Heidelberg Catechism Commentary: Part 2

I. What is Righteousness in General?

Righteousness derives from the concept of right, which is grounded in the law. It consists in conformity with the law, just as sin or unrighteousness consists in the violation of the law. In general terms, righteousness can be defined as conformity with God and the divine law, though it's difficult to frame a definition broad enough to apply equally to God and to creatures. Uncreated righteousness is God Himself, the foundation and the standard of all righteousness. Created righteousness is the effect of that uncreated, divine righteousness as it takes shape in rational creatures. Righteousness, then, as it applies to creatures, consists in fulfilling the laws that pertain to rational beings; it is the conformity of rational creatures with the laws that govern them. Ultimately, righteousness is the fulfillment of the law, and conformity with the law is righteousness itself. This point must be grasped and held firmly, because our justification can only be achieved through the fulfillment of the law. Evangelical righteousness is precisely this fulfillment of the law, and it does not conflict with the law in any way. The gospel does not abolish the law; it establishes it.

II. How Many Kinds of Righteousness Are There?

Righteousness is, in general terms, either uncreated (as God Himself is righteous) or created (as is the righteousness that belongs to rational creatures). Created righteousness is either legal or evangelical. By legal righteousness we mean the fulfillment of the law by someone who is thereby declared righteous; it is the kind of conformity to the law that is achieved through one's own obedience. This legal righteousness was the righteousness of Adam before the fall, and it belongs to the angels and to Christ insofar as He is human. Evangelical righteousness, by contrast, is the fulfillment of the law performed not by us but by another in our place, and credited to us by God through faith.

Legal righteousness is achieved either through obedience to the law or through punishment, since the law demands one or the other. The obedience-based form is either universal or particular. Universal obedience means keeping all the laws that apply to us. This kind of righteousness comes in two forms: perfect and imperfect. The perfect form consists in both inward and outward obedience to every law that applies to us, a complete conformity with the law, as the Scripture says: "Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them" (Deut 27:26). Imperfect righteousness, by contrast, is a conformity with the law that has only begun and doesn't fully meet all the law's requirements, nor fulfill them in the way the law prescribes. This imperfect righteousness itself comes in two varieties: philosophical and Christian. Philosophical righteousness is a knowledge of God's law and of virtue that is incomplete, unclear, and limited, combined with a certain resolve of the will and heart to do what is right within the bounds of that knowledge, along with conduct that generally aligns with the law. Christian righteousness consists in regeneration, or a knowledge of God and His divine law that is admittedly imperfect, yet far more excellent and complete than its philosophical counterpart. It is grounded in faith and the love of God, which the Holy Spirit kindles in the minds and hearts of believers through the gospel, and it is accompanied by a sincere desire to obey God according to all His commandments. This form of righteousness belongs properly to those who have been regenerated, and it flows from a justifying faith. Particular righteousness, on the other hand, is what gives to each person what is rightfully theirs, and it takes two forms: commutative and distributive. Commutative justice preserves equality in contracts and in the exchange of goods and their prices. Distributive justice preserves proper proportion in the distribution of offices, honors, goods, rewards, and punishments, giving to each person according to what they genuinely deserve. The farmer should work the land, the statesman should govern public affairs, the theologian should instruct the church, and rewards should go to the good while punishments fall on the wicked: "Render to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; honor to whom honor" (Rom 13:7).

Righteousness is also distinguished by its subjects: the righteousness of the person and the righteousness of the cause. The righteousness of the person refers to someone who is just and conforms to the law. The righteousness of the cause refers to someone who has a just and good case in a dispute, regardless of whether that person is morally good or bad. David draws comfort from this distinction repeatedly throughout the Psalms. It is sometimes called the righteousness of a good conscience.

