1. The idea of merit in the Gospels.— We note, first, that the use of the conception is frequent in the Gospels in connexion with a general view of God as the Judge and Rewarder of good and evil deeds. This conception of God was in fact that dominant at the time of the ministry of our Lord, God's relation to men being commonly vieweil under legal analogies. Compare the statement of Schultz {op. cit. infr. ) : —
' When Christianity entered into the world and found its first expression in the dominant Jewish circles, as well as anions the spokesmen of the idealistic Hellenic popular culture, the thought of a Divine repayment deciding according to legal standards, and therefore of a merit or demerit of men accord- ing to which their fate was to be settled, was a self-evident axiom. . . . With faith in God as the representative of the moral order of the world, there appeared to be self-evidently given the faith that He rewards and punishes according to the rule of human law.'
This statement of Schultz may be supplemented, with regard, in particular, to the doctrine of the Pharisees, which forms at once the background and the contrast of the teaching of Jesus, by the accounts of H. J. Holtzmann, NT Theol. i. p. 62 ff'., and of Weber, JiUL Theol.'' p. 277 ff' In the Phari- saic theology the legal conception of God takes the sharpest possible form. The Law is thought of as the sum of so many precepts, the performance of each one of which establishes a separate and de- finite merit or claim to reward (Weber, p. 380 ff'.).
' Just like a heavenly book-keeper, God reckons and calculates according to a standard quantitative as well as qualitative — here the sum of performances of the law and meritorious works, there the sum of transgressions and misdeeds' (Holtzmann, p. 63).
The idea of merit, however, does not end with the performance of tlie Law : it also attaches to ' good works,' i.e. voluntary acts beyond the strict requirement of the Law, but which are taken account of in the .same way before God's judgment- seat, and avail to make up the shortcomings of a man's account. The princijml of these good works are almsgiving and works of charity (Weber, p. 284). Finally, the idea of merit is brought specially into connexion Avith the question of ultimate salvation.
' The judgment on men before the heavenly court of justice takes place with reference to the question whether the man shall live or die — whether he shall be found worthy of the future Kingdom of God or not ' (Weber, p. 278).
The teaching of Jesiis now proceeds in agreement Avith the theology of the Pharisees, in so far as He not onlv continually speaks of the rewarding of our works by God, but also represents the Kingdom of God itself under the point of view of a reward, which is awarded to the performance of ' righteous- ness.' We have the general idea of work and reward in Mt 6'- -• ^- *• «• i^. is i^n. 42 201-7 24'»5-5i 25"- as Mk 9^1, Lk 6^5 W, Jn 4^6. For the Kingdom of God (life, or eternal life) as reward, cf. Mt 6^" 19^^ 253i-«, Mk lU^a- »«.
The limitations set to the idea of merit in the teaching of Jesus, as compared with its use in the theology of the Pharisees, are, however, very striking, (n) First of all, we have to notice the change involved by tlie difference in tlie conception of God. While with the Pharisees the idea of God as Lawgiver and Judge is dominant, Avith Jesus this idea is subordinated to the conception of God f(s Father. The idea of reward itself, in fact, is
connected with that of God's Fatherhood (Mt
gi. 4. 6. is\_ AVhat this implied is thus stated by
Schultz : —
' Since Jesus has taught His disciples to see the true under- standing of their relation to God in the figure of child and father, then the thought of merit in the sense of the law is in general completely irreconcilable with the figure ' (p. 15).
Only an ethical, not a legal, conception of merit is therefore possible along the lines of the teaching of Jesus.
[b) Jesus criticised the Pharisaic doctrine of reward according to strict legal merit, by teaching that the reward which God gives is not according to debt, but according to grace. We have here to remember that when Jesus illustrates, as He fre- quently does, the relation of God to men by that of a master and his household servants (cf. Mt 2445-51 25''»-»", Lk 17"), this excludes the idea of legal merit.
' A servant in the sense of antiquity cannot win merit. He is Sol/Xo,- scxpei"', even when he has done all he should (Lk 179). The Lord can reward him, but that remains at bottom an act of good-pleasure ' (Schultz, p. 15).
The point is made still clearer by the one parable where Jesus introduces a relation in which merit and reward are possible, speaking not of household servants, but of hired labourers (Mt 20^-'^^). Here
' He emphasizes in intentional paradox that the lord in his goodness will not bind himself to this rule— that he indeed redeems his promise, but reserves to himself the right to tran- scend the measure of the law in free sovereignty' (ib.).