For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.
Parallel Translations
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For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.
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For we are his worckmanshippe created in Christ Iesu vnto good workes vnto the which god ordeyned vs before that we shuld walke in them.
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For we are his workemanship created in Christ Iesus vnto good workes, which God hath ordeined, that we should walke in them.
Cross-references (53)
Passages linked to Ephesians 2:10 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Philippians 2:13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.
- Colossians 1:10 that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God,
- Hebrews 13:21 make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
- 2 Corinthians 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that you, always having all sufficiency in everything, may abound to every good work.
- Ephesians 4:24 and put on the new man, who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.
- Philippians 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
- 2 Timothy 3:17 that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
- Ephesians 4:1 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called,
- 2 Timothy 2:21 If anyone therefore purges himself from these, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, and suitable for the master’s use, prepared for every good work.
- Psalms 100:3 Know that Yahweh, he is God. It is he who has made us, and we are his. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
- Isaiah 43:21 the people which I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise.
- Titus 2:14 who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.
- 1 Timothy 6:18 that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to share;
- Ephesians 1:4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without defect before him in love,
- Titus 3:14 Let our people also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they may not be unfruitful.
- Hebrews 10:24 Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good works,
- Titus 3:8 This saying is faithful, and concerning these things I desire that you affirm confidently, so that those who have believed God may be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men;
- 1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building.
- Colossians 3:10 and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,
- Titus 2:7 In all things be showing yourself an example of good works. In your teaching, be showing integrity, seriousness, incorruptibility,
- 1 Peter 2:12 having good behavior among the nations, so in that of which they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they see, glorify God in the day of visitation.
- Psalms 138:8 Yahweh will fulfill that which concerns me. Your loving kindness, Yahweh, endures forever. Don’t forsake the works of your own hands.
- Titus 3:1 Remind them to be in subjection to rulers and to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work,
- 1 John 2:6 he who says he remains in him ought himself also to walk just like he walked.
- Psalms 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
- Isaiah 29:23 But when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in the middle of him, they will sanctify my name. Yes, they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
- Matthew 5:16 Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:17 comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.
- Jeremiah 32:39-40 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their good, and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from following them, to do them good. I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.
- John 3:21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”
- Romans 8:29 For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
- Isaiah 60:21 Then your people will all be righteous. They will inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.
- Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
- Acts 9:31 So the assemblies throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace, and were built up. They were multiplied, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
- 2 Corinthians 5:5 Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit.
- Isaiah 44:21 Remember these things, Jacob and Israel; for you are my servant. I have formed you. You are my servant. Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
- 1 Timothy 2:10 but with good works, which is appropriate for women professing godliness.
- Deuteronomy 5:33 You shall walk in all the way which Yahweh your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.
- 1 Timothy 5:25 In the same way also there are good works that are obvious, and those that are otherwise can’t be hidden.
- 1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
- Psalms 119:3 Yes, they do nothing wrong. They walk in his ways.
- Acts 9:36 Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which when translated, means Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and acts of mercy which she did.
- 1 Timothy 5:10 being approved by good works, if she has brought up children, if she has been hospitable to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, and if she has diligently followed every good work.
- Isaiah 19:25 because Yahweh of Armies has blessed them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”
- Isaiah 61:3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give to them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Yahweh, that he may be glorified.
- Psalms 81:13 Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!
- Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
- Deuteronomy 32:6 Is this the way you repay Yahweh, foolish and unwise people? Isn’t he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you.
- Galatians 6:15 For in Christ Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
- Isaiah 2:3-5 Many peoples shall go and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the law shall go out of Zion, and Yahweh’s word from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. House of Jacob, come, and let’s walk in the light of Yahweh.
- John 3:3-6 Jesus answered him, “Most certainly, I tell you, unless one is born anew, he can’t see God’s Kingdom.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can’t enter into God’s Kingdom. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
- Ephesians 2:2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (23 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 10. For we are his work. By setting aside…
10. For we are his work. By setting aside the contrary supposition, he proves his statement, that by grace we are saved, — that we have no remaining works by which we can merit salvation; for all the good works which we possess are the fruit of regeneration. Hence it follows, that works themselves are a part of grace.
When he says, that “we are the work of God,” this does not refer to ordinary creation, by which we are made men. We are declared to be new creatures, because, not by our own power, but by the Spirit of Christ, we have been formed to righteousness. This applies to none but believers. As the descendants of Adam, they were wicked and depraved; but by the grace of Christ, they are spiritually renewed, and become new men. Everything in us, therefore, that is good, is the supernatural gift of God. The context explains his meaning. We are his work, because we have been created, — not in Adam, but in Christ Jesus, — not to every kind of life, but to good works.
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What remains now for free-will, if all the good works which proceed from us are acknowledged to have been the gifts of the Spirit of God? Let godly readers weigh carefully the apostle’s words. He does not say that we are assisted by God. He does not say that the will is prepared, and is then left to run by its own strength. He does not say that the power of choosing aright is bestowed upon us, and that we are afterwards left to make our own choice. Such is the idle talk in which those persons who do their utmost to undervalue the grace of God are accustomed to indulge. But the apostle affirms that we are God’s work, and that everything good in us is his creation; by which he means that the whole man is formed by his hand to be good. It is not the mere power of choosing aright, or some indescribable kind of preparation, or even assistance, but the right will itself, which is his workmanship; otherwise Paul’s argument would have no force. He means to prove that man does not in any way procure salvation for himself, but obtains it as a free gift from God. The proof is, that man is nothing but by divine grace. Whoever, then, makes the very smallest claim for man, apart from the grace of God, allows him, to that extent, ability to procure salvation.
Created to good works. They err widely from Paul’s intention, who torture this passage for the purpose of injuring the righteousness of faith. Ashamed to affirm in plain terms, and aware that they could gain nothing by affirming, that we are not justified by faith, they shelter themselves under this kind of subterfuge. “We are justified by faith, because faith, by which we receive the grace of God, is the commencement of righteousness; but we are made righteous by regeneration, because, being renewed by the Spirit of God, we walk in good works.” In this manner they make faith the door by which we enter into righteousness, but imagine that we obtain it by our works, or, at least, they define righteousness to be that uprightness by which a man is formed anew to a holy life. I care not how old this error may be; but they err egregiously who endeavor to support it by this passage.
We must look to Paul’s design. He intends to shew that we have brought nothing to God, by which he might be laid under obligations to us; and he shews that even the good works which we perform have come from God. Hence it follows, that we are nothing, except through the pure exercise of his kindness. Those men, on the other hand, infer that the half of our justification arises from works. But what has this to do with Paul’s intention, or with the subject which he handles? It is one thing to inquire in what righteousness consists, and another thing to follow up the doctrine, that it is not from ourselves, by this argument, that we have no right to claim good works as our own, but have been formed by the Spirit of God, through the grace of Christ, to all that is good. When Paul lays down the cause of justification, he dwells chiefly on this point, that our consciences will never enjoy peace till they rely on the propitiation for sins. Nothing of this sort is even alluded to in the present instance. His whole object is to prove, that,
“by the grace of God, we are all that we are.” (1 Corinthians 15:10)
Which God hath prepared Beware of applying this, as the Pelagians do, to the instruction of the law; as if Paul’s meaning were, that God commands what is just, and lays down a proper rule of life. Instead of this, he follows up the doctrine which he had begun to illustrate, that salvation does not proceed from ourselves. He says, that, before we were born, the good works were prepared by God; meaning, that in our own strength we are not able to lead a holy life, but only so far as we are formed and adapted by the hand of God. Now, if the grace of God came before our performances, all ground of boasting has been taken away. Let us carefully observe the word prepared. On the simple ground of the order of events, Paul rests the proof that, with respect to good works, God owes us nothing. How so? Because they were drawn out of his treasures, in which they had long before been laid up; for whom he called, them he justifies and regenerates.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He speaketh here of grace, and not of nature:…
He speaketh here of grace, and not of nature: therefore be the works never so good, look what they are, they are it of grace.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ…
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Ver. 10. For we are his workmanship] ποιημα, his artificial facture, or creature, that wherein he hath showed singular skill, by erecting the glorious fabric of the new man.
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Created-to good works] In the year 1559 there was published a paradox, that good works are pernicious to salvation of men’s souls. David George, the broacher of this heresy, was dug up and burnt at Basil.
God hath before ordained] i.e. By his eternal decree. Our vivification then is not a work of yesterday; but such as God hath with singular complacency contemplated from all eternity, rejoicing in that habitable part of his earth, Pro 8:31.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain For we, we believers, both Jews and Gentiles, are…
For we, we believers, both Jews and Gentiles, are his workmanship; not only as men, but especially as saints, which is the proper meaning here. The Israelitish people formerly were God’s work, Deu 32:6; Isa 43:21; 44:21; so are believers under the gospel, being new creatures, Gal 6:15. The apostle confirms what he said before, that by grace we are saved, and not of works, in that we are God’s workmanship, and are formed by him ere we can do any good work; and his forming us in our regeneration is a part of the salvation mentioned Eph 2:8.
Created in Christ Jesus; who, as our Head, enlivens us, as members united to him by faith. As the first creation was by Christ as the Second Person in the Trinity, Joh 1:3, so the second creation is by the same Christ as Mediator, the Lord and Head of the new creation, in whom we live, and move, and have our new being, and not in ourselves, 2Co 5:17.
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Unto good works: as the immediate end for which we are new-created. We receive our new being that we may bring forth new works, and have a carriage suitable to our new principle.
Which God hath before ordained; or rather, as the margin, prepared, i.e. prepared and fitted us for them, by enlightening our minds to know his will, disposing and inclining our wills, purging our affections, &c.
That we should walk in them; i.e. that we should glorify God in a holy conversation, agreeable to that Divine nature, whereof we are made partakers in our new creation.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Our apostle having in the foregoing verses asserted the…
Our apostle having in the foregoing verses asserted the whole of our salvation to be of grace, and not of works, lest by magnifying of grace he should seem wholly to set aside good works, and the necessity of a holy life; he declares in this verse, that christians are ordained to them, created and prepared for them, and consequently they are effects flowing from grace, though not causes producing grace. We are his workmanship;
1. In our natural capacity, as men.
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2. In our civil capacity, as such or such men, high or low, rich or poor.
3. In our spiritual capacity, as saints; this is intended here: believers are God’s workmanship, as such by supernatural renovation and spiritual regeneration; they are not only once made, as other persons, but they are new made, as saints; not by receiving new faculties, but new qualities; for grace is not a substantial, but a qualitative, change.
Lord, as we are all thy workmanship by natural creation, let us be so by gracious renovation likewise! Created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
Observe here, 1. The manner of this workmanship, created: this denotes two things;
1. That in their new making they were intended to good works: this was God’s mind and meaning in fore-ordaining that they should walk in them.
2. That in their new making they were fitted and prepared for good works, therefore did they receive a new nature from God, new principles, new affections, on purpose to fit them for an holy life, fruitful in good works.
Here note, That as good works are antecedently necessary to salvation, so renewing grace is absolutely necessary to good works; therefore before there can be a good work, there must be a good workman, and that good workman must be God’s workmanship, created anew through the power of God.
Observe, 2. The meritorious cause of this spiritual workmanship; and that is, Christ Jesus; We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus; that is, through the intervening meditation of Christ Jesus. The life which we live in this new creation state, namely, a life of holiness, it is purchased by his death, produced by his Spirit; all spiritual life comes from God, through Christ as a Mediator; he is a quickening head and life-giving spirit; God sent his Son that we might live by him 1Jn 4:9; Christ is first our ransom, and then the fountain of life unto our souls: created in Christ Jesus.
Observe, 3. The final cause of this divine workmanship; and that is, to good works: all those that are new creatures are created unto good works; so that a holy life is the necessary fruit of their new creation. New creatures are not to live idly, much less to live wickedly; but to make conscience of every duty, to bring forth fruit of piety towards God, of righteousness towards our neighbour, of love and universal charity towards all mankind. Which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them: that is, God hath before prepared these works for us, and also prepared us for them;
he has prepared these works for us,
first by his decree and purpose; he that ordained the end, salvation, hath appointed good works as the means thereto, by his precept and command. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, & c Mic 6:8.
And as God hath prepared these works for us, so he hath prepared us for them by his Holy Spirit, making our hearts fit for our work, by enlightening our minds, and inclining our wills.
Learn hence, That new creatures are both ordained and obliged to, and also fitted and prepared for, good works: God will have his children distinguished from others by the good they do, as well as the devil’s children are characterized by the mischief which they do.
Observe, lastly, The constancy of the christian’s duty declared, with reference to good works: he is to walk in them.
Now, walking denotes and implies both a way and action. Walking,
1. It implies a way; and intimates plainly to us, tht good works are the way and means to obtain salvation: we can never come at heaven as the end, but by walking in the path of good works as the way and means.
2. An action: walking denotes spontaneity in the principle, progress and perseverance in the motion; he that walks, goes forward, gets ground, gives not over till he comes to his journey’s end.
A good man is as diligent and zealous, as constant and persevering, in good works as if he were to be saved for them and by them; and at the same time relies by faith on the merits of the Mediator for his acceptance with God, renouncing all confidence in his own good works; he knows they cannot justify themselves, much less can they justify him, who has a better righteousness than that of his best obedience, to denominate him righteous in the sight of God.
Thus are we God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works; which God had before ordained that we should walk in them.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain For we are his workmanship,.... Not as men only,…
For we are his workmanship,.... Not as men only, but as Christians; not as creatures merely, but as new creatures; the work of grace upon the soul seems chiefly designed, which like a poem, as the word may be rendered, is a very curious work; the king's daughter is all glorious within, for this is an internal work, and is a good and excellent one; it is not indeed perfected at once, but is gradually carried on, till the finishing stroke is given to it by that hand which begun it; the author of it is God, it is not man's work; nor is it the work of ministers, no, nor of angels, but it is God's work: sometimes it is ascribed to the Spirit, who regenerates and sanctifies; and sometimes to the Son of God, who quickens whom he will; and sometimes to the Father, who reveals his Son, and draws men to him, and who seems to be meant here: the subjects of this divine operation, are the persons described in Eph 2:1 and include both Jews and Gentiles; and express the distinguishing grace of God, that they and not others, and who were by nature children of wrath as others, should be his workmanship: and this is mentioned to show, that salvation can not be by any works of men, since all their works are either wrought for them, or in them, by God; salvation is a work wrought for them without them; and sanctification is a work wrought in them by God, of his good pleasure; and all their good works are fruits of his grace, as follows:
created in Christ Jesus unto good works; the work of grace is a creation, or a creature, a new creature; not a new vamp of old Adam's principles, but; an infusion of new ones, and is a work of almighty power; and such who have it wrought in them, are said to be created in Christ; because as soon as a man becomes a new creature, he is openly and visibly in Christ; and by these new principles of grace which are created in him, he is fit and ready, and in a capacity to perform good works; the new man formed in him, is formed for righteousness and true holiness; the internal principle of grace both excites unto, and qualifies for, the performance of righteous and holy actions:
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which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them, or has "before prepared"; for the preparation of good works to be performed by saints, and the preparation of them for the performance of them; are both from the Lord; God has appointed good works to be done by his people and in his word he has declared what they are he would have done; and it is his will not only that they should do them, but continue to do them; not only that they should do a single act or more, but walk in them; their conversation and course of life should be one continued series of good works; but the intention is not that they should be saved by them, but that they should walk in them; and this being the pre-ordination of God, as it shows that predestination is not according to good works, since good works are the fruits and effects of it, so likewise that it is no licentious doctrine; seeing it provides for the performance of good works, as well as secures grace and glory.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain For we are his workmanship - Which proves both…
For we are his workmanship - Which proves both that salvation is by faith, and that faith is the gift of God. Created unto good works - That afterwards we might give ourselves to them. Which God had before preprepared - The occasions of them: so we must still ascribe the whole to God. That we might walk in them - Though not be justified by them.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 10. For we are his workmanship] So far…
Verse 10. For we are his workmanship] So far is this salvation from being our own work, or granted for our own works' sake, that we are ourselves not only the creatures of God, but our new creation was produced by his power; for we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. He has saved us that we may show forth the virtues of Him who called us from darkness into his marvellous light. For though we are not saved for our good works, yet we are saved that we may perform good works, to the glory of God and the benefit of man.
