The Protestant Reformed Church is not the Voice of Historic Christianity

Introduction

“What is the nature and potentially the source of the continuities and discontinuities, similarities and differences that exist between the thought of Herman Hoeksema and the PRC and earlier thinkers who stand within the bounds of Reformed confessionality?”

Argument

The Protestant Reformed Church professes to be “The Voice of Historic Christianity” and a “faithful and bold witness to the faith of the Protestant Reformation as set forth in the Reformed and Presbyterian creeds.” 

The Standard Bearer is the periodical of the Protestant Reformed Church

Yet despite this profession the PRC holds to several distinctive doctrines which set them apart from the rest of the Reformed world.  Namely, a denial of common grace meaning the idea that God has a general welfare for all mankind, a denial of the well-meant offer meaning a denial that God desires  in any sense the salvation of all who hear the gospel, a denial that post-fall man is created in the image of God, and a denial of a two-fold covenant schema of works and grace.

Regarding the Covenant

Professor Rusell Dykstra, editor of the Standard Bearer, wrote an article, “God Dwelling With His People in Covenant Fellowship,” where he delineates the development of the covenant within the PRC.  He acknowledges that the "the truth which they have emphasized and further developed in distinction from other Reformed Churches" “distinguishes the covenant theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches from virtually all others in the Presbyterian and Reformed church world today.” He also acknowledges that the founders of the PRC “redefined the essence of the covenant.” 

He quotes Hoeksema as calling the PRC covenant doctrine “peculiar.”

Hoeksema, in “The Covenant God's Tabernacle with Men" writes:

“the notion that God promised Adam "eternal life" is a pure invention, a figment of the imagination.”  

This is a serious accusation and basically condemns all of Reformed covenant theology as well as the confessions (WCF and Helvetic Consensus) that teach the Covenant of Works and the promise of eternal life upon obedience as a damnable lie. “Figment of the imagination” is exactly what any Protestant would term transubstantiation since indeed the elements do not change into blood or flesh. This accusation insinuates that the teachers of the Covenant of Works were all deceived rather than led by the Holy Spirit into all truth. This accusation admits of the most serious discontinuity between the Reformed churches and the PRC in regards to the covenant. 

Indeed former PRC seminary professor and minister David Englesma writes, 

"There is reason to be uneasy with the traditional understanding of the covenant by Reformed theology."

Trinity and Covenant, pg 113

Dyskstra ends his article with these words. : 

The doctrine of a sovereign, particular covenant of grace, as a relationship of friendship is the distinctive doctrine of the PRC and the probable purpose of God for bringing this small band of churches into existence. True unity between the Protestant Reformed Churches and any other denomination is possible only and insofar as there is agreement on this vital doctrine.

PRC minister Angus Stewart writes:

“Hoeksema's formulation of the covenant (both before and after the fall) as a gracious bond of friendship explains the biblical data, excludes all human merit, and preserves the absolute sovereignty of God.”  

-Angus Stewart “Covenant with Adam: A Brief Historical Analysis” 

As if the traditional Reformed formulation of the covenant per Witisius, Turretin, and the WCF do not do the same.

Furthermore the PRC denies that God can make or enter into a covenant with anyone who is not a member of the elect. Regarding the Noahic covenant and the Abrahamic covenant the PRC teaches that only the elect were the objects of the covenant.

“It is not true that when the seed of Noah and his sons is mentioned, all the descendants of them are meant. This is never the case in scripture. The seed of Abraham does not mean all the natural descendants of Abraham, head for head; it does not even mean all the descendants of Abraham through Isaac.”   

-Homer Hoeksema, Unfolding Covenant History Vol. 2, pg 34

“With this revelation God also makes plain that his covenant is with Abraham’s spiritual seed. It is not established with all the seed of Abraham according to the flesh.”   

-Homer Hoeksema, Unfolding Covenant History Vol. 2, pg 172.

Calvin, in his commentary on Genesis, rejects this limited conception of the Noahic and Abrahamic covenants. 

“Moreover, there is no doubt that it was the design of God to provide for all his (Noah’s) posterity. It was not therefore a private covenant confirmed with one family only, but now which is common to all people, and which shall flourish in all ages to the end of the world.”   

