Let’s Stop Monkeying with the Creeds!

The American Presbyterian churches have a long history of confessional revision. Most modified the WCF chapter on the civil magistrate after the American Revolution in order to remove Erastian elements that were deemed incompatible with the emerging separation of church and state in the American context. Then over the years various major and minor changes were introduced by the mainline Presbyterian churches.

The story has been pretty much the same in some of the smaller Presbyterian bodies. Take my own church (the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, the confessional history of which I have treated here) as an example. After the initial revisions regarding the civil magistrate in 1799, the confessional standards of the church remained essentially unchanged for a century and a half. Then in the mid-20^th century the ARPC began to introduce significant modifications. In 1959 it added two chapters (“Of the Gospel,” and “Of the Holy Spirit”), which had earlier been added to the WCF by the PCUSA (in 1903) and the PCUS (in 1942). Another consistent theme during this period was the progressive removal of language deemed offensive to Roman Catholics, including the infamous reference in chap. 25 to the Pope as the “antichrist” and “son of perdition.” Even the reference in WCF chap. 24 to the laws of affinity in marriage was changed, such that a man now may marry his deceased wife’s sister!

Of course, what has emerged from this extended revision process is something rather different from the historical document known as the “Westminster Confession of Faith” of 1647. An alternative approach was taken by the Baptists, who had the good sense to rename their versions of the document—here I’m speaking of the Second London Confession of 1677 and the Philadelphia Confession of 1742, both of which were based on the Westminster but incorporate Baptist distinctives.

Because the Westminster Standards address so many theological and praxis issues, the list of friction points and hence potential changes is extensive. An example of this is the Larger Catechism’s extensive explanation of the Fifth Commandment in terms of one’s responsibilities to superiors, inferiors, and equals (WLC, QQ. 123-133). This language meant certain things in the context of the British class system of the seventeenth century, and it does not translate easily or without remainder into our own much more egalitarian cultural context. The usual approach to such problems has been twofold. First, the church has engaged in what I have elsewhere called “implicit revision,” in which the confessional language is quietly and tacitly reinterpreted. Second, in instances where the letter of the confessional documents grates too much on contemporary sensibilities the church engages in explicit and formal revision processes, either though textual changes or declaratory statements.

To be sure, the impulse for formal confessional revisions stems from the laudable conviction that people should mean what they affirm, and from the sense that confessional documents should function as subordinate standards or rules of faith. But there is a problem here. While some today believe that the answer to doctrinal declension is “confessionalism,” the overwhelming lesson of history is that confessions do not effectively enforce orthodoxy. Rather, they express and help to codify a doctrinal sensibility that already exists and they serve as an important educational resource in passing that doctrinal consensus along to the next generation. In other words, confessions are wonderful things, but “confessionalism” is a problem. In fact, “confessionalism” in this sense of heteronomous authority is a theological cul-de-sac, and an irony here is that some today view the Westminster Confession as authoritative ways that stand in tension with the Confession itself: “All synods or councils since the apostles’ time, whether general or particular, may err, and many have erred; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice [emphasis added], but to be used as an help in both” (WCF 31.4). Perhaps some of the stouter “confessionalists” among us should seek to revise WCF 31.4 before they proceed further with their programme.

A somewhat different set of questions emerges in connection with the use of the Apostles’ Creed. After the early development of this western creed out of the ancient Roman church’s regula fidei, or “rule of faith, the text has in large measure stood the test of time. Two elements of the Creed have, however, proven to be problematic for some conservative Presbyterians—the phrases “he descended into hell” and “holy Catholic Church.” The latter issue is easier. The substitution of words like “universal” for “Catholic” may be something less than felicitous but it does not substantially change the meaning. This alteration may appeal to those who would rather capitulate to naïve anti-Catholicism than instruct it, but I personally don’t think it is a good idea to concede a perfectly good and useful theological term to Rome. The Reformers agreed, and firmly maintained that their churches possessed the mark of catholicity.

The affirmation of Christ’s descent into hell is more complicated. The scriptural basis for the notion of a literal visit to hell is open to question (passages such as Luke 23:43 and 1 Peter 3:18-20 are often cited in support of it). As those who have studied the issue know, the clause in question is a somewhat later addition to the Creed. Moreover, the statement has been subject to various interpretations. In the early and medieval church the notion was closely connected with the “harrowing of hell,” as Christ was thought to have paid a triumphant visit to hell in order to release souls held in bondage by the devil. The traditional Roman Catholic view holds that the “descent into hell” is a descent into limbus patrum, the place of the dead where Old Testament saints were awaiting the conclusion of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross. The Westminster Confession and Catechisms interpret it as a matter of “continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day” (LC, Q. 50). Calvin and the Heidelberg Catechism interpret it as a metaphor for the spiritual sufferings of the passion (see Calvin, Institutes, II.16.8-12; HC Q. 44). The Lutheran Church has historically held that Christ went to hell in order to complete and seal his conquest of the devil (see Tappert, Book of Concord, 492). All this leads to an understandable measure of uncertainty regarding what is actually being confessed.

Because of these issues, it is not uncommon for conservative Presbyterian churches, particularly in the American South, to omit the descent into hell. Apparently this is not a recent development. A former student recently alerted me (thanks Scott Cook) to some correspondence by J. Gresham Machen during the First World War in which the Old Princetonian complained about the omission of the descent into hell as a “mutilation of the creed.”

Again, however, there are problems. This omission is inevitably going to be jarring to many in the congregation (I, for one, find it mildly annoying). Moreover, simply to omit the descent into hell is to miss a rich teaching opportunity to discuss (as the history of interpretation shows) the multi-faceted redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross. In addition, the decision of individual pastors or sessions to omit the statement raises the question of ecclesiastical authority in a fundamental way. If we really believe in the connectional principle, as opposed to the “every tub on its own bottom” ecclesiology of American baptistic Evangelicalism, does a particular church (small “c”) have the right to change the Creed of the Church?

At this point we must recall that creeds and confessions are non-inspired, human, fallible historical documents, and that they belong to the church. The practical implications of all this are important. First, these documents must be interpreted in terms of their original historical context, the history of interpretation, and their meaning for today. Moreover, such interpretation is not only inevitable but desirable and necessary. It is precisely the task of the church to determine what these confessional documents mean for us today. When such documents cease to be interpreted they cease to be living and vital influences in the life of the church. One great problem today is that much discussion of creeds and confessions sounds more like exercises in historical preservation than real application to the contemporary ministry needs of the church of the truths of Scripture enshrined in the confessions. Finally, we should not expect such historically conditioned and fallible documents to correspond with complete and pedantic precision to what the church believes at a particular time. A certain amount of slippage is inevitable, but that difference need not and should not be invidious and subversive of the doctrinal integrity of the church.

Here some basic common sense is needful. One factor that has historically made this hermeneutical approach to creeds and confessions work pretty well is the recognition that there are first-order doctrines in which general agreement is essential, second-order beliefs where discussion in the broader Christian community is inevitable but where agreement within particular communions is often needed, and third-order or tertiary beliefs where there is considerable room for diversity. Or, to use Calvin’s helpful terminology as ably explicated in PCA minister David Bowen’s Vanderbilt dissertation, there are things “essential,” “important,” and “indifferent.” We rightly and even instinctively prioritize these different levels of belief, and our approach to the role of confessions in the life of the church should take this into account (in fact, “system subscription” in Presbyterian circles was a way of dealing with this interpretive dynamic).

A significant problem today for confessional appropriation is the fact that some in the conservative Reformed community seem to think that nearly everything in the Confession (at least the things they happen to be particularly exercised about) is a first-order matter. We rightly sense that the great truths of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement are first order matters, and that the Standards of the Church give us enormous help as we read Scripture on these matters. On the other hand, we should realize that confessional debates over tertiary matters such as whether a man can marry his dead wife’s sister are probably not a particularly good use of the church’s time, especially as the Confession’s original statement on this is, in the words of the Confession itself, “not to be made the rule of faith or practice.”

As an historical theologian I am inclined to think that the historicality of creeds and confessions should be respected wherever possible. For example, while I don’t think it is particularly helpful to refer to the current Pope Francis I as the “antichrist” and “son of perdition,” I do think it is useful to be reminded why such apocalyptic language was meaningful to our forbears in the Reformation period. The alternative, it seems to me, is a never-ending series of confessional tweakings and modifications, most of which do not amount to much, and some of which subvert the theological coherence of the documents. Moreover, such tinkerings in the interests of the tyranny of the present also often rob these documents of their historical character and charm.

In short, let’s stop monkeying with the creeds!

Guest Post: The Package Deal

[Editor’s Note: This post was written by my good friend and seminary professor Dr. Clair Davis. In it he offers some well-informed and insightful reflections on the unity of salvation in Christ, and on the difficulties we in the conservative Reformed world have encountered as we have sought to understand and express this great truth.]

I think about the grace of God in Jesus Christ as a package. We get so much from Jesus right from the beginning, all together. Why is that so hard to grasp? Mostly because we’re used to thinking about our sanctification as a kind of response to God’s grace in justification. But how do the two relate? No doubt church history gets me confused—it’s easy to think that the job of the theologian is to fix the bad answers that have been given so far. But what if they all answer questions that God and his word never ask? (I get reminded of that all the time because I give a lot of tests, and I always get a bunch of brilliant answers, whose only fault is that they have nothing to do with the questions I asked). What if we need to start over, thinking not about how they relate, but instead about package?

That basic package is justification and sanctification, forgiveness and life-change. One of my favorite hi-tech theology words is extraspective, the way I look only to Jesus Christ, not at all taking a sideways glance at how I’m looking. The background for thinking that way is the late Middle Ages, the time of Nominalism. That meant something like this: the big thing is the Will, God’s and yours too, so cause-and-effect is an illusion, we just think that if something comes before something else, it must be its cause. (Ever learn post hoc, ergo propter hoc? I taught logic for a living once). Cause-and-effect sounded impersonal, automatic, really leaving God and his love out. So those philosophers back then said, it’s not about some mechanical cause, but about God’s will, the way he decides things. (They were so close to being right. Why does God love you, do you think? Watch out! All the bad answers have Pharisee written all over them: I bet God picked me because even though I’m a sinner I’m still nicer than most. The only right answer is: God loves you because he loves you). But they didn’t go that far. The best they could do was: because you’re trying harder than anyone else, God might give you extra credit that you don’t deserve, because he feels like it—so maybe, who knows, could he decide to give you Heaven instead of Hell since you’re the pick of the litter)?

That came over like this: perhaps if you really try harder, you may get enough bonus points to be safe. Jesus was in there somewhere, but the focus was on you and how hard you worked at your salvation. No wonder that our Reformation fathers and mothers liked extraspective so much, since everyone else looked at themselves way too much, and they were determined to look only to Jesus. Lutherans specialized in that, better than anyone else. Reformed people believed it, but also kept checking out their hearts and lives, always desiring more Christ-likeness. See what the Westminster Confession says about our assurance of salvation. The beginning is encouraging, what an amazing gift the Lord gives us, to know that we belong to him and he to us. But then out of nowhere come those ‘sudden and vehement temptations.’ Take me, when I’m preaching away with my heart set on Jesus and his glory—but then I spot all those folks leaning forward in their chairs looking up at me. My focus on Jesus gets dulled by noticing that my sermon is working. It’s one thing when ordinary people aren’t extraspective, but when the preacher isn’t—now that’s terrible. I could tell you of more ordinary ‘sudden and vehement’ ones I have, but the preacher one is the worst. So of course then God ‘withdraws the light of his countenance’: I’m telling people to glorify God but I’m really happy that they’re glorifying me—what in the world must the Lord be thinking of me? The Confession goes on to describe what a life like that is really like, and concludes on the note that at least it’s not characterized by ‘utter despair.’ To me that doesn’t sound like much of a climax. Doesn’t the Confession really need another paragraph, beginning with ‘Nevertheless?’ Now there you can see what Reformed looks like, and that it’s not as simple as Lutheran. But isn’t that a true picture of life, after all? Just when we think that our joy in Jesus is so gripping, isn’t it then that our daydreams are so putrid?

