In the last articles we discussed the history of the Janssen case, a case which formed such an important part of the history of our own churches.  In this article and succeeding ones, we are going to concentrate on the issues in the controversy.

These were the issues which were discussed in hundreds of homes of Christian Reformed members, preached about in dozens of pulpits, written on in every church periodical published within the denomination, and debated at length in various ecclesiastical assemblies.  They were considered by most to be issues of critical importance which would decide whether or not the church was to remain orthodox and sound in doctrine or whether the church was now to start along the dreary road of apostasy.

When Janssen was accused of teaching false doctrine in his Seminary classroom, he really never challenged his accusers’ description of what he taught.  Even if it was by silence he admitted that he indeed taught what his fellow professors said he taught.  But admitting that he taught these things, he attempted to defend them as being true and right.  And, finally, he defended them by appealing to the doctrine of common grace.

This is what makes this controversy over Janssen’s teaching so important to us, for it was this appeal to common grace on Janssen’s part which led up to the controversy in 1924 which resulted in the suspension of Revs. Hoeksema and Danhof and the beginning of the Protestant Reformed Churches.

However, before we take a look at how Janssen defended himself by appealing to the doctrine of common grace, we ought to have a clear understanding of what errors Janssen actually taught.

If we could sum up Janssen’s errors in a few words, we would say that Janssen defended higher critical views of Scripture.

So we must ask the question first of all:  What is meant by higher critical views of Scripture?

Without going into detail on this whole question, it is sufficient for our purposes to understand that, especially in Germany (where Janssen had studied and obtained one of his degrees), universities were attacking the truth of the inspiration and authority of Holy Scripture.  They were arguing that Scripture was nothing more than a human book which contained in it a great deal of information concerning early religious beliefs of various people, especially the Hebrew people.

In making Scripture a human book, they, quite naturally, also denied the miracles of Scripture as being scientifically impossible, and, therefore, the superstitious beliefs of early people who were rather naïve in their view of the world about them.

Janssen had been affected by his instruction in Germany and did much the same thing in his teaching in Seminary, although he succeeded in making his teaching sound more Reformed than the blatant denial of Scripture’s inspiration which was taught in Germany.  In fact, every time that Janssen was asked whether he believed in the infallible inspiration of Scripture, his response was a resounding, Yes!

Nevertheless, this was a deception on Janssen’s part and not an honest statement at all.

So we ought to take a closer view of what Janssen actually taught concerning some of the issues involved in higher criticism.

In some form or fashion, Janssen denied the truth of the infallible inspiration of Scripture.

It is a very strange fact, however, that in all Janssen’s teachings in Seminary he did not discuss the question of Scripture’s inspiration very much.  This in itself was more than passing strange.  After all, Dr. Janssen was professor of Old Testament studies; and one would think that in discussing the Old Testament, one would surely discuss very thoroughly the whole truth of inspiration.  This would be especially true when the views of higher criticism in Europe, and especially Germany, were coming into this country.

But Janssen never talked about these things.

He did, however, tip his hand and give indications of what he believed by many other things which he taught.  He gave himself away, so to speak, in other ways.  He could not really hide what he believed.

And in spite of the fact that he said he maintained a firm faith in the truth of Scripture’s inspiration, it became clear that in reality, he did not.