REFORMED WITNESS
Volume IV, October 1996, Number 10
The Heartbeat Of The Reformation
Article by Prof. H.C. Hoeksema, originally published in The Standard Bearer , Volume 47, 1970.
Reformation Day, 1970 marks the 453rd anniversary of the Great Protestant Reformation. It also marks the 352nd anniversary of the Great Synod of Dordrecht. To the discerning Reformed Christian, the Synod of Dordrecht, noted, of course, chiefly for the Canons of Dordrecht, was not only involved in the never-ending process of reformation when it did battle against the Arminians and purged the church of their grave errors. But historically, the Synod of Dordrecht represents the climax of the Reformation. Frequently we fail to see the two as historically, as well as doctrinally, related. It was only about 100 years after that first act of reformation in 1517, and much less than 100 years after John Calvin began his reformatory work, that the truth of the Reformation came to its clearest and most beautiful expression in the Canons drawn up by the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands in 1618-'19. Dordrecht is the climax of Wittenberg and Geneva! At Dordrecht the central truth of the Reformation finally comes to its own!
Yet when one considers this fact and then looks at the church today, he is inclined to stand aghast. Dordrecht was not only a national Synod; and yet, while it was not really an ecumenical synod, or even an international synod, Dordrecht nevertheless represents the consensus of the Reformed churches in all of Europe at that time, all of whom had at least an advisory capacity at the Great Synod. This means that it was possible at that stage in history for the churches of the Reformed faith from all over the continent and from Great Britain to come together and to agree: to agree, moreover, on the truth! Dordt was Reformed, uncompromisingly Reformed! At Dordt you have the concrete manifestation and expression of the true reformational church: the church reformed and always reforming!
When one considers this fact by way of comparison with the situation in Reformed churches today - let alone in the church at large - one is filled with dismay at what he sees. The church today in comparison with the church at the time of Dordrecht presents, as far as the Reformed faith is concerned, a sorry spectacle! Men and churches are interested today in coming together. They are interested in what is called ecumenism. But they are interested in coming together not on the basis of the truth of our Reformed heritage, not in the interest of the truth, but at the expense of it!
One might well be inclined to ask: what is there to celebrate on Reformation Day?
But on the other hand, the only factor which can possibly make one take heart, which can possibly encourage and inspire one to continue to celebrate the Reformation in a real way - that is, as reformed and ever reforming - the only thing which can motivate one truly to celebrate the Reformation in the face of such an apparently hopeless situation is the very faith to which Dordt gave expression and which is set forth most beautifully in Article 9 of the Canons of Dordrecht, Chapter II:
"This purpose proceeding from everlasting love towards the elect, has from the beginning of the world to this day been powerfully accomplished, and will henceforward still continue to be accomplished, notwithstanding all the ineffectual opposition of the gates of hell, so that the elect in due time may be gathered together into one, and that there never may be wanting a church composed of believers, the foundation of which is laid in the blood of Christ, which may steadfastly love, and faithfully serve him as their Savior, who as a bridegroom for his bride, laid down his life for them upon the cross, and which may celebrate his praises here and through all eternity".
In these words is expressed the motif of genuine celebration of the Reformation, - celebration not only in the sense of thankful commemoration of the great work of our God wrought in the Reformation, but also in the sense of renewed dedication to the great principles of the Reformation and to the motto, "Reformed and Ever Reforming."
Without the confidence of the faith expressed in the words just quoted, one could indeed only stand aghast at the ecclesiastical scene of today and be filled with dismay and despair and discouragement.
The Heart And Its Beat
You will recognize that there is a figure of speech involved in the expression, "The Heart-Beat of the Reformation." We are referring in this figure of speech to that for which the Reformation as a historical movement stood and stands, that is, its principles, the body of truth, the confession of faith, for which it stood and to which the Reformation constituted a very strong return. We are trying to express by means of this figure the very essence, the core, the central feature of the Reformation from this point of view. We are trying to depict that which is central, that from which all else may be explained, that which furnishes vitality, in the entire body of Reformation-truth.
