Visiting the Protestant Reformed Churches of America

On the 1^st September 2009 I met Sam, Emily-Kate and Rev and Mary Stewart at Chicago O'Hare airport. Sam & Emily-Kate had flown in from Ireland, the Stewarts drove up from Hull, Iowa and I flew in from Norfolk, Virginia, where I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law (see previous blog entry). The Stewarts then kindly took us with them to Michigan in their car, where we arrived at our first destination – Pastor den Hartog's manse somewhat before midnight, where Emily-Kate was to stay for the next 2 weeks. Their youngest daughter, Laura, was also there, who was to become a good friend. The Stewarts then brought Sam and I to Martyn's house, where we also made another good friend, Erik Guikelaar, his housemate and fellow seminarian.

The following day, Martyn took us to see the Seminary and the RFPA warehouse, where we met Paula Kamps. I think I can safely say that the RFPA publishes what is probably among the best, most biblical literature written in the past 100 years. We did some shopping at Meiers for groceries, mostly milk, cereals and soft drinks. I was very excited about how cheap everything was!

For dinner we were all invited to the den Hartog's were Emily-Kate was staying. We had mouth-watering burgers and fresh corn-on-the-cob. The fellowship was lovely; apart from Rev denHartog, his wife and us there was Laura and another of their daughters, along with her husband who was a deacon in a neighbouring PR church.

PRC Calvin Conference

The next day began the Calvin Conference. It is strange how today on principle many Evangelicals do not read Calvin. It seems you can be a fan of John Piper, Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, or even full-blown heretics like John Wesley or Charles Finney; but if you like John Calvin or read him just a little, you're accused of “following men”. Never mind the fact that there have been few theologians in the history of the church who have been as biblical as him.

Several hundred people gathered into the main sanctuary of Byron Centre CRC and Prof Gritters gave the first lecture on “Calvin as Model for Reformed Ministers”. I still remember his openening sentences. I paraphrase: “If ministers today worked half as hard, wrote half as many letters, preached half as many sermons.... the church would be much healthier.” I'm not a minister, but I felt ashamed of my lack of enthusiasm and the little work I do for God. “But God does not give everyone natural ability as exceptional as He gave Calvin”.

During this day we met lots of other people, and dinner invitations started pouring in – much to Martyn's (pretended?) horror, who was to act as secretary for “The Limerick Three” over the coming 2 weeks. I think Martyn really enjoyed the opportunity ;)

Next was Prof Dykstra on “Calvin as Church Reformer”, Rev Steven Key on “Calvin as Expositor and Preacher of Holy Scripture” and Rev Angus Stewart on “Calvin's Doctrine of Justification”. For example, the latter exposed very clearly the modern heresy of the “Federal Vision” or the “New Perspectives on Paul”, in which supposedly-Reformed theologians openly deny justification by faith alone and assert that it is by faith and works! More frighteningly, many theologians who correctly oppose this seem to view it merely as an intellectual debate; they refuse to call the proponents of this heresy heretics; one example is John Piper who, in his book refuting N T Wright never once calls him a heretic even though what Piper is opposing is Wright's denial of salvation by faith alone! In other words, Piper does not consider a denial of justification by faith alone heresy. Rev Stewart set forth Scripture's teaching of justification by faith alone, and drew emphasis to Calvin's charge that believers should look forward to the judgement day with “singular delight” since they are assured their sins are forgiven by faith alone in Christ alone, all of which is by grace alone.

Prof Cammenga followed it up with “Calvin's Struggle for Church Discipline”. Though I do not remember whether he quoted this incident, at one stage in Geneva the “libertines” (who wanted to be free from Rome so they could sin more openly, not in order to worship God aright) came armed into a church service to take the Lord's Supper even though they had been banned from it by the consistory (council of elders & ministers). After Calvin had explained the Lord's Supper and it was about to be given out to the church, seeing the armed Libertines making their way to the front of the church to take part, Calvin placed his hands over the bread and wine and said, “these hands you may crush, these arms you may sever, this life you may take, but you shall never force me to give holy things to the unholy and dishonour the Table of my Lord!” Would to God that He grant the Church more pastors who are willing to defend His Name at all costs.

And of course there is the famous burning of Servetus, which opponents of Calvin's theology are apt to bring up. Although I consider Calvin's agreement with the death penalty for heretics terribly wrong, to conclude from this that Calvin was not a believer is similar to concluding that King David in the Old Testament was not saved because he had multiple wives - at the time of the Reformation it was sadly considered normal to give heretics the capital punishment. It was a “sin of the times”.

Friday evening was Professor Engelsma. We had never heard him preach, so it was quite an experience! And he was preaching on “Calvin's Doctrine of the Covenant”! The opening bible reading began pertinently with Gal 3:15:

“Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.”

