Technically, from one perspective, all covenants that God makes with creatures are gracious in the sense that He is not obligated to make any promises to His creatures. But the distinction between the covenant of works and grace is getting at something that is of vital importance, as it has to do with the Gospel. The covenant of grace indicates God’s promise to save us even when we fail to keep the obligations imposed in creation.

via The Covenant of Works by R.C. Sproul | Reformed Theology Articles at Ligonier.org.

Wow! How far we have fallen

Mark Horne » Blog Archive » I think this thought experiment needs a better lab.

I may have a way to clarify a precise problem here (not the only one but a major one):

Imagine further that all that our first father needed to do was to try his hardest and do his best, and once that was done, God would mingle His grace with Adam’s works in order to render them acceptable.

Notice here that grace is defined to mean something that covers an inadequacy.

Now God’s grace for sinners does arrange to cover our sin through Christ’s righteousness. But that is not the definition of grace. For creatures it simply means unmerited favor (or in the case of Jesus, perhaps favor without concern for merit). As I showed before, virtually everyone in the Reformed Tradition acknowledges that God’s covenant relationship with Adam was gracious. As Klinean Bill Baldwin as admitted:

A veritable All-Star team of Reformed heroes have subscribed to one or both of those points, asserting or implying grace in the covenant of works: William Ames, Johannes Cocceius, Frances Turretin, the Westminster Divines, John Owen, Thomas Boston, R. L. Dabney, Geerhardus Vos, John Murray, Louis Berkhof, Anthony Hoekema, Sinclair Ferguson, Richard Gaffin. Only a handful — Johannes Heidegger, Herman Witsius, Charles Hodge — hold out against this tide. And Witsius does so after much agonizing. He knows what he’s up against.

But no one in this “All-star team” ever dreamed that Adam’s works required forgiveness or some other covering in order to be acceptable to God. That has nothing to do with the obvious fact that God created, and made promises to, Adam by his own grace and not because of Adam’s works. If you think this is what these or any other Christians are teaching, then you plainly do not understand the debate at all and need to go back and study.

Insisting that grace can only be about covering inadequacy is exactly what this debate is supposed to be about. By using a definition that is in fact the whole point of the dispute nothing is accomplished–if logical argumentation and understanding are considered desirable.

And the confusion resulted not only in mischaracterizing the alternative view, but asserting that Adam or Jesus could have done their best and still fallen short of God’s requirements, as I pointed out in my first post. This is simply horrible.

In order to unpack this, let’s try a kind of thought experiment. Imagine that the covenant made with Adam at creation was not a covenant of works at all, but a covenant infused with grace. Imagine further that all that our first father needed to do was to try his hardest and do his best, and once that was done, God would mingle His grace with Adam’s works in order to render them acceptable. If such were the case, then some serious christological and soteriological implications would follow (seriously bad ones, I mean). For example, if Christ is the second Adam as Paul says He is (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:20–28, 45), and if Christ’s role is to recapitulate and retell the Adamic story, then it would necessarily follow that Christ, just like His covenant predecessor, was not called to “perfectly and personally” obey His Father’s law, but only to do His very best, after which the Father would mingle His grace with the Son’s best efforts and, if everything sufficed in the end, He would then accept Jesus’ offering on our behalf.

via Creed Code Cult: The Dangers of Mixing Law and Gospel.

How can anyone with an orthodox anthropology claim that Adam could ” try his hardest and do his best” and yet fail to “‘perfectly and personally’ obey” God?

How can anyone with an orthodox christology claim that Jesus could “try his hardest and do his best” and yet fail to “perfectly and personally’ obey His Father’s law”?

How could one calling be short of the other?

And how can this man claim to know anything about the people he criticizes? Does he even understand what his words mean? “God would mingle His grace with Adam’s works in order to render them acceptable”? Grace is not a substance. It is an attitude. “the Father would mingle His grace with the Son’s best efforts” This is all ontologically confused.

And in any case, since the Bible says Jesus grew in grace I think we’d better believe the Bible rather than a confused and incoherent chain of assertions.

“And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the grace of God was upon him.”

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and graced him with the name that is above every name.”

And of course, every Reformed exegete has insisted that Adam was in a gracious covenant with God. It is not like this is an obscure fact. So why is not only the Bible, but Reformed Theology, being trashed?

