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Have Hope in Faith?
A Godly Argument

Rev. John Westendorp
Rev. Geoff van Schie

One of the incidental things Dr. Neal Plantinga talked about at the recent Reformation Forum 2000 conference was how to work out our differences. That came out in two ways.

First he told us the story of G.K.Chesterton. When Chesterton was five years old his younger brother was born. He remarked on that occasion, “At last, an audience!” But his brother, Cecil was not an audience, he was a dispute. Chesterton commented, “My brother and I argued for thirty years and we never once quarrelled.”

The problem is that we often find it difficult to argue without strife and bitterness. A quarrel has spoilt many a good argument. In our churches there is no good reason why we should not argue. Proverbs reminds us that disagreements between two people can be like iron sharpening iron.

The problem is that arguments often move from debating the issue to attacking the person. That happens in the church when a disagreement leads to a threat to resign from a committee or from the church. We should not be afraid to argue but we should, at all costs, avoid quarrels.

Secondly, we were reminded that in the person of Jesus there was a perfect balance of grace and truth (John1:14). That balance is often very foreign to us.

On the one hand we avoid the truth because we swallow our culture’s false definition of tolerance. Tolerance is no longer that with which we disagree but put up with, rather it is promoted as the ready acceptance of anything and everything.

On the other hand we can be full of truth but perfectly graceless. And that lack of grace is precisely what has turned many an argument into a quarrel.

Why do I mention all this here under the heading of ‘The Mailbox’? Because in a previous issue of Trowel and Sword I expressed my difficulties with a Geoff Bullock song. In this issue my friend and colleague Rev. Geoff Van Schie argues against my opinion. Readers must not interpret this as yet another quarrel. Geoff argues for the truth with a lot of grace and I appreciate that.

In fact, Geoff first printed his response to my T&S article in his local church bulletin with a lovely introduction, which I have ‘stolen’ and include here to make the point that this is not a quarrel. Whether I agree with Geoff is another matter. You can make up your own opinion about the two sides of the debate and if you want to join the argument, please do, but without quarrelling! Perhaps we can all learn from the debate.

A final point! As editor I often express my opinions rather forcefully (and sometimes less graciously than I ought). My purpose, however, is not to speak the final word on an issue. It is rather to get you thinking on something you may not have thought about a great deal previously. But you should never accept something in T&S simply because it was written by the editor, just as you shouldn’t accept something either simply because it was written by the Chairman of our last Synod. We must together go back to the Scriptures and Geoff does open for us some Scriptural and Confessional aspects of the debate.
 

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The following meditation is a response I have written to an editorial note written by Rev. John Westendorp in the April issue of Trowel and Sword. In that note John took issue with a new song we have been learning:- ‘Have Faith in God’ by Geoff Bullock. The danger is that simply because an opinion is voiced in Trowel and Sword then it must be accurate, especially if the author is someone whom we regard very highly, as I do my good friend John Westendorp. Yet we must be careful taking on board the views of others without discernment. Failure to do this would have led to the book of James being excluded from Scripture if Martin Luther had his way at the time of the Reformation. In the meditation that follows I have reproduced the response I have sent to Trowel and Sword which gives reasons why his views can be seen to be in error. Read on with a discerning mind!

 

Have Hope in Faith?

Dear Editor,

First of all allow me to express my thanks to you for the great job you and your team have done over some years now with T & S. The various components of the magazine have been a real blessing as issues have been taken up, clarified and provoked much thought.

Your editorial on ‘Faith in Faith’ in the April edition had me re-examining the words of the Geoff Bullock song at the centre of your remarks. That’s good for T&S to do – to provoke reflection even reconsideration. I say this for here in Perth we just recently approved this song to be one of the songs we would consider including in our worship services and have so far judged it to be doctrinally accurate – a screening process every song we use must pass through. We too desire to only sing the ‘gems’ and do not just take anything on board because it simply sounds good or whatever else.

My reconsideration of this song finds me disagreeing with your interpretation of the words ‘have hope in the faith God has placed in your heart’. I believe the emphasis you have placed on that phrase has taken those words out of their context and made them say something they do not say. Your emphasis leads to the mistaken view that we are called to “put our faith in our faith” rather than on Christ alone.

The song is clearly titled ‘Have Faith in God’ and begins in the first verse with a clear connection to Psalm 23: “O Lord you lead me by the still waters, quietly restoring my soul”. Like Psalm 23 this song is all about the comfort and peace that the presence of God brings to a troubled life. It is through our faith that we know that despite things looking so bleak and feeling so alone, the reality is that God is with us – even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Hence Bullock’s second verse: “O Lord you guide me, through all the darkness turning my nights into day. And you’ll never leave me, never forsake me, the power of the presence of God.”

In all of life and especially in times of great duress, our hope is indeed in Christ alone. It is Christ who alone was sent of God to reconcile us to Himself. It was Jesus who died for sinners and raises them to life through His Spirit. Yet this does not exclude the reality that there is truth in the fact that when I see that I have faith in Christ that can only come from God as a gift, that faith gives me a sure hope that indeed the Lord is with me. The existence of this very faith that I know I possess calms my troubled soul.

The Heidelberg Catechism speaks of the connection between faith and good works in the same way in Q&A. 86. The words “And we do good so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits” can be wrongly interpreted to mean the motivating reason for doing good works is the assurance that we possess faith. Of course we all know that is not the case. We do good works firstly because having been redeemed by Christ’s blood we want to glorify God in a life of thankfulness. Yet this does not exclude the fact that as we see the Spirit causing us to do good works we are assured that we have faith. Likewise then, when we see we have faith, hope rises within us for we are then assured God is present with us.

Allow me to quote Bullock’s own introductory words as to the origin of this song.

“In August 1993 my father was diagnosed as having a terminal illness. His first phone call to me with the news will be permanently etched into my memory. After an emotional lunch with my mother and father I returned to my piano with feelings that were hard to come to terms with, let alone verbalise. How could I sum up the years we shared and express comfort, gratitude, love, faith and hope? How could I best use our remaining time together to crown our relationship with God’s love? ‘Have Faith In God’ was written for my father... a simple song that I pray sheds light on the greatest of life’s challenges... having faith in God.” [underlining my own]

Bullock points us to the existence of God’s gift of faith in our lives as a means by which we are assured / have hope that God is indeed present with us especially when the opposite may seem to be the case. The focus in not faith but the presence of God that the existence of faith demonstrates.

I pray you and others who have had difficulty with this song may be able to sing it in the future.

Many thanks again for the great work you and the team have done in service and out of love to the Lord! Your work has been a real blessing!

Geoff van Schie
Perth, WA
 

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