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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!
You can help me keep making this podcast—and you can get early access to new episodes—by going to Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast
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 definitely on the table in this passage.
Paul also refers to the intention of the people in question. He says that they
Romans 2:7, LEB
To those who, by perseverance in good work, seek glory and honor and immortality, [he will give] eternal life.
And notice that the way that they seek glory, honor and immortality is
Romans 2:7, LEB
To those who, by perseverance in good work, seek glory and honor and immortality, [he will give] eternal life.
So perseverance in good work is how they are seeking glory, honor and immortality.
Good works are the means by which they are seeking these things.
And I’d note that Immortality is another way of saying Eternal Life.
Now let’s put the pieces together and follow Paul’s logic. He says that God will reward each one according to his works, so to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality by perseverance in good work, God will reward their actions by giving them eternal life.
We can put this another way, which would be to say:
- God will reward each one according to his works.
- Therefore, if you want glory, honor, and immortality, persevere in good work.
- And God will reward you with eternal life.
Paul then underscores the same point a few verses later by saying:
Romans 2:10-11
[There will be] glory and honor and peace to everyone working good, to the Jew first and to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.
So we have a really clear passage here in Romans 2 stating that eternal life will be given as a reward for good works at the final judgment.
It’s not that we earn eternal life by good works, but God chooses to give it as a reward for good works—just like in the parable of the sheep and the goats.
Just A Hypothetical?
This makes many in the Protestant community very uncomfortable. It sounds too much like “works righteousness” to their ears, and so many have sought another way to interpret the passage.
How else might they take it?
Essentially, what these individuals do is Hypotheticalize this passage. That is, they treat it as a hypothetical that is never actually realized in practice.
In other words, they say that if someone actually did do perfectly good works all their life and never sinned, then they would be rewarded with eternal life. But no one ever does that, so no one is ever rewarded with eternal life. It’s a purely hypothetical statement.
JORDAN COOPER: I will say that Romans two is hypothetical.
So—since this passage isn’t talking about anyone real—it’s not talking about Christians.
MIKE WINGER: This is talking about the judgment a person goes through who does not have Jesus. If you do not have Jesus, you have a works-based judgment. You get tested on how good you are. If you really were righteous, you get to go to heaven. That’s true. The assumption false teachers make is that anybody is actually fulfilling that requirement.
And that means that the common understanding of the gospel as the message of how you get saved is not found in Romans 2.
THEOCAST: There is no gospel from Romans one 17 until Romans 3 21, from Romans one 18 to three 20. It is all law because Paul has one objective, and that is to crush everyone.
That’s right.
And to demonstrate that all men, Jew and Gentile alike are under sin and thereby are worthy of condemnation and have no hope of righteousness on their own steam.
Yeah, nobody who knows the thought of Paul would suppose that here he’s saying that people could have righteousness “on their own steam,” apart from God’s grace.
But because of their theology, many Protestants have to hypotheticalize a bunch of passages and treat them as if they don’t apply to anyone.
I plan to discuss the tendency to hypotheticalize passages—that is, to contradict their plain sense and snatch away promises that they make by applying them to unreal people—in a future video.
But for now, I’d note that there are significant problems reading Romans 2 that way. Paul says that God will reward each one, that he is dealing with every soul of man, and everyone.
Romans 2:6-10, LEB
[God] 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.
Those are pretty strong clues that Paul is talking about each one, every soul of man, and everyone.
But that creates a problem if you say this isn’t talking about everyone—like if it isn’t talking about Christians who have embraced the gospel—
MIKE: This is not describing the type of judgment a Christian goes through when they die. This is talking about the judgment a person goes through who does not have Jesus.
Then Romans 2 would not talking about each one, every soul of man, and everyone, because Christians will not be at that judgment.
And that’s a problem, because the language Paul uses suggest that he really is talking about each one, every soul of man, and everyone, and that there is no missing group of Christians who aren’t at this judgment.
Like Ferris over at How To Be Christian points out:
FERRIS: These are bold claims. Mike is trying to take the massive group that is every soul of man and exclude all Christians from that group. He’s basically saying that when Paul says every soul of man and each one and everyone, Paul doesn’t mean every soul of man and each one and everyone. Paul just means all of the people who aren’t Christians. That is not in the Bible.
Not A Hypothetical
But you don’t have to believe Ferris from How To Be Christian that Romans 2 isn’t hypothetical.
JORDAN: So Romans two, I do take as hypothetical.
You don’t even have to believe Jimmy Akin from Jimmy Akin that Romans 2 isn’t a hypothetical.
Because you can believe St. Paul that it’s not a hypothetical.
He articulates the same principle that he articulates in Romans 2 in another passage, and there the context is clearly not hypothetical.
If we turn over to the other epistle where Paul focuses on justification and read Galatians 6, we find him saying this:
Galatians 6:6-10, LEB
The one who is taught the word must share in all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked, for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap, because the one who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. And let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the household of faith.
First, St. Paul says the one who is taught the word must share in all good things with the one who teaches. That means that those who are taught the word need to share material things with the teacher of God’s word. In other words, they need to make donations to support the teaching of God’s word.
And he’s really serious about this, because he gives the Galatians a warning, saying, Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked, for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap.
And he explains that in terms of doing good and bad. First he deals with what happens if you do bad, and he says: because the one who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh. In other words, if you spend all your money on yourself rather than on God’s purposes, all you’ll get on judgment day will be corruption.
But the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.
Whoa! Let’s read that again: But the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.
So eternal life will be the reward for those who sow to the Spirit.
But how do we know that good works are involved?
St. Paul already indicated this. He said that the one who is taught the word must share in all good things with the one who teaches. So the context is that of doing the good work of making donations.
And he goes on to indicate that good works are involved, because he says: Let us not grow weary in doing good.
And he goes on to say: So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the household of faith.
Again, the word in Greek for do is ergazomai, and translating it that way is fine, but to bring out Paul’s theology of good works, you could translate this more consistently as:
Galatians 6:10
So then, as we have opportunity, let us work good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the household of faith.
So the context—both before and after the statement about sowing to the Spirit and reaping eternal life as a reward—is clearly good works.
And—contrary to those who try to hypotheticalize the passage in Romans 2—there is no possibility of doing that here.
First, because Paul initially discusses making donations to the teachers of God’s word, and that’s clearly a real world thing—not a hypothetical.
Second, because he says, let us not grow weary in doing good—so he envisions his audience already doing good in the real world, not an imaginary, hypothetical world.
Third, he assures them that at the proper time we will reap, if we do not give up—again indicating that they’re doing good in the real world, not a hypothetical one.
And he says they will reap if they don’t give up.
And he concludes by saying, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the household of faith—meaning all people in the real world, and especially to those who belong to the household of faith—or fellow Christians in the real world.
So here Paul is articulating the same principle that he did in Romans 2.
In Romans 2, he says that God will reward each one according to his works, and in Galatians 6 he says that whatever a person sows, this he will also reap.
In Romans 2, he says to those who act from selfish ambition and who disobey the truth, but who obey unrighteousness, [God will show] wrath and anger, and in Galatians 6 he says that the one who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh.
And in Romans 2 he says that to those who, by perseverance in good work, seek glory and honor and immortality, [God will give] eternal life, and in Galatians 6 he says that the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.
So it’s the same principle in both passages.
Both passages refer to eternal life as a reward, and there is no chance that Galatians 6 is an imaginary, hypothetical scenario that doesn’t apply to anyone in the real world.
That—of itself—gives us very strong evidence that Romans 2 is also talking about a real world scenario—just as a straightforward reading of the text would indicate.
But even if—contrary to the evidence of Paul’s language about each one, every soul of man, and everyone—you still insist on reading Romans 2 as a hypothetical, you can’t do that with Galatians 6.
The same principle applies, and in an unambiguously real-world context.
Good Works at the Final Judgment
So, yes, the Bible does conceptualize that eternal life is a reward for good works. We find that in Matthew 25—in the parable of the sheep and the goats. We find that in Romans 2. And we find that in Galatians 6.
And the context in each of these passages is Judgment Day. In Matthew 25, Jesus speaks of:
Matthew 25:31, ESV
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
In Romans 2, Paul speaks of:
Romans 2:5, LEB
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.
And in Galatians 6, Paul says that:
Galatians 6:9, LEB
And let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap, if we do not give up.
Meaning that at the proper time we will reap on Judgment Day if we do not give up before the end of our lives on Earth.
So the context in all three passages is that of our final justification on the Last Day.
The good news is that—even though historically many Protestants have restricted the term “justification” to what happens at the beginning of the Christian life—today some have begun to recognize and talk about the future aspect of our justification.
You thus do find some Protestant authors speaking about final justification.
Some are even acknowledging that good works play a role in our final justification.
In the following clips, Lutheran Jordan Cooper doesn’t use the term “final justification,” but he does acknowledge that good works play a role on Judgment Day.
In these clips, you’ll hear how much he’s struggling, because he’s trying to square the teaching of Scripture with his Lutheran theology, but he acknowledges that good works do play a role.
JORDAN: There is no question at all that our works play a role in the final judgment. So the question of the role of works at the final judgment is not do they play a role, but what is the role that they play at the final judgment? There is no doubt in my mind that good works play a role. There’s no doubt about that. They do play a role in the final judgment.
And—to his credit—Jordan warns against the general tendency to hypotheticalize passages about the role of good works at the last judgment.
JORDAN: What you find in some, I would say, reductionist kinds of Lutheranism is a kind of explaining away the passages. And what we cannot do, and what Lutheran theologians haven’t done historically is grab onto the passages to talk about judgment according to works and just say, oh, those are all hypothetical. And they all just say that we’re judged according to our works, but we don’t have good works.
We have the good works of Christ imputed to us. And that’s it. That’s not being honest with the context in those texts. There’s no doubt about the fact that faith works. Faith has fruit. Luther talks about this explicitly, but that’s just obvious. According description, this is one of Luther’s favorite things to talk about, is this imagery of the tree and its fruit. We have to be made a good tree first. We have to have faith first. Good works flow out of that faith.
