Belgic Confession articles 14-17 Dear children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ, and guests, does man have a free will? That is the question. That s the question which tends to lie at the bottom of most rifts in the Christian world. Does man have the ability to choose freely between doing good or evil? We ve already seen how the Belgic Confession touches on this matter from the perspective of God. Articles 12 and 13 (and 14a) remind us how Scripture tells us that God created all things good and that God, though in complete control of evil, is not to be held responsible for sin. We also learned that the matter of God s sovereignty and the existence of evil is beyond our comprehension. It s enough for us to learn what Christ has taught us in His Word without curiously prying into what has not been revealed. Today we look at the same matter, but now from the human perspective. How responsible is man for sin? Pelagius argued: if man is to be held responsible for sin, then man must have the ability to choose not to sin. How can someone be held responsible for something he can t do? Man must have the free ability to choose for good. That s called: a free will. Augustine argued: man is so depraved he is incapable of doing any good without God s intervention. Man, of his own accord, always chooses for evil. Man s will is bound. Which begs the question, can one then hold man responsible. The debate about free will had consequences for one s view of sin, especially of how man comes to sin. Followers of Pelagius were challenged: if man has the ability to choose for good, why doesn t he? They answered: that s because sin comes by following the bad example of others. People are born innocent, neither good nor bad. As they grow up, they make choices. They do so by following the role models that surround them: parents and other people. Since our world has gone bad, most of what people do is bad. But put people in a Paradise, empty of sinful adults, and all could be well. The novel Coral Island suggests how this could be true. The novel Lord of the Flies suggests how this is false. Twice the Church sided with Augustine in the debate: the Synods of Ephesus 431 and Orange 529. Still Pelagius teaching gained the upper-hand in the church. It was not quite as extreme as how Pelagius brought it, that s why we call it semi-pelagianism. But central teachings of Scripture on the origin of sin and man s total depravity were denied. In the early 1500s Erasmus of Rotterdam defended the freedom of the will in a book. Martin Luther countered with his book The Bondage of the Will. That was an academic debate. There were also popular debates. A Roman Catholic man wrote a booklet on the free will: The Shield of Faith. A book entitled The Rod of Faith was written in response, by none other than Rev. Guido de Bres. A hot issue on which Guide de Bres stood in the breach: no wonder we find it in the Belgic Confession. The debate is not over. Only 50 years after the Belgic Confession was written and adopted, the debate recurred among Calvinist Protestants in a form that still divides Biblical Christianity to its core today. The debate between Arminianism and Calvinism. The Great Synod of Dort confirmed the Calvinist view and adopted the Canons of Dort. Originally these Canons were an appendix to or expansion of Belgic Confession article 16. Man s free will. The debate between Pelagius and Augustine, between Roman Catholics and Protestants, between Arminians and Calvinists. Analysis indicates it s also part of the debate between Jews and Christians, the debate outlined in Romans. So we do well to acquaint ourselves with God s instruction and our confession on this matter. It s vital to God s glory and our salvation. We pay attention to God s instruction on man s abilities with this theme: We believe and confess man s plunge into sin. We will consider (1) Man when he plunged; (2) After the plunge: an individual human; (3) After the plunge: the human race; and (4) God s response to the plunge. 1) Man when he plunged.
If you look at article 14 you ll notice the title says The Creation and Fall of Man. Now, the titles to the articles are not actually part of the confession. That s why I don t read them when we read the articles. Often one finds that the title doesn t cover the article fully or accurately. 1 Still, the titles do suggest kind of what the article is about, what topics are covered in them. I draw your attention to the expression Fall, Man s Fall into Sin. For this sermon I ve chosen the word plunge. I have two reasons for doing that. The first is: the expressions fall into sin or plunge into sin are not Biblical in the sense that one finds them literally in Scripture. The expressions are confessional they were coined to express a doctrine. And interestingly, the terms fall and plunge is not even found in articles 14 or 15. You ll find it first in article 16. Let s look at that, the first line of article 16: We believe that, when the entire offspring of Adam plunged into perdition and ruin. And at the end of the article: Just, in leaving others in the fall and perdition into which they have plunged themselves. Notice how the term plunge is more at the forefront. In the Heidelberg Catechism (LD 3) and in the Canons of Dort (especially III/IV) the term fall is used consistently, which is probably why we tend to say Fall into Sin. I prefer Plunge because of the imagery that goes with it. Boys and girls, what s the difference between falling into water and plunging into water? Think about it for a moment. Imagine someone, me, in a canoe, out on a lake. What would me falling into the water look like? Probably me leaning over and suddenly the canoe tips and I slide in. Oops. It looks very much like an accident I wasn t trying to get wet. What about me plunging into the water? Hmm, I see myself standing up in the canoe, rocking it back and forth, and then jumping out. Oops? No, no oops. I did it totally on purpose. That s the difference. The word fall is much gentler and even carries the idea of by accident. The word plunge is a more intensive form of fall and carries the idea of on purpose. And we didn t just fall into sin, we plunged ourselves into sin. Our plunge into sin was deliberate (LD 3) and through our own free will (CoD III/IV art. 1). Let s now read what we confess regarding man s plunge into sin. At this point we read the first paragraph of article 14. We believe that God created man of dust from the ground and he made and formed him after his own image and likeness, good, righteous, and holy. His will could conform to the will of God in every respect. But, when man was in this high position, he did not appreciate it nor did he value his excellency. He gave ear to the words of the devil and wilfully subjected himself to sin and consequently to death and the curse. For he transgressed the commandment of life which he had received; by his sin he broke away from God, who was his true life; he corrupted his whole nature. By all this he made himself liable to physical and spiritual death. In the previous sermon we already paid attention to the fact how this article focusses attention especially on man as a unique creature. Human beings were created in the image of God. Our understanding of that is much broader than it was back in the days of Guido de Bres. De Bres focus was very much determined by the debate of his time: the question whether man had and has a free will. Had - could man as created do what God wanted him to do? The answer given is Yes. Scripture teaches that man s will could conform to God s will in every respect. God has told us that man could want to do whatever God wanted man to do. The fact that sin today exists and the fact that sin is something God does NOT want man to do tells us that man in Paradise could also want to do something God did not want man to do. There s two things here. Man as created by God has the freedom of choice. He is allowed to choose between good and evil. And man as created by God has the ability to choose. He is able to choose between good and evil. Man has a free choice and man can choose freely. How do we know this? Well, man was created in God s image and being God s image implies being good, righteous, and holy. 1 See my comments later this sermon on the title of Article 16.
Man had a free choice and could choose freely. Or, to say it slightly differently: as created, man had freedom of choice and a free will. But then man plunged himself into sin. Pelagius said: Adam and Eve made a bad choice. Ever since, people have followed their bad example. But they shouldn t. They should follow the good example that Jesus sets. There are still many Christians who see it this way. Adam and Eve set the bad example. Jesus is the good example. Do what Jesus did, not what Adam did. The Roman Catholic Church held to a watered down version of this. It taught that man man s will is not that strong and needs help to choose for what is good. That help comes from something called image of God. The image of God is like a bridle. A bridle help a horse go in the right direction. So the image of God helps man do the right thing. When Adam sinned, man lost this image of God. Theoretically man can still choose what is good. However, like an unbridled horse, man has a tendency to do otherwise. To do good man has to exert superhuman effort. Only the church can give him the grace needed to do this. So: Pelagius said that man is perfectly healthy, he just needs a good example to follow. Roman Catholics said that man is rather sick, he needs a spiritual infusion of grace. That s what De Bres is reacting against with article 14. Perfectly healthy? Before the Plunge, yes. After the Plunge, no. Rather sick? After the Plunge, no, not just rather sick. Man is dead 2) We ve come to our second consideration. After the Plunge: the individual human. Let s read what remains of Article 14. Since man became wicked and perverse, corrupt in all his ways, he has lost all his excellent gifts which he had once received from God. He has nothing left but some small traces, which are sufficient to make man inexcusable. For whatever light is in us has changed into darkness, as Scripture teaches us, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn 1:5); where the apostle John calls mankind darkness. Therefore we reject all teaching contrary to this concerning the free will of man, since man is a slave to sin (Jn 8:34) and a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven (Jn 3:27). For who dares to boast that he of himself can do any good, when Christ says: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (Jn 6:44)? Who will glory in his own will, when he understands that the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God (Rom 8:7)? Who can speak of his knowledge, since the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14)? In short, who dares to claim anything, when he realizes that we are not sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God (2 Cor 3:5)? Therefore what the apostle says must justly remain sure and firm: for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Phil 2:13). For there is no understanding nor will conformable to the understanding and will of God unless Christ has brought it about; as he teaches us: apart from me you can do nothing (Jn 15:5). What happened when man fell? The Roman Catholics said: it s like a horse losing its bridle. It becomes far more difficult for the horse to go where it needs to go. But it is still possible. De Bres said, no. When man fell, when man plunged into sin, he lost the image of God, he lost his goodness, righteousness, and holiness. Man as an individual became wicked and perverse, he corrupted his whole nature. Not just what man does and man thinks or knows is corrupted, even what man wills is corrupted. Think for a moment of head, heart, and hands. Your hands is what you do: you can do good, you can do evil. Your heart is about what you want: do you desire good or evil. Your head is about what you know: do you know whether something is good or evil. The head informs the heart as to what is good or bad. The heart informs the hands to do what is good or what is bad. And the hands do it. Roman Catholics said: the hands and the head got corrupted, but not the heart. The Reformed said: no, man s whole nature got corrupted. There are traces left. Traces. That s not bits and pieces. That s tracks. Like bear scat on the trail will tell you a bear has been there. But bear scat is not part of a bear. It s a trace of the bear. It s an indication that the bear has been there. But it s not the bear. Same with the image of God. You can tell humans were created in the
image of God. But the image is itself, when defined as goodness, righteousness, and holiness is gone. 2 So what might be a trace of God s image? Our conscience. All humans work with the concept of right and wrong. They disagree about what is right and wrong. But all humans do have a sense of right and wrong. Such traces leave man without an excuse for being as wicked as they are. But such traces are insufficient to bring one to true knowledge of God, to saving faith, to doing what is truly good. As a Reformed believer, Guido de Bres turned to Scripture to prove his conviction. We read Romans 3. Did you notice how the Apostle Paul, in confronting Jews and Gentiles on the question of man s natural ability to do good, did exactly the same? The passage we read is, for the most part, a series of quotes from the Old Testament, proving that God indicates how man s corruption is total. We can turn to life s experiences to learn that man is bad. But only God can tell us how bad things really are and why. And things are bad. Before the Great Flood God saw how the thoughts of a man s heart were only evil continually (Gen 6:5). Through Jeremiah God declared how the heart of man is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9). Our Lord Jesus Christ indicated: Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. (Matthew 15:19). Indeed, as the Holy Spirit had Paul quote Scripture: No one is righteous there is no fear of God before their eyes. What does the corruption of man mean for man s will? I said earlier: in Paradise man had a free choice and could choose freely. Freedom of choice and a free will. The freedom of choice remains after the Plunge into Sin. Both evil and good exist. But man s will after the Plunge into Sin is no longer free. It is corrupted. It always turns to evil. It always defaults to what is bad. Without the Holy Spirit renewing us after the image of Christ, without the Holy Spirit restoring to us goodness, righteousness, and