Engelsma clarified that the issue of whether the covenant is conditional or not is not merely an intellectual exercise for the intellectual elite, as some people imagine, but is of practical importance to every child of God, especially concerning our view of our children. He proved: (a) that the false doctrine of a conditional covenant is the root of and necessarily results in the “Federal Vision” - for if inclusion in the covenant requires the fulfilment of conditions on the part of a covenant child, then that covenant child has to do something, and thereby salvation is no longer by grace alone, through faith alone, apart from works (Eph 2:8-9), but now a work is required, even if that work is “faith”; and (b) that Calvin, although he certainly had not developed it clearly, did teach correctly that God's covenant is unconditional. He ended with a haunting question, which he whispered into the microphone, and which is practically important for the assurance of every child of God, as well as for believers who have children: “If God is not in control of the covenant, who is?”

Lastly, Rev Chris Connors from the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Australia gave an excellent speech on “Calvin's Doctrine of Predestination”, proving that the unconditional double predestination which is clearly taught in Scripture (e.g. Rom 9:21-23; 1Pe 2:8; Pr 16:4) was also taught by Calvin (e.g. Calvin's Institutes, Book 3, Ch 21 entitled "Of the eternal election, by which God has predestined some to salvation, and others to destruction"). Further, although not always clearly developed, when Calvin had to defend against Pighius, he denied any desire on God's part to save the reprobate. For example:

“let Pighius boast, if he can, that God willeth all men to be saved! The above arguments, founded on the Scriptures, prove that even the external preaching of the doctrine of salvation, which is very far inferior to the illumination of the Spirit, was not made of God common to all men”, from here.

I also had the privilege of talking to Rev Connors several times; if the Lord ever brings me to Australia, I would like to attend one of their churches there. I really hope by God's grace that the EPCA changes their stance on remarriage and that they and the PRCA can become sister churches.

It was beautiful to sing Psalms with the people of God. Since it wasn't a church service, we also sang 2 great non-inspired hymns, “A Mighty Fortress” by Martin Luther, and “The Church's One Foundation”:

“The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died...

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!...

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.”

Southwest PRC and the PR people

While we stayed with Martyn, we decided to attend the PR church that he attends – Southwest PRC, of which Rev den Hartog is the minister. All 3 of us found it mind-boggling that there were around half a dozen PR churches within 30 minutes' car drive! The Irish isle, and in fact all of Europe, has one PR church.

The first Sunday, 6^th September, I witnessed my first ever infant baptism (which is not the despicable baptismal regeneration of the Popish Church). We baptise the infants of believers because God promises to save the children of believers (Gen 17:7, Ac 2:39), although not head-for-head (Rom 9:6-13). What a beautiful picture of God's sovereign grace to see a helpless baby being sprinkled with water, depicting being washed from our sins by the blood of grace, and that just as that baby could do nothing against or for it, in the same way God chose to save us by His mere grace apart from our works and forgave our sins before we could agree, when Christ died as our substitute 2000 years ago!

Compare this to the Baptist's “believers only” baptistm, in which one cannot receive the sign of salvation until one has professed faith, i.e. it depicts that salvation depends upon the choice of the sinner, contradicting Rom 9:16. This is the imagery of immersion, in which the emphasis is on the movement/action of the sinner while the water (depicting Christ's blood and the Holy Spirit) is stationary, and so the order of salvation is turned upside-down! This Arminianism is reflected in the popular baptism hymn “I have decided to follow Jesus”.

Accordingly, Rev den Hartog preached a very relevant sermon on Psalm 128, which described the beauty of a covenant home in which God is feared, which He generally blesses with elect children. When he finished preaching, the congregation had to stand while all the elders and deacons went up to Rev den Hartog and shook his hand, in a public affirmation of his sermon. This is done after each sermon to portray very clearly that just because only one man preaches, it is not a “one man show”, since Rev den Hartog is an elder equal in rank to the other elders, and is preaching on their behalf and under their authority.

Overall, the service was very reverent, with a clear emphasis on worshiping God in “spirit and truth”, not in the fleshly, outward worship of the Old Testament, and not according to the false doctrines so prevalent in today's “Evangelicalism”.

It was quite overwhelming to be in a Protestant Reformed Church of over 400 people, all of whom are so closely united, confessing “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5)! There must be very few churches in the world like this. It was especially overwhelming considering that there must be less than 100 PR believers in all of Ireland. What a joy to sing the Psalms together with hundreds of other believers!

I also thought the offerings were great, since these are taken very seriously in the PRC. There are 4 collections each Sunday, two in each service. These include a General and a Beneficence Fund (for the work of the deacons), as well as funds for mission work, Christian schools, and others.

The fellowship after church was very encouraging. Many saints came up to us to invite us for dinner and to encourage our witness in Limerick. While we were in Michigan, we went to have dinner with someone new nearly every evening!

On the evening of the first Sunday, Rev Stewart preached an excellent sermon on how Christian joy comes from understanding God's Word by hearing it preached and exposited (Neh 8:12). In today's Pentecostal and charismatic climate, in which Christian joy supposedly comes from spiritual experiences apart from Scripture, this is very important to hear. In fact, the sermon caused me to rejoice! After the service, Rev Stewart gave Southwest PRC a slideshow presentation of the work in Northern Ireland. However, everyone filled into the sanctuary early, so we sang several Psalms to fill in the time, which was very moving.

