Q85. What doth God require of us, that we may escape his wrath and curse, due to us for sin?

A. To escape the wrath and curse of God, due to us for sin, God requireth of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption.

The Westminster divines cite both Proverbs 2:1-5 and 8:33-36 to show the dynamic of turning from sin toward God; but the One that is calling is Wisdom, which is the way Proverbs speaks. The same occurs in the other Old Testament passage they cite,

“Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live” (Isa. 55:3).

We need to bring together in our minds two truths that we wrongly pit against each other in almost every part of theology. God is sovereign and man’s actions are meaningful. All that God decrees comes to pass and all that man is given to do by God, he is obligated to do. 

Obligations of Grace

Notice I am calling this “obligations” of grace and not causes of grace. If anything we do can cause God’s grace, well then, as Paul said, “grace would no longer be grace” (Rom. 11:6). On the one hand it says that God REQUIRETH OF US these two things. “Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent’” (Jn. 6:29). Naturally this may raise the question: “How can we be required to do that which we cannot do in our own nature?” But the first reply to this is that this is no different than anything else the law requires of us. Specific to this Jesus had said in that same chapter of John 6, 

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him … [and] This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (vv. 44, 65).

Yet coming to Christ for salvation is commanded, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isa. 45:22) and “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live” (Isa. 55:3). It is called “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5) and Paul says that on the Last Day, Christ obtains vengeance “on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess. 1:8). 

Now when we look at the gospel preached by Jesus and the Apostles, we see the same. Paul describes his message as “testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21).

And specific to the command and obedience element, Paul declares to the Greeks in Athens, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).

Fruits of Grace

Faith and repentance are each attached to an object here in this answer. It says FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST and REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE. We will get a chance to unpack the nature of both faith and repentance in the coming two weeks. But the first crucial concept to get is to properly understand that faith and repentance are fruits (or effects) of grace and not causes of grace. The second crucial thing to get is that just as these do not come “before” grace, neither do they come merely just at the beginning. This is an important, simple bit of “theological troubleshooting” that, if it is neglected with new believers, puts massive amounts of Christians on a never-ending loop of sin, lack of assurance, go back to repent and believe again (i.e. go back to cause salvation again). Many would not put it like this, but that is the exact pattern and exactly what is meant in the final analysis. But as we will read in the answers to Question 86 and 87, faith and repentance are both called a “saving grace,” or in more complete form in the Confession, 

“The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts” (XIV.1) 

Or in the next section about repentance, “Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace” (XV.1), as when the church in the book of Acts said, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life” (11:18).

This follows necessarily from the priority of grace in the Scriptures: “For by grace you have been saved athrough faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9); “it has been granted to you … [to] believe” (Phi. 1:29); or “The Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14).

Calvin speaks of the role of the Holy Spirit in that the regenerating work of the Spirit causes all of the other spiritual exercises,

“[The Spirit] is described to us as a Fountain, whence all heavenly riches flow to us; or as the Hand by which God exerts his power, because by his divine inspiration he so breathes divine life into us, that we are no longer acted upon by ourselves, but ruled by his motion and agency, so that everything good in us is the fruit of his grace, while our own endowments without him are mere darkness of mind and perverseness of heart. Already, indeed, it has been clearly shown, that until our minds are intent on the Spirit, Christ is in a manner unemployed, because we view him coldly without us, and so at a distance from us.”1

Linking together what we are about to talk about (means of grace) and this second subject (fruits of grace), it is worth noting here that the means are themselves a grace. They are a blessing that God provides in order to grow us in grace and to have us, by effort, resist decline in the soul. John Owen put it in this way, 

“The work of recovering backsliders or believers from under their spiritual decays is an act of sovereign grace, wrought in us by virtue of divine promises….Because believers are liable to such declensions, backslidings, and decays, God has provided and given to us great and precious promises of a recovery, if we duly apply ourselves unto the means of it … When God designs to heal the backsliding of his people by sovereign grace, he gives them effectual calls unto repentance, and the use of means for their healing; so he does here [in Hosea 14:2] by his prophet ‘O Israel, return, take with you words’”2 

