David King - Justification and The Auburn Avenue Controversy

Most people are on the right, and we're in the wrong state for that, but that's okay. It's all right. This morning our first presentation is on the subject that we touched on last evening. But from a Presbyterian perspective, a Reformed Presbyterian perspective, my good friend David King will be speaking to us this morning.

I insisted, as he will tell you, that we needed to put Pastor King's material on the screen for you. I hope that you'll be able to especially see the references at the bottom. There is so much material here that you'll want to be taking notes on that I really wanted to make sure that it was visible to everyone.

And so I hope you'll take the opportunity of utilizing the tremendous amount of time that I know David has invested in this presentation. So without any further ado, because we have a lot of material to cover, let me ask you to.

Welcome Pastor King to the podium this morning. Thank you. I am grateful to be with you here today and still trying to get used to the idea that James asked me to do this. It was a little bit misleading.

He said I asked him coming in to Georgia, were they going to have some comforts that I could relate to from Georgia. And I inquired about the grits and he told me they don't serve grits here for breakfast.

That's very misleading. If you ate at the buffet this morning, you will have found that they were serving them. James insisted that without the added use of this sacrament this morning called PowerPoint, that I would lose all of you without this visual impingement.

So we have this and I'm grateful for that. Hey, what as we begin today, why don't we look to the Lord in prayer? Okay, let's pray. Great God of heaven, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we bow before you this day and acknowledge that you're a king, you're sovereign over all.

You're the one who has made us. And not we ourselves. And then those of you who belong to you this morning, we confess that you are the one who has made us once again by act of regeneration in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We come to you in his name this day and we ask, O Father, that you would be with those of us who speak, that you would grant us clarity of thought and expression. And Father, we pray that your truth would be underscored.

That the Lord Jesus Christ would be exalted, that you would grant us as a result of this day a greater appreciation for his person and work. And that you would grant that we would love him even more for having fellowship around him this day.

Bless them this time. Sanctify it for your use in our own hearts. And we ask all these blessings for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name and by whose merits we draw near to you. With these our pleas.

The Four-Part Structure of the Address

Amen. Now, to let you know up front that there is some reason to my madness, I've more or less broken down my address in the four points. I want to make an opening statement with respect to the doctrine of justification by faith.

And then I want to, in the second place, talk about some aspects of the Auburn Avenue controversy for which I'm grateful. Then in the third place, I'd like to examine some areas, particularly with respect to the sacraments, that I think are problematic about this approach.

And then in the last place, I would like to offer fourthly some concluding remarks on justification by faith. I was reminded in seminary oftentimes by my professor of systematic theology. That Philip Melanchthon prayed God on his deathbed that he might be delivered from what he called the Rabiae Thalagorum, the raving madness of the theologians.

I think it's true that oftentimes we can be sidetracked by things that are secondary and peripheral issues, perhaps that cluster around the gospel. But certainly central and primary to the proclamation of the gospel in the Bible is that of the doctrine of justification by faith.

You and I are living today in challenging days when this biblical doctrine is increasingly coming under attack, not only from non-Protestants, but sadly from professing evangelicals offering such sophisticated expressions of rejection as hooey and hogwash, and particularly by the proponents of the new perspective, or perhaps I should say the new perspectives on Paul.

Now there are a number of common tenets which all adherents of the new perspective share. All of them agree, and one of the things that they agree on is that Paul's doctrine of justification by faith in the analysis or by the analysis of the Reformers is wrong.

They're saying that they all agree that the Reformation's analysis of Paul's doctrine of justification by faith alone was wrong. And personally, every Reformed theologian whom I've read, whom I've heard, they've offered this same observation.

Recently on a website, one of the proponents of the new federal vision position insists, quote, the attempt to make rights ecumenical interpretation of justification some sort of evidence of a downgrade in theology or a denial of the division between Protestant and Roman Catholic soteriology is simply misguided and misleading.

Now I disagree with that, and it's interesting to me that recently while being interviewed by Martin Deaver on the Nine Marks Ministry leadership interview and seminar series, Dr. Ligon Duncan related this following observation.

