"All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6, KJV). Few verses are quoted more often against the Catholic teaching on good works and merit. Read it in context, then read the rest of Scripture.
Short answer: No. Isaiah 64 is the confession of a sinful people in exile, not a verdict on the works God Himself produces in those who belong to Christ. Scripture calls those works good, pleasing to God, and rewarded, and it clothes the Bride of the Lamb in them: "The linen represents the righteous deeds of the holy ones" (Revelation 19:8). The Catholic Church teaches what Scripture teaches: we cannot earn the grace of salvation, but the good works Christ works in us are truly good, because "The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God" (CCC 2011).
Key verses on good works
- "all our just deeds are like polluted rags" (Isaiah 64:5; KJV 64:6)
- "For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them." (Ephesians 2:10)
- "For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work." (Philippians 2:13)
- "Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have; God is pleased by sacrifices of that kind." (Hebrews 13:16)
- "(The linen represents the righteous deeds of the holy ones.)" (Revelation 19:8)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Numbering note: KJV Isaiah 64:6 is NABRE Isaiah 64:5 (see the FAQ).
What Protestants Believe
In the King James Version the verse reads: "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away" (Isaiah 64:6, KJV). GotQuestions.org notes that the Hebrew "literally means 'the bodily fluids from a woman's menstrual cycle.'"
GotQuestions grants that "This passage is often used as a proof text to condemn all our acts of goodness," and that "The context of this passage is referring specifically to the Israelites in Isaiah's time." But it applies the principle to all people: "Our salvation is not the result of any of our efforts," and "Our righteous acts do not produce salvation but are, in fact, evidence of our salvation."
The strongest form is the Reformed one. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) says even the good works of believers cannot merit eternal life: "as they are good, they proceed from his Spirit; and as they are wrought by us, they are defiled and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection that they cannot endure the severity of God's judgment" (16.5). God accepts them only because "he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections" (16.6).
Notice what careful Reformed teaching does not say: it does not call the Spirit's work in believers worthless. The same Confession calls good works "the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith" (16.2). Its claim is narrower and stronger: even a believer's best works are too mixed with sin to stand before God's judgment on their own, so they are accepted and rewarded only for Christ's sake. Add Romans 3:10–12 ("there is not one who does good") and Ephesians 2:8–9 ("not from works"), and the objection follows: to speak of "meriting" eternal life seems to rob Christ of His glory, because no human righteousness, not even a Christian's, can stand before God except Christ's own. In popular preaching, Isaiah 64:6 is often used more bluntly still, as if every good deed were filth in God's eyes.
What Catholics Actually Teach
The Catholic Church agrees that no one can put God in his debt: "With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man" (CCC 2007). But when God justifies a sinner, He makes him able to do works that are truly good.
- Merit is God's gift first: "The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace" (CCC 2008).
- Our merits are His gifts: "The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness. 'Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due.... Our merits are God's gifts'" (CCC 2009, the second sentence quoting St. Augustine).
- Christ is the source: "The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God" (CCC 2011).
- God crowns His own gifts: the Catechism opens its section on merit with the Church's prayer from the Roman Missal (Preface I of Saints): "You are glorified in the assembly of your Holy Ones, for in crowning their merits you are crowning your own gifts" (CCC, before 2006).
The Council of Trent said the same in 1547. Christ "continually infuses his virtue into the said justified,-as the head into the members, and the vine into the branches," and that virtue "always precedes and accompanies and follows their good works, which without it could not in any wise be pleasing and meritorious before God." Trent then warns: "God forbid that a Christian should either trust or glory in himself, and not in the Lord, whose bounty towards all men is so great, that He will have the things which are His own gifts be their merits" (Session 6, ch. 16).
What Catholics do not teach:
- That we can earn our justification. No one can merit "the initial grace of forgiveness and justification" (CCC 2010). See Do Catholics Believe They Can Earn Salvation?