Which God hath before ordained] οις προητοιμασες. For which God before prepared us, that we might walk in them. For being saved from sin we are made partakers of the Spirit of holiness; and it is natural to that Spirit to lead to the practice of holiness; and he who is not holy in his life is not saved by the grace of Christ. The before ordaining, or rather preparing, must refer to the time when God began the new creation in their hearts; for from the first inspiration of God upon the soul it begins to love holiness; and obedience to the will of God is the very element in which a holy or regenerated soul lives.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Eph 2:10. For we are his workmanship — As…
Eph 2:10. For we are his workmanship — As if he had said, And it appears that it is not by any works or ability of our own that we are saved, or possess the faith whereby salvation is received, because all the ability we have in spiritual things is from God, and is the consequence of his creating us anew; for as all acts of acceptable obedience must proceed from faith, and this faith is wrought in our hearts by the gracious influence of the Divine Spirit, it is most certain that we must acknowledge ourselves to be his workmanship, so far as there is any thing in us agreeable to the nature and will of God; being created in and through Christ Jesus unto good works — In order that we may have inclination and power both to perform them, and to delight in so doing; and may give ourselves up to this, and be continually engaged therein, as far as we have ability and opportunity. This creation of believers through Christ Jesus unto good works, Dr. Taylor, in his Key to the Romans, understands of the formation of believers into one body or church, under the government of Christ, because in the Christian Church believers enjoy the greatest advantages for performing good works, and because this formation of the church is termed (Eph 2:15) a creation of Jews and Gentiles into one new man under Christ. The same account he gives of the making men alive, mentioned Eph 2:5. “Others, however, with more reason,” says Dr. Macknight, “think that a person’s enjoying, in the Christian Church, great advantages for becoming alive and for doing good works, is not the whole” (and is it any part?) “of what the apostle means” by these expressions, but that they “denote the operation of the Holy Spirit in making men alive, and enabling them to do good works by means of the advantages that they enjoy.” Which God hath before ordained — Or appointed in his eternal counsels, and in the declarations of his word; it being his will and pleasure, that they who have believed on him through his Son, and are thereby made new creatures, should be careful to maintain good works, Tit 3:8. But the apostle’s expression, οις προητοιμασεν ο Θεος, rather signifies, which God hath before prepared; that is, hath prepared the occasions of good works, and the means and opportunities of doing them. Or, as some render the clause, for which God hath prepared us, namely, by the knowledge of the gospel, and the influences of his Spirit: that we should walk in them — Should live in the constant performance of them, though not be justified by them. In other words, He hath purified the fountain, that the streams may be pure; hath made the tree good, that the fruit may be good; hath made us new creatures, that we may live new lives; one grand and important end certainly of our regeneration. So that we must still ascribe the whole glory of all the good that is in us, or is done by us, to God.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain For we are his workmanship - We are his…
For we are his workmanship - We are his “making” - ποίημα poiēma. That is, we are “created or formed” by him, not only in the general sense in which all things are made by him, but in that special sense which is denoted by the new creation; see the notes at 2Co 5:17. Whatever of peace, or hope, or purity we have, has been produced by his agency on the soul. There cannot be conceived to be a stronger expression to denote the agency of God in the conversion of people, or the fact that salvation is wholly of grace.
Created in Christ Jesus - On the word “created,” see the notes at 2Co 5:17.
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Unto good works - With reference to a holy life; or, the design for which we have been created in Christ is, that we should lead a holy life. The primary object was not to bring us to heaven. It was that we should be “holy.” Paul held perhaps more firmly than any other man, to the position that people are saved by the mere grace of God, and by a divine agency on the soul; but it is certain that no man ever held more firmly that people must lead holy lives, or they could have no evidence that they were the children of God.
Which God hath before ordained - Margin, “prepared.” The word here used means to “prepare beforehand,” then to predestinate, or appoint before. The proper meaning of this passage is, “to which οἷς hois good works God has predestinated us, or appointed us beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The word used here - προετοιμάζω proetoimazō - occurs in the New Testament nowhere else except in Rom 9:23, where it is rendered “had afore prepared.” It involves the idea of a previous determination, or an arrangement beforehand for securing a certain result. The previous preparation here referred to was, the divine intention; and the meaning is, that God had predetermined that we should lead holy lives. It accords, therefore, with the declaration in Eph 1:4, that he had chosen his people before the foundation of the world that they should be holy: see the notes at that verse.
That we should walk in them - That we should live holy lives. The word “walk” is often used in the Scriptures to denote the course of life; notes on Rom 6:4.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Fir we are his workmanship, not only as to…
Fir we are his workmanship, not only as to our body and soul, but by a new creation in Christ Jesus, with a new heart by his grace. (Witham) --- St. Paul now compares our conversion to creation, to shew that we had been called and justified without preceding merit. In the same manner as the things which God has drawn out of nothing, cannot glory as if they had contributed any thing to their existence. (St. Jerome, hic [on this place].)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain workmanship--literally, "a thing of His making"; "handiwork." Here the…
workmanship--literally, "a thing of His making"; "handiwork." Here the spiritual creation, not the physical, is referred to (Eph 2:8-9).
created--having been created (Eph 4:24; Psa 102:18; Isa 43:21; Co2 5:5, Co2 5:17).
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unto good works--"for good works." "Good works" cannot be performed until we are new "created unto" them. Paul never calls the works of the law "good works." We are not saved by, but created unto, good works.
before ordained--Greek, "before made ready" (compare Joh 5:36). God marks out for each in His purposes beforehand, the particular good works, and the time and way which tie sees best. God both makes ready by His providence the opportunities for the works, and makes us ready for their performance (Joh 15:16; Ti2 2:21).
that we should walk in them--not "be saved" by them. Works do not justify, but the justified man works (Gal 5:22-25).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 10. His workmanship—Instead of our being the workers, God…
10. His workmanship—Instead of our being the workers, God is the worker and we are the workmanship—the fact accomplished. Created by a new and better creation.
Unto good works—For we are not only elected from past faith, but we are elected unto good works. Note, Rom_9:13.
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Before ordained—Literally, hath pre-prepared. God has not only constructed us, but he has also constructed a whole set of works and ways in which we should walk. He has planned a whole suit of Christian graces, active and passive; heavenly tempers and beneficent doings which he has modelled for us in Christ, and set before us, to exemplify in our own character and future history. There are ignorance, guilt, and misery enough in the world to call all our new life into Christ-like action. We may, like him, go forth and cause the blind to see, the lame to walk, and even to raise the dead—dead as the Ephesians, in Eph_2:1. God has beforehand written a good biography for every man to live. And his life may thereby be like that of Jesus himself—a blessed gospel.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 10. For, &c.] The connexion is, “works are not…
10. For, &c.] The connexion is, “works are not the antecedent, but the consequent, of your acceptance in Christ; for the true statement of the case is, that you were re-made, re-born, in order to work the will of God.”
his] Strongly emphatic. “It is He that made us, and not we ourselves” (Psa_100:3).
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workmanship] Better, making. The Gr. word (poiêma) is not akin to that rendered “works” (erga) in the passage, so that there is no intended antithesis.—“Making:”—i.e., He has made us what we are, members of His Son. The noun does not necessarily give the precise idea of a new “creation;” it may mean only an appointment to position. But the two, as a fact, coincide in this matter.—In Rom_1:20 (its only other place in N.T.) the word is used of God’s handiworks in nature.
created] A frequent word, in spiritual connexions, with St Paul. Cp. Eph_2:15, Eph_4:24; 2Co_5:17; Gal_6:15; Col_3:10. As in the sphere of nature, so in that of grace, it means essentially the making of a new state of things, whether in a Universe or a personality; implying indeed the omnipotence which originally willed the very material into existence, but not necessarily dwelling on this; rather giving the thought of first, or new, arrangement.—In practice, the thought of the sovereignty of the Worker’s will lies in the use of the word.
in Christ Jesus] The third occurrence of these words within five verses.—The Church was “created in” Him, in that its very existence as such depends on vital union with Him.
unto good works] Lit., “upon good works,” i.e., as interpreted by usage, “with a view to them.” The same construction and meaning appear Gal_5:13; 1Th_4:7 (A.V., “unto uncleanness); 2Ti_2:14 (A.V., “to the subverting”).
hath before ordained] Lit., and better, did prepare beforehand; on the ideal occasion of His planning the salvation and the function of His true Church. The phrase does not state, but surely implies, the happy truth that the Divine pre-arrangement so maps out, as it were, the duties and the sufferings of the saint that his truest wisdom and deepest peace is to “do the next thing” in the daily path, in the persuasion that it is part of a consistent plan for him. There are some admirable remarks in this direction in Monod’s Adieux à ses amis et à l’ Église, no. 14; “Le secret d’une vie sainte, active et paisible[33]”.
[33] The book has been translated, as A. Monod’s Farewell.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (10) We are his workmanship.—This verse, on the contrary,…
(10) We are his workmanship.—This verse, on the contrary, is unique and remarkable, characteristic of the idea with which this Epistle starts—the election and predestination of God, making us what we are—and applying it very strikingly, not only to the first regeneration, but even to the good works which follow it. The word rendered “workmanship” is only used elsewhere in Rom_1:20, where it is applied to the “works” of God in creation. Probably here also it does not exclude our first creation. We are His wholly and absolutely. But the next clause shows that St. Paul refers especially to the “new creation” in Christ Jesus.
Created in Christ Jesus.—This creation, when spoken of distinctively, is the “new creation” (2Co_5:17; Gal_6:15); as, indeed, is the case below (Eph_2:15), “to create in Himself . . . one new man.” In this passage, however, St. Paul dwells, not on distinction from the old creation, but rather on analogy to it; in both we are simply God’s creatures.
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Unto good works.—Properly, on the basis (or, condition) of good works (as in Gal_5:13; 1Th_4:17; 2Ti_2:14). The good works, in themselves future, being (as the next clause shows) contemplated as already existent in God’s foreknowledge, and as an inseparable characteristic of the regenerate life.
Which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.—There is, perhaps, in all Scripture, no stronger expression of the great mystery of God’s predestination; for it is here declared in reference, not only to the original call and justification and regeneration of the soul, but also to the actual good works, in which the free-will and energy of man are most plainly exercised; and in which even here we are said not to be moved, but “to walk” by our own act. In much the same sense St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Philippians (Eph_3:12-13), uses the well-known paradox, “Work out your own salvation . . . , for it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” Both truths—God’s preordination and man’s responsible freedom—are emphasised. For the reconcilement of the two we must wait till we “know even as we are known.”
(2 a.) Eph_2:11-13, resuming the thread of argument from Eph_2:7, dwell on the drawing of the Gentiles into a personal unity with God in Christ-not, however (as before), out of the deadness of sin and bondage of Satan, but rather out of the condition of alienation from God, from His covenant and His promise, in which they stood contrasted with His chosen people.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain For we are his workmanship. Another illustration and evidence…
For we are his workmanship. Another illustration and evidence of grace. We have to be fashioned anew by God before we can do anything aright. (see 2Co_5:17) Anything right in us is not the cause of grace, but its fruit. There seems to be no special reason for the change from the second to the first person. Created in Christ Jesus for good works. So little inward capacity had we for such works, that we required to be created in Christ Jesus in order that we might do them. The inward new birth of the soul is indicated. When good works were required, this gracious change had to be wrought to secure them. The purpose of the new creation is to produce them. Christ "gave himself for us, to redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people of his own, zealous of good works." It is not good works first, and grace after; but grace first, and good works after. (see Tit_2:11, Tit_2:14) Which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. A further proof of the true origin of good works. They are the subjects of a Divine decree. Before the foundation of the world it was ordained that whoever should be saved by grace should walk in good works. The term walk," here denotes the habitual tenor of the life; it is to be spent in an atmosphere of good works. Here we have one of the Divine safeguards against the abuse of the doctrine of salvation by grace. When men hear of salvation irrespective of works, they are apt to fancy that works are of little use, and do not need to be carefully attended to. On the contrary, they are part of the Divine decree, and if we are not living a life of good works, we have no reason to believe that we have been saved by grace.
God"s workmanship.
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I AS CHRISTIANS, CREATED IN CHRIST, WE ARE GOD"S WORKMANSHIP. It cannot be that our salvation comes by our works, because it is such a quickening from death to life as amounts to nothing short of a new creation, and because God is the only Creator. We only become new creatures through union with Christ, and by the grace of God that is in him. To know if this is our condition, we must see if we bear the traces of the great Worker upon our persons. God"s work must have the characteristics of good work.
1. Fitness. God finds us out of joint. He shapes us suitably for our vocation. A house without adaptation to its ends may look handsome, but it is a failure. A true Christian will not only have a saintly bearing, he will have a practical suitability for his mission.
2. Thoroughness. How thorough is God"s work in nature as seen in the microscopic organs of the smallest insects! The new creation is as thorough as the old creation. Down to every thought and fancy God shapes the character of his redeemed.
3. Beauty. The best work is graceful and fair to look upon. God"s spiritual work is adorned with the beauty of holiness.
II WE ARE THUS CREATED FOR THE PURPOSE OF DOING GOOD WORKS. Good works are more honored by the doctrine of grace than they are by the scheme of salvation by works; for in the latter they appeal only as means to an end, as stepping-stones to be left behind when the salvation as reached; but in the former they are themselves the ends, and are valued on their own account. Thus we are taught not to perform good works as an only or necessary means for securing some ulterior boon, but are invited to accept that boon just because it will enable us to do our work better. Instead of regarding the gospel as a pleasant message to show us how we may save ourselves the trouble of work, we must hear it as a trumpet-call to service. The Christian is the servant of Christ. In spiritual death we can do nothing. Salvation is quickening to a new life. The object of this life is not bare existence. All life ministers to some other life.
Spiritual life is given directly with the object of enabling us to do our work. It fails of its object if it is unfertile. The barren tree must wither, the fruitless branch must be pruned away. Purity and harmlessness are but negative graces, and are not sufficient justification for existence. The great end of being is the doing of positive good. The judgment will turn on the use we have made of our talents.
III THE WORKS FOR WHICH WE ARE CREATED HAVE BEEN PREARRANGED BY GOD. The road has been made before we have been ready to walk on it. And there is a road for every soul. Each of us has his vocation marked out for him and fixed in the ancient counsels of God. No life need be aimless since every life is provided with a mission. How may we know the mission?
1. From our talents. Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor poetry of commonplace minds, nor heroism of feeble souls. The nature of the tool proclaims its use. The hammer cannot be made to cut, nor the saw to drive nails. God"s workmanship bears on its special form the indications of its purpose. To know our work we must pray for light that we may know ourselves, or we shall fall into the common error of mistaking our inclination for our capacity and our ambition for our ability.
2. From our circumstances. God opens providential doors. Let us not refuse to enter them because they are often low and lead to humble paths. If they face us they indicate the work for which we are created, and that should suffice obedient, servants. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Eph_2:8; Eph_2:10
Eph_2:8; Eph_2:10
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.
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For we are His workmanship.
The respective places of faith and works in salvation
I. Consider now we are saved by or through faith.
1. Without faith we cannot be saved.
(1) Faith is necessary in the appointment of God.
(2) Faith is necessary in the nature of the case.
2. All who have faith will be saved. But remember, faith is not a mere assent to and profession of the truth; but such a belief as purifies the heart and governs the life.
II. Consider what place and influence works gave in our salvation.
1. In one sense our Salvation is not of works.
(1) We are not saved by works, considered as a fulfilment of the original law of nature.
(2) Nor are we saved by virtue of any works done before faith in Christ, for none of these are properly good.
2. Yet there is a sense in which good works are of absolute necessity to salvation.
(1) They are necessary as being radically included in that faith by which we are saved. A disposition to works of righteousness is as essential to faith, and therefore as necessary to salvation, as a trust in the righteousness of the Redeemer.
(2) A temper disposing us to good works is a necessary qualification for heaven.
(3) Works are necessary as evidences of our faith in Christ, and of our title to heaven.
(4) Good works essentially belong to religion.
(5) Works are necessary to adorn our professions and honour our religion before men.
(6) Works are necessary, as by them we are to be judged in the great day of the Lord.
III. The necessity of works does not diminish the grace of God in our salvation, nor afford us any pretence for boasting. The whole scheme of redemption originated in Gods self-moving mercy. And our spiritual services are acceptable only by Jesus Christ, not by their own intrinsic worth. Practical reflections:
1. Humility essentially belongs to the Christian temper.
2. The mighty preparation which God has made for our recovery, from ruin teaches us that the human race is of great importance in the scale of rational beings, and in the scheme of Gods universal government.
