Wednesday
Jun132007
PCA General Assembly Vote on NPP/FV
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 at 04:36PM 
This just in from White Horse Inn producer and guest blogger Shane Rosenthal--Shane is also a member of the PCA.
On Wednesday, June 13th, the 35th General Assembly of the PCA voted overwhelmingly to approve the recent report on the theology of the Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul. The full report is available here:
See also R. Scott Clark's blow by blow report of the GA discussion and vote here:
Below are the nine summary declarations of the PCA report which was just adopted. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Will Federal Vision proponents be brought up on charges, given that their theology has been found to be out of step with the Westminster Standards? Or will they voluntarily leave the PCA? "Dark Days lie ahead Harry. You must choose between that which is right, and that which is easy."
IV. Declarations
In light of the controversy surrounding the NPP and FV, and after many months of carefulstudy, the committee unanimously makes the following declarations:
1. The view that rejects the bi-covenantal structure of Scripture as represented in the Westminster Standards (i.e., views which do not merely take issue with the terminology, but the essence of the first/second covenant framework) is contrary to those Standards.
2. The view that an individual is “elect” by virtue of his membership in the visible church; and that this “election” includes justification, adoption and sanctification; but that this individual could lose his “election” if he forsakes the visible church, is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
3. The view that Christ does not stand as a representative head whose perfect obedience and satisfaction is imputed to individuals who believe in him is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
4. The view that strikes the language of “merit” from our theological vocabulary so that the claim is made that Christ’s merits are not imputed to his people is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
5. The view that “union with Christ” renders imputation redundant because it subsumes all of Christ’s benefits (including justification) under this doctrinal heading is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
6. The view that water baptism effects a “covenantal union” with Christ through which each baptized person receives the saving benefits of Christ’s mediation, including regeneration, justification, and sanctification, thus creating a parallel soteriological system to the decretal system of the Westminster Standards, is contrary to the
Westminster Standards.
7. The view that one can be “united to Christ” and not receive all the benefits of Christ’s mediation, including perseverance, in that effectual union is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
8. The view that some can receive saving benefits of Christ’s mediation, such as regeneration and justification, and yet not persevere in those benefits is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
9. The view that justification is in any way based on our works, or that the so-called “final verdict of justification” is based on anything other than the perfect obedience and satisfaction of Christ received through faith alone, is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
Yes, that's R. C. Sproul at the mic, giving his plea to pass the resolution . . .
Reader Comments (80)
But don't you agree that this guy was right:
"T E Paul Gilchrist spoke in favor of the procedural amendment to postpone on the ground that the committee did not go primarily to Scripture and secondarily to the Standards."
I'll say this for my PCA church, we are not making the standards first, we are making scripture first. You have to be able to tackle the book of James and know Romans and be able to dive into scripture on this. I don't think it helps anybody to put any confession, no matter how good, ahead of scripture when you argue.
The FV/NPP can be ripped to shreds with scripture. Piper has a particularly excellent CD on this titled "This man went down to his house justified". He went after it with his bible guns shooting and smoking, and I would give that CD to anybody as my first choice, ahead of debates based on the Standards (which are of course based on scripture, but they are not the Word itself).
What is clear to me is that there are several different levels of discourse going on that are treated as though they are one. Equivocation masquerading as univocal language is not good communication.
I still haven't seen where the FV proponents have "denied the gospel" (the charge levied, in part, by R.C. Sproul while on the "jumbo-tron"). But if that charge is true, then the report is ridiculously inadequate, because instead of calling them the heretics that they are, they have called them brothers and fellow ministers.
I suspect i wouldn't be satisfied any way that this all went. However, i'm particularly disheartened by the adoption of this report. This is just the beginning of a long and terrible scandal in Reformed life.
This PCA ecclesiastical procedures do indeed have to go first to the Standards. That's why the PCA is a confessional churc (at least in principle!)
Suppose we started a club. Suppose we stipulated that the only people who can participate in the group are those who confess the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one essence in three persons - because we decided that that's what the Bible teaches.
Suppose some join the group, swering alegiance to the defined Trinity, and then later argue that the Bible does not teach that after all. They begin saying either that there is no Trinity, or else the Son is created and inferior to the Father, etc. etc.
The appropriate course of action then would not be to try and reinvent the wheel again. The group had already decided from the start that it believes the Trinity as defined. It does not need to go back and think about it again to see whether the ones denying the very thing they swore to believe are right.
They might even be right, and it's a good thing to investigate the matter. But first and foremost, whether they are right or not, they have ceased to be eligible as members of the club.
