All Articles For Editorial

I am writing these editorials from Waupun, Wisconsin, where I am staying with friends during the brief period that I am appointed to labor in these parts in the interest of our mission. This time Waupun itself is not the center of our activity, although it begins to appear to me that it could very well be made a center. For many of our people that remember the past the name Waupun does not awake pleasant memories. For a little while we had a congregation here, which, however, soon revealed very morbid tendencies of which they stubbornly refused to be...

In more than one way our present times of war and destruction in the whole world shed an interesting light upon those phenomena in human life which the Christian Reformed Churches in 1924 endeavored to interpret by their theory of common grace as officially adopted in the “Three Points”. This is especially true of the phenomenon of the apparent good which the natural man performs in this present world. It is the Reformed view that man by nature is totally depraved, which, according to the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 3, means nothing less than that he is wholly incapable of...

Radio Address of Oct, 18, 1942, over W.L.A.V. (Grand Rapids, Michigan) Jesus saves! This brief statement, which one may read now-a-days on billboards and fences, on church buildings and automobiles, is true in all its implications, much more so than those who are responsible for its public display are willing to admit. That Jesus saves is guaranteed by His very name, for His name is not a mere, meaningless appellation, but expresses what He actually is, for it was given Him, not by His parents, but by divine command through a heavenly messenger. And the name signifies: Jehovah saves, or...

This article is a translation of an editorial in the previous issue of our Standard Bearer. Readers who are able to read Dutch may omit this, and proceed to the next article. It was suggested to me, and it had already occurred to me, that it would be expedient to translate the article on Sunday Labor, because many that are not able to follow the Holland are deeply interested in the question. Here follows the translation: When, sometime ago, we expressed our opinion concerning the question of Sunday labor, and declared that in our judgment Sunday work for the purpose...

Frequently the general public, and sometimes even those that ought to know better, speak with disdain about the strict observance of technical rules and methods in the deliberation upon and final settlement of any question. To them a “technicality” is so much red tape. Or, what is worse, to maintain technical principles is to them only an excuse on the part of an assembly for reaching the wrong decision. To say that a certain request was not received by an ecclesiastical gathering on the ground of a “technicality” in their mouth means that such gathering merely looked for some excuse...

Radio Address of Oct. 25, over W. L. A. V. (Grand Rapids, Michigan) Salvation has often popularity, yet not inaptly, been defined as that work of God, whereby we are delivered from the greatest evil, and made partakers of the highest good. The greatest evil is our sin and death, our guilt and pollution, our damnableness before God and our incapability of doing anything that is pleasing to Him, our being children of wrath and our separation from God, And the highest good is usually called “eternal life” in the Scriptures. And “eternal life” is not merely unending existence after...

The Scriptures constantly exhort the redeemed and delivered believer to be faithful, to fight the good fight, and thus to persevere even unto the end. Only he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Matt. 10:22. The believer must confess the name of his Lord and Savior before men, for then Christ will also confess him before His Father which is in heaven; but he that denies Jesus before men him will Christ also deny before the Father in heaven. Matt. 10:32, 33. They must present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God; and they must not...

“Common Grace” is the subject of one of two papers read before a gathering of the “Calvinistic Philosophy Club”, and published in “The Proceedings of the Calvinistic Philosophy Club, 1941”. The price of the whole book, let me say this for those of our readers that might be interested to buy the mimeographed pamphlet of about one hundred and thirty eight pages, is $1.25. Order by Edward Heerema, Goffle Hill Road, Midland Park, N.J. The first of the two papers that constitute the contents of the “Proceedings” is by Edw. Heerema on the subject “God in the theology of Schleiermacher”....

What Christian, who is at all acquainted with the Bible, when he hears of the resurrection of the dead, does not at once think of that mighty resurrection song that is the contents of the fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians? Not, indeed, as if that chapter were the only Scriptural passage that speaks of the resurrection: there are many others. Often the Lord makes mention of it. More than once He foretold His own resurrection on the third day. To the sister of Lazarus that came to meet Him after her brother’s death, He says: “I am the resurrection and...

The 2018 Synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches convened on Tuesday, June 12 and recessed on Friday, June 22. At various times Synod recessed—once for an entire day—to allow committees to study and prepare advice. Because the actions of synod have been announced in church bulletins and can be read on the PRCA website, there is no need to recount these. This editorial focuses on one particular issue faced by Synod 2018, namely, the place of obedience (good works) in the believer’s experience of covenant fellowship. It has been said that the particular controversy brought to this synod could only...