In this episode, Jimmy tackles the subject of what role good works play in our final justification.
Because of their “faith alone” formula, many Protestants say that they play no role at all or that they only serve as “evidence” for our faith being genuine, but Jimmy reveals how Scripture repeatedly refers to eternal life as a reward God gives for those who cooperate with his grace and do good works.
TRANSCRIPT:
Coming Up
Recently, I talked about the Protestant slogan Sola Fide—or “By Faith Alone.”
I pointed out that Catholics don’t have a problem with this provided it is understood correctly, as faith that incorporates the virtue of love.
I even quoted Pope Benedict XVI making the point that—if you use the formula that way—it’s correct. Catholics don’t have a problem with it.
I also pointed out that Catholics don’t say things like, “We are justified by faith and works.”
That is not the language that the Church uses, and if you use it, you will mislead other people.
Today, I’m going to go further into this issue. We’re going to be talking about what role good works play in the Christian life—and, especially, the role they play on judgment day.
Let’s get into it!
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Howdy, folks!
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Introduction
You can find my previous discussion by going to Episode 40 of The Jimmy Akin Podcast, and I strongly encourage you to do so if you haven’t seen it, because what I said there is foundational to what I’m going to be saying this time.
One of the things I discussed is how the term faith is used in at least three senses.
- What’s you can call intellectual faith is believing the truths of Christian teaching. In other words, the theological virtue of faith.
- What’s called fiducial faith includes not only belief in the truths of Christian teaching but also trust in God for salvation. In other words, the theological virtues of faith and hope.
- Last, what’s called formed faith includes intellectual belief plus trust in God plus the love of God and neighbor. In other words, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.
We saw that intellectual faith isn’t enough to save you because—as James 2:19 says—even the demons have that kind of faith, and yet they shudder at the prospect of God’s wrath.
Neither is fiducial faith enough, since—as 1 Corinthians 13:2-3 says—even if you have faith strong enough to move mountains—which involves a lot of trust in God—but you don’t have love—then you are nothing and gain nothing.
The kind of faith that does save is formed faith. As Paul says in Galatians 5:6:
Galatians 5:6, ESV
In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
I also discussed different stages in the Christian life and how Catholics and Protestants often describe them:
- There’s the moment of our initial conversion.
- In Protestant circles, they refer to this moment as justification, and they tend not to use the word justification for anything else—just for what happens at initial conversion.
- In Catholic circles, justification is also said to happen at this point, but Catholics also use the term justification for other things.
- Thus this first moment of justification has historically been called the justification of the impious—where God takes an impious person and makes them just or righteous.
- It’s also been called initial justification.
- Then—over the course of the Christian life—we grow in holiness or righteousness.
- In Protestant circles, they often call this growth
- But in Catholic circles, it’s also called
- Historically, it’s been called the justification of the pious—since someone God has already made righteous is now experiencing further growth in righteousness or holiness.
- It’s also been called ongoing justification.
- And then there is a moment in our future, when we stand before God at the final judgment and hear God’s judgment on our life as a whole.
- Since Protestants commonly use the term justification just for what happened at the beginning of the Christian life, they don’t have a common and distinct term for this experience.
- However, recently some Protestants have referred to it as final justification
- The same term has been used in Catholic circles.
Agreement on Good Works
One of the things that both Protestants and Catholics agree on is that you do not need to do good works to get into a state of justification.
So good works do not play a role in justification, using Protestant language.
They also do not play a role in initial justification or the justification of the impious, using Catholic language.
Thus, the Council of Trent stated:
Trent, Decree on Justification 8
None of those things which precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace itself of justification.
So works don’t merit justification.
In fact—as we saw in that previous episode—the common Catholic teaching is that it’s impossible for a person to do good works before justification since they don’t yet have God’s love in their hearts.
Protestants and Catholics also agree that good works do play a role in our subsequent growth in holiness or righteousness.
If a Christian just sat there like a rock and didn’t do anything to cooperate with God’s grace and do good works, they wouldn’t have any more holiness or righteousness.
Thus, good works play a role in sanctification, to use Protestant language.
And they play a role in ongoing justification or the justification of the pious, to use Catholic language.
This is the clear teaching of Scripture. While you can’t do good works to get into a state of justification, good works do flow from the state of justification.
Thus St. Paul says that
Ephesians 2:10, ESV
We are [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Final Justification
What I’m mainly interested in today is the role that good works play in our final justification.
Now—as I said—the fact that many Protestants only use the word “justification” to refer to initial justification means that they usually don’t have the concept of final justification.
If justification happens only at the beginning of the Christian life, then it wouldn’t be happening on judgment day, and so they tend not to recognize a future dimension to justification.
However, some Protestants have begun to recognize that there is one, because Scripture clearly envisions us being declared just or righteous when we stand before God.
For example, in Romans 2, St. Paul says
Romans 2:13, ESV
It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
In Greek, he uses the future tense here, saying the doers of the law “will be” justified.
Similarly, in Romans 3 he says:
Romans 3:20, ESV
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Again, Paul uses the future tense in Greek. He says that no human being “will be justified” by works of the law.
