The Woodruff Road Conference on the "Federal Vision": Part II

A Guide for the Perplexed

(Read Part I)

Talk #1: “Just What is a Christian Anyway?”
Guy Waters

(Waters actually begins his talk at 6m34s, with substantive presentation beginning around 11m00s.)

I. Covenant of Grace (11m00s – 29m25s)

The first theological issue that Waters addresses is the “covenant of grace.” He quotes from the Westminster Larger Catechism questions 31 and 166 to establish what this covenant is. According to WLC 31, the covenant of grace is a covenant of salvation made between God and Christ and all who are elect in Christ. So all the elect are in the covenant of grace. But WLC 166 includes more than just the elect in the covenant of grace. Here the Westminster Standards speak of children of Christians as being in the covenant of grace, which is why they are baptized. Now obviously we know that not all baptized people are elect (this is Calvinism 101), and so this means that the covenant of grace includes some people who are not going to go to Heaven when they die. Yet we still say that they are in the “covenant of grace,” even though they don’t end up receiving the gift of eternal life with God in glory.


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I wrote “Great start!” in the margins of my notes at this point, because so far Waters has said nothing with which an FV person would disagree. In fact, Waters’s presentation so far sounds like it could be setting up a pro-FV talk. This isn’t just a point that FVers agree with, it is a point they make strenuously because they think it is important and it is a part of what they are “up to” theologically to make it clear that there are people who are not going to go to Heaven that are in the covenant of grace.

So, there are non-elect people—people who are predestined by God not to go to Heaven—who nonetheless are in “the covenant of grace.” So far, so good. The question is, what do we mean when we say this? Waters goes on to explain it by saying that “not all people are in the covenant of grace in the same way.” Furthermore, Waters wants to use some particular labels for describing these different “modes” of being in the covenant of grace—“outward” and “inward” (or, synonymously, “external” and “internal”).

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This presents our first chance for some more in-depth discussion. There are a couple of moves that Waters has already made which are at least questionable. The first concerns the phrase “in the covenant in the same way.” Granted that we all affirm (and, as already pointed out, FV thinkers do affirm this enthusiastically) that there are non-elect people in the covenant, this affirmation amounts to a claim that there are two different kinds of people in the covenant of grace. Elect and non-elect (or reprobate) folks can both be found in the covenant of grace. So we have a distinction between the members of the covenant. But notice the particular way that Waters chooses to express this: “not all people are in the covenant of grace in the same way.” Waters is drawing a distinction between the “way” that different people are “in” the covenant, but this is not necessarily the same thing as saying that there are different kinds of people in the covenant. Why can it not be the case that the different kinds of people are all in the covenant in the same way? The difference then would be with the people themselves, not with their respective “modes” of existence within the covenant.

This is a pretty technical point of semantics, really, and depending on what exactly we think it means to be “in a covenant” we might find people on both sides of the FV debate affirming that elect and non-elect covenant members are “in the covenant in a different way.” So far, then, this is not really a “Federal Vision” issue. But it is an issue of clarity on Waters’ part, and his lack of clarity will have implications for the FV discussion, as we will see. Waters is here building up to a criticism of FV that he will offer a bit later, but that criticism will be unable to find traction until we clearly define what Waters means by being “in the covenant”. And this unfortunately is something that Waters does not do.

We probably need an example here, and so this is as good a place as any to introduce one of the favorites of FV advocates: the analogy of marriage. Marriage is a covenantal reality which includes some really good husbands and some really bad husbands. There are different kinds of husbands. There are husbands in the world who are more or less loving their wives as they should (by God’s grace), and there are husbands in the world who are not. In this example, would we want to say that the bad husbands are not married “in the same way” as the good husbands? Or that good and bad husbands are “in the marriage covenant” in “different ways?” One theological proposal of FV advocates is that this would not be a particularly good way to speak, because being “in covenant” is an “objective” sort of thing. It is true regardless of the way that you subjectively appropriate that reality for yourself (i.e., whether you are a good or a bad husband).

Or consider another example: the fact that I ate a turkey dinner is “objective”. Now, as I sit on the couch watching football a few hours later, it is an “objective” fact that I ate turkey, just as it is for Uncle Leo. But I am wide awake, while Uncle Leo is snoring. Why? Because there was something different about the way we each individually (or “subjectively”) “appropriated” the turkey dinner. Perhaps I drank a lot of coffee to try to counter-act the turkey’s affects, or perhaps I am just naturally not prone to napping in the middle of the day. Perhaps I kept myself busy in physically engaging tasks all afternoon (before sitting down to watch the football game, that is). Whatever the explanation, the fact is that we both “ate” the turkey, and we even ate it “in the same way.” Our “eating of turkey” is an “objective” reality that is held out separately from our individual experiences of it. There was nothing different about Uncle Leo’s eating of the turkey and my eating of the turkey. We both have similar digestive systems, our teeth and jaws both work in similar ways, etc. But Leo ate the turkey unto sleeping-on-the-couch and I didn’t.

Back to marriage, many FVers want to point out that the man who constantly cheats on and abuses his wife is still married. He is married to her in every sense of the word. Now, at the same time, we might say that there is a sense in which this abusive cad doesn’t “get” what marriage is really all about. And that’s certainly true, and a perfectly good and accurate way to speak. But what are we really saying when we say this? Are we saying that because the cad doesn’t “get” what marriage is, that he’s not really married, or even that he’s not really married in the same way as the good husband? I don’t think so. I think we’re just saying that, even though he’s married, there is something wrong with him. Something about the way this guy is experiencing his marriage (or his marital covenant), the way he is “appropriating” it for himself, is deficient. The problem with the cad is something about the cad himself, not with the “way” in which he is married.

Now, perhaps all Waters meant by "in the covenant in a different way" is that elect and non-elect covenant members do not have the same experiences as a result of being in the covenant. But if this is all he meant, then he's not saying anything with which FV proponents would disagree. And his later arguments against the FV will fall apart if this is all he meant (as we shall see).

So, returning to the covenant of grace, FV advocates are not keen to say that non-elect and elect members of the covenant are in the covenant “in different ways.” Rather, they wish to speak of the covenant as an “objective” reality that both the non-elect and the elect members share. They are both “in covenant” just as surely as Uncle Leo and I both really did “eat turkey.” Both are in the covenant of grace, full stop.

But this does not mean that FV advocates think that there is no difference between elect and non-elect covenant members. Obviously there is a difference between them, as we’ve stated from the beginning. We’re not going back on this earlier distinction at all. The distinction is still very real—elect people and non-elect people are not the same. They are different in a whole number of ways (we don’t need to list all those ways right now, but being a person who is predestined by the Creator of the universe to live eternally with Him in glory, and being a person who is predestined not to live eternally with Him in glory, are obviously two very different things!). But the distinction is between the people, not between the way they are in the covenant of grace. Two very different people can both be in the same covenant in the same way.

