Andy Webb tries to take us to task, but it doesn’t come out very well. He says:
“There are so many non-Reformed doctrines floating around in the FV that one hardly knows where to begin addressing them. But the idea that everyone in the covenant is ‘saved in some sense’ regardless of whether they are elect or not is a good place to start discussing their departure from the Standards.
Andy uses Minich’s synopsis of the FV as his basis for this, but his entire case rests upon a misquotation, and it is ironic, because what he misquotes consists of the placement of . . . quotation marks. Here is the section of Minich’s work that he relies on.
“Thus, according to Wilkins and others, all covenant members are ‘saved’ in some sense.”
Now what is the difference between saying that all covenant members are “saved in some sense,” and saying that they are all in some sense “saved”? The former creates the picture of an undifferentiated mass, with gradations of salvation within that mass. The second indicates that the word “saved” is being used in a different way. If I acknowledge that Smith might be ‘married,’ but he has a common law wife, my language is flagging the fact that I am using the word in a different way. It is not an attempt to blur the distinctions between marriage and cohabitation. Blurring is going on in this situation, but it is coming from other sources.
Am I willing to say that a reprobate covenant member, a son of Belial, a skunk and a bounder, is “saved”? Sure. Am I willing to say that he is, in some sense, “saved along with the rest of us”? Of course not.
Now this exasperates some among our critics who want to believe that we are within the confines of Reformed orthodoxy. “Why do you even talk this way, then?” they might ask. “Just asking for trouble.” The reason we talk this way is because some among the Reformed have set up the Confessions as a Procrustean bed for Bible verses. Verses are stretched or lopped off in order to fit their idea of the system. This is a denial of a central tenet of the Reformed system, which is sola Scriptura. A sterling example of this comes from this very post of Andy’s.
“Contra the statements above, the Standards (and scripture) do not teach that the non-elect are ever united to Christ or saved in any sense because the only way we can be united to Christ is via FAITH and faith is the result of Effectual Calling and Regeneration.”
Okay. Andy says that Scripture does not teach that “the non-elect are ever united to Christ or saved in any sense.” The emphasis is mine. The standard he has set is pretty high here. No union with Christ ever. No salvation in any sense. Got that? There is no sense in which we can say that a reprobate ever had “salvation” in any sense. No reprobate ever had any kind of union with Christ. Nothing in the Bible about it. The demands of the system require them to say that what their net don’t catch ain’t fish.
“They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet” (John 7:52).
They had a grid, they had a system, and that system would not allow the text to speak to them. But when you start muzzling the text, you don’t know beforehand what truths you are going to miss.
“Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined . . .For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this” (Is. 9:1-2,6-7).
The demands of a system can hide an awful lot. In the case of the Jews, their system hid the Messiah. In Andy’s case, the missing truth is far less serious, but the same kind of process is going on. When someone’s system requires a man to believe that Jesus never went to Capernaum in any sense, it will do no good to produce verses that show Him there (e.g. Matt. 8:5).
Here is what Andy has said. No reprobate was ever united to Christ. No reprobate is ever saved in any sense.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away . . . 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: 1-2, 6).
“And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off” (Rom. 11:17-22).
Who is the Vine? Who is the Root? Who is part of the Vine here? Who is part of the Root here? Is there any sense in which these branches were ever united to Christ? To ask the question is to answer it, provided you are asking questions of the text, and not of the system.
“For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe” (1 Tim. 4:10).
Now is this statement true in any sense? At any level?
Having said all this, let me now affirm my commitment to the Reformed standards. I love them, teach in accordance with them, teach through the Westminster Confession every other year, thank God for them, and use torn pages from Finney’s systematic theology to light my cigars. But I was brought to the Reformed faith because of the teaching of Scripture. The confessions did not open the Bible to me; the Bible made me willing to see the confessions for the first time. God humbled me to the point where I was willing to admit what Romans 8-11 was actually saying, right there on the surface of the text. That being the case, I am not about to listen to those among the Reformed who are insisting upon the very same kind of special pleading (only with different labels) that I repented of in 1988.