So I've been trying to make sense of Kline lately. I actually started out supposing that, hey, if the FV is wrong about meritorious lawkeeping being the task of the Covenant of Works, I better read up on the alternative so that I can defend orthodoxy. So I started reading Kline, who is supposed to be the ablest defender of the covenant of works as a system of pure and simple merit.

Buy what I don't find in Kline is any reference to the moral law being the content of that merit. Maybe in some vague sense, Adam was supposed to love God and from his love he would obey the covenant. But for Kline the merit seems to be solely found in the one act of resisting or battling Satan at the tree. Adam fails this and Christ succeeds. Kline never compares this meritorious act to an act of obedience to moral law

This act was to have the character of a victory in battle. An encounter with Satan was a critical aspect of the probationary crisis for each of the two Adams. To enter into judicial combat against this enemy of God and to vanquish him in the name of God was the covenantal assignment that must be performed by the servant of the Lord as his “one act of righteousness.” And it was the winning of this victory of righteousness by the one that would be imputed to the many as their act of righteousness and as their claim on the consummated kingdom proferred in the covenant.”

Shades of Christus Victor, no?

Anyway, in looking at where I can find Kline affirming that Adam had to obey the Moral Law for merit, I recalled that Lee Irons got (unfairly, I have to say) defrocked for just this issue of denying the moral law. Unfairly, since Irons' defenders, like T. David Gordon, continue to make the same case the FV folks have tried to make, that there is a broad confessional tradition of diversity on these matters, and that there is no "one view" on the relation of the Decalogue to Adam. (They even find obscure WA delegates who hold their views!)

One key element of Kline's perspective on Adam's task as a works task (and thus a law task, rather than a gospel task) is the idea that Adam had something to "do" at the tree, rather than something to "believe" as we do. Kline regards it as gross theological negligence to confuse these two categories (as seemingly do many others). So reading Gordon's expert testimony defending Irons, imagine my surprise to see Gordon cite Bavink to the effect that the ultimate question of the probation was not the Moral Law, (which Bavink says Adam actually fulfilled [!] but trust in God, that is faith

In the probation-command the entire moral law was staked on a single throw, as it were, for Adam; for him the former incorporated the dilemma: God or man, God's authority or his own insight, unconditional obedience or independent investigation, faith or doubt.

Anyway, reading this kinda stuff doesn't actually make me thrilled. It makes me wonder why, if its so important to keep everything straight, noone seems to be able to do it for more than a sentence or two.

Where's John Owen when you need him

there ever was some variety and difference in expressions; nor will it otherwise be whilst the abilities and capacities of men, whether in the conceiving of things of this nature or in the expression of their conceptions, are so various as they are.

Tim Wilder gets it:

The Federal Vision is the legitimate firstborn child of the OPC, and its deviant theologies that have been tolerated throughout the entire existence of the denomination.

Who said this?

In our justification in this life by faith, Christ is considered as our propitiation and advocate, as he who has made atonement for sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness; but at the last day, and in the last judgment, he is considered only as the judge.

And whoever said it, if it's true, how is it that at the last judgment the imputed righteouness of Christ can as the sole cause of Justification? If he ONLY is jusge, and no longer considered as propitation, then who can say "well, God, let me into your heaven because of the imputed righteousness of Christ".

The author goes on to say

The end of God in our justification is the glory of his grace, Eph.1:6; but the end of God in the last judgment is the glory of his
remunerative righteousness, 2 Tim.4:8.

An interesting coda to some of the FV discussion was recently raised. The link is to an article by Bob Wilkin [!], of the Grace Evangelical Society, who are against what was known as "lordship salvation".

Wilkin takes Chantry to task for the following

Since we read of self-deceived hypocrites like Judas, it is an imperative question. “What must I do to be saved?” is an altogether different question from, “How do I know I’ve done it?” You can answer the first confidently. Only the Spirit may answer the last with certainty.

and Sproul as well

“In other words, Peter was also uncomfortable, but he realized that being uncomfortable with Jesus was better than any other option!” Sproul clearly indicated that he wasn’t sure he had eternal life and that Peter wasn’t either. The best option is to be uncomfortable, that is uncertain, “with Jesus.” Sproul speaks for many Christian leaders today when he says that following Jesus on the path of discipleship is a very uncertain journey.

Reading these comments strikes a chord in me. This was something I'd absorbed growing up a Calvinist: that there was expected to be a particular amount of mystery in the understanding of one's own salvation. Election was part of the Secret Will of God.

But then I started to notice that Calvinists liked to try to peer into that will. I know of an OPC pastor who spoke very ill of Murray's work on the Free Offer of the Gospel. "Don't you think," he said "that in the secret will of God, he isn't actually willing the salvation of the reprobate". It only occurred to me that it was a very odd linguistic phenomenon to decide matters of theology by claiming knowledge of what must be in the secret will of God.

