Meyers Missouri Presbytery Report (Federal Vision)

Here is Missouri Presbytery's Report on their findings into TE Jeff Meyers on whether or not he is teaching federal vision theology. 

Missouri Presbytery’s final report from the committee investigating TE Jeffrey Meyers is available here. I believe that this document will prove to be one of the more important Federal Vision documents to be released in a while. It is a rather complete statement of the issues on baptism, covenant, and justification by a prominent Federal Visionist to a friendly PCA Court.

I plan to post each section in separate posts here on Johannes Weslianus for comment and discussion. The links to the sections available in separate blog posts are as follows:

1. Introduction
2. Views on Covenant Theology
3. Views on Theology of the Imputation of Christ’s Merit
4. View on Theology of Baptism
5. Views on Theology of Perseverance
6. Views on Theology of Justification
7. Report of the Subcommittee Investigating Process and Injurious Reports
8. TE Meyers’ Letter of Apology
9. Conclusion
10. Meyers’ Q & A — I. Covenant
11. Meyers’ Q & A — II. The Imputation of Christ’s Merit
12. Meyers’ Q & A — III. Baptism
13. Meyers’ Q & A — IV. Perseverance
14. Meyers’ Q & A — V. Justification

Here is a timeline of the relevant events in this controversy. Please check back for further updates.

Missouri Presbytery Exonerates TE Jeffrey Meyers - Federal Vision

Here are two links to Wes White's blog where he describes Missouri Presbytery's TE Jeffrey Meyers having been exonerated on charges of holding to false teaching called the Federal Vision.

http://www.weswhite.net/2011/01/mo-presbytery-exonerates-federal-visionist-jeffrey-meyers-of-all-theological-errors/

http://www.weswhite.net/2011/01/mo-presbyterys-specific-exonerations-of-te-meyers/

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

(From Kevin) In the Reformed faith, we believe that God’s moral law as summarized in the Ten Commandments is binding on all men, everywhere. The Commandments teach us how God expects us to live in relation to him and to others. It is no small thing to break one of the Commandments. It is an equally serious thing to accuse someone of breaking one of the Commandments.

The Ninth Commandment is, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Keeping the commandment involves positive and negative aspects.

Positively, the duties of the Commandment require,

the preserving and promoting of truth between man and man, and the good name of our neighbor, as well as our own; appearing and standing for the truth; and from the heart, sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully, speaking the truth, and only the truth, in matters of judgment and justice, and in all other things whatsoever; a charitable esteem of our neighbors; loving, desiring, and rejoicing in their good name; sorrowing for, and covering of their infirmities; freely acknowledging of their gifts and graces, defending their innocence; a ready receiving of a good report, and unwillingness to admit of an evil report, concerning them; discouraging tale-bearers, flatterers, and slanderers; love and care of our own good name, and defending it when need requires; keeping of lawful promises; studying and practicing of whatsoever things are true, honest, lovely, and of good report. (Westminster Larger Catechism, 144)

Negatively, the Commandment forbids,

prejudicing the truth, and the good name of our neighbors, as well as our own, especially in public judicature; giving false evidence, suborning false witnesses, wittingly appearing and pleading for an evil cause, out-facing and overbearing the truth; passing unjust sentence, calling evil good, and good evil; rewarding the wicked according to the work of the righteous, and the righteous according to the work of the wicked; forgery, concealing the truth, undue silence in a just cause, and holding our peace when iniquity calls for either a reproof from ourselves, or complaint to others;( speaking the truth unseasonably, or maliciously to a wrong end, or perverting it to a wrong meaning, or in doubtful and equivocal expressions, to the prejudice of truth or justice; speaking untruth, lying, slandering,backbiting, detracting, tale-bearing, whispering, scoffing, reviling, rash, harsh, and partial censuring; misconstruing intentions, words, and actions; flattering, vain-glorious boasting, thinking or speaking too highly or too meanly of ourselves or others; denying the gifts and graces of God; aggravating smaller faults; hiding, excusing, or extenuating of sins, when called to a free confession; unnecessary discovering of infirmities; raising false rumors, receiving and countenancing evil reports, and stopping our ears against just defense; evil suspicion; envying or grieving at the deserved credit of any, endeavoring or desiring to impair it, rejoicing in their disgrace and infamy; scornful contempt, fond admiration; breach of lawful promises; neglecting such things as are of good report, and practicing, or not avoiding ourselves, or not hindering what we can in others, such things as procure an ill name. (Westminster Larger Catechism, 145)

Essentially, then, breaking the Ninth Commandment involves either wanton disregard for the truth or malice in offering up un-truths. Which brings me to the point of this post.

