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Chapter 11
Good Works Through Grace
It is the sacred calling of the believer in this world, saved by grace, that he walk in all good works. For "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light to all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5: 14-16) And: "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples." (John 15:8) "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2: 10) Especially this last passage is significant in this connection. For it emphasizes the truth that we are saved by grace even to the very end. As believers we are God's workmanship, in no sense our own. It is He that created us, made us new creatures in Christ Jesus by His almighty power of wondrous grace. And He performed this wonder of grace in order, to be sure, that we should do good works; but even these works were ordained for everyone of us before the foundation of the world by God Himself, and it is our privilege to walk in them. To elucidate this last truth, we may use the illustration of a great chorus rendering Handel's Messiah. If such a rendering is to be successful, every member of the chorus and each voice, tenor and bass, soprano and alto, as well as the soloists, the orchestra, and the accompanist at the organ, must know and perform his part so as to blend into the grand harmony and beauty of the whole. But in order to attain to this end they must strictly follow their music. For the whole of the performance by the chorus, as well as the several parts, have been "before ordained" by the artist who composed the oratorio; and the members of the chorus only "walk in" the parts that have thus been ordained for them. This may be applied to the good works of all the saints in Christ. The church of Christ is not a mere number of saved believers: it is a body, a unity. And its purpose is to show forth the glory of God in Christ. This one theme all the saints sing and develop in their good works, each in his own position and performing his own part. And the great Artist ordained and prepared all the several parts of this glorious theme for everyone of the saints, just as He by grace prepared them all for the parts they are to perform. He created us in Christ Jesus exactly unto those good works which He prepared for us, that we might walk in them. From this statement of Holy Writ we wish to elicit a few truths concerning the nature and purpose of good works. What are good works? First of all, we may remark that as far as their material is concerned, good works are those that are in accord with the will of God as revealed unto us in Scripture. In doing good works we must "prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:2) God alone is good; and His will is good; and He alone has the prerogative and is able to determine what is good. Good works, therefore, are first of all characterized by unconditional and unquestioning obedience to the will of God. When God speaks, we are silent: we just listen. When He commands, we obey without murmuring, without objection, and without reservations. This means that we never assume the authority to determine for ourselves what shall be called good. It was exactly the sin of our first parents that they presumed to settle the question as to good and evil for themselves. It implies, too, that the utility principle may not and cannot possibly determine what is good or evil. This is frequently done by the unbelieving world. The question is asked whether a certain action or course of action or law or institution of man works, or whether it pays. If it does, regardless of the question whether it is according to the will and law of God, it is simply adopted and followed. The result is, of course, ultimate destruction. A glaring example of this method of determining what is good is found in the way the divorce problem is solved in the courts of our land. Sinful man, rather than submitting himself to the law of God, by his darkened understanding judges what is expedient for him, tramples under foot the precepts of the Most High, and works out his own destruction. Nor dare one appeal to his good intentions to decide that an act that in itself was contrary to the law of God is good. It may seem possible to a simple man to tell a lie with the best of intentions, but that does not justify the lie. Good works are those, and those only, that are strictly in harmony with the will of God as revealed unto us in His Word. But this leads us to another, equally important question. It may be put in this way: what does it mean that our actions must be in harmony with the will or law of God in order to be good? Is any deed as such, an act of man as we observe him, as it appears to us, supposing that it is completely and perfectly in harmony with the will of God, necessarily a good work? Suppose that a man offers prayer in public and that the contents of his prayer are in accord with the will of God, does it follow that he performs a good work? Or suppose that he is a preacher and that he proclaims the gospel and the full counsel of God according to the Scriptures, does that outward act of preaching necessarily constitute a good work? Or say that a church member drops a thousand dollars in the collection plate for the cause of charity, or of missions, or for some other good cause, is that outward act sufficient to determine that it is good before God and that it is perfectly in harmony with His holy will? The answer to this question must be an emphatic negative. And the reason for this is twofold. First of all, we must not forget that the outward act, the deed as it is seen by men, is but a part, and that, too, a very small part, of the entire deed as it is witnessed by the living God. When you see a man drop a thousand dollars in the collection plate, you observe but the outward act. There is back of that hand that drops the gift the mind of the giver that contemplated it, the desire that motivated the act, the will that finally determined upon the act. And back of the mind and will and desire of the giver there is the deep heart of man, whence are all the issues of life. Before he drops his money in the plate, the man has been thinking about it; and that, too, belongs to the deed he performs. He has been desiring something. He placed before his mind a certain objective, a purpose that he wished to attain; and by this he was motivated, urged to perform the act of giving the money. His whole inner man was in action before he ever dropped the money in the collection plate, and all this inner action belongs very really to the deed itself in the sight of God. Secondly, we must consider that the will or revealed law of God concerning our life and walk does not merely cover the outward activity of man, but also his inner life, his mind and will and all his desires. 