The church is in the world, but not of it. It is difficult to keep a scriptural balance here. In the past the church was often too little in the world. Today in many cases she is too much of the world. As a result, the salt loses its savor and becomes good for nothing. Prof. Van Riessen wrote some time ago that if certain tendencies in the Geref. Kerken would get the upper-hand, the gospel would be watered down to such an extent that on the one hand there would be nothing standing in the way of a worldling joining the church, for he would not have to change his thinking and living at all in order to do that. On the other hand, said Van Riessen, there would be no good reason for his joining the church, for the church would not offer him anything that he did not already have in the world.
Jesus prays to His Father: I ask not that You would take them out of the world, but that You would keep them from the evil one. Paul warns us not to he conformed to this world –not to let the world squeeze us into its mold. And John says we must test the spirits to see whether they are from Cod. Important and abiding admonitions for us all.
It is so easy to take these admonitions and apply them to matters on which we all agree, to sins and temptations of a “gross” nature which don’t seriously threaten the church. It‘s much harder to take these admonitions to heart regarding patterns of thinking and living which are no less worldly but which appear attractive, which come with a “soft-sell” approach, and which may even be mixed with an element of goodness or truth. And yet it is especially this type of temptation (worldliness) that Paul and John have in mind. For that reason we must test (discern ) the spirits, and also discern (NEB) (“sense for yourselves” –Berkeley) what the perfect will of God is. That takes a mature and discriminating Christian mind. We must be aware of “the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13). In the church the devil often appears as an angel of light or a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
A case in point is the current demand for women in ecclesiastical office. Rev. Haverkamp, editor of De Wachter, wrote recently that he was of the opinion that the so-called Women’s Liberation Movement in the world around us has been a strong influence in the call to open all three offices in the church to women in the CRC. He is entirely correct. And the strident, revolutionary spirit of this Movement is becoming more and more evident in the behavior of its advocates in the church—witness the persistent efforts of Mrs. Rienstra in seeking ordination, and the article by Mrs. Wolterstorff in the August issue of Reformed Journal. How far removed such an attitude is from that enjoined upon in Titus 2:3–5 and I Peter 3:1–61 How sad that many of our leaders fail to see the spirit of the age determining the course of the church. (The same is true of the dance issue.) They would rather not hear Paul’s warning about conforming to the world in this respect. It hits too close to home. We hear many “enlightened” arguments trying to prove that, of course, Paul was not talking about these matters. We like the world too much to admit guilt.
In conclusion, a quotation from a little booklet entitled The Bible and the Life of the Christian:
“The feminist thinks it necessary to rush with all her wisdom to the defence of the equality of rights for male and female, but forgets that the family is the indispensible condition for the survival of the nation as a whole (Prov. 14:28). Besides, she fails to recognize the very nature of womanhood and unconsciously posits manhood as the ideal.”
This little booklet was published some years ago by the Groen Van Prinsterer Society of Grand Rapids, Mich. It contains a lot of sound, biblical advice for our day and age. Unfortunately, many erstwhile members of this Society have forgotten or choose to ignore what this book has to say about feminism.
There is nothing new under the sun. The onslaught of the spirit of the age (the Spirit from the abyss) against the church continues. We must continue to resist that spirit in the power of the Spirit from above.
