Article information
- Author: S. de Marie
- Magazine Vol. 16
- 725 views
Most Viewed
Where the Word is, that’s where the Church is
In October last year, Rev. H.J.C.C.J. Wilschut of the RCN (GKv) at Smilde announced that he was going to withdraw from the RCN to become a member, and if possible, become a minister of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands (Gereformeerde Bond = the Reformed flank of the PCN). This news of his departure will have surprised many. Some would even have been stunned, because Rev. Wilschut was known to be a fighter for the truth within the RCN. For many of the concerned he was still a figure of support in a church that is slipping away. On further consideration, it appears that the departure of Rev. Wilschut is not entirely unexpected. It is a consequence of earlier publications in which he explained his vision on the church. The big question is: how is his decision compatible with what God’s Word says about the Church of Christ? For an answer to this we will discuss his justification which he has posted on his website.
Church-gathering
What Scripture says about the church is extremely important for the following of the Lord and for the participation in His church-gathering work. Therefore it is not a side issue of our faith, but a very essential matter of faith. It is certainly not a doctrine where one can think differently about, if conditions would force one to do so. Scripture teaches us how we, as baptized people who have received faith, are to be real disciples of the Lord. Therefore we must observe all He has commanded us (Matth. 28: 20). This concerns the whole of Scripture (2 Tim. 3: 16). This certainly applies to His glorious work of the gathering of His church.
From Scripture we know that we are called there, where Christ reigns with His Word and Spirit. There we may have full communion with our Saviour. There we may have mutual communion with all those whom Christ gathers through His Spirit and around His Word. All that demands obedience from us: to be willing to bend our necks under the yoke of Christ, together with all other brothers and sisters, who also let themselves be gathered there.
To know that together we have been called to serve the Lord in unison and to honour Him in the unity of true faith. That will cost many a struggle and gives a cross to bear. To that end we will receive strength through prayer and we may therefore expect God’s blessing.
The first matter of importance is therefore that the church-gathering work is the work of Christ, through His Spirit and to the honour of God. Christ gathers unto Himself a church. To the greater glory of God. It is therefore His church, of which we may be and remain a member. That determines the care designated in Art. 29 of the Belgic Confession, to distinguish the true church of Christ from among the many groups that call themselves ‘church’.
Binding to the doctrine of the Church?
We will first pay attention to Rev. Wilschut’s following statement:
I have definitely not changed my views on the binding to the reformed confession and other issues … (with the exception of my vision on the church).
When members of the Reformed churches publicly professed their faith, they promised faithfulness to the doctrine of the Scriptures, also the doctrine about the church. They confirmed with an oath that they would, in life and death, steadfastly continue in this doctrine of salvation, which is taught here in the Christian church. A solemn oath. Ministers have made an additional declaration about that when signing the Subscription Form, with which they declare that the doctrine of the Three Forms of Unity are completely in accordance with the Word of God.
Rev. Wilschut does not openly renounce the Reformed confession, but he does say to have a ‘different vision’ on the church. That ‘different vision’ immediately becomes apparent when he gives his assessment of the RCN:
A church that has spiritually come adrift has not yet become a false church. You must not ‘leave it in a great hurry’. (…) More than one secession from the RCN has taken place since 2003. I did not want to go along with any of them. I did recognize some of the objections. But I did not think that the foundation of church life was affected.
The foundation of the RCN, according to Rev. Wilschut, was and is therefore still in order. That is not his reason for leaving. But what then is the ‘foundation of church life’ other than the upholding of the Holy Scripture in its entirety and the adherence to the Reformed Confessions? Doesn’t it then follow on that we have to uphold God’s commandments, that we must fully preserve the authority of Scripture, exclude Scripture criticism and fight errors.
How can we recognize this within the RCN and what is still left of the marks of the true church according to Art. 29, BC in these churches?
Rev. Wilschut’s ‘different vision’ apparently implies that in his judgment on the RCN and the PCN, he no longer wants to apply the Reformed Confessions. He apparently does not want to bind himself to this anymore. He has other criteria, as stated below.
The way it sounds
Rev. Wilschut does point to Art. 29, BC when he writes: Where the Word is, that’s where the church is ? and not the other way around. It brought me to the conviction that the hervormd-gereformeerde (protestant-reformed) congregations are to be regarded as true churches, in the sense of Art. 29, BC, although I initially considered the totality of the PKN still to be a false church.
