One who reads the Gospels will notice how often our Lord spoke of the “kingdom of God” or the “kingdom of heaven.” Jesus was promised and was born to be King. He preached the “gospel of the kingdom.” Most of his parables begin, “The kingdom of heaven is like . . . .” In spite of all that the Lord said about this “kingdom,” there is much confusion in the minds of Christians about what this kingdom teaching means for our life in the world.
ABRAHAM KUYPER AND THE KINGDOM
Few if any Christians leaders have been more impressed by this teaching of Christ and what it meant for Christian living in the world than Dr. Abraham Kuyper was. That many-sided genius of a century ago who began his career as a liberal preacher was brought to conversion and led to start a reformation in the church.
Speaking out as a Christian on political matters, Kuvper gained wide support, organized a Christian political party, and eventually became prime minister of The Netherlands. He was so concerned about the Christian education of children and young people that his efforts in that area led to the formation of a system of Christian schools and even of a Christian university in which Dr. Kuyper became the leading professor. How was it possible that one man could influence so many people in such a variety of ways?
Under God’s providence, much of what Kuyper achieved was done through his editing of a paper, De Heraut (“The Herald”). Later the articles he wrote in this paper were collected and printed in three books totaling some 1700 pages. The title he gave to these articles and books tells us much about Kuyper and his work It was Pro Rege (“For the King”). That title is a good one, for in these writings he tried to explain what the Kingship of Christ” should mean for us in various areas of our lives and relationships.
In the Introduction to Pro Rege, Kuyper said that he intended to remove the separation that had arisen in men’s minds to an unhealthy degree between their Church life and their life outside of the Church. In the Church Christ’s work as Savior from sin and guilt must necessarily be emphasized. But this should not keep us from realizing also His Kingship. In the trouhled times of the Reformation, bitter persecution and hardships made men deeply conscious of what it meant that Christ our Savior is also King who has all power in heaven and on earth. When the Reformation triumphed and persecution ceased they easily lost sight of that Kingship and began to think of Him only as Savior. Then there arose in men’s minds the separation between life in the Church and outside of the Church, a break which could only have been avoided if people realized that Christ is the Lord of all of life. And so people began to think of their relationship to Christ as only within the Church and as having little or nothing to do with their life outside of it. The rest of life became secularized.
Now, however, Kuyper saw that a wholesome change had come. Now there were Christian newspapers, science, art, literature, philanthropy, statesmanship, labor organizations, etc., and people in general had come to accept the fact that Christ laid claim also to life outside of the Church. One weakness that he saw in this new movement was · that people tended to think of the Christian character of these various activities too exclusively as lying in Christian principles and did not see as they should that it was Christ Himself who as our King must put the Christian stamp on our activities. It was particularly that weakness that Kuyper said he was trying to correct by His writing.
KINGDOM CONCERN AMONG US
This renewed awareness that Christ is King as well as Savior and that He claims all our lives, which produced so much varied activity in The Netherlands, was carried over into the development of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. The beginnings of the denomination lay further back in a secession from The Netherlands state church a half century before the Kuyper movement, but the small denomination really began to grow with the inAux of many later immigrants who had been part of that movement in The Netherlands. Here as there a number of leaders arose to stress Christ’s kingship and this led particularly to the development of a system of Christian schools and also some hospitals. Development of Christian labor unions was more difficult and efforts to develop a Christian press and Christian political organizations were even less successful.
