Jehovah's Witnesses and the Name of God

The Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society charge the Christian Church with colluding in removing the name "Jehovah" from the Bible, since, e.g., the Authorized Version (AV) renders the name "Jehovah" over 7,000 times as "Lord." Moreover, they claim that, since their New World Translation (NWT) retains the original name "Jehovah," they alone are God's faithful followers.
It is true that in the AV the word "Jehovah" does not appear in the NT and occurs in only a few places in the OT (e.g., Ps. 83:18); otherwise it is translated Lord in upper case letters. But the issue here is not the translation of the Hebrew word, rendered Jehovah (AV), but the meaning of the name itself. For example, a man might use the word, "Jesus," and sing enthusiastically, "JESUS, He's the one for me," but if he does not believe that "Jesus" is the only, complete, all-sufficient, effectual Saviour of His people (Matt. 1:21), he does not really believe in "Jesus" at all. Or a person might call Jesus, "Lord, Lord," but unless by "Lord" he means Master, Owner, Redeemer, and lives in submission and obedience to Him, his using the word "Lord" is vain hypocrisy (Matt. 7:21; Luke 6:46).

What, then, does the name Jehovah mean? God Himself explained it to Moses in Exodus 3:14: "I AM THAT I AM... Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." The JW's translation, the NWT, mistranslates it this way, "I SHALL PROVE TO BE WHAT I SHALL PROVE TO BE." 

The Hebrew verb is hayah which means "to be" and its verbal form (qal imperfect) it may in itself, be translated as "I am," I shall be," or "I was." In the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation, used by the Jews in Christ's day and quoted by the apostles in the inspired NT, it is rendered in words which can only mean "I am" (ego eimi). The NWT's "I SHALL PROVE TO BE" is, therefore, hardly an accurate translation.

That God identifies Himself with a name derived from the Hebrew verb meaning "to be," best translated "I am," teaches us important truths about the Being of God. First, God is absolutely independent. He derives His Being from Himself and maintains His Being of Himself. He needs nothing outside of Himself (Rom. 11:33-36). Second, God is eternal or timeless: God is. No creature can say, "I AM." To be accurate, every creature must say, "I am becoming." In the short time that you have taken to read these lines, a large number of cells in your body have died, your blood has circulated around your body and the air your lungs has been exchanged for fresh supplies. That is not true of God. He does not need air, food, or anything else, and His divine essence never changes. Third, the name Jehovah, I AM, tells us that God is absolutely dependable. He never reneges on His promises. He is the God we can trust fully, whose purposes are always the same. Thus He came to Moses at the burning bush and declared that the lapse of over 400 years had not caused Him to change His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. One Watchtower publication says that Jehovah is a God of "innumerable roles." This is not the meaning of Jehovah, I AM or eigo eimi.

The JW's claim to believe the divine, verbal inspiration of the OT and the NT. They complain that God's name, Jehovah, has been removed from the OT, and they claimed that they have restored the word to its proper place. But here is a startling fact: the word Jehovah never appears in the NT Greek, even when the writers are quoting from the OT where the Hebrew text has the word rendered Jehovah. Every time the writers of the NT Scriptures quote the OT, they use the Greek word Kurios, which means "Lord." If the Holy Spirit thought that the word "Lord" was an unacceptable translation of Jehovah, would He have not "corrected" that in the NT? After all, there are times when the writers of the NT modify the Septuagint translation from which they quote (The Septuagint translation is not inspired, you know.) Why, then, did the Holy Spirit not have the NT writers substitute the word Jehovah for Kurios, as the JW's translation, the NWT, has done?

Let me give some examples. Quoting Deut. 6:13, Christ says, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God" (Matt. 4:10). The Hebrew of Deuteronomy has Jehovah; the Septuagint has Kurios (Lord). What does Matthew write, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Kurios, Lord, not Jehovah! In Acts 2:21, Peter quotes Joel 2:32, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord." The Hebrew of Joel has Jehovah; the Septuagint has Kurios (Lord). What does Luke, the human penman of Acts, write, by the Holy Ghost? Kurios, Lord, not Jehovah! In Rom. 10:16, Paul quotes Isaiah 53:1, "Lord, who hath believed our report?" The Hebrew of Isaiah has Jehovah; the Septuagint has Kurios (Lord). What does Paul write, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Kurios, Lord, not Jehovah! If the word Jehovah must be used, why does the Holy Spirit never use it in the NT?

