Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
via Passage: Isaiah 45:22 (ESV Bible Online).
God is telling the Gentiles to
A. Stop breaking the First Commandment of the Decalogue.
B. Trust in the true God alone for salvation
C. Not sure but it can’t be both A and B.
D. Both A and B.
If you hesitate to say D, I think you are in the grip of some very unbiblical teaching. I don’t think it is confessionally Reformed thinking either.
A pastor in my denomination and presbytery was vindicated against suspicions expressed in a letter that claimed he needed to be investigated for his doctrinal orthodoxy on a number of matters. While I had several objections to the letter that I won’t bore you with here, I was also outraged that it was done in public. A commenter on another blog mentioned something I want to quote in full:
I found the part of the report where seven signatories commented on the release of the letter to a news agency to be interesting:
“Sadly, it has come to our attention that the [Letter Of Concern] was distributed publicly. It was never our intention for this to be a public letter, but rather a letter to Missouri Presbytery and Mr. Meyers. We simply wanted to lay this nformation before our brothers in Missouri Presbytery for their attention. The letter was not one of charges or accusations, but concern for clarity and doctrinal understanding. Such matters are for the courts of our church, not for the Internet. We are sincerely sorry for the public development of this situation, of which we had no part, and want to express our apology to the Missouri Presbytery and Mr. Meyers.”
****
“I thought I was signing a private letter from the group of signatories to Missouri Presbytery. I was never consulted about publishing the letter and never gave permission to go public with the letter. I was as surprised as anyone that it was made public and had no idea that my name would be splashed across the Internet. I was saddened that this took place. . . . It was too late to do anything about [the LOC going public.]”
****
“Moreover, I never consented to make the letter public. I do not know who is responsible for posting the letter, and I regret that this has occurred…”
****
“I certainly did not advocate for or agree to the contents of the request for an investigation of TE Meyers to be made public over the Internet, and I am very sorry that it happened. I deeply regret that the contents of the letter were made public…“I do not know how or why the letter was published on the Internet, nor did I have knowledge that the letter would be made public. If I had, I would have objected. I think that its publication was an exceedingly unwise, if not sinful, thing to do…”
****
“I do wish to assure you, I had absolutely nothing to do with the posting of the Letter of Concern Re: TE Jeff Meyers on the Internet. I was absolutely appalled that occurred and I do appreciate the way in which MO Presbytery has handled the entire situation going forward.”
****
“…I do know how the LOC came to be published on the Internet after the act. No, I was not aware that the LOC was going to be made public. Yes, I did inquire about it, but in my position I allowed older and wiser men to communicate to each of the signers of the letter about the LOC being made public.”
****
“Moreover, I and the other signatories of the original letter never consented to make the letter public. I do not know who is responsible for making the letter public, and I deeply regret that this has occurred…”These comments are to the credit of the signatories and show that a sense of honor is not dead in the PCA. Well done men.
I wish I could feel better about why these men thought such a letter should be sent in the first place, but I fully agree with the writer that the comments are to the credit of these men. In fact, I am smitten with guilt about the way I felt about the signatories. I assumed without investigation that they all had planned to make this document public. I totally misjudged them and am sorry I did so.
The first, highest, and most precious of all good works is faith in Christ, and as it says in John 6 [:28–29], when the Jews asked him, “What must we do, to be doing the good work of God?” Jesus answered, “This is the good work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” Now when we hear that or even preach it, we pass over it: we think nothing of it and think it easy to do, but actually we ought to pause a long time and think it over properly. For in this work all good works exist, and from faith these works receive a borrowed goodness. We must make this absolutely clear, so that men can understand it.
Martin Luther, Treatise on Good Works (1520), in Luther’s Works, vol. 44, No. 1 (The Christian in Society), pp. 23–24. American edition.
Zacharias Ursinus was the principal author of the Heidelberg Catechism and wrote (or allowed to be put together from student notes on his lectures) a commentary on the same. It is available online here.
He wrote that, among other ways, law and gospel differed
In the promises which they make to man. The law promises life upon condition of perfect obedience; the gospel, on the condition of faith in Christ and the commencement of new obedience (p. 3).
Notably, Ursinus is not talking about the Mosaic Covenant when he speaks of “law” here. Rather, the Mosaic Covenant and the Gospel Covenant are the same in substance because they make the same promises on the same conditions.
