Vol 36 Issue 21

Sept. 5, 1960 Candidate J. Kortering has accepted the call from our Hull congregation and has already taken up residence there. His installation into office awaits his examination before Classis West, September 21. Grand Haven has submitted another trio consisting of the Revs. H. Hanko, R.C. Harbach and G. Lubbers.

The Rev. H.J. Kuiper, managing editor of Torch and Trumpet, writes in the July-August, 1960 issue on “The Antithesis as a Cornerstone of Christian Life and Action.” This article we read not only rather carefully but also critically. The subject has always been intriguing to us as we believe it should be to anyone who loves the Reformed truth.

Our fathers obviously cite the text in I Peter 1:23 in order to make one point, namely, that we are born again out of incorruptible seed. This, to them, makes the Arminian teaching of regeneration that can be lost and of frequent regenerations of the same individual absurd.

4.  The doctrine of the merit of good works as taught by Romanists is another most prolific error. They hold that works done after regeneration have real merit (meritum condigni), and that they are the ground of the sinner’s justification before God. They hold that a man may do more than the law requires of him, and perform works of supererogation, and thus obtain more merit than is neces­sary for his own salvation and beatification. That this super­fluous merit goes into the treasury of the Church, and may be dispensed for the benefit of others.

That is, indeed, a nasty word. Webster gives this definition of it: “Bigotry—State of mind of a bigot, also of beliefs ensuing from such a state.” And for bigot he has the following to say, “One ob­stinately and intolerantly devoted to his own church, party, belief or opinion.”

There is a fundamental truth of Scripture which must ever be kept in mind, shall we rightly understand the Word of God and rightly divide it. I refer, of course, to the fact that there are a two-fold people in the world: the children of God and the children of the devil. This we read in I John 3:10, “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. God has put enmity between the Seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, when he preached and revealed the first gospel, the Protevangel, to...

And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather your­selves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days . . . .  And this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them. Genesis 49:1, 28

Let me then remind you of the fact that in the literal sense the river Euphrates, flowing through Mesopotamia and Chaldea for hundreds of miles, wide and deep, and emptying itself in the Persian Gulf—that this river in the old dispensation formed the boundary line between the na­tion of Israel and the heathen nations, the boundary line, therefore, between the people of God in the outward sense of the word and the nations of heathendom.

There is one more item in the letter by the schismatic Synod to the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church to which we must call attention.

 “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons, specially the day that thou stoodest before thy God in Horeb, when the Lord said unto me, Gather Me the people to­gether, and I will make them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children”. Deut. 4:9, 10