Objections to Criticisms of the RPNA(GM) from across the Big Puddle
(Below is the first - and international at that - comment the RPV site has received. Some may find it of interest. We have not yet had a chance ourselves to check out the brother's website.)
From: Dennis Grutzmacher
To: refveritas
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 3:15 AM
Subject: New comment on What Is This?.
In Europe and the USA evangelicals, protestants, catholics, and orthodox are seeking unity, including unity with other religions.
I have read much of the correspondence, and I find the Session of the RPNA without reproach.
Here in Holland we do not havve a faithful ministry, we do not even have a church where God is worshipped as He has commanded in His Word (only psalms without instruments), in order to stand for Christ we cannot visit a church, and weekly the apostacy seems to grow and grow to full unity with Rome.
You have a faithful ministry, you have good books, you have had faithful preaching, faithful administring of the sacraments, and what are you doing ?
You are calling faithful men Farizeees and tyrants, while all the while forgetting in what kind of country you live and the situation of the faithful christians in your country! If you call the Session of the RPNA (GM) Pharisees, unfaithful, and tyrants, what will you call the rest of the preachers in the USA? Superpharisees, extremely unfaithful, supergreat tyrants? No, you kill the gnat, and swallow the hundreds of elephants in your own country as if they do not exist?
What have you been doing the last years in your societies? Playing church, playing family?
What are you doing? Do you know the times in which you live, do you know what you have received from Christ in the public witness of the PRCE, RPNA, RPNA (GM) and Still Water Revival Books?
If you cannot resolve an issue of immodes dress, about tattoos, what are you able to do when the fullness of the gentiles comes in?
If you call the Session of the RPNA (GM) unfaithful, Pharisees, and tyrants, who can you call in the USA faithful, christians, and loving shephers over the flock?
Again, what are you doing, and do you know in what kind of age you live?
Do you know in what kind of country you live? Do you know where we are in the Book of Revelation?
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Dennis Grutzmacher, Breda, The Netherlands, www.reformatienl.com,
www.protesttegenjongerenavonden.com
Reply:
One, thank you for your comment even though we cannot reciprocate by speaken de dutch.
Two, no, we do not know where we are in the Book of Revelation. But that is no matter. We do know some basic truths of Scripture that Revelation does not contradict.
One would be that God is not God if he is not sovereign. Yet he is and he has further given his son, the Lord Jesus Christ to be the prophet, priest and king of his church. That means questions of doctrine, worship and the discipline and government of the church are of moment. That means that a reformed church acknowleges the sovereignty of God in these same areas, i.e the doctrines of grace for salvation - if not the absolute authority and sufficiency of Scripture for all doctrine - the regulative principle of worship and jus divinum church government.
In other words, it is not enough that SWRB reprints ""rare" bound photocopies" of Second Reformation classics accompanied by a lot of going out of business/used car dealer/firesale hyperbole and hubris or that the “RPNA(GM)” upholds only what God has commanded in his worship. That still does not give the “RPNA(GM)” license to command whatever it wants to when it comes to the discipline and government of the church of Christ – just because ‘we are the elders/session and say so’. That is not jus divinum or jure divino presbyterianism. Rather, the backsliding and less than jus divinum church government and discipline in the former RPNA deserves to be exposed, opposed and protested. We are to contend for the crown rights of Christ in his church. Hence this site.
In other words, in our opinion, your analysis and understanding of the real issues in the “RPNA(GM)” is respectfully, shallow and mistaken.
Thank you very much for your comment.
(Below is the first - and international at that - comment the RPV site has received. Some may find it of interest. We have not yet had a chance ourselves to check out the brother's website.)
From: Dennis Grutzmacher
To: refveritas
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 3:15 AM
Subject: New comment on What Is This?.
In Europe and the USA evangelicals, protestants, catholics, and orthodox are seeking unity, including unity with other religions.
I have read much of the correspondence, and I find the Session of the RPNA without reproach.
Here in Holland we do not havve a faithful ministry, we do not even have a church where God is worshipped as He has commanded in His Word (only psalms without instruments), in order to stand for Christ we cannot visit a church, and weekly the apostacy seems to grow and grow to full unity with Rome.
You have a faithful ministry, you have good books, you have had faithful preaching, faithful administring of the sacraments, and what are you doing ?
You are calling faithful men Farizeees and tyrants, while all the while forgetting in what kind of country you live and the situation of the faithful christians in your country! If you call the Session of the RPNA (GM) Pharisees, unfaithful, and tyrants, what will you call the rest of the preachers in the USA? Superpharisees, extremely unfaithful, supergreat tyrants? No, you kill the gnat, and swallow the hundreds of elephants in your own country as if they do not exist?
What have you been doing the last years in your societies? Playing church, playing family?
What are you doing? Do you know the times in which you live, do you know what you have received from Christ in the public witness of the PRCE, RPNA, RPNA (GM) and Still Water Revival Books?
If you cannot resolve an issue of immodes dress, about tattoos, what are you able to do when the fullness of the gentiles comes in?
If you call the Session of the RPNA (GM) unfaithful, Pharisees, and tyrants, who can you call in the USA faithful, christians, and loving shephers over the flock?
Again, what are you doing, and do you know in what kind of age you live?
Do you know in what kind of country you live? Do you know where we are in the Book of Revelation?
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Dennis Grutzmacher, Breda, The Netherlands, www.reformatienl.com,
www.protesttegenjongerenavonden.com
Reply:
One, thank you for your comment even though we cannot reciprocate by speaken de dutch.
Two, no, we do not know where we are in the Book of Revelation. But that is no matter. We do know some basic truths of Scripture that Revelation does not contradict.
One would be that God is not God if he is not sovereign. Yet he is and he has further given his son, the Lord Jesus Christ to be the prophet, priest and king of his church. That means questions of doctrine, worship and the discipline and government of the church are of moment. That means that a reformed church acknowleges the sovereignty of God in these same areas, i.e the doctrines of grace for salvation - if not the absolute authority and sufficiency of Scripture for all doctrine - the regulative principle of worship and jus divinum church government.
In other words, it is not enough that SWRB reprints ""rare" bound photocopies" of Second Reformation classics accompanied by a lot of going out of business/used car dealer/firesale hyperbole and hubris or that the “RPNA(GM)” upholds only what God has commanded in his worship. That still does not give the “RPNA(GM)” license to command whatever it wants to when it comes to the discipline and government of the church of Christ – just because ‘we are the elders/session and say so’. That is not jus divinum or jure divino presbyterianism. Rather, the backsliding and less than jus divinum church government and discipline in the former RPNA deserves to be exposed, opposed and protested. We are to contend for the crown rights of Christ in his church. Hence this site.
In other words, in our opinion, your analysis and understanding of the real issues in the “RPNA(GM)” is respectfully, shallow and mistaken.
Thank you very much for your comment.
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