Moreover, the JW's translation, NWT, adds to the NT the name Jehovah, even when the OT is not being quoted. For example, the NWT translates Kurios (Lord) as Jehovah in the following passages: II Peter 3:9, "Jehovah [Kurios] is not slow respecting His promise;" Acts 13:48, "they began to rejoice and to glorify the word of Jehovah [Kurios]; Rev. 1:8, "I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says Jehovah [Kurios] God." Other examples could be given. In the book of Revelation alone, Jehovah is added at least ten times (4:8, 11; 11:17; 15:3-4; 16:7; 18:8; 19:6; 21:22; 22:5-6).

However, when Kurios refers to Jesus Christ, it is never translated Jehovah (e.g., Phil. 4:5; I Thess. 4:15-17). This shows the bias of the NWT version. I Thess. 4 is a particularly interesting example in the NWT: "For this is what we tell you by Jehovah's [Kurios] word that we the living who survive to the presence of the Lord [Kurios] shall in no way precede those who have fallen asleep in death, because the Lord [Kurios] Himself descend.. be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord [Kurios] in the air thus we shall always be with the Lord [Kurios]" (vv. 15-17). Notice, the first Kurios is translated Jehovah, but the other examples of Kurios in the same context are translated Lord. Why? Because clearly they refer to Jesus Christ and the JW's will not recognize His Deity, that Christ is Jehovah God.


Rev. Martyn McGeown
www.limerickreformed.com

Remembering the Persecuted

Remember the persecuted! Perhaps we think of the earthly Christian martyrs thrown to the lions. Perhaps we remember Stephen and others who were stoned to death by angry Jewish mobs. Perhaps we recall the heroic sufferings of the Reformation saints in the Netherlands. Martyrdom makes us think of the stake, the scaffold, and the dungeon.

Open Doors International, a Christian group supporting persecuted Christians, reports that Christian martyrdom doubled in 2013. The persecution of the church is a very serious reality for many of the saints today. They do not read about it in history books- they live it.

2,123 believers died for their faith in 2013 compared to 1,201 in 2012. Of course, those figures include only the ones whose deaths could be documented. Many other saints' deaths (precious in the sight of the Lord) are known only to God. Moreover, the figures are only for believers who died for their faith. They do not include the many more who were threatened, intimidated, dispossessed, beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and enslaved. They do not include the number of church buildings destroyed, worship services broken up, women raped, children abused, and believers who have simply disappeared. It is tempting to view these numbers as mere statistics, but behind every statistic there is a widow mourning for her husband, there are parents weeping for their children, and there is unimaginable suffering endured by our brothers and sisters. 

There are several organizations dedicated to providing information about the persecuted church: Open Doors International, Barnabas Fund, International Christian Concern, Release International, and Christians in Crisis are some of the best known.

Open Doors International measures persecution with its World Watch List (WWL). Every year, the WWL documents the fifty countries in which persecution is the worst. The statistics and stories make sobering reading. For the twelfth consecutive year, North Korea ranks first, followed by Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Eritrea, and Libya. You can read the rest of the top fifty at the WWL website. http://worldwatchlist.us/world-watch-list-countries/

North Korea is the most difficult country in which to be a Christian. Christianity is illegal. Being caught with a Bible, praying, using the name of Jesus or of God, or any other form of Christian activity is punishable with death or a lifelong prison-camp sentence, which is a living death. It is estimated that some 50,000 to 70,000 are suffering in North Korean prison camps. One such Christian prisoner, Hea Woo, tells her story:

I could not tell you what the worst thing I experienced. Every day in the camp was like torture. I often had to think about God's plagues for Egypt. Being in this concentration camp felt like undergoing all those ten plagues at the same time. People were dying and their corpses were burnt. The guards scattered the ashes over the road. We walked that road every day and each time I thought: one day the other prisoners will walk over me. Despite everything, I remained faithful to God. I remained faithful and God helped me survive. Not only that, He gave me a heart to evangelise other prisoners. Frankly, I was too scared to do it. I wanted to live. How could God ask me to tell the other prisoners about Jesus? God persisted. He showed me which prisoners I should approach...

