The Reformed Doctrine of Assurance of Salvation as Expounded by the Westminster Standards: A Clarkian Scripturalist Response to Once Saved Always Saved

 

“There is no contradiction between justification and righteousness. The idea of righteousness is essential to the doctrine of justification, but it does not function there as it does in sanctification.

To speak more plainly: justification by faith cannot be understood in isolation, all by itself. It depends on the concept of a just and righteous God; it is in fact an integral factor in a comprehensive system of doctrine.”  Dr. Gordon H. Clark

 

The Reformed Doctrine of Assurance of Salvation as Expounded by the Westminster Standards:  A Clarkian Scripturalist Response to Once Saved Always Saved

 

In a recent email to me a respondent to one of my blog articles, which she never identified, said that I was promoting “salvation by works.”  Another email I got from Academia promoted a paper by a prominent dispensationalist, Shawn Lazar, editor of The Journal of the Evangelical Grace Society, who critiqued the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark’s view of the assurance of salvation in which the author asserted that according to Dr. Clark’s theology and logic assurance of salvation is in fact impossible. (See:  Gordon H. Clark and Assurance, by Shawn C. Lazar).  I wish to critique the so-called Free Grace view of assurance, otherwise known as “once saved always saved” hereafter identified by the acronym OSAS.  Mr. Lazar prefers the term Free Grace Theology or FGT but the definition is apparently the same as OSAS.  In footnote #10, Lazar clearly states the position of the OSAS position:

 

. . . Although we also hold to synergism, and say that growing to spiritual maturity depends on cooperating with God, we deny that salvation can be lost, even if a believer later repudiates their salvation. A regenerate person can stop believing in Jesus and remain eternally secure. Their apostasy will affect their eternal rewards, but not their eternal salvation.  (Ibid.)

Mr. Lazar opens his paper with the assumption that Dr. Gordon H. Clark viewed theology as propositional, although Lazar fails to note that in Clark’s theology the philosophical and theological definitions of terms are essential to having true knowledge.  For Dr. Clark the philosophical, theological and apologetical method of accurate attainment of knowledge is only possible by two distinct biblical doctrines.  (2 Timothy 3:16; John 10:35; 2 Peter 1:19-21; Psalm 119:89).  In other words, for Dr. Clark epistemology has its starting point in the axiom of Holy Scripture.  But from those Scriptures we can also deduce a complete and comprehensive and coherent system of propositional truth.  For Clark all knowledge is propositional and each of these propositions known from the Bible can be arranged into a cohesive and logical system of doctrinal truth where all the parts of the system are in logical consistency with all the other parts.  The other distinct doctrine that is essential to understanding Dr. Clark’s Scripturalism, so named by the late Dr. John Robbins, is the doctrine of innate knowledge.  (John 1:9; Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7; 2 Corinthians 4:4).  Since man is created as the image of God man can think logically and animals cannot think rationally, invent things, do mathematics, or speak in intelligible language.  It is for this reason that man and man alone is the image of God.  God himself is a logical and rational being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and who is three distinct persons within the one divine Godhead.  (Matthew 28:18-20; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Colossians 2:9).  Not only is God all the propositions that God intuitively and innately knows by His tri-personal omniscience (Psalm 147:5; Romans 11:33-34), but also man is all the propositions that he thinks as a creature.  (Proverbs 23:7).

For these reasons Mr. Lazar has made false assumptions in his opening paragraphs about Dr. Clark’s view of propositional truth and the Bible.  For Clark the best summary of the propositions in the Bible is the Westminster Confession of Faith.  Although Clark himself did not emphasize the Larger and Shorter Catechisms as much, he also would have adhered to the biblical doctrines espoused by those two supplementary documents.  I would contend, therefore, that Clark’s views are not idiosyncratic but are in fact deduced from Scripture and from the Reformed doctrinal standards summarized by the Westminster Standards.  Here Clark contended that even more propositions could be deduced from the propositions which are plainly stated in Scripture.  Perhaps a definition of a proposition is necessary to clarify Clark’s position.  According to Clark and most philosophers a logical proposition is composed of a subject and a predicate joined together by a copula.  A biblical example of a proposition is John 1:1 where it is asserted that the Word was God.  The Greek term used here is logos (λόγος, Jn. 1:1 BYZ).  Clark thought that the Greek term could also be translated as logic.  In other words, the propositional statement could be also translated as “the Logic was God”.  To simplify even more we could say that God is Logic.  In other words, God in his simplicity of being is all that God is, including Logic, love, justice, holiness, etc., et. al. 

