The Merit of Good Works?
The idea that good works can merit God’s blessing is one of the most dangerous errors taught by the Church of Rome. The Council of Trent stated, “If any one shall say that the good works of a justified man are the gift of God, in such a sense that they are not also the good merits of the justified man himself . . . let him be accursed”.1 Rome’s position therefore is that God’s grace is needed to perform good works but that those works themselves actually merit increase of grace and eternal life. This apparently plausible but erroneous teaching is one of the “doctrines of devils” which is used by Satan to pervert the gospel of salvation in order to ruin souls for eternity. It appeals to our native self-righteousness and takes away from the preciousness of Divine grace and the merit of Christ’s righteousness alone for acceptance with God. In so doing, it confounds justification and sanctification and makes salvation dependent on a mixture of the works and grace.
Edward Stillingfleet (1635-99) pointed out the absurdities involved in the Popish teaching. For a work to be truly meritorious, he shows that it must be without defect in order to deserve such a great blessing. But which of the people of God can point to perfection in their obedience, even in their best acts? “Whatever is faulty must be forgiven; whatever needs forgiveness cannot be truly meritorious.”2 Again, there must be an equality between the good work and the reward it deserves. But this can never be: “Let the acts be of what person soever, or from what principle soever, as long as they are the acts of finite, imperfect creatures, it is impossible there should be any equality, or exact proportion, between them and the eternal favour of God, which is the reward promised”. Furthermore, there must be an obligation in justice to give that reward. “But what strict justice can there be”, Stillingfleet asks, “between the Creator and His creatures, to recompense the service they are bound to perform, when their very being, power to act, assistance in acting, and recompense for it, are all from His bounty and goodness?”3
Good works are indeed important and necessary, for they bear witness to the presence of saving grace in the heart and bring glory to God. But we must never forget that they are only acceptable to God through the merit of Christ alone, when they are wrought in the strength of His grace, in faith and love, and in accordance with His will revealed in the Word. As the Saviour Himself taught the disciples: “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do” (Lk 17:10). AWM
1See “The Canons and Dogmatic Decrees of the Council of Trent”, Session 6, Canon 23, in P Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol 2, Grand Rapids, 1985 edn, pp 117-18.
2E Stillingfleet, The Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome, Edinburgh, 1845, p 130.
3Stillingfleet, The Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome, p 131.