14. Teachings from the Formula of Concord on merit:

(a) It is false that we merit the forgiveness of sins through our works. It is false that we are counted righteous because of the righteousness of our reason. It is false that reason by its own powers is able to love God above all things and to fulfill God’s law (page 64).

(b) Faith does not make people righteous because it is such a good work or such a fine virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy gospel (pages 76, 684).

(c) The promise of the forgiveness of sins and of being made righteous on account of Christ is not conditional upon our merits; it is offered for free (page 67).

(d) We sinful people are justified before God, that is, absolved of our sins and of the judgment of damnation that we deserve, and we are accepted as children and heirs of God, without the least bit of our own merit, apart from all preceding, present, or subsequent works that we do. We are justified on the basis of sheer grace, because of the sole merit of Christ, which is reckoned to us as righteousness (page 684).

(e) Good works follow faith, forgiveness of sins, and regeneration. Whatever in these works is still sinful or imperfect should not even be counted as sin or imperfection, precisely for the sake of this same Christ. Instead, we should be called, and should be, completely righteous and holy — both we ourselves and the works we do — by the pure grace and mercy that have been poured and spread over us in Christ. Therefore we cannot boast about our merit (pages 74, 92, 93, 336).

(f) Those who trust that they merit grace by works despise the merit and grace of Christ and seek a way to heaven through human powers alone without Christ (pages 16, 17, 18, 19).

(g) If people want to mix good works up with the article on justification and want to merit God’s grace through them, works are not only useless for such people but even harmful (page 708).

(h) The works of the Ten Commandments are listed, and many other things that must be done; God honors these works with rewards (pages 176, 198).

(i) We concede that works are truly meritorious, but not for the forgiveness of sins, for grace, or for justification. Works are meritorious for other bodily and spiritual rewards, which are bestowed both in this life and in the life to come. According to the passage in Paul, “Each will receive wages according to the labor of each”; and Christ says, “Your reward will be great in heaven.” Christ often says that he will repay according to each one’s deeds. We confess, therefore, that eternal life is a reward, because it is owed to the justified on account of the promise, and because God crowns his gifts, but not because of our merit (pages 96, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138).

(j) Good works in believers are an indication of their eternal salvation when these are done for the right reasons and the right purposes (that is, in the way God demands the reborn to do them). God the Father holds these works as well received and pleasing for Christ’s sake and promises a glorious reward for them in this life and in the life to come (page 708).

(k) Although good works deserve rewards, nevertheless neither by merit of fitness nor by merit of agreement do they earn us forgiveness of sins or the glory of eternal life (pages 96, 135, 139 and following; appendix, page 174).

(l) In the Last Judgment, Christ is going to hand down a sentence regarding which works were good or evil depending on whether those works were the genuine result of, and are evidence for, people’s faith (page 134; appendix, page 187).

(m) God does reward good works, but it is because of his grace that he crowns them, since they were actually gifts from him (Belgic Confession [24]).

4. Concerning justification:

(a) When that blessed fullness of time had come, the heavenly Father, the Father of mercies, sent Jesus Christ, his own Son, to the human race, in order both to [redeem] the Jews, who were under the law, and to allow the Gentiles, who were not following justice, to attain it, and all people to receive adoption as his children. God sent him forth as a propitiator for our sins through faith in his blood, not for our sins only but also for those of the whole world (Session 6, chapter 2).

(b) Nevertheless, not all people receive the benefit of Christ’s death, but only those with whom he shares the merit earned through his suffering. Therefore if people were not born again in Christ, they never would be justified (Session 6, chapter 3).

(c) The beginning of this justification is to be derived from the preexisting grace of God through Jesus Christ, that is, from his calling to us (Session 6, chapter 5).

(d) We are made ready for his justice when, stirred by divine grace and conceiving faith by hearing, we freely move toward God, believing those things to be true that have been divinely revealed and promised to us — especially this promise, that God justifies the impious by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and that when we understand that we are sinners and are beneficially struck with fear of divine justice, we are raised to hope since we have confidence that God is appeased toward us because of Christ (Session 6, chapter 6).

(e) This readiness and preparation are followed by the process itself of being justified, which is not only a forgiving of our sins but also a sanctification and renewal of our inner self through the receiving of the grace and of the gifts by which we turn from an unjust person into a just person and from an enemy [of God] into a friend, so that we inherit the hope of everlasting life (Session 6, chapter 7).

(f) The final cause of this justification is the glory of God and of Christ, and life everlasting. The efficient cause is a merciful God who washes and sanctifies us gratuitously. The meritorious cause is God’s most beloved Only-Begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, for the exceeding goodwill with which he loved us, merited justification for us by his most holy suffering on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us to God the Father. The instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of the faith without which no one was ever justified. The lone formal cause is the justice of God — not the justice with which he himself is just, but the justice with which he makes us just; namely, the justice with which we, being endowed by him, are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and we are not only reputed just, but are truly called just, and are in fact just, receiving justice within us, each according to our own measure, which the Holy Spirit distributes to everyone as he wills (Session 6, chapter 7, §2).

(g) Justification is a transferal from that state in which we are born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace and our adoption as children of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ our Savior (Session 6, chapter 4).