Federal Vision - best make sure what you're getting into

Some, nay many, of the advocates of the "Federal Vision" are clever, winsome and articulate. They point out many of our weaknesses in modern evangelicalism very effectively. They have excellent family lives, and a full-orbed view of Christianity and the impact it should have on the world. For all this I praise God. But I continue to be a resolute opponent of the "FV" because despite all of this, I believe its fundamental doctrines and the outworking of them are profoundly and dangerously contrary to Scriptural truth.

One of the most important theologians who has been a huge influence in promoting FV theology is James (Jim) B. Jordan, 60 years old this year, presently of Florida, whose ministry is called "Biblical Horizons". He's basically theologian numero uno in the FV movement, so it's important to know what he thinks and believes. It's common to find in the books of those in FV circles a credit to the influence of of Jordan in the front of the book or wherever. David Field, the/a source/channel of most FV teaching in the UK, writes "Jim Jordan has been, without a shred of doubt, the most important influence on my theological thinking over the last 20 years." (http://davidpfield.blogspot.com/2007/09/jim-jordan.html - recently taken down with the rest of his blog, but still available in the Google cache). In another post, he offers to refund theological students or past students of the particular theological college where he was teaching (from which most of the FV advocates in Christian Ministry in the UK have come) $75 if they buy Jordan's collection of MP3 lectures and listen to 20 of them and decide they wanted a refund, saying that he would "retire happy" if a good number of the students of that college would listen to them. So you can see that Jordan's an important figure in the FV.

I find Jordan's writings routinely stimulating, often insightful, and sometimes correct. But I'm rambling. The point of this post is to point out just where you're going to be led by Jordan if you appoint him as your guide. This will also be helpful for those who don't know what the FV is, or why I would speak so strongly against it, or who think perhaps the difference between the FV and the Reformed faith as we know and love it isn't that significant. Dr. Jordan would like to tell you why, because he thinks the difference is very significant. Read his latest output to see where he's coming from / where he's going.

Dr. Jordan refers to the mainstream Reformed movement as "Gnostics", calls them "Calvinists" only in quote-marks , says that they have distorted the confessions and catechisms "almost beyond recognition", says that modern evangelical Presbyterianism is basically the same as medieval Roman Catholicism, that communion held in Reformed churches is effectively the same as the medieval mass (on the grounds that many churches uses alcohol-free grape juice), that Reformed opponents of the FV have "no interest in the Bible", "identically" with medieval Rome, and so on.

Jim Jordan's not a fringe figure in the FV movement, and these views are not novel to him. Perhaps there are ways in which we could make excuses for him. As someone who received two degrees from a mainstream Reformed seminary, there could be some allowance made for "attacking where I once was with dis-proportionate force" syndrome. Perhaps he's extra sore because his brand of theology hasn't gained the widespread acceptance he wished it had, and he can see himself as a fringe figure. Perhaps there are personal issues or events we know nothing about. This is all speculation. Who knows? I don't. But whatever's behind the rhetoric, I think that mainstream Reformed believers in the UK who want to know what the FV is about ought to know just what the FV's most influential theologian actually thinks of them and the mainstream Reformed movement, and what those coming under his influence are being taught to think. Read Dr. Jordan's latest blogs here: http://biblicalhorizons.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/rome-why-bother/, http://biblicalhorizons.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/reformed-gnosticism-strikes-again/

A study on the "Federal Vision"

From Stephen Dancer, highly recommended:

In May 2006 I wrote a dissertation for a final year Independent Study module at WEST. The title was rather lengthy and perhaps a bit grand: A Critical Evaluation of “Federal Vision Theology” Arising in North American Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in the Last 30 Years.

The reason for choosing this subject was that when I was studying the whole Federal Vision thing blew up in the US in 2002 and I wanted to study it a bit more. Unfortunately, because of my coursework, I could never seem to get to it. So when the opportunity came up to have pretty much a free choice of subject in the IS module, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone.

Now, I find I get a regular trickle of requests for the document so I have decided to post it here. Feel free to download it.

You get what you pay for! It is a student assignment, so it has stylistic quirks, and some limitations. I have learned a great deal since and would want to develop some areas. It was written before various important denominational study reports were published and some book-length treatments so I am not claiming anything great. So, it is what it is.

I would welcome feedback, of course.

Federal Vision Essay Re-Plugged

As a few people have dropped by who are interested in thinking about the Federal Vision, here's a plug for a short essay I wrote touching on the FV's take on the issue of apostacy:

http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/writings/the-federal-vision-and-the-language-of-appearance.html

It's not an academic essay, but was the result of stitching together some blog posts, intended for general consumption! Whatever the lack of rigour, I have at least re-read it and corrected some of the more egregious typos.

It's essential for FV advocates to establish that New Covenant members, professing faith in Christ and united to him in that covenant, can later fall away and be lost - and not because there was some difference in their covenant membership compared with those who are at last saved. This is connected logically with other FV beliefs:

1. The New Covenant is entered by baptism.
2. Therefore all those who are baptised are Christians, united to Jesus Christ in covenantal union.
   
3. Thus, if we want assurance of our standing in Christ, we can look to our baptism (just as a married man can look at his wedding ring for assurance of his marital status).

Real life shows that many baptised people apostatise. But doesn't the Bible teach that those who are truly saints can never be lost? So what gives? Traditionally the Reformed have distinguished between saving faith and temporary faith, and taught that it is by saving faith (not baptism) that we enter the New Covenant. (Reformed paedobaptists would also add, or by being born as the child of a true believer). Baptism is the sign of the New Covenant, the sign of faith; it is not the entry marker itself. This, though, clashes with the FV's insistence that we can look to our baptism for assurance: i.e. that we look at the objective ordinance, not the qualities of our subjective faith. Hence FV advocates have had to look to a different answer. This answer has been to deny the premise that the Bible teaches that those who are truly saints cannot be lost. Yes, the elect can never be lost - but that's a different kettle of fish, it's argued. Election is hidden and secret; baptism is visible and objective, and it's only the latter that we can address in our present state. In the essay I look at some of these issues.

Retractions

A week or two ago I published a post about a new magazine, noting that its stated aim and its actual contents and other features of it were at variance. This generated a variety of responses, by comments (some of which were published, some not) and e-mail.

Having considered them, I think it's fair to say that the tone of my post was unnecessarily and unhelpfully aggressive. For that I apologise. It is in part my fault that it provoked at least one aggressive reaction I've seen in the blogosphere (which went beyond what I had actually said). It was not needed and I should not have done it. I could have written the post in a more objective manner that would have been more edifying.

I unrepentantly stand by in full the substance of the post; it is still clear to me (from such things as the magazine's leadership, its contents, its choice of books to be reviewed, its choice of authors, from those who have promoted it on the web (even before the first issue's publication date!)) that this new magazine is going to be, intentionally, a medium for channeling in some of (inter-related) sub-cultures of American Presbyterianism (Federal Vision theology, James Jordan, "Reformed Catholicism") which are at present overwhelmingly not accepted by the actual British Reformed movement. These are trends I shall by God's grace remain an unrepentant and staunch critic of! But, also by God's grace I shall try to be more constructive in how I go about it. My thanks to AR for calling me to account, I appreciate it.

