Joint Federal Vision Statement

Approaches to Justification within the Federal Vision

 
When the topic of faith is discussed among protestants and their modern evangelical cousins there is a tendency to define the word differently. This is a big reason why the modern evangelical rejects the baptism of infants as practiced by the majority of the church for the last two thousand years.

What evangelicals understand faith to be and what we understand it to be are not the same things. Evangelicals define faith in terms of knowledge. The accepting of a certain set of facts as true. But that's not what faith is. Faith, to believe, is a question of trust and loyalty. No one needs to know all of the facts to do that.

In fact... all an infant does is trust. Loyalty comes naturally to them. They need no facts. They trust their mother to love them, their father to protect them, and why not their God to save them?

But where is this taught in the Bible? In the very definition of the word itself. The word for what evangelicals define as faith is epignosis. It literally means precise and correct knowledge. But the word rendered faith and or belief is pistis. It means trust and loyalty. Two completely different concepts.

Adam McIntosh on Apostasy and Perseverance: "There is no denial of Perseverance in FV theology. In fact, I'd argue that Perseverance is one of its primary emphases. You must persevere in your faith to the end, working out your salvation with fear and trembling. This is the unique characteristic of those who are "elect" for eternal salvation (to borrow from systematic language). Those who do not persevere were never elect for eternal salvation, but we must nevertheless maintain that they were saved in time/history, had a real relationship with Jesus, but then fell away and lost salvation. They were in Christ, then they weren't. They were saved, then they weren't. (Check out Matthew 18, parable of the unforgiving servant -- he was forgiven, then the king re-instated all of his debt. His forgiveness was revoked.) I think we have to distinguish between "salvation" as it is used in the Bible and how "election" is used in theology. Salvation is more broad than decretal election. Ham was saved in the Ark (1 Peter 3), but afterward he fell away and was cursed. The way I've worded this before is that "All the elect will be saved, but not all the saved are elect." You can lose salvation, but you cannot lose election. That is a vital distinction. You are also taking the "I never knew you passage" out of context. Jesus was speaking of Jewish rulers who would never enter into the kingdom. He was not talking about believers in the kingdom who then fall away." and this interaction with someone: "Matthew 13, parable of the sower, is another great example. Some seeds grew and believed "for a time," but fell away. Some people have temporary faith (apostates), some have persevering faith (the elect), and all of this ordained by God. No one is able to alter God's decrees. There is no contradiction because we aren't saying that the decretally elect can lose salvation.

      "Also, "Matthew 13, parable of the sower, is another great example. Some seeds grew and believed "for a time," but fell away. Some people have temporary faith (apostates), some have persevering faith (the elect), and all of this ordained by God. No one is able to alter God's decrees. There is no contradiction because we aren't saying that the decretally elect can lose salvation.

"But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles." He receives the word with "joy" and "endures" for "a while." How can you say this person did not have a real faith? It sure sounds like he did, based on Jesus's actual words."