April 8, 2021 Show with David J. Engelsma on “The Belgic Confession”

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth.

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We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 8th day of April, 2021.

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And today we are going to be discussing one of the most vital and valuable confessions of faith in the

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Christian church, specifically in the Reformed heritage of the Christian church, the

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Belgic Confession. And I can think of no one better to do that than my guest today, a returning guest,

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David J. Engelsma, who happens to have written a new two -volume commentary on the

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Belgic Confession. David Engelsma is an author, professor of dogmatics and Old Testament studies for twenty years at Protestant Reformed Seminary in Granville, Michigan, and emeritus professor since the

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Synod of 2008. He is the editor of the Standard Bearer magazine from 1988 to 2002, a lecturer, a preacher touring in North America and throughout the

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British Isles on behalf of the British Reformed Fellowship, which is devoted to the spread and defense of the

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Reformed faith in the United Kingdom. And today, as I said, we are addressing the Belgic Confession, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, David Engelsma.

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It's a privilege to be part of your ministry, Chris. And let me give our listeners our email address right away in the event that they'd like to join us on the air with a question.

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Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you are in a church outside of the

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Reformed faith, and you're starting to believe in some of the things that you've been hearing and reading about Reformed theology, and you're not ready yet to make that fact public in your church and so on.

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You know your pastors will be upset. Well, we can understand that that would be a reason to remain anonymous at this point, and perhaps you're even a pastor, and you're going through a biblical transformation.

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In fact, I can remember when we were broadcasting out of Long Island, New York, a

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Arminian charismatic pastor, through listening to this program, became theologically

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Reformed and resigned from the pastorate at his church, because he could no longer in good conscience remain there.

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So that does happen. So we understand, for reasons like that, that you'd want to remain anonymous.

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But if it's just a general question on history, on the Belgic Confession itself, on scripture, on Reformed theology and doctrine and practice, then please, if it's just a general question, give us your first name at least, your city and state and country of residence.

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So I know, Brother Engel's mother, that this great confession, the

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Belgic Confession, is a confession that is greatly beloved of the vast majority, if not all,

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Reformed Christians in varying degrees. Obviously, there are even

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Reformed Baptists who love the Belgic Confession and might have to alter a few of its teachings to coincide with Baptist polity and a

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Baptist understanding of the ordinances. But generally, the

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Belgic Confession, also known as being one of the three forms of unity, along with the

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Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort, it is predominantly from those

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Reformed Christians out of the Dutch wing of the

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Reformed Church. But there are Presbyterians that have adopted it as well, perhaps sometimes even alongside of the

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Westminster. Tell us the origins of the Belgic Confession and tell us the origins of the actual nationality being included in the name.

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As you have already suggested, the Belgic Confession is a creed, thereby indicating that it expresses the belief of especially

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Reformed Christians, or a confession which indicates that it is the united declaration of Reformed Christians as to the truth of the

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Gospel. It's a creed or confession of Reformed Churches worldwide, I'm thinking now particularly of Reformed Churches in South Africa, regarding the

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Christian faith that specifically Reformed Christians hold for the truth of the

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Word of God. About this creed, the great historian

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Philip Schaaf has written that it's the best symbolical statement of Reformed Christianity with the exception of the

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Westminster Confession of Faith. I have my own doubts about the exception that he made without any derogation of the

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Westminster Confession of Faith. There's a liveliness, there's a passion about the

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Belgic Confession that's partly due to the fact that the man whom

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God used to author it was on the run for his life when he was writing the

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Belgic Confession and would soon die as a heretic at the stake for his confession of the truth found in the

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Belgic Confession. The Belgic Confession is lively and passionate.

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In any case, it was written by Guido de

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Bray, a Belgian, a member of the citizen of the country generally known as the

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Lowlands, which we now distinguish as the Netherlands and Belgium. He wrote that confession in 1561, so it's the earliest of the three forms of unity that you alluded to, the

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Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort being the other two. It was adopted almost immediately by a

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Reformed Synod in 1566 as an official statement of the faith of Reformed Christianity and of Reformed Churches.

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And then decisively, the Belgic Confession was approved and adopted along with the

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Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort as the official creeds of the Reformed Churches worldwide.

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It was translated into English in 1689 for the

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Confession of the Reformed Churches in the United States, and it was written in French and soon translated, almost immediately translated, both into Dutch and into Latin.

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It's a statement of all the leading doctrines of the

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Gospel in logical order. It begins with an article on God. It continues with several articles on the truth of Holy Scripture.

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Then following is a treatment of the doctrine of the Trinity, God the

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Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Following is an article or two on creation and providence.

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It continues with the confession of the truth of the fall of man and the effect of the fall of man and his total depravity by nature.

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Then there's an important article, Article 16, on predestination. Following that is a section of several articles on Christ the

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Savior and salvation, and a number of articles on the Church.

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In fact, more articles are devoted to the subject of the Church than to any other single truth of Scripture in the

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Belgic Confession. Then, almost strangely, near the end is an article on the civil state, although there are reasons for that.

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Fittingly, the Confession concludes with an article on the last things.

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Now, obviously it's been quite a long time since the

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Belgic Confession was in print, was first put into print, and there have been many things over the centuries written about the

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Belgic Confession and the three forms of unity in general, and supporting the teachings therein.

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Why did you feel a need to add these two volumes of commentary on the

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Belgic Confession, and perhaps you could tell us what might be unique about your volumes?

