9.04.2007

Responses to a Federal Vision skeptic

Justification is God's reckoning one righteous, based on the obedience of Christ. His obedience is imputed to us when we believe in His saving work on the cross. The Father was well pleased with His Son, and places us in union with His Son, so He is also well-pleased with us. The faith we have is given to us by God - we could not believe on our own, being totally depraved. We are saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone.

Baptism is a sign and seal of our salvation, and admits us to the visible church. I'm probably most FV on baptism. Besides being a picture of the washing of regeneration, an assurance to the one baptized of all it signifies happening to him, it also ex opere operato places one in covenant and union of a sort with Christ. Joining the visible church, we are joined with Christ's Body in the John 15 sort of way. This union may not be a saving union, as Christ speaks of some branches being cut off, and we know that once regenerated and saved, one cannot lose that. This fits with the wheat and tares parable as well. In the church are some of each, but the church is defined by the baptized. So baptism places one in covenant with God, in which greater obligations, rewards and curses are promised (Heb 10:28-29).

There are instances in NT of delay b/t water and Spirit baptism, but I don't see this as normative today.

1 Pet 3: to continue the Scriptural picture, one could say Noah was saved from the flood, but still had to be faithful to God afterward (which faithfulness would have been a complete gift, not earning to keep your inheritance). It was not a final and ultimate salvation. Similarly infants baptized are saved from the flood of guilt of sin, too. Yet if faith is not evident later on, it becomes clear that the union with Christ was only formal and never saving. Objections to this to preserve the doctrine of the preservation of saints are also objecting to John 15:1-6; Hebrews 6:4-6; Hebrews 10:28; etc. A proper FV and Westminster understanding deals honestly with these texts without giving up anything in the doctrines of grace. Scripture often uses the words save, deliver, rescue in a non-ultimate sense (Judges saving Israel, e.g.)

Scripture also qualifies in 1 Pet 3 that salvation is not by the outward sign of baptism but by what it signifies: Christ's resurrection.

I follow the classic three-part def'n of faith: knowledge assent and trust. The object of one's faith must be Christ alone, believing He is who He says He is, that His work pleases the Father on our behalf. Faith is the sole instrument of our justification, but that faith must be a living faith (James 2:17), not a bare profession. Faith unaccompanied by works won't save, because it isn't true faith. This does not make works an instrument of justification, but only defines the faith that pleases God and justifies the believer. Faith alone justifies, but not a faith that is alone. We must be careful not to let the object of faith slip from Christ and His work alone to exhaustive or proper understandings of Him or His work. We are not justified by understanding justification by faith alone. That one doctrine is not the whole Gospel, though it is a key element of it.

I would encourage you to read for yourself some of the principals' own ecclesiastically accountable responses to the controversy before pre-judging. One example can be found here.

Please do not defame, remove fellowship from, or bear false witness against your fellow brothers in the Lord before doing so.

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