Our Sonship in Union with the Son of God
Adoption is not intended to distinguish us from the exalted Son of God, but to express the nature of our privileged solidarity with him. Preserving Christ’s eternal, ontological sonship does not proscribe filial-covenantal progress in the Son of God, nor does it drive a filial wedge between the redeemed sons and the redeeming Son. To the contrary, grounded in Trinitarian ontology and covenantal decree (pactum salutis), redemptive grace depends on divine condescension in the incarnate Son and his concomitant filial development (humiliation) for securing covenant promises at his resurrection (exaltation). Believers are adopted sons of God precisely because Jesus Christ, the one Mediator between God and man, was first adopted himself.
John Calvin, in his last will and testament, asserts, “I have no other defence or refuge for salvation than His gratuitous adoption, on which my salvation depends.”[1] Surely there are many ways that Calvin could have expressed his deathbed gospel convictions. With summary reflection and filial warmth, he chooses to affirm that his salvation depends on God’s gratuitous adoption.
The gospel, acquired for him in the atoning “merits of [Christ’s] death and passion,”[2] propelled Calvin toward confident expectation of his imminent welcome before his heavenly Father: “I trust to no other security for my salvation than this, and this only, viz. that as God is the Father of mercy, He will show Himself a Father to me, who acknowledge myself to be a miserable sinner.”[3]
The Son of God’s merciful work overwhelmed Calvin’s desperate plight and enabled him to “stand at the judgment-seat.”[4] For Calvin, the entire scope of the gospel derived its splendor and hope from adoptive grace bestowed on him in Christ Jesus, which granted him unfettered fellowship with the merciful Father. Adoptive grace took such primacy for Calvin because it did so for the apostle Paul.
Pauline theological and hermeneutical logic operates with a dynamic convergence of Christology, pneumatology, and soteriology: the historico-theological character of scriptural revelation (historia salutis) structures the application of redemptive grace (ordo salutis); the biblico-theological – that is, Christ-centered – thrust of Scripture wholly serves gospel appropriation. Such biblico-theoogical orientation unveils the filio-Christology, the filio-pneumatology, and the filio-soteriology at work in divine grace. These mutually interpreting theological categories vividly profile adoption and its integrative role in the application of redemption. Biblical grace is filial grace.
Relying on the Pauline treatment of adoption as traversed in the previous pages and tapping in to Calvin’s permeating treatment of this filial grace, we find that placing adoption properly within the ordo salutis has required re-recalibration. This re-placement has involved precise tuning of the ordo salutis to the historia salutis, where Paul’s sons-in-the-Son paradigm flourishes exclusively in and through the last Adam, the firstborn, the firstfruits of the Spirit, the adopted Son of God.
By the outpouring of Christ’s Spirit of adoption, the sons possess the Son because, by his efficacious work, the Son possesses the sons. The Son of God does not dispense selected benefits to the redeemed sequentially or atomistically, as if he could divide himself and his work in bits; he gives himself – adopted and resurrected – to them once for all. Correspondingly, the filial grace of adoption envelopes the redeemed precisely because this adopted Son – vindicated, consecrated, and glorified – embraces them in his unrelenting grace.
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It Doesn’t Work: Reformed Church in America
What happened in the RCA? In the words of one former RCA pastor, the RCA had gangrene in their right foot but amputated their left hand. “What would have made more sense is the progressives to go to the PCUSA or UCC if they were willing to leave,” said Bremer. “They were in the minority and had places to go. But they made it clear that this is not what they were going to do.” “The General Synod has repeatedly made statements that are more traditional in orientation about sexuality, but those are just statements,” said David Komline, associate professor of church history at Western Theological Seminary. “There are no mechanisms in place to hold people accountable to these statements.” “Our polity did not allow us to hold others accountable who were living in sin,” according to Gerbers, who was a delegate to General Synod in 2013, 2016, 2019 and 2021. Currently, the RCA website’s Statements of General Synod paint a picture of the RCA slowly and conflictedly coming into line with the revisionists’ position on sexuality.
LGBTQ ideology has divided one church after another: Episcopal Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), Mennonite Church USA, United Methodist Church, Church of the Brethren, Reformed Church in America.
In this series, we will look at some of their stories. Each one shows how legitimizing alternative sexualities in the church is a mix of oil and water. It simply does not work. Another case in point: The Reformed Church in America
Of all the denominations that would have lessons for the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC), the Reformed Church in America (RCA) would be at the top of the list. They have the same statements of faith and the same Dutch heritage. While sharing many similarities, they have distinct histories. The RCA has a long history of trying to maintain unity despite differences, reaching across doctrinal differences to cooperate with churches outside the Reformed tradition. The CRC has a long history of seeking biblical and confessional fidelity, careful selection of ecumenical partners.