It was an encouraging message for those prisoners who walked on the edge of death each day. They were easily converted. Not only because of what I said. They saw the Spirit's work in me. Sometimes I gave some of the little rice I got to others. When the people were sick, I went to them and helped them with washing their clothes.


 Hea Woo is seventy years old. She was released and now enjoys freedom in South Korea. But such inconceivable suffering continues for some 70,000 of our brothers and sisters in North Korea, suppressed by the tyrannical regime of Kin Jong-Un. We who enjoy freedom to worship, to teach our children, to read the Bible, and even to evangelize, can hardly imagine the daily life of a North Korean Christian, who, if he is caught, can be sent to one of those labor camps.

Of the rest of the top fifty persecuting nations of the world the majority are Islamic. When nations such as Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan descend into civil unrest, it is the Christian minorities who bear the brunt of the persecution. In some of these nations, a purging of the Christian population is underway- there are about 1.3 million Christians in Syria, targeted by the rebel forces in that nation; it is reported that every two or three days a Christian is killed, kidnapped, or abused in Iraq; in September 2013, a bomb exploded at a church in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 89 people and injuring many others. In other Islamic nations all religions except Islam are forbidden. In 2013 many Christian fellowships were raided in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The fellowships were closed down and the members arrested. The Maldives, an island in the Indian ocean popular with tourists, is far from idyllic for Christians. Ranking seventh in the WWL, the Maldives forbids all Christian activity, except for ex-pats. In Eritrea, a north African country, Christians are subject to raids, arrest, systematic torture, and imrpisonment- often in metal crates in unbearable heat. There are an estimated 2.7 million Christians in Eritrea. WWL reports of one such saint: "Gabriella is an influential Christian in the underground church who was interrogated, tortured and kept in solitary confinement- but she never denied Christ. She describes her time in prison as a 'honeymoon with Jesus.'"

A honeymoon with Jesus!

The letter to the Hebrews reminds us of these saints: "And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth" (Heb. 11:35b-38).

These all suffered "through faith" (v. 33). Faith is the reason for their suffering- they are united to Jesus Christ, and, because Satan and the world hate Christ, they hate Christ's members also. Faith is the source of their strength in suffering- they are united to Jesus Christ and by His grace alone they endure.

We know that God gives His grace and Holy Spirit- also to suffer- only to those who pray (Heidelberg Catechism, LD 45, Q&A 116). As the sufferings of the saints increase, let our prayers for the suffering brethren increase, "until [our] fellowservants also and [our] brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled" (Rev. 6:11).

"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being youselves also in the body" (Heb. 13:3).

"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these brethren, ye have done it unto Me" (Matt. 25:40).


Rev. Martyn McGeown 
Missionary-Pastor of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland stationed in Limerick, Republic of Ireland
The Standard Bearer, (A Reformed Semi-Monthly Magazine, February 15, 2013)
Vol. 90, No. 10, pp. 224-226
http://rfpa.org/pages/the-standard-bearer

Meditation is a Dwelling of Thoughts

MEDITATION includes a dwelling of the thoughts upon the object, drawing out the golden thread of holy thinking to its due length, giving the mind its full scope and allowance of abode on the meditated matter. Meditation is, in Scripture, and often particularly in the book of Ecclesiastes, expressed by the phrase of "considering."

In consideration, there is: 
1. Application of the mind to an object;
2. Intention upon it;
3. Pondering of, or searching into it; And this,
4. thing, the dwelling of the thoughts for some due space of time, for viewing and reviewing, for second thoughts, bettering of thoughts, and better completing this great soul affair of meditation. This meditation needs must have that allowance that all great musings and considerings have. Such are rare artists, exquisite engineers, deep philosophers, and great statesmen, all noble and ingenious ways must have for their times of studyings: they must have their due space of time for thinking, and lengthen out their mindings in that time-- to make, as we say, no more haste than good speed. A staying awhile will make an end the sooner, make the work the surer.

