Arminianism Has Flooded the Reformed Churches

Our opposition to the offer of the gospel is not academic. Through the teaching and practice of the offer, Arminianism has flooded the Reformed churches. Today, a Reformed man cries out: "O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; Thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps" (Ps. 79:1). The revivalistic, "soul-winning" mentality of free will has taken over among many Reformed people. The altar call, that johnny-come-lately innovation of Finney, an abomination before God and man, is widely practiced in Reformed churches. The evangelism of Billy Graham is revered, so that if one dares to call the message of Graham "the doctrine of Pelagius out of hell," as the Canons of Dordt do indeed call it, he is likely to be stoned as a blasphemer in the streets of Reformed Jerusalem. The children of the covenant are more and more viewed, not as covenant children to be reared in the truth but as potential converts who must make the decision for Christ. Reformed churches are wide open to the most blatant Arminian, "free willist," evangelistic societies, e.g., Campus Crusade for Christ. They are ravaged by ecumenical endeavors based on Arminian universalism., e.g., Key '73 and "Here's Life, America." Loosened from their moorings by Arminianism, they are swept by every wind of doctrine that finds salvation in man's feeling and experience, e.g., neo-Pentecostalism. Even the Holy Scriptures are defiled. Reformed people, schools, and churches gladly receive, eagerly use, and enthusiastically distribute as the Bible a book that is nothing other than a man's revision of the Scriptures along the lines of Arminian theology. Kenneth Taylor's The Living Bible, in all its myriad forms, is the bible of Arminianism. Systematically, it corrupts those passages of Scripture which teach the sovereignty of God in salvation and damnation, so that they will teach the sovereignty of the will of man. With this book, the Remonstrants had routed the Synod of Dordt. If a Reformed man had done to the sacred Scriptures in the interest of the Reformed faith only one tenth of that which The Living Bible has done in the interest of Arminianism, he would have been drawn and quartered in every pulpit and religious paper in the land, and his bible would have been scorned at the book stores. As for The Living Bible, it is lavished with praise, and its sales are booming. Why? Because the spiritual leaders delude the people, so that they no longer know that salvation is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God Who showeth mercy, and the people love their delusion. 

There is only one hope for Reformed men and Reformed churches, and only the sovereign grace of God can realize it-- back to Calvinism: the old Calvinism of Dordt, of Calvin, of Augustine, of Paul. And this means the rooting out of the well-meant offer of the gospel. 

David J. Engelsma 

Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel, pp. 63-65

A Return to the Old Paths (Brief History of the PRC)

The date was December 12, 1924.

The two other ministers and their consistories were also to experience the wrath of their classis. 

Rev. Henry Danhof was pastor of First CRC in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He had been a delegate at the synod of the CRC which had adopted the Three Points of common grace. At the synod he had raised his objections to the doctrine and had let it be clearly known that he would never support such erroneous views. He and his congregation were a part of Classis Grand Rapids West.

Rev. George Ophoff was pastor of the Riverbend CRC in what is now Walker, Michigan. While Ophoff had not been present at the synod of 1924, he had expressed his convictions with regard to the Three Points of common grace by joining the staff of the Standard Bearer.  This magazine had begun publication in October of 1924, partly because the pages of the official publication of the CRC, the Banner, were closed to Rev. Hoeksema, and partly because an organ was needed to inform the churches of the serious error the CRC had made at its synod. Rev. Ophoff did not only let his convictions be known by joining the staff of the Standard Bearer, but he had also clearly expressed himself on its pages in an early issue. Rev. Ophoff's congregation was also a part of Classis Grand Rapids West.

Classis Grand Rapids West was in no mood to dally. It wanted no discussion of the issues; it wanted no appeals to the next synod; it wanted no clarifications of the positions of Danhof and Ophoff. It simply required of these two men (and their consistories) that they submit without reservation to the decisions of the synod of 1924 with respect to common grace, or suffer deposition.

Those involved refused to submit. All were summarily deposed from office by official decision of the classis.

It was the beginning of the PRC.

True reformation in the church of Christ always involves a going back and a moving ahead. The going back is required because the denomination which needs reforming has become apostate and has moved away from what Jeremiah calls the "old paths." For this reason Jeremiah's admonition to Judah is always important in reformation: "Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls" (6:16). 

The old paths for the church of Christ in North America (as well as for Reformed churches throughout the world) were the paths of the Reformation of the 16th century with its sharp and unyielding emphasis on sovereign and particular grace. The old paths were the paths of the Synod of Dordt, which had emphatically repudiated the general grace of Arminianism, had charted the course of Reformed church polity, and had drawn up a confession which demonstrated beyond doubt that the teaching of God's grace for the elect only was the teaching of their history. 

