Why drag that up again?
The years 2016-2018 were indeed a time of great hurts and sorrows for all involved on both sides of the schism. No one wants that history to repeat. Many do not even want to think about it.
Yet, we need to look at what started it all. We need to understand what Mrs. Meyer was really saying in her protests. Otherwise, we could fall for these same false ideas again, and repeat the history.
Furthermore, the next generation deserves an explanation. They deserve to understand. And we need to understand it ourselves before we try to teach the next generation about any of it. We need to examine the arguments from Mrs. Meyer’s side. We may not sweep it into the past as if it cannot touch us again.
Her approach, which centered on justification, intimidated too many men. Adding in her many lofty sounding words only further added to the intimidation. Some said that if there was something amiss, and they could not see it, but she could; then why should they be elders? They felt that they were not smart enough to watch over the preaching.
But I want to reassure those men that they could not see anything amiss as she pointed it out. That’s because there was nothing amiss to see. Mrs. Meyer was simply pushing her false beliefs with her legalistic logic. All the while throwing the word ‘heresy’ around. And even though she couched her beliefs in familiar phrases, none of it was reformed.
Speaking of repeated history
Mrs. Meyer did manage to convince a few influential men, but so did Anne Hutchinson. And in each instance, said influential men eventually realized the game and promoted the reformed truth as strongly as before.
Why care now?
We should learn about Mrs. Meyer’s false doctrines. We need to educate ourselves about the arguments she used. It is wisdom to confront the logic of her arguments. Mrs. Meyer claimed to care about purity of doctrine. Yet, her own doctrines were false. And with her false ideas, she attacked the reformed faith concerning sanctification. The doctrine of progressive sanctification, perseverance of the saints, and the ‘must’ of obedience and good works are foreign to her. She could not reconcile them in her own mind with her belief system. So, she tried to oust them from our teachings. She just didn’t want to hear it.
Mrs. Meyer tried to teach our people that progressive sanctification is works-righteousness. She tried to teach us that the perseverance of the saints taught in the Canons was the same thing as preservation in the state of grace.
Nothing new … ever
Furthermore, this exact controversy ran strongly in other church groups in the broader church world before it ran through the PRC. Some of it ran through the evangelical branch. It took on the form of The Lordship Controversy.
Some of it ran through reformed denominations. There was a flurry of blog posts between Rev. DeYoung and Tullian Tchividjian on The Gospel Coalition blog. Justin Taylor lists the posts here.
Tchividjian also taught what Mrs. Meyer taught. By the way, Tchividjian learned his ideas from Gerhard Forde in the Lutheran church … where it also caused a great stir.
Tchividjian would not back down from his ideology, so eventually they removed him from the blog. His false doctrines soon manifested themselves in his new antinomian lifestyle wherein he claimed he was finally set free from the treadmill of effort in good works and obedience. (I still remember when VanderWal claimed to finally be free at their first RP publisher’s meeting. The same meeting where he twisted Gal. 5:1.) In 2014 Rev. DeYoung released the book titled, The Hole in Our Holiness in response to the controversy in his circles.
Many other bloggers also wrote about this controversy. Several different pastors lectured on the errors too. Jerry Wragg and Wayne De Villiers explained things especially well at their Shepherd’s Conferences in 2012-14. These lectures made it clear that the very ideology of Mrs. Meyer, the RPs, and the RRs was not biblical. This was all between 2010 and 2016, but especially the years 2012-2014.
Where were we at this time?
How did we miss the trouble brewing in our neighboring church denominations? There were no articles written concerning it. Were we just not paying attention? Was it a case of ‘not our problem’? How did we not see that these false teachings could still affect us in some way?
The real issue
The real issue of the Meyer controversy was never about justification even though she tried to make it about that. It was always about the reformed understanding of sanctification. This became evident in the the things the RP bunch say and teach, such as:
- no need to repent, you are already forgiven
- you only need to verbally confess to other people, not to God – He already knows it
- God doesn’t see your sin
- God does it all and Jesus does your obedience for you, through you, on your behalf
- God is never displeased with His people for their sins
- effort in obedience is adding to the work of Christ
- if Christ wants obedience, let Him see to it … oh, that’s actually Anne Hutchinson
- it’s insulting to God to repent of something Christ already paid for
- you are fully sanctified, stop trying so hard
- the only work of sanctification for you to do is that you remember your justification, even if it’s remembered a thousand times a day, just rest in that truth
What they say and teach is against things related to sanctification.
All of the hyper-grace teachers hold to justification, they praise the reformers of old for that doctrine. But they all say that the forefathers got it wrong on sanctification. Some go so far as to say that the forefathers inadvertently taught legalism.
The controversy over the proper understanding of sanctification is not new. Anne Hutchinson challenged the reformed understanding of sanctification way back in the mid-1600s. In1988 the published book titled Christian Spirituality, Five Views of Sanctification shows that there are great differences in the understanding about sanctification. There is nothing new under the sun.
So, we start with Mrs. Meyer’s first protest
In 2016, Mrs. Meyer made her first protest to Hope’s consistory. She uses many familiar words and phrases as she tries to make her hermeneutics, logic, and arguments seem reformed. In the end, her vague wording leaves the matter up to the reader to interpret things. And, many gave her the benefit of the doubt based on the familiar sounding phrases she used.
However, in a time of controversy, we may not assume anything regarding the meaning of vague things. We may not simply ‘PR that up in our minds’. In our examination of her protests, we go past the verbal white noise she created. We see what she is actually protesting and what she wants to promote instead.
Not only is there a legalistic framework at the root of her thinking. It is evident that Mrs. Meyer also holds to both Keswick and hyper-grace ideology. The theme of these ideologies is antinomian. Keswick especially leans into making the Spirit a commodity, not to be purchased but to be acquired by special methods. Her arguments are not formulated from a reformed starting point.
We intend to expose her legalism, antinomianism, hyper-grace, and the Keswick and Higher-life ideologies. This blog already explained why these ideas are not reformed, so we will not go into a lot of refutation.
