Is Doug Wilson a Heretic?

Doug Wilson’s Federal Vision Background and Rejection of the Label

Doug Wilson is obviously been a part of the federal vision. He no longer accepts the title, but on his blog part, blog article, you can go there and look at, we'll link to it. He says he still agrees to what he signed off on theologically.

So it rejects the title. It's like saying this, Justin, I don't like the word Calvinism. I'm no longer a Calvinist. But then you were to ask me, but do you hold to the five points? And I would say yes.

Yeah, I hold to the five points. I affirm everything written in the canons of Dort.

Right.

Yeah, right.

It's the same thing.

He's going to say, no, I don't, I don't claim the federal vision anymore. I'm Sola Fide, Solus Christus, all of those things. And it's like, yeah, but bro, in all honesty, look at the things that you're writing and saying, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth and you're contradicting.

He holds to the same wording, but different definitions. And so we're going to talk to you guys about the definition he holds. And then you will see when you read him, he says, no, no, I believe in faith alone.

But his word, when he says faith means something different.

Yeah, like I don't think that word means.

What you think it means, right?

I mean, it's, it's a very princess bride kind of.

Exactly.

Using that word.

Denying the Covenant of Works

So first of all, we're going to talk about what he denies and this will help you understand. So first of all, he denies the covenant of works. He says, I believe the covenant of works mentioned in chapter seven is badly named.

I would prefer something like the covenant of life or the covenant of creation. I believe that this covenant obligated Adam to a wholehearted obedience to the required men of God. That one stipulation I would add is that had Adam stood, he would have been required to thank God for his gracious protection and provision.

And had Adam stood, he would have done so by believing the word of God. In other words, it would have all been by grace through faith. The covenant of works was not a meritorious, sorry, was not meritorious.

And we deny that any covenant can be kept without faith.

He's denying the covenant of works in the framework that reformed theologians have articulated for hundreds of years. And I would argue the idea that has been communicated by theologians throughout the history of the church, and that is this, that Adam stood as our representative in the garden of Eden.

Doug would affirm that. But we understand that had Adam obeyed the covenant that God made with him, he would have earned eternal life and blessedness for himself and all of his posterity.

That's right.

That's been understood throughout the history.

Of the church.

Romans 5 makes that very plain. Other places in the scripture do too. Doug Wilson does not understand that Adam could have earned obedience. And this has a tremendous downstream effect then on how you understand the work of Christ.

That's right.

Christ’s Obedience, Imputed Righteousness, and the Gospel

John and I were talking about this a little bit ago, and this fires me up a little bit. And I'm going to try to just be clear and not too passionate about it. To say that Adam would have been saved by grace through faith implies then that Jesus was accounted righteous on the basis of faith.

And it was by grace through faith that Jesus would have obtained eternal life and that we in him attained it that way. That's a problem. Because where the first Adam failed, the second Adam succeeded.

And that was in obeying. That was in keeping the law perfectly. And so Jesus was not given anything. He was not gifted anything. He earned eternal life. And he accomplished righteousness. And what Jesus earned we are given by faith in the covenant of grace.

That is a massive thing. That is heresy. If you reject that you are not imputed by Christ's righteousness by faith alone, then you are denying the gospel. And there's a play with words here which we're going to get into.

In essence, they say, no, no, no. We believe in the complete imputation of Christ's righteousness. But then they deny it.

Doug Wilson, when he looks at the covenant God made with Adam, he sees that the requirements of the covenant are obedience and faith. And so then now that's the paradigm and the framework for everyone else.

And so it's going to be obedience and faith in the way that he understands the new covenant and the way that he understands life in the church and everything else. And you might be in by grace, but you're kept by obedience.

And so that's the paradigm and that's important. The other thing that he denies though verbatim, and we're just getting this from the Joint Federal Vision Statement, is there is a denial of the law gospel distinction.

So quote from the Joint Federal Vision Statement, we deny that law and gospel should be considered as hermeneutics or treated as such, close quote. And this is where you hear people say things that sound holy, like, you know, the law is all of grace and like the law is good news.

And it's like No, in that the first

Gospel wouldn't be titled good news if it wasn't the good news.

The law is good and holy, amen, Romans 7.

