Theopedia

Herman Hoeksema

Overview

Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965) was a Dutch-American Reformed minister deposed from the Christian Reformed Church in 1924 over the doctrine of common grace, after which he became the founding minister of the Protestant Reformed Churches.1 Matthew Barrett writes that “hyper-Calvinism has shown its head once again with Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965), creating controversy both in the Netherlands and in England.”2

Life and Ministry

The controversy that defines Hoeksema’s public record began at the Christian Reformed Church’s 1924 synod, which adopted a doctrinal statement on common grace known afterward as the “Three Points.”3 Hoeksema, together with fellow minister Henry Danhof, dissented from the synod’s formulation, appealing to Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretical-Practical Theology “more than to Calvin” to argue that the confessional Reformed position stood against the synod, not behind it.3 Their refusal to subscribe to the Three Points led to their removal from office, and the ministers and congregations who followed them out of the Christian Reformed Church organized that same year as the Protestant Reformed Churches in America, with Hoeksema as founding minister.1

Theological Contribution

Denial of the well-meant offer of the gospel

Hoeksema developed his position across three works: The Protestant Reformed Church in America (1947), Reformed Dogmatics (1966), and Whosoever Will (1945).4 Barrett summarizes the reasoning: “Building off of his views on election and reprobation, Hoeksema argues that there can be no well-meant offer of the gospel, which would imply that God intends and desires the salvation of the non-elect, for Scripture is clear that God determines to harden the hearts of the non-elect, not save them.”5 On this account the gospel call cannot rightly be termed an “offer” at all, since an offer implies that everyone who hears it is capable of accepting it, which Hoeksema held to be true only of the elect; the call is instead simply a promise meant for the elect, and what the non-elect receive in hearing it is condemnation.6

Rejection of common grace

Hoeksema and Danhof extended the same reasoning to common grace itself: the churches that followed them out of the Christian Reformed Church in 1924 rejected the synod’s Three Points and, with them, the concept of common grace itself.3 Their appeal to Mastricht against the synod’s own citation of him made a stronger claim than a mere dissent: that the confessional Reformed tradition sided with their rejection, not with the synod’s affirmation.3

Historical Significance

The Christian Reformed Church answered Hoeksema through Anthony Hoekema, who wrote that it holds, “in agreement with the majority of Reformed theologians, that the preaching of the gospel is a well-meant offer of salvation, not just on the part of the preacher, but on God’s part as well, to all who hear it, and that God seriously and earnestly desires the salvation of all to whom the gospel call comes.”7 Barrett judges Hoeksema’s resulting position “deeply unbiblical,” arguing that Scripture “everywhere affirms the well-meant offer of the gospel.”8 Elsewhere Barrett cautions against reading Hoeksema as representative of Calvinism more broadly, noting that a critic “misrepresents the ‘decretal’ view when he puts Herman Hoeksema and David Engelsma, two hyper-Calvinists, in the same camp as traditional Calvinists like Francis Turretin.”9 The Protestant Reformed Churches Hoeksema founded have continued to hold his position, and remain, on this point, a minority report within confessional Reformed and Presbyterian theology, most of which has followed Calvin, Mastricht, and the later Reformed orthodox in affirming some form of common grace.10

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Matthew Michael Barrett, “The Scriptural Affirmation of Effectual Calling,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 129n155: “Hoeksema was the founder of the Protestant Reformed Church.” ↩ ↩2

  2. Barrett, “Scriptural Affirmation,” 129. ↩

  3. Adriaan C. Neele, “Petrus van Mastricht (1630-1706): Life and Work,” in Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. 1, Prolegomena, trans. Todd M. Rester, ed. Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), 52. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. Barrett, “Scriptural Affirmation,” 129n155, citing Herman Hoeksema, The Protestant Reformed Church in America, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1947), 317-53; Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1966), 465-68; and Hoeksema, Whosoever Will (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1945). ↩

  5. Barrett, “Scriptural Affirmation,” 129-30. ↩

  6. Barrett, “Scriptural Affirmation,” 129-30, summarizing Hoeksema, Whosoever Will, 148. ↩

  7. Anthony Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 72, quoted in Barrett, “Scriptural Affirmation,” 130. ↩

  8. Barrett, “Scriptural Affirmation,” 130. ↩

  9. Matthew Michael Barrett, “Monergism, Synergism, and the Will of God,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 420n28. ↩

  10. Cf. Barrett, “Scriptural Affirmation,” 129-31, and Neele, “Life and Work,” 52. ↩