Created For Good Works

You know that my focus lately has been on correctly preaching the Gospel of Grace.  The Gospel + anything = nothing.  There can be no mixture of law and grace (Romans 11:6).  It’s either all law or all grace and we know that no one has ever been able to keep the law except Christ (Ps. 14:3; 53:3; Isa. 64:6–7; Rm. 3:9–23; Jas. 2:10).  The law was not given to make us righteous, but to show us our desperate need for a Savior who actually can make us righteous (Rm. 3:19–26; Gal. 3:24).  You can summarize all of Paul’s teaching on law and grace as follows:

All men are dead and alienated from God by sin.  No one seeks after God and for that very reason the law was given to make mankind aware of sin and the fact that there exists a holy God to whom we are all accountable.  The purpose of the law was to lead mankind to grace.  Salvation was always through faith alone and Abraham is the chief example of this truth because his faith was credited to him as righteousness apart from the law.  And now, in the fullness of time, the substance of God’s provision for mankind’s sins has been revealed—the Lord Jesus Christ who became our propitiation on the Cross.

If I were to pick a single verse that best encapsulates Paul’s life and message, it would be Romans 3:21:

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.

I’ve written extensively about this topic:

WHAT IS REPENTANCE?

WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?

THE GOSPEL: PART 1

THE GOSPEL: PART 2

THE GOSPEL: PART 3

THE GOSPEL: PART 4

THE GOSPEL: PART 5

ATONEMENT: THE DIVIDING LINE

THE TIGHTROPE OF FAITH

As we draw nearer and nearer to the Day of Christ’s appearing, make sure you have diligently studied and rightly divided God’s Word regarding salvation.  Make sure you know the Gospel inside and out and can accurately teach it and preach it.  For your own sake, make sure you are trusting in Christ and not in yourself.  Jeff has written an excellent article that clearly demonstrates how the Gospel of Grace can be traced right back to Genesis.  It was there with Adam and Eve in the very beginning and Cain was the very first legalist:

A CLOSER LOOK AT GENESIS 3–4

Legalists pit grace against works and end up compromising on both and denying the Gospel.  Whenever I hear someone argue against sola fide salvation with James 2:17 (“faith without works is dead”) I’m reminded of an Islamic argument against Christianity: “Christians worship three gods!”  It’s a classic straw-man argument just as using James 2:17 to refute sola fide is:

A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent.

Christians don’t believe in three gods, yet many Muslim scholars twist Christian theology into polytheism so that they can then claim Christians are polytheists.  It’s the worst kind of fallacy because it couples poor logic with false accusation.

Legalists do the same thing.  They claim that proponents of sola fide are against works and encourage sin and lawlessness.  They also claim that the Gospel of Grace ignores James 2 and 1 John, etc.  Once they do that they can then claim the Gospel of Grace is unscriptural.  Woe to them.  The Gospel of Grace is the only Gospel by which any of us can be saved.

To the contrary, their straw-man doesn’t hold up because those who believe in the Gospel have dealt handily with all these topics and believe fervently in James 2 and 1 John.  We just don’t believe those books and chapters teach that the Church is going to be a celestial meritocracy.  You can read my take on James 2 here.

When Believers bring up Ephesians 2:8–9 it takes but a split second for a legalist to suggest they are ignoring Ephesians 2:10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

They argue that Ephesians 2:10, among other Scriptures, teach that salvation is not through faith alone.  Yet that conclusion would then contradict what was just plainly stated in Ephesians 2:8–9 (not to mention some 87 other Scriptures in the New Testament).  Can you see how ridiculous that is?

When you pit Scripture against Scripture you’re apt to be deceived and believe a lie.  Ephesians 2:8–9 and Ephesians 2:10 are both true.  Rightly dividing Scripture doesn’t mean you should fight Scripture or mix Scripture into a murky, confusing mess.  It means that you should believe all Scripture and put all of it into its proper place.  God is not the author of confusion and one thing legalism always manages to do is create great confusion and cause Believers to continually question God’s character and their relationship with Him.

Let me propose to you two ways to look at the salvation/good works issue:

1. Salvation is by faith and works.  Ephesians 2:10 and James 2:14 mean that we are not saved by faith alone.  This is a doctrine explicitly taught by the Roman Catholic Church beginning in 1547.  The Roman Catholic Church’s formal abandonment of the doctrine of sola fide was a slow process that took many centuries and finally became official during the sixth session of the Council of Trent.

