All Articles For Editorial

The reformation of the church is God’s work. God loves His church with an everlasting, unquenchable love. God’s eternal counsel with regard to His church includes not only the selection of every member, but also the entire history of the church through time and eternity. That earthly history includes times of reformation in His church. In His perfect wisdom, God determines a process of apostasy, that is, that the church that once maintained the teaching and practices of the Bible, over a period of time, departs from biblical standards. Such departure always involves doctrinal apostasy, setting aside the truth for...

That election and the covenant of God are linked has been noted from Ephesians 1. There, in the context of teaching eternal election in Jesus Christ (v. 3), the apostle states, “having predestinated us unto the adoption of children in Jesus Christ” (v. 5). Since in this verse predestination is a synonym for election, election is unto adoption as children. And adoption is an obvious covenant reality. This connection between the covenant and adoption is affirmed in the Reformed “Form for the Administration of Baptism” which teaches that “God the Father witnesseth and sealeth unto us that He doth make...

The doctrine of election is the foundation of the Reformed truth of salvation by grace alone. The first head of the Canons of Dordt establishes the doctrine of double predestination in answer to the first point of the Remonstrants. The Arminians placed this doctrine first in their five objections (remonstrances), knowing that if they could successfully change the Reformed teaching of election to a conditional election, the rest of their teaching (errors) would follow logically. If election (and therefore, salvation) depended on man’s choosing it, then Christ died for all to make that choice a possibility, and fallen man is...

The theology of God’s eternal covenant of grace is a uniquely Reformed doctrine, that is, a product of the Reformation. It is true that theologians prior to the Reformation referred to the covenant, even as early as Augustine in the early 400s. From that time to the Reformation the covenant was incidentally included in discussions on salvation or man’s relationship to God. But the significant development of the doctrine began with the Reformation. Swiss theologians Ulrich Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger, faced with the serious errors of the Anabaptists, began developing the doctrine of the covenant to explain the place of...

As all our regular readers know, 2018-19 marks the 400th anniversary of the great Synod of Dordrecht. This Synod was a momentous gathering of theologians from many different regions of Switzerland, Germany, England, and Scotland, as well as all the seven provinces of the “United Netherlands.” The importance of the Synod cannot be overstated. The Reformation, not even one hundred years old, was experiencing its most severe threat since the days of Luther and Calvin. The churches of the Netherlands were facing the question— Will the churches be Reformed—in doctrine, church polity, confession, and worship? The doctrine of salvation defended in...

The Synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches met from June 11-17, completing all the work in its agenda in five days. This report on the decisions of synod can be brief, due to the reality that a rather complete preview was given in the June 1 SB and that reports on the actions of Synod 2019 are available on the website prca.org under the “current/news” tab. When thinking of the highlights, one might quickly overlook the pre-synodical service. That would be a mistake. Rev. R. VanOverloop, president of the synod in 2018, led the service, preaching from Revelation 3 on...

As is the case every year since 1940, the annual synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches will convene in June. Last year’s synod appointed First PRC in Grand Rapids as the calling church for the Synod of 2019. The last time that First hosted the meetings of synod was 2001. (In 2010, Southeast PRC hosted synod in First’s church building.) At the Synod in 2001, a certain Mr. Angus Stewart, student of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Northern Ireland, was examined. His examination was a kind of hybrid—synodical and classical combined. Two elders from the Covenant PRCNI were present....

Previous article in this series: April 15, 2019, p. 321. The recent editorials about Protestants making Rome their ‘home’ have had one primary purpose, and it has not been to show that matters are so serious in much of Protestantism that they are fixing their spiritual GPS on the Romish church. Matters are that serious, as the articles have attempted to demonstrate, but that has not been their chief end. Rather, their primary purpose is to have you ask whether you, who read these editorials and are committed to confessing the Reformed faith, could go to Rome, whether you or...

Previous article in this series: April 1, 2019, p. 298. How could some Evangelicals imagine Rome as their church home someday (or wish to cozy up to Rome)? Because they have given up most of what made them Evangelicals in the first place; and because Rome dissembles. That is, Evangelicals have actually changed, and Rome pretends to have changed. Evangelicals (gospel-oriented Protestants) have gradually given up their Reformation church polity, their Reformation worship, and their Reformation doctrines. And the false church of Rome gussies up as the “strange woman” of Proverbs 7, “flattereth with her words,” and with subtle heart...

Previous article in this series: March 15, 2019, p. 273. Evangelical Protestants who can see their way clear to return to Roman Catholicism have let go of Protestantism. Although they identify as Evangelicals—gospel churches—they embrace theology that distances itself from being gospel and come closer to Rome. The ‘protest’ in Protestant first diminished to a whimper, then shifted to an apology for leaving Rome in the first place. From the other side of the River Tiber (see the last editorial), Rome signals openness to unity talks. One hundred years ago Rome pulled up the drawbridge and closed the gates to...