John Calvin on the Image of God in Man

Commentary on Gen 1:26

In our image, etc Interpreters do not agree concerning the meaning of these words. The greater part, and nearly all, conceive that the word image is to be distinguished from likeness. And the common distinction is, that image exists in the substance, likeness in the accidents of anything. They who would define the subject briefly, say that in the image are contained those endowments which God has conferred on human nature at large, while they expound likeness to mean gratuitous gifts. But Augustine, beyond all others, speculates with excessive refinement, for the purpose of fabricating a Trinity in man. For in laying hold of the three faculties of the soul enumerated by Aristotle, the intellect, the memory, and the will, he afterwards out of one Trinity derives many. If any reader, having leisure, wishes to enjoy such speculations, let him read the tenth and fourteenth books on the Trinity, also the eleventh book of the “City of God.”
I acknowledge, indeed, that there is something in man which refers to the Fathers and the Son, and the Spirit: and I have no difficulty in admitting the above distinction of the faculties of the soul: although the simpler division into two parts, which is more used in Scripture, is better adapted to the sound doctrine of piety; but a definition of the image of God ought to rest on a firmer basis than such subtleties.
As for myself, before I define the image of God, I would deny that it differs from his likeness. For when Moses afterwards repeats the same things he passes over the likeness, and contents himself with mentioning the image. Should any one take the exception, that he was merely studying brevity; I answer, (87) that where he twice uses the word image, he makes no mention of the likeness. We also know that it was customary with the Hebrews to repeat the same thing in different words. besides, the phrase itself shows that the second term was added for the sake of explanation, ‘Let us make,’ he says, ‘man in our image, according to our likeness,’ that is, that he may be like God, or may represent the image of God. Lastly, in the fifth chapter, without making any mention of image, he puts likeness in its place, (Gen_5:1.)
Although we have set aside all difference between the two words we have not yet ascertained what this image or likeness is. The Anthropomorphites were too gross in seeking this resemblance in the human body; let that reverie therefore remain entombed. Others proceed with a little more subtlety, who, though they do not imagine God to be corporeal, yet maintain that the image of God is in the body of man, because his admirable workmanship there shines brightly; but this opinion, as we shall see, is by no means consonant with Scripture. The exposition of Chrysostom is not more correct, who refers to the dominion which was given to man in order that he might, in a certain sense, act as God’s vicegerent in the government of the world.
This truly is some portion, though very small, of the image of God. Since the image of God had been destroyed in us by the fall, we may judge from its restoration what it originally had been. Paul says that we are transformed into the image of God by the gospel. And, according to him, spiritual regeneration is nothing else than the restoration of the same image. (Col 3:10, and Eph 4:23.) That he made this image to consist in righteousness and true holiness, is by the figure synecdochee; for though this is the chief part, it is not the whole of God’s image. Therefore by this word the perfection of our whole nature is designated, as it appeared when Adam was endued with a right judgment, had affections in harmony with reason, had all his senses sound and well-regulated, and truly excelled in everything good. Thus the chief seat of the Divine image was in his mind and heart, where it was eminent: yet was there no part of him in which some scintillations of it did not shine forth. For there was an attempering in the several parts of the soul, which corresponded with their various offices. In the mind perfect intelligence flourished and reigned, uprightness attended as its companion, and all the senses were prepared and moulded for due obedience to reason; and in the body there was a suitable correspondence with this internal order. But now, although some obscure lineaments of that image are found remaining in us; yet are they so vitiated and maimed, that they may truly be said to be destroyed. For besides the deformity which everywhere appears unsightly, this evil also is added, that no part is free from the infection of sin.

Joyce Meyer - Heretic

[Most of the quotations are taken from Christless Christianity, by Hank Hanegraaff]

Jesus Suffered not the Wrath of God toward our sins but the torment of demons

"During that time He entered hell, where you and I deserved to go (legally) because of our sin. He paid the price there. ...no plan was too extreme. ... Jesus paid on the cross and in hell... God rose up from His throne and said to demon powers tormenting the sinless Son of God, 'Let Him go.'” What Should You Believe, p. 35-36

[After the 3 days Christ spent in hell] “God rose up from His throne and said to demon powers tormenting the sinless Son of God, “Let Him go.”” The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make, p. 42

“There is no hope of anyone going to heaven unless they believe this truth I am presenting. You cannot go to heaven unless you believe with all your heart that Jesus took your place in hell.”  The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make, p. 37

Health & Wealth Gospel

“I would think that after thirty-eight years a diligent, determined person could have crawled over to the edge of that pool. Even if that man had only moved an inch a year, it seems that in thirty-eight years, he ought to have been able to get close enough to the edge to just roll over into the water when it was stirred up”. Eight Ways to Keep the Devil Under Your Feet, p. 27