Now let's return to the concern that this might just be a debate over semantics. If Waters wants to insist on a different definition of being “in covenant”, then he is free to do so. However, and the importance of this point cannot be overstated, he must then re-interpret the statements of FV thinkers in terms of the new preferred definition. You cannot condemn the FVers simply over how they define a concept like "being in covenant." You must show that the substance of what they are saying is contrary to something important in Reformed theology, and such substantive disagreements rarely if ever come down to a disagreement over definitions. So, offer your own definition of “in covenant” if you want, but then you must also show that FV advocates are contradicting the substance of what you say when you use that definition.

If I define a "dog" as "any animal that likes me", I cannot then accuse my neighbor of contradicting me just because he says his dog doesn't like me. On my weird definition of "dog," my neighbor's dog isn't really a dog, and so there is no contradiction. Likewise, if my neighbor believes that there are some animals (at least one) in the world that do like me, then my neighbor also believes in "dogs" on my weird definition. So we both affirm that there are animals that like me, it's just that my neighbor doesn't use the word "dog" to refer to such animals but I do. This would not be a substantive disagreement.

Someone might want to say, for instance, that Uncle Leo and I did eat turkey “in a different way”, since I drank coffee afterwards and he didn’t (or whatever). We could say that drinking coffee after eating turkey is a part of "how" I ate turkey. There’s a difference in the way we each individually appropriated the eating of turkey ‘into’ ourselves, and this is all it means to say that we “ate turkey in a different way.” Or, regarding marriage, we might say that if the caddish husband doesn’t really “get” what marriage is all about the way a good husband does, then that means that the crappy husband isn’t really married “in the same way” as the good husband. In other words, we can build a particular subjective appropriation of some reality into our very definition of what it means to be a part of that reality, if we really want to do so. If we do this, then of course we’ll have to say that the bad husband and the good husband are not married “in the same way,” or that Uncle Leo and I didn’t “eat turkey” in the same way. But there are two things to point out about this state of affairs:

1. FV advocates might simply want to question this definition, for any number of reasons. At the very least it seems a bit strained.

2. But, if this is the definition of being “in the covenant of grace” we insist on—so that by definition anyone who isn’t elect has to be in the covenant in a different way than someone who is—then FV advocates also agree that elect and non-elect covenant members are not in the covenant of grace “in the same way.” So, if an FV opponent wants to define being “in the covenant” in such a way that elect and non-elect cannot, by definition, both be in the covenant in the same way, then that is fine: but they must then re-interpret FVers as also affirming the same distinction in covenant membership, since FVers also affirm that there are both elect and non-elect people in the covenant.

Now, what do we have so far? Does this even feel like we are having a discussion about Reformed orthodoxy? No, it doesn’t, because we’re not. No matter how we define these things, both sides are still affirming that there are both elect and non-elect people in the covenant of grace, as Waters points out is required by WLC 31 and 166. Both sides believe that the elect are predestined by God purely of His own grace without regard to anything within the elect themselves. Both sides agree that the elect are only justified through the instrument of faith alone, etc. Waters will argue later that FVers in fact violate the Reformed teaching of election and justification by faith alone, but the point is that nothing so far indicates that this is the case. So far, nothing we are talking about should necessarily have any implications about the Reformed orthodoxy of either side.

But there is a second problematic move Waters has already made, though this one will take less time to go through after what we’ve already said. Waters prefers the dichotomoy of “internal/external” or “inner/outer” to express the difference between elect and non-elect covenant members (henceforth, “ECMs” and “NECMs”). Waters wants to say that ECMS are “internally” in the covenant of grace (or perhaps “internally united to Christ”), while NECMs are connected only “externally.” Without questioning the legitimacy of the distinction between ECMs and NECMs, we might question whether speaking of the difference in these terms is best. There are plenty of other terms that could be chosen to label these different realities that are experienced by ECMs and NECMs. But please notice that a disagreement over what terms are best to use to describe the difference is not the same as a disagreement over whether there is a difference. Waters seem ambiguous on this point, which becomes plain in some of his later arguments against FV.

Waters points out certain passages which seem to be written to the whole Church and which seem to speak to everyone in the congregation as though they are elect/regenerate. The particular passages he mentions are Ephesians 1:4 (“elect from before the foundation of the world,” etc.) and I Corinthians 1:8 (“God will confirm them to the end, blameless in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ,” etc.). How can Paul speak to an entire congregation as though these things are true of them?

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This is still part of the “set-up” portion of the lecture, with actual interaction with FV views to come later, but Waters is pre-emptively arguing against some common FV passages. Again, nothing wrong with him doing this, but it is important to follow what is going on. These are passages that FV proponents have been pointing to from the beginning of this controversy.

To make the apparent problem that Waters is trying to answer clear, remember that we have already seen that there are both elect and non-elect people in the covenant of grace. This sets up, for Waters, two different “kinds” of covenant membership (or, as we might prefer to put it, it sets up two different “kinds” of experience that elect and the non-elect have within the covenant). There is a covenant membership that everyone in the covenant of grace, whether elect or non-elect, possesses (since we have questioned whether “internal/external” is the best way to speak of this, let’s just call this the “weaker” covenant membership experience), and then there is a kind of membership that only the elect covenant members possess (call this the “stronger” covenant membership experience). But now we take this awareness of two kinds of covenant members with us as we read passages like Ephesians 1:4 and I Corinthians 1:8, and we see Paul addressing the whole congregation together as though certain things are true of them. So, given that he’s talking to everyone in the congregation, we would probably expect that Paul is speaking to these folks in terms of the “weaker” covenant membership experience. Paul is describing things that everyone, both regenerate and non-regenerate, experiences in the covenant of grace. But then we read the language of these passages and we find Paul saying things like “you are elect from before the foundation of the world,” or “God will confirm you to the end, blameless…” This sounds like “going to Heaven” stuff, perhaps; it sounds like stuff that can only be true of those who have the “stronger” covenant membership experience (i.e., the experience only had by the elect/regenerate). So, it looks like we have an awkward choice here: either we say that Paul is saying that the entire congregations at Ephesus and Corinth are regenerate/elect, and are predestined to go to Heaven, or Paul is actually talking only to the regenerate members of the congregation even though he seems to address his words to everyone. Neither of these choices are happy ones.