-Calvin, Comm. Gen. Vol. 1., pg 297

“There is no doubt that the Lord distinguishes the race of Abraham from the rest of the world. We must now see what people he intends. Now they are deceived who think that his elect alone are here pointed out; and that all the faithful are indiscriminately comprehended, form whatever people, according to the flesh, they are descended. For, on the contrary, the Scripture declares that the race of Abraham, by lineal descent, had been peculiarly accepted of God. And it is the evident doctrine of Paul concerning the natural descendants of Abraham, that they are holy branches which have proceeded from a holy root, Rom. ix. 16.). And lest any one should restrict this assertion the shadows of the law, or should evade it by allegory, he elsewhere expressly declares, that Christ came to be a minister of the circumcision, (Rom. xv.8.). Wherefore, nothing is more certain, than that God made his covenant with those sons of Abraham who were naturally to be born of him.”   

-Calvin, Comm. Gen. vol 1, pg 447-448.

Calvin calls the PRC deceived in their covenant doctrine. Thus we see not only a major discontinuity with the confessions and the doctrine of the Reformed church, which the PRC readily admits, but we see Calvin utterly rejecting and condemning the covenant doctrine of the PRC and any read through of Witsius or Turretin will show the same.

The Well meant offer

The PRC denies the doctrine of the well-meant offer.

Quoting David Englesma from "Hyper-Calvisim and the Call of the Gospel,"

The well-meant offer teaches that God goes out in the preaching to many sinners in love and grace, desiring to save them and trying to save them, but failing to save them... The issue at stake in the doctrine of the offer is nothing less that the truth of sovereign grace: "The standpoint of 1924 is Arminian. That the preaching of the gospel is common grace—this is the Arminian conception." In opposition to the well-meant offer, Hoeksema held, not that there is not a call to all who hear the gospel but that "the preaching of the gospel is grace only for the elect, and that is not and can never be anything else for the reprobate than the judgment and a savor of death to death." This is the issue: this is "our difference with the Christian Reformed Church."  

The well-meant offer teaches that God's grace is universal. The Protestant Reformed Churches maintain that God's grace is particular, specifically now in the preaching of the gospel. The truth that God's grace is particular is essential for a confession of the sovereignty of grace. If God's grace in the preaching is for everybody, it is not sovereign grace. And the truth that God's grace in the preaching of the gospel is particular, sovereign grace is the very heart of the Reformed faith...

That which is objectionable in the "free offer of the gospel" or "well-meant offer," is not the teaching that the church must preach to everyone and must call all hearers to faith in Jesus Christ. But the error of the doctrine of the offer, and the reason why a Reformed man must repudiate it, is its teaching that the grace of God in Jesus Christ, grace that is saving in character, is directed to all men in the preaching of the gospel.

https://rfpa.org/pages/protestant-reformed-faith-well-meant-offer

Contrary to this repudiation that grace and love are universally offered to all hearers of the preaching of the Gospel Calvin says:

-Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, sermon 28, pg. 167

-Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, sermon 31, pg. 187

In these sermons we see that Calvin teaches the love of Christ extends to all because he calls all, great and small, through the preaching of the Gospel. He offers himself generally to all men without exception to be their redeemer. Christ's death is a proof of his love to all men. Likewise it is the preaching of the Gospel that is the warrant of faith for all who hear it.

This conception of Calvin's is totally different from that of the PRC which denies that the preaching of the Gospel is a gracious offer of salvation directed toward all men.

The PRC calls Calvin's teaching Arminian.  But we plainly see it is Calvinistic.

Regarding the Image of God

The PRC holds to a unique view of man whereby they teach that man is no longer created “imago Dei”  but is now “imago Diablo.”

At the fall Adam lost the imago dei and begat children in his image (Gen. 5:1-3), the image of the devil (cf. Canons III/IV:1-2).  

- Angus Stewart,  Image of God in Man A Reformed Assessment

Fallen man is still man, but he is a man who bears the imago diaboli. Redeemed man is also man, a man who bears the imago dei.   

-Angus Stewart, Image of God in Man A Reformed Assessment 

This means redeemed man was once imago diaboli. A sheep was once a goat. 

Rejecting the broader/narrower conception, Hoeksema opts for a formal/material distinction in the divine image. By this he means that man as man, unlike a dog, for example, is capable (formal sense of the imago dei) of bearing God’s image, which consists of spiritual ethical virtues (material sense of the imago dei).  

