I recently “happened upon” an Internet statement which strongly criticizes as too lenient the action which the 35th PCA General Assembly took on the New Perspective on Paul and the Federal Vision.  The report of the Ad Interim committee, using the judgment of charity after the example of the Apostle Paul, stated that the committee viewed the NPP and FV proponents in the PCA as brothers in Christ. The Internet critic disagrees strongly with this judgment of charity. In contrast to this critic, I believe that a person can have a credible profession and yet lack in his theology the clear and precise distinction between justification and sanctification that is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

I am reminded of a paragraph I recently read in the document found here: http://www.bbmhp.org/neatby/neatby.pdf :

A friend, extremely well acquainted with Irish affairs, related that a conference was held between the Walkerites and the Kellyites to discuss terms on which a union between the two communions might be effected. The negotiations were broken off by the absolute refusal of Kelly and his friends to entertain a term of fellowship on which the other side peremptorily insisted. The article of belief to which the Kellyites declined to commit themselves was “that John Wesley is in hell.”

The report states that nine doctrines which some NPP or FV proponents may believe, are contrary to the Westminster standards. This means that those who hold these doctrines do not qualify for ordination in the PCA. This does not mean that someone who holds any of these doctrines cannot possibly be a Christian.

In his sermon “Free Will — A Slave,” Spurgeon gave the benefit of the doubt regarding their salvation to some whose preaching contained error:

Ah, when they are preaching and talking very slowly, there may be wrong doctrine; but when they come to pray, the true thing slips out, they cannot help it. If a man talks very slowly, he may speak in a fine manner; but when he comes to talk fast, the old brogue of his country, where he was born, slips out.

I have today submitted the following letter to the local newspaper:

“The movie documentary ‘Expelled’ was excellent. I thought the key point was that modern microbiology has discovered that the biological cell is not a simple gel but an organic factory far more complex than any human invention. This new data exposes the inadequacy of the naturalistic Darwinian model for explaining the origin of species. To use the language of Thomas Kuhn, we are witnessing the early stages of a scientific paradigm shift on the level of the  Copernican revolution. As to be expected, the establishment is stubbornly clinging to its old familiar model and is desperately resisting the ’survival of the fittest’ in the realm of scientific explanations.”

William Heth Whitsitt was the third president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, from 1895 to 1899. As an historican, he wrote a study arguing that English Baptists did not baptize by immersion until 1641. The book was published in 1896 while he was still president of the seminary. I found his book on the Internet at

http://books.google.com/books?id=V68OAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=WIlliam+Heth+Whitsitt#PPA34,M1

The book gives evidence that almost all early Anabaptists baptized by pouring or sprinkling and that immersion as a mode of baptism was not introduced to English Baptists until the year 1641.

 For a short biography of Dr. Whitsitt, go to

http://archives.sbts.edu/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID325566%7CCHID717900%7CCIID1978900,00.html

There is a ditch on each side of the road. Christ was crucified between two thieves. You can fall out of the saddle on either side of the horse. The point of all these illustrations is that the truth usually has an error on either side of it, each error taking part of the truth to an opposite extreme.

Another area of controversy in the Federal Vision debate is the difference between fulfilling the conditions of the covenant of works and fulfilling the obligations of the covenant of grace. Regarding this issue, I think that there are indeed two ditches, an error on each side of the truth.

In the ditch on one side of this road, people deny that the covenant of grace has any necessary obligations associated with it. Those in this ditch usually do acknowledge that a person has to believe in Christ to be saved, but they limit saving faith to trusting Christ for salvation from hell. They teach that trusting Christ for deliverance from sin’s dominating power is desirable but not necessary for salvation. They regard as legalistic the teaching that repentance and new obedience are in any sense necessary Christian obligations. This ditch is often called easy believism or carnal Christian theology or Savior only salvation as opposed to Lordship salvation.

The ditch on the other side of the road is the teaching that a person is saved by his meeting the conditions of the covenant of works. In the Federal Vision movement, this is usually expressed by saying that the covenant of grace under which people are saved today is the same covenant Adam was under before his fall into sin. Those in this ditch teach that salvation before Adam’s fall into sin was by grace through faithful obedience to God, and that this is still true today. This is sometimes called monocovenantalism because it teaches that God’s saving covenant was substantially the same both before and after Adam’s fall into sin.

Now here is what I think is the center of the road. On the one hand, there are necessary obligations related to the covenant of grace. The obligations of the covenant of grace are faith, repentance and new obedience. Faith is necessary as the instrumental means of one’s relationship with Christ. Saving faith is not the working hand demanding wages nor the full hand offering payment but the empty hand pleading for mercy. The moment we are in a faith relationship with Jesus, we begin to experience deliverance from our sins as part of our salvation. Thus repentance and new obedience are necessary fruits of saving faith and not merely optional additions to saving faith. In this sense, they along with faith are obligations of the covenant of grace.

The obligations of the covenant of grace are not conditions in the sense of provisions that one can fulfill and thereby in some sense put God into one’s debt or cause God to owe one something. These obligations are not means through which one can somehow earn wages from God or attain merit before God. They are responsibilities before God which no lost sinner has the moral ability to fulfill. The only way a sinner enslaved by sin will meet these obligations is as a consequence of the Holy Spirit’s sovereignly baptizing him into a saving union with Jesus and thus imparting spiritual life and a heart disposition toward saving faith. Saving faith as a heart disposition is a gift from God based on God’s sovereign special grace. Saving faith as an act is the inevitable response of this heart disposition to the gospel message. Saving faith as an act is also the instrumental means through which the elect experience their salvation through their union with Christ. The other obligations of the covenant are the necessary fruits of a genuine faith relationship with Jesus. If a person’s professed faith does not bear the fruit of repentance and new obedience, this is evidence that his professed faith is not genuine saving faith and that he is not really in a saving union with Christ.

On the one hand, there are necessary obligations related to the covenant of grace. On the other hand, sinners are never saved through their meeting the conditions of the covenant of works. Sinners are never saved on the same terms with which God was dealing with Adam before his fall into sin. The difference between Adam’s situation before the fall and our situation after the fall are profound.

To begin with Adam had an innocent nature. When God finished creation, He proclaimed it all very good, and that included His creation of Adam. There was no propensity toward evil in Adam. His heart propensity toward good was not so ingrained that Adam could not fall into sin when influenced by a temptation from an evil alien source. Yet Adam in his innocence before the fall had the moral capability of obeying God’s law perfectly. He could obey God without any sinful motives or purposes or impure thoughts clinging to his obedience. Perseverance in such perfect obedience was the condition which God stipulated in His covenant of works with Adam. If Adam had persisted in perfect obedience, then God would have rewarded him with eternal life. This was gracious in that God through creation had given Adam his innocent nature through which Adam had this moral ability. This was gracious in that God through providence sustained Adam’s existence moment by moment. This was gracious also in that God did not as a matter of justice owe Adam anything as a reward for his perfect obedience. God owed Adam something only in the sense that God had voluntarily bound Himself to give such a reward as a provision of the covenant of works. If Adam had kept the conditions of the covenant of works by persisting in perfect obedience, then he would have merited the promised reward not in terms of absolute justice but in terms of meeting the conditions to which God had voluntarily and graciously bound Himself. The basis for Adam’s meeting the conditions of the covenant of works would have been his own perfect personal obedience.

Of course, Adam sinned and failed to keep the conditions of the covenant of works. After Adam’s fall into sin, no sinner has been morally capable of fulfilling the conditions of the covenant of works. The sinner is born under the curse of the covenant of works because of the imputed guilt of Adam’s first sin. The sinner is born unable to fulfill the condition of perfect obedience for even a moment because of his inherited sin nature. The only one who has been able to meet the conditions of the covenant of works after the first Adam’s disobedience has been the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

In the covenant of grace, God graciously permitted Jesus as the second Adam to act as a substitute for the elect and to fulfill the conditions of the covenant of works on their behalf. Jesus paid the penalty for the elect’s sins by His finished sacrifice, and He established a perfect legal record for them through His life of perfect obedience. Because of His humanity, His atoning work is an appropriate payment for human sins. Because of His divinity, His atoning work has infinite value and thus more than merits the salvation of God’s elect in terms of fulfilling the conditions of the covenant of works.

The unsaved sinner has a heart dominated by a sinful rebellion against God. He is morally unable to come to Christ in faith for salvation because he does not want to be delivered from his sinful way of living. When God regenerates the sinner’s heart, God gives that heart an irresistible inclination toward trusting in Jesus for salvation. God does not at this point totally free his heart from indwelling sin, and sin still clings even to his saving faith. What saves the regenerate believer is not a sinless perfection in his faith but the sinlessly perfect object of His faith, Jesus Christ and His saving work.

