I would like to pass on to all of you some questions posed by a correspondent in Australia. He has been observing us toiling away here in our FV swamps, and sent on some questions that I thought were just grand, going right to the heart of the matter. If I were speaking to this correspondent right now, I might resort to a felicitous Latin phrase (the kind I learned from Wodehouse, not Wheelock), which is to say, rem acu tetigisti — you have touched the thing with a needle.
Here they are:
1. Are the children of believers in covenant with God?
2. If so, which covenant are they in? (Are they in the covenant of works, grace, new, privilege, other?)
3. Are they fully in that covenant?
4. Were such children who have grown up to final unbelief ever really in that covenant to begin with?
Because this is not a gotcha game, but a sincere set of questions, I think that I should answer them too. So here goes.
1. Are the children of believers in covenant with God? Yes
2. If so, which covenant are they in? (Are they in the covenant of works, grace, new, privilege, other?) The covenant of grace.
3. Are they fully in that covenant? With regard to membership and the attendant obligation to live by faith alone, yes. With regard to enjoyment of all the blessings of the covenant, that depends on whether or not they are elect.
4. Were such children who have grown up to final unbelief ever really in that covenant to begin with? Yes, they were.
Now since it should be obvious that these questions cut right to the heart of the issue, it would seem to follow that FV critics would have to answer these questions differently somewhere. But where? My money is on #3, but they have to be careful. If they answer too robustly, they will find themselves out of accord with the Westminster Confession.