III. In What Does Righteousness Differ from Justification?

Righteousness is conformity with the law: it is the fulfilling of the law, or that by which we are justified before God. Justification, by contrast, is the application of this righteousness to a person. The two concepts differ in the same way that a shape differs from its impression on an object, or the way whiteness differs from the act of making something white. Justification follows the same division we made for righteousness, into the legal and the evangelical. Legal justification consists in producing within us a genuine conformity to God and His law. This begins when the Holy Spirit regenerates us. Evangelical justification is the application of evangelical righteousness: specifically, the application of another's righteousness, which exists outside of us in Christ. It is the imputation and application of the righteousness Christ secured for us through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. This is not a transfer of righteousness as some kind of quality poured into us; rather, it is God's acquittal of us, His declaration that we are free from sin, on the basis of another's righteousness. Justification and the forgiveness of sins are therefore the same thing. To justify means that God does not count our sin against us, but accepts us and declares us righteous. Put another way, He declares us righteous on the basis of Christ's righteousness, which has been credited to us. That this is the proper meaning of the word becomes clear from the scriptural passages where it appears: "In your sight shall no living person be justified" (Ps 143:2), meaning no one will be acquitted or declared just on the basis of an inherent righteousness. "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity" (Ps 31:1-2). Paul, drawing directly on this declaration from the Psalms, interprets justification as the remission of sins, in a passage where the word impute appears seven times (Rom 4:7).

*Objection:* Whoever is righteous conforms to the law. To justify is to make righteous. Therefore, to justify is to make the person being justified conform to the law.

*Answer:* We grant the entire argument. To justify is indeed to make the person conform to the law, but this can happen in one of two ways: either in themselves, through a righteousness called their own (which is inherent, infused, and legal); or it can mean being made righteous in another, which is called imputed righteousness, the righteousness of faith, of the gospel, and of another person, because it does not reside in us but in Christ. This imputed righteousness also consists in conformity with the law, since faith does not nullify the law but rather upholds it. And this, we should note, is precisely the nature of our righteousness and justification. We are speaking here of the righteousness by which we as sinners are justified before God in this present life, not the righteousness by which we will be counted righteous in the life to come, nor the righteousness we would have possessed had we never sinned.

IV. What is Our Righteousness Before God?

The righteousness by which we are justified before God is not our conformity to the law, nor our good works, nor even our faith. It is the satisfaction Christ rendered to the law in our place: the punishment He endured on our behalf. This means that Christ's entire humiliation, from the moment of His conception to His glorification, is included in that satisfaction. His taking on human nature, His submission to the law, His poverty, His reproach, His weakness, His sufferings, His death, and everything else He willingly bore, including whatever He did and suffered that He was not obligated to endure as the righteous Son of God, all of it is part of the satisfaction He made for us. All of it is part of the righteousness God graciously imputes to us and to all believers. This satisfaction is equivalent either to perfectly fulfilling the law or to enduring eternal punishment for sin, since the law binds every person to one or the other. "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Cor 2:2). "Ye are complete in him" (Col 2:10). "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous" (Rom 5:19). "With his stripes we are healed. He was bruised for our iniquities" (Isa 53:5-6). "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Luke 22:20). "Being justified freely, by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven. Being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" (Rom 3:24-25; 4:7; 5:9-10). "Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich" (2 Cor 8:9). "He redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (Gal 3:13). "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Eph 1:7). "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). Christ fulfilled the law through both the holiness of His human nature and His obedience, even to death on the cross. The holiness of His human nature was essential to that obedience, because it was fitting for our Mediator to be holy and righteous in Himself, so that He could render perfect obedience and make full satisfaction on our behalf: "For such an High Priest became us, who is holy" (Heb 7:26). That obedience is now our righteousness, and it is on that basis that God is pleased with us. The blood of Christ is the satisfaction on account of which God receives us into His favor and which He imputes to us, as Scripture says: the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin, both sins of commission and sins of omission. The shedding of His blood is the crowning act of His satisfaction, and for that reason it is called our righteousness.

