Rewards for Good Works

Question: Is everyone equal in heaven? Are there rewards in heaven in addition to justification and eternal life? Does God reward people for good works? If you were to do a poll among Lutherans, many of them would say, “No. We are all equal in heaven. God does not reward us for our good works.” This is a popular opinion, because we know that we are saved by grace through faith alone apart from works (Ephesians 2:8-9), and that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). God shows no partiality. And in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, where some worked one hour while others worked twelve, the good master paid them all the same (Matthew 20:1-15). And that great Lutheran hymn states, “Good works cannot avert our doom, they help and save us never.” So, many Lutherans assume that in heaven, we are all the same, and God does not reward us for good works.

But is that what Scripture says about rewards for good works? Jesus says in Matthew 5:12, “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” And in Matthew 6, “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” And “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” And St. Paul speaks of those in the office of the ministry, “Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.” So, Scripture appears to teach that we are rewarded for our good works, both in this life and in the next. And this is what our Lutheran Confessions teach.

Read Ap. V (III): Love and the fulfilling of the Law 234 [355-248 [369]
- “Afterward, because works please God on account of faith, they earn other bodily and spiritual rewards. For there will be distinctions in the glory of the saints.” 234.
- “People are accepted because of faith. For this very reason the initial fulfilling of the Law pleases and has a reward in this life and in the next.” 248.

My hope with this Bible study is to clarify what Scripture and what the Lutheran Confessions and Lutheran fathers taught concerning rewards for Good Works. This is different from the gift of salvation. Yet, even there, we will see that Scripture even calls salvation a reward. It will be clear in this study that the Lutheran Confessions teach that God rewards good works. My hope is that I will also show you that this is the position of Scripture. However, we need to carefully articulate this teaching, so that we place good works in their proper place. Most importantly, we must make a distinction between additional rewards for good works and the gift of salvation which is received for Christ’s sake through faith alone.

The definition of a reward.

A reward is something due. Therefore, eternal life is a reward. But it is not due on account of works, but on account of the promise for Christ’s sake, which is received through faith. However, God also rewards good works. We will learn how and why God rewards good works done by the Christian.

Apology V (III): Love and the Fulfilling of the Law

“We also affirm what we have often said, that although justification and eternal life go along with faith, nevertheless, good works merit other bodily and spiritual rewards and degrees of reward. According to 1 Corinthians 3:8, ‘Each will receive his wages according to his labor.’ The righteousness of the Gospel, which has to do with the promise of grace, freely receives justification and new life. But the fulfilling of the Law, which follows faith, has to do with the Law. In it a reward is offered and is due, not freely, but according to our works. Those who earn this are justified before they do the Law. As Paul says, ‘He has … transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,’ and we are ‘fellow heirs with Christ’ (Colossians 1:13; Romans 8:17). But whenever merit is mentioned, the adversaries immediately transfer the matter from other rewards to justification. Yet the Gospel freely offers justification because of Christ’s merits and not of our own. His merits are delivered to us through faith. Works and troubles do not merit justification, but other payments, as the reward is offered for the works in these passages: ‘Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully’ (2 Corinthians 9:6). Here clearly the measure of the reward is connected with the measure of the work. ‘Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land’ (Exodus 20:12). Also here the Law offers a reward to a certain work. The fulfilling of the Law earns a reward, for a reward properly relates to the Law. Yet we should be mindful of the Gospel, which freely offers justification for Christ’s sake. We neither obey the Law, nor can obey it, before we have been reconciled to God, justified, and reborn. Nor would fulfilling the Law please God, unless we were accepted because of faith. People are accepted because of faith. For this very reason the initial fulfilling of the Law pleases and has a reward in this life and in the next.” (AP V [III]): Love and the Fulfilling of the Law 245-247).

Here, Melancthon makes a stark distinction between forgiveness of sins, justification, and eternal life, which are merited by Christ alone and are given as a free gift to be received by faith and the additional rewards for good works, which follow faith. The “reward” of eternal life has nothing to do whatsoever with our works or merits. The additional rewards are given in accordance with the works (however, as we will learn later, this does not mean that our works earn these rewards of their own merit).
Melancthon makes clear that the good works, which earn additional rewards in this life and in the one to come, are not possible until a person has first been regenerated through faith and has received the forgiveness of sins and justification for Christ’s sake.

Formula of Concord: Solid Declaration IV: Good Works,

7: “It is God’s will, order, and command that believers should walk in good works. … Truly good works are done not by our own natural powers, but in this way: when a person is reconciled with God through faith and renewed by the Holy Spirit. Or, as Paul says, a person is ‘created in Christ Jesus for good works’ [Ephesians 2:10].”

8: “Nor is there a controversy about how and why the good works of believers are pleasing and acceptable to God (although in this flesh they are impure and incomplete). They are acceptable for the sake of the Lord Christ, through faith, because the person is acceptable to God.”

Good works done without faith are sin: “There are works that apply to maintaining of external discipline. These are also done by, and required of, the unbelieving and unconverted. These works are commendable before the world and rewarded by God in this world with temporal blessings. Nevertheless, they do not come from true faith. Therefore, in God’s sight they are sins, that is, stained with sin, and are regarded by God as sins… because the person is not reconciled to God.”

9: “:Faith must be the mother and source of works that are truly good and well pleasing to God, which God will reward in this world and in the world to come.”

38: “The Holy Spirit works this in believers, and God is pleased with good works for Christ’s sake. He promises a glorious reward for good works in this life and in the life to come.”

Chemnitz makes clear that the good works which earn a reward in this life and in the next are not done according to the flesh, but are accomplished by the Holy Spirit, who moves the regenerated person to accomplish them.

Chemnitz on Rewards for Works

Examination of the Council of Trent, vol. 1:653-663. Especially pages 653-654 and the four reasons against our works meriting the reward on pages 661-662.

“This teaching is set forth in our churches plainly and distinctly from the Word of God, namely, that the expiation of sins, or the propitiation for sins, must not be attributed to the merits of our works. For these things are part of the office which belongs to Christ the Mediator alone. Thus the remission of sins, reconciliation with God, adoption, salvation, and eternal life do not depend on our merits but are granted freely for the sake of the merit and obedience of the Son of God and are accepted by faith. Afterward, however, the good works in the reconciled, since they are acceptable through faith for the sake of the Mediator, have spiritual and bodily rewards in this life and after this life; they have rewards through the gratuitous divine promise; not that God owes this because of the perfection and worthiness of our works, but because He out of fatherly mercy and liberality, for the sake of Christ, has promised that He would honor with rewards the obedience of His children in this life, even though it is only begun and is weak, imperfect, and unclean. These promises should arouse in the regenerate a zeal for doing good works. For from this we understand how pleasing to the heavenly Father is that obedience of His children which they begin under the leading of the Holy Spirit in this life, while they are under this corruptible burden of the flesh, that He wants to adorn it out of grace and mercy for His Son’s sake with spiritual and temporal rewards which it does not merit by its own worthiness. And in this sense also our own people do not shrink back from the word ‘merit,’ as it was used also by the fathers. For the rewards are promised by grace and mercy; nevertheless, they are not given to the idle or to those who do evil but to those who labor in the vineyard of the Lord.” 653.

“We set forth the statements of Scripture in our churches about the rewards of good works. 1 Tim. 4:8: ‘Godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.’ Luke 14:14: ‘You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’ Matthew 5:12: ‘Your reward is great in heaven.’ Matt. 10:42: ‘He shall not lose his reward.’ Gal. 6:9: ‘Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we will reap, if we do not lose heart.’ Eph. 6:8: ‘Knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same again from the Lord.’ Heb. 6:10: ‘God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for His sake in serving the saints.’ 2 Thess. 1:6-7: ‘Since indeed God deems it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant rest with us to you who are afflicted, etc.’ Scripture is full of such promises of spiritual and bodily rewards.” 653-654.

Where then is the controversy between the Lutherans and the Roman Catholics? “The controversy is chiefly about two points. First, they teach that the regenerate through their works truly merit not only other spiritual and bodily rewards but also eternal life itself, which is to be paid as a reward for the good works and merits of the regenerate. Second, that they think that rewards are given to good works not from the grace, mercy, and fatherly liberality of the heavenly Father but as a matter of debt, because nothing is lacking in the good works of the regenerate that they should not be judged to have satisfied the divine law fully according to the state of this life and to have truly merited eternal life. These things are found in the 16^th chapter of the Council of Trent.” 654.

Here Chemnitz is speaking of good works de condigno, that is, which merit a reward in a wholly deserving way. “Thus they simply repeat and strengthen the fictions of the Scholastics concerning the meritum condigni, that the works of the regenerate in this life, because they have been performed in love, worthily merit eternal life, that is, that eternal life must be given as something owed by divine justice to good works.” 654.
This meritum condigni the Papists distinguish from meritum de congruo (Merits of congruity), which are good works that merit a reward solely on the basis of God’s generosity. According to Gabriel Biel, when a person in a state of sin does what is in him and loves God according to the substance of the act, God rewards him (de congruo) with the infusion of first grace. Here we see a fundamental difference between the Lutherans and Roman Catholics on justification. Lutherans believe that grace is God’s disposition and activity, which He does to save us. Roman Catholics believe grace is a habit, which God infuses into us, so that we may merit a reward. Lutherans believe that God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us, that is, that God credits Jesus’ righteousness to us for the sake of Christ’s atonement. Roman Catholics believe that Christ’s atonement makes it possible for us to merit actual righteousness. The righteousness by which we are justified in Roman Catholicism is not Christ’s righteousness, but the righteousness of the regenerated Christian.

