The Covenant Radio round table discussion was great.  Mark Duncan made some excellent points that showed he had a lot more experience with this issue than I have.  He made a point about the report I had never noticed, which I might blog about later.

But, in the middle of discussing the report, I really paid attention to this paragraph in a new way:

The 1646 chapter title “God’s eternal decree” emphasizes the unitary and comprehensive nature of God’s divine plan. Thus views which juxtapose “election from the standpoint of the covenant” with the Standard’s decretal view of election, offering this as an alternative and superior way of thinking about (e.g.) the visible church, the sacraments and assurance are not only forsaking the language of the Standards, but undermining its theology.

But this ignores the fact that the Westminster Standards switch perspectives for exaclty the pastoral reasons that have brought about the “Federal Vision.”  For example:

The preface to the ten commandments teacheth us that because God is the Lord, and our God, and redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments.

That’s from the Shorter Catechism.  Ask yourself how else the same catechism applies the word redeemer.

For more detail you will have to listen to the program.  I’ll let you know when it is ready.

From Humble Answers:

This same author also wrote this: “God rewards our good works with eternal life, because God examines our works not according to the strictest standards of absolute righteousness, but rather the same way that a human father might examine the art work of his young son.”

Um, yes. We’re supposed to preach and teach this as confessional PCA pastors:

Notwithstanding [the fact that our works merit nothing–WCF 16.5], the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreprovable in God’s sight; but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections [WCF 16.6; emphasis added].

And this would include eternal life; good works are both the fruit of true faith and the means to the end of eternal life:

These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that, having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life [WCF 16.2; emphasis added; not it is a quotation from First Corinthians 6.22, which is also the official prooftext].

But even apart from boldly asking the PCA to condemn the Westminster Confession, the paranoid connections are simply ridiculous. Speaking of people who are not even in the PCA:

However, we also realized that these statements were coming from one the most provocative of the Federal Vision men, and so we waited in vain for any other FV men to distance themselves from them.

the Federal Vision’s most profilic theological systematizer began to formulate his views on justification.

The “Federal Vision” is not a corporate entity. PCA ministers systematize for themselves using a variety of sources. This is now how we make seriouis accusations?

And then this is held out for us (originally all in bold) as the damning paragraph:

James has in view the same kind of justification as Paul – forensic, soteric justification. Good works justify persons in James 2, not faith or one’s status as a justified sinner. James is not telling his readers how to ‘justify their justification’ or how to ‘give evidence of a true and lively faith.’ Instead he says their persons will not be justified by faith alone, but also by good works of obedience they have done. The use of the preposition by is important since it indicates a sort of dual instrumentality in justification. In other words, in some sense, James is speaking of a justification in which faith and works combine together to justify. Future justification is according to one’s life pattern. No one dare claim these works be meritorious, but they are necessary.

There are two issues here: 1) Is James speaking of the same sort of justification as Paul; and 2) do faith and works work together in the final justification.

To the first issue:

Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love (WCF 11.2).

The prooftext here is James 2.17, 22, 26. In a sense, the WCF is more problematic than Rich because it is using James 2 to support initial justification. Nevertheless, that is what it says. I realize that no one is required to agree with the prooftexts, but I fail to see how they can be used in the PCA as examples of compromising justification

To the second issue, which also addresses the first again, the Westminster Standards plainly state that there is a future judgment at which, in order to escape condemnation, Christians must do good works:

God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.

The end of God’s appointing this day is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy, in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice, in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing, which shall come from the presence of the Lord; but the wicked who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power (WCF 33.1, 2, emphasis added).

Here is the block of prooftexts for the final judgment of all people “according to what they have done”:

2 Cor. 5:10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Eccl. 12:14. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Rom. 2:16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

Rom. 14:10, 12. But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ…. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Matt. 12:36–37. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

And here are the prooftexts for the second paragraph:

Matt. 25:31–46. When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the
holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me…. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not…. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Rom. 2:5–6. But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds.

Rom. 9:22–23. What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his
power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory. Matt. 25:21. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

Acts 3:19. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

2 Thess. 1:7–10. … and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

Mark 9:48. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Now, to state the obvious, the sentence passed on this day will be judicial–which is all that forensic means (thus: “At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity”–WSC #38; emphasis added). It will be soteric–it will involve being saved from the wrath of God. And it will mean that true believers are declared righteous before all, which is exactly what justification is. And it will undeniably be by works and not by faith alone. This is the Biblical and Reformed doctrine–which does not threaten in the least the doctrine of justification by faith alone nor the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

It isn’t like this stuff appears only once as a glitch in the Westminster Assembly’s work. It appears in various forms repeatedly. To take just one example from the Westminster Larger Catechism:

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.

If some PCA ministers aren’t comfortable with all this, that does not surprise me. But it would be nice if the theology of the Westminster Standards was not portrayed as a compromise of the Protestant doctrine of justification and was not used to marginalize and drive out other ministers in good standing for appreciating the full theology of the Westminster Standards.