3. It infinitely concerns us to comply with the proposals of the gospel.
4. Let no man flatter himself that he is in a state of salvation as long as he neglects good works. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)
The source and way of salvation
The Christian salvation may be divided into three parts: the salvation which delivers us from sin and its consequences; the salvation which restores us to the favour, image, and communion of God; and the salvation which preserves us amidst all the temptations and dangers of our present state until we reach the heavenly kingdom. Yet the salvation itself is but one. Its several parts are inseparably united to each other; and they form that mighty scheme which excludes all evil and involves all good, which fills time with peace and eternity with triumph.
I. The source from which our salvation flows is grace--the grace of God.
1. It is the grace of God which gave origin and existence to the scheme of our salvation by the death of the Messiah.
2. It is the grace of God which has given execution or accomplishment to the scheme of our Christian salvation.
3. It is the grace of God which gives application and effect to this scheme of salvation.
II. The way in which the Christian salvation is to be obtained--through faith.
1. An exceedingly plain and simple way.
2. A divinely appointed way.
3. A humiliating way.
4. A holy and practical way. (John Hannah, D. D.)
Salvation of God through faith
If we drew out, in order, the teaching of these verses, it would perhaps fall into something like the following statements. That an affection in the Divine nature is the primary cause of human salvation--By grace ye are saved. This affection of God is apprehended by the creatures faith--By grace ye are saved through faith. Though the creatures faith is his own, by the free consent and voluntary exercise of his own heart and mind, nevertheless, in its principle and operation, it is the work of God--not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Mans salvation, instead of consisting in a single act of God, is His most patient work--For we are His workmanship. With respect to our new nature, which is the work of God, Jesus Christ is our father Adam--We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. This new nature gives evidence of itself by a corresponding excellence of character--We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. These good works are adequately provided for by a prearranged plan of God, and by the nourishment of our new nature in His Son--Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before prepared that we should walk in them. We must consent to it with our whole heart, that our salvation from first to last is of God and by God. (John Pulsford.)
Salvation
1. Look at salvation in its origin--it is by grace.
2. Look at it in its reception--it is through faith.
3. Look at it in the manner of its conferment--it is a gift. (J. Eadie, D. D.)
Saved by grace
It is a very important word surely, that word saved. It brings before our minds the most solemn consideration that we can possibly be occupied with. Nothing is nearer to us than our own souls; hence there is nothing more important than that we should not lose those souls of ours. Some of us love our money dearly, but what is money to our soul? Some of us love our friends very dearly, but we shall have to part company with them. Some of us love the pleasures of life dearly. What is it to be saved? Before we can answer that question, we must ask another: What is it to be in danger? If I were to meet one of you strolling along the road, and rushed up to you with frantic eagerness, and seized you by the arm, and said, My dear friend, do let me save you! you would think I had come out of a lunatic asylum, and would wish that I were back there again. Nobody in his senses would address his neighbour in that way, under such circumstances. But supposing we were at Brighton together, and I was walking along the Esplanade, and, looking out to sea, saw you in a little cockle shell boat, tossing about on the waves, and, by and by, I saw that boat go over, and you sinking in the sea; and suppose I stripped off my clothes, and sprang into the water, and swam out to you, and as I drew near, you heard me shout, Will you let me save you? would you be astonished at my asking you the question, under such circumstances. Then that brings before us this conclusion--we only want a Saviour when we are in danger. Before the Lord Jesus Christ is of any use to us as a Saviour, we must endeavour to realize what our danger is. Let us, then, try and discover what it arises from. It is not a pleasant thing to think that we are in danger, is it? There is one way of getting away from the sense of danger, that is to trifle with Gods truth, and persuade ourselves that danger is not danger. We flatter ourselves that all is safe, when all the time, in the sight of God, we are in a state of terrible danger. Now, I want to point out to you that, so far from that making matters better, it only makes them worse. If I was wandering out near some of your cliffs, on a night dark as pitch, so that I could not see my hand before my face, I should be in a state of great danger. If I knew that there were sharp precipices descending to the sea, three or four hundred feet, I should be on the look out for them, feeling my way carefully with a walking stick, if I had one, doing all I could to avoid falling over the precipices and being dashed to pieces. But supposing I did not know that there were any precipices in the neighbourhood, and I said to myself, I have only to walk along this moor, and, sooner or later, I shall get to the place I want to reach, how should I walk then? Although it was dark, I should step out bravely; if I had only so much as a single star to direct me, or a light in the distance, I should steer my course by it, and I should go on, probably, till I came to the edge of the precipice, and, taking a false step, should go over. Do you not see that if we are in danger it is far better for us to know that we are in danger than to think that we are in safety? Now, I cannot help thinking that there are some of us in this double danger: first of all, we are in danger because we are sinners; and, in the second place, we are in danger because we do not think that we are sinners; or, if we think that we are sinners at all, we think so little about it that we really do not feel the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and therefore do not tremble at the thought of what sin must bring. And what does our danger proceed from? It proceeds from the fact that sin has entered our nature. Let us look at a consumptive patient. He is walking down the lane with a brisk step, and is not so very unhealthy looking. You ask him how he is. Oh, he says, he is not so particularly bad; he has got a cold, but he is going to shake it off. You look at him carefully; you are a doctor, and you know about such things; you see the hectic flush on his cheek, a certain appearance in his complexion that alarms you: there is a ring in his cough that seems to tell of something fatally wrong. What is the matter with him? He is in terrible danger, he does not know it, but he is none the less in danger. What is it makes him in danger? A disease has taken hold of his body. Somewhere in the lungs there is a formation taking place; he cannot see it, but its effects begin to manifest themselves. There is a poison within the blood, so to speak, and the man is doomed; in all probability, in the course of a few months, you will see him laid on a bed of languor and wretchedness, and in a few months more he will be carried to his grave, a wasted corpse, the terrible disease having done its work! Now, sin is a disease of the soul. The question is not whether the disease has been largely developed, or whether it is only just beginning to develop itself! the point is, Is the disease there? Has it begun its fatal work? If it has, then you are in terrible danger. If I were drowning off Brighton sands, and a man came along the Parade, with a multitude of medals of the Royal Humane Society on his breast, indicating the number of lives he had saved; if I cried out to him, Come and help me! and he replied, Oh! I am a saviour, I have saved lots of people, I should say, Save me; yea are of no use to me unless you save me; I am drowning; dont talk of how many you have saved, but save me. Then suppose he said, Hope on; perhaps I will think about it by and by, and then went on and left me drowning, would that be any considerable consolation to me? Suppose he had said, Perhaps, by and by, when you have gone under water three or four times more, and lost all consciousness, and you think you are dying, I will take it into consideration whether I will save you, would that be a comfort to me? Would you like to have such a saviour as that? Now, when I have this terrible disease of sin upon me, what I want is a Saviour who will save me now, who will bring me into a state of conscious salvation, or safety--for that is the meaning of the word in plain English. Can we get such a Saviour? We can. The Saviour revealed in the gospel is a Saviour who comes down to me, and lays hold of me as I am sinking in the jaws of death, and puts me in a position of safety, so that I tan look round triumphantly, and say as the apostle said, Being justified by faith, I have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now I come back to the old question. We have seen what the danger is, and we have seen what the salvation is; now we come to ask--How is a man to be saved? What is it that will save him? The apostle makes a very clear statement here--By grace are ye saved. What does grace mean? There is not a child here who does not know. By favour, by Gods free kindness towards us. We do not deserve any favour, do we? If you knew a man who had been robbing and injuring you, trampling on your rights, and rebelling against your will, that is not the man you would choose to do a favour to, naturally. Well, that is just how we have treated God; we have been robbing Him of all that He has most a claim to; robbing Him of our time, of our money, of our influence; rebelling against His laws, turning our back upon His love, playing the part of base ingrates against His mercy. We have no claim upon Gods favour. Now, says the apostle, the grace of God which brings salvation to every man hath appeared. Now, I want you to know, dear friends, that that grace floods this sin-stricken world like a glorious tide. Wherever it reaches a human heart, it brings salvation to our very door. There is not one of you who is not included in this assertion of the apostle, The grace of God, which bringeth salvation to every man, hath appeared. You may bring the biggest nugget of gold in the world to my door; there it may be outside on a wheelbarrow, and I may be inside dying of starvation; the nugget will do me no good if I do not take it in: if I do not turn it into money, and apply it to the satisfaction of my wants, I shall be as badly off as if the nugget had never been presented to me at all. The glorious gift of salvation is brought to our doors, and the question is, Have we taken it into our hearts? Now, my brother, God will either give you salvation, or else you shall never have it; it shall be His free gift, accepted by you for nothing, or else it shall never be yours; so if you are going to purchase it by your tears, your repentance, your good works, your good resolutions, or your faith--if you come and offer God such terms, you will simply have to go empty away. It is an insult to a man to offer him money in payment for a gift, is it not! Supposing I were to go home to Lord Chichester tonight, and he were to make me a handsome present; suppose he said, That splendid clock, worth a couple of hundred guineas, is to be yours, if you will accept it, and suppose I put my hand into my pocket, and said, My lord, I should like to pay something towards it, will you accept sixpence? How would he feel? It would be a great insult to him, would it not? If I received it gratefully, and thanked him for it, I should be pleased, and he would be pleased; I should be the gainer, and he would have the pleasure of making me a handsome present; but if I insisted on paying my sixpence, it would make a mess of it all; probably he would be offended with me, and I with him, and we should part enemies instead of friends. That may serve to bring before you how ridiculous it is to try and buy Gods salvation with anything. If you pay so much as a single tear for your salvation, it spoils the whole arrangement. Do I mean that you are not to shed tears? No, no. By all means, if God has given you oceans of tears, shed them, but not to purchase salvation. If God has given you all the sorrow and penitence that ever racked the human heart, there is no objection to that, but do not offer it for salvation. If God gives you the strongest faith that ever moved in the human soul, exercise it, but do not bring it in payment for salvation. That is wholly and solely the gift of God. Is it not a glorious gift? (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
The freeness of grace and love
I. It is a great matter and of infinite concernment to be saved and to go to heaven forever. For--
1. You are thereby saved from wrath to come. Yea--
2. You shall be delivered from all sorrow, both inward and outward; and if so, how blessed and happy are you, for you shall die in the Lord.
3. You shall not only be freed from these troubles, but you shall also be brought into a possession, into an inheritance that is incorruptible, that fadeth not away.
4. If you go to heaven and be saved, you shall then be filled with glory. If you have but a little taste of glory here, you are ready to break under it, under a little glory; but the time will come when you shall be filled with glory, and your hearts shall bear up under it; your bodies shall be changed; you shall be filled with glory, soul and body both.
5. If you be saved, your graces shall be always in act, always in exercise; your understandings shall be fully enlightened, your difficulties shall be removed, and your wills, hearts, and affections shall be drawn out to God with infinite satisfaction and infinite delight.
6. If you be saved, you shall have the knowledge of the continuance of this condition.
II. But in what way does a man come to this attainment? How and in what way is a man saved? Why, in a way of free love and grace; for, if God bestow anything in a way of gift, it is free, for what is more free than gift? Now do but consider what these things are which are called in Scripture, salvation; and you may observe that they all come in a way of gift. Sometimes salvation is put for the Author of salvation, Jesus Christ (Luk_2:29-30). Sometimes salvation is put for eternal glory. Who would have all men to be saved, both Jew and Gentile. And this salvation is the gift of God too. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom_6:23). Now salvation, as to the Author of it, as to the means of it, and as to the salvation itself; it is all of free grace.
III. But you will say, If it be so, that by free grace we are saved, then why need we use the means of salvation; you say we are saved by grace, by free grace, wherefore then need we endeavour? Yes, we are to endeavour: do you not use your endeavour to get your daily bread? and yet that is the gift of God.
IV. Wherein doth the freeness of the grace of God appear in the matter of our salvation? There is a great deal of free grace in this, that God should ordain us to eternal life and salvation (2Ti_1:9). Yet, further, it is in the matter of our salvation, as it is in the matter of our consolation and comfort; and as I said of that, so I say also of this: That the greater and the more glorious any mercy is, and the more worthy and great the person is that giveth it, and the more unworthy the person is that receives it, the more doth the grace of him appear who giveth it; now what greater mercy, what more glorious mercy, than heaven and salvation? It is called the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven; it is called the kingdom of glory, and eternal glory; it is called joy, enter into the joy of our Lord: and great is the joy of our Lord; that joy which was set before Christ, that is the joy of the saints in heaven. Now, what are the arches and pillars of free grace and love, upon which our salvation under Christ is laid? I shall name some of them. The absoluteness of the covenant. That God justifies the ungodly. Thus our righteousness is not in us, but in Christ. That the guilt of our sins by which we lay liable to condemnation is removed. That a little sincerity covers a great deal of infirmity. That what God calls ours is not indeed ours, but Gods, as our graces, our duties, which are not indeed ours but Gods. That God will in due time glorify us and honour us. Sin doth provoke God and cause Him to be angry with us, but grace doth provoke Him to love us; and, therefore, the pillars of our salvation are laid under Christ upon grace, upon free grace and love: and thereby the freeness of the grace of God doth the more appear in the matter of our salvation.
V. Salvation is a work of grace; and seeing we are saved by grace alone, why then doth God choose to save men in this way of free grace? I answer, It is because this is the most honourable way unto God. If there was somewhat of the good pleasure of God in the worlds condemnation, all the reason in the world then that there should be free grace in the way of salvation. Pray, how came Adam to stand for the whole world? He was not chosen by us, why it was the good pleasure of God that he should stand for the whole world, and that he sinning, we should be all guilty of sin by, and through him: so, I say, if there was, as I may speak with reverence, somewhat of the good pleasure of God in the old worlds condemnation, why then should there not be free grace in the souls salvation. God would have heaven and salvation to be of one piece; He would have the work of heaven to be the same; now there were many angels that fell, and many thousands that stood, why how came they to stand that did stand, more than the others that fell? it was only by free grace, they were elect angels. Now men and angels in heaven are of the same choir and sing the same song; and therefore those men that are saved, oh, who are they? why they are the elect, and they have great cause to glorify the grace, the free grace of God. God saves men in a way of free love and grace, because none shall miss of salvation. As God will punish and condemn all the proud, all the wicked, that none shall escape; so He will also save all that He hath a mind to save, by free grace because they shall not miss of salvation. God will save men in such a way as whereby He may be glorified to all eternity, and therefore He saves them in a way of free grace and love; for what have we to praise God for in heaven, but only for free grace, free grace, to glorify His name for that; therefore, I say, God will save men in this way of free love and grace, that He may be thereby glorified hereafter to all eternity. (W. Bridge.)
Salvation all of grace
We see a golden thread of grace running through the whole of the Christians history, from his election before all worlds, even to his admission to the heaven of rest. Grace, all along, reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, and where sin aboundeth, grace doth much more abound.
I. This doctrine should inspire every sinner with hope.
1. If salvation be of mercy only, it is clear that our sin is by no means an impediment to our salvation.
(1) This prevents the despair which might arise in any heart on account of some one especial sin. Undeserved mercy can pardon one sin as well as another, if the soul confess it. The great sinner is so much the fitter object for great mercy--a black foil to set forth the brilliant diamond of the Masters grace.
(2) If the sinners despair should arise from the long continuance, multitude, and great aggravation of his sins, there is no ground for it. For if salvation be of pure mercy only, why should not God forgive ten thousand sins as well as one? Oh, sayest thou, I see why He should not. Then thou seest more than is true; for once come to grace, you have done with bounds and limits.
2. Remember, too, that any spiritual unfitness which may exist in a man should not shut him out from a hope, since God deals with us in mercy. I hear you say, I believe God can save me, but I am so impenitent. Yes, and I say it again, if thou wert to stand on terms of debt with God, thy hard heart would shut thee out of hope. How could He bless such a wretch as thou art, whose heart is a heart of stone? But if He deal with thee entirely upon another ground, namely, His mercy, why I think I hear Him say, Poor hard-hearted sinner, I will pity thee, and take away thy heart of stone, and give thee a heart of flesh. Do I hear thee confess that thou canst not believe? Now, the absence of faith from thee is a great evil, yea a horrible evil; but then the Lord is dealing with thee on terms of grace, and does not say, I will not smite thee because thou dost net believe, but He saith, I will give thee faith, for faith is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
II. This doctrine affords direction to the sinner, as to how to act before his God in seeking mercy. Clearly, O soul, if salvation he of grace alone, it would be a very wrong course of action to plead that thou art not guilty, or to extenuate thy faults before God. Take care that all your pleas with God are consistent with the fact that He saves by His grace. Never bring a legal plea, or a plea that is based upon self, for it will be an offence to God; whereas, if thine argument be based on grace, it will have a sweet savour to Him. Let me teach thee, seeking sinner, for a moment how to pray. Plead with God thy miserable and undone condition; tell Him that thou art utterly lost if He do not save thee. Show Him the imminence of thy danger. Then argue with Him the plenteousness of His grace, Say to Him, Lord, Thy mercy is very great, I know it is.
