Welcome back to the Messy Reformation. My name's Jason Rice, and I'm the lead pastor at Faith Community CRC in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. My co -host is Willie Kroenke. He's a member at Pease CRC in Pease, Minnesota. We're just a couple of guys who love the Christian Reformed Church and want to see Reformation happen in our denomination. But we realize that whenever Reformation happens in the history of the church, things get messy. And things continue to be messy in the Christian Reformed Church.
So we're taking the opportunity to have conversations with pastors throughout the Christian Reformed Church to find out what's going on in our denomination, but also to talk about what Reformation might look like. It's also important for you to know that you are our marketing plan. We rely on you to spread the word about what we're doing at the Messy Reformation. We rely on you to share our content. And we rely on you to give us five -star reviews and give good feedback for our podcast.
You are the marketing plan. You can also support us financially on Patreon or Substack. All of the money raised is used to further the mission and the platform of the Messy Reformation. With all that said, we're going to get to this week's episode, which is my talk on the Canons of Dort from the Three Forms of Unity Conference. Yeah, I am the only one in my home who is not a hockey player. And we always make the joke that
I try to be a hockey player and my competitiveness far exceeds my ability. And so my kids enjoy watching me make a fool out of myself when we play. But besides being a hockey family or someone who tries to play hockey. I'm also someone who loves history. I'm not a professional historian, so actually I told Dr. Van Dixhorn this morning I was thankful he wasn't going to be here to listen
to me talk about the history of the canons of Dort, because he probably would cringe. And I'll probably even say some names wrong, because I've never heard these names pronounced, but I've been reading about them. But I really love history, and I love history for a number of reasons. For some that people typically talk about, right? You can read history and it grounds you in reality. It helps you, it kind of prevents you from making the same mistakes over and over again.
But two unique benefits of studying history stood out to me as I was preparing for this session in particular. And I don't necessarily always hear people mention these benefits of studying history. But as I was reading about the history of the Synod of Dort and preparing to talk about the canons, one of the things I felt really strongly was, I can't explain it in any other way than the strong bond of fellowship and camaraderie with all those involved with the Synod of Dort
and the writing of the canons of Dort. It was this strong reality like, these are our people. And even though this was 400 years ago, we're still united to them today. And I felt that really strongly. And the second one was a reminder that I'm not as crazy as some people think I am. That people have been saying some of the things that we've been saying for a long time. And you start reading about the Synod of Dort and the Canons of Dort,
and you recognize, yeah, there's nothing new under the sun in many ways. And, you know, I don't want to, I try not to overplay some of the work that's been happening in the Christian Reformed Church over the last few years. I do really strongly believe that what's been happening in the Christian Reformed Church is something that's historic. But I don't hear me saying it has the same historic level as the Synod of Dort. But I did definitely, as I was reading about all of the
events leading up to the Synod of Dort, I found myself repeatedly feeling deja vu. Like I've read the story or have been living in the middle of this story in the Christian Reformed Church for a while. And you know, as historians do, this is why it's good that Dr. Van Dixhorn's not here, I'll probably make fun of historians quite a bit. But they have a lot of opinions about what caused
the Synod of Dort. They look at political pressures and all of these different things going on. But the reality is that the easiest place to start of what brought about the Synod of Dort was a guy named Jacobus Arminius or Jacob Arminius. And really, if you kind of start to look at his resume, he had a really strong resume. There's a reason he was hired as a professor. He had studied at Leiden University, and then after that, he ended up studying under Theodore Beza for a long time.
And so if you don't know who Theodore Beza is, he was kind of Calvin's primary protege. And so Arminius studied under Beza, and it gave him this kind of street cred so that he eventually ended up being hired back at his alma mater as a professor of theology at Leiden University. And when he was hired there, there wasn't like a huge push not to hire him, but there were a number of professors
who had concerns about him when he was hired on as a professor. And it wasn't because he had never actually said anything against the Reformed doctrines yet. But what the professors noticed was that he just avoided them. So every time he would preach on a passage from Romans 9, he would turn the conversation in a different way and not really talk about God's sovereignty over
the elect. And so they were kind of nervous about him, and rightly so, because it only actually took a year after he was hired as a professor at Leiden University, where he came out publicly against many of the traditional Reformed doctrines. It came out in kind of a disputation, but as things do came out publicly, and then all of a sudden, things got heated really quickly. Back then, it was a pamphlet war that started, and so pamphlets
were being written back and forth. Somebody wrote a 31 -point theses on why he was wrong, and somebody else did. Today, it has been sub -stacks and podcasts and blogs and YouTube videos going back and forth. There was public debates going back and forth about this.