- That we may boast. Our merits are "gifts of the divine goodness" (CCC 2009).
It all points to Christ. Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Catholic teaching on good works is simply that verse taken seriously. The fruit is real and it is good, because the life in the branch is Christ's own. To apply Isaiah's "polluted rags" to that fruit is not to honor Christ; it is to say His life in us produces filth.
The Biblical Case
1. Read Isaiah 64 in its setting
Isaiah 63:7–64:11 is a prayer. The NABRE note calls it a "lament of the exilic community," which "recalls God's protection, and especially the memories of the exodus," then begs Him to act "as they confess their sins (64:4–11)" (note on Isaiah 63:7–64:11). The people pray: "Indeed, you are angry; we have sinned, we have acted wickedly," and "all our just deeds are like polluted rags; We have all withered like leaves, and our crimes carry us away like the wind" (Isaiah 64:4–5). The prayer ends among ruins: "Zion has become wilderness, Jerusalem desolation!" and the Temple "Has been burned with fire" (Isaiah 64:9–10).
This is Israel confessing the covenant infidelity that brought the exile; even their "just deeds" had been defiled by unfaithful hearts. Every Christian can pray it about his own sins. But it is a confession, not a doctrinal statement that what God works in the redeemed is filthy.
2. The same book praises righteous deeds
Isaiah does not think all righteous deeds are filthy. Just before this prayer, God says, "Observe what is right, do what is just, for my salvation is about to come," and "Happy is the one who does this" (Isaiah 56:1–2). In chapter 58 He describes the fast He wants: "releasing those bound unjustly," "sharing your bread with the hungry, bringing the afflicted and the homeless into your house." And He promises, "Then your light shall break forth like the dawn" (Isaiah 58:6–8), and "If you lavish your food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then your light shall rise in the darkness" (Isaiah 58:10). Isaiah's complaint was against empty ritual and injustice, not against good works.
3. God creates us in Christ for good works
Ephesians 2:8–9 says salvation is "not from works." The very next verse says why we were saved: "For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them" (Ephesians 2:10). God prepared these works and calls them good. And He works them in us: "For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work" (Philippians 2:13). If God works it, it is not filth.
4. God is pleased with them
"Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have; God is pleased by sacrifices of that kind" (Hebrews 13:16). Jesus says, "your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father" (Matthew 5:16).
Even before his baptism, the angel told Cornelius, "Your prayers and almsgiving have ascended as a memorial offering before God" (Acts 10:4; see 10:31). Those works, already moved by grace, God called a memorial offering, not filth.
5. God rewards them
God "will repay everyone according to his works: eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works" (Romans 2:6–7). "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil" (2 Corinthians 5:10). At the Last Judgment the King says, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom," because "I was hungry and you gave me food" (Matthew 25:34–35), and "whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40). Christ does not reward filth with the kingdom.
6. The Bride wears them
Isaiah's penitents said their just deeds were like defiled garments. At the end of the Bible, the Church is a Bride dressed for her wedding: "his bride has made herself ready. She was allowed to wear a bright, clean linen garment. (The linen represents the righteous deeds of the holy ones.)" (Revelation 19:7–8). She "was allowed" to wear it: it is given. And it is "the righteous deeds of the holy ones": it is truly theirs. That is the Catholic doctrine of merit in one verse.
Objections Answered
(a) "Romans 3 says no one does good, not one."
At its strongest: "There is no one just, not one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have gone astray; all alike are worthless; there is not one who does good" (Romans 3:10–12). St. Paul could not be more total. If no one does good, Catholic merit is a fiction.
Answer: Read the next verses. St. Paul's point is that "all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God," and so "They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:23–24). Romans 3:10–12 is a chain of Old Testament texts (Psalms 14 and 53, Ecclesiastes 7:20) describing humanity without grace. The Catholic Church agrees: no one can merit "the initial grace of forgiveness and justification" (CCC 2010). But Romans 3 describes man before grace, not man after it. The same St. Paul, in the same letter, promises "eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works" (Romans 2:7). He cannot mean that those people, too, do no good at all.
