As a minister of the gospel, ordained in the Christian Reformed Church, I have been called as a watchman on the walls of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 33) to sound the trumpet when the enemy comes. In the form of subscription which I signed I have promised not only to “diligently teach and faithfully defend the aforesaid doctrine” but also “to refute and contradict . . . and reject all errors . . . and to exert myself in keeping the church free from such errors.”1
This is why I feel compelled to write this article. I am deeply concerned for the spiritual welfare of our people. There are many voices being heard creating confusion in the churches today. I grieve for the many young people who have become slaves to sin through drugs, alcohol, gambling and other vices. I grieve for the many fine young women who have come back from schools and colleges totally confused about their task and role in society. There is increasing despair with those who are involved in the sin of adultery, common-law living and homosexuality. The latter are told in some of our publications that they will have to learn to “live” with their “condition.” I am grieved for the next generation, for our people have been told they can now dance to the glory of God. It is even their duty to redeem this area for Christ! Yet every person who has turned from slavery to sin to a new life in Christ will tell you that today’s forms of social dancing will only lead to further breakdown of marriages and illicit sex. Unbelieving psychologists have often stated that present dance forms are sexually provocative. Scripture again and again warns us to flee sexual immorality.
Why is there so much confusion among our members? James 1:22–25 teaches that we must not only “listen to the Word . . . but the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this not forgetting what he has heard but doing it he will be blessed in what he does . . . and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” However, the Word of the Lord is no longer clear to many of our people. The “perfect law that gives freedom” (perfect law of liberty) is being cast into doubt. Many of our members have serious difficulty with just exactly what the Bible is saying on many crucial points that affect their every day living. What used to be crystal clear: the authority of the scriptures, the creation account in Genesis, the earthquake in Matt. 28, the decree of reprobation, God’s love for the elect (limited atonement), the place of women in the church, the headship of man, capital punishment, Christian lifestyle (e.g. dancing) is no longer clear. In fact the church’s stand on much of the above has been changed in the last ten years. No wonder that there is so much confusion! No wonder that our members are losing their Christian freedom. More and more of our families are suffering from the increased slavery to sin.
An amazing situation has developed. More and more “help” is being offered to those suffering from broken homes, broken marriages, homosexuality, etc. Counselling centers are springing up all over the place. Marriage enrichment weekends are being offered. Never before in the history of our churches have their been more opportunities for social interaction. There are youth rallies, youth services and camp weekends. Our elderly meet every week for “koffie” and socializing. With all of our opportunities for counselling and fellowship, are we growing in the knowledge of the Word and its regenerating power in our lives?
Are the marks of the Christian as expressed in the Belgic Confession (Art. 29) that: “when having received Jesus Christ the only Saviour they avoid sin, follow after righteousness, love the true God and their neighbour, neither turn aside to the right or left and crucify the flesh with the works thereof,” visible in our members? Surely there are many in whom they are, and we can praise the Lord for that. But there is more confusion than clarity among our members on what to believe and on how they should live. Because of this confusion, there seems to be an apathy, a lack of concern, an assumption that all is well with us and we are at peace, settling over our church.
We are at a point in the history of our church where not just one particular doctrine is being changed, or our lifestyles are being changed, but the foundation of our faith is being changed. There is an insidious attack upon the Word of God today. “No more subtle menace has confronted the church of Christ since the Protestant Reformation in the days of Luther and Calvin.”2 Error never announces its coming. Paul already warned the Ephesian elders that “wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:29–30). We do not want to believe this to be true for any minister, professor, elder, deacon or any other member in the C.R.C. Yet scripture warns us that this is precisely how Satan is continually coming as an angel of light to destroy the church.
How do you discern these things? Dr. J . G. Machen’s warning also applies today: “Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology.”3 Dr. Francis Schaeffer states: “The new liberals do raise a definite chorus that the Bible is not the Word of God. Their well-known words are, ‘The Bible is not the Word of God, but contains the Word of God.’ Protestantism has historically centered its authority in the Bible. But the new liberals, although they have cut loose from this, still act as if they have an authority. It is as though a man had torn down a bridge and then walked across the thin air as if the bridge were still there. In theory the new liberal said, especially some years ago, that the Bible contains the Word of God and that God will make certain portions of the Bible the Word of God to the individual as he reads it. That is why neo-orthodoxy was sometimes called ‘crisis theology.’ A man is reading along and some portion of the Bible suddenly becomes the Word of God to him and this is a crisis, as though lightning had struck him from above. Such is the theory. But in practice each individual reader must decide for himself what is the Word of God in the Bible and what is not.”4 Have we reached the point in the C.R.C. today where each individual reader must decide for himself what is the Word of God in the Bible and what is not?
Ask yourself, in the light of scripture, what did the reports on the infallibility of scripture, the authority of scripture, homosexuality, reprobation, love of God, women in office, capital punishment and dancing accomplish? Have they helped our churches to become more pure, a greater light and more seasoned salt in the world? Have they brought more spiritual life or growth, or have they had a “watering down” affect? I am afraid that the answer is all too obvious, and one reason for our plight is that we can no longer hear the voice of the Lord as clearly as we ought.