III. A full conviction of this truth will reconcile. Our hearts to all Divine ordinances with regard to salvation. I feel in my own heart, and I think every believer here does, that if salvation be of grace, God must do as He wills with His own. None of us can say to Him, What doest Thou? If there were anything of debt, or justice, or obligation, in the matter, then we might begin to question God; but as there is none, and the thing is quite out of court as to law, and far away from rights and claims, as it is all Gods free favour, we will henceforth stop our mouths and never question Him. As to the instrument by whom He saves, let Him save by the coarsest speaker, or by the most eloquent; let Him do what seemeth Him good.
IV. A most powerful motive for future holiness. A man who feels that he is saved by grace says, Did God of His free favour blot out my sins? Then, oh, how I love Him. Was it nothing but His love that saved an undeserving wretch. Then my soul is knit to Him forever. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Salvation by grace
I. Definition of grace. Grace has been too often represented in forms which dishonoured the righteousness of God, and were unfriendly to the righteousness of man. In our modern religious language it occurs less frequently than in the language of our fathers. But the word is too precious to be surrendered. Among the Greeks it stood for all that is most winning in personal loveliness, for the nameless fascination of a beauty which is not cold and remote but irresistibly attractive and charming. It was also used for that warm, free handed, and spontaneous generosity which is kind where there is no claim or merit, and kind without hope of return; a disposition lovely in itself, and winning the admiration and affection of all who witness it. This beautiful word, with all its beautiful associations, has been exalted and transfigured in its Christian uses.
1. Grace transcends love. Love may be nothing more than the fulfilment of the law. We love God, who deserves our love. We are required to love our neighbour, and we cannot refuse to love him without guilt. But grace is love which passes beyond all claims to love. It is love which, after fulfilling the obligations imposed by law, has an unexhausted wealth of kindness.
2. Grace transcends mercy. Mercy forgives sin, and rescues the sinner from eternal darkness and death. But grace floods with affection the sinner who has deserved anger and resentment, trusts penitent treachery with a confidence which could not have been merited by ages of incorruptible fidelity, confers on a race which had been in revolt honours which no loyalty could have purchased, on the sinful joy beyond the deserts of saintliness.
3. Grace transcends majesty. The eternal righteousness of God is that which constitutes His dignity and majesty, makes Him venerable and august; but His grace adds to His dignity an infinite loveliness, to His majesty an ineffable charm, blends with the awe and devout fear with which we worship Him a happy confidence, and with our veneration a passionate affection.
II. Achievement of grace. Our salvation is the achievement of Gods grace: this is the central thought of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Gods free, spontaneous lave for us, resolved that we who sprang from the dust, and might have passed away and perished like the falling leaves after a frail and brief existence, should share through a glorious immortality the sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ. God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love; He blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. This was the wonderful idea of human greatness and destiny which was formed by the grace of God. The race declined from the lofty path designed for it by the Divine goodness. But as by the grace of God Christ was to be the root of our righteousness and blessedness, and as the ground and reason of our ethical and spiritual greatness were in Him, so in Christ God has revealed the root, the ground, the reason of our redemption. We have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of Gods grace. There is nothing abnormal in the forgiveness of our sin being the result of Christs death; all our possible righteousness was to be the fruit of the perfection and energy of His eternal life. The original idea of the Divine grace, according to which we were to find all things in Christ, and Christ was to be the root of a perfection and glory surpassing all hope and all thought, was tragically asserted in the death of Christ for human salvation. Our fortunes--shall I say it?--were identified with the fortunes of Christ; in the Divine thought and purpose we were inseparable from Him. Had we been true and loyal to the Divine idea, the energy of Christs righteousness would have drawn us upwards to height after height of goodness and joy, until we ascended from this earthly life to the larger powers and loftier services and richer delights of other and diviner worlds; and still, through one golden age of intellectual and ethical and spiritual growth after another, we should have continued to rise towards Christs transcendent and infinite perfection. But we sinned; and as the union between Christ and us could not be broken without the final and irrevocable defeat of the Divine purpose, as separation from Christ meant for us eternal death, Christ was drawn down from the serene heavens to the shame and sorrow of the confused and troubled life of our race, to pain, to temptation, to anguish, to the cross and to the grave, and so the mystery of His atonement for our sin was consummated. In His sufferings and death, through the infinite grace of God, we find forgiveness, as in the power of His righteousness and as in His great glory we find the possibilities of all perfection. Our union with Him is not dissolved. Through His death we receive forgiveness, through His death we die to the sin which brought the death upon Him; and in His resurrection and ascension we see the visible manifestation of that eternal life which we have already received, and which will some day be manifested in us as it has been manifested in Him. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
Gods grace and mans salvation
1. The ground of all our salvation is the free favour of God. Much comfort for us in this; for if our salvation be of mere grace, and depend not on our own worth, endeavour, and holiness, why should we fear? If it were for anything in us to be procured, we might utterly despair; but since it is of God, we may boldly accept, and confidently trust in this free grace of God, although we are unworthy of it. It is not true humility, but a foolish pride, to put away, and judge ourselves unworthy of this salvation, whereof it has pleased God (in rich mercy) to deem us worthy.
2. To the full glorifying of us in heaven, all is from the free, mere grace of God. He does nothing by halves. What He has begun, He will complete (Php_1:6).
3. Gods grace and mans faith ever stand together (Gal_3:22; Joh_3:16). To this it may be objected that the grace of God cannot stand with anything in man. How then (you will ask) can it stand with faith? Answer: It is true, that the grace of God does not brook anything inherent in man, and of man; and yet, notwithstanding, it may well agree with faith. For
(1) Faith is not of man, no, not in man by nature; but it is in man renewed, and as a gift of mere grace.
(2) Faith does not justify, as it is an inherent quality in us, but as it apprehends Christ Jesus the Redeemer.
(3) Faith receives only, and shows to God the righteousness and merit of Christ.
(4) It is therefore the Lords grace that accepts faith for the righteousness of the believer.
4. No power in man can quicken him; and no virtue, quality, or dignity, when he is quickened, can merit his salvation. (Paul Bayne.)
Salvation by the sovereign love and free grace of God
I. Salvation.
1. We are delivered from death. So long as we continued under the impending curse, there was nothing due to us but death. Death temporal, spiritual, and eternal, were all included in the threatening. Death temporal is the separation of the soul from the body. Death spiritual is the separation of the soul from God. And death eternal is the separation of both soul and body from God forever. But from all these we are saved. Death temporal, no doubt, performs its work, but it is not now penal; in its rapacity to devour it caught Jesus, but He was too mighty for death! He overcame it, and left it vanquished in the grave; so that it is now in the hand of the Mediator, converted into a mean for bringing His saints to glory. And spiritual death shall have no dominion over us; now and then, indeed, we may experience a compunction of conscience and a pang of mind, because we carry about with us bodies of sin and death. But these shall no longer prove destructive, but are all so many incentives to bring us to Jesus, and to cause us to rely upon Him more fully. And death eternal shall have no place; whenever the soul is set free from the body, that moment shall it be in paradise, carried by the angels, and so shall it be forever with the Lord.
2. We are delivered from the love of sin. By the covenant transgression of Adam, there is a sinful bias given to our minds. Because we have broken the law, there is a deep-rooted enmity in our hearts to all that is holy; and we cannot think of returning to God, for that would be calling our sins to remembrance, and setting before our face the curse which awaits us from an offended Judge. But when we obtain salvation from the Lord, we have no more desire for sin. But now does the Lord become the supreme object of our delight. We see in Him a beauty and an all-sufficiency suited to give true comfort to the saint, something which is congenial to our celestial part, and which in life and in death continues alike calculated to give deliverance, and to present with a crown of glory.
3. We are saved from the power of sin; for whom we serve, His we are.
4. We are saved from the practice of sin.
II. The source whence this salvation flows. The sovereign love and free grace of God.
1. The sovereign love and free grace of God are the source of salvation; because when man had sinned, and all the clouds of wrath were thickening around him, and all the thunders of Jehovahs justice were ready to burst around mans guilty head, it remained with God to manifest whether justice should take its course, or He would stretch out His strong arm to deliver; whether He would be reconciled to man, or punish him according to his iniquities, by everlastingly secluding him from His presence. And, until the decree was declared, there must have been a solemn pause, as if the pulse of nature stood. All the angels in glory must have looked on with intense interest, and devils must have trembled in dire suspense for the declaration of the Divine will, which made fully known whether man was to be restored to the favour of his God, or eternally to expiate his guilt, by bearing the punishment due to his crimes. And, at that all-important moment, in the riches of His grace, and gave the intimation of His pleasure, Deliver from going down to the pit; for I will be merciful.
2. The sovereign love and free grace of God are the source of salvation, inasmuch as, in the bowels of His compassion, God so loved the world, that He gave the Son of His bosom for the sin of mans soul, and thus provided a ransom. When the rebellion of man had plunged him into the depth of distress, and he was altogether helpless as an infant abandoned in the open field, then did God make known the Deliverer. This no ingenuity of man could ever have discovered, nor could the united prowess of the human race ever have procured the Mediator.
3. The sovereign love and free grace of God are the source of salvation, inasmuch as salvation can be applied to the soul only by the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit. Paul may plant, and Apollos may water; but God alone can give the increase. There is both a natural and a moral inability about man to prevent him from being saved. His moral inability lies in the utter perversion of his will; he has no desire for that which is good; but his whole affections are set on things which are evil, and his natural inability lies in the utter incompetency of created capacity to change itself.
III. The medium through which salvation is applied to the souls of men. Faith.
1. Faith, in the case of the saint, is the same thing which is known in the world by the name of belief, and signifies the assent of the mind to the truth of some statement, so as to act upon the belief of what is said to us.
2. Salvation is by grace when applied to our souls through faith, because faith neither flows from intrinsic worth in us, nor does it beget in our hearts any principle, upon the ground of which we can merit salvation.
3. Salvation through faith is by grace; because, even when we are made to believe, faith gives no remuneration to God for what we receive.
I shall now conclude this discourse with a few remarks.
1. From what has been said, learn the humility with which this subject ought to inspire us. Is all by grace? Then let us come to God, humbled in heart and soul, and entreat of Him that He would make us participants of His free favour; that He would put down every high thought, and every haughty imagination, which exalteth itself; that we may be enabled to say, Not unto us, O God; not unto us, but to Thy name be the glory.
2. From this subject, learn the duty of living in complete obedience to the holy will of God. In this passage there is no mention made of the world, nor of the things of the world; but salvation is the whole theme of the verse, and that is certainly calculated to direct our attention from time unto eternity.
3. From this subject learn the complete disappointment which all those shall receive who trust to the law for the salvation of their souls.
4. From this subject learn the firm footing upon which believers stand. The foundation of their hope is placed upon Christ, who is the Rock of ages, and the pillar and ground of the truth. (R. Montgomery.)
Bishop Ryles conversion
Bishop Ryle, of Liverpool, was converted, when an undergraduate in Oxford, by the eighth verse of the second chapter of Ephesians, which was read in his hearing in church in the second lesson, with a pause between each clause by a stranger whose name he never knew.
We are saved by grace only
Mr. Maclaren and Mr. Gustart were both ministers at the Tolbooth Church, Edinburgh. When Mr. Maclaren was dying, Mr. Gustart paid him a visit, and put the question to him, What are you doing, brother? His answer was, Ill tell you what Im doing, brother: I am gathering together all my prayers, all my sermons, all my good deeds, all my evil deeds; and I am going to throw them all overboard, and swim to glory on the plank of free grace.
We are saved by faith--not of ourselves
It is not what I do that I trust in, but what Christ has done for me. Youve been down the shaft into the mine, sir. This will help me to tell you what I mean. For a long time I was trying to do what was right--to live as I ought to; and so was trusting to my own works for salvation. But all the while I felt as if I was still down at the bottom of the shaft. All I could do didnt get me out of the pit. Then God showed me that all my righteousness was but filthy rags, as the Bible says. But how was I to get out of the shaft? Why, at last I found that the only way out of the deep mine into which sin had brought us was to do just as I do when I want to get out of the coal mine. To do this, I have only to get into the bucket when it comes down, and trust to the men at the windlass to draw me out. And so I find it is about my soul. I cant draw myself out of the pit; but I trust in Jesus, and leave it all to Him. (D. L. Moody.)
Saved
There was, some years ago, a shipwreck on the Cornish coast. The wind was blowing an awful gale; no lifeboat was near, but a pilot boat, with a brave crew, put out to rescue the perishing. The ship was on a sand bank, and the pilot boat got alongside her, and as the waves ran higher and higher, the sailors, one after another, sprang from the ship on to the deck of the boat, till there was but one left on the sinking vessel, and just as he was in the act of springing, a tremendous billow struck the ship on her broadside; she heeled over, and the returning wave swept the pilot boat back to a considerable distance. At that moment a scream was heard from the stern of the pilot boat. A hoary-headed man, with tears starting from his eyes, and agony depicted on his countenance, was heard to cry out, Captain, for Gods sake, save my boy I save my boy! It was his only son who was in the sinking ship. And as his cry rose, there was another voice to meet it; from the sinking vessel there came back a shout clear and strong amidst the tumult of the tempest, Never mind, father; thank God, I am saved. They were the last words he ever spoke. Another moment the mighty billows swept him away, and his soul was in eternity, in the very bosom of its God. Could you have said what that young man said? Could you have said, Thank God, I am saved? Perhaps you say, No, I could not. Then dont sleep tonight until you can. What! may you have it tonight? Yes, the gift is at your door. How am I to have it? Trust Jesus for it. Take that poor weary soul of yours, and lay it in His hand. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
Salvation by grace
I. Set forth mans state by nature, and show that there could be nothing in him to move God to bestow so great a gift upon him.
II. Such being mans stare by nature, it is manifest that salvation must be entirely of free grace. (R. Shutte, M. A.)
Salvation a gift
Once there was a poor woman who greatly desired a bunch of grapes from the kings greenhouse for her sick child; so she took half a crown, and went to the kings gardener, and tried to purchase the grapes, but was rudely sent away. A second effort with more money met with a similar repulse. It so happened that the kings daughter heard the angry words of the gardener, and the crying of the poor woman, and inquired into the matter. When she had related her story, the princess said, My good woman, you were mistaken. My father is not a merchant, but a king: his business is not to sell, but to give; whereupon she plucked a fine bunch from the vine, and gently dropped it into the womans apron. So the poor woman obtained as a free gift what the labour of many days and nights had been unable to procure for her.
Gods gift
As the earth engendereth not rain, nor is able, by its own strength, labour, or travail, to procure the same, but receiveth it of the mere gift of God from above, even so faith, grace, forgiveness of sins, and Christian righteousness, are given us of God without our works or deservings. (Cawdray.)
How we are saved
It is evident that the first intention of these words is to show what a very, very easy thing it is to be saved if we would only take it rightly. And secondly, to take away all the honour and all the desert from those who are saved, and to place it where all belongs--on God only. But now I come to a very important part. Let us be careful, very careful, here to discriminate and see clearly the distinction. Remember what we are speaking about. We are not speaking about holiness! We are not speaking about going to heaven; we are speaking only of being saved. We are speaking of the initiatory step, of the becoming a Christian; of the entrance into a life of holiness, and of safety. Remember that is what the word salvation means. It means no less, and it means no more. Being safe! Still it is only safety, only safety! There is a great deal to be done after that. Conflict; love; prayer; penitence; conversion of heart; sanctification; a useful life; a brightness in death; a brightness in heaven. In all these, indeed, it is still God who works in you to do it; but still you do it, you do it. You work out the grace of the salvation which God has given you; but for your pardon, for your safety, you do nothing at all, but simply accept it. You accept it. More than that--the power to accept it, the will to accept it--they are given you. The triple chain of salvation has three links, and no more--grace, faith, safety. Then come afterwards--love, holiness, heaven. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Faith: its meaning, source, and power
I. The nature of faith. Faith, in ordinary language, means the assent of the understanding to some statement as true--propounded upon the authority of another. It seems, however, in Scripture to be most commonly used in a somewhat more extensive sense, as comprehending what in strictness (metaphysical correctness) might be regarded rather as consequences of faith than as faith itself. Saving faith, according to the views of it given in Scripture, may be described as such an assent to the doctrines of the gospel as leads men to receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation, and to submit themselves entirely to His authority.
