************ Sermon on Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 62-64 ************


Doctrine: good works do not save us

By: Rev. Adrian Dieleman

This sermon was preached on May 20, 2001

Q & 62-64
Matthew 7:15-23
"The Good We Do"

Introduction
Good works: they are rejected, they are accepted, and they are expected. That's the three propositions in front of us today.
Good works: rejected, accepted, and expected.

I Good Works are Rejected by God - Q & A 62
A Good works, my brothers and sisters, are loaded with danger! That's because we are so proud and independent. We just cannot accept it or get it through our hearts that we are in no position to help Christ in making payment for our sins. The do-it-yourself craze has taken a hold of us in matters of faith also. Go to any bookstore and you will find do-it-yourself manuals on everything from plumbing, electrical, automobile repair, house renovation, and so on. We want to do things ourselves. Or, we don't want to pay someone else to do them for us.

This do-it-yourself attitude appears to be universal. Take a little child, for instance. Parents find it is neater and quicker to feed him or to make his peanut-butter on cheese-whiz sandwiches. But there will come a day when the child asserts himself and insists he will do these things. Or, there will come the day when you are roasting hot-dogs and marsh-mallows over a camp fire; the children insist on doing their own roasting – or burning – instead of accepting their parents' kind offers of assistance.

When it comes to salvation our instinct also is to want to do things by ourself. We want a do-it-yourself religion. We don't want to depend on the mercies of another. We are too independent and proud and free for that. We always try to find an opportunity to make a contribution towards our own salvation. Not that we don't know better. For we do. We know we can't earn our way into heaven. We are told, and we tell ourselves, that salvation is a gift from God.

But our heart is so treacherous. Before we realize it, do you know what our heart does? Our heart twists things around so that we think we deserve and are worthy of salvation because of our faithful attendance at worship services, our support of the Christian school, our financial contributions to church and kingdom causes, our standard of morality, our basic goodness and honesty, our visits to and prayers for the sick and mourning, and so forth. Our heart twists things around so that we think our spiritual struggles – our sighs, tears, trials – qualify us for salvation.

Congregation, we can give all that we possess to the poor, we can sacrifice 20 or more years to pay for the Christian education of our children, we can go through some pretty dark and deep valleys, but none of this can bring us even one inch closer to salvation.

B It is by grace alone that we are saved. We have absolutely nothing to offer. As we see in the Lord's Supper, we are saved only by the blood of the Lamb. We come to the Lord's Table realizing we have nothing to offer and nothing to contribute to our own salvation. We can come only in faith, trusting that it is Jesus Who saves us.

How hard it is for us to accept this! We think we need to do something to earn salvation. We have grown up being taught that in this world nothing is absolutely free. If New York City water can be bottled and stocked on grocers' shelves, if fresh mountain air can be canned and merchandised, then surely salvation is also up for sale.

I'm afraid that more than once throughout her history the church has encouraged this kind of thinking: that salvation can be earned, that grace is up for sale, that deliverance is deserved. In A.D. 1095, for instance, Pope Urban II guaranteed entrance into heaven for all those who would participate in the Crusades to free the "Holy Land" from Muslim rule. A couple of centuries later the church taught that such things as gifts of land or money for a church or monastery, pilgrimages to sacred places or at special times, and contributions to the poor, frees one from the temporal penalties of sin. During this century many churches and Christians turned to a social gospel in which soup kitchens, civil rights activism, inner-city work, and the peace-corps took the place of the Gospel of grace. And, far too many conservative Christians today give the impression we can be saved by subscribing to the right theology and believing the right things.

C According to the Catechism there is a good reason why good works do not make us "right with God, or at least help make us right with him." The reason? Very simple really: the good we do is not good enough.

The book of James hits the nail on the head here: "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10). To earn eternal life by good works we must never ever sin; we must always perfectly love God above all and our neighbor as ourself. Against the yardstick of the law our deeds must be perfect before they can get us into heaven. According to the Catechism,
... the righteousness
which can pass God's scrutiny
must be entirely perfect
and must in every way measure up to the
divine law.