How do we explain these passages? Waters suggests the “judgment of charity.” What is happening in these passages is the Scriptures are speaking to people “according to what they profess to be. They profess to be Christians. They profess, then, to be elect, justified, sanctified, all that a Christian is. And we’re going to address them as such in charity. We’re going to regard and speak to our fellow believers according to who they profess to be.” (16m10s- 40s) Waters discusses I Peter 5:12 (“for so I regard him”) and I John 2:19-20 as places where this is done more explicitly. (17m00s-21m00s)

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Okay, so notice the way that Waters has resolved the problem laid out above with these passages. He accepts that Paul is speaking to everyone, and he accepts that Paul is speaking of benefits that only actually go to the regenerate. But assuming these congregations were like every other congregation that has ever existed, not everyone in these congregations was elect, and hence not everyone was at that time or was ever going to be regenerate. So what Paul must be doing here, says Waters, is making a “judgment of charity” about all the people in the congregation. Even though he knows that not everyone in the congregation is elect, he goes ahead and speaks to them as though they are. We cannot read the hearts of people, so all we can go on is what they profess to believe and to some extent we can also look at their lives insofar as these conform to their professions. If a man says he believes in Christ, and his life betrays no scandalous contradiction of that profession, then we treat him as one who truly does believe. We speak to him as a person who really is regenerate, even though he might not be. This is the “judgment of charity,” and Waters is right to point out that it is a very common Reformed interpretation of these passages.

FV advocates propose a different way out of this pickle, though. They propose that Paul is in fact speaking to everyone in the congregation, but that he is only describing benefits that go with the “weaker” kind of covenant membership. So when Paul says that all the congregants at Ephesus were “elect from before the foundation of the world,” for instance, he is not telling them that they are predestined to go to Heaven when they die. Rather he is telling them that they are predestined to be in the covenant of grace. But being in this covenant of grace does not guarantee that they are predestined to go to Heaven, for there are people in the covenant of grace who do not go to Heaven (as we have already discussed).

Now, this might raise our eyebrows, because after all Paul says “elect” in this passage and we Calvinists have been trained to think that every time we see the word “elect” it must refer to people predestined to go to Heaven when they die. Indeed, every time I have used the word “elect” so far in this guide I have meant it in the traditional Reformed sense of “people predestined to go to Heaven.” This is a fine definition of the word, as far as it goes. We do believe, after all, that God predestines people to go to Heaven, and the word “elect” (i.e., chosen) is as good a word for these folks as any. But this does not mean that every time Scripture uses the word “elect” that it must refer to this group of people. Perhaps Scripture also speaks of an “election unto membership in the covenant of grace”, in addition to an “election unto Heaven.”

To be sure, the Westminster Standards never speak of this kind of election; they use the word “elect” only to refer to people predestined to go to Heaven. But the fact that the Standards do not speak of another kind of election does not mean that they are denying that there is another kind of election. Indeed, we would be in rough waters indeed if we read our Confession as positively asserting every position that was allowed to be believed. This is not what Confessions are meant to do, which is fortunate since no human document could possibly pull it off even if this was the intent. Indeed, many FVers think that reading Scripture this way makes sense of passages such as Ephesians 1 and I Corinthians 1. Here Paul is addressing everyone in the congregation as though they are elect, because they are elect…unto membership in the covenant of grace. And all the other benefits that Paul mentions in the rest of Ephesians 1 (and I Cor. 1) are benefits that come from being in the covenant of grace, not from being predestined to go to Heaven.

And just to be clear here, dear Reader, remember that we have affirmed from the beginning that people are predestined to go to Heaven based purely on God’s free grace without regard to anything in the people themselves. We have said this already, and we are not taking it back here. FVers are not denying that the Bible teaches this kind of predestination to go to Heaven; they are just denying that it is what Paul is talking about in passages such as the first chapter of Ephesians (or I Corinthians). Please reflect on this deeply for a moment. The claim that this or that passage of Scripture does not refer to a particular doctrine is not a denial of that doctrine.

So, for FV advocates we end up with two kinds of election. One is “election unto glory”, or what might be called “decretal election” or “WCF-election.” This is the election spoken of in the Westminster Standards, and by all Calvinists everywhere. This is God’s sovereign and wholly gracious choice to predestine a person to go to Heaven (and to enjoy all earthly benefits that befit such a status). But we can also speak of another kind of election, what might be called “election unto the covenant of grace,” or “covenantal election.” This kind of election is taught in certain passages of Scripture, such as in Ephesians 1 where Paul addresses the entire congregation by calling them “elect.” Most Calvinists do not recognize this kind of election, but it is not contradictory to the decretal kind and so shouldn’t be a problem. (Henceforth we will always refer to one kind of election or the other.)

This also helps to illustrate something of what is “new” about the Federal Vision (t proposes speaking of a kind of election that most Reformed people are not used to talking about (though many in the Reformed tradition have done so, so it is not “new” in that sense)), but also how it manages not to be contradictory to the Confessional standards of orthodox Reformed theology (this new kind of election does not contradict the decretal election spoken of in the Reformed confessions). Opponents of FV sometimes try to force a false dilemma upon its proponents along the lines that they are either “new” and unorthodox or they are orthodox but not new, but clearly they can be both new (in some sense) and consistent with orthodoxy, as their doctrine of covenantal election demonstrates.

Now is also a good time to point out that for FV thinkers a very similar kind of reasoning can be executed regarding a whole host of other terms that we often think of as only applying to decretally elect people. In Reformed theology we are accustomed to speaking of the “ordo salutis” where the various stages of salvation are listed out for the decretally elect. These stages include things such as justification, sanctification, glorification, etc, as well as various benefits that come with them (so justification brings with it the forgiveness of sins, for instance). What FVers are saying about these “ordo salutis” terms is the same as what they say about election. Reasoning from various Scripture passages in the same way they reason from Ephesians 1:4 and I Corinthians 1:8, they want to say that just as there are two kinds of election, one to covenant membership and one to Heaven, so there are two kinds of “justification”, “sanctification”, “forgiveness of sins”, “reconciliation with God,” “salvation,” etc. Just as there is an “election to covenant membership” which is different from the “election to Heaven” that we Calvinists are used to talking about, so there is a “justification for covenant members” or a “salvation for covenant members” which are different from the “justification for Heaven-bound people” or the “salvation for Heaven-bound people” that we Calvinists are used to talking about. There is, then, a “weak justification” which all covenant members receive, as well as a “strong justification” which only the decretally elect covenant members receive. But, again, please note that asserting the former sense of these terms in no way undercuts the latter, more recognized, sense.

Now, later on Waters will try to argue that there is a problem with the way that FV advocates assert these two different senses of all these words. That they are “collapsed” together into one or the other, or that one sense ends up contradicting the other. We’ll look at these arguments when they come up, but for now we can again point out that nothing said so far indicates that this is the case. At this point, these different senses of all these words appear to be perfectly compatible. If they are not, then it will take some strong evidence from FV writers and argumentation based on that evidence to show that they are not in fact compatible or that FV writers end up “collapsing” them together.

