WAS THIS TRUE CONSERVATISM?

It is generally agreed that the 1961 Synod of the Christian Reformed Church was conservative, in the good sense of that word. As evidence one can point to the decisions in the matter of Scriptural infallibility. Other decisions point in the same direction.

Perhaps some would also cite the action taken in refusing to make any revisions in the Belgic Confession as. another evidence of proper conservatism. With this we could not agree. To be sure, some of the changes suggested in one of the overtures requesting revision would have been calamitous, in our opinion. And it could be that the radical nature of those preposed changes restrained the impulse to make desirable changes in the document that came from the pen of Guido De Bres. But we feel that even the danger of opening the door to the opportunity of presenting revisions that would really be corruptions should not prevent the Church from bringing its creeds up to date. The Church, we believe, is under obligations to give creedal formulation to the clearer and deeper insights which it has received throughout the centuries as the fruits of the persistent study of the Scriptures.

For that reason we hold that Synod’s decision not to make any revisions in our Confession is to be regretted. We regard it as the unfortunate outcropping of a false spirit of conservatism. It is the duty as well as the privilege of the Church, as “the pillar and ground of the truth,” to remove from its creeds the little imperfections that have gradually come to light, both in the original texts and in the translations. Only then can we defend these creeds as the unassailable expressions of the Reformed faith, in so far as that faith should be expressed in our doctrinal standards. For the Reformed Churches have never held that their creeds are infallible and cannot be improved upon. In fact, the Belgic Confession itself declares emphatically and solemnly: “Neither may we consider any writings of men (italics mine–K.), however holy these men may have been, of equal value with those divine scriptures, nor ought we to consider custom, or the great multitude, or antiquity, or succession of times and persons, or councils, decrees or statutes, as of equal value with the truth of God, since the truth is above all…”

There is one other reason why we believe that the Church should keep its Confession up to date and remove its flaws. There have always been men in the church who hold that the consciences of its officers and members should not be bound by its creeds. They regard such documents as excellent museum pieces, as praise worthy expressions of the faith of former generations, but they refuse to acknowledge their authority for the church of today. Such persons see no need of creed revision. The more stubbornly the church clings even to certain antiquated or doubtful details in the articles of its faith, the better they like it since this seems to justify their acceptance of the creed with “mental reservations.”

In short, the refusal of the Church to correct and improve its doctrinal standards is not only a proof of false conservatism; it also may become an entering wedge for theological liberalism.

We hope that following synods will give earnest consideration to the desire of many for proper creed revision.

H.J.K.

EXAMINATION OF CANDIDATES FOR THE MINISTRY

The examination for ministerial candidacy is a matter of high importance for the church of Christ. Here men of the church are declared to be able and fit for the work of the ministry of the Word and sacraments in the church.

In the Christian Reformed Church this examination has been conducted for some time by the church itself in her synodical meeting. This method, however, has become too laborious. The number of students seeking candidacy has been on the increase and the result has been that the synod has been unable to spend a sufficient amount of time on these examinations to make them as comprehensive and complete as they ought to be. This deficiency has been rather generally recognized.

This year a change in procedure has been adopted. Beginning in 1962 the examination for candidacy will be conducted by the Board of Trustees of Calvin College and Seminary. In this matter the Board will receive the recommendations of the seminary faculty to guide them in their examination and to give them information concerning each one seeking to enter the work of the ministry. The Board of Trustees will send to the synod the list of those whom they have approved for candidacy and the synod will merely declare such individuals to be candidates for the ministry in the church upon the basis of such recommendation. This will save time for the synod. This much can be said for this new procedure but little else can be said in its favor.

It would appear certain that the Board of Trustees will not have sufficient time to make the examination for candidacy any more comprehensive than did the synod. As it is, the Board already meets in lengthy sessions with the result that ministers on Board are away from their pulpits and congregations for considerable periods of time each year. The members at large all the Board are called away from their offices or shops for long periods of time and this demand upon time can hardly be stepped up. The Board of Trustees is being faced with a greater responsibility and with more work as our college and seminary program continues to expand.

The assertion that members of the Board will be able to know by personal contact those seeking candidacy can hardly be maintained. Virtually none of the members of the Board will have the opportunity or the time to come to know these individuals that will appear before them.

