Vol 28 Issue 03

  IN SESSION OCTOBER 10th, 1951 AT GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN This session of Classis East was held at the Second Prot. Ref. Church of Grand Rapids. Rev. H.H. Kuiper, who presided at the last Classis, conducted the usual opening exercises. The credentials are read and accepted. They reveal that all the churches are represented by two delegates with the exception of Chatham; of this congregation only the pastor was able to be present. According to rotation, Rev. G. Lubbers is called upon to preside, and Rev. H.H. Kuiper serves as clerk. The minutes of the former meeting of Classis are...

In this last essay of our exposition of Acts 13:32, 33 we wish to call further attention to the element in the text, that speaks of the preaching, the proclaiming of the glad tidings of the gospel, that God hath fulfilled the promise in raising Jesus, our Lord, from the dead. This glad tidings is preached definitely to the people, to the congregation as a word of comfort and exhortation. Thus we attempted to point out in our former writing on this subject. But the question still remains in this connection (it persists) does this preaching, this evangelizing merely come...

In our past few articles we have tried to urge not the expediency of truly Christian, and therefore, Protestant Reformed education, but the principal necessity of a strictly covenant education for our covenant children. And we have expressed that principle as consisting in the isolation of God’s people, by virtue of the very fact of their belonging to His covenant, applied now particularly to the sphere of education. Moreover, from that principle of isolation we concluded to our calling to isolate ourselves educationally. Further, by way of application, we appealed to our Protestant Reformed people, to the extent that they...

Having stated in the third and last part of the introduction to their “Remonstration” what particular doctrines of the Calvinists especially grieved them, the Remonstrants—Wtenbogaert and his party—proceed to possit what they believe. This they do in five articles, known to posterity as the Five Articles of the Remonstrants. The obvious purpose of these propositions is to show that the Remonstrants are good orthodox people and that there is no appreciable difference between their teaching and that of the Calvinists. Article I has to do with Predestination. “We believe that God by an eternal and unchangeable decree in Christ Jesus...

Scriptural references The direct and detailed references in holy writ to the creation of man we find, of course, in the account of creation in the book of Genesis. In Genesis 1:26-28 we read: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him;...

THINE IS THE KINGDOM, by James H. Hunter, published by Zondervan Publishing House. Price $3.00. This novel is the first prize winner in the second International Christian Fiction Contest. With its setting in the area of three beautiful lakes in northern Canada, it tells the story of a successful attempt to overthrow Communism there. The book has a clever and interesting plot based on the interplay of identical twins, and is easy and enjoyable to read. The characters in their thrilling and dangerous dealings with the Communists acknowledge their dependence on God. It is a Christian novel that can be...

In our ecumenical age, it is almost like a voice crying in the wilderness when we insist that the church must still exercise its power of the keys. Under the slogan of a wrong interpretation and application of John 17:21, “that they may all be one,” most churches have long discarded the truth of the gospel, abrogated their confessions, and strive to unite into one ecumenical church, in which Arminians and Calvinists, Moderns and Barthians, Baptists and Episcopalians and even Roman Catholics can find a place. The attempt is to make one body of all the churches over the whole...

The Synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches of 1951 definitely closed its sessions on October 3. It belongs, therefore, in the past, and will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the most important synods—if not the most important—that to date was ever held. The reason lies, of course, in the fact that our churches finally officially declared what according to their conviction is the truth as expressed in our confessions, especially concerning certain fundamental principles, all concentrating around the promise of God and the preaching of the gospel, and therefore around one aspect of “common grace.” I say...

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Matt. 5:6 The Lord Jesus is teaching His disciples on the unnamed mount of Galilee. My text is part of the celebrated Sermon on the Mount, which extends from this chapter through chapter seven. It is significant that this sermon begins with a description of those that are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. It colors the whole sermon. And also this: they are pictured not so much in their outward behavior as in their subjective estate. Significant, for they are blessed, seven times blessed....