All Articles For Lubbers, George C

This time I shall not use the space commonly oc­cupied by the rubric “From Holy Writ” for that pur­pose. Rather I shall take this opportunity to give an account of myself and of my stand as a member of the “Majority Committee” in the matter of the protests against the “Statements of Rev. De Wolf.”

Dear Editor of the Concordia:

Since it is sometime ago that we called attention to the setting and meaning of this particular portion of holy writ from I Peter, and, no doubt, the exact text is not clearly before our mind any more, I shall write out this particular passage in full. The text reads as follows: “as children of obedi­ence, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust in pour ignorance: but like He Who has called you is holy so be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written: Ye shall be holy for I am holy.”

We continue our exposition of I Peter in this es­say. This time we intend to make a few remarks concerning verse 17 of this Chapter. This passage is very rich in instruction and exhortation and, there­fore, worthy of our believing and prayerful attention. The text in question reads as follows: “And if ye call on Him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear.”

In our former article we called attention to I Peter 1:17. We noticed that our confession and walk must be in perfect harmony. Always it is the order of Confession and walk. These belong together. The moment the former is minim­ized in respect to the latter it is impossible to retain either one of the two. They who play out our walk over against our Confession as an antipole, rather than presenting them as root and fruit, certainly have no Christian walk left.

It has become a rather common habit of the Rev. Kok to quote the Rev. H. Hoeksema as if this theo­logian taught a Dogmatics the warp and woof of which is, that faith is a condition of salvation. Now I have noticed all the while that brother Kok did not ever quote from the “notes” dictated by Rev. H. Hoeksema, dictated by the latter in class also to the Rev. B. Kok, who then was yet “but a student”. Intellectual hones­ty would seem to dictate that such be done. However, the quotations given by Rev.

Repeatedly we have called attention in these series of the apostle that the Church, the believers in Christ Jesus stand in a new Status Quo to Christ, and therefore to all things. Old things are passed away and all things have become new for us.

“Now Korah…with Dathan and Abiram…took men and they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel…men of renown, and they assembled themselves against Moses and against Aaron…” Numbers 16:1-3 Vox Dei! The voice of Jehovah, the God of Israel….

Since it is so persistently insisted that the Rev. H. Hoeksema in former years taught a conditional promise, and that now our esteemed professor has shifted in his teaching from that former position, the time has come to let the record speak.

It was with more than usual pains that we prepared ourselves to write some expository thoughts on this last section of this chapter, the verses 22-25. The reason for this careful study and preparation is due to two reasons. The first is, that in this passage various concepts call for a rather careful analysis and study. It is of the utmost importance to know the meaning of a term before we can say anything positive and constructive about it.