Most importantly, however, it should be recognized that this work of securing a continuing ministry in the church IS the work of the church itself and principally of the eldership of the church. Yet under this new procedure the eldership of the church is conspicuous by its absence. TIle ministers and the members at large on the Board of Trustees are not on the Board in their capacity of elders in the church. The Board is, in fact, not an ecclesiastical body at all. It would appear to me that the church has allowed a most important part of her work to be taken over by a non-ecclesiastical body. This is most regrettable. This is the work of the church and particularly the work of the elders of the church and they ought to be doing it and no one else.

This new procedure will place the highest possible importance upon the classical examination which the candidate will be called upon to take before entering into the ministry of the church. This classical examination ought to be the most comprehensive and the most decisive because this is now the only place under this new arrangement where the church and its eldership will have anything to say about those who arc entering into the ministry of the church. Surely the classical gatherings should be aware of previous achievements and recommendations, but they should not feel themselves, consciously or unconsciously, to be bound by them. Here the eldership of the church has its one opportunity to speak and to decide on a matter which is specifically and uniquely its responsibility. Here then let the eldership speak and decide with conviction and with courage.

R.L.

LABOR DAY: A BIBLICAL APPROACH

Labor, like marriage, is honorable for all. It is a divine vocation. It antedates sin. It is a God-given ordinance of creation. It constitutes a divine calling. It is part of the cultural mandate to subdue the earth and to have dominion over it in the name of the Lord. It is truly glorious. It is God-imitating and Christ-like at the same time. Labor is not a necessary evil, as some would have us believe. True, on account of sin it has become back-breaking toiling and moiling. However, in the beginning it was not so. And although it is true that man works to live he also by divine ordinance lives to work, as image-bearer of the Creator.

Therefore, on this Labor Day T wish to pay tribute to the man who labors with his hands. We of TORCH AND TRUMPET raise a salute to our working men, who labor faithfully as unto the Lord. We do not approve the tendency to depreciate labor. We believe that the Christian worker must refuse to be identified with those of the world who have no sense of calling unto labor, but who feel that the world owes them a living. We believe it is more than time for our working men to raise a banner of their own, proclaiming their intention to do an honest day’s work, because they labor before the face of God.

It is with this in mind that 1 have prepared the following two extracts from the best work on Christian Ethics that I have ever had the good fortune to read. Professor Murray gives us the biblical perspective on the question of labor and our responsibility to God to do our part as a matter of Christian vocation—coram Deo (before the face of God).

H.R.V.T.

P.S. The quotations that follow are from Professor John Murray’s Principles of Conduct and are made with the kind permission of the Eerdmans Publishing Co.

LABOR AS DIVINE VOCATION

The institution of labor underlies the whole question of human vocation … Each person’s labor is a divine vocation. Our Protestant reformers felt called upon to give particular emphasis to this phase of biblical teaching. It is to be remarked,’ wrote Calvin, ‘that the Lord commands everyone of us, in all the actions of life, to regard his vocation. For he knows with what great inquietude the human mind is inflamed, with what desultory levity it is hurried hither and thither, and how insatiable is its ambition to grasp different things at once. Therefore, to prevent universal confusion being produced by our folly and temerity, he has appointed to all their particular duties in different spheres of life. And that no one might rashly transgress the limits prescribed, he has styled such spheres of life vocations, or callings…” (Inst. Ill, X, 6, tr. by John Allen).

“It is the consciousness of divine vocation in the particular task assigned to us that will imbue us with the proper sense of responsibility in the discharge of it. The New Testament Jays peculiar stress on the God-oriented motivation and direction of all our toil. This is, of course, a specific application of the governing principle of all of life, ‘whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God’ (1 Corinthians 10:31)…When labor involves drudgery, when the hardship is oppressive, when the conditions imposed upon us are not those which mercy and justice would dictate, when we are tempted to individual or organized revolt, when we are ready to recompense evil on the part of our master with the evil of careless work on our part, it is just then that we need to be reminded, ‘whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the inheritance. Ye serve the Lord Christ’ (Colossians 3:23, 24).