One of the men who was interviewing Dr. Duncan noted that he himself had remembered the occasion of an event in which he was present at when Tom Wright lectured, I believe this was in, he said, 1993 or 1994 in England, and asking him afterwards when Wright had said that the Luther had gotten Romans wrong, this man asked N .T. Wright how Luther had gotten Romans wrong, and he asked him how he had understood justification.

And then the man asked N .T. Wright, have you ever read the decrees of the sixth session of the Council of Trent? And Wright responded at that point that he hadn't. And the man said, well, I think if you did you would find some understanding of justification very similar to that which you yourself laid out tonight.

And then upon hearing that, Ligon Duncan responded and said, oh, let me collaborate that. He said, Guy Waters, another colleague of ours, a Duke graduate who studied with E .P. Sanders and Richard Hayes at Duke, worked in early Judaism and New Testament Christianity.

He was in a seminar with Ed Sanders, and for his seminar topic he chose to do a survey of 20th century Roman Catholic New Testament scholarship on Paul, the Law, and Justification. And he handed it in to Sanders, and I'm quoting Duncan here, Sanders said, this is fascinating stuff.

Never read any of this material before, but if I had, I would have given them credit for my thesis. Well, that's just an open acknowledgement. Dr. Duncan noted that they're acknowledging exactly what he's saying.

Now, it cannot be emphasized enough today that with respect to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, the Reformation speaks with one voice. John Calvin said of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, this is the main hinge on which religion turns, and we devote the greater attention and care to it.

He says, for unless you first of all grasp what your relationship to God is, and the nature of his judgment concerning you, you have neither a foundation on which to establish your salvation, nor one on which to build piety toward God.

And in his reply to the Roman Catholic Cardinal Sadele, Calvin said that the doctrine of justification by faith, wherever the knowledge of it is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion abolished, the church destroyed, and the hope of salvation utterly overthrown.

Why the Auburn Avenue Controversy Matters

Now, let me mention this morning in the second place some aspects of the controversy for which I'm grateful. Given the overall picture of the present state of Christendom in the world today, and especially in the United States, as influenced and characterized by, but certainly not limited to, the spirit of egalitarianism, individualism, revivalism, the exaltation of one's own subjective personal experiences, the common attitude of me and my Bible, I am grateful for the renewed stress on the importance of the Church of Jesus Christ and its corporate life that has come to the forefront in this controversy.

We do need to learn afresh, you and I, to divest ourselves of this incipient individualism, which very corrosively eats away at the very heart of the community, of the corporate community, of the family of God.

We need to discover again the community of faith, the interrelatedness, and the interdependence of the believing life that we as Christians, as living stones, are being built up together into a spiritual house, the draw from the language of the Apostle Paul.

And we live in detached isolation from one another, not only to our own detriment, but to the cause of Christ in the world. And when God's grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are birthed by the gospel into saving union with Jesus Christ, we are brought by that same grace into union with the people of God, so that we become common members of the body of Jesus Christ.

Thus, this incipient spirit of individualism is utterly foreign to biblical Christianity. Our unity must be unity around revealed truth, though. And the Puritan John Trapp put it like this. He said, unity without verity is no better than conspiracy.

Now, I'm also grateful in the second place for this renewed emphasis with respect to the whole subject of corporate worship. We are commanded in the 29th Psalm to give to the Lord the glory due to his name.

We're to worship the Lord the scripture commands us in the beauty of his holiness. And then elsewhere, we learn in the 95th Psalm, we're reminded there of the corporate nature of this worship. Oh, come let us sing to the Lord.

Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God and the great King above all gods.

Oh, come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our God. For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture. The word liturgy itself comes from the Greek word liturgia, which, contrary to popular opinion from some quarters, it's not a nasty word.

And in post-biblical usage and in contemporary ecclesiology, the word liturgy simply refers to an outward ceremony or an ordered ceremony of worship. Virtually all churches today use some kind of liturgy, whether that word is adopted for the order of worship or not.