Three questions deserve careful distinction from one another: How can a rational creature be righteous before God? How can a person, being a sinner, be just before God? And can a rational creature earn anything from God? To the first question, the answer is that a rational creature may be just before God through an inherent conformity with the law, as is true of the angels and the blessed. To the second question, the answer is that a person as a sinner can be regarded as righteous only on the basis of the imputation of Christ's merits, and this is precisely the question at stake when we treat the subject of justification. That a person cannot be declared righteous on the basis of his works is clear for several reasons: his works are unholy before his justification; after his justification they remain imperfect; and even if they were perfect, as they will be in the life to come, they still could not atone for the sins of the past that continue to stand against us. To the third question, the answer is that a person can merit nothing from God, for Scripture says, "When you have done all the things commanded of you, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done only what was our duty'" (Luke 17:10). Nor is Christ's obedience meritorious in the sense that it adds anything to God. Rather, it is called meritorious on account of the dignity of His person, because the one who suffered was the Son of God.

V. How Does the Satisfaction of Christ Become Our Righteousness, Seeing That it is Without Us?

At first glance, it seems absurd that we could be justified by something outside ourselves, or by something that belongs to another person. We need, therefore, to explain more carefully how Christ's satisfaction and obedience actually become ours, because unless they are made ours and applied to us, we cannot be justified by them, just as a wall cannot be white unless whiteness is applied to it. There are two ways in which Christ's satisfaction is transferred to us.

1. God Himself applies it to us: He credits Christ's righteousness to our account and accepts us as righteous on the basis of it, as though it were our own.

2. We also apply it to ourselves when we receive Christ's righteousness through faith, meaning we rest assured that God will grant it to us, regard us as righteous because of it, and free us from all guilt. There is, therefore, a double application: one from God's side, and one from ours. The first is the imputation of Christ's righteousness, in which God accepts the righteousness Christ accomplished on our behalf and counts us as righteous in light of it, as fully as if we had never sinned or had at least made complete satisfaction for our sins. The second side of this application, which concerns us, is the act of believing itself, in which we are fully persuaded that Christ's righteousness has been imputed and given to us. Both sides of this application must necessarily work together in our justification, because God applies Christ's righteousness to us on the condition that we also apply it to ourselves through faith. Even if someone offers another person a gift, if the one to whom it is offered refuses to accept it, it is not applied to him and so does not become his. Without this second application, then, the first counts for nothing. And yet even our application of Christ's righteousness comes from God, because He first imputes it to us and then works faith in us, by which we apply to ourselves what has been imputed. This shows that God's application precedes our own act of faith and is its very cause, even though His application does not occur without ours, as Christ says: "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16).

From what we have said about how Christ's righteousness is applied to us, several important points emerge.

(1.) There is nothing contradictory about saying we are justified by someone else's righteousness, because the righteousness applied to us through faith is not simply foreign to us; it becomes ours through that very application. Christ is the one in whom this righteousness resides, but we are the ones it is directed toward, since it is imputed to us.

(2.) The term "imputation" is narrower in meaning than "application," because while imputation refers only to what God does, application covers both what God does and what we do.

(3.) God and we apply Christ's righteousness in different ways: God applies it through imputation, while we apply it through faith, that is, by receiving it.

