Here comes my latest reply to the ongoing discussion at Green Baggins. Lane is interacting with the section entitled “Reformed Catholicity” in the FV Joint Statement.
As an illustration of just how much we are talking past each other, Lane says that this “statement in and of itself does not necessarily exclude all works from justification.” The statement itself affirms “that justification is through faith in Jesus Christ, and not through works of the law, whether those works were revealed to us by God, or manufactured by man.” Huh. He that is suspicious, let him be suspicious still.
I was glad to see that Lane sees the difficulty of getting infants saved while at the same time keeping the door closed to those with a “completely opposite view of salvation to what the Bible says.” The reason this is difficult for him is because Lane is (unwittingly) denying justification by faith alone. “An adult, on the other hand, needs to understand justification in order to be saved.” Okay. How well must he understand it? What score on the justification test must he achieve? Eighty-five or above?
Now this is an example of why this section is entitled Reformed Catholicity. This is a place where I believe that Lane has screwed up the doctrine of justification. But the reason this does not cause me to question his salvation is because the doctrine of sola fide is true. If it were not true, then we would all have to be be good little boys and girls, study our catechisms hard, because justification depends on studying hard and getting it right. But for the life of me I cannot fathom how this kind of “working hard” and “free grace” go together. We are justified by the imputed righteousness of Christ despite our failings. Those failings include, but are not limited to, doctrinal failings. On top of everything else, those failings include doctrinal failings with regard to justification. Lane says that adult needs “to understand.” Okay, since our eternal destiny depends upon it, what is “an adult?” When do we become adults, needing to “understand”? How much must we understand? The Confession says that the principle acts of saving faith, justifying faith, are three-fold, and that this saving faith trusts in Christ alone for three things. Quick (and no peeking), what are the principle acts of saving faith? And what three things does this faith appropriate? And if you got any of them wrong, or if you had to peek, you clearly are not justified. How can a person be justified unless he understands the principle acts of saving faith?
Not only is this position unfathomable to me, but we need to keep in mind the fact that the person here who insists that justification is a matter of free grace in Christ plus nothing else, nada, zilch (me) is the one under suspicion of smuggling works into the whole business, and the one who openly declares what work must be performed by adults (that of understanding to an unspecified level of saving smarts) is the guardian of sola fide.
One other quick comment on John 15. Lane says that “the text does say that in terms of what counts (fruit) the unfruitful branches are not alive at all.” But of course, the text says nothing of the kind. The text does not tell us that the unfruitful branches are synonymous with “not alive at all” branches. It does mention the death of these branches, but that death is something that happens in the course of the illustration. “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (John 15:6). The death, the withering, happens after the fruitless branches are removed from the Vine, who is Christ. As far as this metaphor goes, they are dead because they are fruitless, not fruitless because they are dead.
With regard to Lane’s comments on how Steve Wilkins has supposedly failed to describe the difference between the elect and non-elect, I would refer you to the first comment on that post.