Lazar thinks that Dr. Clark’s doctrine of saving faith is well known but Lazar never defines or describes what Clark’s view of saving faith is:

In Faith and Saving Faith,1 Gordon H. Clark argues that all faith is propositional. To believe is to be persuaded that a proposition is true. The difference between faith and saving faith is not in how you believe, but in what you believe. To have saving faith means to believe the saving proposition.  Clark’s propositional definition of faith became influential in Free Grace Theology (hereafter FGT). One reason is that it is Biblical.

Another reason is that it helped defend the purity of the doctrine of justification against attempts to redefine faith in a way that includes works.

However, while Clark’s definition of faith is well known, his doctrine of assurance is not.  (“Gordon H. Clark and Assurance,” Lazar, p. 1).

I do not recall Dr. Clark ever saying that “all faith is propositional” and this seems to conflate the term “faith” with the term “knowledge”.  Faith, if understood as an objective body of doctrinal beliefs such as the Westminster Confession of Faith with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, is one thing and faith as understood as a person’s act of believing is quite another.  In fact, no Christian person could possibly understand all the propositions and the possible deductions that could be made from the Bible in one lifetime no matter how learned that person is.  For Clark Christianity is not just one proposition but a multitude of propositions that are plainly revealed in the Holy Scriptures and even more propositions which logically can be deduced from the Bible.  For Clark the starting axiom is the Bible and Bible alone is the Word of God.  (2 Timothy 3:16).  Apparently, for the FGT position the one proposition that is most important is justification by faith alone and from that doctrine the OSAS doctrine is inferred.  In other words, the axiom of the FGT is once saved always saved.

Exactly what is OSAS and how does that doctrine square with Scripture and the Reformed doctrinal standards?  Lazar is apparently a dispensationalist and dispensationalism also requires at least a brief definition.  Dispensationalism was apparently a perversion of the Reformed doctrines at one time but it degenerated into making different dispensations of salvation history so absolute that it almost requires God to be a different God for each dispensation.  Furthermore, most dispensationalists even today are essentially Arminian in that they argue for libertarian free will and partial depravity rather than unconditional election, total depravity and the effectual call or a monergistic regeneration.  The Reformed doctrine of the perseverance of the saints taken out of context results in a twisting of the doctrine into something that the Bible does not teach nor did the original Reformers, including the Lutherans.  Antinomianism was the furthest thing from their minds, though the papists were continually accusing them of using the doctrine of justification by faith alone as a license to sin.  I will let an advocate for the OSAS view define the term in their own words.  Dr. Gene Kim on YouTube gives the most egregious exposition of the OSAS doctrine where he says that even if a person who has once made a decision for Christ and believed becomes an atheist or an unrepentant homosexual or drug addict or fornicator that person is still saved even though that person exemplifies no valid profession of faith any longer. 

"Some people accuse us, 'Oh you guys teach that once a person believes on Jesus Christ for salvation he can sin and do whatever he wants'.  No, we never taught that.  We believe this:  no matter what sin you commit or whatever you wanna do in life only faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you do that it will save you no matter what.  But this is a separate issue here."  6:44-7:25 minute mark.  AAAH!  Christians Can Lose Salvation?  Dr. Gene Kim.

I cannot remember the exact video where Kim says that an unrepentant atheist or homosexual is still saved if he or she has made a decision for Christ at some point in the past.  But trust me that he said it.  I cannot demonstrate that Mr. Lazar holds the same position but I highly suspect that he does.

Salvation, according to OSAS advocates, is therefore dependent on a single decision of the will at one specific point of time by exercising libertarian free will or an ability to make a decision between two equal choices.  In other words, Christianity according to the OSAS position makes progressive sanctification totally irrelevant. The question is not can someone lose their faith and their salvation but whether or not that person was unconditionally elected by God’s eternal decree?  When that person is effectually called the result is a transformed life.  (Romans 12:1-2).

