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

After having confessed in article 22 that faith is like the empty hand reaching out to the righteousness of Christ, article 24 elaborates on how faith is at the same time the active hand that performs good work. On the one hand, faith is the empty hand with which we can earn nothing, and on the other hand, it is like the working hand that is nevertheless rewarded.
The elaboration proceeds as follows:

1. True faith causes us to be regenerated, in other words, to be born again and to begin a new life in which we are freed from the bondage of sin. We get this faith by listening to the gospel and by the working of the Holy Spirit in us.
2. It is impossible, then, that faith — once it has obtained divine acquittal—should make us indifferent to living a holy, God-honouring life. It is exactly the other way around. It is only through faith that we are able to do good works, out of love for God, and not out of self-interest and the fear of hell. It is even impossible that this holy faith in man should be of no avail! Scripture therefore speaks of a faith working through love. It causes us to apply ourselves to do the things “which God has commanded in his Word."
   Such actions receive God’s approval because all stains of it are washed away by his grace.
3. However, these works do not count “toward our justification." Just as a tree itself needs to be good before its fruit can be good, so we too first need to be acquitted before we can do good works. So we earn nothing from those works. That is even impossible, because we owe good works to God who ensures that we do them and want to do them. Therefore he does not owe us any thanks. We have then “only done what was our duty” (Luke 17:10).
4. We may indeed say that God rewards good works, but our salvation remains a matter of grace. Because when God rewards good works, he actually places the crown on what is his own work, and not ours.
5. However, we do not base our salvation on these good works. Then we would “always be in doubt," because every work of ours is tainted and deserves punishment. And even if we ever did something entirely right, “the remembrance of one sin is enough to make God reject it." In short, “our poor consciences would be constantly tormented, if they did not rely on the merit of the death and passion of our Saviour.”

II. True faith induces good works←⤒🔗

1. When a believer is taught to rely solely on the obedience of Christ, he might become very easy-going. After all, why should he still fight against sin and what should he be striving for? Such was perhaps the most worthwhile objection raised by the Roman Catholic side to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, apart from works. For that reason this article thoroughly refutes this objection. The deeper reason is that it is of the utmost importance for all of us to have a clear understanding regarding the connection between faith and practice.
2. Luther already pointed out that faith is not a "simpleminded idea” Rather, he says that it “transforms the mind and attitudes,” and so “does not float around in the heart like a goose on the water. Rather, it is like water that has been heated. After heating, the water is different. It is still water, but it is warm. The same thing happens when the Holy Spirit gives us faith.... It creates an entirely new person.” The first thing Article 24 says about faith, then, is that “it regenerates him and makes him a new man.” It cannot be said any stronger than this.
3. It is impossible  “that this justifying faith would make man indifferent to living a good and holy life." “Justifying faith” is faith that accepts divine acquittal with an empty hand (Belgic Confession, Article 22, second half). Article 24 contradicts the claim that this faith, once man has obtained acquittal, would have no interest in a holy lifestyle. That is simply not true, because those who are genuinely happy about their acquittal and thankful that everything is all right again with God would prefer nothing else than to live according to God’s will from here on. The Confession says here that “True faith makes him live a new life and frees him from the slavery of sin,” (and therefore not only from the guilt of sin).
   This does not mean that we will no longer commit sin, but it does imply that we are no longer controlled by sin (see 1 John 3:9, in connection with 1 John 1:8).
4. It is therefore impossible that he who rejoices that things are in order again between the LORD and him will continue to seek the pleasures of sin, as this grieves and displeases God. He does not want that himself, but that road is also cut off for him. For the forgiveness of our guilt is not the end-all of our redemption, as if we were then at liberty to once more continue to live in sin: “Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Romans 6:22).
5. It is even the case that only a person who has already been set free by grace can produce good works. For he who strives to be justified thereby may well do great and praiseworthy things, but — according to the article, as based on God’s Word — he does them not out of love for God, but “only out of love for himself and out of fear of being condemned." 
6. That true faith makes us active is underscored in this article by quoting Galatians 5:6, which speaks of faith working through love. Faith needs to prove itself and be expressed in good works. It induces man “to apply himself to those works which God has commanded in his Word.” See also James 2:14-26.
7. Works rooted in faith are confessed to be “good and acceptable in the sight of God." This is because “they are all sanctified by his grace.” Here it is generously acknowledged that acts of faith are acceptable to God. This is a biblical thought. Jesus even says that God is glorified when believers bear much fruit (John 15:8). He also indicates the reason: that the believers are the branches that get their nourishment from the vine, that is, from Christ (John 15:4-5). They are therefore fruits that are not ours, but Christ’s. And therefore God wants to accept them, even when such fruits are tainted by our sins. He covers all wrongs, and he cleanses our works through his grace. As a result, they are sanctified and thus accepted by him.
   The result of someone’s life is “acceptable to God” insofar as it has been produced by the power of Christ and has been cleansed by the blood of Christ.

