Since his retirement from editing the denominational Banner, Dr. Lester De Koster, has spoken extensively on church developments. On October 22 he addressed the large Mass Meeting of the Southwest Rural League of men’s societies at the Beverly Church in Wyoming, Michigan on the subject, “Report 44: Where Are We Now?”
The Hermeneutics of Obedience
Concerning the intended meeting, a retired Illinois minister had observed, “Why do you waste your time? There ‘s nothing in the CRC to bring to life.” Such a gloomy assessment the speaker did not accept. At this juncture humility requires that we stand in awe before a Book. Of that Bible, the Word of God, he observed that “We have to stand under this Book in order to understand it,” advocating what he called the “hermeneutics of obedience.” Such an approach to it is not popular among scholars. To that Book, foreign languages are not the key, for Augustine and Aquinas did not read the Bible in these original languages. The Bible clearly teaches those who are humble all that we need to know to obey it. This fact Reformed doctrine called “the perspicuity of Scripture.” The Bible is so plain that no one has any excuse to disobey. We grow in our understanding of it as we grow in obedience to it, although, as an English preacher observed, there are high mountains of mystery in every part of the Bible, some of which we will not climb until we have “crossed the Jordan.” Although we may not know, for example, why the gospels differ in the way they tell of events, in confronting these differences our obedience is tested. The Lord gives insight, as we grow to need it, into all of His Word. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable”—not for speculation, but “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). This is the only hermeneutics that holds out the hope of understanding. God has not made us dependent for light on some professor’s spectacles—the very idea of that is blasphemy.
The Report’s Beginnings in the Dutch Churches and Ecumenical Synod
The last thing that the CRC needed in 1972 was a synodical study on the nature and extent of Biblical authority (Report Number 44 in the Synod Agenda). Ordinary people did not want it, but some others did, we suspect, for their own interests. The is sue was relayed to us by the Reformed Ecumenical Synod for which we pay much, but receive nothing—which is neither a synod, nor ecumenical, nor Reformed , but which has been a useful tool to those who want to funnel troubling reports to our members. The Dutch Reformed Churches (GKN) initiated the discussion in 1963, referring it to our and other churches via the RES, and the CRC in 1969 appointed a committee to make the desired study. De Koster admitted having “a strange feeling” about the GKN’s urgent request for advice, since his observation in ten years of editing our churches’ Banner was that the GKN does not want and would never take advice from us—rather for about five years their delegates have been patting us on the head assuring us that some day we would “grow up and understand the problems which they are facing so courageously.” (He observed that he had heard so many of their delegates’ annual speeches that he could have written them himself and saved their travel money!) The fact was that some among us wanted this study for their own reasons, as a kind of “blank check” to cover views they did not dare to advance on their own! The resulting report gives all one could want, on one hand, and, on the other, muddies everything. Beginning with the Belgic Confession on the Bible, it ends with “cultural conditions,” making all sorts of concessions to theological speculation. As a guide to the churches, it has been a total failure.
We need trained ministers like Calvin and the Puritan preachers who drew all their light from the Scriptures—Calvin made every sermon a text sermon. For three centuries Reformed churches were so formed and flourished, but in later years, as scholarship multiplied to “a tower of Babel” of theories, and the lesson of obedience was forgotten, those churches have dwindled until they amount to less than ever before.
Flunking the Test of Biblical Loyalty
Three years ago when the speaker was asked to debate about Report 44, he was reminded that this had never been adopted as the official position of the church, although it was often alleged or assumed to be that. This report was not the cause and origin of the denomination’s problems. It was rather a symptom of the churches’ drift from their moorings in the Reformed heritage of the Scriptures. God always tests the loyalty of His churches. He chose to use the RES for a channel for the Dutch churches (GKN) to test the loyalty of our churches to the Scriptures. Our synod in 1972 flunked the test by not rejecting Report 44, and no synod since then has corrected that failure. Later we flunked a similar test in 1973 when the synod accepted a report on office and ordination which “flies in the face of the Reformed understanding of church office in every respect.” Now we have had a decade of more such synodical fumbling with questions about women in church office. It is good news that God loves us enough to test us, but it is bad news that we must wonder how long He will keep it up.
