Unbelief’s Wresting of God’s Sovereignty

Unbelief always wrests the truth of God’s sovereignty in salvation.

To wrest means to pull, force, or move by violent wringing or twisting movements. “Wrest” is the term used by Canons of Dordt 1.6:

That some receive the gift of faith from God, and others do not receive it proceeds from God’s eternal decree, For known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world (Acts 15:18). Who worketh all things after the counsel of his will (Eph. 1:11). According to which decree He graciously softens the hearts of the elect, however obstinate, and inclines them to believe, while He leaves the non-elect in His just judgment to their own wickedness and obduracy. And herein is especially displayed the profound, the merciful, and at the same time the righteous discrimination between men equally involved in ruin; or that decree of election and reprobation, revealed in the Word of God, which, though men of perverse, impure, and unstable minds wrest to their own destruction, yet to holy and pious souls affords unspeakable consolation. (Confessions and Church Order, 156, emphasis in bold added)

“Wrest”—this term pertains to the actions of those who do not believe in God’s sovereignty. “Wrest”—this term is as descriptive as it is accurate. Unbelief reckons the truth of God’s sovereignty as a noxious plant. And as a gardener seizes the base of a weed to uproot it from the soil with forceful tugs and violent twists, so unbelief tries to rip the truth of God’s sovereignty from the bosom of the Reformed church. Being perverse, impure, and unstable in mind, unbelief assaults the doctrine relentlessly. Unbelief hurls all sorts of accusations against the doctrine. Unbelief distorts the doctrine to make it appear foolish and worthy of contempt. Unbelief attempts to heap shame upon faith, which cleaves to this doctrine.

And where the truth of God’s sovereignty is faithfully taught and preached, there will always be wresting.

Indeed, God’s sovereignty in salvation must be preached. As Canons 1.14 teaches, those whom God sends as messengers of the most joyful tidings of the gospel must preach the truth of divine election:

As the doctrine of divine election by the most wise counsel of God was declared by the prophets, by Christ Himself, and by the apostles, and is clearly revealed in the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, so it is still to be published in due time and place in the church of God, for which it was peculiarly designed. (Confessions and Church Order, 158)

And when the decree of election is preached, the messenger of the most joyful tidings of the gospel may never avoid the doctrine of reprobation. Reprobation always serves election just as chaff always serves the wheat. The Canons teaches this as well. Having established in Canons 1.14 that divine election must be preached, Canons 1.15 continues:

What peculiarly tends to illustrate and recommend to us the eternal and unmerited grace of election is the express testimony of sacred Scripture that not all, but some only, are elected, while others are passed by in the eternal election of God. (Confessions and Church Order, 158)

Those who are not elect are “passed by.” Those who are not elect are passed by with the grace of election. But lest we ill conceive of reprobation as a mere passing by, the Canons 1.15 goes on to affirm that reprobation is a definite decree of God and an eternal appointment to destruction:

Whom [that is, those “passed by in the eternal election of God”] God, out of His sovereign, most just, irreprehensible, and unchangeable good pleasure, hath decreed to leave in the common misery into which they have wilfully plunged themselves, and not to bestow upon them saving faith and the grace of conversion; but leaving them in His just judgment to follow their own ways, at last for the declaration of His justice, to condemn and punish them forever, not only on account of their unbelief, but also for all their other sins.(Confessions and Church Order, 158)

And this must be preached!

God will have his decree preached, for, first, this truth serves for the glory of his name. Though an entire church and though the whole world clamor against such preaching, those messengers whom God sends to proclaim the joyful tidings of the gospel must preach God’s divine decree because they are ministers for the glory of God’s name. Preaching that is not decretal is preaching that does not serve the glory of the sovereign God.

Furthermore, God will have the decree preached because God “peculiarly designed” the preaching of God’s sovereignty in salvation for the sake of his people. “The doctrine of divine election…is still to be published in due time and place in the church of God, for which it was peculiarly designed” (Canons 1.14). Does anyone believe this yet today? God designed. God peculiarly designed. God peculiarly designed the preaching of his decree for the sake of his beloved church. As he constituted the church by the decree, as he determined the church to be the gathering of believers and their seed by the decree, and as he gathers his church in time into the institute according to the decree, so God will have the decree of divine election preached to his church. And this truth of God’s decree affords his church “unspeakable consolation” (Canons 1.6). What does God’s decree teach his church? This: my salvation and my end are absolutely determined by God and fixed by the living decree of God. How can anything separate me from the love of God? Election preaching is consolatory preaching.