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Specifically, what occasioned my taking upon myself the not inconsiderable project of writing a full commentary on the

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Belgic Confession was that the churches of which I am a member and in which

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I am an ordained pastor have produced a commentary on the Canons of Dort and on the

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Heidelberg Catechism, the other two creeds of Reformed churches, but there was lacking a commentary on the

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Belgic Confession. More generally, and at the same time, it was brought home to my attention that there is, so far as I know, no such commentary on the

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Belgic Confession in the English language worldwide. There are books of sermons loosely attached to various articles of the

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Belgic Confession, but there was previously no commentary in the English language on the

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Belgic Confession. So that was the occasion for my taking it upon myself to write the commentary on the

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Belgic Confession that was lacking. The nature of my commentary is a two -volume commentary, by the way.

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The nature of that commentary is that it is a careful explanation of the creed itself, a careful explanation of the words and thoughts of the creed itself.

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One who reads the commentary will know what the teaching of the Belgic Confession is in every article.

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I emphasize that deliberately I wrote the commentary for the layman.

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It was in my mind what was said of Tyndale with regard to his translation of the

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Bible into English, that he wanted the plowboy in the field to be able to have access to the

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Word of God. Deliberately I refused to write a theological tome for scholars.

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I want the believing people of God to have access to an explanation of their faith, particularly now

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Reformed Christians. I did introduce issues and errors that have come up in the

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Reformed Churches and even in the Christian Church generally since 1561 when the

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Belgic Confession was written. There have been developments since the time of the writing of the

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Belgic Confession, not new doctrines altogether, but developments of the doctrines that are set forth in the

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Belgic Confession itself. Especially there have been errors regarding those fundamental doctrines of the

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Christian faith since the time that the Belgic Confession was written and to which therefore the

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Belgic Confession could not give attention. For example, there have been grievous, erroneous developments with regard to the doctrine of Scripture, particularly that the

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Scripture is the infallible Word of Man, at least in part. There, addressing that development briefly,

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I point out that the Belgic Confession does really preclude and condemn that development by stating that the

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Scripture is the Holy Word of God, rejecting the idea that it's partly the

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Word of Man. There have also been developments with regard to creation, specifically that the mode of creation was theistic evolution.

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Again, against which error, although I wasn't aware of it, the Belgic Confession contends in the teaching that it does give of the doctrine of creation.

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Then in connection with the doctrine of each of the articles, I felt myself free and indeed compelled to offer a brief explanation of the biblical basis of each of the doctrines.

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No lengthy discourses, but appeal to the main biblical passages that undergird the doctrine of the article, and then a brief explanation of that biblical foundation.

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So I'm convinced that in addition to other purposes it might serve, my commentary makes a good text for the study of the

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Belgic Confession. The man or the woman or the plowboy in the field who wants to know the teaching of the

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Belgic Confession, and therefore, according to our conviction, the teaching of the

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Reformed faith and its essentials, will find that commentary to be a good text for his purposes.

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Well, we actually have already an anonymous listener who says,

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I have many friendships with those in the Christian Reformed Church, and it seems that presumptive regeneration is a large problem in that group, and I know that they claim to believe in the three forms of unity just as you do.

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Is there anything in the Belgic Confession or in the three forms of unity that would lead one to believe in presumptive regeneration?

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There have been developments in the Reformed Churches against the doctrines that are set forth in the

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Belgic Confession, just because one formally acknowledges the Belgic Confession to be a creed of the

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Church does not guarantee that all of the theologians of the Church are going to adhere to that doctrine and that none of them will stray from that doctrine.

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That's what's happening in Reformed Churches, especially in North America, with whom

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I am more familiar than I am elsewhere. A number of denominations claim the

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Belgic Confession as their authoritative creed, which binds ministers and theologians to teach and write in harmony with the

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Belgic Confession and forbids them to contradict the Belgic Confession.

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And there are controversies in which both parties would claim to be teaching the truth of the

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Belgic Confession so that consistories and other theologians and believers must sort carefully through the controversy and determine which is expressing the truth.

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I would say, with regard to the question whether there is anything in the Belgic Confession that exposes presumptive regeneration as an error, there is, first of all,

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Article 16 on the doctrine of predestination. The doctrine of predestination applies not only to the difference between the

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Church and the world out there, but also applies to the children of believing parents.

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Not all children of believing parents are elect and regenerated and saved children of God.

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The history of Jacob and Esau in the Old Testament, which the

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Apostle brings up as essential to the truth of predestination that he's teaching in Romans 9, indicates that.

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Presumptive regeneration teaches that believers ought to presume, concerning all of their children, that they are elect and saved.

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Article 16 on predestination contradicts that notion. We do not view or presume that all of our children are elect and saved.

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That presumption is exposed also by the teaching of the

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Belgic Confession that salvation in its power is not lost, as those who hold to presumptive regeneration must come to in the end.

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They presume that all of their children are saved, but they must acknowledge in the end that some of them are not saved.

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So yes, I would say Article 16 especially on predestination, in the light of the biblical basis in Genesis and in Romans 9 -11, would contradict and condemn the theory of presumptive regeneration.

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Infant baptism on the Orthodox Reformed understanding of infant baptism is based on the truth that God does continue his covenant in the line of generations.

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That means that in the line of the generations of believers, some or even many of their children are elect and will be saved.

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But at the same time, it's necessary to instruct all of our children and to call them to a living faith in Jesus Christ, which is different than presuming about all of them that they are saved.

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Now, would you believe that the listener was accurate in his categorization of the

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Christian Reformed Church having largely adopted presumptive regeneration? And of course, over the past 20 years at least, it's also been sliding into dangerous levels of liberalism, if not apostasy.