“Thirty-eight years is a long time to lie somewhere, waiting for somebody to do something for you. I would have been on the edge of that pool, and next year when the angel came around, when that water started bubbling, I would have fallen in and said, “Either I’m going to get healed or I’m going to die, but I’m not staying like this””. Eight Ways to Keep the Devil Under Your Feet, p. 28

“’For the thing which I greatly fear comes upon me, and that which I am afraid befalls me’ (Job 3:25). Fear is a terrible emotion – a self-fulfilling one. Job had fears concerning his children and finally reached a place in his life where he saw his fears coming to pass. The Bible says it will be unto us as we believe (see Matthew 9:29). That principle works in the negative as well as the positive. We can receive by fear as well as by faith”. Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone, p. 9-10

“It is vital for us to understand that it is illegal for Satan to put sickness on us, and there is no good reason to let him do it… It was illegal for Satan to kill Jesus, but he was able to do it because Jesus allowed him. Why? Because Jesus was going to use Satan’s illegal action to bring salvation to the world! So it’s illegal for Satan to bring sickness on us, and we must stand against it… The moment we begin to recognize the symptoms of sickness, we need to stand against them – we need to resist them in the same way we would resist the temptation to sin… I believe that by the stripes of Jesus, I am healed.” Practical Steps to Understanding and Experiencing Healing, online at http://www.joycemeyer.org/our Ministries/Magazine/0703/Healing+and+wholeness.htm, retrieved 24 September 2008.

Sinless Perfection

“Now whether you like it or not, whether you want to admit it or not, whether you want to operate on it or not, you are made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Most people who go to denominational churches never ever hear that! They never hear it! Never! All I was ever taught to say was, ‘I, a poor, miserable sinner.’ I am not poor. I am not miserable. And I am not a sinner. That is a lie from the pit of hell! That is what I were [sic] and if I still was, then Jesus died in vain. Amen?” Joyce Meyer, From the Cross to the Throne, cassette tape, sermon recorded at Life Christian Center in Saint Louis, Mo., no date, tape on file.

“I didn’t stop sinning until I finally got it through my thick head I wasn’t a sinner anymore. And the religious world thinks that’s heresy and they want to hang you for it. But the Bible says that I’m righteous, and I can’t be rrighteous and a sinner at the same time.” Joyce Meyer, From the Cross to the Throne, cassette tape, sermon recorded at Life Christian Center in Saint Louis, Mo., no date, tape on file.

“I am not poor, I am not miserable, and I am not a sinner. That is a lie from the pit of hell. That is what I were and if I still was, then Jesus died in vain.” Joyce Meyer, From the Cross to the Throne, cassette tape, sermon recorded at Life Christian Center in Saint Louis, Mo., no date, tape on file.

Word of Faith

“Words are containers for power. They carry creative or destructive power, positive or negative power. And so we need to be speaking right things over our lives and about our futures if we expect to have good things happen. Because what you say today is what you’ll probably end up having tomorrow.”  Enjoying Everyday Life¸Trinity Broadcasting Network, 16 July 2002.

“speaking forth the truth to the devil… is the only way to see a mindset changed”. Eight Ways to Keep the Devil Under Your Feet, p. 51

“I got fire in my belly tonight, because I know! I know! I know! That there’s power in and life in right words. That words are containers for power, and I don’t care about what kind of mess you got, I am begging you tonight to stop talkinga bout it, and start talking about what the Word says, and what you can have. Make yourself a list, do some work, do some homework, make sure you got a Scripture to back up every one of your confessions.

We’re not talking about some magic goofy, you know, weird New Age thing. I’m talking about doing what the Bible says, calling those things that be not as though they are, prophesying to the dead, dry bones in your life. Oh, you dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.

Maybe you need to get your checkbook out and say, ‘Oh you checkbook, hear the Word of the Lord, you are not going to stay empty all of your life.’ Ah, somebody says this is just too weird for me, well then just stay broke. What you’re doing’s not working! You listen to me, checkbook, the first 10 percent of everything that goes into you is going to God’s work, and you are going to be full to overflowing! And I am going to be blessed, and I am going to be a blessing.” Enjoying Everyday Life, Trinity Broadcasting Network, 21 August 2008.

“’When I talked with Dr Roberts today and we talked about this seed-faith thing, he said something awesome!... The word receiving means receipting… When you give you get a receipt in heaven, [and] when you have a need you can then go with your receipt and say, ‘You see, God, I have got my receipt from my sowing, and now I have a need, and I’m cashing in my receipt.’” Praise the Lord: Praise-a-Thon, Trinity Broadcasting Network, 3 November 2003.

Don Fortner's Supposed Heresies of Reformed Doctrine

This article of mine has been published on the website of the Limerick Reformed Fellowship, of which I am a member.

Don Fortner is a Baptist preacher from the United States. Apart from his erroneous Baptistic views, he holds to the historic Five Points of Calvinism, including a denial of the "Free Offer of the Gospel" and "Common Grace". I have listened to some of his sermons on the Atonement which I thoroughly enjoyed.