And Canons 1.13 describes the believer’s response to the sense and certainty of election that comes by means of the preaching thus:

The sense and certainty of this election afford to the children of God additional matter for daily humiliation before Him, for adoring the depth of His mercies, for cleansing themselves, and rendering grateful returns of ardent love to Him, who first manifested so great love towards them. (Confessions and Church Order, 157)

And when reprobation is preached as that which serves election, this truth only instills greater adoration of the mercy of God, who chose a people merely of his good pleasure.

But unbelief wrests. That is what unbelief did in John 6.

In John 6 Jesus Christ declared that he is the bread that the living Father sent from heaven. Jesus Christ is the living bread, so that all who eat him shall live. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (v. 51). Just as perishable bread sustains and nourishes an earthly and perishing existence, so Christ’s flesh and blood are the meat and drink that God has eternally appointed to sustain and nourish a new and everlasting life that is begotten from above. A man who does not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood has no life in him. But whoever eats Christ’s flesh and drinks his blood will be raised up in the last day.

Most joyful tidings of the gospel!

But many of Jesus’ disciples who heard those tidings murmured and scoffed at his doctrine. They strove among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52). They threw up their hands and exclaimed, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” (v. 60). The day prior, the same disciples had swarmed the Lord Jesus Christ to be healed of their diseases and to witness his great miracles. In their presence the Lord had distributed five barley loaves and two small fishes to five thousand men and had gathered up twelve baskets full of fragments. Having their bellies stuffed with bread and fish, those disciples had rejoiced within themselves. Ecstatic in spirit and with uplifted countenances, their mouths had bubbled over with good things to say about the Lord: “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world! Let us make him our king! This is the rule and kingdom that we need!” But the following day those disciples suddenly turned against Jesus. Contradicting every point of the Lord’s sermon that he had preached in the synagogue of Capernaum, they quickly left him and walked no more with him.

Why?

If one makes a cursory reading of John 6, he might wrongly conclude that those disciples were simply confused by Jesus’ speech and could not quite grasp what he had taught them. Were they not initially interested in a bread that endures unto eternal life? Did they not say, “Lord, evermore give us this bread” (John 6:34)? Perhaps the reason they went back and walked no more with the Lord was because his words were too mysterious and too deep. When they became frustrated and strove among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” was it because Christ had taught them in dark parables and in utterances too deep?

Nay! Christ spoke in such simple doctrine that even a child could have understood.

Then why?

Because in John 6 Jesus Christ also declared that God absolutely determines which souls are truly fed by the Lord’s body and blood. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (John 6:37, 44). Truly, whoso eats the Lord’s flesh and drinks his blood has eternal life. Truly, whoso eats his flesh and drinks his blood dwells in Christ and Christ in him. But not all have everlasting life! Not all dwell in Christ and Christ in them! Why? Because the Father does not draw all to his Son. The Father does not give all the gift of faith. Whoever comes to Christ rests entirely on the Father’s will, and that proceeds from God’s eternal decree.

It was especially the doctrine of God’s absolute sovereignty to save some and to reject others that infuriated many of Jesus’ disciples. And you must understand that when they strove among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” and when they said, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?”—these were not honest words. They lied. They understood Christ’s doctrine perfectly. Their lying speech was, first, a cloak for their own unbelief. To conceal their own perverse and impure and unstable minds, they blamed the Lord for preaching a foolish and stupid sermon. But their lying speech was also a wresting of Christ’s doctrine because they hated it. They hated God’s absolute freedom and sovereignty to determine who partakes of the heavenly meat and drink.

This wresting of the truth of God’s sovereignty was what the Synod of Dordt encountered in its strong defense of God’s decree. And this wresting of the decree was what Zion Reformed Protestant Church encountered a few months ago at the hands of Mr. Nick Meelker.

On December 13, 2023, Mr. Meelker sent a letter to the congregation of Zion Reformed Protestant Church, wherein he listed his grievances with the preaching at Zion and requested that the membership papers of his family to be sent to his home. His letter and the history lying behind this letter were presented last time.¹ Last time I also asserted that Mr. Meelker’s letter was nothing but a cloak for his own unbelief. Mr. Meelker does not believe the truth of God’s sovereign decree of reprobation. He wrests it. He wrests it out of unbelief. He wrests it out of a perverse and an impure and unstable mind.

Now I will begin to prove it.