It even got to the point, I didn't know this, Arminius even filed what we would call today a confessional revision gravamen wanting to change the language of the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession because he no longer believed they were in line with God's Word. Things were getting heated and, you know, tensions were flailing. And as, of course, as tensions
rise, name -calling often comes along with it. And so one of Arminius' primary, primary, I don't know a better word, people don't like them, but combatants, one of the guys that was debating him most often was a guy named Franciscus Gomorris. He was another theological professor at Leiden. And so since they were in the same seminary, he felt a need to start fighting him on these things. But Gomorris, who would play a huge role at the Synod of Dort as well,
would be called a number of names. Be called rigid, intolerant. He was too blunt. He was a fanatic. Someone who's just causing unnecessary problems. If you just keep your mouth shut, Gomaras, none of these issues would be happening. And I'm sure, I didn't read this, this is me reading into history, but I can almost guarantee you from the context, Gamaras was accused of making a really big deal out of one minor issue. Why are you doing this? Just let it be.
I found it interesting, too, that even this 400 years ago, as this debate came up, it ended up, and name -calling was going back and forth, both sides. It wasn't just one side or the other, but both sides made the, it became like political. And so people started accusing, like, well, you Armenians, you are aligned with this political party, and you other non -Armenians, you're aligned with this political party. And that kind of name calling was going on as well. Is
any of this ringing a bell? Armenians said, you know, what they wanted, what they were asking for, is they were just wanting some space. They wanted tolerance. They for a greater variety of theological views on some of these, what they called, non -essential points of doctrine. They said, you don't need to handle this at a broader assembly. This can even be just handled at the local level. And they said, we should be able to be in a church that can hold
both of these positions at the same time. And they said, we should not be a church that holds to any kind of form of strict subscriptionism. They also argued that the Synod of Dort was rigged and that all of the decisions were decided before they actually got to the Synod. I want to point out something before we dive into the actual Synod itself.
I'm not sure, I didn't necessarily realize this until now, but do you know how many years went by between the point when Arminius' views became public and the Synod of Dort was held to condemn those views. It was 15 years. And I make that point because, you know, in the midst of our current situation, in particular in the Christian Reformed Church, you know, there are some who feel like this has been too fast and others who feel like this has taken far too long.
And I just, I keep trying to remind, this is part of the reason why we called our podcast The Messy Reformation, is that these things take so long. And it took 15 years before the Synod of Dort was put together and they could condemn the views of Arminius at the time. And there was 15 years of battle and 15 years of heat and division and divisiveness. And what we've been dealing with in the CRC in particular has been less than that, by God's grace, I would say.
And what I think not everyone realizes is that actually by the time it took so long for the Synod of Dort to happen, that Arminius was actually dead for 10 years before the Synod of Dort happened. And so it wasn't even Arminius who was the one who was pushing the ideas. it was all of his followers who really continued to take up the fight. And they ended up writing this document called the Five Articles of the Remonstrance. Here are the five articles of the
Remonstrance. I'm rewording them a little bit to make a point, but listen to them, see if they sound similar familiar point one conditional election point two universal atonement point three this is the one i had to reword but non -total depravity four resistible grace and five uncertain perseverance and and and so they had written this document saying these are our five points of contention with the current doctrines of the church even with the theology of the heidelberg catechism
and the belgic confession these are the points in which we are taking up disagreement and and what most people don't realize i think is that the synod of dort was handled to address those five points. And so our five points of Calvinism are just five points of rebuttal against the five points of Arminianism. And so the Synod of Dort eventually was held to address each one of those points. And it was really, I mean, it was primarily a Dutch delegation, but the goal was to create a
document that had broad reformed consensus. And so there were delegates there from England, there were delegates there from Germany they were delegate well they call had a delegation from Scotland but only one made the was able to finish the journey they even invited some of the French but the French government prevented them from showing up so they had this big broad gathering of people to make this decision and and it was one long I mean we talk about synod being a week
It used to be two weeks. This was six months, a six -month gathering. And don't miss the fact that it was a gathering that started in November, went through the winter into May. And so it had, there's different numbers, but there was either 154 or 180 sessions held at the Synod of Dort to write the canons. The goal was to get this definitive statement that had kind of a wide, broad reach to it. And what I found really interesting is all the different personalities
involved with the Synod of Dort. These are the things that I find really interesting. And I mentioned Franciscus Gamaris. He is not appreciated by the Arminians because he was a guy who was known for being fiery and passionate and sometimes harsh. And I think some of those are semi -accurate if you think about it. One story I found during...these synods would have been fun, I think. At one point, Gomaras had been giving a point of doctrine and somebody
stood up and they didn't even disagree with him fully. They just critiqued his doctrine. And after the person was done, he stood up, he threw his gloves on the floor and said, I take that personally. Which seems maybe not like a big deal besides like decorum and yelling in the middle of the meeting. But throwing your glove on the floor was actually challenging someone to a duel. He's like, I take it personally, let's fight it out. Like this is the kind of guy he was. He was wound tight.
