God gives the gift of inherent righteousness after imputing Christ’s righteousness; inherent righteousness is inchoate and imperfect. Inherent righteousness is also called sanctification; it means we can do and necessarily do good works.

The early Reformed affirmed that God justifies us by faith through the imputed righteousness of Christ, and this righteousness alone constitutes the meritorious cause of our salvation. As Thomas Cranmer says, “Christ himself is the only meritorious cause of our justification” (The First Book of Homilies, 2021: 63).

And they also affirmed that God gifts us another righteousness, which they call inchoate and inherent righteousness or sometimes sanctification. As this righteousness follows upon Christ imputing his righteousness to us, John Calvin will see this righteousness as imperfect but covered by Christ.

And therefore, Calvin notes, “the good works done by believers are accounted righteous, or, what is the same thing, are reckoned as righteous” (ICR 3.17.8). That means, for Calvin, that both Christ’s righteousness imputed to us and our subsequent good works are (in two different modes) reckoned as righteous, not because of our goodness or merit but entirely because of Christ. Calvin is not alone in this estimation, as I have argued elsewhere.

Nothing here suggests that the Reformed held to a justification by works. Except, of course, the sticky part of history where many did just that! For example, Herman Witsius points out that our inherent righteousness can be thought of as a justification by works subsequent to our justification by faith. This latter justification amounts to being “declared to be truly regenerated, believing, and holy; behaving as becomes those who are regenerated, believing and holy” (Covenants, §3.25).

The distinction here matters: the word justification takes on more than one sense. We can say that Christ perfectly obeyed the law in his whole life, and thus merits righteousness; and this perfect righteousness becomes ours by faith through our partaking of Christ via the Spirit. But then we can speak of justification in another sense, as demonstrating or testifying to our righteousness. That is the kind of thing that Witsius thinks of when he speaks of being “justified by his works” which he immediately takes to mean “declared to be truly regenerated, believing and holy” (Covenants §3.8.25).

Why use such language? Because Witsius, along with many others, felt bound by the biblical language used in James 2:21 and 24, the latter saying, “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” For Witsius, this passage speaks about being justified by works since James literally says that. But this does not contradict Paul, who speaks about being justified by faith, for Paul speaks about Christ’s imputed righteousness, while James refers to demonstrating or testifying to the reality that one is “declared to be truly regenerated, believing and holy.”

Read More