From Humble Answers:

This same author also wrote this: “God rewards our good works with eternal life, because God examines our works not according to the strictest standards of absolute righteousness, but rather the same way that a human father might examine the art work of his young son.”

Um, yes. We’re supposed to preach and teach this as confessional PCA pastors:

Notwithstanding [the fact that our works merit nothing–WCF 16.5], the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreprovable in God’s sight; but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections [WCF 16.6; emphasis added].

And this would include eternal life; good works are both the fruit of true faith and the means to the end of eternal life:

These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that, having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life [WCF 16.2; emphasis added; not it is a quotation from First Corinthians 6.22, which is also the official prooftext].

But even apart from boldly asking the PCA to condemn the Westminster Confession, the paranoid connections are simply ridiculous. Speaking of people who are not even in the PCA:

However, we also realized that these statements were coming from one the most provocative of the Federal Vision men, and so we waited in vain for any other FV men to distance themselves from them.

the Federal Vision’s most profilic theological systematizer began to formulate his views on justification.

The “Federal Vision” is not a corporate entity. PCA ministers systematize for themselves using a variety of sources. This is now how we make seriouis accusations?

And then this is held out for us (originally all in bold) as the damning paragraph:

James has in view the same kind of justification as Paul – forensic, soteric justification. Good works justify persons in James 2, not faith or one’s status as a justified sinner. James is not telling his readers how to ‘justify their justification’ or how to ‘give evidence of a true and lively faith.’ Instead he says their persons will not be justified by faith alone, but also by good works of obedience they have done. The use of the preposition by is important since it indicates a sort of dual instrumentality in justification. In other words, in some sense, James is speaking of a justification in which faith and works combine together to justify. Future justification is according to one’s life pattern. No one dare claim these works be meritorious, but they are necessary.

There are two issues here: 1) Is James speaking of the same sort of justification as Paul; and 2) do faith and works work together in the final justification.

To the first issue:

Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love (WCF 11.2).

The prooftext here is James 2.17, 22, 26. In a sense, the WCF is more problematic than Rich because it is using James 2 to support initial justification. Nevertheless, that is what it says. I realize that no one is required to agree with the prooftexts, but I fail to see how they can be used in the PCA as examples of compromising justification

To the second issue, which also addresses the first again, the Westminster Standards plainly state that there is a future judgment at which, in order to escape condemnation, Christians must do good works:

God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.

The end of God’s appointing this day is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy, in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice, in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing, which shall come from the presence of the Lord; but the wicked who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power (WCF 33.1, 2, emphasis added).

Here is the block of prooftexts for the final judgment of all people “according to what they have done”:

2 Cor. 5:10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Eccl. 12:14. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Rom. 2:16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

Rom. 14:10, 12. But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ…. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Matt. 12:36–37. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

And here are the prooftexts for the second paragraph:

Matt. 25:31–46. When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the
holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me…. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not…. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Rom. 2:5–6. But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds.

Rom. 9:22–23. What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his
power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory. Matt. 25:21. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

Acts 3:19. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

2 Thess. 1:7–10. … and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

Mark 9:48. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Now, to state the obvious, the sentence passed on this day will be judicial–which is all that forensic means (thus: “At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity”–WSC #38; emphasis added). It will be soteric–it will involve being saved from the wrath of God. And it will mean that true believers are declared righteous before all, which is exactly what justification is. And it will undeniably be by works and not by faith alone. This is the Biblical and Reformed doctrine–which does not threaten in the least the doctrine of justification by faith alone nor the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

It isn’t like this stuff appears only once as a glitch in the Westminster Assembly’s work. It appears in various forms repeatedly. To take just one example from the Westminster Larger Catechism:

Q. 153. What doth God require of us, that we may escape his wrath and curse due to us by reason of the transgression of the law?
A. That we may escape the wrath and curse of God due to us by reason of the transgression of the law, he requireth of us repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, and the diligent use of the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation.

Q. 154. What are the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation?
A. The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to his church the benefits of his mediation, are all his ordinances; especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for their salvation.

If some PCA ministers aren’t comfortable with all this, that does not surprise me. But it would be nice if the theology of the Westminster Standards was not portrayed as a compromise of the Protestant doctrine of justification and was not used to marginalize and drive out other ministers in good standing for appreciating the full theology of the Westminster Standards.

(No, I’m not saying that nothing is new. Elsewhere I’ve been trying to converse about what might genuinely be non-traditional to no avail. I am saying that what some are treating as evidence of a crime is actually the system of doctrine they promised to uphold. Modest proposal: if you can’t uphold it; don’t condemn others for doing so.)