This address was de livered at the first Convocation of Mid-America Reformed Seminary at Orange City, Iowa by Dr. Peter Y. DeJong, Administrative Dean for the year 1981–82. The gathering was held in Dordt College Chapel, Sioux Center, IA, on September 1 at 8 p.m.

Mr. Chairman, members of the Board of Trustees, esteemed quests, colleagues, students, and friends of Mid–America Reformed Seminary,

That I may address you on this happy occasion is a privilege and responsibility of which I am deeply aware. It marks the official opening of a small theological seminary which has for its aim, among others, the training of men for the ministry of the Gospel in the Christian Reformed Church.

As such it has been hailed with enthusiasm by some; with opposition and opprobrium by others. As with the beginnings of many a Christian institution, it has aroused controversy which, unhappily for those involved, does not seem to die away. All we can and may do is commit our course to the Lord Jesus Christ with unceasing prayer that its activities, development and goals may by His grace become a blessing to all who love the Reformed faith.

We open this school with deep awareness that the year 1982 is of more than common significance for the Christian Reformed Church. One hundred twenty five years ago a struggling group of four congregations reorganized themselves, also in the face of opposition, as a fellowship of churches pledged to the Holy Scriptures as set forth in the creeds and Church Order of the Reformed churches. Although stained with human imperfections, theirs was an act of reformation. By it they aimed to preserve and promote the pure preaching of the Gospel, the right administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of Christian discipline in obedience to God.

Much has happened in and around the Christian Reformed Church during this relatively brief span of church history. Blessings too numerous to mention have been experienced. Dangers to spiritual life have been exposed and at times by God’s grace overcome. And the world in which these churches now live has changed so rapidly and radically, for good as well as ill, that its membership may not live in ivory-towered isolation. Although Christ’s church is not of this world, it is commissioned by the Lord of history to live and labor to His praise in the very world in which He assigns it a place. To be faithful to the Savior the church must assess its present, look back with appreciation to its past, and face the future with confidence that the God of salvation will bless all those who hope in his Word.

That this has much to do with a seminary is almost too obvious to belabor. There men are trained for the ministry of the Word to believers and unbelievers. There teachers together with those aspiring to this ministry engage in doing theology. And theology, which is a human response to the one true God as He reveals himself in his Word, is the life-blood of any church.

Such a response can never be static. It is no mere repetition of what has been thought and said in past centuries. Continually it faces new challenges and contradictions. It recognizes new opportunities as the fund of knowledge, also with regard to Holy Scripture and the historical situation wherein God produced it, increases. At the same time it is threatened by the ever–present danger of compromising the unchanging and unchangeable Word by adjusting divine truth to the fluctuating wisdom of this world.

This makes the doing of theology an exciting task. At the same time, because it is done by men who only see in part and know in part, men themselves a part of the world wherein they live, it is difficult and even a dangerous task. Theologians, too, can be easily swept away with every wind of doctrine, so that they together with the churches which they serve veer from the true course by neglecting both chart and compass.

In the world of churches and seminaries we soon discover theologies of many kinds. And these, adorning themselves with the title “Christian,” are by no means identical. New theologies, changing with even more rapidity than fashions for the ladies, are being produced in an almost endless stream. Even the most diligent scholar cannot keep up with the pace. And because these are often promoted by high–powered techniques, including popular books, radio addresses and even television scenarios, the threat of compromising the eternal Gospel of our God is far from imaginary.

What the church therefore needs is a ministry thoroughly trained in and committed to the Word which lives and abides forever. To this end seminaries are established. Here teachers and students, together with the support of those already in the Gospel ministry and the members of the churches, aim at providing the churches with faithful and godly preachers of the Word. This is an act of obedience to Paul’s injunction given to his spiritual son Timothy, “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (II Tim. 2:1, 2)

This requires especially of the teachers of theology a clear-cut commitment and sense of direction, one chosen with all due prayer and care.

What is done in a seminary will in large measure determine the course which the churches and members who support its work, take for decades to come. This is one of the challenges with which the Lord faces the Christian Reformed Church as its enters the sixth quarter–century of its history. Only in the way of faithfulness to His Word will there come seasons of refreshment and renewal in the year s ahead.

With the prayer that Mid–America Reformed Seminary will serve these churches and the Reformed faith fruitfully, we pledge ourselves to engage in theological studies in complete subjection to His Word as officially set forth in the historic Reformed creeds. This does not mean, as some have caricatured it, a mere regurgitation of what was taught in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Much less does it allow for the arrogance of supposing that suddenly we can now begin to explore the riches of God’s truth unto godliness by neglecting or minimizing the Spirit’s work in the churches of the past.

This lays especially on the teacher of Reformed theology high and holy obligations. He is to be scribe who has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven. Like a man who is a householder, his calling before God and men is to bring forth out of his treasure things old and new (Matt. 13:52). Humbly, he acknowledges that the task of doing theology will never be brought to complete perfection. For this the Scriptures, as the source and norm of all sound theology, are far too rich and full and deep for perfect human comprehension. But he thanks God for the treasures of the past. He recognizes the opportunities of the present. He looks with confidence to the future, fully persuaded that God’s truth, which he prays to handle aright, will stand forever.

On what this means for us at this seminary I would address you under the title:

TOWARDS A DISTINCTIVELY REFORMED THEOLOGY

Allow me to begin with a definition and an explanation.

Theology is the disciplined, the systematic, the well-ordered study of God as He has revealed himself in Holy Scripture which alone can make men wise unto salvation.

Now that Bible speaks to us about many things.

On its pages we read about the creation of all things, about man and his deep fall into sin, about the way of salvation and hope for a lost world. Here God makes known His eternal plan and purposes to glorify Himself in all the works of His hands. We read about judgments and deliverances. We read about individuals and nations. We read about promises and obligations. And this is revealed in a wide variety of historical situations with their changes and contradictions. But in and through this the eternal and faithful God makes Himself known as the God in whom we can trust, the God who has fulfilled and continues to fulfill the pledges of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes to us always clothed with the Holy Scriptures. These, then, are the foundation, the source, the standard for all true and fruitful theological study. If these are not trustworthy, then our knowledge and experience of God and His salvation are uncertain and unreliable, our hope is false, and our witness to the world deceitful and deceiving.

Much more is at stake than many would suppose. The true church, consisting of believers and their children, must be instructed from the Word to take heed to what it hears and believes and practices.

To the church God has entrusted the Word as its precious possession and heritage. This it must proclaim in word and deed to all men everywhere. And in order to do this with confidence, the church must come to an ever deeper and richer and fuller understanding of its message.

Assisting to this end, as servants who may never lord it over the doctrine and life of God’s people, are those who engage in the teaching of theology. This they do in close fellowship with all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth. The urgency of this cooperation with and on behalf of the church has been signalized by Karl Barth in the recent volume, Theological Foundations for Ministry.

Theology would be an utter failure if it should place itself in some elegant eminence where it would be concerned only with God, the world, man, and some other items, perhaps those of historical interest, instead of being theology for the community. Like the pendulum which regulates the movements of a clock, so theology is responsible for the reasonable service of the community . . .

But in order to service the community of today, theology itself must be rooted in the community of yesterday . . .¹

That the Lord of the church has given “power,” that is the right and authority, to engage in this calling is described and defended by Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology.

The Church may not rest on its oars and be satisfied with the knowledge of divine truth to which it has attained and which it has formulated in its confessions. It must seek to dig ever deeper into the mine of Scripture, in order to bring to light its hidden treasures. Through scientific study it must seek an ever deeper knowledge, and ever better understanding, of the words of life. It owes this to the truth itself as a revelation of God, but also to the training of its future ministers . . .²

Lest there be any misunderstanding on the validity of engaging in theology in spiritual affinity with the believing congregation, we appeal to the New Testament. Every living member, according to his place and competence, has received for the exercise of the “office of all believers” what John calls “an anointing from the Holy One” (I John 2:20f). Therefore the apostle exhorts his readers, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (I John 4:1). And Paul, writing to the Thessalonians who had only recently been converted to Christ, exhorts them to assume that same responsibility, “Quench not the Spirit; despise not prophesyings; prove all things; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil” (I Thess. 5:19–22). With the context of such mutual understanding, respect and commitment the cause of Christ in and through the congregations can flourish.

This is the doing of theology with the goal of promoting true godliness. Itis to come to clear expression in the worship, the witness, and the work of God’s people in this world. In their best years this aim has always been cherished by the Reformed. And to this pattern of engaging in theological studies Mid–America Reformed Seminary has committed itself wholeheartedly.

(To be continued)