To this, Chemnitz responds, “And because the law of the flesh causes evil to be present to him who wants to do good, it defiles and pollutes the things which the Spirit works in the regenerate. If, therefore, God would enter into judgment with the works of even the regenerate, they would not be pronounced merits worthy of eternal life, but the regenerate would be found guilty because they hinder, defile, and pollute the fruits of the Spirit through their flesh. This very thing the saints also confess: ‘Who will boast: My heart is clean; I am pure from sin?’ And Isaiah, ch. 64:6, is speaking not only of the ungodly but also of himself; nor of the transgressions but of the good works, when he says, : ‘All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.’ As Bernard says most beautifully: ‘If ours is a humble righteousness, it is perhaps right but not pure, unless we perhaps consider ourselves better than our fathers who said no less truthfully than humbly: “All our righteous deeds are like the garment of a menstruating woman.” For how can there be pure righteousness where as yet guilt cannot be absent?’ Beautiful is also the statement of Augustine: ‘We would ascribe much to ourselves in this flesh if we did not live under forgiveness until the flesh is put off.’” 660.

So, Chemnitz shows from Scripture and from the church fathers that the righteousness of our works not only fails to merit eternal life, but only merit additional rewards on account of God’s mercy for Christ’s sake.

Chemnitz gives four reasons from Scripture that our works do not merit rewards of themselves.

Christ shows Luke 17:7-10 that the Lord is not bound as by a debt that He should thank the servant for doing what he had been commanded. “So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say: ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” Chemnitz goes on, “For God is our Lord, and we are His servants for many reasons, as by reason of our creation, redemption, and sanctification, as Paul says, 1 Cor. 6:19-20: ‘You are not your own; you were bought with a price.’ Therefore God is not bound to us as by a debt to give reward for works, which we ourselves owe.” 661.
“On account of the law of sin in the members, imperfection and evil adhere to the good works of the regenerate in this life (Rom. 7). 661. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” Vss. 18-19.
“The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18) 662. In other words, the reward is not equal to the work.
“We are not sufficient of ourselves” (2 Cor. 3:5), but it is God who works in us, “both to will and to work for His good pleasure,” (Philippians 2:13). “If, then, you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” (1 Cor. 4:7). “There is therefore not a debt on the basis of a true and proper reckoning of merit but the mercy and goodness of God that God crowns His own gifts in us.” 662.

Finally, Chemnitz points out that the saints in Scripture always give God all the glory. In Rev. 4:10-11, they throw their crowns down at Jesus’ feet and say, “Whorthy art Thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor.” And in Matthew 25, the elect do not acknowledge any merit and worthiness. “Lord, when did we see Thee hungry and feed Thee.” Chemnitz writes, “For this reason also Scripture, which speaks of reward and retribution, nevertheless does not employ the term ‘merit.’[1]

Summary

Scripture makes a distinction between the gift of eternal life, which is merited by Christ alone and is received as a gift through faith and the additional rewards in this life and the next, which result from fruits of the Spirit in a regenerated person.
Scripture does even call eternal life a reward, not because it is due to us on account of our works, but because it is due on account of the promise, which depends on Christ and is received through faith.
Only those good works done through faith in Christ are pleasing and thus rewarded by God (that is, are not given rewards in the life to come).
God does reward good works in this life and in the next based on the work, that is, he withholds a reward from those who do not work and he promises a reward to those who do work, but the reward is not earned. It is still given by God’s grace for Christ’s sake, because even in the regenerated state, our works are still imperfect and stained with sin and must be forgiven. The only good work done by us is a forgiven work.
Our good works can never merit reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sins, or eternal life! And the reward for our good works is never eternal life. Eternal life is the reward received through faith on account of Christ. The reward for our good works is given according to God’s discretion, mercy, and grace for Christ’s sake. These include long life, prosperity, and whatever degrees of glory we may experience in the life to come.
This teaching should motivate us to do good works, because they are pleasing to God, God wants to reward us, and God does reward us beyond what we merit.

[1] He notes, “For where in Ecclus. 16:15 and Heb. 13:16 the Vulgate has translated ‘merit,’ the Scripture does not have that word.” Examination 1:662.