RCA and CRC Ancient History
The RCA is one of the oldest denominations in America, officially beginning in 1628 in New York. They became independent from the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk (NHK) in 1792. Then, in 1834 the NHK went through a split called the Afscheiding. The government-run NHK was rampant with German rationalism and French skepticism. Modernism reigned in the universities and most pulpits. The Three Forms of Unity were official but were often denied or derided. Ministers only needed to agree with “insofar as” they agreed with God’s Word. Most sermons were moral essays, urging the good life without mentioning human sinfulness, necessity of new birth, conversion, atonement through Christ, justification by faith, or sanctification. The Afscheiding left the state church and began to meet on their own. Fines on gatherings were imposed and immigrants poured into the United States. The Afscheiding band following Albertus Van Raalte was accepted into the RCA in 1850. Some among the Van Raalte group were disappointed in that union as they were afraid that the RCA was much like the corrupt NHK in the Netherlands.1
In 1857, a small handful left the RCA and the CRC was born. At first, the CRC consisted of only four churches and one minister. Meanwhile, the Van Raalte immigrants were not on board with membership in the Masonic lodge. The Masons required an oath of secrecy and especially in the Netherlands were viewed as something of a cult. The RCAs in the eastern USA did allow its members to belong to Masonic lodges.2 In 1870, the RCA General Synod declared that Masonic membership was not a good practice but that it should not be forbidden by church law.
The Masonic lodge controversy would come to a head in 1880. Four memorials (i.e. overtures) from the western RCAs asked that Masonic membership be banned by church law. Trying to take a middle road between the Masonic-affirming east and the anti-Masonic west, the RCA General Synod gave a similar conclusion to that of 1870. A mass exodus from the RCA ensued. The CRC ranks mushroomed. The Afscheiding churches in the Netherlands withdrew their endorsement of the RCA and thereafter encouraged immigrants to join the CRC. The CRC would gain entire congregations, families and key ministers from the RCA. By 1895, CRC membership surpassed the RCA’s Midwest sector.
Thus, the RCA in the west (Michigan, Iowa, etc.) being settled by predominantly Afscheiding refugees has had a different character than the RCA in the east (New York, New Jersey).
The RCA would continue to grow and its membership peaked in 1967 with 384,751 members. Thereafter it began a slow decline, primarily in the east. In the 2000s, the RCA west would also begin a decline but the RCA east was by this time far smaller than it had once been. By 2011, Zeeland Classis in Michigan had over 15,400 total members and averaged 8,888 worshipers. Whereas the entire Regional Synod of Albany (made up of six classes in New York) had nearly the same amount of total members with 15,700, and only worshiped at 6,451.3 Yet, at General Synod, Albany had six classes worth of votes and Zeeland only had one. The RCA east was overrepresented when it came to voting on pivotal matters.
Enter Topic of Homosexuality
The first time the RCA made any statements on LGBT matters was its June 12-16, 1978 General Synod meeting at Columbia University. There delegates approved a paper titled, “Homosexuality: A Biblical and Theological Appraisal” (Minutes of General Synod 1978: pp.233-239). The paper presented a clear biblical rejection of homosexual acts but also affirmed the dignity of homosexual persons.
Some of the paper’s statements include the following:Paul’s rejection of homosexual activity is beyond question.
When Paul rejects homosexual acts on the grounds that they are “against nature” he expresses and reaffirms the clear sense of Scripture: Human sexuality was created for heterosexual expression…When the subject of homosexuality is raised, the majority of modern opinion still seems to be: “People weren’t made to be that way.” If such opinion is expressed with fear, loathing or recrimination, as is often the case, it must be pitied and resisted. When the same statement is made in humility and with compassion, it may be considered biblical.
Heterosexuality is not only normal; it is normative. Homosexual acts are contrary to the will of God for human sexuality.
The homosexual invert [one who does not decide to become homosexual, but for whom genetic, hormonal, or psychosocial factors have influenced his or her sexual orientation] is no more to be blamed for his/her condition than a [child who is cognitively impaired]. It follows, then, that the church’s ministry to the invert may best begin with the attempt to lift a burden of guilt that need not be carried. Inverts may not idealize their orientation as a legitimate alternative, but neither should they blame themselves for their sexual orientation.