But it's not good news.

There's no problem with the law, but there's a huge problem with us in that we cannot live up to its standard and therefore it condemns us.

Redefining Faith as Obedience and Good Works

He changes the definition of faith. So this is quoting from his website. It says, I put the link down there, so it's still live, you can go read it. In the New Testament, obedience is a good word. Also in the New Testament, works is not, unless it is modified with the word like good.

We are called to good works, but we are not saved by works. So you see what he did there is that he's saying not by works lest anyone should boast. Those are bad kinds of works. And obviously this doesn't work, because John 17, Jesus says, I've fulfilled the work that you've given me, and Jesus doesn't put good work in front of there.

But he says this, by way of contrast, sinners do not obey the truth. The Lord is the author of eternal salvation for all who obey him. No, so he is saying basically faith and obedience is synonymous. I'll just keep reading.

All nations are summoned to the obedience of faith. Obedience is unto righteousness. Every thought is to be brought into obedience of Christ. God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey him. And of course, obedience is an evil thing when it is rendered to the wrong master, which should be obvious enough.

But the bottom line is that simple words, obey and obedience, should not set off alarm bells for those who read the Bible. And yes, they should shut off alarm bells if you're saying obedience and faith are the same thing, which he is, and we have further quotes to help you understand that this is what he's arguing for.

And so what he's saying is, yeah, we're not saved by works, but implication, our obedience is at least a part of our salvation. If not, obedience is the way that we are justified. Because obedience is a good word, whereas works is the bad thing.

So it's not faith versus works in the way that we would think. Because he's like, yeah, works are clearly bad. But it's, he's saying, yeah, like obedience is good.

And it's a part of faith.

Because James uses it this way, right?

No, works, yeah.

Faith without works.

James uses the word works, not the word obedience, which is wild. Because so this is where he's setting this up so that it's like, yeah, we're not saved by works, but obedience, now that's different.

Faithfulness as the Means of Preserving in the Covenant

Here's an example. This is from his book, Reformed Is Not Enough. So a lot of these quotes, I want you to understand, some of these quotes are from the Federal Vision, which is 20 years old, and he's still teaching this.

He says he rejects it, but he's still teaching this today. The means by which men preserve in the covenant is faithfulness. So you have to understand his argument here is that he believes that baptism regenerates babies, or even for those of us who are adults, baptism brings you into what's called a temporary election or this visible election, and that the way in which one preserves and reaches final election is through faithfulness, continue quote.

In other words, to assert that men fall away because their salvation was contingent upon continued faithfulness in the gospel is not to deny the sovereignty of God at all. So somehow he's construing saying, well, God in his sovereignty projected for this to happen, that you could be legitimately in election, in covenant with God.

You could be temporarily elect through baptism in the church but not be eternally elect because the way that you persevere in the covenant is through faithfulness and thereby become eternally elect.

And he will argue that in his mind, that is faith alone. No, no, no, we are justified by faith alone, but he's redefining the word faith. It doesn't mean the same thing that when we say faith alone or the reformers, it does not mean the same thing.

Then, all right, here's the kicker, man. You wanna talk about just being kind of slippery and sounding godly, you know, here's this, like we love to use the language of mystery and tension, and you and I both have used that language.

We try to use it in an appropriate way. What we wanna do is put tension in the right place and mystery in the right place. But if you put tension or mystery where there inherently isn't any, you are wrong and you will lead people astray.

And so here's a great example of that from Christian Renewal, the Monroe Four Speak Out. That's where this is all coming from. So Doug is doing an interview and it says, when asked in the interview, quote, Doug, when you cite continuing in goodness in Romans 11 in your 2002 lecture, is that the cause of our salvation or the fruit of it?

So let me just be clear on the question. You talk about continuing in goodness. Is continuing in goodness the cause of our salvation or is continuing in goodness the fruit of our salvation? Wilson replied, yes, in that he's saying, effectively, both, right?

All right, now, let me just say this. It is, that is unequivocally false. The answer is very simple. This is not one of those tension answers, both and. It is very clear that continuing in goodness is a fruit of our salvation and not the cause of our salvation.

That's right.

