The Q&A period with Rev. Langerak and Rev. Lanning will continue this week Saturday, January 22 at 7:00 am (EST). The link to attend the Bible Study is below:
For those interested in viewing the last Q&A session that was held on January 15, that can be viewed here:
The now-completed Q&A on January 22 can be found here:
Mr. Lim has also expressed willingness to share the material that the Singapore Bible Study worked through in their study of the material. If you would like to see that material submit a comment on this post and I will forward you Mr. Lim’s email address.
2 Timothy 2:15, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
The Lord willing, on Saturday, January 15, 2022 at 7:00 am (EST), there will be a meeting held that may be of interest to the audience of this blog. In obedience to their God (2 Tim. 2:15), Aaron Lim and other saints in Singapore have been diligently studying the controversy in the PRC. Having finished studying the controversy, they now plan to conduct a meeting where questions posed by the brethren in Singapore will be asked to Revs. Langerak and Lanning. If there is time permitting, those observing the meeting will be given the opportunity to ask questions. With Mr. Lim’s permission, I attach the link (below) to those who may be interested in joining. The meeting will also be recorded for those who cannot attend. I am told they hope to make this Bible study a regular weekly meeting to study topics pertaining to the controversy.
Indeed a blessing that we can join in with fellow saints across the world to study these doctrinal truths and grow in the knowledge of our God.
“Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name” Malachi 3:16
Even those who have yet to read one document or article pertaining to the controversy have taken it up.
“Lanning is schismatic!” “Langerak is schismatic!” “The RPC are full of schismatics!”
Or, cruelly, it is made intensely personal. “You have destroyed our family!”
The fact that Rev. McGeown has recently come out charging “Schism!” is not much of a concern to me.
He has not been involved, and it appears he does not have much of a grasp on what has taken place. It appears his primary function is to follow behind and clean up after Rev. Koole, a role he fills with vigor. Seems an odd calling for a minister to follow around another minister and try to clean up his trail of false doctrine. Keeps a man busy, anyway.
But schism was committed in the PRC.
Just not by Revs. Langerak, Lanning, and VanderWal, the men who started Reformed Believers Publishing, the faithful officebearers in Wingham, or anyone else who has been consistently drawing the charge.
It certainly is not committed by those who come out of the PRC and join themselves to a church that clearly manifests the marks of a true church, according to the 29th article of the Belgic Confession.
Only a few short months after Synod 2018 had spoken and declared that the PRC had been guilty of compromising justification by faith alone and the unconditional covenant and had displaced Jesus Christ, the Standard Bearer finally spoke.
If a man would be saved, there was that which man must do.
I attended the synod of 2018. I remember reading the advice of the committee and rejoicing. Finally. Finally! The controversy was over! This was something we could rally around. Yes, there would be much to learn going forward. For a church that had prided itself on its doctrinal integrity for so long, to now have it shown that we were responsible for compromising justification by faith alone would no doubt be deeply humbling, but God had showed us our error, and how could that not be for the good of our beloved churches?
But it was not long until that sense of joy faded away.
Prof. Dykstra’s editorial immediately following the synod was strange. The PRC compromised justification by faith alone, and Dykstra’s response was to damn anyone who dared condemn the error and speak a word of rebuke against those who had led the PRC astray?
(Perhaps someone can ask Prof. Dykstra why he never spoke a word of defense of the members of the PRC who were used by God to defend the truth in the denomination, for which they were being routinely slandered and murdered by all.)
What was going on?
I went to Prof. Dykstra that summer and sat in his office at seminary and asked him why the editors were ignoring the decision of Synod 2018.
I asked him, where was the series of editorials explaining and developing the truth that had been restored in the denomination by that decision?
His response should have told me all I needed to know.
He didn’t know who would write them. He asked me who I thought should write them.
I know now he was just patronizing me.
But things became clearer with the October issue.
Any question as to what the SB thought about the decision of 2018 was cleared up.
It had no use for it.
Which is when the true schism became clear.
Schism was committed in October of 2018.
It was committed by Rev. Koole.
“For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor. 11:18–19).
Rev. Koole taught and defended false doctrine at a time when the denomination was most vulnerable.
To commit schism is to separate the members of Christ’s body from their head, Jesus Christ.
It is to separate men from Christ.
The churches had just been wracked by controversy, which controversy revealed that the overwhelming majority of the members, including officebearers, did not understand the Reformation truth of justification by faith alone. (Which is a deep irony for a denomination that prided itself on its doctrinal knowledge. Turns out simply appealing back to years gone by doesn’t convey either a knowledge of the truth or a love for the truth—members of the RPC denomination, take note.)
The response of the SB was to make sure the denomination never would.
There is that which you must do.
With that teaching, and then with his inevitable defense of that false doctrine, the body of Jesus Christ was rent.
Schism.
There were those who wrote the SB to object.
Rev. Lanning was one of those.
With a multitude of words, denials, and obfuscations, Rev. Koole spun and twisted and writhed his way to an explanation that did a lot of things but that never repudiated the false doctrine.
What the public did not see was what went on behind the scenes.
In November 2019, Rev. Lanning wrote a letter to his consistory keeping them informed of developments regarding Koole’s article, his interactions with the editors, the SB generally, and his work with the group of concerned men who were working to arrest the RFPA from its calamitous fall.
That was how Rev. Lanning operated.
Even to his own hurt, he was always very careful to keep the consistory informed on things that may have had a broader impact in the denomination. I can still vividly remember when, after a lengthy meeting, under the “new business” part of the agenda, Rev. Lanning informed his consistory of where things stood with the group of concerned men. Even though he knew men in the room would be hostile to it. Shamefully, I remember thinking, “Do you have to tell us everything?”
That letter, along with a supplement, is attached here.
You should print it and read it carefully.
It reveals much.
It shows that Rev. Lanning kept his consistory informed regarding developments in the denomination in which he was involved and puts the lie to the claim that Rev. Lanning went rogue and never worked with his consistory.
It shows what Rev. Koole really thinks privately, even though he lied about it publicly.
Compare these statements:
Trying to understand what he meant, I asked Rev. Koole if anything that we receive depends upon our working. His immediate and vigorous response was, “Andy, Yes!” (AL conversation with KK, 11/7/2019)
To that line of reasoning I take exception. I used neither the words “works” nor “depends upon.” (Koole, SB, 3/1/19)
You indicate you are of the persuasion that we may not, we must not use such terms and language, for that would imply/teach that something depends on man when it comes to one’s salvation (cf. your third paragraph and following ones as well). And who can deny that to teach or even imply such would not be truly, consistently Reformed? (Koole, SB, 3/1/19)
These documents also show how truly political Prof. Dykstra truly is.
Byron Center PRC had a true pastor with Rev. Lanning and has now replaced him with a politician. The members of Byron Center PRC have what they want—a political pastor who knows how to work the political game that is the PRC.
Prof. Dykstra apparently can also go long stretches of time without resting. On November 7, Prof. Dykstra told Rev. Lanning that he would not rest until he talked to Rev. Koole. Ten days later he still hadn’t spoken to him. Finally, two weeks later, it appears Prof. Dykstra finally contacted Rev. Koole, showing himself to be the antitype of Rip Van Winkle.
Even now, being on the outside, it is ugly.
Rev. Koole was teaching full-blown federal vision theology.
A man whom Grandville PRC just declared, in spite of every evidence to the contrary, to be orthodox.
(Shame on the elders of Grandville PRC. They know better. They listened to Rev. Koole corrupt the gospel for over a decade. This was a protest of a sermon I was advised not to submit and was then too afraid to send in, but which shows Rev. Koole’s theology. Here is audio from 2013 of Rev. Koole teaching the well-meant gospel offer.)
What was the response of the denomination to being taught federal vision theology?
Indifference.
Apathy.
Yawn.
There were watchmen who saw it. They wrote in. They fought as best they could, given the fact that they were going up against a well-established political machine in the PRC.
Rev. Lanning was one of those men.
He tried to warn the people. He started with the elders of Byron Center. These were the men who were supposed to be on the wall with him. He wrote them a letter and included painstaking detail about his interactions with Rev. Koole and the other editors.
It fell on deaf ears. We as the consistory of Byron Center PRC were earthly and carnal. What characterized our meetings was earthly wisdom, which is sensual and devilish. Because these things were spiritually discerned, we could not know them.
So we as a consistory ignored what was found in the report.
Worse, we tried to shut him up.
By November 2019 division was widespread in the PRC.
Byron Center PRC was no exception.
There were many who claimed that Rev. Lanning was causing schism.
“Rev. Lanning preached ‘The Flood’ sermon and half the congregation left and started a new church!”
“Rev. Lanning preached ‘The Tears of Bochim’ sermon, and it made people so made they wouldn’t allow him on their pulpit!”
“Rev. Lanning preached ‘Shepherds to Feed You,’ and that caused so much division in the church!”
The consistory, instead of supporting Rev. Lanning in his defense of the truth, sought to weaken him.
Instead of standing for the truth of God over against the lie, the consistory of Byron Center PRC passed a motion intended to appease a vocal minority at BCPRC, but one that would take Rev. Lanning off the walls of Zion and cause him to break the vow that he had taken before God to uphold the truth and condemn the lie.
That decision was emailed out on November 12, 2020.
Within minutes of the email being sent to the congregation, I received a call from a member of Byron Center PRC, which man remains a member in the PRC. He said, with some passion, “If you loved the congregation of Byron, you would never have made that decision. That decision will tear the congregation apart.”
(I have that in quotes because those were the exact words he used. Immediately at the end of the conversation, recognizing the truth and the weight of his words, I felt compelled to write them in my journal. Little did I know how prescient his words would prove to be.)
“That decision will tear the congregation apart.”
He was right.