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Yes, I graciously declined to make that observation, although I'm living at close quarters with the

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Christian Reformed Church here in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. But there has been a powerful influence of the theory of presumptive regeneration in that denomination, as probably in some other denominations.

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And that ties in with their popular notion that the covenant that God makes with the children of believers is a conditional covenant.

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God on his part then, by infant baptism, promises salvation to every one of the children, and even begins the work of salvation in all of the children, which would be in harmony with presumptive regeneration.

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But that the perfection of that covenant in salvation is conditional, depends upon something that the children must do.

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And if they fail to fulfill the conditions of the covenant, they will lose their salvation, even their regeneration,

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I would imagine, and go lost, which contradicts all of the fundamental truths of the

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Reformed faith, those expressed more in detail in the Canons of Dort.

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Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention some good news to our anonymous listener. If you email me your full name and mailing address, obviously we will not divulge that information on the air, since you requested to be anonymous.

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But you have won compliments of the Reformed Free Publishing Association the two -volume commentary, both volumes, of the

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Belgic Confession commentary by our guest David J. Engelsmuth. So please email me your full name and mailing address.

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And we'll have Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, ship those two volumes out to you as soon as possible.

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We are going to our first station break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Don't go away. We'll be right back with David J.

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Engelsmuth and more of our discussion on the Belgic Confession right after these messages. Hello dear ones, my name is

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33:32

David J. Engelsma, and he is the author of a new two -volume commentary on the

33:39

Belgic Confession, and that is our discussion today. If you care to join us, our email address is

33:45

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

33:52

As always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

34:00

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. We have a very faithful and generous supporter of Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Asheboro, North Carolina, Grady, who has a question.

34:15

Greetings, brothers. How much has the English language changed since the Belgic Confession was translated into English?

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Did you, in your commentary, make it so that we can understand it better with the language changes today?

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English language has developed and changed, of course, but there have been no substantial changes that affected the

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English language from the time that the Belgic Confession was translated into English, which was,

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I think, in 1689. There are extant, original, not the very original copy of the

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Belgic Confession of 1561 that has been lost, but a translation was made a few years later into Latin, which is the authoritative official language of the

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Belgic Confession as adopted by the Senate of Dort in 1618 and 1619.

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And those who are interested in such matters can compare the English language translation that we have and use today with that authoritative

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Latin translation. And I have never heard of anybody criticizing the

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English language of our present Belgic Confession as being unfaithful to that Latin original translation or deviating significantly from the

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English language today. So my answer to that questioner is that we may be confident that the

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English language translation that we have today is fundamentally and in all important respects faithful to the original

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Belgic Confession of 1561 and the Latin translation adopted by the

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Senate of Dort in 1618 and 1619. Grady, well, thank you so much.

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Make sure we have your full mailing address in Asheboro, North Carolina, because you have also won the two -volume set of our guest's commentary on the

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Belgic Confession, compliments of Reform Free Publishing Association, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

36:38

who will be shipping the commentaries out to you, the two -volume commentary. Why don't we go, why don't we have you,

36:45

I'm sorry, are you going to say something, brother? Chris, I think you gave me the opportunity a little earlier to say something about the author of the

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Belgic Confession. Yes. I would like to get that in. Oh, sure. If I may. The author of the

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Belgic Confession was a man named Guido de Bray, originating in the lowlands, which now is

37:06

Belgium. He was converted, that was dominated in his day by the

37:12

Roman Catholic Church, and he was converted from Roman Catholicism by reading the

37:18

Bible. Then he began to teach in his country the truth of the gospel according to grace and made himself almost at once the target of the persecuting hatred of the

37:33

Roman Catholic Church so that he had to flee for his life more than once to France and even to Switzerland where Calvin was ensconced.

37:45

In one of his stays in Geneva, he spent two or three years studying under Calvin so that he had what

37:54

I would call his seminary training under the master Calvin himself. That means that Calvin's influence on the

38:02

Belgic Confession is significant. His thumbprint is all over the Belgic Confession, although the author of it was de

38:10

Bray. The life of de Bray is the life of one of God's heroes, one of his great heroes.

38:17

He had to flee again and again from the lowlands or Belgium because of the threat of persecution.

38:24

On one of his return trips to the lowlands, he married a young lady to whom he was married for six or seven years before he died a martyr.

38:36

During that time, he had five children with her. He was safe in Switzerland, but of course he had to live away from the church in the lowlands and they were desperate for him to preach to them, the

38:50

Reformed Protestant congregation in the lowlands. So he came back in order to serve as their preacher and pastor.

39:00

That opened him up to capture by his Roman Catholic assailants.

39:07

They apprehended him, jailed him, and treated him abominably in the miserable quarters of the jail cell in which they put him.

39:17

Then in 1566, a mere five years after he had written the Belgic Confession, he died a martyr at the hands of the

39:25

Roman Catholic authorities. They hanged him. He was about 44 years of age.

39:33

As he was facing his death, he wrote some marvelous letters to his young wife, whom he was going to leave a widow, and to his small children, whom he would leave orphans.

39:47

I have translated major parts of that correspondence from the Dutch language, which it is mostly found today, into the

39:55

English language and have made that part of the first part of my commentary on the Belgic Confession.

40:02

Those letters by Debray to his wife, soon to become a widow, and to the children whom he would soon have to leave behind are extremely moving.

40:14

If a man can read those letters without a tear, he's a better man than I am. I recall now offhand that in one of the letters that he sent to his wife, in cheering her up, encouraging her that this was the will of God, he said to her that she ought to consider that her husband was privileged above most men, and even above the angels, because he was going to be a martyr.

