" IN DECLARING US RIGHTEOUS, GOD EXPECTS NO CONTRIBUTION FROM US."

62. Q. But why can our good works not be our righteousness before God, or at least a part of it?
A. Because the righteousness which can stand before God's judgment must be absolutely perfect and in complete agreement with the law of God,[1] whereas even our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin.[2]
[1] Deut. 27:26; Gal. 3:10. [2] Is. 64:6.

63. Q. But do our good works earn nothing, even though God promises to reward them in this life and the next?[1]
A. This reward is not earned; it is a gift of grace.[2]
[1] Matt. 5:12; Heb. 11:6. [2] Luke 17:10; II Tim. 4:7, 8. 64.

Q. Does this teaching not make people careless and wicked?
A. No. It is impossible that those grafted into Christ by true faith should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness.[1]
[1] Matt. 7:18; Luke 6:43-45; John 15:5.

Scripture Reading:
Ephesians 2:1-10
Matthew 20:1-16

Also Article 24 Belgic Confession of Faith

Singing:  (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 135:1,2
Psalm 62:1,7
Psalm 130:2,4
Hymn 24:1,2,3,4
Psalm 118:7,8

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

With Lord’s Day 23 two weeks ago, we confessed that God freely declares sinners righteous before Him. Satan may accuse, our consciences may join Satan in finding fault with ourselves, but God for Christ’s sake declares us Not Guilty of sin nevertheless; the judgment those sins earn has been poured out on Jesus Christ so that we get to go free!

It’s been two weeks since we heard that glorious gospel of free grace. That’s given us two weeks to think about it. Now my question is: what do you think of this gospel?

You will say to me that you quite agree with this gospel; after all, it’s what the Scripture says. I grant it; you are correct. But just because it’s in the Bible does not mean that we find it easy to accept.

Allow me an anecdote. You recall the day that you and your class were standing on the sport’s oval. Two classmates took turns selecting players for their team from the crowd. Your thought as you were standing there? Like me, you hoped against hope that you’d be picked soon, for the last thing you wanted was to be a left over. Why? Because you wanted recognition for what you’re able to do, you wanted to be acknowledged that you’re able to contribute something positive to the team. What you didn’t want, absolutely not, was to be singled out as being a dud, a tag-along, having nothing to contribute.

When all is said and done, brothers and sisters, the same thought arises in the human heart in relation to God. What we want, so desperately, is acknowledgement from God that we have something to contribute. That we’re duds, that there is nothing in us to attract God’s attention – we know the thought is Scriptural, but it still grates. That reality in turn makes us vulnerable to suggestions that we can, and even do, contribute something to our salvation.

With Lord’s Day 24 we echo God’s Word when He tells us why there is no place for our contributions. I summarize the sermon with this theme:

1. Our works are not good enough
2. Our works are rewarded nevertheless
3. This teaching is not dangerous

To get a handle on the material of our Lord’s Day, brothers and sisters, I’d like today first to tell you something about the history behind our Lord’s Day.

In your lessons in church history over the years, you will have heard of a gentleman by the name of Pelagius. Pelagius –he was born in the year 354- was convinced that each child was born good. Adam’s fall into sin, he said, affected only Adam himself; those who came after him learned to do evil only because of the bad example of the previous generation. As to obtaining God’s favor, Pelagius was convinced that man could obtain this favor quite easily, simply because people –with the exception of Adam and Eve- had not fallen into sin. So, by doing things pleasing to God, one was sure of a place in His good books.

The church of Pelagius’ time did not agree with this teacher. It was particularly Augustine –he was born in the same year as Pelagius, in 354- who showed from the Bible what the truth of the matter was. The fall into sin, Augustine insisted, was not a slip from one man so that only Adam suffered the consequences of the fall. Rather, with Adam’s transgression all men sinned, so that the wrath of God rests upon all men. In fact, Adam’s fall into sin was a total fall, a radical fall – with all the consequences thereof. By way of comparison: Augustine would compare the human race to the person who fell off the top of Perth’s Bank West tower. We’re sure: that person has done more than scrape his knee; rather, he’s very dead, every bone and organ broken. The ambulance attendants will receive no advice from the fallen man as to how to put him onto a stretcher, will get no assistance from him either. For the dead do nothing. That’s the imagery Augustine would use, an imagery drawn directly from Eph 2 where Paul says mankind has become "dead in trespasses and sins" (vs 1). If anyone, then, is to be saved, he is dependent fully and totally on God’s redeeming work in Jesus Christ. Augustine’s teaching won out over Pelagius’ heresy, so that the church adopted the position of Scripture – even as we confess it today.

But Satan does not give up so easily. Though Pelagius was out of favor, his basic heresy found it’s way back into favor in the course of time. For persons in the Augustinian camp found the notion of people being dead, having nothing to contribute, too hard to swallow; human pride gets in the way of being seen as duds. These persons picked up elements of Pelagius, polished and refined them, and taught that indeed God saves through Jesus Christ. But, they added, you do have a contribution to make yourself. And you can make a contribution because you’ve not fallen off a 55-story building; you’ve fallen off a three-story building. The fall into sin did not make you dead; it only injured you. You need help alright, because you’ve got a broken leg and a couple of broken ribs and a punctured lung, but you can call out for help, and you can even assist the ambulance attendants to get you on the stretcher. This notion is known as semi-pelagianism, and has become the official position of the Roman Catholic Church.