Now Waters turns to an explication of the FV viewpoint. (Around 20m55s on the audio.) 1. He quotes John Barach and Doug Wilson as evidence that FVers think that the covenant of grace is “objective.” (20m55s to 22m40s)

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We’ve already seen above that this is the FV view, so kudos to Waters here for a fair representation. Further, Waters doesn’t criticize this aspect of the view, except to say that it will set us up for understanding the FV view on things like baptism which he discusses in his second talk. For now, then, let’s just reiterate why FV thinkers hold this view: the covenant of grace, as the basic boundary that unites all under the “weaker” kind of covenant membership experience, is a thing that is “objectively” true for all of them. There are both decretally-elect and decretally non-elect people in the covenant of grace. For both of these kinds of people, they are in fact members of the covenant of grace regardless of how they “feel” about it or how they appropriate it into their own experience. As Waters has already shown from WLC 166, the children of believers are in the covenant of grace. This would seem to be independent of how they “feel” about it, whether they believe in it, or anything else within the child himself. Given all that Waters has said so far, this should be an “objective” matter for him, too.

2. Next Waters quotes Wilkins (“all the benefits”) and Barach (“covenant isn’t a thing, it’s a relationship…”, more than a contract, etc.) as evidence that FVers think that the covenant of grace is “essentially vital.” (22m40s to 24m30s)

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Again, Waters doesn’t say a lot here as far what is wrong with this in principle. We can guess that he objects to ascribing something so strong as a “vital” (i.e., living) union with Christ to NECMs (reminder: that’s decretally Non-Elect Covenant Members…) because he prefers to say that these are only “externally” in the covenant of grace. If someone is only in the covenant externally, this doesn’t sound much like a “living” connection. But as we have already seen, people (such as FV advocates) might disagree with Waters that “internal” and “external” are the best way to speak about the different people within the covenant of grace. Logically, there is no a priori reason why we should exclude from consideration the possibility that NECMs, while not predestined to go to Heaven when they die, nonetheless experience a union with Christ during their earthly life in the covenant of grace that is very much “alive”. Such a “living” union could still fall short of the “stronger” experience of ECMs (again, that’s decretally Elect Covenant Members…) even as it is worthy of the label “living.” At the least, we’d have to discuss particular passages of Scripture and the Westminster Standards before passing judgment one way or the other. Waters offers no real reasons to be concerned with applying the word “vital” to the connection that NECMs have to Christ at this point.

3. The final element of FV thought on the covenant of grace that Waters wants to point us to is that they believe the covenant of grace to be “undifferentiated.” (24m30s to 27m05s) This is the “rub” for Waters, the place where FV advocates clearly fall off the edge. “FV proponents will not warp, will not speak in terms of the inward/outward distinction that we just set forth a moment ago. IOW, covenantal membership is going to be spoken of in one and the same sense.” (25m15-20s) He quotes Wilkins on John 15 (“all the branches are truly and vitally joined”) as explicitly refusing to distinguish between “external/internal.” He quotes Barach as well (“…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 only ‘externally’ in the covenant--just being in the ‘sphere’ of the covenant…every baptized person is truly a member of the covenant…”).

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As we have seen already, FV proponents do believe the covenant of grace to be “undifferentiated” in the sense that it is objectively possessed by all covenant members (or, more properly, all covenant members are objectively in the covenant of grace in the same way). The “mode” of being in the covenant does not change from elect to non-elect. God makes the same covenant with all who are baptized, and all who are baptized are therefore in the covenant in the same way. (Again, unless we wish to define “covenant” in an idiosyncratic way and say that the very fact that God decrees someone to be elect entails that God has put that elect person in the covenant “in a different way”. But why define “covenant” in this way?) There are definitely two very different “realities” or “experiences” or “kinds of people” within the one covenant of grace. In this sense, then, FV proponents can say that the covenant is “differentiated” along with Waters, since they like all Reformed theologians draw a distinction between the decretally elect and decretally non-elect people who are in the covenant. But this is really a differentiation among the people in the covenant, not a differentiation of the “modes” of being in the covenant.

Again we must come up for air and ask, how is this a problem for the FV writers as far as their Reformed orthodox credentials are concerned? What is the problem with this view? Waters has not offered his criticisms yet, but it is important to see before he does so what a burden he will be carrying. Nothing that has been said so far by FV advocates seems to be incompatible with Reformed theology. Recognizing this, we are armed and ready to evaluate Waters’ actual arguments against FV theology.

Now Waters turns to criticizing the FV doctrine of the covenant of grace. (27m05s – 29m25s)

Waters criticizes the FV idea of an “undifferentiated” covenant because he says it fails to do justice to the way that “outward” covenant members are in relationship to God. Certainly regenerate covenant members relate to God in a “vital” way, but not outward covenant members.

A “second problem” [second? Isn’t this the same criticism?] is a failure to distinguish membership in the covenant of grace in an “inward” and “outward” sense. We have seen that that distinction is Biblical and Confessional, Waters says,but the FV proponents don’t give us this distinction. Yes, they acknowledge elect and non-elect people, but they say that this is to be said or affirmed “acc. to the decree” but we are not to speak this way in the church. You and I think and talk to one other in terms of what is said in the covenant. This is a problem with FV folks.

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Given what we have already learned about FV theology, we see right away that his criticism doesn’t work. This is good, and is a sign that this guide is helping you, dear Reader, to make sense of these things. Let’s rehearse the problems as a confidence-building exercise.

First of all, notice that Waters is now taking “inward” and “outward” to be both the Biblically- and Confessionally-established ways of describing the different people in the covenant of grace. But we pointed out at the very beginning that this is a move Waters made without warrant when he quoted WLC 31 and WLC 166. Waters simply ‘slipped’ from the Confession’s teaching in those passages that there are both decretally elect and decretally non-elect people in the covenant to a further claim that these two groups are in the covenant “in different ways.” As we saw at the time, Waters never established this further view, he simply asserted it. We mentioned then that this ambiguity would play into his later arguments, and now we see it doing just that. For Waters now wants to fault FV proponents for not affirming a distinction which he himself has not proven to be correct. He only thinks he has proven it, because he cited WLC 31 and 166, but those portions of the Confession don’t teach that ECMs and NECMs are in the covenant in different ways; they only teach that there are indeed both decretally-elect and decretally-non-elect people in the covenant. These two claims are not the same; the “outward/inward” way of speaking which Waters faults the FV proponents for rejecting is something which Waters himself hasn’t yet established.

Also, let us keep in mind that FV proponents might very well affirm using the “inward/outward” language when talking about the people in the covenant. This might not be the language most of them would prefer, but they might use it. An FV proponent might say, for instance, that a NECM is only “outwardly” saved, or only “externally” believes in Christ. They might talk about something on the “inside” of the ECM that is not there for the NECM. But this is different than talking about being “outwardly” or “inwardly” in the covenant of grace. The covenant is an “objective” thing, participated in really and truly by all members. But those members themselves have some pretty serious differences going on “inside” of them, if we want to speak that way. (Again, there may be other ways to speak which FV people would prefer, but this way is okay as far as it goes.) A rejection of differentiation “in the covenant” is not a rejection of differentiation “among the people who are in the covenant.”

(Again, maybe this seems like an argument over semantics. But remember who it is that is trying to defrock fellow ministers over such arguments. It is not FV advocates who want to exclude from ministry those who do not define these words in just such-and-such a way.)

