Brandon Adams has written an article that is among the more reasonable, sensible sorts in the recent, what shall we call it, discourse on whether anyone from Moscow, Idaho should be welcomed to any respectable Reformed event. CrossPolitic and myself were honored guests at the Founders Conference last January, and then again at the recent ReformCon sponsored by Apologia Church, and we will also be doing a live show at G3 in January. And the various self-appointed gatekeepers of the “true reformed flame” — defined as, shadow-banning, cancelling, and generally prohibiting admitting any public appreciation for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (but it rhymes with Shmouglas Shmilson).
Now to be clear, I really do appreciate this guy’s attempt to be fair, objective, and not a screecher. This is hard to do in these conversations, and he will no doubt take flak for going easy on us. So props there, but I still think he draws a number of wrong conclusions. He says that he has attempted to do careful reading and research and is willing to be corrected if he is wrong, so taking him at his word, here are a few scattershot thoughts in return.
First, just for the record, CrossPolitic is not the “media arm” of Doug Wilson or his ministry or Christ Church. Anyone who says that doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Please pass the word along. Doug Wilson is my good friend, a fellow elder, our esteemed pastor, and an occasional guest on our show, but apart from an occasional request for input or counsel (the way, you know, you do with pastors), Doug Wilson has no formal connection to CrossPolitic. CrossPolitic is an independent Christian business. Neither does CrossPolitic have any formal connection to Founders, nor are we producing their new documentary By What Standard. If we are, nobody told me, and I have made no decisions about its production along the way, which is a really poor way to produce a film. One member of CrossPolitic is an independent film maker, and he is contracted with Founders directly. It’s true that we are all friends, but it’s simply poor reporting to state that Founders is “cooperating” with CrossPolitic on their documentary.
In the interest of not allowing this post to sprawl like the Palouse hills of my homeland, I will leave specific questions for Andrew Sandlin and Joe Boot and Douglas Wilson to their able care. Neither will I answer the questions about whether Baptists can be FV. I will leave that to the competent baptists in the crowd. And rather than going through the whole article point by point, I want to make a general point about doing theology and evaluating theologians with a few examples and then offer one substantive point that seems to be at least one significant hangup in Brandon’s evaluation.
Titanium Theology
So the first general point is that theology and theologians are not made out of titanium. This may seem obvious, but I think Brandon’s analysis suffers from assuming that theology comes in large, prefabricated slabs of metal on their way to Boeing. It is simply not true that someone who quibbles with the language of “Covenant of Works” has necessarily redefined what Justification by Faith Alone (JBFA) means. Now, is that *possible*? Sure, it’s possible, but a lot of careful work needs to be done before arriving at that conclusion, especially when a particular man is insisting that he has not denied JBFA, much less redefined it. While it has been a long time since I’ve read Shepherd, based on the quotes, he listed, I would want to make various and sundry clarifications/qualifications to the Shepherd quotes, and I don’t recall if Shepherd made those clarifications/qualifications in other places. But my point here is simply that I don’t think it’s helpful to think in terms of a stainless steel “system.” I certainly agree that faithful systematic theology is working towards a thoroughly consistent, biblical system of thought, but even a cursory read of church history ought to give us a bit of patience and humility in that project. Count me among those who are very concerned to preserve the doctrine of JBFA. And I’m not talking about some kind of Neonomian redefinition of those terms. I mean the straight whiskey kind of JBFA that Luther would have been pouring during his Table Talks.
And while we’re at it, I’m not sure how he arrives at the conclusion that I am a “proponent” of Federal Vision but I’ve only recently criticized some FV men. What I wrote recently was, “please consider this a retraction of my public and published work that has participated in the Biblical Horizons and Federal Vision muddle… I repent…” I’m honestly not sure how to say it more clearly than that. And for the record, I don’t hold to any of Clark’s five points of FV, although I do believe that John 15 and Romans 11 and Hebrews 6 and 10 are talking about something “real” but no one can ever lose a true, saving union with Christ because Christ is the one who holds us, and He will not lose any of His own. That “real” thing is membership in the New Covenant (someone can be really baptized or really take the Lord’s Supper but not really love Jesus), but I don’t believe anyone can fall from the Covenant of Grace. More on that in a minute.
