Vol 73 Issue 02

Forty-three years later it is still painful for me to think back upon and write about the split of 1953. This is because I was personally involved in all that took place, sat through many difficult meetings of consistory, classis, and synod, experienced that there were those, among whom were my most intimate friends ever since the student days in the seminary, who now were out to destroy our churches by opposing the truth that we held most precious. I recall the nights after consistory meetings when Rev. Ophoff and I would walk the streets of Grand Rapids in utter...

We believe that the doctrinal controversy of 1953 has practical importance. It did not involve theological issues that are so abstract that they are of no real spiritual value for the daily lives of God’s people. The two great doctrines that were especially involved in the controversy of 1953 were the doctrines of God’s sovereign elective grace in the saving of His people and the doctrine of the covenant of God with His people. These two doctrines are absolutely central to the Scriptures. No truly Reformed believer would dispute that. It must also be said that the two sides which...

The closing years of the 1940s were years of unrest and change. The United States was welcoming home her servicemen from active duty in the European and Asiatic theaters of operations. Many thousands of her soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen did not return, or returned only to be buried in home soil. Huge factories which had been turning out tanks, planes, trucks, ships, and munitions were being retooled for domestic production. There were many shortages: cars, appliances, apartments. Of course, all these things affected the members of our churches as well. But there were winds of unrest and change of...

In the controversy of 1924, the question was raised concerning the authority of the Classis or Synod over the local consistory. The Synod (1924) of the Christian Reformed Church, meeting at Kalamazoo, MI, adopted what was known as the “Three Points of Common Grace.”1 The decision was taken in answer to protests which were made against the teaching of the Rev. Herman Hoeksema of the Eastern Avenue Christian Reformed Church. That same Synod declared that the Rev.

r In April of 1951 the Rev. Hubert De Wolf, one of the three pastors of First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, made the statement in his sermon, “God promises every one of you that, if you believe, you will be saved.” About a year and a half later Rev. De Wolf made another statement in his sermon, “Our act of conversion is a prerequisite to enter into the Kingdom of God.” Protests were lodged with First’s consistory against both of these statements. When Rev. De Wolf refused to apologize for and retract the two statements, a split occurred in...

Introduction The church of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth is sometimes called the church militant. The name is apt, for Christ calls His church to warfare as long as she is in the world. God Himself has put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of Satan, and that enmity can only result in open and perpetual hostilities. The church is called to fight, however, with spiritual weapons, for the battle is spiritual. The enemy is Satan and his allies — the world of wicked men. Their weapons are worldliness and false doctrine. Sometimes the enemy...

The Rev. Herman Hoeksema felt a deep sense of friendship for Dr. Klaas Schilder, calling him as he did, Amice (Latin for “friend”). This from a number of close similarities and some striking differences. Both of these men were masterful scholars in their own right, relying not on the opinions of others but laying their own groundwork, doing their own study, and coming to their own conclusions. And both were speakers of an extraordinary kind — but in quite different ways. With Schilder it was not his oratory (he could speak indistinctly and be difficult to hear); but he was...

1953 stands for the doctrinal controversy that convulsed the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The controversy concluded with the schism in 1953 in which a majority of churches, members, and ministers left the PRC, soon to return to the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). The issue was the doctrine of the covenant, no minor matter, especially for Reformed churches. The issue came to a head in two statements in two different sermons by one of the ministers. A classis judged the statements heretical. But the real issue was the introduction into the PRC of a...

Herman Hoeksema was the first editor of the Standard Bearer. This meditation was taken from the June 15, 1942 issue of the Standard Bearer. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8