A plea to Federal Vision supporters: Please say what you really mean

David Field's stimulating blog has an endorsement for a new magazine being launched by supporters of the Federal Vision in the UK. I know lots of the names on this website, because many of them were my contemporaries at various places, mostly university. Talented chaps!

I definitely experienced some Jeremy Paxman moments whilst browsing its website. By that, I mean that you ought to conjure up an image of the intrepid interviewer hearing something maybe not quite straightforward from the politician in front of him, rolling his eyes and saying "Oh come on..."

By which I mean... the advertising blurb for the magazine tells us that its purpose is to promote historic Reformed theology, and mentions no other distinctives - the "best of British Reformed thinking". And yet...

• All four of the editorial board are convinced Federal Visionists, as a quick look over their blogs will show.
  
  
• The synopsis of the first issue also gives it away very quickly... Jim Jordan's hermeneutics, the place of children in the New Covenant....
  
  
• As does the list of book reviews and book reviewers. Doug Wilson, Peter Leithart, Alastair Roberts... "oh come on" ! (And of those not so well known there is more than one FV advocate). Books on the nature of the New Covenant and the church, infant baptism... this all seems very familiar to this particular FV critic...
  
  
• The editorial for issue 1 lists some things that ought to be allowed points of difference within the Reformed community. And... it's pretty much a shopping list of the key questions raised by the Federal Vision controversy or viewpoints espoused by FV advocates. And predictably (since these are FVers) absent... infant baptism, of course, is not an allowed point of controversy, despite the majority of real-life Reformed believers in the UK being baptists!
  
  
• Do a blog search to see who's recommending this new magazine - yup, it's a list of FV advocates. (Update: Even Doug Wilson's himself has been posting to promote it!) The blurb many of them reproduce again, though, tells us that the magazine's distinctive is to be presenting "Reformed Theology", rather than that it's distinctive is to promote the FV...
  

All this, and not one mention of the "Federal Vision" on the website. No mention that the editorial board are - despite the blurb about representing British Reformed theology - all from one single college: Oak Hill (Anglican), and that three of them were (as were some of the book reviewers), whilst there, taught the Federal Vision by the fourth (David Field). Nope - all we're told is that the stated aim is promoting Reformed theology. Ho hum. I'm not someone who believes that it's a sin unless you tell everyone everything about yourself and your aims; but really, "oh come on"!

Conclusions:

1. The real purpose of this new magazine is to promote the "Federal Vision" theology of Douglas Wilson / Peter Leithart / Credenda/Agenda / Auburn Avenue etcetera in the UK.
   
   
2. Yet for some reason the magazine's backers have decided to hide this fact.
   
   
3. Not only have they decided it's best strategy to hide their real aim, they've also decided to present the "Federal Vision" as if it were mainstream British Reformed theology, which it is certainly not: not historically and absolutely not in the last 200 years or at the present day.
   

Come on guys... nobody's doubting your right to promote what you believe. It's great to be launching new ventures to promote sound Biblical scholarship. But please, be up-front about your agenda - there's nothing commendable about misleading your readers. If, as it clearly is, the aim of your new magazine is to promote the Federal Vision and change the face of the British Reformed scene, then say so. Are you hiding it in order to mislead the unknowing - or is there another reason? To anyone familiar with the FV, the agenda is not subtle. So presumably such already-familiar people are not the target - the target is those who won't spot the switcheroo?

The New Covenant And Believers' Baptism (part 7)

(Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six).

In this installment, we finish our review of Dr. Field's first post. Here's how he ends:

Abstraction. This all brings home that the idea of the NC in 3. above is an abstraction from the (true) doctrine of God having a certain and decreed invisible big-E elect.

8. There are, however, other ways of relating these realities. For example, let the OC [Old Covenant] = the historically observable manifestation of the CG [Covenant of Grace] pre-Jesus. Let the NC [New Covenant] = the historically observable manifestation of the CG post-Jesus. Then you are able at one and the same time to assert and understand the wonderful discontinuities between OC and NC (internalisation, internationalization, greater privileges, historical actualization, human maturation, intensive and extensive access, better motivation, greater permanence etc.) and to avoid the category confusion, disconnect, denial, and abstraction described above.

This is the same argument again, using different words. Dr. Field classifies talk of the elect as being invisible and intangible, then insists that such things can't be linked to historical covenants (which are visible). This, as we have observed, completely misses the point that there are visible fruits of election which spiritually minded and Biblically educated men are competent to make a judgment on. I think Dr. Field is one of the elect; his confession of faith in Christ, his many years labouring for the Lord, his conduct as testified to by other Christians and his godly standard of speech on his blog and so forth are not invisible. The hard and fast "election=invisible, covenant=visible" distinction that the whole argument is based upon simply doesn't work.

In fact, as a Reformed Baptist I don't have a problem with the supposedly alternative characterisation of the New Covenant given above, or see it as contradictory to the one given when viewing it from another angle. It is simply a false dichotomy that Dr. Field has set up to argue that the New Covenant can either be viewed as being made with the elect alone, or being the historically observable manifestation of the Covenant of Grace post-Jesus. Dr. Field is committing an equivocation fallacy upon the words "historically observable", which he through the assumptions of the Federal Vision defines in a very nuanced way. Baptist churches aren't actually invisible - you can observe them at work, and we know that as a former Baptist Dr. Field must surely have observed some at some stage in his theological journey!

The New Covenant And Believers' Baptism (part 5)

Denial. At which point the only rescue for the antipaedobaptist use of the nature of the NC is to deny that baptism is really baptism for the non-Elect. They get wet but you deny that they have been baptized. They take bread and wine but you deny that they have taken the body and blood of Jesus. At this point you have a New Covenant which dips in and out of relationship with covenant initiation, the covenant meal, covenant blessings and covenant threats.

Dr. Field's point here is that there he (he says) a problem which arises for the Baptist (or, to use Dr. Field's own polemical choice of terminology, "antipaedobaptist"), because we've got to say what happened at the baptisms of those who later turn out not to be truly converted. If baptism is only for the elect, and if a non-elect person goes through with the ordinance, what did they receive?

This is a common Federal Vision argument, but I confess that it leaves me totally unmoved. To the Reformed Baptist mind it addresses a non-problem. Is it meant to be a word game of some sort? Someone was baptised, but not really baptised - ha ha, gotcha, a formal contradiction? Dr. Field says that this leads to a New Covenant which "dips in and out of relationship", so this does indeed appear to be what he is saying: it leads to ambiguity.

