It's difficult to write much about the Federal Vision view, as one can say the same about it as has been said about many positions, "There are as many views of Federal Vision as there are Federal Visionists." But there are broad strokes one can make concerning what seems to be the main issue it seeks to address, namely, how one evaluates whether someone is a member of the covenant community and should fully partake in its spiritual life without any added restrictions that other regular members of the Body of Christ do not have placed upon them.
Much of this boils down to its argument concerning whether we determine one's election by regeneration or by baptism. Baptism is the objective sign. Regeneration is the subjective sign, subjective in that it must be discerned subjectively via experience (individual repentance, individual profession of faith, individual good works).
Whereas many Presbyterians seem to want to say the latter confirms one's election, and therefore, grants access to the full spiritual life of the body, Federal Visionists want to argue that the sign of election is baptism, and therefore, if one is baptized, one should be granted full access to the spiritual life of the covenant community.
Although I am appreciative of the corrections Federal Visionists seek to make, I think I would like to push back on both positions as being unbiblical.
1. Federal Vision misses the mark when it characterizes the issue as one of objective and subjective signs of election. Most would say that regeneration is the result of election, and hence, if one is regenerate, he is elect. However, regeneration is invisible, as many Federal Visionists will point out. Something has to signify whether one is regenerate, and these signs are not objective, whether repentance, faith, good works on the one hand or baptism on the other. They are subjective because one can actually do these things and not be regenerate, which means that we are all relying upon the experience as a sign, regardless of whether we are arguing over what that experience should look like. The Bible is clear that one can be a part of the visible covenant community but be unregenerate. Hence, we cannot say that all are really in the covenant if being in the covenant is being a part of Christ's body. Christ's body will never undergo decay. Not one part of it. Hence, no part of Christ's body can perish. But in a Federal Visionist view, many parts of Christ's body fall off and perish. One may say that they are no longer Christ's body, but that misses the point. If they were at any time truly Christ's body, then what was His body has now perished having fallen away from it. Christ's truly loses what was once truly His.
2. On the other hand, Presbyterians who approach the covenant community with skepticism because they continually need reassurance that individuals are truly covenant members before they continue to grant full access to them to the life of the church have been sufficiently critiqued by Federal Visionists for failing to approach the covenant community the way that the Bible does, i.e., with an assumption that the entire community is elect and regenerate until individual members prove otherwise. In other words, I am fully on board with the critique of a position that holds baptized members of the covenant community guilty until proven innocent. There should be an assumption of election of the entire covenant community, of every member, as all of the biblical writers assume. To do otherwise is to play the guessing game in terms of who is really regenerate. One can say that he only uses faith and good works as the criteria, but the unregenerate man can claim faith and do good works in the eyes of men, so there is no fool-proof way to ever really know whether the person to whom you have administered communion, for instance, is truly regenerate and should partake of it.
3. Although each group is flirting with the truth, both of missed the mark due to the fact that each seems to avoid addressing the issue of federal headship and how it relates to these things.
A. First of all, Christ is the federal head of the household that is the church, and therefore, all who belong to that household are saved. Hence, the assumption of salvation should be given to everyone within it. This does not mean that everyone in the household will be saved, but only that those who are of the household are to be considered true members of it while in it, even if they are not really true members of that household secretly.
B. Children or the disabled who are not able to express their own repentance, faith, and good works are a part of their believing parents' or parent's household, and therefore, do not need individual expressions of repentance, faith, and good works if their parents or parent already have/has them.
Hence, I have come to a grant of full access to the spiritual life of the covenant community without having to get into the hairy details of whether each individual's election can be judged by his or her own separate expressions of it on top of a household's baptism and the repentance and faith assumed therein.
This is why the only basis for excommunication is rebellion against the authority of Christ. It alone blocks access to the full life of the body. Until a baptized member is excommunicated, there should be no restriction to the body of Christ and its resources. In that regard, the Federal Visionists are right in their concern that access to the full spiritual life is being blocked by bad theology. My concern is that even more bad theology has been created to address it.
Much of this concern is likely somewhat related to the New Light controversy in Edward’s day and the subsequent revivalism, enthusiasm, and pietism that was inherited by modern Western Christianity. Does one need an experience on top of his baptism? Does one need to confirm that he has been converted beyond becoming a member of the church? And how does one discern this if no one can be infallible?
The answer is not to inherit an unbiblical declaration that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the invisible and the visible body of Christ but rather to assume the one-to-one correspondence of each until an individual or group within the visible community proves otherwise by their rejection of the faith either explicitly in a denial of Christ or through their unrepentant sin. This maintains both the integrity of texts that would indicate a reception of those who belong to the community into the full life thereof and the texts that indicate that not all Israel is Israel.
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