The consistory of BCPRC tried to silence a righteous minister of the gospel, which is to silence the voice of Jesus Christ himself, and the result was terrible, terrible schism.
Fast-forward to today, and there is endless lamenting about schism.
It’s all you hear.
Perhaps this just reveals a lack of understanding about what schism truly is.
Perhaps it is something more. Perhaps it is time for us to stop being children. Perhaps it is time for us to grow up.
It is time to stop being tossed about by cunning men with their exceptional craftiness (Eph. 4:14). Ministers like Koole and McGeown and Dykstra have been deceiving the members of their denomination.
Their lies have been believed by the members of the denomination.
The RPC are guilty of schism!
It may be the conventional wisdom in the PRC, but it is still the lie.
Here is the truth.
“For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor. 11:18–19).
If a minister, on behalf of the gospel of Jesus Christ, rebukes his congregation so that the entire congregation is in an uproar and sides are taken and battle lines are drawn and elders are shouting in the parking lot and women are crying and wailing, that minister has not committed schism.
He has been faithful to the biblical command found in 2 Timothy 4:2, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”
If a minister, on behalf of the gospel of Jesus Christ, writes for a magazine, so that his entire congregation is in an uproar and sides are taken and battle lines are drawn so that finally, political, vain, and light men who masquerade as elders make plans to have him ousted, that minister has not committed schism.
He has been faithful to the Church Order of Dordt, the 55th article, “To ward off false doctrines and errors that multiply exceedingly through heretical writings, the ministers and elders shall use the means of teaching, of refutation or warning, and of admonition, as well in the ministry of the Word as in Christian teaching and family-visiting.”
If a minister with his consistory make the decision to separate themselves from an apostatizing denomination, they have not committed schism.
They have exercised their right as an autonomous local congregation to withdraw themselves from a denomination, which right is granted by Article X-B of the denomination’s by-laws and which action is demanded by the consistory’s calling to protect the flock that is under its care.
If a group of concerned men starts a magazine where the truth of God can be unashamedly and unapologetically taught and the lie uncompromisingly rejected, that is not schism.
That is obedience to the biblical command in Jude 3 to “contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
If members, seeing the wickedness in their denomination, withdraw their papers, form a fellowship, and wait patiently on the Lord to lead them (as lead them he will), that small, despised group has not committed schism.
They have been obedient to the command of their Lord in Revelation 18:4 to “come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
If ministers in the PRC had not taught false doctrine; if consistories had not defended the ministers who taught it; if the church paper—tame house organ that it showed itself to be—had not done its utmost to keep its people in the dark and then later led its people deeper down the path of apostasy, there would have been no division.
There would have been no Sword & Shield.
There would have been no sermons that sharply rebuked the people for their indifference to the truth of God’s word.
Why were the sermons and the new magazine necessary?
“For there must be also heresies among you.”
Lest there are those who believe this error is contained to the pages of the SB, let me disabuse them of their willful ignorance.
The schism was perpetrated by more than just Rev. Koole, which schism was tolerated and defended by the editors of the church paper.
Rev. Van Overloop, the man who more than any other pastor represents the PRC, committed schism.
On June 23, 2019, he preached that fellowship with God was conditional and not all of grace.
By that heresy he rent the body of Christ.
“For there must be also heresies among you.”
Rev. Slopsema, many times a church visitor and thereby one who is considered to be one of the wisest and most experienced pastors in the denomination, committed schism when in a meditation in the October 15, 2020, issue of the Standard Bearer he wrote that a man’s receiving blessings from God depends on that man’s obedience. In addition to being explicitly contrary to the decision of his own synod only two short years prior, it was also contrary to the confessional and biblical truth that Christ, and Christ alone, is sufficient for all of our salvation, including our abounding in fellowship with our God.
Rev. Bruinsma, with his denial of the truth of total depravity, committed schism in the body of Christ and caused the bride of Christ to be torn asunder.
The list could go on, which list has been painstakingly laid out in Sword & Shield and elsewhere.
With each sermon, article, email, and blog post, false doctrine was taught and schism committed.
And who did the PRC rally around?
Who did the members of the denomination defend?
The false teachers.
At whose feet did they lay the charge of schism?
At the feet of the men and women who protested and appealed.
At the feet of the men who finally, after having exhausted all other channels, were left with no choice but to form a new magazine which would be able to proclaim the absolute sufficiency of Christ and to do so without apology and without compromise.
(And to be clear, I was not one of those men. I had plenty of excuses at the time. But examining my behavior now in the light of history, the real reason that I declined was that I was afraid. Do you see a pattern in my behavior over the last five years?)
Sword & Shield was declared to be the true cause of schism. This magazine and the statements in the magazine were what now threatened to “promote disorder and a divisive spirit in our churches” (letter from Georgetown PRC’s consistory to its congregation in response to the appearance of Sword & Shield). The curiously named Unity PRC wrote to its members that the magazine would “promote further division and unrest in our denomination.”
That list could go on as well.
It makes me want to weep.
I don’t know what else to say.
Why can’t you see it?
Don’t you see what has truly caused schism in the PRC?
Don’t you see that saying that Jesus Christ is not enough, that a man must do something to be saved, that in some vital sense in our salvation man precedes God, that in order to abound in covenant fellowship you have to obey the commands of the law, that we are in some way active in our justification—don’t you see that by teaching all of those things you will rip and tear and rend the body of Christ?
Don’t you see those words tearing believers from their head, Jesus Christ?
Isn’t the Apostle Paul clear—after writing of divisions that exist in the church of Corinth—when he writes, “for there must be also heresies among you”?
Isn’t John Calvin clear when, commenting on that text, he writes, “It is true, that the Church cannot but be torn asunder by false doctrine, and thus heresy is the root and origin of schism”?
Maybe, if history is any guide, the members of the PRC will only listen to one of their own. Very good; then listen to Prof. Hanko.
But if the church has reached the point where it is impossible for the faithful remnant to restore the church, there is only one course of action that is left: reformation must come about through secession. The Reformers did this when the Roman Catholic Church proved herself beyond reform. There is only one course of action to pursue. It can happen in any church, even ours. But if we are not reformed and therefore always reforming, it will come to that, beyond doubt. As difficult as that may be, the cause of Christ and His Church is more important than anything else.
The Reformers were accused of the sin of schism, especially by Cardinal Sadolet, when he addressed the citizens of Geneva where Calvin had been, to try to win them back to the Romish fold. He accused Calvin and the other Reformers of leaving the church and rending the body of Christ, and of thus becoming guilty of schism. Calvin’s answer, in what was a masterpiece in the defense of the Reformation, was in effect this: not those who leave the church are guilty of schism, but those who depart from the doctrines of Christ, they tear the church to pieces, because the unity of the church is the unity of her doctrine of Jesus Christ her Head. And to destroy and to deny her doctrine is to create schism. Not we, Calvin says, but you, Cardinals and Bishops and Popes, you have created schism in the body of Christ. Our hands are clean of that sin. (Hanko, SB, Reformed Yet Always Reforming, 6/1/81, 402–404)
Heresy was the root and origin of the schism in the PRC.
A magazine that sets forth the truth of justification by faith alone doesn’t harm the unity of a true church of Jesus Christ.
A sermon that warns the members of a lie that threatens them does not cause schism in the church of Christ.
Officebearers and members who protest and appeal do not do harm to the unity of a true church of Jesus Christ.
All of those things stand in the service of the unity of the church.
Because all of those things are done in the service of the truth, which alone represents the unity of the church.
False doctrine, which is the tool of the devil, separates the church from her head, Jesus Christ.
Those who wage war against that false doctrine are not the cause of the schism. They are those who love the flock even though the more they love the flock, the less they be loved (2 Cor. 12:15). They are those who find themselves as the filth of the world and the refuse of all things unto this day (1 Cor. 4:13). Despite all of that, they loved the body of Jesus Christ by trying to remove that which would tear her from Christ.
But the members of the PRC are not listening.
Their ears are stopped, and their eyes are covered.
They have been stricken, but they have not grieved.
They have been consumed, but they have refused to receive correction.
With ministers like McGeown, Koole, and Dykstra and so many others, and a magazine like the Standard Bearer, it is a certainty that this people will never turn.
Article 29: The marks of the true church, and wherein she differs from the false church
As for the false church, she ascribes more power and authority to herself and her ordinances than to the Word of God, and will not submit herself to the yoke of Christ. Neither does she administer the sacraments as appointed by Christ in His Word, but adds to and takes from them as she thinks proper; she relieth more upon men than upon Christ; and persecutes those who live holily according to the Word of God, and rebuke her for her errors, covetousness, and idolatry.
These two Churches are easily known and distinguished from each other.
A public lecture is planned for Friday, December 10, 2021, in Yucaipa, CA.
The theme of the lecture is “Come Out of Her, My People.” The speaker will be Rev. Andrew Lanning. More information can be found here.
In response to this lecture, the consistory of Redlands Protestant Reformed Church has distributed a letter to its congregation.
The elders of Redlands PRC, like so many PR elders before them, have abdicated their office. They are not men who understand the times.
Where has the consistory of Redlands PRC ever specifically and publicly condemned the lie that has infected their denomination?
Where have they ever defended their flock against the error that has infected the PRC?
It is striking that in this letter the elders of Redlands PRC could not find it within themselves to offer a defense for their denomination
But they finally did find a sword.
And they used it against the former members of their congregation who have had the courage to follow Christ.
With the sharpest language possible, the elders accuse these faithful members of doing “the devil’s work to tear apart the body of Jesus Christ.”
The church is appropriately named Hope PRC. Such cruelty mirrors that of her sister in Grand Rapids.
These men ought to tremble.
The Holy Spirit is at work and they condemn such as the work of the devil.
They call for objectivity.
I too call for objectivity.
What have these former members done that makes them worthy of such a grievous attack?
