Vol 43 Issue 18

June 15, 1967 Rev. D. Engelsma, of Loveland, Colo., has declined the call from Hull, Iowa. South Holland has named a new trio consisting of the Revs. C. Hanko, M. Schipper and G. Lubbers.

This report of our Synod held this year in the Hope Protestant Reformed Church will have to be somewhat general and incomplete. It will have to be incomplete because the Synod is still in session at the time this article is being written. It will have to be general be­cause it is not the intention of this survey to inform our people in detail of all the decisions taken.

Today these Three Forms of Unity and the Formula of Subscription are the object of a subtle and persistent attack.

Just as Dispensationalism teaches that the Church never existed before Pentecost, so it maintains that the law never was given until Sinai. As taught in the foot­note of the Scofield Reference Bible at Exodus 19:3 and Genesis 12:1, the dispensational theory has it that prior to Sinai the people of Jehovah were under free grace, but when the law was proposed for the first time at Sinai, Israel rashly accepted it, and so passed up grace for law.

THE SPECIFIC CONSIDERATION: JESUS AND MOSES (vs. 3-6 continued) Yes, Moses is indeed glorious as a servant. We have the expressed testimony of Scripture that God spake with Moses face to face. Thus did God speak upon more than one occasion during the forty years of wandering of Israel in the desert, particularly at Horeb, when God places the lively oracles in Moses’ hands. Here Moses is so near to God that God spake with him as with a friend.

Rhythm is a creature of God. And man can praise Him in the dance. David danced before the Lord when he succeeded in bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem after that first frightening experience, when God smote Uzzah for touching the ark.

Again L.W. of Spokane writes, and informs us that it was a slip of memory which resulted in the Dec. 1, 1966 title “Dispensationalism an Ancient Error” being misquoted. He then questions a statement in the May 1, 1967 article, which had read, “What Calvinistic theology gives credence to Dispensa­tionalism?” and calls attention to Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology as being “Calvinistic, premillennial and dispensational.” Perhaps our own theological library at the Protestant Reformed Seminary contains this work.

In Prof. H.C. Hoeksema’s very illuminating and adroit editorial series on the “ ‘Report of the Doctrinal Com­mittee’—A Critical Study—The Com­mittee on the Atonement” the reader is provided with the most competent leadership and commentary relative to the so called “Dekker Case,” the Christian Reformed Three Points of Common Grace and the “atonement issue.” In these editorial pieces the best and safest guidelines are indicated and the Reformed truth is expressed and expounded in the clearest and most unambiguous terms.

Dear Editor: I write to you regarding two matters. First of all, we find greater and greater diversification of liturgical forms in our churches today. To me a similarity in the form of worship has resulted in a display of unity which our churches hold in common. We find that each church is free to choose its own form of worship whether they do or do not have the knowledge of Re­formed practice that has led to our forms of worship.

In the last issue we considered the stand of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod (RES) on the question of the union. Seven resolutions were adopted expressing the Synod’s mind on the subject. The three resolutions which we have already considered are briefly, (1) that it is the calling of the believer to reflect upon his responsibility in political and social fields and the manner in which this responsibility can be discharged. (2) Synod expresses that there is need for greater stress on considering concerted Christian action in these fields.