This latter insistence of the Synod of Dordt (namely, that what it taught was the historic Reformed position) became evident in its statement that the Canons of Dordt were not to be construed as a new confession, but were a further explanation of some points of doctrine already contained in the Heidelberg Catechism and the Confession of Faith, both of which were official confessions of the Reformed churches of a half century earlier.

The activities of Classes Grand Rapids East and West showed that the church government of the denomination was also askew. Suspension and deposition of office-bearers is a part of ecclesiastical censure of sin and an exercise of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. This task, as well as the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments, belongs to the local consistories and to broader ecclesiastical assemblies. For classes or synods to engage in discipline is the worst sort of hierarchy. Yet the CRC did not shrink from such hierarchy in order to rid itself of men who had been declared by the church itself to be Reformed, but who refused to agree to the false doctrine of common grace.

Faithful officebearers in the church of Christ, declared to be such by their own denomination, had been cruelly stripped of their offices, set naked on the street outside the doors of the church, and told to fend for themselves apart from the fellowship of the church.

And they were thus persecuted for no other reason than that they maintained the sovereignty and particularity of grace, a doctrine of the Reformed churches held since the days of John Calvin in Geneva.

A return to the "old paths," therefore, required also a return to the old true and tried Church Order of Dordrecht.

On March, 1925 the officebearers of the three congregations came together to form a new denomination. It was, in a sense, temporary, because all three congregations had appeals against the decisions of Classes Grand Rapids East and West pending with the synod of 1926. Because of the temporary nature of their federation, they called themselves, "The Protesting Christian Reformed Churches." But no one held out any hope of the synod of 1926 retracting the erroneous doctrines of common grace, and no one expected the hierarchical decisions of two classes to be repudiated by synod. And so it proved to be.

Already the temporary "Act of Agreement" which was signed by the officebearers of the three congregations spoke of a return to the three forms of unity and the Church Order of Dordrecht.

The reformation was complete. The doctrines of free, sovereign, and particular grace were once again given free course, unencumbered by the burden of heresy. The autonomy of the local congregations was once again established on the basis of the Church Order of Dordrecht.

But a true reformation of the church of Christ is not and can never be merely a return to the "old paths." Within the church one cannot live in the past. One cannot dwell on past injustices nor fight battles long over.

This is not to say that the past is unimportant. The confession, worship, and government of the church of Christ throughout the ages are given the church by the Spirit of truth whom Christ promised to His Church prior to His glorification (see John 14-16). The Spirit of truth guides the church into all truth. That means two things. It means, on the one hand, that the confession, worship, and government of the church of the past are the blessed fruit of the Spirit according to which the church must always live. But it also means that the work of the Spirit in the church is a continuing work, so that the Spirit, according to Scriptures which He Himself inspired, continues to reveal the truth in richer measure.

The church of Christ moves forward.

So it was with the PRC.

Some charged the PRC for existing only to inveigh against and do battle with the evils of common grace. It was said that the PRC rode an old hobby horse, lived to criticize others, found its joy in chiding other denominations, and would disappear if it could no longer fight against common grace. This is not true. 

Although indeed the PRC are compelled before God to show the evil of false doctrine, especially as it involves their own particular history, the churches have also moved forward by the guidance and direction of the Spirit of Christ.

Because the truth of sovereign and particular grace was the one great issue in the sad history of 1924, it was this truth which, emphasized in the churches, became the principle of further development of the truth within the churches.

Rev. Herman Hoeksema, rightly considered the spiritual father of the denomination, along with his colleague in the churches and in seminary, Rev. George Ophoff, made some distinctive contributions to what the church is called to believe.

It is not our purpose to go into these contributions in detail. But anyone acquainted with many writings which have come from the pens of Hoeksema and Ophoff will know of the contributions to an understanding of sovereign grace which both of these men made in the Standard Bearer and other writings; and they will know how Herman Hoeksema made a significant and important contribution to the knowledge of the Reformed faith in his Reformed Dogmatics.

But if there is one doctrine which is a distinguishing truth of the PRC, it is the doctrine of God's eternal and unconditional covenant of grace. Firmly committed to the truth of sovereign and particular grace, and applying that truth to the biblically defined doctrine of the covenant, Hoeksema has shown that Scripture teaches a unilateral and unconditional covenant in which God enters into friendship with His elect people in Jesus Christ. This was a major breakthrough in the Reformed understanding of God's covenant.

If one thing characterized Hoeksema's theology, it was its God-centered character. To begin with God and end with God - that was Hoeksema's purpose in all he did.

Beginning with God in the doctrine of the covenant, he demonstrated that God is in His own triune life a covenant God who lives in blessed and perfect fellowship with Himself. That covenant life which He eternally enjoys, God chooses to reveal in His own eternal Son, Jesus Christ, the Head of the covenant. He reveals it through Christ by taking Christ, through the way of Christ's cross, into the covenant life of the Trinity; and in taking Christ into that covenant life, He takes all His elect into the very life of the Trinity itself so that God and His people may have joyful fellowship together for ever. 

Such positive development of the truth is true church reformation.

And such God-centered theology takes all glory from man and gives it to God - where it belongs.

This is the history of the PRC.

READY TO GIVE AN ASWER, PP. 13-18

Herman Hanko

Herman Hoeksema

http://www.cprf.co.uk/bookstore/readytogiveananswer.htm#.VRN1W46kzMw

The Justice and The Mercy of God: Foundation of Redemption in Christ Jesus

 

God is not only supremely merciful, but also supremely just. And His justice requires (as He hath revealed Himself in His Word) that our sins committed against His infinite majesty should be punished, not only with temporal, but with eternal punishment, both in body and soul; which we cannot escape unless satisfaction be made to the justice of God.
Canons of Dordrecht, II.1

This article lays down the fundamental theological principle that God is supremely just. This principle may not be ignored, denied, or contradicted when speaking of any of God's dealings with sinful men. The reason is that God does not ignore, deny, or contradict this principle. He never acts contrary to His being. 

The fathers not only lay down a fundamental principle, but they delineate the consequences of it for the sinner. The consequences are that man's sins against God's infinite majesty must be punished with temporal and eternal punishment, both in body and soul. Punishment can be escaped only by satisfaction of the supreme justice of God.

It is noteworthy that the fathers do not speak in this article of the death of Christ and the redemption of men thereby, but they first lay a foundation for the Reformed doctrine of redemption in God's mercy and infinitely perfect justice. The method of the fathers is undoubtedly correct because the foundation determines the size, shape, and soundness of the whole structure. The historical reason for their method was the Remonstrants' attack upon the foundation of the truth of redemption and their attempt to destroy it by removing one of the piers of the foundation fastened in the bedrock of the divine being, so that the truth of redemption rested on only one pillar, the mercy of God. The trouble is that when one foundation stone is removed, what is left is not a partial foundation, but no foundation whatsoever, because the foundation is one.

The Reformed fathers insist on the fundamentals, on the foundation stones, before they rear up the structure of the truth of redemption. They use the theological method of beginning with the truth concerning God Himself. Their supposition is that one cannot say anything about redemption without first saying something about the redeemer God; one's conception of God determines his conception of redemption. This is to say that all doctrine is in principle theology- doctrine of God.

The historical reason for using this method was the Arminians' adoption of a theological starting place. They emphasize God's love and mercy to the exclusion of His righteousness and justice. Accordingly, they enjoy accusing the Reformed of having a hard and cold conception of God as an inexorably severe and just God ,a judge who knows no mercy. To this accusation concerning their God the defenders of the faith must first give answer. Both the Reformed and the Arminians concede that theology determines Christology. If there is disagreement on theology, there will be disagreement on Christology. 

The Arminians posit a conflict in God between His justice and His mercy, a conflict in which divine mercy is victorious and overcomes divine justice. According to His mercy God yearns for the happiness of the sinner and cannot cause suffering and misery to him. Although His justice requires the sinner to be stricken with the curse and to be killed, God cannot exercise His justice without doing violence to His mercy. His mercy prevails. He denies His justice, and without the satisfaction of His justice He bestows upon the sinner forgiveness and eternal life.

The fundamental error in this conception is the denial of the unity and simplicity of God and the essential unity of His attributes. It separates between God's attributes; it posits a schism in God. 

We must not imagine that the fathers in Dordrecht go to the opposite extreme and maintain God's justice in preference to His mercy. Not at all; they maintain both divine justice and divine mercy in essential unity, not in irreconcilable conflict.

God's justice is the attribute of His goodness according to which He maintains Himself as the only good, the infinitely perfect God, and according to which, with reference to His moral creatures, He rewards the good with good and the evil with evil.

God's mercy is the attribute of His goodness according to which He is in Himself blessed as the infinitely good God and according to which, with reference to creatures, He is the sole fount of all blessing and therefore delivers them from all misery and fills them with life and joy.

As God is one, so His mercy and justice are one in Him. God is His attributes. His mercy is His justice, and His justice is His mercy. Never is there in God unjust mercy or unmerciful justice. His justice never functions without His mercy, and His mercy never operates apart from His justice. There is no conflict in God. Such is the fundamental truth of this article.

The conclusion is, first, that divine justice requires the punishment of sin, a requirement that divine mercy cannot overlook. Second, divine justice requires exact punishment of sin, punishment equal to the sin. Sin against the infinite majesty of God requires infinite punishment, that is, not only temporal, but also eternal punishment in body and soul. Third, divine mercy cannot operate toward the sinner except on the basis of the complete payment of the debt of sin. God's justice must be satisfied. Upon no other basis can the sinner ever taste the mercy of God. God, who is really God, cannot deny Himself.

This is the position of the Heidelberg Catechism:

Is not God then also merciful?

God is indeed merciful, but also just; therefore His justice requires that sin which is committed against the most high majesty of God be also punished with extreme, that is, with everlasting punishment of body and soul. (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 11)

At the time of the Synod of Dordrecht it was sufficient in Reformed circles to cite the Heidelberg Catechism as the norm of Reformed doctrine. The Arminians knew this instruction of the Catechism. Along with their fellows in the Reformed churches they had accepted this teaching as scriptural, but the Arminians wanted to overthrow it.

Although this is the plain scriptural teaching in many places, the fathers do not furnish scriptural references, but only mention this fundamental principle as taught in the Catechism.

This is the foundation of the scriptural and Reformed doctrine of redemption in Christ Jesus.


Homer C. Hoeksema 
The Voice of our Fathers, pp. 175-178
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To Those Who Murmur at the Grace of Free Election and Severity of Just Reprobation

To those who murmur at the free grace of election and just severity of reprobation, we answer with the apostle: Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? (Rom. 9:20), and quote the language of our Savior: Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? (Matt. 20:15). And therefore, with holy adoration of these mysteries, we exclaim in the words of the apostle: O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? or who hath first given Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen (Rom. 11:33-36). -Canons of Dordtrecht, I.18


IN THIS TRANSLATION the adjectives "free" and "just" are misplaced. The translation should be "To those who murmur at the grace of free election and severity of just reprobation." 

In this article the fathers deal with two subjects: their answer to those who murmur against the doctrine of sovereign predestination and their attitude toward this doctrine in contrast with the attitude of those who murmur against it.

The first head of the Canons is closed with a fitting and scriptural doxology, a hymn of praise to the predestinating God of salvation. At the conclusion of the fifth head of doctrine is also a doxology, but already here it is as though the fathers could restrain themselves no longer, but in contemplation of the doctrine they had formulated and defended, they must break forth into the well-known words of the closing verses of Romans 11. IT is exactly a doctrine such as they have expounded that can and does occasion the adoring worship expressed in these words.

The article speaks of those who murmur against this doctrine. There have always been and still are those who murmur against both the grace of gratuitous election and the severity of just reprobation. So common is such murmuring that one may well judge the orthodoxy of his doctrine of predestination by the criterion of this murmuring. You may be certain that if you preach, teach, and maintain the pure, scriptural doctrine of sovereign predestination, men will murmur against you and your doctrine. The apostle Paul knew such murmuring. Augustine knew it. Gottschalk had to suffer on account of it. John Calvin had to hear it and answer it. The father of Dordrecht had to do battle against these murmurers. Those who will be Reformed today and will adhere strictly to this same doctrine will also have to face such murmurers. That such murmuring can be a criterion of orthodoxy is because being the object of such murmuring is the exclusive prerogative of the true doctrine of predestination. Change that doctrine, compromise its sovereignty, soften it by adopting a double-track theology, and you will not hear any murmurings.

The fathers indicate the nature of these murmurings. The objections are against the "grace" of free election and the "severity" of just reprobation- carefully and wisely chosen words that point out clearly the gross wickedness of those who object to the doctrine.

Exactly against the grace of God they murmur. Especially they object to the grace of free election. If you insist that only the other blessings of salvation are gifts of God's grace and are all free, they might let your doctrine pass. The moment you insist that election is free, gratuitous, unmerited, and therefore a matter of grace and not works, they will murmur against your doctrine, for election is the anchor end of the chain of salvation. To use the figure of the Canons: "Election is the fountain and cause of all saving good" (Canons 1.8). If election is free, unmerited, and gracious, there is absolutely no room for man and free will. Hence they murmur against the grace of free election. This murmuring assumes more than one form. Usually men object that this doctrine makes men careless and profane or that this doctrine makes passive Christians.

Much more frequently men murmur against the severity of just reprobation. A doctrine of election they claim to be able to endure; but they cannot stand the severity of reprobation, saying that it is a horrible doctrine. When the murmurers object to the severity of reprobation, they also oppose and mean to oppose the grace of free election. Remember, the Canons means by "just reprobation" not reprobation on the basis of foreseen sin and unbelief or on account of sin. If such is your doctrine of reprobation, you will never hear these murmurers, because that is the doctrine they want and which they claim does justice to human responsibility. But the just reprobation the Canons describe is not reprobation on account of sin, but reprobation unto condemnation in the way of man's own sin (Canons I.15). While it is just and unblamable, its severity nevertheless remains. This severity does not lie in the condemnation, but in the source of the decree in God's "sovereign, most just, irreprehensible, and unchangeable good pleasure" (Canons I.15). Even if you make it clear that the decree of reprobation is just, that it does not violate man's nature as a responsible moral and rational creature, and that the decree of reprobation is realized in history in the way of perfect justice, when you insist on the decree's absolute sovereignty, wicked men will murmur against you doctrine. What is the occasion for these murmurings? The goodness and severity of God, who is really God,  is what is assailed by these murmurers, which is the same as saying that the stumblingblock for these murmurers is God's sovereignty.

To murmur is different from acknowledging that we cannot comprehend God's works and ways. Contemplating God's work of sovereign predestination, the believer will confess, "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" (Rom. 11:33). To murmur is to contradict and to rebel. It is the work of pride. He who murmurs presumes to know better than God, against whose work he murmurs. Murmuring is unbelief.

Notice how the fathers, with the Scriptures in hand, teach believers to answer these complainers. The fathers refer in both passages that they quote to instances of murmuring. In Romans 9, the apostle answers an objector against the doctrine that God has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens: "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted  His will?" The article quotes only the first part of the apostle's answer: "Nay, but, O man, who are thou that repliest against God?" (vv. 19-20).

By quoting this answer and instructing believers to answer and instructing believers to answer the complainers in this language, the Canons point to the real nature of their objections. The trouble is not that they misunderstand. The trouble is not intellectual at all. It is ethical; it is a matter of the will and the heart. Their murmurings partake of the sin of answering against God.

The Canons, with the Scriptures, tacitly assume that the major premise of these objectors is correct, namely, that the free election is indeed sovereign severity. 

The fathers, with the apostle Paul, insist that man, an infinitesimally small speck of dust, a priori has no right to contradict and to rebel against the infinite and sovereign God. When God speaks, there is only one attitude for man to assume: let him lay his hand upon his mouth, maintain utter silence, and simply listen! Anything else is nothing short of blasphemous rebellion.

The article might well have quoted the rest of the apostle's reply in Romans 9, but it turns to the parable of the laborers in the vineyard and quotes from it (Matt. 20:15). In the context Jesus tells of the laborer who objects when all who are hired by the lord of the vineyard receive a penny as wages, whether they have labored one hour or whether they have borne the burden and the heat of the day.

Without going into an explanation of the parable, we notice that apparently there is an element of justice in the objection.  This fact serves to emphasize the Lord's point more strongly. The lord of the vineyard answers in the parable, "Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with with me for a penny?" Then he insists on granting unto the last servants even as unto the first. The reason that overrules all objection and that cannot be answered is, "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" Although there is in this instance not an objection against predestination, the principle of the reply is certainly applicable. If the lord of the vineyard may do as he pleases with his money, it is certainly true that the Lord of heaven and earth is not beholden to account for his actions to mere men, but is sovereignly free to do as he pleases with his own- his own creatures, his own salvation, his own damnation, his own heaven, and his own hell.

Let the church never flinch in the face of the complainers. Furnish them with a reply in harmony with Scripture.

Let our own attitude be that of adoration, expressed in the words of Romans 11:33-36. This is neither the time nor the place to give an exposition of these words. Suffice it to say that in the light of the context, both in the epistle to the Romans and in the Canons, no more fitting words could have been chosen. Although this doxology speaks of "all things," the context is that of truth of eternal predestination with a view to Israel and the Gentiles. In these words is truly expressed the attitude of holy adoration of these mysteries, for this doxology is preeminently theological: "Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to Whom be glory for ever. Amen." This doxology is also a humble confession that when we contemplate the truths of election and reprobation, as they are mysteries revealed to us by God, we come face-to-face with the incomprehensible, unsearchable, and unfathomable God of our salvation.

Ever let the church confess the truth in such a way that its confession may end in holy adoration with the language of this doxology.


Homer C. Hoeksema
The Voice of our Fathers, pp. 140-144
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