The overwhelming Reformed consensus is this: that God’s covenant with Adam was one of grace and that the principle condition of that covenant was that Adam trust God for all his blessedness–a trust which could only result in perfect perpetual obedience for Adam as an unfallen creature. This is what historic Reformed orthodoxy has always affirmed:

We believe that man was created pure and perfect in the image of God, and that by his own guilt he fell from the grace which he received, and is thus alienated from God, the fountain of justice and of all good, so that his nature is totally corrupt (The French Confession, Article 9; emphasis added).

The French Confession was approved by John Calvin who himself taught the same thing. In 1536 he wrote in his first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion,

In order for us to come to a sure knowledge of ourselves, we must first grasp that Adam, parent of us all, was created in the image and likeness of God. That is, he was endowed with wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and was so clinging by these gifts of grace to God that he could have lived forever in Him, if he had stood fast in the uprightness God had given him. But when Adam slipped into sin, this image and likeness of God was cancelled and effaced, that is, he lost all the benefits of divine grace, by which he could have been led back into the way of life (emphasis added).

Twenty-four years later, Calvin still taught the same thing in his final version of the Institutes,

If man had no title to glory in himself, when, by the kindness of his Maker, he was distinguished by the noblest ornaments, how much ought he to be humbled now, when his ingratitude has thrust him down from the highest glory to extreme ignominy? At the time when he was raised to the highest pinnacle of honor, all which Scripture attributes to him is, that he was created in the image of God, thereby intimating that the blessings in which his happiness consisted were not his own, but derived by divine communication. What remains, therefore, now that man is stripped of all his glory, than to acknowledge the God for whose kindness he failed to be grateful, when he was loaded with the riches of his grace? Not having glorified him by the acknowledgment of his blessings, now, at least, he ought to glorify him by the confession of his poverty (2.2.1; italics added).

Indeed, it is a matter of Confessional orthodoxy for those in the continental Reformed tradition to affirm that upright, sinless creatures only live by the grace of God:

He also created the angels good, to be His messengers and to serve His elect; some of whom are fallen from that excellency in which God created them into everlasting perdition, and the others have by the grace of God remained steadfast and continued in their first state (The Belgic Confession, Article 12).

If even sinless angels are preserved by the grace of God for eternal life, why should Adam be any different? It is one thing to disagree with the Belgic Confession here, but it is altogether different to claim that it is a heretical compromise of the Gospel.

But there is more: William Ames writes in his Marrow of Theology of God’s covenant with Adam that, “In this covenant the moral deed of the intelligent creature lead either to happiness as a reward or to unhappiness as a punishment. The latter is deserved; the former is not” (1.10.11).

Or consider Fisher’s Catechism in questions and answers 30-32:

Was there any proportion between Adam’s obedience, though sinless, and the life that was promised?
There can be no proportion between the obedience of a finite creature, however perfect, and the enjoyment of the infinite God…Why could not Adam’s perfect obedience be meritorious of eternal life?
Because perfect obedience was no more than what he was bound to, by virtue of his natural dependence on God, as a reasonable creature made after his image.

Could he have claimed the reward as a debt, in case he had continued in his obedience?
He could have claimed it only as a pactional debt, in virtue of the covenant promise, by which God became debtor to his own faithfulness, but not in virtue of any intrinsic merit of his obedience, Luke 17:10.

Note here the promissory nature of Adam’s relationship to God. Only by believing God’s promises and threats rather than Satan’s lies would Adam inherit eternal unmerited glory. Adam needed no forgiveness but he still lived by faith in God. He was disinherited for unbelief. Likewise, Zacharias Ursinus teaches in his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism that,

even if our works were perfectly good, yet they could not merit eternal life, inasmuch as they are due from us. A reward is due to evil works according to the order of justice; but not unto good works, because we are bound to do them as the creatures of God; but no one can bind God, on the other hand, by any works or means to confer any benefit upon him. Evil works, again, in their very design oppose and injure God, whilst good works add nothing to his felicity (p. 335).

Francis Turretin agrees with this overwhelming testimony. In the first place he defines “merit” in a way that rules out the possibility that a creature could merit anything from the Creator:

To be true merit, then, these five conditions are demanded: (1) that the “work be undue”–for no one merits by paying what he owes (Luke 17.10), he only satisfies; (2) that it be ours–for no one can be said to merit from another; (3) that it be absolutely perfect and free from all taint–for where sin is there merit cannot be; (4) that it be equal and proportioned to the reward and pay; otherwise it would be a gift, not merit. (5) that the reward be due to such a work from justice—whence an “undue work” is commonly defined to be one that “makes a reward due in the order of justice.” (17.5.4; p. 712).