This is all profoundly different from Adam’s situation before the fall.

The apostasy issue raises the question of what is the most an apostate may have once possessed and have now lost. Painting with a broad brush, there are three possible answers to this question: nothing, something and everything.

 Here is why this issue can get confusing.

1. Some FV proponents have made statements which appear to say that the apostate in all cases once possessed everything and has now lost everything.
2. Many FV critics believe that the apostate may have once possessed something (but only something and not everything) and so may have now lost something; some FV proponents may agree with this.
3. A few FV critics appear to believe that the apostate in all cases has lost nothing of any real spiritual significance because he never possessed anything of any real spiritual significance.

Let me define nothing, everything and something in the context of the question, What is the most an apostate may have once possessed and now lost?

I believe that the correct answer is “something.” In some cases the apostate may have been a total hypocrite but 2 Peter 2:20 does refer to those who had in some sense and for a season “escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Also, there are indications in the Bible that one can possess a spiritual gift without necessarily possessing the graces. For example, see Matthew 7:21-23 and 1 Corinthians 13:1-2. The Holy Spirit works irresistibly in the hearts of the elect, but He can also work a resistible work in the hearts of the non-elect (Acts 7:51).

There is some evidence that some of the FV proponents have reacted to those who give the “nothing” answer. Yet they have over-reacted if their response is the “everything” answer. Those who have “everything” cannot lose what they have. Those who do apostatize thereby demonstrate that they were never in a vital saving union with Christ. That is a relationship which cannot be lost.

Salvation is by grace through faith unto good works. Salvation is a free gift, but a part of that gift is a new life. We are saved through faith alone, but the faith that saves bears the fruits of repentance and new obedience. We know that faith is genuine when we see its bearing fruit in the lives of those who profess to have it.

The rich young ruler came to Jesus thinking he could pay the price for salvation. He thought he could purchase salvation by keeping the law. He left Jesus aware that much less than being able to pay the price for salvation, he was not even willing to pay the consequences of being saved. A faith relationship with Jesus would necessarily result in freedom from his bondage to greed and materialism, and he did not want to be freed. He left Jesus sorrowful and still in bondage to his sin.

Let me put this a different way using some classic theological terms. The rich young ruler came to Jesus thinking he could meet the conditions of the covenant of works. He left Jesus aware that he couldn’t even fulfill the obligations of the covenant of grace. The obligations of the covenant of grace are faith and faith’s inevitable and necessary fruits, repentance and new obedience.

No one can look into his own heart and see his faith. No one can look into heaven and see if his name is indeed written in the Book of Life. Yet anyone can look at his life and see if there is any evidence of faith’s necessary fruits. Is there repentance? Is the a pursuit of new obedience? These do not save us, but they do give evidence that we know the Savior. If we abide in Him, we will bear much fruit. Apart from Him, we can do nothing.——

All who are in what we call the visible church have what we call the promise of the covenant. The promise of the covenant is that we will receive the blessings of the covenant if we meet the obligations of the covenant.  The most basic obligation of the covenant is saving faith in Jesus. This means resting upon Jesus alone for salvation, which consists of both forgiveness of sins and deliverance from sin. Being in a saving relationship with Jesus through faith is inevitably going to bear certain fruit in a person’s life. This inevitable, necessary fruit is summarized as repentance and new obedience. These also are obligations of the covenant, not as something we do to be saved but as something which results from our genuinely being saved through a faith relationship with Jesus. Those who meet the obligations of the covenant (i.e., those who have a genuine faith relationship with Jesus) have not only the promise of the covenant but also the salvation promised in the covenant.

The promise of the covenant which belongs to the church is also offered to the world in what we call the free offer of the gospel. There is a similarity but a difference between the world’s receiving the free offer of the gospel and the church’s possessing the promise of the covenant. Perhaps we can describe the difference using the imagery of the olive tree in Romans 11:16-24.

In this imagery, the olive tree represents the visible church, which is the covenant community in history. In Paul’s imagery in Romans chapter eleven, the world is represented by two entities. First, the world is represented by the wild olive tree which cannot bear any good fruit. Secondly, the world is represented by the stacked pile of fruitless branches which have been broken off of the good olive tree in judgment. The promise of the covenant belongs to the branches on the good olive tree, and the promise of the covenant is offered to the world as represented by both the wild olive tree and the pile of broken off, fruitless branches.