Recently, there has been a rash of accusations against ministers in the PCA for allegedly breaking the Ninth Commandment. These men are not liars, but faithful upholders of the confessional standards of our church. To my knowledge, no less than 29 ministers have been accused of breaking the Commandment and three of them have been or are currently being formally investigated with an eye towards leveling charges against them. The presbyteries leveling these accusations, while no doubt also filled with many faithful ministers as well, all harbor known proponents of the Federal Vision. As the Ninth Commandment charges are coming so fast and furious right now its use is beginning to look like a stratagem from a Federal Vision playbook. If such a playbook exists, here are the plays:

1. Tell detractors that they misunderstood or took the Federal Vision proponent out of context. If that fails,
2. Say the detractor is too stupid to understand what the Federal Vision proponent is advocating. If that fails,
3. Accuse the detractor of violating the Ninth Commandment for drawing attention to what the Federal Vision proponent is advocating.

In short, the Ninth Commandment is becoming a cudgel to intimidate faithful ministers into silence. As one prominent PCA minister who is facing such an allegation recently said to me, “This approach is the last refuge of those who can't stand the heat of vigorous theological discourse.”

Kind of sounds like a violation of the Ninth Commandment to me.

The Muscovite Polymath and the PCA's C Student Graders

Well, Doug Wilson, the pied piper of Moscow, is at it again. In the aftermath of the letter signed by a few brave souls willing to have our names dragged through the mud by the FV attack dogs, Doug has cranked up the FV toady machine again.

But, this time the attack/defense is even more intriguing. To the normal line of, "Duh, we're just teaching what Reformed people have always thought and believed," and conversely, "We cannot be bound by our tradition. We need to transcend it. We are offering a revision of Reformed theology," he's added, "People who don't get it are just dunces."

And, I don't blame him. After all, John Piper of all people, to my bottomless disappointment, gave this view a public airing! PCA types who think Wilson is out to lunch are just stupid, that's all.

Well, that may, in fact, be true. We could be dunces, however, like Petronella Baltus, the unlettered Dutch peasant, who dared take on the towering intellect of an Abraham Kuyper and lead him to Christ. Stupid people can be right about things, after all. It's a fallacy to suggest that a person's dimwittedness means that he is wrong.

And sometimes even the C student catches the professor being less than intellectually honest. The typical FV tactic is to quote some Reformed father incompletely or out of context, and find some credence for the FV's view. Such is the case here.

Our disingenuous professor, hiding behind his Latin, would suggest to us that Turretin, the greatest of all scholastic theologians, is (gasp) teaching that a person is saved by faithful obedience --the same faithful obedience that saved Adam!!

And, what is more, Turretin denies the Law-Gospel distinction, that inconvenient Lutheran antinomian contraption.

Can it be true? Can the adversaries of the FV have misunderstood their own tradition that badly? It appears to be the case. We all ought to move to Moscow, get a really nice wine cellar, start a business, raise our own chickens, and contribute to the cathedral fund.

But, once again the Pope of the CRE is shown to have no clothes. Even the C student can see that. Why? Because Wilson completely misses Turretin's point, which is to uphold the first use of the Law, as preparatory to the gospel. To wit (from Turretin, vol. 2, p.268):

(The Law) by convincing man of his sin and weakness it forced him to seek a remedy in Christ by faith (as we have already said --duh)(I added the duh, KP). Again, these two conditions are proposed because they are necessary to the salvation of the sinner: perfect obedience in Christ to fulfill the righteousness of the law, without which the justice of God did not permit life to be given to us; faith however in us that the perfect obedience and satisfaction of Christ might be applied to us and become ours by imputation.

Gasp! What are you saying, Frank? Conditions on the covenant of grace? For whom?? Doug says, "Well, duh, the faithful obedient believer. He must fulfill the law-faith, or the faith-law, or the fatal flaw," or something like that.

But that is not what Turretin is saying. I continue:

That what was demanded of us in the covenant of works (what? a covenant of works???) is fulfilled by Christ in the covenant of grace. Nor is it absurd that in this way justification takes place by works and by faith by the works of Christ, and by our faith.

So you see how omitting entire central portions of a paragraph can completely twist the author's point. There are some folk who take the Mosaic Covenant, and completely abstract it out, and set it in opposition to the Covenant of Grace. I think that is a mistake. Turretin shows us why. He shows us that the same Covenant that is all grace to us, in which the only condition (his words) is faith, was, for the Lord Jesus, a covenant of works --that is, a reward for his obedience. That he might receive all the glory.

But, C students don't like to use words like nuda lex and get confused by statements like "justification by persevering obedient faithfulness" and "Christians go to Hell. " These statements tend to confuse the sheep, or maybe they just confuse the goats. Our congregants hear such things, their eyes roll back in their heads, and they gag on their tongues. At least those who have the Holy Spirit, and who know the true gospel notes when they are sounded, whether smart or dumb.