Castle Church Discussion on Federal Vision Proponents Publish Statement of Views

The Federal Vision on Law and Gospel

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 03:12:47 GMT

On "Law and Gospel," the recently-issued Joint Statementof the Federal Vision reads, in part:

"When [those in rebellion against God] have been brought to the point of repentance by the Holy Spirit, we affirm that the gracious nature of all God’s words becomes evident to them."

"All of God's words" are not gracious. The gospel is gracious, the law, on the other hand, is legal. That's why it's called law, and that's why our theologians distinguish between law and gospel as God's "two words" to man.

"At the same time, we affirm that it is appropriate to speak of law and gospel as having a redemptive and historical thrust, with the time of the law being the old covenant era and the time of the gospel being the time when we enter our maturity as God’s people."

This is true, on the broad level. "Law" is often used to denote the Mosaic economy, and "gospel" the New Covenant epoch. But what I've yet to see a Federal Visionist appreciate is the distinction in our tradition between law narrowly considered and law broadly considered. Though the gospel was operative during the time of the law, Paul extrapolates from Moses a narrow principle, "do this and live," that is antithetical to the gospel when considered as the means through which the eternal inheritance is secured.

"We deny that law and gospel should be considered as a hermeneutics, or treated as such."

If our friends are saying what I think they're saying (that we oughtn't force every passage into one of these two categories), then I add a hearty "Amen."

"We believe that any passage, whether indicative or imperative, can be heard by the faithful as good news, and that any passage, whether containing gospel promises or not, will be heard by the rebellious as intolerable demand. The fundamental division is not in the text, but rather in the human heart."

This I have difficulties with. Our brothers seem to be denying that there is any objective force to God's speech, but that all divine utterance is contingent upon the listener's response. But the mixed nature of God's audience notwithstanding, law is still law and gospel is still gospel. So when God offers his heavenly reward upon condition of personal obedience, that is not gospel. Likewise, when God freely offers life and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, that is not law.

So this portion of the Joint Statement, though it has its good points, ultimately fails to reflect what I see as the historic Reformed consensus.

Law and Gospel

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:09:46 GMT

The next section deals with the categories of law and gospel. Again, there are some good things and some not so good things.

The good things: they are willing to affirm that the law and the gospel are applications of the Word to individual people. I especially appreciate the “law as adversary, gospel as deliverance” language used. The redemptive-historical thrust of saying that the “law” was the way the OT covenant of grace was administered and the “gospel” is the way the NT covenant of grace was administered is also helpful.

The question in my mind is this: does the law still function in its first use for the Christian? There is no room in this statement for saying that. The idea here seems to be that if one is a believer, then the law is not your enemy. Period. Of course, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That is admitted by all. But does the law continue to function in its first use (to condemn our sin and point us to Christ)? I would have to conclude that these authors would say “no” to that question. The only use of the law that is still applicatory is the third use of the law.

Second point: have they stripped the gospel of its “good-news-ness” by saying that for the nonbeliever the Gospel has the aroma of death? I would still say that the Gospel is good news even for those who are perishing. We are all perishing. From God’s viewpoint, of course, humans will garner more punishment for themselves by rejecting the good news of the Gospel. However, that still does not solve this point: is the Gospel good news even for the nonbeliever? This is ironic, in some ways, since the FV is concerned with what the NECM (non-elect covenant member) receives, and yet here they deny that good things go to nonbelievers from the Gospel. Are there not common grace implications that the Gospel has? Will not the conversion of the elect prove beneficial to the non-elect? I do not think that unbelievers hear the Gospel as intolerable demand, at least not all of them.

Third point: I have heard and read FV arguments about the hermeneutic of law/gospel, and I am simply not convinced. I do believe that John 3:16 is Gospel, and that Exodus 20 is law. Exodus 20 implies all three uses of the law. The fifth commandment has a promise attached to it. So what? Do this and live also has a promise attached to it. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t law. The promise is achieved by obedience to the law. This is standard first-use of the law terminology. It is not Gospel. The obedience is done by Jesus, and we are the beneficiaries. This is very, very standard Reformed interpretation of the Bible.

Bryan Chapell on the NPP (and FV)

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:45:28 GMT

New at The Resurgence.

Chapell is president of Covenant Theological Seminary, the denominational seminary of the PCA (whose General Assembly this summer rejected the distinctive views of both the New Perspective and Federal Vision movements).

The Federal Vision and Union and Imputation

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 04:05:14 GMT

The Statement of the Federal Visionists says concerning "Union With Christ and Imputation":

"We affirm not only that Christ is our full obedience, but also that through our union with Him we partake of the benefits of His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement at the right hand of God the Father. We deny that faithfulness to the gospel message requires any particular doctrinal formulation of the 'imputation of the active obedience of Christ.' What matters is that we confess that our salvation is all of Christ, and not from us."

A few thoughts:

This paragraph (not quoted in full here) is not too bad, as far as it goes. But I do think that "what matters" is more than "confessing that our salvation is all of Christ, and not from us" (a confession any Mormon would happily, albeit erroneously, make).

But I am curious as to what our FV friends fear about the language of active obedience. Does not the Westminster Confession repeatedly speak of "the full obedience and satisfaction of Christ" being imputed to us by faith (and not, by the way, "through our union with him")?

Does not the Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 60 teach us that "God... grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I... had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart"?

(Please note that the righteousness of Christ is something granted, not just reckoned, to us.)

And finally, if the union according to which the Joint Statament says we receive the blessings listed is not the "real and inseparable" union of the Westminster Standards (you know, the one that is a "special benefit" for "true believers" who are "elect members of the invisible church"), but is rather a covenantal union that may turn out to be temporary and fleeting, then what is true of the union becomes true of the assurance we are supposed to derive from it:

It becomes just as temporary, and just as fleeting.

The FV Statement (8): The Decree

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:59:51 GMT

Lane at Green Baggins has done a good job on this.

I'm working through Calvin's commentary on Romans 9. So it's interesting to contrast Calvin's approach to covenant and election (the very themes with which he worked) with the approach taken by the FV Statement.

The first part of the FV Statement on the Decree seems fine, except as Bob Mattes points out, the last sentence in which they speak of those "covenant members who are not elect in the decretal sense."

I'm sorry but there's no such thing as a non-decretal election! This is the nonsense that drives confessional critics of the FV crazy. Here they had an opportunity to acknowledge that, in their zeal to react to pietism and an overly introspective theology and piety, they over-reacted themselves by objectifying the covenant of grace to an extreme degree and by errantly re-defining election and speaking about it in a way that neither Scripture nor the confessions nor Reformed theology does or has done.

Instead they repeat the error.

It was against this very error that the United Reformed Churches spoke with one voice when they rejected the error of those:

who teach that a person can be historically, conditionally elect, regenerated, savingly united to Christ, justified, and adopted by virtue of participation in the outward administration of the covenant of grace but may lose these benefits through lack of covenantal faithfulness (CD, I, V);

So, if there was any hope for progress in this statement or in the movement toward orthodoxy, this sentence scuttled it. They were doing really well until this sentence. Then, of course, they compound the problem in the next paragraph.