Unfortunately, he does fall into the tendency to hypotheticalize when it comes to Romans 2.
JORDAN: So Romans two, I do take as hypothetical.
That’s a bad move, as we’ve seen from the evidence we’ve looked at in this video. Paul articulates the same principle in Galatians 6 that he does in Romans 2, and there’s no way that Galatians 6 is a hypothetical.
But still, good works do play a role in the final judgment, and so—as Jordan says—the question is what role do they play?
That’s a legitimate question.
I mean, the Bible is clear about the fact that we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. But it also presents our good works as playing a role on Judgment Day. So how do those two things fit together?
Well, it isn’t that hard. We start out as sinners, but then we come to God and are justified in this life, so our bad actions are taken care of.
What remains of our actions? Only the good ones. So—on Judgment day—God knows the good actions we did, and he them—because everything else has been forgiven.
Duh!
And Jordan almost gets there.
JORDAN: We have to be made a good tree. First. We have to have faith first. Good works flow out of that faith. Our sins have been forgiven. Our sins are not imputed because we’re in Christ. And if that’s true that our sins are not imputed because we are in Christ, then all that God sees when he looks in us is our good works as they are cleansed from our sin.
All of the imperfections, all of the bad motives, all of the mess up that we have, all of that’s taken care of. It was placed on the cross. So now God does see us as those who do good works. So all there is is a judgment of here are the righteous things we have done. And as those righteous things are done in our lives, those are manifest at the final judgment.
Unfortunately—because of his theology—Jordan can’t just go with what the New Testament indicates and say that we do good works and God rewards those.
Instead—and contrary to the text—he has to start talking about how God “sees” what we do in Christ, indicating some kind of counterfactual way of looking at them.
He also says that they’re “demonstrative”—that they demonstrate the genuineness of something that came before. Like the interpretation of the parable of the sheep and the goats that we discussed earlier.
And notice—once again—how uncomfortable Jordan is when trying to fit this with his theology and how he keeps talking—without any basis in the text—about how God “sees” us.
JORDAN: The role of good works in the final judgment is demonstrative. It demonstrates whose we are. It is true that those who have good works are the saints. It is true that those who do good will enter eternal life. And why is it that we will enter into eternal life for doing good? Well, you do have to see it in the overall context of everything scripture says. So our sins have been forgiven. Our sins are not imputed because we’re in Christ. And if that’s true that our sins are not imputed because we are in Christ, then all that God sees when he looks in us is our good works as they are cleansed from our sin, right? So God sees Christ when he sees us, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t also see our good works. He does, but he sees them as they are in Christ. So now God does see us as, yeah, those who do good works.
The hesitancy that Jordan displays at multiple points in these clips indicates that he is trying to force the biblical text into the framework provided by his own theology.
However, none of that is necessary.
The right way to approach this is to recognize that—as a result of God’s grace—we are forgiven in Christ, and then—after that forgiveness—God’s grace empowers us to do good works, and on Judgment Day God will recognize what we did by his grace and reward us with eternal life.
The idea that eternal life is a reward for good works is strongly indicated in Matthew 25 and Galatians 6, and it is made explicit by the language used in Romans 2.
Conclusion
So—to recap what we’ve covered in this video—good works play no role whatsoever in initial justification.
In fact, it’s impossible to do good works before initial justification.
Then—after initial justification—we grow in holiness or righteousness by cooperating with God’s grace by doing good works.
Finally—because we’ve been forgiven of our sins because of Christ—we aren’t held accountable for them on Judgment Day.
Instead—as multiple passages in the New Testament indicate—God will declare that we are righteous. We’ve been forgiven of all of our unrighteousness through Christ, and under the influence of his grace we have done good or righteous works.
Thus, as part of this judgment, God will declare that the good works or acts of love that we did for our neighbor were—ultimately—done for the love of God, who created our neighbor, and that we ultimately did them for him.
He will therefore reward us by giving us eternal life.
This is something that hopefully more Protestants will come to recognize, because when you give a careful reading to the text, it is clear that the New Testament does not hesitate to conceptualize eternal life as a reward for cooperating with God’s grace and doing acts of love or good works.
In this situation, we are not earning our place before God, because we can’t do that. However, we are doing good actions by God’s grace, and God chooses to reward those actions by granting eternal life to those who have done them.
So you can’t do good works before you are justified. That’s not possible, and all good works flow from a state of justification.
We then cooperate with God’s grace and do good works over the course of the Christian life as we grow in holiness and experience sanctification or ongoing justification.
And then—at our final justification on Judgment Day—God will reward the good works we did in life by giving us glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life.
And all of this is a product of God’s grace in our lives. We don’t have anything of our own to contribute to it, because everything we have is a gift from God.
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VIDEO SOURCES:
Mike Winger video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdqppMFcAkI
Jordan Cooper video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmfOGDTbGgU
Theocast video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEYgzLNyeXs
How To Be Christian video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDu1i0E7r8s