0, the matter were not so serious and difficult if the law of God were satisfied with the outward appearance of the deed before men, so that it would call a man's work good if only he conforms himself in his external deportment to God's will, does not swear and curse, commit adultery and steal, murder and slander, goes to church on Sunday and observes the sabbath, sings and prays and gives alms. But the law of God is this: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength." And that throws a different light upon the question of good works. The law is a law of love. It demands that we shall be motivated by the love of God in all our actions. It covers not only the outward appearance of the deed but also the hidden part that is in the mind, the will, the desires, that has its origin in the heart of man. It demands that a work shall be good and perfect in the sight of God from its deepest root in the heart to its ripened fruit in the external act. And unless a work of man is in full accord with that law of the love of God from its first contemplation, yea, from its hidden origin in the heart, to the outward deed, it is evil in the sight of God and may be very abominable to Him indeed, no matter how it may appear to us. The very sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Jehovah! (Proverbs 15:8) This brings us to the question of purpose and motive. The purpose of good works is the glory of God, the manifestation of the beauty of His grace in the Beloved. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father wh~ch is in heaven." (Matthew 5: 16) If our works are to be good in the sight of God, they must be motivated by the will and desire to attain to that purpose. Purpose and motive are closely related. Purpose denotes the end which we have in view in performing a certain deed; and motive is the will, the urge, and the desire that spurs us on from within to seek that end. Now God's purpose is His own glory. And that purpose must be ours if our works are to be good in His sight. Good works, therefore, are motivated by the will and desire to reach that purpose, to glorify our Father which is in heaven. Hence, in order to determine whether or not a certain act on our part is good, we must not merely ask what we did, but also why we performed it, and what was the purpose we had in view. Let us consider a few illustrations to make this plain. Suppose you are an honest business man, and in all your dealings you treat your customers fairly. The question arises: why are you honest in your dealings? If your answer is that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, and that it is your desire to serve and promote the glory of your God even in your business, all is well. Your honest dealing is a good work, indeed. But suppose that, upon honest and thorough selfexamination you come to the conclusion that your honest dealing is merely motivated by the desire to establish and maintain a good business, by the realization that honesty pays: your reward is then gone. You are in your deepest heart seeking self, a good business, worldly gain. You are not seeking God's glory, but carnal gain; and you are motivated by covetousness. In that respect you are no different from and no better than the man of dishonest dealings who is motivated by the same desire for profit. All that is not to the glory of God is sin! A striking example of this apparent good work that is evil in the sight of the Lord is the Pharisee of Jesus' day. He was scrupulously religious. It was his constant effort to bring his external life in harmony with the law in its minutest details. He fasted and prayed and gave alms and observed the sabbath blamelessly. He went to the temple and offered his sacrifices and paid his vows. In the sight of men he was a perfect example of piety, and his good works were numerous. But if that same Pharisee had taken the trouble to make a little introspection and to examine himself from the viewpoint of the question, "Why dost thou stand here on the street corner to pray and to give alms and to perform all thy good works?" he would have come to the discovery that he was seeking the honor of men, not the glory of God. His purpose was his own glory. His motive was stinking pride. He was an abomination in the sight of God. All his praying and sacrificing and giving alms was, in the sight of God, by no means less abominable than the act of the highway robber and murderer who openly commits his crimes. And the Lord does not hesitate to compare this pious Pharisee to a whitewashed sepulchre, beautiful without, but within full of dead men's bones and uncleanness. A similar example you may find in Jehu of Old Testament days. He received a special command of God to exterminate the house of Ahab for their wickedness. And he zealously and thoroughly obeyed the Lord and did his work well. Yet, although he was so zealous in obeying the Lord as far as the outward deed was concerned, he himself never departed from the ways of Jeroboam who caused Israel to sin; and in the propheey of Hosea we read that the house of Jehu is punished by the Lord for the blood which they shed in exterminating the house of Ahab. But how is this possible? The answer is simply this: although outwardly Jehu was perfectly obedient to this special command of the Lord, his inner motive was corrupt. He sought his own glory and the realization of his own ambition to ascend the throne of Israel, rather than the glory of Jehovah! And so you see that a man may perform an outwardly good act from a very wicked motive. Nor dare we say that these outwardly beautiful works that are inwardly corrupt are due to an operation of grace by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not attach good fruit to a corrupt tree, nor does He call such fruit good. Either the tree is good and its fruit is good, or the tree is corrupt and its fruit is also corrupt, no matter how beautiful it may appear to the eye of man. When the Holy Spirit takes hold of a man, He does not polish his outward appearance; but He takes hold of his inmost heart, regenerates him, makes him a new creature in Christ Jesus, unites him through faith with Christ, and remains in him to dwell in him, to sanctify him, to fill him with the grace of the Lord Jesus. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before ordained that we should walk in them. This is the reason why the root of all good works is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. All that is not of faith is sin. (Romans 14:23) For by faith we are in Christ Jesus, one plant with Him, so that we live out of Him, or rather, so that He lives in us. And as the vine bears its fruit in the branches, so the Lord Jesus Christ bears the fruit of His grace in all His saints. For we are saved by grace, through faith, and that not of ourselves: it is the gift of God! What, then, shall be our conclusion? First of all, no doubt, in the light of the Scriptural doctrine concerning good works, we shall all have to acknowledge in deep humility that we are still far from complete perfection. Even our best works are defiled with sin, and we have but a small beginning of the new obedience. Daily we have need to seek our refuge in the shadow of the cross and to wash our garments by faith in the blood of the Lamb, that we may obtain the forgiveness of sins. And, secondly, we have nothing to boast, not even on the basis of the best of our good works. For they are all of grace. They are not gifts of ours to God, but they are gifts of God to us: works in which we may walk, and by walking in which we are blessed indeed! He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord! |
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