We deny that the unchangeable nature of these decrees prevents us from using the same language in covenantal ways as we describe our salvation from within that covenant. We further deny this covenantal usage is “pretend” language, even where the language and terminology sometimes overlaps with the language of the decrees. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children, that we may keep the words of this law. We affirm the reality of the decrees, but deny that the decrees “trump” the covenant. We do not set them against each other, but expect them to harmonize perfectly as God works out all things in accordance with His will.

As the FV boys have done from the beginning of this mess, what they give with one hand, they take away with the other. They give us an orthodox account of election and then say, "But when it comes to covenant, we can say anything we want." Essentially they're carving out space here to be confusing and to contradict the doctrine of the decree or to refuse to relate the doctrine of the decree to their covenant theology.

As I've argued before, (and here) this tension just isn't necessary. In fact there is a second error to avoid: playing "Guess the Elect." On the one hand, we don't have to do covenant theology as if there was no such thing as a decree and on the other we don't have speak about the covenant of grace as if only the elect had any relation to the covenant of grace.

The mainstream of Reformed covenant theology has dealt with this issue by saying that there are two ways of relating to the one covenant of grace. All baptized members are really in the covenant of grace and are to be regarded as such. That doesn't mean that everyone who is in the covenant of grace is in the covenant of grace in the same way. Herman Witsius spoke of a "double mode of communion in the covenant of grace." Most of our theologians have distinguished between those who have only an external relation to the covenant of grace recognized in baptism and those who an external and an internal relation to the covenant of grace by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Of course the secret things belong to the Lord (Deut 29:29) and yes, Paul does address whole congregations as "saints," or at least he doesn't always (as Calvin recognized) make explicit the the distinction that he established in Rom 2 between those who are members of the covenant of grace outwardly only and those who are members of the covenant of grace also inwardly. That doesn't mean that he didn't make the distinction or that he contradicted himself or that he didn't make the distinction.

Calvin's handling of this question is quite superior to the proposal of the FV. He affirmed BOTH the reality of the administration but he also affirmed the reality of the decree and he recognized that Paul had no difficulty using the decree to explain, after the fact, the administration of the covenant of grace.

Calvin did not speak of everyone in the covenant of grace being conditionally, historically, temporarily elect, united to Christ, justified, adopted etc by baptism because Paul did not speak that way. The fact is Esau was never any of these things. He had only common operations of the Spirit. Does anyone know that at the time? No. So what? Of course we treat the Esaus of the world with grace and regard them with the judgment of charity and accept their profession of faith but we don't say that they were conditionally elect! We don't say "Well, they were justified, but they fell away."

If the decree cannot wipe out the administration of the covenant of grace, neither can the administration the covenant of grace swallow up the decree.

These things are not in dialectical tension. They harmonize perfectly. Our vocation in this world is to tell the truth, in love, to everyone. We call everyone in the covenant of grace to make sure that they have received the benefits of Christ by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. We preach Christ and leave the results to the Sprit of God who uses the preaching of the gospel to bring his elect to faith. We use the holy sacraments for the edification of the church.

Justification and Covenant

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 17:14:56 GMT

The next section is rather oddly titled “Reformed Catholicity.” The section is about justification. Why didn’t they just say that, I wonder? The section itself is not too objectionable. However, it is not specific enough to guard against certain errors. For instance, how are they defining “works of the law?” This is a huge debate today in NT circles, and it would be nice for them to give us a definition. The Reformed position is that all works, good or bad, moral law or ceremonial law or civil law, are excluded from having any place in justification.

The denial section is very curious to me. Are they saying that it is not necessary to have a correct understanding of justification? The charitable read of this would be to say that they are saying that a correct understanding of justification is necessary but not sufficient for true faith. I would certainly agree with that. I agree that merely stating the doctrine correctly does not a Christian make. One can state it correctly, but be a demon. But who or what is the target of this denial? Or is there a target?

The next section is on the covenant of life. It is quite revealing that they are not willing to call it a covenant of works as the confession does. There are several problems with this section.

The first problem is that Adam didn’t have faith. He could see God. Faith is by definition (Hebrews 11:1) in something unseen. But the clear indication is that God talked directly with Adam face to face. Adam could hear the sound of God walking in the Garden. Adam was not justified by faith. And he certainly would not have received the eschatological body (1 Corinthians 15) by faith alone. He would have received it upon condition of perfect and personal obedience, as the confession says. This statement of the FV is obviously out of accord with WCF 7. It is also out of accord with how the Westminster divines interpreted the law (see LC 99). First point: the Westminster divines clearly saw the moral law as having been given to Adam (WCF 19.1-2). Second point: the Westminster divines clearly saw that the interpretation of the command of Genesis 1:28, the implied command of 2:15 (God would not have put the man there for a specific purpose without telling the man what that purpose was), and the explicit command of 2:16 are all subject to the same interpretive principles that the Ten Commandments have. Third point: if the moral law was given to Adam, then the eschatological body would have been to Adam upon condition of his obeying the moral law perfectly. These two statements are identical: “upon condition of perfect and personal obedience,” and “payment for service rendered.” This is pactum merit, not any kind of absolute merit or condign merit. Jason Stellman makes a great point about WCF 11’s phrase “exact justice” with regard to the typological connection to Christ’s person and work. Adam’s work was not exact justice, but Christ’s was. This statement of the FV is therefore completely contrary to the WCF:

the gift or continued possession of that gift was not offered by God to Adam conditioned upon Adam’s moral exertions or achievements.

This is an explicit denial of WCF 7.2, which says “life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.” This is a denial of the Covenant of Works.

We shall now speak of Adam as being in covenant with God–the covenant of works. Acquaintance with this covenant is of the greatest importance, for whoever errs here or denies the existence of the covenant of works, will not understand the covenant of grace, and will readily err concerning the mediatorship of the Lord Jesus. Such a person will very readily deny that Christ by His active obedience has merited a right to eternal life for the elect. This is to be observed with several parties who, becasue they err concerning the covenant of grace, also deny the covenant of works. Conversely, whoever denies the covenant of works must rightly be suspected to be in error concerning the covenant of grace. A’Brakel on the Covenant of Works

A Black Cat in the Eyes

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 06:05:07 GMT

Wilson has responded to my post here. Of course, there are plenty of people on his blog who do not interact in a polite fashion, but will punch the cat in the eyes. But, like he says, you can’t have everything.

First, he says that I am continuing to be plagued by misunderstanding. This is not a felicitous way of expressing what he is getting at. When I counsel young people who are about to get married, I make sure I tell them about how to reconcile. To avoid utterly words like “you always” and “you never” is a good thing. The minute you say “you always,” (unless it is a good thing that they are doing!) you are putting the other person on the defensive. Plus, the generalization is usually false, and so the focus of discussion becomes all about debating the generalization, and nothing about the actual incident that needs reconciliation. Wilson has before said how fair and accurate I have been able to be about his position. So a comment about this particular incident should not include a generalization that he elsewhere has explicitly denied. I am not continually plagued by misunderstanding. I may have misunderstood in this one place (I don’t believe I have). That is what he could have said. I want us to compare two statements. The first is Wilson:

We affirm the reality of the decrees as decrees. The “reality of the decrees” means that we hold them to be immutable, untouchable, settled, predestined, foreordained, unthwartable, eternal, infinite, and unchangeable.

