Our NRCs 80th Anniversary: A Call to Preserve Good, Old Paths (1)

In the summer of 1907, some eighty years ago, our Netherlands Reformed Congregations (Cereformeerde Gemeenten) were officially organized as a denomination. The following represents an extract of the substance of a sermon preached in Grand Rapids in commemoration of this denominational event. The text for the occasion was Jeremiah 6:16, “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.”

It behooves us to acknowledge the Lord for preserving the doctrines of grace among us these eighty years. May we receive grace both to entrust an Ebenezer memorial to God’s glory and to foster a deeper sense of appreciation for our inheritance.

Jeremiah was young—probably 18 or 19—when shouldered with an awesome burden: to be God’s ambassador to a wicked king, a worldly people, a backsliding church, and a barren priesthood. He was sent by Cod to denounce the cold formalism and covetousness that pervaded Israel; as such, he was a reformer who received little support from his own people.

Jeremiah lived a hard life. His message was rejected in his youth and in old age he lived to see the fulfillment of all the warnings he had proclaimed to Israel. The complete ruin of church and state, the destruction of the temple of Solomon, the burning of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of young and old into captivity all became reality in the life of a prophet who zealously desired Israel’s welfare. Tradition tells us that after being dragged into Egypt by Jewish refugees, he died in old age as a martyr for the cause and kingdom of Cod.

Our text summarizes the entire ministry of Jeremiah: seeking to preserve and conserve what God had given to Israel by directing her to maintain its good, old paths. Standing, as it were, in a complex intersection, Jeremiah guided the Jewish people to those paths in which the Lord had preserved and established Israel for thirteen hundred years—from the times of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David and Hezekiah until his present day. Despite the unpopularity of his views, he admonished Israel that a return to her fore-fathers’s old paths was the only means available to escape divine judgment. His message was an ultimatum to Israel: barring national repentance, Israel was doomed to captivity. Her new ways of form worship, ritualistic lip-service, dead orthodoxy, and covetousness bespoke inevitable, speedy annihilation. Though God’s judgments were ripe, Jeremiah trumpeted forth that Israel was still at the crossroad of survival — it was still not too late to repent, to turn to the Lord, to seek the good, old paths. Mercy was yet to be had upon confession and return.

Thus, Jeremiah had nothing new to proclaim. He sought to take old principles and apply them to his contemporary historical situation. Not out of weakness, nor because his intelligence lacked originality, but because the Word of God remains constant and relevant in all domains of life and society, Jeremiah testified, “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way.”

This identical message we are called to trumpet today. Eighty years ago it has pleased the Lord to establish the Netherlands Reformed denomination. We, too, stand at a crossroad, at a crucial intersection: Shall we reject the good old paths established by our forefathers dating back beyond our immediate denominational history to the Reformers and Puritans? By grace these paths have been confirmed and preserved by God in our denomination. Shall we forsake them for worldly ways of shallow Christendom or shall we seek the authentic marks, fruits, and steps of grace as so clearly expounded by divines such as Calvin, Owen, Brakel, Comrie?

Despite its richness, we are in great danger of losing our God-given heritage. How few have truly read our forefathers! Many speak about Calvin, but few have read his Institutes and searched his Commentaries. The Lord’s ultimatum to us is no different, no less serious or imminent: barring denominational repentance and restoration, we are prone to slide further into the murky waters of dead orthodoxy at best or doctrinal liberalness and experiential ignorance at worst.

Consequently, on an occasion such as this, it is paramount that our accent be on what we may believe, on the basis of God’s Word, to be the major good paths into which the Lord has brought, and for the most part, preserved our congregations to greater or lesser degree until this very day — paths, seven in number, which we are called to safeguard and nurse as our divinely entrusted heritage.

1. The Historical Path

The first path we must speak about, and that very briefly, is the rich, historical way through which the Lord has been pleased to form our denomination. Our Netherlands Reformed Congregations, as many of you know, presently number approximately 165 churches in the Netherlands and two dozen in North America, as well as a few solitary churches in various countries. To date our denomination has grown to total 100,000 professing and baptized members, of which some 9,000 are North Americans. Though denominationally small in comparison to several Reformed branches, we trust that God has left among us “an afflicted and poor people, who shall trust in the Name of the Lord” (Zeph. 3:12). May Triune grace be multiplied and their number increased!

