Scott Clark is at it again on his blog, and since he disabled the comments feature there, it is not possible for me to comment in that venue. So I will comment in this one. My comments are bold.
“How I am redeemed from all my sins and misery.” The Heidelberg Catechism was written not just to those who profess the Christian faith but to those who actually believe the Christian faith. The writers of the catechism had to assume, for the purposes of writing the catechism, that the hearers/readers of the catechism are united to Christ by true faith (HC 21) and a vital union with Christ.
Why did they have to assume that? Didn’t they know that many children in the visible church would not have true faith and that the church, in making them memorize all this glorious stuff in the first person singular, was turning them into rank hypocrites? Why did they “have” to assume true faith?
According to the catechism, and the Reformed faith generally, there is a great difference between profession of faith and true faith. This is a distinction of the greatest importance and one which some seem bent on blurring.
I think this is quite true.
Some folk (who call themselves “the Federal Vision”)
Uh oh . . .
who are concerned about the ill effects of revivalism and religious subjectivism (as I am) in contemporary Christianity seek to redress the problem by turning to what they call the “objectivity of the covenant.” In their scheme, all baptized persons are said to be in the covenant of grace in very same way. They speak of a “covenantal” election, union with Christ, justification etc. By “covenantal” they mean conditional and temporary.
They also speak, in numerous places, of a decretal election, settled and sealed before all worlds, in which the elect of God are named and numbered, and with a number that cannot be increased or diminished. But there is no sense bringing that up here — it would only serve to confuse people who have settled into the warm bubble bath of orthodoxy and wish to have no pounding on the bathroom door.
They argue from the example of the temporary national covenant with Israel. Just as God chose the Israelites to be his temporary national people so he “elects” individuals today to a temporary conditional status as Christians which status is said to be retained by faithfulness (trust and obedience). “If,” they say, “we keep our part of the covenant we will be ultimately righteous before God.”
This would be really, really bad if anybody held to it.
Faith is now said to have two parts: trusting and obeying. This, they say, is what God asked of Adam before the fall; what God asked of Abraham after the fall, what God asked of his Son Jesus, and what God asks of us.
Jumping Jehoshaphat and Land of Goshen!
Please note how they move
Or rather, how Clark moves on our behalf. And I have never seen some of these moves before, not even during the disco years.
from Israel’s status as a national covenantal people with Israel to the baptized person today. Does Scripture do this? Not exactly. Both Paul and the writer to the Hebrews to appeal the example of Israel as the old covenant visible church.
They sure do.
There is a distinction to be made here. Israel fulfilled a couple of roles in the history of redemption at the same time, that’s because there have always been two covenants operating in history: works and grace.
I thought it was bad to blur these two things. And now Israel is doing both at the same time? Or is it like watering your lawn in a drought? Works on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and grace on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and (bonus day!) Sunday?
By making a national covenant with Israel, our Lord re-instituted a picture of the covenant of works that he had made with Adam. Just as Adam was called to obey the law and enter into glory, so national Israel was called to obey and remain the national people of God. As we all learned in catechism class, Israel failed miserably and lost her status as the national people of God. So this re-institution of the covenant of works on a national basis served to direct national Israel to the true Israel of God who would keep the covenant of works perfectly for all the elect.
Where was this recapitulation stuff in the Westminster Confession again?
The covenant of grace, first announced after the fall (Gen 3:14-16) was also re-published during Israel’s national covenant because Israel also served as the visible church under Moses and David. The covenant of grace was unconditional. It was temporarily administered through the national covenant but which, before the national covenant, during the national covenant, and after the fulfillment of the national covenant, included folk from every nation, tribe, and tongue (Rev 5:9). This covenant is a free promise of righteousness by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
So God publishes two covenants at once to Israel, operating on antithetical principles, and then He blasted them for getting confused.
These are two distinct covenants operating on two distinct principles.
So which one were they supposed to do? No man can serve two masters.
The proposed revisions of the Reformed faith, however, blur the distinction between these two covenants and between these two principles.
We
blur this distinction? Compared to some in this discussion, we are but pikers and posers.
With just a moment’s reflection, you can see right away how different this proposed revision of the Reformed faith is from what the Heidelberg Catechism actually says. The catechism says “How I am redeemed from all my sins and misery.” The catechism does not say that “how I am placed in a temporary relation to Christ and his salvation conditioned upon grace and my cooperation with grace.”
Right. The catechism doesn’t say that. Neither do I.
It does not say, “How I could be redeemed from my all my sins and misery.” The catechism speaks of our redemption as present reality. According to the catechism I am now presently redeemed.
You don’t say?
In the history of the Christian church there was a covenant theology that did place Christians by baptism into a state of grace conditioned upon grace and cooperation with grace that described faith as trusting and obeying and righteousness as a future possibility but never a present reality. The medieval church taught this system for a millennium and the whole Protestant church rejected that system as one man.
The medieval church taught what we teach about decretal election? Really? About how the decretally elect are saved by grace alone through faith alone on the basis of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ alone? Limited atonement and the whole deal? They did? That’s amazing. So what was the Reformation about then?
Remember the question: “How many things are necessary for you to know that in this comfort you may live and die happily?”
I sure do.
It is not possible to live happily in a conditional temporary covenant wherein my righteousness is contingent upon my performance of the terms of the covenant.
Amen.
It is impossible because of our sin and misery.
Amen again.
Because of sin we’re not able or even willing to keep the terms of the covenant.
That’s right. Because of our sin and misery we can’t even represent the positions of fellow Reformed ministers fairly or accurately. That’s why Christ had to die as a perfect substitute. If our justification depended upon our actions, or even our actions limited to the course of this federal vision controversy, all of us (on both sides) would be condemned to Hell.
That’s why we have an perfectly obedient and wholly trustworthy Savior who performed all the conditions of the covenant of works and Israel’s national for us.
Our free justification is in no way dependent on our progress in our sanctification. But precisely because of this glorious grace, we are set free to pursue a life of holiness (and all who are truly justified will do so). This liberates us so that we can diligently work on representing the views of fellow Reformed ministers fairly and accurately.
That’s why faith, in justification, is not “trusting and obeying” but “a certain knowledge and a hearty trust.”
Were we told to have this certain knowledge? Were we commanded to have this hearty trust? If not, then why are we doing it? And if so, then how can we obey without adding obedience to the mix, thereby incurring the wrath of Escondido?
Works and grace are two different systems (1 Cor 11:5).
Except in Old Testament Israel, where some of us at Westminster West decided it would be pedogogically helpful to smush them together. Let’s recapitulate both covenants at once! And then attack other people for getting them confused!
They are two different religions operating on two different principles.
Two different religions? God bound Israel to two different religions?
The Heidelberg Catechism doesn’t confuse them and it premises our assurance on Jesus’ fulfillment of the covenant of works for us.
The Heidelberg Catechism didn’t confuse them because it was written centuries before this business erupted.