When we say that the reality of the decrees should not be allowed to trump the covenant, we are saying that it is right and appropriate and proper and good for a minister to warn a congregation against falling from grace, or trampling underfoot the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, or failing to bear fruit as a branch in the vine. We are talking about how we function, how we warn, how we admonish. The covenant is given to us. The decrees are made concerning us. It is not our job to parse the decrees. It is our job to live in terms of the covenant. We affirm that the decrees are there. We deny that we should preach or admonish someone in particular based on a presumed knowledge of the content of the decrees with regard to that person. This is a distinction that the Bible gives us expressly.

“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Dt. 29:29).It is revealed to us that Christians can fall away from the covenant. It is not revealed to us who was predestined to do so, and who was predestined to remain — although everyone in the covenant is in one or the other category. The latter is therefore not to be the basis of our pastoral warnings. The former is.

The second is the FV document:

We deny that the unchangeable nature of these decrees prevents us from using the same language in covenantal ways as we describe our salvation from within that covenant. We further deny this covenantal usage is “pretend” language, even where the language and terminology sometimes overlaps with the language of the decrees. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children, that we may keep the words of this law. We affirm the reality of the decrees, but deny that the decrees “trump” the covenant. We do not set them against each other, but expect them to harmonize perfectly as God works out all things in accordance with His will.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I am having a hard time getting what Wilson said out of the FV document, except for the Deuteronomy quotation. How is denying that the decrees trump the covenant equal to saying that we should warn the people? I say let’s warn the people but say that the decrees trump everything. What God has sovereignly decreed to come to pass cannot happen otherwise. Why does warning the people somehow call that into question? Why do we have to say that the decrees do not trump the covenant? If I say that the warnings are there in Scripture precisely so that the elect will never fall away (the elect always heed the warnings, and so never fall away), have I not explained their presence in Scripture while still holding fast to the complete sovereignty of God’s decree? This explanation has the added benefit of giving the warnings their full power. Warnings are not in Scripture either to make us doubt our salvation, or to imply that the elect can fall from salvation, although they certainly give no comfort to the hypocrite. They are rather like the signs that say “trespassers will be prosecuted.” The sign is put there precisely so that there will be no trespassers, not because the owner of the place wants nothing else to do with his time than actually to prosecute trespassers. I don’t see how he gets to the trumping statement via the warning. The one does not follow from the other. I sometimes wonder if the FV thinks they are the only people to take the warnings in Scripture seriously.

It may not be our job to parse the decrees with regard to other people. But the Bible itself tells us to make our calling (effectual calling!!!) and election (eternal election) sure. Surely this is a call for us to have assurance. We can know that we are elected decretally. We just cannot know if someone else is elected decretally.

One word for Tim Prussic. I have dealt in my own way with the Hebrews 10 passage here. And, there is a further, different interpretation of that passage that Fowler White has put forth in the Auburn Avenue Pros and Cons book, pp. 210-211. I believe that either one of these interpretations will quite adequately answer his queries.

Grudem's Change of Mind regarding Differences on Baptism within a Local Church

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:11:19 GMT

While at a Christian bookstore today I noticed that Zondervan has retypeset Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, using the Minion font and a wider trim size. The result is quite attractive, with bigger margins for note-taking. (If you don't own the book, I'd highly recommend purchasing it right away. It's excellent.)

By and large the text (and pagination) are unchanged. But readers may be interested to know that Grudem completely rewrote section F1 (pp. 982-983) in the baptism chapter (ch. 49). Grudem previously argued for "allowing both views of baptism [i.e., paedobaptism and credobaptism] to be taught and practiced in denominations on both sides of the question." Grudem has since changed his mind. Here's the rewritten section:

Do Churches Need to Be Divided Over Baptism? In spite of many years of division over this question among Protestants, is there a way in which Christians who differ on baptism can demonstrate greater unity of fellowship? And is there a way that progress can be made in bringing the church closer to unity on this question?

Much progress in this regard has already been made. Christians who differ over baptism already demonstrate their unity in Christ through individual fellowship, Bible studies and prayer groups in their communities, occasional joint worship services, cooperation in city and regional evangelistic campaigns, joint support of many mission agencies and other parachurch groups, joint sponsorship of youth activities, pastors’ fellowship groups, and so forth. Although baptism remains a difference, that difference does not generally lead to harmful divisions. In fact, most Christians seem to realize that baptism is not a major doctrine of the faith.

A very few denominations have decided that they would allow both views of baptism to be taught and practiced within their denominations. The Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) does this, for example, as a result of a “compromise” reached in 1950 when the denomination was formed from two different groups that had different views on baptism. The EFCA allows ordination for pastors who hold to believer’s baptism and for pastors who hold to infant baptism. And they allow into membership those who had been baptized as infants in a Christian church, without requiring them to be baptized as believers before joining the church. If some parents want to have their infant child baptized and the local pastor does not hold to infant baptism, the local church invites some other Evangelical Free Church pastor who holds to infant baptism to come and baptize the infant.

Although the Evangelical Free Church continues as a strong, healthy denomination today, there still remain some difficulties inherent in this position. One is that there can be a tendency to minimize the importance of baptism: since members disagree on this topic, it is easier not to talk about it much or emphasize its importance.

But the most serious difficulty arises when people begin to think about what such a “compromise position” implies about the views of baptism held by the people who go along with this compromise. For people who hold to infant baptism, they have to be able to say that it is acceptable for believing parents not to baptize their infant children. But according to a paedobaptist view, this seems close to saying that is acceptable for these parents to disobey a command of Scripture regarding the responsibility of parents to baptize their children. How can they really say this?

On the other side, those who hold to believer’s baptism (as I do) would have to be willing to admit into church membership people who have been baptized as infants, and who did not make a personal profession of faith at the time they were baptized. But from a believer’s baptism position, genuine baptism has to follow a personal profession of faith. So how can believer’s baptism advocates in good conscience say that infant baptism is also a valid form of baptism? That contradicts what they believe about the essential nature of baptism – that it is an outward sign of an inward spiritual change, so that the apostle Paul could say, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27).

For someone who holds to believer’s baptism, admitting to church membership someone who has not been baptized upon profession of faith, and telling the person that he or she never has to be baptized as a believer, is really giving up one’s view on the proper nature of baptism. It is saying that infant baptism really is valid baptism! But then how could anyone who holds to this position tell anyone who had been baptized as an infant that he or she still needed to be baptized as a believer? This difficulty makes me think that some kind of “compromise” position on baptism is not very likely to be adopted by denominational groups in the future.

However, we should still be thankful that believers who differ on the issue of baptism can have wonderful fellowship with one another across denominational lines, and can have respect for each other’s sincerely held views.

