The JFVP rejects the Westminster Standards view of this matter which states that in the covenant of works, “life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.”
via Do the Westminster Standards Teach Merit? « Johannes Weslianus.
We affirm that Adam was in a covenant of life with the triune God in the Garden of Eden, in which arrangement Adam was required to obey God completely, from the heart. We hold further that all such obedience, had it occurred, would have been rendered from a heart of faith alone, in a spirit of loving trust.
“Faith alone means God justifies us on the basis of the merits of another.”
And here I thought that after 45 years I understood the English language.
“Faith alone” in the context of the gospel of the finished work of Christ means that God justifies us on the basis of the merits of another. Those two words do not have to carry that Sometimes, they can mean that “faith alone” is doing something else. Sheesh!
Ugh, weird editing — “Those two words do not have to carry that meaning in every context.”