The true and the false churches are easily known and distinguished from each other.
These members have witnessed the rising tide of false doctrine within their denomination and the corruption of the first mark. They have witnessed Christian discipline administered only against the upright, which represents a corruption of the second mark. By virtue of the false doctrine and the wicked misuse of the keys of the kingdom, members have been prevented from their use of the sacraments, which represents a corruption of the third mark.
These members have no doubt labored diligently with their consistory and when it became clear that the consistory would plant their flag with a denomination and not with Christ, these members have, in obedience to their Lord, come out of that church.
John 14:6 teaches that Jesus is the way to the Father.
The PRC continues to teach that man’s obedience is the way to the Father. It is that simple.
Can anyone say that what is taught today is any different than what was taught prior to that synod?
Nothing has changed.
I imagine that if history is any type of guide, the consistory will have scared enough of their members so that very few will have the courage to show up at a public lecture and follow the biblical mandate to try the spirits to see whether they be of God.
Who wants to be on the receiving end of such cruelty?
As for the faithful former (and current) members of Redlands PRC who now find themselves being slandered by their consistory and yet clearly see their calling?
Those members should take heart.
They have heard Christ.
Having heard him, they now follow him.
God will build his church and even the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).
In the November 15 issue of the Standard Bearer, Rev. McGeown glosses over the recently settled controversy in the PRC.
Since his analysis bears so little resemblance to what actually took place, one wonders how closely he has been following it.
In his defense, he has been in Ireland for the entire time of the controversy. He has not been here to witness what went on at every meeting of Classis East for the last four years. Therefore, he did not see the workings of an entirely political machine that was bent on defending false doctrine and defending the purveyors of that false doctrine. Which machine did not hesitate one second to cut down faithful officebearers where they stood. He did not witness, to borrow a line from Pearl Buck who was describing the churchmen of Machen’s day, the machinations of the ministers in leadership positions who occupied easy places and played their church politics and trimmed their sails to every wind. He was not sitting next to Elder Neil Meyer while Mr. Meyer was under (un)Christian discipline for three years. He was not in the consistory room at Byron Center PRC or Crete PRC to hear and see the absolute corruption that went on. He was not around when the church visitors ran roughshod over the Church Order and bullied a compliant consistory into doing their will. He was not here to be confronted on a regular basis by the sheer hypocrisy of the majority of officebearers in Classis East.
But now, having recently taken up a pastorate at Providence PRC, and almost before having his bags unpacked, he is ready to be our instructor.
According to Merriam-Webster, to gloss over something is to hide the true nature of that thing. It is to use deception to give something an appearance that it truly does not have.
Rev. McGeown lays it on thick.
Read the brief history that he provides.
A minister who was later judged to be “unsuitable” for the ministry preached some error, and when it was pointed out, the churches were eager to repudiate it. No one wanted the false doctrine (even though they defended it). No one wanted a conditional covenant (even though they preached it). Everyone was fully in support of those who defended the truth (even though those brave souls were suspended, deposed, marginalized, criticized, and hated).
He would have the reader believe that Classis East, champion for the truth, behaved itself nobly in dealing with error. Classis East, according to Rev. McGeown, did not want the conditional theology. They did not want the error. In fact, the whole denomination only wanted the truth! “No one in the Protestant Reformed Churches, whether the former pastor, his consistory, or Classis East willed or wanted to pervert the gospel.” Well, except for those ministers who continued to teach it and write it. And except for those consistories that continued to excuse it. And except for the Standard Bearer, which immediately after Synod 2018 not only undermined the decision but contradicted it.
The truth is that there were only a few members of the PRC who fought bravely, month after month, year after year, against almost unthinkable hatred and opposition, and who did so for the simple reason that they loved Jesus Christ and his truth.
Every single meeting of Classis East was a battle, with almost every delegate at those meetings doing everything he could to support Hope PRC and its corruption of justification by faith alone, and precious few of the delegates trying to uphold the pure gospel truth of salvation by Christ alone.
As for the clergy, there were only three ministers who fought for the truth.
Rev. McGeown was not one of them.
He shows his hand by writing a history and analysis of the controversy and never once mentioning those individuals whom God used, against the full weight of a denomination, to uphold and defend the truth of salvation by Christ alone. Remember? Mr. and Mrs. Meyer were upheld. (It is amazing. The PRC will thank and praise everyone under the sun, even those who led the PRC intoerror and who made sure the PRC would never turn from her error, but they have never thanked the men and women who were used by God to uphold the truth in the denomination. Can someone show me differently?)
McGeown goes on to write, “Again, if you claim something with enough rhetorical flourish, many people will not examine your assumptions, which do not flow from solid exegesis, but are based upon a sinful misrepresentation of the neighbor and a shameful twisting of God’s word.”
The reader is left perplexed. Who is he referring to?
First RPC consists of members who have lost their lives in contending for the faith. While I was busy slandering them, and Hope PRC was busy murdering them, and Rev. McGeown was busy trying to confuse them, these members were faithfully searching the scriptures and battling for the gospel of pure, sovereign grace. Is he really suggesting that these same men and women are now just ignorant, gullible men-followers who just agree with everything Rev. Lanning or anyone else says? If Rev. Lanning were to preach false doctrine, he would have half his congregation in his study the next day, and that by the grace of God.
Because I choose charity and charitable judgments, I can only say that Rev. McGeown is ignorant of the issues. I choose ignorance, because the alternative is that he is himself a deceiver who heals the hurt of the PRC slightly by preaching peace, peace, where there is no peace.
He makes it difficult to maintain that charitable judgment of ignorance, however, when he goes on to write about what has developed with the PR Christian schools.
If there is something which Rev. McGeown knows less about than the controversy in the PRC, it is the matter of the schools.
He writes the following: “Take, for example, our good Christian schools. The schismatics have now taken the position that, because the schools require parents and students not to militate against the schools, but to promise to use a lawful process if they have grievances, parents who give such assurances are guilty of placing an institution above the truth.”
Having carefully created this straw man, he goes on then to mock and ridicule it and tear it down.
But for those of us who are trying to be serious students of these issues, is that really what took place?
The schools just asked the parents to use a lawful process if they have grievances?
No, that is not at all what they asked.
If that were all, they already had the documents in place for that.
We know that is not all the schools required because we have the actual words the schools used to make clear what they were requiring.
“Are you willing to give us the assurance that you as parents and your children will not militate against our school, our teachers, and our churches?” (Covenant Christian HS questionnaire)
“Will you and your children not publicly or openly degrade (or bring into disrepute) this school, its teachers, or the PRC whose doctrinal teaching this school infuses into its instruction?” (Adams Christian School questionnaire)
Rev. McGeown continues: “Although the schools have always required this of all parents who wished to enroll their children in the schools…”
Is that true?
Unlike Rev. McGeown, who is ignorant regarding the Christian schools, I do have some knowledge of these things. My children attended both Adams and Covenant. I served two terms on the board of ACS, the last term ending one week before I was elected to the office of elder at Byron Center.
I have served on the enrollment committee. For Rev. McGeown’s benefit, that is the committee responsible for enrolling new families and re-enrolling existing families.
So, is what Rev. McGeown says true? Have the schools “always required this of all parents who wished to enroll their children in the schools”?
No, they have not. What Rev. McGeown writes is deceit. Whether done out of ignorance or not, it is pure deceit.
Deceit, according to the dictionary, is to trick someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth.
He would have the reader believe that this whole matter of the schools was completely manufactured by the “schismatics,” and these vows have always been required of the parents.
The PR schools, which were at one time parental and not parochial, have never had their members swear allegiance to one denomination.
Did he even read the documents?
It is obvious even on the first reading that these vows were requiring something far more than just an assurance that you would follow the normal grievance procedure.
These vows came about because you had emotional, unprincipled men serving on the school boards, who put together questions that more closely resembled the questions a man must answer when he wants to join a labor union than when he wants to enroll his child in a Christian school.
This was the first time in the history of both schools that such questions were asked.
A far cry from being something they have “always required” of parents.
Not being content with twisting the facts and deceiving his readers, Rev. McGeown also pours in a dose of mockery.
Although the schools have always required this of all parents who wished to enroll their children in the schools, this is now labeled “a grievous snare,” something the leaders of the schism failed to see, so that their failure to blow the trumpet supposedly put their people in grave danger. In grave danger of not being permitted to tell one’s classmates that they belong to the whore?! In grave danger of having to do all things decently and in order?!
We had our schools stripped away from us. Of all of the things taken away from us, this was one of the most painful. It was an incredible grief to the parents and their children. Showing the kind, merciful compassion the PRC is known for, Rev. McGeown now mocks those parents and children.
This type of writing will play very well in the PRC.
The people will eat it up.
But what Rev. McGeown is doing is trafficking in lies and deceit.
Which are the proper works of the devil (L.D. 43).
And not being content with his deception, he hypocritically exhorts his readers to follow Ephesians 4:2-3 and 1 Peter 3:8-9 in their own response to these things.
“Dear reader, do as I say, not as I do.”
But there is one other very striking thing about Rev. McGeown’s article.
And that is quite significant because with it he gets much closer to the heart of the issue.
(The thesis of his article, specifically his complaint about the rhetoric, is quickly swept aside. There have always been members of the church who are offended at the hard words of the Bible. So too with Rev. McGeown. His issue is not with Rev. Lanning; it is with God, who has ordained such words to describe the false church. And what he criticizes as a ratcheting up of the rhetoric, students of church history are able to identify as the regular course of church reformation, as the issues separating the two sides are more clearly identified. Speaking of the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s, D.G. Hart writes, “As both sides escalated their arguments, either to defend or question certain practices and the ideas that underwrote them, clear lines emerged that demarcated Protestantism and Roman Catholicism” (Still Protesting, Hart, 45)).
