Merit or Mercy

 This episode  explores the fundamental theological conflict between merit-based religious practices and the concept of divine mercy.

The Scale of Judgment

Conrad uses the visual of "the scales" to compare how different traditions approach righteousness:

Islam: Highlights the concept of the Mizan, where a believer's good deeds are weighed against their bad deeds on the day of judgment.

Catholicism/Orthodoxy: Discusses how traditions like Lent, the rosary, and penance are sometimes viewed as a means to earn merit or shorten time in purgatory.

General Secularism: Notes that even non-religious people often hope their "kindness" or "charity" will eventually outweigh their faults.

The Problem of Human Effort

 Human goodness is an insufficient "currency" because the scale is actually measured against God’s perfect holiness.

Inadequate "Rags": Citing Isaiah 64, he explains that human righteous deeds are viewed by God as "polluted garments".

The Debt of Sin: He asserts that even a single sin outweighs a lifetime of fasting, and religious merit cannot bridge the gap between humanity and a holy God.

The Gospel Solution: Grace and Faith

Salvation must be received as a gift rather than earned through performance:

The Divine Transfer:  Christian Gospel is a "divine transfer" where Christ takes on human sin on the cross and, in exchange, grants His perfect righteousness to the believer.

Gift vs. Debt: Drawing from Ephesians 2 and Romans,  salvation is a gift of grace received through faith, not a result of works.

A New Motive: He clarifies that while believers should still perform good deeds, the motive changes from earning merit to expressing love and gratitude for the favor they have already received.

The Scale of Judgment

Conrad uses the visual of "the scales" to compare how different traditions approach righteousness:

Islam: Highlights the concept of the Mizan, where a believer's good deeds are weighed against their bad deeds on the day of judgment.

Surah 9:101-103: The trumpet is blown on that day.."those whose good deeds weigh heavy will be successful but those whose balance is light will have lost their souls forever and will stay in hell."

Catholicism/Orthodoxy: Discusses how traditions like Lent, the rosary, and penance are sometimes viewed as a means to earn merit or shorten time in purgatory.

Council of Trent: Conrad references the teaching that a justified person merits an increase in grace and eternal life through good deeds.

Canon XXIV: States that justice received is preserved and also increased before God through good works.

Canon XXXII: Asserts that the good works of a justified person truly merit an increase of grace and eternal life.

General Secularism: Notes that even non-religious people often hope their "kindness" or "charity" will eventually outweigh their faults.

Bible Insights with  Wayne Conrad
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Transcript

Title:  Merit or Mercy

Date: March 12,2026

Scripture: Isaiah 64:6; Romans 4:4-5

AI TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad. God's word is a lamp on our feet, a light on our path. In other words, God's word shows us where to go, and God tells us what is true and what is false. But today's topic is on merit or mercy. This is the time of year, at least this year, when at least two of the world's greatest or biggest religions are engaged in a period, a protected period of time of religious activity.

I'm speaking of Ramadan, the Muslim calendar, and Lent in the liturgical Christian calendar. Now, not all Christians observe Lent in a straight way, although all could benefit from some of the ideas involved in it. It's something that came up later than the Bible itself, so it's a religious tradition. But both the Ramadan, which is a requirement in Islam, it's mandated in the Quran itself, and Lent have some things in common. and that is they're engaged in a period in which they fast and they should increase their religious prayers and religious deeds. So, the fasting in the Islamic calendar for Muslims is to fast from all of daylight hours during a 30-day period. And the Christian Lent idea is for 40 days, excluding Sundays, in which we abstain from food or some portion of food or something that we ordinarily desire, and we put it away for that period of time to concentrate more upon the deeds of Jesus Christ. And now these are religious practices, and my focus is not on them, but the focus is on the fact that through the use of them, people can be looking for the wrong thing, and they may be hoping for something that's really not there.

