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Theological Forum Issue

Vol. XXVI, No. 3 & 4, December 1998

 

Contemporary Theological Issues

Richard A. Muller

Since its foundation in 1946, the Reformed Church in Japan has been a denomination of strong Reformed confessional roots. Its faith was defined by the Westminster Standards which, she affirmed, "are the most adequate expression of the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures." Nonetheless, the RCJ recognized the need for a church in the modern world to confess its own faith and, in its "Founding Declaration" also expressed the prayer that the church would someday formulate a confession in its own words. That prayer has led to a distinguished confessional process in the RCJ, focused on decennial Anniversary Declarations, four of which took the form of confessional documentsthe 30th Anniversary Declaration "Regarding Church and State" and three 40th Anniversary Declarations, "Regarding Scripture," "Regarding the Holy Spirit," and "Regarding the Proclamation of the Gospel." The 50th Anniversary has brought further progress in the "Declaration of Faith Regarding Predestination" (DFRP).

Resting on the Westminster Standards, the RCJ has not felt pressed toward hasty finalization of a modern confession: the measured pace of this confessional process had produced outstanding statements of the faith, indeed, as the "Founding Declaration" prayed, "superior" confessional statements. This newest Declaration, stands as not only a worthy successor to the earlier Declarations of the RCJ but also as a truly superior and representative confession of the Reformed faith on predestination that all Reformed communities of faith can study with profit.

By way of brief encounter with the document, we can note its biblical foundations, confessional relationships within the Reformed faith, and its refined structure and approach to the substance of the doctrine. First, as the marginal references of the DFRP evidence, this is not a document based on a narrow compass of biblical texts. It is both replete with citations, following in the tradition of the great Reformed confessions and referencing nearly every sentence to a verse or series of verses in the Bible, and conscious of the larger biblical context of the doctrine of predestination. Thus, the citations document the doctrine of predestination, its relationship to the whole plan of God, our election in Christ, the temporal working out of the decree in the history of salvation, God's covenant purpose, the relationship of election to the ongoing life of the church in service and mission, and the gracious foundation of individual Christian life and hope.

Similarly, the marginal references offer consistent evidence of the relationship of the DFRP to the great confessional tradition of the Reformed churches. This is a document that demonstrates the profound ties of the RCJ to the other confessing Reformed churches. We find not only consistent citation of the three Westminster Standards, but also of the 1542 Genevan Catechism, Calvin's Institutes, the First Scots Confession (1560), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the Second Helvetic confession (1566), the Thirty-Nine Articles (1577), the Irish Articles (1615), and the Canons of Dort (1619). Continuity is demonstrated, therefore, with the older English and Scots Reformed tradition as well as with Westminster, with the German and Dutch Reformed, and with the Swiss Reformed, with emphasis on the Genevan tradition. In the line of a majority of these documents and the majority position of the Reformed tradition, the DFRP is infralapsarian, identifying the objects of God's eternal electing will as fallen human beings, holding the fully gracious choice of some as the elect and the fully just damnation of those fallen humans who are not redeemed by the grace of God (I.3; III.4)

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the DFRP is its breadth and organization. This is, in the first place, one of the longest confessional treatments of the doctrine of predestination available. But its length arises not from any speculative impulse and the document never crosses the line from confessional declaration to systematic theological exposition. The reason for the breadth and extent of the document is its intention to encompass all of the issues related to the doctrine of predestination, recognizing both that it is "a vital truth of the church" and a profound "comfort" to believers and that, because of "various doubts and misunderstandings ... [the doctrine] has often provoked injury and opposition and become a stone for stumbling" (p. 4). Quite suitably, following an introduction, the declaration proper begins with prayer before moving on to the seven major sections or chapters.

These chapters are worth enumerating: I) "God's Eternal Plan and Election in Christ"; II) "The Historical Realization of Election in Christ"; III) "Election in Christ and the Proclamation of the Gospel"; IV) "Election in Christ and the Mission of the Elect"; V) "The Certainty of Election and Election in Christ"; VI) "Election in Christ and the Perseverance of the Saints"; and VII) "The Eschatological Consummation of Election in Christ." Two significant aspects of the DFRP are immediately apparent: first and foremost, it consistently declares the grace of God in Christ as the central issue propounded by the doctrine of predestination and, second (quite in distinction from other confessional statements of the doctrine), it offers a full presentation of the Reformed doctrine from everlasting to everlasting--which is to say, from the eternal decree to the several stages of its execution in time, to the eternal hope of the elect.