Meditation is not a hasty hurry of thoughts: that is precipitation, not meditation. IT is not gathering half-ripe fruit, that which has not its time for the influence of heaven to come down upon it, and its own internal principle and power of its nature, to produce a kindly maturation, a kindly ripening. We will not have (for want of time) our bread dough-baked, or meat raw-roasted, knowing that what is not rightly prepared for the body may breed distempers, if it bring not death. It is not the way to thrive, look well, and be strong, lively, and cheerful: why should we gather our soul's precious fruits half-ripe? Feed our souls with dough-baked bread for want of a little time? Some things must have infusion for taking forth the spirits and tinctures of colors; others a due time for percolation and straining, for a separating of the finer parts from the feculent and dreggy; and some things a longer space, in a slow and constant fire in the operation, or the cost and labor is lost. Intentions for effecting things greatly beneficial and admirable are most freely allowed a larger proportion of time, both for frequencies and repetitions of musing seriously. But, oh, how too ordinarily do the best of saints fall short of the actings of rare artists in their higher operations, in their stands and abodes of thoughts for more curious observations, and intellectual satisfactions! Usually we are too hasty and eager to have duties over. The soul is in pain till it be delivered of them. In meditation it is hard (sometimes at least) to take off the thoughts for it from pre-engagements of other thinking, and apply them to the duty; but harder to become duly serious in acting in it; harder yet to dive and ponder; and hardest of all to hold up an abiding of thoughts and dwell long enough, and after views to make reviews, to react the same thinkings, to taste things over and over when the freshness and newness is past, when by long thinking the things before us seem old: we are ready to grow dead and flat in a performance, except we stir up ourselves often in ti. It is hard to hold on and hold up unless we hold up a wakeful eye, a warm affection, a strong and quick-repeated resolution; yea, and without often lifting up the soul to Christ, for fresh recruits of strength to hold on. David, that so excellent artist in this way, says he will meditate, often says he will. See Psalm 119. Doubtless he not only said I will, when he was to make his entrance into this hard work; but likewise for continuance in it, to keep up his heart from flagging, till he well ended his work. It is not the digging into the golden mine, but the digging long, that finds and fetches up the treasure. It is not the diving into the sea, but staying longer, that gets the greater quantities of pearls. To draw out the golden thread of meditation to its due length, till the spiritual ends be attained- this is rare and happy attainment.


Nathanael Ranew
Solitude Improved By Divine Meditation, pp. 28-29

Does Man Have a Free Will?

When people hear us say that an unbeliever is spiritually dead and completely unable to do good works, they sometimes ask us whether we are denying that human beings have a free will. The answer to that question depends on which human beings you are referring to, and what you mean by free.

How our Lord explained freedom

It is important that we speak of freedom and bondage the way that Scripture does. To be in bondage is to be a servant of sin and Satan. To be free is to be liberated from this, so that we are able to do that which is good in the eyes of God.

This, of course, is not the way that sinful man views freedom. He thinks he is free when he is able to do whatever he wants. But what sinful man wants is always evil. And for a man to pursue the evil that he wants is not to be free, but to be enslaved.

Jesus pointed this out when responding to some Jews who denied that they were in bondage. Jesus had just finished saying that those who continued in His word were truly His disciples, and that His disciples would know the truth, and that the truth would set them free. To this these Jews responded, and said: "We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be made free" (John 8:33b).

Jesus then explained that the freedom He was talking about was a spiritual freedom. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever commiteth sin is the servant of sin" (John 8:34).

So if we are going to speak of freedom the way our Lord did, we will say that to have a free will is to have a will that is not enslaved to sin. It is to have a righteous and holy will that brings forth the fruit of good actions.

How the will is freed

So how does the will of a person become freed? Scripture and our confessions teach that our will becomes freed when God "infuses new qualities into the will" (Canons 3/4, B, 6).

The first reference speaks of God infusing something into our heart. The two statements together that when God infuses something into our heart, He infuses it into our will.

To prove that this infusing really does take place, our fathers quoted a number of Scripture passages. The first one they refer to is a passage from Jeremiah that speaks of God putting His word in our hearts: "After those days, saith the LORD, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts" (Jer. 31:33b).