The figure is that of a person, a man, with a heart and a heart-beat.
Hence, just as physically the heart is the center of a man's existence, it is that organ which controls and directs the bloodstream and the circulation, pumping the life-blood through the entire organism of the body constantly and supplying food and energy and life to all our organs and all the cells of our body; and just as spiritually, according to Scripture in Proverbs 4, the heart is the spiritual center of a man, determining what a man is spiritually, determining whether a man is good or evil, so that "from the heart are the issues of life;" so it is also ecclesiastically. Our fathers spoke of the cor ecclesiae, the heart of the church, intending to emphasize that there is a certain central truth which controls and directs and energizes and vitalizes the whole life and the very bloodstream and the whole organism of the church's faith and confession, every aspect of the truth.
This same figure of speech implies the idea of the heart-beat. This element of the figure has reference to the action, the pumping, the pulsating, the throbbing of the heart, as it can be sensed and felt and heard - either directly, in the heart itself, or throughout all the reaches of the body in the pulse. This figure of the heart-beat may also be applied ecclesiastically, so that we may speak of the beating, the pulsating, the throbbing, of that one, central truth throughout the whole of the living confession of the church and throughout the whole of the body, the organism, of the truth and in all its parts.
Hence, when we speak of the heart-beat of the Reformation, we refer to what our fathers called the "heart of the church" as the "heart of the Reformation;" and, secondly, to the beating, the pulsating, of that heart of the Reformation in the entire confession of the Reformed faith, the entire body of Reformation-truth.
The question is: what was - and what, properly, still is - that heart whose beat can be sensed and ought to be sensed throughout the body of the faith?
Our fathers answered -- and correctly so, because they caught the keynote of the Reformation - they answered: election is the heart of the church. By this they meant, of course, the truth of eternal, sovereign election, together with its inseparable corollary, sovereign reprobation. In one term: sovereign predestination.
It is not our purpose here to expound in detail and to demonstrate from Scripture and the confessions in detail this truth of sovereign predestination. Let us rather look at some of the salient aspects:
1.) Election is the eternal and sovereign and gracious decree of God to lead the church as the body of Christ, with all its individual members, each in his own position in that body, to eternal salvation and glory. Let us notice a few important features here. In the first place, election is sovereign. That means, positively, that election proceeds from God's eternal good pleasure as its source and reason. In the second place, election involves not a mere crowd of elect individuals, not a mob, but a body, a church, and all the members of that church individually. In the third place, predestination does not merely include the goal, the end, but also the way to that end. God's election includes eternal salvation and glory and the way to that eternal salvation and glory in all of its aspects. In the fourth place, election is not arbitrary. It is not merely a cold and mechanical decree to save some (and to damn others); but election is in Christ Jesus our Lord, the Head of the elect church.
2.) Sovereign predestination includes reprobation. Reprobation is the eternal and sovereign decree of God to determine some men to be vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction in the way of sin, as manifestations of His justice, and to serve the purpose of the realization of His elect church. Again, let us notice a few elements which need emphasis here. In the first place, election and reprobation are absolutely inseparable. Predestination is double predestination, or it is not at all. It is impossible to maintain election without maintaining reprobation. You can readily understand that this is in the very nature of the case. It makes no real difference here whether you speak the mild, infralapsarian language of a "leaving" or "passing by" in reprobation, or whether you speak of a positive rejection, election itself implies that there are those who are not included in that divine decree of election, but excluded. In the second place, - and this is important, too - reprobation is also sovereign, not conditional. It does not take place on the basis of foreseen sin and unbelief. It also proceeds from God's eternal good pleasure. Again, whether you speak of an active and positive rejection or merely of a passing by - and we need not quibble about that here - it is sovereign. It takes place according to God's good pleasure, though the decreed damnation is historically realized in the way of man's own unbelief and sin. It is of the utmost importance that this be maintained. You cannot maintain an unconditional election and a conditional reprobation. If the one is sovereign, the other is also sovereign. If the one is conditional, the other is necessarily conditional also. In the third place, it is important to remember that historically it has always been that doctrine of reprobation especially which was first disliked and rejected and discarded; and this led inevitably to the corrupting and discarding of the truth of sovereign election. This is the case today, too. It is the doctrine of reprobation (Canons I, 15) which is under strong attack in Reformed churches; and the attempt is being made by some to modify and corrupt it.