In the free offer of the gospel, the wild olive shoots on the wild olive tree of paganism are challenged to confess Christ so that they may be grafted onto the good olive tree of new covenant Israel. Sometimes the wild olive shoots confess Christ and are grafted into the church. Often they refuse and remain on the wild olive tree. In the free offer of the gospel, the broken off fruitless branches are challenged to confess Christ so that they may be re-grafted onto the good olive tree of new covenant Israel.

	Romans 11:23
23	And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

Sometimes the broken off branches confess Christ and are re-grafted into the church. Often they refuse and remain on the stacked pile. That is the free offer of the gospel.

The promise of the covenant is more than offered to our covenant children. The shoots on the olive tree, which represent members of the visible church, are those who possess the promise of the covenant. Yet only the shoots who have a regenerate heart and thus truly abide in the tree in faith bear fruit. The fruit is our meeting the obligations of the covenant through our having a genuine faith relationship with Jesus. Only those shoots on the olive tree which bear this fruit have the salvation promised.

It is wonderful to know that our covenant children are little shoots on the olive tree of new covenant Israel and are not shoots on the wild olive tree of paganism and not fruitless branches in the pile of judgment. Their baptism with water is the sign and seal that they possess the promise of the covenant. They are a part of that assembly which gathers on the Lord’s Day to worship the living and true God, that assembly to which Jesus gave the promise that He would be there in their midst when gathered together in His name. They are there exposed to the means of grace, especially the Word which is able from infancy to make one wise unto salvation. There the faithful pray for them and their salvation. There they are exposed to examples of genuine faith and sheltered from the evil company which corrupts good habits. We are grateful indeed for all these blessings and benefits, and we recognize their significance.

We also want our covenant children to possess the salvation promised, the salvation which belongs to those who meet the obligations of the covenant. We pray that God will work faith in their hearts and thus give them ears to hear and eyes to see. We pray that God will enable them to abide in the Vine and thus bear that spiritual fruit which gives evidence of spiritual life. We pray that the genuine faith which first dwelt in us will also dwell in them. We pray with hope and expectation because the assembly of the faithful is where God often works in hearts and gives the gift of faith.

Paul reminds us in Romans nine that “they are not all Israel which are of Israel” and mentions specifically the sad example of Esau. For such sad occasions, the Apostle Paul gives us these words of wisdom:

	Romans 3:3-4a
3	For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?
4	Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. …

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Another issue in the Federal Vision debate is what Paul means when he writes to a church and refers to the members as the saints. Now we know that not every member on every church roll is going to end up in heaven. Some of those who call themselves Christians are going to fall away. As we read in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” If that is the case, then what does Paul mean when he refers to all the members of a local church as saints?

The answer consistent with Reformed theology is that Paul was addressing everyone in the church according to their outward profession. He assumed in general that people’s outward profession was consistent with their true inner spiritual condition, but he knew this wasn’t always true in every case. The members of the visible church are saints in the more significant sense of the word if indeed they truly do have the saving faith relationship with Jesus which they profess to have.

The new answer some Federal Vision proponents are giving is that everyone in the visible church really is saved. Every member on the church roll, head for head, without exception, is elect, regenerate, justified and adopted. Yet not all will persevere in this salvation. Some will fall away and lose their election, their regeneration, their justification, their adoption.

Which is it? Are only the individually elect in the local church ever truly regenerate? Or are all in the local church regenerate, and only the individually elect among them will persevere in their regeneration? Let’s see if we can find out by examining Paul’s epistle to the Romans. Paul wrote to those at Rome whom he referred to as the beloved of God called to be saints. He thus addressed each of them as the Christian each person professed to be. Then in Romans 8:9, Paul said that those to whom he was writing were not in the flesh but in the Spirit, and then he made a qualification. He didn’t say that everyone in the church without exception was “not in the flesh but in the Spirit” with the qualification that only some would persevere in this condition. He said they were not in the flesh but in the Spirit “if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”

So here is one example. I can’t say that everyone in the visible church without exception is not in the flesh but in the Spirit. This is true only of the regenerate in the visible church. I believe that this same basic pattern also holds for the justification mentioned in Romans 8:30, the ordo salutis passage. Paul there says that all who are justified will be glorified. If everyone in the visible church without exception has a Romans 8:30 justification, then everyone in the visible church without exception is going to be glorified.

