Why is the Dog Silent?

At the close of a conversation with a couple who are members in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC), I was assured that in their congregation they hear the preaching of the pure gospel of salvation by faith alone without man’s works.

Loving the gospel and wanting to hear it again, I went to their church’s website to hear the preaching that they had claimed was nourishing them and their children. I chose a sermon by Rev. Richard Smit titled “A Place of Refuge” because our refuge is fellowship with God through Christ, and I thought that the sermon title penetrated to the root of what I contend is the false doctrine that has overtaken the PRC, which is that in addition to Christ’s work and obedience, our obedience is necessary for salvation and fellowship with God.

The text for the sermon was Proverbs 14:26–27:

26. In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.

27. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.

The three points regarding that place of refuge were its location, its basis, and its comfort.¹

The sermon began with a nice description of the refuge as a very wonderful place in which to abide in this life. In that refuge there is happiness and glorious sunshine; safety from threats, persecution, and hurt; and the enjoyment of peace with God and rest in him in Jesus Christ. There was much more, but the message was that a refuge is a spiritual place within the church and body of Christ.

After describing the place of refuge for a Christian, Reverend Smit got to the point by posing the question, “Where is this place [of refuge]? Do you know?”

He then offered an exhaustive list of possible places where natural man might look for refuge, and he warned the congregation, “You will not find it in the world’s entertainment, in its movies, its rock or country music. It’s not to be found in the gods of sports or the worldly pleasures.”

In his list of possible places where people might look for a place of refuge, Reverend Smit included “legalism.” Legalism is the false teaching that salvation is to be found in man’s keeping of the law. When Reverend Smit mentioned legalism, he immediately gave his own definition, saying that legalism is the teaching that the law “protects us and gives us a refuge.” This redefinition of legalism was necessary because Reverend Smit was about to deliver a legalistic sermon, and he did not want the members of the congregation to know and understand that what they were hearing was not the gospel of free salvation but the bondage of legalism.

Later Reverend Smit gave instructions regarding where to look for and how to identify the place of refuge.

A place of refuge is defined in the text as a place in the sphere of which one fears Jehovah…a fear of Jehovah that has boundaries to it. It has fences to it, and it has exactly ten fences to it—the ten commandments. The boundaries of that fear of Jehovah are not determined by men, not relative to whatever year the church may be living in…They’re the ten commandments. And thus the boundaries of this fear [are] defined, marked out by Jehovah himself with his finger, who wrote those commandments upon the tables of stone. And within those boundaries, within those commandments, there is the fear of Jehovah.

After listening to the entire sermon, which explained that the congregation’s place of refuge is found inside the marked-out boundaries of the ten commandments—“fences”—the reason for the minister’s warning against looking for a refuge in legalism became apparent. The purpose of the warning was to redefine legalism so that the preaching of the law for salvation is legalism only when the law has power as a fence that “protects us and gives us a refuge.” By implication then the preaching of the law for salvation is not legalism when the law has no power that “protects us and gives us a refuge” but serves only as a guide unto the place of refuge.

Antithetical to the doctrine of the sermon, scripture teaches that the gift of salvation with all its benefits, which is our refuge of being joined to Christ, is not found inside the ten marker-fences of the law.

12. The law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.

13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

14. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Gal. 3:12–14)

The unbiblical use of the law of God in the sermon leads to bondage: “The man that doeth them shall live in them.”

Scripture teaches that we receive the promised refuge in the same way that Abraham received it four hundred years before the law was even given, which promised refuge is the gift in our hearts of the Spirit, who joins us to Christ by the unbreakable bond of faith. “For if the inheritance be of the law, then is it no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise” (Gal. 3:18).

Since Galatians 3:14 says that we receive “the promise of the Spirit through faith,” and the church already had the gospel when God gave the promise in Genesis 3:15, why was the law given? Was the law in the old dispensation more like a powerful electric fence that would kill the person who violated the law, but Christ came and unplugged the fence, so that in the new dispensation the law is (as the sermon taught) a powerless marker-fence to guide us unto the place of refuge?

