What the Federal Vision Still Does to the Definition of Faith
The FV position can be summarized this way: The certain kind of faith that God gives in the justification of a sinner is a living, active, and personally loyal faith. Since faith itself includes the necessary virtues for justification, faithfulness to the gospel message does not require upholding the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience. The basis for the sinner’s final justification is perseverance in the covenantal responsibility to maintain an obedient faith—those who do not, will be cut off.
Between the years 2001 and 2004 a group of writers within the Reformed community banded together forming a theological system and movement known as the Federal Vision or Auburn Avenue Theology.[1] Under the rubric of covenant theology, this movement has posited a false dichotomy between Biblical and Systematic theology, redefining many confessional Reformed categories and terms. For our purposes, we will briefly explore and evaluate the teachings of the Federal Vision on the nature of justifying faith and the place of good works in the believer’s salvation.
In A Joint Federal Vision Statement, signed by the central proponents of the FV, a series of affirmations and denials are presented. The statement on “Justification by Faith Alone” reads,
We affirm we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone. Faith alone is the hand which is given to us by God so that we may receive the offered grace of God. Justification is God’s forensic declaration that we are counted as righteous, with our sins forgiven, for the sake of Jesus Christ alone.
We deny that the faith which is the sole instrument of justification can be understood as anything other than the only kind of faith which God gives, which is to say, a living, active and personally loyal faith. Justifying faith encompasses the elements of assent, knowledge, and living trust in accordance with the age and maturity of the believer. We deny that faith is ever alone, even at the moment of the effectual call.[2]
In the affirmation section, standard Reformed language is employed. Justification is described as a forensic declaration, received by faith alone which is described as the hand gifted by God by which we are accounted righteous for the sake of Jesus Christ alone. In the denial, however, we find a clear presentation of the FV’s understanding of the nature of this justifying faith.
There are two important points to observe. First, the FV statement correctly denies that faith in God’s act of justifying the sinner can be understood as anything other than that which has been given by God. But when prompted as to what kind of faith justifies, and what is the kind of faith that God gives, the statement is unequivocal: justifying faith is “a living, active, and personally loyal faith.” For the FV, faith justifies not because only apprehends Christ but also because it obeys or because it contains Spirit-wrought sanctity and the virtues of love and hope. Faith is not merely apprehending and resting in Christ; but it also must be active, living, and loyal.
Here we notice that certain virtues are inculcated into the nature of the faith that God gifts into the sinner for his justification.[3] This certain kind of faith by which God justifies a sinner includes virtuous qualities. For instance, Doug Wilson writes,
So when we use phrases like “obedient faith,” others should just hear “new heart faith,” or “living faith,” or non-disobedient faith.” It should not be seen as a faith that has to perform a requisite number of good deeds so that it can earn its way unto heaven. Rather, obedient faith is the only kind of saving faith God gives.[4]
Because the FV generally denies the existence of merit, many fail to understand whether there is any real concern with the FV’s formulation. But the formulation is elusive. Wilson writes, “Obedient faith is the only kind that God ever gives, and when He gives it, this justifying faith obeys the gospel, obeys the truth, obeys His salvation. Faith that does not obey the gospel is not justifying faith.”[5] Wilson is able to deny that a sinner earns anything before God because he affirms that justifying faith is a gift from God, but the kind of saving, justifying faith that God gives to the sinner includes certain virtues.[6] Steve Schlissel writes, “Nothing in the Bible teaches a kind of faith that does not obey. Obedience and faith are the same thing, biblically speaking…To believe is to obey.”[7] Peter Leithart criticizes the Protestant doctrine of justification as being “too rigid in separating justification and sanctification.” Instead, Leithart proposes that justification and definitive sanctification should be viewed as the “same act” in God’s declaration of the sinner as righteous.[8]
-
Preaching Advice for Busy Pastors
As Spurgeon used all his experiences to shape himself and his preparation. All this was only possible as Spurgeon maintained his walk with the Lord, guarded his time, and made preaching part of his lifestyle. So it is today, as pastors face a busy schedule, we must prioritize the preaching of the Word and give ourselves to preaching excellent, earnest, faithful sermons.