Christ came to “bear witness to the truth,” and His church is called to do the same. Our Belgic Confession lists the three Biblical “marks” of the church. The churches’ adversary has tried to undermine especially the first of these, the authority of God’s Word, by today’s criticism and hermeneutics, much of which originated in Europe. That movement was welcomed after World War Il in the Dutch churches (GKN) who posed the question to us, “What do you think of the nature and extent of the Bible’s authority? Will you hold to it or compromise it?” That test question, our churches flunked with an answer in the synod report that speaks with a double tongue. That same double tongue appears in the later reports on women in church office. God rejects such double tongues. Recall how James had to denounce such duplicity. Our committee wanted to echo the Belgic Confession and at the same time have academic freedom. Thus the Board could defend John Stek’s views and the AACS could defend its ideas with appeals to the provisions for academic freedom.
The Test of “Alive-85”
The speaker saw another example of flunking such tests in the fact that many of our local churches saw nothing wrong in supporting the recent “Alive-85” campaign. Was that campaign not an insult to the Christian Reformed pulpit? We confess that faith is a gift of the Spirit, conveyed by the Word preached (Rom. 10:17}, which should proceed in the churches under consistory supervision. In that way the elect are brought to saving faith, which is shown to be real by the works that follow. But such a (“revival”) campaign poses the questions, “Are you sure that this is the only way? Is it doing the job? Should we not add an itinerant evangelist with a different accent?—and perhaps some soft music and repeated invitations, to produce faith? Isn’t this about as far from a Reformed understanding of the church as one could get?”
The speaker recalled a Sunday School card distributed long ago in the Zeeland church, portraying Uzzah who held out his hand to steady the ark. He only wanted to give the Lord a little help, but was struck dead for his improper help. De Koster never forgot the lesson, and the Biblical reminder of his mother that “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22). We may not play lightly with the Lord’s designated methods of saving souls. Don’t say, “A little help is OK.”
Our churches have flunked repeated tests, but the Lord has not stopped testing us. We must reaffirm the Biblical heritage of the churches and seek the Reformation and renewal of the church through the Word of God.*
Seeking Church Reformation
An occasional critical observation might be raised about some points in this impressive address. The apparent dismissal of the study of Biblical languages because Augustine did not know them may be questioned. Although obedience to the Word is indispensible, we must not in the spirit of today’s activism, in any way make obedience an alternative to faith. While the Bible warns, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves,” it also insists on “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 16:26) and the need to know what and Whom we believe (Eph. 1:17ff.; 5:17). Paul welcomed some imperfect gospel preaching (Phil. 1:10) despite its faulty motivation.
Such occasional critical observations do not in any way invalidate the speaker’s main thesis that “Report 44,” by attempting to combine contradictions regarding the Bible’s authority, has become a favorite tool to destroy our churches’ doctrinal defenses against the heresies that are destroying the Netherlands’ churches which proposed its formula. The growing miseries of our churches, as they are being steadily nudged by their official editors, committees, and educators in the direction taken by the apostate churches at home and abroad, are demonstrating the rightness of De Koster’s evaluation. Let us be thankful that voices are being raised in a number of quarters to alert our churches to the way they are being officially misled. A report tells of a large well-attended meeting on September 20 in Denver, at which Dr. W. Robert Godfrey, Christian Reformed professor at Westminster Seminary at Escondido, California, spoke much as he did a few months ago in Calvin College’s auditorium at Grand Rapids, about the denominational course (July-August Outlook). There is a very recent report of a projected similar meeting at Edmonton, Alberta, where Rev. Richard Venema is to speak. We hear of similar meetings being planned and occurring in other places. The widely publicized Missouri Lutheran swing back to confessional orthodoxy almost two decades ago was preceded and promoted by such meetings in their churches’ areas. Let us pray that the current efforts to awaken our churches to what is happening to their Biblical faith may help those who are seeking to salvage as much as possible from the increasing debacle, and lead us back to a church that will be honest and unambiguous in seeking to believe, preach and do God’s Word.
PDJ
• Tapes of the entire address may be obtained from Mr. Robert E. Smits, Box 29, Grandville, MI 49418 at $3.00 each.