Together these two - sovereign election and sovereign reprobation - are called sovereign predestination, or foreordination, that is, God's eternal and sovereign decree, counsel, will, with respect to the destiny of His moral creatures, men and angels.3.) In the broadest sense of the word, predestination is not limited merely to the salvation and damnation of men and angels; but it includes God's eternal and all-comprehensive counsel with respect to all things. It includes the entire universe and its destiny and the way to that destiny. The divine purpose of election and reprobation constitutes the center, the focal point, of God's eternal plan and purpose, round about which all other things in that counsel are arranged and with which they stand in connection as means to an end.
Thus, briefly, we would describe the heart of the Reformation....
And the beat of that heart is the heart-beat of the Reformation.
That means, therefore, not merely that this truth of sovereign predestination is one of the important Reformation-truths, or even the most important in rank. But it means that it is the heart! It is that which controls and directs and energizes the entire life-stream of the organism of the truth. Properly, the beat of that heart must be felt not only in the doctrine concerning God, but in the doctrine concerning creation and the fall, and providence, and the atonement, and salvation, and in the doctrine of the church itself, and in the doctrine of the last things, and the doctrine of everlasting glory, the everlasting state - so that in all these truths you can sense, can feel, can detect clearly the pulse-beat, the lively throbbing, of that heart, the truth of sovereign predestination.
The Importance of the Heart
Let us look at the central importance of that heart of the Reformation and its beat. Let us do that by referring to the figure of the human heart, and by way of contrast.
Ask the question: what happens if a man has heart trouble? His heart is central. The entire organism of his body is dependent upon his heart. The health, the well-being, of the whole body is dependent upon that central organ. If his heart is diseased, the body is bound to be affected throughout. And depending on the seriousness of the disease which afflicts his heart, he becomes weak, is probably forced to be inactive, and he can finally be fatally affected.
The same is true ecclesiastically with respect to this "heart of the Reformation" and its beat.
Let that heart beat weakly, or let it beat diseasedly, or let the beat of that heart cease altogether: the entire organism of the church's confession, faith, life, is inevitably affected. Obviously the doctrine of God is at stake: principally, if you deny the doctrine of sovereign predestination, you lose God and you enthrone man on God's throne. The truth of creation and providence and the fall is affected: these truths become disconnected from God's other works. Such diseases result as the doctrine of a universal Fatherhood of God and its corollary, the universal brotherhood of man. When that heart does not beat properly, you get such errors as the covenant of works, common grace in the Kuyperian sense of the word, the denial of total depravity. When the beat of that heart does not influence the doctrine concerning Christ, you get, as is well known, the error of universal atonement. When that beat does not energize the doctrine of salvation - the doctrines of regeneration, calling, faith, justification, sanctification, preservation - then salvation becomes a cooperative work of God and man, or it becomes a matter of a general, well-meant offer of salvation, dependent upon the will of man. The disease of free-willism results. The doctrine of the church is likewise affected: principally, when you lose that heart-beat, the whole truth of the holy catholic church is afflicted. The doctrine of the last things is affected: when that heart-beat is not healthy, principally you stand in danger of falling either into the error of premillennialism or the error of post-millennialism. The principle of the antithesis is affected necessarily: when that heart-beat does not make itself felt, that principle is watered down and finally lost. You lose the other aspect of the seal upon God's foundation (II Tim. 2:19). You lose this: "let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." And you lose it because you have lost what precedes it: "The Lord knoweth them that are his." And the blessedness of the assurance and certainty of salvation is lost, too. When that heart does not beat rightly, you finally lose the solidness of the solid comfort, of our only comfort in life and death.