Problems: ignores over seven dozen other Scriptures that say otherwise, means that Jesus’ atoning sacrifice only provided for some of our salvation (in other words—the Gospel is only partially true), contradicts the principle that no one is worthy or holy enough to make it to Heaven, replaces one set of impossible standards with another, and ignores the general themes, shadows, and types in Scripture regarding faith, atonement, sacrifice, etc.

2. Salvation is by faith alone.  Jesus saved unworthy sinners by dying in their place just as the Gospel says.  When a person truly places their faith in Jesus Christ and believes this Good News, then the Holy Spirit regenerates that person’s spirit and seals them until the Day of Redemption.  Because that person has the Holy Spirit living inside them they will naturally do good works as a response to what Christ did for them on the Cross.  This became the core doctrine of the Reformation.

I believe that Romans 4:4–5 is a good foundation to understand where good works come from:

Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.

Consider different types of relationships and how they give you a glimpse of the biblical principle of sonship versus slavery:

Employees: They work for a wage.  If the wages stop flowing then the worker leaves.  Their commitment remains only as long as the wage remains.  Alternatively, if the worker violates a protocol then their employer is likely to fire them.  Obedience to their employer comes from a desire to earn a wage.  The motivation is money.

Slaves: They work out of coercion.  If they stop working then they can’t eat or are even beaten or killed.  They typically want freedom and despise their master.  Obedience to their master comes from fear of being punished.  The motivation is fear.

Citizens: They are coerced to pay taxes and obey laws—even laws that disadvantage them.  They respect, but do not love their government.  Obedience to their government comes from a fear of being punished or a sense of civil duty.  The motivation is fear or obligation.

Sons: They are part of a family.  They are free to leave or stay.  They can work or not work and are still accepted and part of the family.  Their parents don’t starve them, beat them, or permanently kick them out if they disobey.  To the contrary, their parents discipline them out of love, but they remain forever part of the family (so long as they want to be).  They work out of gratitude and relational love, not necessity or coerced obligation.  The motivation is love.

Spouses: They are united unconditionally.  They are called to love and forgive one another when they err.  If one spouse sins then they are called to reconcile and remain faithful to the covenant they made before God.  It is a permanent, familial union just like parents and children have.  They also work for one another out of love and gratitude, not necessity or coercion (ideally).  The motivation is love.

Legalists view God as a hard master, coercive government, or greedy employer (Matthew 25:14–30).

To the contrary, the Bible says God is a tender and loving Father (Jas. 1:17; 2 Cor. 1:3–4; Jn. 3:16; Mt. 7:7–11).  Legalists remain in slavery by their own choice, but those that the Son has set free are free indeed (Jn. 8:36):

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God...

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written,

‘Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than those of the one who has a husband.’

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. (Gal. 4:1-7, 21–31)

Everyone belongs to God, whether slave or son, but only the sons and daughters are saved and inherit the Kingdom along with Christ.  The sons are part of an unconditional love commitment with God (through faith).  It is not coerced.  Like the Prodigal, they are safe so long as they choose to stay.  Slaves on the other hand are part of a conditional relationship with God and their salvation is predicated on sufficient works to gain eternal life.  Since the Bible makes clear that everyone is rotten to the core and cannot sufficiently pay God His due, then all slaves will be lost.  Are you a son or a slave?

Consider your children.  Do you want them to obey you because they are afraid of you or because they willingly love you?  What kind of obedience do you think our perfect Father in Heaven wants?  What kind of works does He expect?  Works from fear and obligation or works from love and gratitude?  God doesn’t just want your works, He wants your heart and once He has your heart He will reap from you an eternity of pleasant fruit—works from you that come as a freely given offering of love.  And the only way He could win over the hearts of broken sinners like us was to sacrifice His only begotten Son while we were yet sinners.  Those of us who have paid attention over the past two millennia took notice of the immeasurable and unconditional act of love in Christ Jesus and responded to God in faith.  And through that faith God forgave us all our sins, imparted to us the Holy Spirit who has regenerated our dead spirits, adopted us as sons, and made us joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7), not the end.  The end is perfect love without fear (1 John 4:18) because fear has to do with punishment and the one who still fears has not yet been made perfect in love.

The Jews in Jesus’ day were keeping the law because they thought it made them right with God.  The law had become for them an end in itself (John 5:39–40).  Compare the sacrifices and offerings of the Pharisees and Sadducees (from obligation) with the sacrifices and offerings of the heroes of faith recorded in Hebrews 11:

Abel offered the very best from his flock as a blood sacrifice to God without any mention of obligation or coercion (Genesis 4:4).