III. How faith is worked in us←⤒🔗

1. This article is concerned with the question of what this faith produces, rather than how it originates. Yet right at the beginning, even if it is not the point of the sentence, it is emphatically stated where faith comes from: “by the operation of the Holy Spirit." What is being confessed here is not “out of order" or irrelevant to the main ideas of this article. Why not? It is an integral part of what the church confesses concerning man’s sanctification.
   This article mainly wants to show what faith produces in a person. It brings such a drastic change in his life that there is even talk of a new person and a new life. And so it does away with the claim that faith is a simpleminded idea (Luther) and makes us “indifferent to living a good and holy life” (Belgic Confession, Article 24). The argument of the Roman Catholic objection to this article’s explanation is that people have a rather shallow and superficial conception of faith. To them, believing is merely agreeing with the teachings of the church. And that is primarily a matter of the mind. The heart is barely touched by it.
   But now that we know this, it becomes even more understandable why in the Roman Catholic Church it is said of such a "believer" that after having assented mentally with the message of forgiveness, he still easily continues to commit sin. After all, his heart has not changed!
   But in this article the church is certainly not speaking about such a faith, which is only a superficial assent to the gospel. What is meant is a faith that is “worked in man by the hearing of God’s Word and by the operation of the Holy Spirit." Such faith is a creation of none other than God himself! And therefore, over against the Roman Catholic accusation, it “makes man live a new life and frees him from the slavery of sin." And thus “it is impossible for this holy faith to be inactive in man."
2. At the same time, the church professes that this faith is “worked by the hearing of God’s Word.” It was necessary to say this explicitly, because the many Anabaptists at that time claimed that the Spirit works in our hearts directly, outside of the Bible. According to them, the Bible was a book of dead letters from which we cannot expect to be born again. The work of the Spirit therefore hung in the air, because he would only practice real contact with the believers outside of the Word, including through dreams and visions. The Bible was good only for beginners. Over against this notion the church professes that faith is obtained by the hearing of the Word (Romans 10:14, 17). So the church professes that faith is indeed divine in its origin, in contrast to the Roman Catholics. The church also professes that faith finds its basis and source in the written Word of God accessible and verifiable for everyone, in contrast to the Anabaptists.

IV. Good works do not count towards earning our salvation←⤒🔗

The so-called good works are called “good and acceptable in the sight of God." “Nevertheless they do not count toward our justification." The following reasons are given:

1. We are not able to do good works until our relationship with God is restored. Only good people can do good deeds. We confess that good people are those who have been forgiven, so that it is as if they had not committed any sin (Heidelberg Catechism, answer 60). We cannot possibly do good works until God has accepted us as good people, that is, as people without guilt. That is just as impossible as the fruit of a tree being before the tree itself is good.
   First man himself must be accepted by God. and so and after that,  the man’s actions. A fitting example of this is given by Genesis 4:4, where it says that God paid attention to Abel (that comes first and foremost) and that he (afterwards and therefore) accepted his offering. That is why we are acquitted “even before we do any good works." This means that our good works are always too late to have a bearing on our acquittal.
2. The second reason that good works do not contribute to our salvation is that our good works are, from beginning to end, thanks to God, who “works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), so that, according to Article 24, “We are rather indebted to God for the good works we do, rather than he to us.” Even after we have done everything, we have only done what it was our duty to do (Luke 17:10).