For Dr. Clark and most of the Reformed theologians since the time of the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 the Bible teaches a propositional system of divine revelation where all the parts are interrelated, not a loose collection of disjunctive aggregates or rolling stones that gather no moss.  (See WCF 1:6). Thus, the WCF has a whole series of chapters which are descending in order of importance.  The very first doctrine of the Reformed faith is sola Scriptura or Scripture alone.  The Westminster divines or theologians recognized that we can know nothing about God except we start with Scripture.  Chapter one of the WCF  is therefore Scripture and the doctrine of God is chapter two.  Predestination is in chapter three.  The doctrine of saving faith is in chapter fourteen.  In short, these advocates for the OSAS position deny most if not all of what the WCF and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms teach as they deduce from the Bible a system of theological truth in propositional form.

The OSAS position denies total depravity, the effectual call and the doctrine of sanctification.  But, to be to the point, the OSAS position focuses primarily on sanctification as positional, thus confusing the doctrine of justification with sanctification as if the two were the same thing.  In other words, progressive sanctification is irrelevant for the OSAS advocates because Christ accomplished sanctification on the cross.  But this is only partially true.  It is true that sanctification as positional or imputed based on Christ’s finished work is supported in Scripture.  (1 Corinthians 1:2; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Acts 22:16; Acts 26:18; Romans 15:16; Hebrews 2:11; 1 Peter 1:2, et. al.)   But it is also true that the purpose of our justification on the cross and our sanctification accomplished by the active and passive obedience of Christ is to “make us good.”  Dr. Gordon H. Clark said that.   I cannot find the exact quote at the moment but the following quote should suffice:

Furthermore, although there is no space here to argue it, justification inevitably issues in sanctification. True grace and true faith never fail in this life to produce good works. Nothing in this article is to be thought to contradict the necessity of preparing for a future life on a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Salvation has several elements, including regeneration, justification, sanctification, glorification. But they are different elements. What is true of one may not be true of another. When a short article restricts itself to one of these, nobody should assume that it denies the others. In fact, since a short article cannot cover even one such topic, nobody should assume that it denies what brevity omits. There is no contradiction between justification and righteousness. The idea of righteousness is essential to the doctrine of justification, but it does not function there as it does in sanctification.

To speak more plainly: justification by faith cannot be understood in isolation, all by itself. It depends on the concept of a just and righteous God; it is in fact an integral factor in a comprehensive system of doctrine. But systems require volumes. 

“Concerning Justification,” by Gordon H. Clark

I fail to understand how an openly vile and wicked sinner could profess to be a Christian without any validation whatsoever.  I once witnessed to a girl who claimed to be once saved who was openly committing adultery against her Baptist preacher husband and who was addicted to drugs.  Her argument was that she had once made a free will decision for Christ so she was completely assured of her salvation.

The Roman Catholic doctrine of justification confuses sanctification with justification by way of conflating the two after sins are committed subsequent to baptism.  The papists contend that justification is infused at the moment of the baptism of both infants and adults.  Their hearts are therefore completely purified and the baptized Roman Catholic becomes as sinless as Christ. Unfortunately after the person sins his justification is mitigated and therefore must be refueled by doing meritorious good works as defined by the Roman Catholic Church, including doing penances assigned by a priest after confession to a priest, who is a mediator between God and the sinner.  The Protestant view is that justification was accomplished on the cross by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Justification is a legal declaration or forensic declaration of not guilty when an elect person is effectually called to saving faith.  But this does not mean that sanctification is optional.  Sanctification is not just a positional doctrine like justification, though it is that according to the verses cited above.  Sanctification is actually growing in the faith and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  (2 Peter 3:18; 2 Corinthians 10:5; Romans 6:1-2; Romans 12:1-2).  Furthermore, the Westminster Larger Catechism clearly defines and distinguishes between justification and sanctification as follows:

69 What is the communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ? A. The communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ, is their partaking of the virtue of his mediation, in their justification, adoption, sanctification, and whatever else, in this life, manifests their union with him. 