II. How faith is produced. Faith implies certain objects presented to our minds--a capacity to perceive, and a disposition to attend to them, and to act under their influence. Now, in regard to the faith of the gospel, God both given us the objects, and enables us to perceive them. Faith, therefore, is His gift, not merely in the sense in which any other ordinary exercise of our faculties is His gift, but in a higher and more peculiar manner. It is God who sets before us those objects which faith embraces, and without which it could never have existence. We had known nothing of God unless He had chosen to reveal Himself to us. We have no certain knowledge of His character except what He is pleased to acquaint us with. We could have known absolutely nothing of Jesus Christ, who is the great Object of Faith--of all that He has done and suffered for us--of the whole scheme of redemption that is founded upon His work, and of the covenant of grace that is sealed with His blood--of the authority which He now exercises, and of the great and glorious purposes to which the exercise of that authority is directed--unless God had seen fit, not only to bring all these important results into existence, but to transmit them to us in His Word. We could have learned nothing of the future and unseen world, unless God had undertaken to remove the veil that conceals it, and open it up to our view. Thus there would have been no objects for our faith; and of course faith could never have existed unless God had made revelation of Himself, of His character, and ways--unless He had brought certain events to pass, and then made them known to us. But faith appears still further to be Gods gift, from this, that men are naturally indisposed to attend to the objects set before them in the sacred Scriptures, and, according to the principles of our natural constitution, there can be no clear knowledge of anything without some degree of attention being directed towards it; whilst without clear knowledge there can be no sound and rational faith.
III. The effect of faith as uniting us to Christ, and thus saving the soul. Now, when a man believes in Christ, he is, according to Gods appointment, united to Him. There is a union formed between them. God regards him as if he were Christ, and treats him as if he had suffered the full punishment for his sins which Christ endured in his room--as if he had in his own person performed that full and perfect obedience to the Divine law which our Saviours conduct exhibited. It is this imputation of Christs sufferings and of His righteousness--or, as it is often called, of His active and passive obedience--it is this communion of suffering and of merit, in which the union of believers with Christ mainly consists; and this union and communion with Him is the foundation of their salvation, in all its parts and in all its aspects. Viewing them thus, as united to Christ, as one with Him--God bestows upon them the blessings which Christ purchased for all who should believe on His name; they obtain through faith the forgiveness of their sins, acceptance with God as righteous persons, the renovation and sanctification of their natures, and, finally, an inheritance among them that are sanctified. Christ is the great Head of Influence; all spiritual blessings are the fruits of His purchase; it is only by abiding in Him that we are enabled to bring forth fruits unto eternal life: as it is written (Joh_15:5), I am the Vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. You see now the great importance of faith in the salvation of sinners. It is the instrument by means of which we receive everything necessary to our peace. None can be saved without it, and every one who has it will assuredly be saved. (W. Cunningham, D. D.)
Faith: what is it? how can it be obtained?
Faith occupies the position of a channel or conduit pipe. Grace is the fountain and the stream: faith is the acqueduct along which the flood of mercy flows down to refresh the thirsty sons of men. It is a great pity when the acqueduct is broken. It is a sad sight to see around Rome the many noble acqueducts which no longer convey water into the city, because the arches are broken and the marvellous structures are in ruins. The acqueduct must be kept entire to convey the current; and, even so, faith must be true and sound, leading right up to God, and coming right down to ourselves, that it may become a serviceable channel of ,mercy to our souls. Still, I again remind you that faith is the channel or acqueduct, and not the fountain head, and we must not look so much to it as to exalt it above the Divine source of all blessing which lies in the grace of God. Never make a Christ out of your faith, nor think of it as if it were the independent source of your salvation.
I. Faith: what is it? What is this faith concerning which it is said, By grace are ye saved through faith? What is faith? It is made up of three things--knowledge, belief, and trust.
1. Knowledge comes first. Know God, know His gospel, and know especially Christ Jesus, the Son of God and Saviour of men. Endeavour to know the doctrine of the sacrifice of Christ, for that is the point upon which saving faith mainly fixes itself.
2. Then the mind goes on to believe that these things are true. The soul believes that God is, and that He hears the cries of sincere hearts; that the gospel is from God; that justification by faith is the grand truth that God hath revealed in these last days by His Spirit more clearly than before. Then the heart believes that Jesus is verily and in truth our God and Saviour, the Redeemer of men, the prophet, priest, and king unto His people.
3. So far you have made an advance towards faith, and one more ingredient is needed to complete it, which is trust. Trust is the life blood of faith: there is no saving faith without it. The Puritans were accustomed to explain faith by the word recumbency. You know what it means. You see me leaning upon this rail, leaning with all my weight upon it; even thus lean upon Christ. It would be a better illustration still if I were to stretch myself at full length and rest my whole person upon a rock, lying fiat upon it. Fall flat upon Christ. Cast yourself upon Him, rest in Him, commit yourself to Him. That done, you have exercised saving faith. Faith is not a blind thing; for faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It is not an unpractical, dreamy thing; for faith trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation.
II. Let us inquire, why faith is selected as the channel of salvation?
1. There is a natural adaptation in faith to be used as the receiver. Suppose that I am about to give a poor man an alms: I put it into his hand--why? Well, it would hardly be fitting to put it into his ear, or to lay it under his foot; the hand seems made on purpose to receive. So faith in the mental body is created on purpose to be a receiver: it is the hand of the man, and there is a fitness in bestowing grace by its means.
2. Faith, again, is doubtless selected because it gives all the glory to God. It is of faith that it might be of grace, and it is of grace that there may be no boasting; for God cannot endure pride.
3. It is a sure method, linking man with God. When man confides in God there is a point of union between them, and that union guarantees blessing. Faith saves us, because it makes us cling to God, and so brings us into connection with Him. I am told that years ago, above the Falls of Niagara, a boat was upset, and two men were being carried down the current, when persons on the shore managed to float a rope out to them, which rope was seized by them both. One of them held fast to it, and was safely drawn to the bank; but the other, seeing a great log come floating by, unwisely let go the rope, and clung to the log, for it was the bigger thing of the two, and apparently better to cling to. Alas, the log, with the man on it, went right over the vast abyss, because there was no union between the log and the shore. The size of the log was no benefit to him who grasped it; it needed a connection with the shore to produce safety. So when a man trusts to his works, or to sacraments, or to anything of that sort, he will not be saved, because there is no junction between him and Christ; but faith, though it may seem to be like a slender cord, is in the hand of the great God on the shore side; Infinite Power pulls in the connecting line, and thus draws the man from destruction. Oh, the blessedness of faith, because it unites us to God!
4. Faith is chosen, again, because it touches the springs of action. I wonder whether I shall be wrong if I say that we never do anything except through faith of some sort. If I walk across this platform, it is because I believe my legs will carry me. A man eats because he believes in the necessity of food. Columbus discovered America because he believed that there was another continent beyond the ocean: many another grand deed has also been born of faith, for faith works wonders. Commoner things are done on the same principle; faith in its natural form is an all-prevailing force. God gives salvation to our faith, because He has thus touched the secret spring of all our emotions and actions. He has, so to speak, taken possession of the battery, and now He can send the sacred current to every part of our nature.
5. Faith, again, has the power of working by love; it touches the secret spring of the affections, and draws the heart towards God. Faith is an act of the understanding; but it also proceeds from the heart. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and hence God gives salvation to faith because it resides next door to the affections, and is near akin to love, and love, you know, is that which purifies the soul. Love to God is obedience, love is holiness; to love God and to love man is to be conformed to the image of Christ, and this is salvation.
6. Moreover, faith creates peace and joy; he that hath it rests, and is tranquil, is glad, and joyous; and this is a preparation for heaven. God gives all the heavenly gifts to faith, because faith worketh in us the very life and spirit which are to be eternally manifested in the upper and better world. I have hastened over these points that I might not weary you on a day when, however willing the spirit may be, the flesh is weak.
III. How can we obtain and increase our faith? A very earnest question this to many. They say they want to believe but cannot. What am I to do in order to believe?
1. The shortest way is to believe, and if the Holy Spirit has made you honest and candid, you will believe as soon as the truth is set before you.
2. But still, if you have a difficulty, take it before God in prayer. The Lord is willing to make Himself known; go to Him, and see if it be not so.
3. Furthermore, if faith seem difficult, it is possible that God the Holy Spirit will enable you to believe, if you hear very frequently and earnestly that which you are commanded to believe.
4. Consider the testimony of others. I believe there is a country called Japan, although I never have been there. I believe I shall die: I have never died, but a great many have done so whom I once knew, and I have a conviction that I shall die also; the testimony of many convinces me of this fact. Listen, then, to those who tell you how they were saved, how they were pardoned, how they have been changed in character: if you will but listen you will find that somebody just like yourself has been saved. As you listen to one after another of those who have tried the word of God, and proved it, the Divine Spirit will lead you to believe. Have you not heard of the African who was told by the missionary that water sometimes became so hard that a man could walk on it? He declared that he believed a great many things the missionary had told him; but he never would believe that. When he came to England it came to pass that one frosty day he saw the river frozen, but he would not venture on it. He knew that it was a river, and he was certain that he would be drowned if he ventured upon it. He could not be induced to walk on the ice till his friend went upon it; then he was persuaded, and trusted himself where others had ventured. So, mayhap, while you see others believe, and notice their joy and peace, you will yourself be gently led to believe. It is one of Gods ways of helping us to faith. A better plan still is this--note the authority upon which you are commanded to believe, and this will greatly help you. He bids you believe in Jesus Christ, and you must not refuse to obey your Maker. The foreman of a certain works in the north had often heard the gospel, but he was troubled with the fear that he might not come to Christ. His good master one day sent a card round to the works--Come to my house immediately after work. The foreman appeared at his masters door, and the master came out, and said somewhat roughly, What do you want, John, troubling me at this time? Work is done, what right have you here? Sir, said he, I had a card from you saying that I was to come after work. Do you mean to say that merely because you had a card from me you are to come up to my house and call me out after business hours? Well, sir, replied the foreman, I do not understand you, but it seems to me that, as you sent for me, I had a right to come. Come in, John, said his master, I have another message that I want to read to you, and he sat down and read these words--Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Do you think after such a message from Christ that you can be wrong in going to Him? The poor man saw it all at once, and believed, because he saw that he had good warrant and authority for believing. So have you, poor soul; you have good authority for coming to Christ, for the Lord Himself bids you trust Him. If that does not settle you, think over what it is that you have to believe--that the Lord Jesus Christ suffered in the room and place and stead of men, and is able to save all who trust Him. Why, this is the most blessed fact that ever men were told to believe: the most suitable, the most comforting, the most Divine truth that ever was set before men. If none of these things avail, then there is something Wrong about you altogether, and my last word is, submit yourself to God. May the Spirit of God take away your enmity and make you yield. You are a rebel, a proud rebel, and that is why you do not believe your God. Give up your rebellion; throw down your weapons; yield at discretion; surrender to your King. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The clinging power of faith
God gives to His people the propensity to cling. Look at the sweet pea which grows in your garden. Perhaps it has fallen down upon the gravel walk. Lift it up against the laurel or the trellis, or put a stick near it, and it catches hold directly, because there are little hooks ready prepared with which it grasps anything which comes in its way: it was meant to grow upwards, and so it is provided with tendrils. Every child of God has his tendrils about him--thoughts, and desires, and hopes with which he hooks on to Christ and the promise. Though this is a very simple sort of faith, it is a very complete and effectual form of it, and, in fact, it is the heart of all faith, and that to which we are often driven when we are in deep trouble, or when our mind is somewhat bemuddled by our being sickly or depressed in spirit. We can cling when we can do nothing else, and that is the very soul of faith. O poor heart, if thou dost not yet know as much about the gospel as we could wish thee to know, cling to what thou dost know. If as yet thou art only like a lamb that wades a little into the river of life, and not like leviathan who stirs the mighty deep to the bottom, yet drink; for it is drinking, and not diving, that will save thee. Cling, then I Cling to Jesus; for that is faith. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The realizing power of faith
Faith also realizes the presence of the living God and Saviour, and thus it breeds in the soul a beautiful calm and quiet like that which was seen in a little child in the time of tempest. Her mother was alarmed, but the sweet girl was pleased; she clapped her hands with delight. Standing at the window when the flashes came most vividly, she cried in childish accents, Look, mammal How beautiful! How beautiful! Her mother said, My dear, come away, the lightning is terrible; but she begged to be allowed to look out and see the lovely light which God was making all over the sky, for she was sure God would not do His little child any harm. But harken to the terrible thunder, said her mother. Did you not say, mamma, that God was speaking in the thunder? Yes, said her trembling parent. Oh, said the darling, how nice it is to hear Him. He talks very loud, but I think it is because He wants the deaf people to hear Him. Is it not so, mamma Thus she went talking on; as merry as a bird was she, for God was real to her, and she trusted Him. To her the lightning was Gods beautiful light, and the thunder was Gods wonderful voice, and she was happy. I dare say her mother knew a good deal about the laws of nature and the energy of electricity; and little was the comfort which her knowledge brought her. The childs knowledge was less showy, but it was far more certain and precious. We are so conceited nowadays that we are too proud to be comforted by self-evident truth, and prefer to make ourselves wretched with questionable theories. For my own part I would rather be a child again than grow perversely wise. Faith, is to be a child towards Christ, believing in Him as a real and present person, at this very moment near us, and ready to bless us. This may seem to be a childish fancy; but it is such childishness as we must all come to if we would be happy in the Lord. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Faith takes Christ at His word, as a child believes his father, and trusts him in all simplicity with past, present, and future. God give us such faith! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The mistake of relying upon faith considered
In this discourse I shall take notice of and examine the mistake of those men who appear to be induced, by some texts of the New Testament, to rely upon faith, or their believing in Jesus Christ, and confident application of His merits to themselves; and to expect salvation from this, considered as distinct and separate from obedience to the moral laws of the gospel.
I. It will be very proper to lay before you the plain meaning of St Paul in the text. The apostles design here is to raise the gratitude of the Ephesians to Almighty God, and to inspire them with all possible regard to Him, by putting them in mind that they were formerly in a helpless and miserable condition, dead in sins, void of the true life of reasonable creatures; that they had no thought themselves of such salvation as had been offered them by the Christian religion, that they had no merit to engage God Almighty to make them such an offer, and preach such a state of reconciliation and salvation to them.
II. That no such pretence as that which makes faith alone, separated from a good life and conversation, the condition on which we shall be accepted at last; that no such pretence as this, I say, can be built upon this passage of the New Testament, which will lead us likewise to the further consideration of this mistake, and to give a true account of what St. James and St. Paul, upon other occasions, have affirmed upon this subject.
1. St. Paul saith that Abraham was justified without and before such works as circumcision. St. James saith that Abraham was not justified by an empty faith without works of obedience, and would never have been accepted of God unless he had shown the reality of his faith by obedience to the call and command of God. Here is no contradiction between them. So likewise Christians will be justified by means of believing the gospel dispensation, without any such works as circumcision, or any other works of the ceremonial law; as St. Paul argued: but they will never be justified, and finally acquitted by any belief in Christ, without bringing forth, as they have opportunity, such good fruits, and walking in any such good works, as the gospel of Christ directs, and commands them to practise; as St. James saith. Again--
2. Abraham was, for one signal act of faith and trust in God, called by Him righteous, taken for such, and reputed as a person free from the guilt of his past sins; as saith St. Paul. But it is manifest, saith St. James, that this faith of Abraham was not such an empty faith as some Christians pretend to rely upon; nay, that he would not have been justified finally by God, unless he had, when he was tried by God, shown by the obedience of his life that his faith was real and sincere. Neither in this is there any contradiction between them. St. Paul had to deal with a sort of Jewish Christians, who retained an affection for the works of the law, and circumcision particularly; and therefore found occasion to tell them that their father Abraham himself was justified without such works; that is, eminent faith was one time counted to him for righteousness, or justification; that for the sake of that faith he was esteemed by God free from all the guilt he had contracted by sin before that time; and that therefore it was nothing but what was agreeable to that great example which they pretended to love and honour, that God should accept such as believed in His Son Jesus Christ, without their adhering to such works as circumcision; and for the sake of that faith in reward, and for encouragement of it, should acquit them from the guilt of all their sins committed before that time. But St. James found that some misunderstood and perverted such doctrine as this, and that some Christians began to pretend that no works at all--not even those of piety and charity--were necessary to their justification at the great day; and that their believing in Christ would acquit them from the guilt of all their sins that they should commit after this belief, and during the time of their Christian profession. And therefore he found it necessary to tell them that Abraham showed his obedience to Gods will in the highest instances, and trusted not in an empty faith.