The problem is that even where liturgy is preeminently biblical, it degenerates into mere formalism and becomes exclusively external in its application, so that in it we fail to worship the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our mind, soul, and strength.

And though we can sympathize with a number of the pastoral concerns that had been raised by the adherents of the federal vision, I and other Presbyterians are convinced that their proposed remedies are as bad, if not worse, than the maladies underscored themselves.

So then I want to offer something of a perspective, a critique on those things which, from a Reformed and Presbyterian perspective, I think are problematic. Now, it would be simply an impossible task for me this morning to attempt to offer a detailed assessment and criticism of the various positions expressed by the federal visionists concerning such doctrines, vital doctrines, as ecclesiology, the covenants, justification, election, the sacraments, the believers' assurance, the perseverance of the saints, as well as the distinction between the visible and the invisible church.

And there does exist a diversity of positions among the adherents of the federal vision themselves. There's not complete agreement among themselves on the various aspects of these matters. But I and other Presbyterians are convinced that the Auburn Avenue, the federal theology, or the federal vision theology, that it does represent a serious departure from the historical reformed position on these above-mentioned matters.

And, of course, they would charge the same of us. And that I would say that it opposes a threat, not only doctrinally, but also to the unity of the Reformed Church. I think in particularly that there is a real danger on the part of its adherents of lapsing into a mere formal sacramentalism and even the form of works righteousness through the back door, if this hasn't already been the case, despite all of their objections notwithstanding.

And I can only mention this in the cursory way due to the time constraints of this context. But this is not the first time the nature of this controversy, especially with respect to the sacraments, has confronted Reformed parties in Christ's Church.

I call your attention to the recent historical context briefly, and I do so only to stimulate or to provoke your own studies in examining these matters. E. Brooks Holifield has written, or Holifield has written, two different books.

And he has observed, and I'm quoting from one of them, I believe it's on the presentation here, by the 17th century the English Puritans, who took most of their cues about theology from the Continental Reformed theologians, were arguing that all external religious aides were secondary and subordinate to inward spirituality.

The sacraments were effective only for the soul wherein the Spirit dwelt. The internal illumination of the Spirit necessarily preceded any true understanding of the external words of Scripture, and the Church took on reality and substance only with the Spirit poured out its, and that's Holifield's word, I would say, poured out his gifts.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Calvin would have been in complete agreement with the Puritans in general on this issue, but Calvin did insist repeatedly throughout his writings that the sacraments were secondary instruments and appendages to the gospel.

Making mention of the 39 articles of the Church of England, Holifield says that they made no reference to the older doctrine of baptismal regeneration. And then Holifield goes on to give three specific examples.

He says it was involved in the 17th century divisions between Calvinists and Arminians, between Puritans and Traditionalists, and even among Puritan reformers. It reappeared in 18th century conflicts between Latitudinarians and high churchmen, and in 19th century disputes between the Oxford Tractarians, and of course, that was Newman's bunch, the Oxford movement or the Tractarian movement, the Oxford Tractarians and their evangelical critics.

Some English theologians said that the sacrament was a conditional pledge to the faithful, that they would experience rebirth as adults if they kept the covenant conditions. Others believe that infant baptism immediately conferred regeneration, and a few of them explained sacramental rebirth sealed an absolute covenant.

The metaphor seemed infinitely malleable when applied to sacramental matters, so that controversies over baptism and the Lord's Supper maintained interest in the covenantal themes well into the 19th century.

And with respect to American Southern Presbyterians, Holifield correctly observes that they denied that the sacrament, that is baptism specifically here, conferred saving grace, or removed the stain of original sin, or justified the baptized infant, just as they denied that baptism was necessary for salvation.

And he says the same thing with respect to the Puritans in his other work, The Covenant Sealed. I believe the first one came from the Gentleman Theologians, but in his work The Covenant Sealed, he uses those exact same words of the Puritans, that they criticized any suggestion that the sacrament conferred saving grace, or removed the stain of original sin, or justified the baptized infant, just as they denied that baptism was necessary for salvation.

