All Articles For Langerak, Nathan

January 7, 2019 Dear Editors of the Standard Bearer, I read Rev. Koole’s rebuttal of my blog post in the Standard Bearer. He reiterates without proof that the controversy recently decided by synod was about the question, “what is to be judged as antinomianism?” Can he not see that this matter of antinomianism only came up as a false charge against objections to preaching that compromised the gospel of grace? The gospel of grace in its criticism of that preaching was charged with being antinomian. In his response Rev. Koole continues to press his point about the threat of antinomianism...

I am writing about the most recent editorial, What Must I Do?, by Rev. Koole (Oct. 1, 2018, p. 6-9). I find the editorial deeply disturbing for the connection that it makes with doctrinal dispute in our churches, specifically the editor’s, “fear that we tend to underestimate,” the truth of irresistible grace, and the editor’s connecting this to the, “issues being discussed in the PRC of late, namely, grace and godliness—the life of good works—in the life of the child of God.” The editor’s reference is to the doctrinal dispute in the Protestant Reformed Churches over sermons preached at Hope...

The Belgic Confession: A Commentary, (Volume 1), by David J. Engelsma. Jenison, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2018. 348 pp. $31.95, hardcover. [Reviewed by Rev. Nathan J. Langerak.] The author of the Belgic Confession and Reformed pastor, Guido De Bres, wrote the Confession in 1561 in part as an apology for the Reformed faith, seeking to relieve confessors of that faith who were brutally persecuted at that time in the Low Countries, then under Spanish rule. The ruler of the Low Countries, what is today Belgium and the Netherlands, prior to that time was the fanatical Roman Catholic, King Charles...

There are two men to whom Reformed churches and believers owe gratitude for their doctrine of the sacraments: Martin Luther and John Calvin. The debt of gratitude owed to Calvin is obvious. It is not so clear that Luther must be thanked. There cannot be serious thanks given for the Reformation’s recovery of the gospel of the sacraments, however, without noticing Calvin and Luther.1 This is especially true with regard to the contentious doctrine of the Lord’s supper. The controversy rocked the European continent during the Reformation. Furious exchanges of tracts, treatises, and letters, and intense face-to-face discussions did not...

At the time of year called Lent, Reformed believers remember the death of Jesus Christ for their salvation. They do not remember His death legalistically by putting ash on their foreheads or by giving up some favorite pleasure, but by listening to a series of sober sermons that expound the biblical doctrine of the death of Jesus Christ. Nor are the few Sundays before resurrection Sunday and on Good Friday the only times they remember His death, but they remember it whenever the gospel is preached by believing it. Especially they remember the Lord and show His death till He...

In a recent post at Reformed Reader, Rev. Shane Lems, former United Reformed Churches church planter, and now Orthodox Presbyterian Church minister, reminds his readers of the importance of the proper definition of total depravity: “C. S. Lewis misunderstood this. He got it wrong. He wasn’t really a theologian—much less a Reformed theologian—so we can charitably disagree and use this occasion to remember the right definition of total depravity.”1 Reformed Reader is Rev. Lems’ blog dedicated to commenting on various books that he is reading. In this particular post Rev. Lems responds to popular Christian writer C. S. Lewis’ disavowal...

In the news recently has been the revelation of the long-standing adultery of Douglas Phillips with a young nanny employed in his home. Douglas Phillips is the CEO of Vision Forum, Inc., a for-profit business that sells a catalog of expensive trinkets in the name of biblical patriarchy, and president of Vision Forum Ministries, a nonprofit ministry that promotes the ideas of Christian reconstructionism, homeschooling, and biblical patriar­chy. This article is not interested in the longstanding and adulterous relationship of Douglas Phillips. The scandal has exposed a movement in which Douglas Phillips is a key figure. Since he has not...

This year is the tenth anniversary of the formation in the Netherlands of the Reformed denomination De Gereformeerde Kerken Hersteld (the Reformed Churches restored [RCr]). In 2003 these churches liberated themselves from the Gereformeerde Kerken Vrijgemaakt (the Reformed Churches liberated [RCN­lib]), the churches of Klaas Schilder and mother of the Canadian and American Reformed Churches (CanRC). The RCr now consist of twelve churches divided into two classes. Since their separation the RCr have maintained their Schilderian convictions about the covenant, a charge that will not disappoint them. For instance, they note in the introduction to their letter to the 2013...

Previous article in this series: June 2013, p. 392. The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), host of the parasitic conditional covenant heresy known as Federal Vision (FV), recently exoner­ated leading FV heretic Peter Leithart.1 Despite all the avowals to the contrary by the PCA’s Standing Judicial Committee (SJC), their decision sanctioned his heretical theology as inside the bounds of the Westminster Stan­dards and allowed him to teach that heretical theology as within the bounds of the creeds, a fact that Peter Leithart cares little about since he loathes the creeds. Previously I noted some important features of his trial and...

In a landmark decision on March 7, 2013, the Pres­byterian Church of America (PCA) exonerated federal vision (FV) heretic Peter Leithart. The decision has been a long time coming. In 2007 the PCA adopted a report on the FV. Since then the Peter Leithart case has been going on at various levels in the PCA, notably his lengthy trial last year in his own Pacific Northwest Presbytery (PNWP), in which he was acquitted. One member of the presbytery, a ruling elder, appealed the case to the PCA’s Standing Judicial Committee (SJC), the highest judicial body in the PCA outside of...