As with all the Reformed creeds, Owen connects all our graces together in an unbroken chain from election to justification to adoption to perseverance to glory. The Federal Vision contradicts Reformed theology and the Scriptures by separating both perseverance and glory from the other graces.

“In baptism we are brought covenantally and publicly out of union with Adam and into union with Christ. . . . In this relationship, one has, in principle, all the blessings and benefits in the heavenly places delivered over to him as he is ‘in Christ’. . . Baptism is like an adoption ceremony.”[1]—Rich Lusk, Federal Vision Proponent

“Baptism, then, as the sign and seal of this reality [i.e., union with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, our partaking of the Holy Spirit]. . . By baptism the Spirit joins us to Christ since he is the elect one and the Church is the elect people, we are joined to his body. We therefore are elect.”[2]—Steve Wilkins, Federal Vision Proponent

One of the witnesses for the Defense at the trial of TE Peter Leithart made the following assessment of his theology:

On the question of imputation, Dr. Leithart indicated to me that he was opposed to imputation being viewed as an independent act, something in the abstract, rather than in connection with union with Christ.[3]

The connection of imputation and union with Christ is not disputed by Reformed theologians. It is a fundamental truth taught in the Scripture and has been held by the greatest theologians throughout church history. As John Owen says:

The foundation of the imputation asserted is union. Hereof there are many grounds and causes, as hath been declared; but that which we have immediate respect unto, as the foundation of this imputation, is that whereby the Lord Christ and believers do actually coalesce into one mystical person. This is the Holy Spirit inhabiting in him as the head of the church in all fulness, and in all believers according to their measure, whereby they become members of his mystical body.[4]

The Federal Vision and Union with Christ

Our primary question concerning imputation and union is this: What does the Federal Vision mean by union with Christ? The various statements of the Federal Vision advocates indicate that, for them, union with Christ is formal, but not spiritual. It is external, but not internal. It is objective, but not subjective. All the members of the visible church have this formal, external, objective union with Christ. Such union with Christ in their system is not restricted to the members of the invisible church and often proves to be temporary. However, a formal, external, visible, objective, temporary union is simply not the union with Christ of which the Scripture speaks. In reply to Lusk, Wilkins, Leithart and others in the Federal Vision, union with Christ cannot be limited to an external, objective, temporary union. Rather, it is a vital, spiritual, internal, mystical, permanent union.

The difficulty for the Federal Vision in addressing these concerns is underscored by various statements from “A Joint Federal Vision Profession.” First, the signers state unequivocally that union with Christ through baptism is formal:

We affirm that God formally unites a person to Christ and to His covenant people through baptism into the triune Name, and that this baptism obligates such a one to lifelong covenant loyalty to the triune God, each baptized person repenting of his sins and trusting in Christ alone for salvation. Baptism formally engrafts a person into the Church, which means that baptism is into the regeneration, that time when the Son of Man sits upon His glorious throne (Matt. 19:28).[5]

Even this statement raises concerns and reveals inconsistencies. How can this union with Christ be formal only if it also engrafts a person into the church and baptizes him into the regeneration of all things when Christ sits on His glorious throne? The inconsistency in their position is further highlighted by the following statement from that same “Profession”:

We affirm that apostasy is a terrifying reality for many baptized Christians. All who are baptized into the triune Name are united with Christ in His covenantal life, and those who fall from that position of grace are indeed falling from grace. The branches that are cut away from Christ are genuinely cut away from someone, cut out of a living covenant body. The connection that an apostate had to Christ was not merely external.[6]

So, “A Joint Federal Vision Profession” asserts that union with Christ is formal, but not merely external. Such a distinction is without meaning. It is undefined and indefinable. If union with Christ is not “merely external,” it also cannot be defined as formal only. Do the words used mean that union with Christ is spiritual and internal? Such an idea would complicate the matter even further for the Federal Visionists.