Galatians 3:19 explains the place and purpose of the law: “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgression, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” The law was added because of transgression. “Transgression” in this text is man. Just as by nature a rose is a flower, by nature man, whether regenerate or unregenerate, is totally depraved. Man is transgression. Adding the law did not make man something other than transgression. But our heavenly Father, in love for his children, sent the law to make “the offence…abound.” The law makes men bigger sinners than they were before.

20. The law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

21. That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom. 5:20–21)

The effect of God’s sending the law is not that the law makes man’s obedience to abound much more. The law never makes nor has made any man less sinful. God causes the law to have a twofold effect.

One effect of the law in the outwardly religious man void of faith is that he works for his salvation with the false confidence that in the way of his obedience (way of conduct or manner of living) to the ten fences of the law he will find a place of refuge, which is fellowship with God.

The opposite effect of the law in a man of faith, laboring under the heavy toil of sin, is to multiply his debt and burden and make him such a big sinner that he is stripped of the least thought of ever realizing any blessing or fellowship in the way of his obedience. God gave the law to turn his elect child to the gospel of Christ for deliverance from his wretched condition unto the full and free salvation of perfect righteousness, fellowship, and the experience of all the blessings of being united to Christ in faith. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death” (Rom. 7:24)?

For the apostle Paul and the other elect children of God, the unconditional love and sovereign grace of God did abound more. More than what? Unconditional, sovereign grace abounded in the elect more than total depravity abounded in the entire fallen human race, which is the gospel of gracious salvation without man’s works of obedience.

The perversion of the law in Reverend Smit’s sermon did not make sin abound in the believer. Rather, the unbiblical purpose and benefit he taught for the law mitigated how great man’s sin and misery really are and thereby denied the believer the first thing he needs to know in order to live and die happily.

Q. 2. How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort [of belonging to Jesus], mayest live and die happily?

A. Three: the first, how great my sins and miseries are; the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries; the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance. (Lord’s Day 1, in Confessions and Church Order, 84)

Legalism makes sin manageable with guidance from the law and assisting grace.

The legalism preached by Reverend Smit did not teach the members of his congregation that they are sinners who deserve eternal damnation and who daily increase their debt. Rather, he lulled the members to sleep with the impression that they are generally inside the ten law-fences and encouraged them to keep up the good work of obedience on their way to find and to stay in the refuge. Grace is available so that they can repent and get back inside the fences once in a while, but there is really no need for anyone to look for deliverance in the gospel. The members just need some faith to see the refuge and the ten fences around it and some enabling grace to do a better job of staying inside the ten marker-fences. This legalistic preaching of man’s misery makes men very small sinners.

The world’s purpose is to lure us into the pleasures of sin, convince us, and to make it look very nice that you and I may take off some time, take a vacation, from striving to walk that straight and narrow way. “You can take it easy now for just a few hours here or there in your life. You don’t need to be that strict about doctrine and life as God’s people at the end of the ages. You may be a little selfish once in a while and self-serving and take that which is easy and self-gratifying. Why hike up that steep and rocky path that the Lord has called you to do when there’s this easy way? Take a little vacation.”

In 1521 Martin Luther warned Philip Melanchthon against exactly this preaching:

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong [big sinners], but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2 Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.²

Then Reverend Smit had timely warnings for his congregation regarding the devil, discord, division, and being lured away from sound doctrine according to godliness:

As the apostle Peter mentions, the devil goes about as a roaring lion, seeking to destroy us and the lambs of Christ in order to overthrow his kingdom. He [the devil] does that by sowing in the church discord, confusion, division to scatter the sheep, if possible, to destroy them. He lures the saints away from sound doctrine according to godliness, and he does that with his six thousand years of experience. He knows your weaknesses, and he knows how to come at you and tempt you into unbelief and doubt and sin.

As for faith, Reverend Smit taught that faith is a necessary and helpful “instrument” to see the refuge and the ten marker-fences of the fear of Jehovah surrounding the refuge. Faith will even stand with one when he is inside the law-fences.

Unbelief cannot see it. Unbelief is blind to the blessedness of that place of refuge, the fear of Jehovah. But faith sees it…Faith has the eyes to see it and to discover the reality: There is life and peace in a place in the midst of all the problems of life…Faith stands within that place by the work of the Spirit.