III. St. Paul doth, in this very Epistle, as well as in many other places, sufficiently declare against any such pretence; as our blessed Lord did likewise before him in the plainest words. See Eph_1:10. Although in some places St. Paul doth vilify the merits of the world and their behaviour, before the coming of the gospel; and though in others he vilifies the works of the law of Moses, with which some would have burthened the evangelical profession: yet no one can show any one text, or any one single passage, in which he vilifies, and sets at nought, the works of evangelical righteousness, or obedience to the moral laws of virtue. To vilify and decry the behaviour and works both of Jew and Gentile before the faith of Christ prevailed, was not to set at nought good works, but bad ones; and only to observe the corrupt and sad estate of mankind. To vilify the ceremonial law, after the coming in of justification by faith (or the gospel) was not to vilify such works as we are speaking of: but, indeed, to take mens minds off from shadows and ceremonies; and to fix upon them good works that are more substantial. Nay, when he ever toucheth upon the moral duties; with how much vehemence doth he recommend them? When he speaks of the Ephesians, or other Christians, having improved in virtue, since their conversion to Christianity; what commendations doth he give them! And with how much joy doth he offer up his thanks to God for it? But we never find him depressing that sort of works; or setting up faith against them; or taking off the bent of mens minds from them; but pressing them into the love and practice of them with all the earnestness possible. And then, if he mentions the sins of any professed Christians; doth he do it as if he thought their faith would avail them? Or rather, doth he not do it with such a spirit and zeal against them, as if no words were bad enough for them? And yet they had an easy reply to make to him, had he taught them any such doctrine, as that a strong faith would save them at last, though separate from good works.
IV. To show you in what sense faith, or believing the gospel, is said to save Christians.
1. This may be well said of them, because it is their faith, or believing, which saves them from the guilt of all their sins committed before this faith: a privilege which peculiarly belonged to the first Christians converted, at years of discretion, from a life of sin and impurity.
2. We may be well said to be saved through faith, because it is by believing in Jesus Christ that we come to know and embrace those terms which are offered by God for our salvation and happiness.
3. Christians are saved by faith, because it is the foundation of their obedience and of all their good actions. It is the tree which bears good fruit. (Bishop Hoadly.)
The qualities of justifying faith
These are the properties of faith which justifies.
1. It is persevering; a shield against all the fiery darts of the devil. It cannot be lost or overcome of any creature, because it is built on the Rock, Christ.
2. It is lively, working by love. It makes that we shall neither be idle nor unprofitable. It is no dead thing which will stand us in stead. There are, indeed, many kinds of these dead faiths; some are blind presumptions, which are merely counterfeit; some are historical persuasions, touching the truth of the articles of religion, without any particular confidence; some are common illuminations in the points of the gospel with misgrounded persuasions, like that of Haman, What shall be done to the man whom the king will honour? He no sooner heard it was in the heart of the king to honour a man, but who should the person be except himself?
3. Saving faith is sincere and sound.
4. It is a precious faith; within itself a pearl, rare, and of greatest worth, the least grain better than a kingdom. (Paul Bayne.)
Works excluded
1. No works of ours can merit salvation. Even the justified merit nothing.
(1) Works even of sanctification cannot merit salvation, because they are the motions of us already saved; they are the effects of salvation already revealed in us, not the causes of that we have not.
(2) Works are imperfect in us, the flesh and spirit so striving, that the action even of that which is predominant is brought forth (by reason of this strife) with great imperfection.
(3) Infants are saved, but they have no merits; for the habits of holiness are not meritorious, as being freely received. Salvation, therefore, is grounded on some other thing than works, or infants could not be heirs of heaven.
2. There is not anything left in man wherein he may rejoice, as deserving salvation. Whatever he is, or can do, it must be all reckoned as loss in this business; for this is the end of the whole mystery of our salvation, that we might be all in God, out of ourselves.
3. Whatsoever we receive in Christ cannot stand in desert of salvation. The reason is plain.
(1) Whatsoever must be meritorious in salvation and righteousness, must be given us in creation.
(2) Whatsoever is received in Christ, must stand with grace; for, Grace, Christ, Faith, stand together. But whatsoever in us should deserve, cannot stand with grace; therefore, whatsoever we are in Christ cannot deserve; faith is not of doing; grace is not of working.
(3) If this which we become in Christ should enable us to justify and save ourselves, then Christ should bring us back again to the law. But we are dead to the law.
(4) If we should, by that we are in Christ, deserve our salvation, then Christ should make us our own saviours. If Christ have deserved it, we have not; if we have, He hath not.
(5) It is a contradiction to say, Christ has deserved heaven for us, so that He makes us deserve it; as if it should be said, One has paid my debt for me, so I will pay it myself: One has purchased such a thing for me, but so that I must purchase it myself. But it may be said, It is no prejudice that Christ should merit in us: as God is more glorious that He does many things mediately, than if He should do them alone; as He gives light, but by the sun. Answer: Christ merited, not that we should merit, but be accepted. What we come to receive in Christ, is salvation and glory. If Christ should make us also by grace to deserve, then He should make us able to make His death in vain. Anything joined with Christ overturns Christ. Christ has not deserved, that His own desert should be in vain. (Paul Bayne.)
Hot of works
I have read that Dr. Moxey once had as an inquirer an old woman, and he drew her attention to the forty-first and forty-second verses of the seventh chapter of St. Luke! There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. Now he said, Which debtor will you be? She replied, The one that owes five hundred pence. Now, he said, what have you got to pay? She replied, I am very anxious to be saved. Well, he said, we will put that down to the credit side. Immediately after she said, No, I have made a mistake, Ive got nothing to pay. Then, he said, we will go on with the story. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. He said, Thats just the way of the Lord towards us.
Works, no sure foundation
He (Baxter on his death bed) said, God may justly condemn me for the best duty I ever did; and all my hopes are from the free mercy of God in Christ. He had often said before, I can more readily believe that God will forgive me than I can forgive myself. After a slumber he waked, saying, I shall rest from my labours. A minister present said, And your works will follow you. He replied, No works; I will leave out works, if God will grant me the other. When a friend comforted him with the remembrance of the good many had received from his writings, he replied, I was but a pen in Gods hand, and what praise is due to a pen? (Bishop Ryle.)
Christian humility
Remember, the ears of barley which bear the most grain always hang the lowest. (E. Blencowe, M. A.)
Humility delights in concealment
The nettle mounteth on high, while the violet shrouds itself under its own leaves, and is chiefly found out by its fragrance. Let Christians be satisfied with the honour that cometh from God only. (H. G. Salter.)
No room for pride
Had God given His saints a stock of grace to have set up with, and left them to the improvement of it, He had been magnified indeed, because it was more than God did owe the creature; but He had not been omnified as now, when not only the Christians first strength to close with Christ is from God, but he is beholden still to God for the exercise of that strength, in every action of his Christian course. As a child that travels in his fathers company, all is paid for, but his father carries the purse, not himself; so the Christians shot is discharged in every condition; but he cannot say, This I did, or that I suffered; but God wrought all in me, and for me. The very comb of pride is cut here; no room for any self-exalting thoughts. (W. Gurnall.)
All glory to God
Doth the Christians strength lie in God, not in himself? This may forever keep the Christian humble, when most enlarged in duty, most assisted in his Christian course. Remember, Christian, when thou hast thy best suit on, who made it, who paid for it. Thy grace, thy comfort, is neither the work of thy own hands, nor the price of thy own desert; be not for shame proud of anothers cost. (W. Gurnall.)
Good works not to be boasted of
If the king freely, without desert of mine, and at the mediation of another, give me a place about him, and never so much right unto it, yet I am bound, if I will enjoy it, to come unto him and do the things that the place requireth. And if he give me a tree growing in his forest, this his gift ties me to be at cost to cut it down and bring it home, if I wilt have it. And when I have done all this, I cannot brag that by my coming and service I merited this place, or by my cost in cutting down and carrying home the tree made myself worthy of the tree, as the Jesuits speak of their works. But only the deed is the way that leads to the fruition of that which is freely given. There cannot be produced a place in all the Scripture, nor a sentence in all the Fathers, which extends our works any further, or makes them exceed the latitude of a mere condition or way whereby to walk to that which not themselves, but the blood of Christ hath deserved. (E. White.)
Eph_2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
Justified persons are Gods workmanship
Grace here means Gods free gift. Our salvation is entirely Gods gift to us; and it must be so, because we cannot make it or get it for ourselves; we have no power of our own to make it for ourselves, nothing of our own to offer in exchange for it. If our salvation does not come to us as Gods free gift it can never come to us at all. But, though our salvation is entirely Gods free gift to us, it is never forced upon us without our consent. Freely as it is offered to us, we must, on our parts, freely accept it when it is held out to us; we must acknowledge it thankfully; and unless we do acknowledge it and lay hold on it, it can never become curs. It may go on lying within arms length of us all our lives through, and yet be of no more service to us than if it were hundreds of miles away; we must reach out our hand to take it, and this hand of ours which we have to put forth to take it with is faith. By grace are ye saved, through faith. This reaching out of faith, in answer to Gods stretching out His hand to save us, is the second step which is necessary to be taken in the matter of our salvation. But here St. Paul finds it necessary to put in a word of caution to those who are the very foremost in accepting his teaching, and the most earnest in looking to their faith as the sole instrument of their justification. He foresaw that men would come to pride themselves upon this faith of theirs as something peculiarly their own, which very few besides themselves had any share in, and which entitled them to look down upon the rest of mankind with something like a feeling of contempt. And so, after saying, By grace are ye saved through faith, he goes on to say, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Your salvation, yes, and your faith, too, by which you lay hold of your salvation, is all Gods free gift to you; you did not make your faith for yourselves any more than you made your salvation; you had nothing of your own with which to make it. And how dare you, then, presume upon your faith, and pride yourselves upon it, as if it were your own creating? And now that St. Paul has secured his position against attack on one side, he turns cautiously round, like a skilful general, to secure it on the other: Not of works, he proceeds to say, lest any man should boast. And here, after all, is the quarter from which an attack is chiefly to be looked for. It is in mans nature to make as much of himself as he can; it is in his nature to seek to justify himself, to work all out by himself, to set his own account straight with God. But now, of course, if he can earn his salvation for himself, he can make a merit of what he has done, he can claim his justification as his own work. And so, in order to put a stop, once for all, to such notions and attempts on the part of man to justify himself, the apostle lays down his next great principle in the doctrine of justification: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For, he proceeds to say, we are His workmanship. So far from having any works of our own with which to purchase our salvation, we are ourselves nothing but a piece of work of anothers making. God made us, and not we ourselves; He put us together, just as a workman puts a piece of machinery together, piece by piece, and we have no more ground for boasting or making a merit of what we do than a clock has ground for boasting of being able to point to the time or to strike the hours. We are simply, then, a piece of workmanship, designed and put together by God. Still, a piece of machinery is designed for some set purpose or other, and so are we; we have been made, and made over again, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. (H. Harris, B. D.)
Believers are Gods workmanship
The apostle, having shown that our salvation is only of grace, and the means by which we are made capable of all saving good in Christ, by faith, excluding all causes in man, and that from the end lest he should boast himself: he now gives a reason why Gods grace is all in all, drawn from our redemption by Christ. As in the first creation there was no disposition in man to make himself a man, so no virtue in man now created to make him able to bring himself to eternal life; he confers nothing to the works of his new creation in Christ, no motion of mans will, thought, or desire, or any preparatory work; all proceeds from the infinite creating power of God, He gives all.
1. All the faithful are new creatures in Christ.
(1) This proves to many that they are not believers as yet. Why? Because they live in their old sins. So long as the love of any sin is retained there is no part of new creation in that person.
(2) To prove we are in Christ we must approve ourselves new creatures.
(a) The parts of this new creation are--holiness of the spirit, and of the body, mind, will, affections, and every member of the body.
(b) Degrees--babes in Christ; young ones; old men, the perfection of stature.
(c) Signs--change; spiritual motion in the heart; desire for the sincere milk of the Word; desire to draw on others to grace.
2. God is the author of our new creation.
(1) This shows the dignity of the saints. They are Gods children.
(2) It teaches us to whom we are to ascribe all that we are.
3. God gives us our new creation through Christ. Let us magnify Him accordingly.
4. The new creature has new works. The two go together; there cannot be the one without the other. As is the fountain, such will be the streams which flow from it.
5. We come to have good works when we are made new in Christ. Before that we can do nothing, not only meritorious, but even good (Joh_15:15). If the things which are necessary conditions of a good work be considered, this will be clear. It must be done
(1) From the heart.
(2) In the obedience of faith.
(3) To Gods glory.
6. Good works are the very end of our new creation. As we plant our orchards, to the end that they may bring us fruit, so does the Lord plant us on purpose that we may bring Him fruit. Hence His people are called Trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, in whom He may be glorified. Herein is My Father glorified, said Christ, that ye bear much fruit. Honour God with thy graces. It is reasonable that every one should have the honour of his own. We see plainly that other creatures glorify God in their kind, and fulfil the law of their creation; man alone, who has the greatest cause and best means, comes behind.
7. We must walk in the ways which are prepared by God. Our life must be a tracing of the commandments; we must not salute the ways of God as chapmen coming to fairs; we must walk in them. Men in the world may become so prosperous that they may give over trading, and live comfortably on what they already possess; but it is not thus with the soul, which, where it ceases to profit, waxes gross.
(1) As thou wouldst have comfort that thou art a new creature in Christ, made alive by the Spirit, try it by this--how thou walkest.
(2) Ever strive to be going forward, exercising the faculties we have, and looking to God for all. (Paul Bayne.)
