Introduction
Does your standing before God depend on Christ’s finished work, or on your ongoing faithfulness? Federal Vision theology blurs that line in ways that strike at the heart of the gospel. In this episode of Ask FGBC, Pastor Cam Porter unpacks what Federal Vision actually teaches, how it conflates the covenant of works with the covenant of grace, and why it amounts to a rejection of the historic doctrine of justification by faith alone.
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Transcript
Summary Keywords: Federal Vision, covenants, covenantal faithfulness, justification by faith, doctrine of justification, imputed righteousness, passive obedience, redemptive benefits, mono-covenantalism, Presbyterian circles, Reformed circles, historical doctrine, biblical doctrine, Christ’s work, wrath of God.
Speaker: Pastor Cam Porter
What is Federal Vision?
Pastor Cam Porter: What is Federal Vision? Federal Vision is, we could say, a particular approach to Christianity within usually Reformed circles, and largely Presbyterian circles, that has an approach to the covenants that conflates the covenant of works with the covenant of grace.
Mono-Covenantalism: Mixing Works and Grace
That’s a particular view, and it’s not only the Federal Visionists that do that. It’s others, historically and contemporaneously, that conflate those two covenants in sort of this mono-covenantalism. So now we have works and grace mingled, so that those who are to remain in the covenant need to exercise a measure of covenantal faithfulness in order to maintain their covenantal status and their covenant blessings.
The Rejection of Justification by Faith Alone
And so with that, obviously, and with the Federal Vision, there is not simply a subtle revision of the doctrine of justification by faith, but an utter rejection of the historical doctrine of justification by faith alone. Because covenantal faithfulness, while those who are proponents of the Federal Vision would use language that we’re familiar with — justification, grace, faith, all of those things — there’s nevertheless the reality put forth that justification is not about the imputed righteousness of the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins by virtue of his passive obedience.
It ultimately comes down to grace-assisted covenantal faithfulness on the part of the covenant member. And that is an explicit rejection of the blessed biblical and historic doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Our Justification Rests on Christ Alone
We’re justified solely and alone by the act of obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to us, and the blessed redemptive benefits of his passive obedience in his death, where he substitutionarily and sacrificially takes upon himself the wrath of God in the stead of all who believe.
Simply put, our justification rests not upon ourselves, not upon Christ plus ourselves, but solely and alone upon the perfect and finished work of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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