Several years ago I remarked to a seminarian friend (now a minister) that very few people in the pew, and not very many more in the consistory room, had much of an idea what the Belgic Confession said. His reply stunned me: “Maybe it’s a good thing.”

Ignorance of the Belgic Confession-one of our confessional standards, one of our forms of unity ignorance of it a good thing?

One might well think this was the current consensus in Reformed churches considering the widespread neglect of it in preaching and in teaching. Year in and year out I hear sermons which follow the Heidelberg Catechism. And this is good. Several times I have been privileged to hear sermon series which follow the “five points of Calvinism” of the Canons of Dort. And this is good too. But a sermon series on the Belgic Confession? Never. This, in my opinion, is not good.

The same situation prevails, in my experience, when it comes to catechism and adult education. When I was a youth (some 14 to 22 years ago), year after year we studied the Compendium. Sometimes we even got to look at the actual Heidelberg Catechism which stands behind the Compendium. I think that one year we even touched on the Canons of Dort and the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. But the Belgic Confession? We bad heard of its existence. Years later the Young Married Couples group at church decided to use Dr. Cornelius Plantinga’s A Place to Stand (1979, Board of Pub. of the CRC) for its lessons. Eighteen of the thirty-one lessons in this book deal with the Belgic Confession. We used only the lessons on the Canons. A couple of years later the same book was used in the Adult Sunday School class. Only the lessons on the Ecumenical Creeds and the Catechism were used. The Belgic Confession? “We’ll cover that next year.” Except next year different materials were chosen and the Confession was never studied.

And good materials on the Belgic Confession are certainly not in oversupply. Plantinga’s A Place to Stand, in this writer’s estimation, must be used, if it is used, with caution and discernment. A more trustworthy work, but also more difficult to use in a church setting, is Dr. P. Y. DeJong‘s The Church’s Witness to the World (1980, Paideia Press). DeJong’s lengthy (446 pages) and scholarly yet highly readable book will at the least afford the teacher or preacher with a very reliable and valuable resource. At present I am awaiting the delivery of H . Hoeksema’s Study Outlines on the Belgic Confession (available for $3.00 from Reformed Book Outlet, 3505 Kelly, Hudsonville, MI 49426) . I would be happy to learn of other study materials on The Belgic Confession which are currently available, but these are the only ones of which I am aware.

The Belgic Confession is neglected, and this is not good. For the Belgic Confession is a vital complement to the Catechism and Canons. It is the Confession which most clearly sets forth the Biblical doctrine of Scripture as well as the canon of Scripture. It is the Confession which most clearly delineates the Biblical doctrine of the church and her government and offices. It is the Confession that deals, mo re than the Catechism or Canons, with the relation of church and state. It is the Confession which contains some of the strongest statements affirming the historicity of Genesis.

And it is precisely these areas of Christian doctrine which are being abandoned in this age of apostacy. Indeed, this very fact probably accounts for the Confession’s having fallen into widespread disuse in the preaching and teaching of the church. Those who wish to accommodate Biblical doctrine to worldly imperatives in such matters as Biblical errancy, false ecumenical alliances, abandonment of church discipline, women in church office, liberation theology, evolution, etc., are apt to regard ignorance of the Belgic Confession as “a good thing.” But the true church neglects the Confession to its great loss.

The Belgic Confession must not be just the BELGIC Confession. It must be OUR Confession. It must not be just a confession of 16th century Belgians and 17th century Netherlanders; not merely an artifact from the past, an historical curiosity. Rather, it must be a living statement of faith. It cannot function as OUR confession if most of us do not even know what it says. By the grace of God, let us aggressively reclaim the Belgic Confession as our very own in our preaching and in our teaching.

The author of the Confession, Guido de Bres, together with many of our forefathers in the faith from of old made good on their promise of being ready to “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags, and their whole bodies to the fire,” rather than deny the truth expressed in this Confession. Shall we not make good on our promise “DILIGENTLY TO TEACH and faithfully to defend the aforesaid doctrine?” If we are faithful to that promise, it will be a good thing indeed.

David A. Kloosterman lives at 3610 Konkle St., Kalamazoo, MI 49001.