The Reformed Herald rarely comments on current events, for at least three reasons. The first one is purely logistical. Our workflow and publication schedule mean that any comments on current events, in these days of almost instantaneous reactions, will always be published after the conversation has moved on.
The second reason is practical. My credentials are that I am a minister in the RCUS. That doesn’t give me, or most of our contributors, special insight into what has or hasn’t happened or what the consequences of events will be. We have no investigators or researchers to uncover hidden facts, after all.
The third reason has to do with the emphasis that leads to edification. We all spend a great deal of time in this world thinking about its concerns. It’s hard to find many oases where we can gain eternal perspective on this constantly changing world. That is what the Apostle John was given when he was taken up to heaven (Rev. 4:11) and shown the invisible realities that were behind and gave meaning to his experience of suffering persecution. Hopefully, all our readers have heavenly, eternal realities set before them each Lord’s Day at church. One main way the Reformed Herald can be a blessing is to bring reminders of the kingdom of God into the lives of our readers on other days of the week as well.
With reference to the horrid assassination of Charlie Kirk (1993-2025), however, I am making an exception to the usual practice.
I won’t pretend to have any special knowledge of Mr. Kirk or personal connection with him. His life was so active and so given to communication that I’m sure hundreds of thousands of people could say more about him than I can.
There were a variety of reactions as the news came out. The responses of grief, anger, fear, and even dread all were quite understandable. Responses of glee or celebration bore witness to the tragic acceptance of political tribes as legitimate boundary lines for humanity and compassion. There was also a response of shock, where people could not believe what had happened. And that response may highlight a failure to actually apply what we believe.
Let me be more precise. Sudden assassination, by definition, is surprising, and it’s natural to feel shocked. Political violence is horrifying. Tragedy is, and ought to be, disturbing. But I’m thinking more specifically of people who seemed flabbergasted that something bad like this could happen, or that someone would do such an evil thing. In some cases it seemed like this incident made people question what they believed about the world. That’s the kind of shock I think might stem from misunderstanding.
Because for Christians who understand that we are “prone by nature to hate God and [our] neighbor” (HC Q.5), the wickedness of human beings is sad, but it isnot surprising.
Every believer has some experience of the “plague of his own heart” (1 Kings 8:38). We know how we have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God (HC Q.60), in thought and desire, even when we have been restrained from visible violations (Matt. 5:22, 27). We know that “…out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matt. 15:19).
Remembering that every human being (except our Lord Jesus) is sinful, and realizing what we all carry in our hearts, should give us a stabilizing perspective on even the worst events of our time.
In the first place, we can be thankful for the truth set out by Rev. Pollema in his article on “Gracious Restraint” (pp.22-23 of the current issue), that the Holy Spirit holds back a great deal of wickedness that would otherwise be enacted all around.
In the second place, it drives us to humility. Instead of looking at perpetrators of evil with disgusted superiority, we can have the attitude attributed to English martyr John Bradford: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
In the third place, we rest on God’s unfathomable mercy. Why should he deliver any of us from his holy wrath and the righteous curse? We are freed not just from sin’s consequences, but from sin’s dominion, and ultimately from even its smallest presence. There is no explanation for that to be found in us. The reason is entirely in God. “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph. 2:4-5).
Do you see what Paul says? If you try to explain why God is rich in mercy, you can only point to God himself loving us with great love. If you try to explain why God would love us when we were dead in trespasses, you can only point to his own grace. All the mercy, all the grace, all the love arises from God, and we give him no reason to display that. Indeed, we can go a step further: we give God reasons not to love us, not to be gracious, not to be merciful. And yet he still made us alive together with Christ.
The wickedness of man is deep and terrifying, but it is not powerful enough to prevent God from being gracious according to his own sovereign good pleasure. That truth can comfort and establish our hearts no matter how shocking and disturbing the news may be.
Rev. Ruben Zartman
Editor, Reformed Herald