In trying to understand these developments in North America we should observe several differences between the conditions here and in The Netherlands. Our countries are much bigger and their populations more diverse. Whereas the Reformed people involved with Kuyper numbered perhaps a tenth of The Netherlands population, Christian Reformed people in the U.S. numbered only about a tenth of one per cent of the population. Supported by a hundred times as large a part of the population in The Netherlands this Reformed movement might be expected to have more influence there than here. Then too, the U. S., with its melting pot of peoples with their many religions, early developed a doctrine of the separation of church and state which only too readily promoted the notion that religion should be separated from politics and society. Calvinist Churches who believed in the sovereignty of God in all of life were relatively strong in colonial times, including New England Puritans, Presbyterians, and Dutch Reformed, but they did not keep pace in growth with Methodists and Baptists as settlement spread rapidly westward. Although J. Arminius and Menno Simons, both Dutch· men, had only small followings in their home country, the Methodist and Baptist movements, which honor them as church fathers, largely captured North America. In this religious, social, and political climate, the secularism about which Kuyper had to complain in The Netherlands had more encouragement than it did in Europe. The influence of this environment also tended to wear down the earlier zeal of the immigrants for such activities in which Christ was to be acknowledged as Lord of all, and to secularize the institutions that they had. These considerations are not brought up to justify the loss of enthusiasm for faithful service or Christ the King, but they may help us to understand what happened.
THE AACS: PROMISE AND DISAPPOINTMENT
After the Second World war there was a new immigration of many thousand of families from The Netherlands. especially into Canada. In a decade they added more than a hundred new churches to the little handful of Christian Reformed congregations that had previollsly been in Canada. Accustomed as many of these people were to the variety of Christian organizations that had arisen out of Abraham Kuyper’s movement, they were surprised by the comparative lack of such developments in Canada. Ought not acknowledging Christ as King produce the same variety of Christian action here as in the land from which they had come? Crossing thc Atlantic Ocean should not change the character of the Christian faith or life! As churches and Christian schools were organized, other activities also were attempted. In 1956 a small organization was established, under the name, “Association for Reformed Scientific Studies,” to work for the development of a Christian university like Kuyper’s Free University designed to press the claims of Christ’s Kingdom in these higher levels of learning.
The movement soon gained extensive and strong support especially in Canada, and in 1967 opened its Institute in Toronto. As it developed however many who had at first been enthusiastic supporters become disturbed and began to lose confidence in it when they saw the direction of the development. The name change to Association for the Advancement of Christian Scholarship, in which the adjective “Reformed” was dropped and the minimizing of Reformed creeds seemed to indicate a shift from the ideals that had invited their support. The growing body of speeches and writings that it produced were often extremely critical of all that had been done before and of the church whose support it claimed. They were frequently marred by irresponsible charges, inflammatory rhetoric and sometimes even obscene language. Purporting to be concerned about promoting “scripturally directed higher learning” the Association leaders increasingly showed a tendency to downgrade the Bible as only one “form” of the “word of God” whose significance their followers were warned not to exaggerate. People who questioned their views by appeal to the Bible were readily and sometimes contemptuously dismissed as “Biblicists.” The philosophical scheme derived very largely from the views of especially Professor Dooyeweerd in The Netherlands was put ahead of the Bible as the organizing principle for all of their “Kingdom” activities. Although claiming to follow this “Philosophy of Law” they repudiated all biblical commandments other than the vague motive of “love” as no longer valid, and readily labeled any who objected to this procedure “legalists” or “moralists.” Although they proposed by their “Kingdom” activity to unite all kinds of Christians who were separated by doctrinal divisions they provoked more dissension and division than ever, tending especially to pit young people against their parents and teachers against the supporters and boards of their schools. Seeing the confusion and havoc being produced in various churches and schools and in the minds of people and families many former supporters have turned away from this “Kingdom” movement, deeply grieved and disappointed.
Also in The Netherlands Kuyper’s many-fronted projects for “Christ the King” have fallen on evil days. The churches, in whose Reformation he took such a leading part, have been surrendering in both teaching and practice to the Liberalism against which he fought. The University which he began has taken the lead in promoting that process in those churches and beyond them.
The Christian political movement Kuyper headed also has lost its sense of direction and support. Everywhere the movements he promoted to press the claims of Christ’s Kingdom in all of life seem to be in retreat or disarray. We who in greater or lesser degree have shared that vision here are seeing all of these things that promised so much shaken in morale and falling apart.
What went wrong? What has happened to this spiritual crusade “For the King”? And what must we do about it?
