In the Joint Federal Vision Profession (2007), the signatories wrote:
We affirm that God formally unites a person to Christ and to His covenant people through baptism into the triune Name, and that this baptism obligates such a one to lifelong covenant loyalty to the triune God, each baptized person repenting of his sins and trusting in Christ alone for his salvation. Baptism formally engrafts a person into the Church, which means that baptism is into the Regeneration, that time when the Son of Man sits upon His glorious throne (Matt. 19:28).
We deny that baptism automatically guarantees that the baptized will share in the eschatological Church. We deny the common misunderstanding of baptismal regeneration—i.e. that an “effectual call” or rebirth is automatically wrought in the one baptized. Baptism apart from a growing and living faith is not saving, but rather damning.
But we deny that trusting God’s promise through baptism elevates baptism to a human work. God gives baptism as assurance of His grace to us personally, as our names are spoken when we are baptized.[1]
Earlier, regarding the church, they say:
We affirm that membership in the one true Christian Church is visible and objective, and is the possession of everyone who has been baptized in the triune name and who has not been excommunicated by a lawful disciplinary action of the Church. We affirm one holy, catholic, and apostolic church, the house and family of God, outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. In establishing the Church, God has fulfilled His promise to Abraham and established the Regeneration of all things. God has established this Regeneration through Christ—in Him we have the renewal of life in the fulness of life in the new age of the kingdom of God. We deny that membership in the Christian Church in history is an infallible indicator or guarantee of final salvation. Those who are faithless to their baptismal obligations incur a stricter judgment because of it.[2]
You will notice that they deny that baptism guarantees “final salvation” or your place in “the eschatological church”. To understand what those terms mean, we would need to dig a bit deeper and it is likely to link to two things. First, that Federal Visionists have tended in their thinking to lean towards New Perspective on Paul thinking when it comes to Justification. We know for example, that NT Wright talks in terms of final justification seeing our justification by faith now as a declaration in the present of the future reality which will be based in some way on works.
Secondly, Federal Visionists want to acknowledge what they refer to as the “terrifying reality for many baptized Christians” [3] of apostacy. That baptised Christians will fall away from grace. They insist that there is assurance for those who have “justifying faith”. Yet this seems to suggest some form of distinction of “justifying” or “saving faith” whenever that comes from the faith that a baptised child has. And yet, they talk about baptism, remembering that this is the baptism of an infant as the means by which “God formally unites a person to Christ and to His covenant people.”
It is vital to observe that they do not deny baptismal regeneration but consider it widely misunderstood. However, whilst they suggest that it does not automatically “confer an effectual call or rebirth”, they also expect the children of believers to be baptised and that this baptism confers on them the blessings of the New Covenant, namely that they are, not just might be or even will be united with Christ and hence it is expected that they will receive the Lord’s Supper. It is difficult to understand how that reality could describe anything other than the new birth, than being born again. It seems therefore that the signatories are being rather slippery in their language and/or talking themselves round in circles.
The basis for the idea that Christians can be confident that their children are united to Christ is the same text used by a lot of paedo-baptists who would probably not go that far but would suggest that they can be confident that their children will be or maybe are already saved. It’s Acts 2:39.[4]
Yet, as I have pointed out, so often this is to take the statement “this promise is to your children” out of context and badly mangle it. It quietly ignores the point that the promise is also “for those who are far off”, in other words this is not intended to be read as a specialised promise limited to those who are in the church for their children but rather intended to demonstrate the reach of God’s covenant promise through time and space. Secondly, the nature of the promise is not simply that they have guaranteed covenant membership and blessings. Rather: Peter says just before in verse 38:
“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
It is the promise of Gospel effectiveness, that those who repent and are baptised (notice the two must go together) will receive the Holy Spirit, they will be saved. There is a condition but it is not parental faith and baptism, it is repentance and baptism.
Federal Vision therefore is unhelpful here because it ties itself up in knots. It mangles Scripture, muddies the waters in terms of what the Gospel is and takes away from assurance.
[1] A Joint Federal Vision Profession (2007) | The Heidelblog
[2] A Joint Federal Vision Profession (2007) | The Heidelblog
[3] A Joint Federal Vision Profession (2007) | The Heidelblog
[4] See e.g. Standing on the Promises | Blog & Mablog and Warrant in the Promise | Blog & Mablog
Faithroots 