Mr. Meelker’s Wresting of Scripture’s Language

In his letter Mr. Meelker makes the following assertion:

This is the view our church holds to. The churches in the Reformed Protestant denomination are the only churches who have the uncorrupted truth. No other church of no other denomination has this truth. And since the antithesis requires a continual warfare against all that is untrue, we will draw the sword against all who are not Reformed Protestant. This view requires us to condemn every church, preacher, and individual with the harshest possible condemnation if they do not belong to this particular institution. We view them as “dogs and pigs,” feral pigs who you mow down with a machine gun from a helicopter. We despise and hate them because they are not of us. We are to separate ourselves from our families, shunning them as though they have no place in the kingdom of heaven, regardless of their godly walk and confession. The office bearers are to rebuke the members of the congregation who have fellowship with family members outside of the RPC. If we do not continually rebuke them, then the office bearers, along with those “wandering” members, have no love for the truth.

According to Mr. Meelker, it is this view that was the source for division in Zion Reformed Protestant Church.

In this connection he makes specific references to “dogs and pigs” and to “feral pigs who you mow down with a machine gun from a helicopter.” He puts some words in quotation marks to show that he is drawing them from a specific source. Though Mr. Meelker does not state his source explicitly, what he has in mind is a sermon series on 2 Peter that I began when I took up my labors in Zion. Since Mr. Meelker makes reference to these sermons to support his assertions, certainly the sermons themselves must justify his claims! Anything else would be wholly dishonest—lying speech.

But what exactly did I preach?

When Mr. Meelker refers to “feral pigs who you mow down with a machine gun from a helicopter,” he is referring to a sermon on 2 Peter 2:10–16 that was preached on September 8, 2023.² Let us see what scripture says:

10. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

11. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.

12. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption. (2 Pet. 2:10–12)

“Natural brute beasts”—this is what the Spirit uses as an analogy for those false teachers, who privily sneak their damnable heresies into the church, who cause the way of truth to be mocked, and who lead many astray into perdition. Such reprobate men are like irrational animals whose physical state is “made to be taken and destroyed.” In other words, the false teachers are beasts whose only purpose for existence is to be captured and slaughtered. They are born to perish—that is their sole utility in this present age, according to God’s sovereign decree. That is what God said in eternity about these false teachers, and that is who they are when these arise in the church.

And what is a more fitting illustration of this reality than feral hogs? Being one of the most destructive, invasive species in the United States—tearing up crops and trashing property and spreading disease to livestock— such brute beasts are born to perish. These feral hogs are of such a nuisance that Texas, for instance, has legalized helicopter hog hunting to curb their devastation. Such is the picture that scripture paints when describing reprobate teachers in the church, the true church of Jesus Christ.

For the apostle says in 2 Peter 2:1, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” These are teachers who arise “among you.” Peter does not have in mind some vague and faceless men who preach in a church around the corner that you will never attend. Peter is speaking about teachers whose names you know. Peter is speaking about teachers who arise in your midst and preach off the pulpit in your church. Peter refers to every minister who comes in the name of Christ but privily brings in damnable heresies.

Heresies are divergent and self-willed opinions about the fundamental doctrines of the church. A heresy would be that which conflicts with our three forms of unity. A heresy would be that which compromises the unconditional covenant. A heresy would be that which undermines and displaces the perfect work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And when the apostle calls them “damnable” heresies, he is not classifying heresies into different categories. He is not saying that there are some not so bad heresies, some worse heresies, and some damnable heresies. No, all heresy is damnable! Heresies are damnable because they have their beginning and end in hell. Heresies are damnable because they are invented and devised by Satan himself for the purpose of destruction.

And such damnable heresies are privily brought into your midst by the crafty stratagems of the enemy. The false teacher does not barge into the church with guns blazing. No, under the color of true doctrine, he speaks. He brings his heresies alongside the truth to make them as appetizing as possible. He uses the words with which you are familiar. Having grown up alongside you, he was catechized as you were. He was taught distinctive doctrine as you were. In this light the false teachers of today are much craftier than the false teachers of old. You are not dealing with the language of Arius or the language of Pelagius—ancient heretics. You are not dealing with the language of the Remonstrants. You are not dealing with the language of a hundred or even fifty years ago. These false teachers have been taught what language is no good. These false teachers have been taught that the covenant is unconditional in all its aspects, so you will not hear them use the term conditions. You will hear new language, such as in a certain, vital sense of the experience of the covenant, man is first. These false teachers have been taught that salvation is absolutely by faith alone and not at all by works, so you will not hear of works that are necessary for salvation. You will hear new language, such as “fruitful faith” or “active faith.” The false teacher has been taught that Christ crucified is the sole ground and foundation for your salvation. He will not deny that. But he will preach in such a way that you are left with the impression that if you would be saved, there is something that you must do. Or, perhaps, you do not hear anything specific in his sermons that seems objectionable, but subtly he disparages sovereign election and reprobation. He never brings them up as that which is absolutely determinative of every aspect of salvation.