40:44

And then when somebody talked to him about the sorrow of such an early death, he said he rejoiced at it because he was going to be seated at the marriage feast of Christ and the

41:01

Church. A man strong in faith himself, and his life was the life of a hero of the

41:10

Church of Jesus Christ. You can't help but love Guido Debray. Very moving account, and I'm looking forward to getting into that myself.

41:24

We have a listener who's asking something that is somewhat off -topic, although it could be related to the topic if you deem federal vision to be a violation of the

41:40

Belgic Confession. But we have a listener. I'm going to give his full name because he runs an online ministry that I think our listeners should be aware of.

41:53

He is a Reformed Anglican. His name is Donald Veitch, and he is the host of Twiss House, which is a

42:04

Facebook theological discussion page named after the 16th and 17th century

42:13

English theologian William Twiss. He asks, let's see here,

42:22

I just had the question in front of me. Here it is. As a Reformed prayer book churchman,

42:29

Westminster Confession of Faith, and Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer, and a

42:36

Dworktrechtian, could you give us your executive summary and critique of federal vision?

42:42

Obviously that would have to be a summary, as he said, because that's not the topic today and we only have two hours.

42:53

That question I appreciate greatly. It's applicable to one of the great struggles that churches who have the

43:04

Belgic Confession as their creed are engaged in today. Allow me to say first that I have written a volume concerning the federal vision.

43:17

I'm not going to have the time, as you say, and won't take the time to go into all of that in detail now.

43:23

But I have gone into the heresy of the federal vision in detail, exposing it with regard to its serious errors, in a separate volume called

43:34

Heresy at the Root. And that volume is obtainable from the

43:40

Reform Free Publishing Association, to which you have referred already a couple of times in this broadcast.

43:47

But his question really does tie into the subject of the Belgic Confession with regard to its purpose.

43:54

One of the main purposes of the Belgic Confession, as is also true of all the church's creeds, is not only that it instructs the church as to what the truth of the

44:05

Word of God is, and binds especially all office -bearers to teach in accordance with the creed, but a purpose of the

44:14

Belgic Confession is also very much to instruct the office -bearers to resist all errors that are contrary to the truth of the gospel, as expressed in the

44:26

Belgic Confession. The Belgic Confession functions to keep false doctrine out of the church.

44:33

And if the Belgic Confession were, in fact, functioning as a confession ought to function in those churches where the federal vision is appearing, that would put an end to the federal vision threat to the life of the church and attack upon the gospel of grace in no time.

44:51

The federal vision explicitly denies all of the so -called five points of Calvinism.

45:00

That's the gravity of the heresy in the body of the

45:06

Reformed churches. Now, would you say that they openly admit that they do that? Yes.

45:12

They explicitly deny all of the five points of Calvinism.

45:18

Now, they work with the terminology, but they admit that they're making something entirely different of predestination than the doctrine of predestination has in Scripture and in the

45:29

Reformed creeds. And the same with the other doctrines of grace as found in the five points of Calvinism as well.

45:38

It ought not to be difficult to spot the error and to determine that it is erroneous.

45:45

Some heresies are clever and duplicitous. This heresy comes on with the clear evidence of its being false.

45:58

And what's, in my judgment, so important about that heresy is that it is, as the name indicates, federal vision, a doctrine of the covenant.

46:10

Federal means covenant. The root and source of the federal vision error in its entirety is its doctrine of the covenant.

46:20

That is, it maintains that at the baptism of every infant of believing parents, and here you come close to what was questioned a little while ago about presumptive regeneration, there is a regenerating work of God, a saving work of God, in the heart of every baptized child of believing parents.

46:38

God establishes His covenant, not formally, but really, with every child of believing parents.

46:46

He does that unconditionally. But whether that covenant and its salvation remain with that child, resulting finally in eternal glory, is conditional.

46:58

So the root of the heresy of the federal vision is the teaching of a conditional covenant.

47:06

God's covenant with men and women is conditional. It depends upon their faith and their works.

47:14

Those who do not exercise faith or perform the works of faith lose that covenant that God established with them at their baptism.

47:23

The whole Reformed church world ought to be up in arms about the doctrine of the federal vision.

47:29

I regard that as the most grievous threat to the Reformed faith, probably since the Synod of Dort itself.

47:36

And it's a sad sign that many churches refuse to become excited about it and to deal with it the way they should.

47:45

But that's the purpose of the Belgic Confession, to expose such errors and to keep the church free of such errors.

47:53

And many of the articles of the Belgic Confession are clear attacks upon the fundamental teachings of the federal vision.

48:05

Article 16, again, on predestination. God does not predestine or elect all the children of believing parents.

48:14

And then other articles in the Belgic Confession that teach that when God begins the work of salvation in someone, he preserves that saving work and brings that saving work to its climax in eternal glory.

48:28

Perseverance of the saints, I might say. So the Belgic Confession serves to expose and condemn the federal vision.

48:37

And I'm assuming that you have faced something similar as I have in my dialogues and conversations with those identifying themselves with the federal vision, that they're not monolithic, which makes it more confusing and frustrating to get settled answers.

48:59

I have acquaintances within the federal vision movement that would deny much of what you said, and some of them say that they stand firmly on justification by faith alone and other things.

49:16

So it can be quite frustrating and confusing. I don't know if you've experienced the same differing opinions amongst this group as I have.

49:25

I know that they all don't believe in infant communion, although that may be the dominant practice among them.