While we cannot affirm homosexual behavior, at the same time we are convinced that the denial of human and civil rights to homosexuals is inconsistent with the biblical witness and Reformed theology.While avoiding simplistic and obnoxious social crusades, the church must affirm through its preaching and pastoral ministry that homosexuality is not an acceptable alternative lifestyle. God’s gracious intent for human sexual fulfillment is the permanent bond of heterosexual love. This redemptive word must be spoken, with sensitivity, caring, and clarity to any person who would make a perverted sexual choice, and to society as a whole.
It is one matter to affirm that self-chosen homosexual acts are sinful. It is quite another to reject, defame, and excoriate the humanity of the person who performs them. This distinction has often been missed. It is possible and necessary on biblical grounds to identify homosexuality as a departure from God’s intent. However…there are no theological grounds on which a homosexual may be singled out for a greater measure of judgment. All persons bear within them the marks of the fall.This position would be reaffirmed the next year in 1979, again in 1990 and also 1994.
The 1990 General Synod voted to adopt an official position on the issue of same-sex relationships, as some classes felt there was confusion within the church as to the status of the 1978 report. It was decided “To adopt as the position of the Reformed Church in America that the practicing homosexual lifestyle is contrary to scripture, while at the same time encouraging love and sensitivity towards such persons as fellow human beings” (Minutes of General Synod 1990: p461).
The 1994 General Synod adopted a resolution of humble repentance for insensitivity to those of a homosexual orientation who sought “self-acceptance and dignity” among other failings. Nevertheless, the prior orthodox statements were reaffirmed. General Synod “recognizes and confesses that the Reformed Church in America has failed to live up to its own statements regarding homosexuality.” General Synod “seeks to obey the whole of Scripture, demonstrating in its own life the same obedience it asks from others.” They called on the RCA to enter “a process of repentance, prayer, learning, and growth in ministry. This process will be guided by the basic biblical-theological framework presented in the previous statements of the General Synod” (Minutes of General Synod 1994: p375-376).
In 1997, General Synod did not discuss homosexuality, but did enter a “Formula of Agreement” with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), and the United Church of Christ (UCC). The RCA was thereafter in “full communion” with denominations farther to the left on the theological spectrum on a host of topics, including sexuality. For example, the UCC ordained its first openly gay person into ministry already in 1972. By 1985, the UCC General Synod declared itself “open and affirming” to LGBTQ persons by a 95% majority. The ELCA would open all ministerial offices to practicing LGBT people in 2009 and the PCUSA would do the same in 2011.
In 2004, RCA General Synod affirmed “that marriage is properly defined as the union of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others.” The Commission on Church Order was asked to consider an amendment to the Book of Church Order that added the affirmation into the RCA’s church order (Minutes of General Synod 2004, pp. 332-333).
In 2005, the commission reported that it had considered an amendment to the Book of Church Order but did not feel it was appropriate, and gave six reasons why (Minutes of General Synod 2005, pp. 90-91). In its report, they said the 2004 statement on monogamous heterosexual marriage “does not carry the weight of definitive church teaching. The General Synod does not have among its powers the determination of what, finally, is the ‘teaching of the church.’” Additionally, they were “reluctant to use the church order as a means of addressing social issues currently before society and the church. The commission seriously questions whether the insertion of such a definition would, as proponents of the overture claim, ‘allow the Reformed Church to avoid the difficult and public schism being played out on the world scene.’ The placement of the definition within the church order would do little to reduce the heat of controversy across the church.”
More pivotal, on June 17, 2005, General Synod deposed Norman Kansfield, the dismissed president of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, for presiding at his daughter’s lesbian wedding. “The church of Jesus Christ needs to be as inclusive as the arms of our Lord himself,” Kansfield said to delegates. This action would trigger the formation of the RCA’s LGBTQ lobby group, Room for All (RFA). Their website credited this event as the galvanizing force for RFA:
Though, in the end, Norm was found guilty of violating the peace, unity and purity of the church, a period of “don’t ask, don’t tell” had ended. Through these events and others, the need was made clear for a voice of full inclusion, that a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach will not ultimately serve the church in communicating God’s love for all people. A small group continued to meet over the summer of 2005 to discern how best to move forward. In the fall a non-profit was incorporated in the state of New York under the name Room for All, in order to support, educate and advocate for the full inclusion of LGBT people in the RCA.
The push for full affirmation of LGBTQ sexualities in the RCA would be continuous thereafter.
In 2009, General Synod voted to “affirm the value of continued dialogue and discernment on the topic of homosexuality within the church, to state that our dialogical and discerning work is not done, and that legislative and judicial steps are not a preferred course of action at this time.” In the meantime, they recommended that “officeholders and ministers avoid actions in violation of the policies of the earlier statements of General Synod on ordination and relevant state laws on marriage, with sensitivity to the pastoral needs of all involved.”