And that the false teacher privily brings in these heresies also means that he integrates them into his preaching bit by bit. You get a taste, just a little taste. And, oh, how good it is! He gives you that initial shot of heroin—just a little dose—and you will quickly come back for more. Satan will bide his time. He is content waiting years if he must. He is like that snapping turtle that hides itself in the bottom of a pond with its wiggling tongue as bait, slowly luring the fish into its crushing bite. And for such evil service, Satan sends his evil messengers into the church.

Who are these false teachers then? Natural brute beasts! Irrational animals made to be taken and destroyed! That is what the Spirit calls them. And I am compelled to add that when in my sermon I drew the analogy between these false teachers and feral pigs that you shoot from a helicopter, I actually did a dishonor to the hogs!

That is what I preached to Zion Reformed Protestant Church about “feral pigs who you mow down with a machine gun from a helicopter.”

Is that what Mr. Meelker reflects in his letter?

Furthermore, when Mr. Meelker makes reference to “dogs and pigs,” he is quoting from a sermon on 2 Peter 2:20–22 that was preached on October 1, 2023.³ Let us see what scripture says:

20. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

21. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

22. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. (2 Pet. 2:20–22)

“The dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire”— this is the proverb that the Spirit uses to describe those who, after having received full knowledge of the gospel of Christ, are enticed by the carnal doctrines of false teachers and depart from the truth into the filth of the world. The apostle describes reprobation in the church and sphere of the covenant.

The apostle speaks specifically of those who have heard the pure preaching of the word. They were reproved and rebuked and exhorted with all longsuffering and doctrine. To them was delivered “the holy commandment”— namely, the gospel and its command that all repent and believe. They were clearly instructed in the doctrine of “the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” who is the “way of righteousness.” In the text Peter does not use the full name “the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” without purpose. The people to whom Peter refers are those who understand the significance of that name. They know that Jesus is Jehovah salvation, God come in the flesh in the perfect form necessary to save man. They know that Jesus does not merely acquire salvation, but he is salvation. They know that as the Christ, he is God’s anointed servant and the only one authorized and equipped by God to bring God’s everlasting covenant to perfection. They know that he is Lord over his church by his rule of pure grace, worthy of all praise and loving service. There is not any question in their minds what the gospel is. And as the epistoler to the Hebrews says, “Those who were once enlightened…have tasted of the heavenly gift” (Heb. 6:4, emphasis added). They have perceived to a certain degree the glory of God’s kingdom and what are the rich blessings of that kingdom.

Again, these people are not some vague no-names whom you have never met in your life. These are people with whom you grew up. You delight to spend time with them. You rejoice in their confessions and the joy they manifest under the preaching of the gospel. You meet with them at the Lord’s table. They are, by all outward appearances, those who have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, who know the way of righteousness, and who receive the holy commandment delivered to them, for they are members of your church.

But they have no faith. They were never given the faith that proceeds from God’s eternal decree because God did not will it. Instead, they have what scripture and the creeds call a vain faith. It mimics faith for a time. It exhibits joy and wonder and astonishment at the gospel for a time. But it is nothing more than religious excitement or pious feelings or a stirring of the emotions. There are many who, for whatever reason—the Lord knows— receive the gospel with great zeal for a time. But it does not last. It cannot last, for this mimicry of faith has no root. Its root goes no deeper than the flesh of men, and in flesh there is no endurance but only vanity. This mimicry of faith has no root in Christ, no deep, living connection with him. And if faith has anything other than Christ or anything more than Christ, it is not true faith. True faith does not rest in anything other than Christ.

And there is no faith because there is no indwelling Spirit. Men may certainly give an outward show of reform. They adapt their lives to what they hear. They play the role of a church person very well. But where there is no Spirit, there is no love for Christ and his truth. They never had it spiritually.

And in due time they are again entangled with the pollutions of the world.