However, a sermon which Fortner preached in 1997, entitled "Five Subtle Heresies of Reformed Doctrine", was recently brought to my attention by a friend on Facebook. Fortner takes these supposed "heresies" from the Westminster Confession (with which we would agree nearly 100%) and the 1689 Baptist Confession.

I wrote the below review and refutation of Fortner's charges for that friend on Facebook. However, considering that Fortner is a famous enough preacher, the LRF decided to publish this article for the good of all His children everywhere and for the glory of His Name.

The "Five Subtle Heresies of Reformed Doctrine" are as follows, with refutations beneath each heading.

1. The heresy of necessary consequence.

By this Fortner means the idea expressed in the Westminster that “the whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”. Fortner maintains that we ought only believe that which is “expressly set down in Scripture” - everything else is a product of man's logic – which apparently is inherently unspiritual. [Click here for a pamphlet entitled "Logic and Scripture"]

The refutation of this is very simple – if Fortner believes that God is Triune, then Fortner himself believes the “heresy of necessary consequence”. For nowhere in Scripture does it explicitly say that there is one God in Three Persons – rather, this is “deduced from Scripture by good and necessary consequence”.

With the same logic (yes, he uses logic all the time!) he demands of paedobaptists that we give an explicit example of a baby being sprinkled as baptism. Since Scripture nowhere gives an explicit example of a woman partaking of the Lord's Supper, one nearly wonders whether his congregation have only men partaking? If we understand the meaning of the Lord's Supper, and the catholicity of the New Testament church (“there is neither male nor female...”, Gal. 3:28), we do not need an explicit example, however. Rather, we “deduce from Scripture by good and necessary consequence” that believing women ought to partake equally with believing men. In a similar manner, we deduce from the meaning of circumcision and baptism and the unity of the covenants that we ought to baptise the children of believers. [Click here for an introduction to the biblical, Reformed teaching on baptism]

Regarding his rant against creeds and confessions of faith, claiming that he has the "Bible alone" as opposed to those who have written creeds, this is laughable. He has a creed. He believes that the Bible teaches certain things. His church has a confession of faith. Theirs is merely not written down. His church's position, for example, is that baptism is for adult believers only and only by immersion. This is a creed. But they don't write it down, thinking somehow that this is more spiritual. [Click here for a pamphlet entitled "A Plea for Creeds"]

2. The heresy of conditional grace.

This part is so bad that I could barely believe my ears. He said that faith is “not an instrument of justification”! Instead our justification was finished when Christ died.

He does not understand what the Bible means by justification – justification is declaring someone righteous (Pr. 17:15). It is NOT the imputation of righteousness (which is how Fortner apparently understands it). When the Bible and the Reformed creeds teach that faith is the instrument whereby we are justified, it means that it is by faith that God declares TO US, IN OUR CONSCIENCE that we are justified. It is not saying that our faith is the LEGAL GROUNDS of that justification. The legal ground is ONLY the blood of Christ imputed to us. To state it more fully, justification by faith alone refers to God declaring us righteous only on the basis of Christ's righteousness imputed to us, which declaration we hear and receive into our conscience by faith.

This (correct) view of justification by no means denies that God has always loved the elect and viewed them as righteous (Jer. 31:3; Rom. 9:11-13; Num. 23:21).

As part of this same heading, he claims that the Westminster Confession and the 1689 Baptist Confession teach that sanctification DEPENDS on man. This is completely ridiculous. These confessions do not teach that sanctification depends upon us. Rather, they state that believers are sanctified “by Christ's Word and Spirit dwelling in us” (WCF & BCF 13:1). They teach monergistic sanctification.

3. The heresy of self-righteous assurance

By this he means the false doctrine that assurance is based primarily on seeing within ourselves the work and progress of sanctification, i.e. that a believer may only be assured of his salvation insofar as he sees within himself true good works. Fortner correctly condemns this as a terrible doctrine that enslaves Christians to fear and doubt. For indeed true justifying faith always gives peace of conscience (Rom 5:1ff) which is assurance. That is, assurance is an essential part of faith.

Sadly, in the case of the Baptist Confession, he is certainly correct in that they deny this:

“This infallible assurance is not so joined to the essence of faith that it is an automatic and inevitable experience. A true believer may wait long and fight with many difficulties before he becomes a partaker of it." (BCF, 18:3)

The Westminster indeed seems to have a similar wording (18:3), though the exact meaning of this passage is disputed by Presbyterians, some holding the correct view and others not.

This is one of the reasons that we rejoice in the Three Forms of Unity, which explicitly make assurance part of the essence of faith and grants assurance to every believer (e.g. Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 1).