49:33

I know that some of them do not believe in that. But anyway, have you had a similar experience to that?

49:40

I have read extensively in the federal vision literature, and especially in the leading proponents of the federal vision, and I contend, having looked this all over carefully and realizing that you must not attribute teachings to men who, in fact, do not hold them,

50:00

I contend that all of the leading representatives of the federal vision movement are guilty and would be, if they would avoid that for appearance sake, they would soon be pushed to the point where they would acknowledge the truth of it.

50:15

All of them, by their basic teachings, hold and promote what

50:22

I have just described, specifically a denial, with regard anyway, to the baptized children of believing parents, the fundamental doctrines of Calvinism.

50:35

And have a conditional covenant that God establishes with all the children at their baptism, which very much means their salvation, you are committed to denying the five points of Calvinism regardless of how you protest against being charged with that.

50:53

And our Anglican listener in Jacksonville, North Carolina, Donald Phillip Veatch, concludes by saying,

51:01

A postscript to wit that the Church of England erred grandly in failing to adopt

51:09

Dort in 1618 and 1619 despite King James I's subscribing to it.

51:16

The Church of England never recovered with that error. Yet this old fella in an old reformed

51:23

Cramner embracing Dort regards and many thanks to the goodly professor, brother, and fleet commander.

51:31

Regards and love all your books, Phil Veatch. God bless your correspondent.

51:39

And brother, if you could please give us your full mailing address in Jacksonville, North Carolina. I will have

51:46

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, ship you out the two -volume set of the

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Belgic Confession Commentary written by our guest, David Engelsma. And guess what?

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Since you're a first -time questioner, you'll also receive a brand new New American Standard Bible as well, compliments of the publishers of the

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NASB. Well, we have to go to our midway break right now. The midway break is a little longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

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And again, send in your questions to David Engelsma to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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Belgian Confession. First of all, mark your calendars for a week, or next week

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I should say, Tuesday, the 13th of April. We have Stephen J.

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and put I need a church in the subject line. I may be able to help you find a church, as I have already done with many listeners in our audience spanning the globe.

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It's ChrisArnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to David J.

01:14:28

Engelsma, and that's ChrisArnson at gmail .com ChrisArnson at gmail .com We are discussing the

01:14:34

Belgic Confession, and this is subsequent to a two -volume, a new two -volume commentary he has written on the

01:14:42

Belgic Confession of Faith. I'll take one more question for now, not that I won't take any more later.

01:14:49

I certainly will as long as time allows us. But before we Before I have you go on with some definitions and fuller explanations,

01:14:58

I'll have you answer a question from Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who wants to know, do your commentaries pretty much cover theological positions that the broader

01:15:12

Reformed community all hold in common, or is much of it some of the unique teachings that you hold to at the

01:15:20

Protestant Reformed denomination? My comment commentary explains the

01:15:26

Belgic Confession, the language of the article and the thrust of the article and does not make any effort to go off in specifically

01:15:39

Protestant Reformed directions, as your questioner might suppose.

01:15:45

I have hewed diligently as before the face of God with regard to this precious document to explain what the document teaches, and I have even restrained myself from going beyond what the articles teach, which may disappoint some of my colleagues in the denomination that I belong to.

01:16:14

I think, for example, of Article 16. Article 16 is the important article of the

01:16:19

Belgic Confession on Predestination. There is a longer treatment of election, which is right, and only a line on reprobation.

01:16:31

I content myself with teaching, with explaining the teaching as it occurs in Article 16 and restrained from a longer, more theological, what might be considered a

01:16:47

Protestant Reformed expansion on the teaching of the creed itself.

01:16:54

I had before me, as I think I suggested earlier, and I was deadly serious about that,

01:17:00

I had before me Reformed Christians in all the world, and giving to Reformed Christians the fundamental

01:17:10

Reformed faith as it's found in the Articles of the Belgic Confession itself. And if you could define for us reprobation because that is probably the hottest button or among the hottest buttons that annoy those outside of Reformed theology as a whole.

01:17:33

Those who are Arminian or Roman Catholic or just members of religious groups or denominations that would be outside of a

01:17:44

Calvinistic understanding of Scripture, they despise that teaching, and if you could just briefly define it.

01:17:53

Predestination in its simplest explanation as found in Article 16 of the

01:17:59

Belgic Confession is that God has eternally chosen to save in Christ some specific individuals out of the fallen human race.

01:18:13

And that implies necessarily, and that would be reprobation, that God has rejected eternally the others, determining that they shall perish in their sin and unbelief.

01:18:28

The Belgic Confession only says this with regard to reprobation, leaving others in the fallen perdition wherein they have involved themselves.

01:18:38

That's pretty much the way the London Baptist Confession renders it fairly identical.

01:18:46

So in answer to your questioner, a fair question, I have not worked in any teachings that might be regarded wrongly or rightly as specific distinctive teachings of the

01:19:00

Protestant Reformed Churches. By the way, Bobby, I think I may have forgotten to tell you, you have also won the two -volume commentary on the

01:19:08

Belgic Confession by our guest David J. Engelsman, compliments of Reform Free Publishing Association, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:19:20

We'll be shipping those two volumes out to you. And also, just to briefly clarify, because this is where a lot of caricaturing and slander of non -Reformed people come in.

01:19:35

I think some of it, perhaps most of it, is unintentional out of ignorance, but there is,

01:19:41

I think, some intentional slander going on. But we do not believe, as Calvinists, as Reformed Christians, that God is sending to Hell people who would have otherwise come to Him in saving faith, but God had to intervene and make those individuals turn away from Him.