Finally, “A Joint Federal Vision Profession” blurs the distinction between the visible and invisible church in the section on “The Visible and Invisible Church.” That section does not define the church as either visible or invisible, but asserts:

We further affirm that the visible Church is the true Church of Christ, and not an “approximate” Church.[7]

If the visible church is the true church and not an approximate church, then what is the invisible church? Is the invisible church identical with the visible church? If the visible church is not identical with the invisible church, then how do they differ? These are legitimate questions which are left unanswered by the statements of the Federal Vision proponents. J. C. Ryle, who faced similar heresies in the nineteenth century, put his finger on the problem:

They make no distinction between the visible Church which contains “evil as well as good,” and the invisible Church which is composed of none but God’s elect and true believers. They apply to the one privileges, and blessings, and promises which belong to the other. They call the visible Church, with its crowds of ungodly members, and baptized infidels, “the mystical body of Christ, the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, the Holy Catholic Church,” and the like. . . All these glorious titles do not properly belong to any visible Church, but to the mystical company of God’s elect.[8]

The problem with the affirmations and denials the Federal Vision proponents make is that they conflict with their own paradigm of trying to restore the objectivity of the covenant. They emphasize the objectivity of the covenant, but the subjectivity of the covenant through God’s redeeming grace is present throughout the Scripture. How can they maintain strictly the objectivity of the covenant without permitting the subjectivity of God’s promises? For instance, how can they affirm that those branches that are cut away from the vine truly fall from grace and are cut out of a living covenant body that enjoys real fellowship with Christ? Their solution is to say that such union is not merely external. So, does that mean those covenant members have an internal relationship with Christ and can fall from true grace? The Federal Vision proponents then respond that the union of such apostates was only formal. They continually alternate their position between objectivity and subjectivity; between formal and spiritual; between external and internal; and, between visible and invisible. They define their positions in whatever way is necessary to prevent the appearance of contradiction. Then they resort to the opposite position when that becomes necessary. They are stuck on their own form of dialectical reasoning by which they synthesize things that in the Scripture clearly differ.

Their tactic is not surprising. It has been the tactic of heretics from the founding of the church. Samuel Miller, in an introductory essay to Thomas Scott’s The Articles of the Synod of Dort, made the following observation:

When heresy arises in an evangelical body it is never frank and open. It always begins by skulking, and assuming a disguise. Its advocates, when together, boast of great improvements, and congratulate one another on having gone greatly beyond the “old dead orthodoxy,” and on having left behind many of its antiquated errors: but when taxed with deviations from the received faith, they complain of the unreasonableness of their accusers, as they “differ from it only in words.” This has been the standing course of errorists ever since the apostolic age. They are almost never honest and candid as a party, until they gain strength enough to be sure of some degree of popularity.[9]

Anyone familiar with the history of theology can attest to the truthfulness of Miller’s assessment. Arius, Pelagius, Arminius, Amyraut, the Unitarians, Albert Barnes, Karl Barth, and many others, have all contended that they were only making improvements to the faith.

Various Statements on Union with Christ

One of the chief problems with the Federal Vision is a wrong definition of what union with Christ is. Rich Lusk gives a typical Federal Vision definition of union with Christ as follows:

Baptism is like an adoption ceremony. The adopted child is brought into a new relationship, given a new name, new blessings, a new future, new opportunities, a new inheritance—in short, a new life.  And yet these blessings, considered from the standpoint of the covenant rather than the eternal decree, are mutable. The child is a full member of the family and has everything that comes with sonship. But, if he grows up and rejects his Father and Mother (God and the church), if he refuses to repent and return home when warned and threatened, then he loses all the blessings that were his.  It would not be accurate to say that he never had these things; he did possess them, even though he never experienced or enjoyed some of them (“Do I Believe In Baptismal Regeneration?” n.d.).[10]

Peter Leithart put it this way when discussing baptism and union with Christ in a blog post called “Infant Baptism” (Aug. 6, 2004):

Apostasy is possible.  It is possible to be united to Jesus Christ, receive His Spirit, and then fall from that gracious condition and back into the world (John 15; 1 Cor. 10; 2 Pet. 2).[11]

A quote from John Barach, one of the signers of the Joint Profession, further illustrates the inevitable dichotomy they hold with respect to union with Christ:

There is an objective covenant made with believers and their children. Every baptized person is in covenant with God and is in union then with Christ and with the Triune God. The Bible doesn’t know about a distinction between being internally in the covenant, really in the covenant, and being externally in the covenant . . . every baptized person is in Christ and therefore shares in his new life.[12]

Barach’s statement begs several questions. Why does he refer to an objective covenant made with believers and their children if the Bible does not make distinctions between the internal and external? If the Bible does not make such a distinction, then why does even the “Joint Federal Vision Profession” make it? Why did Barach sign a document that says, among other things, that “membership in the one true Christian Church is visible and objective”? How can there be a distinction between visible and invisible, and between objective and subjective, but not a distinction between external and internal? The Federal Vision proponents use these very distinctions when it serves their purpose, and ridicule the use of them when it serves a different purpose.