But back to my objection to titanium theology: I think some of the questions raised in Brandon’s article are fair questions (for Shepherd in particular), but it’s entirely unfair to conclude that since there are some similarities between Doug Wilson’s articulations and Shepherd’s articulations this necessarily means that Wilson is “thoroughly confused” about the gospel or a wolf. This is especially uncharitable given the fact that Wilson has repeatedly, over decades, explained the true, biblical doctrine of JBFA in countless blog posts, interviews, and sermons. This is what I mean about trying to do theology with stainless steel beams. Insisting that Wilson’s parallel concerns/language with Shepherd require him to be confused or duplicitous is just poor analysis. Brandon says he has attempted to do careful research and welcomes correction, and so this is me insisting that Brandon has significantly misunderstood and misrepresented Wilson on this point. I can say with confidence that Doug Wilson and I would both go to the stake happily to affirm that God accepts us by faith in Jesus plus nothing. We supply the corpse. Jesus is our everything. Everything is a gift, including the faith, so that no one can boast. Maybe there’s a reason why Brandon can’t figure out how the imputation of Christ’s active obedience fits into DW’s “theology.” The answer I would submit is that theology is not made out of blocks of concrete.
Different Covenants
An important distinction that I would make (and DW would agree with) that might help Brandon is that Adam and Christ were utterly unique as covenant heads/representatives. And as covenant heads, they represented *two different* covenants. Did you catch that? I’m going to write it again just for fun: Adam and Christ were the covenant heads of two. different. covenants. Spread the word. And at bare minimum this means that none of us are in the same position as Adam or Christ. We are all members of Adam (by birth) or members of Christ (by faith). It seems to me that Brandon collapses our faith/obedience onto the same plane as Adam/Christ, but that isn’t true. I’m not keeping covenant on the same terms as Adam or Christ. As the Westminster Confession labors to put it, regenerate believers do not keep the law as a covenant of works to either condemn or justify us. Period. Full stop. God required perfect obedience for Adam and Christ. He damns me for my guilt in Adam, but He accepts me by faith alone for the sake of Christ alone.
To be restored to do what Adam was originally called to do in the Creation Mandate does not insinuate that we are somehow trying to fulfill the requirements of the Adamic Covenant or trying to keep the Covenant of Grace to get to heaven. Adam’s covenant was broken and resulted in damnation for all, and Christ perfectly kept the Covenant of Grace and won salvation for all who believe. When I talk about us getting back to doing what Adam was called to do, all I mean is that we are now freed from the curse of sin to be what God created us for, taking dominion, obeying His law by the working of His Spirit, doing the good works we were created in Christ Jesus to do (the ones prepared beforehand for us to walk in, Eph. 2:10). And these uses of the law are not contrary to the gospel but do “sweetly comply with it” (WCF 19.7).
There are New Covenant blessings and curses (e.g. Eph. 6:2-3, 1 Cor. 10:1-12), just as there were Old Covenant blessings and curses under the various dispensations (Noah, Moses, David, Ezra), but the New Covenant is the final dispensation of the Covenant of Grace. And all of these were not different covenants, differing in substance, but different dispensations of one and the same Covenant of Grace. Those who are truly regenerated are members of the Covenant of Grace and can never fall away from that covenant because the terms of that covenant were perfectly and entirely kept by Jesus alone, and therefore it is entirely by grace, a gift from first to last. But the historical administration of that eternal and unbreakable Covenant of Grace is through the ordinances and historic community of the New Covenant.
Conclusion
All this to say, while there are no doubt some secondary theological differences between Moscow and the Apologia guys, Brandon’s proposed debate topic between James White and Douglas Wilson would be rather short and boring. I think Brandon’s articulation of the two different ways of obtaining salvation confuses the distinction between covenant heads and covenant members, but I still don’t think it would be the revealing thunderbolt that he seems to think.
Photo by Leo Fosdal on Unsplash
Brandon Adams says
Toby, thank you for taking the time to respond. I think I understand what you are saying about titanium, steel, etc., but I am not certain so I would like to seek clarification to be sure.
If I understand you correctly you are using the analogy of titanium or steel to represent/refer to logical consistency. Is that correct?
If yes, then do you believe the bible itself presents a completely logically consistent system of theology?