There is but one covenant, because the principal conditions, which are called the substance of the covenant, are the same before and since the incarnation of Christ; for in each testament God promises to those that repent and believe, the remission of sin; whilst men bind themselves, on the other hand, to exercise faith in God, and to repent of their sins (p. 99).
The “law” then refers to the perfect obedience that Adam was supposed to persevere in as a condition for inheriting glory. The Mosaic Covenant, was for Ursinus, just as it was for the Westminster Divines, an administration of the one covenant of grace.
Furthermore, Ursinus did not believe that any such perfect obedience, if it had been rendered, could have been meritorious. When he explains why our good works are necessary as conditions but not meritorious he gives reasons both why 1. a sinner’s works could never be meritorious, 2. why a creature’s works could never be meritorious. Of the latter he writes.
No creature, performing even the best works, can merit any thing at the hand of God, or bind him to give any thing as though it were due from him according to the order of divine justice…(Romans 11.35; Matthew 20.15). We deserve our preservation no more than we did our creation. God was not bount to create us; nor is he bound to preserve those whom he has created. But he did, and does, both of his own free-will and good bleasure. God receives no benefit from us, nor can we confer anything upon our Creator. Now, where there is no benefit, there is no merit; for merit presupposes some benefit received.
Our works are all due unto God; for all creatures are bound to render worship and gratitude to the Creator, so that if we were even never to sin, yet we could not render unto God [more than?] the worship and gratitude which is due from us… (Luke 17.10). (p. 486)
As you can see, I’m not comfortable with the last sentence quoted above since it seems to me to claim that a perfect creature could not do what was due. I think Adam had the ability to do what was required but decided to repudiate God.
In any case, the above considerations apply to creatures, not merely sinners. Notably, when Ursinus speaks of merit, he ascribes it only to the Incarnate Son of God who was not a mere creature. I need to study this more but I get the impression he also restricts it to Christ’s sacrifice that was designed to satisfy God’s justice on account of Adam’s demerit.
For example:
All these things Christ does, obtains, and perfects, not only by his merits, but also by his efficacy. He is therefore, said to be a Mediator, both in merit and efficacy; because he does not only by his sacrifice merit for us; but he also, by virtue of his Spirit, effectually confers upon us his benefits, which consist in righteousness and eternal life… (p. 94)
The office of the mediator consists of two parts: his humiliation or merit; and his glorification or efficacy. Now as it respects his humiliation, Christ is meritorious; as it respects his glorification, he is efficacious (p. 164).
It is by making intercession for us in this manner that Christ applies unto us the benefits and merit of his death (p. 250).
So, to sum up.
I won’t have time for awhile, but I would like to study point 4 above so I can either disprove it or speak with more confidence about it.
See also: Zacharias Ursinus and the Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ
Having invoked Habbakuk 2.5 (Romans 3.17), Paul describes the justifying faith of Abraham this way:
For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the cosmos did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is [only] those of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the one of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
And the author of Hebrews likewise:
But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,
“Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.
By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
Abraham did not weaken and we must not grow weary. Both passages invoke God’s power of ex nihilo creation and or his strength to raise the dead. Noah is used as an example of one who, like Abraham, received the righteousness of faith.
Why is this even an issue?
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (which is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6.1-3).
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you (Exodus 20.12).
Many people today seem to believe that the Law of God, as summarized in the Ten Commandments, is somehow subchristian. To an extant this is true, as is shown by Paul’s exhortation to children in his letter to the Ephesians. Paul alters the Fifth Commandment in order to apply it. The original words as written by God’s own finger are, incredibly, no longer an accurate statement of God’s promise to His children in regard to how they act toward their earthly parents. The original command came with a promise for long life in the Promised Land of Canaan; the Pauline revision promises long life even to those in Ephesus—and to Christians living anywhere else on earth.
Paul has articulated his fundamental principle for making this alteration elsewhere. In the letter to the Romans, he states, “For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world [Greek: kosmos) was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith” (4.13). God promised Abraham a particular piece of land, and the Law put boundaries around it, but Paul tells us that the piece of land actually was a token of the whole cosmos. Now that Christ has come, the token is no longer needed because the full inheritance has been given.