(No, I’m not saying that nothing is new. Elsewhere I’ve been trying to converse about what might genuinely be non-traditional to no avail. I am saying that what some are treating as evidence of a crime is actually the system of doctrine they promised to uphold. Modest proposal: if you can’t uphold it; don’t condemn others for doing so.)

More and more prepostrous:

Lastly, the writers question the Committee’s intention, through the Report, of binding PCA pastors to believe in “the concept of merit under the covenant of works.” During his ordination, each PCA elder must answer the following question in the affirmative: “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of this church, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures; and do you further promise that if at any time you find yourself out of accord with any of the fundamentals of this system of doctrine, you will, of your own initiative, make known to your Session the change which has taken place in your views since the assumption of this ordination vow?” (BCO 24-6). These Standards speak of “a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience” (WCF 7.2). It would appear that PCA pastors are already bound by their ordination vows, and the committee report merely calls upon them to affirm those vows.

No. It would appear that PCA pastors are bound to believe (as we all do) that God established at creation “a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.” No one disagrees with this. That this perfect obedience was meritorious is somthing none of us are bound to say and, according to the Westminster Confession we should not say.

In order for our works to be meritorious of eternal life (WCF 16.5), they must “profit” God, there must be no “disproportion that is between them and the glory to come,” there must be no “infinite distance that is between us and God” (Compare WCF 7.1: “The distance between God and the creature is so great”), and our obedient works must be more than the duty we already owe God (was there any act of obedience Adam could conceivably do that would be above what he owed to god?).

So to summarize:

We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin, or eternal life at the hand of God, by reason of the great disproportion that is between them and the glory to come; and the infinite distance that is between us and God, whom, by them, we can neither profit, nor satisfy for the debt of our former sins, but when we have done all we can, we have done but our duty, and are unprofitable servants: and because, as they are good, they proceed from his Spirit; and as they are wrought by us, they are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment.”

I believe everything I’ve bolded would include the sinless creature. The “infinite distance” language hearken right back to the chapter on the covenant. Apparently, whether “condescension” is grace or not, it wipes out the possibility of merit.

Maybe the Westminster divines should have said that some sort of merit was possible, but the document we have in front of us says, among other things, that a deed is not meritorious unless it profits God. Was Adam able to profit God?

Thus Fisher’s catechism:

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.

Long before the Westminster Standards, Zacharias Ursinus wrote:

No creature, performing even the best works, can merit anything at the hand of God, or bind him to give anything as though it were due him, and according to the order of divine justice� We deserve our preservation no more than we did our creation. God was not bound 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 pleasure. 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 (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, p. 486).

John Ball was an orthodox theologian and a great influence on the Westminster Assembly. He wrote:

In this state and condition Adam’s obedience should have been rewarded in justice, but he could not have merited that reward. Happiness should have been conferred upon him, or continued unto him for his works, but they had not deserved the continuance thereof: for it is impossible the creature should merit of the Creator, because when he hath done all that he can, he is an unprofitable servant, he hath done but his duty. (A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace)

Francis Turretin writes:

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.” (Seventeenth Topic, Fifth Question, IV, 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 ).

(Recall in his “Gospel Under Attack” circular, that Kline explicitly said that the only basis for the covenant of works was “strict justice” and called anyone who disagreed with him a heretic)

Turretin further argues that, if Adam had remain faithful, he would have been glorified due to “the goodness of God” who is “plenteous in mercy.” Thus, Adam would “be gifted” with glory (8.6.6, 8).

In arguing that Adam would have been rewarded for obedience (even though nothing is said about it in the text), Turretin’s nephew, Benedic Pictet argues thus:

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 (Christian Theology, 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.).

So this is Reformed Theology and the Westminster Confession is perfectly consistent with it. Yes Adam was obligated to perfectly obey God. Yes God would have bestowed glory on Adam according to his promise if Adam had persevered in perfect obedience. And No this was not a relationship in which Adam could merit anything from God.

That is the system of doctrine that we have. Love it or leave it. To attempt to punish ministers of the Word for refusing to label the works of unfallen Adam as “meritorious” is a gratuitous violation of one’s ordination vows. It is justified neither by the Bible (if we pretend for the moment that the Scripture has authority in the PCA) or the Westminster Confession or Catechisms.

And here we see why these people must assure us that they are humble. The word would not naturally come to mind in anyone witnessing this behavior unless they put it in their blog title.

Having been born into their family, my parents were ethically obligated to love and care for me.  Yet, I am quite grateful for every bit of love they showed me–probably not as grateful as I ought to be.

Having married me, Jennifer was obligated to be a loving and faithful wife to me.  But I am totally grateful for all she has done and continues to do.

This is an obvious reality that we should all acknowledge and be thankful for.  How did we put ourselves in such a theological dead end that this is some sort of threat to our faith?