One of the odd and good (yet hard to deal with) aspects of the vote of the GA was that Sean Michael Lucas explicitly stated that we were voting on the declarations not on the content of the report. For instance, in relation to declaration #4 the issue of adamic merit, saying that only the merit of Christ was the issue and Adamic merit was an area of freedom:

The view that strikes the language of “merit” from our theological vocabulary so that the claim is made that Christ’s merits are not imputed to his people is contrary to the Westminster Standards.

This is not how I had been viewing the declarations and it pretty much rendered irrelevant the criticisms of the committee report that I had in mind during the Assembly.

I was, and am, glad that the committee took this position regarding their report. I still disagree with the declarations. In fact, it seems to me that, by making “merit” a common property of the obedience of Adam and Christ, that the committee report itself is redefining merit to the point that the affirmation of Christ’s merits is rendered suspect. I believe in the merit of Christ precisely because I believe in the deity of Christ. It seems to me that affirming a merit that a mere creature could produce is itself–and equating that with Christ’s merit–as serious as anything else that has been said about merit. The declaration ought to protect us from it if it were interpreted in a consistent way.

Still, what we voted on was superior to what I had thought we were going to be voting on. And I am thankful for that.

Addendum: Here is a recording of what was said so you can hear for yourself audio