The assumption that Dr. Field and other antiantipaedobaptists are making here and which is driving the argument, is that baptism must do something. Whoever is receiving it, in whatever condition they are in, whatever they understand by it and whatever reasons they ask for it: it must do something. Otherwise it would just, so the thinking goes, be in itself an empty ritual which we can't allow: maybe something more for certain recipients, but in itself a nothing. The Reformed antiantiantipaedobaptist though, here says "why can't we allow it? What's wrong with saying that the false believer got wet but didn't really receive any of the benefits which a believer who approaches the ordinance with faith receives?" It becomes clear, then, that what's driving the argument here is an assumed sacramentalism. Again, I point out that Dr. Field doesn't argue from Biblical texts, but from certain constructions of what the Covenant and its signs must be, which he then imposes upon the case.  Maybe a case for that kind of sacramentalism could be made from the Bible, and then examined and evaluated. In this post, though, Dr. Field is simply assuming his conclusions at the outset without making the arguments.

The New Covenant And Believers' Baptism (part 5)

(Part one, part two, part three, part four).

Dr. Field continues:

Disconnect. It is clear, too, that any argument from the nature of the NC to the proper subjects of baptism is a serious non sequitur.

Why is that?

It is not that talk of big-E elect is irrelevant (it’s not irrelevant to know that God will infallibly, eschatologically save everyone he has Elected – it’s wonderful). But it is clearly impossible to aargue [sic] that baptism is only for NC members, IF those in the NC = big-E elect. We simply do not know who is in the NC if it is equated with the (post-Jesus) CG. It is soteriologically reassuring (as is the doctrine of Election) but covenantally un-usable.

This argument really repeats the argument already made in another form: the elect are only infallibly known to God - they are "invisible", and therefore if we say that the New Covenant is made with the elect we cannot then proceed to draw any conclusions about baptism because baptism is to do with the visible and tangible.

One problem in this argument is that Reformed Baptists do not leap straight from election to baptism in the arguments that they actually make. There is the intermediate step: there is visible and tangible evidence of election in a credible profession of faith. The "disconnect" only exists because Dr. Field appears to have confused Calvinistic Baptists with some varieties of hyper-Calvinism. Some hyper-Calvinists seek to require infallible signs of someone's election before baptism by asking for testimonies of dramatic internal experiences which are thought (by them) to prove election. I'd agree that this procedure is unworkable, because according to the Bible those who are elected come to faith in Jesus Christ, and faith is the essential New Covenant sign: not further experiences, whether in conversion or subsequent to it. It seems to be that in avoiding the mistake that many paedobaptist writers make in lumping Reformed Baptists in with dispensationalists, Dr. Field has driven into the ditch on the other side of the road by treating them as hyper-Calvinists instead.

The argument that Dr. Field makes here basically banishes election to the realm of abstract and practically useless. It's good, he says, to know that God will save the elect - but we can never really know who any of the elect are until we get there. I presume, though, that if we were talking about a different subject than baptism then Dr. Field would talk differently. Election is the root, but there are fruits which manifest themselves, and through which we can assure ourselves that we truly are recipients of God's grace. Yes, these fruits can be counterfeited and we can make mistakes in identifying them - but that's no reason to completely give up on the matter, as in the argument presented. If God has not infallibly revealed to us who the elect are, then what we do is to baptise those who give the evidence as far as God has explained it to us. We baptise when we see evidence of repentance and faith. We do not begin with election and then proceed to baptism. We begin with a credible profession of faith, and then proceed to baptism - and to election. Election does not come first; it can only be inferred from other factors, not made fundamental. Dr. Field's construction on things is a formulation known only to some small parties of hyper-Calvinists and a curious way for him to frame things.

The puzzling thing about Dr. Field's argument here is that he is a former Baptist and so ought to know better. Does he actually know of any Baptist churches which claim that they are infallibly identifying the elect when they baptise? Rather than just claiming that as far as it is given to men to know (which is not infallibly), they believed that those they were baptising were really in the faith? It seems rather unlikely that Dr. Field never appreciated this distinction - we are left wondering at what point he forgot about it?

Unusable?

What does Dr. Field mean when he says it is "unusable"? This is a key issue, because it illustrates how this argument is driven by the "Federal Vision" assumptions that Dr. Field holds to. Historically Presbyterians and other paedobaptists have not had a problem in saying that "the New Covenant is made with the elect, and their seed (children)". This formulation, though, is rejected by Dr. Field just as much as the Baptist one. Historically, paedobaptists have been happy to baptise adult converts (presuming they weren't sprinkled in infancy) when they have seen the evidence of sincere faith in Jesus, because they, like Baptists, have viewed this as the evidence that God has savingly worked in that person.

Dr. Field, though, is building his argument upon one of the premises of the  "Federal Vision": that the New Covenant must work like the Old one did, and in particular it must as easy to identify who is truly in the Covenant as it is to identify who is married and who isn't. The covenant must be "objective", to use their terminology. Anything else, it is asserted, is unworkable.

This assertion has no real basis in reality. To talk about something being unworkable is a pragmatic argument - you're saying it can't operate in the real world. Churches in the real world, though, have happily been operating in this way for many centuries. Churches have been baptising those who they thought were true believers, and later disciplining and eventually excommunicating them if the fruit of their lives proved otherwise. They didn't collapse when the first baptised person turned out to have been baptised erroneously, but they accepted that it is, during this period of the overlap of the ages, possible to counterfeit the reality of spiritual life. How is this concept unusable? Only if you've begun with the Federal Vision's premise that every covenant must be as immediately visible as marriage is. And if you've begun with that as a premise, then you're not really proving a case when you reject credobaptism - you're just arguing in a circle. That is what Dr. Field does. There's nothing exegetical in his argument - it does not come from Bible texts, carefully explained and applied. It simply comes from assuming at the outset that the Federal Vision's constructions are true, and then going from there. This may work if you're preaching to the choir, but it's not going to convince an outsider.

The New Covenant And Believers' Baptism (part 4)

(Part one, part two, part three).

Dr. Field writes that any attempt (e.g. as in baptism as carried out by Baptists who believe in the perfection of the New Covenant) to say that a person has evidenced themselves to be one of the elect is "category confusion". The category of the elect operates in the realm of the "(to us) invisible and inaccessible", in contrast to Old Covenant membership, which was "at the level of historically observable categories of which we have knowledge and for which we have moral responsibility".

This assertion, though, flatly contradicts Scripture. Dr. Field has theologised himself into a hole. The Bible writers did not hesitate to declare that (certain of) their readers were elect:

4 Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. 5 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. 6 And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost: 7 So that you were examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. (1 Thessalonians 1:4-7)

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. (1 Peter 1:2)

Notice that Paul says that he was assured that the Thessalonians were elect, because of the results he had seen from the gospel in their lives. Similarly, Peter after mentioning election then mentions one of its inevitable fruits - obedience. It was not to them an illegitimate category mistake to talk about election in relationship to distinct people; rather, because election is part of a chain that includes definite results (Romans 8:28ff), it was legitimate to call someone elect when those results are seen. Dr. Field's argument excludes this kind of talk, because he has denied that election belongs to the realm of the "historically observable" - as we've seen, via importing the pre-requisite of absolute cast-iron certainty. If, though, Paul and Peter were happy to say that their readers were elect, then it is no longer feasible to say that it is a category confusion to say that the New Covenant sign is only for the New Covenant members, i.e. those who give sufficient evidence that they belong to God's elect.