However, since believers are not yet free from sin, so they equally are not yet free from a lack of faith. And where there is lack of faith, there is unbelief. And where there is, at times, unbelief, there is (at times) lack of assurance, such that as God’s children walk in disobedience, they grieve His Spirit and often lose His inner testimony of their adoption. For this reason all the Reformed Confessions correctly teach that assurance (and faith) is ordained by God to grow and be strengthened through the use of the means of grace, namely the preaching and the sacraments in a true Church. [Click here to read a pamphlet entitled "The Gift of Assurance"]

4. The heresy of legalism

Don Fortner claims that the Reformed faith holds that believers must still keep the Mosaic Law. Again, this is simply laughable. He quotes the Westminster: “The moral law doth forever bind all...” (19:5) However, the Westminster does NOT say “The Mosaic Law doth forever bind all...”

This “moral law” that "forever binds all" is summed in the 10 commandments – does Fortner think that today one may kill, steal, worship idols or commit adultery? Is this moral law no longer valid for believers in Fortner's opinion?

Fortner claims he has “studied” the Westminster Confession; did he not read the preceding 2 articles, which state that all the ceremonial (e.g. animal sacrifices, jubilee years) and political (e.g. stoning disobedient children) laws of the Old Testament have been “abrogated”?

Having quoted Rom. 6:14 and 7:4, Fortner concludes, “there is absolutely no sense in which believers are under the law”. If Fortner is right, when believers murder, they are apparently not transgressing the law.

And if he is right, then the Apostle Paul was guilty of heresy when he reminded the elect, believing children of the congregation at Ephesus of the 5^th commandment (Eph. 6:1-2). Equally the Apostle of Love reminds us, “this is love, that we walk after his commandments”, 2 John 7.

No; believers are no longer under the law in the sense that they are no longer condemned because they fail to keep it, and believers ought never to obey the law in order to merit salvation; rather, as the Westminster says in the succeeding article, the (moral) law is of great use to believers by showing them how they may express gratitude for their free salvation and pointing out their sins so they might flee to Christ continually.

As Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

If Fortner had more closely studied the Scriptural proofs provided in Westminster Confession, he would have found reference to ample statements in the New Testament that make clear that believers still ought to keep the moral law – though not in order to merit, which motivation is strongly condemned by the Westminster Confession.

And about his denial that the 4^th commandment is valid today: The wording of the 4^th commandment makes it clear that this commandment is not rooted in the Mosaic covenant, but rather in the creation of the world, and as such is universally valid for all men. And Christ reinforced this (Mark 2:27). In light of this, Col. 2:16 is clearly referring to the various special Sabbaths which were added under the Mosaic covenant as part of the ceremonial laws, and which believers certainly are no longer under obligation to observe.

5. The heresy of sacramentalism

The two Confessions correctly state that the sacraments are a means of grace. Fortner denies that they “seal” grace to believers. They only “signify” it. Fortner correctly sees that if the sacraments are “seals”, then they are means of grace – and not merely symbolic.

What does Scripture say? “And [Abraham] received the sign of circumcision, a SEAL of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised...” (Rom. 4:11). And the Apostle Paul identifies circumcision with baptism (Col. 2:11-12) and also says that in the Lord's Supper we actually (and not merely symbolically) commune with Christ (1. Cor. 10:16).

This is not, as Fortner claims, Romish doctrine. Rome teaches that everyone who physically partakes of the sacraments partake of the reality, whereas the Reformed doctrine and holy Scripture teach that only the elect partake of the reality, and that not through the physical eating and drinking, but through the eating and drinking of faith (John 6:53-58). But the sacraments are without doubt a “seal of the righteousness of faith” to the elect – a means of grace. To the rest, they are a savour of death unto death – like preaching, the other means of grace (2Co. 2:16). [For a further explanation of the biblical, Reformed view of Baptism, see Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Days 25-27 and Belgic Confession Article 34]

Using our Time for the Glory of God

Finally a post again! It's an article of mine that was published in May 2010 edition of Beacon Lights, a monthly magazine for young people organised by members of the Protestant Reformed Churches. If you read it, I hope it will give you a renewed zeal to dedicate your life, body and soul, to God.

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” (I Cor. 10:31)

Whatsoever we do? Really? Including eating and drinking? What about after a hard day’s work helping my parents, surely a few hours in the evening I can just please myself?

The inspired Apostle teaches us, that in everything we are to have the glory of God as our first and primary aim. This includes eating, sleeping, laughing, playing, doing homework and cleaning our rooms. As a preacher once said in all seriousness, it even includes “drinking a glass of orange juice.”

Or, to put it another way, it is sin to live even one second in a day not for the glory of God.

What is the foundation of this command? Ultimately, it is this: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (I Pet. 1:16). The triune God is devoted in all his being and doing, every part of it, to his own glory, and we ought to be likewise.

This has very serious implications for us. It means it is not acceptable for our mindset to be, “as long as this isn’t outright sin…;” or, “I read the Scriptures this morning, prayed, did my homework, and now I can just do what I want.”

Rather, the decisive question for everything we do, from brushing our teeth to going to church, ought to be, “how may I please my Lord in this situation?” Thus, what God says to us about our time is, “use all the time that I have given to thee in order to honour me in thy heart and actions.”

