This is the second and concluding installment of the address of Rev. Rein Leestma of the Christian Reformed Church of Lynwood, Ill. at the Sept. 29, 1977 annual meeting of the Reformed Fellowship. The matter with which it deals promises to be a major item on the agenda of the C.R. Synod in June. It is brought to the synod by a gravamen, a formal objection to the Churches’ creed by Dr. Harry Boer.

Our Creed Misrepresented

It is necessary now, however, to give attention to another objection which the gravamen raises. The gravamen states that by the doctrine of reprobation is to be understood “that credal confession of the Christian Reformed Church which teaches an unchangeable decree made in eternity by God which has the same irrevocable binding power as God’s decree of election and which effects the declaration set forth in I/5 above.” It must be at once made plain that this summarization of the gravamen does not reflect the approach, spirit, or even the words of the creed itself. This is “the straw man” of the gravamen; it is not what the creed says. The gravamen should have taken note of the conclusion attached by the Synod to the Canons. “Whence it clearly appears that some, whom such conduct by no means became, have violated all truth, equity, and charity, in wishing to persuade the public: that the doctrine of the Reformed Churches . . . makes God the author of sin, unjust, tyrannical, hypocritical; . . . that the same doctrine teaches that God, by a mere arbitrary act of his will, without the least respect or view to any sin, has predestinated the greatest part of the world to eternal damnation, and has created them for this very purpose; that in the same manner in which the election is the fountain and cause of faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety; that many children of the faithful are torn, guiltless, from their mothers’ breasts and tyrannically plunged into hell; so that neither baptism nor the prayers of the church at their baptism can at all profit them;’ and many other things of the same kind which the Reformed Churches not only do not acknowledge, but even detest with their whole soul.”

The gravamen calls for “the express testimony of sacred Scripture” for what it says that the creed says. But what exactly does the creed say? It does not say what the gravamen says it says. Article I/15 says, “What peculiarly tends to illustrate and recommend to us the eternal and unmerited grace of election is the express testimony of sacred Scripture that not all, but some only, are elected, while others are passed by in the eternal decree; . . . “It becomes plain that the fundamental consideration of the article is both the eternal and the unmerited grace of election. The issue here is the sovereign choosing of the transcendent God who in His divine freedom chooses according to his own good pleasure certain specific individuals from out of the fallen human race unto redemption in Christ. This choosing is not conditioned by any historical factor, whether it be nobility, willingness, or fore–seen faith. This choosing is determined only by His good pleasure that the “excellency thereof may not be of men but of God.” (Ephesians 1:3 ff). Here, in fact, is the crucial point which must be unqualifiedly answered. Does God elect, eternally, unchangably, and unconditionally a certain fixed number of particular individuals unto salvation –, in distinction from others who are not so chosen?

If we are going to drift in the direction of a Barthian understanding of election then we will have to drop Article 7 and 10 of the First Head of doctrine too. Article 7 declares: “Election is the unchangeable purpose of God, whereby, before the foundation of the world, He has, out of mere grace, according to the sovereign good pleasure of His own will, chosen from the whole human race, which had fallen through their own fault from their primitive state of rectitude into sin and destruction, a certain number of persons to redemption in Christ . . .” Article 10 states: “He was pleased out of the common mass of sinners to adopt some certain persons as peculiar people to himself . . .” Lord’s Day 7 of the Heidelberg will then also have to be dropped which says, “Are all men then, saved by Christ as they perished through Adam?” “No; but only those who by a true faith are ingrafted into Him and receive all His benefits.”

The question before us is exactly this: Did God so choose some certain specific individuals out of the fallen human race unto redemption in Christ so that there are also certain specific individuals whom He did not so choose? The cause for the choosing of these some is found in God and the fault for the not choosing of the others is found in themselves not in God. The choosing and the not choosing are, however, in the plan and decree of the sovereign God who works all things after the counsel of His will.

Destructive Results of Approving the Gravamen

If we are not sure of this, then we have only two alternatives. Either quit talking about election and lose the only assurance of salvation that there is, or else re–define election into something other than what the creed says. If we opt for the latter then there are many alternatives open to us. Not the least of these today is a Barthian reconstruction in which all men are elect in Christ even as Christ is the great reprobate for all men. If we go in this direction then the election which is in Christ is there on the shelf for all men if they but choose to take it. This is an Arminian construction which is contrary to the Word of God and robs God of both His freedom and His honor. We can also drift into a universalism in which all men, being elect in Christ, will yet somehow finally be saved. In this case it becomes quite unnecessary to go to church anymore and to preach and hear the gospel and believe. The line here is that all men are saved but they don’t know it. If this is the drift of our denominational thinking then we are in trouble not only with Articles 1!6 and I/15 but with the whole Canon—indeed with the whole Bible. I have the distinct feeling that this is indeed the case. It is not surprising then that the “Smile, God loves you” bumper sticker seems to have such wide appeal.