In the seminary world of ‘biblical theology’ where we work to trace God’s story through the Bible, we talk about the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet.’ Christ is risen, but why doesn’t he hurry up and come back for us? My heart is truly changed—but not all the time. A real already, but still a bunch of not yet. Sometimes are we inclined to remember the last thing we hear? So already/not yet isn’t quite right, should it be already/not yet/but still already? I had many fulfilling years with Jack Miller, the one who was so excited about ‘sonship,’ the reality of adoption into God’s family. There he was, working hard with his Greek New Testament, and discovered that Jesus’s promise that he would not leave us ‘desolate,’ was literally that he wouldn’t leave us ‘orphans.’ Jack picked that up and ran with it. I think he was doing my ‘nevertheless.’ When we fall away from Jesus, the thing to do is run back to him, you’re his child after all. God’s grace, God’s love is in God’s heart, and you should run to him, of course with repentance but definitely with faith in his forgiving love.

It seems to me that beats being reminded that at least your despair isn’t ‘utter.’ But we live in a time when obeying God has a low priority, when it seems stultifying, when the love of Jesus is much more appealing than his call to suffer with him. So I almost understand how many are sure Jack and others like him and me are ‘grace-boys,’ modern lingo for antinomian, not giving God’s law any attention. I myself never heard anything from Jack that suggested we not take our sin seriously—rather, the reason grace was so amazing was just that God gave it to sinners. I think his direction was similar to Berkouwer’s Sin book on ‘the knowledge of sin through the gospel.’ That goes something like this: since the remedy is great, the disease must be too. My friend who owned the field pipe store and I were talking this over once. Imagine going into his place saying you had a drainage problem. Then he suggests pipe about three inches wide, but you put your arms out as wide as you could, to show how big was the pipe you needed—so he got it, ‘you do have a drainage problem.’ Grace-boys are big sin-boys too, it seems to me. I don’t see how you can take a really hard look at your sin except as your heart is bathed in grace.

But putting together justification and sanctification, forgiveness and change, has always been hard, maybe because of that medieval background. Gratitude to God is wonderful, but somehow it can come out like this: Jesus did justification, now it’s up to me to do my sanctification. That’s why it was hard to get God’s grace in there. Then I remember that time in John Murray’s theology class. Mr. Murray could be very emotional, at the very most when he yelled at us that the idea of a regenerate unbeliever was ‘a theological monstrosity!!!’ I think about that a lot. That old ordo salutis, the ‘way of salvation,’ going from calling, regeneration, faith etc. through to union with Christ, wasn’t supposed to be about movement in time and experience, but it surely got understood that way. Murray was telling us how ridiculous it was to think that while God had changed your heart you still weren’t a believer. ‘Logical or causal sequence’ he said, not experiential. I’ve been thinking about that. I know there’s something wrong with believing sanctification comes after justification, as a kind of response to it. No, it’s right there at the beginning, side-by-side with justification. It goes on through your whole life, that as you trust in Jesus he changes your heart. (I’m used to the idea that justification is once for all—but if we keep on repenting and being forgiven, isn’t that a life-long thing too?). It has to be right to do a lot with all those therefore’s in the Bible, since Jesus has died for you, of course you live for him. But that’s not at all saying, now it’s up to you, all by yourself.

I’m not eager but I feel I should try to describe a seven-year controversy at Westminster Seminary involving Norman Shepherd. I was moderator of the Faculty all through that time, and knew better than to be openly partisan, but I did my share of thinking. I had very wise colleagues on both sides, pro and con on Norman’s understanding of faith. He talked about faith as ‘obedient faith.’ Of course, you receive Jesus as your savior, and also your lord, the basic package deal. In our high-tech language, you receive Jesus ‘in all of his offices,’ as your prophet and king as well as your priest. But wait a minute, aren’t we committed to ‘faith alone saves?’ If you say obedient faith, aren’t you on the brink of being Medieval again? That kept us busy and upset for more than seven years.

We all knew that ‘faith is never alone.’ We all knew that Jesus does the sanctifying, and we all knew to trust him for that. Why wasn’t Norman’s formula just fine? I’m not totally sure. I do know some of his students didn’t say it as carefully as he did. My guess is, we still have some left-over issues from the 19th century about faith and sanctification. Wasn’t there a ‘second blessing,’ this time for sanctification as the first one was for justification? Wasn’t it wonderful to know that sanctification wasn’t just our laborious battle with sin, but something that Jesus had already done for us? That was Victorious Life, Holiness, Keswick. (Go sometime to the old Keswick grounds in Whiting NJ, now an alcohol rehab place). Just trust Jesus to change your life, why not? Why hadn’t we ever heard that before?

The problem was, you trusted and not much happened, sin was still there. Maybe for others it worked but not for you. Trust harder? Trust Jesus to do the trusting? The problem was, people said that if you trusted Jesus the right way, then you had instant total sanctification. There was always someone around who said he hadn’t sinned for twenty years but that wasn’t you. There was much biblical reality there, but the instantaneous change thing didn’t happen. It took a while for people to understand that it was about a life of trusting Jesus, day by day, hour by hour—then it came together. Then we learn how Jesus is our strong deliverer, how he does win over world, flesh and Devil.

I could be wrong but I think that was what was hard about Norman for many. Justification is right away, isn’t it? But sanctification is a life-long battle, isn’t it? When you hear obedient faith, doesn’t that mean: no justification right away either, no assurance right now, so we’re going back to being pre-Reformation? But what if we remember Mr. Murray teaching us about definitive sanctification? Jesus does begin to change us, right away, as we trust him at the beginning! It is a long battle all right, but it’s been won already. (Oscar Cullmann: at the end of D-Day in Normandy WW2 was over but it still took some time for mopping-up. Ditto the war with sin). That’s what made Jack Miller and me grace-boys—it is a hard fight, but we’re already so happy Jesus won and keeps on winning.

It’s been so hard. Norman was let go, for ambiguous reasons. The PCA didn’t want the OPC because it took them so long to figure it out. People still get nervous around us grace-boys. There’s still a lot of preaching about fighting sin, without much Jesus in it. How long, O Lord, how long—till we can go ahead together, with joy as we battle?

But it is a package, I’m sure of it. Jesus is our Savior, ‘in all of his offices.’ Belonging to him is so much more than going to Heaven if we die tonight. Jesus is with us if we don’t die tonight, if we are called to get up tomorrow morning and put on the gospel armor again. It’s armor all right, but gospel armor, isn’t it?

D. Clair Davis taught church history for many at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He currently serves as Chaplain and Professor of Church History at Redeemer Seminary in Dallas, Texas.

N. T. Wright on Resurrection Justification

[Editor’s Note: This material is a portion of a paper, entitled “Raised for our Justification: Resurrection Justification in Historical and Theological Perspective,” that I presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta. In light of the popularity of N. T. Wright’s work, I thought I would excerpt the section dealing with his proposal here.

While (as will be obvious) I have some significant reservations about Wright’s view of justification, I also want to emphasize that Wright (even if he is sometimes wrong) is almost always worth reading. He is, after all, significant enough to merit a Wheaton Theology Conference devoted to his oeuvre (covered by yours truly here). In short, he is a genuine theological “rock star” in an age of, shall we say, theological pub musicians.]

The notion of a resurrection justification of Christ has an intriguing exegetical and theological history. Based in part upon texts such as Rom. 4:25, 1 Cor. 15:17, and 2 Tim. 3:16, the construct was utilized by earlier Reformed theologians such as Caspar Olevianus, William Ames, Herman Witsius, Jonathan Edwards, and others, and over the past century or so it has been championed by biblical scholars such as Geerhardus Vos, Markus Barth, Richard Gaffin, and N. T. Wright.[1] Moreover, there has been a more general recognition that the resurrection of Christ has forensic significance and thus a theological relationship to the justification of the believer.

As we shall see, the resurrection justification of Christ plays a prominent and even crucial role in the view of justification proposed by the noted English New Testament scholar and former Anglican Bishop of Durham, N. T. Wright. A voluminous writer, Wright has presented his views on justification in a number of contexts, most extensively in his 2009 reply to John Piper entitled Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision.[2]

While Wright is a controversial figure among American Evangelicals, and especially among Reformed Evangelicals because of his association with the so-called “New Perspective on Paul,” there is much here to commend and he has given exegetes and theologians much to consider. Many Evangelicals are pleased by his defense of the historicity of the Gospel narratives, his affirmation of the representative and substitutionary character of Christ’s atoning death, and by his recognition of the legal/forensic dimension of salvation.[3] Following the Apostle Paul, Wright foregrounds the theme of union with Christ in his understanding of applied soteriology, and he takes firm issue with those who seek to frame a doctrine of justification in abstraction from union and solidarity with Christ.[4] Moreover, his view of Christ as embodying the identity and telos of Israel is both insightful and heuristically useful, not only for understanding Paul but also evangelists such as Matthew.[5] And finally, Wright’s relentless insistence on reading Paul in his Jewish and Second Temple context provides a helpful safeguard against abstracting the Apostle from his own heritage.

Particularly striking in this volume is Wright’s careful attention to the resurrection of Christ as soteriologically and ecclesiologically crucial. In brief, the resurrection of Christ is God’s juridical vindication of Christ as the faithful and righteous Messiah, a verdict in which those who are united with Christ share. Furthermore, the resurrection more broadly means rescue from death and the penalty of sin. Thus, for Wright, the resurrection is no mere afterthought or addendum to Good Friday. Rather, it is “at the center of the gospel” and at “the very center of God’s plan and purpose.”[6] Our plan is to examine Wright’s understanding of resurrection justification, a task that will also involve placing it in the broader context of his doctrine of justification.

Wright is attempting here nothing less than a comprehensive Pauline biblical theology of justification, which he views as relevant and useful to the church. He goes so far as to maintain that it accomplishes “everything Luther and Calvin wanted to achieve.”[7] Needless to say, we should expect a certain level of complexity. Wright locates his Pauline doctrine of justification at the nexus of four interlocking elements or themes—covenant, the lawcourt, eschatology, and Christology. The first three Paul inherited from Judaism, while the last—Christology—holds everything together.

Wright’s foregrounding of covenant is pervasive, and the centrality he accords this theme might well make even the most hardened Reformed federal theologian blush. He contends that “‘covenant,’ albeit clearly a shorthand, is an excellent way of understanding the full depth of Paul’s soteriology.”[8] Key here is the Abrahamic covenant with its promise in Genesis 12:3 to bless the world through the offspring of Abraham. In short, Israel was called with a special mission to the world to enact the saving purposes of God, and was to be kept on track by the blessings and curses of the Mosaic covenant. This is what Wright repeatedly refers to as God’s “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the world.”[9] But alas, Israel was unfaithful to the “single plan” in that she failed to embrace this mission to the world and turned in on herself.[10] The Messiah then comes as the one who embodies the identity and goal of Israel to offer the obedience to this mission to the world that Israel had failed to offer.[11] As the “faithful Israelite,” Christ offers himself as the sacrifice for sin and rises as the vindicated Messiah in order to justify those in union with him and to establish in himself the people of God as including both Jews and Gentiles.[12] This is an Irenaean sort of move, except that it is not Adam but rather Israel that is recapitulated.

The theme of the lawcourt is closely related to covenant. It is rooted in the Jewish expectation of a great judgment at the end of history in which God, in accordance with his covenant promises, judges the wicked, rewards the righteous, and sets things right.[13] Furthermore, and this is crucial, the covenant defines what “righteousness” is in the context of justification. In fact, Wright argues that “covenant” and “righteousness” are closely related, and that the “righteousness of God” in Paul is to be understood as “the covenant faithfulness of God.”[14] Likewise, the righteousness/obedience of Christ judicially vindicated at the resurrection is not his moral character or obedience to the Mosaic Law, but his obedience to the covenant plan of God to bless the world through Israel by dying on the cross. Consistent with this view of covenant righteousness, Wright insists that the failure of Israel of which Paul speaks in Romans 3 is not sinfulness in general but rather the fact that Israel’s failed in its covenant mission to the world.[15] Christ then fulfills the covenant mission where Israel had earlier failed. By his death he pays the penalty for sin, and in his resurrection he is judicially vindicated by God. This judicial vindication is then applicable to all those who are “in Christ.”

But what is the nature of this judicial “vindication”? Wright insists that the righteousness/justification word groups refer purely and simply to legal standing rather than to any transfer (whether actual or putative) of moral character. They have to do with acquittal and forgiveness, of a declaration that one is “in the right.”[16] Here we must recognize two things. First, Wright is affirming a forensic conception of justification which he believes to be consistent with the ultimate concerns of the Reformers over against the earlier Catholic tradition. Second, he believes that this forensic justification is inconsistent with the Reformation notion of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.