Using all our time for the glory of God does not mean that we ought never to enjoy the good things of this world. We are not Anabaptists. The idea that everything that a Christian does must be explicitly “spiritual” and that a Christian cannot enjoy the good things of this world is nothing but asceticism. These rules of “touch not; taste not; handle not” have indeed a show of wisdom and humility, but are in fact nothing but will worship and despising the good things God has made (Col. 2:20-23). There is nothing wrong with playing games or going out for a fancy dinner occasionally. Rather, in doing these things, we ought to ensure that we are serving our heavenly Father. For example, when we play games with our younger siblings, we ought to put the desire to help them above the desire to win. Or when we invest in some nice food, we ought to receive it from God with gratitude in our hearts (I Tim. 4:4-5), and to have conversation pleasing to him while eating. Thus, not only is it not sin to enjoy the things of this world, but God is actually honoured as the Giver of these good things through our faithful enjoyment of them. As Solomon says, “it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion…this is the gift of God“ (Ecc. 5:18,19)—and to despise God’s gifts and not rejoice in them is sin. However, this liberty ought never to be taken as an excuse to indulge the flesh (Gal. 5:13) and of course it is only liberty to enjoy the good things of this world, since we ought to hate all else (I Jn. 2:15).

As we hear this high standard of God, the new man in us will cry, “I can never do this! I cannot in this life do everything without fail in obedience to God’s revealed will!”

And so the first response of faith, that precious union with our Saviour Jesus Christ, is to flee to him for refuge from the fiery wrath of the holy triune God. Though I am writing this article, I am not writing from the viewpoint of one who has fully achieved what he sets forth, but one who struggles daily to forsake himself and cleave to God. And so we must always keep this in mind as we pursue a life of complete devotion to him: If the Apostle Paul could not perfectly serve God with all his time (Rom. 7:14ff), neither can we. Therefore we must continually cry in our hearts: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (vv. 24-25).

This also is the foundation upon which we must build a good stewardship of our time: Not a desire to earn God’s favour, nor the lustful yearning of our sinful hearts to prove ourselves better than our friends, but rather the truth that, as our beloved Heidelberg Catechism formulates it, “I with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ…” (Q&A 1; cf. I Cor. 6:19). Being assured of this by Spirit-worked faith, our Father calls upon us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1) out of thankfulness for what he has done for us in Christ (Eph. 5:8).

It is worthwhile at this point to quote John Calvin:

We are not our own: Let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours.

Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal…

Let this therefore be the first step, that a man depart from himself in order that he may apply the whole force of his ability in the service of the Lord. [John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.7.1. As quoted in David J. Engelsma’s The Reformed Faith of John Calvin, p. 215.]

The very first thing we must do to dedicate all our time to serving the living God is to believe in the forgiveness of our sins for the sake of Christ. Otherwise, it will be cold legalism. Assurance (an integral part of faith[Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 21]) will free us to love God from the heart, so that we are in sweet fellowship with him and so that we can obey him out of thankfulness. Assurance, and joy (which is a result of assurance), we attain not by trying to work up in ourselves fake emotions, or looking for some sort of mystical, Puritan experience, but primarily by faithful attendance to the means of grace, namely, the preaching of God’s Word and the administration of the sacraments in a true church,[Canons of Dordt, Head V, Article 14] which must be mixed by sincere faith from the heart (Heb. 4:2). In this way, we will be readied for offering our time as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to him.

Having this foundation before us is the great battle in our struggle to offer all our time to God. The main reason we fail (and we will often fail) in using our time wisely is not that we are lacking the practical advice we need, but that our hearts are far from God and we love the things of this world more than he who loved us and gave his Son for us.

Loving God is where our main struggle will be.

However, practical advice is not useless (see for example the book of Proverbs). I will now seek to share some practical pointers from my own experience, based upon biblical principles, as to how we might better use our time.

First, think of the example of Christ in the Gospels. He was very aware of the divine schedule to which he must keep (John 2:4, 7:30), always conscious of the will of his father (John 5:30b). This good order in his life is of course a reflection of the perfect order of God in all his dealings within the Trinity and with his creatures. From this, we can gather that it would be a good idea to more consciously plan out how we will use and order our time, rather than doing everything spontaneously. God is a God of order.

Second, following on from the previous point, well thought-out daily routines play a big part in an effective use of time. Imagine if the church council had to think up service times and orders of worship every Lord’s Day anew, so that they changed every week—there would be a lot of confusion! In the same way, if for example our private study of scripture or prayer times change every day and are left to whenever they can be squeezed in, they probably will not be of good quality or will even be skipped more and more. Though it is certainly not sin to skip a day’s private scripture reading for good reason, this can easily become a habit in itself if we are not careful to maintain that routine. This need for a routine is rooted in the fact that God created us this way, which he strongly signified by the cycles of night and day, the seven-day week with a day of rest and the four seasons of the year. We are indeed “creatures of habit.”

Third, as we try to become more disciplined in our use of our time, we should be careful not to become overzealous by setting too high targets for ourselves or by consciously planning out every single thing we can possibly think of. I remember in my first year in college I decided that getting up 20 minutes prior to leaving for lectures (that is, 8:30) was far too late, so I resolved to get up at 7am—and completely failed for the first week. Eventually, I realised I should gradually work my way toward an early start, which then worked quite well (by the grace of God). The example of wicked King Saul’s overzealous command that his army not eat any food until the evening is a good example of setting too high a target (I Sam. 14:24ff).

Which brings me to the fourth point. Something many of us young people struggle with is too much sleep; we all like to sleep in in the mornings. However, the Proverb comes to us, “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man” (6:10-11). Though there are times when it is fine to sleep in, this should probably be the exception rather than the rule. It is a good idea to get up early in time to begin the day with devotional reading and prayer (though some of my friends find they can do devotions better in the evenings). Getting up early in the morning and being well rested (after the initial 5 minutes of drowsiness, of course) is a great way to start the day! Especially as part of a daily routine, regular bed and waking times are very important, not least because irregular sleeping patterns are not good for our bodies physically.

Fifth, a good principle to use is, “first work, then play.” My mum drilled this into me and I am very thankful to her for it. If we “play” first, it is all too easy to “play” too long so we do not leave ourselves sufficient time to do our house chores or homework. Also, “play” is much more enjoyable if it follows “work” (and conversely, “play” isn’t as enjoyable when we are skipping or procrastinating “work”). This principle will also help us as we become adults, when we will have to work for everything (before) we eat, drink and enjoy. And, of course, it is a principle found in God himself, who created the world in six days, and then rested in and enjoyed his finished creation on the seventh, just as Christ worked to accomplish our salvation and then entered into his heavenly rest.

And until we enter into that same rest when our earthly labours have come to an end, let us grow in grace through the means appointed thereunto by the almighty, so that we might more and more offer up our bodies as living sacrifices, that the church might be built up, the elect saved, the reprobate wicked justly condemned, and God receive the glory that is due to his name.

The Man Who Tasted All the Pleasures of This World

Whenever the world tells us that we have not yet fully tasted all its pleasures, we may reply: a man has gone before us so exceedingly rich according to the standards of this world, that he was able to indulge in everything his "eyes desired". He sought out all the pleasures of this world: silver was to him as common as stone and all his drinking vessels were pure gold; rulers came to him from all over the world to seek his wisdom; he had 700 wives and 300 personal concubines. Which man today is his equal in worldly attainments?

Having tasted all that this world has to offer, Solomon declared that all these are but "vanity", and that it is only in "fearing God and keeping his commandments" that man can find true happiness (Ecc 12:13).

By faith, we, God's children, know this to be true.

By faith we do not need to"try out" and "taste" the pleasures of this world to know that our Father which is in heaven is far better.

We live by His Word, which is to us the True Bread which comes from heaven, Jesus Christ His only begotten Son. We eat Him by the Spirit through faith.

We enjoy the good things of this world, but our hope is not in them. Our hope is in the return of our merciful Saviour to rescue His saints and destroy all wicked unbelievers and usher in the eternal kingdom.

Restrictions of Religious Freedom in Ireland

With the coming Civil Partnership Bill and with the passing of the Lisbon Treaty, Ireland is firmly on the road toward "tolerance" and "inclusiveness", meaning the tolerance of all false religion but the forbidding of the true. This includes the attitude of many of the false churches of our day who meekly support this view of "tolerance" and use it to oppress and attack the true church.

The official response and advise of the Evangelical Association of Ireland toward this proposed bill is typical of their Anti-Christian stance and totally in keeping with their political correctness and their idea that the kingdom of God is brought about by compromising with the world. Instead of warning against the Bill, they do not even recommend an opt-out clause so that Christians registrars, for example, can refuse to personally do homosexual marriages (or rather, "civil union"). Lot in his heart was against the sodomy happening in Sodom & Gomorrah, but because he compromised, he lost his wife and daughters and was himself nearly destroyed had the angels not taken him by the hand and dragged him out of the city. I guess EAI wants to stay in the city. As the EAI report says, "nor do we have a duty to try and impose Biblical morality on public life by force of law". I guess Christians shouldn't oppose legalising abortion either. Or any type of murder.

My hope is not in myself because I am a wicked sinner, and not in the Government, because they are also made up of wicked sinners, nor in a future earthly kingdom of Christ, because Christ's kingdom is not of this world and can never be of this world (John 18:36), but in the Christ of the heavenly kingdom, who sits on a throne on the right hand of God the Father and rules all things according to His good pleasure, for the good of all those for whom He shed His precious blood, and for the glory of the Father, and who will one day return to burn up this world and all the wicked unbelievers with fire and establish a new heaven and earth in which all God's children will reign for ever and ever.


