It seems the article by Brandon Adams has caught the attention of the biggest name in Federal Vision, Douglas Wilson, who has responded in his article entitled with a slight against R. Scott Clark (RSC). Wilson claims he is orthodox, and denies that he holds to any of the five points of Federal Vision summarized by Dr. Clark.
For me, I have no desire to interact with Wilson on the issue of RSC's five points, which are simplified summaries of Federal Vision. Rather my point is note the following: Wilson remains Federal Vision, and his Federal Vision is biblically wrong.
First, Wilson is and remains Federal Vision. In his supposed "recanting" of Federal Vision, Federal Vision No Mas, Wilson wrote the following:
This statement represents a change in what I will call what I believe. It does not represent any substantial shift or sea change in the content of what I believe. ... I would still want affirm everything I signed off on in the Federal Vision statement, ...
In other words, Wilson does not want to be called Federal Vision because he does not want to own everything that is under the umbrella of Federal Vision. That for sure is fair enough. Wilson does not want to be lumped in with people like Leithart or Jordan. What he believes is what he believes, and others do not speak for him. However, what did he say he believes? He states that he would still "affirm everything ... in the Federal Vision statement," referring to the 2007 Joint Federal Vision Profession, which I have shown to be in error here. In other words, Wilson remains Federal Vision, as he has not recanted signing the 2007 Joint Federal Vision Profession.
Second, Wilson's version of Federal Vision remains heretical. As one reads Wilson's article, note that nothing in the article precludes the Federal Vision understanding of salvation. We must remember to read it using the dialectical pairs of decretal versus covenantal, and invisible/ eschatological versus visible/ present. Wilson claims he is following the WCF when he states that faith is a living faith, but here he misquotes WCF 11.2, whereby the part of the living faith is mentioned only after what faith is has already been described in the first part of WCF 11.2. A living faith is living as a consequence of faith, not because obedience is necessary for faith itself, but because faith necessarily leads to obedience. Thus, Wilson is still a neonomian despite his protests to the contrary.
What is most illuminating in Wilson's article however is where Wilson shows his FV heresy in his comment to Adams, as follows:
Brandon, thanks. Not a contradiction. There is a difference between the condition of the covenant itself and the condition for keeping the covenant. The central aspect of the first covenant was to believe what God said about not eating the fruit. The central aspect of the second covenant is to believe what God said about the resurrection of Jesus. But men, always and everywhere, must believe God. Right?
As it can be seen, for Wilson, the Covenant of Works has the condition of believing God by not eating the fruit. The Covenant of Grace has the condition of believing God by believing in the resurrection of Christ. What is the condition for the first covenant? Faith. What is the condition for the second covenant? Also faith. In Wilson's view, the Covenant of Works is not "Do this and live" (c.f. Lev. 18:5), while the Covenant of Grace is not "believe and you will live." No, rather, both are "believe and do to live." That obedience is necessary for salvation is seen in a subsequent comment, where Wilson said, in reference to God's covenants, "One of the common characteristics on our side is that all of us would have to do what He says. We would have to comply, or be obedient."
One of the reasons why I called Federal Vision monocovenantal legalism is that it is monocovenantal, where the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace have the same form (not necessarily the same content). It is legalism because in both covenants, obedience is necessary to the covenant. Whereas in orthodox Reformed Covenant Theology, obedience is necessary for the Covenant of Works, but our obedience is absolutely unnecessary for the Covenant of Grace. Our evangelical obedience comes AFTER the covenant has been established, AFTER salvation has already been determined. Once someone is in the Covenant of Grace, there is nothing that can cause the person to fall away, and nothing means nothing including disobedience. That is what perseverance of the saints actually teach, that even the person saved cannot "undo" his salvation. Again, this is not to say obedience is not important for the Christian. But it has nothing to do with the basis for salvation, under the Covenant of Grace.
That Wilson see obedience as necessary for both covenants to be saved proves he is still an unrepentant Federal Vision heretic, and therefore should be avoided as someone who pays lip service to Justification by Faith Alone yet undermines it in the very next breath.
2 comments:
Reading Wilson is like entering the Bizzaro world. He says Clark is 0 for 5 and then bizarrely affirms that Clark is really 5 for 5 like when he asserts: "If a covenant member is unregenerate he has nothing of what he needs to persevere." There are no unregenerate covenant members as the WCF states, in a number of places, that the CoG is with the elect alone. Wilson doesn't even realize that he just affirmed Clark's point #3.
LC Q31: With whom was the Covenant of Grace made?
A. The Covenant of Grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.
Wilson is the one who needs to put "a sock in it."
@Sean,
to be fair, Wilson is "correct" in the sense that he does not hold to Clark's five points as they are presented. Wilson's points are more complex than Clark's presentation. But I agree with you that Wilson ends up holding to those five points, just not directly.
However, I do think the focus on baptism in Clark's points 3 to 5 are a distraction. They make it seem that the FV error has to do with its view of baptism, wherein the error lies deeper in their view of God's covenants.
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