(This is separate from whether or not we, as fallen human beings, will ever have a completely logically consistent system of theology ourselves.)
I will have follow-up questions, but would like to start here.
Toby says
Hi Brandon, yes, I do believe that the Bible is a completely logically consistent system of theology, but I would hasten to add that it is itself the standard of consistency. So we don’t hold the Bible up to some other external standard that we have devised and give the Bible an A+ on logical consistency. The Bible itself is the standard of what it means to be logically consistent. So we have to hold all of our systematic theologies up to Scripture to test whether they are consistent or not and not the other way around.
Steve says
Isnt that exactly what Brandon sought to do in his blog post? Take what the scripture teach and hold up neonomianism and confused covenant theology to the truth that it presents?
Just seems like the point about titanium is meant to dodge that point and say essentially, “well nobody’s got it all perfect”, or “not everything fits together perfectly”. Which doesnt fit with your affirmation that the Bible is perfectly logically consistent and so ought we to be in all our categories and statements.
At least that’s how I felt it came across.
Toby says
Sure, I know that Brandon tried to do that, but I think he failed when he argued that since Doug Wilson said some of the same things as Norm Shepherd about the covenant of works or obedience, then he must necessarily hold to a Neo-nomian revision of justification by faith alone. But I know for a fact that Doug Wilson does not hold to any kind of revision of JBFA. Neither is he confused about the gospel, and he certainly is not a wolf. Giving Brandon the benefit of the doubt, I’m assuming that he allowed certain systematic assumptions to drive his conclusions, which simply are not true. That’s what I mean by titanium theology.
Brandon Adams says
Thank you. I agree. To clarify further (because some disagree), do you believe the law of non-contradiction is biblical or do you believe the law of non-contradiction is an external standard that we cannot hold the bible to?
To phrase it another way, can a correct interpretation of Scripture ever result in the belief that “A is not A”? Could “A is not A” be a logically consistent statement?
Toby says
Yes, I believe the law of non-contradiction is inherent in the nature of God and therefore in the nature of His Word to us.
Brandon Adams says
Great, thank you. (I apologize for the delays in responding – juggling this with work.)
To make sure I am understanding you, your concern about concrete blocks/steel/titanium appears to be that you believe I have made unwarranted deductions from Wilson and/or your stated beliefs. You say ‘x’ and I say that necessarily entails ‘y.’ Is that your meaning?
If so, is it your opinion that making necessary deductions from someone’s beliefs and holding them to it is invalid?
Or is it rather your opinion that doing so is valid, but the deductions I have drawn from Wilson and/or your beliefs are in fact not valid (logical) deductions?
Toby says
And thank you, Brandon. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.
I certainly agree that there is such a thing as a necessary deduction. If X then Y. X, therefore Y — is a valid argument/deduction. But as you no doubt know, a valid argument is not necessarily true/sound, if all the premises are not true, or if there are additional factors.
In this case, you demonstrated a trajectory/pattern with Norm Shepherd, that I grant raised a number of questions. My point with the concrete blocks/steel/titanium language is while there *may* be logical connection between Shepherd’s views on COW/Law & Gospel and a *possibly* problematic view of justification, I deny that there is a *necessary* connection between all of those points. I also deny that demonstrating that Wilson has similar language/concerns as Shepherd necessarily means he arrives at the same doctrine of justification. There is simply a whole lot more information needed to arrive at the conclusion that Wilson is confused about the gospel or a wolf.
Cheers!
Jeriah Knox says
Salvation cannot be earned or stolen.
The guy putting trust in perfect theology, perfectly certain he’s unable to earn his salvation, can come to a place where he falsely believes in an ability to steal salvation.
Psalms 62
Brandon Adams says
Again, thanks for your patience with my delayed replies. Since we have clarified your meaning of titanium/steel/concrete above, I’m starting this new thread to discuss how you apply that concern to my post.
Your concern appears to be two-level:
1. Wilson does not agree with Shepherd’s rejection of a law(CoW)/gospel(CoG) distinction. He merely used similar sounding language. (Is this an accurate summary of your objection?)
2. I did not demonstrate by necessary consequence that Shepherd’s rejection of law(CoW)/gospel(CoG) entails a rejection/redefinition of JBFA.