holiness, an individual human will only do evil continually. Adam and Eve became corrupt when they sinned. What about the rest of the human race? 3) We come to our third consideration: After the Plunge into Sin: the human race. Let s read together article 15. We believe that by the disobedience of Adam original sin has spread throughout the whole human race. It is a corruption of the entire nature of man and a hereditary evil which infects even infants in their mother s womb. As a root it produces in man all sorts of sin. It is, therefore, so vile and abominable in the sight of God that it is sufficient to condemn the human race. It is not abolished nor eradicated even by baptism, for sin continually streams forth like water welling up from this woeful source. Yet, in spite of all this, original sin is not imputed to the children of God to their condemnation but by his grace and mercy is forgiven them. This does not mean that the believers may sleep peacefully in their sin, but that the awareness of this corruption may make them often groan as they eagerly wait to be delivered from this body of death. In this regard we reject the error of the Pelagians, who say that this sin is only a matter of imitation. Original sin, what is that? In my experience, most people think of original sin as the first sin committed. All sin today is a copy of the original. That s the Pelagian view. But that s clearly not what De Bres meant. Original sin refers to where sin originates. Original sin is our sinful nature. We distinguish between actual sins and original sin. Actual sins are the sins we do: the bad things we want, we think, and we do, and the good things we don t want, don t think, and don t do. Original sin is what makes us desire, think, and do evil and makes us not desire, not think, and not do good. 2 Developed understanding of the image of God indicates much more could and should be said here. For if image also includes being God s representative and being relational (see previous sermon) then one could say the image is still there in some way. For me to deal with all this in this sermon would take us too far afield from the Belgic Confession.
Do all humans have original sin? Pelagius said no: every human begins life like Adam and Eve. The Roman Catholic Church and the Reformed both said yes: every human has lost the image of God. 3 But the two differed on what this meant. The Roman Catholic Church said: man has lost a good help, a power boost. The Reformed said: man is totally lost without it. Who is right? Well, boys and girls, where do we turn when we want to know who is right about something? Who do we ask? Who has the final say? God, of course. And where do we find out what God has said? In His Word. And what did we read in God s Word, Romans 5? Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. By the one man s disobedience many were made sinners. All humans have a sinful nature, share in original sin, because Adam plunged into sin. And this sinful nature leads to death in its most complete sense, physical and spiritual. How does this corruption come to man? God hasn t told us. There are two theories, and there s truth to both of them. We find them both in article 15. The one theory says it s hereditary, sin is kind of in our genes. Just like your skin colour or your hair colour comes from your parents, so sin comes from your parents. This is why one can say that all humans are sinful, with the exception of Jesus Christ. For biologically speaking Jesus had no human father. Theory 1: Adam is our biological father. The other theory is that Adam was man s representative. When a country s hockey or soccer team wins a match, we say the country has won. For the team represents the country. Or if the government of a country does something, the whole country does it. If the Greek government defaults on its debt, all Greeks are affected. Theory 2: because Adam is our covenantal representative. Like I said, Scripture does not speak clearly on this matter. We should be careful with our theories. But the Belgic Confession makes the point well: every member of the human race shares in original sin. All are dead in their sins. Now the confession mentions that baptism does not abolish or eradicate original sin. What s that all about? It s this: Roman Catholics believed that original sin is washed away by the water of baptism. The first sin committed by anyone is original sin the fact that they are unholy. Baptism actually removed original sin, removed what makes you choose for bad. It would make a person like Adam and Eve in Paradise, able to choose freely between good and evil. 4 The Reformed said: no. True, original sin is our sinful nature. And true, God graciously forgives it. That s justification through Christ. But the sin continues with us until the moment we pass away. Sanctification is an ongoing process. We didn t read it but Romans 7 comes after, not before Romans 5. 5 We ll return to the matter of baptism later in this sermon series. 4) Forgiveness. That s about God s response to our plunge. We turn to that in the fourth place. For this we turn to articles 16 and 17. We believe that, when the entire offspring of Adam plunged into perdition and ruin by the transgression of the first man, God manifested himself to be as he is: merciful and just. Merciful, in rescuing and saving from this perdition those whom in his eternal and unchangeable counsel he has elected in Jesus Christ our Lord by his pure goodness, without any consideration of their works. Just, in leaving the others in the fall and perdition into which they have plunged themselves. We believe that, when he saw that man had thus plunged himself into physical and spiritual death and made himself completely miserable, our gracious God in his marvellous wisdom and goodness set out to seek man 3 Catechism of the Catholic Church 417: Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called original sin. 4 It gets more complicated yet. For Arminians have a still different understanding of original sin and how it is paid for. As this is not a sermon on the Canons of Dort, I ve left it alone. 5 Many Christians will argue Romans 7 is a flash back to the unconverted Paul. Romans 7:25b makes that an impossible exegesis. This matter became central to the Arminian debate and continues to be divisive today.