The “Express Testimony of Sacred Scripture”

Now it must be clearly seen that the “express testimony of sacred Scripture” of which the creed speaks and which the gravamen is demanding are not the same. The gravamen demands express testimony of sacred Scripture for what it says the creed says. But what the creed says is not what the gravamen says it says. The creed speaks of the “express testimony of sacred Scripture that not all, but some only, are elected . . .” This is what the creed says because this is what the Bible says. Some only are elected. This is the express testimony of sacred Scripture and if this has to be argued then we are really in trouble. All the texts set forth in the Canon as well as in the gravamen attest to this fact.

If this is not the case, then there are two alternatives open to us. Either that none are elect, in which case the present discussion would be impossible and useless, or that all are elect in which case the present discussion would be ridiculous and irrelevant.

The issue here is first of all the particularity of grace and the assurance of election. God is only free when he can so choose some and not others. The cause for the choosing is found in God and the fault for the not choosing is found in sinful man, but both of these are according to the decree of God who worketh all things after the counsel of His will. Now it is indeed true that here there are some things that are “past finding out” for us. In the face of the sovereign God we can do one of two things. Either bow in humble acknowledgment of His greatness or else reduce Him to the size where He will fit into our intellectual vest pocket. If we do the latter we may be recognized by our modern theological world but we will not be known of God.

When the creed is understood according to what it really says, not what the gravamen thinks it says, then the scriptures cited by the creed are precisely to the point. If a position is taken in which God wants to save all in terms of a universal election but is frustrated by the stubbornness of the sinner, then there must of necessity be a tortured and unprincipled explanation of the texts of Scripture. If the texts are to be explained in the way that the gravamen explains them then the result will be universal election, universal atonement, resistable grace, salvation determined by the will of man, and the continuous possibility of the eternal loss of the saints. This is not what the creed says because this is not what the Bible says. It becomes plain that what is at stake in this gravamen is not only the truth of Articles I/6 and I/15, but the whole of the truth expressed in the Canons. What is really involved here is the sovereignty of God and His glory and at once also the assurance of our salvation and our peace in Christ Jesus.

Presumption and Prejudice

It must be noted that there is in the gravamen under consideration a certain kind of presumption, if not indeed arrogance, over against the church and her creeds. The gravamen sets up its own criteria for the establishment of a credal statement, then mis–reads the creed, then goes on to castigate the creed and the church for holding to teachings that are “grievously unbiblical, therefore unreformed, indeed unchristian doctrine.” All this in judgement upon all those who by any standard of Christian love must be recognized as students of the Word of God in obedience to Christ. Fathers and brethren of the church all the way from Calvin to the present are chided, to put it mildly, for contriving irresponsible and nonchalant formulations of Biblical truth. The gravamen contains within it a quotation from Berkhof’s Reformed Dogmatics in which he states: “The doctrine of reprobation follows naturally from the logic of the situation. The decree of election inevitably implies the decree of reprobation. If the all-wise God, possessed of infinite knowledge, has eternally purposed to save some, then he, ipso facto, also purposed not to save others. If he has chosen or elected some, then he has by that very fact rejected others.” Then the gravamen goes on to say, “Some text references follow which are not quoted, let alone exegeted. With such a theology specific biblical textual foundations are irrelevant.” Now it is quite possible that one may not exactly like the way Berkhof states the matter under discussion and it is quite possible that a better formulation of the doctrine could be made but this kind of cavalier dismissal of the matter reveals, it seems to me, the prejudgement, not only of Berkhof and Calvin, and all the others, but also of the Synod of Dort and the Canons, indeed of the Scripture itself, a prejudice of which the whole gravamen is profoundly guilty. The quotation from Calvin cited by the gravamen itself, is indeed very much to the point. “There is good reason to dread a presumption which can only plunge us headlong into ruin.”

The conclusion can well use the words of the Canons themselves. “Finally, this Synod exhorts all their brethren in the gospel of Christ to conduct themselves piously and religiously in handling this doctrine, both in the universities and churches; to direct it, as well in discourse as in writing, to the glory of the Divine name, to holiness of life, and to the consolation of afflicted souls; to regulate, by the Scripture, according to the analogy of faith, not only their sentiments, but also their language, and to abstain from all those phrases which exceed the limits necessary to be observed in ascertaining the genuine sense of the Holy Scriptures, and may furnish insolent sophists with a just pretext for violently assailing, or even vilifying, the doctrine of the Reformed Churches.”