Originally Posted by greenbaggins

Another problem here is the definition of merit. There are three kinds of merit: condign, which means that the action deserves the result. An example would be that if a person pays a certain amount of money for a car, he receives the car. The action required to secure the possession of the car IS that payment of money.

The second kind of merit is congruent merit. This can be defined as merit that doesn't quite measure up to condign merit and "needs a little help." In other words, if a person goes most of the way, then someone else will finish up for that person. The action required still corresponds to the result. It is as if someone could not quite pay the full amount for the car. It is "partial credit." Reformed folk do not hold to this kind of merit anywhere in theology.

The third kind of merit is usually described as "improper," because it doesn't work like the first two kinds of merit. This is "pactum merit," or "covenantal merit." This refers to an action that does not, in and of itself, deserve the reward, but will obtain the reward because the people involved have agreed that it will. For instance, a father can say, "If you earn a 4.0 grade point average all through high school, I will buy you a car." Obviously, a 4.0 grade point average would not work as a bargaining tool in the car shop, if the son were to take that to the car-salesman! However, the father and the child have agreed that the action (which could be required by the father anyway) will result in a certain reward. This is the kind of merit that Adam would have had in obtaining eternal life, the glorified state.

Reformed theologians also refer to Christ's work as condign and pactum merit. It is condign because Christ's obedience was perfect, and the law says, "Do this, and you shall live." Christ did it, and all who are in Him live. His condign merit is imputed to us by the instrumentality of faith. But the Father and the Son also agreed in eternity that the Son would do this, so it has that aspect of pactum merit, though not the improper aspect (since the action measures up precisely to the consequence).

Now, in Piper's formulation, he wants to make sure that Adam would not have earned or merited God's favor. If he is rejecting condign merit, fine. So do most theologians. Hardly any theologians today assert that Adam would have merited eternal life by condign merit, since he owed that obedience to God anyway. However, God, by grace, promised that this obedience, which was owed to him anyway, would be the instrument by which Adam would obtain the glorified state (which he did NOT possess at creation. Otherwise, he would be immutably sinless, rather than mutably sinless).

However, Piper's formulation seems to reject any kind of merit, proper or improper. I would therefore disagree with Piper's formulation. By the way, Turretin discusses all this in his Institutes.