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Editor's Notes Editor’s Notes You hold in your hand the April 2012 issue of the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal. We, the faculty of the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary, are grateful for the privilege of presenting another issue of our journal. We trust that you will find its contents informative, soundly biblical and Reformed, and edifying. A word about the contents of this issue. Two articles in this issue address a recent development among the proponents of the well-meant gospel offer—long a doctrine repudiated by the PRCA. This recent development is the defense of the gospel as a well-meant offer by appeal to the theological distinction between God’s archetypal and ectypal knowledge. This is the defense of the well-meant offer made by Dr. R. Scott Clark in a chapter of the book The Pattern of Sound Doctrine, entitled “Janus, the Well-Meant Of- fer of the Gospel, and Westminster Theology.” The reference to the Roman god Janus calls to mind Herman Hoeksema’s charge that the well-meant gospel offer makes God into a sort of Janus, a two-faced god. “One of his faces reminds you of Augustine, Calvin, Gomarus; but the other shows the unmistakable features of Pelagius, Arminius, Episcopius.”1 Clark attempts to show that Hoeksema and the Prot- estant Reformed Churches are in error for rejecting the compatibility of sovereign, particular, efficacious grace and a grace of God for all in the well-meant gospel offer. Clark charges that Hoeksema and the PRCA are in error because of their failure to understand and rightly to apply the distinction between God’s archetypal and ectypal knowledge. If only they would do so, their difficulties with the theology of the well-meant offer of the gospel would dissipate. Both Rev. Clayton Spronk and second-year Protestant Reformed Seminary student Mr. Joshua Engelsma respond to Clark’s conten- tion. Read their articles and I am sure that you will be convinced that Dr. Clark in fact misapplies the distinction between God’s archetypal and ectypal knowledge. Not only does he not understand the distinc- 1 Herman Hoeksema, A Triple Breach in the Foundation of the Reformed Truth: A Critical Treatise on the “Three Points” Adopted by the Synod of the Christian Reformed Churches in 1924 (reprint, Grand Rapids: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1942), 30. Protestant Reformed Theological Journal tion, but the distinction properly understood supports the Protestant Reformed (and others, thankfully) rejection of the teaching of the well-meant gospel offer. Included in this issue is another significant translation project by Mr. Marvin Kamps. Some years after the Secession (Afscheiding) of 1834 had taken place, a man of influence who had been a vocal critic of the State Church of the Netherlands (Hervormde Kerken van Nederland) wrote a public condemnation of the secessionists of 1834. This man was Groen VanPrinsterer, an influential man of letters and member of the movement known as the Reveil, who, although critical of the Dutch State Church, never joined the secession movement. In The Apology of the Ecclesiastical Secession in the Netherlands, Simon VanVelzen, one of the leading ministers in the secession movement, responds to VanPrinsterer’s condemnation, his judgment that the se- ceders were under no duty to secede. He reiterates the three reasons that have ever been the justification for believers to separate from a corrupt church institute in order to reinstitute the church: the glory of God, the truth of Holy Scripture and the creeds, and the welfare of the children of believers. Read VanVelzen’s heartwarming Apology and remind yourself of the sacrifices that he and the others made for the sake of the truth in 1834 and thereafter. May God give us the same commitment! We welcome to the pages of the Journal a familiar friend, Dr. Jürgen-Burkhard Klautke. Dr. Klautke serves on the faculty of the Academy for Reformed Theology in Marburg, Germany. His article is the transcription of a speech he gave to the faculty, student body, and Grand Rapids area ministers last September. The speech was an insightful analysis of the moral decline in Western society, as well as a call to the Reformed believer and church to withstand the influence of this contemporary spiraling degradation of human society. And there are book reviews. Good book reviews. Thought- provoking book reviews. Soli Deo Gloria! —RLC 2 Vol. 45, No. 2 On Right Hermeneutics On Right Hermeneutics and Proper Distinctions The Rejection of the Well-Meant Offer by Herman Hoeksema and the Protestant Reformed Churches Rev. Clay Spronk Introduction For approximately 90 years theologians of the Protestant Reformed Churches have vigorously engaged in the debate over the doctrine of the well-meant gospel offer. They have addressed the doctrine in countless sermons, magazine articles, and books. By these means the doctrine of the well-meant offer of the gospel has been