To put the whole matter a somewhat different terms: Pelagius says that people can get themselves on own steam into God’s favor since we are good in ourselves. Augustine says that people are dead, and therefore can contribute nothing to being received into God’s favor; people are 100% dependant on God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Semi-pelagianism, or Roman Catholicism, says that God has given Christ and so taken us, say, 95% of the way back to God. But the last 5% is for us to do; through our good works we need to finish the work that Christ has begun. We realize: there’s a big difference between the position of the pelagians and the semi-pelagians; the pelagians say we can do it all ourselves, the semi-pelagians say we can do only a little ourselves, we need Christ. But they have in common that both want to make a contribution to our being accepted by God. Neither position sees people as dead, as having nothing attractive in us to God, as not being able to contribute in any way.

Why I tell you this? The Catechism, congregation, was written in a context. Caspar Olevianus and Zacharius Ursinus prepared this Catechism for the instruction of people who had been instructed by their Roman Catholic priest, had been taught that they were in a position to make some contribution towards their being accepted by God. Olevianus and Ursinus put Lord’s Day 23 in this Catechism, taught the people that they were righteous before God only through faith in Jesus Christ, taught that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was the only and complete ground of our salvation before God. But the question that invariably came up in the minds of the people was then the first one of our Lord’s Day: "but why can our good works not be our righteousness before God, or at least a part of it?" If Pelagius wasn’t right in insisting that our works will do the whole 100% in obtaining God’s favor, why is the Roman Catholic position wrong when they say that Christ’s work takes us 95% of the way, and we can do the remaining 5% ourselves? Why can’t our good works be at least a small part of our righteousness before God?! You see, beloved: the question arises directly out of the instruction the people had received over the years in the Roman Catholic Church.

But that historical background to this Question & Answer doesn’t mean that we can remove it from the Catechism. It’s true that the Catechism speaks in the same line as Augustine; I’ll come back to that in a moment. But the thing is that after the Catechism was written and embraced by the churches of the Reformation, the semi-pelagianism of the Roman Catholic Church was smuggled into the very churches that adopted this Catechism. And in the process the Catechism was put on the shelf.

Who brought it back into the churches? None else than Arminius. What Arminius taught was at bottom simply a modified version of the same semi-pelagianism embraced by Roman Catholicism. For Arminius said too that, sure, we’ve fallen into sin, but the fall can’t be compared to falling of the Bank West tower; it’s to be compared instead to falling of the roof of this church building. You’re hurt, you need help, true, but you’re not dead in sin, and so you can and must contribute; God sees something desirable in you, in your abilities and performance, and that’s why He picks you for His team. Then yes, the Synod of Dort condemned that thought in the Canons of Dort, and we today embrace these Canons as an accurate echo of what the Lord has taught us in His Word on the point. But Arminianism is all around us; evangelicalism as a movement is Arminian in its core. That’s the air we breath, it’s the novels we read, it’s the Christians we meet on the campus or at work. And while we breathe that air and read those novels and meet Evangelical Christians at work, there’s something in our own heart that bucks against the idea that there’s nothing attractive about us, that we have nothing to contribute; we desperately want to be seen as somebodies, as desirables, as attractive to God. To be duds, dead…, is so humiliating….

That is why the material of our Lord’s Day remains so important for us today. Specifically this question: what does God think about us? Does He see anything attractive in us? As we come to Him with our contribution to our salvation, how does He respond? What does He say of that contribution?

What He says, beloved? The answer, brothers and sisters, is simple, but it’s O so humiliating…. The Holy Spirit moves the prophet Isaiah to recognize that God is "indeed angry, for we have sinned…, and we need to be saved" (Is 64:5). But how shall we be saved? Shall we impress God through out own contribution? Says Isaiah: "we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags" (vs 6). And no, the filthy rags of which Isaiah speaks is not the sort of dirty clothe we back-yard mechanics wipe our hands on after doing some work on an engine. He’s talking rather about rags covered in blood, specifically clothes stained by menstruation. It’s vile, repulsive. So, says the prophet under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so are our best works in the eyes of God – vile, repulsive. Shall we now come to God with such works, and expect Him to be pleased with our contribution?? Shall we with Pelagius assume that God will accept such offerings as all that’s needed to find a place in His favor? Or shall we with the semi-pelagians of long ago and of today conclude that God will receive such rags as our contribution to complete the work Christ has done? Surely, beloved, it’s so obvious: you wouldn’t accept a bloodied clothe as somebody’s good work. How much less will God do so – holy and righteous as He is!

Shall I then think that there is room for a contribution on my part? Let me instead be humble, very humble, and recognize that I have nothing, nothing at all within myself, that I could present to God to appease Him. Let me recognize that there is no room for me to think in terms of me making a contribution to my salvation. As Paul says to the Ephesians: "for by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of works, lest anyone should boost…" (2:8f).