So, when Steve WilkinS wrote his initial forays into what he considered standard stuff but now has been identified as "The FV", I was surprised to see that he was bring reamed for claiming that since we didn't really know our own decretally elect status, that that was "God's business, not ours" the public and visible covenant was more of what we had to do as Christians in our thinking.

And then I looked harder at what was being said, and what the confessions said, and it did seem that there was a current or thread in the WCF indicating you *were* supposed to be able to be assured of election. Which at least gives prima facie evidence that if you can be assured of election, you have to be able to know about your election. I said as much to Steve Wilkins about that, and it may be that my conversations with him on that topic were influential in his re-write and clarification of the "FV" position papers that have now fallen into greater controversy.

But then what are or were Chantry and Sproul talking about?

I still think many are following the Savoy on this, with its declaration that the only way the Spirit can assure is IMMEDIATELY, instead of, say, through the sacraments.

Carl Trueman questions some of the claims about postmodernism

Again I’m told that postmodernism has rejected the optimistic belief in human reason and progress that characterized modernity. Questions that come to mind: If `moderns’ had so much confidence in reason, how does one explain great chunks of the literary canon of modernity: the plays of Ibsen and Strindberg; the novels of Joseph Conrad;

I don't know Ibsen or Strindberg, but I was taught that Conrad was a shining example of postmodernism or at least someone at the tail end of modernism who fell into despair about it. Ok, maybe not modernism. But Al Flireis taught a fairly effective class on the history of the novel taking us through the major phases and the "postmodern" reaction to those phases emphasizing the breakdown. We had the providential novel (dafoe) and then the Gothic (castle of Otranto). Then the social novels (I think Dickens) and then the breakdown (Conrad). Finally, we had the internal self novel (Faulkner, IIRC) and then the breakdown of that (stuff like Dispatches)

Doug Wilson has some interesting questions about children in the covenant. A commenter responds to the general question about what we could say about temporary forgiveness or covenantal propitiation. He says

Invariably FV critics re going to ask "So does Jesus decide to stop interceding when the covenant member falls away?" They feel that if you answer "Oh he never was interceding." that you've conceded their point and that if you say "His intercession is grounded upon our faith." then you are an Arminian.

I wonder if there's a solution to this that nobody will like.

Jesus Christ remains in theoanthropic union, and lacks (pace Luther) omniscience with respect to his human nature. Even after the resurrection, he says that only the Father knows the day and hour of the second coming and consummation.

So, could we say that, as in his human will he asked that the cup pass from him, and as he personally forgave his crucifiers and from that asked that the Father forgive his cruicfiers, even though at least some of those who crucified him never repented and received forgiveness, that Jesus Christ with respect to his humanity (which is what he NEEDS to BE our intercessor) intercedes on behalf of all those within the covenant, though when they demonstrate in time that they are not of the elect, his intercession ceases.

I don't think anyone will like that.

More fun from the search engine list

paul husband?

yes, yes I am.

Arc of the Covenant - biblical pictures

Try "Ark"!

is it ok to for brothers to kiss on the cheeks

um, no. Only on the mouth.

Gaffin resurrection central

I'm tellin' ya, it's like Gaffin Ressurection Central around here!

"the rcus"+"weekly communion"

Not to my knowledge

modern reformation and beth moore

Have they interviewed her yet? Because then she'll come off looking great. What about Mandy Moore?

Simplicter

Complexiter!

"andrew webb" list of "federal vision" sympathetic seminaries

Yeah, where is that. I may need to apply.

leithart shelves

Get your Leithart off the shelves!

A while back I asked what it is precisely we are talking about when we say we are cleansed from our sins by the blood of Christ. Sometimes in discussing baptism, we say that the "water" can't wash away our sins really, only the blood of Christ, which the water represents, can wash them away. But then what do we mean theologically when we say that we have been washed by the blood. How does the human blood of Christ come to us, even "spiritually" speaking? Is this merely another way of speaking of God accepting the blood of Christ as a payment for our sins, or a substitute for the demanded righteousness we have? Or is it more?

Anyway, in addition, we might ask this: if we do link up being washed with the blood of Christ with something in systematic theology, what is proper to link it with? We speak of regeneration, justification, and sanctification. Since the blood of Christ "cleanses us from sin", justification seems the most natural zone to link the blood of Christ to.

But then we run into a slight difficulty, at least in terms of language. Justification is supposed to be exclusively forensic. Some would say that to speak of any other dimension of justification than the forensic one is to destroy the forensic nature of it and compromise the reformation. But does anyone think that "being cleansed from sin" sounds particularly forensic? Doesn't it have "transformational" overtones as well: going from being filthy to no longer personally filthy seems to partake of the 'freeing' aspect of deliverance from sin's power that Romans 6 speaks of.