296 Chapter 9 moral law likewise. In Book 2 Chapter 8.2, Calvin (2008) completes the quoted thought: ‘As He (God) can only require what is right, we are necessarily under a natural obligation to obey. Our inability to do so is our own fault’. In Chapter 9.4, he elaborates on the relation between the law and the gospel, stating that ‘the gospel has not succeeded the whole Law in such a sense as to introduce a different method of salvation. It rather confirms the Law, and proves that every thing which it promised is fulfilled’ (Calvin, 2008). This brings Calvin (2008) to directly refer in the same paragraph to Christ and His spiritual Kingdom on Earth: ‘By His advent the Kingdom of heaven was erected on the earth (Matt. 12:28)’. It also brings me to validate God’s moral law as the whole of Biblical teaching aimed at bringing people to Christ to be renewed for the Christian politeuma in a fragmented world. This is, I believe, what Aalders (1977) meant when he warned Christian schools for the dangers of sterile sectarianism, on the one hand, and featureless worldliness, on the other (p. 226; see Section 1 of the introduction). According to Aalders, today’s descendants of the Reformation have ‘not sufficiently recognized’ that ‘the great teachers of the Church, the Church Fathers and Reformers, were not only concerned with faith and salvation, but also with culture; not only with the Gospel, but also with the Law; not only with the Kingdom of God, but also with Creation’ (Aalders, 1977, p. 223) (1). As a result, Christian education in the Netherlands developed too little connecting power and Christianizing effect, and ‘fell short of the high expectations that Groen [van Prinsterer] set in her’ (p. 223). In order for the Christian school to truly be a cultural forum (cultuurgestalte), stated Aalders (1977), ‘chosen and gifted teacher-educators are needed who prepare the teachers pedagogically for their striking ministry and who, taught by Church Fathers and Reformers, dig up the building blocks for it from Scripture and Confession’ (p. 223). So far, Aalders argued, this has been lacking: ‘Where are the teachers of the teachers?’ (p. 223). The hope of this study is that it is not too late for that. 1 Translation of quotations from Aalders (1977) is mine.
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