These people develop an itch in their ears that needs to be scratched. Their flesh is not satisfied with the ministry of Christ’s servants. The lusts of their flesh need a good scratching. So they depart and heap to themselves teachers, teachers who teach them the goodness of men; teachers who give them leniency in their covetous desires; teachers who will not teach sound doctrine or give reproofs or rebukes or exhortations. And there are heaps of such teachers. When such teachers come into contact with these people and are agreeable to their own private sentiments and carnal minds, they join hands and depart together and entangle themselves in the world again.

What has happened?

God has manifested them. Behind all departure from the gospel stands the eternal purpose of God. God has confronted them with his Son, so that they must do something with him. What will you do with him? When God draws them out of error, it is to set them in slippery places. They could have lived and died in obscure darkness. But now their sin has been revealed in a most horrible way. When Christ comes by his gospel, he brings them out in the open, so that they have no covering left. They are like seeds in the soil, but when the rain comes, they must bring forth the thorns and thistles of reprobation rather than the fruit of election. That rain becomes a savor of death unto death. By the same gospel one is blessed and the other is cursed. That preaching is the revelation of the heart of men and the revelation of God’s eternal thoughts toward men.

And by their departures into the world of corruption, these people reject the Lord and savior, Jesus Christ; crucify him afresh; and become antichristian. They kill him again, for they despise his teachings and admonitions and warnings. They reject his rule and discipline in the church. They condemn Jesus Christ as a criminal. They show that they despise the blood of his satisfaction to God, and by their departures they manifest that they want no part in his cross. By their public actions they put Christ once again to open shame and mock him openly.

There is no wickedness like that of those who have been in a true church and who have left in hatred of the truth. It is a wickedness that paves the world for antichrist. A man may purge his house with an outward reform of confession and life; he may garnish his house with all sorts of works that seem agreeable to the gospel, but then a devil comes and finds his house empty and devoid of Christ and the Spirit. And that devil goes and finds seven other devils more wicked than himself. Those who depart from the gospel become more wicked than they ever were before. They develop an extreme aversion to the truth, mocking it and ridiculing it to anyone who gives them an ear. And like the Jewish nation at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, they call for Christ’s head while honoring thieves and murderers like Barabbas.

And they are overcome. Such a one who departs from the gospel seldom, if ever, repents. That is what the epistoler of the Hebrews writes:

4. For it is impossible that those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

5. And have tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,

6. If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance. (Heb. 6:4–6)

God has exposed them. God has confronted them with Christ. And God casts them down into destruction with greater condemnation. Having departed from the knowledge of Jesus Christ, their end is worse than their beginning.

The Spirit calls them “dogs and pigs.” When dogs vomit up their partially digested food and the bile of their stomachs, they almost always try to eat the vomit again. When the manure-mud is washed off pigs, they will certainly plop themselves right back into the mire. So too those who depart from the gospel return to the corruption of this present world.

That is what I preached to Zion Reformed Protestant Church about “dogs and pigs.”

Is that what Mr. Meelker reflects in his letter? When Mr. Meelker makes specific references to these sermons in his letter, does he do justice at all to what was preached?

He does not.

But why would a man do such an injustice to the preaching? Was it merely a mistake? Did he not fully understand what was preached? Did he, perhaps, need some more instruction? No! The preaching of God’s sovereignty to appoint some unto salvation and others unto damnation as it lives on the pages of Peter’s second epistle was made abundantly clear—so clear that a child could understand.

The use—the abuse—of these texts in the letter only serves Mr. Meelker’s purpose to make the preaching of God’s absolute sovereignty in salvation appear as despicable and as foolish and as stupid as possible. It is a cloak for his own unbelief. It is also a wresting.

For when the doctrine of God’s decree is preached, the believer marvels! Standing beneath the awesomeness of God’s sovereign, most just, irreprehensible, and unchangeable good pleasure, the believer exclaims, “Who is sufficient for these things!” The gospel commends to his soul the eternal and unmerited grace of election. It humbles him to the dust, for in himself he has no right to election. But the believer understands that merely of God’s good pleasure and for Christ’s sake, the elect are delivered out of the world of corruption, secured from the destruction of damnable heresies, protected from every wind of false doctrine, preserved by the almighty power of the Spirit, and drawn into the everlasting kingdom of God in heaven. And he marvels!

But Mr. Meelker wrests this language. Mr. Meelker takes the profound and holy words of scripture and so violently twists them, such that they appear perverse and impure. Mr. Meelker disdainfully uses the very language of scripture in his letter out of hatred for the word of God that was faithfully preached to Zion Reformed Protestant Church.

This is the first example of wresting from Mr. Meelker’s letter. Two more examples must be explored next time.