That Merit and Reward Language (in Jesus and Paul)

Every Protestant learns that what distinguishes a Protestant from a Catholic is that Catholics believe in merit while Protestants trust entirely in God’s grace. In fact, Catholic theology has a considered development of ideas when it comes to merits so there is reason for this. The issue, however, for the Protestant is not so much what Catholics think as what the Bible teaches, and by “Bible” I mean both Old and New Testaments.

What it teaches can be a bit surprising. I am glad Matthew Levering, in his Jesus and the Demise of Death, investigates the issue of merit.

How do you understand “merit” and the “reward” language of Jesus and Paul?

First a NT text or two:

Matt. 6:4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

2Tim. 4:8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Now at face value Jesus and Paul are teaching reward; and they are teaching a correlation between what we do and what rewards — and they can be seen here as the ultimate reward, eternal life — we get. If a pre-Christian Jew says things like this, the Christian might say the Jew believes in merit righteousness. We Prots tend to read them flat-footedly when they speak of merit. If a Catholic says something like this, the Protestant might say the same. Again, flat-footed readings sometimes obtain. But when either Jesus or Paul say it something else is at work — so that usually means that God’s grace is at work in the person so the “merit” and “reward” are nothing more than God rewarding his own work. We need to think about this more carefully and treat Jews and Catholics the way we treat Jesus and Paul (and ourselves).

Levering explores what I think is one of the most important recent studies of Judaism, and so far as I can see the work has been ignored by too many — despite my occasional protestation. Gary Anderson, in Sin: A History, contends that sin shifted in perception in Israel’s/Judah’s history, and it shifted from burden to debt, and when it became debt (after the 6th Century BCE), good deeds became merits. And this was not on a scale that eliminated God’s grace but within a scale that included God’s grace. Merit and reward might not be read as works righteousness but grace-inspired merit. So that Judaism was not the works righteousness religion many have said it was.

This does not cover all of medieval theology, which I think clearly wavered away from some grace theology, nor does that matter for Levering’s case. He’s got his eyes on the Big Guy: Aquinas.

Here’s the big one: Thomas Aquinas’ view is studied and what Levering shows is that Aquinas believed that all merit came from Christ’s own meritorious life — his obedience. That God’s grace through the Spirit is at work in us working us into good deeds and compassion and works of mercy, etc, and that these deeds “merit” eternal life because they are God’s own work in the Spirit through us and which draw on the treasury of merit from Christ.