Rev. McGeown likes to use the word “schism.” It is a weakness of his writing. He believes he is making a point, but he wearies the reader with his constant references to the “schism” and the “schismatics” and the “leaders of the schism” and the “now-deposed schismatic” and the “schismatic leader.”
Schism, schism, schism.
Lament for schism.
Sermons about schism.
Articles about schism.
The PRC is consumed with talk of schism, schism, schism.
It was not difficult for the Apostle Paul to identify true repentance in the church at Corinth.
Sorrow after a godly sort.
Carefulness.
Clearing.
Indignation.
Fear.
Vehement desire.
Zeal.
Revenge!
In all these things proving oneself clear in a matter.
We have again just witnessed what passes for an apology in the PRC.
And it bore no resemblance to 2 Corinthians 7:11.
On Sunday morning, October 24, Grandville PRC had an announcement read from its pulpit.
We are told that the announcement said that Koole’s Witsius articles were false doctrine and that Rev. Koole admitted to militating against against synod.
I am told it also included a statement that the consistory declares him to be orthodox.
Hard to know exactly what it said, because that announcement is not public.
They muted the microphone while the announcement was read.
And if, as a member of that church, you would like to know what the announcement said because you were not in attendance that morning, they will not give you the announcement itself, but they would be happy to read it to you. (If that sounds familiar, it should.)
I wonder if during the meeting when this course of action was approved, any elder had the temerity to raise his hand and say, “Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, since Rev. Koole taught false doctrine publicly, why are we going to such great lengths to keep this apology private?”
Or this: “Mr. Chairman, 2 Corinthians 7:11 speaks of ‘clearing yourself.’ Wouldn’t it then be a good idea to make sure this is public so that the entire denomination and world knows that Rev. Koole is sorry for what he has done? Does doing our utmost to keep this hidden in the darkness really resemble the clearing of ourselves spoken of in 2 Corinthians 7:11?”
Or this: “Mr. Chairman, since Grandville PRC took such an active role in the ungodly act of deposing Elder Neil Meyer, and since we have never once expressed even a shred of sorrow for that wickedness, maybe now is a time for us to show our congregation and denomination what true repentance looks like?”
Or this: “Mr. Chairman, do we think we can get away with this kind of secret behavior just because we no longer have any members who will hold us accountable?”
But there was a public apology in the Standard Bearer.
I mean, an “apology” in the Standard Bearer.
I need to use quotation marks because it was not an apology.
It included these words: “My consistory pointed out that a number of Witsius’ statements, as they are worded, no matter how I read them and was convinced what Witsius meant by them, stand in contradiction to decisions of our recent synods (in particular those of 2018) and to our confessions, and thus constitute false doctrine.”
But that seems a bit strange.
Is that all he is sorry for?
Is that all the consistory of Grandville PRC pointed out to Rev. Koole?
Compare, for a moment, the theology for which an “apology” had to be made, to a statement made on the editorial page of the Standard Bearer in October of 2018.
In particular I was pointed to Witsius stating, in the context of the utility (usefulness) of holiness and good works, that “Scripture teaches that something must be done that we may be saved.” (Koole, “Apology,” 11/5/21 SB)
But is it altogether improper for preachers so much as to suggest that there is that which one can do (is able to do)? And then, in the end, to go so far as to declare that if a man would be saved, there is that which he must do? (Koole, “What Must I Do…?” 10/1/18 SB)
Let us not forget that in 2018 and 2019, Rev. Koole went on for quite some time and with some vigor to defend the theology of man’s “doing.” That went on until men higher up the food chain in the PRC got him to back off (for a few months).
Well, isn’t Rev. Koole sorry for what he did in the months immediately following Synod 2018? Isn’t he sorry for throwing sand into the eyes of an entire denomination and confusing the people and corrupting the gospel?
Evidently not.
Can’t the consistory of Grandville PRC see that Witsius’ theology is Koole’s theology circa 2018?
Evidently not.
Let us be clear about something. The statement that was read from the pulpit of Grandville PRC was no apology at all. It was no statement of sorrow. It was a complete sham. It was a chloroform-soaked rag applied to the face of every member of that congregation.
Go back to sleep.
It was a sham not only because Rev. Koole was not even in the audience when the announcement was read, as he was off preaching elsewhere that Sunday morning.
Neither was it a sham only because that very evening he was off flirting with the same false doctrine at Southwest PRC. (If you had just apologized for corrupting fundamental doctrines of the faith, wouldn’t you get about preaching sermons that were so focused on the sovereignty and grace (particular, not the other kind) of God that you might even draw the charge of being one-sided?)
Neither was it a sham because a few weeks after admitting he taught false doctrine during the heart of a controversy on justification by faith alone, he was off representing the PRC at NAPARC. (Maybe replace him for this go-around until you can be sure he is orthodox?)
The reason it was a sham, and what makes it so easy to identify it as such, is that he did not apologize for what he wrote immediately after Synod 2018.
Neither did Grandville PRC’s consistory insist that he apologize for that.
But why not?
The theology is the same. In fact, it is almost word for word the same.
Why not go back to the beginning?
Rev. Koole couldn’t do that.
Because to go beyond the Witsius articles to the actual false doctrine itself would touch more men than just Rev. Koole.
Including Rev. McGeown, who has just burst back onto the scene in the PRC.
Rev. McGeown previously made a contribution to the controversy in the PRC by writing a lengthy article in the April 2019 issue of the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal (PRTJ).
What was going on at that time was quite significant.
In direct contradiction to Synod 2018, Rev. Koole was writing that if a man would be saved, that is, if a man would know that he was saved, there was that which he must do.
Revs. Langerak, Lanning, and VanderWal objected.
The rest of the denomination would have none of them.
Everyone rose up to defend faith as a doing as if it were a key tenet of the faith and one that we had been taught from our earliest days.
The three ministers who spoke up against such a theology were pilloried.
Rev. Koole was defended.
Rev. McGeown was no exception.
He took up his pen and wrote his lengthy defense of faith as a doing.
There was no question why he was writing as he was.
He was defending Rev. Koole, and more importantly, Rev. Koole’s theology.
At a time when the recent controversy was becoming more and more serious for more and more people (“Synod said this was about justification by faith alone?!”), Rev. Koole confused the people and corrupted the gospel with his talk of faith as a doing.
Three ministers rose up in defense of the gospel.
Rev. McGeown rose up in defense of a man and that man’s theology.
And now he is back.
In an article in the November 15, 2021, issue of the Standard Bearer, Rev. McGeown took it upon himself to educate the readership about the controversy that has just been settled in the PRC.
What is fascinating is that Rev. McGeown’s article appears in the same issue as an “apology” from Rev. Koole.
Which illustrates why the apology can’t go any further.
Were Rev. Koole to apologize for making faith a work in the series of articles that appeared beginning in 2018, Rev. McGeown would certainly have to apologize for his further confusion and misleading of the people by his defense of Koole and his defense of such language in the PRTJ.
And were Rev. McGeown to apologize, that would certainly require the editors of the Standard Bearer to apologize because when they shut down the debate on Rev. Koole’s articles that made faith a work, Prof. Dykstra pointed the readers to Rev. McGeown’s PRTJ article that had defended the language of faith as “doing” as a “thorough, Reformed presentation on faith and works.”
Not to mention all of the other ministers and elders who defended that theology.
Over and over and over again, all we heard was a defense of Rev. Koole and Rev. Koole’s theology.
But it is not just Rev. Koole.
It’s not just Rev. Koole’s theology.
There are those who console themselves with the fact that Rev. Koole is no longer editor. They are deluding themselves. The sickness goes far deeper than that.
To try and root out the false doctrine that has now permeated the PRC would require far more than just an insincere apology.
Follow that thread all the way, and what you will find is a theological and ecclesiastical Gordian knot.
It involves the men who serve as church visitors and synodical presidents and stated clerks and professors.
Can you imagine what that investigation would uncover?
No, far better for Rev. Koole to fall on his sword and simply “apologize” for dragging Herman Witsius out of the mausoleum.
And now Rev. McGeown is back.
And he shows no remorse for having confused the people when the controversy was reaching fever pitch.
He doesn’t apologize for his having contributed to the confusion.
He doesn’t even mention his earlier contribution.
He has other things to write about now.
And not being satisfied with just confusing the people, he now misleads them.
In October 2018, Rev. Koole wrote that if a man would be saved there was that which he must do. (Many of the documents referenced below can be found here.)
Both Revs. Langerak and Lanning wrote letters exposing the false doctrine in these editorials.
Rev. Koole rebuffed both and insisted on his theology.
(Which was no surprise to me, for the reasons provided in a previous post.)
It was only after two heavyweights in the denomination weighed in that Rev. Koole gave the appearance of backing off.
Prof. Huizinga used strong language to repudiate the theology being espoused by Rev. Koole.
In light of the fact that good works are a doing and faith is not a doing, we must be careful never to confuse faith and works by turning faith into a work we must perform in order to be saved. Salvation is by faith alone. Our experience of salvation as justified believers who know God’s pardoning grace is not by our doings but by faith in Christ. If faith truly is something we must do to be saved, saved in any sense of the word, then faith is no more faith, grace is no more grace, the gospel is no more gospel, and—terrifyingly—salvation is impossible because salvation by works is utterly impossible for all men whether they are indwelt by the Holy Spirit or not. It is one thing to command a man to believe (gospel), but it is another thing to command a man to do (law). When it is time for the gospel to issue its call, the gospel can frame to pronounce the words, “Repent and believe!” but the gospel cannot frame to pronounce the words “Do this and live!” Such a command is the gospel’s Shibboleth. (SB, August 2019)
Prof. Engelsma also spoke to the seriousness of the issue.