If we do not have a clear Word of God, we do not have a clear voice of Christ. Dr. C. Van Til clearly said: “It is impossible to hear Christ except in Scripture.” Instead of depreciating the Scripture we should magnify it as the “last act in which the revelation of God in Christ for this dispensation is completed.” What he was and what he did redemptively for the world, he himself has explained to us by giving his Spirit to the apostles so that they should write down the meaning of his work . . . . The event of Christ has taken place and the meaning of the event has been given to us by Christ himself in his Word. . . . Thus the Scripture is the always “living youthful word, which God in our time through His people gives to us. . . . The Scripture is the daily contact between heaven and earth, between Christ and his church, between God and his children.” “The Scripture binds us not only to the past but also to the living Lord in heaven who determined that past as well as the present and future.”5 A return to our Lord in every area of life means a return to the Lord of the Scriptures. Reformation today means a return to the Scriptures.
Are we really in need of a reformation? Is it really true that in our 125 year history we are at the point of apostasy? I want to draw your attention to the shift in thinking that has taken place in the Gereformeerde Kerken in Holland concerning the scriptures and then look at the direction in which our denomination is going. Some will deny the connection between ourselves and the G.K.N., but the parallels are too obvious to overlook.
G.K.N. History
In 1926 the G.K.N. Synod of Assen declared that “the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the serpent speaking and the tree of life must be understood in the obvious intended sense . . . and are realities perceptible t o the senses.”6 In other words the plain historical facts are recorded in Genesis 1 & 2. But in 1967 the G.K .N. Synod declared that even t hough they fully shared the concern of Assen 1926, they did not consider themselves “qualified to judge the essential nature of the scriptural events in Gen. 2 & 3 . . . therefore the 1926 Assen decision is no longer considered binding on the churches.”7 Thus Genesis was clearly understood as an actual historical account in 1926, but in 1967 it was not clear at all. This reflects an obvious change in thinking.
What has happened since 1967? Have the scriptures become clearer—not only Genesis but many other portions as well? No, in fact the opposite is true. The 1980 Dutch report on biblical authority tells us that: “from a scientific point of view there are no sufficient grounds for the assertion that the Bible would be more reliable in respect to history than other sources.”8 We are also asked to believe that “Jesus may not exactly have used the words or performed the acts in the way the evangelist describes it. In that case the evangelist, following an accepted practice in the ancient near East made use of a historical design to preach the good tidings of Jesus Christ from the Old Testament.”9
Much more could be said, but this is enough to prove the point. What became the official stand of the G.K.N. in 1980 is the exact opposite to their stand in 1926. There is a complete turn about.
Yet Dr. V. Hepp, who was the G.K.N. representative at our 1930 Synod held in Grand Rapids, said this about the 1926 Assen decision: “Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the Synod Assen, 1926 and Groningen, 1927 stood firm for the Reformed truth over against error which concerned the authority of Scripture.”10 Prof. S. Greydanus, comment ing on the same incident, remarked that the minister in question (in 1926) “wanted a freedom of understanding certain events in Gen. 2 & 3 which put the historical reality of the event into doubt.” The only conclusion we can come to is that, by its complete reversal, the G.K.N. now holds to “error over against truth.” We must conclude either this, or that the synod of 1926 and Dr. Hepp were totally wrong. One thing is certain, in 1930 the attempt to change the authority of Scripture and the new understanding of Genesis which brought doubt on the historical reality of the events recorded in scripture were considered heretical.
How is it possible that what was considered to be heresy in 1930 became truth in 1980? What changed the “lie” into “truth”? We have some historical evidence which helps us find the answer. In 1961 one of the G.K.N. ministers asked in what way the decision of Assen (1926) with regard to the tree in the garden and the serpent speaking was still binding on the churches. In other words, some more “freedom” to understand these events was being asked for. The Synod appointed a committee to investigate the matter and they reported the following year that “the doctrinal statement of Assen 1926 no longer adequately functions in the church . . . because the developments in science and the understanding of history required that the traditional view of Gen. 2 & 3 must be let go.”12
This is why the change took place in the G.K.N., but at what price! The results have been devastating! In 1926 the members of the church could read their Bibles and believe all that was written in the scriptures to be a true and accurate account of history because God wrote the Book. Now in 1982 church members have only a Bible with a lot of helpful information in it, and it may be one of the means by which God may speak to them as they read it (neo-orthodoxy), but as a whole, its every word has no authority!
What are the consequences? A spiritual apostasy much worse than Israel’s, for we are the “ones on whom the ends of the ages have come.” (Col. 1:26) When practising homosexuals are welcomed to the Lord’s Table, you are no longer a church of Jesus Christ. Such a “church” is abhorrent to a Holy, loving and just God.
(to be continued)
1. p. 117 Psalter Hymnal 1976 Edition
2. Charles Woodbridge, The New Evangelism, p. 27
3. J. Gesham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, p. 2
4. Francis Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, p. 25
5. Cornelius Van Til, In Defense of the Faith, p. 27, quoting Bavinck
6. G.K.N. Acts of Synod, Art. 209, 1926.
7. G.K.N. Acts of Synod, 1967–68, p. 156, Assen Rep. 1926, p. 907
8. G.K.N. “Report on Biblical Authority,” p. 67
9. G.K.N. “Report on Biblical Authority,” p. 77
10. Acts of Synod (C.R. C.) 1990, p. 958, Supplement XV
11. Acts of Synod 1926, p. 3–42 Bylage XVIII G.K.N.
12. G.K.N. Acts ofSynod, Bylage 1969/64, p. 169 ff.
NOTE: Rev. Harry J . Bout has for the past year been pastor ofthe Maranatha Christian Reformed Church of Bowmanville, Ontario. After extensive discussion with his consistory of the issues raised in this article, he in August asked the consistory to publicly declare its convictions regarding them. When a majority refused this support, he offered his resignation. Five weeks later Classis Quinte declared him deposed from the ministry because of his resignation.