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WARNING LETTER TO REV. SPAANS AND NRC-CONSISTORY
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Burgessville, 3/27/2007
Dear Rev. J. Spaans and NRC-consistory,
Rev. Spaans, I have heard several sermons of you for a long time, but now it is time I have to tell you that you establish people as people of God who have no saving knowledge of Christ. That means there is no spiritual life outside of the saving knowledge of Christ. I tell you these things in the presence of the Lord, because your preaching is unbiblical and contrary to the experience of saints. I write you this letter in love, so, be not high minded and make notice of this letter, because we have to appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
True people of God (also the little ones of faith) are justified by faith in the court of their conscience. All Gods people have saving knowledge of Christ; they have the forgiveness of sins and peace with God, because they are justified by faith as a hell deserving sinner. And only that saved people in Christ are attacked by the devil daily and have many temptations.
After having gone through the narrow Gate (Christ) and walking on the narrow Way (Christ) is too sharp for the old man under the law, so the old man under the law must be killed through the law in the death of Christ, before he can walk on the narrow Way, namely on His legs and in His footsteps. Only the lost sheep is on His shoulder and the divine Shepherd carries His people into the house of His Father. I have to warn you that your understanding of biblical conversion is even below the level of the foolish virgins. How far did they get? How much experience they had on their way to heaven? But they found the door closed. They imagined that they knew something of Christ, but Christ didn't know them. Look to the rich young man. He was far on his way to Christ, but sorrowful he went home, because he wanted to be religious outside of Christ and he hated to die by the ministry of the law (Gal. 2:19).
Many people have much spiritual experience and even many tears, but the hell will be filled with people who have much spiritual experience. The Bible is so clear. The gateway of spiritual life is still Galatians 2:19. That means we have to die before we can be alive in Christ. Your preaching is empty of these things, and without justification.
Without experimental justification by faith and the saving knowledge of Christ, there is nothing at all. The way to Jesus is still on the broad way. You can make the broad way a little bid narrow, but it is still the broad way. We have to go through the narrow Gate, right? The narrow Gate is Christ Himself and only dead sinners, who died through the law to the law (Gal. 2:19), will be pulled through that narrow Gate, because Christ only makes dead alive (Joh. 5:25). Those dead are died by the ministry of the law (Gal. 2:19a). Christ reveals Himself only in lost sinners, in hell-deserving sinners, in sinners who are died by the ministry of the holy law of God. Do you know that by experience? Elders, do you know that? Do you know the living Christ by revelation of Salvation like Paul says in Gal. 1:15-16? And do you know that He knows you? Do you know your sins are forgiven in a way of righteousness? Or are you still travelling on the broad way with a belly full of misery, full of religious things, full of yourself?
I am speaking as a lost, but saved sinner and lost sinners are welcome in my home. I have to talk with you about these things, but some of NRC-Lords Supper-people I have spoken already are too good and too religious to be lost and too good to go to hell. If we never have been lost and we have never been willing to the sign our own condemnation in the framework of the willingness of Christ, we cannot be saved. Christ is not seeking religious and regenerated people to save them, but He is seeking the ungodly and the prodigals to save them. God is not a God Who justifies regenerated people, because He only justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5 - Rom. 5:6). And then they arrived? Yea, complete in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30), but on this side of the grave forgiveness of sin is returning back in the life of grace again and again. That convicts and reminds Gods people of who they are and remain in themselves, namely to keep them for self-doing sanctification and religiousness outside the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Now, I have to finish this letter. Beware, the Judge is coming and we cannot stand before Him, without an application of the imputation of Christ' righteousness by the Holy Spirit with power in our hearts. God establishes His Own work in Christ, but first of all we must be justified by God as an ungodly, which deserves nothing but hell. Your preaching is without the experimental knowledge of faith about what Hanna tells us in 1 Samuel 2:6: "The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to the hell and brings up." If that has happened in our life, we are a new creation in Christ, but still fleshly and sold under sin (Rom. 7).
God bless you all,
G.P.P. Burggraaf
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