What Hoeksema meant, what the statement means, and what I believe and defend is that faith is not a “doing” by the sinner that, as a “doing,” contributes to his righteousness or accomplishes his salvation along with the doing of Jesus Christ. Righteousness is not by faith and by faith’s “doing.” It is not by faith as man’s doing. It is as gravely erroneous to make faith man’s saving “doing,” whether with or without the help of God, as it is to teach justification by faith and by the sinner’s working (“doing”).
In response to the letter from Prof. Engelsma, Rev. Koole seemed willing to make a concession.
Having read the objections and fears of yourself and others, perhaps it is time to cease referring to faith as a “doing” lest it appear we have turned faith into a working. This in the interests of removing this as an issue creating division in our churches and bringing unity again. For my part, I am willing to do that. (SB, 11/15/19)
At least for a year.
Then the whole matter of “doing” reappeared.
Witsius then proceeds to set forth what he is convinced is the Reformed perspective: II. In the matter itself [the controversy set before us] some things are to be approved, others not. III. Scripture teaches that something must be done that we may be saved. (SB, 12/15/20)
Rev. Koole tried to hide behind the words, “Due to space, we cannot in this article give select quotes of Witsius explanation of these propositions. We will let the reader reflect upon what Witsius wrote above and consider how orthodox one finds these statements to be, how Reformed, how scripturally sound.”
But every discerning reader knew he was setting them forth as support for his entire series of articles advocating conditions. (As was mentioned in an earlier post, this was all exposed in an excellent article in Sword & Shield by Dr. Nathan Lanning.)
It is interesting to note who this Witsius fellow is.
“While it is true that Witsius went in the direction of a conditional covenant like many (but not all) of his contemporaries…” (Rev. Koole, SB, 2/1/13).
So now, in the middle of a controversy on the nature of the covenant of grace, the PRC is led to this conditional theologian for help.
Rev. Koole should have turned to Hendrik DeCock’s mother, Frouwe Venema, for help. “At that time it was given to Mother to attain the insight that man’s being saved was not dependent on his willing and working, but that it is a gift of God’s grace; and that faith is not a doing, but faith is a rest that trusts in and that casts oneself on God’s promise in the gospel” (1834, 187).
But what now? The theology is back. And is this not the same theology, that, if true, would mean “faith is no more faith, grace is no more grace” and terribly, “the gospel is no more gospel”?
According to Prof. Huizinga, the issues troubling the PRC had to do with a compromise of justification by faith alone. And we know from other of his writings, that doctrine is “enormously important” (here and here).
Where has he been?
Is this how it works in the ivory tower of academia? No letters to the editor? No protests? Just move on with life as normal? Even though the error is back with a vengeance?
Is that what Huizinga meant by “incessantly and faithfully” combating every new appearance of false doctrine?
Finally, the church must always battle against the deadly heresy of justification by faith and … The apostle Paul marveled that the Galatian churches were so soon removed from the gospel truth of justification by faith alone. Every true church will quickly apostatize from the gospel of justification by faith alone if the sword is not faithfully wielded. Preaching the positive truth of justification by faith alone is not sufficient. The church must incessantly and faithfully combat every new appearance of the heretical and monstrous notion that there is righteousness acceptable to God that is based upon some work, some merit, some obedience, some holiness, or some good in man. Let that doctrine be accursed. The apostle puts it still stronger: let the preacher of it be accursed (Gal. 1:8–9). For the sake of justification by faith alone, keep the sword wielded. (Huizinga, Keeping the Sword Drawn, 25)
“Incessantly and faithfully” means something far different to me than just writing one article in which you call out the error. To me it means pursuing that error relentlessly, whether that error shows up in print or is heard from the pulpit, and pursuing it until that error is routed from the battle field.
If “incessantly and faithfully” means squirreling oneself away in an ivory tower to study dead theologians while the battle is raging below you and faithful office bearers are being cut down one by one, then I reject your noble declaration of “incessantly and faithfully.”
Come down and get your hands dirty. And maybe even be cut down yourself. It is no badge of honor when all men speak well of you.
Simply rolling over and getting along with everyone is hateful to me. If this is what it means to maintain peace or “rest” within the church, then with Hoeksema I decry such rest as the “rest of corruption and death.”
But there are no “neutrals” in wartime. Whether that war is over land or over doctrine, sides must be chosen, and the same is true for Prof. Huizinga. He has the ignominious honor—which apart from his repentance he will carry as the dreaded albatross about his neck his lifelong—of being the man who read the announcements for both Rev. Lanning and Rev. Langerak’s suspensions.
The fact that right doctrine is simply not important to the membership of the PRC can be seen in responses to this same false doctrine after the 2018 synod had ruled on the matter.
In the meditation in the October 15, 2020, issue of the Standard Bearer, Rev. James Slopsema wrote the following:
God’s holy law is good. It is designed to regulate the life of God’s people in their covenant relationship with Him and with each other. In the keeping of this covenant law is great joy. In fact, the more faithful the saints are to God’s law in the grace of Jesus Christ, the more they prosper in the great blessings of the covenant. They prosper in their marriages, in their family life, and in their church life. Above all, they prosper in the enjoyment of God’s covenant fellowship. “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.” (Ps. 119:1)
(Yes, I tried to address these things with Rev. Slopsema directly. My letters are here and here).
This is the same theology as that condemned by Synod 2018. Compare the two:
In fact, the more faithful the saints are to God’s law in the grace of Jesus Christ, the more they prosper in the great blessings of the covenant. They prosper in their marriages, in their family life, and in their church life. Above all, they prosper in the enjoyment of God’s covenant fellowship. (Rev. Slopsema)
The answer really is very simple. Very simple. If we but meet these requirements (obedience—DE) a little bit, by the grace of God, of course, and by God’s grace working them in us—if we meet these requirements but a little, then we will enjoy a little of God’s fellowship. That’s the truth. If we meet these requirements a lot, then we will enjoy much of God’s fellowship.” (Rev. Overway, 2018 Acts of Synod, 65)
It is as if Synod 2018 never happened.
But did you see what happened?
Rev. Koole was still teaching conditional fellowship, but at least he was doing it on the editorial page.
Now, we have the false doctrine moving away from the editorial page of the Standard Bearer to the Meditation section. This is what people read on Sunday morning before they go to church. Or that they take with them and read in the sanctuary prior to the start of the service. Which means the members of the PRC are drinking in poison as their “meditation” prior to engaging in worship. Having been allowed to stand on the editorial page, it only stands to reason it would move elsewhere in the magazine.
Take note that these things are appearing in the SB at all. Of course, each writer is responsible for his own content. But would the editors, who are responsible for what is allowed to appear in the magazine, allow what they believed to be heresy appear in their magazine? Of course not. The fact that none of them have publicly objected to this public teaching is very telling, and that the theology continues to appear tells those who are not asleep that the editors agree with it.
And the preaching? Errors are popping up like mushrooms. A man would have to make it his full-time job to protest and appeal every instance. (This sermon does a fine job of explaining the presence of these “mushrooms”).
In a sermon on Exodus 16:1–31 preached November 15, 2020, at Grandville PRC—which sermon was also preached in more than ten congregations in the PRC—Rev. Koole put on Christ’s lips the following:
And in order to live in accordance with God’s word, beloved, we must seek the grace that is available to us. I don’t know how that strikes your ears. Grace available to us? Aren’t we saved by grace? Yeah, you’re saved by grace. But you and I better be seeking the grace that is available to us. I’m talking about not the grace of regeneration, newness of life, which is irresistible. I’m talking about the grace to withstand temptation, beloved, and to walk through the tests and trials of this life without falling into temptation and sinning in the way of temptation. To withstand temptation day by day, you and I need grace. And what does the Catechism say? He will give His grace, that kind of grace, to those only who on a daily basis sincerely ask Him for them, His grace and Holy Spirit.
How does the phrase “available grace” strike my ear? As the Arminian presentation of grace that it is. At least ten consistories heard this corruption of grace preached, and not one of them called for a public apology and repudiation.
This type of preaching and writing calls to mind Paul’s instruction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:13: “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” About this text Calvin writes that Paul is instructing Timothy to “regulate his manner of teaching by the rule which had been laid down; not that we ought to be very scrupulous about words, but because to misrepresent doctrine, even in the smallest degree, is exceedingly injurious.”
And what a doctrine to misrepresent. Grace is one of the most, if not the most fundamental doctrines of the Christian life. And consistory after consistory allowed it to continue.
In a sermon preached on November 29, 2020, entitled “Calling Towards Canaanites,” Rev. VanOverloop taught the following:
God’s sovereignty. Man’s responsibility. God’s gifts and Christ’s merits does not exclude God’s use of means. Does not exclude God’s gift of the use of the means of our obedience.
And yet, God commanded. I performed a duty. Two rails. They go side by side. In the wisdom of God: His sovereignty, our responsibility. And it’s all grace. And nothing but grace.”
Labor to enter into the rest, lest ye fall in unbelief, Hebrews 4 verse 11. And that labor is what we identified in Deuteronomy 10:12: keep his commandments.
The fact that this came from a PR pulpit and was never publicly repudiated is damning.
Or this from Rev. Spronk:
And that’s why we can also say, beloved, that the more you live a life of conversion, the more that you walk in good works, the more you will experience God’s love and fellowship, the more you will experience the blessing of salvation. And that does not mean at all that the more you do good works, the more you earn or make yourself worthy of God’s love and the experience of salvation. Not at all.
It is almost as if Rev. Spronk read a sermon by Rev. Overway and then tried to mimic it as closely as he possibly could. (It needs to be explained to me why David Overway is not still preaching in the PRC today. His preaching was muted compared to the preaching of Spronk, VanOverloop, Slopsema, Koole, and Cammenga).
Examples could be multiplied, and the reader is pointed to the August issue of Sword & Shield, as well as the 40-page summary prepared by officebearers from Wingham for not only additional examples but also an incisive analysis of these teachings.
