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Translated by Luke Bomers

President: Dr. Franciscus Gomarus

Respondent: Alardus de Vries

December 10, 1605

Thus far concerning the person and office of Christ the mediator. It follows that his merit has been sufficiently obtained for the offending party, so let us consider that it has been efficaciously applied only to the elect.

Thesis 1

The word merit, in regard to its meaning, is taken loosely or strictly according to the difference of its usage. When referring to a freely-given reward (without completion of a condition from the party that promises the gift), merit refers to the fulfillment, taken figuratively or loosely. Improperly (catachresis), it is also used for the punishment that someone incurs for violating justice. But its meaning par excellence (κατ’ ὲξοχήν) is of merits taken in the first way. Such merit is marked out for us in Abraham, the father of the faithful, and consequently in all the faithful when God promises, that He will be for him a great reward (Gen. 15). But merit is properly predicated of Christ, who is the head of the faithful, when, from the necessity (hypothesis) of the divine will and by the perfect discharge of the office of mediator—without any omission of a condition required in him²—he acquired for himself the right of eternal lordship.

Thesis 2

But in order that the truth of this postulated thesis may be more clearly established, we will set forth four essential marks of merit, according to which we will examine this merit of Christ. 1. That, for a man who labors, a deed becomes meritorious out of his own virtue and power. 2. That a man should perform the deed out of free will and good pleasure and not only out of obligation. For when he does what he was bound to do, he pays no more than what he ought to have done, and the reckoning of merit ceases. 3. The work must be such that it is done for the good pleasure and favor of the one to whom the work is presented, who is also obliged to compensate him. 4. It is necessary that the reward should be in proportion to the meritorious work.

Thesis 3

Regarding the first mark, we say that Christ had this ability to merit out of his strength and power. For as the first Adam was able to accomplish the act of disobedience out of his natural power and ability—from which all men are destined to eternal death (Rom. 5:12)—so Christ the second Adam merited by his own obedience, sufficiently paying the price of redemption for all (albeit in a different way, since not all who are lost naturally through Adam are saved supernaturally through Christ). “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” (Heb. 5:8–9)

Thesis 4

The second mark is equally relevant to him: “For no man taketh his life from him. I lay it down (he says), that I might take it again” (John 10:17–18). “Lo, I come, my God, to do thy will” (Ps. 40:7; Heb. 10:7). But if he had performed this filial obedience out of absolute demand (jus), having been merely compelled by the duty of a bondsman—that is, as the servant to the Lord and not also as the Son to the Father—he would have merited a name not so much as Priest but as Sacrifice dragged to the offering. However, because he died personally and performed the offices of a suffering sacrifice and a freely acting priest, he had to obtain this merit by this voluntary and economic offering of himself, which merit is on behalf of the evil merits and sins of mankind.

Thesis 5

We see the third mark in that solemn testimony of the Father concerning the Son, who was appointed to the office of mediator, openly exhibited in heaven according to Matthew 15:5. Here he teaches that this is his Son in whom he is well pleased, and he commands that we hear him. In accordance with this declaration, it is the Son who offered himself as a sacrifice of good fragrance to the Father, to please the Father in such a way that no one without him can please the Father or hope for any communion of his benefits in this or the future life. For in that manner that he is pleasing to the Father, so we are pleasing to the Father through him. Who, “according to his good pleasure, predestined us in his beloved unto the adoption of children of God” (Eph. 1:5–6). Therefore, when our priest pours himself out for us for a sweet-smelling savor (Eph. 5:2), offering up the body—which the Father had given and adapted for him—as if to return it, we deduce that the Father, from the free determination of his will, obliged himself to compensate the service of his Son by mutual beneficence. That he, who had previously “been made a little lower than the angels because of his sufferings, is crowned with glory and honor” (Heb. 2:7, 9). And “he hath given him a name above every name” (Phil. 2:9), in which respect he is called King (1 Tim. 1:17), Prince (Heb. 12:2), and Head of the Church (Col. 2:18).

Thesis 6

The fourth mark is rightly suited to this merit. Since divine justice was infinitely injured and God the highest good was offended by it, the penalty to obtain reconciliation—out of the dignity of the person and of suffering from a weight of infinite value—was to be accomplished by death. This guarantor (fidejuslor) and mediator, taking the place of the offending party, enduring such tortures as all men could not endure for eternity, and “offering himself to God through the eternal Spirit, acquired an eternal inheritance” (Heb. 9:14–15). Therefore, whether we compare thing with thing or compare person with person, from either aspect we see the most exact proportion to exist—a proportion of right equality (aequalitas jus)—between the merit and the reward promised to him by the Father. “After his soul has labored, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days.” (Isa. 53:10)

Thesis 7 

The impelling cause (caussa impulsiva) is the most perfect justice of God, with which he sees the iniquity in the human race that a just judge cannot let go unpunished. Next, it is mercy—tempering this justice with gratuitous love—by which he did not wish to destroy what are his own among us. Therefore, according to his incomprehensible wisdom is this mystery (1 Tim. 3:16), he devised (invenire) the revelation of his justice and mercy in Christ, “whom he made sin, that we who were sin might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Cor. 5:21)

Thesis 9³

The efficient and material cause is Christ himself, “who purchased the church for himself with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). Through his merit he replaces our threefold misery with a threefold remedy: for our transgressions, the perfect fulfillment of the law (1 Pet. 3:18); for our guilt, absolution from it (Matt. 20:28); the payment of the penalty by being opposed for it.

