Question for Prof. Engelsma (who believes that the CRC’s “common grace” teaching is liberal) : Suppose, just suppose, that by some miraculous divine intervention, the Christian Reformed Synod this year were to announce that it was wrong in nineteen twenty-four and was now rejecting the doctrine of common grace. Suppose also that the CRC pleaded with the Protestant Reformed to rejoin the CRC with a special request to Prof. Engelsma, and other PR leaders, to help the CRC make the necessary theological and programmatic adjustments. And suppose the Protestant Reformed folks accepted this invitation, with the results that Prof. Engelsma suddenly found himself in a position to provide effective, positive, theological guidance to the CRC. Would he advocate the elimination of the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, with its extensive programs of feeding the hungry and providing disaster relief to people, Christians and non-Christians alike, around the world, or could there be a non-common grace, theological basis for continuing these programs in some form?
Prof. Engelsma answers: I’m going to be extremely careful how I answer this question. And I’m going to be extremely careful, not because I have any uncertainty about my answer, but because the question raises an explicit reference to an institution. I have avoided all mention of any institutions tonight, so that nobody would be able to say, which would not be true, that I was aiming what I said at any particular body. I am interested tonight, exclusively in an issue, in a doctrine, in a practice in the matter of the basis and power of the Christian’s life in the world, as Dr. Mouw is interested in that question.
My answer about the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee is this – if that committee is a ” common grace ministry “, motivated by a general humanitarian impulse, rising no higher than helping suffering people; taking its place alongside the Red Cross, and other organizations of that kind, and not grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ, nor testifying to Jesus Christ as it dispenses its mercies, I would recommend, and do everything in my power, if I should have any influence, which will never happen, that the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee be dissolved at once.
If on the other hand, as I charitably suppose, the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee is a diaconal ministry of Reformed Churches, motivated by the desire to exercise and show the mercies of Jesus Christ and always bestowing its help in the name of Jesus Christ, emphatically in the name of the unique Savior then it has a right and honorable place, so long as it follows the Biblical injunction to do good, especially to the household of faith, and also, as opportunity arises, to all men. The bottom line, for me, is that the Church of Jesus Christ must do everything that it does in Christ’s name, and by the power of the, to use a tautology, saving grace of God.
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Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.