This would lead one to expect that Turretin would deny that sinless “legal obedience” could ever be meritorious in God’s sight. Turretin explicitly meets this expectation. Even if sinless, “there is no merit properly so called of man before God” (Ibid). “Thus, Adam himself, if he had persevered, would not have merited life in strict justice” (Ibid). And, for a sinless being “the legal condition has the relation of a meritorious cause (at least congruously and improperly)” (12.3.6; p. 186; emphasis added). In other words it was emphatically not “merit properly so called.” Joel Garver summarizes:

Having been educated at several prominent Reformed institutions on the Continent, Turretin returned to Geneva where he remained a professor of theology from 1653 onward. While there he published his greatest work, Institutio theologiae elenctiae from 1679-1685. Regarding prelapsarian grace in general, he writes that Adam’s “original righteousness can properly be called ‘grace’ or a ‘gratuitous gift’ (and so not due on the part of God, just as the nature itself also, created by him)” (Institutes 5.11.16).

Regarding the gratuitous promise of life held forth in the prelapsarian covenant of nature, Turretin argues that God promises not only bodily immortality, but also a transformed heavenly life. Had Adam persevered in obedience, the immortality of his body would only have been “through the dignity of original righteousness and the power of God’s special grace” (5.12.9). Moreover, Adam’s elevation to heavenly life would not have been a matter of mere justice, but also “the goodness of God” who is “plenteous in mercy” and by whom Adam would “be gifted” with heavenly life (8.6.6, 8).

For Turretin, not only was grace involved in Adam’s creation, in God’s promise, and in its reward, but Adam was also given “sufficient grace” by which to remain obedient to that first covenant, a grace that Turretin describes as “habitual and internal” (9.7.14-17).

Turretin’s nephew, Benedict Pictet, reiterated this Reformed Orthodox position. His Christian Theology was translated by Frederick Reyroux and it was published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication in Philadelphia before January of 1846. At that time, the issue of the Princeton Review announced the publication and declared,

In this small but compact volume, we have a comprehensive epitome of Theology; from the pen of one of the most distinguished theologians of Geneva. The great excellence of Pictet, is simplicity and perspicuity. He is, even in his large work, much less scholastic, than his predecessors, and less disposed perhaps to press his statements beyond the limits of certain knowledge. We are glad to see so sound and readable a book placed within the reach of all classes of readers (vol 18, issue 1, “Short Notices,” p. 180).

Pictet wrote regarding God’s covenant with Adam that it involved both promise and warning. The warning involves a rather straightforward exposition of the text of Genesis. Proving that a promise was also involved, however, requires some extrapolation, because the future reward is not stated in the text. Pictet reasons from God’s character saying:

With regard to the promise of the covenant, though it is not expressly laid down, it is sufficiently clear from the threatening of death, which is opposed to it; for although God owes nothing to his creature, yet as the whole scripture sets him forth to us as slow to anger and abundant in mercy, it is not at all probable, that God denounced upon man the threat of eternal punishment, and at the same time gave him no promise (p. 141).

Pictet also deals with the principle of the possibility of meritorious works later in his book. In dealing with the good works of a believer, and proving “the necessity of good works,” he goes on to point out that such necessary good works are not meritorious before God. In doing so he gives four reasons (pp 332, 333). At least two of these would apply to all creatures regardless of sin or innocence. First “a meritorious work must be one that is not due, for no one can have any merit in paying what he owes; but good works are due; ‘When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which it was out duty to do’ (Luke 17.10).” Second, there must be a “proportion” between “the good work and the promised reward; but there is no proportion between the two in the present case; not even when the good work is martyrdom, the most excellent of all. For (all) ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed,’ (Romans 8.18).”

But Pictet not only speaks of good works in general, but specifically addresses the issue of how good works would have related to Adam’s vindication and glorification if he had continued in faith and obedience rather than falling into unbelief and disobedience. He writes that “if the first man had persevered in innocence, he would have been justified by the fulfillment of the natural law which God had engraven on his heart, and of the other commandments which God might have enjoined on him; in short, by perfectly loving God and his neighbor” (p. 312). Thus, if Adam had persevered he would have been declared righteous and “acquired a right to eternal glory, not indeed as if he had properly merited it, for the creature can merit nothing from the Creator, but according to the free promise and Covenant of God” (Ibid.).

As can be seen by the fact that Pictet was translated, American theologians did not reject Turrettin’s faithful summary of the Reformed heritage; far less did they condemn it as a subversion of the Gospel. As Joel Garver writes in his essay, “The Covenant of Works in the Reformed Tradition,” of, A. A. Hodge’s Outlines of Theology, published in 1860.

