We have been dealing with what we now know as the self-named Federal Vision theology for a long time now. When we consider that the same set of questions has arisen regularly since the early 16th century, we realize that we have always had this problem with us and it shall likely always plague us. The Apostle Paul faced it in his day. 

My first interaction with the theology of Norman Shepherd probably came in seminary. He was dismissed from his position as a professor in a Reformed and Presbyterian seminary, where he taught the course on the doctrine of salvation (soteriology) in 1981. I began seminary in 1984. Perhaps I heard something about this controversy as a college student. The point is that we have been dealing with what we now know as the self-named Federal Vision theology for a long time now. When we consider that the same set of questions has arisen regularly since the early 16th century, we realize that we have always had this problem with us and it shall likely always plague us. The Apostle Paul faced it in his day. Whatever name we might give a particular manifestation the problem is moralism (i.e., salvation by being good), the doctrine that sinners may be saved (justified and sanctified) on the basis of or through the means of grace and works.

At a conference this fall someone asked, “having been to a church where works-based theology was an issue, how do we keep people aware that this is still a thing today?”

1. The first step is to recognize that moralists (in our day the so-called Federal Visionists and their defenders and enablers) exist. When the Shepherd case became public knowledge in the 70s one of the initial responses was to say, “I cannot believe that we are having this discussion after all these years.” The assumption is that the doctrine of salvation by grace alone (sola gratia) through faith alone (sola fide) is so clearly expressed and so basic to the Reformation that it is beyond question. It should be. It is, after all, as J. H. Alsted said in 1618, “the article of the standing or falling of church” but just as in a mass shooting or a medical emergency the first response is often denial: “this cannot be happening.” The surprise we experience when such a foundational doctrine is undermined or even openly attacked comes because many of us are not aware of the history of the doctrine or of the Reformation itself. Almost as soon as the Protestants began articulating the Reformation doctrine of salvation some within their midst began to undermine it either by denying the abiding validity of the moral law (antinomianism) or by nomism (and later neo-nomianism or renewed nomism). As settled as the doctrine became in the middle of the 16th century it became so amidst controversy. In other words, we should not be surprised that some, even favored and beloved teachers who are regarded as godly and useful should be found to be undermining the doctrine of free salvation. It has always been that way.

2. The second step is never to “move on” from the gospel of free salvation. One of the more important mistakes made in the wake of the first phase of the Shepherd case was for ministers, elders, and laity to say to themselves and to each other that they had dealt with the problem and it was time to “move on.” Many times I have heard it said, “We know what the gospel is. We need to move on to the Christian life.” That sentiment is one of the pre-conditions of moralism or nomism. We can never “move on” from the gospel of free salvation. Imagine had someone said to Moses, “Yes, yes, I know that Yahweh graciously delivered out of Egypt by his mighty right hand but that was then and this is now. We need to get on with it.” The Psalmists certainly did not look at salvation that way. They consistently looked back to Yahweh’s free salvation of his people as the paradigm for the believing life. Paul did the same with the death of Christ. We do the same in the Belgic Confession when we confess in art. 34 that “the Son of God is our Red Sea.” That reality is the touchstone of the entire Christian life. We live, in union with Christ. We live out of the knowledge that by grace alone, through faith alone, we died with Christ. We have been raised with him. The good news is our life.

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