(b) "Ephesians 2:8–9: not from works."
At its strongest: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8–9). Any talk of meriting eternal life brings works back in and gives man something to boast about.
Answer: Catholics affirm every word of Ephesians 2:8–9. Salvation is a gift, received through faith, not earned. But St. Paul goes on: we are "created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance" (Ephesians 2:10). There is nothing to boast about in a work God prepared and God accomplishes. That is why Trent says "God forbid that a Christian should either trust or glory in himself," and why the Catechism calls our merits "God's gifts" (CCC 2009). Grace is not opposed to good works. Grace is what makes them good. For more, see What Does "Saved by Grace Through Faith" (Ephesians 2:8-9) Mean for Catholics?
(c) "Even the believer's best works are stained and can't endure God's judgment."
At its strongest: This is the Westminster Confession's point (16.5). Christians still sin. Even our best deeds mix love with pride and weakness. Jesus Himself taught, "When you have done all you have been commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do'" (Luke 17:10). So God accepts and rewards our works only because He looks on them in His Son and pardons their defects, never because they are worthy of eternal life in themselves.
Answer: The Catholic Church agrees that Christians still sin, that we have no "strict right" to anything from God (CCC 2007), and that we should say with Christ, "We are unprofitable servants." Trent itself teaches that the just "at times fall into at least light and daily sins," yet "not therefore do they cease to be just" (Session 6, ch. 11). What the Catholic Church denies is that "in every good work, the just sins venially at least" (canon 25). Luke 17:10 teaches that we cannot put God in our debt. It does not teach that God's grace produces filth. Notice that the Confession itself concedes the key point: "as they are good, they proceed from his Spirit." Is what the Holy Spirit works in us pleasing to God? Scripture says it is: "God is pleased by sacrifices of that kind" (Hebrews 13:16), and God is the one who will "carry out in you what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 13:21). The judgment Scripture describes does not merely overlook the saints' works; it names them and rewards them (Matthew 25:34–40; 2 Corinthians 5:10). As St. Augustine says, God crowns our merits "as His own gifts" (see below): all the glory to God, and His gifts still called good.
(d) "Catholic merit means Christ's work wasn't enough."
At its strongest: If we need merit for eternal life, then Christ's righteousness alone is not sufficient. Something of ours must be added.
Answer: Catholic merit adds nothing to Christ from outside Him; it is His own work in His members. Trent says He infuses His virtue into the justified "as the head into the members, and the vine into the branches," and that the justified merit "by the good works which he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is" (Session 6, canon 32). The source is "The charity of Christ" (CCC 2011). Christ's work is so sufficient that it makes sinners into saints whose deeds are truly good.
The Early Church Agrees
The earliest Christians held exactly this balance: we are justified by God's grace, not by our own works, and the justified must do good works, which God rewards.
- Pope St. Clement I (St. Clement of Rome) (Letter to the Corinthians, c. AD 96) says we "are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men" (ch. 32). In the very next breath he asks: "Shall we become slothful in well-doing, and cease from the practice of love? God forbid that any such course should be followed by us! But rather let us hasten with all energy and readiness of mind to perform every good work" (ch. 33). Then: "The good servant receives the bread of his labour with confidence," for the Lord comes "to render to every man according to his work," and "He exhorts us, therefore, with our whole heart to attend to this, that we be not lazy or slothful in any good work" (ch. 34). That is the Catholic position, in the first century.
- St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies, c. AD 180), commenting on Romans 2: "God therefore has given that which is good, as the apostle tells us in this Epistle, and they who work it shall receive glory and honour, because they have done that which is good when they had it in their power not to do it" (4.37.1). The good is God's gift, and those who do it are truly rewarded with "glory and honour."