-Angus Stewart, Image of God in Man A Reformed Assessment  

This is a denial that man was fashioned in God’s image at creation in a way that was intrinsic and necessary to his being. This posits that man is merely an empty vessel, a tabula rasa, who can either bear or not bear, be filled with or not be filled with, contain or not contain, the image of God and that it is nonessential to his nature as man. This doctrine also reduces the image to qualities.

Hoeksema claims it is not “confessionally Reformed” to believe that man is still the image of God in any sense whatsoever.

Later Reformed theologians made a distinction that had found its way into the Reformed churches....and that is rather generally accepted as belonging to Reformed doctrine. The distinction is between the image of God in the wider sense and the image of God in the narrower sense. 

The image in the narrower sense was lost through the fall; the image in the wider sense was retained. 

It must be remembered that this distinction is not confessionally Reformed. 

-Reformed Dogmatics Vol.1 , pg 293 

Yet the Reformed world at large confesses that man is still made in the image of God. See Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pg. 312 - 313. Muller also points out that the measured language of the Canons of Dort do not even mention a doctrine like “total depravity,” as understood by the PRC to mean an absolute lack of any good and a denial that man is imago dei, in the very sections which the PRC appeal to for their doctrine of man bearing the “imago diablo.”

“Whereas Calvin himself used phrases like “totally depraved” or “utterly perverse,” such terminology does not appear in the Canons of Dort, which declare briefly that “all have sinned in Adam” and are therefore under the curse and destined for eternal death. In other words, on the issue of the “T” in TULIP, the language of the Canons of Dort is more measured than that of Calvin. “Total depravity,” at least as understood in colloquial English, is so utterly a grizzly concept as to apply only to the theology of the Lutheran, Matthias Flacius Illyricus, who had an almost dualistic understanding of human nature before and after the fall, arguing the utter replacement of the imago Dei with the imago Satane and indicating that the very substance of fallen humanity was sin.  Neither Calvin nor later Reformed thinkers went in this direction, and to the credit of the Lutherans, they repudiated this kind of language in the Formula of Concord. What was actually at issue, obscured by the imposition of the term “total depravity” on the early modern sources, is not the utter absence of any sort of goodness but the inability so save oneself from sin.”   

-Muller, Calvin and the Reformed Tradition, pg 59-60

Hoeksema is right in saying it is not within the bounds of Reformed confessionality to profess that man is made in God’s image only if one takes the confessions as the be-all end-all of the Christian faith. The confessions are not Scripture and are by no means exhaustive. The confessions contain no covenant doctrine yet Hoeksema has a covenant doctrine. If we are limited to the confessions alone then it is not within the bounds of Reformed confessionality to say that man is now created “imago diablo” because that phrase does not appear in the confessions.

Cannons 3/4 1 & 2 make no mention of “imago diabolo” but only of “Adam's image.” To appeal to the Canons for the “imago diabolo” is futile since such a statement is not in the Canons even by inference and the fact that this doctrine was previously proposed and rejected by the Lutherans as well as the Reformed should give pause to any who would posit it anew.

The PRC reduces the image of god to a donum superadditum not essential to mans nature and consisting only in the qualities of “righteousness, holiness, and true knowledge” which are qualities even the angels possess. Indeed the Leiden Synopsis, the standard handbook of the Reformed faith  during the 17th century which was printed anew in the 19th by Bavinck and in the 21st has been freshly translated into English, declares that the angels were made in the image of God.

Therefore contrary to the Manichaeans and the followers of Priscillian we assert that they were created out of nothing at the beginning of time, and also that they were all good and in God's image. 

-Synopsis Purioris Vol. 1:12.7, pg. 287

This attribution of only three qualities constituting God’s image also compartmentalises man by not taking into account the whole of man in body and soul per Bavinck:

“So the whole human being is image and likeness of God, in soul and body, in all human faculties, powers, and gifts. Nothing in humanity is excluded from God’s image; it stretches as far as our humanity does and constitutes our humanness.” 

-Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 2, pg. 561  

This peculiar doctrine of the image of God is wholly connected to their doctrine of total depravity.