Now in this latter work of his, The Covenant Sealed, Holifield observed an insight that I think is especially germane to the present controversy raised by the advocates of the federal vision. He says, quote, the vocabulary of the sacramentalist revealed their intention to elevate baptism by combining two theological traditions, Reformed Orthodoxy and Medieval Scholasticism.

The speak of the Christian life in terms of potency, or form, and actualization, or matter, was to appropriate scholastic imagery. Initial grace was a Reformed adaptation of the Medieval Gradia Prima, also given to children in baptism.

Baxter recognized later, and of course you're talking about the Puritan here, Baxter recognized later the similarity between seminal grace and the scholastic notion of infused habits. Burgess and Ward, and by the way Cornelius Burgess was a member of the Westminster Assembly, Ward, Samuel Ward was invited to participate, but he died and therefore was not a part of that gathered assembly.

But these two men hailed to baptismal regeneration, and Holifield says of them, Burgess and Ward carefully inserted the older language into their Orthodox Calvinism, but they could not entirely eliminate the incommensurabilities.

The medieval language depicted the Christian pilgrimage as a gradual development approximate to salvation in extending stages and levels of growth nourished by sacramental grace from beginning to end.

Earlier Reformed theologians spoke of progressive sanctification after the effectual call, and they argued about preparatory development in adults prior to the experience of saving grace. But the sacramentalist language seemed to depict the whole of man's spiritual life from infancy to glorification as an unbroken continuum beginning with baptism.

The problem was to combine that vocabulary with a traditional Puritan notion of genuine conversion as a specifiable experience restricted to the elect, moving them into a new sphere of life discontinuous with their path.

Puritan theology often consisted of the artful manipulation of images, and Burgess and Ward accordingly proposed a sacramental theology based on medieval images of salvation as a new creation. And here's what Holifield says, few of their Puritan contemporaries shared their vision.

However, and the initial response was therefore hostile. When Ward first published his ideas around 1627, a close friend, and this was another Puritan, advised that he set that, that he not set that controversy on foot.

And when Burgess published his treatise, he complained that he received for his effort nothing but clamors, slanders, revilings without end or measure. Now there's a certain article on the internet that mentions Burgess and Ward and says that their views were not regarded as controversial at that time.

Well, I beg to differ. I think the historical facts do not support that statement. Now it seems to me as well that there are some unreconciled double standards that are at play in the criticisms of the proponents of the federal vision.

For all the emphasis by some of them on conciliar authority, the peace of Christ Church has been disturbed by this. And the respective courts of the same have been circumvented in the process. We're not to take these things to the public venue as the first way of discussing them.

That's not Presbyterianism. These things are to be worked out in the courts of our church. And so they have taken the public venue, and I think those who would differ with them have been forced by that to take the public venue as well.

And so I think this comes to the forefront of the controversy with respect to their allegations. There is this glaring double standard from them that on one hand Presbyterians and Reformed men such as myself have departed from the Westminster standards because we happen to disagree with their particular formulations, proposals, and interpretation of our standards.

On the other hand, while they're insisting at the same time that they actually hold to the standards, whereas we don't, but they're the ones insisting that they need to be revised. So I think we need to just look who's insisting for the revision here.

And I think we see this especially in their approach to the sacraments and to the doctrine of justification by faith. Now, I'm convinced that their emphasis on sacramentalism is rooted in their ecclesiology, which for them becomes a matter of soteriology.

And I hope to show the connection. In this schematic, I would suggest you that this is where their position comes very close to resembling that of Roman Catholicism because soteriology is in essence replaced by ecclesiology.

Let me explain. One of their writers states this, and this is from the Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons, Debating the Federal Vision, and these are from a number of articles. This is in a book now, but I got this from the PDF file that it was on.

One of their writers says this, entry into the church is always a soteriological fact for the person who enters. If the church is the house of God, then membership in the church makes the person a member of that household.

Now, critiquing this proposed paradigm, Richard Phillips has pointed out, quote, instead of realizing that our relationship with God is primary, so that salvation is primarily a spiritual reality in which our relationship, one with another in the church, is derivative.