In it he writes of the covenant of works, “It was also essentially a gracious covenant, because although every creature is, as such, bound to serve the Creator to the full extent of his powers, the Creator cannot be bound as a mere matter of justice to grace the creature fellowship with himself.” In his posthumously published Evangelical Theology: A Course of Popular Lectures (1890), Hodge similarly states, “God offered to man in this gracious Covenant of Works the opportunity of accepting his grace and receiving his covenant gift of a confirmed holy character” (167).

I will cut short my discussion list of evidence here, though it could be much much longer. Readers are directed to Joel Garver’s much more detailed and better-organized essay (http://www.joelgarver.com/writ/theo/covwor.htm) for more evidence, though it too could be much longer.

But according to Table Talk this is all wrong.

Of course it is dangerous to confuse law and Gospel, by the way. That is precisely why such careless reasoning is so dangerous. It won’t hold up. It isn’t what Paul was talking about. It isn’t consistent with the Reformed Tradition. It leaves the real meaning and danger unexplained.

Defining law the way the writer does, it is dangerous because (as the quotations above show) it is blasphemy. No creature can merit anything from God. Only Jesus merited vindication from God for us and that was because he graciously became incarnate. (Notice though that this merit does not need to be played off against God’s gracious attitude as we see in Luke and Philippians).

The comparison between the two Adams is between Adam’s demerit and Christ’s merit. That is exactly what Romans 5 shows us. If Adam had obeyed the possibility of sin would have been eliminated from creation. His sons and daughters would have been perfectly righteous before God and had no need of some meritorious ground to compensate for any sin. There would have been no need for an “alien imputation” of Adam’s righteousness, meritorious or not.

These things were necessary and were given due to the imputation of Adam’s disobedience and the corruption of human nature along with the sins that resulted.

Every Christian knows what happened on Christmas (whatever date that was) was a necessary condition and an essential part of God’s work to liberate his people from sin and guilt.

But often times what happened is described in ways that leave our understanding anemic and our explanation of the person and work of Christ lacking. On the other hand, there is a disconnect between our more full descriptions of what happened on Christmas and our doctrine of salvation so that we don’t apply it correctly and leave our doctrine of salvation lacking.

What I mean is this. Our doctrine of imputation requires more than merely an affirmation (as important is it is) of the fact of the incarnation. Christmas is about the incarnation but it is about more than that; and that more is necessary for us to have a real doctrine of salvation–specifically, one that includes imputation.

The doctrine of imputation explains how a holy God can welcome into his presence and blessing an impure people–God reckons them as righteous before him because he accounts them as sharing in the righteousness of another. Among other things, this protects God from the charge of being arbitrary and lacking in a commitment to justice. God does not simply ignore his own holiness in forgiving sinners. He is not capricious. He meets the demands of holiness and punitive justice even in showing great undeserved mercy.

But, if this doctrine of imputation is to have any apologetic value, as it is often claimed to have, then we need to be careful about how we express it. To say that God can simply evade the requirements of justice by imputing the righteousness of someone to someone else (and to offer no further explanation) gives of simply another version of capricious injustice. Could God the Son have been born a Micronesian and drowned in the Pacific for the sins of the elect? Could he have been born in Egypt and eaten by a Nile crocodile as a toddler to make atonement for our sins? To the extent that we are trying to explain anything to anyone about how the person and work of Christ satisfies God’s justice, the whole relationship can seem so arbitrary as to solve nothing.

Think about real-life situations. Imagine someone served papers on you because he had been the victim of a car accident and had suffered great loss in medical expenses and time away from work. You would be shocked. “I wasn’t the driver at fault! I had nothing to do with that car wreck. Sue the driver.”

“But the driver died in the accident,” your adversary replies, “so I am imputing his guilt to you so that you owe me for damages. Since I have imputed this guilt to you my lawsuit is perfectly fair. The demands of justice are satisfied.”

Obviously, that would be completely insane. Imputation, rather than explaining God’s justice, if portrayed in such an arbitrary matter, actually becomes a charge against his character.

But that’s not what happened.

It is more like a situation in which your child got killed in a car accident and was at fault in the damage he inflicted on the driver of the other vehicle. Because this child was a dependent member of your household, the victim would have every right and reason to expect you to cover his damages. And, you would be able to pay for your sons sin as his representative.