With regard to the third theme or element—eschatology, with its expectation of a final judgment and of God’s action in dealing decisively with the problem of sin—Wright contends that in Christ the promises of the Abrahamic covenant have been fulfilled, that the verdict of the great azzize at the end of history has been brought forward in time as Christ has been declared to be “in the right,” that the way has been opened for Gentiles to be included in the people of God, and that the age to come has been inaugurated.[17] This is not, however, a completely realized eschatology. There yet remains a judgment at the end of history, a judgment at which Christ himself will preside, and Wright marshals a great deal of evidence to show that this final judgment will be a judgment, even for believers, “according to works.”[18] Thus there are, for Wright, two verdicts—a present verdict based on faith in Christ and a future verdict based on works. The correspondence of these two verdicts is ensured by the work of the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies the believer. As Wright puts it, “The present verdict gives the assurance that the future verdict will match it; the Spirit gives the power through which that future verdict, when given will be seen to be in accordance with the life that the believer has then lived.”[19]

But why does Wright reject the classic Reformation doctrine of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ? Here Wright’s argument strikes me as not entirely clear, but we will attempt to summarize it. First of all, Wright opposes his notion of judicial declaration of being “in the right” to any transfer of “moral character.” Here he contends that Rome with its notion of “making just” and the Reformation with its notion of imputed righteousness partake of the same problem.[20] But here there seems to be a category confusion. The Reformation trajectory has been concerned with the imputation of merit and demerit accruing from actions (the sin of Adam, the life and death of Christ), not the imputation of moral qualities. Second, Wright also rejects any imputation of merit, and he repeatedly insists that the work of Christ does not result in a “treasury of merit” which can then be imputed to the believer.[21] Wright’s point seems to be that the righteousness of God/Christ, understood as “covenant faithfulness,” simply is not the sort of thing that can be “imputed.” Instead, what the believer needs is a new legal status as being “in the right” and this status is received through union with Christ.[22] Consistent with this, throughout Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision Wright is clearly more comfortable talking about forgiveness, the non-reckoning of sin, and vindication than about any positive declaration of righteousness.[23] But some would argue that we need more than just forgiveness (which would merely put us back in the Edenic situation of innocence) to enter glory; we need the status of positive righteousness. It is this insight that lies at the heart of the Reformation affirmation of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

There are two additional areas where questions need to be raised. The first has to do with Wright’s central theme of covenant as it comes to expression in his notion of God’s “single-plan-though-Israel-for-the-world.” He contends that Israel was called to be a light to the nations and thus God’s instrument of blessing to the world in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. However, Israel failed miserably in this task, and so Christ steps into the breach and offers the covenant obedience and faithfulness that Israel did not.[24] There are, in fact, two problems here, the second more serious than the first. First of all, this notion of Christ accomplishing what Israel failed to do has the smell of a “Plan B,” though Wright tries to safeguard against such a conclusion.[25]

Another and more serious problem has to do with the nature of this Israel strategy. Was it really God’s plan to save the world through the nation of Israel? Such a suggestion seems to run aground on both the larger structure of Old Testament narrative and upon explicit New Testament teaching. In the Old Testament, Israel is called more to be separate from the nations than a missionary to the nations (e.g., Lev. 20:22-26). To be sure, Israel was called to be a nation of priests and a thus a witness of sorts, but this is a subsidiary theme. Moreover, it can be argued that the servant song passages in Isaiah speaking of a “light to the nations” (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6) and similar passages such as Isaiah 60:3 are best read as pointing ultimately to the work of the Messiah.[26] This larger point is confirmed by Paul’s argument in Gal. 3:24 that the purpose of the Mosaic Law was to serve as a guardian or paidegogos until the Messiah came, and even more strikingly by Paul’s contention in Gal. 3:16 that the promise to Abraham was not to “offsprings” but to a single “offspring,” namely the Messiah. In other words, the single plan of God is to bless the world, not through Israel, but through the Messiah with Israel as a means to that end, and Wright, by elevating a subsidiary theme to central and controlling status, has skewed things more than a bit.

This accounts for exegetical leaps such as his contention that Paul’s concern in Rom. 3 is not that the Jews were sinners but that they had failed in their mission to the world. Wright’s arguments may mesh well with the current preoccupation with all things “missional,” but that does not fix the problems here, and if Wright is wrong on this central covenant theme then the understanding of “righteousness” tied to it comes into question as well. After all, the great Irenaean contrast in Rom. 5:18-19 is between the disobedience of Adam and the obedience of Christ as the Second Adam, not between Israel and Christ.

The second major problem has to do with the relation of the present verdict and the final verdict. Here Wright seems to equivocate on the identity of these two verdicts. On the one hand, he suggests that the present verdict is the final verdict brought forward into history.[27] On the other hand, he argues that the present verdict is “issued simply and solely on the basis of faith” while the future verdict is according to works and “will truly reflect what people have actually done.”[28] In the end, these seem to be separate verdicts, the congruence of which is maintained by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. But this then poses the question of assurance in a fundamental way. Wright deals with this in two ways. First, he suggests that moral perfection is not required but that “the signs of the Spirit’s life must be present.”[29] Second, he argues for a completely non-meritorious approach to justification.[30] The notion that Christ obeyed the law and thus earned or merited salvation for believers is, Wright argues, a “legalism” alien to the New Testament.[31] But all this suggests that this final verdict is not solely according to works, and furthermore that the “great azzize” is actually a rather casual affair—a “not-so-great-azzize,” if you will—designed primarily to keep Christians on their toes in this life.

An alternative and more satisfying explanation of the biblical data would hold, with traditional Reformed orthodoxy, that there is a final judgment according to works in which the wicked are condemned on the basis of their works and Christians are rewarded for their graced works but saved by the merits of Christ.[32] This would seem to make better sense of passages such as 1 Cor. 3:15, which speaks of those whose works do not measure up but who are nevertheless “saved, but only as through fire.”

[1] See Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1930), 136-171; Markus Barth and Verne H. Fletcher, Acquittal by Resurrection (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston: 1964), 3-96; Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1987), 119-124.

[2] N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009). Here Wright responds to John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007). See also N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996);

[3] See, e.g., Wright, Justification, 69, 90-91, 105, 207.

[4] See ibid., 32, 72, 85, 122, 142, 157, 217, 229.

[5] See ibid., 103-105.

[6] Ibid., 150, 235.

[7] Ibid., 252.

[8] Ibid., 99.

[9] See ibid., 65, 95-98, 123.

[10] See ibid., 67, 104.

[11] See ibid., 103-106.

[12] See ibid., 203-204.

[13] See ibid., 100.

[14] Ibid., 99, 164.

[15] See ibid., 195-201.

[16] See ibid., 69, 90-91, 121.

[17] See ibid., 100-108.

[18] See ibid., 75, 183-191.

[19] Ibid., 251.

[20] See ibid., 66, 90-92, 121, 150, 206, 213.

[21] See ibid., 135, 228, 231.

[22] See ibid., 217.

[23] See, e.g., ibid., 221.

[24] See ibid., 95-104, 195-196.

[25] See, e.g., ibid., 243, where he argues that “even this failure was not outside the strange purposes of God.”

[26] See the subtle treatment of such passages in J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove: IVP, 1993).

[27] See Wright, Justification,148.

[28] Ibid., 190-191.

[29] Ibid., 237.

[30] Ibid., 237-238.

[31] Ibid., 231-232.

[32] See Westminster Confession of Faith, chap. 33.

“‘Things which Become Sound Doctrine’: Associate Reformed Presbyterian Confessional and Theological Identity in the 20th Century.” (Part 3)

[Editor’s Note: At an ARP historical conference in 2003 I presented a paper on the theological and confessional history of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in the twentieth century. The material was then published in 2006 by the Haddington House Journal, and with the permission of that journal is now being serialized in three parts here on this blog. These posts will be of interest not only to ARPs but also to those who seek a better understanding of how the ARPC differs from other American Presbyterian groups. Though there has been a good deal of ARP water under the bridge since 2003, I’ve resisted the urge to update it, in part because I’ve dealt with more recent developments in extended internet posts here and here.

In the first installment of this three-part series we looked at the 19th-century theological identity of the ARP Church (then known as the Associate Reformed Church). Then we examined 20th-century developments having to do with worship, ecumenical involvement, confessional subscription, and modifications to the confessional standards of the church. In this final installment we survey the debates over scriptural authority and ask what the future may hold.]

D. Scriptural Authority

From the mid-1960′s until the early 1980′s, the ARP church was torn by persistent and heated conflict over the inspiration and authority of Scripture, and the role of the Bible in the life of the church. This “Battle for the Bible,” as it was termed, involved complex alliances of concerned individuals on both sides of the discussion.^{^[1]} Certain treasured institutions of the church were also deeply involved (the theological orientation of the faculty of Erskine Theological Seminary was a central bone of contention).

The complexity of this controversy is underscored by the varying interpretations of it. For some, it was simply a conflict between theological truth and error. Others propose more sociological explanations. It is explained by some as a struggle for power.^{^[2]} Others suggest that ARP’s had become less tolerant of diversity by the 1960′s,^{^[3]} and perhaps that the ARP struggles were a conflict between cultural conservatives and cultural progressives, the battle lines being initially set by the controversy involving the racial integration of Erskine College.^{^[4]} Missing from this discussion, however, has been a detailed theological analysis of the controversy.

Two terms applied to Scripture (“infallible” and “inerrant”) were frequently utilized to designate the warring camps, and so we shall refer to them respectively as “infallibilists” and “inerrantists.” The “infallibilist” position was closely associated with the faculty of Erskine Theological Seminary, and so it is necessary briefly to discuss the trajectory of the Seminary. In 1951, the Board of the Seminary purposed to move the institution toward full accreditation by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS). This process involved the hiring of faculty with degrees from mainline Protestant institutions, a development rightly seen by many as the root of later conflict.^{^[5]} In 1961, a new Dean of the Seminary was inaugurated, calling for engagement with the larger ecclesiastical and cultural context, and identifying Erskine Seminary with “the most influential force in contemporary theology”—a “constructive conservatism that would promote rather than hinder the cause of good scholarship.”^{^[6]} In context, it is rather clear that “constructive conservatism” denoted the neo-orthodoxy associated with Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and others that was so pervasive in the mainline Protestantism of the day. As we will see, the contours of the “infallibilist” position closely follow key characteristics of generic neo-orthodoxy.