The 2009 General Synod also voted for the Belhar Confession to be a full confession in the RCA, but two thirds of the classes would still have to approve it and the next General Synod would have to ratify the decision. On April 5, 2010, RCA announced that two-thirds of its classes concurred with the General Synod 2009 to approve the Belhar Confession. As an indication of events to come, the same month of the two-thirds majority, the Belhar Confession’s main author Allan Boesak spoke at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, saying Belhar’s “demand for inclusivity goes well beyond the issue of race” to include “women, people with disabilities and those whose sexual orientation is not heterosexual.” Still, the 2010 General Synod made its first order of business to officially adopt the Belhar Confession.
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John Wycliffe, Reformer Part 1: Wycliffe vs. the Begging Friars
Wycliffe called indulgences one of the “Luciferian seductions of the church” and a “fiction of the Prince of Darkness,” and called upon Christians to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ…and teach the people that they should trust in Christ alone, and in his law, and in his members…”
George Housman Thomas’ illustration, “Wycliffe on His Sick-Bed Assailed By the Friars at Oxford,” is a striking depiction of one of the many trials endured by the noble English priest and reformer, and a testimony to his courage in the face of stringent opposition. The illustration depicts an encounter from 1378, when Wycliffe was suffering from a severe illness, perhaps the aftereffects of a stroke. Supposing Wycliffe to be near death, the begging friars and four Oxford eminents came to his bedchamber and pleaded with him to retract the fulminations he had published against the mendicants–that is, itinerant friars and preachers who relied on alms for their living. After the friars made their statement, a servant raised Wycliffe in bed so he could respond. It is this moment that is depicted in Thomas’ work. The mendicants linger about the room, not with looks of compassion, but rather countenances of contempt. One corpulent friar sets his back to Wycliffe, even as he turns his head and glares at the reformer with bulging eyes. Wycliffe appears gaunt and sickly–eyes hollow, hair matted. Within reach at his bedside is a thick book, likely meant to represent the Scriptures. Steadied in bed by his servant, he raises his hand and replies, “I shall not die, but live to declare the evil deeds of the friars,” before driving his detractors from the room. Thomas’ illustration is imaginative, but emblematic of the battles faced by Wycliffe as he sought the purification of Christ’s church from the licentiousness and bombast that had come to characterize it.[1]
Remarkably, though Wycliffe died a century before Martin Luther’s birth, he anticipated multiple of the doctrines that would eventually characterize mature Protestantism. This reality finds modest recognition in Wycliffe’s honorifics, “Evangelical Doctor” and “Morning Star of the Reformation.” But Wycliffe was more direct in his proto-Protestant convictions than is usually recognized. His opposition to the begging friars was founded upon a Gospel rooted in Scripture, and shorn of the ceremonialism and muddled soteriology of the Roman church.
When Wycliffe was born in Yorkshire around 1330, no complete English Bible yet existed. In fact, the church magisterium was hostile to vernacular translations of the Scriptures. When Wycliffe matriculated at Oxford around 1345, he followed in the wake of such distinguished Oxford affiliates as John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Thomas Bradwardine. He was accordingly tutored in scholastic philosophy.
Wycliffe established himself in the field of law—both civil and canon. It was in the legal arena that various controversies of the age presented themselves, specifically with regard to the prerogatives of sovereigns and subjects over against the church magisterium. Wycliffe was committed to resisting the unwelcome intrusions of the pope and the mendicants in English affairs. The term “mendicants” comes from the Latin mendicans, “begging”, and is interchangeable with “friars”, taken from the Latin frater, “brother.” The mendicants that Wycliffe encountered predominantly belonged to two new orders founded in the early 1200s around the time of the Fourth Lateran Council: the Franciscans and the Dominicans. Much distinguished these new friars from older Western monastics, not least of all their status as itinerant preachers, traveling throughout Christendom and relying upon alms as they did so, rather than doing their ministry and earning their keep in stable monastic communities. Whilst the founders of these orders, such as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic, were doubtless sincere reformers in their own way, they usefully served the ends of the papacy, since their calls to itinerancy afforded opportunities to impose piety and belief upon the laity.[2] By Wycliffe’s day, this facet of the mendicant life had only increased, and their once well-intentioned ascetic poverty had morphed into a leeching mendicancy which exploited both the purses and the souls of Christians across Europe. Wycliffe’s understandable mistrust of these foreign influences grew as he came to see Scripture as the supreme authority over Christian faith and practice. He found no authorization for these offices or their practices in the Bible.[3]
The Black Death reached England in June 1348, and over the following 18 months killed approximately half of the English population. The student body at Oxford, where Wycliffe was likely studying at the time, was decimated. Wycliffe was deeply affected by this catastrophe and came to see it as a judgment sent by God upon a wayward church, at whose head were debauched clergy and mendicants who exploited the people under their care.[4]
Wycliffe remained an affiliate of the university in various capacities after the plague subsided. His dispute with the mendicants began in earnest in 1360. The begging friars had established themselves in various cities across England (including Oxford) by the middle of the 13th century, taking their solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The original Rule of St. Francis read, “Those brothers whom the Lord favors with the gift of working should do so faithfully and devotedly, so that idleness, the enemy of the soul, is excluded yet the spirit of holy prayer and devotion, which all other temporal things should serve, is not extinguished.” Suffice to say, this ideal had not been maintained: the orders had succumbed to moral corruption and idleness.[5]
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George Whitefield: Conflict and Conviction
His early death meant that he had no real opportunity to form and shape an organization to continue the more Calvinist part of the revival. Yet the power of his preaching to thousands, his proclamation of the new birth, his doctrinal depth and clarity, and his passion for the poor should leave us thankful to God for calling him—one of the defining and foundational leaders of the fires of evangelical Christian revival.