01:20:11

Man, in his own nature, is depraved and corrupt enough on his own without needing any help to reject

01:20:18

God. Am I right? Yes. So, therefore, it's not like an equal ultimacy situation where there is something divine intervention going on as when

01:20:33

God saves wretched sinners and actually has to perform heart surgery on them by removing their hearts of stone and replacing them with hearts of flesh, and making out of the same lump of clay from which the reprobate come,

01:20:51

He makes vessels of honor. He does not need to actively make the evil, or should

01:21:03

I say, He doesn't actively have to intervene and make neutral people evil in order to reject them.

01:21:09

I mean, that's where we get a bad reputation and it's really from a misunderstanding or out and out slander.

01:21:17

The authoritative presentation of predestination in the Belgian Confession, Article 16, that the entire human race is guilty in the fall of Adam and guilty of its own sinfulness, and totally depraved, incapable of any good, and therefore incapable of repenting or believing or coming to Jesus Christ and God in His electing grace delivers some out of pure grace by preaching

01:21:48

Christ to them and working faith in their hearts and drawing them to themselves. He does that because he has determined in his counsel to do that and implied in that one decree is that he has also determined sovereignly to reject others and to leave them in the sin and unbelief in which they have fallen in Adam.

01:22:13

And another important truth in regard to what you have brought up is that the

01:22:18

Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, I should say the Biblical Doctrine of Predestination, in no way impinges upon the calling of the church to preach the gospel to everyone, set forth

01:22:31

Christ before all, and urgently to call all human beings to repent and to believe.

01:22:38

When that preaching takes place, God opens the eyes of some and not of the others, and that's according to his eternal counsel of predestination.

01:22:47

Yeah, I think that's where also with specifically the

01:22:53

Protestant Reformed Church there is some misunderstanding and perhaps even some slander involved where it is being taught that the

01:23:02

Protestant does not believe in indiscriminate evangelism and spreading the gospel to every single creature.

01:23:07

You indeed do spread the gospel to everyone no matter how perverse the prostitute or pious the pastor.

01:23:18

You preach to all, do you not? Yes, we do, and however that's to be explained, it is false that because of our strong faithful adherence to the truth of predestination, which is not just ours but the truth that all

01:23:36

Reformed Churches confess, it is not true that that hinders in any way our preaching the gospel to every creature which is the command of Jesus Christ to us.

01:23:46

That means setting forth Jesus Christ to all prostitutes and drug addicts and juvenile delinquents and whoever may be out there, setting before them their own natural depravity and guilt and plight, setting forth

01:24:01

Jesus Christ as God's one and only Savior, and then calling, urgently calling, everyone that comes into contact with us to repent of his sins and to believe in Jesus Christ and promising that everyone who does that will be saved, that there is salvation in Jesus Christ for the worst of sinners, among whom

01:24:23

Paul said, I am chief, and each of us who is honest with himself would say the same about himself.

01:24:30

It's really not a matter of the Protestant reform position, it's a matter of a caricature that has been made of Calvinism as it's called down through the ages.

01:24:41

Calvinists have no concern for souls. Calvinists cannot preach the gospel to everyone. That's false.

01:24:47

That's not what is meant or implied by the truth of predestination. The truth of predestination gives the glory to God for the salvation of any sinner.

01:25:00

It glorifies God also in teaching that those who perish do not do that, even though it's their responsibility and their fault.

01:25:08

Those who perish do not do that in contradiction of a will of God to save them. It's according to God's reprobation that some go lost.

01:25:19

If you could now go through some of the primary teachings set forth in the

01:25:25

Belgic Confession along with some definitions and clarifications. I'll do that in the understanding that at any point, for any reason whatsoever, you might stop me and call attention to what you think should be attended to.

01:25:40

I think it's extraordinarily significant that the Belgic Confession begins in Article 1 with a brief article confirming faith in God.

01:25:54

Even though the more elaborate treatment of the doctrine of God, the Trinity, doesn't come until the later, the

01:26:01

Confession begins with God. That's indicative of the fact that true faith always begins with God.

01:26:09

So there's the beginning with the truth that God is and that God is truly

01:26:17

God in a number of His perfections, eternal, incomprehensible, visible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just good in the overflowing fountain of all goodness.

01:26:30

Not only is it significant that that's the first article because the

01:26:35

Reformed Faith begins with God, implied as well is that the entire Confession is the revelation of God.

01:26:43

Whatever specific aspect of God's being or God's work, the

01:26:49

Belgic Confession is indicative and revelatory of the Reformed Faith concerns

01:26:55

God at every point and at every article. Then there's the following article on the means by which

01:27:04

God is made known to us, the truth of revelation. The Reformed Faith confesses that God is made known to every human being in creation, what's called the natural revelation of God, although it is quickly indicated that that is non -saving.

01:27:21

No one can be saved by natural revelation or by the revelation of God in creation.

01:27:27

As Paul teaches in Romans chapter 1, the only effect of the knowledge of God through creation is that one is left without excuse.

01:27:40

Then follow several articles on the knowledge of God that we have savingly in Scripture.

01:27:47

That's quite a long section. It's, to my mind, the most elaborate and exhaustive treatment of the truth of revelation in all of the

01:27:59

Reformed creeds. Next follows several articles on the doctrine of the

01:28:06

Trinity, and what's significant, especially in those articles on the

01:28:12

Trinity, is that the Belgic Confession deliberately unites the

01:28:19

Reformed churches with the church down the ages by appealing to the early church creeds,

01:28:27

Nicaea and the other early church creeds, as the foundation of the

01:28:35

Reformed faith in its confession of the Trinity. So the Reformed churches are not brand new churches that came into existence in every respect, only in the

01:28:47

Reformation, but it's the continuation of the church after the apostles.