However, when most people treat the Decalogue as subchristian, they usually mean something very different from the Apostle Paul. Some say that the Law was not for the Church, but for Israel. Some say that the Ten Commandments taught salvation by works and, in a roundabout way, also communicated that salvation must be by grace because, once anyone attempted it, they would soon discover Law-keeping was impossible.
Paul’s letter to the Ephesian children should give us second thoughts about such suggestions. In the first place, the Apostle Paul states that Christian children are under obligation, according to the Mosaic Law, to obey both their parents. Secondly, the Apostle Paul explicitly motivates such children to do so by saying that God will reward them—a reward he finds in the original Fifth Commandment, even though he changes the scope of that reward (to include the whole earth including Ephesus, not just Palestine).
Obviously, Paul was not teaching Christian children to believe that they had to earn salvation by works! The fact that the Apostle Paul would appeal to the authority of the Decalogue must mean that those commandments were never given so that people could earn anything from God. The Ten Commandments were never for merit or works-righteousness, but were only guides for what Paul calls “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1.5; 16.27).
It is worth pointing out that the Apostle Paul never sees a conflict between obedience and faith. He states, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God” (First Corinthians 7.19); and, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love” (Galatians 5.6). Paul also warns of God’s judgment on “those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (Second Thessalonians 1.8). Indeed, in writing of unbelieving Jews, who were “broken off for their unbelief” (Romans 11.20), he says:
For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, in order that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all (Romans 11.20-32).
The other writers in the New Testament concur. Luke writes that at one point “a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith” (Acts 6.7). The author of Hebrews states that Jesus “became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation” (Hebrews 5.9). He also writes of the Israelites in the wilderness, “they stumble because they are disobedient to the word” (Hebrews 3.18). John writes in his Gospel, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3.36). In explaining what happens to those who disbelive, the Apostle Peter writes “they stumble because they are disobedient to the word” (First Peter 2.7).
In the preaching of the Gospel we see that Jesus can tell his hearers simply to “repent” (Matthew 3.2, 4.17), or to “repent and believe” (Mark 1.14). Likewise, the Apostles can simply command their listeners to “repent and… be baptized” (Acts 2.38), “repent and return” (Acts 3.19), “repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance” (Acts 26.20), or “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 15.11). Faith and obedience seem quite closely related to the point of being interchangeable, provided they are both understood correctly.
Some say that there were two different promises given to Abraham—land (the “earthly Jerusalem”) and eternal life (heaven, “the heavenly Jerusalem”)—so that the Israelites were to keep their place in the land by the works righeousness of obedience to the Ten Commandments, but were given salvation from sin and future resurrection glory by faith alone. Supposedly this means that salvation (heaven, the resurrection) is given by grace, but works (which can allegedly never have anything to do with grace) were required for remaining in the Land.
This won’t work. The promise of land and eternal life are given to Abraham as one and the same promise (Genesis 15, 17). Likewise, the author of Hebrews states that the generation in the wilderness failed to enter the Promised Land because of “unbelief” (Hebrews 3.19).
What is worse, this idea makes the Gospel irrelevant to life on earth right now. It would mean that we can hope for heaven by grace but that, in this life, we must earn everything we get from God. Paul would then be telling children that their relationship to their parents is based on merit and “human effort” rather than by faith and grace. The Gospel, instead of transforming human relationships, would be irrelevant to human relationships! Church, family, work and all other areas of life would be run by performance rather than by grace.
But Jesus puts our life here and hereafter on the same basis:
Peter began to say to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he shall receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first, will be last; and the last, first.” (Mark 10.28-31).
Likewise the Apostle Paul states, “bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (First Timothy 4.8).
The fact is that, just like it was for Abraham, God’s covenant with us is not only for the life to come but for this life as well. The promise of the Fifth Commandment is for all of life. Children are not being told to think of obedience to their parents as holding a promise of only earthly prosperity, nor are they being taught to earn grace from God.
On the contrary, Paul wants the Christian children in Ephesus to live by faith both for this world and the next.
God’s promises are not statements about how much we can earn by doing good works. All our works—even our good works—apart from the intercession and shed blood of Christ could only send us to an eternal Hell. But precisely because we are commanded to believe God and trust him for salvation, the Law of God is to be obeyed (though things like circumcision are no longer to be simply imitated because Jesus has changed what is expected of believers since the time of the Old Testament period).