The following Lord's Day, Martyn gave an excellent “Word of Edification” (since he is a seminarian, all his sermons must be double-checked by the seminary before he can preach them, since he is not yet a fully ordained minister) on Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 1. Afterwards, a member of the congregation came up to us, informing us that he had heard Reformed preaching all his life, saying “that was Reformed preaching”, and exhorting us that if, the Lord willing, Martyn comes to be missionary in Limerick when he graduates, we better make sure we listen to him! We are all very excited about the prospect of Martyn or Rev Stewart being missionary in Limerick when Martyn graduates! In the evening, Rev den Hartog preached another excellent sermon on the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev 19), expositing orthodox amillenialism. Sadly, I was quite tired that evening and did not pay attention as well I should have, which I really regret.

PR Seminary

The week from Tuesday 1^st to Friday 4^th September, Sam and I, and occasionally Emily-Kate, visited the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary. The purpose of the seminary is to prepare men to be elders who “labour in the word and doctrine” (1Ti 5:17), i.e. ministers. Following the example of the Apostle Paul and Timothy (2Ti 2:2), this is done by other, more senior ministers - “Professors”. I doubt if there is any other seminary in the whole world which has managed to keep free of the countless errors of our age. Having a faithful seminary to provide faithful ministers – what a great blessing!

Sam and I sat in on as many classes as possible. I was actually surprised at how much I learned – I thought that, since it was merely the first week, not much material would be covered, but boy was I wrong! I could not imagine anything I'd like to do more work-wise than study at seminary. The privilege to study God's Word full-time, taught by the Professors of the most biblical denomination in the world! (On a side-note, I find it strange that people are offended when I tell them I consider my church to be the most biblical church around – isn't this the criteria by which every Christian should decide which church to join?)

Two examples of what I learned:

In Catechetics, Prof Gritters gave the biblical basis for the catechism instruction for the children in the church by the minister. For one, this is simply a form of the official preaching by the church which is tailored to the children's capabilities, and is therefore the chief means of grace to them (Rom 10:14-15). It is very sad that few churches today catechise their children – a main reason of course being that many of them are Baptists and exclude their children from the church.

In Intro To Dogmatics, we learned that Dogmatics is defined as doctrines which are officially stated by the Church in her creeds. These usually are set forth in response to heresy and error, according to the providence of God. In the Dogmatics classes I attended, which dealt with Christology that semester, we examined the development of the doctrine of Christ in the first few centuries of the church. It really makes me praise God when I read the creeds developed by the early Church against the various heretical views of Christ's deity and the Trinity (e.g. here). Today, most people would simply regard these heretical views as “word-play” and unimportant. In fact, I was confused by some of the heresies which were mentioned – I need to study the topic in more detail!

One thing that really impressed me was that Seminary was not looked on as a mere intellectual activity – such a modern view is despised. Rather, Seminary is presented as the study of the Word of God, a calling of fellowship with our heavenly Father, and a calling of high importance, since the future preachers of the church are being trained there. This high calling was repeatedly emphasized to the seminarians, both in the devotional times which was led by students and pastors from the area, as well as in the prayers which usually introduced each lecture.

While at seminary, we also met Professor (Emeritus) Herman Hanko, who asked Emily-Kate, Sam and I into his office, where we got to speak with him and tell him how we came to the Reformed faith. Emily-Kate loves his book When You Pray, and so was very excited to meet him. He was very kind, and encouraged us in our faith, to trust Christ and look to the cross for assurance of our salvation.

While we were there, a handful of barbecues were also organised so we could meet more people. I think it would be nearly an impossible task to list all the people we got to know and love – there were so many! In fact, I eventually got pretty tired because “breaking the ice” with new people every day is very difficult. So we were glad that there were some that we got to spend more time with and become closer friends with. The time had passed much to quickly and we were all very sad that we had to leave already.

Conclusion

One thing that really struck us was how family-orientated the PRC is. For example, most of the times when we went for dinner or lunch somewhere, the grandparents in that family would be present also, and this was apparently very normal. And when Martyn organised a barbecue at his house for the seminarians and some other friends, he called it a “non-Baptistic barbecue”, because the wives of the seminarians and their children also came along.

However, I have a complaint: We were so busy making new friends that I got to spend very little time with Emily-Kate! :(

Overall, although the PRC certainly is not perfect, it was such a joy being there. I never ceased to be amazed that most of the people I talked to have been catechised and taught in the Reformed faith all their lives – what a great blessing! There are so few who are so privileged here in Europe.

I hope that many of my PR (and non-PR!) friends will also come to the BRF Family Conference in Wales next year!

The PR people we met were usually very quick to say that they easily take for granted the great blessings they have in the PRC, and as such we Irish people are thankful that there is finally some way in which we, who have benefited so much from the witness of the PRC, could finally benefit them.

"I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1Co 1:4-8.