I. What is being confessed in this article?⤒🔗

The previous article confessed how Christ reconciled us to God by sacrificing himself. This article deals with the question of how we get to share in this reconciliation.

1. First of all, the atoning work of Christ is called a “great mystery." We only get to know this when the Holy Spirit kindles faith in our hearts. For through it we, as it were, embrace Christ with all that he has merited. In this way he becomes our own, while we no longer have anything to seek outside of him. Because it is either the one or the other: either Christ cannot offer us all we need to be saved –which would mean a terrible blasphemy that would imply that he would be only half a Saviour. Or he has all that we need to save us, and then he who has Christ by faith has complete salvation.
2. This faith by which we embrace Christ contains nothing meritorious in itself. That is why we speak with Paul of faith “apart from works”, that is, without taking into account the activities of faith. For in the end it is not faith itself that justifies us and gives us the divine acquittal of all our sins. It is only the means by which we embrace Christ who is our righteousness. And then it happens that he imputes (that is, transfers) to our account what he has earned for us.
   By faith all these treasures become our own, and they are more than sufficient to forgive our debts.

II. Without faith the divine acquittal remains a mystery←⤒🔗

1. This is about the question of how we arrive at “the true knowledge of this great mystery." That mystery proves to be Christ’s work of atonement (that is, reconciliation). But why is it called a mystery or a secret when it has been spoken of at length and clearly in both preceding articles? Moreover, the Scriptures are full of this, for the doctrine of atonement is at the heart of the gospel. Yet our article rightly identifies this doctrine as a mystery, because it is both incomprehensible to our minds and unacceptable to our senses that someone should pay for our sins by dying on a cross (1 Corinthians 1:23).
   In this context, Calvin declared that our mind is blinder than moles in spiritual matters, and does not understand this doctrine any more than a blind person can distinguish colours, and a donkey is able to understand a symphony. See also Matthew 16:17.
    For this reason this otherwise clearly stated teaching is nevertheless called a “great mystery.” The clearest mind is entirely blind to it, corrupted as it is by sin.
2. According to Rome’s teaching, the darkness of our mind is not all that bad. Our minds would only have a limited capacity. That is why we cannot properly grasp spiritual matters and need to be "elevated" or raised to a higher level of understanding. It is therefore not a matter of corruption but of an insufficient capacity.
   However, the Bible and experience teach us that our mind strongly opposes and contradicts God’s Word and declares it to be foolishness. So it is not a matter of limited abilities but of enmity. Our minds need to be recreated.
   b. A similar view is held by the Remonstrants. They believe that the Holy Spirit only needs to advise man and they speak of a "gentle counsel." More would not be necessary for man to understand that the gospel is acceptable in every way.
   c. These thoughts that assume the acceptability of the gospel to the modern human mind are contrary to Scripture (Genesis 6:5; Genesis 8:21; Psalm 94:11, John 1:5). Moreover, practice shows that they always lead to an adaptation of the Bible to our contemporary concepts.
3. How, then, do we become partakers of the atoning work of Christ when we are incapable of grasping it mentally, and are entirely unwilling to accept this? An intervention by God himself is indispensable. Already Moses said that God himself needs to give us a heart to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear (Deuteronomy 29:4). Therefore what Jesus did to his disciples needs to happen to us: "Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24:45). And our article says that the Holy Spirit kindles a true faith in our hearts. Faith, therefore, is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). It is like a lamp that enlightens our understanding, so that it will discover what was otherwise a hidden secret. And so the Holy Spirit enables our minds to understand the doctrine of the atonement and at the same time he makes us willing to accept it wholeheartedly. In this way we indeed receive “the true knowledge of this mystery.”