70 What is justification? A. Justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners, in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone.

71 How is justification an act of God's free grace? A. Although Christ, by his obedience and death, did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God's justice in the behalf of them that are justified, yet in as much as God accepteth the satisfaction from a surety, which he might have demanded of them and did provide this surety, his own only Son, imputing his righteousness to them, and requiring nothing of them for their justification but faith, which also is his gift, their justification is to them of free grace.

72 What is justifying faith? A. Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation.

73 How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God? A. Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it, not as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for his justification; but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness. (WLC 1:69-73 WCS)

75 What is sanctification? A. Sanctification is a work of God's grace, whereby they whom God hath, before the foundation of the world, chosen to be holy, are in time, through the powerful operation of his Spirit applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God; having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into their hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased and strengthened, as that they more and more die unto sin, and rise unto newness of life. (WLC 1:75 WCS)

77 Wherein do justification and sanctification differ? A. Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputeth the righteousness of Christ, in sanctification his Spirit infuseth grace, and enableth to the exercise thereof; in the former, sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued: the one doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.

78 Whence ariseth the imperfection of sanctification in believers? A. The imperfection of sanctification in believers ariseth from the remnants of sin abiding in every part of them, and the perpetual lustings of the flesh against the spirit; whereby they are often foiled with temptations, and fall into many sins, are hindered in all their spiritual services, and their best works are imperfect and defiled in the sight of God. (WLC 1:77-78 WCS)

I invite the reader to consult the Edinburgh edition of the WCF 1647 to check the biblical proof texts. 

I could go on in much greater detail to explain how the antinomians confuse sanctification with justification in the exact opposite way that Roman Catholics do.  However, just because we are saved by grace alone does not mean that sanctification is optional when it comes to having assurance of salvation.  But before I continue with the discussion I need to clear up something that Mr. Lazar mistakenly attributes to Dr. Gordon H. Clark’s view.  In the opening to his paper Lazar says:

According to Clark, assurance depends on psychological experiences. These experiences are influenced by many factors such as temperament, education, and culture. Since different believers have different experiences, Clark concluded they cannot have the same degree of assurance:

In general, one must be extremely cautious, not merely in asserting that faith and assurance are inseparable, but in making any universal statement of the psychology of Christians…The New Testament and church history…give abundant evidence of the infinite variety of Christian experience.

Not only because of particular sins and temptations, but also because of differences of temperament, of upbringing, of education, and of cultural and historical conditions of one’s age, no one pattern of experience fits everybody. Some are too fearful of presumption, others are not fearful enough. Elijah went to heaven in a fiery chariot, but Jeremiah may have died in despondency. Assurance of salvation, like other blessings, does not come to all Christians; but it is part of the fullness of God’s grace which we may legitimately and consistently hope to enjoy.11  (Lazar, p. 1).

The quote from Clark is from What Do Presbyterians Believe, p. 179.  I checked the quote and as I suspected Mr. Lazar has either misunderstood or he has deliberately misrepresented what Clark said.  Clark does not in fact contend that assurance of salvation is a psychological phenomenon.  The context clearly shows just the opposite.  Clark makes it clear that since psychological experiences vary from person to person and that it is possible to be overly confident or even to have false assurance, therefore the ultimate assurance comes from the object of our faith, not our subjective experience:

It is therefore most hazardous to insist that a man is not saved unless he conforms to some familiar pattern.  Such patterns are familiar largely because the evangelist has had a limited experience.  Just consider the difference between Paul and Timothy, for instance.  Their lives were so different; their subjective experiences and conversions were so different;  their subjective experiences had little if anything in common.  There was something the same, however, not only for Paul and Timothy, but for all of us too.  It is not something subjective.  What is the same is the object of our faith, and this object is the same yesterday, today and forever. 

[What Do Presbyterians Believe?: The Westminster Confession Yesterday and Today.  1965.  2^nd Edition.  Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  (Trinity Foundation:  Unicoi, 2001).  Pp. 179-180.]