Thesis 10

The form consists in the voluntary and perfect payment of our debt that was undertaken by him out of the ordinance of God (Isa. 53:4). The end is to appease God—to whom we were all loathsome on account of our sins—by his obedience and the ransom of his precious blood as a propitiatory sacrifice for those who believe in him (Rom. 3:25).

Thesis 11

The subject of this merit is not the divine nature of Christ considered separately; for it could not merit anything since it was lord of all. Neither did it suffer by itself nor in itself. Nor also is the subject the human nature, which by itself was an-
hypostatic and was assumed by the Word to be his instrument. Therefore, just as the flesh subsists through the Word, having been united to him personally, so the flesh was exalted not because of the works of the human nature but through the Word. For what did the human nature do to subsist in the Word? Or rather, what did the Word not do by his humbling of himself, to exalt the human nature also, receiving the glory that was, as it were, laid aside by dispensation (Heb. 1:3; Eph. 1:20–22). Therefore, in the same way actions are to be considered as with a view not to natures but to the person, so also the merit that flows from actions is to be considered with a view to the subject (suppositum).

Thesis 12

The indefinite and universal object is all men, without exception of nation, status, or sex; that is, the common sort of the individual cases (genera singulorum), not the individual cases of the sort (singula generum). “For he died for every man” (Heb. 2:9), and “he has become the reconciliation for the trespasses of the whole world”
(2 Cor. 5:19). Specific and definite are the elect, for whom not only this right and power of redemption and reconciliation has been obtained, but also whom—having been given real and actual remission of sins and reconciliation—the Holy Spirit illumines by particular grace, working effectively within them. Consequently, he does not so much affect these elect in common by a generic love through the offering of the Word and the external calling, but the incorruptible seed of the Word—impressed upon their hearts by the Holy Spirit by a particular affection—produces mature fruit, so that they experience not only the sufficiency but also the living efficacy of his merits (Col. 1:29; Eph. 1:19).

Thesis 13

Therefore, we conclude that the efficacy of this merit does not apply to the whole body of men, but only to that mystical body of the faithful. These, as members of their head, remain united to Christ through prevenient grace of the Holy Spirit that also accompanies them in all life (John 15:4). And through persevering grace, they who are in this communion of Christ’s benefits (Heb. 13:21) efficaciously live and die happily. Although this sense of Christ’s merits is actively applied in the saints, it is often interrupted on account of the sins of the faithful, so that the distinction between the elect and the reprobate is not conspicuous. Nevertheless, the seed of faith remains in them, and the root lives, although the fruits are sometimes hidden—as in David and Peter. For “the firm foundation of God standeth; he knoweth them that are his” (2 Tim. 2:19). And “whose sheep are plucked out of his hand by no man.” (John 10:28)

Thesis 14

Moreover, the cause whence this administration of Christ’s merit differs, and why it is not conferred upon all men by the act itself, is the divine will, which can administer of its own as it pleases according to its most free good pleasure. It owes these things to none, but all are debtors to it. The proximate cause is also all those who, by their guilt and unbelief, stumble at this rock of offense (Rom. 9:32) because they love darkness more than light—“those who afflict the Holy Spirit with grief” (Eph. 4:30) “and deny him who bought them with his own blood” (2 Pet. 2:1) “declare themselves unworthy of eternal life.” (Acts 13:46)

Thesis 15

But as many as have been saved from the beginning of the world, they have all been saved by the merit of this Lamb slain from the beginning of the world, through faith and the Spirit efficaciously applying this effectual ransom (λυτρω ἐνέργειαν) to them (Heb. 13:8). Therefore, “when Abraham saw the day of Christ, he rejoiced” (John 8:56; 2 Cor. 3:18). Granted, at that time they saw through the mists and veil that the Messiah promised to them was coming; who now was sent to us and presented “with a veil taken away. And with an open face beholding the Glory, as if looking in a mirror, we are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Quotation from Cusanus:

You will note that Christ’s death alone could merit eternal life; that perfect (consummatus) death merits immortal life. All other martyrs do not deserve eternal life from their own death, because every other death of anyone is less than the greatest and infinitely distant from a perfect death. It alone is meritorious of the greatest life, namely, eternal.

The end.