Notes

1. I realize that some readers will object to this sentence and will say that baptism is very important because of what the differing positions represent: differing views of the nature of the church. Many Baptists would argue that practicing infant baptism is inherently inconsistent with the idea of a church made up of believers only, and many paedobaptists would argue that not practicing infant baptism is inherently inconsistent with the idea of a covenant community which includes the children of believers.

I would encourage those who reason this way to consider how much they hold in common with evangelical believers on the other side of this issue -- not necessarily with those far from them on other matters as well, but especially with those on the other side who agree with them on most other aspects of the Christian life. Many Baptists do encourage and demonstrate a valued place for their children within their churches, and many paedobaptists do pray for the

salvation of their baptized children with the same fervency with which Baptist parents pray for the salvation of their unbaptized children. Regarding church membership, evangelical paedobaptists do require a believable profession of faith before children can become full members of the church (their term is "communicant members"; that is, those who take Communion). They also require a believable profession of faith before any adults are allowed to join the church.

When these procedures are functioning well, both Baptists and paedobaptists use very similar procedures as they seek to have a church membership consisting of believers only, and both love and teach and pray for their children as most precious members of the larger church family who they hope will someday become true members of the body of Christ.

2. I did not realize this difficulty when I first published this book in 1994. I have revised this entire section for the 2007 printing.

A Passing Cat by the Ears [Topic: Auburn Avenue Stuff]

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:06:48 GMT

It would be nice if we could work through the questions surrounding the FV without all the heat and acrimony that some are generating. But it is kind of like discipling kids. Paul says (Gal. 6:1) that if anyone is overtaken in a trespass, the one who is spiritual should correct him, considering his own situation, lest he also be tempted. But when a father is spiritual, and qualified to correct his child for chewing with his mouth open, he is often unmotivated. And when he is motivated, it is usually because he is annoyed, and therefore not qualified to say anything.

Those who could have very helpful things to say to us are generally not motivated to do so, and are off minding their own ministries. They have better things to do than take a passing cat by the ears. And those who are motivated to say something about the FV are frequently doing so in what might be called a hot and bothered fashion.

I continue to interact with Greenbaggins for two reasons. I believe that he really is giving an honest and conscientious effort to civil and honest interaction. This cannot be said about everyone who comments on his blog, but you can't have everything. Secondly, a number of the national leaders of the FV critics have commented there, and I am sure that more are reading his blog. This has become the place where we can, at least indirectly, talk,

That said, Lane continues to be plagued by misunderstanding. For example, he quotes the FV statement, "We affirm the reality of the decrees, but deny that the decrees 'trump' the covenant," and then objects to it this way:

"Well, this is clear as mud. The decree of God can be thwarted by the covenant? Is that what they mean? The decree must somehow be mutable and immutable at the same time? The decree of God is unchangeable, eternal, and infinite. Is not the covenant part of God's decree? So they set the covenant against the decree and immediately claim that they have not done so. This is disingenuous at best."

We affirm the reality of the decrees as decrees. The "reality of the decrees" means that we hold them to be immutable, untouchable, settled, predestined, foreordained, unthwartable, eternal, infinite, and unchangeable.

When we say that the reality of the decrees should not be allowed to trump the covenant, we are saying that it is right and appropriate and proper and good for a minister to warn a congregation against falling from grace, or trampling underfoot the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, or failing to bear fruit as a branch in the vine. We are talking about how we function, how we warn, how we admonish. The covenant is given to us. The decrees are made concerning us. It is not our job to parse the decrees. It is our job to live in terms of the covenant. We affirm that the decrees are there. We deny that we should preach or admonish someone in particular based on a presumed knowledge of the content of the decrees with regard to that person. This is a distinction that the Bible gives us expressly.

"The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Dt. 29:29).

It is revealed to us that Christians can fall away from the covenant. It is not revealed to us who was predestined to do so, and who was predestined to remain -- although everyone in the covenant is in one or the other category. The latter is therefore not to be the basis of our pastoral warnings. The former is.

The Church

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:53:13 GMT

The FV’s doctrine of church is next set out. I will consider both paragraphs concerning the church proper. There is certainly less objectionable material here than in the previous paragraphs. One is primarily concerned with what is left out, rather than with what is there (although I still have some questions).

Positively, it is good to see the FV’ers affirm the visible/invisible church distinction, at least in name. However, given some FV’ers discomfort with the doctrine, it would have been nice had they been willing to admit that, in terms of the invisible church, non-elect members of the visible church are not members of the church at all. They are in the church (visibly) but not of the church (invisibly). I see more stress on the reality of the visible church, and such a desire to avoid a supposedly Platonic “the true church is the invisible church,” that the invisible aspect seems a bit downplayed. Of course, the visible church is the true church, provided the marks of the church are present. Word, Sacrament, and discipline (yes, I realize that discipline is a disputed mark) have to be there in at least relative purity for there to be a true visible church. This qualification is missing from the FV document. Of course, it is impossible to say everything. But is the Roman Catholic Church a true visible church? Of course, this is debated, especially with regard to the validity of their baptisms (I hold that it is a valid baptism if the formula is correct). But will any FV’er come right out and say that the Roman Catholic Church preaches the Word truly and administers the Sacraments purely? This is, of course, a separate question from whether or not there are true believers in the Roman Catholic Church. I would appreciated even a brief statement on the marks of the church. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the FV document that would guard against saying that there is really nothing wrong with the Roman Catholic church. The Reformers were a bit concerned about this aspect of the definition of the church.

I would hope that no one would deny the historical/eschatological description of the church as being helpful. Of course, it is not the same distinction as visible/invisible. The former is a chronological distinction, whereas the latter is not. They seem to acknowledge that, but only somewhat. They use the terms “generally corresponds to.” The problem is that it really doesn’t correspond. The eschatological church will be the most visible church there ever has been. Furthermore, there are plenty of Christians who are not part of the visible church, but are yet part of the invisible church. Quite simply, the v/i distinction is a synchronic distinction, whereas the h/e distinction is diachronic.

Decrees and Covenant

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:47:11 GMT

The next paragraph of the FV document has to do with the intersection of the decree and the covenant. I must confess also to being disappointed by this paragraph, as with the previous paragraph. Nothing is clarified in this paragraph, and the errors are perpetuated.

In the first paragraph of this section, I agree with everything up until the last sentence, which reads: “Those covenant members who are not elect in the decretal sense enjoy the common operations of the Spirit in varying degrees, but not in the same way that those who are elect do.” Again, the first part of the sentence is fine. But when they seek to distinguish between the benefits the elect have and the non-elect have, they fudge. Anyone who cannot say that the difference between the elect and the non-elect is the difference between having the ordo salutis and not having any of the ordo salutis is not confessional. This is crystal clear from WCF 3.6, and WCF 10.4. Look especially at the latter. Here it is in full:

Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved: much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the law of that religion they do profess. And, to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested.