What Clark is opposing is the idea that assurance is irrevocably concomitant with the volitional act of believing:

If assurance were a necessary concomitant of faith, the Scriptures would not exhort the faithful to press on to assurance.  But the Scripture references contain such exhortations.  (Clark, p. 179).

It is the contention of the OSAS position that unless we accept that a valid profession of faith is completely unnecessary to saving faith then the result is that salvation is based on good works just like the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification by faith plus good works.  But this does not follow because the Protestant view and the biblical view is that justification is by the cross of Jesus Christ and such justification is imputed to the elect by the instrumental means of faith, which is itself a gift of God.   Good works, according to the WCF, are only such as prescribed by God in His written word.  (WCF ch. 16).  Justification is objective, not subjective even if the application of the imputation is instrumental through faith.  Faith is impossible without regeneration.  (John 8:3-8; Ezekiel 36:26-27).  Sanctification, on the other hand, is subjective and progressive and synergistic because God works in our hearts to cause us to willingly cooperate in our sanctification.  (Philippians 2:12-13).  The epistle of First John makes it clear that sinless perfection is impossible.  (1 John 1:6-10).  But the same book also admonishes us not to continue in sin and asserts that the entire book is written so that we may have assurance of salvation.  (1 John 5:13-18).

It is obvious to even an unbeliever that an unrepentant and backslidden sinner who professes Christ as Savior may be deluded.  And this is why many new Christians struggle with assurance because they know that they fall way short of the objective standard of God’s moral law.  And even mature Christians may for a time fall into grievous sins for a temporary season.  Such cases result in a loss of assurance for the elect Christian, though he may be in fact unconditionally elected from eternity and even regenerate.  Salvation does not depend on our psychological states of mind but on the truth of the Holy Scriptures and the Gospel message.  So a new Christian may and probably should struggle with assurance for a season if he or she struggles with egregious sins that result in mortal death or even eternal death if that person is not genuinely regenerate and elect.  (1 John 5:16).

Clark puts it best when he calls for balance between the view that assurance is impossible as the Arminians and the papists contend and the view that a person is saved after making a profession of faith no matter what: 

This happens with views of assurance.  Some men, perhaps most, vainly deceive themselves with a false assurance that they are worthy of heaven.  Because of this others jump to the conclusion that assurance is impossible.  Since, however, it has already been shown that the Scripture teaches the assurance of grace and salvation, the remaining question is how we may attain that assurance.

To begin to distinguish between presumption and true assurance, one may begin by noting the title of the chapter—Assurance and Grace.  [WCF ch. 18].  The unregenerate are not assured of grace; they believe that they are good enough to deserve heaven.  But the assurance spoken of in the Confession is a result of faith in Jesus Christ.  It is an assurance that can be found only in those who love him in sincerity and who endeavor to walk in all good conscience before him.  The Pharisees were no doubt very sure of themselves.  Their great sin was spiritual pride.  The assurance of grace, however, accompanies humility and a sense of unworthiness.  The distinction is clear to anyone who wishes to see it.  (Clark, 178).

In other words, our assurance as Christians does not come from good works as meritorious works that somehow make the Christian worthy of salvation or of being saved.  Romans 3:1-23 makes it clear that in regards to justification there is none righteous enough to be worthy of salvation, no not even one.  In direct opposition to the OSAS advocate who portrays  the Calvinist as an advocate of works righteousness the answer is that unconditional election and the golden chain of salvation makes all of our salvation of grace, including the act of believing the Gospel message in the Bible.  But the OSAS advocates agree with Rome that faith is a work that the believer does to save himself because faith is not a gift but a libertarian free will decision.  OSAS denies that total depravity incapacitates sinners so that they are unable to believe or turn from their sins.  The Calvinist view is the biblical view that even regeneration is a monergistic work of God that causes the dead sinner to be raised to new life in Christ and such faith cannot be lost because perseverance too is monergistic.  (Ephesians 2:1-10).

80 Can true believers be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and that they shall persevere therein unto salvation? A. Such as truly believe in Christ, and endeavour to walk in all good conscience before him, may, without extraordinary revelation, by faith grounded upon the truth of God's promises, and by the Spirit enabling them to discern in themselves those graces to which the promises of life are made, and bearing witness with their spirits that they are the children of God, be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and shall persevere therein unto salvation.

