The Question of the Necessity of Good Works (7): Losing the Sense of God’s Favor
By : Reformed Free Publishing Association
The Canons of Dordt, doing their part to exhort on the believer the necessity of good works, warn the believer sharply in 5.5: By such enormous sins…they [true believers] very highly offend God, incur a deadly guilt, grieve the Holy Spirit, interrupt the exercise of faith, very grievously wound their consciences, and sometimes lose the sense of God’s favor for a time, until, on their returning into the right way of serious repentance, the light of God’s fatherly countenance again shines...
Read MoreThe Question of the Necessity of Good Works (6): Fruits of Faith
By : Reformed Free Publishing Association
The first part of the Reformed faith’s answer to the question of the necessity of good works is the truth of Christ’s gracious renewal of the redeemed and justified believer. Because God renews him he must do good works. His good works do not obtain anything from God, but they are the necessary testimony of his gratitude that God requires of him and by which God is praised. Besides this and following from it there are other considerations. The Heidelberg Catechism’s...
Read MoreThe Question of the Necessity of Good Works (5): Testimony of Gratitude
By : Reformed Free Publishing Association
The understanding that works are necessary for believers because God regenerates believers reveals the faulty logic behind the teaching that works are necessary to obtain with God some aspect of salvation. That faulty logic is that obtaining by works is the most compelling reason to do good works, that without the incentive of obtaining with God the sinner will have no real compelling incentive to do good works, and thus that the sinner will be uninterested in doing good works. In...
Read MoreThe Question of the Necessity of Good Works (4): The Renewal of the Sinner
By : Reformed Free Publishing Association
At the same time the Reformed faith insists that the sinner is saved by God’s grace wholly without his own works—including especially the doctrine of justification by faith alone in which the believing sinner is justified before God in his conscience and experience by faith alone and not at all by works—it also insists that good works are necessary. It is slander to charge the defense of this position with a denial of the necessity of good works. Those who do...
Read MoreThe Question of the Necessity of Good Works (3): A Real Necessity
By : Reformed Free Publishing Association
It must be held firmly by every believer that his works, works of faith and done by grace, do not obtain any aspect of salvation. They do not obtain because they do not obtain the Spirit. Works are not an instrument, or a means, of salvation. Instrument and means are the same thing. Since the covenant is salvation, works are not an instrument to obtain the covenant. Since the covenant is fellowship with God, works are not the instrument to obtain,...
Read MoreThe Question of the Necessity of Good Works (2): Justification by Faith Alone
By : Reformed Free Publishing Association
No sane person would ever think to ask of any proponent of the false doctrines of Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, or the federal vision why works are necessary. It is patently obvious why works are necessary in Roman Catholicism, in Arminianism, and in federal vision theology. Works are necessary as instruments, or means, in connection with faith to obtain salvation, the enjoyment of salvation, and the fellowship of God’s covenant of grace now and in eternity. Salvation, especially considered as the sinner’s...
Read MoreThe Question of the Necessity of Good Works (1): A Proper Starting Point
By : Reformed Free Publishing Association
The question of the necessity of good works is now bedeviling the Protestant Reformed Churches. Specifically, the issue is the question of the necessity of good works in relation to the believer’s experience of salvation. Consistories, several classes, and two synods of these churches have had to speak to this question as the result of numerous appeals and protests from various members of the churches. In all of those decisions the connection of this question with the truth and confession of...
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