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 Nature of Church History

History has two sides, a divine and a human. On the part of God, it is His revelation in the order of time (as the creation is His revelation in the order of space), and the successive unfolding of a plan of infinite wisdom, justice, and mercy, looking to His glory and the eternal happiness of mankind. On the part of man, history is the biography of the human race, and the gradual development, both normal and abnormal, of all its physical, intellectual, and moral forces to the final consummation at the general judgment, with its eternal rewards and punishments. The idea of universal history presupposes the Christian idea of the unity of God, and the unity and common destiny of men, and was unknown to ancient Greece and Rome. A view of history which overlooks or undervalues the divine factor starts from deism and consistently runs into atheism; while the opposite view, which overlooks the free agency of man and his moral responsibility and guilt, is essentially fatalistic and pantheistic.

From the human agency we may distinguish the Satanic, which enters the third power into the history of the race. In temptation of Adam in Paradise, the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, and at every great epoch, Satan appears as the antagonist of God, endeavoring to defeat the plan of redemption and the progress of Christ's kingdom, and Christ's kingdom, and using weak and wicked men for his schemes, but is always defeated in the end by the superior wisdom of God.

The central current and ultimate aim of universal history is the Kingdom of God established by Jesus Christ. This is the grandest and most comprehensive institution in the world, as vast as humanity and as enduring as eternity. All other institutions are made subservient to it, and in its interest the whole world is governed. It is no after-thought of God, no subsequent emendation of the plan of creation, but it is the eternal forethought, the controlling idea, the beginning, the middle, and the end of all His ways and works. The first Adam is a type of the second Adam; creation looks to redemption as the solution of its problems. Secular history, far from controlling sacred history, is controlled by it, must directly or indirectly subserve its ends, and can only be fully understood in the central light of Christian truth and the plan of salvation. The Father, Who directs he history of the world, "draws to the Son," Who rules the history of the church, and the Son leads back to the Father, that "God may be all in all." "All things," says St. Paul, "were created through Christ and unto Christ; and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the Church" Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence" (Col. 1:16-18). "The Gospel," says John von Mueller, summing up the final result of his life-long studies in history, "is the fulfillment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpreter of all revolutions, the key of all seeming contradictions of the physical and moral worlds; it is life - it is immortality." The history of the church is the rise and progress of the kingdom of heaven upon earth, for the glory of God and the salvation of the world. It begins with the creation of Adam, and with that promise of the serpent-bruiser, which relieved the loss of paradise of innocence by the hope of future redemption from the curse of sin. It comes down through the preparatory revelations under the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets, to the immediate forerunner of the Savior, who pointed his followers to the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. But this part of its course was only introduction. Its proper starting-point is the incarnation of the Eternal Word, who dwelt among us and revealed His glory; the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth; and next to this, the miracle of the first Pentecost, when the Church took her place as a Christian institution, filled with the Spirit of the glorified Redeemer and entrusted with the conversion of all nations. Jesus Christ, the God-Man and Savior of the world, is the author of the new creation, the soul and the head of the church, which is His body and His bride. In His person and work lies all the fulness of the Godhead and of renewed humanity, the whole plan of redemption, and the key of all history from the creation of man in the image of God to the resurrection of the body unto everlasting life.

This is the objective conception of church history.

In the subjective sense of the word, considered as theological science and art, church history is the faithful and life-like description of the origin and progress of this heavenly kingdom. It aims to reproduce in thought and to embody in language its outward and inward development down to the present time. It is a continuous commentary on the Lord's twin parables of the mustard-seed and of the leaven. It shows at once how Christianity spreads over the world, and how it penetrates, transforms, and sanctifies the individual and all the departments and institutions of social life. If thus embraces not only the external fortunes of Christendom, but more especially her inward experience, her religious life, her mental and moral activity, her conflicts with the ungodly world, her sorrows and sufferings, her joys and her triumphs over sin and error. It records the deeds of those heroes of faith "who subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of aliens."

From Jesus Christ, since His manifestation in the flesh, an unbroken stream of divine light and life has been and is still flowing, and will continue to flow, in ever-growing volume, through the waste of our fallen race; and all that is truly great and good and holy in the annals of church history is due, ultimately, to the impulse of His Spirit. He is the fly-wheel in the world's progress. But He works on the world through sinful and fallible men, who, while as self-conscious and free agents they are accountable for all their actions, must still, willing or unwilling, serve the great purpose of God. As Christ, in the days of His flesh, was hated, mocked, and crucified, His church likewise is assailed and persecuted by the powers of darkness. The history of Christianity includes therefore a history of Anti-christ. With an unending succession of works of saving power and manifestations of divine truth and holiness, it uncovers also a fearful mass of corruption and error. The church militant must, from its very nature, be at perpetual warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil, both without and within. For as Judas sat among the apostles, so "the man of sin" sits in the temple of God; and as even a peter denied the Lord, though he afterwards wept bitterly and regained his holy office, so do many disciples in all ages deny Him in word and in deed.

