A century ago, in 1926, a Rev. Dr J. G. Geelkerken, at the time minister of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ in The Netherlands, was rightly and wrongly deposed from office. Rightly deposed, because he taught false doctrine. Wrongly deposed because the synod deposed him when only consistory is legitimately entitled to depose a minister.
Why should we know about the “Geelkerken issue” 100 years after the event? Not only because the hierarchical actions of the synod manifested themselves in 1944, leading to the Church Liberation, but because the attitude underpinning the false teachings of Rev. Dr Geelkerken is so dangerous and keeps reoccurring. It’s this attitude of allowing own or others’ ideas to modify what Scripture teaches that this article will focus on. It happens whenever we elevate opinions, experiences or worldly knowledge above the Word of God.
And that’s basically what Rev. Geelkerken did. The warning signs came earlier when, with some other young graduates of the Free University, he showed that he was against a strict adherence to the Confessions. But the trigger for his suspension was a sermon he held on Lord’s Day 3, which deals with creation and with man’s fall into sin. He said that there were various ways in which you could interpret the biblical account about the fall into sin. He wanted to leave open the possibility that the serpent had not really spoken and that scientific investigations through excavations could result in the view that the Biblical account of Genesis 2 & 3 could not be taken literally. Without denying the fall into sin, he wanted to leave open the possibility that what happened in Paradise was not strictly as it is written in Genesis. [i]
A congregational member did the right thing and complained about Geelkerken’s sermon to Consistory. Consistory rejected the complaint; it didn’t accept the grounds put forward. However, an appeal to classis led to Rev Geelkerken being suspended from office in 1926. The matter was then appealed to the 1926 Synod.
What did Synod (Assen) 1926 do? It asked Geelkerken to sign a declaration that “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the speaking serpent, and the tree of life are, according to the obvious intent of the Scripture account of Genesis 2 and 3, to be understood in a true and literal sense, that these were realities that were observable with the senses. Therefore the opinion of Dr. Geelkerken, that one could question whether these facts were observable by the senses, without contradicting the truth of Scripture as confessed in the Articles 4 and 5 of the Belgic Confession, must be rejected”.[ii]
Geelkerken refused to sign, so he was deposed from office in the Reformed Churches. Some ministers who actively sided with him were likewise suspended and deposed. Interestingly, some 70 other ministers who had earlier indicated support for him, now backed down when they saw that he didn’t get the broad support at synod that they were no doubt hoping he would get. These ministers lacked the integrity of publicly admitting to what they really (though wrongly) believed.
Geelkerken’s problem was that he was influenced by the evolution theory and tried to marry that to Scripture. He wanted freedom of exegesis. Unwilling to restrict himself to comparing Scripture with Scripture in order to find the meaning of God’s Word, he wanted also to use scientific secular knowledge and if necessary to elevate it above Scripture. The result was that instead of Scripture being its own interpreter, Scriptural accounts became subservient to secular sources. When that happens, one no longer has the unadulterated Word of God.
As Prof. K Schilder said in defence of Synod’s position to denounce Geelkerken’s views: we must leave Scripture as the historically true Word of God. We must not let secular science (wetenschap) lord it over the faith and exegesis of Scripture. That is in effect what happens when you construct a synthesis between the reformed faith and science. By questioning the historical reliability of Genesis 2 and 3, Geelkerken was putting a shaky basis under the authority of Scripture and under the true faith. As Schilder said: not evolution but revelation. The Bible is the Word of God and therefore we may not superimpose our own opinion on it. Unless we can truly say: this is what God’s Word says (and not our own opinion or scientific knowledge) we lose the basis for discipline, for determining right from wrong, truth from the lie. Moreover, God’s Word then loses the power to move and renew us.[iii]
Does that mean we can’t make any use of other information? No. As Rev Rob Visser says in one of several examples,[iv] archaeological information about the idols Baal and Astarte illustrate that they were the idols of rain and fruitfulness. That can help deepen our understanding, for example, of why the three years of drought for which Elijah prayed in Ahab’s days showed up the inability of these idols to provide rain and fruitfulness. Archaeological information can lead us to study Scripture further. But we may never elevate such information above the Word of God, as Geelkerken did.
Why is the Geelkerken issue relevant for today? Because, as P. K. Keizer says: “When the facts of the history of salvation have been turned upside down, then also the norms by which believers must live will change. Peter spoke of the error of the wicked (2 Pet. 3:17). The Apostle Jude puts it even stronger, ‘For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny the only LORD God and our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Jude verse 4). In the past, homosexuality was considered unnatural (Rom. 1:26, 27), but today sexual mores have been revised, and homosexuality is now considered natural also by those who still dare to call themselves reformed.”[v]
We have seen how modern theology has reinterpreted the Bible to accommodate today’s societal shifts in thinking. The result is that the fourth commandment no longer forbids unnecessary work on Sunday, women are no longer withheld from the offices in the church, homosexuality and other ’gender ideologies’ are considered favourably, the evolution theory is introduced into the days of creation, pluriformity of the church thinking again becomes acceptable and a broad Christian unity wherein we “find each other” without dealing with views that deviate from the reformed confessions is again promoted.
But it all starts when we no longer let God’s Word say what it clearly says and when we fail to adhere to the confessions of the church. When we allow our feelings, our experiences, our own prejudices, and the thinking of the world, to determine what the Bible says, then we’re on slippery ground. When we reinterpret the Bible in order to pursue what we believe to be noble causes, then we are not really promoting the kingdom of God. When we silence the clear norms of Scripture and try to make the Bible more palatable to a society that has left the pathways of the Lord, then we ourselves are leaving the pathways of the Lord.
The central question is: Are we hearing and submitting to the Word of God, to the true doctrine of God’s Word? In our exegesis is the crucial question: What does the Bible really say? What does God say to us here? We need to set aside, in all humility, our own thoughts and philosophies. God has given us the 66 books of the Bible as the revelation of His dealings of salvation through history. These alone are the divinely inspired Word of God for our salvation and the regulation of our lives to His glory. The doctrine of that Word has been carefully summarised in the Three Forms of Unity. We may not mess around with them even when we believe that our goals are noble. May God graciously keep us from an attitude of allowing own or others’ ideas to modify what Scripture teaches, as Geelkerken and others have done by elevating opinions, experiences or worldly knowledge above the Word of God.
[i] G Slings, Outlines in Church History, Pro Ecclesia Publishers, Kelmscott, 1988, p. 114.
[ii] P K Keizer, Church History, Inheritance Publications, Alberta, 2003, p. 190.
[iii] L Heres, “Exegetische Opmerkingen Over Genesis 2 en 3”, Weerklank, Themanummer August 2026, p. 8.
[iv] Rob Visser, “God’s Openbaring Eerst!”, Weerklank, Themanummer August 2026, pp. 20-23
[v] Keizer, op. cit. p. 192.