And thus it is with the whole of the Christian faith. There are even effects of this heart-beat with respect to the doctrine of Holy Scripture and the whole idea of revelation which is much discussed today. You cannot properly maintain the truth of organic inspiration, for example, without the truth of sovereign predestination.
The heart and its beat, therefore, are of central importance.
The Heart-Beat In The Reformation
Some might be inclined to question the position taken and to challenge the claim that the very heart of the Reformation is to be discovered in the truth of sovereign predestination.
After all, some might think, the Reformation began in 1517 with Luther, not with John Calvin. And as is well known, there were two principles involved in that Reformation under Luther. There was the so-called formal principle of the authority and perspicuity of the Scriptures; and there was the material principle of the justification by faith only. Perhaps in the light of these principles of Luther, some might be ready to ask: where, then, in the Reformation under Luther was that heart-beat of sovereign predestination?
To find the answer to this question, we must take into consideration, in the first place, certain facts with respect to Luther personally and with respect to the Reformation as it was brought about through the instrumentality of God's servant, Martin Luther.
First of all, recall the fact that at the time of the Reformation Luther did not simply announce bluntly the dogmatic principle of justification by faith. But he arrived at his position in the way of a very real and poignant personal struggle: he wanted peace with God! That is the background of the Reformation. To put it briefly, in that quest after personal peace with God, Luther learned by painful experience that there was no justification to be found by mere natural man, and therefore no peace. There was no justification possible in the way of man. Justification - and he found this out by experience - justification by works was a myth. Try as he might, along that impossible way of justification by works, he could find no peace. And the Lord led Luther personally, by way of the Scriptures, to the rediscovery of the precious truth of justification by faith only. Then he found peace; not before that.
Now this is significant.
If we understand a little of this personal struggle of Martin Luther and of the miracle of his finding peace with God, then it becomes plain, in the first place, that for Luther faith was not another work of some kind. No, he had desperately tried that way of justification by works; and he had found it utterly wanting! Faith, to Luther, was not his achievement, as is the common presentation today. That very common and superficial presentation which forevermore prates about accepting Jesus Christ, presents salvation as God's work and faith as our work. Then the matter of salvation and peace still devolves upon man. And then salvation is still a matter of human achievement. If such had been Luther's understanding of faith, he would have found himself in the same hopeless situation. He would have had no peace!
For Luther, faith, in distinction from works, is the power and the act which stands diametrically over against works as far as righteousness is concerned. It is the God-given power and the God-wrought activity which clings to God in Christ, which clings to the power of the justifying God, for all its righteousness.
In other words, Luther's "by faith only" was at the same time the principle of "by grace only." And the heart-beat of "by grace only" is the heart-beat of sovereign predestination. It is that predestination which determines the answer to the question: upon whom does God bestow His grace, and upon whom does God bestow the gift of saving faith whereby in-themselves-lost sinners are justified and have peace with Him?
We must, therefore, view the Reformation as one. It was begun through Luther, and it ripened and came to fruition through the labors of John Calvin. And viewing it in proper historical perspective, we must view it against the background of the tide of Semi-Pelagianism which, after the time of Augustine, had swept the church during the Middle Ages and which at the time of the Reformation well-nigh threatened to destroy the church. Put in terms of doctrine, put in terms of the historical development of doctrine, that entire idea of work-righteousness which troubled Luther so sorely was nothing but that vicious error of Semi-Pelagianism.
Semi-Pelagianism was an attempted, but utterly unsuccessful, attempt at a compromise between strict Pelagianism (which really denies grace altogether) and strict Augustinianism (which really maintains grace altogether). And it is characteristic of compromises between the truth and the lie in the broad movement of the history of the church that the lie always wins out. Men sometimes try to speak in this connection of Semi-Augustinianism. That is a "nothing." Semi-Augustinianism is only a euphemism for Semi-Pelagianism; and Semi-Pelagianism is nothing, at bottom, but Pelagianism - with a nice face. Pelagianism held that man is sound. Semi-Pelagianism held that man is not totally depraved, dead, but that he is spiritually alive, though crippled and sick as to his power of will. Semi-Pelagianism held that grace is a power that can be resisted and is, therefore, limited; and yet it is a power which can be appropriated and used by man and which supplements and helps man's native power of will to seek after God through Christ and to be saved. That is the position of Semi-Pelagianism on the doctrine of grace. It always reminds me of a favorite Dutch expression of a good friend I had in Northwest Iowa. He liked to say, "De genade komt achteraan als een hinkende paard. (Grace comes on behind like a lame horse.)" An accurate description!