And this, of course, is impossible for us poor and sinful creatures. The Catechism states,
Even the very best we do in this life
is imperfect
and stained with sin.

This reminds me of a story I read about a woman who lived in a big city neighborhood:
Topic: Works
Subtopic: Good
Index: 3902-3905
Date: 5/2001.101
Title:

Her neighborhood was going downhill very fast. The area was becoming increasingly overcrowded, noisy, and dirty. It was a bad situation. The woman decided something would have to be done about it. She knew that money would be required to change the situation. Consequently, she started a fund-raising drive. She called people. She sent letters. She got some financial support from a private foundation. She finally raised eighty-five thousand dollars. Then she used the money to move to another neighborhood.
The problem with our good works is that quite often, like this concerned citizen, our motives are wrong. So many times the good we do is not done for God's glory but for our glory or to gain some mean little advantage or to make ourselves feel good.

We cannot perform the kind of work that God demands, says the Catechism. Only Christ has presented the kind of work that meets God's demands. Therefore people who think they have to add to the work of Christ offend God. This was precisely the issue Paul addressed in his letter to the Galatians. The false teachers among the Galatians were not saying that they could be saved without Christ, but they taught that something had to be added. To them Paul exclaimed, "If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all" (Gal 5:2). If our work must complement the work of Jesus, His work is neither perfect nor complete. And if anyone can be saved by being good and honest, by attending worship services, by helping the poor, by supporting Christian schools, by subscribing to the right theory in the right way, then God should have spared His Son the pain and agony of the cross.

An older pastor told the story of a hundred dollar bill that illustrates so very well the heresy of salvation by works.
Topic: Works
Subtopic: Good
Index: 3902-3905
Date: 5/2001.101
Title: Good Works Don't Save Us

One Sunday a man dropped a hundred dollar bill into the offering plate. The diaconate gave it to a poor and needy lady. She used it to buy badly needed groceries for herself and her children. The grocer used it to buy medicine for his sick daughter. The pharmacist used it to pay his electric bill. The electric company took the bill to the bank. A bank teller took one look at it and refused to accept the bill because it was counterfeit.
Now, we might say, "But that hundred dollar bill did so much good! The bank should accept it." And, we might say, "Our good works do so much good! God should accept them." However, if the bank applied those standards it would soon not be a bank anymore. And, if God accepted our counterfeit efforts or contributions to salvation He would no longer be God. God is holy and good and perfect. To demand anything less from us would be to deny Himself.

When it comes to salvation, my brothers and sisters, God will not and cannot accept our good works. Good works are rejected by God as a means of salvation.

II Good Works are Accepted by God - Q & A 63
A When you first look at Q & A 63 there seems to be within it a contradiction. We are told "that the good we do doesn't earn anything," especially not salvation. Yet, we are also told that "God promises to reward it in this life and the next." Isn't this a contradiction?

B What we are talking about in Q & A 63 is not good works as a condition for salvation, but as a fruit of salvation. What an immense difference there is between the two. Good works as a fruit of salvation have a completely new root. They come from a different source than good works as a condition for salvation. Good works as a condition for salvation come from man and utterly fail. Good works as a fruit of salvation come from Christ, spring from His grace, and are pleasing in God's sight. Good works as a condition are fake or counterfeit; good works as a fruit are the real thing.

C Good works that are a fruit of salvation are rewarded. But, as the Catechism notes for us, "this reward is not earned; it is a gift of grace." Good works that are rewarded do not arise from within us. We can't claim them as our own. They, rather, are the work of Christ. So Christ rewards us for the good He works within us. That's why we say, "good works are rewarded but we don't earn the reward; it is a gift of grace!"

Good works, then, that are performed not in our own strength but in the strength of Christ are rewarded. Good works done in and by the power of Christ are good works worthy of the name of Christ. Good works done in the power of Christ are good works that God finds pleasing and acceptable. The reason why is that Christ Himself is the author. And, as He is good and holy and perfect, therefore what He works in us is good and holy and perfect. For His sake, then, our good works are rewarded. For His sake we have a right to that reward; Christ has earned that right for us.