He was passionate about it. yeah, a little over the top. But he goes down in history, not as a guy who was harsh and mean and critical, but he goes down in history as this guy, because of his fire, because of his passion, he galvanized the movement leading up to the Synod of Dort. Because of his strength, his passion, his willingness to stand firm and fight, other people stood firm and fought as well. He's like one of the main reasons that this all ended up coming about.
And then you have another guy. His name's Johannes Bogerman, who was president of the Synod of Dort. And he actually played a large part in writing the canons. He was also a theological professor. He most likely wrote the first draft on the first main point of doctrine. And here's how he's described by people. He was a peace -loving president who was able to control the emotional and even quarrelsome nature
of the delegates, right? So this is Bogerman. He's up, he's ruling over synod. You have Gomaras trying to fight people on the floor, and Bogerman's like, let's just keep it under control. Let's keep it moving. Organize this. My job is to make sure we get this job done. And actually, one of the things that a number of people pointed out is Bogerman actually had really strong superlapsarian position. And yet when it came down to writing the canons, he said, I don't want the canons to be
about infra or superlapsarianism. That's a non -essential doctrine. I want this to be so people who hold both of those positions can sign this. And so he was known as someone who was willing to make compromises. He's willing to make peace, but he stood firm and he really pushed for doctrinal purity. So he's more mellow than Gamaris, but he wasn't soft. And then I had to laugh
because I was reading about the delegation from England, like had one task. This is totally generalizing it, but their task was they knew that the Dutch are known to be blunt and a little rigid. That's true. And so, like, the whole point of the English delegation was to come and, like, calm the Dutch down, tone it down a little bit, and make sure that other people could agree with this document. So they were there to be this kind of moderating influence on the Dutch.
And I draw this point out because I find we all have tendencies to certain personalities that we appreciate. And we tend to think we either need a bunch of Gomorrah's who are fiery fighters who get up and they say things and people get uncomfortable. And they're like, that's all of the people we need. And those Bogermans are kind of peace loving. We don't want them, right? Or we have people say, those guys need to just keep their, they just cause problems everywhere they go. We
can't have any. And the reality is God has a body that he's gifted differently with different different personalities. And as you'll find out, right, you can look at any Reformation in the history of the church. There are people who we would not, I don't know, I would like to hang out with Luther for a little bit, but I think he would just like wear you out eventually, right? He was way over the top. And Calvin too, God uses all these personalities to bring about Reformation,
and he did it at the Synod of Dort. And if you're like me, as I'm describing these different people, You could probably think of different people who've been involved in the work in the CRC right now, and you're like, I know some Gomorrah's, I know some Bogerman's, and I know some of the English delegates who are just like, calm down, calm down. And God uses all of them.
What I really did find interesting, though, even though Bogerman's known for being a peace -loving president, he had his limits. And so Synod had been set up. They had a real clear, I mean, if you're going to write this document with this many delegates, you have to have a clear plan on how you're going to carry it out, right? So they had a clear plan on how it was going to go. It was all laid out. And yet the Armenians were really unhappy with the schedule on how this was going to be done.
And so they were constantly fighting him on the schedule of events and how this was going to be taken care of. And eventually when they weren't getting their way, they started trying all these different political maneuvers to try to change how the synod went about. and they were called, they said they were delaying things. They were drying them out. They're making long speeches. They were kind of filibustering the gathering. And eventually Bogerman said enough.
