According to Ronnie in a comment here on Conditions under the Covenant of Grace, Christians merit eternal rewards:
“… yes based on God’s covenantal agreement believers may covenantally merit some rewards.”
He concedes this in an effort to support the meritorious nature of the pre-fall covenant God made with Adam. His assertion was that since life was promised to Adam upon condition of obedience, the covenant was therefore meritorious. In response to this, I pressed him with the fact that rewards are promised to New Covenant believers “according to what they have done in the body” (WCF XXXIII). Rather than give up the meritorious nature of the pre-fall covenant, he acquiesces that these New Covenant rewards must in fact be meritorious as well.
The problem with this concession is that it directly contradicts the reformed tradition as upheld in the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 24:
Question 63. What! do not our good works merit, which yet God will reward in this and in a future life?
Answer: This reward is not of merit, but of grace.
The scripture proof that the Catechism uses as support is Luke 17:10.
“So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”
It has been asserted by Ronnie and others that the understanding of a gracious pre-fall covenant is logically tantamount to the claim that New Covenant members are in a meritorious relationship with their heavenly Father. I submit this as proof that the contrary is actually true.
Sola Fidelity 