Institutes 3.17.7 — THE PROMISES OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL RECONCILED.

CON treatise-section · status:draft · license:PD

**THE PROMISES OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL RECONCILED.**

There seems much more difficulty in those passages which distinguish good works by the name of righteousness, and declare that man is justified by them. The passages of the former class are very numerous, as when the observance of the commandments is termed justification or righteousness. Of the other classes we have a description in the words of Moses, “It shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments,” ( Deut. 6:25 ). But if you object, that it is a legal promise, which, having an impossible condition annexed to it, proves nothing, there are other passages to which the same answer cannot be made; for instance, “If the man be poor,” “thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goes down:” “and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God,” ( Deut. 24:13 ). Likewise the words of the prophet, “Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment: and so the plague was stayed. And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore,” ( Psal. 106:30, 31 ). Accordingly the Pharisees of our day think they have here full scope for exultation. French, “de crier contre nous en cest endroit;”—here to raise an outcry against us. has been rendered by the Septuagint, not very appropriately, δικαιώματα, justifications , instead of edicts . French, “Edits ou Statuts;”—Edicts or Statutes. The French here adds the two following sentences:—“Nostre response done est, merites: mais entant qu’elles tendent à la justice que Dieu nous a commandee, laquelle est nulle, si elle n’est parfaite. Or elle ne se trouve parfaite en nul homme de monde; pourtant faut conclure, q’une bonne œuvre de soy ne merite pas le nom de justice.”—Our reply then is, that when the works of the saints are called righteousness, it is not owing to their merits, but is in so far as they tend to the righteousness which God has commanded, and which is null if it be not perfect. Now it is not found perfect in any man in the world. Hence we must conclude, that no good work merits in itself the name of righteousness.

Source

• source-manifest/institutes — Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Beveridge 1845 (PD)
• evidence_grade: D_doctrinal_textbook