“It is in the context of this exhortation that the apostle lays his finger upon the cardinal vice of our labor: we do it to please men…Is it not a well-recognized fact that the bane of much workmanship is that the workman worked well only when he was under the eye of his master or supervisor? It is the vice that explains the lack of pleasure in work; labor is boredom and about all that is in view is the pay-cheque. This evil that turns labor into drudgery is but the ultimate logic of eye-service and men-pleasing. Perhaps the most tragic result of all is the way in which eye-service betrays moral judgment. If we seek to please men, then, in the final analysis, it is expediency that guides conduct. And when expediency becomes the rule of life, obedience to God loses both sanction and sanctity and the workman is ready to be the accomplice in furthering the ends which desecrate the first principles of right and truth and justice. God-service is the first principle of labor, and it alone is the guardian of virtue in all our economic structure.”

John Murray in Principles of Conduct (pp. 86–88)

LABOR AS CREATION ORDINANCE

“The stress laid upon the six days of labor needs to be duly appreciated. The divine ordinance is not simply that of labor; it is labor with a certain constancy. There is indeed respite from labor, the respite of one whole day every recurring seventh day. The cycle of respite is provided for, but there is also the cycle of labor. The law of God cannot be violated with impunity…

“The New Testament teaching respecting the institution of labor is pointed and explicit. It goes to the root of the question when it indicts idleness as impiety…We might be disposed to think that the judgment of the apostle passes the bounds of mercy and charity when, with reference to this vice of idleness, he writes, ‘For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If any will not work, neither let him eat’ (verse 10). And the severity of the apostle’s judgment reaches its climax when he says that ‘if any provides not for his own, and specially for his own household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel’ (I Timothy 5:8; cf. verses 13–16). But the implications are unmistakable. It is a mark of the faith of Jesus, an index to the integrity and equity which are the fruits of the Spirit of Christ, that we labor to earn our livelihood and provide for those who by reason of kinship are dependent upon us. The ethic of the New Testament, sanctioned by nothing less than command in the Lord Jesus Christ, is that we work with quietness and eat our own bread (II Thess. 3:12). When our thought is governed by this ethic, idleness is seen to be iniquity and reaches the proportions of enormity when it puts on the garb of piety and considers labor incompatible with the demands of communion with God. Only spurious mysticism can entertain such a conception, and it is then pre-eminently that the indictment is most applicable, ‘such a one has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel’ (I Timothy 5:8).”

John Murray in Principles of Conduct (pp. 83, 84, 85)

MEN FOR MISSIONS

The organization of Minute-Men for missions recently reported in the Christian Reformed weekly, The Banner, is heartening and to be commended.

For years the women of the Christian Reformed Church have had their mission rallies in an effort to become vitally and existentially involved in executing the great commission. But up to now the men have dragged their feet, or worse, instead they have drained off their surplus energies by organizing soft-ball teams and bowling competition among church groups. Meanwhile, the one organization committed to spiritual fellowship and to Bible-study languished for want of young blood and imaginative address to the problems of the day.

I hereby congratulate the Minute-Men for their verve and nerve, their devotion and imaginationl

Allow me to make a serious suggestion. Could not such an organization be the answer in Reformed circles to the nettling problem of the comprehensive approach in missions? We believe, as Calvinists, that the church is called to “preach the Word” (II Tim. 4:2a); to make disciples of all nations. teaching them all things that Christ has commanded (Matt. 28:19, 20); to make known the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).

However, to make the Gospel preaching more effective today, many opine that we of the West ought to teach and share WitJl the primitive hearers of the Word some of the advantages of Western technical culture, e.g., animal husbandry, farming, hygiene and personal health, etc. Minute-Men could very well take over such tasks as their very own, financing, directing in consultation with mission boards, recruiting and training personnel and whatever else would be involved. Thus the Church would be free to carryon its more specific task of preaching the Gospel, of bringing the good tidings of God, of presenting the Living Word to a dying world.

H.R.V.T.

WHO SHOULD DO MISSION WORK?

