An Exposition of Article Twenty-Two of the Belgic Confession: The Righteousness of Faith

Many evangelical Christians understand the biblical teaching that we are saved by grace through faith and that we are not saved by our good works (Ephesians 2:8-10). And yet, many of these same Christians think of faith as that one thing God requires of us so that we might be saved. Faith is something which God sees in us and which he is compelled to reward. But properly understood, faith is not a work we perform. Faith receives what God freely offers. And what does God freely offer to sinners? He offers us the merits of Jesus Christ, which are more than enough to justify even the worst of sinner (1 Timothy 1:15).

We move to another section of our confession, (Articles Twenty-Two through Twenty Four) which deal with the application of Christ’s saving work to the individual believer. These three articles address subjects which are very familiar to many of us: faith, justification, and sanctification. These subjects are familiar to us because they lie at the very heart of the gospel. They are also familiar because many of us have had to wrestle with these doctrines in our own journey to the Reformed faith. Not only does the Reformed understanding of these doctrines amount to a repudiation of the Roman Catholic understanding of justification as a process (which was the major issue at the time our confession was written in 1561), but the Reformed understanding of these doctrines often differs significantly from the way in which many evangelicals understand them as well.

As you probably know, the Protestant Reformation largely centered upon the question of how sinners are reconciled to the holy God. At the time of the Reformation, the Roman church understood faith as essentially mental assent to the doctrines taught by the church. According to Rome, when enabled and energized by the grace received through the sacraments, this mental assent to the truth became a “formed faith” which produced genuinely good works. Some of these works are of such a nature that God must reward them as a matter of justice (condign merit), while there are other works which God chooses to reward because he is gracious and decides to reward them (congruent merit).

To read the rest, "Jesus Christ Is Our Righteousness"