Noah made an altar and sacrificed to the LORD even though God never asked Him to (Genesis 8:20-22).

Abraham sacrificed his son Isaac (of course God intervened) even though God never mentioned that disobedience would result in punishment.  God gave no reasons for or against obeying and Abraham obeyed (Genesis 22:1–24).

Paul’s focus in the epistles is on how we are actually justified before God and the answer is through faith alone (because the justifier is Christ who literally died for our sins in our place); so to be justified, place your faith in Christ and Christ alone and keep your faith until the end.  James’ focus is on how to demonstrate that you actually have faith and haven’t merely claimed to have faith when you really don’t:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? (Jas. 2:14)

James isn’t arguing against faith alone, he’s arguing against claiming to have faith when your works demonstrate that you clearly don’t have faith.  In other words, James 2 is not about faith alone versus faith + works, it’s about real faith versus the liars who say they have faith when they don’t.  If you really have faith then 99 times out of 100 there will be at least a little fruit, but because your fruit plays no part in your salvation, Paul can accurately say:

And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. (Rm. 4:5)

And also:

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.  If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.  If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Cor. 3:11–15)

James calls us to demonstrate our faith by our works.  When you realize what God has freely done for you through Christ and that you were given so great a gift without cost, then your free and un-obligated response demonstrates your faith.  The Father detests the works of the Pharisees and gives no regard to the “obedience” of the legalists.  Here is how grace and works are related:

We deserved death and were destined for Gehenna, yet because of love, God purchased us back with His own blood (Acts 20:28, Romans 5:8).  There are no strings attached.  There are no conditions.  There are no ‘ifs’, ‘ands’, or ‘buts’.  There is just you and your heart.  Will you give your heart to God?  Will you take what He is offering?  It is a gift, not a wage, but you must, must, must take it to be saved.  God is the greatest gentleman and will not force you to take the greatest gift ever offered to man.

If you have accepted the gift and now realize that you have been forgiven (Colossians 2:13), redeemed (Ephesians 1:7), and freed (John 8:36, Galatians 5:1, 1 Corinthians 10:23) and are now under no condemnation (Romans 8:1), what will you do now?  Paul would exhort you to use your freedom for great good and not as an opportunity to satisfy the flesh (Romans 6:1, Galatians 5:13).

Here are some examples of things you can do right now to demonstrate to God and others that you have accepted His gift and that you love Him:

1. Tell God you’re thankful for what He has done.

2. Share with someone the Good News (it’s amazing how little the legalists share the Gospel, which is evidence they don’t believe it).

3. Ask God to change your heart, so that it would become like Christ’s.

4. Spend more time in His Word and study the Scriptures diligently.

5. Cast off pride and accept that other Believers might know something that you don’t.

6. Accept that your knowledge is incomplete and be willing to learn from God’s Word and God’s people.

7. When a child, spouse, or co-worker mistreats you, choose to show them grace.

8. When someone labels you, calls you a name, or argues with you, choose to take no offense.

9. Don’t run.  When things get hard or adversity presents itself, people have a tendency to run.  When marriage gets hard, spouses run.  When another Believer loses their cool or mistreats you, instead of running, seek reconciliation.  Give grace, show love, and take no offense.  The Pharisees were offended by Jesus because He ate and drank with sinners.  What was really going on is that they were playing defense and Jesus was storming the gates of hell.  Jesus was on mission and never backed down.

10. Be more purposeful in what you do.  Before we knew Christ we lived haphazardly and carelessly, living only for pleasure and for ourselves.  That should change in the life of a Believer.  Everything you do should be for a godly purpose.

11. Be more intentional with your family.  Spend one-on-one time time with your kids.  Take your daughter out for ice cream and tell her that you love her and God loves her.  Tell her you’re proud of her and ask her how she’s doing spiritually.  Take your son fishing and do the same thing.  A Believer that doesn’t first and foremost love and minister to his own family is not honoring God.

12. Be more intentional with prayer.  Don’t just spend more time in prayer, spend better time.  Ask God to guide you, grow you, and show you weak areas in your life.  Pray for your family and friends.  Pray for unity and maturity in the Church.  Pray that Jesus would come soon.

13. Look and long for Christ’s appearing.  Tell someone Jesus is coming soon.

14. Tame your tongue—not only cursing, but also tone.  Your speech should be gentle, edifying, kind, and seasoned with salt.

