pilgrim people

A couple of days ago, as I was doing some reading on the background of the Synod of Dort in preparation for our Sunday evening sermon series on the Doctrines of Grace, I realized that we are less than two weeks away from the 400^th anniversary of the day Jacob Arminius became a Calvinist. That is to say, October 19, 1609 was the day Arminius died and departed this world (and thus ceased to be an Arminian, get it?).

Who exactly was Jacob Arminius and why is he important? Arminius was born in Holland in 1560 and educated at the Reformed University of Leiden and under Theodore Beza (Calvin’s successor) at Geneva. He was ordained as a minister in the Reformed churches in 1587 and served as a pastor until 1603 when he was to the theological faculty of Leiden. During the 1590s, his preaching through the book of Romans caused many to question his fidelity to Reformed doctrine. Church historian Louis Praamsma put it this way in his essay, “The Background of the Arminian Controversy:”

When preaching on the first chapters, he…upon more than one occasion ironically remarked that his hearers would have done better to remain in the Roman Catholic Church, because then at least they would be doing works in the hope of eternal reward while now they did none at all. In his exposition of Romans 5 and 6 he taught that death would have been inevitable even if man had never sinned, since God alone is immortal. He declared Romans 7 to be reminiscent of Paul in his unregenerate state. Therefore its description of man’s experience should not be ascribed to the regenerate. In preaching on Romans 8 through 11 he stressed man’s free will, and in explaining Romans 13 he ascribed to the civil government the highest authority in ecclesiastical and religious matters.

At least one of his minister colleagues, Plancius, accused him of holding Socinian views. Moreover, it became very clear that Arminius had great trouble with the Reformed doctrine of election. When his Consistory asked him to defend the doctrine of election against the attacks of a Roman Catholic by the name of Dirk Volkertszoon Coonhert (1552-1609), Arminius found that he could not bring himself to the task, for his own view of predestination had deviated from the Reformed view. Ironically, however, Arminius maintained that his views were still Reformed and not out of accord with the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism, the confessional standards to which Reformed ministers were expected to subscribe.

Controversy continued to follow Arminius to Leiden after his appointment there as a professor. We might wonder why Leiden accepted Arminius, given his non-Reformed views. We should note a few things about that. First, Leiden was in need of able theologians as two of their theological professors died from the plague. It was right after this that Arminius was appointed to their faculty. Second, there was something of a power struggle within the Board of Trustees regarding Arminius’ appointment. Third, it appears that Arminius did well in his interview with faculty member (and staunch Calvinist) Franciscus Gomarus (1563-1641).

Within a couple of years, however, serious doubts about Arminius’ theology began to surface. Gomarus became convinced that he was undermining justification sola fide by teaching that God elects sinners for salvation on the basis of foreseen faith. In other words, a believer’s faith is not the result of God’s election, but God’s election is the result of a believer’s faith, which essentially makes faith a work by which we are justified. Clashes between Gomarus and Arminius continued until the latter’s death in 1609.

In the following year, some 42 Reformed ministers who followed Arminius’ doctrine and were led by one Johannes Uytenbogaert (1557-1644) published a document in which they petitioned for their views to be tolerated in the churches. Known as “The Remonstrance,” this document contained five articles which taught the following:

1. Conditional Election.  God only elects sinners on the condition that they will believe and persevere to the end.

2. Universal Atonement.  Christ died for all people in the same way, and not for the elect only.

3. Partial Depravity.  Although the early Arminians claimed to affirm total depravity, they actually believed in partial depravity by claiming that human beings are not so depraved that they cannot exercise their free will and choose whether or not to become a Christian.

4. Resistible Grace.  They affirmed that the answer to man’s sin is God’s grace, but claimed that God’s saving grace could be resisted.

5. Perseverance is uncertain.  They claimed that after a person was brought to faith and justified, it was possible for that person to fall away from the faith and not persevere to the end.

The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (along with twenty-six delegates from Reformed churches in eight other countries) responded to this at the Synod of Dort, which was convened on November 13, 1618 and ran until May 9, 1619. The Canons of Dort rejected the views of Arminius and his posthumous followers. It remains to this day as the ecclesiastical and official Reformed response to Arminianism and continues to be one of the Three Forms of Unity that unite Reformed churches around the world. 

This is why Arminius is such an important figure in church history. His case shows us that, as always, orthodoxy owes a debt to heresy and heterodoxy. Whenever false or divergent teachings arise in Christ’s church, the church must respond by tightening up its language regarding the said doctrine and confessing what Scripture teaches in creedal form. Such crises in the church actually serve to protect the Gospel and the unity we share in the truth.

But the case of Arminius also bears witness to the importance of confessional subscription by Reformed ministers and the vows they take to uphold and defend the Reformed confessions publicly and privately. As Fred Klooster pointed out in his helpful essay, “The Doctrinal Deliverances of Dort,” in Arminius’ day,

“All ministers subscribed to these confessions, and they were expected to abide by these confessions in their preaching and teaching. If difficulties arose from their further study of Scripture, they were expected to pursue a recognized ecclesiastical procedure before making such difficulties public. Jacob Arminius and the other Arminians or Remonstrants were initially members of the Reformed churches, and they had freely indicated their agreement with these creeds.”

