FAQ - Can a church that teaches CG & the WMO be said to be ‘Reformed’?

Q. 1. “Can a church that teaches that God is gracious to reprobate and elect alike in the preaching of the gospel and that God desires the salvation of all without exception be called ‘Reformed’?”

My answer to this specific question is that such a church, insofar as it is guilty of this false doctrine, in principle denies the very essence of the Reformed theology and the heart of the gospel, which is the truth that salvation is by particular, efficacious grace alone. If a church continues to embrace this ‘leaven,’ the whole lump of this church will eventually be leavened. This is the lesson of church history. Churches that corrupt themselves with the Arminian heresy of universal, resistible grace invariably fall away into unbelieving, theological modernism. Nevertheless … a church is not a false church simply by virtue of tolerating, or even advocating, the well-meant offer.” (David J. Engelsma, “Bound To Join,” p. 33)