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

John Piper:

God does not justify us in the past, or save us in the future, except through Jesus Christ his Son. O how we should meditate on the work of Christ. Because here we meet the work of God. If you want to know the love of God, know the work of Christ.

Where do we see this? It is made explicit in both verse 9 and verse 10. Verse 9: “Much more then, having now been justified [that God’s work] by His blood [that’s Christ’s work in dying], we shall be saved from the wrath of God [that God’s work] through Him [that’s the work of his Son, Jesus Christ].” The Son bought our justification in the past when he died for us, and he mediates our salvation in the future because he lives for us. God saved in the past through Christ. He will save in the future through Christ.

It’s even more clear in verse 10: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God [that’s God’s work] through the death of His Son [that’s the work of his Son in dying for us], much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved [that’s God’s work] by His life [that’s Christ’s work].”

So the third observation is this: Both God’s past work and God’s future work to rescue us are through the work of Christ his Son. Justification and reconciliation in the past and salvation in the future are through Jesus Christ. He is indispensable in the work of salvation. And the Father means for him to have his glory.

This is an unbelievable quotaton from John Owen:

There is yet something more required; it is not enough that we are not guilty, we must also be actually righteous–not only all sin is to be answered for, but all righteousness is to be fulfilled. By taking away the guilt of sin, we are as persons innocent; but something more is required to make us to be considered as persons obedient. I know nothing to teach me that an innocent person shall go to heaven, be rewarded, if he be no more but so. Adam was innocent at his first creation, but he was to “do this,” to “keep the commandments,” before he entered into “life:” he had no title to life by innocence. This, then, moreover, is required, that the whole law be fulfilled, and all the obedience performed that God requires at our hands. This is the soul’s second inquiry; and it finds a resolution only in the Lord Christ: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10). His death reconciled us; then are we saved by his life. The actual obedience which he yielded to the whole law of God, is that righteousness whereby we are saved; if so be we are found in him, not having on our own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith (Phil. 3:9).

Is there any Reformed commentary that does not admit that Romans 5.10 is referring to Christ’s new life by resurrection? And by the way, Adam was not merely created as “innocent.” He was created in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.

Please, if this is “the traditional view,” no wonder there is a market for something “new.” (Of course, as the quotations marks indicate, I don’t believe these are actually our choices.)

Note: I change the title of this post from “Was Owen on drugs or something?” because someone made me realize my feelings are hurt when someone speaks that way about me. I’ve interacted a bit on the subject in my comment to this post. Beyond that, my only excuse is that I thought that, since John Owen is dead, his feelings weren’t a consideration. I would delete the offending title entirely, except that I wouldn’t want to be accused of hiding anything.

Note 2: I apologize in advance to the Reformed masculinity promoters, since by being considerate of the feelings of others, in theological writing, I have shown an utter disregard for acting according to my gender. However, I’m not sure that the model of discourse being held up, which I have too often modeled myself, is really especially masculine or Biblical. I may be wrong. There may have been nothing wrong with my original title. But I have enough doubts now that I can’t keep it up there “from faith.” Feminine or not, it would be sin.

Note 3: (I am infested with afterthoughts and qualifications today).  I think there is nothing wrong with seeing an affirmation of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ and posting it without giving much thought to the exegesis involved.  No disrespect is intended to the blogger because I didn’t like his quote.  Of course, no one should think otherwise, but in our present environment I can’t take anything for granted, so I thought I had better affirm this for the record.

Doug just addressed this issue here. I will just add, according to what Dr. Sproul said on the floor of GA, which won him much applause, that the premise of the whole vote, along with the stacked committee, was that PCA ministers who dared to defy the curent groupthink were all already “up on charges”–except for the bothersome detail that no charges were filed in a proper court. Allowing them any voice in the process that was to evaluate them was tantamount to “putting the accused on the jury.” Thus, by Sproul’s own admission, the vote changed nothing. We were already tried, convicted, and sentenced–by a court of the invisible church, I suppose.

By turning this vote into a referendum on justification by faith alone, the leaders got their verdict (and indeed, the only appropriate one). But at what price? Repeatedly we were told that unless the Assembly voted we would be issuing an unclear sound on the fundamentals of the Gospel. I couldn’t help but think about what the town clerk said to the Ephesian mob, “If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another.” Exactly so. Do we not have presbyteries? Is it really true, as this General Assembly just voted, that the vast majority of them are all incompetent on the issue of the Gospel itself? If so, I would submit the situation is more dire than any study committee can ever hope to fix.

So what happens now? As far as I can tell, we find out through our presbyteries that, in fact, the vote of GA was inappropriate and inaccurate. They have voted to condemn the guiltless. This is easy to do in grand convocations, carefully planned, with very little time for debate. It will be an entirely different matter in Presbyteries where men have to prove the case by actual legal requirements, in situations where the accused are allowed to be heard.

Jon Barlow just pointed out how Calvin viewed temporary faith. Go read it. So the question is, if this is true, then how can we have confidence that we truly are believers?

Perhaps one reason we are getting two different answers to this question has to do with confidence in God’s providence in keeping covenant with His people. If God simply allows the less-than-true-believers to remain uninformed of their true “inner” state, then we can have no confidence in ourselves or others. In that case, we must insist that Calvin is wrong to insist that the “human heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood lurks, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy” that can’t be exposed by a few sermonic tests.

Of course, since these criteria are only available for the more mature, one can only wonder about the true state of one’s infants and toddlers. In that case, when a Christian woman has a miscarriage, the memorial service is “almost the same” as a funeral for an unbeliever, as one PCA pastor insisted to me (a great guy, by the way; I hope expressing disagreement is not taken as anything personal). The argument is simple:

• God gives those who are elect to eternal life a true and persevering faith.
• Not all covenant children remain in the faith
• Thus, not all covenant children are elect.
• Therefore, you don’t know if any baby, preborn, or recently born, is elect.
• Therefore, you can give grieving parents no real confidence that they will ever see their child again.

But if God promises that he will not mislead us, then we can take perseverance in the faith as a sure sign of election.

Our covenant children who have been required to persevere only a short time are shown, by God’s gift of perseverance, to be elect. Not just probably, but infallibly. On the other hand, as I posted last night, we can warn our covenant children (just as we can warn covenant adults) to continue in their professed faith.

If there is something defective, we can be confident God will show this to us through the fruit of faith or a lack thereof–not a lack of discipline in morning devotions, but a wholesale abandonment of the Faith. The flesh, if it is dominant, cannot fail to rise up eventually. And God will allow this to happen so that we can continue to trust him for our salvation, as he has offered Himself to us through Christ according to his Covenant.

The correct posture is not “inward” to those “crannies” where vanity may hide. The correct posture is foreward.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through the faithfulness of Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

This is ow we should encourage one another, whether adults or little children.