But how does Art. 29, BC function here, other than ‘the way it sounds’?
Where the Word is, that’s where the church is, is an expression from the time of the great Reformation. This statement made it clear that it is not the church that reigns over the Word, as it did and does in the Roman Catholic church, but that the Word reigns over the church. Also this statement can be misused, when one goes by ‘the way it sounds’.
After all, it is all about the pure Word, when it comes to recognizing the true church of Christ. It is about the application of that pure Word: whether that Word is preached according Art. 29, BC, or whether the sacraments are administered according to that Word, or discipline is practised, also according to that Word.
It is Art. 29, BC that indicates so clearly and strongly what the summed-up characteristic is of the true church of Christ:
In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary it, and regarding Jesus Christ as the only Head.
We hear nothing about this in Rev. Wilschut’s assessment of the RCN and the PCN.
True Church?
Rev. Wilschut writes that in the meantime, because of his altered vision, he can no longer say ? what he ‘initially’ still did ? that the PKN is a false church.
How can Rev. Wilschut defend this whilst the PCN leads the way in today’s false ecumenism (e.g. the National Synod with a false creed), gives every possible room to false hermeneutics, does not exercise church discipline over members and not even exercise discipline over false teachers? Not even discipline over those who say that God does not exist (Rev. K. Hendrikse)?
Rev. Wilschut must then be asked: how can there, according to him, be a case of a ‘true church according to Art.29, BC’ in the ‘Gereformeerde Bond’ if the affiliated churches of the above-mentioned bond of churches don’t break away from the PCN and do not reject everything that is in conflict with the pure Word of God? How can that be consistent with the tolerance of the views of a professor, emanated by the ‘Gereformeerde Bond’ itself, Dr. G van den Brink, who in his new book Christelijke Dagmatiek (= ‘Christian dogmatics’, Boekencentrum 2012, chapter 13) renounces the verbal inspiration and the absolute authority of God’s Word and gives room to pluralistic interpretation of Scripture.
Rev. Wilschut however, not only wants to consider the churches of the ‘Gereformeerde Bond’ as ‘true church’ alongside the RCN, but also the PCN.
Then why not call many more ‘churches’ true churches, where the truth may be heard alongside accepted and sanctioned untruths? Where one can, in places, still listen to ‘nice’ sermons, but where one does not stand up in everything for the honour and rights of God?
What does Rev. Wilschut then do with the confession regarding the church, in his assessment, particularly with Art. 27-29 BC? Nothing at all. He does not even confront himself and his own actions with Art. 28 BC which states that you may not draw away from the true church (he still sees of the RCN as such). How does he see his office of pastor and teacher, with regard to the flock that the Lord has entrusted to him? Does he just leave them behind in the care of the RCN?
One could now argue that it had become very difficult for Rev. Wilschut in the RCN. He was irritated by the emptiness and banality of the worship services in the RCN. He ran up against a lot of stress because of criticism on his sermons.
In itself we should not trivialize this. It can bring a minister into difficulties, with tensions and health problems. Rev. Wilschut also mentions this in his justification.
Yet this is not a reason to go wrong ways and, as pastor and teacher, to abandon your own flock. In the whole of the justification for his departure we miss the Scriptural voice of our Confession. We do hear of annoyance and of ‘not being able to function fully’, but not of a moral dilemma for Christ’s sake. We do hear of a personal problem, but not of a problem of principle.
Room
Which arguments did Rev. Wilschut then use to justify his entering into the PCN/Gereformeerde Bond? These are derived from his following statement:
You may not write off and leave a church as if it is a false church when there is still room for God’s Word.
Is this a valid application of the above-mentioned starting-point of the Reformation: ‘where the Word is, that’s where the church is’ or do we also have a citation ‘going by the way it sounds’? It seems to be the latter. For ‘room’ for the Word is something different than ‘reigning’ of the Word. ‘Room’ for the Word can exist without fighting heresy, without rejecting all that is contrary to the pure Word of God and without exercising church discipline. Only room for the Word, where untruths exist next to the truth, where the untruth reigns, is not the true mark of the church that belongs to Christ, the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15).
Rev Wilschut describes the trouble of the RCN:
there is no evasive place to go to for classic reformed church life and preaching. The bond of churches is too small for this.
His choice for the PCN is that it is larger than the RCN and it has alternative places to go to.
