Both Reformed theology and Federal Vision soteriology have their dualities; yet there is a crucial difference. The dualities in Reformed theology do not reach into the heart of the mystical union with Christ. In Reformed theology, there are no dualities that divide between those who are in union with Christ. In Reformed theology, all who are in Christ are washed with the same washing, sanctified with the same sanctification and justified with the same justification.
I was recently thinking about the criticism that Federal Vision theology uses a dualistic hermeneutic when interpreting key passages of Scripture related to salvation and union with Christ. I mentally connected that thought with Declaration Six in the study on the Federal Vision adopted by the 2007 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America:
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..
I also remembered that Peter Leithart, a leading advocate of the Federal Vision, has made a similar criticism about dualism in Reformed theology. In his book The Baptized Body, he discussed some statements from the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Larger Catechism, and then said the following:
This confessional ambiguity is founded on and has produced persistent dualities within Reformed theology, which are evident most clearly in various formulas concerning the “dual aspect of the covenant.” As Louis Berkhof summarizes, Reformed theologians have distinguished between an internal and external covenant, the essence of the covenant and its administration, a conditional and absolute covenant, and the covenant as a legal relationship and as a communion of life. (pp. 55-56)
Leithart is referring here to a chapter in Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology, a highly respected expression of Reformed theology. This chapter is entitled “The Dual Aspect of the Covenant” (pp. 284-289).
Here is our situation: Peter Leithart has criticized the “persistent dualities within Reformed theology,” and Declaration Six charges Federal Vision theology with the dualism of “a parallel soteriological system.” So here we have competing charges of dualism, what one might call a dualism duel. At first glance, this dualism duel is confusing. Yet the issues begin to clarify once one advances beyond the conflicting allegations to a more detailed and specific examination of the two systems.
Let’s begin by considering the Reformed complaint about a dualism in Federal Vision theology as implied by Declaration Six. This criticism is at first glance a bit surprising in light of Peter Leithart’s above negative statement about the dualities that have characterized Reformed theology. Yet has any advocate of the Federal Vision really been able to construct a soteriology that is totally free of all these dualities? My thesis is that they have not. I do not think that this is possible without making a theological compromise which I do not believe any advocates of the Federal Vision would want to make.
Allow me now to take some theological opinions associated with the Federal Vision and see how far I can get in assembling them into a soteriology that is free from dualities. I’ll begin with the teaching that baptism with water works ex opere operato to put a person into a personal saving union with Christ. Let’s say that in Romans 6, Paul isn’t using sacramental language as defined by the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF 27.2). Let’s say that Paul also isn’t here following the example of the Westminster Shorter Catechism by using the language of charity. Let’s say that Paul is instead teaching in Romans 6 that every person without exception who is baptized with water has been put into a mystical union with Christ. If one accepts those assumptions, then every person who has been validly baptized with water enjoys all the saving benefits which result from union with Christ. For example, everyone in the visible church has been washed, sanctified and justified in the name of Christ and by the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 6:11).
There have been no dualities so far. There has been no need to distinguish between the visible and invisible aspects of the church. There has been no need to distinguish between the common operations of the Spirit and effectual calling. But then I get to the question of perseverance. If not everyone in the church perseveres in the faith, is it possible to avoid the duality between the common operations of the Spirit and effectual calling? Yes, it is possible, but to do this I have to make a compromise which I do not believe any advocate of the Federal Vision would want to make. Let’s say that everyone in the church receives the same grace, a homogeneous grace that is necessary but not sufficient for perseverance. Let’s say that each church member must turn the point in his own perseverance based on a free act of his own will. If that is the case, then the difference between those who persevere and those who don’t is not due to any duality in the Spirit’s work divided along a line established by unconditional election. Here is a way to avoid dualities even with regard to perseverance, but the cost is to allow Arminianism into the system.
Federal Vision advocates are quick to assure us that they are not Arminians and that they affirm the Calvinisitic doctrine of unconditional election. The question then is whether it is possible to handle the issue of perseverance in the Federal Vision system in a way that maintains Calvinism and at the same time avoids dualities. I don’t think this is possible.
If we proceed in assembling our system in a way that accepts the Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional election, then I can think of only three options. One is to have a dualism between perseverance and all the other benefits that result from a saving union with Christ. Everyone in the visible church is justified, adopted and sanctified in the same sense, but only some persevere in this saving union. In a system where salvation is all of grace, how can a common personal union with Christ securely save some and not securely save others? How can the same justification, adoption and sanctification be permanent in some and temporary in others? I think that this dualism is beyond rational explanation. I also don’t know of any Scriptural basis for accepting on faith this particular dualism as a mystery which only God can comprehend.
The second option is to teach that the seeds of a person’s failure to persevere permeated the totality of his saving union with Christ. This approach returns all the dualities which the new system was supposed to eliminate. The dualities that were cast out have not only returned but have returned in a more radical form that reaches to the very heart of the mystical union. With this approach, there is a duality between a saving union with Christ that is destined from its inception to culminate in full salvation and a saving union with Christ that is destined from its inception to fall fatally short of full salvation. There is in this approach a permeating qualitative difference between the saving benefits received by the elect through union with Christ and saving benefits that are also received by the non-elect in the church through union with Christ. When using this approach, a passage such as 1 Corinthians 6:11 must be interpreted to mean that all in the church are washed, sanctified and justified, but not with the same washing, not with the same sanctification and not with the same justification. In order for key soteriological passages such as 1 Corinthians 6:11 to fit into this system, they must be interpreted with this dualistic hermeneutic.
