Works

The average person, when questioned why they believe that they will go to Heaven when they die, will say that it’s because they’ve lived a good life.  Faith and works go hand-in-hand, so it is easy to confuse the two.  However, even though we know that it is faith that saves, works are equally important – not because one must earn his place into Heaven, but because the lack of works is an indication of a lack of saving faith in the first place.  Faith without good works is dead.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.  (James 2: 14-17)

James’ words paint us a good picture of the unchanged “Christian”.  This person may have prayed a written sinner’s prayer, or been baptized as an infant, or come to the front of the church at an alter call – all well and good, but this action has had no impact on their life.  The unchanged Christian doesn’t feel compelled to change their life in any meaningful way because he believes himself to already be saved. 

The theologian C.S. Lewis stated in his book Mere Christianity that he didn’t see anything particularly virtuous about one simply believing the doctrines of Christianity to be true, and I would agree with him.  “Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants to or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad...”  (Book 3, Ch 11).  True faith changes someone – that is why a new disciple is often called a ‘convert’.

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.  Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,  but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:  whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.  (1 John 2:3-6)

John’s first epistle explains this in clear black and white.  If someone professes to be a Christian – that is, to know Christ as their Lord and Savior – but doesn’t keep Christ’s commandments, then he is a liar, for one cannot be a disciple of Christ without being changed by Him.  We can tell the true disciples of Christ by their actions and their life.

But can we define ‘good works’ as following God’s commandments?  In fact, there is no other definition of a good work that makes sense.  Jesus’ summary of the law shows us that good works and obedience to God are indeed one in the same:

And one of [the Pharisees], a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"  And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."  (Matthew 22:35-40)

Jesus teaches us that all of the commandments of the law are dependent on two commandments – to love God with everything you have in you, and to love others to the same extent that you love yourself.  In this, we can see that all actions traditionally viewed as “good deeds” are acts of love to our neighbors – acts of charity, aid, self-sacrifice, kindness, honesty.  Further, good works are also actions done in love to God – reverence, humility, service, worship.

Remember the passage in 1 John – those that keep His Word, love is perfected in them.  In keeping Christ’s commandments, we go beyond just the cerebral knowledge of Christ as Lord and plant our life firmly in Him.  We are changed, converted, transformed into true disciples of Christ.

for His glory,

Mark