What do you believe about false doctrine?
I believe this.
“Obstinately holding to a heretical doctrine is nothing short of making an image of God and unrepentantly breaking the Second Commandment.”
You may ask in what issue of Sword & Shield that appeared, but it is not found there at all.
That was in the letter Hope PRC sent to Neil Meyer, which I referenced in an earlier post, which letter excoriated Mr. Meyer for acting faithfully in his office and for working to uphold right doctrine.
That is what the PRC puts out on paper, and what they will insist they believe, but they do not believe it at all.
But I believed it when it was taught to me.
And now, being in a position where I am called to protect God’s sheep, I insist on it.
According to Luther, “preaching true doctrine overthrows the devil, destroys his kingdom, and wrests out of his hand the law, sin, and death (by which he has subjugated all mankind).” What does that then say about the PRC that consistently has false doctrine preached from her pulpits?
There are two doctrines upon which the PRC was formed and which have made her place in the church world distinctive. The first, the doctrine of the unconditional covenant, is in the process of being overthrown in the PRC through the preaching and writing (if it has not been overthrown already).
The second distinctive of the PRC, marriage, appears to be next.
How important is a church’s stand regarding divorce? “It is here, on the issue of divorce, that the obedience of the church to the truth of marriage is put to the test. By her stand on divorce, the church either maintains or fatally compromises the truth of marriage, both for herself and for future generations” (Prof. Engelsma, Marriage: The Mystery of Christ and the Church, 88).
In the May 1, 2021, issue of the Standard Bearer, Rev. Eriks wrote the following (emphasis mine):
Third, one of the greatest dangers the church faces today is the sin of sexual immorality. This is especially true because of the danger of pornography in our day. Our culture is saturated with sexual immorality, which can affect the way the church views sex. One danger is that a church that loves Christ and His truth and loves the members of the church begins to depart from what the Bible says about sexuality and marriage. This begins with the acceptance of divorce for reasons other than adultery and desertion. The next step down this road is that the church reexamines its stance on homosexuality.
Just like that, slipped in without comment, is a declaration that there are two grounds for divorce, adultery and desertion.
I was always taught there was one ground for divorce.
“When Jesus forbids divorce, “saving for the cause of fornication,” he teaches that there is only one ground for divorce. Only adultery breaks the marriage bond to the degree that the husband and the wife may be apart, loosed from one life in one home, at one table, and in one bed. Nothing else is ground for divorce, nothing else whatever” (Engelsma, 99).
“By her stand on divorce, the church either maintains or fatally compromises the truth of marriage, both for herself and for future generations.” Does the PRC really believe that, or is this just another instance of a secret that no one shared with me?
What will it take for the members of the PRC to see that their ministers hold to false doctrine? Do ministers have to be so brazen as to draft a document that teaches error, put their names to it, and then later insist that they believe it and will continue to teach it?
No, that won’t do it either.
Only in the PRC could four of the leading ministers write a doctrinal statement in which they defend and promote false doctrine and then have nothing come of it.
(Yes, I tried to address this in an email to Rev. Haak and earlier in a private meeting with Rev. Slopsema in 2019).
Now you see it, now you don’t!
What is important for the members of the PRC is not that these men believe the theology that was condemned by their synod as a compromise of justification by faith alone. What is paramount is how much we love these men, how many years they have given to the churches, and how well respected they are.
To preserve their names, we must all just go on acting as though we had not seen their embrace of the lie.
Nothing to see here.
Man looms large in the PRC.
As for Jesus, he was displaced and continues to be displaced.
And the denomination does not care.
The great charade continues.
Look outward, but never apply the rebukes and the criticisms inward.
“O how wretched the patience, when the honor of God is diminished (not to say prostrate), if we tread so lightly that we can look the other way and wink at it!” (John Calvin)
I was hoodwinked.
Tricked.
Almost everyone was in on something, and no one let me in on the secret.
We were all raised the same.
On the same preaching, the same reading material, the same Bible studies, the same catechism instruction, the same lectures, and the same instruction at school.
But of all the people who professed to love me, and even those with whom I had the sweetest and closest fellowship, not one of them ever pulled me aside and let me in on the secret.
“Of all the things you learn, you must never apply them to our own denomination.”
It was amazing to watch, and I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but now I do.
How people started to pull back as things continued to progress. They could see things getting closer and closer to “that line” that must not be crossed. It is one thing to speak in the abstract about the problems in the PRC, but to actually rebuke her from the pulpit or to support such rebukes, to declare that her errors were far more than just trifles but actually issues about which men and women would have to take a stand, were steps too far.
The pullback continued.
Shame on me for not applying the lesson that they had never even shared with me.
“Don’t point the finger back at the PRC.”
The PRC will not hear a rebuke.
The problem is, once you see the problem, you can’t un-see it.
And not knowing that the PRC was above reproach, I took all of the principles upon which I had been raised—in the home, in the school, and in the church—and I applied them to the Protestant Reformed Churches.
And when standing on those principles, the path was not unclear.
I was taught that doctrine was the most important part of a church.
We all were taught Hoeksema’s maxim about the most needful thing for a church.
In the first place, doctrine; in the second place, doctrine; and in the third place, doctrine.
And it is true.
What you say about God is of the utmost importance.
It just isn’t true in the PRC.
Do you know what the reaction of the membership in the PRC was when a sermon teaching a conditional covenant was preached from a pulpit?
Indifference.
They did not care.
I could not believe then, and still cannot believe today, how unmoved the members of the denomination were to that heretical sermon.
Do you know how many ministers protested that public sermon? One.
Do you know how many lay members of the denomination protested that sermon? One couple.
We know how one member of the congregation, Prof. Dykstra, reacted to that sermon.
But what about the minister of the church, Rev. Spronk? What was his reaction?
When someone asked him about this, he said the sermon was a mole hill, and he would not allow it to become a mountain.
Explicit conditional theology—preached in the middle of a controversy by the leading figure who had been tasked to lead the churches out of the controversy—was said to be a mole hill.
Theology that was so clearly wrong that even Classis East had to use the dreaded “H” word (“the error of the heresy of the conditional covenant theology”), Rev. Spronk characterized as a mole hill.
(We know now that Rev. Spronk is capable of using the word “heresy.” He was quick to use the word once Rev. Lanning was deposed. He condemned as heresy Rev. Lanning’s exegesis of Malachi 3:7, which also happened to be Martin Luther’s exegesis. But conditional theology? That was not heresy, that was a mole hill.)
What about Rev. Spronk’s congregation, Faith PRC?
At the January 2021 meeting of Classis East, while deliberating (I use the word loosely) on the protest against the heretical sermon preached by Rev. Van Overloop, Rev. Spronk informed the assembly what the reaction of Faith PRC was after this sermon was preached.
He stated that this sermon was preached during family visitation, and he boldly announced that not one member of the congregation had raised an objection.
I could not believe my ears.
Explicit conditional theology, preached in the middle of a controversy by the leading figure who had been tasked to lead the churches out of the controversy, and no objections were raised.
Contending for right doctrine is simply not important for the PRC.
I base that not on what men tell me is important for the PRC; I base that on how the PRC behaves.
Look at the length of time they worked with Rev. Overway and the leeway given to anyone who preached or wrote false doctrine. Look at how many times discipline was administered to elders who tolerated or defended false doctrine, and compare that to the length of time spent working with Elder Meyer or Rev. Lanning or Rev. Langerak or Deacon Andringa or the two elders who were relieved of their duties or the two officebearers in Wingham who were at one time disciplined.
The PRC has patience for false doctrine.
The PRC has patience for the trampling underfoot of Jesus Christ and his truth.
Wretched patience.
But for those who rebuke her for her errors or even just point out her errors by way of protest they have no patience.
“I am hurt and angered at the false accusation of error leveled at me…”
“I would like to take this opportunity to vindicate myself…”
“Rev. Guichelaar has defended himself against the false accusations leveled against him. I want to do the same.”
“I write this defense of myself to you in order to clear away the doubts you may have of me. I honestly care about my standing in your midst as a congregation.”
In the last four years, Rev. Bruinsma has served on two committees that misrepresented those whose material they were treating. At meetings of Classis East he had consistently argued on the wrong side of the doctrinal issue that has troubled the PRC. But now—now!—is the time to rise up in righteous indignation!
Not for the sake of Christ’s name, but for the sake of Wilbur Bruinsma’s name.
Where have all of these men been for the last five years while Jesus Christ was being displaced and his truth compromised? They couldn’t be roused to defend Jesus Christ and his name, but when their name was brought up, they came out in record time.
Doctrine is not important in the PRC.
Men are.
Men’s reputations are.
That can be clearly seen in the charge of sin brought by the editors of the Standard Bearer, Prof. Dykstra, Prof. Gritters, and Rev. Koole, against Revs. N. Langerak, Lanning, and Vander Wal. Incensed that they had received, in their view, a group letter charging sin, the editors responded with a group letter charging sin. (That is only one of the glaring hypocrisies throughout this entire saga. One that was particularly rich, was when the editors, while engaging in their abusive behavior against Rev. Vander Wal, expressed their dissatisfaction with how long it took Rev. Vander Wal to respond (“It should not take you seven more weeks to do so”). This after it took them nine months to respond to the letter they had received from the group of concerned men). These charges were pursued because the editors’ feelings were hurt by the letter that had been addressed to the RFPA by a group of men who were concerned with the direction of the Standard Bearer. It was clear to most that the letter did not contain charges of sin. Byron’s consistory knew it, and this was confirmed by Classis East, which decided as much.
What a mess that created. And all because men’s reputations were at stake.
But what about the Standard Bearer? And what about the appearance of Sword & Shield?