Given Arminius’ divergence from the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism on so many key doctrines, it is truly amazing that he claimed to subscribe these symbols. Evidently, his subscription of the BC and HC was not because they agree with the Word of God, but only insofar as they agree with the Word of God. (For an excellent treatment of the difference between these two ways of approaching subscription, and why the former is superior, see Chapter 5 of R. Scott Clark’s Recovering the Reformed Confession.)  I don’t know if Arminius ever stated this formally, but he certainly practiced a very loose sort of subscription by claiming to adhere to the BC and HC all the while contradicting them on several points.

This is precisely why the Synod of Dort reaffirmed the necessity of requiring Reformed ministers to subscribe the Reformed Confessions and not teach either directly or indirectly anything that contradicts those confessions. Simply put, Dort made it clear that being Reformed does not mean giving lip service to our confessions, but actually subscribing and defending them.

Since Dort, Reformed ministers have been required to sign a Form of Subscription which, in the URCNA, reads as follows (the language is handed down to us from Dort):

We, the undersigned, Ministers of the Gospel, Elders and Deacons of the United Reformed congregation of __________ of the Classis of __________ do hereby, sincerely and in good conscience before the Lord, declare by this our subscription that we heartily believe and are persuaded that all the articles and points of doctrine contained in the Confession and Catechism of the Reformed Churches, together with the explanation of some points of the aforesaid doctrine made by the National Synod of Dordrecht, 1618-'19, do fully agree with the Word of God.

We promise therefore diligently to teach and faithfully to defend the aforesaid doctrine, without either directly or indirectly contradicting the same by our public preaching or writing. We declare, moreover, that we not only reject all errors that militate against this doctrine and particularly those which were condemned by the above mentioned Synod, but that we are disposed to refute and contradict these and to exert ourselves in keeping the Church free from such errors. And if hereafter any difficulties or different sentiments respecting the aforesaid doctrines should arise in our minds, we promise that we will neither publicly nor privately propose, teach, or defend the same, either by preaching or writing, until we have first revealed such sentiments to the Consistory, Classis, or Synod, that the same may there be examined, being ready always cheerfully to submit to the judgment of the Consistory, Classis, or Synod, under the penalty, in case of refusal, of being by that very fact suspended from our office.

And further, if at any time the Consistory, Classis, or Synod, upon sufficient grounds of suspicion and to preserve the uniformity and purity of doctrine, may deem it proper to require of us a further explanation of our sentiments respecting any particular article of the Confession of Faith, the Catechism, or the explanation of the National Synod, we do hereby promise to be always willing and ready to comply with such requisition, under the penalty above mentioned, reserving for ourselves, however, the right of appeal in case we should believe ourselves aggrieved by the sentence of the Consistory or the Classis; and until a decision is made upon such an appeal, we will acquiesce in the determination and judgment already passed.

When I was ordained a minister of Word and Sacrament in the United Reformed Churches in North America, I was required to sign this Form of Subscription in good conscience. I then signed it again when I was installed as the pastor of Christ United Reformed Church in Santee, CA. In both cases, I made a public vow and promise that I would “diligently teach and faithfully defend” the doctrine of the Three Forms of Unity “without either directly or indirectly contradicting the same by [my] public preaching or writing,” and that if at any time I become convinced that something in the Three Forms of Unity is unbiblical, or if “difficulties or different sentiments” arise in my mind regarding a particular doctrine, I must reveal such to the Consistory, Classis, or Synod before even proposing such ideas either publicly or privately.

Now, I realize that to our Kantian, anti-authoritarian, hyper-individualistic culture, the language of the Form of Subscription probably sounds very oppressive and a little ridiculous. Undoubtedly, many balk at the idea of a minister deliberately binding his conscience to and promising to defend “man-made” ecclesiastical statements such as the Three Forms of Unity. But how else are we, as officers of Christ’s church, to preserve the unity we have been commanded to protect (Eph 4.1-16)? How else are we to ensure that Christ’s church is protected from heresy and error? How else are we to take precautionary measures so that another Arminius (or far worse) will not unilaterally decide to preach doctrines contrary to Scripture that directly threaten the Gospel? How else can we protect Christ’s flock from the sinful whims of a minister? How else can we make certain (as best we can) that leaders in the church, to whom Christ’s sheep look and listen, do not lead His sheep astray by questioning – either directly or indirectly – the validity of critical doctrines concerning the Gospel, such as unconditional election, the imputed righteousness of Christ, sola fide, or sola Scriptura? How else can we ensure that ministers guard the doctrine committed to them (1 Tim 6.20; Jd 3)?  

Among other things, the case of Arminius stands as a testimony to four centuries of the wisdom of confessional subscription. May God preserve his Gospel and the church the Gospel creates. And may he continue to give us ministers and elders with the courage, fortitude, and humility to be confessional and Reformed men, faithful to the vows they took in their ordination.

(Praamsma’s and Klooster’s essays are currently in print in Crisis in the Reformed Churches published by Reformed Fellowship)