And here's, I quote, he said this, I dismiss you with no other elegy than what one of the foreigners gave you. With a lie, you made your entrance into the synod. With a lie, you take your leave of it. Your actions have been full of fraud, equivocations and deceit. but I assure you that the synod shall make known your pertinacity to the world. And he kicked him out of the synod. It's a heavy moment, especially from a peace -loving president. From there, they got to work.
They got to work writing the canons of Dort, and they appointed a drafting committee. And so there was a group of theologians, I think, if I remember right, It was nine theologians who were going to write the first draft of the main points of doctrines, and then all the other delegates were kind of broken up into what we would call advisory committees, and they went through the five points of the remonstrance and brought some of the rebuttals.
And after a draft would be written, they would bring it back, they'd gather, they'd read the full draft aloud to the synod, there'd be debate and argument and edits going to go back. And we know at least one part of the canons was rewritten at least three times, and I'm sure many of them were rewritten more often as they were trying to refine this. The goal was that it would be faithful to Scripture, and it would be faithful to the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession.
That was like, we're not going to say anything that's not faithful to these creeds and confessions that we've already held on to. And their goal was to have a unanimous approval, which is incredible, I think, which they got. They got unanimous approval for the canons of Dort on April 23, 1619.
And after the canons were approved, they had every member at the Synod of Dort come forward and sign on the document of the canons of Dort to help each member do this act to show that they agreed with it and they were in line with this doctrine that they, Our wording would be that they're promising to uphold and promote and defend the doctrines in the canons of Dort. And
it wasn't just the delegates of Synod. From there, they sent the canons of Dort out to all pastors, all professors, all teachers, and they required them to sign the document as well as a sign that they would uphold, promote, and defend the doctrines in the canons of Dort. And if anyone refused to sign it, they were immediately removed from ministry. And there were 200 or maybe even a little bit more people who were removed from their position for
refusing to sign the Canons of Dort. So with that in mind, I want to take a moment to look at the beauty of the Canons of Dort, because I think they get a bad rap often. I think you've even heard it a little bit here where it's like, well, the Heidelberg, like that's the really pastoral one. And the Belgics, but the canons are kind of like mean and theological and academic. But I think the canons can move the heart in the same way that the Heidelberg Catechism can.
I just want to give you a couple examples of that. I want to read one article from each of the four points of the canons to kind of make my point. There's only four points in the canons because they took the third and four points and put them into one. So here's from the first main point of doctrine, article number 12. Assurance of their eternal and unchangeable election to salvation
is given to the chosen in due time. Though by various stages and in differing measure, such assurance comes not by inquisitive searching into the hidden and deep things of God, but by noticing within themselves with spiritual joy and holy delight the unmistakable fruits of election pointed out in God's word, such as true faith in Christ, a childlike fear of God, a godly sorrow for their sin, a hungering and thirst for righteousness, and so on.
I don't know if I'm going to explain that more than just say, don't tell me that's not pastoral. that God does this work in us to help us see a godly sorrow for our sin and this wholehearted joy, spiritual joy and holy delight and a childlike fear and love of our God. That's beautiful. You have people in your church who need to hear that. You need to hear that.
From the second main point of doctrine, article nine, this plan arising out of God's eternal love for the elect from the beginning of the world to the present time has been powerfully carried out and will also be carried out in the future the gates of hell seeking vainly to prevail against it as a result the elect are gathered into one all in their own time and there is always a church of believers founded on christ's blood a church with steadfastly loves persistently worships and hear
and in all eternity praises him as her savior who laid down his life for her on the cross as a bridegroom for his bride. That's beautiful. The church will be here no matter what because God loves his people. God's unchanging. His plan is unchanging. Nothing will defeat the church. And as long as the church is around, it will always worship and praise and love the savior who laid his life down for her.
from the third and fourth main points of doctrine article 11 moreover when god carries out this good pleasure in the elect or works true conversion in them god not only sees to it that the gospel is proclaimed to them outwardly and enlightens their minds powerfully by the holy spirit so they might understand and discern the things of the spirit of God, but by the effective operation of the same regenerating spirit, God penetrates into the inmost
being, opens the closed heart, softens the hard heart, and circumcises the heart that is uncircumcised. God infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing and the stubborn Dutchman compliant. God activates and strengthens the will so that like a good tree, it may be enabled to produce the fruits of good deeds. You know people, your people know people who seem like their hearts are so hard that nothing will
save them. And canons say, God can break any hard heart, not only break it, but infuse into their heart the qualities of a faithful believer. Don't tell me that's not pastoral. Final main point of doctrine. This is the easiest one. I could have picked 10, almost every one of them, but here's article eight. It's not by their own merits or strength, but by God's undeserved mercy that they neither forfeit faith and grace totally, nor remain in their downfalls to the end and are lost.