From our relationship with God, this revamped covenant theology puts it precisely backward. Under this view, our relationship with the church is primary, so that salvation is primarily a social and cultural reality, and our relationship with God is derivative from our relationship in the church.

Simply put, I think the federal vision, to the extent that view is held by them, is a reversal of the biblical model. As I've written in another context, the emphasis of the New Testament is that incorporation into Christ is the only means of salvation and entrance into His body, the church.

I don't think you can reverse that order. Paul said, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Paul said, in Him, in Him, you trusted by faith.

After you heard the word, the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom, having believed, Paul said, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.

When you read the Greek New Testament, this phrase, in Christu, it occurs some 76 times in the New Testament, indicating that union with Christ is absolutely central to the biblical doctrine of salvation.

Its equivalent phrases, in reference to Christ, all occur approximately 81 times. And also, these places where we find that the word, in Curio, in the Lord, it occurs some 48 times. It is union with Christ that incorporates us into the church and constitutes us as members, not vice-versa.

And I think this is a very important point. It is not the church that places the believer in Christ. It is God who incorporates the believer into his son's body, the church, by faith in Jesus Christ. Now, in contrast to the New Testament emphasis, it is this aberrant view of ecclesiology that drives the federal vision's view of the sacraments.

They're attempting to ground the believer's assurance of salvation, and this is a pastoral concern. We all understand it. There are times when people have difficulty with the assurance of their salvation, and so they're trying to ground the believer's assurance of salvation in external rites rather than in internal grace.

And for the most part, I want to contrast their views with Calvin. For example, one of them says it is sub-confessional, then, for Presbyterians to view baptism as a mere picture of something received in another way.

It is also inadequate to suggest baptism is merely a strengthening and assuring ordinance rather than a saving ordinance. Well, leaving aside for a moment the question-begging nature of that particular assertion, earlier in the same chapter, the same writer is critical of the Westminster position on the covenant of works.

And he says, Calvin's attempt to integrate faith and reason in the first book of the Institutes almost overcame the medieval dualism, but it crept back in with Reformed scholasticism, particularly through the covenant of works doctrine.

And what they're arguing is that the covenant of works was a later development in Reformed theology from that of Calvin. And there's truth that it did get a lot more development following Calvin. But, Richard A. Mohler, who is certainly, I would say if there's an expert on Calvin today, I would say he's one, and he has argued that the notion of a covenant of works is intimated by Calvin in his works.

He said if Calvin did not typically speak of the prelapsarian state, that is the state of Adam in the garden prior to his fall, if he did not if he did not typically speak of the prelapsarian state as bounded by covenant, he certainly assumed that it was governed by law.

Moreover, the Westminster Confession in the seventh chapter makes reference to the covenant of works. The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works. And it's also described as a covenant of works in chapter 19 of the Westminster Confession.

My question is if I am sub-confessional because I do not agree with their interpretation of the standards in respect of the sacraments, who's being sub-confessional now in the rejection of the term covenant of works?

Well, they said, well, we accept it and we accept it with all these nuances. So, I can accept things in our standards as well that are nuanced. I just think there's a double standard there when the one hand they want to use this charge of being sub-confessional, they need to own the same thing for themselves.

The same man says that for Calvin, regeneration began at the font. Yet Calvin said, and I quote him, I then infer that children have need of regeneration, but I maintain that this gift comes to them by promise and that baptism follows as a seal.

Again, this man writes, we are very much children of revivalism and the enlightenment as we have already seen. Thus, we often treat baptism as a picture or symbol of grace that is actually received in some other non-sacramental fashion.

Well, I don't know what they're talking about, the preaching of the word. I understand it to be a sacrament. For example, some would compare the sacrament to a street sign or to a billboard. Yes, and Calvin spoke of it that way too.

But such a definition is terribly incomplete. Baptism does more than picture the absent grace of Christ. Calvin repeatedly claimed the sacraments perform what they picture. And he's right to a certain extent.

That in them, God accomplishes what he signifies. The sign is not the thing signified. That's a good distinction. But neither can the thing signified ordinarily at least. And here's where this language gets thrown in.