What is required is not that the agreement be changed. What is required is that those who said they believed in the Trinity as defined, and now don't, should be excluded from the group, because the group by definition is only for those who believe in the Trinity as defined. If they want to believe otherwise, that is fine; they are free to do it in another group.
I think this gives you a picture of what is at stake here. This is the purpose of the confessions. We don't have to figure out the main Bible teachings over and over again. We voluntarily agree about things together, we join in fellowship over those agreed things (in this case, what the Bible teaches), and we go from there. If one disagrees over the agreed things, he ought to leave the group with which he disagrees and try to persuade it from the outside, if he so wishes.
From the outside.
Wait a minute! Hold up! The complaint that was raised on the floor of the GA, saying that there wasn't enough exegesis in the report, was inappropriate and out of order. Here's why:
The 34th PCA General Assembly appointed an ad interim committee, to study the soteriology of the Federal Vision, New Perspective, and Auburn
Avenue Theologies which are causing confusion among our churches. Further, to determine whether these viewpoints and formulations are in conformity with the system of doctrine taught in the Westminster Standards, whether they are hostile to or strike at the vitals of religion, and to present a declaration or statement regarding the issues raised by these viewpoints in light of our Confessional Standards (M34GA, 34-57, III, pp. 229-30).
This was the committee's mandate. Nowhere does it complain explicitly about the FV's inability to properly interpret Scripture. The mandate said the problem was with soteriology, the confusion in the church, and the disconnect between what's being taught and what's in the standards. The committee was to discover if these guys are in line with the confession or not.
And furthermore, it really IS like putting the accused on the jury to say that people that agree with this stuff should have been on the committee.
But that brings up another point. The problem is one of perception. People are not on trial here, but ideas are. Those who are in favor of FV, etc, complain that this amounts to condemnation of people, and then complain that these people don't hold to all the ideas contained in this report.
Meanwhile, many in the PCA probably think that this is all over now, and we can consider the job accomplished. No, what has happened is not that anyone has been excommunicated. No one has been declared a heretic. Certain ideas have simply been shown to be out of agreement with the confession of the church.
Now charges can be brought in more confidence than they were before. I think a report like this should serve as a show of the denomination to those who are afraid of really trying these guys in the presbyteries - it should show that the denomination is behind them, and they're not crazy. This will help educate presbyters so that they can more intelligently bring charges.
But no one has been convicted here. The main goal this is trying to acheive is to do away with the confusion in the churches. That's what the OPC's report was aiming to do too.
Once the churches cease to be confused, then they can begin to root out any possible heretics there may be among them.
I have to say that the Declarations section doesn't read so well. The points aren't in a logical order (point 7 ought to be point 1 or 2), they're scatter-shot (point 2 attacks three statements, and only one looks really bad), double-edged (point 1 cuts both ways) and badly-phrased (in point 5, "subsumed" negates "redundant"). It's hard to know precisely what they're attacking, because the language and logic confuses rather than clarifies.
As someone who appreciates NT Wright, without agreeing with everything that he proposes, I find that the resoltions show a great deal of misunderstanding with regards to the NPP, beginnig simply, with the fact that there isn't "a NPP", but rather many (at least 3), each one varying in degrees of classical orthodoxy. Sander's NPP is rather different that Wright's, and I think that those distinctions need to be made.
I know that you do NOT have all the time in the world. However, I plead with you to read the following article, which deals thoroughly with the issue of Justification and Imputation in Wright's work.
http://davidpfield.blogspot.com/2007/06/garver-on-wright-on-imputationjustifica.html
Beyond the poor taste of comparing the Church to a "club," your illustration would be accurate, except that it misrepresents the actual case of what's going on in the Reformed world in a couple of ways.
First, the issues at stake here are, as matters of importance, below those of the Trinitarian debates of the early centuries of the Church. Even granting one of your premises (that the Federal Visionists are confused over the doctrine of justification), those who are confused over the doctrine of justification can still be saved, while those who are confused over the doctrine of the Trinity cannot. That's the nature of heresy in the classical sense: it is a belief that, if held without repentance, cuts one off from the possibility of salvation at all. That was the case with the Trinity, but that isn't the case with the issue of justification (as i said, even if we grant the premise that justification is being confused or denied).
