Rev. John H. Piersma is pastor of the Bethany Christian Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois. His article deals with the teaching of Reprobation as this is found in the Doctrinal Standards of the CRC, and with a communication from Dr. Harry Boer about this, to be considered at Synod. This matter may be found on page 479ff. in the 1976 Agenda.

The Christian Reformed Church requires of all office-bearers that they sign the Form of Subscription. This signature is required upon ordination for ministers, upon installation for elders and deacons, upon convocation at classis and synod. We don‘t know if the practice still exists, hut not long ago all faculty members at Calvin College were required to sign this “oath of office.”

The Form of Subscription is an oath of office. It is a very strong statement to the effect that one is in wholehearted agreement with the creeds of the church. It is as specific as it is strong: it requires that one declare that he is in agreement with the Synod of Dort and its statements of doctrine drawn up against the Arminian heresy. We are disposed to refute and contradict these and to exert ourselves in keeping the Church from such errors,” says the Form. The reason of such subscription is the confession that we believe the creeds to “fully agree with the Word of God.”

The Form of Subscription in Today‘s World – It is easy to understand that such a document as the Form of Subscription (you can find it on p. 71 in the section entitled “Doctrinal Standards” in the back of the Psalter Hymnal) would have some trouble in our world. We live in a time of disrespect and dishonesty. Moral commitments are easily set aside. Ordination vows arc not taken as seriously as they deserve.

Our beloved Christian Reformed Church has not escaped this malady. A very knowledgeable and prominent minister said to me some time ago, “Who doesn’t know that many ministers are signing the Form of Subscription today with mental reservations.” And Dr. Harry Boer has recently written, “In sober fact, any minister who signs the Form of Subscription without mental reservations is too ignorant and unintelligent a person to be entrusted with the mysteries of the gospel.”

Synod of 1976 will face this issue in terms of Agenda Report 38, “Revision of the Form of Subscription.” The possibility of easy agreement on what to do with the Form seems remote, for Report 38 features recommendations by a majority and two “minorities,” Professor John Stek and Dr. Dewey ). Hoitenga, Jr. We hope fervently that Synod wi1l adopt the recommendations of the Majority (Elco H. Oostendorp, Harry Arnold, Alexander C. De Jong, Richard Prince, Edwin Roels, William Post).

But we are not intending an in-depth review of this Committee‘s work here. We mention the above, simply to say that the church is having trouble with the official vows required of office-bearers and delegates to broader assemblies, We are not at peace with our own promises!

Report 45: Committee Re Communication of Dr. Harry Boer –For somelhing like len years Dr. Harry Doer has been speaking, off and on, about the doctrine of double predestination, election and reprobation, especially in relation to the matter of Gospel proclamation. As a missionary-teacher for theological students in Nigeria, Dr, Boer finds himself faced, of course, with the need to say something about these things. He has found it very difficult to explain the doctrine of reprobation to his African students. These students, he explains, arc only interested in doctrines for which there is convincing biblical evidence. Such evidence he has not been able to find.

For that and other reasons he addressed a letter to the 1975 Synod, in which he asks synod to provide him with biblical proof for such creedal statements as . . .

that some receive the gift of faith from God “and others do not receive it,proceeds from God‘s eternal decree” (Canons of Dort, I, 6). … not all, but some only are elected, “while others are passed by in the eternal decree; whom God out of his sovereign, most just, irreprehensible and unchangeable good pleasure, has decreed to leave in the common misery into which they have willfully plunged themselves, and not to bestow upon them saving faith and the grace of conversion . . . (Canons of Dort, I, 15).

Technically, “the problem confronting the Synod of 1975 with Dr, Boer‘s letter was its status in view of the fact that he did not bring it as an appeal from previous consistorial and classical decisions, nor did he wish it to be construed as a gravamen concerning the doctrine of reprobation.” So states Report 45, The ideas here stated with commendable accuracy and brevity are, first, the procedure in the church courts is normally from the consistory to classis to synod, and, second, anything of a complaint or allegation against the creeds must take the form of gravamen, That rather formidable word is used to describe a biblically based, carefully stated position calling for deletion, alteration, or expansion of the creeds on the part of the church.

The idea of a gravamen has been, I think, that the person presenting such a statement must bear the burden of proof. In other words, the creeds are to be held as true unless and until the church has formally adopted corrections or additions.

The uniqueness of Dr. Boer‘s letter is that it does not 6t the usual patterns, as Report 45 indicates, Is it a protest against something consistory and/or classis have done? No. Is it a gravamen in which a case is made for something else than the creeds now say? Again, No.

Synod of 1975 was not willing to push Dr. Boer‘s letter aside. In fact, several delegates, we are told, stood up to confess that they, too, had serious difficulties with the creedal statements on reprobation. Synod thus came to say that Dr. Boer‘s letter represented “a legitimate concern to which the church should address herself.” And this led to a decision to appoint a gilt-edged committee, Rev. Clarence Boomsma, president of the 1975 Synod, Rev. William Brink, denominational stated clerk, and Dr. John Kromminga, president of Calvin Seminary, with the mandate to advise the 1976 Synod as to “the status of communications like that of Dr. Harry Boer which purport to be neither appeals nor gravamina,” and “the proper method for synod to deal with them.”

Report 45 contains that committee’s advice.

The Committee and the Gravamen Concept – The committee seems to share synod’s opinion that Dr. Boer’s letter represents “a legitimate concern” which requires church consideration. Just why it is legitimate is not easy to determine. So far as the laws governing such matters go, it hardly seems possible to use the term legitimate. Perhaps the word means only to indicate that lots of Christian Reformed people, especially the pastors, are having serious problems with reprobation as defined in our creeds.