I move on to our second point:

This answer from Is 64 did not go down well with all who heard the argument of Question & Answer 62. Over against the notion that people can somehow contribute to our righteousness before God, the fathers placed the words of Scripture as found in Is 64. In turn the Roman Catholics also quoted Scripture. Does the Scripture not say, they argued, that God rewards our good works in this life and the life to come? That’s the subject that receives attention in Question & Answer 63. Notice: the argument has turned now to Scripture; what does Scripture say.

It’s a fact, brothers and sisters, that the Lord does promise to reward good works. In His Sermon on the Mount Christ says:

"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven…" (vs 12).

The apostle to the Hebrews says of God that "He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him" (11:6). John on the island of Patmos hears Jesus pray like this:

"And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work" (Rev 22:12).

The Bible is clear: the Lord God "promises to reward [good works] in this life and the next." Doesn’t that mean that your good works earn something, are in some way a contribution to God being happy with you?

To show the thinking of Scripture in answering that question, beloved, I refer to the parable we read from Mt 20. You recall how the landowner went to the market place a number of times in the course of the day, and hired those holding out for a job. At the end of the day, the laborers lined up to receive their payment, with those hired last standing first in the line. When those at the end saw that the latecomers received a full denarius for the labors, they in optimism exalted that they’d surely receive much more; after all, they’d endured the heat of the sun…. But they received only one measly denarius…. Hence their complaint to the landowner that something wasn’t square. To which he replied: "Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?" (Mt 20:14f).

The point? This: God is generous to whom He wills. Of themselves, our contributions are of no value to God; they’re instead repulsive. Yet He is pleased to reward our good efforts – not because they deserve a reward, but rather because God is gracious.

Here, congregation, is shown up again something of who this God is. Our best works are defiled with sin, true. Yet instead of holding His nose at us, and sending us out of His holy presence, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ places on our good works –offensive though they are of themselves- His gracious crown! Where I should expect from God hostility, I receive favor! Where I should expect disapproval, I receive blessing! And no, it’s not because of anything in me; it’s only and alone because of His good pleasure, His grace in Jesus Christ. How marvelous, how wonderful is His mercy!

Now yet our third point:

The argument from Scripture that the semi-pelagians raised in Question 63 has, then, no weight, is not a legitimate argument. So those semi-pelagians raised a practical argument, as mentioned in Question 64: "Does this teaching not make people careless and wicked?" It’s the thought that there should be a stick behind the door to compel people to behave. If you tell people that forgiveness is a free gift, and you can’t earn it, the logical conclusion might well be that you’ll just go ahead and sin, for it makes no difference anyway…. Better, then, to tell people of God’s wrath, and what they have to do to escape it; you’ll get a better society out of it, better people, and better-behaved teenagers….

Now, it may be true from a human point of view, congregation, that a stick behind the door will produce better behavior. But the point of religion is not to make people more morally upright. And the purpose of preaching and teaching the norms of Scripture is not to make a pleasant society, let alone a well-behaved society driven by fear of God’s punishments. The fine point of preaching, and the fine point of the Bible, is to proclaim the wonderful works of God. And what are His works? This, that He has claimed a people for Himself –not because those people are so attractive, but rather in spite of their repulsiveness- and so established with them His covenant of grace. God’s work is this that He has given His Son to atone for the sins of these people, so that because of Jesus’ sacrifice these sinners might be declared righteous before Him. But His saving work does not stop once a sinner has been rescued from Satan’s power and been restored to God. For the persons whom Christ has reconciled to God are also changed by the Holy Spirit, so changed that they no longer image Satan but instead image God again. Since they image God again, they simply will not give themselves to lives of lawlessness and godlessness; they’ll instead do the things that please the Lord. In the words of our Lord’s Day: "It is impossible that those grafted into Christ by true faith should fail to bring forth fruits of thankfulness." Why it’s impossible? Because God’s work is so complete! It’s all His work, from A to Z, including the desire to live in grateful holiness before Him.

Is an upright life, then, the result of fear, of being afraid of the horrible consequences of provoking God’s wrath? For the unbeliever that might in practice be so. But let it be fixed in our minds, beloved: that is not the gospel! For the person who has accepted God’s revelation about us being dead in sin as a result of the fall, for the person who has embraced God’s gospel of redeeming the unworthy, the vile, there is no room left for fear of God. There is instead gratitude, deep thankfulness for God’s saving work, and therefore a cheerful working along with the Holy Spirit who has renewed him; that person will invariably seek to do the will of God. No, he won’t do God’s will perfectly; he’ll stumble often since he "is still inclined to all evil" – as we confessed in Lord’s Day 23. But see the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, and delight in that work too, he certainly will.

Repeatedly you hear from this pulpit the gospel of free grace, the gospel of God freely declaring sinners righteous, not on grounds of own contribution but on grounds of Christ’s work. On the sports oval we couldn’t bear being the last to be picked, for we wanted to be recognized for our achievements. You understand: there is no room for that desire in the courts of God. Salvation is of grace alone, 100% grace.

And that’s what makes our salvation so certain. If it’s 100% God’s work, it’s got to be perfect!  Amen.