1. Pitting Scripture and Confession against each other.
2. Regarding the enterprise of systematic theology as inherently rationalistic.
3. A mono-covenantalism that sees one covenant, originating in the intra-Trinitarian fellowship, into which man is invited, thus flattening the concept of covenant and denying the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.
4. Election as primarily corporate and eclipsed by covenant.
5. Seeing covenant as only conditional.
6. A denial of the covenant of works and of the fact that Adam was in a relationship with God that was legal as well as filial.
7. A denial of a covenant of grace distinct from the covenant of works.
8. A denial that the law given in Eden is the same as that more fully published at Mt. Sinai and that it requires perfect obedience.
9. Viewing righteousness as relational, not moral.
10. A failure to make clear the difference between our faith and Christ’s.
11. A denial of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ in our justification.
12. Defining justification exclusively as the forgiveness of sins.
13. The reduction of justification to Gentile inclusion.
14. Including works (by use of “faithfulness,” “obedience,” etc.) in the very definition of faith.
15. Failing to affirm an infallible perseverance and the indefectibility of grace.
16 Teaching baptismal regeneration.
17. Denying the validity of the concept of the invisible church.
18. An overly objectified sacramental efficacy that downplays the need for faith and that tends toward an ‘ex opere operato‘ view of the sacraments.
19. Teaching paedocommunion.
20. Ecclesiology that eclipses and swallows up soteriology.
Shane Lems | “The Theological Errors of the Federal Vision: A Summary List” | January 15th, 2025
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Shane Lems
Shane Lems is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California and has a DMin from RTS Orlando. He has been a church planter and pastor in the URCNA. Since 2013 he’s been serving as pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Hammond, WI. He is married and has four children. Shane has written numerous articles for Modern Reformation, New Horizons, and other publications. He is also the author of Doctrines of Grace: Student Edition and manages a book blog, The Reformed Reader.
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Sadly much this describes some of what’s going on in Anglicanism, especially the Anglo Catholic movement within it. Men who look to men like Rushdoony and now D.W.for their soteriology which I believe was promoted by tbe Scolar N.T. Wright’s new perspective on Paul.