When God regenerates us, the word of God really does enter our heart. And it is because God's word is in our heart that we are now able to begin to do what that word says: "But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it" (Deut. 30:14).

It is in this way that God infuses new qualities of faith, obedience, and a consciousness of His love into our hearts. When God's word is in our heart, we believe in God. We know Him, love Him, and are free to do what His word says. 

The unregenerate, however, do not have God's word in their heart. When Christ spoke to some unbelievers, He said: "ye seek to kill Me, because My word hath no place in you" (John 8:37).

God's word was not in the heart of these people. That explains why they hated what God said to them. First God puts His word in our heart, and only then do we love Him, listen to Him, and strive to so what pleases Him.

Only the "good trees" have a free will

It is when these new qualities have been infused into a person, that the individual becomes a good tree, able to produce good fruit. The Canons say that God "infuses new qualities into the will, which, though heretofore dead, He quickens; from being evil, disobedient, and refractory, He renders it good, obedient, and pliable; actuates and strengthens it, that like a good tree it may bring forth the fruits of good actions" (Canons 3/4, 11). 

Here we have yet another passage in our confessions that clearly speaks of how only those who have been regenerated can do good works. Something must be infused into us first, so that we go from being corrupt trees that produce only corrupt fruit, to being good trees that "bring forth the fruit of good actions."

So the regenerated or "good trees" are the only ones who have free will. By nature they were dead trees that were in bondage of corruption. But God has raised them from the dead, quickening their dead will, so that now they are freed from corruption, and are able to produce fruit that is truly good. 

We believers confess that Christ, the Truth, really has set us free. And the more we come to hear the truth preached, and believe that truth preached, the more that we experience the joy of that freedom.

This is the true freedom. As our Lord Himself: "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36).

 We are free indeed! Free to do what is pleasing to God, which is also what we genuinely desire to do in the new man. May we rejoice as those truly liberated, and show our love and thankfulness to our God by continuing in His word, that we might ever more so experience the liberating power of the truth, as it is applied to our heart by Christ's Spirit.


Rev. James Laning
The Standard Bearer (A Reformed Semi-Monthly Magazine, Feb. 1, 2014) Vol. 90, No. 9, pp. 211-212

Treatment of Melancholy, Despair, Etc.

When I was in spiritual distress a gentle word would restore my spirit. Sometimes my confessor said to me when I repeatedly discussed silly sins with him, 'You are a fool. God is not incensed against you, but you are incensed against God. God is not angry with you, but you are angry with God.' This was magnificently said, although it was before the light of the gospel.

"Right here at this table, when the rest of you were in Jena, Pomeranus sometimes consoled me when I was sad by saying, no doubt God is thinking: What more can I do with this man? I have given him so many excellent gifts, and yet he despairs of my grace!" These words were a great comfort to me. As a voice from heaven stuck me in my heart, although I think Pomeranus did not realize at the time what he had said and that it was so well said. 

"Those who are troubled with melancholy," he [Martin Luther] said, "ought to be very careful not to be alone, for God created the fellowship of the church and commanded brotherliness, as the Scriptures testify, 'Woe to him who is alone when he falls,' etc. [Eccles. 4:10]. To be gloomy before God is not pleasing to Him, although He would permit us to be depressed before the world. He does not wish me to have a long face in His presence, as He says, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked' [Ezek. 33:11] and 'Rejoice in the Lord' [Phil. 4:4]. He desires not a servant who does not expect good things of Him.

"Although I know this, I am of a different mind ten times in the course of the day. But I resist the devil, and often it is with a fart that I chase him away. When he tempts me with silly sins I say, 'Devil, yesterday I broke wind too. Have you written it down on your list?' When I say to him, 'You have been put to shame,' he believes it, for he does not want to be despised. Afterward, if I engage him in further conversation, I upbraid him with the pope and say, 'If you do the same as he does, who is your pope that I should celebrate him? Look what an abomination he has prepared, and it continues to this day!' Thus I remind myself of the forgiveness of sin and of Christ and I remind Satan of the abomination of the pope. This abomination is so great that I am of good cheer and rejoice, and I confess that the abomination of the papacy after the time of Christ is a great consolation to me. Consequently those who say that one should not rebuke the pope are dreadful scolds. Go right ahead and inveigh against the pope, especially if the devil disturbs you about justification. He often troubles me with trivialities. I don't notice this when I'm depressed, but when I feel better I recognize it easily.