But the heart of the matter lies in the doctrine of predestination. Semi-Pelagianism had something to say about that too. It struck a blow at the very heart of the truth! It taught that predestination takes place according to divine foreknowledge of man's faith, a foreknowledge which is wholly independent of God's determination, and which is rather determinative of that divine determination. Finally, as you might expect, Semi-Pelagianism taught with respect to Christ that He died for all men promiscuously.
If you are at all acquainted with Reformed doctrine and its history, you will recognize in those four points of the Semi-Pelagian position the heresy of Arminianism. That is why our fathers of Dordrecht accused the Arminians of bringing up the doctrine of Pelagius again out of hell - language which some people today cannot stomach.
But to return to our immediate subject, from a doctrinal point of view it was this Semi-Pelagianism which lay at the root of Luther's personal struggle and which was the reason for his lack of peace. And the Reformation as a movement was the liberation of the church from this Semi-Pelagianism. It was a return to Augustinianism, based upon the Scriptures. It was a return to the whole body of the truth which has its heart in sovereign predestination.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that Martin Luther did not discern that sovereign predestination is indeed the heart of the truth of the gospel.
Mind you, already in 1515, two years before his more famous ninety-five these, in his ninety-nine theses Luther sensed and stated that this was the heart of the whole truth of salvation: "The excellent, infallible and sole preparation for grace is the eternal election and predestination of God."
It is indeed true that you do not find in Luther the degree of doctrinal clarity and full and systematic development which you find in Calvin. It is also true that with respect to God's predestination Luther developed along different lines than did Calvin; this was connected, again, with his personal life and development. Luther speaks of predestination especially against the background of and in connection with man's total depravity. If you want to discover what Luther thinks about sovereign predestination, then you must read what he wrote against Erasmus of Rotterdam on 'The Bondage of the Will.' But every church historian freely admits that Luther stood in the same position as Calvin as far as sovereign predestination is concerned. Even non-Calvinist historians must admit that the reformers were agreed in this respect. And Luther himself never changed his beliefs on this score essentially, although Lutheranism, especially under the influence of Philip Melanchthon, compromised and departed. As you might expect, Luther, with his strong emphasis upon the bondage of the will, upon total depravity, insists necessarily at the same time upon the truth of sovereign predestination.
Here is what Philip Schaff writes on this subject - and Schaff is certainly no Calvinist:
"All the Reformers were originally Augustinians, that is, believers in the total depravity of man's nature, and the absolute sovereignty of God's grace. They had, like St. Paul and St. Augustine, passed through a terrible conflict with sin, and learned to feel in their hearts what ordinary Christians profess with their lips, that they were justly condemned, and saved only by the merits of Christ. They were men of intense experience and conviction of their own sinfulness and of God's mercifulness; and if they saw others perish in unbelief, it was not because they were worse, but because of the inscrutable will of God, who gives to some, and withholds from others, the gift of saving faith." (History of the Christian Church, VII, 431)
But let us listen to Luther himself. The three following brief quotations are all from his The Bondage of the Will:
(1) It is especially necessary and healthful for the Christian to be aware that God foreknows nothing contingently, but that, with immutable and eternal and infallible will, He foresees, and proposes, and does all things. By this thunderbolt the free will is thrown down and ground to powder... Immutable and infallible is the will of God which governs our mutable will... Free will is plainly a divine name, nor does it befit anything except the Divine Majesty alone, which is able to do and does all things which it pleases, in heaven and in earth.
