The Problem with SO MUCH of the Federal Vision Critique

Misquoting Hebrews 5:9 and the Source of Eternal Salvation

So I had some time to listen to an anti-Doug Wilson presentation. I'm working out, so I figured, you know, got to pass the time somehow. And I'm listening to, it's the Theocast guy, and I got about eight minutes in.

And eight minutes into the thing, he says, you know, Doug, he says, Doug literally says that the Lord is the author of eternal salvation for all who obey him. That is not true. And I stopped the video because, you know, I'm not that, I'm not like, I don't have a ton of scripture memorized, but I happen to know that verse.

It's Hebrews 5 -9. And I looked it up, and when I looked it up, I looked it up in the ESV because that's, you know, I'm an uncircumcised heretic when it comes to my Bible translation. So ESV says that God is the source, the Lord is the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

KJV vs ESV and the Meaning of Author and Source

And so I started thinking, well, I don't know why Doug would use a different word and say author instead of source, but it's the same thing. I mean, what's the distinction that you would make between source and author?

And so that kind of had me scratching my head. And then I had a thought, and I said, you know, I wonder what the KJV says because I know Doug prefers the, you know, the traditional text. And sure enough, the KJV says author.

The Lord is the author of eternal salvation for all who obey him. And this is the problem that we have, you know, you say something like, well, baptism now saves you. And then you get a, you know, a list of people calling you a heretic when that's a quotation from the scripture.

The Problem with Critiquing Scriptural Quotations

And this is the problem that we have. It's like, okay, so he doesn't formulate it the way you want him to, says in your specific confessions or whatever, catechisms. And, you know, we can discuss the wisdom of trying to change that or change the formulation there.

That's an okay discussion. But when they're quoting scripture, it's very suspicious for you to be like, well, that's not true and say something that's the opposite. Like, but often you're not saying something that's the opposite.

Often you're saying the exact thing that he believes. It's just that he just wants to let the Bible speak without too much qualification. Yes, some qualification is necessary. And that frustrates me sometimes because I've read, I think people get this impression that I haven't read Federal Vision because I said I don't care yesterday.

Reading Federal Vision Material and Visiting a Federal Vision Church

And that's a misconception. I shouldn't have said it that way. So I'll walk that back. I did care, but I don't anymore. I've read a lot of Federal Vision stuff. And I've read even the dark, you know, stout Black Coffee Federal Vision stuff, the hardcore stuff.

In fact, I attended a hardcore Federal Vision church for a brief period. And I questioned some of the wisdom of some of the things that, some of the ways they would formulate it because, like, I think that they're trying to be helpful.

They're trying to be clear. But, you know, it ends up being less clear because we know we have a way of talking about these things. But that's very different than, like, I don't know. This is the problem that we have.

This is the problem that we have.