"Well, then, our furious foe has done us much harm. I know that I shall see him and his flaming missiles in the last day. AS long as we have pure teaching he will not harm us, but if the teaching is wrong we are done for. But praise be to God, Who gave us the Word and also allowed His only Son to die for us! He did not do this in vain. Accordingly we should entertain the hope that we are saints, that we are saved, and that this will be manifest when it is revealed. Since Christ accepted the thief on the cross just as he was and received Paul after all his blasphemies and persecutions, we have no reason to despair. As a matter of fact, all of us must be saved just as the thief and Paul were. Good God, what do you think it means that He has given His only Son? It means that He also offers whatever else He possesses. We have no reason, therefore, to fear His wrath, although we must continue to fear on account of the old Adam, who is still unable to understand this as it ought to be understood. If we had only the first three words of the Creed, 'I believe in God the Father,' they would still be far beyond our understanding and reason. In short, it does not occur to man that God is Father. If it did, man could not live for a single moment. Accordingly in this infirm flesh we must have faith, for if we were capable of fully believing, heaven would already be here. There is therefore no reason to fear, in so far as the object of fear is concerned, and yet we cannot understand and are compelled on account of the weakness of the flesh to suffer assaults of fear and desperation. Thus the catechism remains lord, and there is nobody who understands it. I am accordingly compelled to pray it every day, even aloud, and whenever I happen to be prevented by the press of duties from observing my hour of prayer, the entire day is bad for me. Prayer helps us very much and gives us a cheerful heart, not on account of any merit in the work, but because we have spoken with God and found everything to be in order.

"Having been taught by experience I can say how you ought to restore your spirit when you suffer from spiritual depression. When you are assailed by gloom, despair, or a troubled conscience you should eat, drink, and talk with others. If you can find help for yourself by thinking of a girl, do so.

"There was a bishop who had a sister in a convent. She was disturbed by various dreams about her brother. She betook herself to her brother and complained to him that she was again and again agitated by bad dreams. He at once prepared a sumptuous dinner and urged his sister to eat and drink. The following day he asked her whether she had been annoyed by dreams during the night. 'No,' she responded. 'I slept well and had no dreams at all.' 'Go, then,' he said. 'Take care of your body in defiance of Satan, and the bad dreams will stop.'

"But his you ought to know, that other remedies are suitable for other persons. Copious drinking benefits me when I am in this condition. But I would not advise a young person to drink more because this might stimulate his sexual desire. In short, abstinence is beneficial for some and a drinking bout for others. Augustine says wisely in his rule, 'Not equally for all because you are not all equally strong.' So he speaks about the body and so we can speak about illnesses of the spirit."


Martin Luther
Luther's Works, Volume 54, pp.15-18
Table Talk, November 30, 1531  

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 

Book Review on 1834: Hendrik De Cock's Return to the True Church

 This is a book about a spiritual hero. One day, God will honor him before all humans, especially before his contemptible enemies- ostensibly colleagues in a Reformed Church- who persecuted him, and before the scarcely less contemptible "friends," who nevertheless refused to join him in his separation from the false church, which would have meant sharing his reproach- the reproach of Christ.

The hero was an otherwise very ordinary preacher in the Reformed Church in the Netherlands in the early 1800s, Hendrik De Cock.

His heroism was his lonely act of separating from the state Reformed Church, which had become apostate, and with his loyal congregation in Ulrum returning to the true church manifesting the marks of the true church as delineated in Article 29 of the Belgic Confession of Faith. Emphatically, as the instrument of the act declared and as the title of Kamps' book expresses, the act of De Cock and his congregation was return, not only or even mainly separation, but return- return to the truth of the gospel, return to the true church, return to Christ Jesus the head of the church.

This was the everlastingly worthy heroism of the reformation of the church in the Netherlands in 1834, as it is wherever and whenever reformation takes place.

