After nine days on the road, occupied with this and that, I have just now had opportunity on the plane back to Idaho to comment on Guy Waters’ next chapter, the chapter on “covenant and election.”
In order to work through this, we should begin by taking note of what it really means to read election through the lens of the covenant, as opposed to reading the covenant through the lens of election. It appears to me that a great deal of the confusion in this debate is confusion at just this point. For example, after lengthy analysis, Waters chides John Barach for his quasi-Arminianism. “It is in this sense, notwithstanding his profession of the Reformed doctrine of (decretal) election, that we may say that Barach’s overall doctrine of election is Arminian or at least semi-Arminian” (p. 120).
And this, after Waters quoted Barach saying this: “God has eternally predestined an unchanging number of people out of the whole world to eternal glory with Christ” (p. 112).
To see election through a covenant lens does not mean to define decretal election as though it were identical with covenant election. The fact of decretal election is affirmed by every FV spokesman that I know of, as indicated by the quote from Barach above. But we do not drag the decrees down into our understanding of history — we let God unfold His unchangeable decrees throughout the process of all history. The content of the ultimate decrees is none of our current business, although we cheerfully acknowledge that the decrees are really there and that they have an unchanging content. Our connection point to these decrees is the covenant, given to us to use in this way. Because of the promises of the covenant, we may deal with election on our end, which is covenant election. The decrees are on God’s end. It is important for us to know that God does what He does on His end, but we only know that He is doing it, not what He is doing. What He is doing will only be fully manifest on the Last Day. Until that Day, we walk by faith, not by sight.
Now Waters says of the FV that “we find a reticence in grounding the marks or evidences of election in anything inward or subjective” (p. 111). He says this despite the fact that I devoted a full chapter to the subjective marks of assurance in “Reformed” Is Not Enough (pp. 125-130). Not only that, but the next chapter of Waters’ book indicates that he actually read that chapter, and comments on it. But here in this chapter, where my chapter on assurance contradicts his summary of my position, he goes on to describe my position this way.
“In this sense, that which in part the doctrine of the invisible church is concerned to guard — the existence of a body of sincere believers who are discernible to God and to themselves by certain infallible marks (marks that hypocrites do not and cannot possess) — is functionally neglected in Wilson’s ecclesiology . . . the practical distinction between the sincere believer and the hypocrite is not ontological (they possess different types of grace) but historical in nature. It is the sincere believer’s perseverance that Wilson will stress to be what identifies him as a genuine believer . . . It is simply not the case that Wilson is offering us the same doctrine but new terminology” (p. 123).
But, clean contrary to Waters’ assertions, I have taught in multiple places that there is an ontological difference between what the sincere believer experiences and what the hypocrite experiences. When the grace of God effectually converts one covenant member, enabling him to persevere in holiness subjectively experienced, and does not convert another in the same way, what else can you call it?
To pummel the point (if I may), I have taught (in very clear and divers ways) that the grace given to the decretally elect at the point of the effectual call is grace that is qualitatively different than the common operations of the Spirit enjoyed (for a season) by the unregenerate covenant member. I have heaped this point up in a rumpled pile and have danced around it, gesticulating with enthusiasm. I have made a big building out of this point, and put a blinking neon sign on top of it. If this point were an overpass, I have spray-painted my agreement with it in bright green letters at least eighteen inches high. With my white chef’s hat on, I have wheeled this point out of the kitchen on a cart, poured brandy all over it, and set it on fire. If the point were a pudding, I would have added three eggs beyond what the recipe called for. To summarize briefly, this is not something I have somehow neglected to say.
What Waters has done here is a real travesty of scholarship. He is free to argue that what I have written on this is not consistent with what some of the other FV fellows might say. But this would require far more argument than he is presenting thus far. And if all I had to go on for my understanding of the other guys’ positions was Waters’ take on what I have written, I frankly have no confidence that he is representing them fairly at all. He is not free to mangle my position this way, to pretend that I have not qualified what I have in fact qualified, to invert my meaning as he has. This really is a disgrace — does P&R employ fact-checkers?