Regarding #2, you say “I deny that there is a *necessary* connection between all of those points” insisting that “a lot of careful work needs to be done before arriving at that conclusion.” A lot of careful work is precisely what has been done since 1975 to arrive at the conclusion that Shepherd redefines and thus rejects JBFA. I have laid out that logic in my post. Since you believe my logical deduction is invalid, can you please demonstrate precisely where it is invalid? Let me know if you would like to summarize this point in a formal syllogism to make it easier.
Brandon Adams says
correction: “If you would like *me* to summarize this point in a formal syllogism to make it easier.”
Toby says
Brandon, yes, you restate my concerns accurately. I’m certainly willing to be persuaded that you are correct about Shepherd, but I’m not ready to conclude that. However, I know that you are incorrect about Wilson, and so that remains my primary concern (your number 1).
Brandon Adams says
Can you please show precisely how Wilson does not agree with Shepherd’s rejection of a law(CoW)/gospel(CoG) distinction?
Toby says
Given the fact that I’m a little rusty on my Shepherd theology, I can’t do that. But what I can do is try to demonstrate succinctly why Wilson’s view of the law/gospel distinction is fully orthodox/confessional. And basically it comes down to the fact that Wilson holds to the historic distinction between the Covenant of Works and Covenant of Grace, he just thinks the Covenant of Works is bad name for the covenant with Adam. God required perfect obedience for Adam, and eternal life was the promised reward for that obedience. But this covenant, like all covenants, was a condescension and kindness on God’s part and would have involved God upholding Adam at every step of the the way (like all creation), had he perfectly obeyed, entailing a hearty “thank you” from Adam at the end. But this “perfect obedience” required of Adam fully upholds the historic law/gospel distinction since Wilson teaches that every son of Adam is thoroughly condemned by that standard, and only Jesus perfectly kept the law of God at every point. And Christ’s perfect obedience must be imputed to the believers (active obedience) for our salvation, which righteousness is received by faith alone. Plus nothing.
Please feel free to ask questions of this summary to see whether my claim that you have misunderstood Wilson stands up.
Brandon Adams says
How do you know that Wilson disagrees with Shepherd’s rejection of the law(CoW)/grace(CoG) distinction if you don’t know where they disagree?
(Will reply to rest in separate comment).
Brandon Adams says
Was eternal life promised as a reward for Adam’s obedience or as a gracious gift?
Toby says
Eternal life was promised as a reward for Adam’s perfect obedience.
Brandon Adams says
So you would disagree with the Joint FV Statement? It says
Toby says
Brandon, yes, I find this statement very lopsided, and I certainly disagree with the line “was in any way a payment for work rendered.” I don’t mind noting that in any covenant, there is a “gracious/gifted” nature to the entire arrangement (God making a deal with a creature?!). I also do not object to the idea that Adam as a creature needed to trust God (faith) in order to obey Him perfectly, and that faith would have been gift (like everything else about Adam’s existence). But the phrase “was in any way a payment for work rendered” is a clear overstatement in my thinking. Just as a father may make an arrangement to pay his son for some small task, it can be an entirely gracious arrangement, and yet when the boy completes the task and the father pays him, the son says thank you and there really was a service/work rendered, even if relatively small in nature (compared to God’s greatness).
Brandon Adams says
Toby, thank you for your reply. You and I appear to be in agreement here. I have used the same father/son analogy myself. I agree that various aspects of the Adamic covenant could be considered gracious, but not the obtaining of eternal life. Once offered by covenant upon perfect obedience, eternal life was reward, recompense, wages earned – not a gracious gift (Rom 4:4; 10:5; 11:6; Gal 3:12).
I appreciate this comment. Note however that it was not simply careless overstatement. It precisely states Shepherd’s carefully articulated view. It is at the heart of this whole issue. To help clarify this for everyone, would you be willing to write a new post stating that the historic law/gospel distinction requires a rejection of this part of the FV Joint Statement?
Toby says
Yes. Would you be willing to write a new post rescinding your claim that my friend/pastor, Douglas Wilson (who believes the same thing I do), is not confused on the gospel or a wolf?
Brandon Adams says
Thank you.
With regards to Wilson, I am still meditating upon his responses. He has not yet been as forthcoming as you have, particularly on this point. I will continue to try to interact with him on his post.