Our congregations were organized under God’s blessing by the able leadership of the Rev. G.H. Kersten in 1907, when only 25 years old. Unsuccessfully at first, and later successfully, Rev. Kersten labored for several years to bring together various churches of kindred belief into one denomination. When his efforts finally did receive God’s stamp of favor on July 25,1907, two significant groups formally merged, pledging unity for the truth’s sake: the so-called “Churches under the Cross” (established in 1839, after breaking away from the 1834 Secession congregations) and the so-called Ledeboerian churches (established in 1841 under the leadership of Rev. Ledeboer who seceded from the Reformed State Church). Subsequent to Rev. Kersten’s preparation of thirteen articles which he submitted to the chairman, Rev. Beversluis, for approval, nineteen delegates from the Churches under the Cross and the Ledeboerian Churches met on July 25,1907 to give their unanimous approval. Entitled, The Articles of Institutional Unity of the Church of Christ, this document was ratified at a larger gathering on October 9 and 10. (It is appended to the A Brief Historical Survey volume on our churches written by Rev. Kersten and Rev. Van Zweden.)

We may believe that this historical path was one in which the Lord reigned, for it was a God-made, not manforced, merger between two groups. Rev. Kersten himself later wrote that he only had to follow the ways of God in it. Thus truth was not sacrificed for merging’s sake, as is common today, but a genuine merger was formed by the Spirit on the foundation of truth. May God grant more historical awareness and appreciation among us.

2. The Biblical Path

The second major mark, representative of our eighty year denominational heritage, is the Biblical path. We are grateful that the foundational conviction of our denomination has been and remains: all that we do, say and

think within, and outside of, our church buildings ought to be based on the principles of the infallible Word of Cod. Historically, our denomination has earnestly sought to prioritize God’s authoritative Word as the Church’s rightful and central foundation. We have maintained by grace that everything in life—be it reason, emotion, common sense, science—must be adjusted to Scripture and not Scripture to it. Every divine Word from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22, we thoroughly believe is God-breathed.

Truth was not sacrificed for merging’s sake, but a genuine merger was formed by the Spirit on the foundation of truth.

Today, several “Reformed” Churches are embroiled in turmoil over the historicity and the canonicity of the Word of God, especially concerning the first chapters of Genesis. We may observe such controversy as a warning sign, not despising them, for we are no better. God forbid that we ever stray one inch from the grand truth that the Bible is the library of the Holy Spirit! Let us maintain that by this Word the blessed Spirit of God both breeds and feeds grace within His chosen people, for we read in James that God’s people are born by the Word of truth and we read in Peter that they grow by the sincere milk of the Word. Thus, the divine Librarian, the Holy Spirit, uses the sixtysix sacred books of Scripture as a touchstone for all His elect students and His church-at-large.

We must sustain and promote the highest reverence for the Word of God if we are to remain in God’s good old paths, for the Word of God is foundational, central to everything. It is our compass for spiritual life. If we cannot find our spiritual experiences in God’s Word, they are not Spirit-wrought. It is our guide for family, social, and practical life. Scripture dictates invaluable principles to lead us in every decision; it is worthy to be the major volume in every area of our lives.

Scripture must become a light for our paths and a lamp for our feet. We are always in grave clanger of taking for granted our belief in the Word of God, neglecting to put into practice its personal, domestical, and ecclesiastical guidelines. We are in danger of minimizing God’s Word, of not seeking life, hope, and all that we need within its sacred pages. May the Word of God read or preached drive us continually as sinners to our knees, which, in turn, drives us back to the Word. May God preserve us in the good, old path of the Bible. May His Word become our bread when hungry (Is. 55:10), our honey when faint (Ps. 19:10), our milk when babes (1 Cor. 3:2), and our strong meat when men in grace (Heb. 5:12-14). May we be brought by exercised faith to “embrace with meekness the engrafted Word” (James 1:21), to keep this Word (Jn. 17:6), to continue in this Word (Jn. 8:31), and to live this eternal Word (2 Cor. 3:3). Let us seek grace to truly read the Bible, believe the Bible, pray over the Bible, and live by the Bible.

3. The Liturgical Path

Thirdly, we are called to preserve our liturgical path. Church liturgy— how we worship, how we conduct a service, the forms we use, etc. — is critical for a church. Rightly, our denominational liturgy has always maintained simplistic structure. We have built our church liturgy on the Word of God as its foundation and our three doctrinal standards resting upon it. It is our good liturgical custom to read the Belgic Confession and Canons of Dort regularly at worship services, and to preach from the Heidelberg Catechism weekly except on church feast days. On this Biblically Reformed foundation, we gather in God’s house two or three times each Sabbath to hear what He has to say to us.

Thus, the whole emphasis of our liturgy falls on the proclamation of God’s Word and the petitioning of His Name. Jealous vigilance of preaching and praying time is, in itself, sufficient reason to reject all other intrusions into the sacred service of the Lord, such as personal testimonies, congregational readings, and choir singing. Let us uphold the underlying principle of our liturgy: coveted preservation of Word-proclamation to the utter exclusion of man-centered activites and man-forced worship.