Note here that the people under discussion are those who have received the common operations of the Spirit. In other words, they are members of the visible church. Right up to the colon are such people talked about. After the colon we are clearly talking about pagans (”not professing the Christian religion”). If there are two things we can say about the former category of people, it is that they NEVER TRULY come unto Christ, and that they CANNOT be saved. Both of these things the FV’ers have been willing in the past to deny about non-elect members of the visible church. They harp on the fact that covenantal union is true union. The Confession here clearly states that there is no such true union with Christ for the non-elect. Secondly, the FV has been willing to say that the non-elect in some sense are saved. The Confession states that they cannot be saved. No doubt the FV will repeat its tired and easily combustible defense that their definition of “truly” and “saved” is not the same definition as the Confession’s. That’s quite a bit like Clinton saying “That depends on what you mean by the word ‘is’.” Is it true union or not? Is it salvation or not? Saying that there is a difference between elect and non-elect solves exactly nothing of the problem. Saying that there is a semantic range of meaning in the Bible doesn’t solve the problem. The semantic range of terms is not the issue here. The issue is the formulation, the FV formulation.

We affirm the reality of the decrees, but deny that the decrees “trump” the covenant.

Well, this is clear as mud. The decree of God can be thwarted by the covenant? Is that what they mean? The decree must somehow be mutable and immutable at the same time? The decree of God is unchangeable, eternal, and infinite. Is not the covenant part of God’s decree? So they set the covenant against the decree and immediately claim that they have not done so. This is disingenuous at best.

The FV Statement (7): Creeds and Confessions

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:05:15 GMT

They say:

We affirm that all who subscribe to creeds and confessions should do so with a clean conscience and honest interpretation, in accordance with the plain meaning of words and the original intent of the authors, as can best be determined.

This is tricky business here. Yes, original intent is very important but in the history of the FV movement they've shown little appreciation for the original intent of the Reformed confessions. Further, there is a second element to interpreting and subscribing creeds and confessions in the Reformed Churches: animus imponentis, i.e., the intent of the adopting body. Creeds and confessions entail two horizons: authorial intent and the intent of the body receiving them. For example, just as soon as the Church of Scotland adopted the Westminster Confession they did so with the provision that they understood the WCF to teach Presbyterian church polity (government). Why? Becuse the WCF doesn't explicitly teach Presbyterian church government because several of the theologians and pastors who wrote the WCF weren't Presbyterian. Some were independent and others were Anglican.

The American Presbyterians made some revisions to the WCF when they adopted it in the 18th century so as to make it compatible with the American colonial (and post-colonial) context.

Over the years, churches (denominations and federations of churches) develop a way of reading and applying the Standards. These applications become part of the fabric of the church. So it is not up to a group of individuals who band together under a banner such as "Federal Vision" to tell us what they think the standards mean. That is the business of the churches.

To be sure, as a matter of history, churches must reckon honestly with the original setting of the documents when they interpret them and if they come to disagree with the original intent, then churches should make that plain. Here is where the mainline Presbyterians went wrong in 1967. They refused to make a full disclosure that, "Hey, we just don't believe that old stuff any more." There was an implicit admission but that was all. There are still mainline Presbyterians who are shocked to find out that no one in the PCUSA is actually obligated to the Westminster Confession anymore! In '67 they theorized that the WCF might be shown to be right and thus supersede the Confession of '67 but I don't think that "new light" has yet broken out among the mainliners!

We deny that confessional commitments in any way require us to avoid using the categories and terms of Scripture, even when the confessional use of such words is necessarily more narrow and circumscribed. We deny that creedal or systematic understandings of scriptural truth can ever be given a place of parity with Scripture, or primacy over Scripture. In line with this, we continue to honor and hold to the creeds of the ancient Church and the confessions of the reformational Church.

Here we see what is really afoot. They set Scripture against the confessions. Of course, this is exactly what the preface to the confession of '67 did. This is what the revisionists always do and it's what I've been warning you about for all these years (since about 1998 when John Armstrong wrote me to say that he understood my concern about the shift in his theology but he is a "Biblical evangelical" and he said "You're a confessional evangelical." Oh my. Well it's good to finally meet someone who reads the Bible! I've always wondered what was in there. Well, now, we have folk who can explain it all to us. Excuse me there's someone at the door.

It was the Westminster Assembly, the Synod of Dort, and the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism. They were all standing in my front yard. It was quite remarkable really. Turns out that when I explained to them that Norm Shepherd, John Armstrong the the FV Boys were the first folks to read the Bible in the history of the world their heads exploded right there.

Of course this language from the FV Boys also raises the question of the nature of subscription. When the Reformed confessions were written they were subscribed quia, i.e., because they are biblical. As C F W Walther, the father of the Missouri Synod, said in the late 19th century, those who subscribe confessions "insofar as" (quatenus) they are biblical are not actually, fundamentally, subscribing a confesson. They are subscribing their own opinions. There are conservative versions of "insofar as" and liberal versions but they live on the same continuum.

The FV Boys, who include those who have rejected the idea of "merit" (never mind that the Three Forms of Unity use the term something like 17 times!) and who mostly reject the covenant of works, who teach baptismal union with Christ, baptismal election, baptismal justification, and who include those who teach a two-stage doctrine of justification, reserve to themselves the right to read the confessions in the light of their reading of Scripture.

Well, the function of the Reformed Confessions is to say: Here is how the Reformed Churches understand the Word of God. They are public, normative documents for those in the Reformed Churches. They are not wax noses. They are not hard to understand. They are not the private playthings of self-appointed revisionists whose distinctive views have been been rejected by most of the confessional Reformed churches in North America (and the RPCNA has a committee working on these questions right now).

The solution is for the FV Boys to be honest with themselves and the rest of us and say, "Look, we the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity are just wrong here and here." It's clear to the rest of us that is what the movement is saying. The question is when will it become clear to the FV Boys?

Hermeneutics

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:12:42 GMT

Paragraphs 5 and 6 in the FV statement deals with the Bible’s language as compared to systematic/confessional language. These paragraphs were disappointing to me, I have to admit, as well as being non-confessional.

WCF 1.6 specifically states that what can be deduced by good and necessary consequence is part of the whole counsel of God. That is, it has equal weight and authority as what is expressly set down (what is explicit). Of course, the WS do not mean to imply that all systematic formulations are correct. It is only those that can by good and necessary consequence be deduced from Scripture that have equal weight with what is explicit. The FV statement says that such systematic formulations (the statement uses the word “translations”) are not of equal authority as the express statements of Scripture. This marks a clear departure from the WS. This is the precise quotation:

At the same time, we do deny that such translations are superior to or equal to the rhetoric employed by the Spirit in the text…we reject the tendency to privilege the confessional and/or scholastic use of words and phrases over the way the same words and phrases are used in the Bible itself.