01:28:55

By our united creeds, we're one ecclesiastically. In the section that follows on creation and providence, the creed confesses that the fall of the human race did not take place apart from God's decree and governing hand, although the responsibility and guilt of the fall are man's.

01:29:21

And in that section on creation and providence, particularly with regard to the fall of the human race, there's a denial explicitly that fallen mankind has a free will.

01:29:37

It's denied as a false doctrine, the free will of man. That's significant, especially with regard to the controversy that the

01:29:47

Reformed churches have with the Roman Catholic Church and with Arminianism, central to the

01:29:55

Arminian doctrine at that time and still today, is the teaching of the free will of the sinner.

01:30:02

The Reformed creed denies that man has a free will. That is a will that is capable of responding positively to the call of God and the preaching of the gospel, so that salvation in the end depends upon the will of man rather than upon the will of God.

01:30:20

The important article on election and reprobation is brief in Article 16, such is the importance of that doctrine and the tenacity of opposition to that doctrine of predestination.

01:30:33

What is said in Article 16 of the Belgic Confession had to be enlarged and expanded in the canons of the

01:30:43

Synod of Dort in 1618 and 1619. That's how the

01:30:49

Reformed faith regards the teachings of the five points of Calvinism in the canons of Dort.

01:30:56

Not something new, but an expansion of the teaching of the Belgic Confession in Article 16.

01:31:05

There's a very rich section following on Jesus Christ as God's Savior in the recovery of fallen man.

01:31:14

Those articles are rich on Jesus Christ, his person, and his work.

01:31:20

In the section on salvation that comes next, there's a powerful, clear, explicit teaching of justification by faith alone.

01:31:32

I may say that what the Belgic Confession teaches about justification is important today with regard to controversies that the

01:31:45

Reformed faith and churches find themselves in. This applies to the controversy with the federal vision.

01:31:55

The Belgic Confession maintains that justification is by faith alone and then not in the sense that justification is based on our faith or the works of our faith, but that faith is the instrument by which we receive

01:32:11

Christ and all of the merits of Jesus Christ that are in the Savior. Faith is instrumental.

01:32:19

That's an important confession in that exposition of the truth of salvation.

01:32:26

Justification is by faith alone. Then follows a very long section on the church.

01:32:35

I think that's the longest section on any particular doctrine in all of the Belgic Confession.

01:32:41

It runs from Article 27 through 35 of this document, which has 36 articles in total.

01:32:49

The marks of a true church, the Catholic body on the one hand and the instituted body on the other hand, the offices in the church, then a strong doctrine of the sacraments.

01:33:01

I mean strong in the sense that the sacraments are means of grace according to the

01:33:06

Reformed conception and not merely visible signs. There's one article, rather odd at first glance,

01:33:17

Article 36 on the magistrates, on civil discernment. You wonder how that fits in, why that's brought up at the end of a long section on the church.

01:33:29

That's a controversial article still today. For one thing, of course, the article on the magistrates teaches that the magistrates' civil government is ordained of God and that therefore

01:33:45

Reformed Christians are to be subject to the magistrates. That's quite something when you consider that the

01:33:52

Belgic Confession was written in the lowlands when the magistrates were Roman Catholics and when they were persecuting the true

01:34:01

Church of Jesus Christ ferociously. About that time, Philip II and the

01:34:08

Duke of Ulva persecuted the Church in the Netherlands or the lowlands to the extent that some 100 ,000

01:34:15

Reformed Christians, men, women, and children, including the author of the Belgic Confession, were killed for the sake of the confession that you find in the

01:34:24

Belgic Confession. More were killed in that persecution than in all the persecution of the early

01:34:31

Church combined. In the midst of all that, Guido de

01:34:36

Bray had the Reformed Churches confess and the synods of the Reformed Churches adopted that Reformed Christians are to be subject to the magistrates.

01:34:48

Now that's not so controversial, but what is controversial is that the article also goes on to say that the magistrates, the civil government, has the duty from God to establish the true

01:35:02

Church and to eradicate the false Church. And with that,

01:35:09

I differ. And although the Belgic Confession is binding upon me as a

01:35:16

Reformed preacher and as a Reformed Christian, there's a footnote that has been adopted by Reformed Churches in the past that recognizes the error of that theory of civil government and exempts

01:35:31

Reformed Churches and Christians from subscribing to that part of Article 36 of the

01:35:37

Belgic Confession. I do not believe that God gives to the civil magistrate the right to determine what the true

01:35:45

Church is and then to promote the true Church with the sword. That virtually is the position of the

01:35:52

Roman Catholic Church that results in persecution. God intends the true Church to be established and defended by spiritual means, the spiritual sword of the preaching of the

01:36:03

Word of God. But without going into that further, I note that there is something controversial about the article on the magistrates.

01:36:12

The last article, Article 37, as you would expect, is the doctrine of the last things according to the

01:36:19

Reformed faith, eschatology. I argue that that article, without naming that doctrine in so many words, is amillennial in nature, not postmillennial, not premillennial, but amillennial.

01:36:37

The millennium of Revelation 20 is the period between the ascension of Christ and shortly before Christ coming again.

01:36:47

I think because of the more recent controversies over the doctrine of the last things, that's an article of the

01:36:54

Belgic Confession that could be expanded upon today. It doesn't treat as expansively as it might the various errors opposed to the truth of the doctrine of the last things.