The thoroughgoing emphasis on Christ overcomes the often-heard (but unfounded) criticism of the Reformed faith that it focuses on the divine eternity and offers a harsh doctrine not overtly grounded in the graciousness of God. Here, the divine purpose is defined in and through Christ as eternally gracious and intended for the salvation of human beings. This focus on Christ, moreover, is immediately related, in a section on "the purpose of election" (I.4) to the gracious transformation of human beings into the "likeness of Christ the Head" for the sake of the praise and service of God. In order to root the execution of the decree firmly in the life of the church, the DFRP also indicates that Word, sacraments, and prayer, as given by God to his covenant people, are divinely ordained means of grace applied effectively to individuals by the Holy Spirit (I.5).

The strong this-worldly, covenantal focus of the Declaration also appears in its salvation-historical sweep, from the earliest promises of salvation in Genesis and the call of Abraham (II.2), to the New Testament, and onward to the church throughout the world. This focus of the DFRP is further strengthened in the following chapters on the "Promise of the Gospel" and the "Mission of the Elect" (III-IV). Election, the Declaration, tells us, "is realized in history through the covenant of grace" and, what is more, the very nature of this covenant, grounded in the "infinite value and efficacy" of Christ's sacrifice, requires believers to engage in the proclamation of the gospel to all "without discrimination" (III.1-3). Thus, "faith in election in Christ, far from weakening our zeal for evangelism, rather gives courage and confidence and power for it" (III.3). Thus too, the doctrine of election does not conduce to laxity, but demands a life of service and responsibility before God (IV.2). In these declarations, the DFRP echoes the positive and activistic thrust of the traditional Reformed doctrine, so evident in the Puritan and Presbyterian writings of the seventeenth century, and so sadly neglected in many modern statements of the doctrine. Here especially, we encounter an important confession for our own timesand, equally, an important word to those who have doubted the presence of Christian outreach at the heart of traditional Reformed orthodoxy.

The Christ-centered doctrine of the Declaration is also manifest in the chapters on the assurance of salvation and the perseverance of the saints (V and VI). Reflecting precisely the cautionary language of Calvin's Institutes, the DFRP warns against finding certainty either in ourselves or by "inquiring impertinently into God's hidden will apart form Christ." Christ is the "mirror in which we must contemplate our election" (V.1). Even so, our sanctification is incomplete in this life and both our perseverance and our assurance are to be rooted in Christ "the Author and Perfecter of our faith" (VI.3). Here again, we encounter the christological focus and the emphasis on the present life of Christians.

Finally, the DFRP turns to the issue election and our eschatological hope. Although the last things are discussed in nearly all of the larger Reformed confessions, there is no other confessional document, to my knowledge, that devotes a chapter to the subject of election and the consummation of God's kingdom in Christ. This too marks a significant confessional development inasmuch as the Reformed faith has not only consistently looked toward the fulfillment of the kingdom of God, but has also assumed that the full establishment of the kingdom can only be accomplished by the gracious work of the sovereign God. Thus, the elective will of God, realized in the covenantal history of salvation and grounded in the saving work of Christ, also points us, with firm assurance, toward our eternal destiny. Those who are outside of this gracious work, "who have not accepted the gospel" and who "have not trusted in Christ" will suffer eternal punishmentso that in the salvation of God's elect and the damnation of unbelievers, both the mercy and the righteousness of God will be revealed (VII.1). Here too, the DFRP is soundly Reformed. It proclaims the universal proclamation of the gospel without yielding to the universalizing tendencies of modern culture: Christ is the eternal foundation of God's election and therefore also the ultimate and only ground of salvation. The last day will be the full consummation of the plan of God ordained before all creation (VII.3).

In this brief summary and analysis, we have not dealt with all of the issues and strengths of the RCJ's Declaration of Faith Regarding Predestination. What we have done is survey a major contribution to the Reformed confessional heritage that stands in strong continuity with the past and that states its faith for the present. In true harmony with the old maxim, ecclesia Reformata, semper reformanda--the Reformed church, always reforming, this Declaration recognizes the doctrinal ground gained by the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reform of the church and while holding firm to that ground, also fulfills the second portion of the maxim, the continual proclamation of the faith for the sake of reforming the life of God's people and extending that life, in mission, to the world.