This is biblicistic and non-confessional. I actually wouldn’t have had a problem if they just used the language of “superior to.” The ipsissima verba of Scripture have the full weight and authority of God’s declaration. But the inclusion of the words “or equal to” is highly problematic. Systematic formulations that are in accord with Scripture’s teaching have the very same weight and authority as the ipsissima verba. We have to be very careful here. The qualifications are essential: the formulation has to be by good and necessary consequence deduced from Scripture. Secondly, the WS themselves are to be judged by the Scriptures. They are the normed norm, not the norming norm. There is always the possibility that a formulation could be proven wrong by careful exegesis of Scripture. But, positing that the formulation is an accurate summary of Scripture, then, being merely a restatement of Scripture’s teaching, it has the same weight and authority. This is the same thing we talk about when we say that a preacher is bringing to us the Word of God. To the extent that he accurately preaches the Word of God, it is the Word of God that he speaks. The same qualifications apply: what he says must be by good and necessary consequence; his statements are always to be subjected to the ultimate authority of the Word. But if these two conditions are met, then it is the Word of God that is being preached.

such hyper-specialized terminology

I wonder what terminology they have in mind. Maybe “covenantal-but-not-decretal justification, covenantal-but-not-decretal sanctification, covenantal-but-not-decretal election” would all qualify for such hyper-specialized terminology. Are they saying that we should not use the language of the Confessions in our preaching? If they are saying that we shouldn’t preach about supra- versus infra-lapsarianism, I might agree. Of course, the Confession doesn’t speak about that either. I don’t know how fruitful such a discussion would be for parishioners. I have not preached on it yet, and probably will not. It might come up in Sunday School, I suppose. But imputation, propitiation, justification, sanctification, etc. are all words that I explain regularly to my people. So, the upshot is that this FV statement is completely muddy. Without any kind of idea as to what terminology they have in mind, the statement is useless and hopelessly vague.

We deny that confessional commitments in any way require us to avoid using the categories and terms of Scripture, even when the confessional use of such words is necessarily more narrow and circumscribed.

In other words, the WS are not an accurate summary of the Bible’s teaching. There are such serious holes in the WS’s teaching that we have to invent new categories of understanding them. We have to deny “charitable judgment” interpretations of Paul (with a mere wave of the hand, and absolutely NO serious exegesis) in order to invent covenantal-but-not-decretal union with Christ, since the Confession never talks about the benefits that unbelievers receive (WCF 3.6, 10.4).

In line with this, we continue to honor and hold to the creeds of the ancient Church and the confessions of the reformational Church.

In other words, the Confession is no longer sufficient for the church today. Therefore, we don’t really hold to them, having gutted them of any authority they might possibly have.

I have been rather sharp in my criticism of these two paragraphs. The reason for that is that these are two of the worst paragraphs in the whole statement, allowing the FV folk to claim all they want to in regard to the Confession, while denying the Confession with their theology. No doubt Wilson will charge me with the “pot calling the kettle black” thing. I believe I have quite sufficiently proven my confessional position on the Sacraments, Wilson’s charges notwithstanding. I do not propose, therefore, to further that discussion, since he has so completely wrenched it from its original focus, which was the view of Warfield on the Sacraments. And since he did not engage my Warfield quotations directly, I am simply going to move on to the next chapter in RINE.

Of Neutrality and Commonness

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:05:06 GMT

I promise I'll move on eventually, but for now, I just can't let this issue go....

The section on Christendom in the Joint Statement on the Federal Vision states:

"We deny that neutrality is possible in any realm, and this includes the realm of 'secular' politics. We believe that the lordship of Jesus Christ has authoritative ramifications for every aspect of human existence, and that growth up into a godly maturity requires us to discover what those ramifications are in order to implement them."

I'm guessing by "neutrality" the authors have in mind some arrangement that seals off certain aspects of society from any and all divine jurisdiction or influence. To my knowledge, no one believes this (except maybe some eighteenth-century deists I've never met), so I'm not sure who, exactly, our brothers are arguing against here.

On the other hand, there are certain cultural questions that are "common" (though not "neutral"), and are to be tackled by those whose citizenship in the kingdom of man and whose creation in the image of God entitle them to join in the conversation. And yes, this includes Christians and non-Christians.

The problem with denying this -- if that is indeed what the Joint Statement is doing -- is that it places "every square inch" of the civil kingdom under the jurisdiction not just of God as Creator, but of Scripture, of the gospel, and of Christ as Redeemer.

The result of this, in addition to watering down Sola Scriptura to the point of meaninglesness, is a "baptized" version of politics with God's trademark stamped on the brochure. But what if this "Christian worldview" fails to capture the concerns of those sincere believers who don't think that GOP stands for "God's Own Politics"?

What of those believers who are against the present war? What of those who think the free market is a sham? And what of those who simply want to keep their religion free from the partisan bickering that characterizes the culture wars?

Apparently, they won't find refuge in Moscow, ID.

Christians In Society

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:05:04 GMT

The third paragraph of the FV statement deals with Christianity in culture. I am sympathetic to quite a bit of what they say here. Christians most definitely should engage the culture. We should be working to establish a global Christian church. And there is nothing that is neutral, really. Even those things that are not inherently good or bad (such as reading, biking, lemonade, etc.) are made good or bad by the one mixed up in it. However, I find the statement a bit imbalanced. They say that Christianity is a public faith. Yes, it is in many respects. But Christianity is also a private faith in many respects, as Stellman has pointed out. Private piety (praying in private, as Jesus commanded, giving alms privately as Jesus commanded, fasting in private as Jesus commanded) is essential to the Christian walk as well. Maybe the authors do not intend to exclude these private aspects of Christianity. Given the context of their postmillenialism, their thoughts would naturally gravitate towards the public aspects of the Christian faith. What is a bit disconcerting about this is that I haven’t exactly seen FV guys pushing for private piety in other contexts. It seems to me to be underplayed at best, ignored at worst. Maybe some FV authors will enlighten us as to the FV stance on private Christian piety (which is most certainly a Biblical category!).

One other aspect is a bit telling, I think. They call for us to disciple the nations, calling them to submit to Christ through baptism. Now, baptism is part of the Great Commission in Matthew 28, it cannot be denied. But why should baptism be the focus of obedience, rather than faith? To me, it seems that faith would have been a better choice of wording there. Given that the FV is accused by many of being sacramentalist, they could have distanced themselves a bit more from such an understanding by choosing the word “faith” rather than baptism. Of course, faith is not equal to obedience in one sense (the sense related to the law). However, the command for everyone everywhere is to repent (Acts 17). Obedience to that command means faith. And such obedience can only come with God’s prior working in the human soul.

The Federal Vision and Global Christendom

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:05:10 GMT

The third affirmation/denial of the Federal Vision's Joint Statement reads, in part:

"We affirm that the Christian faith is a public faith, encompassing every realm of human endeavor. The fulfillment of the Great Commission therefore requires the establishment of a global Christendom. We deny that neutrality is possible in any realm, and this includes the realm of 'secular' politics. We believe that the lordship of Jesus Christ has authoritative ramifications for every aspect of human existence, and that growth up into a godly maturity requires us to discover what those ramifications are in order to implement them."

It's late, so I'll offer a few thoughts and we'll further the discussion in the comments section.

1. If Christianity is such a "public faith," why the instruction by Jesus to perform our acts of devotion and mercy privately, to the point that the works of the right hand are not even known by the left?

2. If the Great Commision is a charge to strive for "global Christendom," then why didn't Paul or Peter issue this clarion call when they specifically addressed the role of the believer in society (Rom. 13; I Pet. 2)? "Living a quiet life" and "minding our own business" is hardly the stuff of societal transformation.

