All Articles For An "Election Theology" of Covenant

This at bottom is the objection of “Liberated” Reformed theologian Dr. J. DeJong to the Protestant Reformed doctrine of the covenant (cf. the letter in this issue of the Standard Bearer). He expresses this fundamental objection when he writes, “And Engelsma is only perpetuating the same kind of ‘election’ theology which refuses to entertain the Scriptural teaching of faith as the way or condition to salvation….” He says the same thing when he accuses me of misreading the Reformed creeds “through the glasses of the typical Protestant Reformed interpretation that makes election dominate all other doctrines.” For the “Liberated,” the one,...

In the Standard Bearer of March 15, 1991 appeared a long letter from Canadian Reformed (“Liberated”) theologian Dr. J. DeJong in response to my editorials on the Reformed doctrine of the covenant. The letter defends the “Liberated” teaching on God’s covenant with the children of believers against my charge that this teaching “conflicts with the Reformed gospel of salvation by sovereign grace.” It also criticizes the covenant doctrine of the Protestant Reformed Churches as an “election theology” of the covenant. The editorial in that SB clarified the issue between the “Liberated” and the PRC. The issue is the “Liberated” doctrine that the...

Faith a Condition? In his letter in the March 15, 1991 issue of theStandard Bearer, “Liberated” theologian Dr. J. DeJong responded to my charge that the “Liberated” doctrine of the covenant makes the covenant dependent upon the will and work of the baptized child. This, I contended, is the clear and necessary implication of the teaching that the faith of the child is the condition for the fulfillment of the promise that God is supposed to make to every baptized child. I appealed to the Reformed confession, the Canons of Dordt, which repeatedly deny, in so many words, that faith...

The basic charge against the Protestant Reformed doctrine of the covenant of grace by Canadian Reformed (“Liberated”) theologian Dr. J. DeJong is that it is an “election theology” of the covenant. In his letter in the March 15, 199l issue of the Standard Bearer, Dr. DeJong wrote: Engelsma is only perpetuating the same kind of “election” theology which refuses to entertain the Scriptural teaching of faith as the way or condition to salvation and the notion of God’s wrath against covenant breakers. He lodged the same charge in other words when he alleged “the typical Protestant Reformed interpretation that makes election...

An “election theology” of covenant demands a distinction between being in living covenant fellowship with God by covenant grace and merely being in the sphere of the covenant by natural birth. Believers and their genuine children, the elect children of promise, are included in the covenant of grace. Hypocrites and the children of the flesh are not in the covenant in the same way. Dr. DeJong as a faithful defender of “Liberated” covenant theology is extremely critical of this distinction: