Rob Braun

Bev;

I can’t wait to read about the life changing spiritual experience you’ve had. I love to hear about this from people who have come to know our Lord in a deeper spiritual way. I suspect you and I have had similar experiences but there is something here in your reply that makes me wonder what happened to your view of the confessions that perhaps makes them seem dry and unspiritual. (Bad Teachers-No teachers?) You see, I didn’t grow up with them and only came upon them as a young adult in my own spiritual quest for theological and biblical stability. I came to them through a Dutch Theologian named G.C. Berkouwer. I was searching for some spiritual meat rather than the usual experiential emptiness that I had been hearing from the pulpits at the time. When I went through his explanation of the Reformed faith in his 16 volume Reformed Dogmatics a huge light went on for me. After that I read Berkhof , then Calvin’s Institutes, and at least for me, it was only after this that the Bible finally began to make simply sense. You may find it odd that after reading all this heady stuff I’d say that it helped me see the very simple and yet powerful nature of the Good News of Jesus the Messiah. But it really did. This can be a key mistake of some who teach the Reformed faith, sometimes we can get into a situation in our teaching that loses site of the forest for the trees.  

A good example of the simple nature of our confessions that I’m referring to is found LD1. “What is your only comfort in Life and death?” I read this to my son when he was seven and he quickly responded, “Jesus”. Exactly, how simple! The LD tells us that salvation is about Jesus and not really about ourselves. The LD answer, “I not my own but belong, body and soul, in life and in death to my Savior, Jesus Christ.” This is, of course from 1 Cor.6. It is the foundation of what our Christian faith is built upon. It is the same as when Jesus says in Luke 9:23-25; ““Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” And the Apostle Paul states that the starting point of being a Christian is to declare, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Gal.2:20

My problem with much of the Charismatic preaching I heard through those decades was that, more often than not, it made salvation sound like it was all about us. It made God sound like he was our genii in a bottle that with the right biblical phrase you can get him to do whatever we wanted him to do rather than the other way around. And even at times it seemed like they’d make the Bible itself sound like a book of magical incantations. 

But salvation in Jesus is not about us, it is about Jesus in us, it is about Jesus owning us, transforming us into his likeness. This means death to self every single day. This is not what I had heard from many pulpits in either the Charismatic church community or from many other pulpits anywhere else at the time. But it is in the opening line in our Catechism, declaring what is simply true about being a Christian, “We are not our own but belong to Jesus!” This is our only comfort.  Everything else in the Catechism, as well as the Canons and Confessions are all rooted to this one phrase, “We are not our own but belong to Jesus!” This is how simple Reformed and, for that matter, Christian teaching really is-Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

So hopefully you can appreciate where I’m coming from on this. I have experienced a profound spiritual transformation after finally getting what the very simple message of the Good news of Jesus is. It has helped me and formed me ever since and I wish I could convince others of the power that I have experienced in this spiritual liberation. And I find that the Confessions bring it all home so simply yet profoundly.

Thanks JIm.

Yeah, I miss those Classis days too. And I appreciate the effort you put in on this and don't be surprised if I show up at yours and Roses' door some day.

Still, it deeply concerns me that there is this trend in our denomination away from a commiment to the confessions. Just check out the responses I get from my Banner articles. Sometimes I wonder if people know what church they belong to? Honestly, we are a confessionally based church movement-at least I thought we were? Yet, it's hard to believe it at times? And, it does make me wonder what is at the root of this trend? Maybe there needs to be a class in the seminary that teaches how to make the confessions relevant to the average church goer and the times we're in?

As you know, preaching from the confessions is what I'm known for and I often wonder why others have difficulty doing it too. People often comment to me how much they love the unique way I handle the confessions and the obvious love I have for them. And you did read my complaint correctly, I do blame the pulpit in our churches for the general theological "dumbing down" that is going on. For me, this trend of abandoning the confessions in our preaching is abandoning the heart and soul of who we are as a church movement, Again, the confessions are what define us. If some don't want them to "limit them", I would suggest some other church movements that think creeds and confessions are just works of the flesh. I use to belong to one. It winds up being a theological "every man for himself" situation on what comes out of the pulpit-an absolute theological chaos. Is that where we're heading to? Is this what we want? Do we want a church movement that allows every "wind of doctrine" to blow through our churches? I hope not.

JIm,

I know your love for the confessions. I know it personally because I have witnessed your examination of Licensed Exhorters and Ministers of the Word when you were in my Classis as well in sermons in which I've heard you give. This I have absolutely no doubt about. My concern is by taking the route of a "Covenant" we are basically conceding that the Confessions are some how inadequate, or are too theologically obtuse to hold anyone's conscience obligated to them. Again, why did we feel we needed to go this route instead of putting into affect a program to promote the relevance of the confessions in our world today and help our people understand their simple theological beauty? As I pointed out before, the "Covenant" puts us on the wrong path going in the wrong direction. My fear is, if we keep going in this direction, we as a movement or denomination will become theologically irrelevant. We'll be mirroring the philosophy of the darkened world around us rather than shining the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And, this after all is the reason for the confessions-they are written to aid in making clear the simple meaning of the Gospel.

Bev,

I was a Charismatic Pastor for nearly 15 years and worked very closely with that movement with the blessing of my Classis for about 5 of those years, Believe it or not, the group I'm working with is very, very interested in Calvinism. Why not? Calvin is renown as the "Theologian of the Holy Spirit." In fact, a string of these churches I inter-act with even have a Bible School that teaches out of Berkhof's Systematic Theology and Calvin's Institutes. Also, some years back I was invited into a church to teach a church history class and then a theology class. The HIstory book was RB Kuiper's and the theology was from Berkhof's "Church in History". I also taught the Heidelberg Catechsim in one church. Along with this, there is an ever growing interest in Reformed theology in the Southern Baptist movement as well. Just take a look at Christianity Today on line. It is article after article about this growing trend among our Baptist brethern. We are sitting on the edge of an explosion of interest in Reformed teaching in the Evangelical church community. So, my simple point is; Why are we acting like we're getting tired of being Reformed right when everybody else around us is just getting excited about it? We need to appreciate what we have, getting excited ourselves about it's simple beauty and being prepared to explain the hope that is in us. We have answers that many, many fellow Christians are very interested in. We can help them by helping ourselves.

Jim;

I guess I haven't made my biggest concern over the CO. It is that it allows Office Bearers to not agree with the confessional doctrines of the church and yet still be allowed to "Guard the Table and the Pulpit." This is where I'm concerned the most. I guess I have been beating around the bush here way too much. My concern is that we could easily allow someone into the Eldership of the church that is a three point, two point, none point Calvinist. (5 point is a full Calvinist-Tulip-for those who were wondering). As a case in point: We even had to make a synodical statement on "Infant Baptism" at this very same Synod because it too is starting to lose favor for many in the CRC. Again, the Officers of the Church are there to protect the biblical, theological and confessional integrity of the church and its pulpit. How can they do that if they don't agree with, or simple don't know or understand, what it is we believe? (And whose fault is that they don't understand the confessions of the church?) In my opinion, we'll end up with the "King/Prophet Pastor" who alone declares and knows what it is that the church will believe. I've already been through that and I don't want to see or wish this experience on anyone else, especially for us in the CRC.

Yes, Yes Yes, Steve, you are entirely right. The CO statement is ambiquious but the original intent of it was to give a loop hole for people who were never educated in the confessions, didn't understand them or simply don't agree with them. This here is my original concern: Why did we feel when churches sent us ovetures that their office bearers didn't understand or know the confessions that they were signing, why did we feel that "dumbing things down" for them was the answer rather than pursuing the opposite direction and come up with a way to get them educated?

By the way, I do a series of teachings on the Catechism that is basically what I feel the job of the confessions are for-"The Simplicity of the Gospel."

Bev;

 I’d be more than happy to discuss the subject of cessationism. But to stay on this point, you picked up my concerns about our Charismatic/Pentecostal brethren which have the same concerns I have about using the CO. I started with the Charismatic movement way back in 1971. I saw it in its infant origins arising out of the early Jesus People Movement. And, you have picked up from what I previously wrote why I believe it is so very important to have some sort of confession to hold leadership accountable to as well as the people in the pews. In most of these churches, accountability runs only one way. Another problem with this movement is that virtually every one of these churches came into existence as a personality cult of one sort of another. We don’t allow that here in the CRC. Our church order tells us that no officer of the church is above another and nor is any church above another.  Biblical accountability is the bottom line for me and to this day, despite all the abuses I witnessed through the years, very few of these churches will allow true bottom to top, top to bottom accountability. The reason? These churches very existence were started around one or more particularly gifted individuals. Remove them or tarnish their reputations and the whole house of cards come tumbling down. I wrote an article in the Banner on this. Check it out. But, bottom line, my concern with the CO is the accountability issue. As I wrote before, how can leadership who either don't agree with our confessions or plainly don’t know or understand them, be able to guard the pulpit in our churches? We need a theological upgrade in our churches when it comes to understanding and appreciating the confessions, not a downgrade. Spiritual abuse comes when there is no accountability and that is what I witnessed over and over again through the past forty years. We start backing away from our creeds and confessions and what we will be left with is a church movement filled with personality cults and spiritual abuse. "“Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” Mark 9:35 This is what a confessionally based church is about!