(4.) To "justify," in the sense the church uses the word, does not mean what it means in a legal or transformative sense (making an unjust person righteous by infusing righteous qualities into them), but rather in the evangelical sense: regarding an unrighteous person as righteous, absolving them of guilt, and choosing not to punish them, all on the basis of another's satisfaction being imputed to them. This is how Scripture uses the word, and the same can be said of nearly every language. In Hebrew, the word means to acquit someone who is guilty, or to declare them innocent: "I will not justify the wicked" and "He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both alike are an abomination to the Lord" (Prov 17:15; see also Gen 23:7). Similarly, the Greek word dikaioun can mean either to regard or declare someone righteous, or to inflict punishment after the facts have been established through proper trial, as Suidas notes. It is in this second sense that Christ says, "By your words you will be justified" (Matt 12:37). The first meaning appears in Scripture in two distinct ways: either as acquittal rather than condemnation, as in "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies" and "He went down justified rather than the other" (Rom 8:33; Luke 18:14); or as recognizing and declaring someone righteous, as in "Wisdom is justified by all her children" and "That you may be justified when you speak" (Luke 7:35; Ps 51:6). Both uses, however, ultimately point to the same reality. Notably, the word "justify" is never used among Latin writers to mean making someone holy or instilling a habit of righteousness. Scripture clearly uses it in a different sense, as the following passages demonstrate; they cannot be read as meaning anything other than the acquittal and free acceptance of the sinner. "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies." "The tax collector went down justified," that is, absolved from guilt and accepted by God rather than the Pharisee. "And by him everyone who believes is justified from everything from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13:39). In this last passage, to justify plainly means to acquit and to receive the forgiveness of sins. Consider also: "Being justified freely by his grace," "that he might be the justifier of the one who has faith," "we hold that a man is justified apart from works," "to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness," and "being justified by his blood" (Rom 3:24, 26, 28; 4:5; 5:9).

VI. Why is the Satisfaction of Christ Made Ours, or Why Does God Credit it to Us as Righteousness?

God, out of His pure mercy and grace, credits and applies to us the righteousness of Christ. He also predestined us from eternity for this grace, and freely chose us in Christ as those to whom He would, in His own time, apply this righteousness "according to the good pleasure of his will" (Eph 1:5), as Paul says. He was not moved to do this by any goodness or holiness He foresaw in us. The reason for this is straightforward: there can be no goodness in us unless God first produces it. Every thought of personal merit must therefore be abandoned as incompatible with the grace of God and, in fact, as a denial of it. The mercy and grace of God are the sole cause behind every form of the application of Christ's righteousness. Out of His infinite goodness, God applies and transfers to us the merits of Christ, so that we may claim those merits as our own. The cause behind this application lies in God alone, and not at all in us. It cannot be anything God foresaw in us, nor even our own grasping or receiving of this righteousness. Whatever goodness exists in us is the result of the application of Christ's merits, not the basis for it: "What do you have that you did not receive?" (1 Cor 4:7). "For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" (Eph 2:8).

Christ presents himself to us in various ways as the basis of our justification:

1. As the subject and ground of our righteousness.

2. As the moving cause, because he obtains it for us.

3. As the chief and efficient cause, because he, together with the Father, justifies us and gives us the faith by which we believe and receive it. The mercy of God is the moving cause of our justification as it relates to God; the satisfaction of Christ is the formal cause; while our faith is the instrumental cause, apprehending and applying to ourselves the righteousness of Christ. We must recognize, therefore, that it cannot be said that we are justified in the same sense by the grace of God, by the merits of Christ, and by faith. The first refers to the moving cause, which resides in God; the second to the formal cause, which resides in Christ; and the third to the instrumental cause, which resides in us. We are justified by the mercy or grace of God as the chief moving cause, the impulse by which God was moved to justify and save us. We are justified by the merits of Christ partly as by the formal cause of our justification, in that God accepts us on account of Christ's obedience applied to us, counting us as righteous because we are covered with it as with a garment; and partly as the moving and meritorious cause, in that God, on account of this same obedience, acquits us and frees us from the condemnation of the law. We are justified by faith as by an instrumental cause, through which we lay hold of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us.