The infallibilist position entailed, first of all, a strong distinction between the terms “infallibility” and “inerrancy.” By infallibility, it was meant that the Holy Spirit uses the Bible infallibly to bring people to the knowledge of God and of themselves that is necessary for salvation. The Bible is not to be viewed as infallible or inerrant with respect to matters of history or science. In fact, the Bible is a human document and so it contains numerous errors. By contrast, the term “inerrant” is associated with a view of the Bible as a verbally and plenarily inspired text communicating propositional truth.^{^[7]}

Second, the infallibilist position affirms a view of inspiration and revelation as dynamic and christologically focused. The inspiration and authority of Bible does not reside in the static and fallible text, but rather in the fact that Scripture originates with God and in the way the Holy Spirit uses Scripture to bring people into encounter with God.^{^[8]} Revelation in Scripture, then, is not propositional truth, but an event in which people encounter the one true Word of God, Jesus Christ.^{^[9]}

Third, there is a strong emphasis on the subjective pole. As we have seen, the emphasis is upon subjective encounter rather than the objectivity of the written text. The internal witness of the Holy Spirit is stressed, and one’s confidence in Scripture is based on that internal, subjective witness rather than on external historical confirmation. Thus, the priority of faith over reason is emphasized.^{^[10]} In keeping with this subjective orientation, one also finds a deep concern for the role of the interpreter. Scripture only becomes authoritative as it is interpreted by the reader. The doctrine of God’s accommodation of his revelation in Scripture to human limitations of finitude and sin is emphasized, and in this interpretive process one also finds a tendency to pit the Spirit against the letter of Scripture.^{^[11]}

Fourth, the infallibilists adopted a decided “confessionalist” orientation. That is, the infallibilist camp was quick to make the argument that the Westminster Confession utilized the term “infallible” rather than “inerrant,” and that this confessional language allowed room for a variety of “theories” of inspiration in the church.^{^[12]} The doctrine of inerrancy was viewed as a declension from earlier Reformed thinking and as an historical novelty (i.e., a product of Protestant Scholastics such as Francis Turretin and the Old Princeton theologians such as B. B. Warfield and A. A. Hodge who were influenced by Turretin), and that this later thinking stands in considerable tension with Calvin and the early “Reformed confessions.”^{^[13]}

The inerrancy position likewise was vigorously articulated in the denominational publications. ARP proponents of inerrancy tended to regard their opponents’ distinction of inerrancy and infallibility as tendentious wordplay or “vocabularial gymnastics.” Moreover, if a distinction were to be made between the two, the one implied the other.^{^[14]}

Second, the inerrantists strongly affirmed the objective authority of the Bible as divinely inspired text. The inspiration and authority of the Bible are viewed as plenary (or complete) and verbal. That is to say, the Bible as a whole is divinely inspired and therefore reliable in all aspects, including statements regarding history and geography.^{^[15]} Also, this inspiration extends, not just to the ideas the text might communicate, but also to the very words of the Bible.^{^[16]}

Third, there is a certain suspicion of appeals to the subjective element of “interpretation” that might seem to compromise the objective authority of the text. Suggestions that God had accommodated his revelation to the limitations of human finitude were viewed with suspicion.^{^[17]} Issues of authority and interpretation tend to be conflated, if not confused. For example, despite the fact that Scripture contains much figurative language, the Bible is seen as “literally true.”^{^[18]} Differences in interpretation, moreover, are said to reveal differences in the view of the Bible’s authority.^{^[19]} Such difficulties in interpretation are ascribed to human sinfulness, rather than to any lack of clarity in God’s Word.^{^[20]}

Finally, we also find in the inerrantist camp a tendency to identify with the broader conservative evangelical consensus regarding inerrancy, rather than with the confessional tradition. While not conceding infallibilist claims regarding the character of the Westminster Confession’s teaching on Scripture, they contended that the terminological struggle made the Confession insufficient by itself and that further definition was necessary.^{^[21]} They preferred instead to appeal to the words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels.^{^[22]} They also identified with the work of the International Conference on Biblical Inerrancy, a large group of evangelical scholars and churchmen who formulated the influential “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.”^{^[23]}

We are now some twenty years beyond the heat of this battle over the authority of Scripture, although the smell of gunpowder still lingers in some nostrils. In retrospect, we can say that the infalliblist position significantly compromised the objective authority of the Bible with its subjectivism and reduction of authority to only the “saving message” of the Bible. If the Scriptures are only in part authoritative, then we are free to contruct a “saving message” that is congenial to our cultural context. In fact, both Scripture and the Reformed tradition at its best have affirmed the objective plenary authority of the Bible. The Bible comes to us with an authority that stands regardless of our recognition or acceptance of it. Moreover, this authority is plenary or complete. Scripture affirms the ultimate redemption of all of life, and so what Scripture teaches about sexuality issues, gender relations, etc., must not be dismissed as peripheral. The recent history of other Reformed denominations (such as the PCUSA) provides a rather clear picture where the ARP would be today if the infallibilist wing had won the day.^{^[24]}

At the same time, while the inerrantist camp rightly affirmed the objective authority of the Bible, they sometimes did so without doing full justice to the human dimension of the text, and to the subjective and interpretive dimensions of the Bible’s appropriation by the church. In short, if the infallibilist wing had won, the church would have fallen headlong into liberal “culture protestantism.” If the inerrantist wing had won without qualification, the church would have moved closer to fundamentalism. Ironically, both sides needed each other in order to recover an authentically Reformed doctrine of Scripture that does justice to both the objective and subjective dimensions.^{^[25]}

Interestingly, that is exactly what ultimately happened. On February 16, 1979, the Committee on Reconciliation appointed by the 1978 General Synod approved the following wording regarding the inspiration and authority of the Bible:

We believe that the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to us through the Holy Scripture which is the Word of God written. While we do not have the original autographs as proof, we believe on faith that God’s Word in its entirety was accurately recorded by the original writers through divine inspiration and reliably transmitted to us.^{^[26]}

This resolution was then adopted by the 1979 General Synod (after changing the word proof to evidence).^{^[27]} Also adopted by the same Synod was a motion composed by Grady Oates: “Be it resolved that the General Synod of 1979 affirms that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God without error in all that it teaches.”^{^[28]} These two carefully worded statements (both of which were hammered out through extensive discussion between the parties) taken together express the substance of the inerrancy doctrine without using the term inerrancy itself.^{^[29]} The Oates statement, in particular, represents a balanced position which affirms both the objective authority of the Bible (“the Scriptures . . . are the Word of God without error”) and the subjective reality of the interpretive process (the phrase “in all that it teaches” raises the question of what is taught, and that is most definitely an interpretive question).^{^[30]}

III. What Does the Future Hold?

By the early 1980′s the ARP church had decided what it did not want to be—it didn’t want to be “liberal.” A majority coalition of cultural conservatives, evangelicals, fundamentalists, and confessional Reformed joined together to oppose what was viewed as a “liberal” threat to the church. It has not yet decided what it does want to be theologically.

The church is now characterized by the presence of a diversity of theological perspectives on the more conservative end of the theological spectrum. Theonomy, the Lutheranizing Sonship theology of Jack Miller, a broad and pragmatic evangelicalism focused upon ministry to felt needs, Puritanizing Reformed thinking on worship, and a lot of congregational and even baptistic thinking are all present within the ARP Church.

Today the church stands at a crossroads where it is likely to go one of two ways—it can pursue a broad and pragmatic evangelicalism or a self-consciously Reformed identity. The former is perhaps the path of less resistance, but the contemporary identity crisis of American evangelicalism today suggests that this is not the best choice. Moreover, taking this path would also mean that the ARP Church would have nothing distinctive to contribute to the broader Christian community. Finally, it would be less than true to our heritage.

But what sort of Reformed identity should be pursued? There are those who would have us recapitulate the halcyon days of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but this is impossible. Theology is best understood as the creatively faithful application of God’s word to the challenges of today. Our forefathers in the faith sought, with rather remarkable success and at great personal cost, to be faithful to God in the situations in which He placed them. We must do nothing less. We must articulate a theology that draws on the riches of our heritage and which meets the challenges we face today.

Earlier, we described the ARP Church as “a rather unique example of biblicistic and confessional, non-speculative, praxis-oriented and ecclesially minded experimental Calvinism.” Today the older symbolic boundaries of praxis (exclusive psalmody, restricted communion, and strict Sabbath observance) have largely dissolved. The church remains (after considerable struggle) devoted to Scripture and serious (though perhaps not particularly learned) about its confessional standards. We remain decidedly non-speculative, with a rather limited tolerance for extended theological debate. Vital Christian experience remains an emphasis, although the church has never reconciled the older nurture-oriented piety with the methodological revivalism that has been imported from the broader evangelical subculture. Finally, it continues to have a distinctively ecclesial ethos. ARP’s love their church and care deeply about its welfare.

But what is distinctive about the ARP Church in the larger American Presbyterian and Reformed context? This is a question that we apparently have some difficulty answering—sometimes it is intimated that we are less contentious or “nicer” than some other churches! That may or may not be true, but it is not of much historical significance. I would like to close by suggesting that the potential distinctive contribution of the ARP Church to American Presbyterianism lies in the area of ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church. Unlike many other conservative Reformed and Presbtyrian churches in this country, the ARPC is not the product of schism—its mindset is ecclesial or churchly rather than sectarian. It is less concerned to differentiate itself from others and their problems, and more concerned simply to be faithful, to be the church.

But if we are to be the blessing we can be to others, we have work to do. There is unfinished theological business. We need to think more carefully and deeply than we have about confessional subscription and what it means to be the church as confessing community. Perhaps it is time to look more carefully at the current shape of our confessional standards and how they function. We also need to think in a more principled manner about what it means to be the church as a worshiping community. In this connection we need to reflect more carefully on the relationship between Christian faith and culture—to think about meeting the challenge of being “in the world but not of it.” And finally, in anticipation of what God is yet to do through the ARPC, we need to give thanks to God for His remarkable preservation of this church over more than two centuries.

^{^[1]}The controversy cannot be explained solely in theological terms. The more conservative wing of the church seems to have consisted of a broad coalition of evangelicals, fundamentalists, confessional Reformed, and cultural conservatives. The more “liberal” wing of the church included some principled neo-orthodox and “culture Protestants,” as well as many denominational loyalists who longed for peace and who were offended by attacks on the church’s institutions. In general, the “liberal” wing was more affirming of the broader culture, while the conservative wing was more critical of it.

^{^[2]}Zeb Williams, “Editorially Speaking,” The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (December 1978), p. 3; cited in Ware and Gettys, p. 309.

^{^[3]}Robert B. Elliott, “Concerns about the ARP Church and Its Direction,” unpublished paper presented at Meeting on Reconciliation, January 31, 1979, Due West, SC, p. 3; Ware and Gettys, p. 265.

^{^[4]}Ware and Gettys, p. 365. The struggle over the integration of Erskine College did serve to mobilize a culturally conservative element of the clergy and the laity in the church in opposition to integration. Organizations spawned during this time, such as the Conservative Coordinating Committee and the Alliance of Loyal Laity (ALL) were to play an important role in the subsequent theological struggles, but the cultural conservative and the theological conservative impulses should not be simply equated. On this, see Charles W. Wilson, “The Changing Face of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1946-1996: A Short Study in How a Theologically Conservative Denomination Has Reshaped Its Conservative Identity” (unpublished paper, 1996), pp. 10-11.

^{^[5]}Ware and Gettys, pp. 289-290.

^{^[6]}L. M. Allison, “The Task of Erskine Theological Seminary in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: Part II,” in Associate Reformed Presbyterian (March 8, 1961): p. 6.

^{^[7]}See Faculty of Erskine Theological Seminary, “Biblical Authority: An Introduction” The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (September 1977): 26-27; “The Bible’s View of Its own Authority,” in The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (December 1977): 12-14.

^{^[8]}Faculty, “Bible’s View,” p. 12: “When Christians say, then that God is the author of Scripture, most of them do not mean that God “penned” or “dictated” the Bible, but rather that He is the author in the same way that He is the author of life—that is, He is the source and ultimate creative power of Scripture.”

^{^[9]}Lonnie Richardson, “The Authority of the Bible: An Infallibilist View,” unpublished paper presented at Meeting on Reconciliation, January 31, 1979, Due West, SC, p. 4, writes: “Over against the verbal/plenary view of inspiration is the divine/human encounter view that sees inspiration as not being principally centered in the text but in the dynamic relation between the interpreter and the Holy Spirit. The humanness of the Bible is recognized, that is, Holy Scripture remains a human book, the words of human and fallible men, until the Holy Spirit enables the reader to respond in faith to the Living Word, Jesus Christ, of whom the sacred writers bear witness.” On revelation as event, see also Faculty, “The Bible’s View,” pp. 12-13.

^{^[10]}See Richardson, p. 2; see also letter to editor from Meridith Cavin, Joe R. Blevins, and Robert P. Brawley in The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (March 1978), p. 7.

^{^[11]}See Richardson, p. 4; Faculty, “Bible’s Own View,” p. 13. Certainly, the Bible and the Reformed confessions emphasize the internal testimony of the Spirit regarding the trustworthyness of Scripture. However, in this emphasis on subjective witness over against objective authority, the “infallibilists” evidence the influence of the post-Enlightenment context, with its refusal to recognize any locus of authority outside the self.

^{^[12]}See Faculty, “Biblical Authority,” p. 27; Richardson, p. 13.