“KINGDOM,” INSTEAD OF KING
A good way to begin our investigation of what has been causing the trouble in these well intended efforts for the Kingdom may be to turn back and take a closer look at what Kuyper already observed at the end of the Preface to Pro Rege: the weakness of movements being based on “Christian Principles” instead of being personal responses of obedience to the King. In the light of the later developments it appears the more significant that Kuyper saw that danger and said that he deliberately wrote his many articles and books on the subject to correct it.
In doing this Kuyper was responding to the Lord’s own warning: “Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, 5). The Lord said that one must be “born again” or regenerated in order to even sce, let alone enter His kingdom. His words to His disciples in Matthew 18:3 on the related matter of conversion point in the same direction: “Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
One still observes, as Kuyper did, a tendency in much discussion of the “Kingdom” to think primarily of the organizations or structures that are implied in that word, of the relationships of men in their various “kingdom” activities and the “principles” that should guide such activities. The AACS people especially inject their philosophical scheme of “modalities” at this point, endeavoring to structure everything according to that system. (Dr. De Graaff, at the end of his book, The Educational Ministry of the Church, even tells us that we can’t properly understand the Bible without it!)
Our Lord makes it plain, however, that whenever we approach His Kingdom from that point of view we radically misunderstand it. That Kingdom is not fundamentally a realm, a system of (horizontal) relations or structures among men; it is fundamentally always a (vertical) relationship to the King. The Kingdom to be understood at all must always be seen as the “Kingdom of God.” ( Dr. Vos in his little book, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church, points out that the other term, “Kingdom of heaven” has the same God-ward reference [pp. 32 ff.] and that in our appreciation of the term “Kingdom” we must’ not be misled by our modern, republican notions of the magistrate existing that “Kingdom” here has the original sense of referring us to the Absolute Ruler, God.) We must “see” and “enter” this Kingdom of God only by way of regeneration and faith. If we lose sight of that, no matter how learned or intricate our analysis may become, we no longer know what we are talking about. Our Lord put the relationship in this way: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered” (John 15:5, 6). Does not this truth explain why so many “kingdom” enterprises which once flourished among us seem to be withering and dying?
Kuyper, as we have already observed, was keenly conscious of this dependence of all our activity on a vital relationship to Christ, and again and again in his writings called attention to it. He had himself undergone a radical conversion and he stressed its importance and that of the godly life to which it must lead. At the same time there was in this theological system one teaching that tended in his followers if not in himself to obscure this fundamental truth. That was his view of “presumptive regeneration,” the view that most children of Christian parents were to be assumed to be already “born again” in their infancy. William Young writing in the Fall 1973 Westminster Theological Journal on “Historic Calvinism and Neo-Calvinism” calls attention to the mischievous consequences of this emphasis in those who followed Kuyper. Presuming that all children of Christian parents are already regenerated leads only too naturally to the notion that therefore one docs not need to stress the requirement of regeneration and conversion as basic in the teaching of children of Christian parents or in working with church members. But our Lord and His apostle flatly contradict that prevalent notion. Nicodemus was certainly “in the covenant,” yet it was exactly to him that the Lord said, “You must be born again!” Jesus told His disciples, “Except ye be converted, ye shall not enter into the kingdom . . . .” And Paul was not writing to pagans but to a well established church when he said, “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God” (II Cor. 5:20).
May not one reason why so many of our “kingdom” enterprises are proving so disappointing be that we are not starting where our Lord told us to start? We are too often tacitly assuming and in practice ignoring what He says we must stress as being fundamental. If a “Kingdom” movement wants to turn all interest in evangelism over to the “church” and itself concentrate on discussing kingdom structures it is not surprising that its effort should prove arid and unproductive. A kingdom which one does not have to enter by way of regeneration and conversion is not the Kingdom of Christ at all. Christ’s Kingdom is not a kingdom of the spiritually dead.
THE WORD OF THE KINGDOM
Furthermore, the Lord and His apostles plainly teach us that our knowing, trusting, and obeying Him are always by means of His Word, the Bible. In Matthew 7:24 he tells us: “Everyone that heareth these words of mine and doeth them shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock.” Therefore that house stood when it was tested, but the house of the man who ‘“heareth these words of mine and doeth them not” fell. The words that come just before this illustration link it to entry into the Kingdom of heaven: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven” (vs. 21).
Anyone who has read at all extensively in Abraham Kuyper cannot help but be impressed by his constant and reverent appeal to passages of the Bible as the Word of God. In all of his many “Kingdom” writings, as well as in his more popular devotional works, Kuyper was always the preacher, quoting, exegeling, seeking for himself and for others the guidance of the Bible as the Word of the King. Now in all these areas where we see the one-time “Kingdom” ideals and activities in trouble or dying, it is highly significant that there is at the same time a changing attitude toward, a downgrading of the Bible. That is evident in the Reformed Churches of The Netherlands and at the Free University. It characterizes increasingly the disappointing history of the AACS, as we have already observed. De Craaff, to take an especially clear example from several to which we might refer, tells us in the end of his book on education that Kuyper was simply mistaken in thinking that he could derive the guidance in such a field as psychology from the Scriptures—one will be misled if he does that. He seeks his guidance in the Dooyeweerdian system of philosophy in these matters.
For him as for others in this movement the Word of God is not to be thought of as the Bible but as something “multi-dimensional,” a “multiplicity of words structuring the various areas of life” (James Olthuis in To Prod a Slumbering Giant, p. 30; cf. also pp. 73, 104, 168 where the other authors say the same). Hendrik Hart in The Challenge of Our Age denied any unique inspiration to the Bible (pp. 118f.). He wrote, “As . . . inscripturation. there is nothing unique about the Bible, for God’s revelation is certainly not limited to that book. Nor is the inspiration of the Bible something limited to it alone. For we certainly do not believe that after the Bible was complete Cod stopped inspiring authors.” In a footnote he explained that “we may certainly believe that in many instances the writings of ‘saints’ were ‘inspired’ writings and that they are revelational sources” (p. 130).
Along with this down-grading of the Bible in these once flourishing but disappointing kingdom enterprises, we observe particularly a repudiation of the law of God. One sees that in the moral apostasy of the Reformed Churches as they, in contrast with Kuyper their one-time leader, across the whole front of life are surrendering to the life-style of our time, even to the extend of condoning homosexuality. Again at this point the AACS which desires to “show us the way” to Kingdom living, insists on attacking any law of God other than the simple motive of love as no longer valid. Of the commandments, for example, De Graaff said (Understanding the Scriptures, p. 35): “None of them can be literally followed or applied today, for we live in a different period of history in a different culture.” Expressing the same attitude, James Olthuis (To Prod a Slumbering Giant, p. 36) warns us that in training children “we ought not (to) teach subjective responses, values and virtues” and warns particularly against any “discipline in the sense of negativity,” or “negative restricting.”
Observe how this contradicts what Christ, the King, taught us about God’s laws when he said, “Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:17–19). Our Lord went on to warn us sternly, πBeware of false prophets . . . Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.” To the “many” who despite all of their talk and activity in His name disobey the King, He will say, “I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:15–23).
Again as in Kuyper’s day, it must be confessed that many have lost the vision of Christ the Savior’s Kingship over all of life. That badly needs to be restored. It will not be restored, however, by blindly supporting every movement that talks of God’s Kingdom. In our time few have done that more industriously than the Jehovah’s Witnesses for example. They even call their churches “Kingdom Halls” and they put many churches to shame by their zeal for spreading their beliefs, especially through literature. What spoils their kingdom and turns it into a caricature is their denial of even the divine identity of the King. As we need a real reformation of not only the church but all of life, we mllst learn that that kind of real revival is to be found only, as Kuyper found it, in humble, childlike trust in and surrender to Christ the Savior-King, and in seeking to be guided in everything by the Spirit and words of the King. Those are the terms of admission to His Kingdom and the requirements for service in it. In that way the Lord has brought far-reaching revival and reformation more than once in the past. He is able to do it again.
Very much alive in discussion in Reformed circles today is the kingdom. In this article, Peter De Jong, pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan, addresses himself to this important matter. Following are words of our Lord that readily come to mind: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God . . . Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:3,5). “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18,3).
ABRAHAM KUYPER AND THE KINGDOM
Few if any Christians leaders have been more impressed by this teaching of Christ and what it meant for Christian living in the world than Dr. Abraham Kuyper was. That many-sided genius of a century ago who began his career as a liberal preacher was brought to conversion and led to start a reformation in the church.
Speaking out as a Christian on political matters, Kuvper gained wide support, organized a Christian political party, and eventually became prime minister of The Netherlands. He was so concerned about the Christian education of children and young people that his efforts in that area led to the formation of a system of Christian schools and even of a Christian university in which Dr. Kuyper became the leading professor. How was it possible that one man could influence so many people in such a variety of ways?
Under God’s providence, much of what Kuyper achieved was done through his editing of a paper, De Heraut (“The Herald”). Later the articles he wrote in this paper were collected and printed in three books totaling some 1700 pages. The title he gave to these articles and books tells us much about Kuyper and his work It was Pro Rege (“For the King”). That title is a good one, for in these writings he tried to explain what the Kingship of Christ” should mean for us in various areas of our lives and relationships.
In the Introduction to Pro Rege, Kuyper said that he intended to remove the separation that had arisen in men’s minds to an unhealthy degree between their Church life and their life outside of the Church. In the Church Christ’s work as Savior from sin and guilt must necessarily be emphasized. But this should not keep us from realizing also His Kingship. In the trouhled times of the Reformation, bitter persecution and hardships made men deeply conscious of what it meant that Christ our Savior is also King who has all power in heaven and on earth. When the Reformation triumphed and persecution ceased they easily lost sight of that Kingship and began to think of Him only as Savior. Then there arose in men’s minds the separation between life in the Church and outside of the Church, a break which could only have been avoided if people realized that Christ is the Lord of all of life. And so people began to think of their relationship to Christ as only within the Church and as having little or nothing to do with their life outside of it. The rest of life became secularized.
Now, however, Kuyper saw that a wholesome change had come. Now there were Christian newspapers, science, art, literature, philanthropy, statesmanship, labor organizations, etc., and people in general had come to accept the fact that Christ laid claim also to life outside of the Church. One weakness that he saw in this new movement was · that people tended to think of the Christian character of these various activities too exclusively as lying in Christian principles and did not see as they should that it was Christ Himself who as our King must put the Christian stamp on our activities. It was particularly that weakness that Kuyper said he was trying to correct by His writing.
KINGDOM CONCERN AMONG US
This renewed awareness that Christ is King as well as Savior and that He claims all our lives, which produced so much varied activity in The Netherlands, was carried over into the development of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. The beginnings of the denomination lay further back in a secession from The Netherlands state church a half century before the Kuyper movement, but the small denomination really began to grow with the inAux of many later immigrants who had been part of that movement in The Netherlands. Here as there a number of leaders arose to stress Christ’s kingship and this led particularly to the development of a system of Christian schools and also some hospitals. Development of Christian labor unions was more difficult and efforts to develop a Christian press and Christian political organizations were even less successful.
In trying to understand these developments in North America we should observe several differences between the conditions here and in The Netherlands. Our countries are much bigger and their populations more diverse. Whereas the Reformed people involved with Kuyper numbered perhaps a tenth of The Netherlands population, Christian Reformed people in the U.S. numbered only about a tenth of one per cent of the population. Supported by a hundred times as large a part of the population in The Netherlands this Reformed movement might be expected to have more influence there than here. Then too, the U. S., with its melting pot of peoples with their many religions, early developed a doctrine of the separation of church and state which only too readily promoted the notion that religion should be separated from politics and society. Calvinist Churches who believed in the sovereignty of God in all of life were relatively strong in colonial times, including New England Puritans, Presbyterians, and Dutch Reformed, but they did not keep pace in growth with Methodists and Baptists as settlement spread rapidly westward. Although J. Arminius and Menno Simons, both Dutch· men, had only small followings in their home country, the Methodist and Baptist movements, which honor them as church fathers, largely captured North America. In this religious, social, and political climate, the secularism about which Kuyper had to complain in The Netherlands had more encouragement than it did in Europe. The influence of this environment also tended to wear down the earlier zeal of the immigrants for such activities in which Christ was to be acknowledged as Lord of all, and to secularize the institutions that they had. These considerations are not brought up to justify the loss of enthusiasm for faithful service or Christ the King, but they may help us to understand what happened.
THE AACS: PROMISE AND DISAPPOINTMENT
After the Second World war there was a new immigration of many thousand of families from The Netherlands. especially into Canada. In a decade they added more than a hundred new churches to the little handful of Christian Reformed congregations that had previollsly been in Canada. Accustomed as many of these people were to the variety of Christian organizations that had arisen out of Abraham Kuyper’s movement, they were surprised by the comparative lack of such developments in Canada. Ought not acknowledging Christ as King produce the same variety of Christian action here as in the land from which they had come? Crossing thc Atlantic Ocean should not change the character of the Christian faith or life! As churches and Christian schools were organized, other activities also were attempted. In 1956 a small organization was established, under the name, “Association for Reformed Scientific Studies,” to work for the development of a Christian university like Kuyper’s Free University designed to press the claims of Christ’s Kingdom in these higher levels of learning.
The movement soon gained extensive and strong support especially in Canada, and in 1967 opened its Institute in Toronto. As it developed however many who had at first been enthusiastic supporters become disturbed and began to lose confidence in it when they saw the direction of the development. The name change to Association for the Advancement of Christian Scholarship, in which the adjective “Reformed” was dropped and the minimizing of Reformed creeds seemed to indicate a shift from the ideals that had invited their support. The growing body of speeches and writings that it produced were often extremely critical of all that had been done before and of the church whose support it claimed. They were frequently marred by irresponsible charges, inflammatory rhetoric and sometimes even obscene language. Purporting to be concerned about promoting “scripturally directed higher learning” the Association leaders increasingly showed a tendency to downgrade the Bible as only one “form” of the “word of God” whose significance their followers were warned not to exaggerate. People who questioned their views by appeal to the Bible were readily and sometimes contemptuously dismissed as “Biblicists.” The philosophical scheme derived very largely from the views of especially Professor Dooyeweerd in The Netherlands was put ahead of the Bible as the organizing principle for all of their “Kingdom” activities. Although claiming to follow this “Philosophy of Law” they repudiated all biblical commandments other than the vague motive of “love” as no longer valid, and readily labeled any who objected to this procedure “legalists” or “moralists.” Although they proposed by their “Kingdom” activity to unite all kinds of Christians who were separated by doctrinal divisions they provoked more dissension and division than ever, tending especially to pit young people against their parents and teachers against the supporters and boards of their schools. Seeing the confusion and havoc being produced in various churches and schools and in the minds of people and families many former supporters have turned away from this “Kingdom” movement, deeply grieved and disappointed.
Also in The Netherlands Kuyper’s many-fronted projects for “Christ the King” have fallen on evil days. The churches, in whose Reformation he took such a leading part, have been surrendering in both teaching and practice to the Liberalism against which he fought. The University which he began has taken the lead in promoting that process in those churches and beyond them.
The Christian political movement Kuyper headed also has lost its sense of direction and support. Everywhere the movements he promoted to press the claims of Christ’s Kingdom in all of life seem to be in retreat or disarray. We who in greater or lesser degree have shared that vision here are seeing all of these things that promised so much shaken in morale and falling apart.
What went wrong? What has happened to this spiritual crusade “For the King”? And what must we do about it?
“KINGDOM,” INSTEAD OF KING
A good way to begin our investigation of what has been causing the trouble in these well intended efforts for the Kingdom may be to turn back and take a closer look at what Kuyper already observed at the end of the Preface to Pro Rege: the weakness of movements being based on “Christian Principles” instead of being personal responses of obedience to the King. In the light of the later developments it appears the more significant that Kuyper saw that danger and said that he deliberately wrote his many articles and books on the subject to correct it.
In doing this Kuyper was responding to the Lord’s own warning: “Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, 5). The Lord said that one must be “born again” or regenerated in order to even sce, let alone enter His kingdom. His words to His disciples in Matthew 18:3 on the related matter of conversion point in the same direction: “Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
One still observes, as Kuyper did, a tendency in much discussion of the “Kingdom” to think primarily of the organizations or structures that are implied in that word, of the relationships of men in their various “kingdom” activities and the “principles” that should guide such activities. The AACS people especially inject their philosophical scheme of “modalities” at this point, endeavoring to structure everything according to that system. (Dr. De Graaff, at the end of his book, The Educational Ministry of the Church, even tells us that we can’t properly understand the Bible without it!)
Our Lord makes it plain, however, that whenever we approach His Kingdom from that point of view we radically misunderstand it. That Kingdom is not fundamentally a realm, a system of (horizontal) relations or structures among men; it is fundamentally always a (vertical) relationship to the King. The Kingdom to be understood at all must always be seen as the “Kingdom of God.” ( Dr. Vos in his little book, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church, points out that the other term, “Kingdom of heaven” has the same God-ward reference [pp. 32 ff.] and that in our appreciation of the term “Kingdom” we must’ not be misled by our modern, republican notions of the magistrate existing that “Kingdom” here has the original sense of referring us to the Absolute Ruler, God.) We must “see” and “enter” this Kingdom of God only by way of regeneration and faith. If we lose sight of that, no matter how learned or intricate our analysis may become, we no longer know what we are talking about. Our Lord put the relationship in this way: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered” (John 15:5, 6). Does not this truth explain why so many “kingdom” enterprises which once flourished among us seem to be withering and dying?
Kuyper, as we have already observed, was keenly conscious of this dependence of all our activity on a vital relationship to Christ, and again and again in his writings called attention to it. He had himself undergone a radical conversion and he stressed its importance and that of the godly life to which it must lead. At the same time there was in this theological system one teaching that tended in his followers if not in himself to obscure this fundamental truth. That was his view of “presumptive regeneration,” the view that most children of Christian parents were to be assumed to be already “born again” in their infancy. William Young writing in the Fall 1973 Westminster Theological Journal on “Historic Calvinism and Neo-Calvinism” calls attention to the mischievous consequences of this emphasis in those who followed Kuyper. Presuming that all children of Christian parents are already regenerated leads only too naturally to the notion that therefore one docs not need to stress the requirement of regeneration and conversion as basic in the teaching of children of Christian parents or in working with church members. But our Lord and His apostle flatly contradict that prevalent notion. Nicodemus was certainly “in the covenant,” yet it was exactly to him that the Lord said, “You must be born again!” Jesus told His disciples, “Except ye be converted, ye shall not enter into the kingdom . . . .” And Paul was not writing to pagans but to a well established church when he said, “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God” (II Cor. 5:20).
May not one reason why so many of our “kingdom” enterprises are proving so disappointing be that we are not starting where our Lord told us to start? We are too often tacitly assuming and in practice ignoring what He says we must stress as being fundamental. If a “Kingdom” movement wants to turn all interest in evangelism over to the “church” and itself concentrate on discussing kingdom structures it is not surprising that its effort should prove arid and unproductive. A kingdom which one does not have to enter by way of regeneration and conversion is not the Kingdom of Christ at all. Christ’s Kingdom is not a kingdom of the spiritually dead.
THE WORD OF THE KINGDOM
Furthermore, the Lord and His apostles plainly teach us that our knowing, trusting, and obeying Him are always by means of His Word, the Bible. In Matthew 7:24 he tells us: “Everyone that heareth these words of mine and doeth them shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock.” Therefore that house stood when it was tested, but the house of the man who ‘“heareth these words of mine and doeth them not” fell. The words that come just before this illustration link it to entry into the Kingdom of heaven: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven” (vs. 21).
Anyone who has read at all extensively in Abraham Kuyper cannot help but be impressed by his constant and reverent appeal to passages of the Bible as the Word of God. In all of his many “Kingdom” writings, as well as in his more popular devotional works, Kuyper was always the preacher, quoting, exegeling, seeking for himself and for others the guidance of the Bible as the Word of the King. Now in all these areas where we see the one-time “Kingdom” ideals and activities in trouble or dying, it is highly significant that there is at the same time a changing attitude toward, a downgrading of the Bible. That is evident in the Reformed Churches of The Netherlands and at the Free University. It characterizes increasingly the disappointing history of the AACS, as we have already observed. De Craaff, to take an especially clear example from several to which we might refer, tells us in the end of his book on education that Kuyper was simply mistaken in thinking that he could derive the guidance in such a field as psychology from the Scriptures—one will be misled if he does that. He seeks his guidance in the Dooyeweerdian system of philosophy in these matters.
For him as for others in this movement the Word of God is not to be thought of as the Bible but as something “multi-dimensional,” a “multiplicity of words structuring the various areas of life” (James Olthuis in To Prod a Slumbering Giant, p. 30; cf. also pp. 73, 104, 168 where the other authors say the same). Hendrik Hart in The Challenge of Our Age denied any unique inspiration to the Bible (pp. 118f.). He wrote, “As . . . inscripturation. there is nothing unique about the Bible, for God’s revelation is certainly not limited to that book. Nor is the inspiration of the Bible something limited to it alone. For we certainly do not believe that after the Bible was complete Cod stopped inspiring authors.” In a footnote he explained that “we may certainly believe that in many instances the writings of ‘saints’ were ‘inspired’ writings and that they are revelational sources” (p. 130).
Along with this down-grading of the Bible in these once flourishing but disappointing kingdom enterprises, we observe particularly a repudiation of the law of God. One sees that in the moral apostasy of the Reformed Churches as they, in contrast with Kuyper their one-time leader, across the whole front of life are surrendering to the life-style of our time, even to the extend of condoning homosexuality. Again at this point the AACS which desires to “show us the way” to Kingdom living, insists on attacking any law of God other than the simple motive of love as no longer valid. Of the commandments, for example, De Graaff said (Understanding the Scriptures, p. 35): “None of them can be literally followed or applied today, for we live in a different period of history in a different culture.” Expressing the same attitude, James Olthuis (To Prod a Slumbering Giant, p. 36) warns us that in training children “we ought not (to) teach subjective responses, values and virtues” and warns particularly against any “discipline in the sense of negativity,” or “negative restricting.”
Observe how this contradicts what Christ, the King, taught us about God’s laws when he said, “Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:17–19). Our Lord went on to warn us sternly, πBeware of false prophets . . . Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.” To the “many” who despite all of their talk and activity in His name disobey the King, He will say, “I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:15–23).
Again as in Kuyper’s day, it must be confessed that many have lost the vision of Christ the Savior’s Kingship over all of life. That badly needs to be restored. It will not be restored, however, by blindly supporting every movement that talks of God’s Kingdom. In our time few have done that more industriously than the Jehovah’s Witnesses for example. They even call their churches “Kingdom Halls” and they put many churches to shame by their zeal for spreading their beliefs, especially through literature. What spoils their kingdom and turns it into a caricature is their denial of even the divine identity of the King. As we need a real reformation of not only the church but all of life, we mllst learn that that kind of real revival is to be found only, as Kuyper found it, in humble, childlike trust in and surrender to Christ the Savior-King, and in seeking to be guided in everything by the Spirit and words of the King. Those are the terms of admission to His Kingdom and the requirements for service in it. In that way the Lord has brought far-reaching revival and reformation more than once in the past. He is able to do it again.
Very much alive in discussion in Reformed circles today is the kingdom. In this article, Peter De Jong, pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan, addresses himself to this important matter. Following are words of our Lord that readily come to mind: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God . . . Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:3,5). “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18,3).