So let me look down first with reference to the Muslim. When the Muslim is engaged in Ramadan, his thoughts may very well be on what's called the Mizan. That is, on the balancing scale on the day of judgment. So that word, I may not have pronounced it right, M-I-Z-A-N, refers to the scales on the day of judgment.

And it's used to determine whether that person's good deeds outweigh his bad deeds. as a standard of judgment. Now, Catholics and Orthodox, both highly liturgical churches, also look, not in the same way, but they also look to the sacraments, the religious deeds, or rituals, and penitence, or particular actions of prayer, saying the rosaries, and fasting, and engaging in such activities during Lent as a way of not only showing respect for God and drawing closer maybe to God, but also in hopes that this will help earn merit, enough merit to be added to what grace they may have received in the sacrament already, to shorten their time in purgatory if you're a Catholic, or to increase your holiness But that's their hope, that it will somehow add, that it will be a merit that can be added to what God has done.

And then what about the general good person? You know, so much of mankind, and I can only speak here in the West in some ways, the good person, he didn't go to church, maybe, or he does go to church. Maybe he follows a religion, maybe he doesn't. But he always thinks that his kindness or his acts of charity or his reframing from really bad things will hopefully do him good in the end. So, he too is looking for his good to outweigh his evil so that in the end, things will be all right for him. We're all then trying to tip the scales in our behalf. But here's the truth.

The scales that God may have, and that's just a figure of speech I'm using now, those scales have a measurement. The measurement is not human goodness compared to human goodness, or one set of religious rules compared to another set of religious rules. The scales have to do with God's holiness and righteousness and justice. In other words, the very character and person of God and mankind.

So, we then have a problem with this whole concept of religious merit hoping to weigh the scales on our behalf. We often compare ourselves to others, but to God, we must compare ourselves. And when we compare ourselves to God, his holiness is so great, so intense, so beyond our even comprehension that we have no idea of ever being able to measure up to God's standard.

You know, our Father in heaven is perfect. God is a holy, righteous one. But the scale concept you see requires perfect righteousness. And in God's eye, even one small sin can weigh more than a whole lifetime of fasting. Let me prove that from the word of God. Here's what Isaiah the prophet says, Isaiah chapter 64.

For we have all become like one who is unclean, and all of our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind take us away. That's pretty devastating, isn't it? For we've all become as one who is unclean. And the word there is polluted garments from a woman's ministration period. That's the word actually used in Hebrew. That's what our good deeds look like. All of our righteousness’ are as a polluted garment. Now that's devastating.

What hope then do we have? If our righteousness, if our best deeds are seen by God as a polluted garment, then we aren't putting gold on the scale with our deeds, with our performances. We're just putting more weight on them that stinks to God. You see why? You cannot pay a debt of sin with a currency that God does not accept. And the only currency he accepts is a righteousness like his righteousness, the perfection of God himself.

Now that simply tells us this. that our hope of salvation, our hope of deliverance, our hope of entering into eternal life and the joys of fellowship with the Holy God, lay beyond our abilities and our capacities. Instead, we must call upon the God of all mercy and all grace. Again, Isaiah the prophet says, but now, O Lord, O Yahweh, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are our potter, we are the clay, and you are our potter, and we are all the work of your hand. Therefore, in your mercy, Lord, remember not our iniquity forever." In other words, what the prophet is, he says that God's people must call upon God's mercy. because religious marriage, even in our best efforts, even our most sincere religious deeds and performances cannot bridge the gap between the holy God and sinful humanity. So, we cannot earn our way to God through fastings and prayers, through beads and ceremonies.

We can only have a way made to God through God's mercy and grace And that's the message of the Christian gospel, is that the holy, righteous God has undertaken on our behalf, through the sacrifice of His own Son, who has paid the debt of our sin, and then has given us His righteousness as the exchange of mercy and grace. God takes our sin, our iniquity, and places it upon His Son on the cross, and the Son pays for it.