^{^[13]}See Richardson, pp. 10-11. See also Faculty, “Biblical Authority,” p. 26. Richardson and the Erskine faculty relied heavily on the historical analysis of Jack B. Rogers. Both cite his “The Church Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration,” in Jack Rogers, ed., Biblical Authority (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1977), pp. 17-46. Rogers’ historical argument is more fully developed in his Scripture and the Westminster Confession (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967); and in Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979). In brief, Rogers and McKim contend that in Calvin’s view of Scripture one finds a concern for its saving function rather than a preoccupation with a text that is accurate in all respects. Calvin’s general theological method and that of the early confessions, they argue, is that of Augustine and Anselm—faith seeking understanding. Thus, one’s confidence in Scripture is rooted in the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit rather than in external proof (pp. 89-127). The rise of Protestant scholasticism saw the replacement of the Augustinian principle of fides quaeres intellectum by the Aristotelian/Thomist priority of reason over faith, with a resulting concern for external and internal proofs of the inspiration of Scripture, a process reaching its climax, they argue, in Francis Turretin of Geneva, for whom Scripture is a formal principle of theology (pp. 147-188). Rogers and McKim also take pains to distinguish between the continental Reformed scholasticism of Turretin and the British Reformed theology expressed in the Westminster Confession, the latter being viewed as a continuation of Calvin’s thinking (pp. 200-248). The rationalistic Continental model was then introduced into America by the Old Princeton theologians, whose theory of inerrancy in the “original autographs” then had a formative influence on American fundamentalism.

The thesis of Rogers and McKim is hampered by the failure to engage primary sources and is perhaps best understood as an attempt by “left-wing evangelicals” to provide themselves with a meaningful past. In fact, the Sitz im Leben of Rogers initial work was the controversy surrounding the adoption of the UPCUSA Confession of 1967. Rogers argued against adoption on the the grounds that the Wesminster Confession’s view of Scripture was sufficiently flexible.

Many of their arguments have come under serious challenge. For example, their general depiction of continental scholasticism as rationalistic has been implicitly challenged by the careful work of Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), I: 93. Their theory of a marked difference between British and continental Orthodoxy has been challenged by S. T. Murphy, “The Doctrine of Scripture in the Westminster Assembly (Ph.D. diss., Drew University, 1984). In addition, their contention that the Princeton definition of inerrancy as applying to the original autographs was a startling innovation has been rightly challenged by Randall Balmer, “The Princetonians and Scripture: A Reconsideration,” Westminster Theological Journal 44 (1982): 352-365. See also John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982).

^{^[14]}See Gary W. Letchworth, “A Fundamentalist’s Answer,” The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (October 16, 1968), p. 9. See also Jim Coad and Charles Wilson, “The Inerrancy Position,” unpublished paper presented at Meeting on Reconciliation, January 31, 1979, Due West, SC, p. 4.

^{^[15]}See James T. Corbitt, “Christ’s View of Scripture,” The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (January 1978), pp. 22-23.

^{^[16]}See Corbitt, “Christ’s View,” p. 23; Coad and Wilson, p. 1; Letchworth, “Fundamentalist’s Answer,” p. 9.

^{^[17]}Corbitt, “Christ’s View,” p. 23.

^{^[18]}E. Reynolds Young, “Concerns about the ARP Church and Its Direction,” unpublished paper presented at Meeting on Reconciliation, January 31, 1979, Due West, SC, pp. 6-7. Of course, there is much figurative language in the Bible, and the term “literal” is better reserved for questions of interpretation.

^{^[19]}E. R. Young, “Concerns,” p. 5, wrote, “We all affirm that we believe the Bible and follow the Bible and yet when it comes to matters of interpretation it’s quite apparent that there is wide diversity among us. To me this suggest [sic] strongly that our basic premises regarding scripture are not the same.”

^{^[20]}Coad and Wilson, p. 2: “That all men do not understand the same, or teach the same is because of man’s sinful nature not totally yielded to the Author and Teacher of Holy Scripture. Our problem, not GOD’s.”

^{^[21]}E. Reynolds Young, “Identity,” The Associate Reformed Presbyterian,” (June 1978), p.4: “Simple affirmation of our confessional stand in adherence to the Westminster standards is not sufficient because the definition of the word infallible has been changed. Our seminary made this clear in their official statement and in the articles in the church magazine.”

^{^[22]}See Corbitt, “Christ’s View,” pp. 22-23. Coad and Wilson, p. 3.

^{^[23]}See Young, “Concerns about the ARP Church,” p. 7.

^{^[24]}For example, more recently both Jack Rogers and former ARP minister and Erskine Seminary professor Thomas G. Long have been strong supporters of the ordination of practicing homosexuals in the PCUSA.

^{^[25]}Following Calvin, the tradition at its best has sought to hold the objective and subjective aspects of religion together. See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960): I.1.1: “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern.”

^{^[26]}“Resolution on Biblical Authority,” Minutes of the General Synod (1979): p. 78.

^{^[27]}Minutes of the General Synod (1979): p. 76.

^{^[28]}Minutes of the General Synod (1979), p. 23. This statement was reaffirmed by the 1980 General Synod. Minutes of the General Synod (1980): p. 283.

^{^[29]}Early the next year, a group attempted to argue that the Synod had not committed itself to inerrancy doctrine. See “A Covenant of Integrity,” The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (February, 1980): pp. 16-17. However, the Synod’s action was generally interpreted outside the denomination as an embracing of inerrancy, and this paved the way for the reception of the ARPC into NAPARC in 1982.

^{^[30]}The relationship between biblical authority and interpretation are briefly explored by this writer in William B. Evans, “The NAPARC Churches and the Peculiar Challenges of Our Time,” Presbyterion: Covenant Seminary Review 27 (2001): pp. 2-4.

“‘Things which Become Sound Doctrine’: Associate Reformed Presbyterian Confessional and Theological Identity in the 20th Century.” (Part 2)

In the first installment of this three-part series we looked at the 19th-century theological identity of the ARP Church (then known as the Associate Reformed Church). Here we examine 20th-century developments having to do with worship, ecumenical involvement, confessional subscription, and modifications to the confessional standards of the church. In the final installment we will survey the debates over scriptural authority and ask what the future may hold.]

II. The Twentieth Century

The 20^th century was a period of enormous religious change for the nation generally, and for the ARP church. During this century, every distinctive of the ARP church was to be challenged, overturned, or modified. This, in turn presented, and continues to present, a crisis of identity for the ARP Church. At the turn of the previous century, the defining principles of AR identity were reasonably clear. The same cannot be said a century later. In this section we will examine the ARP church in the 20^th century by focusing on four issues that served to define the denomination’s theological center of gravity: psalmody and worship, church union and ecumenical involvement, confessional identity, and Scriptural authority.

A. Psalmody and Worship

For the AR church, the twentieth century actually began in 1899, when the Synod’s revision of the Book of Worship overturned the venerable AR practice of close communion. The same Synod, we will recall, also tightened the requirements regarding exclusive psalmody by explicitly prohibiting members from singing hymns under any circumstances of corporate worship. The complexion of the ARP church was changing, however, as the denomination grew substantially in the first three decades of the 20^th century. For many of the newcomers, exclusive psalmody was not a treasured distinctive, and pressure mounted for change since exclusive psalmody was seen by many as an impediment to church growth.^{^[1]} In 1933, the language explicitly prohibiting ARP’s from singing hymns in other churches was removed from the Book of Government.^{^[2]}

Finally, the Synod of 1945 narrowly approved an overture allowing congregations to use hymns as well as psalms, and this overture was approved by the Presbyteries in 1946.^{^[3]} It is apparent that relations with other presbyterian churches, especially the PCUS, played a role in the psalmody controversy. Some proponents of change were concerned about loss of members to the PCUS, while others were intent on merger with the PCUS.^{^[4]}

The long-term results of this change in “distinctive principle” are still difficult to access. The church almost immediately entered a lengthy period of controversy over church union, then the authority of scripture and the role of women in the church, and, most recently, worship style. In retrospect, it seems that the ARP church was “knocked off balance” by the abandonment of exclusive psalmody. Since its inception, the ARP church had been known as the “psalm singers.” Now another principle of identity, another raison d’etre would have to be found.

At the turn of the last century, the worship of ARP churches was remarkably homogeneous in its simplicity, and despite disagreements over psalmody, this basic consensus regarding worship continued well into the 20^th century.^{^[5]} Today, however, that consensus has largely evaporated. A significant minority of churches have adopted “praise and worship” approaches emphasizing the use of contemporary musical styles. Others, of a more “high church” bent, celebrate the church year with enthusiasm, while still others seek a return to the older “regulative principle.” There is, of course, no going back to the older homogeneous stance on worship; in fact, that is probably not even desirable. What is lacking, however, is a larger theological framework within which diversity of expression in worship can be seen as coherent and enriching rather than chaotic. It seems that much of the discussion currently revolves pragmatically around how the “worship experience” of the congregation can be enhanced rather than around what God might desire of us.

B. Church Union and Ecumenical Involvement

Proposals for uniting the ARP church with other denominations dominated AR conversation in the latter part of the 19^th century. In 1866, union efforts with the PCUS ran aground on the psalmody issue. In 1881, 1885, and 1904 efforts at union with the UPCNA likewise failed for a variety of reasons (race relations, the UPC testimony regarding membership in secret societies, concerns about the fate of AR institutions such as Erskine Seminary, etc.).^{^[6]}

Merger with the PCUS or the UPCNA again became topics of discussion in the mid-20th century. Finally, the question of merging with the PCUS was put to the General Synod in 1951, when the overture failed by a substantial margin. Again the reasons for rejection were complex, but concerns about the presence of theological liberalism in the PCUS were an important part of the story.^{^[7]}

The twentieth century was a period of careful ecumenical involvement for the ARP Church. In 1892 the ARP became a member of the World Presbyterian Alliance (later the World Alliance of Reformed Churches), and it joined the Council of Reformed Churches Holding to the Presbyterian System in 1907. Later, the church would decline to join the Federal Council of Churches, and its successor the National Council of Churches. Again, concerns about the liberalism present in those bodies posed a roadblock. An attempt to join the NCC failed in 1959, and in 1966 the relationship between the ARP Board of Christian Education and the NCC’s Division of Christian Education was severed. Again, it is apparent that concerns about theological liberalism played a decisive role.^{^[8]}

By mid-century, the ARP church was unlikely to join an ecumenical organization it perceived as significantly to its theological left. In 1950, the church affiliated with the Reformed Ecumenical Synod (later the Reformed Ecumenical Council), and in 1982 the church became a member of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council. The effort to join NAPARC lasted over half a decade and was complicated by struggles within the ARP over the “inerrancy” of Scripture. Interestingly, Synod’s Inter-Church Relations Committee has studied the possibility of joining the National Association of Evangelicals for many years, but has not joined that organization. Finally, in 1997 the ARP church’s application to join the International Council of Reformed Churches was approved, despite questions raised by some of that organization’s members regarding the ARP stance on freemasonry.^{^[9]}

In the early 1990′s, the Synod also moved to withdraw from ecumenical organizations which it deemed had drifted into theological liberalism. In 1992, the relationship with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches was severed “due to severe moral/ethical/confessional differences with this organization.”^{^[10]} At the same meeting, the General Synod also withdrew from the Reformed Ecumenical Council because of the continuing presence in that body of the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland, a Dutch Reformed Church which allows practicing homosexuals full participation in the life of the church.

As it entered the 1990′s, the ARP Church had perhaps the widest range of churches in fraternal relationship of any Presbyterian body. Churches in “fraternal relations” were the ARP Synods of Mexico and Pakistan, Presbyterian Church, USA; Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, the Reformed Church in America; the Evangelical Presbyterian Church; and the churches of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (the Christian Reformed Church, the Presbyterian Church in America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Korean-American Presbyterian Church, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America). In 1999, the General Synod approved a significant restructuring of its ecumenical relations by establishing two levels of ecumenical relationship—”fraternal fellowship” and “fraternal correspondence.” In contrast to fraternal correspondence, the category of fraternal fellowship entailed confessional criteria, specifying churches “which are Reformed as to confession (i.e., churches that adhere to the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, and/or the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of the Synod of Dordt), polity, and liturgy, as determined not only by their formal standards, but also by their actual practice.”^{^[11]}

The history of ARP ecumenical involvement in the 20^th century underscores the increasingly self-conscious theological and cultural conservatism that characterized a majority within the denomination. Not only was the ARP Church increasingly unwilling to join ecumenical organizations it viewed as tainted with theological liberalism, but it also disassociated itself from organizations it viewed as moving in a liberal direction.

C. Confessional Identity

After the confessional revisions of 1799, the ARP confessional standards were to remain essentially unchanged for over 150 years. This was to change markedly after the middle of the 20^th century as extensive changes to the Standards were undertaken in 1959, with more following in 1976, 1984, and 2001. In order to understand the evolving confessional identity of the ARP church we must examine not only the confessional changes, but also the practice of subscription and the way the confessional standards functioned in the church.