Jesus tells us to follow him. The way children commonly follow Jesus is by obeying their parents. Our motive for following Jesus should be that we trust him to save us. That is exactly what Paul tells the Ephesian children by the stipulation and promise of the Fifth Commandment. Christian children who obey their parents do so because they trust God’s promises to them in Jesus Christ.
In summary, the Law of Moses was only meant to be followed by faith, as the example of Moses himself proves:
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward (Hebrews 11.24-26).
Much in the Law of Moses is no longer to be followed in the same way as it once was. The Apostle Paul states emphatically that it no longer matters if a believer is circumcised or not (First Corinthians 7.19; Galatians 5.6). Jesus revealed that the Mosaic dietary laws are no longer binding (Acts 10). But where the Law still applies, as it does to children who need to obey their parents, it does not encourage works-righteousness. Rather God’s commandments promote faith and trust in Christ Jesus for the future–both in this life and the life to come.
Our motive for obedience is nothing more nor less than that by which we are justified before God: Faith in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.
I quote from the Westminster Confession’s chapter on God’s covenant. I don’t think we learn anything additional from the rest of the Westminster documents except that the name, “covenant of works” is not the only name one can use (if someone notices something I’ve missed, let me know). Perhaps we should also say the representative nature of the covenant is affimed outside the paragraph above. That too would be part of the doctrine.
To affirm the traditional doctrine of the Covenant of works then one must affirm and only affirm that
When considering whether someone teaches the covenant of works in an orthodox manner, it might be helpful to keep the traditional baseline in mind.
Addendum
The only Presbyterian I know of who has ever disagreed with one of the five statements was John Murry, who insisted on calling the relationship an “administration” rather than a covenant.
But that is the only variance I have ever encountered.
On the other hand the following is not found in the Westminster documents
In fact, the word “condition” is used to describe the role of faith in the New Covenant. So that word cannot possibly, by itself, imply merit.
There are ways faith and faithfulness can be contrasted. For example, we are all supposed to be “faithful” to to every single command God has given. We are supposed to love God with all our strength. Anything less is “unfaithful” to our Lord. And we trust in Christ that God will forgive us as we constantly fall short of this fully faithful love. We sin every day (and more) and we trust, have faith, in Christ for forgiveness.
All true.
But it is not the only way that term “faithfulness” is used in the Bible or in historic Christianity of any sort.
I once heard a pastor say that he was an “unfaithful” husband to his wife. Sounds dire to most people. Who was the other woman? Does his wife have the right to divorce him now.
No, nothing so serious.
This man was talking about all the normal ways in which he fell short of the constant unselfish love that he had promised in his wedding vows. He was drawing a parallel between his sinning against his wife and relying on her forgiveness and the way we sin every day against God.
This, I think, was supposed to strike us as a spirit of humility.
Let me ask a couple of questions:
First, what would happen if we turned the tables? Surely this man’s wife, like every wife, fell short on a day to day level in all the obligations of love and submission to her husband. So would it be fine for him to publicly accuse his bride of being an “unfaithful wife.” I’m not asking if it is bad to publicly talk about one’s spouse’s sins. She might get angry about that, but I’m wondering if she might be much more angry believing she was slandered. What does “unfaithful wife” imply about her behavior? She would have every reason to be angry and deny that she had never ever been unfaithful to her lying husband.
Second, why doesn’t his wife have the right to divorce him? If he is an “unfaithful husband,” then that is what she should be able to do. But she would be wrong to divorce him. Why? Because he has never been unfaithful to her.
Now, the people of God are called “the bride of Christ” because they are in covenant with Christ like a wife and husband are in covenant with each other. The Westminster Larger Catechism describes this covenant on the basis of the preface to the Ten Commandments:
Q. 101. What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?
A. The preface to the Ten Commandments is contained in these words, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Wherein God manifesteth his sovereignty, as being JEHOVAH, the eternal, immutable, and almighty God; having his being in and of himself, and giving being to all his words and works: and that he is a God in covenant, as with Israel of old, so with all his people; who, as he brought them out of their bondage in Egypt, so he delivereth us from our spiritual thraldom; and that therefore we are bound to take him for our God alone, and to keep all his commandments.
Keeping “all his commandments” might sound like it demands a definition of faithfulness that is the same as sinlessness. But the commands that came down from Sinai as explanations and elaborations of the First Commandment don’t work that way:
One of the main original applications of having no other gods but the LORD (1st command) was a demand that one only sacrifice to and worship the LORD. And what was one blessing involved in sacrifice and worship?