So we don’t call the celebration of the Nativity “JoeBlowMas,” but “Christmas.” Jesus didn’t just become someone, anyone human in the abstract apart from rank or relationship. He came as Christ, the Son of David, the rightful ruler and heir to the world. He was a member of the priestly people who were called to bring blessing to all the families of the earth As the king of that people, he was also the representative of the nation–especially responsible to fulfill that commission to the other nations, and also the one representative and responsible for his own nation.

Even though a king in exile under the rule of others, Jesus was born with us related to him as his dependents. He had every right and reason to offer himself on our behalf as the true covenant head of God’s people.

Thus, we find that the Apostle Paul sometimes even refers to the people who belong to Christ as “Christ”:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

You would expect Paul to write “the Church,” in the place of the last word of that sentence, but under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he does not.

Thus, the Pauline scholar N. T. Wright argues that for Paul (and, no doubt, for Wright as well), Xpistos bears an “incorporative” meaning: “Paul regularly uses the word to connote, and sometimes even denote, the whole people of whom the Messiah is the representative.”

But why should “Messiah” bear such an incorporative sense? Clearly, because it is endemic in the understanding of kingship, in many societies and certainly in ancient Israel, that the king and the people are bound together in such a way that what is true of the one is true in principle of the other.

And again

In Romans 6.11, the result of being baptized “into Christ”… is that one is now “in Christ,” so that what is true of him is true of the one baptized–here, death and resurrection. This occurs within the overall context of the Adam-Christ argument of chapter 5, with its two family solidarities; the Christian has now left the old solidarity (Romans 6.6) and entered the new one. 6.23 may be read by analogy with 6.11; whose who are “in Christ” receive the gift of the life of the new age, which is already Christ’s in virtue of his resurrection–that is, which belongs to Israel’s representative, the Messiah in virtue of his having drawn Israel’s climactic destiny on to himself. Similarly, in Romans 8.1, 2 the point of the expression “in Christ” is that what is true of Christ is true of his people: Christ has come through the judgment of death and out into the new life which death can no longer touch (8.3-4; 8.10-11), and that is now predicated of those who are “in him.” In Galatians 3.26 the ex-pagan Christians are told that they are all sons of God (a regular term for Israel…) in Christ, through faith. It is because of who the Messiah is–the true seed of Abraham, and so on–that Christians are this too, since they are “in” him. Thus in v. 27, explaining this point, Paul speaks of being baptized “into” Christ and so “putting on Christ,” with the result that (3.28) [translating Wright’s reproduction of Paul’s Greek here:] you are all one in Christ Jesus. It is this firm conclusion, with all its overtones of membership in the true people of God, the real people of Abraham, that is then expressed concisely in 3.29 with the genitive [again translating]: and if you are of Christ… When we consider Galatians 3 as a whole, with its essentially historical argument from Abraham through Moses to the fulfillment of God’s promises in the coming of Christ, a strong presupposition is surely created in faovor both of reading Xpistos as “Messaiah,” Israel’s representative, and of understanding the incorporative phrases at the end of the chapter as gaining their meaning from this sens. Because Jesus is the Messiah, he sums up his people in himself, so that what is true of him is true of them (The Climax of the Covenant, pp. 47-48; Emphasis added).

It is not only about Jesus’ bare humanity. His solidarity with Israel as Israel’s king, Is role as a king to the priestly people, the entire history of Israel through judges, kings, and empires is all part of the work that comes to a climax in the death and resurrecton of Christ.

And it is all implied in that royal title.

Just another thing to remember under the category, “The Meaning of Christmas.”

For Further Reading

The “Federal Vision” is simply the title of a conference that recommended the covenant theology aspects of Reformed Theology over the excesses of “experiential pietism.”

Of course it is present in all the NAPARC denominations that allow confessional Reformed theology without further restrictions.

It tends to overlap with those who take exception to the Reformed confessional heritage by embracing paedocommunion, but it is not identical with the same.

It has been marginalized recently by various committees in NAPARC denominations that are noteworthy for being highly stacked and highly wrong both to Scripture and breadth of the Reformed heritage.

Why is the “Federal Vision” hated (it really is) in some circles in the PCA? In my opinion it is because only a minority in the PCA believe this:

Q. 76. What is repentance unto life?
A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby, out of the sight and sense, not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, and upon the apprehension of God’s mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, he so grieves for and hates his sins, as that he turns from them all to God, purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with him in all the ways of new obedience.

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.