The final option which I can think of is that soteriological passages such as 1 Corinthians 6:11 are talking exclusively about some sort of corporate salvation that is initiated through water baptism and then experienced equally by the elect and non-elect in the visible church. This would be a limited salvation that does not involve a definitive inner transformation. It’s effects and benefits would be only temporary and primarily social. It could be preparatory for a heart transforming and eternal salvation, but not necessarily. A major problem with this view is that it categorically divides the passages in Scripture which refer to our saving union with Christ. Passages such as John 3:16 which refer to saving faith and eternal salvation would seemingly have to refer only to the persevering salvation of the elect. Yet soteriological passages which are addressed to churches or which use sacramental language would refer to “a parallel soteriological system,” to use the language of Declaration Six. So many of the passages in Scripture which add significantly to our understanding of eternal salvation would no longer, according to this understanding, speak to that issue.
Let’s next consider the charge that Reformed theology contains dualities within it. My response to this charge is to plead guilty as charged. The foundational duality which I accept is the apparent antinomy between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. I firmly grasp both of the horns of this alleged dilemma as truths taught in Scripture. I accept by faith that any dilemma here is only apparent and not real. There are other secondary dualities which I also accept. The covenant of grace can be considered both broadly and narrowly. The church has a visible aspect and an invisible aspect. The non-elect may be in the Vine for a time, but they never truly abide in the Vine (John 15:1-8). The non-elect may be with us in the church for a time, but they are never truly of us (1 John 2:19). The Spirit works in the church at large through common operations but effectually calls only the elect. The sacraments are administered to the visible church but become effectual means of salvation “only by the blessing of Christ and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them” (WSC Q. 91). These are dualities which I embrace.
Both Reformed theology and Federal Vision soteriology have their dualities; yet there is a crucial difference. The dualities in Reformed theology do not reach into the heart of the mystical union with Christ. In Reformed theology, there are no dualities that divide between those who are in union with Christ. In Reformed theology, all who are in Christ are washed with the same washing, sanctified with the same sanctification and justified with the same justification. There are differences among those in union with Christ regarding spiritual gifts and spiritual maturity, but no categorical divisions regarding eternal destinies. Reformed theology does not impose upon key soteriological passages an artificial dualism that threatens to divide the seamless robe of the mystical union.
Any who think that freedom from dualities is the most obvious mark of truth in soteriology might want to consider either Arminianism or hyper-Calvinism. The question, however, is not which soteriology is the most free from dualities. The really relevant question is which system is the most faithful summary of the soteriology taught in Scripture. Do the Scriptures teach that all who are in a personal saving union with Christ have a salvation that can never be lost? Or do the Scriptures teach that everyone in the church has a personal union with Christ even though not everyone in the church will persevere in the faith? A related secondary question is which system plants the flag of mystery where Scripture plants the flag of mystery. Do the Scriptures plant the flag of mystery on the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility? Or does Scripture plant the flag of mystery on a personal union with Christ that securely saves some but not others? Those are the key questions in evaluating the dualism duel. We must ask them in order to determine which system is faithfully gleaning its doctrine from Scripture, and which system is artificially imposing its doctrine upon Scripture.
Appendix
A short summary of Berkhof’s summary cannot do justice to its careful and detailed analysis. To read the entire chapter for yourself, go here.
The subject of the chapter is the following question about the covenant of grace in Reformed theology:
There are two different aspects of the covenant, and now the question arises, In what relation do these two stand to each other? (p. 284)
Berkhof rejects the division of the covenant of grace into two covenants, one external and one internal. He also has trouble with the view “that there is an external and an internal aspect of the covenant of grace”:
But the trouble is that, according to this view, the non-elect and non-regenerate are merely external appendages to the covenant and are simply regarded as children of the covenant by us because of our short-sightedness, but are no covenant children at all in the sight of God. They are not really in the covenant and therefore cannot really become covenant breakers either. It offers no solution of the problem in what sense the non-elect and non-regenerate, who are members of the visible Church, are children of the covenant also in the sight of God, and can therefore become covenant breakers. (pp. 284-285)
After commenting on various views, Berkhof lists the four senses in which he regards the non-regenerate in the visible church as in the covenant of grace in the sight of God. Here is his closing paragraph:
It should be noted that, while the covenant is an eternal and inviolable covenant, which God never nullifies, it is possible for those who are in the covenant to break it. If one who stands in the legal covenant relationship does not enter upon the covenant life, he is nevertheless regarded as a member of the covenant. His failure to meet the requirements of the covenant involves guilt and constitutes him a covenant breaker, Jer. 31:32; Ezek. 44:7. This explains how there may be, not merely a temporary, but a final breaking of the covenant, though there is no falling away of the saints (p. 289).
Grover E. Gunn is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is serving as interim pastor of McDonald PCA in Collins, Miss. This articleappeared on this blog and is used with permission.