For this act of courage in the fear of God, a courage that despises the fear of man, the hero suffered greatly, as such heroes always do. He was fined, abused, and imprisoned by the state. He was maligned, disciplined, and deposed from office by the church. By all, he was defamed. By avowed friends in high places in the state church he was abandoned.

Reading this penetrating account of a chapter in the history of the Reformed church in the world that every Reformed and Presbyterian Christian should know, especially every officebearer, with particular reference to the abandonment of De Cock by colleagues who knew full-well that the church was apostate and who shared his doctrinal convictions, I was reminded of the incident concerning the German Lutheran preacher Martin Niemoeller. For his brave opposition to Adolf Hitler, in the matter of the Nazifying of the Protestant church, Niemoeller was imprisoned at Dachau. Soon after his incarceration, he was noticed in the prison by a colleague who was visiting other prisoners. "Martin," the visiting preacher exclaimed, "Why are you here?" That's not the question," Niemoeller replied, "The question is, why are you not here."

1834 relates the history of this reformation of the church in the Netherlands in the early 1800s, and does so movingly and incisively. The handsome volume indicates the issues- the issues weighty with eternity: the government of the church by Jesus Christ, rather than by the state and a committee of apostate clergymen, and the grand doctrines of the Reformed, Christian faith, including the Godhead of Jesus; the depravity of the natural man; predestination, prominently, predestination; and the saving of the elect sinner by the sovereign grace of God regenerating him.

The fruit of De Cock's reforming act, lonely and seemingly doomed to failure as it was at the beginning, was the gathering of large numbers of Reformed believers and their children in the Netherlands to form a sizable denomination of soundly Reformed churches. These "Secession" Reformed churches merged in 1892 with the churches that also broke with the state church in 1886, under the leadership of Abraham Kuyper, forming the denomination known as the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands.

Haunting the reader as he glories in the history of 1834 is knowledge that these churches have recently rejoined the state church known as the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. "The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing mire" (II Pet. 2:22).

Many Reformed churches in all the world are indebted to De Cock's and his congregation's "act of secession or return." Many owe their origins, under God, to the act. All will benefit from this stirring account of the act of faith that was their birth and is their heritage. Speaking for myself, I breathed a prayer of thanksgiving that the churches of which I and my family are members are highly privileged to be related, ecclesiastically, doctrinally, and spiritually to such a man of God as Hendrik De Cock and then also to the faithful few, including the marvelous Van Velzen, who soon bound themselves with him in the labor. And a petition that God will preserve us in this tradition, not in name only, but also in spirit and in truth.

The book is not, and is not intended by its author to be, the mere telling of history. Books that merely relate past events in the history of the Reformed churches litter the Reformed landscape. The scholarship of such books is often impressive. With copious footnotes, the books inform how the main character's hair was parted and what he had for breakfast. But there is nothing in them or about them of the passion and urgency of the struggle of men of God, and women too, often the wives of the reforming heroes, as with Mrs. De Cock, on behalf of the glory of God; the preservation, or regaining, of the truth of the Word of God; and the salvation of the church of Christ in the world.

1834 is different.
It shares and is informed by the love of God in His truth that moved De Cock.

It brings to light the vitally important way of Reformed churches and Christianity in the world, indicates the fundamental doctrines that constitute this Reformed way, and, more by implication than explicitly, calls Reformed churches and members to resist apostasy from these doctrines at all cost or, if the churches and their members are already departing, to return to the true church that loves and confesses the Reformed creeds.


About half the book, the latter half (although translation of important documents is found throughout), is Kamps' translation from the Dutch of documents that were of great importance to the reformation of 1834, including the document that announced the return of the Ulrum congregation to the true church and, therefore, aroused the fury of the false church and her minions. The documents are timeless in their content and value. Although the statement does not occur in the translated documents at the end of the book, consider this quotation of a predecessor of reformer De Cock: "The principle of the Reformed faith, which is to exalt and to glorify God to the very highest, and to humble man to the deepest depths" (88). This expresses the motivation of De Cock, as of all genuinely Reformed believers in every age, and especially of those Reformed men who battle for the reformation of apostate or apostatizing churches. I distinctly recall the statement of an old, uneducated elder in Hope Protestant Reformed Church many years ago, when I was a mere boy, "God must be all, man, nothing."