81 Are all true believers at all times assured of their present being in the estate of grace, and that they shall be saved? A. Assurance of grace and salvation not being of the essence of faith, true believers may wait long before they obtain it; and, after the enjoyment thereof, may have it weakened and intermitted, through manifold distempers, sins, temptations, and desertions; yet are they never left without such a presence and support of the Spirit of God as keeps them from sinking into utter despair. (WLC 1:80-81 WCS)

The OSAS contention that Clark’s view makes assurance impossible is to accuse Clark of Arminianism.  But the Bible does not teach that salvation can be lost.  What it does teach is that there are warnings in the Bible for a reason.  Those who continue in sin without any fear of God can have no assurance of salvation if they are truly regenerated Christians.  It is very possible that those who profess at some point to be Christians have never truly been regenerated at all and the OSAS view that those who are atheists or homosexuals and die in their sins are eternally secure in their denial of the Gospel is just ridiculous and obviously false to anyone who reads the Bible as a whole.   Proof texting out of context leads to twisting the Scriptures to their own destruction.  (2 Peter 3:15-16, 18).  The warnings in the Bible against apostasy are genuine.  (Hebrews 6:4-8; 1 John 2:19).  But those who commit apostasy were hypocrites, not those who endeavor to walk in good conscience before God as part of their thankfulness for salvation:

 

Question 1

  What is thy only comfort in life and death?

  That I with body and soul, both in life and death,a am not my own,b but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ;c who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins,d and delivered me from all the power of the devil;e and so preserves mef that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head;g yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation,h and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life,i and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.j

Question 2

  How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?

  Three;a the first, how great my sins and miseries are;b the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries;c the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance.d

THE FIRST PART—OF THE MISERY OF MAN

LORD’S DAY 2

Question 3

  Whence knowest thou thy misery?

  Out of the law of God.a

(Heidelberg Catechism).

Historic Creeds and Confessions. electronic ed. Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 1997. Print.

For dispensationalists there is no need to obey God whatsoever.   Like the Wesleyans of the entire sanctification persuasion they have attained sinless perfection because they contend that they are no longer under the moral law of God.  The difference is that their way of attaining sinless perfection is to deny that the moral law has any application to OSAS Christians.  They are not under the law whatsoever while the Wesleyans have simply redefined sin as willful acts of disobedience to a known moral law.  The Reformed position disagrees with both.  The Calvinist is not under the moral law as a means of justification but he or she is under the moral law as a guide for Christian living and as an expression of his or her thankfulness for their salvation by Christ and Christ alone:

WCF 19.6  Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned;1 yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly;2 discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives;3 so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin;4 together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience.5 It is likewise of use to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin;6 and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve, and what afflictions in this life they may expect for them, although freed from the curse thereof threatened in the law.7 The promises of it, in like manner, show them God's approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof,8 although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works:9 so as a man's doing good, and refraining from evil because the law encourageth to the one, and deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law, and not under grace.10 (WCF 19:6 WCS)  [Westminster Confession of Faith.  Ch. 19 Of the Law of God.]

Dispensationalists and other advocates of the once saved always saved position therefore cannot accuse the Reformed position of salvation by good works nor can they accuse the Calvinist of justification by faith plus meritorious works.  Some of the folks at the Trinity Foundation come dangerously close to the OSAS position because of their zealous opposition to Norman Shepherd and the Federal Vision heresy.  (See:  John Robbins's Bad Exegesis of Matthew 7:21-23).

I pray that they will agree with Dr. Clark’s contention that we must have balance in our approach to justification and sanctification.  I agree with Dr. Clark that the Westminster Standards are the best summary of the propositional system of truth ever deduced from the Scriptures.

 

Addendum:   Salvation Is Not By Faith Alone, Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  

Nota Bene:  The quote from Clark concerning justification as having the purpose of making regenerate believers good comes from pages 135-136 in What Do Presbyterians Believe?  Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  1965.  2nd edition.  (Trinity Foundation:  Unicoi, 2001).