- St. Augustine of Hippo (On Grace and Free Will, c. AD 426), the great doctor of grace against the Pelagians: "If, then, your good merits are God's gifts, God does not crown your merits as your merits, but as His own gifts" (ch. 15). And: "as your good life is nothing else than God's grace, so also the eternal life which is the recompense of a good life is the grace of God" (ch. 20). The great foe of Pelagianism still speaks of "good merits" and a "recompense." Not filthy rags: God's gifts.
Conclusion
Isaiah 64 is a true and humbling prayer, but it is a confession of covenant infidelity, not a verdict on what the Holy Spirit works in those who belong to Christ. The whole of Scripture calls those works good, pleasing to God, remembered, rewarded, and finally worn by the Bride at the wedding of the Lamb.
The Catholic doctrine of merit is not pride. It is the confession that Christ's grace is strong enough to make us truly good, and that when God crowns our merits, He is crowning His own gifts.
Come home. The good works Christ prepared for His people are lived and crowned in the Catholic Church, where His grace reaches us through the sacraments He gave her. Christ did not found many churches. He founded one, on St. Peter and the apostles (Matthew 16:18), and that Church is the Catholic Church. "It is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816). If you are a baptized Christian, you already share "a certain, although imperfect, communion" with her (CCC 838). Every truth you already hold is a call to the rest of the way. Christ is calling you into the Catholic Church.
Your next step: Come to Mass this Sunday at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. Everyone is welcome; if you're not yet Catholic, pray with us but don't receive Communion yet. When you're ready to become Catholic, call the parish office and ask about OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. They will walk you through every step. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Why is it Isaiah 64:5 in Catholic Bibles but 64:6 in the KJV? The two Bibles divide the chapters differently. The prayer "Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down" closes chapter 63 in the NABRE (the second half of 63:19), following the verse division of the Hebrew text, while the KJV opens chapter 64 with it. So NABRE chapter 64 has eleven verses, numbered one lower than the KJV's: the "rags" verse is NABRE 64:5 and KJV 64:6. The passage is the same.
Do Catholics think good works get them into heaven? No one earns the grace of justification (CCC 2010). But those who live in that grace and persevere in good works receive "eternal life" (Romans 2:7), and the credit goes first to God: "Our merits are God's gifts" (CCC 2009). See Is Salvation by Faith Alone?
Can Protestants be saved? A baptized Protestant is truly joined to Christ, and every truth he holds comes from Him. But "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body," and those who know the Catholic Church is necessary and refuse to enter her "could not be saved" (CCC 846). Those who, "through no fault of their own," do not know this "may achieve eternal salvation" (CCC 847): a "may," not a promise. And even membership saves no one who "does not however persevere in charity" (CCC 837). Christ's invitation is to full communion with His Catholic Church.
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Isaiah 56:1–2; Isaiah 58:6–10; Isaiah 63:7–64:11 and note; Isaiah 63:19; Isaiah 64:4–10; Matthew 5:16; Matthew 16:18; Matthew 25:34–40; Luke 17:10; John 15:5; Acts 10:4, 31; Romans 2:6–7; Romans 3:10–12, 23–24 and notes; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Ephesians 2:8–10; Philippians 2:12–13; Hebrews 13:16, 21; Revelation 19:7–8.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 816, 837, 838, 846, 847; 2006–2011.
Church documents: Council of Trent, Session 6, Decree on Justification, ch. 11, ch. 16, canons 25 and 32 (1547, papalencyclicals.net).
Church Fathers (newadvent.org): Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians 32–34; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.37.1 (ANF vol. 1); Augustine, On Grace and Free Will 15, 20 (NPNF1 vol. 5).
Protestant sources: Isaiah 64:6, King James Version; GotQuestions.org, "Why are all of our righteous acts considered filthy rags?"; Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), ch. 16, "Of Good Works," 16.2, 16.5–16.6.