Toby says
Brandon, I take you to be sincere in all of this. But it really is a bit laughable for you to claim that he has not been as forthcoming as me. He has written multiple books, preached literally hundreds of sermons, written millions of words on his blog, and I’ve been standing here listening to him and reading him for over 20 years. He has been plenty forthcoming. The burden of proof is on you to defend that kind of claim you have made about a minister of the gospel. I think it would at least be a sign of goodwill and integrity to retract what you wrote until you have a chance to read/listen to way more of his work than you obviously have. Please go read Against the Church, “Reformed” is not Enough, his commentary on the Westminster Confession, and a bunch of his blog posts on this topic and then come back. Cheers!
Brandon Adams says
Toby, can you please point me to anywhere in Wilson’s multiple books, hundreds of sermons, millions of words on his blog where he says what you just said above (That eternal life for Adam would not have been a gracious gift received through faith alone, but would have instead been a reward for work performed. And that the quoted Joint Federal Vision Statement is inconsistent with the historic law/gospel distinction)?
You have been very straightforward in your responses to me and I greatly appreciate it. I have not seen Wilson acknowledge what you have acknowledge. If you could assist me by pointing me to it, I would be very grateful.
Toby says
Brandon, first off, your statement is a false dichotomy. The crucial issue in the covenant of works vs. covenant of grace is not gracious gift by faith alone vs. reward for work performed. That formulation confuses our relationship to the covenant (how we participate) and the conditions placed upon the head of the covenant.
Adam and Christ as perfect, sinless heads of two different covenants were required to obey God perfectly, and upon their perfect obedience would be rewarded for their obedience. But in both cases, Adam (as a creature) and Christ (as incarnate creature) were utterly dependent on God. So they both needed to walk by faith, trusting God’s word, in order to obey and fulfill the requirements of the covenant (for them). Had Adam withstood temptation, he would have recognized the gracious gift (creational grace) of that entire arrangement and given God thanks. Christ did withstand temptation and fully obeyed His Father, and is currently at the head of all our worship giving God thanks. So both covenant heads would have been rewarded for their perfect obedience, but it is only ever possible for creatures to do anything by God’s providential/creational grace and by believing God (faith).
But what I believe you are rightly trying to protect (the law/gospel distinction) is primarily found in *our* relationship to these respective covenants. Because of Adam’s disobedience, we have all inherited his guilt, and the perfect law condemns us all because the requirement was perfect obedience. However, because Christ was perfectly obedient, God offers sinful men the just reward (eternal life) purchased by Christ alone, by faith alone. So, our salvation is doubly, trebly a “gracious gift” since this is God’s saving grace on top of His ordinary creational grace, and the gift of faith is a saving faith that clings to Christ alone.
As for Wilson, in his 2003 CREC Exam, he covers this ground a number of times. See his initial comments early in the exam, regarding the exception he takes the term “covenant of works,” but I would especially encourage you to read through the section on the Covenant of Works, starting at question 39 and following:
https://dougwils.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Douglas-Wilson-Federal-Vision-Controversy-ExamAnswers.pdf
Brandon Adams says
Well darn, I thought we were making progress, but perhaps not.
The dichotomy I have presented is based on Romans 4:4. “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.” (NKJV) “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.” (ESV)
According to Scripture, debt/due/reward is in opposition to grace/gift. It is not a false dichotomy. Eternal life would have either been a debt/due/reward for work performed, or it would have been a gracious gift. According to Scripture it cannot be both. You must pick one or the other. That is precisely why the Joint FV statement picked grace and denied reward. You can’t have it both ways. (There can be gracious elements and faith involved in the arrangement, but eternal life could not have been both a reward due and a gracious gift. Those two things are mutually exclusive according to Scripture.)
Shepherd said it would have always been a gracious gift and never a reward for work performed. Everything I have read from Wilson (including the CREC exam, which I have read numerous times and quoted in my post) agrees with Shepherd on this point. I have not yet come across Wilson say that eternal life would have been a reward due to Adam for work performed. Can you point me to him saying that anywhere?