An argument of identical form may be advanced against Waters’ complaints about FV advocates speaking of NECMs as having a “vital” union with Christ, or a “vital” membership in the covenant. We have already seen that there is no a priori reason to think that “vital” is an inappropriate way to speak of the union that all people who are in covenant with God, even those who are not decretally elect, enjoy. Here Waters has done even less background work, though, as he didn’t provide any Confessional or Biblical passages in support of his rejection of this “vital” language. With the question of being in the covenant in different ways, he at least provided some Confessional citations which he then misinterpreted. Here he has offered nothing but assertion: saying that NECMs have a “vital” membership in the covenant of grace is inappropriate. No evidence for this claim has been offered.

Finally, there is something very peculiar about what Waters said concerning “according to the decree” vs. “in the covenant.” This will play heavily into his discussion of election in the next section of the talk. Waters faults FV thinkers for the fact that, while they acknowledge the distinction between decretally elect and decretally non-elect people in the covenant, they also say that “we are not to speak this way in the church. You and I think and talk to one other in terms of what is said in the covenant.” Waters sees a problem with this, apparently, but how is it substantively any different from claims he made during his discussion of the “judgment of charity”, in which he said that Scripture “speaks to people according to what they profess to be”? This would be most perplexing, if left to stand on its own. How is Waters not now criticizing FVers for making a very similar claim to one he made earlier? Is it only acceptable for anti-FVers to speak this way about all who profess to follow Christ, but not FVers?

II. Election (29m25s- 38m45s)

Waters now moves on from his discussion of the covenant of grace to discuss the doctrine of election more specifically. The format of discussion is the same here: he first lays out the Confessional view by quoting the Westminster Standards and then turns to the FV viewpoint.

He cites WCF chapter 3 on election. The highlights are that the Reformed doctrine of election posits a “finite and unchangeable number of people, elect from eternity…So clearly one can’t be elect then reprobate, then elect again.” So election can’t be lost. The other highlight is that election is done entirely out of God’s free grace, without regard to anything in the creature.

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This latter highlight is one of the primary things distinguishing Reformed theology from Arminianism. Many Arminians believe that God predestines from the foundation of the world, but that He does so based on some quality in the person. So God “looks down the corridors of time”, sees that Billy will believe, and elects Billy because of that belief. This is clearly anti-Reformed.

The Confession is clearly describing decretal election here. God has decreed from the foundation of the world to predestine a finite and unchangeable number of people to go to Heaven when they die. This predestined status cannot be lost by these decretally elect people; they all will indeed go to Heaven and cannot do anything else. Further, it is undeniably true that God predestined these people only out of His good grace for His own inscrutable reasons, without regard to anything in the people themselves. Everyone who is Reformed affirms this, whether FV or anti-FV.

The question is whether or not we can also speak of a “weaker” kind of election, an election unto membership in the covenant of grace. On their view everyone in the covenant has been predestined by God to be in the covenant (and we call these the covenantally elect ), and some within this covenant have also been predestined to go to Heaven when they die (and we call these the decretally elect). Two different predestinating decrees by God concerning two different groups of people being predestined to two different ends. Is it not obvious that these are not contradictory or incompatible in any way?

As “hard” Calvinists (and the Confession requires a “hard” position) concerning God’s sovereignty, we believe that God ordains everything that comes to pass. Thus, if we really wanted to, we could, in a manner of speaking, refer to all of the things God ordains as “elections.” So, God elected untold millions of dogs to live their earthly lives in U.S. territory, and He further elected my dog to be a part of my household during his earthly life. Do these two decrees somehow “contradict” each other? Of course not!

Finally, concerning the two “highlights” of decretal election mentioned by Waters above, we could also apply these to covenantal election as well. God’s decree to elect a whole bunch of people into the covenant of grace is irresistible, just like all the other of God’s sovereign decrees. If God wants Bob to be a member of the covenant of grace from 1997 to 2021, then Bob will be a member of the covenant of grace from 1997 to 2021. (We can defer discussion of the “unconditionality” of covenantal election until a bit later.)

Now Waters turns to explaining the FV view of election. “FV proponents will tell us that they accept and embrace without reservation the Confessional doctrine of election that we’ve just surveyed. They will go on to say that while the Scripture teaches that doctrine, the Scripture prefers to speak in another way of election. It speaks of an election not predominantly according to the decree, but according to the covenant. And so FV proponents offer us what is called a doctrine of covenantal election.”

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Kudos to Waters for getting this right. This is indeed what FV proponents say, as we have seen. The questions are, why does Waters think this is incorrect, and even further why does he think it is outside the bounds of Reformed orthodoxy? Let’s see what he says.

He quotes Lusk (“we must look at special/individual election through the eyes of general/corporate election”, “Paul is treating the generally or corporately elect, as specially elect, until or unless they prove otherwise,” “corporate election is the context in which special election is worked out,” “there is an election within an election, but for pastoral purposes the two can and must be collapsed into one another,” etc.). This underlined quote is key for Waters. (also quotes, “In theory, we recognize that there is election acc. to the decree and election acc. to the covenant, but in practice the two are one and the same” [On the audio it is unclear whether Waters is quoting Lusk here, or giving his own summation of Lusk’s position]) What does this mean? FVers say we can move from a state of election, to reprobation, to election again. Quotes Barach (Israel was God’s people, later wasn’t his people, later is promised to be chosen again, etc.)

So, this doctrine of covenantal election is conditional in nature. It’s through obedience or disobedience that you move from election to reprobation (or vice versa).

The reason covenantal election is so objectionable is because it is “indistinguishable” from how Arminians would speak of it. Yes, there’s an acknowledgment of the existence of decretal election in FV teachings, but there is no place for it, no discussion of it along the lines of [the discussion they give to] covenantal election. So this makes covenantal election, on this point, semi-Arminian or Arminian.

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There are many problems with this argument. First of all, as we pointed out at the end of the previous section, Waters himself explains the “judgment of charity” as a principle laid down by Scripture whereby we are supposed to “speak to people according to what they profess to be.” Now Lusk says that as a matter of “pastoral practice,” we must view decretal election through the eyes of covenantal election. We do not know who in our congregation is decretally elect or not, but we do know who is covenantally elect. So we simply speak to all who are covenantally elect as though they are the elect of God. Since the Church is the ordinary means of salvation, as the Confession clearly says, it makes sense that we should encourage all who are members of the covenant of grace as though they are also decretally elect, until they give us reason to think otherwise. Isn’t this exactly what Waters has advocated as the “judgment of charity”? It is truly bizarre the way he tries to fault Lusk and Barach here. Lusk does not say that the two kinds of election collapse into one another, full stop. He says that they do so “in practice”, “pastorally”, etc. That is an important qualification, yet Waters treats it as damning evidence. And all the while claiming himself that it is legitimate to “speak to people according to what they profess to be” because we don’t have windows into men’s hearts. Lusk and Barach are saying essentially the same thing, though not in connection with interpreting passages like Ephesians 1 or I Corinthians 1 (these were the passages that led Waters to present “the judgement of charity”). Waters’ argument here is a non-starter.

