The above words are taken from a question found in Psalm 11:3, which was faced by David. Friends advised him to run and hide because his life was in real danger. Open warfare is one thing, but to shoot from ambush is quite another. One might, so David’ s friends reason, fight fire with fire. There is an old saying that, “All is fair in love and war!” But these friends are saying that one has to have something to fight for. They suggest that for David there isn’t. Accordingly, they answer the question, “It’s no use to fight, David, because the foundations are being destroyed. What can you or any other of God’s children do when that occurs? Why risk your life for a lost cause?”
The exact occasion in David’s life that prompted such a question isn’t really known. It seems to best fit the time of Saul’s reign. Saul went his own way, not God’s way. He obeyed God’s will when it suited him, but set it aside when it didn’t. Occasionally he shed some crocodile tears in apparent repentance but went his own way anyway. That meant that the very foundation on which the church and nation oflsrael were built was being destroyed. Saul led the people away from, and in rebellion against, God’s clear commands. He even dared to seek the life of David whom, Saul knew, the Lord had anointed. Then we can understand the counsel of David’s friends. Things were going from bad to worse. What’s left to fight for? Just throw in the towel and run for a safe hiding place.
David’s answer is, in effect, that God’s cause is never in vain. It cannot be defeated. Those who disobey, put aside or tamper with the Truth cannot win. They are bound to lose, because they have to answer to the Lord. Besides that, when the battle gets hottest and toughest, God’s soldiers must not run and hide, but stand up and be counted. They are sure to win because God is with them. In the end they will stand with the Lord, but “on the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulphur” (Ps. 11:6). Or, to say it with Luther, “The body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still.” In other words, David’s answer is simply this: Never quit the fight, for the victory is assured.
Today questions similar to the above are being asked by members of the Christian Reformed Church. Such questions arise from what members see happening among us. Many sense that the kind of thinking in our denomination, brought on by a new way of interpreting the Scripture, is destroying the very foundations on which the Church, home and society are, and only can be, built or established. They see, and I judge, correctly, that we are following with alarming speed, the thinking and practices found today in the Gereformeerde Kerken in the Netherlands. When we bring in the new hermeneutic, as we see it being introduced among us today, foundations are being destroyed. They are being destroyed because the Scriptures, the only sure foundation for all of life, are being attacked.
The Scriptures have much to say about foundations. The apostle Paul declares, “By the grace of God given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder. . .” (I Cor. 3:10). He spoke of the church of Corinth as being “God’s building,” (I Cor. 3:9) and to the Ephesians he said that they were “members of God’s household , built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the Chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:19–22). The Scriptures warns us that we must be careful that we do not destroy the building ofGod because we are not building on that one foundation, that is Christ Jesus (I Cor. 3:12–15). We are called to “prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12, 13). That call goes to those in the special offices in the first place, but the whole church is involved in this program of building up in the faith, building on the sure foundation.
It is here that we face our gravest problems today. The only way one can build is on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, that is, God’s Word. But how can we build when that Word of God is being disannulled by those who are leaders in the church? What can the members of the church do when that Word of God is taken away from them? And here the question of Psalm 11:3 is applicable, “What can the righteous do when the foundations are being destroyed?”
What answer shall we then give? The answer David gave to it: Don’t yield. Don’t succumb to the new hermeneutic. Stand up for God’s Truth as the Church through past ages has understood it. Don’t let the smoke-screen of learned, yet erring, leaders beguile us. Uphold the Truth, contend for it with all your might, and prayerfully seek to stem the terrible tide of the foundations—destroying power of the new hermeneutic. Once we give up and yield to it we are undone.
Recently we had the privilege of speaking briefly to two men from the Netherlands. They were sent by the synod of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN) to speak to leaders in the Christian Reformed Church about the importance of maintaining strong ecclesiastical ties with the GKN. They were the professors J.T. Bakker and K.A. Schippers. In our discussions with these men we learned that they have no Bible left, that is, what we understand by the word “Bible.” The new hermeneutic has gone so far there that men grope for some guidance as to how to behave in this modern world. No longer is Scripture a guide but a kind of “source” out of which they may hopefully ferret some kind of knowledge which way the Lord wants us to conduct ourselves in present society. That is sad beyond words to express it. And we are running swiftly after them. Do they perhaps know this and want us to run just a bit faster? To follow that course will be fatal.
Discussions with such leaders from the Netherlands alert us to the crossroads at which we are presently standing in the CRC. Unless we act now it may be forever too late. For the destroying of the foundations of our whole life as Church, family and society leads to their sure destruction. Today we must stop that destruction and keep building or start rebuilding that which has been destroyed, so that the CRC will not go under. Obeying Scripture’s call, we must all contend with all of our might for the faith once delivered to us. May God give us the courage to do so.
Cecil Tuininga, Edmonton, Alberta
The saddest, and, from a biblical point of view, the most devastating aspect of the 1984 synod’s action on the women issue is its complete lack of biblical evidence. Trying to salvage something for which there was no biblical grounds, synod grasped at straws by appealing to so me vague “exceptions” in the Bible and in church history. It is generally said that the exception proves the rule, but in this case the exception became the rule and the plain rule ofScripture was set aside. Prof. Runner correctly described it (in Chr. Renewal) as a “dreadful decision,” “surrounded by so much muddled thinking and a complete confusion, to the point of mental bankruptcy.”
What the CRC did in the synod of 84 was to accommodate to the spirit of the age around us. And as Francis Schaeffer reminds us in his latest book, The Great Evangelical Disaster, “to accommodate to the world spirit about us in our age is the most gross form of worldliness in the proper definition of the word.” He goes on to say that “the mentality of accommodation is indeed a disaster . . . . It is this same world spirit which is destroy ing both church and society.” Notwithstanding all the pious rhetoric on the part of many delegates, the synod o f 1984 showed that the CRC would rather be conformed to the spirit of the age than to be led by the Spirit that is from above. It is this compromising attitude, this fear of being out o f step with the secular spirit of our society that is the most prevalent and sickening characteristic of the CRC in recent years. It’s the mentality of Laodicea: being neither cold nor hot. Says God: “I wish you were cold or hot.” A clear stand in either direction is better than this half–hearted, tepid mentality which tries to cover worldliness with pious icing.
I am happy that Mid–America Ref. Seminary came out with a clear statement on this matter. I follow in those steps by publicly serving notice herewith that I will not serve any congregation that nominates women for the special offices. This kind of lack of respect and even disdain for what the Bible says must be opposed. It is to be hoped that many churches, consistories and members will stand up and be counted. Now!
J. Tuninga, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.