Toby says
Ok, fair enough, false dichotomy was too strong. Romans 4:4 *does* state the dichotomy. But Paul’s point has to do with how *we* (fallen man) are attempting to be right with God. If we are attempting to be right with God by our own works (filthy rags), our earned wages will be death (Rom. 6:23). But I deny that Paul is making an absolute dichotomy between obedient works and grace for the reasons I have already given. Every covenant made with a creature is a gracious condescension and requires God’s creational/providential grace to uphold the creature. And therefore, obedience by a creature (being upheld/preserved at every point by His Creator) cannot be considered absolutely opposed to grace.
Wilson says he agrees with Frame who does *NOT* agree with Shepherd on this point in Question 44 from the CREC Exam: “I agree with John Frame in his foreword to The Backbone of the Bible, when he says that “although I prefer to speak of ‘desert’ or ‘justice’ to speaking of ‘merit,’ Shepherd has not convinced me that the last term is simply wrong.” Had Adam obeyed he would have obtained our salvation, and it would have been a fulfillment of the terms of the covenant, and therefore just and right. The same is true of Christ’s obedience. Christ purchased us, and it is just and right that this happen. My problem with merit is that it tends to drag autonomy behind it.”
Brandon Adams says
Thank you Toby. I had read Wilson quoting Frame there when I was prepping my post, but then couldn’t remember where I had read it when I went to comment on it. I re-read the exam last night and saw that as well. It does appear to address my question, though there is still some potential wiggle room and I would love to confirm that Wilson means reward earned in that instance, but I think that is probably what he means.
To clarify your original post, would this be an example of what you have in mind about steel/titanium theology? Shepherd, Sandlin, and myself believe that to earn something is the exact opposite of receiving something as a gracious gift. Wilson and yourself believe that something can be both a reward earned and a gracious gift. Imposing the Shepherd/Sandlin/My dichotomy into your and Wilson’s theology is invalid. Is that what you were trying to get at in your original post? If not, can you clarify?
Toby says
Thanks, Brandon. Yes, that is the sort of thing I had in mind when I described steel/titanium theology.
Brandon Adams says
Ok great. I think I’m getting a slightly better sense of things here.
I would strongly urge you to reconsider this. Romans 4:4 is not making the same point as Romans 6:23.
Romans 6:23 is a statement of what disobedience earns: punishment. Romans 4:4 is a statement of what obedience earns: reward. Paul’s point is that if Abraham was justified by his obedience to the law, then his justification was something that he earned. But Paul says Abraham did not obey the law (v5 “the one who does not work”). Thus his justification was a gracious gift.
4:4 is an abstract, general concept that is always true in any situation, theological or not. It is not limited to the specific question of how fallen man attempts to be right with God. It’s a basic issue of definition and logic. A wage is something earned. A gift is something not earned. The statement is true in intra-personal situations as well as divine-human. A paycheck is not a gift, by definition. It may be gracious for a father to hire his unqualified son to work at his company, to provide him with all the training and support that he needs, but when he receives a paycheck it is either a wage that he earned or it is a gift that he did not earn. It cannot be both, by definition.
That is precisely why the Joint Federal Vision Statement says
Shepherd (and the Joint Federal Vision Statement following him) are being logically consistent while you are not.
Brandon Adams says
Note Shepherd’s appeal to Romans 4:4 here
Toby says
I think your system here is too wooden and just doesn’t work in practice. Are you really claiming that every act of obedience requires an exact payment/reward?
FWIW, Calvin seems to agree with my read, speaking of Rom. 4:4: “It is not he, whom he calls a worker, who is given to good works, to which all the children of God ought to attend, but the person who seeks to merit something by his works: in a similar way he calls him no worker who depends not on the merit of what he does. He would not, indeed, have the faithful be idle; but he only forbids them to be mercenaries, so as to demand anything from God, as though it were justly their due. We have before reminded you, that the question is not here how we are to regulate our life, but how we are to be saved…”
Brandon Adams says
Brother, acknowledging that gift and reward are mutually exclusive is not “my system.” It’s basic logic that cannot be set aside.
I don’t really know what you’re getting at or where you’re getting it from, so I’m not sure how to respond. Can you please clarify?