Second of all, there are two different ways to read Waters’ argument that the FV view of covenantal election is indistinguishable from the Arminian view of election, and neither are workable arguments. Given that FV proponents clearly claim to believe in both decretal and covenantal election, Waters’ argument is either that:

A. FVers go wrong simply for positing a covenantal election, because this kind of election is similar to Arminian election, or

B. FVers go wrong because, even though they say they believe in both kinds of election, they really don’t. The only election they really believe in is the covenantal kind, and if all you believe in is a covenantal election, then you are basically an Arminian.

In (A), Waters is simply saying that anyone who holds to covenantal election is non-Reformed, even if they hold to decretal election as well. The alleged similarity between covenantal election and “Arminian” election is enough to make covenantal election a non-Reformed doctrine, even though it is consistent with decretal election. Taking his words at face value, this seems to be what Waters is arguing; notice that he says gives us “the reason covenantal election is so objectionable.” It sounds, in other words, like Waters is criticizing covenantal election per se. It’s hard to imagine that this is what Waters is arguing, though, since it would obviously be absurd. Given that the two kinds of election are compatible (as we’ve seen already), what does it matter if the one kind of election looks a lot like Armininan views of election? Arminians deny decretal election altogether (i.e., they deny that there are any people who have been predestined by God, out of pure grace and based on nothing within themselves, to go to Heaven when they die). That’s the problem with the Arminian view of election from a Reformed perspective, and FV advocates don’t share this Arminian view. The fact that one kind of election which FVers believe in is “conditional” (and see below for more disucssion of what this means) doesn’t mean that the FV doctrine of election is Arminian. The FV “doctrine of election” is a doctrine of two kinds of election, covenantal and decretal. The decretal is the standard Calvinistic kind of election, while the covenantal is an election into the covenant of grace (which does not guarantee you go to Heaven, and can in fact be lost through unbelief). This is not Arminianism in any way, shape, or form, and saying that it is “indistinguishable” from Arminianism is absurd.

So perhaps Waters is arguing (B) since it would be absurd for him to argue (A). But he offers no argument that FVers in fact only believe in a covenantal election. We have already looked at his argument that they “collapse” the two elections together, but as we saw they are clear to say that this collapse only occurs for the sake of “pastoral practice.” In practice, we cannot see who is elect and who is not; we can only see who is in the covenant of grace and who is not. Waters and other critics of FV want to say that we therefore must make a “judgment of charity,” speaking of everyone in the covenant as though they are decretally elect even though we know they aren’t. The FV wants to say that we speak to everyone in the covenant of grace as though they are covenantally elect, because they really are elect in that sense. If Waters honestly wants to press his argument that FV proponents collapse the two kinds of election so that all that really exists is covenantal election, then he would have to apply the same reasoning to himself. Waters has offered no argument that the FV position here is doing anything inappropriate or out-of-accord with Reformed orthodoxy.

Third of all, Waters claims that FV proponents do not have any “place” in their system for decretal election, despite their claims to believe in it. They do not, as he says, give it the same kind of discussion that they give to covenantal election. We might suggest that perhaps this is due to the fact that their belief in covenantal election is the more controversial, so we should expect them to spend more time discussing it than the decretal election which all Reformed people already affirm. We might also suggest that this is just a bad way to argue, in principle: because your system of thought does not explicitly derive a certain doctrine, you must not believe that doctrine. This is a bad way to argue because perhaps the doctrine in question is simply one of the “axioms” of the “system of thought.” Perhaps FV thinkers take decretal election for granted to such an extent that it does not even seem worthy of being “proven” or “derived.” Perhaps they do not spend much time discussing the ins and outs of decretal election because the doctrine is already so central for them.

What if we were to accuse Waters of not talking enough about this or that doctrine? Perhaps his insistence on the imputation of the active obedience of Christ “seems to undermine” his belief in the importance of the Cross. At the very least, we might say, the Cross has no “place” in his system, even if he does believe it. This is not a proper way to argue, period.

Finally, Waters seems particularly bothered by the idea that a person could be elect, then reprobate, then elect again, even if it is only a covenantal election that we are talking about. But what is the problem here? Perhaps the hang-up is that when we think about decretal election, we rightly recognize that a person cannot go from being decretally elect to decretally reprobate. This is because it is part of decretal election that God has decreed this person to persevere and go to Heaven. In other words, decretal election includes within its decree the final end of the person. But this is a difference between the two types of election, as covenantal election includes no decree of the person’s final end. The decree involved in covenantal election only decrees that a person be in the covenant for some amount of time. Such a person might end up going to two very different final ends. Which of these final ends a person experiences depends on something besides the decree of their covenantal election, and so we can say in this sense that covenantal election is “conditional.” But this is not true of decretal election, which includes a decree concerning the person’s final end.

Further, it isn’t really right to say that a person can move from being covenantally elect to being covenantally reprobate. Since covenantal election simply means that a person is predestined to be in the covenant for a time, falling out of the covenant doesn’t spoil this. A person who has fallen away from the covenant is still covenantally elect, since he was in the covenant for a time. He is also covenantally reprobate, if by this we mean that he was predestined to be out of the covenant for a time. But since final ends are not in view here, there is nothing even ostensibly wrong with saying that a person can be both covenantally elect and covenantally reprobate. In fact, all decretally non-elect covenant members will be like this. What’s the problem?

Waters further criticizes Barach’s attempt to show a parallel between Old Testament and New Testament usages of “election.” He says that, while the Bible does speak of Israel as being “elect” in the Old Testament, we would say it is not in the sense that Barach is speaking of. In the New Testament, Barach uses a doubtful interpretation of a single verse, which is not enough to ground a doctrine. All Barach has shown is that the OT people of God are the same as the NT people of God; he has not show than OT election is the same as NT election.

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First, Barach’s argument was built on far more than “a doubtful interpretation of a single verse.” Nobody can fairly expect Waters to quote Barach’s full writings on this during a live lecture, but he has to do more than simply claim that Barach bases his argument on “a single verse,” as though what Waters took the time to quote exhausts Barach’s argumentation.

Second, even if Barach’s arguments from Scripture are wrong, how does any of this amount to a disagreement over Reformed orthodoxy? Consider:

A. Barach thinks that there are places where the NT speaks of a covenantal election, just as the OT often speaks of a covenantal election. Waters wants to say that he misreads these passages. Okay, for the sake of argument let’s grant Waters’ claim here. But how does Barach’s belief in a “covenantal election” amount to a denial of Biblical or confessional doctrine? We’ve already seen that covenantal election and decretal election are not incompatible, Waters’ shaky arguments notwithstanding.