15. Struggle well against sin.  A recent Barna Group study showed that 77% of young Christian men were actively looking at pornography.  That is a shocking statistic.  A great portion of those men would say they are “struggling”—trying not to do it, they would say.  Meanwhile they are carrying around the Play Boy library in their pocket—called a “smartphone.”  With just a few clicks they can be viewing anything they want.  Friends, if you’re really “struggling” (i.e. battling) then you don’t simply try harder the next time, you do what you need to do to stamp it out.  Maybe that means you voluntarily put software on your phone or computer that blocks bad content.  Maybe that means you become accountable to other Christian men.  Maybe it even means you get rid of your phone.  Don’t just struggle “harder”, because you’ll never win.  Struggle better.  Do what you need to do to win the victory or are you perhaps leaving one foot in the door with sin, afraid that the door will close?

16. Clean out your “closet.”  Every Christian has a closet that gets dirtied from time to time and you need to clean it out.  The closet might be something different for each Believer.  For some people it’s relationships.  Maybe you have a group of co-worker friends whose speech has grown coarser, more cynical, or vulgar.  Either breathe life into the group or leave.  Maybe you’re still holding on to your treasured collection of vulgar music or movies—yet God is your greatest treasure.  Clean it out.  Don’t sell it, so that some other person will be polluted by it, but instead, be truly sacrificial and throw it straight in the trash.

17. Stop making exceptions for yourself.  One thing I see a lot, even from Christians, is making exceptions to the rules.  For example, “Thou shalt not steal.”  “That just means you shouldn’t steal from your neighbor,” they say.  “That doesn’t include pirating media from those greedy corporations.”  That’s called justifying sin.  The LORD has nothing to do with thievery and you shouldn’t either.  This is just one example.  The point is that you should give the LORD your whole heart since He gave you His whole Son.

18. Prioritize Scripture for spiritual revelation over personal experience and emotion.  I see so many Christians, even entire denominations, getting these priorities way out wack.  The Bible says that “the heart is deceitful above all else” (Jeremiah 17:9).  Feelings are very real, but they are also very unreliable.  God’s Word is what’s reliable, not what we think or feel.  Legalists and the lawless alike live in the flesh and exalt their own feelings over Scripture.  They perceive their knowledge to be superior to other Believers’ knowledge.  They look to Scripture to validate their own beliefs, rather than looking to Scripture to change their beliefs.

Believers should be forming beliefs and making decisions based first on God’s Word, second on God’s people, third on their experience, and fourth on their feelings, but myriads of Christians do the exact opposite: “I feel this way, so I will then interpret my experience to validate how I feel, and then I will tell God’s people they should agree with me by using Scripture to validate how I feel even if other Scriptures contradict what I say.”

Disney and Hollywood tell you to “follow your heart.”  God’s Word says follow Jesus.

19. Boast only in Christ.  Paul was the greatest missionary evangelist of all time yet his letters are filled with honest and authentic reflections of his own weaknesses and struggles.  When you’ve studied the Scriptures you’ll notice a marked difference between the humble speech of Christ and the Apostles compared to the self-exalting and condemning speech of the “faith isn’t enough” crowd.  Christ and His disciples did get angry at times, but it was limited, pointed, and purposeful and most often directed against the legalists themselves.

We must decrease and He must increase.

20. Make your life a beautiful thing.  Be a living sacrifice.  Weather the storms of life with grace and faith.  People should be enamored by your joy, faith, hope, and love.  Moses noticed the burning bush because it was something out of the ordinary—a bush that wasn’t consumed by fire and he stopped to see the incredible sight.  Every Believer should be a burning bush—something extraordinary that makes people stop to take notice.  When you lose a job or something far more valuable like a spouse or child, or you undergo some other terrible circumstance, yet remain faithful, loving, and joyful, people will naturally ask you how you can remain unshaken.  You can tell them from the bottom of your heart: “Because my God is an unmovable Rock and I have nothing to fear.”

When everyone around you is gossiping, slandering, and cursing, and you remain silent, and they ask you why you haven’t joined in, you can say “Because my tongue belongs to the LORD.”  Let them marvel.  Live out your faith boldly.  Not for show or personal credit, but because you love God and others.

Be a burning bush.

The fruit of the Gospel: Love, clarity, joy, hope, perseverance, faith, grace, kindness, self-control, self-discipline, life, and fearlessness.

The fruit of legalism: Anger, hatred, malice, condemnation, hopelessness, fear, confusion, faithlessness, discord, self-righteousness, pride, and death.

Do you have good fruit or bad fruit?  As James calls us to do, prove your claim of faith by your works.

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