Ordinarily, or sometimes they use the word normally, but ordinarily at least, it cannot be had apart from the sign. They are distinguishable but inseparable components of a sacrament. What Calvin taught is that in the sacraments, there's a sacramental union between the sign and the reality which is signified by the sign.

But Calvin was careful to say that the reality of the sign is not necessarily imparted at the time when the sign is given. However, if I understand this proponent of the federal vision correctly, he's saying yes, it does ordinarily attend the time when the sign is given.

If I understand him correctly. But in contrast, he says the things can't be separated. Here Calvin, he said,. Hence that distinction, if it be duly understood, often noted by the same Augustine, between a sacrament and the matter of the sacrament.

For the distinction signifies not only that the figure and the truth are contained in the sacrament, but that they are not so linked that they cannot be separated. And that even in the union itself, the matter, that is the reality, must always be distinguished from the sign.

That we may not transfer to the one what belongs to the other. And then Calvin, he goes on to give a quote from Augustine. In fact, in the Institutes, Calvin gives this citation from Augustine at least three times.

And in spite of the footnotes that reference Augustine, I have not been able to find this exact quote from Augustine in his writings. But nonetheless, I do believe that was Augustine's view, whether he specifically stated it in this language or not.

But it was certainly Calvin's view in representing Augustine. That he, Augustine, he says, speaks of their separation when he writes, In the elect alone, the sacraments effect what they represent. In other words, the sacraments, what they represent, they only are effectual for the elect.

Simply put, I would say that they are imputing the efficacy of the reality signified by the sacrament to the sign itself. And I think to be consistent, the federal visionist would have to say, Calvin, you're not being sufficiently objective here.

If you're just applying those things to the elect alone, then you're not being sufficiently objective. So I think it's the very thing that Calvin warned against when he wrote some three years before his death.

Calvin died in 1559. This is what he said. I believe this is from a letter in 1556. As the words import, and he quotes God's promise, I will be thy God and the God of thy seed after thee. Unless this promise had preceded, certainly it would have been wrong to confer on them, that is on the children of believers, baptism.

Now I ask whether the word of God is sufficient by its intrinsic value for our salvation or whether some aid must be borrowed elsewhere to supply its defect or help its infirmity. If this promise is not believed to be efficacious in itself, not only the virtue of God but also his grace and truth will be attached to the external sign.

Thus those men, while they strive to honor baptism, cast serious ignominy on God. Now what will become of so many passages in which Christ is represented as satisfied with faith alone? Calvin anticipated this very argument.

Hence if they want to complain about the negative influence of enlightenment and the rationalistic mindset on our day, then they need look no farther than the mirror when they read into Calvin and the Westminster Standards a position which I think Calvin and the Standards explicitly repudiated by insisting that the reality of the sacrament ordinarily attends the time when it's given.

Our Reformers were careful not to say that. As Burckhoff noted of the Reform, do we have Burckhoff? Yeah. I'll let you read that quote rather than taking the time to read it myself. But Burckhoff noted that there was different views there and they saw that there was a problem with insisting that infants are regenerated by baptism.

Moving on now, Calvin said this,. Now our opponents ask us what faith came to us during some years after baptism. This they do to prove our baptism void, since it is not sanctified to us except when the word of promise is accepted in faith.

To this question we reply that we indeed, being blind and unbelieving for a long time, did not grasp the promise that had been given to us in baptism, yet that promise, since it was of God, ever remained fixed and firm and trustworthy.

Even if all men are liars and faithless, still God does not cease to be trustworthy. He's talking about God's promise in baptism. Even if all men are lost, still Christ remains salvation. We therefore confess that for that time baptism benefited us not at all, inasmuch as the promise offered us in it, without which baptism is nothing, lay neglected.

Now when by God's grace we begin to repent, we accuse our blindness and hardness of heart. We who were for so long ungrateful toward His great goodness, but we believe that the promise itself did not vanish.

Rather we consider that God, through baptism, promises us forgiveness of sins and He will doubtless fulfill His promise for all believers. The promise was offered to us in baptism. Therefore let us embrace it by faith.

