We who serve our sovereign Savior in the PCA shall be eternally grateful for our brothers and sisters who serve him in the OPC. Together we belong to the one body of Christ, are filled with the one Spirit of God, and rest in the grace of our one God and Father.

Today, the Presbyterian Church in America’s “older sister”  turns 90 years old.

In June 1936, in response to coercive decisions by a left-drifting mainline denomination, 34 ministers and 17 ruling elders convened in Philadelphia to establish a new Presbyterian denomination, initially concentrated in the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West: the Presbyterian Church of America (note the “of”). Because they were committed to the inerrant Scriptures, the historic Christian faith, and confessional Reformed theology, conscience compelled them to this drastic step. Three years later, the new denomination became the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Thirty-seven years later, in December 1973, 208 ruling elders and 179 teaching elders, sharing the biblical and Reformed convictions of their brothers in the North, convened in Birmingham to withdraw in sorrow from another left-drifting mainline denomination and establish a continuing Presbyterian church, focused initially in the South: the National Presbyterian Church. Within two years, the new church chose a new name, the Presbyterian Church in America (note the “in”).

Obviously, the OPC and the PCA are close siblings, tightly bound together not only by ancestry (ecumenical creeds, Reformation solas, Calvin and Knox) and shared confession (the Westminster Standards), but also by parallel stories of birth, infancy, and growth toward maturity.

Over the last 53 years, the OPC and the PCA have walked hand in hand as sisters, seeking to be faithful to our Bridegroom and King, Jesus Christ. Like any set of siblings, of course, our two communions have not seen eye-to-eye on all issues. Yet by God’s sovereign and patient grace, we enjoy unity in Christ that gives the world glimpses of God’s glorious truth: the Father has sent Christ into the world to save, and the Father loves us even as he loves his Son (John 17:23).

I have preached, pastored, and taught in both the OPC (19 years) and the PCA (34 years). My appreciation for the OPC goes beyond historical significance to personal ways our sister denomination has blessed me.

Meeting the Beauty of Sovereign Grace through the OPC

I “asked Jesus to come into my heart” (as we were accustomed to saying) as a young boy in an evangelical church with roots in Swedish pietism. I entered an evangelical college as a baptistic- and Arminian-leaning Christian, eager to understand more deeply what I believed and why I believed it.

At freshman orientation I met a classmate who would become a friend and roommate. He and his family had come to trust Christ through the witness of a pediatrician, Dr. Joseph Garrisi, who was a ruling elder in an OPC congregation in East Los Angeles (which would call me, years later, as its pastor). Discipled well in that OPC family, my classmate already knew what he believed and why he believed it.

His name was Greg Bahnsen. Greg relentlessly pushed me deeper into God’s Word until I discovered there that God is truly sovereign over his whole creation and graciously sovereign in salvation.

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