C.H. Spurgeon, maybe more than any pastor, knew how busy pastoral ministry can be. In addition to preaching four times a week, he led his elders and deacons in caring for a church of five thousand. Together, they visited members, interviewed membership applicants, led prayer meetings, chaired congregational meetings, pursued non-attenders, and much more. Additionally, Spurgeon published a weekly sermon, wrote numerous books, edited a monthly magazine, served as president of The Pastors’ College, oversaw two orphanages, corresponded with hundreds weekly, planted churches, supported denominational efforts, and the list goes on. The scale of Spurgeon’s ministry in the 19th century remains unmatched. But the essence of his work wasn’t all that different from any pastor today: caring for members, leading worship gatherings, training church leaders, overseeing benevolence and evangelistic efforts, engaging in church associations, and, as with Spurgeon, the list just keeps going. To some extent, these are the kinds of things that will fill up every pastor’s task list.
And yet Spurgeon would say that the most important thing to which he gave himself week after week was the preaching of the Word. Spurgeon once said to his students,
Brethren, you and I must, as preachers, be always earnest in reference to our pulpit work. Here we must labor to attain the very highest degree of excellence. Often have I said to my brethren that the pulpit is the Thermopylae of Christendom: there the fight will be lost or won. To us ministers the maintenance of our power in the pulpit should be our great concern, we must occupy that spiritual watch-tower with our hearts and minds awake and in full vigor. It will not avail us to be laborious pastors if we are not earnest preachers.[1]
Just as the future of Greece depended on King Leonidas’ stand against the Persians, so the future of the church depends on the faithful and earnest preaching of the Word of God.
In other words, Spurgeon believed that every other ministry in the church, as important as they were, existed downstream from the pulpit. Rather than all church ministries existing independently of one another, with the corporate gathering simply being one more silo, Spurgeon envisioned the corporate gathering as the central ministry of the church (the “Thermopylae,” if you will). And in that corporate gathering, it is the Word of God preached (and sung and read and prayed) that gives life to God’s people and energizes all the ministries of the church. This vision of the power of God’s Word to revive God’s people drove Spurgeon’s commitment to preaching. Amid the busyness of pastoral ministry, here was the one thing that could not fail. No matter the pressures and responsibilities, for the sake of his people, he had to give himself to preaching excellent sermons.
What advice would Spurgeon give to busy pastors today regarding their preaching? How can we be faithful in this primary responsibility without neglecting other ministerial duties? Here are three ideas.
This would likely be the most important advice Spurgeon would give:
Maintain your walk with the Lord.
This would likely be the most important advice Spurgeon would give:
Too many preachers forget to serve God when they are out of the pulpit, their lives are negatively inconsistent. Abhor, dear brethren, the thought of being clockwork ministers who are not alive by abiding grace within, but are wound up by temporary influences; men who are only ministers for the time being, under the stress of the hour of ministering, but cease to be ministers when they descend the pulpit stairs. True ministers are always ministers.[2]
In other words, don’t separate your devotional life from your ministerial duties. Instead, understand that the Holy Spirit must guide your life not only when you are “on the clock” but also in your private life.
Read More
Related Posts: -
The Liberty Christ Hath Purchased
Written by J.V. Fesko |
Monday, March 11, 2024
In our sin-fallen, law-cursed state, all people are in slavery to sin and in bondage to Satan, the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2). Of course, all who sin are subject to death, since “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), or as Paul elsewhere writes, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (1 Cor. 15:56). Blessedly, God does not leave us in our cursed state but has sent His Son to redeem us: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4). Christ became a curse for us so that we would not have to bear the law’s awful load (3:13).The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law. But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected; and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of. —Westminster Confession of Faith 20.1
The French novelist Victor Hugo (1802–85) writes of the fall and redemption of Jean Valjean, the chief protagonist of his popular book Les Misérables. Valjean found himself released from prison after serving nineteen long and arduous years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his famished family. After his release, he eventually found shelter in a local church. Desperate for money, Jean stole the bishop’s silverware and plates but was promptly captured by the police. When the police came to the bishop to verify that the stolen property was his, the bishop told Valjean: “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to what is evil but to what is good. I have bought your soul to save it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.” This little vignette provides glimmers of what Christ has accomplished for us in our redemption through the price that He paid in His life, suffering, and death on the cross. Westminster Confession of Faith 20.1 explains this as “the liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers.”