B. In any case, though, can’t Barach’s basic point be derived from the good ol’ “good and necessary consequence?” We’ve already seen that the Confession teaches that there is a covenant of grace which includes both decretally elect and decretally non-elect people. Waters agrees with this much. Further, we know that, Biblically-speaking, at least in the Old Testament the ideas of being “in covenant” with God and of being "elect" are strongly connected. (And the Old Testament is Scripture, after all, and we Calvinists do tend to emphasize continuity between the covenants, even in the absence of any particular New Testament prooftexts.) Finally, we know as Calvinists that God ordains everything that comes to pass. So, is it not a perfectly legitimate inference, drawn by good and necessary consequence, to say that God ordains (i.e. “elects”) people into the covenant of grace. Whether the New Testament ever explicitly uses “elect” in a covenantal sense or not, we know the word has a legitimate covenantal usage in the Old Testament. Further, we could use “elect” however we wanted so long as we are clear that we aren’t using it in the traditional Confessional way. Words evolve all the time. Since God ordains everything, and there is a covenant of grace with certain people in it, then God must have ordained who is in the covenant of grace. Why not call this a “covenantal election?” Even if you are wary of using the word “election” here, what is the “big deal” as far as Reformed orthodoxy is concerned? Waters offers no answers here; in fact it isn’t clear that this line of argument has even occurred to him, which is a sure sign that he still isn’t properly representing the position and arguments of FV proponents.

III. Assurance (38m45s-51m30s)

Waters now transitions into the final part of his talk, on the subject of assurance. The Confession teaches that we can have assurance that we are decretally elect. How? There is a threefold foundation of assurance in the Confession, according to Waters. First, there is faith in God’s promises. Second, there is the Spirit enabling people to discern in themselves certain “graces” that accompany decretal election. Finally, the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are a child of God.

The key here, according to Waters, is that the we can have an “indispensably inward dimension to gaining [assurance].” (41m10s) This assurance is also infallible, but not “of the essence of faith.” (In other words, it is not necessary to have this assurance in order to be saved.)

(43m00s-51m30s)

“The FV will often criticize what it sees to be the practice of assurance in the Reformed church today.” This is a two-fold criticism: one, assurance can lead to presumption (I’m elect, so I can do whatever I want); two, the common Reformed practice of assurance can lead to despair and self-doubt (nobody can ever get there; morbid introspectionism; etc.)

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This is a fair description of the FV position, so again kudos to Waters for that.

Waters says that these are important and real concerns for Reformed pastors, and that any good theology must deal adequately with these concerns. However, the FV position is problematic and a source of concern in its own right.

Waters quotes Wilkins (“in regard to our assurance we are pointed away from ourselves, and pointed to Christ the only ground of our assurance”, etc.) as saying that (a) assurance is grounded in water baptism, and that (b) assurance is not grounded in self-examination. If you are going to know that you are a true child of God, look to your election, to your covenantal membership, and look to your baptism.

The error here, acc. to Waters, is that Wilkins denies that we can look “to ourselves” to find assurance. There is a legitimate usage of “inward” means of assurance which Wilkins (presumably along with other FV proponents) neglects.

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The Confession does not define “inward graces” as “things that exist only in your heart, and which can only be seen by looking at your heart apart from the outward fruits of life that your heart produces.” That is an assumption that Waters is loading into the Confession’s words at this point.

Part of the problem here is that Waters is not critiquing Wilkins’ most recent revisions and clarifications of his position. We mentioned much earlier that it is okay to criticize someone for being unclear, but that you must then allow them to revise and qualify their views. It would be a shame if someone was to be judged poorly forever simply because he was unclear at one time (that is, granting that he really was unclear at the earlier time, which is not necessarily something Wilkins has to grant). It is unfortunate, then, that Waters does not make any mention of Wilkins’ recent written answers to his presbytery (the Louisiana Presbytery), in which he very carefully qualifies and elucidates his earlier comments on assurance.

"1. Do you believe that your teaching on assurance contradicts WCF 18-2? If so, how?

No, I do not believe my teaching contradicts WCF 18.2. In the quote from my article in The Federal Vision (p. 67; note 15 on p. 69), I am not denying the possibility of assurance or “infallible assurance” to which the Confession alludes. Rather, I am trying to show the appropriate grounds of such assurance and the appropriate way to attain it. We do not attain assurance by trying to discern the sincerity of our faith or repentance through introspection of our hearts and examination of our motives, affections, or feelings. Our hearts are deceitful and, thus, our assurance cannot be grounded upon what we feel or think we discern in the recesses of our souls. Our assurance is founded on Christ Himself and His work and the promises of God revealed in the Scriptures as well as the visible fruit of the Spirit’s work in our lives.

Note how the Confession teaches that one obtains “infallible” assurance (WCF 18.1). Certain assurance can be obtained only by those who “truly believe” [i.e., have saving faith, WCF 14] and sincere love for the Lord Jesus, and who endeavor “to walk in all good conscience before him” [i.e., who repent, believe, and obey] — these may be assured that they are in a “state of grace” and rejoice in the hope of God’s glory. Thus, assurance is grounded upon: believing the promises of God; the “inward evidence” of those graces (which is always manifested outwardly and according to the textual proofs include obedience to God’s commandments; love of the brethren; honest conduct; and godliness); and the witness of the Spirit (Who confirms our faith through the fruit of holiness He produces in our lives)…..

The promises of God are also sealed and confirmed by the sacraments (WCF 27.1 they serve “to confirm our interest in Christ”). Baptism means that I have been joined to Christ covenantally, united to His body by the Spirit (I Cor. 12); it means that I have put on Christ Jesus (Gal. 3). All the promises of God are delivered to me and are properly and truly mine. There is no reason to doubt these promises if I am clinging to Christ by faith. The very fact that baptism is a “sign” and a “seal” confirms my standing and I am to rejoice in the grace of God given to me in Christ Jesus. Assurance must not be sought apart from the ordained signs and seals of God’s mercy and grace."

So, Wilkins does not deny that there are legitimate “inward” sources of assurance of one’s decretal election. But he also wants to argue that “inward” doesn’t mean here that one is looking to something within oneself which has no outward expression. Inward graces are not only inward. The “real faith” we are looking for, the “real repentance,” etc., are things that will be manifest in our lives. We may call saving faith an “inward” reality, but it is also an outward reality, and the Spirit points us outward to see the fruits of this saving faith. So Wilkins affirms that we can have an infallible assurance that we are decretally elect, and that this infallible assurance is found through the Holy Spirit’s confirming with us that we possess certain “internal” graces. What he denies is that these “internal” graces are only internal, so that the only way to see them is to somehow look into your heart independently of the fruits it produces. Again, this is not what the Confession says, and Waters is doing eisegesis at this point.

In addition to this infallible assurance spoken of in WCF chapter 18, Wilkins also wants to put forth other external or “objective” sources of assurance, such as our covenantal election and the sacraments. But this doesn’t mean that Wilkins is “grounding” assurance in baptism, only that it is a means of assurance. The only ground of assurance is Christ himself, which Wilkins says explicitly in the quote that Waters reads during the lecture. (This was one of the most egregious misrepresentations of the entire conference.)