Hearing this sermon, a troubled layman might ask, “Since faith cannot deliver me inside the law-fences without my obedience to the law, and once inside the refuge faith cannot keep me from violating the ten border fences, and people with faith are sometimes unjustified, unforgiven, and outside the refuge (since Professor Gritters taught that King David was unforgiven for over a year³), what is the key factor that determines whether or not I am really saved?”

And to the troubled layman’s question, Reverend Smit’s nonchalant response: “It’s very simple as the text teaches: ‘In the fear of Jehovah.’ When one stands there by faith, the text teaches, he enjoys strong confidence.”

The sermon clearly taught that the factor that determines whether anyone with faith is inside or outside the place of refuge is this: Is that one inside the ten fear-of-the-Lord law-fences?

Antithetically, scripture teaches that when Christ adopted us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts, he nailed the law, along with everything that tends to bind consciences, to his cross.

13. You, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

14. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. (Col. 2:13–14)

Calvin’s explanation of this text is the following:

This is full liberty—that Christ has by his blood not only blotted out our sins, but every handwriting which might declare us to be exposed to the judgment of God.

He shews the manner in which Christ has effaced the hand-writing; for as he fastened to the cross our curse, our sins, and also the punishment that was due to us, so he has also fastened to it that bondage of the law, and everything that tends to bind consciences. For, on his being fastened to the cross, he took all things to himself, and even bound them upon him, that they might have no more power over us.⁴

Salvation and fellowship with God by faith in the way of Christ’s righteousness and Christ’s obedience is full liberty.

Following the ten marker-fences for salvation and fellowship with God in the way of man’s righteousness and man’s obedience is bondage that leads to condemnation. Reverend Smit’s seemingly pious corruption of the law as a powerless guide to lead one unto the refuge binds consciences, and the law’s lack of power to protect is irrelevant for determining whether it is work for man to follow the law. The teaching in this sermon of the ten commandments disguised as ten harmless marker-fences that guide one unto the place of refuge has no basis in scripture or the three forms of unity. The law is bondage, and if we attempt to follow the law in the way of our obedience unto the place of refuge, we can only do that by working. Christ did not come to save those who work for their salvation.

The gospel is found in Romans 4:5: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

Antithetical to the teaching of Reverend Smit’s sermon, God tells us that he brings only the ungodly elect into the refuge of friendship and fellowship with himself in the way of receiving a gift. “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Being spiritually joined to Christ by the unbreakable bond of faith, the body of elect, ungodly, totally depraved, big sinners is delivered unto the place of refuge, which is fellowship with the triune God. Through the bond of faith flow all spiritual blessings to them, including love for the truth and a small beginning of the perfect obedience of faith.

During the lifetime of many of us, there was a generation of ministers who brought this true gospel of salvation in the Protestant Reformed Churches:

God justifies the ungodly.

That is the keynote that resounds throughout Lord’s Day 23 and which we hear again in this Lord’s Day as we are once more placed before the judgment seat of the living God.

We hear His verdict pronounced over us: Not guilty! He finds no reason to condemn or to punish us, for He sees no transgression and, therefore, no guilt whatsoever.

Before we have fully recovered from our amazement we hear the divine declaration that we are righteous in God’s sight, perfectly obedient and in all respects conformable to the divine law. God calls us His beloved saints, chosen and precious in His sight. He assures us of His divine approval and favor, His covenant fellowship now and eternally. In the great Day of days He will greet us with the hearty welcome, “Come, thou blessed, and inherit the kingdom that is laid away for thee.”

For us that can only mean one thing, God justifies the ungodly.⁵

Believers whom God has delivered from the apostate church through reformation will find comfort in the words of John Calvin on behalf of faithful believers of the sixteenth-century Reformation church against the slander of the apostate church through Albertus Pighius, a prominent theologian of Calvin’s day. It is of encouragement to know that what we experience is nothing new and that the slander we receive today is fundamentally the same as that hurled against the saints who went before us in the Reformation!

We never intended to divide over matters of personal conduct alone. We understand that church unity is essential, and moral failures, even serious ones, do not justify a split. But when doctrine itself is corrupted and leaders refuse correction, division becomes unavoidable. Pighius would have a case if we had left over mere moral grievances. However, the split happened because the Roman church would not tolerate any reform of its teachings. Rather than tolerate faithful critique, they demanded submission to ungodly teachings, leaving us no choice but to stand apart.

Our goal has always been unity in true doctrine, not separation for minor disagreements or personal grievances. Yet when the church’s leadership suppresses truth and rejects reform, faithful believers must choose faithfulness to Christ above allegiance to corrupt authority…

Pighius argues that we should have maintained “peace” by keeping silent to preserve unity. But what kind of peace is built on ignoring the truth of God? True unity, as the Holy Spirit teaches, is rooted in sound doctrine. Rome’s so-called unity is built on idolatry, superstition, and corrupted doctrine. Christ’s power is obscured, His grace nearly forgotten, and His sacraments disfigured by human inventions.

Pighius advises us to maintain peace by tolerating these evils. But to remain silent in the face of such distortions would be to betray God’s glory, Christ’s gospel, and the souls Christ redeemed. Just as a guard dog barks at the approach of a thief, we cannot stand by and say nothing while the church is plundered, God’s majesty trampled, and Christ’s kingdom robbed.⁶

Not only does the devil have a vast storehouse of slander throughout history from which to pull, but he is also a quick study, and it did not take him six thousand years to author the doctrine of Reverend Smit’s sermon. Shortly after Christ had nailed the law to his cross and was raised from the dead for our justification, the devil devised this wicked purpose and benefit for the law, and his demons presented it to the church through a student of Pelagius. This doctrine of the law as a guide unto the place of refuge was one of the six charges brought against Celestius at the Synod of Carthage in AD 412.

The following six charges made against Celestius give us an idea of the very heart of Pelagian heresy…

5. The law as well as the gospel is able to guide into the kingdom of heaven…

Celestius argued that the differences between him and his accusers were minor and unimportant to the faith, had not been settled in the church, and thus were open for discussion. Hence he thought he ought not to be condemned for his views. His defense was ineffective. The synod, without hesitation, condemned as contrary to scripture every one of his propositions and ordered Celestius to recant. When he refused, he was excommunicated from the church.⁷

In the year 412 a man came into the house of God and blasphemed the Holy Spirit by attributing the Holy Spirit’s work to the law. In zealous love for God, the officebearers and members rose up together in a robust defense of the truth. When the false teacher refused to recant, the officebearers delivered the false teacher to the devil.

In the year 2024 a man came into the house of man and blasphemed the Holy Spirit by attributing the Holy Spirit’s work to the law. With no zealous love for God, the congregation sang a song, the officebearers lined up to shake the man’s hand, and the people went home.

And the dog is silent because his master is safe.

The apostate church still talks about grace—sometimes she claims that grace is irresistible, sometimes she says that grace is available, and many times she may wax nostalgic and call grace unconditional and sovereign. But grace as it is preached in the PRC is an enabling power that is given to man in order for him to live in the way of obedience to the law, which way of conduct or manner of living is necessary for man to experience the benefits of salvation, including fellowship with God. The proof of that from Reverend Smit’s legalistic preaching is that grace is not determinative to deliver one into refuge with Christ.

The Protestant Reformed doctrine of fellowship with God (man’s refuge) in the way of man’s obedience as clearly preached in Reverend Smit’s sermon removes any doubt or uncertainty concerning the PRC’s doctrine of salvation. The Protestant Reformed doctrine of salvation as preached in the churches is undeniably Pelagian. For the Pelagian, grace is enabling, faith is necessary, but obedience is decisive: “As far as Pelagius speaks of grace, it is merely to facilitate man’s obeying the law.”⁸

Therefore, it must not surprise us at all that throughout the ages it is precisely the doctrine of grace that has been contradicted. If we have learned from experience to taste that eternal election is meant for us, that we are God’s children, and that God wills to be our Friend: if we have learned that the bonds of God’s covenantal mercy have drawn us out of estrangement and the bondage of sin and out of all the power of the enemy; then we have discovered indeed that the mystery of election is great. Then the humble heart praises God’s mercies, and the mouth rejoices: “I am once again the possession of the Lord.” Then the Pelagian in us dies, and we, as far as we are concerned, desire to be saved only by grace.⁹

Being elected of pure grace, we are and must be delivered to our place of refuge by pure grace without the assistance of the law, guidance from the law, or our obedience to the law.

God has given over the PRC to be so enamored with her own obedience that when she reads the gospel in Proverbs 14:26–27, which speaks of the lovely filial fear of faith, she is blind to the gospel of salvation by faith alone and can see only the servile fear of the law to guide her unto the refuge in the way of her own obedience.

The true gospel in this passage is that the place of refuge, which is “in the fear of the Lord,” is “in” a true and living faith—faith that clings to Christ and rests in the completed work of Christ alone for all the benefits of salvation.

The passage itself teaches what the fear of the Lord is. “In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence” (Prov. 14:26). The “fear of the Lord” must be faith because in whom or in what can we find “strong confidence” except in the object of our faith, which is Christ?

Question and answer 21 of the Heidelberg Catechism set forth this truth concerning faith as confidence:

Q. 21. What is true faith?

A. True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart, that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are, freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits. (Confessions and Church Order, 90–91)

Out of love for his children, in Proverbs 14:27 the Holy Spirit set forth the truth over against this preaching of the lie that lures the saints away from sound doctrine according to godliness. Verse 27 tells us that “the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.” The testimony of Jesus Christ is that the fear of the Lord is not bounded by the ten fences of the law, but the fear of the Lord is the fountain of life that Jesus promised to all his elect children. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37).

The fear of the Lord is faith, which is the bond that unites us to Christ by which we are brought into perfect fellowship with the Father and drink from the fountain of Christ that springs up in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Our cup of blessing is full. God always blesses and only blesses those who are righteous by faith alone.

“Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).

God brings us into the refuge of salvation without our works and in the way of unconditional, sovereign grace for his glory because God does not will that we work for our salvation but that we give thanks. By the gift of faith, we already possess the refuge and the assurance of eternal life and fellowship with God and Jesus Christ in our hearts, minds, and souls; and with all our strength and in all our lives, we glorify the Lord for all his benefits to us. He has forgiven us all our sins, healed us of all our diseases, and gives to us eternal life now and in the world to come.

“He that sat upon the throne…said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely…I will be his God, and he shall be my son” (Rev. 21:5–7).

Christ promises that he will give his elect child the water of life freely in the way of adoption, so that by grace through faith the ungodly, elect believer is united to Christ through the Holy Spirit, who realizes all the blessings of Christ, which are the fruits of faith, including love of the truth, hatred of the lie, and the righteousness and obedience of faith.

“Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). Our refuge is being adopted into Christ and having fellowship with our Father without the help of the law to guide us or our obedience to provide the parameters or conditions (way of life) wherein the Spirit may work fellowship. Being delivered into that refuge, Christ joins all his children into the physical manifestation of his body, which is the true church. In the true church is fellowship with Christ and fellow believers, and it is where Christ instructs his children in the truth without the lie.

The testimony of the word of God is that the elect experience fellowship with God the Father by faith, through the finished work of God the Son, and in the way of God the Holy Spirit.

When this true confession of faith is maintained against the Protestant Reformed lie of Pelagius, in love for his children, God infallibly and graciously brings the promised division and enmity between the closest earthly bonds of family and friends.

34. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

35. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

36. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. (Matt. 10:34–36)

In his church God has restored the truths of Calvinism and unconditional, sovereign grace in the pure preaching of the gospel of our salvation.

19. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

20. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

21. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. (Gal. 2:19–21)

Because we are dead to the law, we live unto Christ in the full liberty that Christ has purchased for us with his blood, which blotted out not only our sins but also frees us from every man-made devilish doctrine that attempts to bind our consciences. We are totally depraved in our sinful natures, yet God still loves us. He accomplishes the purpose of his love. He saves his people from their misery and causes them to know their salvation. God’s love graciously saves every last one of his elect to the uttermost. God’s immutable love does not change, no matter the sins into which we fall. God’s love does not react to our sins or to our works. In his love God always blesses us and only blesses us. He does not love some of his elect children more or less than others. God gives his complete love to all his children. We find comfort in knowing that we are loved. We are loved in eternity. We are loved when we sin. We are loved when we love God. We do not need to worry about losing that love by falling short in our good works or our repentance. We experience that love entirely by unconditional, sovereign grace alone.

“Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:16–17).