So the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin, and he shall be forgiven (Leviticus 4.26).
This promise is repeated many times. Obviously, God did not consider people to be unfaithful to his covenant when they sinned. He promised them forgiveness. God was obligated to forgive them by the terms of the covenant.
Thus Jeremiah prayed:
I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself,
that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
Correct me, O LORD, but in justice;
not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing.Pour out your wrath on the nations that know you not,
and on the peoples that call not on your name,
for they have devoured Jacob;
they have devoured him and consumed him,
and have laid waste his habitation.
Jeremiah sees it as justice that he should be corrected in a way that gave him life, rather than destroyed him. He expects God”’s anger and wrath to be reserved for those outside the covenant (“the nations that know you not” and “the peoples that call not on your name.”)
For those in the covenant, sin is understood to be part of life and God is a wonderful covenant partner precisely because he forgives. Thus Psalm 130:
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
O LORD, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
O LORD, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the LORD
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
So what is it that marks one as a faithful covenant member who can depend on this great, forgiving God. The Apostle Paul said it in it most simple form to a prison guard: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
As the Westminster Larger Catechism puts it:
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.
And consistent with this definition of covenant faithfulness (which itself is God’s gift to those fore-ordained to eternal life):
Q. 152. What doth every sin deserve at the hands of God?
A. Every sin, even the least, being against the sovereignty, goodness, and holiness of God, and against his righteous law, deserveth his wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come; and cannot be expiated but by the blood of Christ.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.
Sinners sin, even believing sinners. But faith in Jesus Christ is what God requires of his covenant people. If they believe, they are being faithful to the covenant’s terms.
After all, when we read Peter’s response, does it make any sense to claim it is either a believing response or a faithful response because it can’t be both?
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
To get some background you might want to visit this post:
Mark Horne » Blog Archive » No nanosecond needed.
It seems to me that just as people get confused about how justification and sanctification cannot be confused (the good news is that they really can’t be), they also get confused about whether faith is active or passive.
Faith is obedient. Thus the church has always taught: According to Chapter 11, Paragraph 1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, faith is an act of “evangelical obedience.” Furthermore it is always one act of obedience among others in the justified person.
Paragraph two of the same chapter states that faith is “not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.” “Dead faith” is a direct appeal to James 2 and “worketh by love” is a direct appeal to Galatians 6. Both passages are about justification and the Westminster Confession uses those passages in a chapter that is about justification. There is no way anyone can claim that these passages are about some kind of parallel soteriological scheme so that they are not about the same justification. Galatians 6 and James 2 are dealing with the same issue, according to the Confession.
But wait! Does this mean that we are justified by works? Of course not. We are justified by the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received (as Christ is received) only by faith.
3. Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to his Father’s justice in their behalf. Yet, inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them; and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead; and both, freely, not for anything in them; their justification is only of free grace; that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.
4. God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did, in the fullness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification: nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.
Faith discharges no debt. Faith does not satisfy the Father’s justice regarding our sin. Christ and Christ alone does all that.
And for that very reason no one needs to try to deny or disguise the fact that faith is obedient. In fact, trying to do so, besides being a hideous attack on the grammar of every language, demonstrates that one is not thinking about justification and Christ’s imputation in a correct way. It will lead to people trying to be “passive” enough, inactive enough, to say that they have true non-working faith. In that direction lies madness.
The way to make sure that people don’t make faith into a meritorious work is to emphasize the work of Christ. Nothing but the blood of Jesus washes clean our sin; our faith does not do that. When the Bible says that God cleanses our hearts by faith (Acts 15.9), it is because faith receives Christ, not due to any alleged merit in the obedience of faith.
I’m picking up static about how a General Assembly “explicitly condemned” the so-called Federal Vision.
The only thing that General Assembly did was vote for the Nine Declarations. We were all explicitly told we were not voting for anything else in the report. Whether anyone was condemned depends on:
Here‘s the report with the declarations.
And for what was said at the General Assembly:
Finally here is the actual Federal Vision statement that actually represents a consensus (as opposed to simply going after specific individuals for what they have allegedly taught. As anyone can see, other than being open to paedocommunion, it is pretty standard Reformed fare on the Biblical Theology, Postmillennial, Christendom side of the Tradition.)