III. Faith embraces Christ and thereby brings acquittal←⤒🔗

1. True faith always does one thing: it makes us take hold of him from whom we expect everything. It embraces Jesus Christ with all his merits. It flees to him and clings to him. Luther writes that true faith joyfully embraces the Son of God with outstretched arms, and then that faith says, “He is my beloved, and I belong to him!” And Calvin also speaks of this embracing of Christ through which he remains not far from us, but even dwells in us.
2. Suppose that we have seriously violated someone’s friendship, but he nevertheless comes up to us with a generous hand outstretched. Then there is no surer way to heal the breach than to shake his hand cordially. We do not ask first why he does it this way and whether he really means it. There may still be much to discuss, but we start by accepting his outstretched hand.
   Christ is, as it were, God’s hand stretched out to us. For that reason we know for sure that he will accept us. There is no other and no surer way to be reconciled to God than to accept his outstretched hand, which is to embrace Christ. Only in this way can God, whom we had offended, be reached again, as Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Faith therefore chooses “the way” which God himself has opened: that is Christ. Faith therefore does not reason in advance why God loves sinners and it does not get stuck in the objection that our sins are insurmountable after all. No, it does what it is supposed to do. It begins by grasping God’s outstretched hand: by embracing Christ.
3. Anyone who clings to Christ takes hold of all his treasures and gifts at the same time. Believing is thus a way of "mining." The article even speaks of the believer who makes him our own, through faith. He who embraces Christ appropriates him and all his merits. And “when those benefits have become ours, they are more than sufficient to acquit us of our sins.”
4. Is it not too much of a stricture to say that faith embraces Christ? We have to believe the whole Bible, right? The latter is definitely true. We need to accept the Bible from cover to cover. Yet everything between these covers always points to Christ. He is the content, the substance, of Scripture. Jesus himself says that the Scriptures bear witness of him, and that Moses wrote of him (John 5:39, 46; see also Hebrews 10:7).

IV. Faith does not find this acquittal in itself←⤒🔗

1.  With great emphasis our article says that he “who has Jesus Christ through faith has complete salvation.” To claim that “Christ is not sufficient” and that “something else is needed besides him” is a “terrible blasphemy.” The conclusion would then be that Christ is but half a Saviour.
   Based on all of this our article draws an extremely important conclusion for faith itself. After all, that faith seems to be the only remaining contribution that we must make to be reconciled with God. Do we therefore contribute a little to this acquittal through our faith?
2. The article makes it clear what the value of faith is for being reconciled with God. It says that we are acquitted “by faith apart from works of the law." The expression “faith without works” is particularly important. What exactly does it mean? We can best explain this when we first explain what the Roman Catholics say about faith. They also admit that man is justified by faith. That may seem biblical, but there is a catch: they say that faith at least also includes love along with the deeds or works that we do out of love. So they employ the word "faith," but they mean faith plus good works such as penance, fasting, and confessionals. According to them, this is how we get acquittal: through faith, but especially through the works of faith.
   We know very well that the Bible rejects this, because Paul had to fight against the same error. The entire letter to the Galatians is devoted to this, as well as also a part of that to the Romans. In Galatians 2:16 the apostle writes that we are “justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law” (see also Romans 3:28). Abraham was allowed to do many things by faith, but he was not justified on account of his works (Romans 4:2-3).
3. But is  Rome not partly right? After all, faith and love cannot be separated, can they? After all, there can be no genuine faith if there is no love. True faith is governed and realized by love (Galatians 5:6). A living faith simply has to be shown in good works, because “ faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). So if we are acquitted by faith, then we are also acquitted by the love and good works that accompany such faith, are we not?
   That seems like airtight logic, but it is a stab in the heart of the gospel because it implies that we then base our salvation partly on our works. Our repentance, for example, then becomes a meritorious achievement that moves God to pronounce an acquittal.
4. The error of this reasoning is not difficult to point out. We heartily admit that faith and love go hand in hand with good works. Just as the heat and the light of the sun are inseparable; the two go together. But saying this does not mean that we can see because of the heat of the sun. Likewise, faith is never without works. But we are justified by faith—without counting the works. That is why this article says so emphatically that we are acquitted by faith alone or by faith without works, that is, only by embracing and appropriating Christ with all his merits.

V. Faith is only the instrument to receive this acquittal←⤒🔗

1. The article excludes any thought as if there would be anything meritorious in faith itself. Therefore it says that “strictly speaking,” it is not faith itself that justifies us. Faith is but an empty hand that cannot fill itself. Empty is empty. There is nothing inherent in faith that has value to God. But it is the means, the instrument by which we are united with him in the fellowship of all his treasures and gifts. On the one hand, faith is like the empty hand, but on the other it is the hand with which we accept Christ’s atonement. All his merits even become ours, and so we become rich in him — riches that are more than sufficient to acquit us of our sins. And so the way is open for our complete redemption.
2. That our faith itself does not count in our acquittal by God is a good thing. For we do not have perfect faith, and it would be precarious if our acquittal depended on the strength of our wavering faith. We would be like a ship whose anchor had fallen into its own swaying hold. That does not help. Such an anchor must find support outside the ship itself. So we should not look for something to hold on to in our life of faith, which is at times so weak and small, but in Christ, who is God’s outstretched hand. True faith does not say: ”Come to me and I will give you rest.” Instead it takes us to Christ and embraces him.
3.  James seems to disagree with our article when he writes, “You see that a person is justified by works, and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). This also seems to contradict Paul’s words, “For we hold that one is justified by faith, apart from the works of the law” (Romans 3:28). And yet there is no contrast between James and Paul. That would be the case if they answered the same question. But that is not the case. Paul answers the question whether the atonement has come about through faith alone, or whether it is also achieved through our good works. And his answer is: through faith — apart from works. James, however, answers a quite different question: whether the atonement is made by a dead faith? And in this connection he speaks of a faith that has to be evident through good works.
   We will attempt to summarize their views as follows:
   With Paul the question is whether we receive acquittal through a faith that performs meritorious works? His answer is that it is  by faith alone, without (meritorious) works.
   With James the question is: are we acquitted by a faith that consists in cheap words? His answer: No, not only by faith (expressed in cheap words) but also by works, that is, by an active faith.
   Paul says no to a meritorious faith and hence no to the works of such faith, namely as the merits thereof. James says no to a dead faith and therefore yes to the works of that faith as signs of a living faith.

Points to discuss←↰⤒🔗

1. It is well known that a contrast is sometimes made between (a) faith as knowledge (a matter of understanding) and (b) as confidence (a matter of the heart). One person may prefer a sermon that deepens insight (a), while the other prefers one that touches you (b). The question is also asked of what should be emphasized in the doctrine of faith: Should it be the increase of knowledge (a) or on the encouragement to trust in God (b).
   Consider how our article does not acknowledge this contrast because it speaks of true knowledge (a) but at the same time of an embracing of Christ (b).   
   Also indicate the relationship between (a) and (b). (see the  Heidelberg Catechism, q/a 21)
2. The Roman Catholics speak of a complex or systematized faith and mean by this that the laity unquestioningly believes what the church believes. Why is this incorrect? Show the dangers of this.
3. Romans 4:3, following Genesis 15:6, states that Abraham believed God and that this was counted to him as righteousness (see also Galatians 3:6). Is faith then valued on its merits, unlike what the article noted, even to the point that God counts it as righteousness because it is acceptable to him? Does God indeed count faith by itself here, and therefore faith as a means (the empty hand) to righteousness? Or will this, in view of Romans 4:4-6, mean faith according to its content, that is, after it has embraced Christ and his merits?
4. It is remarkable that Paul and James both refer to Genesis 15:6. Paul does so in Romans 4:1-6 to prove that Abraham is justified "without works," and James in 2:23-24 to prove that Abraham is justified "by works" and not by faith alone. How do we explain this?
   First ask yourself whether it is, strictly speaking, true that James is referring to Genesis 15:6. Does he in fact not refer to the fulfillment thereof in Genesis 22—the account of Abraham’s sacrifice? This can all be understood by referring to James 2:21-23, for Genesis 22 proves that Abraham was indeed justified by an active faith.