Dr. Field's line of reasoning would have been a gift to the opponents of Paul in his letter to the Galatians. They reasoned that it was necessary to have an outward sign, namely circumcision, to mark one off as one of the true people of God. Faith in Jesus Christ was not enough. Paul, however, insisisted that faith itself was the New Covenant sign, sufficient to establish one's relationship to Abraham (e.g. Galatians 3:7). Dr. Field, though, should for consistency's sake label this as a category error. Faith resides unseen in the heart - only God ultimately knows who has true faith in the Saviour and who does not. Circumcision, however, is an outward and demonstrable sign that is indisputable before all men. Paul completely overlooked to make the kind of argument that a Federal Vision proponent would make: that baptism was now the sign that proved the reality of one's covenant relationship and inclusion with Abraham, and so to insist on a second such outward sign, such as circumcision, was to ask for a repeat of what had already been done. Paul instead insisted that under the New Covenant faith itself, nothing more and nothing less, is the dividing line, and that nothing more was required. Hence Baptists, understanding this logic, identify as covenant members whose who have faith - not those who've been through some outward ritual, whether circumcision or baptism. I wonder if Federal Vision advocates realise just how much their logic sounds and works like that of the Judaisers when they insist that there must be a definite, this worldly ritual that allows us to infallibly identify those who are in the New Covenant.

To be continued...

The New Covenant And Believers' Baptism (part 3)

(Part one, part two).

Point 6. then leads Dr. Field to the statement:

7. And this way you have category confusion and disconnect and denial and abstraction.

i.e., at this point, by admitting point 6, you've fallen into all kinds of miserable mistakes. How so? Dr. Field continues:

Since we do not have access to the list of the big-E Elect, we also do not have access to the list of NC members (when those members are identified with the Elect by making NC unbreakable). It was possible to have access to the list of OC members because OC membership was objectively, historically identifiable to finite human observers: it related to things like circumcision and sacrifice and sanctuary access and self-labelling and prophetic address.

(It's worth pointing out that the terminology of "big-E Elect" only has relevance under Dr. Field's own scheme, because the Reformed Baptist teaches that under the New Covenant the distinctions amongst God's people have been abolished: there is no longer any concept of members who know the Lord and those who don't, of outward and inward Christian, etcetera. Either one is elected to salvation and manifests that election in saving faith, or he isn't, and that's it.)

So, Dr. Field observes that no mortal man infallibly knows who the elect are - and as a consequence, no mortal infallibly knows the actual members of the New Covenant. He then argues that this was different to the Old Covenant. OK - yes. If you observed Isaac's birth then you'd have no doubt that Isaac was Abraham's son and part of the covenant. When covenant membership is transmitted through the first birth rather than the second, it's easy to spot the members. This contrast, though, is not absolute and entire. A man could impersonate an Israelite and claim the name and identity of someone else written in the genealogies. His great-great-great-great-grandmother could have hidden the fact that she cheated and that her son was illegitimate, and that therefore the next ten generations were not allowed to enter the Lord's gathering (Deuteronomy 23:2). An excommunicated son and his covenant-belonging twin could leave the country, and the excommunicated one could return and take the place of his twin - would you know? Even when these things depend only upon physical and not spiritual identification, we still don't arrive at 100% certainty. This is an important point to note, because Dr. Field is going to make an argument that brushes it under the carpet.

This means that where NC members = the Elect then you have:
Category confusion. OC is identified and functions at the level of historically observable categories of which we have knowledge and for which we have moral responsibility. But NC, in this scheme, is identified and functions at the level of the (to us) invisible and inaccessible decree for which we do not have moral responsibility.

This paragraph makes a classic paedobaptist error, by making a sudden leap. Having observed that we cannot infallibly identify the elect (or under his terminology, the big-E elect), Dr. Field then leaps across a chasm and makes a conclusion based upon the idea that the elect cannot be identified at all - they are invisible and inaccessible. Faith, though, is not to be described bluntly as "invisible and inaccessible", and no Baptist of any stripe ever did so. Faith works - it results in fruit (this is the argument of the book of James). He who has the seed of God in him will love his brother, obey his Lord's commandments and avoid sin - this is the argument of the first letter of John. It is impossible for faith to not change the one in whom it has been worked. To describe it as "invisible and inaccessible" is ridiculous.

Notice also how Dr. Field has white-washed over the point I made above. The black-and-white distinction that he makes can't work. If the fact that faith can be counterfeited or if we can make mistakes in identifying it is allowed to over-ride the fact that faith can be seen and to put it into the category of the "invisible and inaccessible", then in the same way the facts that 1) one's genealogy could be faked and that 2) a man's circumcision could have been performed in one of the surrounding heathen religions rather than in Judaism ought, for consistency's sake, to be allowed to also place the Old Covenant into the realm of the invisible and inaccessible. Dr. Field's argument requires this black-and-white, all-or-nothing dichotomy - which can't be made to work in practice. In practice, paedobaptist churches, when faced with an adult convert from the world, look for signs that he has true saving faith. What else can they do? I often find that Federal Vision proponents seem to face two ways at once: they argue that Christians are identified by baptism, but then when it comes to baptism instead of baptising indiscriminately everyone who asks for it they then look for another qualification, and that qualification is... genuine faith! So it seems that, when faced with practical cases instead of theoretical discussions, they do understand that even though you can't peer into someone's heart and have to look for a "credible profession"; but when it comes to theological argument, that goes out the window and the most amazing statements like the above can be made instead.

Another major point is that this argument of Dr. Field's is entirely a priori. That is, it requires in advance of any Biblical revelation or any decision of God, that it is actually impossible for God to have a covenant in the present age with the elect, without him also revealing a list from heaven of who the elect are. It actually charges not that the Reformed Baptist position is contrary to Scripture, but that it is logically impossible in advance of any other consideration. This is a huge argument to make, and the logical leap that Dr. Field makes goes nowhere in terms of actually substantiating it.

To be continued...

The New Covenant And Believers' Baptism (part 2)

(Read the introduction to this series here).

We're beginning with Dr. Field's first post, "Covenantal category confusion, disconnect, denial, and abstraction".

I notice that Dr. Field pulls a polemicist's trick by, instead of using the normal label "Baptist", branding those who don't agree with his position as "antipaedobaptists". This is a well-known rhetorical ruse to make the person you're arguing against look bad: label his position negatively instead of using the self-description he himself uses - because in our postmodern age to be negative is to be bad, nasty, bigotted. This can often be seen in Internet apologetics: Roman Catholic apologists routinely call Protestants "anti-Catholics", Mormons call their critics "anti-Mormons" instead of accurately describing whatever they're positively advocating, and so on. I really doubt that when Dr. Field was a Calvinistic Baptist he chose to label himself as an "antipaedobaptist", or attended the "First Anti-Paedobaptist Church of <Wherever>". To make the point for my readers who aren't Baptists, do you ever describe yourself as an Anti-Baptist or have sermons in your church on "the Biblical doctrine of anti-Baptism"? Still, let's pass on. I'll just presume that Dr. Field feels he's on the back foot - that's OK!