Romans 8:30 also mentions calling. The same word is also used in Scripture to refer to all who hear the gospel. Some who are called in that sense are never even members of the visible church. Here is a case where the same word in the Bible can be used in reference to different theological concepts. So instead of saying that everyone in the visible church is called with the same calling with only the elect persevering in that calling, we should say that everyone in the visible church is called with an external calling but only the regenerate in the visible church have been called with an efficacious internal calling.

We could analyze other words relating to salvation and discuss the word’s meaning as a theological term and the various meanings of the word in the New Testament in various contexts. For example, the word sanctify and its cognates can refer to the covenant child’s membership in the visible church or to the Spirit’s progressive work of deliverance from sin in the regenerate heart or perhaps even to the legal concept of justification.

The major point, however, is that not everyone in the visible church has the same salvation with the difference between the elect and non-elect being that only the elect will persevere in that salvation. No, the non-elect never have the same salvation, even temporarily, which the elect possess. Again, as we read in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”

There is a ditch on each side of the road. Christ was crucified between two thieves. You can fall out of the saddle on either side of the horse. The point of all these illustrations is that the truth usually has an error on either side of it, each error taking part of the truth to an opposite extreme.

One of the major issues in the current controversy over the new Federal Vision theology is the relationship of the eternal decree of election to the historical administration of the covenant of grace. Regarding this issue, I think that there are indeed two ditches, an error on each side of the truth.

In the ditch on one side of the road, people define the historical administration of the covenant in terms of election. Some teach that baptism is a sign and seal of the promise of the covenant only for the elect. Some teach that only the elect among the covenant people possess the promise of the covenant. In other words, when Peter made the statement to the Jewish crowd on Pentecost, “The promise is to you and to your children,” he was addressing only the elect among them.

In the ditch on the other side of the road, people define election in terms of the historical administration of the covenant. In other words, if you are a part of the covenant people, a member of the visible church, then you are elect, regenerate, justified, adopted, sanctified, but only as long as you remain in the covenant. Everyone in the visible church, head for head, possesses not only the promise of the covenant but also the salvation promised.

On one side, people teach that only the elect in the church possess the promise of the covenant of grace. On the other side, people teach that everyone in the visible church without exception has not only the promise but also the salvation promised.

Now here is what I think is the center of the road. The elders try to administer the church not in terms of the decree of election but in terms of God’s revealed will. Yet we also acknowledge that the Holy Spirit does not share this human limitation; He works in hearts in terms of the decree of election. The promise of the covenant belongs to everyone in the covenant community. Yet only those who meet the obligations of the covenant receive the promised salvation. The obligations of the covenant are saving faith in Jesus and that faith’s inevitable and necessary fruit, repentance and new obedience. The minister regularly exhorts all the covenant people to believe in Christ, to repent of sins, to obey God. Faith is not a one time act but a way of life. “As you have received Christ, so walk in Him.” The minister’s passion for all to fulfill the obligations of the covenant mirrors God’s desire for obedience rooted in His revealed will. The minister treats each one in the church as the Christian he professes to be. He treats the covenant children this way with the qualification that he doesn’t expect them to profess their faith or to take upon themselves certain responsibilities until they reach the point in their spiritual and mental development where they can do so meaningfully and responsibly. The minister also regularly challenges all the covenant people to examine themselves that they are indeed inwardly what they profess to be outwardly. When people meet the obligations of the covenant, the minister points them to God’s sovereign grace and exhorts them not to boast but to praise God, who has enabled them to meet the obligations of the covenant. When people fail to meet the obligations of the covenant, the minister points them to their own responsibility. God has shined the light of the gospel message upon them. They have seen the power of the gospel at work in the church. They have perhaps themselves escaped for a season the pollutions of this world through the knowledge of the Lord. Yet now they are turning away from the light, and the responsibility is fully theirs. They love the darkness and don’t want to be delivered from their sins. God is genuinely and sincerely grieved by their disobedience, even though He ordains all that happens and will work their disobedience to the glory of His justice. People who thus fall away manifest that they never had inwardly what they at one time professed to have.

That is what I consider to be the center of the road regarding decretive election and the historical administration of the covenant of grace. By the center of the road, I mean the true teaching which avoids the ditch of error on either side.