It is commonly said that we are justified by faith "correlatively," meaning we are justified by what faith points to, which is the merit of Christ, or by what faith actually grasps. Faith and the satisfaction of Christ stand in mutual relation to each other: one is the receiver, and the other is what is received. This way of speaking is correct, because when we use it, faith is understood as the formal cause of our justification. The sense is that Christ's merit justifies us, not faith itself; or to put it another way, we are justified by what is apprehended, not by the instrument that apprehends it. That said, justification can also be correctly attributed to faith as the instrumental cause, without any such correlative relationship. We can rightly say that we are justified by faith, meaning that faith serves as the means through which justification comes to us, since the effect of an efficient cause is ordinarily attributed to the instrument it works through. But when Scripture says "faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom 4:5), and when similar expressions appear, they must be understood correlatively, since faith is the instrument by which we grasp the righteousness of Christ, or to use a more vivid image, the hand by which we receive it.

Question 61. Why do you say that you are righteous by faith alone?

Answer. Not because I am acceptable to God on account of any worthiness in my faith, but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ constitutes my righteousness before God, and I cannot receive and apply that righteousness to myself by any other means than faith alone.

We are said to be justified by faith alone for two reasons.

1. Because we are justified solely by the object of faith, that is, by the merits of Christ alone, without which we have no righteousness whatsoever before God. We are justified on account of Christ. Nothing but Christ's merit can serve as our righteousness in God's sight, whether in whole or in part. We are justified only by believing and receiving the righteousness of another, not by our own works or merit. All works are excluded from our justification, including faith itself, insofar as faith is considered a virtue or a work.

2. Because the act that properly belongs to faith is to grasp and apply to itself the righteousness of Christ. Indeed, faith is nothing other than the acceptance itself, the laying hold of Christ's merits.

3. Because faith alone is the instrument that grasps Christ's atoning work. This explains why the exclusive word "only" is added in the Catechism and defended against Roman Catholic objections. It is included for five reasons.

(1.) To express what Paul affirms: "We are justified freely by his grace, without the deeds of the law," and what Christ says: "only believe" (Rom 4:24, 28; Mark 5:36).

(2.) So that all our own works and merits, as well as those of others, are excluded as causes of our justification, and faith is understood in its proper relational sense. We are justified by faith only, meaning by the merits of Christ alone.

(3.) So that not only all our merits, but even faith itself, is excluded from what faith receives. When we say we are justified by faith only, the meaning is that justification comes not by earning but by receiving. It's like saying that a beggar is enriched only by receiving charity: all works and merits are excluded, including even the act of receiving, insofar as that act might be mistaken for a merit. This is why Paul always says we are justified by faith and through faith, treating it as an instrument, and never on account of faith, as the Roman Catholics insist. They actually accept both forms of expression, as if faith could simultaneously be the means of applying Christ's righteousness and also a kind of work or merit that makes us worthy of being declared righteous. But this directly contradicts the very nature of faith. If we were justified on account of our faith, then faith would no longer be the acceptance of another's righteousness; it would become the merit and cause of our own righteousness, and it would no longer need to receive the satisfaction of another, because it would no longer stand in need of it.

(4.) So that we understand the necessity of faith for our justification, and recognize that while we are not justified by the merit of faith, we are equally not justified without faith, since faith is what receives and appropriates Christ's righteousness to us.

(5.) The orthodox Fathers frequently use the same expression, by faith only. Origen writes: "The Apostles say that the justification of faith only is sufficient, so that if anyone only believes, he may be justified, even without performing any works." Ambrose says: "They are justified freely who, without working or offering anything in return, are justified by faith only as the gift of God." Again: "How can the Jews suppose they are justified by the works of the law, when they have the example of Abraham before them, who was justified not by the works of the law, but by faith only? The law, therefore, is not necessary, since the sinner is justified before God by faith only." And again: "God has decreed that whoever believes in Christ should be saved without works, receiving the remission of sins freely by faith only." We are therefore justified by faith alone, which means by the merits of Christ alone, received through faith.

This we must firmly maintain and believe:

1. For the glory of God, so that the sacrifice of Christ may not be diminished.

2. For our comfort, so that we may be assured that our righteousness does not depend on our works (for if it did, we would lose it thousands of times over), but rests on the sacrifice and merit of Christ alone.