3 Faith vs. Faithfulness

Pastor Wes White, a PCA pastor of Spearfish, SD and author of the blog, Johannes Weslianus,has written an excellent summary of the distinction between justifying faith (the true nature of faith that rests in Christ, which bears fruit, surely, of obedience) and the faith that the Federal Visionists claim is that which justifies (in part, because faith for them is in many ways essentially equivalent to faithfulness). Neither Scripture nor our Reformed confessions side with the Federal Vision men no matter how stridently they might wish to thrust their Socinian definitions into the confessions.

White shows the clear distinction between the ways these men speak of faith that justifies (i.e. obedient and faithful living justifies) and the confessional and Scriptural definition, in which faith is presented as a pure and simple trust, and which is attended with other fruits of God's regenerating work (but which is distinct from that obedience, while never absent from it). Check it out - it's longish, but well worth it.