioned on man’s repentance. When you tamper with justification by faith alone (forgiveness by faith alone), as Professor Gritters did, then you also necessarily introduce a conditional covenant. And if his interpretation of Acts 2:38 is correct, then he must necessarily espouse a conditional covenant, a covenant conditioned on man’s repentance. But then you do not have a promise but an offer or a possibility.

The promise is what Professor Gritters left out of his whole speech. He left out what Peter and the other apostles did preach, which was the promise rooted in election. Peter grounded his call to repentance in the free, eternal, and unmerited grace of God in election and in God’s fulfillment of the promise: “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39). The promise is given in election. The promise is fulfilled by God without the work or activity of man. And the promise is likewise freely given and bestowed by the grace of God. Because the promise is surely and infallibly bestowed on those whom God ordained to eternal life, then I can call to faith, repentance, and the rest, certain that God will make his own manifest in the world.

Professor Gritters also pointed to Acts 3:19:

Then Peter preached another sermon, and he said in that sermon, in Acts 3:19, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, so that your sins may be blotted out.” They weren’t yet. God determined to do that in eternity; Christ, a little while before, had died for those sins; but they were not yet blotted out for those people who had not yet confessed and converted.

This is evidently the text that encapsulates the professor’s entire theology. There was not forgiveness in eternity. There was not forgiveness at the cross. He became very bold and said that those sins were not blotted out at the cross. Think about that for a minute. Christ died for those sins, but they were not blotted out. So Professor Gritters made the decree and the cross a contingency or a possibility until man repents. God does not forgive until man repents. Repentance is first and forgiveness second. Repentance is unto forgiveness.

But Professor Gritters did not go far enough because the language of Peter was actually to express purpose: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, in order that your sins may be blotted out.” Professor Gritters will know the Greek construction. Here is what the Greek scholar Thayer said about it: “εἰς τό with the inf. has the force of a separate telic clause (equiv. to ἵνα with the subjunc.).”³ It is a purpose clause. This means that if Professor Gritters was correct in his explanation, then what Peter was, in fact, saying was not only that repentance is first and forgiveness second but also repent and be converted in order that your sins may be blotted out. Thus for Professor Gritters repentance and conversion are the prerequisites to the blotting out of sins (I am assuming that he takes blotting out to be equivalent to forgiveness).

But the explanation of the text is easy. First, the purpose clause simply traces repentance, conversion, forgiveness, and the whole blessedness of our salvation to the decree of God. Further, repentance inevitably accompanies faith as its spontaneous fruit. The meaning is not that the people’s remission of sins would be because of or by means of their repenting or that repentance would be before forgiveness. Rather, Peter spoke of repentance as the inevitable evidence of faith in Christ, by which faith the people would be saved. The last evidence that they gave was unbelief, for they had “killed the Prince of life” (v. 15). Salvation from their sins, which salvation was pictured by the healing of the lame man, was “through faith in his name” (v. 16), that is, faith in Jesus. The evidence of their faith, because it is the inevitable fruit of faith, would be their repenting and turning from their sins.

Next time, I will deal with more of Professor Gritters’ atrocious use of scripture.

Professor Gritters did not explain scripture, but he came to scripture with a theology, and he read that theology into scripture. He sucked his theology out of his thumb and proof texted that theology in scripture. We will see that in a stunning way next time. He just made things up to establish his point.