We affirm that apostasy is a terrifying reality for many baptized Christians. All who are baptized into the triune Name are united with Christ in His covenantal life, and so those who fall from that position of grace are indeed falling from grace. The branches that are cut away from Christ are genuinely cut away from someone, cut out of a living covenant body. The connection that an apostate had to Christ was not merely external.
We deny that any person who is chosen by God for final salvation before the foundation of the world can fall away and be finally lost. The decretally elect cannot apostatize.
signed
John Barach (minister, CREC), Rich Lusk (minister, CREC), Randy Booth (minister, CREC), Jeff Meyers (minister, PCA), Tim Gallant (minister, CREC), Ralph Smith (minister, CREC), Mark Horne (minister, PCA), Steve Wilkins (minister, PCA), Jim Jordan (minister, teacher at large), Douglas Wilson (minister, CREC), Peter Leithart (minister, PCA).
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Uh, you missed a typo.
That would be “Federal Vision Confusion on Baptismal . . .”.
🙂
On the other hand WCF says “Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ“. Slick Wilkie dodges with an audacious equivocation on the word “never”…
How is the confession above compatible or in consonant or faithful the Reformed faith ala WCF/ confessional Presbyterianism?!?!?
Leaving aside the subtleties of the FV heresy, and focusing only on the nature of Baptism, at most a cursory and “charitable” and empathetic reading would find that it could precedence *outside* the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition, i.e. namely in the broader classical Anglican (not the Johnny-come-lately variety of Anglo-Romanism/Ritualism/Popery) tradition (i.e. the old high-churchmanship) and confessional Lutheranism.
BUT that is WITHOUT also considering the theological CONTEXT of the *FV* in which confession was made …