But, on the other hand, church history shows that God is ever stronger than Satan, and that His kingdom of light puts the kingdom of darkness to shame. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has bruised the head of the serpent. With the crucifixion of Christ His resurrection also is repeated ever anew in the history of His church on earth; and there has never yet been a day without a witness of His presence and power ordering all things according to His holy will. For He has received all power in heaven and in earth for the good of His people, and from His heavenly throne He rules even His foes. The infallible word of promise, confirmed by experience, assures us that all corruptions, heresies, and schisms must, under the guidance of divine wisdom and love, subserve the cause of truth, holiness and peace; till, at the last judgment, Christ shall make His enemies His footstool, and rule undisputed with the sceptre of righteousness and peace, and His church shall realize her idea and destiny as "the fullness of Him that filleth all in all."

Then will history itself, in its present form, as a struggling and changeful development, give place to perfection, and the stream of time come to rest in the ocean of eternity, but this rest will be the highest form of life and activity in God and for God.


Philip Schaff
History of the Christian Church, I: pp.2-3 

The Poisonous Petals of the Arminian Lilac

In God's creation the lilac, like the tulip, has a beautiful place.

 

It is not a poisonous plant but a splendid flower of sweet perfume and purple hue. Its color symbolizes royalty and dominion. As such, the lilac would be a fit emblem of the Reformed faith and its key doctrine-- the absolute sovereignty of God. But the lilac may be viewed as the emblem of the Arminian heresy, and then it takes on quite a different character. It becomes an ugly, stinking flower. Its color is the pale gray of disease and death. Its petals are poisonous.

The late John Gerstner, a Presbyterian minister, invented the acronym LILAC to summarize the five points of the Arminians. He did this because the tulip flower has been the symbol of the Five Points of Calvinism. The two "flowers" look like this: 

T -Total Depravity

U - Unconditional Election

L - Limited Atonement

I - Irresistible Grace

P - Perseverance of the Saints

L - Limited Depravity

I - I Choose Christ

L - Limitless Atonement

A - Arrestible Grace

C - Carnal Security

In this chapter we examine briefly these poisonous metals of the Arminian LILAC. The reader will understand that we cannot launch into a detailed critique of the Arminian heresy here. For that consider the Canons of Dordt themselves, particularly the second part of each head of the doctrine, where the Arminian errors are explicitly mentioned and refuted. We can only point out the main errors. Nevertheless, with the sweet smell of TULIP in our souls we will come to know the stench of the Arminian LILAC.

It was the Arminian party in the Dutch Reformed churches who first summarize their teachings into five points of doctrine. This they did following the death of Jacob Arminius, the man who initially advanced the erroneous doctrines and after whom the Arminian party was named. Arminius had been teaching the errors associated with his name for many years following his ordination into the ministry in 1588. Especially in his preaching on the book of Romans, he parted with the historic Reformed teaching concerning the state of the natural man and concerning the way in which the sinner is saved. But it was after Arminius' death in 1609 that his followers put his views together in summary form. In 1610 they set forth in five articles their Remonstrance (petition) as a defense for their position, which is why the Canons of Dordt consist of five heads of doctrine and why we speak of the five points of Calvinism. The first point of the Remonstrants expressed the Arminian view of predestination:

That God, by an external, unchangeable purpose in Jesus Christ His Son, before the foundation of the world, hath determined, out of the fallen, sinful race of men, to save in Christ, for Christ's sake, and through Christ, those who, through the grace of the holy Ghost, shall believe on this His Son Jesus, and shall persevere in this faith and obedience of faith, through this grace, even to the end; and, on the other hand, to leave the incorrigible and unbelieving in sin and under wrath, and to condemn them as alienate from Christ, according to the word of the gospel of John 3:36: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him," and according to other passages of Scripture also.

