Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrugge
Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrugge, or Kohlbrügge (August 15, 1803, Amsterdam – March 5, 1875, Elberfeld) was a Dutch (German father) minister and reformed theologian. He was considered by many theologians like Karl Barth as one of the greatest theologians of the 19th century. Life. Early life. Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrugge grew up in Amsterdam. His father was a native German and he and his family attended the Restored Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Netherlands, a secession of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Kohlbrugge's mother belonged originally to the Dutch Reformed Church, the national Reformed Church of the Netherlands (Nederlands Hervormde  Kerk), which was until 1795 protected and supported by the government. Study and conversion. Kohlbrugge excelled at school and was allowed to the study of Arts at the University of Utrecht. Soon after his father died, he fulfilled a promise to his father and committed to studying theology. Kohlbrugge eventually graduated and wrote a dissertation on Psalm 45, calling this Psalm a wedding song for Christ and his people. As a student, he came under the influence of the reigning cultural and theological climate which was mainly liberal. He had the “pleasure to undermine the holiest truths of Christian religion  and to mock with conversion and living faith.” But: Later he wrote about his conversion: Kohlbrugge and the church. At the time he was allowed to preach in church, he stumbled upon a great difference between the sermons of his colleague preachers and the Reformed tradition. This caused him to make a protest, eventually leading to the Lutheran church dispelling Kohlbrugge. Afterwards Kohlbrugge tried to enroll in the Dutch Reformed Church. He was refused admission to that church, because the Synod feared he would raise protests there as well. After these conflicts with two denominations and the early loss of  his wife, Kohlbrugge moved to Germany and was permitted to preach there in 1833. After permission to the German church was refused him as well, he returned to Holland where he lived without being a member of any denomination; but he wrote books and had church services of his own in his house. In 1847, Kohlbrugge received a "religious patent" from the Prussian monarch to form a new denomination consisting of a single congregation, the "Niederländisch-Refomirte Gemeine" (Dutch Reformed Church) in Elberfeld; he lived there with his second wife and his children until his death in 1875. In 1857 , the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church decided to allow foreign pastors to preach in domestic churches at the invitation of local congregations. The synodical decision allowed Kohlbrugge legally to preach again in the Netherlands. Later life. In 1871 Kohlbrugge was invited by Abraham Kuyper, by then still a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, to preach in the Zuiderkerk (South Church) in Amsterdam. For Kohlbrugge this felt as a rehabilitation. Although only a few hundred visitors were expected more than 3000 people came to the church to listen to him. Kohlbrugge died in 1875 in Eberfeld. One of the  sayings of Kohlbrugge recorded on his deathbed was, “My dear children, hold fast to the simple Heidelberg Catechism.” Theology. The discovery of the comma. In 1833, during the preparation of one of his sermons in Elberfeld, Germany, Kohlbrugge stumbled upon Romans 7:14 where Paul states: "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin". Suddenly the second comma struck him: Until then Kohlbrugge had thought that a believer is sold under sin insofar as he is still carnal. Now he realised that Paul wrote that he, a converted apostle, remains carnal, sold under the  sin. For Kohlbrugge this insight was a second conversion. In the sermon (which became known as the 'comma-sermon') he said: The result of all human efforts is, according to Kohlbrugge, unbelief: This view became a guiding principle for Kohlbrugge's theology. Kohlbrugge and the sanctification of the sinner. Like Luther and Calvin Kohlbrugge preached the total depravity of human nature. Even our most holy works and our deepest piety are stained with sin and self-righteousness. One of the most essential parts of sanctification is the admission of our inability. In Kohlbrugge's theology the sanctification of the sinner  almost disappears in the justification: sanctification becomes in the first place an acknowledgement that we are sinners and that we need Christ. This theology, he claimed, is exactly what Paul, Luther, and Calvin preached and what can be found in his beloved Heidelberg Catechismus. A commentator wrote: Kohlbrugge's theology was strictly Christocentric. He opposed a number of important theological positions in his time. The first of these is the quest for a kind of synthesis between culture and gospel (Vermittlung). The second was the concern of the Dutch pietists and puritans for the conversion history of the believers, on  the basis of which the authenticity and status of the faith were determined. According to Kohlbrugge, in both positions one is focused on the (goodness of) man, instead of on (the goodness of) Christ. In man there is no natural goodness, he depends on Christ alone. Reception. Nineteenth century. During his life Kohlbrugge was a source of misunderstanding and controversy. He sometimes preached this gospel so radically that a lot of his fellow theologians and ministers strongly objected to him, accusing him of either ignoring the scientific and moral gains of the Enlightenment, or ignoring and refusing God's law  and the sanctification of the believer. The German theologian Albrecht Ritschl didn't want to spend more time to "the strange thoughts of this man". Kohlbrugge's friend the poet and historian Isaäc da Costa, one of the central figures of the Dutch Réveil, accused him unjustly in an open letter of antinomianism and "of being in conflict with the teaching of the Heidelberg Catechism, which speaks of the necessary knowledge of three parts: our misery, deliverance, and gratitude. In his view, Kohlbrugge did not teach the necessity of the third part, the life of gratitude." The Dutch theologian and  minister S. Gerssen wrote: Twentieth century and later. The true rehabilitation of Kohlbrugge's thought came in the twentieth century. In the "Theology of the Nineteenth Century", Karl Barth argued that, while Kolhbrugge remained relatively unknown, he was in reality the only nineteenth century theologian whose "greatness" merited comparison to the protestant reformers: "More forcefully than anyone before and after him in the nineteenth century, Kohlbrugge brought reformed theology back onto the scene, thus reminding protestantism of its origin, of its essence." The great Dutch theologian Oepke Noordmans wrote that Kohlbrugge deserved "without any doubt a place among the classics  of the Church" and that he "found accents that can compete with and sometimes surpass Luther's mighty talent". Kornelis Heiko Miskotte wrote that Kohlbrugge "more than Kierkegaard and Kutter has that curious tone of paradoxical certainty, which feels so beneficial to us in Luther." The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred positively in his "Nachfolge" (1937) to Kohlbrugge. Cornelis Graafland wrote that for many Kohlbrugge "meant a discovery and liberation" and a "second coversion." For the theologian Pieter de Vries "Kohlbrugge became in his teaching, a real comforter to mourners, an encourager of those who struggled with their own sinfulness  and weakness." Kohlbrugge's sermons and writings are a breath of fresh air, a refreshment, an oasis. Other theologians have also stressed that Kohlbrugge was a liberation for many believers: "We have met many people, sometimes also young people, who have personally experienced this. Who were led by Kohlbrugge from the service houses in which they sometimes sighed for years." Nowadays Kohlbrugge's sermons are widely read and admired by a wide range of protestants: by puritans and pietists, but also by modern Barthian theologians. Writings. Kohlbrugge wrote no large dogmatic or exegetical works. His theology is to be found  in his sermons (leerredenen).