George Whitefield’s first sermon after his ordination, in June 1736, prompted a complaint to the bishop! He later printed the sermon with the title On the Nature and Necessity of Our Regeneration or New Birth. Whitefield was never far from controversy, both with the established church (in England and American) and, sadly, the great John Wesley. Whitefield was a central figure in the evangelical revival of the 18th century and proved absolutely scathing about the condition of pre-revival clergy. Perhaps less organizationally gifted than Wesley, he nevertheless brought the Gospel to both the poorest of British workers as well as the English aristocracy (forming a close bond with the Countess of Huntingdon, whom we will meet later in the series), thus proving to be an extremely influential figure in the development and continuation of the evangelical tradition within the Church of England.
George Whitefield (1714–1770) was born on December 16, 1714, at the Bell Inn, in Gloucester, England. He was the youngest of seven children to Thomas and Elizabeth. His father died when he was just two years old, his mother made an unsuitable remarriage, and the prosperity of the inn declined rapidly. We know the details of Whitefield’s early life from his Journals, including his “A Short Account of God’s Dealings with the Reverend Mr George Whitefield,” although they cover the period only up to 1745 and have the benefit of hindsight.
Just before his 18th birthday, George entered Oxford as a “servitor.” This was the poor man’s way into Oxford. The student was granted free tuition, but the servitor had to serve other students, wear distinctive dress, and was not permitted to receive Holy Communion with the other students. However, it opened the door to a better, and higher, life.
George Whitefield was prime material for the Holy Club, formed at Oxford by, among others, Church of England priest and evangelist John Wesley and his brother Charles. Club members agreed to take Holy Communion every week, fast regularly, and follow the festivals of the church, as well as visit prisoners in jail. Like Wesley, Whitefield constantly experienced the inner conflict and struggle of daily temptation and the desire to live a religious life. Before arriving at Oxford, he was already reading William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Soon after his arrival he noted in his Journal that “I now began to pray and sing psalms thrice every day.” Whitefield also recorded his admiration for the “Methodists,” those who were “methodical” and disciplined in their personal piety. It was perhaps inevitable that he join them.
Whitefield’s inner struggles continued. He sought counsel from the Wesleys and, after a breakfast with Charles, was recommended Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man. Scougal was a 17th-century Scottish theologian and minister, and his book was instrumental in turning over Whitefield’s way of thinking. The Life of God, he recounted, introduced him to true religion as union with Christ rather than the discharge of duty. His moment of conversion was near, which he described in his Journal to have occurred around seven weeks after Easter 1735: “I was delivered from the burden that had so heavily oppressed me,” an expression that reflected the classic evangelical conversion narrative.
Whitefield sought ordination—we have already noted the impact of the first sermon—and then, quite possibly under Wesley’s influence, headed for the state of Georgia in early 1738. The American colonies held some fascination for these early revival leaders. The colony of Georgia had been founded in 1732, with Savannah as the main settlement from 1733. Both Wesley and Whitefield and, indeed, others were drawn here owing to the possibility of the conversion of the indigenous population as well as the opportunity to minister to the settlers. What soon became clear was that the impact of disease left many children orphaned, and raising support for a Savannah orphanage became a focal point of ministry in the Americas for Wesley and Whitefield. In his early visits to the state, Whitefield was shocked by the brutality of slavery.
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