(2) 'Who (you say) will endeavour to amend his life?'-- I answer, No man! No man can! For your self-amenders without the Spirit, God regardeth not, for they are hypocrites. But the Elect, and those that fear God, will be amended by the Holy Spirit; the rest will perish unamended....
(3) 'who will believe (you say) that he is loved of God?' I answer, No man will believe it! No man can! But the Elect shall believe it; the rest shall perish without believing it, filled with indignation and blaspheming, as you (Erasmus) here describe them.
Quotations like the above can be multiplied. And it is evident that when it comes to clear and sharp language on this subject Luther is not to be outdone by John Calvin. The clear heart-beat of the Reformation!
Calvin ought to be so well known when it comes to this subject that he should not even have to be quoted. This doctrine runs as a golden thread through all of Calvin's teachings. In his Institutes and in his commentaries and in his controversial writings you come upon it at almost every turn: not, mind you, as something incidental, but something which constitutes the heart, the warp and woof, of Calvin's teachings. For Calvin sovereign predestination was the heart of the church and the heart of the truth. He could not teach without it. He could not expound Scripture without it. He could not touch upon especially those passages of Scripture which opponents of the truth of sovereign predestination love to cite without insisting upon this doctrine. Everywhere in Calvin's teachings you can feel the strong heart-beat of sovereign predestination.
A word of caution is in order in this regard. It is often presented as though predestination has a very limited place in Calvin. Sometimes it is claimed that Calvin spoke of predestination only in connection with soteriology, the doctrine of the application of the benefits of salvation to God's people. Besides, there is in some quarters a studied attempt today, by men who would give lip-service to Calvinism and who would claim the name of the great reformer without accepting his teachings, a studied attempt to "de-Calvinize" Calvin. By some it is even claimed that our Canons of Dordrecht represents a different brand of Calvinism, a brand of Calvinism which is contrary to the true spirit of Calvin himself.
All of this is far from the truth. If you want to find out, then read Calvin, not what others say about Calvin.
Moreover, do not forget that two of Calvin's major treatises were devoted to this subject. They are both included in the volume called Calvin's Calvinism: Calvin's The Eternal Predestination of God and A Defense of the Secret Providence of God. But let us listen to Calvin himself.
First of all, here is what he writes in Calvin's Calvinism, pp. 81,82, concerning that crucial passage in John 12:39,40:
"Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart and be converted, and I should heal them.
The secret and eternal purpose and counsel of God must be viewed as the original cause of their blindness and unbelief... He says: 'Therefore, they could not believe.' Wherefore, let men torture themselves as long as they will with reasoning, the cause of the difference made--why God does not reveal His own arm equally to all -- lies hidden in His own eternal decree... Hence, unless we would elude the plain and confessed meaning of the Evangelist, that few receive the Gospel, we must fully conclude that the cause is the will of God; and that the outward sound of the Gospel strikes the ear in vain until God is pleased to touch by it the heart within."
In his Institutes, III, 21-24, he writes the following:
"We shall never be clearly convinced as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from the fountain of God's free mercy, till we are acquainted with His eternal election, which illustrates the grace of God by this comparison, that He adopts not all promiscuously to the hope of salvation, but gives to some what He refuses to others. Ignorance of this principle evidently detracts from the Divine glory, and diminishes real humility. But according to Paul, what is so necessary to be known, never can be known, unless God, without any regard to works, chooses those whom He has decreed...
Predestination, by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death, no one, desirous of the credit of piety, dares absolutely to deny. But it is involved in many cavils, especially by those who make foreknowledge the cause of it. We maintain, that both belong to God; but it is preposterous to represent one as dependent on the other. When we attribute foreknowledge to God, we mean that all things have ever been, and perpetually remain before His eyes, so that to His knowledge nothing is future or past, but all things are present; and present in such a manner, that He does not merely conceive of them from ideas formed in His mind, as things remembered by us appear present to our minds, but really beholds and sees them as if actually placed before Him. And this foreknowledge extends to the whole world, and to all the creatures. Predestination we call the eternal decree of God by which He has determined in Himself what He would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these, ends, we say, he is predestinated either to life or death. This God has not only testified in particular persons, but has given a specimen of it in the whole posterity of Abraham, which should evidently show the future condition of every nation to depend upon His decisions...