01:37:11

But the content for the most part of that article is the final judgment.

01:37:18

Then there's a concluding line, which ought not to be overlooked, which is an urgent plea for the coming of Christ.

01:37:27

That, overall, is the content of the Belgic Confession and some indication of what

01:37:34

I regard as the outstanding aspects of that Confession.

01:37:40

Well, we have to go to our final break right now. It will be much shorter than the others. If you intend to send in a question, please do send it in right away, because we are rapidly running out of time.

01:37:51

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com We'll be right back with David J.

01:37:57

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01:50:17

Welcome back. Professor Engelsma, we have a listener,

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Joseph, in South Central Pennsylvania, who asks, I would like to have some clarification on your comments that said that man does not have free will.

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I understand from the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, in Chapter 9,

01:50:44

Article 1, it says that it reads, God hath endued the will of man with that natural ability and power of acting upon choice that is neither forced nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.

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Isn't it true that man does have a freedom of will and yet in the flesh he is incapable of pleasing

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God, which would include having a faith in and of himself that would save him?

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Yes, the issue of the freedom or bondage of the natural human will is the standing or the falling of the gospel and of the true church of Jesus Christ.

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That man does not have a free will, according to the Belgian Confession, means simply this, that the fallen sinful human being is unable to will

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Christ, is unable to choose Christ, is unable to receive the gospel as the word of God.

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All that the fallen human being can do is to reject Christ when he is presented in the gospel, to reject the message of salvation and therefore to abide in his lost condition.

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Such is the importance of the issue of the freedom or the bondage of the will that Luther and his disciples at the time of the

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Reformation, in 1517 or shortly thereafter, wrote a full volume called

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The Bondage of the Will. At the end of his life, this prolific author said that that's one of only two books that he wrote that he thinks are worth preserving and in that volume he sets forth at large what

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I have just said in a simpler, short fashion. This is not to deny that what

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Luther and his the human being does choose or will, he chooses freely in the sense that he is not under any constraint.

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God does not force the fallen sinful human being to choose against Christ when the fallen human being would like to choose for Christ.

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The sinner himself actively and willingly rejects Christ, but that's all he is able to do by virtue of his natural sinful condition.

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The implication of this truth is that if the sinner is saved, if the sinner is saved, that is because God has freely given to him the

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Holy Spirit and bound the word of the gospel upon his heart so that as a changed human, as one who is now saved, he freely chooses for Christ and for the gospel.

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That, of course, immediately raises the question of How is it that some do believe?

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How is it that some are delivered from their natural condition of a bondage of the will? And the answer is that the grace of God is sovereign according to the decree of election.

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Those whom he has chosen, God delivers from this condition of the bondage of the will.

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And those whom he has not chosen, he leaves in that condition so that they perish. But that's what is meant by the issue of the freedom or the bondage of the will in the

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Reformed theology. And I would say that the London Baptist Confession confirms what you said.

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And in Article 4, Chapter 9 of the Second London Confession, when

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God converts a sinner and translates him into a state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him to freely will and to do that which is spiritually good, yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.

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So I think that they are in harmony on that, both the

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Belgic Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession. Well, I already know that I'd like you to come back for another program on the

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Belgic Confession, but if you could right now summarize all of what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding this great confession of faith.

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God has given to the Christian Church and to the Reformed Church in particular a glorious witness to the truth of the gospel in a thorough systematic form, so that one who reads that confession and understands that confession will know the gospel of grace and its essentials.

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And also, I especially the office bearers in the Church and preachers more especially, this creed to guard them against error and to guard the

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Church against the intrusion of heresy. And this confession ought to function that way in Reformed Churches, exposing and prohibiting errors and keeping preachers especially in all their teaching in harmony with the fundamental truths of the gospel as taught by Scripture and faithfully summarized by the

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Belgic Confession. Amen. Any other projects that you want to announce regarding either your own writing or speaking or anything else that the

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Lord sets your hand to do with the gifts that he's given you, brother? The next big project for me will be to speak at the meeting of the

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British Reformed Fellowship in Northern Ireland. And I'll be a little later this year.

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Would that be at our friend and brother Angus Stewart's congregation? Yes. Anyone who wants details on that matter should get in touch with the

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Reverend Angus Stewart. And at present, I'm working on writing another volume in a series that the

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RFPA is producing on the history of the Old Testament from the viewpoint of the covenant, unfolding covenant history.

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I just finished a volume on the history of the Old Testament, the history from Saul through Solomon, and I'm working on a volume consisting of the history from Rehoboam to the end of the kings of Judah and Israel.

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Well, if anybody wants to find out more about that speaking engagement in Northern Ireland where David is going to be speaking, you can go to cprc .co

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.uk. That's cprc .co .uk,

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and you'll find out all the information that you need about that event. And I hope that all of you who are listening in our audience in Northern Ireland, because we do have listeners in Northern Ireland and throughout the

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U .K. and in the Republic of Ireland and all over the world, so we hope that you take heed to that.

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And I want to thank you again, David, for being such a superb guest, as you always are, and I'd like you to hold on the phone so we can schedule another interview on this topic.

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It's too broad and deep to fit into one discussion. Very good.

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You can find out more about this two -volume commentary on the Belgic Confession by our guest,

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David J. Engelsma, at the publisher's website. The publisher is reformedfree .com,

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and the website is www .rfpa .org, and you can purchase it at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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That's www .cvbbs .com.

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I want to thank everybody for listening today, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater