The current controversy in the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC) involving the idea of the antithesis has a context. A quarrel this severe about how the truth of the antithesis ought to be applied in the lives of Reformed Christians does not occur in a vacuum. The question is, what is that context? Why has this particular doctrine become an issue in those churches?
As is often the case, the matters involved are complex, and perhaps not all of the pieces of the puzzle have been overturned. Jigsaw puzzles are more difficult when there are more pieces to fit together. Nevertheless, some of the pieces we do have to work with include such things as tyranny, pride, and putting one’s own will above all.
But to see such things, we need to back up to when everything in the RPC appeared to be going very well. There had been some controversies rocking the boat, such as proximity to the sanctuary in worship and the reasons behind Christian school education, but neither of those issues had threatened to overturn the newly formed church institution. Only two years after the Reformed Protestant Churches were born as a denomination, however, there was another controversy that did capsize those churches. Exclusive psalmody became a major source of contention and did so very suddenly and intensely.
I will not recount the details of the history of that time. Such information can be found elsewhere. My purpose is to recount the significance of those events. A minister and an elder were suspended, and two elders were deposed. In a denomination consisting of only several churches with two experienced ministers, one candidate for the ministry, and a couple of seminary students on the horizon, that represented a major loss. But the loss was not primarily in numbers. The Reformed Protestant Churches appeared on the surface to nevertheless survive and float along in a fine manner. But their boat had suffered a serious hemorrhage in the course of those events, a fatal leak. The sovereignty of man’s will in worship would let through all the water and sludge required to sink the vessel to the bottom of the sea just as decisively and quickly as it had capsized earlier.
Pride and tyranny came sluicing in through the fatal leak that had been sprung. No one can deny that for one to lord it over another one is tyranny, and no one can deny that such lording occurred in that denomination. Some will argue that this group was guilty of the tyranny, and some will argue that that group was guilty of the tyranny; but that tyranny was present all can agree. Also, regardless of such opinions, the tyranny continues. Tyranny and pride go hand in hand. They will both naturally bubble forth out of the hole called “man” that is in the bottom of one’s boat. Man’s will is decisive in the RPC. The gaping hole is there.