exposed as unbiblical and contrary to the Reformed creeds. It is a doctrine that despises the wisdom, power, and glory of God; a doctrine that destroys the power of the preaching of the gospel in the instituted church and on the mission field; a doctrine that unduly exalts man; a doctrine of confusion that threatens the elect believer’s assurance of salvation. Those who take the contrary position have criticized and attacked the Protestant Reformed rejection of the well-meant offer of the gospel. Usually the criticisms and attacks amount to nothing more than name- calling or caricatures of the Protestant Reformed position. Seldom is there a serious attempt at refutation. Claiming that the Bible teaches the well-meant offer, the critics ignore Protestant Reformed arguments and shout “HYPER-CALVINIST” ad nauseum. Dr. R. Scott Clark’s essay “Janus, the Well-meant Offer of the Gospel, and Westminster Theology” is unique. Dr. Clark analyzes the debate theologically.1 This does not mean that Dr. Clark completely avoids making un- warranted assertions. For example, though he never clearly defines the term hyper-Calvinism, he yet characterizes the rejection of the well- 1 R. Scott Clark, “Janus, the Well-Meant Offer of the Gospel, and West- minster Theology,” in The Pattern of Sound Doctrine, ed. David VanDrunen (Phillipsburg, Penn.: P&R Publishing, 2004), 149-179. April 2012 3 Protestant Reformed Theological Journal meant offer of the gospel by Hoeksema and others during the 1920s’ common grace debate in the CRC as hyper-Calvinism.2 The charge of hyper-Calvinism, at least as it is lodged against Hoeksema and subsequent Protestant Reformed theologians, has often been proven false. It is disappointing, therefore, that Clark lobs this charge again without even interacting with the arguments Protestant Reformed theologians have advanced to refute it. Dr. Clark also makes the erroneous claim that the exegetical argu- ments of the proponents of the well-meant gospel offer have not been treated often by Protestant Reformed men, particularly the exegetical arguments of John Murray.3 If Dr. Clark would only look through the index of the Standard Bearer, he would find that there are indeed many articles that treat the texts Murray attempted to exegete, and that there are even two series of articles specifically devoted to the refutation of Murray’s arguments and exegesis.4 Then there is Prof. Engelsma’s yet unchallenged Hyper Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel, where the Protestant Reformed position is clearly laid out and 2 Clark, “Janus,” 154. Clark writes, “The controversy over the ‘Three Points’ of 1924 and the Clark case (1944-48) were concerned with the prob- lem of hyper-Calvinism).” The Clark case to which Clark referred dealt with the teachings of Gordon Clark in the OPC. For a response to R. Scott Clark’s essay from a disciple of Gordon Clark, see Sean Gerety, Janus Alive and Well: Dr. R. Scott Clark and the Well-Meant Offer of the Gospel, per- haps most easily accessible on the Internet at www.godshammer.wordpress. com/2011/05/02janus-alive-and-well-dr-r-scott-clark-and-the-well-meant- offer-of-the-gospel/ (viewed 3/2/2012). 3 Clark, “Janus,” 174. 4 Clark is probably referring to John Murray and Ned Stonehouse’s 1948 pamphlet, The Free Offer of the Gospel. In 1957 Herman Hoeksema responded to this pamphlet in a series of articles entitled “The Free Offer” in the Standard Bearer, no. 33: 9, 11-17, 20, 21. In 1973-1974 Prof. Homer Hoeksema responded to the arguments of Murray and Stonehouse in a series of articles entitled “The OPC and the ‘Free Offer’” in the Standard Bearer, no. 49: 12, 15-17, 20, 21; no. 50: 3, 4, 6-9, 13, 15. Prof. Homer Hoeksema took the time to analyze and criticize the interpretation of every passage Murray and Stonehouse included in their pamphlet. 4 Vol. 45, No. 2 On Right Hermeneutics grounded upon Scripture.5 So thoroughly have Protestant Reformed men refuted the exegesis of the so-called well-meant offer texts, that it could more fairly be said they are waiting for an answer to their exegetical arguments. Dr. Clark does not provide exegetical arguments to prove Protes- tant Reformed interpretations of Scripture wrong. Instead, he focuses on hermeneutics. Dr. Clark wrote his essay in honor of Robert B. Strimple, whose lectures on the well-meant offer greatly influenced Clark. About Strimple’s teaching of the well-meant offer Clark writes, “His explanation of the 1948 majority report to the Fifteenth General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) by John Murray (1898-1975) was a turning point in my hermeneutic, doctrine of God, and theology of evangelism.”6 Strimple “helped” Clark “appreciate Scripture as an accommodated revelation, the distinction between God ‘in himself’ (in se) and ‘toward us’ (erga nos).”7 For Clark, the doctrine of the well-meant gospel offer is grounded upon and in harmony with the accommodated nature of biblical revelation.
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