And in Galatians 5, he says:
Galatians 5:5, ESV
Through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
Here Paul indicates that by faith Christians are waiting for a future hope of righteousness or justification, though this is masked in typical English translations since they commonly use the word “righteousness” here instead of “justification.”
In reality, there’s just one set of terms in Greek that you can translate either as righteousness or justification in English, since English has a weird double-vocabulary with two or more words for the same concept.
However, you could equally well translate the passage
Galatians 5:5, Douay-Rheims
For we in spirit, by faith, wait for the hope of justice.
Or:
Galatians 5:5
Through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of justification.
And—even though Protestants haven’t historically spoken about a final justification—Protestant preachers commonly envision a scene in which God—on judgment day—looks back over the course of a Christian’s life and declares him righteous or just because he was forgiven in Christ.
This is a common element in Protestant preaching, and so—even though it isn’t always named in Protestant theology—there is a future dimension to justification or being declared righteous by God.
Good Works and Justification
But now we have a question to ask, because—even though good works don’t get you into a state of justification—they do flow from the state of justification.
Remember, St. Paul said:
Ephesians 2:10, ESV
We are [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
So what role do good works play in our future justification?
Now, there are a number of passages in the New Testament that make it really clear that good works have a role to play on judgment day.
The Sheep and the Goats
For example, in Matthew 25, Jesus says:
Matthew 25:31-33, ESV
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
He then proceeds to judge them on the basis of what they have done. For example, he tells the sheep:
Matthew 25:34-40, ESV
Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”
Then the righteous will answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”
And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
So Jesus indicates that those who will be judged righteous on the last day have done good works.
They did these for their neighbors on Earth, so they illustrated love of neighbor. But because the theological virtue of charity—or love—is rooted in the love of God, they did these actions for Jesus by extension, without even thinking about it.
The important things for us to note at the moment is that Jesus cites these as why they are inheriting God’s kingdom. For he says:
Matthew 25:34-36, ESV
Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.
And so forth. The good works they did are presented as the reason they are inheriting the kingdom.
On the other hand, the goats didn’t do any of these things, so they don’t inherit the kigndom, and the parable ends:
Matthew 25:46, ESV
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Whether you are admitted to the kingdom or eternal life is thus determined by whether you did or did not do good works as part of the Christian life.
Taking that at face value, that’s a strong encouragement to Christians to do good works so that they can inherit eternal life.
“Works Righteousness?”
But many in the Protestant community don’t want to take the passage at face value.
After the Reformation, many Protestants began accusing Catholics of teaching what they call “Works Righteousness.”
This is a phrase that does not appear in the Bible, but it’s meant to convey the idea of earning one’s place before God by doing good works.
Many accuse Catholics of teaching this, but the Church actually rejects this idea. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2007
With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.
So—in the strict sense—it’s not possible for humans to have any merit before God because everything we have—even the good works that we do as part of the Christian life—are a product of his grace.
It’s therefore impossible to earn one’s place before God, and thus works righteousness is impossible on the Catholic view.
Nevertheless, this phrase gets used a lot in Protestant circles as a label for Catholic teaching, and many Protestants are very concerned to avoid saying anything that even sounds similar—lest they be accused of teaching works righteousness themselves.
Back to the Sheep and the Goats
As a result—even though the face value interpretation of the parable of the sheep and the goats is that we should do good works to inherit eternal life—many Protestants can’t acknowledge this.
And so they interpret it in other ways. For example, you’ll commonly hear it denied that the good works referred to in the parable are a basis for inheriting eternal life.
Instead, it will be said that they are evidence of the genuineness of one’s faith in Christ.
There’s an element of truth in this since the kind of faith that saves is formed faith, and it includes love. Good works are acts of love, and so good works are the natural result of what St. Paul describes as “Faith Working Through Love” (Gal. 5:6).
So if one has genuine faith of the kind that saves—as the sheep do—then it will result in good works that can be taken as evidence of the genuineness of their faith.
The problem is that this is just not what the passage is saying.
On the good-works-as-evidence view, we need to imagine that the sheep have converted to Christ, that they have placed their faith in him, that they thus do good works, and then—on judgment day—Jesus takes their good works as evidence of their faith.
- Conversion
- Faith
- Good Works
- Evidence
The only parts of that which are mentioned in the text are the good works:
There is no mention of conversion in the text—no mention of conversion at all.
There is no mention of faith in this text—no mention of faith at all.
And there is no mention of evidence in this text—no mention of evidence at all.
So it’s terrible Exegesis or Interpreting the Text to take the one thing that the text mentions and wrap it in a set of concepts that are not mentioned in the text at all.
That’s a recipe for Eisegesis or Reading INTO the Text.
What we need to do is read the text on its own terms rather than forcing it into a pre-existing mold in order to avoid its plain sense.
When we do that, we find that the text isn’t dealing with conversion. Yes, we can suppose that the righteous will be followers of Jesus, but this parable isn’t talking about their conversion. Neither is it talking about their faith, much less what might count as evidence for their faith. All of that is alien to the concepts being used in this text.