V. And yet: God does reward good works←⤒🔗

1. What value does God in effect put on good works, if on the one hand we confess that these do not merit toward our acquittal and on the other hand that “God rewards good works”? This is what the Bible clearly says. Jesus speaks of a reward that will certainly not escape us (Matthew 10:42), and in Hebrews 11:6 we read that “whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
   We need to remember, however, that when God rewards our good works, he actually crowns his own gifts. They are not, after all, our achievements, for we owe them entirely to him. That is the first thing we should keep in mind. In addition, it says that God crowns his gifts by his grace.
   Our good works are always defiled by us and first need to be cleansed by the grace of the forgiveness of sins. They can only be rewarded after they have been treated with God’s grace. That is why the Catechism, in Answer 63, speaks of a gift of grace, something that has not been earned or merited. Both are true: that our good works “do not count toward our justification” (Belgic Confession, Article 24), and that yet God rewards them.
2. What does this reward consist of? The article does not answer this question. In Romans 2:6-7, eternal life is seen as a gift to each one according to his works. And Jesus speaks of a great reward in heaven (Matthew 5:12). A Christian who perseveres in faith may, in a sense, see eternal life as a reward-of-grace.
3. Of course, this does not mean that we have earned eternal life by ourselves after all. Why, then, does Scripture speak so frankly about wages and rewards? It is to encourage us to persevere in the faith. He who trusts in God will never be ashamed. Believing is rewarded. Yet it is and remains a reward that consists simply in the fulfillment of God’s gracious promises that he made earlier.

VI. Even though we do good works we do not base our salvation on them←⤒🔗

1. The appreciation of good works seems to fluctuate in this article. First there was mention of deeds that are "good and acceptable in the sight of God." And yet, according to what follows, these will not be taken into account in our justification, our acquittal. Then it was said that God will reward them anyway. And finally, it is noted that we do not base our salvation on them. Indeed, it is easy to see how this article in four instances speaks alternately, more and less appreciatively of these good works. This is not because a zigzag course is being sailed here, but because it constantly wants to point out the two cliffs, one to the left and one to the right of the sailing route: one cliff to avoid is that of the merits of good works and the other that of a cheap, easy-going life of faith. The course of this article runs between these two cliffs: good works are the indispensable fruit of true faith, but never serve as the foundation of our salvation.
2. The latter is clearly underlined in the final paragraph. Through even the “remembrance of one sin,” we would “always be in doubt, tossed to and fro, without any certainty”. This is not an exaggeration. As James writes, in 2:10, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it” (James 2:10). One single transgression against one of the commandments provokes the wrath of the God of the indivisible law.
   That is why this article finally points, as if with a deep sigh of relief, to the merit of our Saviour’s suffering and death. That is the only, and the most reliable, foundation of our salvation. Our conscience finds rest on that foundation.

Points to discuss←⤒🔗

1. Will the reward of which the Scripture speaks be greater for the one than for the other, in view of their deeds? Will there also be a difference in glory on the new earth and already now in heaven? Look up Matthew 25:20-23, Luke 19:17-19, 1 Corinthians 15:41-42, and Revelation 14:13.
2. What is your response to the following reasoning: that all believers receive salvation by grace, but on account of their good works they receive extra glory. See especially Section V, point 2, above.
3. Can pagans actually do good things? See Romans 2:14. And if this is the case, what value is attached to their deeds?
4. What is regeneration? See John 3:1-8. Is being born again the same as repentance or sanctification (referring to the title of this article)? Is this a one-time occurrence?
5. What is the meaning of the statement that faith is “worked by the hearing of God’s Word” for the so-called doctrine of "presumptive regeneration"?