3. Is the denial of "neutrality" also a denial of "common" endeavors? If there's a specifically Christian position on, say, economics or health care, I've not found it in the Bible.

What I find ironic in much of the transformationist rhetoric is that, to me at least, it always seems like it's those people's culture over there that needs redeeming (black culture, for example), but not our own. So for the sake of argument I'll agree, the ghetto could do with less drugs and crime, but is it not also true that the suburbs of Atlanta would be more "redeemed" if there were no shopping malls, or that Fallujah would have seemed more "heavenly" if hundreds of its civilian women and children hadn't been killed?

Or is the concern for America's greed and Iraq's dead not the right kind of sanctified politics?

More Good Stuff at Reformed Musings

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:18:40 GMT

On the proposed "Trinitarianism" of the new FV Statement. Turns out that it's not an innocent sentence. They use our words, but just as with other revisionists (Barthians, Arminians, whomever) one has to query them very closely about what they actually mean.

Another correspondent asked whether there is a little social Trinitarianism (i.e., the doctrine that the divine unity is really a relation and not a unity of essence) embedded in the FV Statement. In the words of Bugs Bunny, "Hmm, could be."

More on the "Trinitarianism" of the FV Statement

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:18:36 GMT

One reaction to my questions and criticisms of the FV statement tries to set my post against Carl Trueman's recent argument at Ref21 that we need to be more consciously Trinitarian in our theology.

To be clear here: I agree with Carl. In fact I make the same case in our Doctrine of God course. Where many Reformed systems start with God's being and attributes and only come to the Trinity later, I start with the doctrine of the Trinity precisely because it is the Triune God who is and whom we worship and who has redeemed us.

It is a fact that most of God's people know precious little about the Trinity and are probably functionally unitarian. I've been writing about this for years. I've written at least two pieces for Modern Reformation on the Trinity and other pieces as well. The doctrine of God is at the headwaters of our theology-- which is not to say that we deduce our theology from the doctrine of God or of the decree. That's the old central dogma fallacy from the 19th century.

Still it's true that, as goes the doctrine of God, so goes our theology. That's just the way it is in Christianity. We begin with God. That's where Scripture begins. "In the beginning God." That's where the Creed begins, "I believe in God the Father...." The doctrine of God is a fundamental doctrine. Therefore revisions to the doctrine of God are very significant.

It seems to me that this new FV statement is interested in more than simply a revitalized Trinitarianism or a fresh look at the Cappadocians or the like. I suspect, on the basis of what I've read, that these chappies are up to something else. They aren't about re-invigorating catholic (notice the lower case "c") Trinitarianism in the way the Reformers were. They aren't about clarifying what we mean in the Creed or in our confessions. The evidence suggests that they're dabbling with a radical revision of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Another related area of concern is their attraction to the new "onto-theologies" being posited either by Radical Orthodoxy or by the new Finnish reading of Luther or the New Perspective on Calvin. In each of these cases, being or our ontological union with Christ replaces or marginalizes the forensic (legal) aspect.

Combine this turn toward being, re-define what being is and include us in it by union with Christ, and you've got a brand of soup that isn't Reformed.

A Joint FV Statement (2)

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:05:11 GMT

The first theological heading concerns the Trinity.

Our Triune God
We affirm that the triune God is the archetype of all covenantal relations. All faithful theology and life is conducted in union with and imitation of the way God eternally is, and so we seek to understand all that the Bible teaches—on covenant, on law, on gospel, on predestination, on sacraments, on the Church—in the light of an explicit Trinitarian understanding.

We deny that a mere formal adherence to the doctrine of the Trinity is sufficient to keep the very common polytheistic and unitarian temptations of unbelieving thought at bay.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. God is the archetype yes, but in traditional Reformed theology to say that God is the archetype or that something is archeytpal is to remove it from our ability to know it. The adjective "archetypal" refers to the "hidden" things of Deut 29:29. We know those things exist (because they are revealed to us in Scripture) but we don't know the particulars of them, in the nature of things. In traditional Reformed theology, at least since Scotus distinguished between theology as it is erga nos (toward us) and theology as it is in se (in itself), we've distinguished between the way God knows things and the way they are revealed to us. Luther distinguished between the theology of glory (theologia gloriae) and the theology of the cross (theologia crucis). Francis Junius, in 1590 published a work called "On True Theology" (De vera theologia) in which he distinguished between theology as God knows and theology as it is revealed to us or between archetypal theology and ectypal theology. The rest of the Reformed (and Lutheran) orthodox continued to work with those distinctions either explicitly or implicitly until they gradually fell out of use. Van Til used these expressions some, as did Abraham Kuyper and others (e.g., Berkhof) but by the middle of the 20th century they had largely been forgotten. They've been recovered in the last 25 years through the work of Richard Muller. I've written on this distinction in an essay in the festschrift for Bob Strimple and edited by David VanDrunen.

The upshot of all this is historic Reformed theology has used the idea of an archetype in a fairly restricted, technical sense. Here the federal vision wizards have appropriated it for the Trinity. Clearly they don't mean to say that the doctrine of the Trinity are archetypal in the traditional sense, i.e., that we can't say anything about them because they want to use the Trinity as the pattern for theology.

Now this sounds like a hip, clever, cutting-edge thing to do and it is some of those things, excepting "clever." In Reformed theology we haven't talked this way about the Trinity as the pattern for our theology. Why? Well, we call it the Creator/creature distinction. Are there analogies between the intra-Trinitarian relations and between divine-human relations? Yes. Are there analogies between intra-Trinitarian relations and intra-human relations? Yes, but we do theology by reading Scripture and drawing inferences about how we're to think about God, man, salvation etc. We don't look, as it were, at the Trinity and deduce a system of theology a priori just as we don't start with the doctrine of predestination or the doctrine of union with Christ and deduce a system. We've been accused of doing that, but it's not true or at least it hasn't been true most of the time in the mainstream of Reformed orthodoxy.

I agree that Reformed theology, to be confessional, to be Reformed, to be biblical must be thoroughly Trinitarian. I agree that merely formal Trinitarianism isn't sufficient. Reformed theology, however, has been thoroughly Trinitarian for a long time. Calvin was one of the more significant theologians of the Trinity in the entire Christian tradition. Reformed theology is structured by the economic Trinity, i.e., by the broad outlines of the administration of creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture. There's a chapter on this in Caspar Olevian and the Substance of the Covenant.

There seems to be, however, an assumption in this language, that I've detected in other FV writings, that they think they have an insight into the Trinity that no one has had before and that they're going to re-work Reformed theology in a way that no one has seen before.

Let me put it this way: If the FV boys asked for the keys to my Toyota, I would say "Absolutely not.!" They're not just asking for the keys to the car, they want to re-build the engine and re-design the whole car. Okay. Their distinctive views have been rejected by most of the NAPARC churches and they propose to re-build our theology from scratch? It puts me in mind of the time my cousins tried to re-build that Yamaha 90cc motor bike on the farm. Let's just say it didn't work and I never got to drive it; I'm not bitter. Really I'm not. Well, okay, maybe just a little.