We must recall that the ARP church does not have the 1729 Adopting Act as part of its heritage. That is to say, ministers and elders do not subscribe to the “system of doctrine” found in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, but to the “doctrines . . . contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms . . . as the expression of your own faith.” Controversy over “exceptions” and “scruples” to the Confession simply is not a prominent part of the ARP past. Moreover, the ARP Church never had an “adopting controversy,” in which the parameters of confessional “adherence” or “subscription” were worked out in detail. It was simply understood that ARP ministers accepted the confessional standards of the church. As long as the ministry of the church remained culturally and theologically homogeneous, this approach worked fairly well, but it was to be sorely tested by the challenges of the 20^th century.

The ordination vows underwent some change during the 20^th century. Interestingly, in these changes we see a progressive removal of a polemical edge from the vows. The earlier vows called for ministers and elders to adhere to the doctrines of the church “in opposition to all Deistical, Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, Neonomian, and Sectarian errors, and all other opinions which are contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness.”^{^[12]} In 1899 this was shortened to “in opposition to all opinions which are contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness.”^{^[13]} Finally, in 1972, the opposition clause was removed completely. These changes were no doubt motivated by a desire to be pastoral and constructive in tone, but they may also indicate a decreasing concern to discriminate truth from error.

Another factor to consider is the rise of what may be termed “implicit confessionalism.” Prior to the late 1960′s the vast majority of ARP ministers were trained at Erskine Seminary, and there is considerable evidence suggesting that the two-year instructional program at Erskine Seminary in the early 20^th century was geared toward meeting the practical ministry needs of a small, predominantly rural Southern church with limited resources. The teaching of biblical languages had been discontinued and the theological instruction was more or less catechetical. Moreover, despite the increasing diversity of membership, the vast majority of ARP ministers were coming from traditional ARP families. That is to say, the denominational “glue” was as much sociological as it was theological. Anecdotal evidence from older ministers suggests that presbytery theological examinations of Erskine Seminary graduates were pro forma, and that candidates were not pressed on the details of the Standards. Candidates affirmed the standards, because that’s what “good ARP’s believe.” In other words, there was formal, implicit subscription, but one can ask how vital the Standards were to the everyday life and ministry of the church.

Given this “implicit confessionalism,” people in the ARP context could move in two different directions. Some would move in the direction of pietistic evangelicalism with its biblicism and concern for personal conversion. Others would move in the direction of a culture-Protestantism, in which Christianity was viewed as more or less coextensive with the best of progressive Southern, middle-class culture. The stage was set for significant theological controversy that would be joined in earnest after 1960. Many observers agree that the catalyst for this controversy was the evolving theological stance of Erskine Theological Seminary.

In 1957, a Committee on Changes to Standards, with membership of P. A. Stroup, Ebenzer Gettys, R. C. Grier, J. W. Carson, C. B. Betts, and George L. Leitze, was appointed by the General Synod. The Committee reported in 1958, proposing that two chapters be added to the Confession (Of the Holy Spirit, and Of the Gospel) and that a series of Addendum notes be appended to the Confession. These notes were designed to clarify the church’s understanding of the Confession. Both of these developments require examination.^{^[14]}

The new chapters originated in the PCUSA—they were added by the PCUSA in 1903, and, in almost identical form, by the PCUS in 1942 (the Committee on Changes to the Standards presented the PCUS form of the chapters for approval). The chapter “Of the Holy Spirit” was regarded by many as filling a void in the original Confession of Faith (which contains chapters entitled “Of God and of the Holy Trinity” and “Of Christ the Mediator). The second added chapter, “Of the Gospel,” consistently sounds a more universalizing note in contrast to the predestinarian particularism of the original document.^{^[15]}

The Addendum included, in addition to the two new chapters discussed above, a preamble which, interestingly, utilizes “system of doctrine” language in speaking of subscription. Close examination of this preamble reveals dependence upon the “preamble” approved by the PCUSA in 1903.^{^[16]} Then follow “declaratory statements” or “notes” regarding various aspects of the Confession. For example, one codifies the 1946 decision to permit the singing of hymns. Of particular interest is the statement relating to Chapter III of the Confession (Of God’s Eternal Decree), which again sounds a more universal theme in contrast to the particularism of Chapter III. The language of this statement is taken nearly verbatim from the PCUSA declaratory statement on the same chapter approved in 1903.^{^[17]}

On obvious question arises: Do these modifications change the teaching of the Confession? This is a difficult matter. As we have seen, the standard ARP interpretation is that they have not. It has also been suggested that the more universalizing tenor of the changes comports with the traditional Seceder emphasis on the free offer of the gospel. On the other hand, the original Sitz im Leben of these changes was the “broadening” PCUSA in which a growing number were uncomfortable with the Calvinism of Dordt and Westminster.^{^[18]} These changes inherited from the PCUSA were written so that they can be read in a Calvinist or an Arminian way. In that sense, the changes dilute the distinctive teaching of the Confession.

Another trend has been the removal of language deemed offensive to Roman Catholics. Changes to the ARP Standards along this line were made in 1959, 1976, and 1984. In 1959, addendum notes were added indicating that the ARP Church does not consider the Pope to be the antichrist, and recognizing a certain “coarseness of expression” in connection with confessional references to “papists,” etc., while continuing “to adhere to the sentiment herein expressed.”^{^[19]} In 1976, the reference to the pope as the anti-christ in Chap. 21 was removed, along with the now-vestigial addendum statement pertaining to that issue. In 1984, the word “papists” was removed from the list of sorts of persons one ought not to marry in Chapter 24.

Finally, in 2001 the ARP approved (following many other churches) a change to WCF 24.4 regarding the laws of affinity in marriage. Now a man can marry his dead wife’s sister, if he wants.^{^[20]}

In retrospect, the 20^th century was a time of some “softening” of the church’s confessional standards as the Confession’s regulative principle of worship was relaxed, and as the sharper edge of predestinarian particularity was dulled. Moreover, the anti-Catholic sentiments inherited from the Reformation period seemed increasingly out of place in the 20^th-century church. Today, one also notices considerable diversity regarding the parameters of confessional subscription. Some continue to follow the earlier approach of expecting in toto adherence, while not asking too many questions, while others assume the Adopting Act framework and press ordination candidates for exceptions to the Standards (even in instances, such as the regulative principle of worship, where the church has decisively moved away from the letter of the Confession). While we don’t (I trust) need to experience an “adopting controversy,” we do need to clarify our theology of confessional adherence.

^{^[1]}Ware and Gettys, p. 227.

^{^[2]}“We believe that it is the will of God that Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs contained in the Book of Psalms be sung in worship in His church and, therefore, they shall be used as the only manual of Praise in every Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.” Quoted in Ware and Gettys, p. 228.

^{^[3]}The overture read: “Shall the Synod approve a Book of Praise comprising the Psalms and selected Hymns, the use of which is to be optional with individual congregations?” Minutes of the General Synod, 1945, p. 215.

^{^[4]}On the complex factors influencing this development, see the insightful treatment in Ware and Gettys, pp. 227-245. See also Lowry Ware, “What Can We Sing? The Praise Issue: Psalm Singers Allow the Introduction of Hymns,” in The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (July 1999): 18-20.

^{^[5]}In 1937, R. M. Stevenson could write, The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (October 20, 1937): “We maintain the simplicity of worship that characterized the fathers, but with some modifications. Our type of sermon is so distinctive as to be recognized easily, although it is much shorter and less formal than that of a generation ago. It is built on a carefully prepared outline, is distinctively scriptural and aimed at the hearts of the hearers.”

^{^[6]}See Ware and Gettys, pp. 87-107; Lowry Ware, “Merger Failures: A Little Church in a Large Land,” The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (February, 1999):12-14.

^{^[7]}See Ware and Gettys, pp. 246-263; Lowry Ware, “Unite with Southern Presbyterians?: Synod Answers `No’ to the Merger,” The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (August 1999), pp.7-9.

^{^[8]}See Ware and Gettys, pp. 276-277. They note, p. 277, that “affiliation with the National Council of Churches was to some degree an issue by which one might judge the general attitude of the ARP Synod.”

^{^[9]}Minutes of the General Synod (1998), p. 31.

^{^[10]}Minutes of the General Synod (1992), p. 100.

^{^[11]}Minutes of the General Synod (1999), p. 353.

^{^[12]}The Constitution and Standards of the Associate Reformed Church in North America (Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1874), p. 455.

^{^[13]}Constitution of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Synod of the South (Columbia, SC: R. L. Bryan, 1908), p. 39. [Identical text in 1937, 1953, 1958 eds.]

^{^[14]}The confessional changes of 1959 have received little detailed attention. Ware and Gettys devote one paragraph on p. 380 to the topic, and their account wrongly maintains that the PCUS had added these chapters in 1861. Likewise, Ray King treats the confessional revisions in a single paragraph on p. 100. Both works argue that the revisions of 1959 did not substantially change the church’s confession—a judgment that is open to question. That the Committee was able to produce such an extensive report in only a year is itself intriguing. It appears that they drew extensively on the example of mainline Presbyterianism. As noted below, the two added chapters were taken verbatim from the PCUS version, while much of the language in the addendum notes was taken over from PCUSA declaratory statements. Most of the members of the Committee would have been familiar with the PCUS situation. R. C. Grier was acquainted with the Northern church context.

^{^[15]}On the history of the Westminster Confession in American Presbyterianism more generally, see John H. Leith, “The Westminster Confession in American Presbyterianism,” in The Westminster Confession in the Church Today: Papers Prepared for the Church of Scotland Panel on Doctrine, ed. by Alasdair I. C. Heron (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1982), pp. 95-100.

^{^[16]}The 1958 ARP Preamble reads as follows: “While the ordination vow of ministers, ruling elders and deacons, as set forth in the Constitution of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (edition 1953), requires the reception of the Confession of Faith as containing the System of Doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures, nevertheless, seeing that the desire has been formally expressed for a clarification of the Church’s position in regard to certain statements and doctrines contained within the Confession, therefore the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church does authoritatively declare as follows:” Compare the 1903 PCUSA language (Minutes of the General Assembly [1902]: 88): “While the ordination vow of ministers, ruling elders and deacons, as set forth in the Form of Government, requires the reception and adoption of the Confession of Faith only as containing the System of Doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures, nevertheless, seeing that the desire has been formally expressed for a disavowal by the Church of certain inferences drawn from statements of the Confession of Faith, and also for a declaration of certain aspects of revealed truth which appear at the present time to call for more explicit statement, therefore the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America does authoritatively declare as follows:”

^{^[17]}“[That c] Concerning those who are saved in Christ, the doctrine of God’s eternal decree is held in harmony with the doctrine of his love to all mankind, his gift of his Son to be the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and his readiness to bestow his saving grace on all who seek it. [That c] Concerning those who perish, the doctrine of God’s eternal decree is held in harmony with the doctrine that God desires not the death of any sinner, but has provided in Christ a salvation sufficient for all, adapted to all, and freely offered in the gospel to all; that men are fully responsible for their treatment of God’s gracious offer; that his decree hinders no man from accepting that offer; and that no man is condemned except on the ground of his sin.” [Italics indicate language taken verbatim from PCUSA, Minutes of General Assembly (1902), p. 89]

^{^[18]}On the context of the 1903 confessional revision, see Lefferts A. Loetscher, The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church since 1869 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954), pp. 39-47, 83-89. In 1906, the Arminian-leaning Cumberland Presbyterian Church merged with the PCUSA on the basis of the PCUSA’s revised confessional standards. See Loetscher, pp. 95-97.

^{^[19]}Minutes of the General Synod (1958): 420.

^{^[20]}On the history of this confessional issue in other Presbyterian churches, see Barry G. Waugh, “Revising the Westminster Confession: The Case of Near-Kin Marriage,” Westminster Theological Journal 63 (2001): 65-85.