D More than once Scripture gives us the message that God, because of Christ, accepts and rewards good works both in this life and in the life to come:
(Mark 10:29-30) "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel (30) will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age ... and in the age to come, eternal life.

(Mat 6:3-4) But when you give to the needy ... your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
To those who have been "faithful with a few things," Jesus says, "Well done, good and faithful servant! ... I will put you in charge of many things" (Mt 25:23). If any person builds well upon the foundation of Jesus Christ, "he will receive his reward" (1 Cor 3:14). To Cornelius the angel of the Lord can say, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a remembrance before God" (Acts 10:4). And, in the final chapter of the Bible Jesus says, "Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done" (Rev 22:12).

Thoughts of this reward ought to spur us all on to greater efforts, striving to do good to all.

Good works, then, are accepted by God – not as payment for sin, not as an entrance fee into heaven, but – as the gracious work of Christ in our hearts.

III Good Works are Expected by God - Q & A 64
A Question and Answer 64 tells us that good works are expected of us. God expects us to produce good works.

At the time of the Reformation the Roman Catholic Church was horrified by the Reformed teaching that we are saved only "by grace through faith and not by works." When he saw this teaching take root in John Calvin's Geneva a Roman Catholic bishop predicted disaster. He said,
This sort of teaching can only bring unchecked sinfulness. People who don't believe their works can help win salvation inevitably become indifferent about lifestyle and wicked.

Much to his surprise the exact opposite occurred. A prominent Roman Catholic who toured Geneva noted that those who slandered the city should be ashamed of themselves. He called it
a city composed of persons of many countries and nations, so much united, that no other sound is heard than that of hammers and other tools of the workmen. No cursing, no blasphemy, no adultery, no drunkenness, no violence, no contention is tolerated in that place. In short, if there were no other witnesses than the soldiers who recently came home from Rome, passing through Geneva, we would hear how, after leaving the atrocities of the papacy and entering Geneva, they felt as if they turned their backs on hell and entered a little paradise.

So much for the charge of the bishop. The doctrine that we are saved only by grace through faith and not by works does not lead to an indifferent and wicked lifestyle. The Gospel of salvation by grace is not intended to eliminate good works but to make them possible. Work religion and grace religion agree on the necessity of being good and doing good. But work religion says that by being good and doing good, we will be saved. Grace religion says that it's impossible to be saved by works but that once we are saved by grace, it is impossible not to do good works.

B A true, a living, a vital faith expresses itself in good works. Anyone who is saved by grace through faith – and not by works – cannot help but lovingly and thankfully responding in good works of gratitude. What we are to see is an intimate connection between faith and works. Faith must reveal itself in works, and works, in turn, are the evidence of true faith. As John Calvin once put it, "It is faith alone which saves us, but the faith which saves us is never alone."

Listen to the Apostle James on good works: "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead" (James 2:26).

The Catechism states the connection between faith and works in the strongest possible language:
It is impossible
for those grafted into Christ by true faith
not to produce fruits of gratitude.
I like that word "impossible." Based upon the Holy Scriptures the Catechism would have us confess different impossibilities: it is impossible for us to love God and neighbor unless we are born again (Q & A 5,8); it is impossible for us to pay our debts and gain favor with God outside of Jesus Christ (Q & A 13); and, now, it is impossible "for those grafted into Christ by true faith not to produce fruits of gratitude" (Q & A 64).

For a Christian, doing good works is not only a task, a matter of obedience to the law of God; it is also impossible to be a Christian without doing good works. Those who have no good works should not be told to try a little harder; rather, they need to be asked whether or not they are "in Christ." For it is impossible to be in Christ and "not to produce fruits of gratitude."

In today's Scripture reading Jesus decisively states that good works are expected. And, a lack of good works can only lead to judgment. He says,
(Mat 7:17-20) ... every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit ... (19) Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. (20) Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Good works, then, are expected by God.

Conclusion
Good works: they are rejected, they are accepted, and they are expected.
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