R. Scott Clark believes that Trent properly understood the Protestant position on the role of good works: good works are merely evidence of sanctity and nothing more (CJPM, 252-3). John Davenant, however, one of the English delegates to the Synod of Dort, vigorously disagrees.
While he acknowledges that some Lutherans believe that good works merely attest the existence of true faith, Davenant repeatedly asserts that this is not the Protestant position. Good works play an active and positive role in salvation. To describe this active role, Davenant uses what is arguably one of the most common phrases on this subject in Reformed writings, including the Westminster Standards (see WLC 32), namely that good works are the way to salvation/kingdom/eternal life. Davenant writes:
“[Bellarmine] charges us falsely also with asserting that good works are not otherwise necessary than under the character of a sign, to announce the presence of faith… But we abhor such doatings as these with our whole soul, and openly affirm that good works have, in reference to salvation, a necessity of their own, not significative only, but active; because (as has been before shewn by us more than once) by means of the practice of good works are we advancing and make progress towards the kingdom of heaven.” Justification, 1:314.
Good works are the way to salvation in the sense that the only road that leads to glory is the one paved with good works. One must walk along this narrow road in order to arrive at the gates of the celestial city. After citing Matthew 7:14, Davenant comments:
“Hence it is plain, that a certain sure way is laid down to the kingdom of heaven by God himself, and that the same is a narrow way, namely, that of virtue and holiness: not the broad way of iniquity and lust. As therefore, if there is a certain, only, and prescribed way, which leads to any city, it is necessary to all who wish to enter that city, to take this way; so, since by the Divine appointment the way of good works leads to the goal of eternal glory, he must inevitably enter upon and hold this way, who desires to arrive thither.” Justification, 1:302-303.
It would seem then that Mark Garcia is correct to critique Clark on his understanding of the role of good works. Good works do not merely attest sanctity, justification or saving faith. They are “not significative only, but active.” It would also seem therefore that Clark’s colleague at WSC, Michael Horton, better captures the Protestant, or at least Reformed, view of the necessity of good works when he writes:
“[Holiness] is the indispensable condition of our glorification: no one will be seated at the heavenly banquet who has not begun, however imperfectly, in new obedience.” God of Promise, 182-3.
Would that road also be littered with filthy rags?
Well, certainly believers in this life are not perfect and even their best works are not perfect. Moreover, true believers may fall into grievous sin for a time. Nevertheless, believers need to persevere in the faith, for he who endures to the end shall be saved. The author of Hebrews says that believers need to endure, so that when they have done the will of God they may receive what is promised (Heb. 10:36-39).
Thus Westminster Larger Catechism 32 says that the Spirit enables the elect “unto all holy obedience…as the way which [God] hath appointed them to salvation.”
Patrick,
I find Turretin’s answer (in the affirmative) to the question “are good works necessary for salvation” to be fairly representative of Reformed theologians. Most Lutherans denied this, but the Reformed had a far more robust view of good works than the Lutherans, which stemmed from their covenant theology.
Moreover, those works, while “filthy”, are nevertheless God’s works that he prepared in advance for us (Eph. 2). Our good works are as much his as they are ours, and for that reason I think the Reformed got things right on this score.
Bavinck also has a wonderful treatment of this subject in his RD under the topic of sanctification.
MJ
Then wouldn’t it be useful to say that the road of good works isn’t good enough? Isn’t it the case that to point people to this road you raise the danger of them thinking that their good works are synonymous with salvation?
Question for clarification: what exactly are good works not good enough for?
As filthy rags, they cannot measure up to God’s strict demands for righteousness and holiness.
So they are not good enough to be perfect works. Granted. How does that keep God in the covenant of GRACE from appointing them, as our Catechism says, the way TO salvation? How are they not good enough for this purpose?
And although good works are not perfect, they are good and pleasing to God (see Hebrews 11).
W: They are good enough when God views them through the righteousness of Christ. That is why justification is prior to sanctification. No hope without it.
How is your understanding of good works different from Rome’s?
What are good works viewed through the righteousness of Christ good enough for? To merely attest sanctity? Or as the confession says, as the way TO salvation?
Pingback: Confusing Law and Gospel (and the WCF) « Contrast
Pingback: Holiness and Eternal Life « Patrick’s Pensees