“‘Things which Become Sound Doctrine’: Associate Reformed Presbyterian Confessional and Theological Identity in the 20th Century.” (Part 1)

[Editor’s Note: At an ARP historical conference in 2003 I presented a paper on the theological and confessional history of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in the twentieth century. The material was then published in 2006 by the Haddington House Journal, and with the permission of that journal it is now being serialized in three parts here on this blog for those who have not seen it earlier. The article will, I think, be of interest not only to ARPs but also to those who seek a better understanding of how the ARPC differs from other American Presbyterian groups. Though there has been a good deal of ARP water under the bridge since 2003, I’ve resisted the urge to update it, in part because I’ve dealt with more recent developments in extended posts here and here.]

The century just ended was an eventful epoch for the denomination. Many matters largely taken for granted for much of the nineteenth century were subjects of debate and even heated controversy in the twentieth. A number of positions previously regarded as close to the heart of ARP identity were changed. We will seek to make sense of these developments and debates and to view them in the larger context of American Reformed Christianity. We will also seek to ascertain what is distinctive about the ARP tradition in the larger American Reformed context. Before we can explore these issues, however, we must briefly explore the contours of ARP theological and confessional identity in the nineteenth century. We will also reflect on what the future may hold theologically for the ARP Church.

Certain challenges face a study such as this. Theological investigation generally rests on the analysis of texts, but texts relevant to this study are in short supply. Much documentation has perished as ministers’ libraries have been dispersed. Also, the ARP church does not have a lengthy theological “paper trail.” While our church has produced numerous gifted pastors and churchmen, it has produced no major theologians. Theological literature produced has tended to be catechetical (i.e., designed to pass the received tradition on to the next generation). Another challenge is the lack of detailed study of the church’s theological history. While some highly useful works have been produced by ARP scholars,^{^[1]} more historical work of a specifically theological nature needs to be done.

I. The Nineteenth Century

The theological center of gravity of the nineteenth-century Associate Reformed Church may be usefully gauged by briefly examining its approach to the Bible, confessional adherence, worship, communion, Sabbath observance, and Christian experience.

A. Biblical Authority

The 19^th-century Associate Reformed were a “people of the Book” who affirmed the divine inspiration of Scripture and sought to honor its authority in their lives. Reflecting this consensus, J. S. Moffatt in 1903 carefully described the church’s commitment to a plenary and verbal conception of scriptural inspiration:

The Associate Reformed Church stands stoutly for the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. Its testimony is that the inspiration extends not merely to some portions of the Bible but to the whole Bible; not only to the words and sermons of Christ but to the Epistles of Paul and Peter as well. Its position is that not merely the contents, the body of truth found in the Scriptures is inspired of God but that the inspiration extends to the very words; that not only does the Bible contain the Word of God but the Bible is the Word of God.^{^[2]}

Moffatt went on to deny a dictation theory of inspiration, as if the human writers were automatons. Rather, the “peculiar traits” of the human writers were superintended in such a way that their “writing became the inerrant vehicle of God’s truth.”^{^[3]} He also recognized the findings of “lower” or textual criticism, and affirmed that transcriptional errors had crept into the biblical text. But Moffatt added that

as originally given to the church there were no errors and that the originals have been so guarded by the Spirit, and so reverently and carefully handled by godly and faithful men that whatever errors may have crept in through human frailty are slight and have not corrupted or changed in any essential particular the originally inspired documents.^{^[4]}

Moffatt went on to recognize the link between inspiration and authority, contending that the high view of inspiration affirmed by the AR church was essential to the life of the church: “The Associate Reformed Church stands to witness that only an inspiration of this kind is sufficient to constitute the Bible an infallible rule of faith and practice.”^{^[5]}

B. Associate Reformed Confessionalism

The 19th-century AR church took its confessional standards seriously. This should not be surprising, since both the Covenanter and Seceder forbears had stood, at great personal cost, for what they regarded as the foundational principles of Presbyterianism. The Westminster Confession, along with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, was adopted by the uniting Synod in 1782, together with the Directory for Worship and Propositions Concerning Church Government (which expressed certain reservations regarding the teaching of the Confession regarding the relationship of church and civil government).^{^[6]} In 1799, the Confession of Faith and Larger Catechism were revised to remove Erastian elements suggesting that the State has authority over the church.^{^[7]}

Several characteristics of AR confessionalism need to be noted. First, the “adherence” (a key term) to the confessional standards was in toto. That is to say, the AR was not part of the Adopting Act trajectory through which much of American Presbyterianism traces its lineage. This Adopting Act, as the church historians in the audience will recall, involved a compromise in 1729 between anti-subscription New England Presbyterians and pro-subscription Scots Presbyterians in which an ordination candidate was to subscribe to the “system of doctrine” or “all essential and necessary articles” in the Confession. As subsequent history indicates, this did not settle the matter, and it also raises vexing definitional questions as to what is “essential,” what constitutes the “system of doctrine,” and what is an “exception.” Interestingly, 19^th-century AR’s were aware of this difference between the traditions, and Lathan views the Adopting Act as a root cause of later problems.^{^[8]}

Second, there was a decided tendency to respect the integrity of the Confessional documents. Except for the changes to the four chapters approved in 1799 noted above, the AR Church approved no further modifications to the Westminster Confession until well into the 20^th century. The “Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, Directory for Worship, and Form of Government” were received “as their fixed testimony, by which their principles are to be tried.”^{^[9]} The Synod recognized, however, that circumstances might require the further clarification of confessional principles, or their defense, and so it reserved the right to promulgate “occasional testimonies.”

In her excellent Confession of Faith, Catechisms, etc., the church is already possessed of a testimony so scriptural, concise, comprehensive and perspicuous, that the Synod despair of seeing it materially improved, and are convinced that the most eligible and useful method of maintaining the truths therein exhibited, is occasionally to elucidate them and direct them in particular acts against particular errors, as circumstances require.^{^[10]}

Third, this stout confessionalism was decidedly not of a speculative or metaphysical character. One does not find debates in the 19^th-century AR church over fine points of theology. In fact, the Synod of the South and its successors experienced no heresy trials prior to the 20^th century.^{^[11]} As we will see below, the emphasis was much more on matters of praxis as definitive of denominational identity.

C. Worship

For much of its history, the AR Church was in great measure defined by its adherence to a rather strict version of what has been called the Reformed Regulative Principle of Worship. That is, only those worship practices for which there is positive scriptural sanction were to be permitted. This principle was expressed in a relatively simple, if not stark, form of worship, in the practice of exclusive psalmody, and in the prohibition of musical instruments in worship.

Exclusive psalmody in particular was regarded as a mark of AR identity throughout the nineteenth century. This was the most apparent difference between the “General Assembly” Presbyterians and the Associate Reformed, and the AR position was defended with great vigor. The importance of this issue is apparent in the change effected by the 1899 General Synod to the Book of Worship which had the effect, not only of prescribing exclusive psalmody in AR churches, but of also prohibiting AR members from singing hymns in any context.^{^[12]}

By the end of the nineteenth century, however, concerns were being expressed that the AR church was too “old fashioned” and therefore unable to appeal to more urban constituencies. By the 1880′s, some churches had installed organs, and in 1891, the General Synod approved the use of instrumentation in worship services.^{^[13]}

D. Communion

Another key characteristic of AR identity was its practice of “close” (bordering on “closed”) communion. While recognizing the universal “communion of saints” affirmed by chap. 26 of the Confession, the AR church nevertheless generally restricted communion to members of the church (so-called “stated communion”). Other believers might, in theory, be admitted to the Table on occasion (“occasional communion”), but the potential for disorder and abuse of the practice of occasional communion was regarded by the AR church as sufficient reason to restrict access to the Table.^{^[14]} With considerable plausibility, Lathan ascribes this practice to the legacy of animosity between the various branches of Scottish Presbyterianism.^{^[15]}

As is well known, this matter of restricted communion played an important role in the early 19^th-century controversies involving John Mitchell Mason, and the separation of the Synod of the South. Nevertheless, the second half of the 19^th century saw the gradual erosion of this restricted communion principle as relations with other churches grew stronger. Temporary provisions for inter-communion had accompanied the merger discussions between the PCUS and the AR church in the 1860′s, and some churches continued the practice even after the end of negotiations between the two denominations in 1866. While the 1875 Synod reaffirmed the practice of “restricted or regulated occasional communion,” efforts to introduce “catholic communion” finally met with success in 1899 when the Book for Worship was revised to allow the invitation of “all members of other Evangelical churches in good and regular standing.”^{^[16]}

E. Sabbath Observance

Another distinctive of the AR church in the 19^th century was its staunch Sabbatarianism. Probably no other group could claim to adhere any more closely to the strictures of Larger Catechism QQ. 115-121 than the AR church. As Ware and Gettys note, Christmas and Easter were not celebrated in AR circles until the 1890′s, and there was also a general perception that observance of the Sabbath was declining late in the century.^{^[17]} It should be noted, however, that a rather strict Sabbatarianism persisted in some quarters, especially in the town of Due West, well into the 20^th century.

F. An Evangelical Concern for Christian Experience

As the heirs of the Scottish Seceders, the AR church stood squarely in the tradition of what was called “experimental Calvinism.” That is, they were Calvinists with a deep concern for the necessity of a vital experience of God’s saving grace in Christ. Reflecting on the distinctiveness of the ARP church in 1936, R. L. Robinson wrote:

Primarily and essentially, we Associate Reformed Presbyterians stand for a spiritual conception of the Church. Associate Reformed Presbyterianism stands as a witness for the purity of communion. We maintain that the Church consists of men and women who are in Christ, who know Him by direct and personal experience and have surrendered themselves entirely to Him.^{^[18]}

Morever, in this concern for the experience of grace we see AR leaders self-consciously identifying their church not only with their historic heritage, but also with what they took to be the broader consensus of evangelical churches.^{^[19]}

The style and rhythm of piety was, however, of an older and deeper sort. The revivalism that so impacted much of American Christianity during the 19^th century seems to have had relatively little impact on the AR church prior to the last decade of the 19^th century, when the Home Mission Board introduced a mild form of methodological revivalism under the leadership of W. W. Orr.^{^[20]} Instead, the focus was on covenant nurture and catechesis of children in the home and church. As Ware and Gettys note, the prevailing AR pattern was for “special services” to accompany the celebrations of the Lord’s Supper. In this, the AR church was following the earlier Scottish pattern of holding “communion seasons.”^{^[21]}

G. Summary

The AR church in the 19^th century is best viewed as an indigenous species of experimental and confessional Calvinism, albeit with strong ties to the Scottish experience. It was characterized by a focus upon praxis and Christian experience (exclusive psalmody, Sabbath observance, simplicity in worship, Christian nurture) rather than theological precision. Moreover, this focus on praxis was oriented toward matters which helped to define the AR church as a church. As we might expect, there was also a focus on those beliefs and practices which distinguished the AR church from the General Assembly Presbyterians as constituting the church’s raison d’etre. In all of this, there was also a traditionalism that expressed itself in a decided preference for the “old ways.”

All this suggests that the AR church must be approached on its own terms. Categories drawn from the analysis of mainline Presbyterianism (e.g., Old School vs. New School) don’t work particularly well when applied to the AR experience.^{^[22]} In short, then, the AR church is a rather unique example of biblicistic and confessional, non-speculative, praxis-oriented and ecclesially minded experimental Calvinism. This identity was to be sorely challenged, and to some degree transformed, by the pressures of the 20^th century.

^{^[1]}See, e.g., Robert Lathan, History of the Associate Reformed Synod of the South, 1782-1882 (Harrisburg, PA, 1882); Lowry Ware and James W. Gettys, The Second Century: A History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterians, 1882-1982 (Greenville, SC, 1982); Ray A. King, A History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (Charlotte: Board of Christian Education, 1966); The Centennial History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1803-1903 (Charleston, SC: Walker, Evans & Cogwell, 1905). See also Lowry Ware, “The ARP Church in the 20^th Century,” in ARP Magazine (January – December, 1999). Also worthy of note is the collection of documents, articles, and lectures in Jack C. Whytock, Lecture Outlines, Readings and Assignments for the Church History Course: History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, rev. ed (Moncton, NB, 1999).

^{^[2]}J. S. Moffatt, “What the Associate Reformed Church Stands For,” in The Centennial History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (Charleston, SC: Walker, Evans & Cogwell, 1905), p. 694. The precision of Moffatt’s language here, and the care with which he excludes error suggests that he was quite familiar with the contemporary debates and discussions regarding the doctrine of biblical authority, and in particular with the PCUSA debates between B. B. Warfield and C. A. Briggs. The doctrine he presents here is consistent with the position articulated at Princeton Seminary by A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield. See especially A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, “Inspiration,” in Presbyterian Review 2 (April 1881): 225-260; and the collection of articles in Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948).