And we believe in Him. When we believe in Him, through the grace and mighty working of God, the divine transfer takes place. So, Christ's righteousness is given to us, and Christ's righteousness on the scale grants us eternal mercy, eternal life. So, for a Christian who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, then we have certainty of eternal life and the forgiveness of sins.

Now there are many people in religious circles who are hoping for mercy. They're hoping at the end that things can come out all right based on their particular deeds, but such will never avail. In the Quran, salvation is a hope based on deeds, but in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, salvation is a gift that's received through faith. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2, for by grace, that's God's unmerited kindness, his absolute favor granted to us in the form of a gift we could never earn, the gift of eternal life, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

For by God's grace, you've been saved through faith, faith in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ because of his deeds on our behalf on the cross. And that's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. It's not a result of works or religious merits. It's done this way so that God himself will receive the glory for all of our salvation.

Now, the concept of trying to earn merit and of the scales doesn't only apply to those of the Islamic religion. It also applies many times to those within Christian circles, such as our Catholic friends. Let me mention this and point you to the teaching that's found in the canons that came forth from Trent in the days of the Protestant Reformation. The Council of Trent suggested that the justified person truly merits an increase in grace and eternal life through their good deeds.

Now that is not a biblical concept. Though God wants us to do the things that please Him, that glorify Him, that walk in the pathway of holiness, and that show our devotion to Him, to His people and help people, they do not earn us merit. They do not earn us an increase in grace. That is not their purpose. Their purpose is to build us up in our faith and to build up others in our faith, to glorify God and to meet the needs of people.

Now, you see, here's the contrast In the Bible, repentance, repentance is the act of turning from the wrong way, the wrong thought, the wrong avenue to God. It's a turning around. So, it's an action, an action of a change in direction. Penance is often seen as some kind of action we do that helps us in a way sort of make up for our sin.

So, we might go to confess and then we are told if we do so many prayers, if we do such and such, you know, that's sort of the concept of that will help us make up. But that's really not a biblical concept. We should do prayers, we should do things that please God, that build us up spiritually, but we should never think that this is helping make up for our sin. We can't make up for our sin. Even one sin would damn us for eternally.

The only hope is that God takes all of our sins and forgives them because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. so that when he died and said, it is finished, he means it's fun done, it's finished. He doesn't mean I just started it, now you complete it. We can't complete what Christ has started because what Christ has done is a perfect work that will grant us entrance into heaven.

Here's how the apostle Paul in Romans puts it, now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as debt. but to one who doesn't work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. So, if you're seeking to work in hopes that you will be paid salvation, oh Jew, in the end, you will be sadly, sadly disappointed because our works are not a reward that can be counted then as merit in the face of God.

Our works are those that prove our relationship to God, that manifest our love for God, our love for our fellow man, our enjoyment and love for the fellowship of believers. So, the concept of God's grace is the means, the sole means of our salvation, does not encourage bad behavior or sinful deeds. No, it gives us a different motive. Our motive for good performance, if you want to use that term, our motive for expressing our faith in the ways that God has ordained is not for merit, but For love is not that we're trying to earn God's favor, but because we have his favor and we want to demonstrate to him our change that he's brought about in regeneration and we want to express to him our return love for the great gift of love that he has given to us. So, this is the apostle's verdict. Not to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as a debt. So, if you're trying to do these things as a way of earning merit before God, it's only going to increase your debt.

But to him who doesn't work, but simply believes in Jesus Christ, in God who justifies the ungodly, his faith Our faith is then counted for righteousness. Why? Because it's in Jesus Christ and him and his righteousness. So, this is a big difference and a big difference that we need to observe. That is that we cannot earn our way to God through merit keeping.

It is by grace, but then grace is a grace that performs. Performs out of love and performs in the way of seeking to give God glory by walking in the pathway that He has ordained that will build us up in our faith, strengthen the body of Christ, help meet the needs of other people, and above all, bring glory and honor to our Savior, to the Holy God, our Father. 

This has been Wayne Conrad with Bible Insights.