British Reformed Fellowship Two Day Conference

Over 1500 years ago, Augustine wrote a tale of two cities in his famous work The City of God. The city of God consists of the elect who live out of the principle of regeneration in the love of God in Christ. The city of man includes all those outside of Christ who walk according to this present evil age and live in sin and death. Spiritual warfare always exists between the city of God and the city of man, for God Himself in Jesus Christ has "put enmity" between them (Gen. 3:15). As the apostle Paul says, there is no fellowship, no communion, no concord and no agreement between the child of God and the child of the devil (II Cor. 6:14-16). This is the antithesis–the absolute spiritual difference and opposition between the church and the world, the believer and the unbeliever. And this was the subject for the two day conference of the British Reformed Fellowship (a federation of Reformed Christians in the British Isles) held in Ballymena, N. Ireland, on Friday and Saturday, 5-6 December.

The speaker, Professor Herman Hanko, a retired theological professor of the Protestant Reformed Churches of America, developed his subject in three stirring addresses: The Idea of the Antithesis, The Antithesis and the Truth and The Antithesis and the World. He traced the antithesis in the history both of heaven and of earth and showed how the two histories are united in Jesus Christ in the new heavens and the new earth. The theory of Kuyperian common grace with its idea of two divine goals in history, one in the elect by God's grace and another in the culture of the ungodly, was decisively rejected. Prof. Hanko explained how the instituted church, as "the pillar and ground of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15), must preach and practise the antithesis. It does this centrally in proclaiming the true gospel over against the lie and maintaining Christian discipline. Where the false gospel is preached and where the gospel and church discipline are being corrupted the inevitable result is worldliness. The antithesis is lost and spiritual adultery results. "Know ye not," writes James, "that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God" (4:4). Drawing his speeches to a close, Prof. Hanko made sharp application of the antithesis to materialism and the Christian's attitude to this world's goods, the idolatry of sports, the evils of worldly pleasures, and the dangers of TV and drama.

Members of the British Reformed Fellowship from various parts of the United Kingdom and friends from the US were present. Audio tapes of the three lectures (£5 inc. P&P) are available from Sean Courtney, 78 Millfield, Ballymena BT43 6PD (email: cprfbookstore@yahoo.co.uk or telephone: 028 25 641200).