In conformity, therefore, to the clear doctrine of the Scripture, we assert, that by an eternal and immutable counsel, God has once for all determined, both whom He would admit to salvation, and whom He would condemn to destruction. We affirm that this counsel, as far as concerns the elect, is founded on His gratuitous mercy, totally irrespective of human merit; but that to those whom He devotes to condemnation, the gate of life is closed by a just and reprehensible, but incomprehensible, judgment...."
The Heart Beating in the Canons
It was this "heart of the Reformation" which found expression especially in our Canons of Dordrecht, and found expression in such a way that the beat of that heart is clear and strong and unmistakable in the whole of the truth of salvation. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the first chapter of the Canons, on sovereign predestination, stand merely side-by-side with the other four chapters. On the contrary, in it you have the heart of all the Canons. That this is true is plain from the fact that the truth of sovereign predestination literally runs through all the rest of the Canons. Thus, having approached the matter of salvation from the historical point of view of faith and unbelief, Canons I proceeds to explain this from sovereign predestination in Article 6:
"That some receive the gift of faith from God, and others do not receive it proceeds from God's eternal decree, 'For known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world,' Acts 15:18. 'Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will,' Eph. 1:11. According to which decree, he graciously softens the hearts of the elect, however obstinate, and inclines them to believe, while he leaves the non-elect in his just judgment to their own wickedness and obduracy. And herein is especially displayed the profound, the merciful, and at the same time the righteous discrimination between men, equally involved in ruin; or that decree of election and reprobation, revealed in the Word of God, which though men of perverse, impure and unstable minds wrest to their own destruction, yet to holy and pious souls affords unspeakable consolation."
Then, in all the remaining articles of the first chapter, the Canons detailedly expound the above truth of sovereign election and reprobation as no other creed describes this "heart of the truth," Articles 7 to 18.
But in the following chapters this "heart" beats strongly and healthily in the entire truth of salvation.
Plainly, it is this truth of sovereign predestination which controls the Second Head of Doctrine, the chapter concerning the death of Christ and the atonement. This comes to expression in Article 8, that clear and beautifully stated article which was at stake in the recent "Dekker Case." Listen to the heart-beat in this article:
"For this was the sovereign counsel, and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father, that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of his Son should extend to all the elect, for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring them infallibly to salvation: that is, it was the will of God, that Christ by the blood of the cross, whereby he confirmed the new covenant, should effectually redeem out of every people, tribe, nation, and language, all those, and those only, who were from eternity chosen to salvation, and given to him by the Father; that he should confer upon them faith, which together with all the other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, he purchased for them by his death; should purge them from all sin, both original and actual, whether committed before or after believing; and having faithfully preserved them even to the end, should at last bring them free from every spot and blemish to the enjoyment of glory in his own presence forever."
Also in the doctrine of the application of the benefits of salvation, as set forth in Canons III and IV, it is this "heart" which is the determining and controlling factor. How clear this is in Articles 10 and 11!
Article 10. "But that others who are called by the gospel, obey the call, and are converted, is not to be ascribed to the proper exercise of free will, whereby one distinguishes himself above others, equally furnished with grace sufficient for faith and conversion, as the proud heresy of Pelagius maintains; but it must be wholly ascribed to God, who as he has chosen his own from eternity in Christ, so he confers upon them faith and repentance, rescues them from the power of darkness, and translates them into the kingdom of his own Son, that they may show forth the praises of him, who hath called them out of darkness into his marvelous light; and may glory not in themselves, but in the Lord, according to the testimony of the apostles in various places."
Article 11. "But when God accomplishes his good pleasure in the elect, or works in them true conversion [notice the connection: the working of true conversion is the accomplishment of God's good pleasure in the elect - HCH], he not only causes the gospel to be externally preached to them, and powerfully illuminates their minds by his Holy Spirit, that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God; but by the efficacy of the same regenerating Spirit, pervades the inmost recesses of the man; he opens the closed, and softens the hardened heart, and circumcises that which was uncircumcised, infuses new qualities into the will, which though heretofore dead, he quickens; from being evil, disobedient, and refractory, he renders it good, obedient, and pliable; actuates and strengthens it, that like a good tree, it may bring forth the fruits of good actions."