My brother Dr. Field also makes a curious final comment in which he speculates about whether there really does exist anyone who reasons from the nature of the New Covenant to the legitimate subjects of baptism. Given that his posts are (as his students' own blogs show) a response to the lectures of a visiting lecturer, Dr. Tom Schreiner, who argued precisely that, this comes across as quite weird. Has Dr. Field never read any literature by "antipaedobaptists"? Did he read any when he was a Baptist himself (does this mean he adopted the paedobaptist position without researching the alternative)? In charity I must admit that I might completely misunderstand his final paragraph and what it's saying, but after repeated readings in the context it just comes across as strange.

OK. That's enough poisoning the well now (another polemicist's ruse!). What of the actual substance of the post?

First of all, Dr. Field sets up his terms (Old Covenant, New Covenant, Covenant of Grace), and the contrast which Reformed Baptists will often make between the New Covenant and what went before it. The New Covenant is (so say these Baptists) an unbreakable covenant: one of its greatest glories is that Christ is a perfect Mediator who infallibly ensures the eternal salvation of all those on whose behalf he Mediates. He is actually in the presence of God having finished the work of sacrifice once and for all - and nothing he requests on behalf of those who are under his Covenant headship can fail. (This is me expanding a bit - Dr. Field just highlights the unbreakable versus breakable nature). The Old Covenant had members who were ultimately damned because of the imperfection of that Covenant; the New Covenant will not have any such members.

This leads Dr. Field to this observation, following from the RB (Reformed Baptist) premises about the above matters:

6. But now, in effect, you are making the NC to be identical with or a manifestation of the CG (in a certain period of history, i.e. post-Jesus).

I can only think that Dr. Field had a mental slip here unless I've majorly misunderstood something; does not every Reformed Christian - everyone who holds that there is such a thing as the Covenant of Grace - whether Baptist or not, hold that that the New Covenant is the manifestation of the Covenant of Grace in present history? What else would be - is there some other covenant presently operative? I'm presuming this is a slip - that Dr. Field did not mean the "or", but just to say that "you are making the New Covenant to be identical with the Covenant of Grace (in a certain period of history, i.e. post-Jesus)."

That in itself would be acceptable to Reformed Baptists, as long as an unintended nuance isn't put on "identical". The Covenant of Grace has, we hold, been fully, finally and perfectly revealed in the New Covenant. Previous administrations were preparatory and partial - the New Covenant is glorious and complete. It has a perfect mediator, a perfect sacrifice, a perfect revelation, perfect promises, and so on. There are no glories of the CG which remain hidden to be revealed or actualised in a future age. Previous Covenants were mixed in nature or partial in efficacy or extent; the New Covenant is not, but is completely efficacious towards all the elect of God (who are alive in its days, that is).

Point 6. then leads Dr. Field to the statement:

7. And this way you have category confusion and disconnect and denial and abstraction.

i.e., at this point, by admitting point 6, you've fallen into all kinds of miserable mistakes. How so? Next time...

The New Covenant And Believers' Baptism

It seems that recently Dr. Tom Schreiner visited Oak Hill College in London, and some of his lecture material provoked blogged responses from supporters of the "Federal Vision" theology on the staff and in the student body of the college. In particular, they have been responding to the argument that the New Covenant is an unbreakable covenant - and therefore (by consequence) is a covenant made with the elect alone, and that therefore (by consequence) church membership and baptism are privileges for those who can give a credible profession of faith.

Lecturer David Field has put up six posts so far, though without mentioning Dr. Schreiner, here:

1. Covenantal category confusion, disconnect, denial, and abstraction
2. New covenant and antipaedobaptism
3. New covenant and antipaedobaptism (2)
4. "Our rule in adminstering of sacraments"
5. "Our rule in adminstering of sacraments" (2)
6. Covenant and election again

Plus in the midst of another post, this extraordinary comment in the context of the UK's parliamentary bill on human cloning and abortion: "More pointedly, what's the relationship between a church which excludes children from the life in the covenant and a nation which excludes the unborn from life in the world?" (here - the answer isn't spelled out for us but we assume that he raises the question because he thinks that the relationship is a strong one).

Dr. Field seeks to address what the Calvinistic Baptist typically feels is his strongest argument for baptising only those who give a credible profession of repentance and faith: the nature of the New Covenant as a perfect covenant in which Christ saves to the uttermost all those who come to him, unlike the Old in which many, though rightful members of the Covenant, yet fell short of actual salvation.

I'm glad to see this kind of interaction, because as I've commented before, it's all too typical to find that when infant baptists seek to argue against the Baptist position, they seem to hone in on refuting dispensationalism as if the two were one and the same, which leaves the Reformed Baptist profoundly unimpressed. The inevitable "answers to objections" sections in books written in favour of infant baptism rarely seem to touch the actual objections that a Calvinistic Baptist will have. So it's good to see an attempt to counter some actual arguments which those in the camp I'm in actually use - one of the values of actual face-to-face interaction with someone like Dr. Schreiner I suppose.

So, in a new series of posts I plan to review the arguments which Dr. Field and his students present. Stay tuned!

Federal Vision Essay Online

I've turned my series of blog posts on the Federal Vision and the language of appearance into an online essay, hopefully for greater usefulness:

http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/writings/the-federal-vision-and-the-language-of-appearance.html

Please consider linking it, blogging about it, etcetera, if you've found it useful.

The Federal Vision And The Language Of Appearance (End)

Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven

I said, "to be concluded". In fact, I don't think there's anything more that needs saying. There were just two verses I forgot to reference which I think bear out my point that Arminians have a much better position if we're going to accept the hermeneutic that the Federal Visionists have used here:

"But if your brother is grieved by your food, you are not walking charitably. Do not destroy him with your meat, for whom Christ died." - Romans 14:15

"And through your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?" - 1 Corinthians 8:11

"See," says the Arminian, "Christ died for him, he's a real brother, but he ends up perishing. Christ can die for someone, and he can be lost. You have to twist the text to avoid the conclusion." I would be interested to read how an FV proponent exegetes this verses, avoiding the Arminian conclusion yet defending the propriety of using the same hermeneutic on other verses such as Matthew listed. I haven't looked very far to see how they do this, but I think these verses would make an excellent text case of whether they're willing to follow their method to its logical conclusions or not.

(The end!)

The Federal Vision And The Language Of Appearance (7)

Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six

I find the Arminian exegesis of such verses to be more consistent than the Federal Vision one. The Arminians don't just point out, as Matthew does, that those written to are spoken of as if true believers, but also go on to observe that Paul says that Christ died for them, and Peter says they are elect.

It's not just Arminians, though, who make the hermeneutical mistake of failing to deal with the language of appearance. The open theists are more consistent that the Arminians, because they point out that the Bible says that God remembers, asks questions about things he should already know about if he were omniscient, etcetera.