Means of Grace

A means is an instrument used to accomplish some end. So all classical Western thinkers—including its theologians up until the rebellion against classical thought in the modern era—would speak of an efficient cause and an instrumental cause, the former being ultimately the Agent which by intellect and will, directed things to that goal. To speak of faith and repentance as instruments or means in salvation is no different. They are the principal means by which the new life in regenerated man obtains the sight of Christ, forgiveness from Him, and a righteous status, and the sense of restored fellowship with God. But that is to speak of the difference between God and man in the activities of salvation. 

When we speak on the level of the ones being saved, then a more proper division between inward grace and “outward and ordinary means,” is used. So, although the word “means” can be a synonym for instrument in the wider context, yet we can also confuse God’s use of means and our own use of means. Paul says, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13); and “God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13); or “if you hold fast to the word I preached to you” (1 Cor. 15:2),

So G. I. Williamson gave this side of the coin in saying that, 

“In making this distinction between the inward and the outward (grace and means), the Catechism teaches us never to confuse the instrument used by God, and God who uses the instrument. At the same time, however, it reminds us that there is a divinely established relationship between the two.”3

As Williamson goes on to illustrate (literally, with a helpful chart with circles) the Roman Catholic view is that the circle representing the external means and the circle representing the inward grace are identical. In extreme Evangelicalism (which Williamson puts forth the Salvation Army as a representative), the two circles are utterly separated. The Reformed view marks the balanced view—the two circles are distinct, but never divorced.

Grace is God’s undeserved favor—and while it is good to focus on the undeserved part, the divinely initiated and sustained part, it is also good to spend some time studying the actual, practical “good” of it. This is what this part of the Catechism begins to do. It has already traced out the doctrine of salvation per se. Now it is moving into the means of grace as they actually work in us. 

The sacraments are called means of grace in how they relate to the covenant of grace as signs and seals: Abraham “received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised” (Rom. 4:11). The word is a means of grace because it is the content believed and has the promise of God’s own power,

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16).

“Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17)

Uses of this Doctrine

First, the catechism answer itself gives the primary application: the DILIGENT USE OF ALL THE OUTWARD MEANS. Dilgence is required especially in those things of life that seem most difficult and easiest to give up on. They are the sort of things that may easily exhaust us and cause us to throw up our hands in blame at the design. “This isn’t working!” really comes to mean “This doesn’t work!” which actually conceals, “This was not a good idea God!” We say it the way we do to hide the fact that we are casting blame upon God’s design in the means He has chosen. Again Williamson is helpful,

“The Catechism speaks of the diligent use of the means of grace. This means that we may not expect the blessing of God when we neglect the ordinances of God. It is for this reason that we are warned in Scripture, not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together (Heb. 10:25). And this is a lesson much needed today. Many people seem to imagine that the power of God is to be found in something rare or unusual. Therefore they look for something special to give them a spiritual life.”4

Second, not only is a diligent use implied, but so too is a constant or continual use. It may be asked, Why the need to confess sins if we are already forgiven—as in the case of 1 John 1:9? Some will even circle back to the beginning of salvation, as if what is being discussed is something like getting re-saved every time we sin. Now there is a causal link in 1 John 1:9, but it is not in the objective working of God’s order of salvation (that really is perfected in Christ’s work), but rather in the subjective experience of the believer. When we sin, there is a disconnect in our fellowship with God of an subjective kind. Nothing in Christ’s work needs to be “refilled” or “restarted” or anything like that. One author describes this phenomenon as the need to “preach the gospel to yourself every day.” This is what is happening in this subjective need for forgiveness.

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1. Calvin, Institutes, III.1.3.

2. Owen, Works, I:454-55

3. Williamson, The Westminster Shorter Catechism, 283.

4. Williamson, The Westminster Shorter Catechism, 285.