The image of God is a completely ethical category and not in any sense ontological; it consists of spiritual graces not of human faculties. This fits perfectly with the spiritual/ethical view of the fall held by orthodox Protestants. Adam, the federal head of the whole human race, was created after God’s image. At the fall, he lost God’s image completely and partook of the image of the devil, totally and in all his faculties. All his descendants were begotten in this state (cf. Gen. 5:1-3). Only in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus are the elect recreated in the divine image; unbelievers are not in the image of God in any sense. The reprobate will forever bear the imago diaboli, even in Hell. There is no mitigating or limiting factor of the image of God in a broader sense. Just as there is no common grace for all men, so there is no image of God in all men. This means that the divine image of pre-fall Adam is equivalent to Adam’s original righteousness. The image of the devil (which replaced the image of God at the fall) is equivalent to total depravity.

 http://www.cprf.co.uk/articles/imageofgod.htm

The image of God is ethical "not in any sense ontological."  This is a denial that man was created in the image of God. Genesis 1 is very clear that man was created in the image of God.  That is an ontological statement and not an ethical one.  To confess that man is the imago diablo is also an ontological statement and not merely an ethical one since man's total depravity is also ontological.

Psalms 58:3: The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. 

Psalms 51:5: Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. 

Jeremiah 13:23: Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

Certainly sin is accidental and not essential to mans being even after the fall. But it is still a part of his being after the fall. Man sins because he is a sinner.  If total depravity is ontological and imago diablo is equivalent to total depravity than the imago diablo must be ontological and not merely ethical.

Some have taught that the image of God is the connecting point within man which receives the grace of God.  Hoeksema adamantly denies this.

Not infrequently the error is proclaimed even in Reformed circles as if there were in the fallen nature a connecting point for the salvation of man. This must be denied. Nothing in the sinful nature of man is adapted to his salvation.  

-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1, pg. 359

The truth that man is totally depraved implies that man lost what is usually called the image of God in the narrower sense, as it consisted in true knowledge of God, righteousness, and holiness. We must understand, however, that this does not simply mean that he lost the image of God, but rather, that all that is implied in the image of God was turned into its reverse. 

-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol.1, pg. 381

As we have seen above, that "reverse" is the "imago diablo."

This doctrine of the image of God and the equivalency of the imago diablo with total depravity is completely foreign to the Reformed faith and to Christendom. Muller has already been quoted as regards total depravity. To give quote after quote about the image of God would take this article beyond its limits so let Calvin speak.

-Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, sermon 35, pg. 210

Common Grace

The PRC denies that God has any sort of grace or mercy towards the world in general but only toward his elect.  Any perceived grace is actually a manifestation of his wrath.

“The word of God does not know of a divine interest and concern in a general welfare of a human society at large. On the contrary, if we may borrow these terms “welfare” and “society” for a moment, God the Lord is interested in the welfare of the elect society, his covenant people, his church, the saints in Christ Jesus, and in none other.”   

-Homer Hoeksema, Unfolding Covenant History, pg 24

Compare that doctrine with Calvin’s doctrine.

“In this we certainly perceive that God, who is ever attentive to the welfare of the human race, has inclosed the waters within certain invisible barriers, and keeps them shut up to this day.”  

-Calvin, Commentary on Psalms Vol. I, pg 544 (Psalm 33)

“Proofs of the love of God towards the whole human race exists innumerable, all of which demonstrate the ingratitude of those who perish or come “to perdition.” This fact, however, forms no reason whatever why God should not confine his especial or peculiar love to a few, whom he has, in infinite condescension, been pleased to choose out of the rest.”  

-Calvin’s Calvinism, pg. 238

Once again there is discontinuity between the PRC and Calvin.  This discontinuity can also be found by reading various Reformed authors, most notably Bavinck whose dogmatics is imbued with the doctrine of common grace and whom Hoeksema takes many of his cues from.

The root of the PRC's rejection of common grace is their peculiar definitions of God's love, grace, and mercy.

Love

Hence God loves in himself, of himself, through himself, and unto himself. He loves himself. All the love and delight of his divine nature is directed towards his own infinite perfections. 

We may define love as the spiritual bond of perfect fellowship that subsists between ethically perfect, personal beings, who, because of their ethical perfection, have their delight in, seek, and find one another. The love of God is the infinite and eternal bond of fellowship that is based upon the ethical perfection and holiness of the divine nature and that subsists between the persons of the Holy Trinity.   