The open theists, though, are themselves also failing to face up to the full implications of their hermeneutic, because as the wonderfully-named Anthropomorphites point out, the Bible tells us plainly, "without hedging", that God has arms, hands, fingers, and so on (Exodus 31:18, 6:6, 32:21) - why shouldn't we just take the plain-sense meaning of "made in his image" and face up to the consequences? Ultimately, though, we have to point out that the Anthropomorphites are also wimps, because does not the Bible also describe God's wings (Psalm 17:8), thus making some kind of bird-man?

There are plenty of examples of this error. Calvin wrote against one type of it, when he sought to refute those who quibbled over Genesis 1 describing the moon as being the second most significant light after the sun. Commenting on Genesis 1:16, the greater and lesser lights, he tackled the objection that other objects (such as Saturn) might be brighter in absolute terms than the moon (thanks to David Tyler for drawing my attention to the quote):

"Moses wrote in a popular style things which, without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labour whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend.  Nevertheless, this study is not to be reprobated, nor this science to be condemned, because some frantic persons are wont boldly to reject whatever is unknown to them.  For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God. . .

Nor did Moses truly wish to withdraw us from this pursuit in omitting such things as are peculiar to the art; but because he was ordained a teacher as well of the unlearned and rude as of the learned, he could not otherwise fulfil his office than by descending to this grosser method of instruction.  Had he spoken of things generally unknown, the uneducated might have pleaded in excuse that such subjects were beyond their capacity.  Lastly, since the Spirit of God here opens a common school for all, it is not surprising that he should chiefly choose those subjects which would be intelligible to all. . .  Moses, therefore, rather adapts his discourse to common usage. . .  There is therefore no reason why janglers should deride the unskilfulness of Moses in making the moon the second luminary; for he does not call us up into heaven, he only proposes things which lie before our eyes" (Calvin, 1554).

In other words, Moses was using language in the ordinary way - not in the form of language required in literature of a different genre, such as a paper in New Scientist. When I say that the sun rose this morning, that doesn't imply that I'm a geo-centrist - it's the language of appearance, or phenomenological language.

Similarly, when Paul writes to the Galatians and addresses them as if authentic members of the New Covenant, he's not intending to give us a technical statement on New Covenant membership. He's simply using human language in the ordinary human way. The correct way to understand Paul's theology of the relationship between New Covenant membership and apostacy, and the relationship between the covenants, is not to derive it by way of incidental implication from something on quite another subject. It's to actually exegete the passages in Scripture where it is the very subject under direct discussion.

To be concluded...

The Federal Vision And The Language Of Appearance (6)

Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five

At this point I've reviewed Matthew's use of the following texts, which he introduced like so:

It may be helpful quickly to summarize something of the biblical testimony regarding what apostates lose. Without hedging, the Bible says of apostates that

 - Some receive the word with joy and believe for a time (Luke 8.13)
 - They are branches in the Vine, Jesus (John 15.2, 6)
 - They are baptized into the Greater Moses (1 Cor 10.2)
 - They drink of Christ (1 Cor 10.4)
 - They have been enlightened (Heb 6.4)
 - They taste the heavenly gift, the word of the God, and the powers of the age to come (Heb 6.4f)
 - The are partakers of the Spirit (Heb 6.4)
 - They are sanctified by the blood of the covenant (Heb 10.29)
 - They escape the defilements of the world (2 Pet 2.20)
 - They know the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Pet 2.20)
 - The know the way of righteousness (2 Pet 2.21).

Now, how do we account for this? To say that ‘temporary’ faith is ontologically distinct from ‘saving’ faith, that it is therefore merely external, and that the benefits that in receives within the covenant are merely external, falls short of the repeated testimony of the Scriptures.

I think I've shown that none of the texts being used by Matthew are being used in a legitimate way. Some of them explicitly do point in the direction which Matthew says they don't (for example, the 2 Peter texts, in the next verse, describe the apostates as being "ontologically distinct" from true believers, calling them sows and dogs who have now manifested their true nature).

I'd now like to identify what I think is the fundamental hermeneutical error in Federal Visionists' appeals to such texts. It's a failure to deal with the phenomena of the "language of appearance". In technical language, it's a failure in parsing phenomenological language. Another way of describing it is in terms of the "principle of accommodation". When the Bible writers address their hearers, they do so in the ordinary human way: they implicitly grant the hearers' claims about who they are. This is a normal feature of human conversation. The FV error is in elevating the implicit concession into being doctrinal statements about the nature of the New Covenant.

We could illustrate this statement many ways. When I go along to my local kiosk (a small shop, common in Kenya), I might ask the person in it for some milk. I just say, "please can I have five packets of milk". I don't "hedge" that statement by saying "on the assumption that you really do work in this shop, and really are authorised by the owner to sell my milk, please give me five packets". I treat the shop-keeper according to appearance. Obviously, if I decided to stop using that normal convention, conversations would start to get pretty long, and the shop-keeper would soon identify me as a flaming weirdo. "If you really are my child, and not a genetic clone or a mirage, then I love you!".

Federal Vision advocates take statements like those above, where church members are addressed using language that implies the reality of their status as Christians, note the lack of "hedging", and then make the deduction that they really are Christians. From there, a whole chain of consequences is set off: real Christians can apostatize, the New Covenant is not made with the elect only, and a whole new theology of union with Christ, the sacraments, Christian perseverance and so on is set off. What FV advocates imply that the Bible's writers ought to have done is to have kept to a standard not used anywhere else in human conversation. Our Lord, for example, should have inserted riders into all his parables so that we didn't make mistaken assumptions from the illustrations used. Paul should have begun his letters by saying things like "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, except for those of you who will apostatise: Grace and peace, etc."

Such arguments prove far too much. If FVers applied them consistently, then they would send them all the way into Arminianism. It's all very well to note that the apostles wrote to churches and addressed the members on the understanding that they really were Christians - that's a trivial observation - to then infer on that basis that the apostles believed certain things about the nature of the New Covenant is completely illegitimate. We could also trivially notice that Peter described his readers as being "elect" (1 Peter 1:2), and that Paul told the Galatians that Jesus Christ had given himself for their sins. The FVer looks at "his" set of verses (e.g. those given by Matthew, above), and then tells us that they mean that apostates really were Christians in a covenantal union with Jesus Christ. The Arminian also has his armoury of verses, and tells us that the Bible, without hedging, calls some people who later fall away elect, saints and predestined, and that Paul said that those in Galatia who he saw as possibly being in danger of damnation had Jesus Christ die on the cross for them. The Federal Visionist is making a selective usage of the Arminian interpretative principle, and this is part of why newcomers to FV writings often (mistakenly) wonder if FVers are secretly Arminians.

To be continued...

The Federal Vision And The Language Of Appearance (5)

Part one, part two, part three, part four

Of the eleven statements which Matthew referenced as examples of what the Bible says about apostates, I've responded to the use of seven of them. That leaves four:

 - Some receive the word with joy and believe for a time (Luke 8.13)
 - They are branches in the Vine, Jesus (John 15.2, 6)
 - They are baptized into the Greater Moses (1 Cor 10.2)
 - They drink of Christ (1 Cor 10.4)

The last two on that list are both from the same passage:

1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

"They are baptized into the Greater Moses (1 Cor 10.2)" makes a few leaps from what the text actually says about the Old Covenant apostates it actually refers to. Still, I suppose the point is clear: New Covenant apostates have indeed been baptised into the greater Moses. The question, of course, is to what baptism is in view and what it is implied to have accomplished. The text doesn't actually say, and the answer has to be supplied from somewhere else in one's theological understanding. Therefore I think the use of this text to support the Federal Vision is something of a case of circular reasoning - the point Paul isn't really the FV point, and both friends and non-friends of the FV can understand the text quite happily within their own understanding.

I'd say something similar about the reference to verse 4. The text tells us that in some sense the Old Covenant apostates drank of Christ before apostatising. Matthew's point of course is to tell us that the Bible tells us this "without hedging". If I want to raise questions about in what sense those apostates drank of Christ, I'm doing something the Bible isn't - some kind of argument from silence. I find what Matthew is implying here deeply unconvincing. The major point of a response here (there are others) would be that this passage is figurative. The baptism spoken of was "in the cloud and in the sea"; the eating and drinking of the physical manna and literal water were also highly figurative (which is Paul's point). That means that the burden of proof that we can make such a simple and (I would assert) simplistic transfer of meaning as Matthew does falls upon him. When dealing with figurative language, it won't cut it to just say that there's "no hedging" - the burden is yours. Otherwise, the Bible becomes a nose of wax. The Bible says without hedging that God has wings (Psalm 17:8) - problem with that?

And that goes for the other two proof texts as well. The Bible says "without hedging" that apostates were branches in the vine - fine (John 15.2, 6). It also says without hedging that Jesus himself is the vine, verse 1. To use a favourite Roman Catholic proof text, it also says that we must eat and drink Jesus' blood, John 6:53. To draw immediate points of systematic theology from this kind of illustrative statement on the basis that the statements seem straightforward, though, would be illegitimate. Its a standard principle of Bible interpretation that you cannot treat figurative statements as if they were the same thing as unambiguous, self-interpreting statements of doctrine. John 15:17 has Jesus saying "These things I command you, that you love one another." That's a straightforward, self-interpreting statement. Words about branches being removed from vines are not. It seems to me that FV advocates are routinely guilty, in their use of such statements, of smuggling in their own interpretations between the lines, rather than it being the case that the statement is unequivocally advocating the FV position. Jesus statements about the vine and the branches have the primary purpose of encouraging believers to persevere. They are not fundamentally aimed at teaching about the relationship between election, covenant membership and the real status of those who later apostatise. To allege that they do bear on that question is a position that has to carry the burden of proof - pointing out the lack of hedging doesn't cut it. The method of the use of figure and parable does not allow for every statement to immediately have to be followed by "and by that illustration, I of course don't mean that..." It's the very nature of such genres that they are suggestive, and that not every possible suggestion we can see in there actually leads to correct doctrine. We are not meant to literally digest chunks out of Jesus body - the statement is not self-interpreting at such a crude level. Neither should FV advocates be allowed to make such an uncritical appeal to such passages.

At this point I think I've shown that none of the texts that Matthew references make the point he wants to make.

To be continued...

The Federal Vision And The Language Of Appearance (4)

Part one: the FV position
Part two: the FV problem
Part three: FV arguments

A reminder of Matthew's argument (which I picked as being representative of FV arguments in general):

It may be helpful quickly to summarize something of the biblical testimony regarding what apostates lose. Without hedging, the Bible says of apostates that

 - Some receive the word with joy and believe for a time (Luke 8.13)
 - They are branches in the Vine, Jesus (John 15.2, 6)
 - They are baptized into the Greater Moses (1 Cor 10.2)
 - They drink of Christ (1 Cor 10.4)
 - They have been enlightened (Heb 6.4)
 - They taste the heavenly gift, the word of the God, and the powers of the age to come (Heb 6.4f)
 - The are partakers of the Spirit (Heb 6.4)
 - They are sanctified by the blood of the covenant (Heb 10.29)
 - They escape the defilements of the world (2 Pet 2.20)
 - They know the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Pet 2.20)
 - The know the way of righteousness (2 Pet 2.21).

Now, how do we account for this? To say that ‘temporary’ faith is ontologically distinct from ‘saving’ faith, that it is therefore merely external, and that the benefits that in receives within the covenant are merely external, falls short of the repeated testimony of the Scriptures.

Now, I certainly wouldn't accept that list in toto as if each member exemplified Matthew's point. At some places I think it directly contradicts it. Take for example Hebrew 6, which Matthew refers to three times. To my mind, the language of "tasting" and "partaking" and being "enlightened" is very much the language of partial-ness. The apostates spoken of have tasted, but not fully imbibed; have partaken, but not comprehensively entered into the things they have taken of; have been enlightened by being given true knowledge of the way of salvation yet without internalising it so that they were actually saved. This language fits in very well with the old doctrine that those with "temporary faith" have had an experience which falls short of salvation. The old doctrine never said that the Holy Spirit only ever works in a person 0% or 100%; it is possible to experience benefits from him, yet to resist his overtures of grace. God works infallibly and savingly in his elect - but the old position, hyper-Calvinists aside, never claimed that he never worked at all in the non-elect.

Similarly, I think that Matthew's invocation of 2 Peter 2, which he relies on three times, is also way off the mark. Matthew quotes verses 20 and 21, but then leaves out what comes next: verse 22. We should quote all three together:

20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
 

Notice how Peter describes the apostates: as dogs who have returned to their vomit; as sows who were washed but have now returned to wallowing in the mire.

Why does a dog return to its vomit? Because it's a dog. Why does a sow, though having had its outsides wash, go back to wallowing in the mire? Because its a sow. In English we'd say that the leopard doesn't change its spots, or you can't teach granny to suck eggs. No matter how much you do to its outsides, a dog or a sow is what it still is, and its dog or sow-like ways are what it will inevitably return to. The apostate has not become a new creature in Christ - despite what has happened and what has been received externally, inside he essentially remains what he always was.

Hence Peter actually does say what Matthew says he doesn't - he gives us plenty of evidence that the "Christianity" which these apostates had spent some time in was merely external. Peter's illustration gives us the exegetical key to understand just what kind of "escape" or "washing" or "knowledge" they have enjoyed - external.

Thirdly, Matthew uncritically adds Hebrews 10:29 to his list. This verse says, "Of how much sorer punishment, do you suppose, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace?". The difficulty here is that the "he" as in "wherewith he was sanctified", is ambiguous. Has the apostate, who has insulted the Spirit of grace, also insulted Christ, who was sanctified by the blood of the covenant? Or is the verse sayiong that the apostate himself was sanctified with that blood? The Greek grammar itself cannot settle the question either way. John Owen, the most renowned of the English Puritans, and the most esteemed commentator on the book of Hebrews in Christian history (his work ran to seven volumes), decided that the former option was correct. FV advocates, though, tend to uncritically cite the former interpretation as the only one on the table, and as unquestionable. This again isn't very convincing.

To be continued...