For the right answer to the above question we should turn to Scripture. There can be no doubt as to what that answer should be. Jesus commissioned his Twelve Apostles to preach the gospel to the whole world. The broad sweep of this charge shows that Christ was charging not only those twelve men, the founders of the church, but all their legitimate successors with the great task to evangelize the nations. For though in the strict sense the apostolic office ceased with the death of the last of the Twelve, Christ spoke to them as the representatives of the Church. The very fact that our Lord commanded the gospel to be preached to “the whole creation” (Mark 16:15) shows that he wanted that Church to carry the torch of the gospel to the end of time.

It follows that the command to proclaim the gospel was given to the organized church. Only when the Church as an organization neglects this task, which is one of its principal tasks (the other being the building up of the saints in the true faith), do mission societies, established and supported by individual members of the church, have the right to send out missionaries.

The foregoing does not deny the right and duty of individual believers to proclaim the way of salvation to lost sinners. Every child of God is under obligation to be a witness for Christ. Even groups of individual Christians, laymen, have the right to engage in a collective witness for Christ but as a rule their work should be channeled through a local church or churches.

This raises the question whether a local church has the right, by itself or in conjunction with other local churches in the same locality, to choose an area for mission endeavor and support and regulate the work. It seems to us there can be no doubt about this.

Some time ago an article appeared in one of our church papers which contended that all mission work should be ecclesiastical, that is, conducted by the church -to which we of course agree; but this was interpreted to mean that only the denomination as a whole should sponsor such activity. Here was a confusion of “ecclesiastical” with “denominational.” Mission work conducted by one or more local churches is ecclesiastical, not less than when the entire denomination assumes responsibility for a certain field.

Attention is called to the fact that Paul and Barnabas were sent out as missionaries to the Gentile world not by all the Palestine churches but by the one church of Antioch. We read about this in Acts 13:1–3. Nothing is said about a conference with the leaders of the church, the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, previous and with reference to the commissioning of Paul and Barnabas as missionaries to the Gentiles. Apparently no one questioned the right of that one church to send out these emissaries of the gospel.

We do not believe that the denomination as a whole should ever be tempted to expend so much effort and money for its mission enterprises that local churches cannot afford to have fields of their own. One of the most fruitful mission activities of the Christian Reformed Church is the work of neighborhood evangelism which has been undertaken by a large number of our congregations as a local project. There is a peculiar blessing in this type of evangelism, whether parish or chapel evangelism, because it brings the field so close to all the members. The converts who arc won for Christ, the problems and the successes, the workers and their mission activity—all becomes familiar and dear to the members of the local church or groups of local churches.

May we never lose our enthusiasm for this type of evangelism.

We stated above that every Christian individual has the right and the duty to proclaim the way of salvation to the lost. This raises an important question: Is it permissible for a group of such individuals, or for a large body of laymen, to band together on their own initiative and begin to preach to and teach the unchurched?

What bearing does the general office of the believer, the “forgotten office in the church,” have on this question? We shall offer some thoughts on this subject in a following issue of our paper.

H.J.K.

A REFORMED WITNESS IN HIGH PLACE

We read with emphatic agreement and with much sati~faction the document sent by three of our Canadian Classes (Eastern Ontario, Hamilton, and Toronto) to the members of the Canadian Parliament in which they defended and pleaded for the retention of capital punishment as the law of the land.

All honor to our Canadian brethren for bearing witness in choice and dignified language and with cogent argumentation to the teaching of Scripture on this subject. They have put us in the States to shame.

We hold no brief for the custom of certain church federations, or councils, especially the National Council of Churches, for advising those in civil authority on all manner of political issues. But we do believe it is the right and the obligation of the church to shed the light of God’s Word on all important national questions when there can be no doubt about the teaching of Scripture on such issues.

Rev. John Vriend, who apparently was the author or one of the authors of this excellent testimony on capital punishment, wrote us about the reaction to the document. We quote from his letter in which he replied to one we sent him: “Members of Parliament, each of whom received a copy, reacted with surprise that such a point of view existed or expressed polite admiration, or countered with abuse. Exactly two and a half weeks after the statement reached Parliament Hill, the Minister of Justice moved the adoption of a bill proposing the retention of the death penalty but restricting the number of cases in which it was to be applied.”

The letter concludes with the sentence: “It is our hope that you will support our efforts to bring the principles of God’s Word to bear on all levels of Canadian society.”

See next page for the Statement by the three Canadian Classes.

H.J.K.