That is so elementary to a Reformed understanding and a biblical understanding of justification and salvation that this should be a dead giveaway, that we have now conflated obedience and continuing in goodness to be a piece of the cause of our salvation.

And so how that's not a synthesis of works and faith is beyond me.

Well, listen to this, to read the whole quote, he, right after he says yes, look, in Colossians, Paul says, as you received Christ, so walk in him. So the way we become Christians is the way we stay Christians, is the way we finish as Christians, by faith from first to last, which we would say, agree.

But he doesn't mean the same thing. So we continue in God's goodness by trust. We stand by faith. They fell, but you stand. Doing that to the end is how you come to your salvation. Whoa, what do you mean how you come to your salvation?

So he begins to go on and in this same quote, he is saying, listen to this, I believe we are saved by faith from first to last, which is why I have been accused of denying sola fide. And the reason why you've been accused of denying sola fide is that you're adding obedience.

You're adding in works, this good standing that we must keep.

In order to be saved.

That's right.

And again, you see this, we're bifurcating the thing. It's like you enter in by faith alone. And I would argue that in a federal vision framework, you enter in by baptism. You know, it's by grace, but then to finally be saved, you've got to persevere in faithfulness.

That's right.

And so it's a problem because what we are saying is that you are saved by faith alone in Christ alone, grounded in the grace of God alone. I mean, this is what the confession states and this is what the Bible teaches.

That we are resting, accepting, receiving, trusting in Jesus Christ for all of it.

Obedient Faith and the OPC’s Warning on Another Gospel

Just so we're not putting words in Doug's mouth here, obedient faith and living faith as synonymous. It is obedient in its life. And in that living condition, it is the instrument of our justification.

He himself, you can look at it, look up living faith by Doug Wilson on his blog. He is saying obedient faith is the instrument of our justification. That is heresy, okay?

Right, which it is, whereas we would say we are justified on account of Christ alone, which we receive by faith alone. And then as a fruit of that, we live lives where we seek to obey and by God's grace actually do.

But we're not conflating those things. And that distinction makes all the difference in the world. Final parting shot here. Lest you think this is just John and myself taking issue with this. Listen to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church's report on justification.

So this is a work by the OPC.

Here we go.

Though not ordinarily challenging the terminology of justification by faith alone, they, the federal visionists, have changed the definition of faith and have therefore changed the meaning of faith alone.

Close quote.

Exactly.

It's like you can talk about being justified by faith alone all you want to, but the issue here is that you have changed the definition of faith. And when you change the definition of faith from the confessional, reformed, biblical view of trusting, resting, accepting, receiving, you know, Christ, to now, well, yeah, that, and it's our obedience and our persevering and faithfulness that's a part of faith.

You've changed the game.

That's right.

Yeah, and the Bible says to be very clearly that someone that preaches another gospel, that you should avoid them. And, you know, some people will say to me, but Doug has said some really helpful things about culture and about marriage and sexuality and homosexuality.

And I said, okay, but that doesn't mean he's trustworthy. If he doesn't get the gospel right, then I don't trust anything else he has to say and really should be avoided. And so people have said, I'm too harsh.

I'm misquoting him. I'm misunderstanding him. If for 20 years people have sought to understand Doug and the conclusion is you're wrong, Doug, for 20 years and the Orthodox, there are multiple Presbyterians.

So we'll put all of this out there.

The PCA has done work on this too.

Right, so if you want to keep saying I'm misunderstanding Doug, then you're telling me multiple godly men with massive degrees who have read and reread and understood Doug. And they all come to the same conclusion that he is changing the definition of faith and he's adding works into it.

I'm sorry, it's not Justin and I, we are not misunderstanding him. If he wants to be clear, he needs to repent of this. And he has not, he has never come out and said federal vision is heretical. He's not changed his view on the imputation of Christ.

He will, I've seen the video, don't send it to us. I have seen the video when he does the whole thing on why he's reformed and faith alone. And he says all of the right things in that video. I agree with everything that he says, but he does not repudiate and change these articles and these books that he's written.

Reformed is not enough, it's still unpublished. And that's where we grab some of these quotes. So I'll end this session by saying, just because someone says I hold to Sola Fide doesn't mean they actually do because you cannot hold to faith alone and salvation by works.

You cannot hold them both.