I don’t like to play the commentary game in these discussions because it can quickly divert to arguments about tradition. But I would simply point you to the very next statement from Calvin in that comment: “he argues from what is contrary, — that God confers not righteousness on us because it is due, but bestows it as a gift.” Calvin recognizes that due and gift are mutually exclusive (contrary) and says that is the basis of Paul’s argument. He then quotes Bucer to the same point “If one merits any thing by his work, what is merited is not freely imputed to him, but rendered to him as his due.” He then goes on to say “Inasmuch, then, as the law promises reward to works, he hence concludes, that the righteousness of faith, which is free, accords not with that which is operative.” Thus Calvin says exactly what I have been saying “law” corresponds to reward for obedience while gospel corresponds to the “contrary”: a free gift.
Toby says
Ha. Well, this discussion may need to wait until we can grab a beer together one day and have a few hours to hash through this stuff. I agree with the whole Calvin quote from beginning to end. But Calvin says that this verse (Rom. 4:4) is talking about the gift of righteousness (justification), and it is not talking about the obedience of believers (“a worker, who is given to good works, to which all the children of God ought to attend”). My question about obedience and rewards was trying to demonstrate that the glad obedience/work of believers is a “gift” from God (Eph.2:8-10, Phil. 2:12-13). I don’t see how a wooden works/reward vs. grace/gift dichotomy can be applied to a believer’s sanctification.
Brandon Adams says
Sorry, you lost me. I completely agree that Rom 4:4 is not talking about the obedience of believers and I never suggested it was.
Again, you lost me. Do you mean that Eph 2:8-10 and Phil 2:12-13 refer to Adam’s prelapsarian obedience being a gift?
Again, you lost me. Our sanctification is a gift from God. Our sanctification is not a reward for our works. I’m not sure how anything I said suggests otherwise.
I understand that talking it through, rather than typing, could be more fruitful at this point. Thank you for your time.
Royce Van Blaricome says
Finally getting around to finishing this having started it several days ago. As usual I enjoyed the article even though I’m not entirely sure of the impetus behind it. I started Brandon’s article but left it to come back and finish reading this. I’ll finish his later.
Just wanted to make a short note here on something you said for you to ponder and perhaps give me your feedback and take on it. I think I’d take exception to your:
“Those who are truly regenerated are members of the Covenant of Grace and can never fall away from that covenant because the terms of that covenant were perfectly and entirely kept by Jesus alone, and therefore it is entirely by grace, a gift from first to last.”
And here’s why. Just as the Adamic & Mosaic Covenants were conditional so too is the Covenant of Grace. Just look at how many times Jesus Himself says “if you”. Then, of course, there is Rom. 10:9. Then there are all the verses where Jesus Himself & God elsewhere says one must stand fast, remain, endure unto the end, etc.
Your use of “fall away” is ironic because that is exactly what God tells us will happen and is happening. The apostasy. I’m sure I don’t need to cite the verses to you. I’ll just say that one can not fall away from nothing. One must fall away from something.
I said above “I think I’d take exception” because I think you’re a Calvinist who believes in TULIP. If that’s not the case please let me know. If it is just know that I love you, greatly enjoy your articles & CrossPolitic and agree with you the vast majority of the time.
Toby says
Royce, the challenge is that Scripture speaks both ways, in some places about the security of God’s promises and in other places about the conditionality. Historical covenant theology has explained the difference as between the overarching covenant of salvation (Covenant of Grace) made with Christ and all who cling to Him by faith alone can never fall from. Yet, God has been pleased to reveal that one, overarching Covenant in historic covenants (Noah, Moses, David), and finally the New Covenant. Those historic covenants are roughly what theologians sometimes refer to as the “visible church”, and I believe that is what Jesus is talking about in John 15 and Romans 11, and it is from those covenants that men can and do fall away who are not truly regenerate. So I agree that apostasy is a real thing, and men do fall from something. I am a Calvinist, but I grant that sometimes Calvinists do not take the apostasy passages very seriously. Hope that helps!
Royce Van Blaricome says
Thanks Toby. I appreciate you taking the time and your reply. It does help me with a few things. Just so you know, we agree that “all who cling to Him by faith alone can never fall from. ” I just see some refusing to cling to Him and instead choosing to cling to their sin. (Heb. 6:4-6)
I must confess that I am not all that knowledgeable on the various differing theologies. And, at this point in my life, I must confess that I’m not all that interesting in studying differences of theologies within Christendom but just mining the Scriptures for all their worth.
So, again, I thank you for helping me understand where you’re coming from.
God bless ya Brother!