709 East
57th Street; Loveland, CO 80538
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. June
through August)
Vol. 6, No. 15 Pastor: Rev. Garry Eriks Phone: (970)
667-9481
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Contents:
The True
Church
God's
Dealings with Israel
What Is
Hyper-Calvinism?
What is the true church of Jesus Christ and where is it to be found? That is a difficult but important question - a question that must be asked as far as membership in the visible church is concerned, but which is very often not so easy to answer.
What makes this question the more difficult is the fact that it is possible for a church, which was once the church of Christ, to become the false church. Christ warns the church of Ephesus of this possibility in Revelation 2:5.
That the church of Ephesus was in danger of becoming the false church is evident from the fact that Christ threatens to remove its candlestick. Those candlesticks were pictures of the true church, burning with the oil of the Spirit (Heb. 1:9; cf. also Zech. 4:1-6) and a light in the world (Matt. 5:14). The church of Ephesus was in danger of losing both Spirit and light. That the church there was threatened with the removal of that candlestick from its place, meant that it would not longer be Christ's. He would no longer walk in it (Rev. 1:12, 13). In the same manner Christ threatens to spit the church of Laodicea out of His mouth (Rev. 3:16).
What is so frightening in the case of these two churches is the fact that Christ threatens them with judgment for losing their first love (Rev. 2:4) and for lukewarmness and carnal security (Rev. 3:16, 17). No doubt there are many churches today that are in danger of coming under the same judgments and for the same reasons.
The true church of Christ, therefore, is that church which keeps its first love (2:4), does what Christ commands (Rev. 2:5), is faithful (2:10), repents of its sins (2:16), holds fast what it has (2:25), is watchful (3:3), whose members do not defile their garments (3:4), keeps Christ's word and does not deny His name (3:8). There are not many such today.
It is evident, however, from these passages that not all churches are equally pure. The churches which Christ addresses in Revelation 2 and 3 range from those against which He has no complaint, to those which are threatened with destruction. Nevertheless, they are all still addressed as churches, as is also the church of Corinth with all its problems in Paul's two Epistles to that church.
This is important. It means that in searching for the true church we are not searching for a perfect church. As long as there is sin in the world and also in God's people, such a church cannot be found, and we must not turn the search for a true church into a search for a perfect church, as many do. Then we will be members of no church.
This is important also, because it means that no church or denomination can claim (as Rome does and as some Protestant churches also do) to be the only true church of Christ. There is a wide range of churches, more or less pure and true, that represent at least to some degree the church of Christ.
Nevertheless, Christ's words to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 make it clear that both in seeking church membership and in fulfilling the responsibilities of church membership, we must seek purity, truth and faithfulness for His sake. Rev. Ronald Hanko
Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee . . . . I am the Lord thy God . . . . But my people would not hearken to my voice . . . . So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts . . . . Psalm 81:8-14.
In explanation of the various and somewhat strange things God says in this Psalm about Israel, whom He calls, "My people," we were talking about the fact that God deals with His people in the same way as a farmer works in his wheat field. And, just as a farmer must deal with the wheat and the tares, so does God deal with "His people" which is composed of elect and reprobate.
Please review the last two issues to refresh your minds with the things we have said.
Towards the end of the last issue, we were talking about the fact that the nation of Israel (as also the church) sometimes went astray from God's commandments and committed all the wickedness of the heathen nations. Psalm 81 is a description of Israel in that condition.
But what we must remember is that even when Israel was so wicked, God's elect were still in the nation. Although they may very well have fallen into the sins of the wicked, and although they did not protest vehemently against the evils which were present, still they were God's elect, and they did serve God just as the prophets of God whom Obadiah hid in a cave by fifties during the awful days of Ahab's wickedness.
So it is in the church. In any given denomination it may very well happen that the denomination becomes corrupt in doctrine, in worship, and in the government of the church. If it has not become entirely the false church, there may be elect found in it as yet. But the elect are themselves often weak. They may be grieved with apostasy; they may long for better days; they may remember the good times of the past; but, even if they do not participate in all the evils present in their church, they are parties to these evils because so often they do not vigorously protest. They let things slide. They don't want to make trouble. They fear being mocked by the leaders in the church. They tell themselves that they will, privately and in their own hearts, keep the faith. And so they become partakers of the evil of their churches.
So it was in Israel; so it is today.
According to Psalm 81, God sent his judgments upon Israel: "So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts . . ." (vs. 12).