Indeed on account of our unfaithfulness it lay long buried from us. Now therefore let us receive it through faith. And then Sinclair Ferguson in an address at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh this year prior to the meeting of the PCA General Assembly, he noted that the Westminster Divine's approach to baptism, particularly with respect to infants, was what could be a covenant conscious approach rather than a presumed regeneration approach.

And that understanding was that the warrant of baptism was not knowledge of an individual's regeneration, but the relationship of the individual to the administration of the covenant preserved them, that is the Westminster Divines, from a great deal of confusion.

And then Dr. Ferguson goes on to critique this view of the covenant as a container. He says the way we apply the covenant and its promises to our children is that we communicate to our children the message of the covenant.

And the message of the covenant is repent. Repent of your sins and cleave to Jesus Christ as the only hope of your salvation. Now another writer in the book, The Federal Vision, he insists that, quote, being in covenant with God means that being in Christ, those who are in covenant have all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places.

Union with Christ means that all that is true of Christ is true of us. So far, so good. But then he goes on to insist that that's how we're to regard every single baptized person. In other words, all the baptized, elect and non-elect alike, are said to be regenerated and possess all spiritual blessings in Christ.

But interestingly enough, while this is consistent with what is predicated of the elect, the one spiritual blessing withheld from the non-elect, and I thought all blessings were conferred on all the baptized, but the one blessing withheld from the non-elect is the grace of perseverance.

Now then I ask, is that a Westminster view of the regenerate? The Westminster Confession says, chapter 3,. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so he hath by the external and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto.

Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.

The elect only. Thus this view of baptismal regeneration as set forth by this advocate of the federal vision sounds more like a Lutheran position on the sacrament of baptism where all the baptized are regenerate but the non-elect fail to persevere.

Now if I and other Presbyterians are being baptized in sub-confessional in our view of the sacrament, simply because we don't agree with their view of baptismal efficacy, then they are being Lutherans, and sub-confessional in their view of the sacraments.

So there is an overt double standard, I would argue, at play here in their criticisms of other Reformed Christians. In his dispute with the Lutheran Westphal, John Calvin pointed out that Westphal, quote, holds the necessity for baptism to be so absolute that he would sooner have it profaned by illicit usurpation.

And he was talking about lay people and women practicing baptism. That he would have it profaned by that, then omitted when the lawful use is denied because they believed it was necessary for salvation.

The thing that offends him he immediately after discloses. It is because we, Calvin speaking, we give hopes that infants may obtain salvation without baptism because we hold that baptism, instead of regenerating or saving them, only seals the salvation of which they were previously partakers.

As I have elsewhere refuted these gross errors at full length, I shall here be brief with my answer. If the salvation of infants is included in the element of water, then the covenant by which the Lord adopts them is made void.

As one of his concluding observations in his paper addressing this controversy, Pastor Richard Phillips said, quote, the federal vision emphasizes, indeed relies upon, a grace that is external to the recipient.

Hence the importance of sacramental means of grace. This is what gives objectivity to the covenant and to the Christian. In reaction to the morbid introspection purportedly rampant today, it seems to me that the federal vision has overreacted in such a way that its fundamental reliance on a sacramental grace that is external and objective flies directly in the face of the Bible's constant demand for grace that is inward and subjective by means of the Holy Spirit's work.

And so it appears from our standpoint that having lost confidence in the objectivity of inward spirituality, they have retreated to the outward signs of the sacraments legitimately ordained of God. Yes, but at the same time coming.

So it seems to me dangerously close to what Calvin warned against when he said, but although the sacraments are in earnest by which we may be rendered secure of the promises of God, I however acknowledge that they would be useless to us did not the Holy Spirit render them efficacious as instruments, lest our confidence being fixed on the creature should be withdrawn from God.

Nay, I even confess that the sacraments are vitiated and perverted when it is not regarded as their only aim to make us look to Christ for everything requisite to our salvation and whenever they are employed for any other purpose than that of fixing our faith wholly in Him.