If we were to truly maintain good, old paths, we must devote undiluted attention to the proclamation of the Word of God — Biblically, doctrinally, experientially and practically. The highest calling of the minister must remain the prayerful, Spirit-motivated preaching of the Word to the glory of Cod; the highest goal of each church member must be the prayerful, Spiritapplied receiving of the Word to the glory of God.

For God’s hungry people, the sanctuary becomes their home; no wonder, for the preaching of the Word of God, and the ordinances connected with the ministry of that Word, are unspeakably precious pastures for them. The whole system of instituted worship bears the image and superscription of the Lord, their Lawgiver, who maintains His authority and imparts His grace through them. Precious as the Word of divine truth is in itself, this Word is ordinarily clothed with less majesty and accompanied with less power in the exercises of their closet than in the service of the sanctuary. “The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob” (Ps. 87:2). Next to the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Word is the Great Shepherd’s principal ascension-gift. It is a standing pledge to the church, and a sure proof to the world, that He is now “in the presence of God for us.” Therefore it pleases Him to put a special honor upon this institution for the preaching of the cross which is foolishness to them that perish, is the power and pasture of God to them that believe. Oh, what a blessing to receive soul-food and soul-rest under beaten path that we call sound, orthodox doctrine. Our young people must know what we believe, why we believe as we do, and how to defend it. They must know the foundations of our church, the foundations of truth; for there is no greater warning or solemn judgment that a church can hear than what the Lord pronounced of Israel: “My people are destroyed for God’s preached Word! Under such preaching God’s people may find the balm of Gilead, rest upon the unconditional promises of God, be strengthened in their inward man, and experience finished salvation in Christ. There, in the house of God, Jehovah’s flock meet their God and shepherding King. There Christ rests and dwells, for He has desired it. There Christ abundantly blesses Zion’s provision, satisfies her poor with bread, and clothes her priests with salvation, so that her saints shout aloud for joy (Ps. 132:14-16).

Under such preaching God’s people may find the balm of Gilead, rest upon the unconditional promises of God, be strengthened in their inward man, and experience finished salvation in Christ.

4. The Doctrinal Path

Fourthly, we must preserve the doctrinal path of our forebears. Built upon our creeds and confessions, which, in turn, are built on God’s Word, is the special emphasis on orthodox, experiential doctrine that our denomination has established over the past eighty years. Beginning with the Word of God and ending in God’s sovereign good pleasure, the path of true doctrine is being misinterpreted and misunderstood by the vast majority of church members today; indeed, this momentous path we are in serious danger of losing. If and when we lose the doctrinal path and soundness of sovereign grace, future generations shall receive a spoiled heritage. As many other Reformed churches, our end shall then be will-worship in the false tradition of artificial Christendom. Not only in Catechism preaching, but also in textual expositions, we must emphasize and re-emphasize the old lack of knowledge.” Thus we must labor with all our power, first and foremost as office-bearers, but also as members, to learn, grasp, digest, and seriously study the doctrine that God has handed down to us through our Scriptural forefathers.

True doctrine excludes man completely. Rooted in God’s Word, it leads to true experience when accompanied with the Spirit’s blessing. All true experience is grounded in true doctrine, which in turn is based on the Bible. Contrary to popular opinion, true experience applied does not form doctrine, but doctrine applied forms experience. Succinctly stated, experience is rooted in doctrine; doctrine is rooted in Scripture; Scripture is rooted in God.

Beginning with Cod, continuing with Scripture, doctrine and experience, the path of truth preaches the necessity of the Holy Spirit. For who can appropriate true experience to himself without the Spirit’s application? It also points to Christ as the Spirit-wrought end of the law, heaven’s Heaven, and All-in-all of His church (Jn. 16:13-14). Christ, in turn, leads to the covenant of grace as the eternal charter God has given to His flock. And the covenant of grace leads to sovereign election. “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” The covenant was established, not as an end in itself, but to direct the church to the fulfillment of its realization, calling and salvation in a sovereign, loving Father. The covenant serves God’s election. And God’s election ends in, and serves, pure sovereign grace. This, then, is the full doctrinal path: (1) God; (2) His Word; (3) sound doctrine; (4) true experience; (5) the work of the Holy Spirit; (6) Jesus Christ as full Savior; (7) the covenant of grace; (8) election; (9) pure, sovereign good pleasure. Thus, salvation begins with God, is fulfilled by God, ends in God. It is exclusively a divine work of free grace.

(to he continued)

Rev. J.R. Beeke is pastor of the First Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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