REFORMED WITNESS
Volume I, November 1993, Number 11
The Church Today And The Reformation Church: A Comparison (Part II)
By Prof. David J. Engelsma
From a Pamphlet of The Same Title
Doctrinal Indifference
Still another, related characteristic of Protestantism today, because of which it comes off badly in a comparison with the Reformation Church, is Protestantism's indifference to the truth. There are still some, perhaps many, who know the truth. They know what the Reformation stood for. They know what Protestant churches have forsaken, or are in the process of forsaking, their doctrinal heritage. But this does not perturb them, much less move them to take any action. This is a sin, not only of the leaders, but also of the people. The people will not endure sound doctrine; the people resist expository, doctrinal preaching; the people clamor for entertainment in the service of divine worship, instead of instruction; the people tolerate deviations from the Scripture and permit the wolves to ravage the sheepfold of Christ, looking on while their own children and grandchildren, the lambs of the flock, are destroyed (cf. II Tim. 4:1ff.; Acts 20:28ff.). Jeremiah 5:30,31 is fulfilled: "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?" There are several outstanding expressions of present-day Protestantism's indifference to the truth. One is the ecumenical movement -- the effort to unite the churches. Whereas Biblical ecumenicity finds unity in, and grounds union upon, doctrinal oneness, which oneness is expressed creedally, the unions of the World Council, of COCU, and of the Protestant churches' turning towards Rome are effected with disregard of doctrinal difference and at the expense of the truth. Indifference to the truth is the oil that makes all the vast machinery of modern ecumenicity go. Another indication of indifference to the truth appears among "evangelical Protestantism" in their willingness to join and co-operate with churches and groups that maintain doctrines widely at variance with the doctrine proclaimed by the Reformation Church, and differing sharply among these churches and groups themselves, in the cause of evangelism. A glaring instance of this was the ecumenical venture in evangelism some years ago, known as Key '73. Its objective was "to raise an overarching Christian canopy in North America under which all denominations, congregations, and Christian groups may concentrate on evangelism during 1973." It brought together such groups as Campus Crusade, thoroughly "free willist" in theology and practice, and the Salvation Army and such churches as the American Baptist, the Christian Church, the Brethren in Christ, the United Methodist, The Anglican, the Church of the Nazarene, the African Methodist Episcopal, The Reformed Church in America, and the Roman Catholic. Whatever the result may have been in North America as regards evangelism, many churches and groups united in carrying out the fundamental calling of Christ's Church, namely, preaching the gospel, in total disregard of doctrinal soundness and of doctrinal agreement. This spirit, long the driving force in the "liberal" churches of the World Council of Churches, now pervades the "evangelical" churches. It ignores the fact that the main requirement of evangelism is the message, the doctrine, that will be proclaimed; refuses to ask about any church, or group, whether it holds the truth of the gospel; is deaf to the prophet's warning that two cannot walk together, except they be agreed; and omits to notice, for the present, that if churches can co-operate in preaching the gospel, they can also unite institutionally. Ominous in the extreme are the statements in the official literature of "Congress 88: A National Festival of Evangelism" (scheduled for Chicago in August, 1988; purposing the evangelizing of the unchurched in America; and uniting on the Board of Directors the Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America with such churches as the Presbyterian Church in the USA, the United Methodist, the Mennonite, the Christian Churches, the Church of God [Anderson], the Progressive National Baptist Church, and the Salvation Army):...thousands of Catholics and Protestants...have been quietly striving to undo the scandal of Christian disunity which has ripped apart the seamless robe of Christ... Let us join together in Chicago, sharing ideas and resources, and helping to carry out our Lord's Great Commission and his prayer for a unified church (emphasis added).
Yet another expression of indifference to the truth is the powerful movement in Protestantism today that extols the working of the Holy Spirit and the religious feeling of the church-member, at the expense of solid , expository Biblical preaching; sound doctrine; and the belief of the truth. This movement is devastating Protestantism today. It takes several forms, all pernicious. One form is the "happy church," where salvation is feeling good about oneself; a blessed congregation is a people who smile and shake hands with their neighbor; and the ambassador of Christ is a man who gives a cheery "good morning" to the flock and enables the audience to leave the service thinking shallow, positive thoughts. Another is the teaching that explicitly disparages doctrine, and theological orthodoxy, in favor of the mystical workings of the Holy Spirit, and the experience of these workings. The Chinese teacher, Watchman Nee, is an influential purveyor of this unbiblical, and dangerous, philosophy. In his book, The Release of the Spirit, Nee writes:(When a brother has been broken in the Spirit), in listening to a message he will use his spirit to contact the spirit of the preacher, rather than focusing upon the pronunciation of the words or the presentation of doctrine... And it is further true that whenever God's Spirit makes a move upon any brother, never again will he judge others merely by doctrine, words, or eloquence...when there is the flowing of His Spirit we will forget the theology we have learned. All we know is that the Spirit has come. Instead of mere knowledge we have an 'inner light.' (pp. 87,88)
Nee speaks of "two very different ways of help before us. First, 'there is a way that seemeth right' in which help is received from the outside -- through the mind -- by doctrine and its exposition. Many will even profess to have been greatly helped thought this way. Yet it is a 'help' so very different from that help which God really intends." " The help which God really intends" of course, is "the way of spirit touching spirit... until we have found this way we have not found true Christianity" (p.89). This is mysticism at its very worst. For a church, or for an individual, the embrace of this "spirit" is the kiss of death. Incidentally, this philosophy exposes church and individual to cultic enslavement to the charismatic leader. A third form of the expression of indifference to the truth that consists of playing up the Holy Spirit while playing down sound doctrine is the charismatic, or neo-Pentecostal, movement. (For a more thorough analysis of this movement, from the viewpoint of the Reformed Faith, the reader is invited to write us for a copy of the booklet, "Try the Spirits: a Reformed Examination of Pentecostalism.") The charismatic movement is, at bottom, an attack upon the Word of God -- upon the sole sufficiency and authority of Holy Scripture; namely, Jesus Christ and Him crucified; and upon the only way of receiving the salvation of the cross, namely, believing sound doctrine, when it is preached. Neo-Pentecostalism is an ancient error in new dress: mysticism. It is in virtually every detail the mysticism that tempted and opposed the Reformation, as soon as that movement was underway. The Reformation was fought on two fronts, and not on one only. Every bit as fierce, and important, as the conflict with Roman Catholicism on the right was the Reformation's warfare with the "heavenly prophets" on the left. These were the radicals who faulted the Reformation for not going beyond mere doctrine to the full experience of the Holy Spirit; who denigrated doctrine and preaching; who boasted of the power to work miracles (which power the Reformation freely acknowledged it did not have); and who gloried in such indwelling of the Spirit as to provoke Luther to muse that these foes of the Reformation had surely "swallowed the Holy Spirit, feathers and all." This movement drew off multitudes from the Reformation Faith. The difference between the Reformation Faith and Protestantism today is that the Reformation Church said no to this mysticism, sharply and unconditionally, whereas almost every Protestant church today is saying yes to it, in the charismatic movement. Because of its sublime indifference to doctrine, that is, truth, the charismatic movement is one of the most powerful and effective forces at work in the world today, for the union of all Protestants and for uniting of Protestants and Roman Catholics. This was illustrated by the North American Congress on the Holy Spirit and World Evangelization that met in New Orleans in the summer of 1987. Some 40 denominations or fellowships were represented in the Congress, which intended both to draw the churches together and to unite the churches in the work of evangelizing the world. Of the 35,000 participants, 51% were Roman Catholics (cf. Christianity Today, September 4, 1987, pp 44ff.) The refusal of members in the Protestant churches to fight for truth is also an evidence of indifference to the truth. There are Protestants who not only know what the truth is but who also embrace it, personally. They are well aware that their church is corrupting the truth, or forsaking it; and they are concerned about it. But they do not contend for the faith, at least not with the zeal that either results in the church's reformation or in their own ouster. Apparently, these people can live with the lie. They excuse themselves this way: "Regardless of its unfaithfulness, this is my church, and the church of my parents and grandparents before me. I love my church. I cannot bear to think of making any trouble for her, much less of leaving her." Certainly, a love for the Church and a desire for the peace and unity of the Church, manifested in one's own congregation, are good and praiseworthy qualities,. But to make love for the Church an argument for putting up with the lie, not only for oneself, but also for one's family, is a bad argument. This very argument was the strongest argument of Rome against the Reformation: "You make schism in Mother Church!" At the Diet of Worms, in 1521, when the enemies of Luther, both imperial and ecclesiastical, were urging him to retract his books and recant his teachings, they warned him "kindly and gently... that he should keep in mind the unity of the holy, catholic, and apostolic church... that he should not rend apart what he ought to respect, venerate, and adore..." (cf. Oskar Thulin, A life of Luther). The appeal to maintain the unity of the Church was powerful, not only because of Scripture's emphasis on the oneness of the Church, but also because men in the 16th century knew but one institute, and that, hallowed by centuries. The rebuttal of the Reformation was, "Where the gospel is corrupted, there the Church ceases to be." Calvin wrote, "Christ has so ordered in His Church, that if (the pure preaching of the gospel) is removed, the whole edifice must fall" (Institutes IV,I,II). To those who pleaded for tolerance of doctrinal errors in the name of Mother Church, Calvin replied:There is something specious in the name of moderation and tolerance is a quality which has a fair appearance, and seems worthy of praise; but the rule which we must observe at all hazards is, never to endure patiently that the sacred name of God should be assailed with impious blasphemy -- that His eternal truth should be suppressed by the devil's lies -- that Christ should be insulted, His holy mysteries polluted, unhappy souls cruelly murdered, and the Church left to writhe in extremity under the effect of a deadly wound. This would be not meekness, but indifference about things to which all others ought to be postponed. ("The Necessity of Reforming the Church")
Protestant people, tolerating false doctrine and clinging to apostate institutes, do not understand that their ancestors gave up all -- for doctrine. They do not understand that men of flesh and blood like themselves once dared everything, and risked throwing the world into a tumult -- for doctrine. They do not understand anymore the words of Luther's mighty hymn, "Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also" -- for doctrine. The gravity of this indifference to the truth is that it is indifference to the glory of God. God is glorified in the truth of the gospel; and He is dishonored when men change His truth into a lie. The Reformation Church burned with desire for God's glory. Where is this to be found in Protestantism today? God judges this contempt for His glory in the gospel, even as He punishes those who glorify Him not as God when He is revealed in creation (Rom. 1:28 ff.). For a lack of love for the truth, men and women are punished in these last days by a strong delusion, from God Himself, that they should believe a lie, "that they all might be damned who believed not the truth..." (II Thess. 2:10-12). Rejection of the Word All of this -- abandonment of the gospel of grace, adoption of the other gospel of works and free will, and indifference to the truth -- can be summed up as rejection of the Word of God. This was the sin of the pre-Reformation Church: she rejected the Word by denying the sole authority of Scripture, and she rejected the Word by repudiating the message of Scripture -- salvation by grace alone. Everything wrong with the Church could be traced to this evil. This is the evil of Protestantism today. There are many more evidences of Protestantism's rejection of the Word. Not only does it challenge Scripture's authority, but it also obscures Scripture's clarity. When Genesis 1-3 is interpreted in such a way that it is no longer straightforward, factual history, but a religious myth, so that the six days are now billions of years; "after his kind" is now "each species evolving into another species"; Adam is now the supreme ape and the eating of forbidden fruit is now the inherent weakness of the supreme ape, from the very beginning, well then the "ordinary": believer says, "I cannot understand the Bible." The "ordinary" pastor says the same thing. The result is either that men give up on Scripture, or that they give over the interpretation of it to the scientist and professional theologian. Thus arises a new papacy, now Protestant -- sole authoritative interpreter of the Bible. There is also an attack upon preaching itself. Protestantism has come full circle. Rome insisted, against the Reformation, as she still insists today, that the faithful must be taught by pictures, statues, and images, "books to the laity". Ignoring Question 98 of the Heidelberg Catechism, "God... will have His people taught not by dumb images, but by the lively preaching of His Word," even Reformed Protestants today clamor for pictures, plays, dances, dialogues, musical groups, and the like tomfoolery in the worship services, in the place of preaching. There are also many Protestants who, by this time, agree with Rome that the chief part of worship is the liturgy and that the Eucharist, not the preaching, is the chief means of grace. Another evidence of the rejection of God's Word is the proliferation of unreliable, even deliberately falsified, versions of the Bible, e.g., the enormously popular The Living Bible. Old Rome withheld the Scriptures, now Protestants bury the Word with corrupt versions. In the end, there is no difference. Consequences Rejection of the Word of God always has consequences; and Protestant churches suffer these consequences. Protestantism is without peace. It lacks the blessed assurance of pardon, of eternal life, of the Fatherly love of God. Neither a "social gospel" nor a "liberation theology" gives peace with God. The gospel of salvation by man's willing must ever sing with Rome the sad song that no one can be sure of his eternal salvation, as the Arminians themselves (proponents of free will in the 17th century) admitted. Nor can tongues-speaking and doubtful experience do what the doctrine of justification by faith only did in the Reformation era, and still does today; give to the wretchedest of sinners the confidence that he, even he personally, is God's dear child, and heir of life eternal. A Protestantism that has rejected a sovereign God insists that the evils that befall its people are not under God's control, as though this were a great good, instead of a cry of terror; it has lost the Reformation's comfort that "all things work together for good to them who love God" (Rom. 8:28). It is shot through with fears, anxieties, doubts, and dependencies on drink, drugs, pills, work, and pleasure. "Oh, Protestantism, if you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong unto your peace! but now they are hid from your eyes." Protestantism is unholy. On the one hand, it is devoid of genuine good works; worship of God in spirit and in truth; Sabbath-observance; submission to State and employer; faithfulness in marriage and home. On the other hand , it is characterized by bizarre good works. The pre-Reformation Church had its crazy good works: crusades, pilgrimages; relics; indulgences; and the like. So does Protestantism today: promoting civil disobedience and revolution at home and abroad; jumping on the world's bandwagon of feminism, defending abortion, advocating sexual licence and perversity; and similar "exercises of piety." It is worldly through and through. It is not on a pilgrimage; it does not seek the "city which hath foundations." As for discipline, the Church's excommunication of impenitent heretics and transgressors from the fellowship, is well-nigh unheard of. Let not "evangelical Protestantism" preen itself on its superior holiness. The churches with a name for orthodoxy and conservatism are full of unbiblically divorced and remarried persons. The epidemic rages in "evangelical Protestantism," unchecked. God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). Jesus Christ explicitly judges the man and woman who remarry after divorce, the original mate still living, as adulterer and an adulteress (Mark 10:11, 12; Luke 16:18). Paul and John exclude the impenitent adulterer from the kingdom of heaven (I Corinthians 6:9,10; Revelation 22:15). But "evangelical" pulpits are silent! "Evangelical" elders are inactive! "Evangelical" church members either celebrate the adulterous wedding, or helplessly wring their hands! "Evangelical" theologians write pious and clever books defending the abomination, so that no one need have a guilty conscience! This exposes much of "evangelical" Protestantism's agitation over abortion as hypocritical. Abortion is the pagan way to rid oneself of an unwanted child; divorce is the Protestant way to be free of undesired children. Abortion is the murder of one child; divorce is the murder of the whole family, and, as a rule, the murder also of the family of the woman, or man, lusted after. "Evangelical Protestantism" can talk this good among themselves, or politely decline to talk about it at all. But there comes a day when they will talk about it to God, the righteous Judge; and they will never talk it good to the God Who is Himself faithful in the covenant, even at the cost of the giving up of His own dear Son, and the God Whose purpose with a permanent marriage-instituion is a "godly seed" (Malachi 2:15). Causes Why has so much of the Protestant church-world come to reject the Word of God? In part it is the work of the Devil, the Church's "ancient foe," whose craft was evident from the very beginning in that he attacked God's Word: "Yea, hath God said...?" (Gen. 3:1). In part, it is due to the spirit of Antichrist, which is already in the world and which makes ready the way for the Man of Sin by bringing about a great falling away in the churches (II Thess. 2). In part, it is the havoc worked by false teachers -- pastors in the churches; theologians in the seminaries, and teachers in the schools, especially the nominally Christian colleges and universities: "...there shall be false teacher among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies... and many shall follow their pernicious ways..."(II Pet. 2:1,2). But none of this could succeed apart from men's unbelief concerning the Word of God. Men doubt the truth, power, sufficiency, and worth of the Word. They doubt whether the Word is able to gather, defend, and preserve the Church. They doubt whether the Word will keep the children and youth. They doubt whether the Word can comfort the distressed. They doubt whether the Word can stand the test of science. The doubt whether learned men will approve the Word's teachings -- creation; total depravity; predestination; the unbreakable marriage-covenant. They doubt whether the Word is relevant for modern man. So they give up on the Word of God. What folly! God's Word is truth! God's Word is holy! God's Word is almighty! God's Word is precious! God's Word is the only power unto salvation!. God's Word is the only light in the darkness of earthly live! God's Word judges everybody and everything, and is judged by no one and nothing! God's Word is pregnant with significance, giving meaning to all things; without the Word, modern man, with all his vain life, is irrelevant. God's Word abides! It abides, unscathed, in spite of all attacks upon it! It abides, when the fashion of this world passes away and the wisdom of this world dissipates like smoke! So also do they abide, who reverence the Word of God, and trust it with a child-like faith -- the true Church of God in the world. Calling Let every son and daughter of the Reformation in a church that stubbornly corrupts or abandons the gospel recovered by the Reformation "come out of her" (Rev. 18:4), and join himself, or herself, to a church that does clearly display the marks of the true church -- the pure preaching of the Word, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the proper exercise of discipline -- or institute the church anew. It is ironic that men and women who praise the Reformation refuse to take the action that was essential to the Reformation, namely, separation from a hopelessly corrupt church, and go on depriving themselves and their families of the very thing that the Reformation aimed at, namely, a sound, faithful church, in which God is worshipped rightly and saints are edified by the pure Word of God. It is as though slaves were to extol the emancipation proclamation that set them free, while choosing to remain in bondage, and a grievous bondage at that. Let every Protestant saint within a church that is faithfully proclaiming the Refomation-gospel praise God for His goodness; love that church; and give himself to her support, for the truth's sake. As for us in the Protestant Reformed Churches in America, let us thank God for what He gives us in these churches: the pure gospel of His grace, in His Son, Jesus the Christ. We must be thankful, for in giving us the truth God has give us His all. We must be humble, for we have nothing, and are nothing, that has not been given, out of mere grace. We must be faithful, in safeguarding the treasure that has come to us by the Reformation. We must be active in confessing and proclaiming it to others. In all this, we must be constantly reforming, for we have not yet attained, neither are we yet perfect. Speaking the truth in love, we are to "grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ" (Eph. 4:15). We should more thoroughly acquaint ourselves with the treasures of the Reformation, by reading Luther's three, great Reformation treatises -- "An open Letter to the Christian Nobility," "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,", as well as his The Bondage of the Will, and Calvin's Institutes, "A treatise of the Eternal Predestination of God," and "A Defense of the Secret Providence of God"; by studying the creeds of the Reformation; and above all, by reading and studying the Holy Scriptures themselves, for they "are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (II Tim. 3:15). And let us pray! Let us pray for God's Church today, that she be called out of darkness of ignorance and the lie into the light of the knowledge of God in truth. Let us pray for ourselves, that God not plague us with the worst of all plagues -- a famine of the Word, but that He fill us with the Spirit of Christ, Who guides us into all truth, as the Son of God has promised (John 16:13).
"In the present decadent age I frequently hear condemnations of 'dead orthodoxy'. There is so little orthodoxy today that even dead orthodoxy seems preferable to living heresy. Furthermore the Scriptures teach...that orthodoxy is never dead." Gordon Clark
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