This is how far you can go in your vision on the church. The existence of enough evasive places makes a ‘church’, a true church.
This statement surely does not fit in with the command to follow the one Head, Christ (Art. 29 BC), He Who is the Head of His Church and Who governs it by His Word and Spirit? Christ is not satisfied with an alternative place in His own House! Sometimes He does let His faithful Church become really small, but that is fundamentally something else.
Rev. Wilschut’s vision seems to come forth from an opportunistic, pluralistic and post-modern way of thinking. However, this vision leads him to a situation in which he in fact becomes co-responsible for the denial of the one Head of the Church, Christ.
Calvin
Rev. Wilschut appeals to Calvin as regards the right to secede. According to him Calvin teaches:
that you may leave a church only when the fundamental truth of the Christian faith is officially denied and faithful members are excluded or are being forced to participate in wickedness.
He is of the opinion that the right to secession ? as in 2003 ? did not exist because there were not yet any fundamental matters of faith that had been affected. Apparently, he wants to apply this to the PKN as well.
What then does Calvin write in book 4 of the Institutes from which Rev. Wilschut deduces this? We quote some passages to do Calvin justice. First of all he deals with the marks of the church In chapter 1, par. 7-9:
Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there we cannot have any doubt that the Church of God has some existence.
In par. 11 we read about the use of the marks to distinguish:
That we may not be imposed upon by the name of Church, every congregation which claims the name must be brought to that test as to a Lydian stone.
But Calvin then also warns for unjustified secession on the basis of Anabaptist perfectionism, but without however, condoning errors (par. 12):
I have no wish to patronise even the minutest errors, as if I thought it right to foster them by flattery or connivance; what I say is, that we are not on account of every minute difference to abandon a church,
Calvin wants to point out that small differences of opinions should be dealt with in the church-orderly way, and that therefore one cannot just leave the church. It is very different in the case where ‘the doctrine on which pure piety is based’ is affected.
We believe that for years the latter has been the case in the RCN and for many years to very many decades this has been the case in the PCN (and earlier in the Synodical Reformed Churches and the Dutch Reformed (state) Church): there God’s Word itself is affected by Scripture criticism, new hermeneutics, letting go of God’s commandments and undermining of the Confession.
Participating in such a church is participating in ungodliness and is therefore sin. God’s Word makes clear that God does not dwell where His Word is violated or abandoned (1 Sam. 4; Ez. 9; Ps. 78:60; 1 Tim. 3:15 Rev. 2:5). One must then depart from there, to break with iniquity (Is. 52:11; 2 Tim. 2:19). This is the only legitimate reason for secession: obey God more than the church institute. Continuing to follow Christ in His church-gathering work wherever He goes, means, according to Art. 28, BC, but above all to God’s command: choose for Christ’s yoke of ‘the sound doctrine’. This therefore also means: choose against the yoke of heresy, wherein one ? how cunningly! ? would still allow some room for the Word.
The true Confession
Rev Wilschut wants to use Calvin’s words for his own minimum-foundation, which for him still makes the PCN a true church of Christ:
In all brokenness, the confession of God being the Triune God, has remained.
We ask ourselves here, what is this confession worth now? Is the triune God still the God of the Scriptures in this PCN confession? Does it concern God the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth as He has made Himself known in His holy and infallible Word? Have they not since long broken with that true confession? Is the Christ in this PCN confession still the Son of man, seated at the right hand of God, to judge the living and the dead?
Should we not, full of sorrow, determine that in the PCN and in the RCN, through influence of all sorts of doctrine, it in the meantime, comes down to the worshipping of a God according to a multifarious own model?
Once we start looking for ‘more room’ in the church, then things will go wrong. In the House of God, it must be about the honour and right of the Lord. That makes us tolerant towards all who seek God in truth, but intolerant towards damage to the foundation of His Church, His Word.
Therefore we may not seek room for ourselves in a broad, unfaithful church, because then we too are guilty of terrible ‘church’-sins, for which we will have to give account.
But we shall, in full confidence, go the narrow path, where the Lord will lead and preserve His Church that wants to remain faithful to Him, no matter how small it may be (Rev. 3:8).
We hope that Rev. Wilschut will reconsider and return from his wrong path. Not to stay in the RCN, but now, in faith and in obedience according to Art. 28, BC, to join the Church of Christ, which he is easily able to recognize, on the basis of the marks pointed out in Scripture and Confession.