There is no one who can in good conscience contend that the Standard Bearer has provided leadership in this controversy. (Once the SB made clear that it was not going to provide any leadership, the membership of the PRC had to resort to distributing emails and “papers” in order to carry on the debate). I believe that the Standard Bearer has not just provided bad leadership but that it has actively been foisting false doctrine upon the Protestant Reformed denomination, as I will prove later.
What was the advice and leadership provided by the Standard Bearer leading up to Synod 2018 regarding the doctrinal issue plaguing the PRC?
This:
Also at Synod are four protests of statements or actions of the Synod of 2017, and an appeal of a decision of a classis. These protests make up 264 pages of the 427-page agenda. Synod may be forced to appoint a study committee to address the problem of ballooning protests and appeals. There is no good reason that protests or appeals should number in the scores, much less hundreds of pages. All consistories are willing in good faith to assist members so that they can bring the clearest, most precise protest/appeal with all the supporting documents needed. It is positively detrimental to overload the ecclesiastical assemblies with a mountain of documents. To put it into perspective, how many of us recently picked up a book of 427 pages, and not only read it in a month, but studied it in order to be qualified to discuss and make decisions on its content? That is what we are asking all the delegates to synod to do. (Prof. Dykstra, SB, 5/15/18)
After having suffered under the lack of leadership in the Standard Bearer for many years, finding no help from the paper that was made for moments like this in understanding the doctrines at stake, realizing that the SB was issuing a trumpet blast of an uncertain sound, and having to hear that Rev. Hoeksema’s theology of the Philippian jailor was “Nonsense,” a group of concerned men finally formed to try and recover their paper. After going through the proper channels and being soundly rebuffed by the board of the RFPA—which now operates only as an arm of the seminary and of the denomination as a whole—they started their own paper. (Here is what the SB used to be).
You would think these men had committed the unforgivable sin.
The reaction was swift and fierce, as was covered in a previous post.
Consistories and members were incensed.
“How dare they start this paper?!”
But if pure doctrine and the glory of God’s name is of the utmost importance, couldn’t we at least understand why a new magazine would be considered?
What caused the uproar after the appearance of Sword & Shield was the fact that the magazine was determined to be a truly free paper; it would hold the truth over all, and not the institution, and it was not afraid to rebuke the PRC for its errors.
Isn’t this what you want in a free paper? Why all the uproar?
Isn’t this what we asked for?
“If ever the SB becomes another nice, friendly, inoffensive, and harmless religious rag, may the God of truth and righteousness put it out of its misery quickly. And raise up another that will bear the standard!” (Prof. Engelsma, 75th Anniversary book, 129).
Turns out I was hoodwinked.
Deceived.
How silly of me to think that the sword should cut both ways, outside the denomination and within.
This deception goes all the way to the top.
Synod 2018 told me that the issues facing the PRC had to do with the unconditional covenant (the lifeblood of the PRC) and justification by faith alone (the heart of the gospel).
I believed them.
I did not always know the issues to be that serious. I was a fool for many years, thinking it was only personalities, and the doctrinal issues were minor. Fool is not too strong a word.
But Synod 2018 corrected that for me.
I pored over the decisions made by that assembly. I read the decisions carefully and studied the truths those decisions were trying to recover.
And I was convinced.
These issues had to do with the heart of the gospel and the place of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Would he be central? Or would he be displaced?
Prof. Huizinga wrote the advice for the committee. And I honored him for it.
“Was this your intent? To cause division among us? Well, you’ve won.”
I started answering the question “Why?” in the last post, but to fully answer it, I have to go back a few years.
To 2013, to be precise.
My wife and I had been members of Grandville PRC since we were married in 2001.
It was only in 2013 that we came to the conviction that something was amiss.
We had suspected for some time that there was something wrong with the preaching of Rev. Koole. However, for many years we blamed ourselves.
We were not listening hard enough. We had to take better notes.
One quote in particular from A.W. Tozer would plague my conscience. “If you will not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week.” This would ring in my ears, and I would reproach myself for not living a holy enough life during the week. Sundays were a trial because I was not faithful enough, diligent enough, spiritual enough. I was not doing enough. That law of Tozer’s lashed my conscience and left me despairing.
Finally, in 2013, I went to Rev. Koole. I told him I did not know what was wrong with the preaching, just that I knew something was wrong.
Over the course of the next year, nothing changed.
But I was busy reading everything I could get my hands on regarding preaching.
As useful as those books were, it is to my shame that I needed them in the first place.
The answer was painfully evident as to what was wrong with the preaching.
Christ was missing.
The preaching was Christless.
(There was much more that went on throughout that time that I will not detail. The lies and the duplicity of those appointed by Christ to lead me and my family. The double-minded men who would tell me one thing in private and then see to it that I received something altogether different in official correspondence from the consistory. Those books will be opened and revealed someday, and that is enough for me).
That does not mean the name “Jesus” was not said throughout a sermon. It probably was. It certainly was tacked on to the end of the sermon.
Yet Christ was absent from the preaching.
In their office of believer, a man, a woman, and even a child knows when they are being fed Christ and when they “hear his voice” (John 10:3).
And they know when they hear the voice of a stranger (John 10:5).
Finally, after vexing my soul and having the souls of my wife and children vexed for far too long, a man came to me and asked to me to consider whether it was time for me to leave Grandville. His reason was stark. Rev. Koole was not going to change, and the elders were not going to do anything about it.
So we left.
And joined Byron Center PRC.
Where we heard Christ.
It was only a few weeks in, and only a few minutes into a sermon, when I leaned over to my wife and, stifling a laugh, said to her, “He can’t get to Christ quick enough!”
Rev. Lanning knew nothing among us, except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).
That was a joyous time for my family. We had been led out of the wasteland and to the green, verdant pastures of the riches of God’s word, as Rev. Lanning drew out of the treasure house things old and new (Matt. 13:52).
Every service, morning and evening, we were led to Jesus Christ, and how our souls sang with joy!
I truly had never experienced preaching like this.
And do you know what my denomination did to these two men?
It made the one man who refused or was unable to preach Christ a leader in the denomination. It made him a church visitor and editor of the church paper and an authority figure for the denomination to look up to.
The other man, who humbly fed his flock with Christ Sunday after Sunday, service after service, the denomination despised. It mocked him at the assemblies and made his name a byword. And then it brutally cast him out of their fellowship.
What the faithful officebearers from Wingham PRC wrote regarding the wicked treatment of Rev. Lanning and Rev. Langerak is true: “The denomination’s abuse of these men is nothing less than a rejection of Christ himself as he is revealed in the faithful office-bearer of Christ and as he speaks to and teaches his church in the gospel.”
What caused me to leave—no, what drove me to leave—was what the PRC did with Jesus Christ.
They cast him out.
I know I speak for the rest of my brothers and sisters who left Byron Center PRC when I say that we did not have a choice. We had heard the voice of Christ in the preaching, and having heard it, we would not, under any circumstances, allow ourselves to be robbed of it or allow it to be silenced.
Many of us had languished for years, if not decades, in spiritual wastelands of empty words and man-centered theology.
We were starving to death.
And now our denomination, after trumping up some charges, says that Rev. Lanning is not fit to be a preacher?
No.
We said no.
Even if that meant the loss of our families, our friends, and our schools.
No.
We can identify the voice of strangers. We will not follow those voices.
(Rev. Lanning certainly could not abide this unrighteous deposition. John Calvin spoke for all faithful ministers of God’s word when he said his ministry was from Christ, and therefore it must be defended “with his own blood if necessary.”)
This will probably draw the spurious charge that we are following a man. That charge is slander.
And familiar.
One of the cheapest, most superficial, evilest, but nevertheless often very effective methods to brand a movement of a reformatory character in the church as false and of the evil one, is to concentrate all one’s attention upon the leader of such a movement, vituperate his character and personality, ascribe the movement wholly to the powerful influence of that personality, and present all other participants in the movement as blindly following that strange, that ambitious, that impossible man.
This method has many advantages.
It simplifies the case immensely. Instead of collecting and carefully evaluating the historical data, the doctrinal implications, and the church-political transactions involved in the case, you can afford to limit yourself to the presentation of a simple syllogism: 1. The leader is no good; 2. The movement is wholly inspired by the evil leader; 3. The movement must be evil.
Moreover, if such a man happens to be condemned and cast out by the church, the latter, by fixing all the attention upon the impossible and evil personality of the leader, is at once justified. No matter what may be the doctrinal implications of the case, no matter whether this leader actually taught false doctrine worthy of deposition, no matter how many injustices the church may have committed in casting him out, the church is plainly justified in her act for the simple reason that the man is impossible. (Hoeksema, Vitriolic Indeed, 9/15/46, SB)
But when you consider that God is pleased to have his word preached through a man, then the faithful believer will gladly confess that they will “not easily allow themselves to be separated from any man in whom they have detected a right understanding of Christ” (Calvin).
As I have been led to see, not every man has a “right understanding of Christ.”
So you want to know why I am writing this blog.
In part—in large part—I am writing this for my brothers and sisters who themselves are bewildered and confused at the abuse they are facing. I am writing for those who I am called by God to protect and to whom I am called to minister. I am defending them. I am trying to be their voice. What have they done but follow the voice of Christ?
It is written in love for the “simple” in the PRC, who, through good words and fair speeches, have had their hearts deceived (Rom. 16:18).
It is written because it was, and continues to be, my duty as a watchman to warn God’s people of the grave danger they are in.
This blog is being written because of a love for Jesus Christ and a desire to stand up for his name and his truth in the world.
He is worth fighting for.
He is the only one worth fighting for.
I make no apology for this blog or what I have written.
If what I write is false, then prove it. If I am wrong, then show me.
And while I continually must ask God to forgive my cowardice for keeping back my pen from blood, and for so often turning back in the day of battle, and for wavering at the faces of men, I will continue to make the prayer of Psalm 144:1 my own.
“Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”
“What is the POINT of this blog exactly Dewey? What are you trying to accomplish? You continue to bash the PRC, it’s ministers and members … WHY? Are you trying to exact some sort of vengeance on the PRC? Please, enlighten me! Everything I personally have read to this point has done nothing but expose the hatred you seem to have in your heart towards faithful believers and members of the PRC … That is how you come across.”
“I ask you Dewey … Will you stop your judging? Will you stop your accusations? They serve NO GOOD purpose but only promote MORE division, and MORE hatred towards the neighbor. You need to stop throwing stones!!”
Such were the questions and convictions of one reader.
To answer that question of “why,” it is important to point out that what I am doing not only has precedent in the PRC but is also my duty.
What I am doing has been done before. Sure, the medium is different—blogs have not been around that long—but principally, I am not breaking new ground. In other words, there is precedent for this.
Precedent that looms very large in the history of the PRC.
(Much of what follows can be found in Hoeksema’s History of the Protestant Reformed Churches found here at the PRC website.)
In this book, Hoeksema gave the history of the events that led to the formation of the Protestant Reformed Churches.
Hoeksema named names and called men out for their sinful actions.
Hoeksema charged men with lying and slander and spoke of the “deplorable” behavior of Dr. Janssen. He accused the friends of Janssen, who were responsible for Hoeksema’s ouster, of acting the way they did because their “idol” had been cast down and because, subconsciously, they supported the doctrine of common grace.
Hoeksema wrote of three elders who came to him under false pretenses, and he identified their shameful behavior and called them out by name, as their names were “worthy of being preserved on the pages of this history because of the part they played in it.”
He spoke of the hierarchical yoke of the CRC and the “high-handed hierarchy” and “sophistry” that went on at their assemblies. He accused them of “popery.”
It is striking that when a church apostatizes, in any age, their assemblies invariably become political and corrupt.
Hoeksema could have been speaking of Classis East in the year 2021 when he wrote of “a number of delegates that acted as mere voters without a proper understanding of the question at issue and were ready to go along with the majority as easily as straws in the wind.” Or when he wrote regarding his deposition that “an illustration of grosser injustice could hardly be conceived.” And strikingly, with words that could be applied today, “It is, then, not too strong a statement, to assert that a worldly court would not treat a defendant as the broadest ecclesiastical court of the Christian Reformed Churches treated the Reverend H. Hoeksema in 1924.”
Quotes like this could be multiplied, but for those members of the PRC who are reading this blog, I encourage you to read this book so that you can begin to learn your history.
In the controversy in the 1950s, Rev. George Ophoff accused the assemblies—at an assembly meeting—of being cesspools of corruption and said they needed to be cleaned out. Hoeksema agreed with Ophoff, and both were censured for it. You can read Hoeksema’s explanation and defense of that here.
Rev. Heys publicly accused a Rev. Schans of lying and slander.
Even the clergy behaves the same way today as it has in past controversies. “In their private assemblies, behind the closed door, they are most bold. In public, however, they maintain a profound silence. The objective has been gained. He whom they hated—the Rev. H. Hoeksema, was gotten rid of.”
Pull down a Standard Bearer bound volume from either of those periods, and you will see that examples like those listed above could be multiplied a hundred times over.
These men would make charges and then prove them.
All of the complaining and hand-wringing that has gone on regarding this blog reveals a church that does not know its own history.
And now I would like to sound a warning from the pages of church history. The pseudo-arguments of which I wrote last time, and the various attitudes to which I call attention in this article are nothing new in the history of the church. There has never been a time in all the ages of church history when they have not arisen. In fact, if we are mindful of our own history of 25 short years’ duration, we cannot fail, surely, to note that all these arguments and different expressions of attitude have ominously familiar ring. Has it not been exactly the opposition in all the history of our churches that tried to dull the sharp sword of the truth by calling the differences between us and our mother-church a matter of terms, or of a difference of emphasis? Have they not often pointed to the fact that we were a minority? Have they not often boasted in authorities? Have they not often clamored, “me too”, in regard to being Reformed? Has not the breach of the peace often been lamented, with the sword of deposition in the hand? Has not the ostrich frequently put its head in the sand ecclesiastically? Has not the general and sentimental charge of a lack of love often been made? (HCH, A Healthy Attitude).
Hoeksema, Ophoff, and the other founding fathers had the right, even the duty, to do this because of the biblical command to identify not only the error but also the purveyors of that error.
In other words, names must be named.
“This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck; Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:18–20).
“But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some” (2 Tim. 2:16–18).
“Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia” (2 Tim. 4:9–10).
“Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works: Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words” (2 Tim. 4:14–15).
In 3 John 1:9–10, we read the following: “I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.”
What did John mean when he said that he would “remember his deeds which he doeth”?
What this meant was that John was going to expose and condemn Diotrephes and his tyrannical and selfish lording it over God’s heritage openly, publicly, and strongly.
Commenting on this text, Matthew Henry writes that “Acts of ecclesiastical domination and tyranny ought to be animadverted upon.”
To animadvert upon something is to ””criticize it openly and harshly.”¹ One definition has it as “to remark or comment critically, usually with strong disapproval or censure.”²
Another commentator on this text said John would “remember his deeds which he doth; meaning, not only that he would tell him of them to his face, but make mention of them, and expose them to the whole church, and reprove him for them” (Gill).
Not only is this the example given in the Bible, but it is also the duty of the believer to engage in this work and expose the workers of corruption and the teachers of false doctrine. According to Paul, we are to “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned” (Rom. 16:17).
Mark them. Point them out. Expose them.
John Calvin, speaking on 1 Timothy 5:20 (“Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear”), writes that he who “conducts himself badly shall be severely corrected.”
This is also the clear command of Article 55 of the Church Order, which commands elders to “use the means of teaching, of refutation or warning, and of admonition” to “ward off false doctrines and errors.”
The Bible uses strong language for the officebearer who remains silent in the face of such wickedness. “His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber” (Isa. 56:10).
I have also been accused of dividing the church and splitting families.
One correspondent was especially sharp.
To him, my actions have been “foolish, evil and malicious.” My behavior “betrays an incredibly self-centered, self-seeking agenda – more the conduct of a Judas than a true disciple of the Lord.” He called on me to stop my attacks on the PRC and all of my “sowing of discord among brothers and sisters in Christ.” He called on me to repent, or perish. According to this man, I have not shown love, but “malice and ill-will.” And because I am doing it in the name of Christ’s truth, in reality what I am doing is actually blasphemy.
By identifying the corruption and hypocrisy that took place in the deposition of Rev. Lanning, does that mean I have not shown love?
What would this man’s definition of love entail?
It would mean me being silent.
He would have me disappear quietly into the ecclesiastical landscape.
It means he does not want me to warn the members of the PRC of the lying, of the hypocrisy, of the corruption, and of the false doctrine that exists within their denomination.
Would that be love?
Because it maintains a certain peace?
This would be like a friend walking into your basement, seeing the foundation walls are crumbling and the whole edifice being held up by only a few blocks, then walking upstairs, bidding you farewell, and walking off into the night without having said a word of warning.
That is not love at all.
That would be cold indifference. That would be hatred.
To do that would be self-centered and self-seeking.
Had I just slipped off quietly, I might have saved my life, and not lost it.
I abhor and reject that man’s view of love, and I pray the church of which I am a member will never become infected with it.
I reject this conception of love because of what it would require.
There would be “one condition of obtaining peace—that by being silent we might betray the truth” (Calvin).
By God’s grace, I will not betray the truth, or Jesus Christ, whose truth it is.
Did Jesus not have love when he said he came not to bring peace but a sword? Or when he said he came to divide a man from his father, or a daughter from her mother, or a daughter-in-law from her mother-in-law? (Matt. 10:34–35). Did Jesus cause division when he rebuked his disciples and called them a “perverse generation” (Matt. 17:17)? Or when he said to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me” (Matt. 16:23)? Was Jesus showing malice and ill-will when he called the travelers on the road to Emmaus “fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25)?
Am I the troubler of Israel?
To expose corruption and reveal error, even though that may, and probably will, cause division, does not indicate a lack of love.
Exactly the opposite.
That is love in action.
On 2 Corinthians 12:15 (“And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved”) Calvin writes, “This, certainly, was an evidence of a more than fatherly affection—that he was prepared to lay out in their behalf not merely his endeavours, and every thing in his power to do, but even life itself. Nay more, while he is regarded by them with coldness, he continues, nevertheless, to cherish this affection. What heart, though even as hard as iron, would such ardour of love not soften or break, especially in connection with such constancy? Paul, however, does not here speak of himself, merely that we may admire him, but that we may, also, imitate him.”
As one commentary puts it, “Love him as a true friend who seeks your good more than your good will.”
That is why I have done what I have in the writing of this blog.
Had I simply remained silent and left quietly, I would not have been able to live with myself. Leave without warning the people I love the most about the danger they are in? Brothers and sisters in Christ, I plead with you to consider the things I have written. I have no bitterness, anger, or malice in my heart at all, and that because of the grace of God.
God is not mocked. He will not give his glory to another, and lying and hypocrisy he will judge. Do you think even though these things have happened to every church in the New Testament age—including those churches that the Apostle Paul established—it is impossible that it happens to the PRC?
I have written this blog because I love you.
I do not write this defense to clear my name or win myself back into the good graces of any man. I will not justify myself before men. God knows my heart.
For those of you who do not believe me or who continue to charge me with lying or slander or deceit, I have come to realize that I will not be able to convince you. Nothing I say will convince you.
Only one thing will.
And that will be when Jesus Christ returns and when we will all see—and which no one will be able to gainsay—what has been righteous and what has been unrighteous. Then, and only then, will we see who has served God and who has not (Mal. 3:18).
