Vol 28 Issue 01

Although the Rev. Blankespoor did not ask me personally to reply to his questions, published in the preceding issue of the Standard Bearer, I will nevertheless try to make a start with the discussion. In the first place, I feel, of course, co-responsible for this Declaration of Principles as a delegate to our last Synod. Secondly, I feel still more responsible because synod added me to the committee that drew up this declaration and advised synod to adopt it. And thirdly, the committee asked me to draw up the first Draft of this Declaration of Principles, which then was discussed...

A joint communication from two pastors is read to the Classis and received for information after which the Clas­sis considers two documents, one from the Hull Consistory and one from it pastor. Originating from these documents Classis reconsiders the matter of the Letter of Informa­tion which was treated by the last Classis. Last Classis of March had before it a committee report consisting of four points. This Classis expresses that the decisions made at that time in points 1, 2, 3, 4 are to be put into the hands of a committee for report at this meeting. This commit­tee makes...

As was stated, to understand this struggle especial­ly in its continuation we must have before us all the issues on which it concentrated. First, there was the doctrinal issue. Here the ques­tion was whether grace is resistible. Second, there was the issue of the authority, that is, the binding power of the Confessions, to wit, the Belgic Confessions and the Heidelberg Catechism. Third, there was the issue that touched on the rela­tion of church and state. Regard must now be had to this third issue. Here the question was one of who rules the church, that is, rules the church...

In our exposition of this passage from the sermon of Paul, spoken in Antioch of Pisidia, we raise and answer three questions or propositions. These are as follows: What we are to understand by the “promise made unto the Fathers.” To this proposition we gave our answer in the Standard Bearer of September 1. What we are to understand by the “fulfillment of this promise” and how God has done this “in raising Jesus.” We began giving our answer to this question in our former article, September 15 issue of the Stand­ard Bearer. The reader can still look forward to...

We concluded last time by calling attention to sev­eral passages, from both the Old and the New Testa­ment, in which the principle of our Christian isolation is announced. And it is this principle, which lies at the foundation of all Christian action, inclusive of Christian action in the field of education, to the signifi­cance of which we call your attention in the present article. And for the sake of clarity, it is well, perhaps, that we do so especially from the antithetical aspect. A Spiritual, Ethical Separation The first question which we face in our present discussion is: what is...

The Theological Seminary of the Protestant Re­formed Churches began its 26th academic year on Tuesday, September 11, 1951, with a special convoca­tion held at 9:15 a.m. in First Protestant Reformed Church, Fuller and Franklin Streets, Grand Rapids, Mich. The Rev. G. M. Ophoff presided. Students, faculty and theological school committee members were present. At the opening service, the Rev. Ophoff read the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew and led in prayer. Rev. Ophoff then took as his text Matthew 28:19, 20 and delivered a thought-provoking and instructive mes­sage on the theme: The Purpose of a Theological School. This high and Reformed...

“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and Gad saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let...

LANGE’S COMMENTARY ON THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, Kings-Esther, two volumes. Published by Zondervan Pub­lishing House, Grand Rapids, Mich. Price per volume $3.95. Dr. Bahr of Carlsruhe, who prepared the commentary on Kings, substituted the title’s Heilsgeschich–liche and Ethische Grundgedanken for the usual heading of the second part of the exposition in Lange’s Bible work. The translator has rendered this: His­torical and Ethical. The fundamental soundness of this part of the Commentary may be judged by what Dr. Bahr writes in the Historical and Ethical notes on the revolt of the ten tribes and the division of the kingdom. As to the...

In the eighty-second question the Heidelberger asks: “Are they also to be admitted to this supper, who, by confession and life, declare themselves unbe­lieving and ungodly?” This question is quite distinct from the preceding one. There the question was: “For whom is the Lord’s supper instituted?” And the implication of the answer was such that it was left to the individual believer to determine whether or not he is a proper partaker of the Lord’s supper. To put it in different words, the question was: Who must be in­cluded in those that come to the table of the Lord as...

From three individuals of our former church in Hamilton I received a communication that is worthy of the severest condemnation by all our Protestant Re­formed people, and which I do not hesitate to call a very evil piece of work, that certainly cannot have been conceived in the mind and heart of any regenerated child of God. Under the cloak of an apparently very humble con­fession they launch one more very slanderous attack upon their former pastor, the Rev. H. Veldman, who because of their crooked and wicked contrivance and action now is deprived of a place in the active...