A greater problem for the Federal Vision with respect to union with Christ is this question: What is the basis for such union? The Scripture teaches that this union depends on two things: the work of Christ for believers, and the work of the Spirit in believers. As A. A. Hodge wrote:

The first aspect of this union is its federal and representative character, whereby Christ, as the second Adam (1 Cor. XV.22), assumes in the covenant of grace those broken obligations of the covenant of works which the first Adam failed to discharge, and fulfills them all in behalf of his “sheep,” “they whom the Father has given him.”

The second aspect of this union is its spiritual and vital character.[13]

Hodge’s summarization of the two aspects of salvation is consistent with what is taught in the Westminster Confession of Faith 7. 2, 3. These sections of the Confession teach that the federal representation of Christ requires saving faith of those ordained unto eternal life and promises the Holy Spirit to make them willing and able to believe. Yet, the Federal Vision denies the spiritual and vital character of this union by defining union apart from saving faith and the internal work of the Holy Spirit. Its proponents assert that all the baptized are in union with Christ before they believe, and even if they never believe. The Federal Vision also denies the federal and representative character of this union for those who are alone the true sheep of Christ. Instead, the Federal Vision makes union with Christ depend on the sign of the covenant, baptism, rather than the covenant itself. Yet, the answer to the Westminster Larger Catechism Question #66 says:

The union which the elect have with Christ is the work of God’s grace, whereby they are spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably, joined to Christ as their head and husband, which is done in their effectual calling.

Such union with Christ is as permanent as the perseverance of the saints. It is forever. It is not a union accomplished by baptism. Rather, this union is accomplished only through effectual calling. In his commentary on Hebrews 3:14, John Owen writes:

Now, our union with Christ, our participation of him, consists in the inhabitation of the same Spirit in him and us; and the first work of the Spirit given unto us, bestowed upon us, is to form Christ in us, whereby our union is completed. . . In this forming of Christ in us we are made partakers of all grace and holiness in the principle and root of them, for therein doth this image of God in Christ consist. Now, this proceeding from our union, the latter is, and must be, before it in order of nature, and so be the rule, measure, and cause of all that ensues.[14]

A few pages later in that same commentary, Owen shows how the believer’s union with Christ is the basis of every other grace of the Christian:

It is the cause of all other graces that we are made partakers of; they are all communicated unto us by virtue of our union with Christ. Hence is our adoption, our justification, our sanctification, our fruitfulness, our perseverance, our resurrection, our glory. . . Our union with him is the ground of the actual imputation of his righteousness unto us; for he covers only the members of his own body with his own garments, nor will cast a skirt over any who is not “bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh.” And so he is “of God made unto us righteousness,” 1 Cor. i.30.[15]

As with all the Reformed creeds, Owen connects all our graces together in an unbroken chain from election to justification to adoption to perseverance to glory. The Federal Vision contradicts Reformed theology and the Scriptures by separating both perseverance and glory from the other graces.

Dr. Dewey Roberts is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Destin, Fla.

[1] Shane Lems, “The Federal Vision and Union with Christ”, November 15, 2013. Accessed at: https://theaquilareport.com/the-federal-vision-and-union-with-christ/ on October 22, 2014.

[2] Guy Prentiss Waters, The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology: A Comparative Analysis (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2006), 236.

[3] Record of the Case, Standing Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church in America, Case 2012-5, RE Gerald Hedman vs. Pacific Northwest Presbytery, 666-7.

[4] William Goold, ed., The Works of John Owen, Volume V (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1967), 209.

[5] “A Joint Federal Vision Profession,” Credenda Agenda, Volume 19, Series 3, Special Edition, (2007): 5.

[6] Ibid., 9.

[7] Ibid., 12.

[8] John Charles Ryle, Old Paths: Being Plain Statements on Some Weightier Matters of Christianity (Cambridge and London, England: James Clarke & Co., LTD., 1972), 502.

[9] Thomas Scott, The Articles of the Synod of Dort (Harrisonburg, Virginia: Sprinkle Publications, 1993), 16-17.

[10] Lems, “The Federal Vision and Union with Christ”.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Waters, Federal Vision and Covenant Theology, 133.

[13] A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), 482.

[14] W. H. Goold, ed., John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Volume IV (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1980), 147-148.

[15] Ibid., 149-150.