Vol 37 Issue 18

The 1961 Synod is history. The immediate effects of the meeting were felt in all our churches; with the exception of Lynden, perhaps. Pulpit supplies were arranged and rearranged, with reading services and two and three-way pulpit exchanges not uncommon. The result of Synod’s decisions upon the denominational life of our churches is not yet known, except that we will keep the $5,000 radio station in Monaco for transmitting our European radio broadcasts. The entire report will be in the Year Book, of course, which you will all want to read. 

SYNOD OF 1961 

One of the requirements, according to Article 61 of our Church Order, for admission to the Table of the Lord is that the participants shall make a confession of the Reformed Religion. This refers first of all to those who are members of the church by baptism although it applies also to those who come from churches other than those of Reformed persuasion. Confessing the Reformed Religion applies to the practice that is commonly denoted in our circles as making confession of faith.

But there is more that we may learn from Dewey, especially when he advocates the teacher’s forming a proper attitude in the pupil to the subject under study, and to all of life in general. The most important attitude, he says, is the desire to go on studying. We agree that this is a very important attitude, but it certainly is not the most important. The most important attitude is that whether we eat or drink or study or whatever we do, we do all to the glory of God; that we seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness in...

In our preceding article we concluded our quotations from the Decrees of the Council of Trent as setting forth the Roman Catholic position of “Justification by Works.” We also quoted from John Calvin, in which he emphasized that we are justified solely by faith and not by works. We will now quote from our Reformed Symbols in connection with the truth of Justification. 

The promise, Peter says on the day of Pentecost, is to us and to our children, to all who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. God gathers His covenant children in the line of continued generations. He is pleased to gather His children out of our children. And as a result there are also little prophets among us. Attend to the Word of God in Psalm 45:16, 17, “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.

We were going to discuss the matter of what happened to “some” in the church at Ephesus, who had cast away a good conscience, and who as a result, and that, too, as the just judgment of God suffered shipwreck in the faith! What happened to these “some” in the church, among whom are particularly Hymeneus and Alexander, must serve to underscore for Timothy the urgency of this matter, that no other doctrine be taught than what had been given them by Paul, the apostle. This underscores the majesty of the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. 

And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward: But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.  Exodus 14:15, 16

CHAPTER XIX The Binding of Satan With a View to Gog and Magog Revelation 20:1-10

The Synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches, 1961, is again a matter of history.