-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics Vol.1, pg 152 - 153

Grace

However, we may also apply the subjective sense of the word grace, that of a gracious disposition, to God in himself without any relation to the creature outside of him. In other words, God is gracious as the Holy One, as the one who is self-centred and is consecrated to himself, who seeks and finds himself in love. God is attracted by himself, and he is graciously disposed to himself. He is charmed by his own loveliness. He delights in his own infinite beauty, for he is the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

As an attribute of God, grace is that divine virtue according to which God is the perfection of all beauty and loveliness and contemplates himself as such with infinite delight. 

-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics Vol 1, pg. 160

Mercy

As an attribute of God, mercy is the attribute or virtue of God according to which he is tenderly affected toward himself as the highest and sole good and the implication of all perfections, and as the triune God knows and wills himself as the most blessed forever. 

We may add that there is not only a close relation, but also a clear distinction, between love, grace, and mercy. Love is the bond that unites the ethically perfect. Grace is the objective pleasantness and the subjective attraction of the ethically perfect. Mercy wills and desires the ethically perfect to be blessed. It should be evident from this that God cannot be merciful to the reprobate wicked and that his mercy toward his people must be founded in his sovereign election, according to which he beholds them eternally as perfectly righteous in the beloved. 

-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1, pg 166

The gist of it is that God loves, is gracious to, and is merciful to himself and only himself. Love, grace, and mercy are never directed outward to the creature. God only manifests grace, love, and mercy to any man because he is engrafted into Christ and Christ, as the second Person of the Trinity, is the object of God's love, grace, and mercy.  Since the reprobate are outside of Christ they cannot therefore be shown any grace, love, or mercy.

This definition of God's love, grace, and mercy is unheard of in Reformed doctrine and is completely peculiar to Herman Hoeksema and the Protestant Reformed Church.

Turretin, in his Elenctic Theology Vol 1, Topic 3 Question 20, gives a defintion of God's love and mercy which are radically different from Hoeskema's.

...the goodness of God extends itself to all creatures.... 

From goodness flows love by which he communicates himself to the creature... 

....a threefold distinction in the divine love...."love of the creature"....."love of man"....."love of the elect."

-Turretin, Elecntic Theology Vol. 1, pg 241

Mercy is commonly considered as twofold: the one general by which God succors all creatures subjected to any misery (Ps. 104:27); the other special by which he has compassion on his own, electing out of the mass of fallen men certain ones to be saved through Christ (who are, therefore, called “vessels of mercy”). The former is temporal, occupied only with secular things (ta biotika) and the good of this life; but the latter is saving and eternal, blessing us with the possession of salvation and of eternal life.

-Turretin, Elecntic Theology Vol. 1, pg 244

Over the years the PRC has been locked in debate with the rest of the Reformed world over their denial of common grace.  But the debate has gone nowhere because many neglect the root problem of the PRC and that is their wrong notions of God's love, grace, and mercy as being attributes directed  inwards only towards himself and not outwards to creatures. Until this root is plucked, or at least recognised, there can be no dialogue and each party will continue to be talking past the other.

Conclusion

The long and short of it is that no hint of Hoeksema’s and the PRC's distinctive doctrines to be found in Heppe, Bavinck, or anyone else because the Reformed church did not develop along the same trajectory as Hoeksema and the PRC. The PRC stands alone and apart from the entire church, not just the Reformed church.

In answer to the question in the introduction, the source of the discontinuities between the PRC and the rest of Christendom is due to their peculiar and erroneous definitions of God's love, grace, and mercy as well as their definitions of the image of God and total depravity.

Along with these definitions and with the redefinition of the covenant, which the PRC admits distinguishes them from the rest of the Reformed and Presbyterian world, and concerning which they declare they can have no true unity with any ecclesial body which does not adhere to the same covenant view, the PRC cannot maintain that is is a “faithful and bold witness to the faith of the Protestant Reformation as set forth in the Reformed and Presbyterian creeds” which creeds, especially the WCF and the Helvetic confession, teach a covenant view absolutely opposed to theirs.  A view Hoeksema calls “a figment of the imagination.” 

In the same vein the PRC cannot claim to be “The Voice of Historic Christianity” when, with the denial of the “imago Dei” and of God’s benevolence to all men, they set themselves outside of historic Christianity which has always affirmed these two doctrines especially as touchstones undergirding the call to faith in Christ in the early apologies to the heathen down to the present.