I post this Irish Independent article by a secular Irish writer here in the hope that especially Irish people would realise that religious freedom in our country is being eroded, and that not at a slow pace. I also post it to show that some secular writers have more sense than EAI.

David Quinn: Religious freedoms under attack from equality laws
By David Quinn
Friday February 05 2010


The more equality a society has the less freedom it has. The trick is to find the right balance between the two. This is an absolute rule of politics and no one should ever be elected to office without knowing it.

The Soviet Union strove for maximum equality and it destroyed freedom in the process. Rather less dramatically, there are those in this country who want the State to take over all state-funded schools.

They want to do this in the name of equality but if they get their way they will remove from all but the richest parents the right to choose from a variety of schools for their children.

Feminists want as many women as possible to do paid work, again in the name of equality. To this end measures are introduced -- such as state-subsidised child-care -- which make it easier for women to go to work, but much harder for them to stay at home because one-income couples end up paying more tax to subsidise the child care they don't use.

All kinds of new anti-discrimination laws are now being passed around the Western world and these also have the effect of attacking freedom.

Using these laws, the Equality Authority recently tried to force Portmarnock Golf Club to accept women as members. The authority clearly does not believe in freedom of association. Happily, the Supreme Court does and the authority failed.

But the new anti-discrimination laws are bearing down hardest not on men-only golf clubs, but on religion because the practise of religion is increasingly seen as being inherently discriminatory.

Just this week the Pope, ahead of a visit to Britain later this year, got himself into trouble with "human rights" groups (meaning left-wing pressure groups) when he indirectly highlighted the extremely serious implications of Britain's proposed new Equality Bill for religious freedom.

Already British equality laws are restricting religious freedom. For example, its Sexual Orientation Regulations have forced Catholic adoption agencies to close down because they won't accept gay couples as prospective adoptive parents.

One of the implications of the new Equality Bill in its proposed form is that it will become much harder for religious organisations to employ individuals who believe in, and will show respect for, their employer's ethos. If your employees don't respect your ethos, your ethos will soon be dead in the water.

In a clear reference to this proposed law -- which has united all the major religions in opposition, including the very mild Church of England -- the Pope said: "The effect of some of this legislation designed to achieve this goal (of equality) has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs."

Similar laws now exist in this country. For example, if we still had active Catholic adoption agencies here and they took the same attitude as their counterparts in Britain towards same-sex couples they would be in serious trouble under the Equal Status Act.

But the upcoming Civil Partnership Bill, which will give marriage-like rights to same-sex couples, will also attack religious freedom; and with a few notable exceptions, no one in Leinster House seems to care.

For example, under this legislation a church hall that refused to rent itself out to a gay couple wishing to celebrate their civil union there could be sued. Its ethos wouldn't matter a jot.

Similarly, if a printer was asked to print off the invites, and said he couldn't on grounds of religious belief, he too could be sued.

As it is, under the Equal Status Act, if a printer was asked to print material he deemed blasphemous, he would have to or he would be found guilty of religious discrimination.

The logic of all this is inexorable. Britain's equality minister, the odious Harriet Harman, appears to believe that places of worship should be forced to host same-sex civil union ceremonies -- after all, discrimination is discrimination.

Stonewall, the militant gay rights group in Britain, agrees. It believes that in the next 20 years or so, the various religions should be forced to allow gay marriage, or else.

Even now, there is pressure in Ireland to rescind Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act which allows religious organisations to employ according to ethos. This, too, is deemed to permit unjust discrimination and therefore it too must go.

The hilarious thing is that Britain's National Secular Society told the Pope to butt out of politics, that religious belief could not be above the law.

But what if the law seeks to restrict religious belief, to limit our ability to practise our religion as we have always done? What then?

This isn't a case of the Church interfering with the State. It's a case of the State interfering with the Church and it is doing so in the name of the new moral absolute, equality. Disastrously, and shamefully, our politicians seem all too happy to impose this new absolute.

dquinn@independent.ie

- David Quinn

Irish Independent

I'm Justified

I found a beautiful poem on another blog which I wanted to share.

I'm Justified

Not because I'm holy,
Not because I'm right,
Not because I've fled from Sin,
Not because I fight, against that deadly foe,
called sin, that strikes me blow by blow.

Not because I run so well,
Not because my sins I tell, my Priest in heaven Jesus Christ.
Not because I keep apace,
With godly men, and not disgrace,
the spotless name of Christ. I do.

I'm justified by God's free grace,
Wherein my sin He did erase,
And stands me right before his face,
For works before me done,
The righteous work by God the Son,
Upon the cursed tree,
Three gifts now given me,
A righteousness not my own,
A heart of flesh for heart of stone,
bound up by faith alone.

I am Justified.

Is Making Pictures of Christ Sin?

Having grown up in what you could call "modern evangelicalism", I have never questioned the validity of having images of God the Son, for examle in movies, plays or pictures. As long as you didn't bow down before them, it was alright.