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. 167. How is baptism to be improved by us?
A. The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others; by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it, and of the ends for which Christ instituted it, the privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby, and our solemn vow made therein; by being humbled for our sinful defilement, our falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism, and our engagements; by growing up to assurance of pardon of sin, and of all other blessings sealed to us in that sacrament; by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body.

So, because the majority are uncomfortable with this, a powerful few have the opportunity to portray the minority who believe the above as heretics and are attempting to do so.  All the claims that so-and-so really disbelieves the Gospel or disbelieves in justification by faith alone, etc, are really reducible to the belief that the above affirmations are also incompatible with justification by faith alone or the Gospel, etc.

Sometimes you see anti-FV material trying to rationalize the statements above. Mostly you just see them ignored because the attempts are obvious failures.

That is how I see it. That is why I have always believe that “Federal Vision” was just a nickname for Reformed Theology though not always the stream of it emphasized by some Puritans and/or pietists and/or the contemporary “Reformed Baptist” ethos that classifies the Reformed as next of kin theologically to John Piper, Mark Dever, and/or Mark Driscoll. I have certainly never seen any argument to the contrary that is remotely persuasive.

For further reading: What is “the Federal Vision”?”

Remembering Marx… or not – Reformation21 Blog.

Derek is someone I think of as above the Anti-FV blog meme, but he seems to be slipping down into it.

So what was Marx’s spiritual state? According to the Bible, he was someone who was delivered from “Egypt” but instead of following God to the Promised Land he stubbornly resisted God’s call in disbelief so that his “last state” became “worse… than the first” (2 Peter 2.20). This is not “Federal Vision.” It is the Apostle Paul:

For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

Marx (who, by the way, was not only baptized but had, as far as anyone can tell, a quite convincing profession of faith in his youth), did not flee from idolatry. He embraced it. He invented a new form of it. So he died in the wilderness.

We should consider Marx a warning in history.

I wrote this entry on what I believe and have taught regarding baptismal regeneration. It sites an essay I wrote back in seminary.

But then later I realized I’d already addressed the issue in 2007.

And I’d forgotten about it because it had been completely forgotten by everyone else.

There was a time when I thought blogging was a way of having a public conversation.  But in some cases it is really more like providing audio-recording to a kid who delights in splicing words together in order to make an obscene phone call in your voice. And when you hear it, you actually start to wonder, “Did I sin with my lips like that? Did I say something so bad and forget?” Because you can’t believe someone would misuse your words so badly that they would construct such a monstrosity.  You actually are tempted to accuse yourself of forgotten sin rather than admit just how much the will-to-power has infected your accuser.

And, of course, when you point out the original context.  You are told that you are engaging in contradiction and obfuscation. You are guilty of being jelly your accuser is trying to nail to the wall by not cooperating with their frame.  That’s the other side of the accusation that you are “whining” that no one understands you.

The winning Federal Vision haiku is right.

You don’t resemble

My caricature of you

Because you’re lying.

But if you listen to the caricature long enough you will start believing it. When you are pleasantly surprised with your own past writing because it sounds so much better, it is time to be concerned.

Consider this an explanation as to why these posts are fewer and farther between.

Ramsey is absolutely right. The law is not of faith. However, his conclusion that the Mosaic covenant is not works based is wrong. The Mosaic covenant is a law/works/meritorious covenant.

How then do we resolve this tension? John Owen did it by removing the Mosaic covenant from the covenant of grace. And he was right to do so.

via Confusing Law and Gospel (and the WCF) « Contrast.

This kind of honesty regarding the Westminster Confession and Covenant theology is all too rare in the attack on the so-called “Federal Vision.”

Simple: only a minority in the PCA are really comfortable with this:

Q. 76. What is repentance unto life?
A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby, out of the sight and sense, not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, and upon the apprehension of God’s mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, he so grieves for and hates his sins, as that he turns from them all to God, purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with him in all the ways of new obedience.

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.

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. 167. How is baptism to be improved by us?
A. The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others; by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it, and of the ends for which Christ instituted it, the privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby, and our solemn vow made therein; by being humbled for our sinful defilement, our falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism, and our engagements; by growing up to assurance of pardon of sin, and of all other blessings sealed to us in that sacrament; by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body.

So, because the majority are uncomfortable with this, a few–who have managed to rationalize a concept of the Reformed Faith that does not really allow for those statements–have the opportunity to portray the minority who believe the above as heretics.

Those four questions and answers. That is all.

Everything else is strategy.  You can read the document linked in the sidebar, but it won’t add that much, I don’t think.