There is nothing wrong with pointing to our covenantal election as a means of assurance for our decretal election. As Calvin said, Christ is the mirror of our election, and the way to see our own election is to look constantly to Him. But Calvin meant by this that we must look to Christ where He has promised to be found, which is in the Church through the Word and sacraments . Our presence in the covenant of grace and our participation in its “objective” practices like baptism and the Lord’s Supper are therefore mirrors in which we may look to Christ to see our own decretal election. Because we have all these things, because we are in the covenant of grace, we know that God has promised to save us. This is most assuring. (The first Reformed theologian who enabled me to see this sacramental connection to assurance was Michael Horton. Many thanks to him!)

Both Waters and Wilkins believe that there are means of assurance, by which the Spirit enables us to see that we are truly connected to Christ. The disagreement is over what these means are. Wilkins (in his more recent and revised statements) clearly affirms both the “inward” means spoken of in WCF 18, though he also wants to insist that these “inward” realities have external manifestations, as well as the purely “outward” means of baptism, covenant membership, etc.

Waters seems to be making two claims in response to Wilkins’ view. 1. He denies that things like baptism and covenantal membership can be sources of assurance at all (thus, he says that “baptism can assure no one of salvation;” more on that argument anon.) 2. He presents Wilkins as denying any internal means of assurance at all, but we have now seen that this is a misrepresentation.

As to (1), let’s look at Waters’ argument.

Waters says that “baptism can assure no one of salvation.” (49m00s – 50m30s) Waters says this because there is nothing in baptism that sets one person apart from another. Think of the people like (Ishmael or) Simon Magus in the Scriptures who are (circumcized or) baptized but who cannot thereby have assurance of their decretal election. Simon “could not be assured of what he didn’t have.” Further, “self-examination, as the Bible teaches, as our Standards rightly say, is a way to reach assurance. That is, by a Spirit-enabled self-examination, I can find out if I have the true marks of a child of God or if I don’t. I can compare myself not against myself but against the Bible and its teaching and learn who I am. But you see baptism can’t do that.”

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This argument simply begs the question by assuming the very thing Waters needs to prove. Granting that looking to one's baptism is not the same thing as "comparing ourself against the Bible’s teachings," who says that the latter is the only way to be assured? (Certainly not the Confession, nor the very Bible whose teachings we are supposed to compare ourselves against!) If God has promised to save all who are baptized who cling to their baptism in faith, then this can be assuring can it not? When a person comes to their pastor worried that they are a decretal reprobate, having examined themselves and come up empty (there are certain kinds of consciences which can never satisfy themselves), suppose their pastor tells them something like the following:

“You have the promises of God because you have been elected into the covenant, you have been set apart from the world through baptism, you have sat under the ministry of the Word, and you have partaken with the rest of the covenant community in the Lord’s Supper. These things are all “out there”, “objectively” undeniable. And these things are always accompanied by the promises of God. God told you at your baptism that He would save you, sinner, so believe that He can do what He says He can do. The only way to “lose” this promise (i.e., the only way to show yourself to be decretally reprobate) is to not believe, to stop clinging to the promises by faith. Are you planning on doing that any time soon? Or is there some scandalous sin for which you remain unrepentant? Are you running off to secret Klan rallies that I don’t know about? No? Then rejoice and be relieved: God has promised to save you and He will.”

This is what it means to find assurance in one’s baptism. To recognize that Christ has promised to be with His people when they make use of the means of grace He has established. These means are “objective” (the preaching of the Word, the sacraments), you are “under” them or you are not. If you are under them, then Christ has promised to be with you. If this promise doesn’t come to fruition, it’s because you didn’t believe. (And, of course, whether you believe or don’t believe is a part of God’s decretal election.) So believe, dangit!

Some might worry that this is not “real” assurance, because the person can’t know that they will always believe. Maybe I’ll lose my faith twenty years from now, how can I know? Thus this seems like “Arminian” assurance, where you can only know that you are presently under the grace of God but you cannot know that you will always be so. It’s okay to draw an analogy with Arminian assurance here, so long as we also add a couple further responses:

1. If a person is unable to find assurance through the means of self-examination described by the Confession (and the Confession only says that this sort of assurance is possible; it does not say that everyone will have it), then this might be the best kind of assurance we can hope for. It’s not the only kind of assurance that FV advocates are promoting. (Again, unless one simply refuses to read FV advocates in their more clear and qualified statements.)

2. This is no shabby assurance, anyway. Even under the typical Calvinist view of assurance, there are many people who worry that they are not really elect, that all their previous experience in the Christian faith was just self-deception (after all, the heart is wicked in all things, and if I am still an unregenerate depraved sinner who is decretally non-elect then I shouldn’t be surprised if my heart deceives me into thinking I am regenerate and living a vibrant Christian life…). Believing that you are indeed connected to Christ in some sense now can provide a wonderful foundation of assurance for such a person. If I am connected now, then why not think that I will continue to be? As opposed to the more traditional Calvinist view, which is that you either always are connected to Christ (after regeneration) or you never are, being able to “hang my hat” on a connection now can be comforting.

There is no “magic bullet” for looking at assurance so that every single kind of personality will be assured. Every theology has its strengths and its pitfalls. The FV is about holding to the traditional Calvinist doctrine of election (which is assuring to a certain kind of person), and also supplements this by finding another source of assurance in the objective covenantal promises of God (which is assuring to another kind of person). Since the two forms of election, and hence assurance, are not incompatible with one another, this shouldn’t be a problem.

When the lecture was over, I submitted two questions for the Q and A period.

Question 1: Dr. Waters, you yourself say that the “judgment of charity” means that we are to speak to people “according to their profession” (and to their life which seems in conformity with that profession.” Isn’t this a “practical, pastoral” perspective that treats all covenant members like they are elect unto Heaven? But then you criticize Lusk and others for saying that “practically” they collapse covenantal election and decretal election into one and the same thing. But that qualifier—“practically”—is important, and it doesn’t seem you are being fair to Lusk here.

Question 2: Isn’t there a distinction between saying that “different people are in the covenant in different ways (i.e.—internally or externally)” and saying that “everyone in the covenant is in the covenant in the same way, but the Spirit unites these people to Christ differently?” In other words, FVers acknowledge a “qualitative” difference between elect and non-elect covenant members. Non-elect covenant members never really “get it” in the way the elect do; The Spirit doesn’t do the same work in the hearts of the non-elect covenant members as He does in elect covenant members; etc. But, these two kinds of people—while different—are both “in the same covenant.” The covenant is the same—the kinds of people in the covenant are different. In other words, the covenant is the same for elect and non-elect covenant members, but the blessings received by each from the covenant are different.

So much, then, for Waters’ first lecture. We will continue through the rest, but much less should need to be said now that we have laid the foundation.