At first glance it may seem as if the Arminians were stating an orthodox doctrine of predestination. The language appears sound and straight. But in reality their view of divine election and reprobation is that they are conditional decrees. Notice that the article says that God chooses those who will believe and passes over those who will not believe. That is, God's choice of some persons to be saved is based on (conditioned by) their faith and their perseverance in faith; and His rejection of others damnation is based on (conditioned by) their unbelief and disobedience. For the Arminians, God;s decree of predestination is not sovereign and unconditional; it is not freely made without any regard to man's acts in time. Rather it is conditioned by what man does. In eternity God looks ahead and sees who will believe and who will not believe and predestinates accordingly. In this opening statement the Arminians revealed the heart of their heresy: God is not sovereign in salvation; man is. God's will does not rule in the redemption of mankind; man's does. The poisonous, putrid petal of the Arminial LILAC is: I choose God (Christ), and therefore He chooses me.

How pervasive that poison is in the churches today! Oh, that the smell of the beautiful, biblical TULIP would prevail as it did in the time of Dordt: God chose me to believe, sovereignly, unconditionally, entirely of grace!

This point, however, was just the beginning of the Arminian poison. On their second point the Arminians continued their vile errors: 

That, agreeably thereto, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, died for all men and for every man, so that He has obtained for them all, by His death on the cross, redemption and the forgiveness of sins; yet that no one actually enjoys this forgiveness of sins except the believer, according to the word of the gospel of John 3:16, "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And in the First Epistle of John 2:2: "And He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

In this statement the Arminians boldly set forth universal atonement: Christ has died for all men, head for head. His death on the cross covered the sins of all people that ever live. His sacrifice obtained forgiveness and freedom for every person in all of time and history. Christ's death, then, is not just for the elect of God; it is not limited to that select people determined by God. It is for all men without exception.

Yet at the same time the Arminians had to reckon with the fact that all men do nto enjoy this salvation in the death of Christ. Some men perish in their unbelief and never receive the benefits Christ obtained for them. This assertion implies that Christ has died in vain for some; His death is not sufficient to secure some people's salvation. What is this but a denial of the efficacy and all-sufficiency of Christ's atonement? This poisonous petal of the Arminian LILAC insists that Christ's limitless atonement fails! 

This is not the sweet fragrance of the gospel, as Arminians claimed; this is the stench of the lie. Besides, in this article the Arminians again grounded salvation in the faith of the sinner, not the sovereign work of God in Christ at the cross. At best Christ's death only makes salvation possible for the sinner. The determining factor in salvation is not what Christ did in dying but what the sinner does by believing. Christ has died in vain unless the sinner believes! This poisonous petal is also prominent in the churches of our day. Oh, that the sweet savor of the biblical, Reformed TULIP might prevail today as it did at Dordt: Christ died only for those elect given Him by the Father-- sufficiently, efficaciously, with everlasting security of their salvation.

In their third point the Arminians returned to their devilish deceptions and subtle subterfuges. They hid the truth of their position behind solid language:

That man has not saving grace of himself, nor of the energy of his free will, inasmuch as he, in the state of apostasy and sin, can of and by himself neither think, will, nor do any thing that is truly good (such as saving Faith eminently is); but that it is needful that he be born again of God in Christ, through His Holy Spirit, and renewed in understanding, inclination, or will, and all his powers, in order that he may rightly understand, think, will, and effect what is truly good, according to the Word of Christ, John 15:5: "Without Me ye can do nothing."

It appears from this statement that the Arminians were upholding the Reformed doctrine of total depravity, that man is thoroughly corrupt in himself and incapable of doing any good part apart from the grace of God. It appears that they were defending sovereign grace in the salvation of the sinner, so that only God by His regenerating Spirit causes man to repent and believe. It even seems that they condemn free will.

But this was a grievous deception. In reality, the Arminians taught just the opposite. A close reading of the Rejection of Errors section in Heads 3 and 4 of the Canons of Dordt reveals their true position on the nature of man's depravity and on the nature of God's saving grace. From the Rejection of Errors we learn that the Arminians taught that man is only partially depraved and that he has retained his power of free will after the fall. Therefore, the unregenerate sinner is not totally dependent on the grace and Spirit of God for salvation. He is able to prepare himself for salvation and cooperate with God in salvation. According to Arminians, fallen man can hunger and thirst after righteousness and life by himself; he can offer the sacrifice of a contrite and broken spirit apart from the Spirit. He can use his natural powers to meet God halfway on the road of salvation. God gives the sinner a common grace to show him Christ and encourage him to conversion, but it is up to man to exercise his free will and decide whether or not he will be saved. In the Arminian scheme, faith is not God's sovereign gift worked in man's heart by the power of the regenerating Spirit but an act of man that actually precedes regeneration.

So again, the Arminians denied the sovereignty of God's saving grace, this time by promoting the poisonous petal of "limited depravity." The fathers of Dordt saw this for what is was: nothing but a resurrection of the old Pelagian heresy which denied man's total depravity and advanced man's power of free will. Oh, that once more this poisonous perfume of the Arminian LILAC might be snuffed out in the churches and the precious scent of the Reformed TULIP be powerfully smelled and savored!