Reformed theology has been Trinitarian for a long time. See Richard Muller's Christ and the Decree (1986). Our confessions are Trinitarian. Our dogmatics are Trinitarian, but watch out these boys have a plan.

Joint FV Statement (3)

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:05:09 GMT

Jason Stellman says what I was going to say, so I'll skip this point.

I would only add that the prominence of the their postmil (to my way of thinking, triumphalist) eschatology says two things. One it signals the how important the cultural agenda is for the FV. Second, it signals the degree to which the movement is fueled by their optimistic eschatology. I have sometimes wondered if the whole FV movement is really a way to facilitate their program for world Christianization. If every baptized person is united to Christ "head for head" in an "all or nothing" relationship from which they can apostatize by failing to exercise sufficient covenant faithfulness, that would seem to open the doors to a broader, more synergistic religion that might be a little more marketable, in its own way, to greater numbers of people. It's a theological way to claim the prevalence of Christianity by redefining it.

If you're a narrow confessionalist, the world might look a little darker, but if every baptized person is united to Christ, well mate, things are looking up!

A New Statement by the Federal Visionists

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:58:19 GMT

As you may be aware, a handful of proponents of the Federal Vision have issued a statement clarifying their views on topics such as the triune God, postmillennialism, Christendom, Scripture, the Church, and imputation.

I hope to interact with this new document (though I'll not tackle all the topics), perhaps beginning later today.

We must all do our best to give these men the benefit of the doubt (they do, after all, express a spirit of humility and teachableness in their preface). I will try to set the precedent by avoiding the sarcasm and snarkiness that often characterizes both sides of this ongoing debate.

Stay tuned....

The Federal Vision and Postmillennialism

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:58:16 GMT

My first impression upon reading the Joint Federal Vision Statement was one of surprise that, of the 18 loci addressed, postmillennialism is listed so early in the document (second only to "The Triune God"). Not that I desire to commit the ordo docendi, ordo credendi fallacy (i.e., that the order in which something is taught determines the order of its importance), but I do find this interesting.

The argument of the Joint Statement, in a nutshell, is that (1) If Jesus is the Savior of "the world," (2) If "all nations" will come to him, and (3) If the content of the Abrahamic promise is that "all the nations of the world would be blessed, and that his descendants would be like the stars in number," that therefore "prior to the second coming of our Lord Jesus, the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

Concerning the final day, the last sentence of our Confession says that Jesus "will have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, 'Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.' Amen."

It seems to me that the arguments put forward by the Federal Visionists to prove the Christianization of the world are similar to those used by Arminians to insist that Jesus atoned for the sins of every single person. The Calvinist response, of course, is that when the Scripture says that Christ died for "all men," it means that he died for all without distinction, not all without exception. The same response can be offered here.

So in addition to the fact that our Standards neither hint at, nor seem to make room for, a Christianization of the world before the (supposedly) imminent return of our Lord, the postmillennial position seems to rest upon a woodenly-literal hermeneutic.

Yes, "all nations" will come to Christ, but in accord with the Joint Statement's insistence upon Scripture interpreting Scripture, the twenty-four elders in Revelation explain this by saying that the Lamb "has redeemed men to God from every kindred, tongue, people, and nation."

The Preface

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:13:50 GMT

Apparently, this Federal Vision statement is going to be printed in hard copy in Credenda/Agenda. So says Doug Wilson. It is being given out early because of Jordan’s reference to this document in a letter he sent to Christian Renewal.

That is by way of background to this document. Now, we will examine the preface. The preface makes several important claims. The document claims that the views it espouses are not in conflict with either the 3FU or the WS. Of course, this is not a new claim on the part of the FV. However, for them to say that if we understand it to be in conflict with these confessional documents means that we have misunderstood the document is an example of assuming that which needs to be proved. They don’t say this explicitly. I hope they do not mean it. Always, for those who have taken vows to uphold the standards of the church, their teachings need to be demonstrated to be in conformity with the standards. So, the FV will forgive us, I’m sure, if we do not take them at their word, but instead examine the document to see if it is compatible with the standards. This is not an unreasonable undertaking. And, contrary to what some FV proponents say, we the critics are not automatically assuming them to be out of accord with the standards. Members in good standing of presbyteries are assumed to be in accord with the standards until they prove otherwise. This is the approach I will take here.

Secondly, the document limits its own scope to certain issues that are a significant part of the FV discussion. In other words, this document should not be understood to be an exhaustive dealing with all the various books, articles, etc. Furthermore, we should not understand this document to be an official confession of faith. The provisional nature of the document is clear from the document itself (”at this stage of the conversation,” “given our circumstances”). These statements are the views of these men at this time on these issues, and we should interpret the document with this in mind.

Thirdly, this document is presented in a spirit of teachableness. The document explicitly says that the authors desire to be teachable, and are willing to stand corrected. They desire to state their views as clearly as they can in order to facilitate further conversation, as it includes discussion of possible ambiguities and errors. One should certainly laud such a statement. The desire to be teachable is rather important in this whole discussion. I fear that too many on both sides have not exhibited much of a teachable spirit. I certainly include myself in such an indictment. Humility seems the correct (and only!) path to me here, and I think the Bible would agree. So, I am going to take them at their word here. I am not going to assume that past behavior dictates future response. If I did, I would not have excessively good reason to deem FV authors teachable. Be that as it may, I think believing this statement of humility on their part is the best way forward.

Update: this post was written independently of Scott Clark’s points, available here. He has some thoughtful points that deserve careful consideration.

The FV Boys Have a New Statement of Their Views

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:07:51 GMT

Lane at Greenbaggins has a link. It's a PDF. Why?

Here are the signatories to this new joint statement. All of them but four are in the CREC (the Wilson denomination/federation). Two of the four non-CREC signatories are PCA teaching elders who have been open advocates of the FV, Peter Leithart and Mark Horne. Jeff Myers also signed it, which is interesting. I've been told repeatedly that Jeff Myers isn't a proponent of the FV. Well, I guess that's changed. James Jordan has also signed it but he doesn't list his ecclesiastical affiliation. What is it?

John Barach (minister, CREC)
Randy Booth (minister, CREC)
Tim Gallant (minister, CREC)
Mark Horne (minister, PCA)
Jim Jordan (minister, teacher at large)
Peter Leithart (minister, PCA)
Rich Lusk (minister, CREC)
Jeff Meyers (minister, PCA)
Ralph Smith (minister, CREC)
Steve Wilkins (minister, PCA)
Douglas Wilson (minister, CREC)

The signatures aren't surprising. Will there be more? Now, at least we have a sort of FV confession of faith to analyze.

It's dated "July 2007." It seems to have appeared quietly. Where's Reformed News when we need them?

Isn't this thing a little late? Does this mean that all the committees, synods, general assemblies, and faculties have to re-convene and re-think their conclusions based on years of research into the published views of the Federal Visionists? No.

More later.

Hugely Important Federal Vision Document

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:47:50 GMT

Most of the big names in the FV have put their name to this document. It is a series of affirmations and denials. Despite their claims, however, they have not succeeded in formulating their view in such a way as to demonstrate continuity with the Reformed Confessions. I will demonstrate this in future posts.