I have recently been studying the first five books of the Bible. As part of this, I studied the 10 Commandments, of which the second says:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. (Exo. 20:4-6, cf. Deu 5:8-10)

I always thought this commandment referred to not worshiping false gods; but this is actually wrong, since the First Commandment already forbids the worship of any other gods but Jehovah (Exo. 20:3). That is, the First Commandment, not the Second, deals with who to worship.

I noted that the Second Commandment forbids two different things: the making of images and the bowing down to them for worship. I was also confused by the appearance of verse 4, which seems to forbid the making of any image of anything, thus forbidding pictures and drawings of all kinds. However, upon reflection, this interpretation was clearly wrong, since God (for example) commanded the Israelites to make sculptures of seraphim and various animals (e.g. Exo. 37).

So if the Second Commandment is not dealing with who to worship, and is not forbidding making images of created things per se, what is it about?

A passage of Scripture that provided the answer in my studies was the account of Israel making and worshiping a golden calf as recorded in Exo. 32. The people of Israel, tired of waiting for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai, ask Aaron to make for them "gods" which they might worship. Aaron complies with their wishes, asks for their gold, and makes a golden calf. Upon its completion, he declares:

These be thy gods [plural], O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (Exo. 32:4)

However, when the same story is recounted in Nehemiah, God's Word says that Aaron declared:

This is thy God [singular] that brought thee up out of Egypt. (Neh. 9:18)

In both cases, the Hebrew word translated "gods" and "God" is Elohim, the plural of Eloah meaning "God" (see Strong's Concordance). In the Bible, the plural Elohim is often used to refer to the One True God (e.g. all throughout Gen. 1), pointing towards the plurality of persons contained in the Godhead.

In other words, Israel did not ask Aaron to help them worship a false, different god. When Aaron made the golden calf and presented it to the people, he did not present it to them as a new or different god, but as the God who "brought [them] up out of Egypt", the One True God! (It seems to me the KJV should have translated Elohim in Exo. 32:4 "God", and not "gods", as done in Neh. 9:18).

When I saw this, it was quite a shock. Israel did not (at least directly) make a false god, but a representation of the true God! And this was sin! Think of the implications: a video clip of a Jesus movie being shown in a modern worship service and the people worshiping as they watch it; little children in prayer picturing Jesus in their minds according to drawings of Jesus that they saw in Sunday school; a drama in which a person plays Jesus to teach the audience what God (the Son) is like!

And so I slowly began to understand the Second Commandment: The prohibition of the making of images of anything created is a prohibition of representing God by anything that is created ("any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth")! That is, while the First Commandment instructs us who to worship, the Second addresses how we should worship the True God. And it gives the specific example of forbidding the use of anything created to represent God.

Checking cross-references for Exo. 20:4 made this even clearer. For example, the Apostle Paul declares:

Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. (Acts 17:29)

We are not even to "think" of God according to anything created! And one of the sins of fallen, wicked men that the Apostle lists is that they

changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. (Rom 1:23)

And I noticed again, that in these passages it is not merely the worship of these images that is forbidden, but it is the actual making or viewing or imagining of representations of God that are identified as wicked sins of the corrupt human heart.

The reason for this prohibition is simple, as God Himself declares:

To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. (Isa 40:18-25)

I realised that it is wicked sin, "abomination" even (Eze. 8:9-10), for us humans to degrade God to being represented by anything created. And much worse, to represent Him by something created that is fallen and sinful! For everything that comes from our hands is defiled with our sins, all our pictures and sculptures, our thoughts. I realised it is the height of man's arrogance to actually act out God the Son in movies, to represent God Himself in the form of the Second Person by sinful humans. How dare we represent or think of God, the infinite, wise Creator of all things, the all-powerful, all-knowing One, according to something He created or even worse something we created?!

And as I thought about it, I realised that even the common evasion of "but we don't worship these images" is not even true. For anyone who watches Jesus movies, looks at drawings of Him, or worse, participates in the production of these things, or worst of all, actually pretends to be Jesus in a play, begins to think of God the Son in such a way. As we pray, these images flick into our minds; as we read the Gospel accounts, scenes from Jesus movies that correspond to the passage being read flash before our inner eye. We use these things to understand who God is. And is that not the express purpose of most Jesus movies, drawings and plays? To teach us what Jesus (i.e. God) is like?

Of course the 2nd Commandment is about much more than simply negatively forbidding the making of images. Positively, it commands us to worship God not according to our own imaginations or ideas, but only according to what He has expressly commanded and required of us. This is often called the Regulative Principle of Worship.

So, although it is difficult and often brings me much personal discomfort, I have resolved by the grace of God to detest any images of Him made by humans hands. I will rest satisfied with the knowledge of God that He has revealed of Himself in His Word. And neither do I think I am any better than others for this understanding, because I know that I can only see these things because my Father has graciously opened my eyes (Mat. 11:25). I pray He would open the eyes of many more.

Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee. For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger. (Deu. 4:23-25)

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. (John 14:21)

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.