A CENTENNIAL

(1882–1948)

Part I

On the sixth of August, 1882, Gerrit Hendrik Kersten was born in the city of Deventer, the Netherlands, as the second child of a cavalry officer and his God-fearing wife. Sixty-six years were accorded to him in this life and, by grace, he used them to the full. Diligently he laboured in the things of God’s Kingdom. His life was spent in God’s service.

It is impossible to relate in a few pages Rev. G.H. Kersten’s life, considering the many and great accomplishments which he might achieve with the help of the Lord. This would require an extensive biography. Rev. M. Golverdingen published a book in Dutch in 1971, entitled: Rev. G.H. Kersten: Facets of his life and work. These essays make worthwhile reading but even this book only describes facets, parts of Rev. Kersten’s life and work; the book does not exhaustively treat the subject.

However, this present year, 1982, marks the centennial of Rev. Kersten’s birth and it is appropriate to touch upon a few parts of this many-sided life, untiring in the battle for the truth.

The early years.

“It has pleased the Lord,” he wrote himself, “to convince me effectually by His Spirit at the age of ten years. Never shall I forget that place which I had to leave as a lost sinner. Many nights I spent in bitter lamentation. A year afterwards I might learn to know the Lord Jesus as the way of salvation, Who assured me a few years later by His Spirit of my interest in Him and in His righteousness.”

When Henri was about eleven years old, he was already called by the Lord to labour in His vineyard with the words of Isaiah 40:1, “Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God.” He experienced much inner strife with regard to this calling but these exercises served to strengthen his conviction that this calling was from God. Eagerly he searched the old writers such as W.A. Brakel, B. Smytegelt, J. Vermeer and others. At the age of sixteen he did confession of faith and partook of the Lord’s Supper.

His formal education, meanwhile, trained him for schoolteacher. For half a year he taught in a Christian school in the Hague but this could not last. During his Bible stories, “Meester” Kersten plainly told his students that they needed to receive a new heart. The school, on the other hand, was Christian Reformed in origin and wanted the teachers to presume that the children had received regeneration, following the views of Dr. A. Kuyper. Kersten’s resignation, accepted and granted honourably, could not worry the young man for he knew that his life’s task lay elsewhere, although he always had the need for Christian education bound upon his heart.

Serving the congregations.

In 1901, at the age of eighteen or nineteen, he exhorted for the first time. It took place in the village of Rijssen. However, he could not complete the service and a certain Rev. P. van der Heiden finished the sermon. Soon afterwards he was asked by Rev. Jacobus Overduin to exhort in Lisse because Rev. Overduin had to go and preach elsewhere. He then received license from his classis to exhort and in 1902 he was installed as teaching elder in the congregation at Meliskerke. In 1905, Kersten was ordained as minister of Word and sacraments.

Rev. Kersten did his great work in the circle of our congregations in the Netherlands. Fervently he worked for the union of the Ledeboerian congregations and the Congregations under the Cross. In 1907 this union was concluded. Church life now became steadier. Regular classical and synodical meetings were held. The congregations — our sister denomination: de Gereformeerde Gemeenten — received rest and peace. Rev. Kersten played a large part in this. The church order was being followed once again.

De Saambinder, our denominational magazine in the Netherlands, was started and Rev. Kersten was one of the original co-editors. He remained in this post till his death. Soon it appeared weekly and Rev. Kersten faithfully helped to fill its columns with clear, instructive material. He never dominated De Saambinder so as to exclude others from writing; always at least three or four helped him in his task. In his writing Rev. Kersten was not only doctrinally sound as became evident in his defense of the truth, but he knew also how to speak practically, that is, he knew how to speak after the heart of Jerusalem.

He battled for the establishing of our own Theological School. Whoever reads the brief, pithy articles he wrote to commend this cause to the people still, after more than fifty years, is moved by Kersten’s ardent love for God and His church. The Theological School did come — and our present day ministers can testify of its blessing for the congregations. To date nearly one hundred ministers were trained at our Theological School in Rotterdam.

In 1910 Rev. Kersten had been commissioned by the General Synod to be one of the instructors of future ministers. It characterized his humility, though, that when the able Rev. W. den Hengst joined our denomination, Rev. Kersten laid down this task to have Rev. den Hengst do it.

When the Theological School opened, a major share of the instruction was entrusted to the gifted Rev. Kersten. He himself had hardly had the benefit of theological training. But God gave him the determination to become so familiar with the works of the fathers — already as a boy — that he knew them inside out. When he was studying the old writers late at night at an early age and he became sleepy, he put his feet in a bucket of cold water and continued his study! Rev. Kersten went through Calvin, Voetius, Owen, Boston, Binning, Watson, the Erskines, vander Kemp, and others. He said of Comrie that he “ground” him just like a mill grinds the grain kernels to get at the fine flour. Such a study is no luxury for a minister, according to Rev. Kersten. On the contrary! “We want to imprint the doctrine of faith into our catechism students. How can that be done if the teacher himself does not know that doctrine of faith? And God does not teach him that immediately (that is, without means); he has to study for that; apparently much more than is realized. Or does the youth come to Catechism class to hear the same thing every week? Is it proper to preach to them rather than to instruct them?…To administer God’s Word is something than to tell a conversion, it requires more than to relate a few life — experiences which this one or that one lived through. So often we make of God’s Word whatever we are of the opinion that we can use. However, then the Word of the Lord does not speak, but the word of a man.” “Never did I have to miss God’s approval, if till two, three o’clock at night, I sought to become acquainted with something of that which is looked at with scorn by many. I tell you the truth, my firm conviction is that whoever wants to live off his calling — just as much as people who rest upon their justification no matter how good that justification is — such people brew more evil than good for God’s Church. God calls us to the official administration, to the preaching of His Word; and thus to serious work.”

(continued)

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