The Federal Vision And The Language Of Appearance (3)

Continued from part one here and part two here.

In part one I explained some of the distinguishing features of Federal Vision theology, particularly regarding the nature of the New Covenant; in part two I explained one of the big problems then raised for FV proponents (its apparent contradiction with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints) and why I think the FV is at these points profoundly mistaken.

This brings me to examine a typical piece of argumentation from an FV advocate, Matthew Mason (found here).

Under the heading "Temporary faith is real faith", Matthew sets out to answer one of the problems raised by the FV position. Wanting to affirm both Calvinism and the FV, Matthew sets out to answer how it can be that New Covenant members enjoy the same privileges, yet some of them are elect and persevere to the end, whilst others aren't and don't. Though there have been variations, the traditional Calvinistic answer, which has the consensus amongst Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians today, hasn't had to face the difficulties that FV-ers face. Essentially, the answer has been to deny that those who fall away were truly members of the New Covenant. Their faith was external, and not truly rooted in the experience of the new birth. They did not truly know the Lord Jesus Christ, having only a partial and temporary knowledge of him. Like the seed on rocky ground in the parable of the sower, their faith had shallow roots - or like the seed amongst the thorns, was a compromised faith. (Presbyterians have found room to add a second category to the covenant - covenant youth, who may or may not graduate into the covenant's inner reality; Baptists deny this).

Matthew attempts to set out a theology of faith that bridges this gap, claiming both that those who apostatise and those who don't have essentially same faith, yet still trying to account for why some fall away. I don't want to examine the answer as a whole; to me, Matthew justs states a truism and leaves the matter unresolved. The faith of permanent and temporary covenant members is the same, we are told - the difference is that the latter doesn't last as long. To my mind that's just restating the challenge in a different form rather than meeting it - but I digress.

What I really wanted to examine was the argument Matthew brings forward for the FV position itself, rather than to answer some of the resulting difficulties. Here's what Matthew writes, first stating the problem raised by the FV position:

What we need is a way of preserving our right attachment to God’s complete sovereignty in salvation, and in particular a doctrine of the preservation of the saints which flows from unconditional election, whilst at the same time doing justice to the biblical language of the privileges enjoyed by those who ‘believe’ for a while, but eventually fall away (however we cash out what ‘believe’ means in that sentence).

Then, here's the argument for the FV position itself:

It may be helpful quickly to summarize something of the biblical testimony regarding what apostates lose. Without hedging, the Bible says of apostates that

 - Some receive the word with joy and believe for a time (Luke 8.13)
 - They are branches in the Vine, Jesus (John 15.2, 6)
 - They are baptized into the Greater Moses (1 Cor 10.2)
 - They drink of Christ (1 Cor 10.4)
 - They have been enlightened (Heb 6.4)
 - They taste the heavenly gift, the word of the God, and the powers of the age to come (Heb 6.4f)
 - The are partakers of the Spirit (Heb 6.4)
 - They are sanctified by the blood of the covenant (Heb 10.29)
 - They escape the defilements of the world (2 Pet 2.20)
 - They know the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Pet 2.20)
 - The know the way of righteousness (2 Pet 2.21).

Now, how do we account for this? To say that ‘temporary’ faith is ontologically distinct from ‘saving’ faith, that it is therefore merely external, and that the benefits that in receives within the covenant are merely external, falls short of the repeated testimony of the Scriptures. So, what are we to say? ...

Matthew's challenge to non-FVers is that we are introducing "hedging" where the Bible has none. The Bible says that those who later fall away really enjoy all of these privileges; we say they really didn't. We say they enjoyed only external benefits; the Bible never uses that language.

To be continued...

The Federal Vision And The Language Of Appearance (2)

Continuing from part one, here. The important bit was to understand the Federal Vision's key claim concerning the New Covenant: that it works just like the Old. FV-ers reject the concept of a two-phase membership (as in traditional Presbyterianism) is wrong, but hold (unlike Reformed Baptists, who also reject that concept) to the idea that the New Covenant is not perfectly salvific but, like the Old, contains amongst its membership both the elect and reprobates. The different is that the reprobates don't persevere - not that they were never legitimate covenant members to begin with.

This position comes with a whole range of consequences, which need corresponding theological justification. One huge it raises is about the perseverance of the saints. If bona fide, New Covenant members can fall away and ultimately be damned, how does this square with God's sovereignty in salvation, a doctrine which FV-ers also teach? If their membership was 100% as genuine as the membership of those who persevere to the end and are saved, how do we account for their not being saved?

Personally I think this is a fatal problem for the FV, when compared with Scriptural teaching. Ultimately the Christian's assurance - the truthfulness of the fifth point of Calvinism - rests in the perfection of Christ's mediation. The differences between the administration of the covenants were a major point of controversy and a major locus of apostolic teaching. The book of Hebrews in particular has a great deal to say about the perfection of the New Covenant. An essential part of its glory is that under the New Covenant we have a perfect mediator. Unlike those fallible, sinful and mortal human high priests who served in the earthly tabernacle, we have a sinless, immortal heavenly high priest. In these gospel days we have a perfect mediator. The New Covenant is, to use the key word from Hebrews, better. Why is it better? Ultimately because it is mediated by a superior mediator, who "is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." (7:25).

That's the foundation stone for the Christian's assurance. If he has come by faith to Christ, then he is now represented before the throne of God by a faultless High Priest. Jesus's unending and always acceptable prayers guarantee that the New Covenant member will arrive in glory. We may stumble a thousand times - but his intercession for us, his continuing presentation of his perfect work, will ensure that sufficient grace is procured for us so that we rise again and are restored. The Old Covenant did not contain promises of such a high priest; it was a covenant that had faults (Hebrews 8:7). Not all of its members truly knew the Lord, or enjoyed the benefit of his intercession for them. This left the scope for it to be superceded by a new and superior Covenant. Under the New Covenant, the law of God is written not only on tablets of stone and on the hearts of some covenantees - but on the hearts of all of them, so that they all know the Lord from the greatest to the least (8:8-13).

If, though, as according to the FV, every New Covenant member enjoys the same covenant status and privileges as every other (there being no concept of an external membership), how can any such member fall away? If they enjoy the benefit of Christ's mediation for them, then why is it not effectual? Does the Father refuse to hear? Does he reply and say "this member that you have prayed for is not elect, and therefore I won't grant you your request?" me genoito! (Unthinkable!). This too would directly contradict the whole thrust of Hebrews' teaching - that the New Covenant is perfectly efficacious. "But this man [Jesus], because he continues for ever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7:24-25).  The FV position is that there are those who come to Jesus and truly become members of the New Covenant, but whom Jesus doesn't save to the uttermost. Either he makes no intercession for them (contradicting the doctrine that there are no distinctions between Covenant members as to their Covenant privileges), or his intercession is refused (contradicting the statement that he is able to save them to the uttermost on the grounds of this intercession). Either way, the Federal Vision has missed the major point of the book, and denies the primary reasons that the apostle gave to persuade his hearers not to return to the inferior Covenant of Judaism.

To be continued...