So what concepts are those? Good works and eternal life.
Here, Jesus is drawing a connection between the two. He is telling his people that—if you do good works—then on Judgment Day he will give you eternal life.
And if you don’t do good works, then on Judgment Day he won’t give you eternal life.
He’s thus encouraging people to do good works so that they can receive eternal life.
That’s the message of this parable.
He’s not setting it in a larger framework of conversion and faith and things like that. The message is straightforward: Practice doing good so that you will inherit eternal life.
That’s what you can derive from the text by good exegesis.
That’s the straightforward meaning of the text.
So don’t undermine what Jesus is teaching in this passage by imposing an alien framework on it.
However valid that framework may be, it’s not what Jesus is talking about here.
Here, Jesus is presenting eternal life as a reward for practicing good works.
Merit and Reward
Let’s loop back to the concept of merit for a moment.
This term is not commonly used in Protestant circles. Many Protestants take it to mean earning something, and that is one possible use.
But we’ve already seen that the Catholic Church denies the idea of humans earning anything from God in the strict sense. Remember, the Catechism says:
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2007
With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.
So strict merit is impossible, and we can only speak of merit in some lesser, qualified sense.
But can we do that?
It’s helpful to remember where the term merit comes from. It was brought into English as the equivalent of the Latin term Meritum. The two words even sound the same, so merit and meritum mean the same thing.
But what does meritum mean?
According to the Oxford Latin Dictionary, the primary meaning of meritum is that which one deserves or due reward.
So a merit is a reward, and that reward can be good or bad—whichever is appropriate.
Thus the Catechism states:
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2006
The term “merit” refers in general to the recompense owed by a community or a society for the action of one of its members, experienced either as beneficial or harmful, deserving reward or punishment.
So the Catholic doctrine of merit is actually the doctrine of rewards—whether good or bad.
Do Protestants believe in the doctrine of rewards? Absolutely, they do! The Bible clearly teaches it.
If a person does good things, God will give him a reward. Thus the Psalms say:
Psalm 62:11-12, ESV
Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.
For you will render to a man according to his work.
Here the reward envisioned is a good one that is given to the righteous. You’ll note that the psalm refers to how steadfast love belongs to God, so as a result of this love he will reward the righteous with good things.
On the other hand, the evil will be rewarded with bad things. The psalmist also says:
Psalm 28:4, ESV
Give to them according to their work
and according to the evil of their deeds;
give to them according to the work of their hands;
render them their due reward.
So God rewards the righteous with good things, and he rewards the evil with punishments.
The Bible thus teaches a doctrine of rewards, and Protestants fully agree with this.
Based on the Latin word for reward—or meritum—Catholics refer to this as the doctrine of merit.
So this is one more area where Catholics and Protestants don’t need to fight each other, because we’re referring to the same concept with two different words.
As St. Paul says in 2 Timothy:
2 Timothy 2:14, ESV
Remind [people] of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers
Eternal Life as a Reward?
A question for us is whether eternal life can be considered a reward.
We’ve already seen strong evidence that it can be. That’s what Jesus was teaching in the parable of the sheep and the goats: If you do good works, you’ll be rewarded with eternal life; if you don’t do good works, you’ll be rewarded with eternal punishment.
That was the clear message of the text, even though many Protestants have tried to find other ways to interpret it.
But can we go further than the parable of the sheep and the goats? I mean, even though that’s the clear meaning of the text, Jesus didn’t technically use the word “reward” there.
Are there any passages that do?
There are! For example, in Romans 2 St. Paul is chastising hypocritical sinners, and he says:
Romans 2:4-11, LEB
Do you despise the wealth of [God’s] kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will reward each one according to his works: to those who, by perseverance in good work, seek glory and honor and immortality, [he will give] eternal life, but to those who act from selfish ambition and who disobey the truth, but who obey unrighteousness, [he will show] wrath and anger.
There will be affliction and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.
Now, the first thing to notice is that Paul is discussing rewards in this passage. He says:
Romans 2:6, LEB
[God] will reward each one according to his works.
The word he uses for reward in Greek is Apodidómi, and it means reward. It also has other meanings, including crassly commercial ones like pay. So the term itself is broad enough that it could include things like earning in the strict sense, even though we know that’s impossible with God.
Nevertheless, the concept of rewards is definitely in focus. So is the concept of good works.
This is obscured in some English translations, but here the Lexham English Bible translates the Greek phrase literally as perseverance in good work. Some translations say things like “Well-doing,” but in Greek it’s “Good Work.”
Unfortunately, the Lexham English Bible is a little less literal a few verses later, when it refers to
Romans 2:10, LEB
[There will be] glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and to the Greek.
That’s an okay translation, but it obscures the fact that Paul is using the same type of vocabulary here that he did earlier. The verb he uses for “does”—Ergazomai—has the same root as the word for “work” or Ergon.
Translating this more consistently, Paul says that:
Romans 2:10
[There will be] glory and honor and peace to everyone working good, to the Jew first and to the Greek.
So good works—as well as rewards—are def... Read more on Catholic.com