Again, in the doctrine of the preservation of the saints, Canons V, that "heart" beats. It is that heart which vitalizes and energizes the entire truth of preservation. This becomes evident in more than one article; but let us look only at Article 8:
"Thus, it is not in consequence of their own merits, or strength, but of God's free mercy, that they do not totally fall from faith and grace, nor continue and perish finally in their backslidings; which, with respect to themselves, is not only possible, but would undoubtedly happen; but with respect to God, it is utterly impossible, since his counsel cannot be changed, nor his promise fail, neither can the call according to his purpose be revoked, nor the merit, intercession and preservation of Christ be rendered ineffectual, nor the sealing of the Holy Spirit be frustrated or obliterated." [emphasis added].
The heart-beat of predestination!
Ecclesiastical Heart Trouble and Reformation
The church of today has heart trouble!
No stethoscope or cardiograph is needed to discover this. The fact is obvious. All the symptoms are there. No doctor of theology need be called in to make the diagnosis. How far away is the church of our times, away from the high plane and the healthy state of Reformation times!
A long list of ills and of obvious symptoms could be mentioned. But who does not know these ills? Who today, whether liberal or conservative, is not complaining that there is something wrong, radically wrong, in the church? Men are not by any means agreed as to what is wrong and as to the cure. But that something is wrong, on this all agree. In fact, there has never been a time in history when the church has been more troubled, more unsettled, than our time.
And all these symptoms and ills point to one thing: the church has heart trouble!
Either the heart has been cut out of the truth completely, or - what amounts essentially to the same thing - the sovereignty of predestination is denied. Or mere lip-service is paid to that heart of the truth; it is hardly mentioned in the preaching, only occasionally touched upon, but never emphasized as the heart. The beat of that heart is not felt and heard and sensed in the whole body of the church's confession and preaching.
Many false cures are proposed. Often the truth of sovereign predestination itself is blamed. And the cure is sought in another, essentially Pelagian, direction. We must relax our confessions. We must drum up more mission enthusiasm. We must have crusades and revivals. We must break out of our isolationist shell. We must show more openness toward society at large. We must become involved in the world's and society's problems. We must be more ecumenical-minded. The fact is that these proposed cures remind one of giving a cure for a headache or a Band-Aid for a cut on one's finger when the real trouble is in the heart. The fact is, too, that many of these proposed cures for the church's ills are themselves symptoms of serious heart trouble.
But the heart of the troubles is that the church today has ecclesiastical heart trouble.
Reformation is needed! And that reformation, from the point of view of its material principle, consists fundamentally in a return to this heart-truth of the Reformation, in harmony with the Scriptures. That is the only cure! The church must repent and return to the whole truth of the Scriptures, of which sovereign predestination is the heart, or perish!
This reformation, after all, is a very personal matter. It is a matter of personal repentance.
Where do you personally stand? Were our fathers right? Yes or No?
If we think that the fathers were not right, if we think that the Reformers were not right, if we think that Dordrecht was not right, then let us not call ourselves children of the Reformation any longer.
But if we are at heart children of the Reformation, if we love the church of Jesus Christ, if we love the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, then we must always be repenting and returning to this heart-truth of sovereign predestination and sovereign grace. And we must let the clarion call go forth: the call to purify, the call to purge the church, the call to return wholeheartedly and completely to Reformational truth!
Do not be deterred and frightened and disheartened by the cavils and the slanders of the enemies of this heart-truth of the Reformation, especially not by the slander that this doctrine is hard and cold and proud. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
The truth is this, that when you sense the beat of this "heart of the Reformation," you sense the very beat of the heart of God! And then you enjoy the peace and comfort that can come only from the assurance that God's eternal and sovereign love has flooded your soul!
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