Out from under Satan, Sin, and Death
To appreciate our freedom in Christ, we first need to contemplate the nature of our previous bondage to Satan, sin, and death. Our captivity is writ large across the canvas of redemptive history in Israel’s slavery in Egypt. The book of Exodus tells us that “the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery” (2:23) as they were in a state of affliction and suffering (3:7). As Israel was in slavery, so we are enslaved to sin. What Pharaoh was to Israel, Satan is to sinners. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul describes our sin-enslaved condition in blunt terms:
You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. (Eph. 2:1–3)
In his famous diagnosis of fallen humanity, Paul describes us as those who do not seek God, who have become worthless, who do not do good, whose throats are open graves, and who use their tongues for deception (Rom. 3:11–13). As we survey the people whom we see in our day-to-day lives, we certainly observe wicked people doing sinful things, but so many people give the appearance of being decent and moral. Beneath the veil of respectability lies the pallor of death wrapped in the chains of sin and guilt. Because all humans are guilty of both Adam’s first sin and their own personal sins, all humans justly fall under God’s wrath and condemnation (Rom. 1:18–32; 5:12–14).
There are several consequences of our sin-fallen condition. All humans bear the burden of the guilt of sin. Every time we commit sin against God and His law, we incur legal guilt. There is a subjective side to guilt, for we sense that we do wrong as our consciences accuse or excuse our conduct (2:15). Yet guilt is not simply a feeling but an objective legal debt that all sinners incur for violating God’s law. A powerful image of guilt comes to us from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, where the main character, Christian, carries a massive burden on his back that weighs him down. Given that we are guilty of sin, this means that God’s wrath hangs over our heads. As Paul writes, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18, KJV).
Read More
Related Posts: -
Diversity is Not a Virtue
Just as bodies in pews aren’t hard evidence of heart change, neither is a certain type of bodies in pews evidence that a church is racist or self-absorbed—or that a church has practiced true hospitality. Christ builds his Church. Christ is already building a diverse Church from every tribe, tongue, and nation. It’s our job to celebrate and welcome that while serving each other and spreading the gospel in the time and places in which He has—for now—scattered us.
Somewhere in the tiny Himalayan country of Nepal, there’s a small Christian church. In fact, there’s quite a few. Nepal has one of the fastest-growing Christian populations in the world.
Imagine I—a curious, white, English-speaking, American Christian—land at tiny Lukla airport. Maybe I’m about to trek up the rocky face of Mount Everest. Before heading for base camp, I stop for Sunday services at a small rural church. I’m far from home. I’m really cold. I’m a little scared, too.
Is the church ‘ready’ for me? Is there an English-speaking greeter, ready to make me in particular feel comfortable? Is there a group of English-speaking western worshippers, guaranteed to make sure I don’t feel ‘out of place’ or ‘othered’? Will the liturgy accommodate my western expectations?
To put it another way: how is the Nepalese church’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy going?
The thought experiment isn’t quite fair. But there is a fair number of American Christians and Christian institutions calling for similar diversity efforts here at home. A charitable read of their efforts would suggest more reasonable expectations: that the people who make up our congregations would reflect the communities we’re in; which are on average much more racially and ethnically diverse than a small Nepalese village.
There has been racial and ethnic partiality in the American church in the past. Still, modern calls for focused diversity efforts in American churches are often problematically shallow. The Nepal thought experiment, silly as it might be, offers a helpful illustration. Diversity for diversity’s sake doesn’t make sense when it’s applied without context. The American church isn’t just one church, but hundreds of thousands. Widespread undertaking of “diversity” efforts within churches and ministries warrants a few questions on the front end, then.
First: what do we mean by “diversity?” Modern conversations tend to use the word almost exclusively to describe diversity of either race or ethnicity. But what about diversity of age? Of socioeconomic status? And does diversity for diversity’s sake—when we widen the definition — always make sense? Imagine criticizing a college ministry for not having elderly members. Imagine faulting an urban church in a city center for not having enough farmers in its congregation. The logic breaks down.
This leads to another question: why, exactly, should we pursue diversity? Often Christians advocating for diversity programs answer by reminding us that partiality is sinful, and that the global church at the time of Jesus’ second coming will include people of “every tribe, nation and tongue.” In other words, calls to achieve diversity are meant, in part, to encourage Christians to celebrate diversity. Celebrating the wide human diversity within the body of Christ is a good thing in itself.
Read More
Related Posts:
