Dr. John Frame's Email received
Aug. 26, 2005.
Dr. Frame gave me permission to quote him.
I underlined specific parts for emphasis
---------------------------------
Dear Matt,
Always good to hear from you. Thanks for all the help you’ve given
us via carm.
I think it’s possible for a regenerate person to have no conscious
beliefs at all. WCF X, 3 says that infants can be saved, presumably
without any profession at all. And it extends this provision also to
“all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called
by the ministry of the Word.” I presume this is intended to cover
severely disabled people et al., but there is no specific definition
here.
I agree with WCF on this. Now in regard to non-infants, Scripture
does require a profession of faith (Rom. 10:9-10), but how detailed
must this profession be?
The fundamental Christian profession is “Jesus is Lord” (Rom. 10, 1
Cor. 12:3, Phil. 2:11). If someone professes Jesus’ Lordship with
evidence of genuine understanding and lives a life consistent with
this profession, I’m willing to welcome him as a brother.
Now if someone like this starts teaching heresy, the church must
judge whether that is so serious that he should no longer be
accepted as a brother. Normally, if someone professes the Lordship
of Christ and then begins to study Scripture and theology, the
Spirit will lead him to a fairly orthodox position. So if he
diverges sharply from orthodoxy, the church may need to take action.
I emphasize that this is the work of the church, not primarily of
individual believers (though of course charges of heresy must begin
with concerned individuals). But I would hesitate to break
fellowship with anybody who is a member in good standing of a church
I regard as true.
We all have ups and downs in our moral and theological development.
In high school I entertained all sorts of liberal ideas,
universalism among them. But I never abandoned my trust in the
Lordship of Christ, and I have no doubt that I was regenerate at the
time. Theological error is no worse than any other sin. In the
believer’s life it can happen, be repented of and forgiven.
Is it possible to be saved without knowing about the Resurrection of
Christ? Sure. There were lots of Jewish believers in the first
century who needed to be informed of the Resurrection by the
apostolic proclamation. (Think of the people who “knew only the
baptism of John.”) I’ve no reason to believe that they were all
unregenerate before they knew that Jesus was risen. So today, there
may be people in whose hearts God is working, who haven’t been
taught the full truth about Christ. They may even profess that
Christ is Lord, without knowing that the Resurrection is
specifically physical. But when told in a godly way, they will
eventually accept the truth.
So far we have been talking about what is possible to a regenerate
person. It’s a different question to ask what sort of profession is
acceptable for church membership. Here we must consider the age and
mental ability of the person, also his teachableness. Certainly if
someone applied for membership in my church and went around teaching
universalism and a merely spiritual Resurrection, I would oppose his
membership. I would oppose it all the more if such a person became a
ministerial candidate.