when he trembling fled from him. He comforted him with the promise that he would give him his Son, born of woman (Gal 4:4), to crush the head of the serpent and to make man blessed. Article 16 received the heading Divine Election. While that s certainly at back of this article, that s not actually what article 16 is about. It like q&a 11 of the Heidelberg Catechism is about God being both merciful and just in responding to the Plunge of Man into Sin. The implications of article 16 were worked out in the decades after the Belgic Confession was adopted and would see the adoption of the Canons of Dort. But all De Bres was concerned with was countering the charge that the Reformed undermined both God s mercy and God s justice with their belief that man s corruption even includes his will. 6 God is merciful because, in spite of man s sin, there are still some whom God saves. He does so, not because of anything good they might do. After all, all men are totally corrupt. He saves them by His eternal decree and good pleasure. Sola gratia grace alone! God is also just because man continues to have freedom of choice. If he wanted to, man can still do good. The problem is that man doesn t want to. Man does not want to because man cannot want to. Man cannot want to because man plunged himself into sin. It s not God s fault that man does not do good and cannot do good. God is not the author of sin, man is responsible for his sinful nature and his sin. God s mercy is revealed in Him saving some. God s justice is revealed in Him not saving others. Article 17 then expands on how God goes about saving man. And here is Gospel, beloved. Here all the theorizing about God, Revelation, Scripture, the Trinity, Creation, Providence, and man s corruption comes to its core. The scene has been set: this is how things are and this why things are how they are now. When man plunged himself into physical and spiritual death God was there with His marvelous wisdom and goodness. We fled from God, but God came looking for us. We tried to shift the blame for our sin but God still set out to save us. And He did so by promising us His Son, who would come as a human being, to destroy sin and Satan, and to restore to the human race eternal and perfect happiness. And beloved, you know how God followed through on His promise. God the Son was indeed born in human flesh and He did gain the victory over sin and Satan on the cross. And right now our Saviour is very busy making man blessed. His kingdom is expanding around the globe and we look forward to the life of perfection in which there will be no sin and no evil. How marvelous is God s response to our plunge. We believe and confess man s plunge into sin. When a person is sick, only the right diagnosis will lead to beneficial treatment. Pelagius as well as the Roman Catholic Church misdiagnosed the situation of man. The Reformed set things straight. Rather than try to uphold a bit of man s dignity, the Reformed turned to God s Word and upheld God s diagnosis. Beloved, understand your corruption well. We didn t just trip and fall. We all took the plunge. And the plunge destroyed us. We were corrupted to the point of being completely depraved. Hands, head, and heart. In view of our total corruption God s mercy and grace shine all the brighter. God isn t just helping us where we can t do it ourselves. God is doing everything for us as we cannot do it ourselves. We ve been taught the truth of our lost condition so that we might all the more understand the truth of God s salvation, and glorify God for it Amen. 6 Article 16 used to be twice as long. What was removed was all with a view to God s justice.