And consider this typical plea for peace and unity at all cost against the reformers: Having denied that Christianity is "doctrine," the influential Petrus Hofstede de Groot resisted De Cock and the reformation with appeal to the "whole, gentle, lovely spirit of Christianity" (293). The siren-song that lures the churches on to the rock of destruction is ever the same.

The response by God's champions to this seductive song about the "gentle, lovely spirit of Christianity" is also always the same: blunt condemnation, and insistence on sound doctrine. De Cock responded to de Groot:

You err in this grievously, and you follow only what pleases your heart and your darkened understanding. That darkened mind prefers a broad way; it wants to be king itself and to rob the Lord Jesus of His throne and crown. But truly this false doctrine is not found in the gospel. This is the truth: the way is narrow and the gate is strait that leads to life; and our corruption is of ourselves, but our salvation is from the Lord our God (298).

In opposition to the subversion of the Reformed faith and church by de Groot's "gentle, lovely spirit of Christianity," De Cock called Reformed Christians of his day- and ours- to the genuine spirit of Christianity:

Show spiritual nobility in that you are afraid of nothing except sinning against God; you must show that you despise everything that would hinder you in this regard. Let the worldly, civil, and conforming (that is, adapting to everything in society) Christian, who is that lazy, lukewarm Reformed person, who is that Christian who treads softly, accommodates, and makes a fine display, who is the pious advocate of virtue, the spirit who deceives through sweet words- let such people mock you and characterize you as intolerant, burdensome, impudent, haughty, and stubborn dictators. What does it matter? Jesus was called Beelzebub. Would his family members go unscathed? A Christian must be able to despise and be able to despise (125).

The sound doctrine on which De Cock especially insisted was predestination, about which most of the ministers were silent, because they detested it. To a broken reed of a Reformed minister, De Cock wrote: "The preachers are also of the opinion that they should not preach the whole counsel of God, but only half of it, and be silent about God's eternal decree and election" (252). Against the smooth, influential, but heretical ecclesiastic de Groot, ho, unable to preserve his suavity when predestination was confessed," screamed that the preaching of it [election] was an unheard-of and unallowable novelty" (288, 289), De Cock declared that predestination must be preached, including reprobation, and that predestination is "the expressed doctrine of God's word" 275-291).

A main instrument in God's reformation of the Dutch church in the early 1800s was De Cock's republishing of the Canons of Dordt, which had been so neglected by the church that it had become virtually unknown. Some ministers who did know about the Canons cursed the confession.

Reformed Christians today can, and must, judge among the churches claiming to be the spiritual heirs of 1834 by ascertaining which of them love, readily confess, preach, and defend the Canon of Dordt. This is a sure test. Similarly, apostasy among these churches is evident from the silence concerning Dordt (at least with regard to Dordt's being more than a historical curiosity), the appalling ignorance of Dordt, the outright criticism of Dordt, the bold contradiction of Dordt, e.g., by the confession of the "well-meant offer," and in certain instances the official relegation of the Canons of Dordt to a non-binding status.

1834 is a bombshell on the cast choir of Reformed churches with a connection to the Reformation in the Netherlands.

With the publication of the book, the RFPA continues firmly to establish itself as a unique, necessary Reformed publisher. It produces books addressing issues, current developments, and history that are critical for the maintenance, recovery, and promotion of our historic, creedal, doctrinal, Reformed Christianity in our time.

The real issues, the significant developments, and the vital history!

Strange and discordant pieces of music in an age when many nominally Reformed publishers devote themselves to contributing scores for the wider, louder singing of the "gentle, lovely spirit of Christianity!"  


Prof. David J. Engelsma  
(Professor Emeritus of Dogmatics and Old Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary)
The Standard Bearer, A Reformed Semi-Monthly Magazine, May 15, 2014, Vol. 90, No. 16
http://rfpa.org/collections/marvin-kamps/products/1834-hendrik-de-cock-s-return-to-the-true-church
http://rfpa.org/pages/the-standard-bearer