^{^[3]}Moffatt, p. 695.

^{^[4]}Moffatt, p. 694.

^{^[5]}Moffatt, p. 694.

^{^[6]}See Lathan, p. 178. The propositions concerning government are reprinted in Lathan, pp. 194-196.

^{^[7]}AR changes to the Confessional standards are enumerated in Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I:811, and Lathan, pp. 203. Here it may be noted that the AR version of WCF 23.3 differs from mainstream Presbyterianism in its declaration that the magistrate is “bound to promote the Christian Religion.”

^{^[8]}See Lathan, pp. 143-145.

^{^[9]}Synod of 1790, quoted in Lathan, p. 200.

^{^[10]}Synod of 1797, quoted in Lathan, p. 201.

^{^[11]}Ware and Gettys, pp. 142-143, write, “Rev. W.W. Orr told the 1904 UPC assembly that to his knowledge his church had never had a heresy trial. . . . Orr was correct in that although a few ARP ministers had left the fold because of doctrinal differences, there had been no trials or prolonged controversies. Their deviations simply were exceptions which prove the rule.”

^{^[12]}As Ware and Gettys, p. 63, note, the previous language stated: “nor shall any composure merely human be sung in any of the Associate Reformed churches.” This was revised in 1899 to read: “nor shall any other songs be used in worship by members of the Associate Reformed church.”

^{^[13]}See Ware and Gettys, pp. 63-65.

^{^[14]}The 1783 Synod declared: “It is the resolution of this Synod to treat pious people of other denominations with great attention and tenderness. They are willing, as God affords opportunity, to extend communion to all who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus; but as occasional communion, in a divided state of the Church, may be attended with great disorders, they hold themselves bound to submit to every restriction of their liberty which general edification renders necessary.” Quoted in Lathan, pp. 228-229.

^{^[15]}See Lathan, pp. 228-231. As Lathan observed, relations were strained between the Scottish Kirk and groups such as the Covenanters and Seceders.

^{^[16]}Ware and Gettys, pp. 70-71.

^{^[17]}Ware and Gettys, pp. 76-78.

^{^[18]}R. L. Robinson, “Observations and Reflections,” in Associate Reformed Presbyterian, July 22, 1936, p. 6.

^{^[19]}In his Centennial Address of 1903, pp. 692-693, J. S. Moffatt had spoken of the AR church’s adherence to the “vast body of truth held in a general way by all the evangelical churches”: including: “all men lost in sin; the Holy Spirit the applier of the redemption wrought out by Christ . . . the salvation provided by Christ available to the sinner through repentance and faith; whosoever believeth shall be saved and whosoever believeth not shall be condemned.”

^{^[20]}Ware and Gettys, pp. 72-76.

^{^[21]}On the Scots and Scots-Irish practice of communion seasons, see Marilyn J. Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625-1760 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); and Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communion Seasons and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

^{^[22]}If we define the Old School tendency as involving a staunch confessionalism and a concern for theological precision, and the New School tendency as entailing an experiential and praxis orientation with a deep concern for revivalism and social reform, we see that the AR church cuts across the categories. The 19^th century AR church was confessional but not particularly oriented toward theological precision. It was experience and praxis oriented but non-revivalist and non-social reformist in character. On the larger influence of the Old and New School tendencies in mainstream American Presbyterianism, see George M. Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970).

Baptismal Efficacy: The Offer/Reception Model as Antidote to the Federal Vision

Once again the Federal Vision movement is in the news. Overtures regarding the handling by two Presbyteries of allegations against the Rev. Jeff Meyers and the Rev. Peter Leithart will be presented to this year’s PCA General Assembly. I should make it clear at the outset that this post is not directed against either of these men, as I have not examined their writings on the subject of baptismal efficacy in any depth (I will add that I really like Leithart’s recent Baker Academic volume on Athanasius).

The Federal Vision movement, which emerged in the 1990s, can be understood as a post-theonomic impulse (as is often noted, some of the figures in it have clear connections to the earlier Christian Reconstructionist movement). Here a parallel to the earlier Puritan movement seems to hold—having failed to reform society in accordance with divine law, the Puritans turned to the reform of family and parish life, and something similar seems to have happened to theonomists in the wake of the political failures of the religious right.

As I suggested in a 2010 WTJ article, the Federal Vision is characterized by an insistent stress on covenant conditionality and sacramental efficacy (see my “Déjà Vu All Over Again?: The Contemporary Reformed Soteriological Controversy in Historical Perspective,” Westminster Theological Journal 72/1 (2010): 135-151). Understood as a corrective, these emphases are not surprising—FV proponents rightly sense that contemporary Evangelicalism is at least implicitly antinomian and ecclesiologically challenged!

For at least some FV proponents, these concerns have issued in a view of baptismal efficacy that may be described under four points. First, the grace of baptism is fully and objectively efficacious at the time of administration. Those baptized are regenerated and united with Christ. Second, this baptismal grace is well nigh universal—all baptized (at least all covenant children baptized as infants) receive the saving efficacy of the sacrament. Third, while the grace of baptism is bestowed in the administration of the sacrament, this grace is conditional in that it can be lost by those who fail to persevere in faith and obedience. Finally, because the grace of baptism is received even by those who later fail to persevere, it is not conditioned by God’s decree of election (for a more detailed discussion of this, see my “‘Really Exhibited and Conferred . . . in His Appointed Time’: Baptism and the New Reformed Sacramentalism,” Presbyterion: Covenant Seminary Review 31/2 (Fall 2005): 72-88).

While I have some significant disagreements with the Federal Vision position regarding baptism, its proponents are to be commended for putting the issue of baptismal efficacy on the front burner. Scripture does speak of baptism as doing something decisive of a salvific nature (e.g., Acts 2:38; 22:16; Romans 6:3-4; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 3:21), and this theme of baptismal efficacy is prominent in Reformed confessional documents. But despite this witness, the prevailing model more recently in Evangelical and Reformed circles has been Zwinglian in that any efficacy attributed to baptism is at most merely psychological. Today it seems that even many Reformed ministers are more concerned to explain what baptism doesn’t do than what it does!

Nevertheless, there is a well-codified though largely forgotten alternative to the rather mechanical sacramentalist FV view of baptismal efficacy on the one hand, with its similarities to the Roman Catholic ex opere operato view, and Zwinglian sacramentarianism on the other. Here I am referring to what I have termed the “offer/reception model” of sacramental efficacy as it is found in the writings of John Calvin and in Reformed confessional materials such as the Westminster Confession of Faith.

John Calvin sought to present a doctrine of the sacraments that ascribed neither too much (as he thought the ex opere operato of Roman Catholicism did) or too little (as he contended the Anabaptists did) to the sacraments (see Institutes IV.14.14, 17). To this end he consistently argued that in the sacraments we receive Christ himself as their “substance,” but that this “happens when we receive in true faith what is offered there” (Institutes, IV.14.16). Regarding baptism in particular, Calvin declared that “from this sacrament . . . we obtain only as much as we receive in faith” (Institutes, IV.15.15). Especially important for this issue is Calvin’s forceful comment on Ezekiel 20:20.

We must hold, therefore, that there is a mutual relation between faith and the sacraments, and hence, that the sacraments are effective through faith. Man’s unworthiness does not detract anything from them, for they always retain their nature. Baptism is the laver of regeneration, although the whole world should be incredulous: (Tit. iii.5) the Supper of Christ is the communication of his body and blood, (I Cor. x.16) although there were not a spark of faith in the world: but we do not perceive the grace which is offered to us; and although spiritual things always remain the same, yet we do not obtain their effect, nor perceive their value, unless we are cautious that our want of faith should not profane what God has consecrated to our salvation.

The fact that baptism retains its character and that the grace of baptism can subsequently be received by faith implies what R. S. Wallace has helpfully termed a doctrine of “latent efficacy” (Calvin’s Doctrine of Word and Sacrament, 185). Apparently speaking of his own experience, Calvin wrote (Institutes, IV.15.17):

Now our opponents ask us what faith came to us during some years after our baptism . . . . We therefore confess that for that time baptism benefited us not at all, inasmuch as the promise offered us in it—without which baptism is nothing—lay neglected . . . . But we believe that the promise itself did not vanish. Rather, we consider that God through baptism promises us forgiveness of sins, and he will doubtless fulfill his promise for all believers. This promise was offered to us in baptism; therefore, let us embrace it by faith. Indeed, on account of our unfaithfulness it lay long buried from us; now, therefore, let us receive it through faith.

With regard to the salvation of infants, Calvin recognizes that while God can bring elect infants to salvation (Institutes, IV.16.21), this is exceptional rather than how God “usually deals . . . with infants” (Institutes, IV.16.17). Rather, the preaching of the word is the “ordinary arrangement” by which God calls his people to himself and to “the beginning of faith” (Institutes, IV.16.19). In all this we see not only the doctrine of “latent efficacy” but also Calvin’s conviction that the efficacy of baptism is conditioned by the divine decree of election.

Given the pervasiveness of this offer/reception language in Calvin, we are not terribly surprised to find this way of thinking present in the Westminster Confession’s treatment of baptismal efficacy. In WCF 28.6 we read:

The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, not withstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in His appointed time.

At least one FV figure has argued that this confessional section speaks of baptism as immediately efficacious at its administration and of that efficacy extending to a person’s entire life. But this interpretation ignores the rather clear conceptual roots of this section in Calvin, and, most importantly, it can only be sustained at the cost of ignoring the latter part of the sentence in question.

In his study of the Westminster Assembly on baptism (David Wright, “Baptism at the Westminster Assembly,” in Calvin Studies VIII: The Westminster Confession in Current Thought (Davidson, N.C.: Davidson College, 1997), 80.), historian David F. Wright rightly concluded that the “Confession teaches baptismal regeneration,” but he also noted that this language was carefully qualified: “What then about the efficacy of baptism according to the Westminster Confession? Its central affirmation seems clear: ‘the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost’ (28:6). It is true that a variety of qualifications to this assertion are entered in the chapter on baptism: efficacy is not tied to the moment of administration (ibid.), grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed to baptism that no person can be regenerated or saved without it (28:5) or that all the baptized are undoubtedly regenerated (ibid.).”

The benefits of this offer/reception model are substantial. At very least, it offers an example of the careful balancing of sacramental objectivity and subjectivity that is characteristic of the Reformed tradition at its best. It provides a meaningful integration of divine sovereignty and sacramental efficacy—something that has historically been rather elusive. Finally, it maintains the unity of salvation in Christ—it rightly affirms that all of salvation, including perseverance, is ours in Christ Jesus, and that in him we truly have eternal life.

I have long thought that the FV is asking some important and even crucial questions but coming up with some unfortunate answers—answers that move it, as it were, beyond the Reformed confessional reservation. While the offer/reception model of sacramental efficacy as found in Calvin and the Westminster Confession does not answer all the questions we may have on this issue, it is a good start in the direction of a theology of the sacraments that is biblically rooted, confessionally responsible, and ecclesially robust.

For further reading on the topic:

William B. Evans, “‘Really Exhibited and Conferred . . . in His Appointed Time’: Baptism and the New Reformed Sacramentalism,” Presbyterion: Covenant Seminary Review 31/2 (Fall 2005): 72-88.

__________, “Calvin, Baptism, and Latent Efficacy Again: A Reply to Rich Lusk,” Presbyterion: Covenant Seminary Review 32/1 (Spring 2006): 38-45.

Hughes Oliphant Old, The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the Sixteenth Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992).

R. S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of Word and Sacrament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 133-253.

David Wright, “Baptism at the Westminster Assembly,” in Calvin Studies VIII: The Westminster Confession in Current Thought (Davidson, N.C.: Davidson College, 1997), 76–90.

For a valiant but, in my judgment, ultimately unsuccessful attempt to defend a FV reading of Calvin and the WCF on baptismal efficacy, see Rich Lusk, “Baptismal Efficacy and Baptismal Latency: A Sacramental Dialogue,” Presbyterion: Covenant Seminary Review 32/1 (Spring 2006): 18-37.

TheEcclesialCalvinist

Musings of a Paleo-Orthodox Ecclesial Calvinist