Benjamin Keach is not always the easiest to read. But for those who are interested, it is striking how evident it is that the so-called Federal Vision is not a new phenomenon, but rather an old heresy that keeps raring its ugly head.
The Particular Baptist response to the Federal Vision (i.e., Richard Baxter).
If you like the above post, you may also like this past post from The Sovereign Logos: Nehemiah Coxe vs. The Federal Vision.
Jason Stellman
TurretinFan has written a Response to Jason Stellman, the prosecutor in the recent Peter Leithart trial, who has recently resigned as a PCA Teaching Elder and is joining the Roman Catholic Church.
(PDF can be found here.)
Editor’s Note: This essay is taken from Chapter 9 of Horatius Bonar’s The Everlasting Righteousness, originally published in 1874. The Trinity Foundation is now publishing a revised edition of the book.
Assurance of Salvation
”Christ for us,” the obedient in the place of the disobedient, is the first part of our message. His assumption of the legal claims, which otherwise would have been made good against us, is the security for our deliverance. That deliverance becomes an actual thing to us immediately upon our consenting to allow him to undertake our case.
“Christ in us” is the second part of our Gospel. This second is of mighty moment, and yet is not to be confounded with the first. That which is done for us is not the same as that which is done in us. By the former we are constituted righteous, by the latter we are made holy. The one is properly the Gospel, in the belief of which we are saved; the other, the carrying out of that Gospel in the soul. Christ “for us” is our justification. “Christ in us, and we in Christ,” is our holiness. The former is the external substitution; the latter, the internal energy or operation, taking its rise from the former, yet not to be confounded with it, or substituted for it. Christ the substitute, giving his life for ours upon the cross, is specially the object of faith. The message concerning this sacrificial work is the Gospel, the belief which brings pardon to the guilty. God has given us this Gospel not merely for the purpose of securing to us life hereafter, but of making us sure of this life even now. It is a true and sure Gospel; so that he who believes it is made sure of being saved. If it could not make us sure, it would make us miserable; for to be told of such a salvation and such a glory, yet kept in doubt as to whether they are to be ours or not, must render us truly wretched. What a poor Gospel it must be, which leaves the man who believes it still in doubt as to whether he is a child of God, an unpardoned or a pardoned sinner! Till we have found forgiveness, we cannot be happy; we cannot serve God gladly or lovingly; but must be in sore bondage and gloom. This is the view of the matter which Scripture sets before us; telling us that salvation is a free, a sure, and a present gift. “He that believes is justified” (Acts 13:39). “He that believes has everlasting life” (John 3:36). The Bible gives no quarter to unbelief or doubting. It does not call it humility. It does not teach us to think better of ourselves for doubting. It does not countenance uncertainty or darkness.
Dr. Elliot’s call to arms to those “conservatives” in the PCA is convicting, timely, and excellent.You can read it here.
HT: Sean Gerety
Calvin on the fallibility of councils and the inconsistency of popes.
“Leo, the Roman pontiff, does not hesitate to charge the Council of Chalcedon (which he admits to be orthodox in doctrines) with ambition and unadvised rashness. Indeed, he does not deny that it is legitimate, but he openly declares that it may have erred. Perhaps someone will think me foolish because I labor to show such errors, since our opponents admit that councils can err in those matters which are not necessary to salvation. But this is no superfluous labor! For even though, being compelled, they confess it by mouth, still, when they thrust upon us the decision of every council, on whatever matter, indiscriminately as an oracle of the Holy Spirit, they require more than they had originally assumed. In doing this, what do they affirm but that councils cannot err; or if they err, it is not lawful for us to discern the truth, or not to assent…
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PCA Pastor and Federal Visionist, Jeffrey Meyers, has been cleared on all charges that he is a Federal Visionist even though he is one of the chief signers of the FV Confession of Faith and has defended and promoted the false gospel of the FV for years. You can read about the PCA’s continued slide into complete apostasy here.
I stumbled across an old (2007) article online recently, entitled The Catholic Perspective on the Federal Vision. While this is obviously not proof of the Federal Vision’s Roman tendencies, it’s very telling that Reformed Presbyterians aren’t the only ones who think that Federal Visionists are in the wrong denomination.
Disclaimer: I obviously do not endorse the views of the author of the article cited above. He and I make the same observations regarding Federal Vision, but while his is a largely positive response, mine is quite negative.
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