It goes something like this:
God sitting on his judgment seat: “Have you been faithful to the covenant conditions?”
Believer before the throne of God: “No! Never!”
God sitting on his judgment seat: “So why should I not condemn you?”
Believer before the throne of God: “Because Jesus has fulfilled the conditions of the covenant.”
God sitting on his judgment seat: “But what has that to do with you?”
Believer before the throne of God: “I have accepted Christ as he is offered in the Gospel. I have received his imputed righteousness by faith alone.”
God sitting on his judgment seat: “Then I welcome you into everlasting glory!”
But if we assume for the sake of argument that the Westminster Confession of Faith is an accurate summary of the system of teaching found in Scripture, then this scenario is impossible and incoherent. If we try it it works out like this:
God sitting on his judgment seat: “Have you been faithful to the covenant conditions?”
Believer before the throne of God: “No! Never!”
God sitting on his judgment seat: “So why should I not condemn you?”
Believer before the throne of God: “Because Jesus has fulfilled the conditions of the covenant.”
God sitting on his judgment seat: “But what has that to do with you?”
Believer before the throne of God: “I have accepted Christ as he is offered in the Gospel. I have received his imputed righteousness by faith alone.”
God sitting on his judgment seat: “What? You just said you hadn’t been faithful to the covenant conditions.”
Believer before the throne of God: “No, I haven’t. I can’t stand before you except only by faith in Christ.”<
God sitting on his judgment seat: “There you go again. Stop contradicting yourself.”
Believer before the throne of God: “I don’t understand, Lord.”
God sitting on his judgment seat: “Well I didn’t think this was such a hard concept to grasp. I admit it would help if you came from the Presbyterian tradition.”
Believer before the throne of God: “But I am a Presbyterian, God.”
God sitting on his judgment seat: “This gets stranger and stranger. Have you never read in the Westminster Confession?:
Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.
Or the Larger Catechism?:
Q. 32. How is the grace of God manifested in the second covenant?
A. The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that he freely provideth and offereth to sinners a mediator, and life and salvation by him; and requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him, promiseth and giveth his Holy Spirit to all his elect, to work in them that faith, with all other saving graces; and to enable them unto all holy obedience, as the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which he hath appointed them to salvation.
The condition of the covenant is faith. So have you been faithful to the covenant? Are you a believer?
Believer before the throne of God: “But Lord I have sinned many times. How can you call me faithful?
God sitting on his judgment seat: “Did I ever say that living a sinless life was a condition of the covenant of grace? Obviously if that were the condition then you have been very unfaithful. But that would defeat the whole point of the covenant of grace, right? I made a covenant to save sinners not damn them. So I don’t require sinless perfection of people I save by My Son. And sinless perfection, or even a greater quantity of good deeds than bad deeds for that matter, has never been the condition of the covenant of grace. I sent Jesus to live a perfect life and die a sacrificial death that could be imputed to all who believe. Faith is the condition of the covenant of grace as it is the means by which you receive Christ and his righteousness. So again: Have you been faithful to the covenant? Are you a believer?
So there you go.
“well, God, you thew me for a loop there by asking me about faithfulness to plural conditions”
Now that I think about it, is “perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience” one condition or more?
I’ve got posts scheduled to publish on ongoing faith.
That was a slip, but read the WLC quotation slowly.
This is good stuff, man.
On a bit of a tangent, I’ve come to think that it’s a most unfortunate, unintended consequence of the EE “diagnostic question” that most evangelicals (I suspect) now believe they’ll actually be subject to such a test upon seeing the Lord. Rather than understand it as the analogy that it was intended to be, they think it really is a test they’ll have to pass. As if Jesus doesn’t already know His sheep?
But it seems to me that in reality, the “dialogue” will go something like this, for the believer:
God: Welcome! We’ve been waiting for you.
The End, or rather just the beginning of a completely different conversation…
I think it’s deeply unfortunate that many view it otherwise.
Make that,
God, sitting on the Mercy Seat….