With respect to themselves, this not only easily could happen, but undoubtedly would happen. But with respect to God, it cannot possibly happen. God's plan cannot be changed. God's promise cannot fail. The calling according to God's purpose cannot be revoked. The merit of Christ as well as his interceding and preserving cannot be nullified. And the sealing of the Holy Spirit can neither be invalidated nor wiped out.
if it was up to you and your people we would walk away right prone to wander lord i feel it prone to leave the god i love and yet god says you are mine doesn't matter what deep darkness you go through doesn't matter what storm you go through you're mine and i'm not letting go of you because i'm unchangeable don't tell me that's not pastoral one of the most exciting things this is me up. One of the most exciting things coming out of the last few years of the Christian Reformed
Church is this desire to dive into and understand the confessions. Like this conference is part of that movement that really gets exciting to me. And I'm seeing it everywhere, and I'd love to, I'm kind of working on something eventually to help people see this, but even this week I came across two other pastors who are in the middle of building resources around the confessions to help
their people see and understand the confessions. And so one of the things that I'm wanting to do here is by just reading through some of those parts of the canons is to make sure that we don't neglect the canons because they're beautiful. They're powerful. And they've been at work in the church for a long time. And I want to see us not avoid them, but to dive in and see how beautiful they are. I want to wrap up by making one point about what happened after the Synod of Dort,
because it's really, really cool. You know, I mentioned all of the tension and the difficulty and the fighting that happened for 15 years leading up to the Synod, but I want to talk about two things that happened after the Synod, two massive things. And one of the biggest things that came out of the Synod of Dort was true unity. True and lasting unity.
Dr. Van Dixhorn kind of set this up perfectly earlier, but now the church finally had this clarity on who we are and what we believe and what's in and not within the bounds of orthodoxy. And the church kind of knew where they stood. And then what happened was real, true unity spread throughout the church. And not only just unity, but this reformed identity that has been brewing up into each one of our churches. And because of that true and lasting unity, something else happened.
After the fight was over, you had guys like Gamaris and Bogerman. They were able to start doing some work. They were able to start building on the foundation that was laid through the canons. And one of the things that they did was they translated the Dutch Bible. And I don't know, I don't even dare try to stauntervalling or whatever. I know I butchered it.
But the Dutch Bible that they translated had the same effect on Dutch culture that Luther's translation had on Germany or that the King James had on England, that the work that they did coming out of the Synod of Dort built up the church in such a powerful way that it changed it for generations. And not only just changed the church, but it changed all of Dutch society for generations. And I'm ending on this note because it's my dream and my desire that that's what we would see
happen in the Christian Reformed Church as well. That after the fighting and after the tension and after all of the chaos, that now we have this unity coming in the Christian Reformed Church, that the foundation has been laid that we can start building and that we can start building in such a way that we're not just looking about the next month or the next Senate or whatever, but we're building in such a way that we're wondering, what can we build now that will transform the CRC in 200 years?
Let's pray. father you've been so faithful to your people to your church and when we look at our own lives we know that we don't deserve that we've been an unfaithful people so we're so thankful for your steadfast love your faithfulness we're so thankful for your promise that you will build your church and the gates of hell will not stand against it. We're thankful for these doctrines of grace that you've given us through the canons.
May we not just look to them as some dusty document, but may we hold them. And may they continue to transform our hearts and lives so that we love you more fully and serve you in ways that bring you glory and honor and that we work and build so that your church would be strengthened and built up for generations to come. In the name of our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, and all God's people said, amen. That's all we have for this week.
If you want to help us out and support the Messy Reformation, another thing you can do is sign up for our newsletter through Substack. That way you'll get episodes and summaries sent directly into your email inbox. It also gives us the ability to communicate with our audience, which is one of the biggest struggles of a podcast. So head over to the Messy Reformation on Substack and sign up for our newsletter. But until then, don't forget this is Christ's church, and he bought it with his blood.
And we've been warned that wolves will come in trying to destroy the flock. So keep a close watch on your life and on your doctrine. Preach the word in season and out of season, and keep fighting the good fight in this messy reformation.