The fourth article of the Arminians must be viewed in the light of what we have just seen:

That this grace of God is the beginning, continuance, and accomplishment of all good, even to this extent, that the regenerate man himself, without prevenient or assisting, awakening, following and cooperative grace, can neither think, will, nor do good, nor withstand any temptations to evil; so that all good deeds or movements, that can be conceived, must be ascribed to the grace of God in Christ. But as respects the mode of the operation of this grace, it is not irresistible, in as much as it is written concerning many, that they have resisted the Holy Ghost. Acts 7, and elsewhere in many places. 

Again, it seems as if the Arminians are defending sovereign grace, at least in the first part of the article. God's grace, they appear to say, accounts for all the good that man does.

But notice the words that are used to describe God's grace as it comes to the sinner. The article speaks of "assisting" grace and "cooperative" grace, implying that God simply needs to help man along in the attainment of salvation and that man works along with the God to achieve this. The fourth point exposes the Arminians in their real position-- that of Pelagianism. In addition, the Arminians plainly stated their rejection of sovereign, irresistible grace. The grace of God as it comes to the sinner is able to be resisted by the sinner. God tries to save the sinner when He comes to him in the gospel. The Spirit approaches man with the grace of salvation, but God can be turned away by man's sovereign will. The Spirit comes with regenerating grace but cannot give it until man first believes by an act of his free will. And if a man does not want to believe, the Spirit is stopped in His tracks! Such is the stinking flower of the Arminians: arrestible grace.

How powerful is this poisonous petal in the churches! Oh, that the precious odor of the biblical TULIP might waft through the churches as it did at Dordt: God's sovereign grace is irresistible and conquers the wicked heart and will of the elect sinner, so that he is infallibly brought to faith and conversion by the Spirit alone!

In their last article the Arminians expressed their belief concerning the perseverance of the saints:

That those who are incorporated into Christ by a true faith, and have thereby become partakers of His life-giving Spirit, have thereby full power to strive against Satan, sin, the world, and their own flesh, and to win the victory; it being well understood that it is ever through the assisting grace of the Holy Ghost; and that Jesus Christ assists them through His Spirit in all temptations, extends to them His hand, and if only they are ready for the conflict, and desire His help, and not inactive, keeps them from falling, so that they, by no craft or power of Satan, can be misled nor plucked out of Christ's hands, according to the Word of Christ, John 10:28: "Neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." But whether they are capable, through negligence, of forsaking again the first beginnings of their life in Christ, of again returning to this present evil world, of turning away fro the holy doctrine which was delivered them, of losing a good conscience, of becoming devoid of grace, that must be more particularly determined out of the Holy Scripture, before we ourselves can teach it with the full persuasion of our minds. 

It should be evident that once more the Arminians revealed their true colors, this time by rejecting the absolute perseverance of believers. They are willing to say that God makes it possible for the saved to persevere. He gives them sufficient grace. He assists them in the battle of faith so that they can possibly overcome and reach the goal of eternal salvation. But notice two things concerning the Arminian position set forth in this article. First, they make perseverance dependent on the activity of the believer. Christ extends His hand to help the believer and will keep him, but only if he wants help, makes himself ready for the battle, and works hard on his own. Once more, the position of human sovereignty in salvation is proclaimed. God cannot make the believer persevere unless the believer wills and works first. Second, the Arminians state in so many words that they do not believe the total preservation of believers and therefore the absolute security of the saved. He can be saved today and perish tomorrow. He can be saved all his life, but in the very end he can be lost and join the wicked in hell. This last petal in the Arminian LILAC is another poisonous one: carnal security. It leaves the believer with no assurance of being saved to the end. It leaves him trusting in himself for final deliverance. That is carnal security.

Of course, this final article follows from all that the Arminians teach. If at every point salvation is dependent on the will of man, then salvation is ever on shaky ground; it can never be safe and secure. Salvation can only be certain if it is dependent on God's will and God's work from the start to finish and at every point in between. Such is the pure flower of biblical Calvinism: God keeps His own unto the end so that none are lost. He gives them grace to persevere so that they all arrive in glory. This is the sweet perfume of the Reformed TULIP. The petals of the Arminian LILAC emit a deadly poison. 

Which flower are you savoring? 

Charles J. Terpstra

Always Reforming, (Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2009): 9-16 

http://rfpa.org/collections/books-by-david-j-engelsma/products/always-reforming-doctrine-by-david-j-engelsma