Second, if, taking your own illustration, the leadership of this "club" became enraged at this group's seeming declension from the original terms of affirming the Trinity, it would do no good (or at least it would not prove the case for the leadership of this club) if they ignored the intricate distinctions made in a discussion of the Trinity like the distinctions between the ontological Trinity and the ecomonic Trinity. So, if for instance, this club leadership in your hypothetical story were to claim that this group of people now members of their "club" were denying the Trinitarian terms of their membership by affirming that the Son submits to the Father and the Father never submits to the Son, and the Spirit proceeds from and submits to the Father and the Son, and that he is never obeyed by any other member of the Godhead--that doesn't meet the standard of what the leadership claims is departure from a proper Trinitarian theology, because a distinction within the Trinity as to function is a valid way to talk about the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. If all the "prosecutors" have to offer by way of evidence is that kind of talk, yet they still continue to claim that these "club" members deny the Trinity and have broken their "membership" vows, the leadership of the "club" would be absolutely wrong to wage such accusations against their fellow club members, even if they don't agree with those kind of economic distinctions.
That more accurately reflects the nature of the discussion. There are fine distinctions being discussed, and some men (for good or for bad) are wanting to discuss distinctions to make within the boundaries of the current standards, yet those who don't happen to agree with those distinctions are then accusing them of holding views that diverge. The case is, though, that we're not talking about views that diverge, but only a different way of talking about the same thing that does not fundamentally alter what has already been established.
Those debates and discussions are complicated. My head was reeling when I'd hear recaps from hub every night. John Frame has a good paper on how calling Shepherd a heretic is "stupid" ( he got a lot of flack) with a lot of quotes from NS that are very sound and biblical about justification. But others took his ( NS) partly vague wording and did go into heretical thinking with infused righteousness somehow being part of the basis of our coming before God.
I suppose a lot of folks here would disagree about Shepherd, but I'll go with John Frame myself.
As other people said, there are different levels and different degrees of thought out there, and not all of the alleged NPP and FV deny justification by faith alone.
"those who are confused over the doctrine of justification can still be saved, while those who are confused over the doctrine of the Trinity cannot."
Oh please. You're kidding, right?
"we're not talking about views that diverge, but only a different way of talking about the same thing that does not fundamentally alter what has already been established."
Tee hee. Priceless.
Thank heavens your views did not prevail at the GA.
http://www.leithart.com/archives/003074.php
In it he writes, "It's not clear to me that the Westminster Standards require belief in the imputation of Christ's active obedience."
Yet in answer to the question "How does Christ make intercession?", WLC 55 states, "Christ makes intercession, by his appearing in our nature continually before the Father in heaven, in the merit of his obedience and sacrifice on earth, declaring his will to have it applied to all believers..."
Furthermore the question 174 on the Lord's Supper "requires" those who receive the sacrament should be in state of "earnest hungering and thirsting after Christ, feeding on him by faith, receiving of his fulness, trusting in his merits, rejoicing in his love, giving thanks for his grace..." And WCF 17.2 in dealing with the issue of perseverance says, "This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of God within them, and the nature of the covenant of grace..." See also WLC 70, 71, WCF 8.5, 11.1, and 11.3
R.
Not at all. Sproul wants the resolution to pass - the one that condemns FV and NPP as not conforming to the Westminster Standards.
Brian
Of course, it's possible that you'd be completely consistent and claim that either no Romanist can be saved at all without leaving the Roman Church (just like the JW), or you could claim that JWs *COULD* be saved just like the Romanists can. However, you can't claim that both are "heretical" (i.e., false doctrine so severe that it is damning to hold it without repentance) and yet claim that the one can be saved and the other can't. That's inconsistent.
The only way you can claim that your quotations from the WSs require affirming the imputation of the active obedience of Christ in justification is to assume a particular meaning of merit that is the very disputed issue.
In other words, you're begging the question that is precisely under dispute in refuting the person who takes the opposite position. Needless to say, that's not a valid way to try and refute someone's position.
Nope. I still think you're kidding.
Justification is by faith alone in Christ's finished work alone. It is possible to do this even while being a member in a christian cult, granted an "inconsistent" and confused member, but one nonetheless. A member of the Roman Catholic church can also, of course, be justified by faith just as much as a classical protestant can.
A true Romanist should be defined as one who actually believes the content of the doctrine of justification as Rome does. Such a one cannot be justified, no matter what church they are a part of.
In your estimation, what degree of Chalcedonian comprehension is necessary for justification?
Do those sinners worshipping in Coptic or Greek churches fall under similar "no possibility of justification" clauses because of their insufficient christologies?
I don't think so, unless the chalcedonian formula is necessary for sola fide.
One can certainly be christologically confused and still believe that the imputation of Christ's righteousness is sufficent for their justification.