The committee‘s recommendation is very logical. The syllogism would go this way: Gravamina usually call into question some assertion of the creeds. Dr. Boer questions in his letter an assertion of the creeds. Dr. Boer‘s letter is really a gravamen.

The full statement of the Committee‘s recommendations (Agenda 1976, p, 483) reads:

We respectfully recommend:

1. That synod declare that any communication, though it may purport to be neither an appeal nor a gravamen, which does in fact express doubt about any expression or teaching of the confession of the church should be dealt with as a gravamen.

2. That synod declare that the communication of Dr. Harry Boer to the Synod of 1975 (No, 4) is essentially a gravamen and must be received by synod as such.

3. That synod declare that the request of Dr. Boer be open for public discussion and study in the churches. 4. That the Rev. C. Boomsma be given the privilege of the floor when this report is under consideration by synod.

The important point here, we believe, is that it indicates the real scope of the complaint Dr. Boer is signalizing by his seemingly simple request for biblical proof. That request might seen to be both limited and harmless, even though we wonder as to the practicability of a synod declaring officially that one must believe a particular exegesis of some parts of Scripture which allegedly bear on the problem(s) at hand. Can biblical interpretation be done in that fashion?

But the matter is not really limited at all. As the Committee says, “In his [Dr. Boer‘s] judgment by requesting synod to provide the scriptural testimony the church will be properly pressed to evaluate the doctrine of reprobation as taught in the church as well as considering its role in the life of the denomination today” (1976 Agenda, p. 481).

In other words, the whole business is being brought on the floor by this question.

Is This Good Advice? – I’d like to offer at this point a brief reaction to the Committee‘s recommended use of the word gravamen. In our judgment it is not advisable to use the term in such a loose and expanded manner. Take note of the total lack of qualification in the first recommendation: . . . “any communication . . . which does in fact express doubt about any expression or teaching of the confessions of the church should be dealt with as a gravamen.” Really?

And the decision to regard something as a gravamen is now to be another synodical prerogative. Even though a given communication “purport(s) to be neither an appeal nor a gravamen” synod should claim the obligation to give it such status anyway.

That may get Dr. Boer’s letter on the table for gravamen-type treatment, but the price, it seems to me, is very steep! Synod ought to ask itself if this kind of advice is really in the best interest of the churches.

Back to Reprobation: Is it Unbiblical? – Reprobation is not an easy or pleasant subject, but it has a prominent place in Reformed doctrine. Article XVI of the Belgic Confession, entitled “Eternal Election,” states:

We believe that, all the posterity of Adam being thus fallen into perdition and ruin by the sin of our first parents, God then did manifest Himself such as He is; that is to say, merciful and just: merciful, since He delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom He in His eternal and unchangeable counsel of mere goodness has elected in Christ Jesus our Lord without any respect to their works; just, in leaving others in the fall and perdition wherein they have involved themselves.

The Canons of Dort devote the entire First Head of Doctrine to “Divine Election and Reprobation.” If you will take time to read the Canons you will discover that it is hardly possible to extricate references to reprobation from this creed without doing violence to the total statement.

As the Committee indicates, Dr. Boer intends that the entire doctrine, even its current role in the life of the church, should come up for discussion. I think it is quite fair to say that the intent of this discussion is not unprejudiced, but to show that reprobation is not good for the church because it is really unbiblical. Dr. Boer is reported to have written,

As a teaching of the Church it (reprobation) has become a creedal appendix that appears to have no function in the body ecclesiastic. A diseased appendix can, however, playa most destructive role in the body. That is precisely what reprobation is doing in the Christian Reformed Church. The diseased condition arises from the fact that the general disbelief in the doctrine has not resulted in its rejection as a central doctrine of the Church.

This is hardly complimentary language so far as the doctrine of reprobation is concerned!

It might be helpful to note here that we ought not to think that Dr. Boer is alone in his low estimate of the reprobation doctrine. He has with him no one other than the greatest of all theologians—reputation-wise at least—Professor Dr. C. C. Berkouwer. He wrote recently, “To me it has become increasingly clear that the scriptural proof of reprobation from eternity does not hold . . .” (Jerusalem and Athens, E. R. Geehan, Edit. p. 200). In the same essay Berkouwer tells us that his church, the Gereformeerde Kerken in the Netherlands, has already decided that the statements on reprobation in the Canons have no Scriptural foundation.

In other words: Dr. Boer’s letter is another reverberation from the other side of the Atlantic.

But is reprobation a biblical idea? Can we prove from Scripture that God elects some and passes others by?

“Here,” says Berkol1wer (op. cit. p. 199), “we enter the field of hermeneutics, the problems concerning the interpretation of Scripture.” In other words, Report 45 in Agenda 1976 relates to Report 44 Agenda 1972 (the famous “Report 44”!).

Hermeneutics is the study of the methodological principles of interpretation. That difficult sentence means that people read the Bible, for example, from a certain previously adopted point-of-view. It is not too much to say that the nature of one‘s hermeneutics determines just what one will think that he is seeing when he reads the Bible. In our time this is a raging controversy, even though many seem unaware of it. That discussion centers about this question, What does the so-called “human element” in the writing of Scripture mean for its understanding? Can we read “Paul” if we don’t know much or anything about his character, background, parentage, education, etc.? Can we read the Bible intelligently with a primary conviction that it is really the Word of God?

Without getting into this too deeply, we wish to say that Berkouwer‘s assertion is correct. Proof in Scripture for reprobation as historically understood will not be found by anyone whose hermeneutics differ radkally from that of, say, John Calvin. And that is why we are predicting that the whole discussion on reprobation which synod is likely to recommend or even undertake may end just where Berkouwer himself has ended, while many of us, working with the “old hermeneutics” will be as convinced as ever that the Reformed creeds are eminently biblical, even on the doctrine of reprobation!