We may notice in passing that this was a very particular form of God's judgment upon a wicked nation. God sometimes does this to nations, to churches, to individuals. He gives them over to their sins so that they may sin all the more: ". . . and they walked in their own counsels" (vs. 12). God punishes sin with more sin. He pushes them more deeply into the sin of which they are guilty.
But it is not our purpose now to discuss that question, although it is very interesting -- and frightening.
Our purpose is to ask the question: Why does God do this to those whom He calls, "My people?"
The answer is very clear.
A farmer subjects his wheat field to brutal treatment when he combines or threshes the field so that the wheat may be separated from the chaff and from the weeds. All the weeds and all the chaff are discarded and destroyed. The wheat is saved.
God sends judgments upon a nation, a family, a church, for the same two-fold reason. He destroys the wicked and punishes them for their sin. But through the very judgments which destroy the wicked He saves His people by bringing them to repentance and sorrow for sin.
He did that to Israel when God brought them into captivity where the wicked were destroyed and the elect remnant, after 70 years, were brought back to Canaan.
God does that to his church when it becomes apostate. Judgments come. The wicked are turned over to their own sins so that apostasy and ungodliness grow worse. But through these judgments the elect are brought to see that they cannot stay any longer in such a church, that they must, for themselves and their children, come out, lest they be partakers of the evil deeds which surround them. And so they reform the church by leaving an apostate institution and establishing anew the true church of Christ.
And God's purpose is accomplished in the salvation of the elect and the just judgment of the wicked.
Zion is redeemed through judgment, the prophet Isaiah cries (Is. 1:27). There is no other way, for the people of God who are saved are also sinners. Judgment must begin at the house of God, Peter says, for the righteous are scarcely saved (I Peter 4:17, 18). Prof. H. Hanko
One of our readers asks: "What is hyper-Calvinism? How would you define it?"
The charge of hyper-Calvinism is bandied about very much these days. One would almost think sometimes that there is no other heresy around nor any so serious as this.
We ourselves are charged with being hyper-Calvinists, often maliciously and simply as a matter of hearsay. The New Dictionary of Theology, for example, gives an accurate description of the teachings of hyper-Calvinism and then claims that Herman Hoeksema is the most prominent modern hyper-Calvinist, though he was not responsible for a single one of the teachings listed as characteristic of hyper-Calvinism.
Quite often the charge is brought against those who deny that the gospel is a well-meant offer of salvation on God's part, that is, that He expresses in the gospel a sincere love and desire for the salvation of every one who hears the gospel, and well-meaningly promises salvation to all without exception. If not as a matter of mere rumor, then for this reason, that we deny these things, we are charged with hyper-Calvinism.
Usually, however, those who charge others with this error do not really even know what hyper-Calvinism is. We have come across those who believe that anyone who teaches limited atonement is a hyper-Calvinist and others who are convinced that anyone who teaches any of the Five Points of Calvinism is such. They mistake true, historic, Biblical Calvinism for hyper-Calvinism (something that goes beyond Calvin and Calvinism).
The same goes for those who believe that a denial of a universal love of God and an intention on God's part to save all, expressed in the gospel, is hyper-Calvinism. It can easily be shown that the Calvinistic creeds and writers have always taught the opposite, and that those who do teach these things are teaching, not true Calvinism, but the Pelagianism of Rome and the Arminianism of the free-willists.
So, what is hyper-Calvinism? Is it a serious error?
We would emphasize, first, that there is such a thing as hyper-Calvinism, though some would deny this. Historically, the name has been applied to those who deny that the command of the gospel to repent and believe must be preached to all who hear the gospel.
A hyper-Calvinist, therefore, is not someone who teaches that in predestination, in the death of Christ in the preaching, and in the work of the Spirit, God loves only the elect and intends only their salvation. That is simply Biblical Calvinism.
Rather a hyper-Calvinist (historically and doctrinally) is someone who, because all are not chosen and redeemed, will not command all who hear the gospel to repent and believe. He is someone who starts from the right premises, but draws the wrong conclusions - who does not believe that "God now commandeth all men every where to repent" (Acts 17:30).
A true hyper-Calvinist, then, is one who believes rightly in sovereign, double predestination and in particular redemption - who denies a universal love of God and a will of God to save all men. Yet he concludes wrongly that because God has determined who will be saved, sent Christ for them only, and gives to them salvation as a free gift, therefore only the elect should be commanded to repent and believe in the preaching of the gospel.
This, we believe, is a serious error. It is an error that effectively destroys both gospel preaching and evangelism - an error that must be avoided. Rev. Ron Hanko