Christian men Gods workmanship
These words suggest far-reaching speculations about the Divine ideal of humanity, and about how that ideal is suppressed by human folly and sin; they suggest inquiries about the ideal relations of all men to Christ, relations which are only made real and effective by personal faith in Him. But Paul was thinking of those who by their own free consent were in Christ, of those who, as he says, had been saved by faith. Of these it was actually true that they were Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus. How are we to get at the gospel which these words contain? Let us try. Most of us, I suppose, who have any moral earnestness, are at times very dissatisfied with ourselves; yes, with ourselves. We think it hard that we should be what we are. We complain not only of the conditions of our life, which may have made us worse than there was any need that we should be, but of our native temperament, of tendencies which seem to belong to the very substance of our moral nature. We have ideals of moral excellence which are out of our reach. We see other men that have a goodness that we envy, but which is not possible to ourselves. There is something wrong in the quality of our blood. The fibre of our nature is coarse, and there is nothing to he made of it. There is a wretched fault in the marble which we are trying to shape into nobleness and beauty, and no skill or strength of ours can remove it, And ours is not an exceptional wretchedness. The special infirmities of men vary. One man finds it hard to be just, another to be generous; one man finds it hard to be quiet and patient under suffering, another to be vigorous in work; one man has to struggle with vanity, another with pride, another with covetousness, another with the grosser passions of his physical nature; one man is suspicious by temperament, another envious, another discontented; one man is so weak that he cannot hate even the worst kinds of wrong-doing, the fires of his indignation against evil never burst into flame; another is so stern that even where there is hearty sorrow for wrong-doing he can hardly force himself to forgive it frankly. The fault of our nature assumes a thousand forms, but no one is free from it. I look back to the ancient moralists, to Plato and to Seneca and to Marcus Antoninus, and I find that they are my brethren in calamity. The circumstances of man have changed, but man remains the same. How are we to escape from the general, the universal doom? We want to remain ourselves, to preserve our personal identity, and yet to live a life which seems impossible unless we can cease to be ourselves. It is a dreadful paradox, but some of us know that this is the exact expression of a dumb discontent which lies at the very heart of our moral being. Is there any solution? Paul tells us what the solution is. Christian men are Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus. Yes, we were made for this, for something higher than is within our reach, apart from the reception of the life of God. There are vague instincts within us which are at war with the moral limitations which are born with us. Our aspirations are after a perfect righteousness and a diviner order, but we cannot fulfil them. They will die out through disappointment; they will be pronounced impossible unless we discover that they come from the fountains of a Divine inspiration, unless we have the faith and patience of the saints of old who waited, with an invincible confidence in the goodness and power of God, until the words of ancient prophecy were fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, in Christ. The prophets of the earlier centuries prophesied of the grace that was to come to later generations; their prophecies were dark and indistinct, and even to themselves almost unintelligible. They inquired and searched diligently concerning the salvation which they knew was to come, though they could not tell the time or the manner of its coming. And these aspirations of the individual soul are also prophecies; by them the Spirit of Christ is signifying to us the hopes which are our inheritance; they come from the Light which lighteth every man. But their fulfilment is not reserved for others; they may be fulfilled to ourselves. All that we have vaguely desired is now offered us in the glorious gospel of the blessed God; in Christ we become His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. The Divine idea is moving towards its crowning perfection. Never let us forget that the life which has come to us is an immortal life, At best we are but seedlings on this side of death. We are not yet planted out under the open heavens and in the soil which is to be our eternal home. Here in this world the life we have received in our new creation has neither time nor space to reveal the infinite wealth of its resources: you must wait for the world to come to see the noble trees of righteousness fling out their mighty branches to the sky and clothe themselves in the glorious beauty of their immortal foliage. And yet the history of Christendom contains the proof that even here a new and alien life has begun to show itself among mankind; a life not alien indeed, for it is the true life of our race, but it is unlike what had been in the world before. The saints of every Church, divided by national differences, divided by their creeds, divided by fierce ecclesiastical rivalries, are still strangely akin. Voice answers to voice across the centuries which separate them; they tell in different tongues of the same wonderful discovery of a Divine kingdom; they translate every man for himself into his own life the same Divine law. We of obscurer rank and narrower powers read their lives, and we know that we and they are akin; we listen to their words, and are thrilled by the accent of home. Their songs are on our lips; they seem to have been written for us by men who knew the secret we wanted to utter better than we knew it ourselves. Their confessions of sin are a fuller expression of our own sorrow and trouble than we ourselves had ever been able to make. Their life is our life. We and they belong to a new race. A new type of character has been created. Christ lives on in those whose life is rooted in Him. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
Gods workmanship
We have in this verse three things.
I. The power that acts on the sinner to bring him into obedience to his God. The power of God alone. Man is dead; God is the quickener.
II. The mode in which that power acts upon him so as to produce this effect. In Christ Jesus.
III. The certain security for the operation of this power, and for the effect it will produce. God has appointed it. He has ordained that His people should walk in good works. You perceive, then, why throughout the Scriptures the works of man are made the test of his salvation. He is not to he justified by them, but he is to be judged by them, and this is a difficulty that often occurs to the mind, How is man to be judged by his works if he is not to be justified by them? The answer is--because they are taken as the test of his faith, as the proof of his sincerity. A cup of cold water could not purchase salvation for the sinner; but a cup of cold water, given in the name of Jesus, shall in no wise lose its reward, because it is the test that the believer loves his Master. (R. J. McGhee, M. A.)
The heavenly Workman
I. God works with skill and industry in elevating and refining human nature; and let us not overlook the fact that there is a great difference in the material. It is useless to say that all men are equal. We are not all born alike. From the fault or misfortune of our progenitors, we may start on the race with heavy burdens that we cannot shake off. Besides, we differ in both physical and mental constitution. We use terms which are very suggestive when we speak of a hard man, or when we say, He is soft, He is coarse, or He is a fine man. Some we describe as Natures gentle men, while others are born mean. Let it be understood that the Great Workman does not expect the same results from every kind of material. There is one thing He expects from all, and something He has a right to expect, and that is what all can do: we must love God.
II. It is well for us to have confidence in the workman. What a different fate awaits some of the blocks of marble which come into London as compared with others. They will all be used, but how differently. One is taken to the studio of the sculptor, to be carved into some statue to be admired for ages; another is sawn into slabs to make the counter of some gin palace! If the former block could know and feel the difference, how glad it would be to find itself in the places where statues are made. Let those of us who are lovers of God never forget that we are in the studio. It is not the purpose of the heavenly Workman to put us to any of the baser uses we might have been fit for but for His grace.
III. We must not forget that the workman has a plan. Life in any of us is a very complicated affair. Things are always happening--births, deaths, and marriages. Business relations alter. Circumstances differ: there seems no order or arrangements. It is chaos to us. And yet God knows all, and knows the precise bearing of each event on our lives. It does not seem like it, and yet, if we look hack, we may often see that God has been working all along in harmony with one idea. Some time ago, when in Manchester, the writer saw the men at work pulling down whole streets of houses to make room for a new railway station. All appeared ruin and disorder. Here was a party digging out foundations; in another place the bricklayers were building walls; elsewhere some one was setting out for other walls; beyond them they were still pulling down. It seemed like chaos, and yet in the architects office could be seen the elevation and picture of the complete whole. Every man was working to a plan. And so God has His elevation, but He does not show it. It doth not yet appear. When Joseph was in jail, he was in the path of Providence, and the fetters of iron were as much part of the plan as the chain of gold he wore when brought to the summit of greatness. What a variety of tools! What are the so-called means of grace but tools in the hand of the Great Workman? What are preachers but Gods chisels and hammers? Books, too, are tools. How important is the work of those who write them! But the finest work is often done by those sharp-edged chisels called Pain and Bereavement. How many of us are to be made perfect by suffering! It is not the dull tool that can cut the fine lines. Will the work ever be completed? Not in this world certainly. There is no room for self-complacence. (T. Champness.)
The nature and necessity of good works
That those who are Gods workmanship are created in Christ Jesus to good works; or, in plainer terms, all those who belong to God, and are created anew by His Spirit, are enabled by virtue of that new creation to perform good works. In pursuance of this proposition, I will show--
1. What good works are.
2. What are the qualifications of them.
3. Why they must be done.
4. Apply all.
I. That we may understand what is meant by good works, we must know that there are habits of grace, and there are acts and exertments of grace; and these two are different from one another, because these acts flow from those habits. These acts are two-fold, either inward or outward. The inward are such as these--a fear and reverence of the Almighty, a love of God and all goodness, and a love of our neighbours (which is called the work and labour of love, Heb_6:10), which, though they be not outwardly acted, yet are properly the works of the soul, for the not producing them into outward action hinders not their being works. For the mind of man may as properly be said to work as the body; yea, if we consider the true nature of things, we may rightly assert that the soul is the principal worker in man, and that all the outward exertments of virtue in the body flow from the mind of man, and take thence their denomination. These outward acts of grace which are exerted by the members of the body, and are apparent in the practices of holy men, are the good works generally spoken of in the Scripture. They are no other than visible exertments and actual discoveries of the inward graces before mentioned. Thus our reverencing of God is discovered by our solemn worshipping Him, and that in the most decent and humble manner. Our faith in Him, and love to Him, are showed by our readiness to do His will and obey all His commands. It is true good works in general comprehend all works morally good, whether they be adjusted to the law of nature or the revealed law; but I shall chiefly and principally consider good works as they are conformable to the revealed rule of the gospel. And so I proceed to the--
II. Thing I undertook, viz., to show what are the qualifications of these good works, that is, what is absolutely required in these works to make them good. I shall speak only of those qualifications which are requisite in evangelical good works, namely, such as are necessary to eternal salvation.
1. In a good work it is requisite that the person who doth it be good. By which I mean not only that he be inwardly good and righteous, according to that of our Saviour, make the tree good and his fruit good (Mat_12:33); but I understand this also, that the person who performs good works be one that is reconciled to God; for if the person be not accepted, the work cannot be good. It is said, The Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering (Gen_4:4). First unto Abel, and then to his offering. The sacrificer must be accepted before the sacrifice.
2. As the works are good because of the person, so both the person and works are good because of the righteousness of Christ, in whom God is well pleased. He hath made us acceptable to the Beloved (Eph_1:6). What we do is favourably received as we are considered in Christ. By virtue of our relation to Him, who is our Righteousness, our performances are accounted righteous. This qualification of a good work the devout Mr. Herbert assigns, saying, It is a good work if it be sprinkled with the blood of Christ.
3. A good work in the gospel sense and meaning is a work done by the grace of God and the assistance of the Holy Spirit.
4. It must be done in faith, for the apostle tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb_11:6), and, consequently, as he adds in another place, what is not of faith is sin.
5. In all actions that are really good there must be lawful and right means used. Acts of justice and honesty must be clone by ways that are lawful and good. We must not be just among ourselves by being unjust to others. I must not steal that I may be charitable to the poor. I must not promote the best cause either by persecution or by rebellion. Though it be Gods cause, it ought not to be fought with the devils weapons.
6. Good works must be adjusted to a right rule; they must be according to the will and commandment of God. They must not be after our own inventions, but according to this Divine command (Mic_6:8). That is good which God requires.
7. Every good work must proceed from a right principle; and by a right principle I mean these following things--
(1) That our works proceed from sufficient knowledge. No action done ignorantly is good. He that acts without knowledge cannot be said to act morally, much less Christianly. We must first know that what we do is our real duty, and we must also understand why it is so. Religion must not be blind; reason must always go first, and carry the light before all our actions, for the heart and life cannot be good if the head be not enlightened. The understanding must make way for the will. Which brings me to the next particular.
(2) Good works must proceed from a free and voluntary principle. As he that acts ignorantly, so he that acts unwillingly cannot be said to act well. To the will is to be imputed whatsoever is ill or well done by us. There is nothing good or bad but what is matter of choice and consultation.
(3) With the understanding and will must be joined the affections. And this includes in it these following things--
(a) Integrity of heart. As servants are bid to discharge their duty in singleness of heart (Col_3:22).
(b) An entire love of God is required in every good work. All our actions must flew from this principle, for if we love not God, we cannot do the works of God.
(c) There must be an entire love, not only of God, but of goodness itself, and the intrinsic excellency and perfection that is in it. There must be a delight and pleasure in the ways of God, and in all those good and virtuous actions which we do, and that for their own sakes.
(d) Not only a love of God, but a fear of Him, must be a principle from whence all our holy actions are to proceed, a fear of acting contrary to the purity of Gods nature, a fear of displeasing and offending Him. Joseph acted out of this excellent principle when he cried out, How shall I do this wickedness and sin against God?
(e) Humility is another principle from whence we must act. Every good and righteous man lays his foundation low; he begins his works with a submissive and self-denying spirit; he proceeds with lowliness of mind, and a mean opinion of himself, and of all he can do.
(f) Alacrity, joy, and cheerfulness, and so likewise a due warmth, zeal, and ardency, are other principles from whence our good works should spring. We must with gladness undertake and perform them, and we must serve the Lord with a fervency of spirit (Rom_12:11).
8. This is another indispensable qualification of a good work, that it be done for a good end. As there are fountains or principles of actions, so there are ends or designs belonging to them all. You must necessarily distinguish between principles and ends if you would speak properly and significantly. Fountains and springs of actions are those from whence the actions flow; ends and aims are those to which the actions tend. There is a vast difference between these. I have told you what the former are; now I will set before you the latter. The right ends which ought to be in all evangelical actions (for of such I intend chiefly to speak) are these three--our own salvation, the good of others, and in pursuance of both Gods glory. This was it which spoiled and blasted the most solemn and religious duties of the Pharisees. When they did their alms, they sounded a trumpet before them, that they might have glory of men (Mat_6:2). Whey they prayed, they did it standing in the corners of the streets, that they might be seen of men (5:5). Likewise when they fasted, they disfigured their faces, that they might appear unto men to fast (5:16). Yea, all their works they did to be seen of men (Mat_23:5). All was to gain esteem and reputation, all was for applause and vainglory. This wrong end and intention made all they did sinful. When I say all our works are to be done for the ends above named, I do not by this wholly exclude all other ends. As two of the great aims of our actions, namely, our own happiness and that of others, are subordinate to the third, Gods glory, so there are other lesser and inferior ends which are subordinate to all these. He evidences this by such ways as these--He never lets these temporal things stand in competition with, much less in opposition to, those which are greater and higher. He never so seeks his own as not to seek the things which are Jesus Christs. He doth not one with the neglect of the other.
9. To comprehend all, a good work is that which is done in a right manner. Good actions are such as have good circumstances and qualities, and evil actions are such as have undue and evil ones.
III. Having instructed you in the nature of good works, I am to show you, in the next place, how reasonable a thing it is that we should take care to do these good works. I will present you with those arguments and motives which I apprehend are most powerful to incite you to this. First, I might mention the reason in the text, where first we are said to be created unto good works, that we might walk in them. This is the very design of the spiritual creation or new birth, that we should exert all these acts of piety and religion which I have before mentioned. It is the purpose of heaven in regenerating us that we should walk in the ways of holiness, and conscientiously perform all the parts of our duty towards God, towards men, and towards ourselves. Again, it is said, we are said to be created in Christ Jesus to this. This is the end of Christs undertakings. He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works (Tit_2:14). Moreover, it is added that God hath before ordained these works. This was the good will and pleasure of the blessed Trinity in their eternal consults before man was made. Why then should we, as much as in us lieth, frustrate the purpose and decree of heaven concerning us I Further, this (as the apostle saith of sanctification) is the will of God (1Th_4:3). This is that which is commended to us by the example of the saints; they have all been zealous practisers of good works. This is the grand evidence of the truth of our inward graces. This is that whereby you show your thankfulness to God for your election and redemption. I add, this is that which is the great ornament and lustre of our Christian profession; this will set forth and commend our religion to the world. But there are these two arguments yet behind which I will more amply insist upon--good works are necessary to salvation; good works glorify God.
1. Though our good works are conditions of salvation, yet they are not conditions as to Gods election, for He decreed from eternity out of His free will and mercy to save lost man, without any consideration of their good works. Predestination to life and glory is the result of free grace, and therefore the provision of works must be excluded. The decree runs not thus, I choose thee to life and blessedness on supposal or condition of thy believing and repenting; but thus, I freely choose thee unto eternal life, and that thou mayest attain to it, I decree that thou shalt believe and repent.
2. Though faith and obedience be conditions of happiness, yet the performance of them is by the special help and assistance of a Divine and supernatural power. God, who decrees persons to good works, enables them to exert them.
3. Nor are they conditions in this sense that they succeed in the place of perfect obedience to the law which the covenant of works required. I am convinced that no such conditions as these are consistent with the new covenant, the covenant of grace. Works, if they be considered as a way leading to eternal life, are indeed necessary to salvation; they are necessary by way of qualification, for no unclean thing shall enter into heaven. Graces and good works fit us for that place and state; they dispose us for glory. We are not capable of happiness without holiness. It may be some will not approve of saying, We are saved by good works, but this they must needs acknowledge that we cannot be saved without them; yea, we cannot be saved but with them. Some are converted and saved at the last hour, at their going out of the world; but even then good works are not wanting, for hearty confession of sin, and an entire hatred of it, sincere and earnest prayers, hope and trust in God, desire of grace, unfeigned love, and zealous purposes and resolves, all these are good works, and none can be saved without them. In the next place, good works are for Gods glory, therefore they must be done by us. As I have showed before that it is a necessary qualification of good works that they be done out of an intention to glorify God, so now it will appear that this is one great reason why we are obliged to perform them, viz., because thereby God is glorified. Let your light so shine before men, saith our Saviour, that others seeing your works may glorify your Father which is in heaven (Mat_5:16). The light of our works came from God, and it must be reflected to him again.
(1) Because of the wicked, that you may stop their mouths, and take away all occasion of speaking evil against you. Again, for the sake of good men, we are obliged to be very careful how we walk; we are concerned to do all the good we can, that they may not be scandalized and hurt by our evil examples, and consequently that Gods name may not be dishonoured thereby. By our holy and exemplary lives, we may be serviceable to stir up the hearts of the godly to praise God on our behalf. They glorified God in me, saith the apostle, of those Christian Jews who took notice of his miraculous conversion, and of his extraordinary zeal in preaching the faith (Gal_1:24).
IV. By way of inference, from what hath been said of good works, we may correct the error of the Antinomians, we may confute the falsehood of the Roman Church, we may make a discovery of other false apprehensions of men concerning good works; we are hence also obliged to examine whether our works be good; and lastly, if we find them to be such, we must continue in the practice of them.
1. What I have delivered on this subject is a sufficient check to the Antinomian error, viz., that because Christ hath satisfied for us, therefore there is no need of good works; Christs obedience serves for ours. What need we do anything since He hath done all? And all this is conformable to the doctrine of our blessed Lord and Saviour, who tells us that He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it, and make it more complete and perfect. By His doctrine and practice He taught the world that the moral law obligeth the faithful under the evangelical dispensation, and that obedience to the former is not opposite to the grace of the latter. He constantly promoted good works and holy living, and bid His disciples show their love to Him by keeping His commandments (Joh_14:15). You see then how fondly they discourse who say that, because Christ hath done and suffered all things for mans redemption, therefore there is nothing left for us to do. Indeed, we have nothing to do that can further our salvation by way of merit, but we have something to do whereby we may show our thankfulness for Christs undertakings; we have a great deal to do whereby we may discover our obedience to the Divine commands and injunctions. Though good works and obedience are not conditions of justification, yet they are of salvation; they are requisite in the person who is justified, although they are wholly excluded from justification itself. Or we may say, though they do not justify meritoriously, yet they do it declaratively, they show that we are really of the number of those who God accounteth just and righteous.
2. The falsehood of the Romanists is hence confuted. They cry out against us, as those who utterly dislike, both in doctrine and practice, all good works. They brand us with the name of Solifidians, as if faith monopolized all our religion. Indeed, all that profess the reformed religion affirm that faith is the root of all graces, that Divine virtue is the basis and foundation of all good works; this they maintain, and have good reason to do so; but still they hold that good and holy works are indispensably requisite in Christianity, and that no man can be excused from performing them, and that those whose lives are utterly devoid of them have no right faith and no true religion. This is our unanimous belief, profession, and doctrine, and the Papists are maliciously reproachful when they accuse us Of the contrary.
3. From what hath been said, we may discover the wrong notions and apprehensions which most men have of good works. I will instance more particularly in charity, which is eminently called a good work, but there is a great and common mistake about it. And so as to other good works, all understanding men agree that they ought to be done, but they greatly mistake what good works are. They think if they do the outward acts of religion they do very well; if they fast and pray, and hear Gods Word, and receive the eucharist; if they perform the external acts of justice and charity, their doings cannot but be good and acceptable, and they need look after no more. They never consider whether their fasting and praying and other exercises of devotion and piety proceed from Gods grace and Holy Spirit in them, whether they be accompanied with faith, and be the result of good and holy principles, and be done for good ends, and in a good manner. Alas! these and the like things are not thought of. This discovers the gross mistakes in the world.
4. Then you are really concerned to examine your lives and actions, and to see whether you be not of the number of the mistaken persons.
5. When you have examined the true nature of good works, then urge upon yourselves that you are indispensably obliged to do them. Being thoroughly persuaded of the necessity of them, press the practice of them on yourselves and on others.
That you may successfully do so, observe these four plain and brief directions--
1. Beg the assistance of the Spirit. These are no mean and common works which I have set before you as that duty. They require great strength and power to exert them.
2. Study the Scriptures. There, and there only, you will find instructions for the performing of works acceptable to God.
3. Set before you the example of the saints, for by viewing of them you will not only learn what to do, but you will be taught not to be weary in well doing.
4. Redeem and improve the time. Fix it on your thoughts that you have a good deal of work to do, but your time to do it in is short and soon expiring. (J. Edwards, D. D.)
The singular origin of a Christian man
I. The singular origin of a Christian man. As many as are truly saved, and brought into union with Christ, are the workmanship of God. No Christian in the world is a chance production of nature, or the outcome of evolution, or the result of special circumstances. Of regeneration we must say once for all, This is the finger of God. The spiritual life cannot come to us by development from our old nature.
1. We are Gods workmanship from the very first. The first stroke that helps to fashion us into Christians comes from the Lords own hand. He marks the stone while yet in the quarry, cuts it from its natural bed, and performs the first hewing and squaring, even as it is He who afterwards exercises the sculptors skill upon it.
2. We shall remain the Lords workmanship to the very last. The picture must be finished by that same Master-hand which first sketched it. If any other hand should lay so much as a tint or colour thereupon, it would certainly mar it all.
3. This is very beautiful to remember, and it should stir up all that is within us to magnify the Lord. I was surprised when I was told, the other day, by a friend, who was a maker of steel-plate engravings, how much of labour had to be put into a finely executed engraving. Think of the power that has cut lines of beauty in such steel as we are! Think of the patience that lent its arm, and its eye, and its heart, and its infinite mind, to the carrying on of the supreme work of producing the image of Christ in those who were born in sin!
4. If we are Gods workmanship, never let us be ashamed to let men see Gods workmanship in us. Let us be very much ashamed, though, to let them see the remains of the devils workmanship in us; hide it behind a veil of repentant grief. Christ has come to destroy it; let it be destroyed.
II. Secondly, here in the text we see the peculiar manner of this origin. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. Created in Christ Jesus. Our new life is a creation. This goes further than the former expression; for workmanship is less than creation. Man may produce a picture, and say, This is my workmanship: a piece of mosaic, or a vessel fresh from the wheel, may be a mans workmanship, but it is not his creation. The artist must procure his canvas and his colours, the maker of a mosaic must find his marbles or his wood, the potter must dig his clay, for without these materials he can do nothing; for he is not the Creator. To One only does that august name strictly belong. In this world of grace, wherever we live, we are a creation.
1. Our new life is as truly created out of nothing as were the first heavens, and the first earth. This ought to be particularly noticed, for there are some who think that the grace of God improves the old nature into the new. That which is of God within us is a new birth, a Divine principle, a living seed, a quickening spirit; in fact, it is a creation: we are new creatures in Christ Jesus.
2. Creation was effected by a word. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Is not that again an accurate description of our entrance into spiritual light and life? Do we not confess, Thy word hath quickened me? Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
3. In creation the Lord was alone and unaided. The prophet asks, Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counsellor hath taught Him? Creation is the prerogative of Jehovah, and none can share it with Him. So it is in the regeneration of a soul; instrumentality appears, but the real work is immediately of the Spirit of God.
III. We come, thirdly, to dwell upon the special object of this creation: Unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. When Adam was created, the Lord made him for His own glory. When the Lord creates us the second time, in the second Adam, He does not make us that we may be merely comfortable and happy. We may enjoy all that God has given us, for of every tree of this garden you may freely eat, since in the paradise into which Christ has introduced you there is no forbidden fruit. Around you is the garden of the Lord, and your call is that you may dress it, and keep it. Cultivate it within; guard it from foes without. Holy labours await you, good works are expected of you, and you were created in Christ Jesus on purpose that you might be zealous for them.
1. Works of obedience.
2. Works of love.
3. Good works include the necessary acts of common life, when they are rightly performed. All our works should be good works; and we may make them so by sanctifying them with the Word of God and prayer.
4. God has not created us that we may talk about our good works, but that we may walk in them. Practical doing is better than loud boasting.
5. And they are not to be occasional merely, but habitual. God has not created us that we may execute good works as a grand performance, but that we may walk in them.
IV. Fourthly, the remarkable preparation made for that object, for so the text may be rendered, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them.
1. The Lord has decreed everything, and He has as much decreed the holy lives of His people as He has decreed their ultimate glorification with Him in heaven. Concerning good works, He hath before ordained that we should walk in them. The purpose is one and indivisible: there is no ordination to salvation apart from sanctification.
2. But, next, God has personally prepared every Christian for good works. Oh, say some, I sometimes feel as if I was so unfit for Gods service. You are not unfit, so far as you are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. When God creates a bird to fly, it is the best flying machine that can be manufactured; indeed, none can equal it. If God creates worms to plough the soil, and bring up the more useful ingredients to the surface, they are the best fertilizers under heaven. Gods purpose is subserved by that which He makes, else were He an unwise worker. We are in a special degree Gods workmanship, created to this end, that we may produce good works; and we are fitted to that end as much as a bird is fitted to fly, or a worm is fitted for its purpose in the earth.
3. Everything around you is arranged for the production of good works in you. On the whole, you are placed in the best position for your producing good works to the glory of God. I do not think it, says one. Very well. Then you will worry to quit your position, and attain another footing; mind that you do not plunge into a worse. It is not the box that makes the jewel, nor the place that makes the man. A barren tree is none the better for being transplanted. A blind man may stand at many windows before he will improve his view. If it is difficult to produce good works where you are, you will find it still difficult where you wish to be. Oh, sirs, the real difficulty lies not without you, but within you. If you get more grace, and are more fully Gods workmanship, you can glorify him in Babylon as well as in Jerusalem. Moreover, the Lord has prepared the whole system of His grace to this end--that you should abound in good works. Every part and portion of the economy of grace tends toward this result, that thou mayest be perfect even as thy Father which is in heaven is perfect. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Christian is the noblest work of God
Men can admire a statue; it is breathing with life, and the fire of genius has succeeded in imparting almost animation to the figure. You remember that once it was but an unmeaning block of marble, but the sculptors imagination has succeeded in portraying a man, and the human face divine meets your enraptured eyes. You are filled with rapture and astonishment at the power of genius to call forth such a beautiful creation of art. And have you no eyes to see, nor heart to appreciate, the noble work of God in the new creation of a soul that was dead in trespasses and sins? That man was once a blank in the creation of God; he was spiritually dead, but now he has a soul instinct with the breath of heaven, which lives for its Maker, which hears and obeys His voice, and beats high with the generous sentiments of redeeming love. It is a soul that is restored to its original place in the creation, fulfilling the high purposes of its God, and glowing with ardour to live for His honour and glory. It has not, like the statue, the mock appearance of life; it is not a beautiful illusion of your fancy which vanishes at one effort of your sober reason. It has not its useless and inanimate form to reign and hold its empire only in your imagination. No! look on it, it is the living work of God; it has His own resemblance imparted to it; it is immortal, and destined to run an endless race of glory, to the everlasting praise of the infinite Jehovah--behold it--angels are enamoured with it, and yet you, who can break forth in rapture at that lifeless statue, can see no beauty here; no loveliness to draw forth your love; no admiration of this soul born of God!
Professors without good works
Many Christians are of a retiring disposition, and their retiring disposition is exemplified somewhat in the same way as that of the soldier who felt himself unworthy to stand in the front ranks. He felt that it would not be too presumptuous a thing for him to be in front, where the cannon balls were mowing down men on the right hand and on the left, and therefore he would rather not be in the vanguard. I always look upon those very retiring and modest people as arrant cowards, and I shall venture to call them so. I ask not every man and woman to rush into the front ranks of service, but I do ask every converted man and woman to take some place in the ranks, and to be prepared to make some sacrifice in that position they choose or think themselves fit to occupy. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A Christian Christs workmanship
It is told of Michael Angelo, the famous Italian sculptor and painter, that he invariably selected the marble block on which he was to operate from the quarry himself. He would allow no other hand to touch it, not even in its rudest state, lest it should be marred. After such a fashion does the Master-Sculptor of souls proceed. He performs the entire work of refashioning the human soul from beginning to end. In this work, it is true, He employs various tools--His Word, His Spirit, His Providential arrangements; but no hand save His touches them.
We are His workmanship.
Mans creation unto good works
Human boasting is excluded, because human merit there is none. We are Gods workmanship, not our own.
I. The Divine workmanship.
1. Characterized by truth, reality, thoroughness, Not on the surface--not merely intellectual or mental; but a deep, subterraneous power heaving from the depth of the spiritual nature, and working from the centre to the circumference. Born again. Created anew.
2. When complete it will be perfect in beauty. He who made these bodies of ours so beautiful, so kingly, so majestic, so unutterably wonderful; He who bent with such majestic grace the arch of the firmament; He who clothed the earth with its infinite variety of beautiful objects; will make His spiritual creation in harmony with the material; so that, when finished, it shall be said, He hath made this also beautiful in his season. God will look upon it, and say, Yes, it is My workmanship, and I am pleased with it. That is the highest thing that can be said. His heart will rest in it.
II. The compass of this workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Good works here, and good works hereafter. We are to serve God in the best way we can here, and we shall serve Him in another world in the distant future more perfectly than now.
1. Good works have their origin in love. Nothing noble is done from any other motive.
2. Good works are always inspired by the Holy Ghost. He inspires the love, and the love gives existence to the good works.
3. The good works we are to do are ordained by God. God thought of you before you were; He resolved that you should be--that you should be to do good works--to do good works which belong to you alone, just as in nature the tree is created to bear a particular fruit. How shall we know what we ought to do?
(1) By the predispositions of our own minds, which are themselves the creation of God.
(2) From our abilities. All we can do we are bound to do. Not much is expected from a mere mountain brook. Let it flow through its narrow channel; let it make a little green on its banks; let it murmur as it goes--and that is all you can ever expect of it. It is only a mountain brook. But, of a vast river starting at one end of a continent, and flowing through the heart of it, gathering to itself volumes of water, much is expected, for is it not a great river? And so, you who have education and genius, you whom God has richly endowed, you who have noble opportunities and fine talents--God expects great things of you; you must water the continent, as it were; and the question for each one is, to what work does my heart gravitate, and what work can I do? It is a great mistake--a mistake often committed--to try to do what we cannot, and to leave undone the thing which God has ordained for us to do, and which we could do with perfect ease.
(3) We are bound to pray, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? Life oftentimes seems a pathless region, and it is evening with us, and the clouds are lowering, and the dark, black forest is before us, and there is no pathway, and a kind of bewilderment comes over a man at times; he does not know what to do, or which way to go--a conscientious man, especially. If God has placed him in a position in which others are dependent upon him for all blessing whatsoever, it becomes a great question, and a bewilderment sometimes, what he is to do. Rut we are not alone in this pathless place. There is always the invisible presence, the Eternal Friend at hand, and to Him we must go in solemn prayer. This if we do, we shall not go astray, but when life ends shall find that accomplished which He desired. (Thomas Jones.)
The new creation of believers
The doctrine of the text is, That those who are renewed and recovered out of the apostasy of mankind, are, as it were, created anew through the power of God and grace of the Redeemer.
I. Explain the text.
1. Our relation to God. We are His workmanship.
(1) By natural creation, which gives us some kind of interest in Him, and hope of grace from Him.
(2) By regeneration, or renovation, which is called a second or new creation (2Co_5:17).
(a) A change wrought in us, so that we are other persons than we were before, as if another kind of soul came to dwell in our bodies.
(b) This change is such as must amount to a new creation. Nor merely a moral change, from profaneness and gross sins to a more sober course of life; nor a temporary change, which soon wears off; nor a change of outward form, which does not affect the heart; nor a partial change. The renewed are holy in all manner of conversation. They drive a new trade for another world, and set upon another work to which they were strangers before; must have new solaces, new comforts, new motives. The new creature is entire, not half new half old; but with many the heart is like a cake not turned.
(c) When thus new framed and fashioned, it belongeth to God; it hath special relation to Him (Jam_1:18). It must needs be so; they have Gods nature and life.
(d) This workmanship on us as new creatures far surpasses that which makes us creatures only.
2. Gods way of concurrence to establish this relation. It is a creation.
(1) This shows the greatness of the disease; in that so great a remedy is needed.
(2) It teaches us to magnify this renewing work if you think the cure is no great matter, it will necessarily follow that it deserves no great praise, and so God will be robbed of the honour of our recovery.
3. How far the mediation of Christ is concerned in this effect. We are renewed by Gods creating power, but through the intervening mediation of Christ.
(1) This creating power is set forth with respect to His merit. The life of grace is purchased by His death, God sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we might live by Him (1Jn_4:9); here spiritually, hereafter eternally; life opposite to the death incurred by sin. And how by Him? By His being a propitiation.
(2) In regard of efficacy. Christ is a quickening Head, or a life-making Spirit (1Co_15:45). Whatever grace we have comes from God, through Christ as Mediator; and from Him we have it by virtue of our union with Him (2Co_5:17).
(3) With respect to Christ: We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, who is the Head of the new world, or renewed estate.
(4) With respect to the use for which this new creation serveth. One is mentioned in the text: Created unto good works; but other things must be taken in.
(a) In order to our present communion with God. Till we are created anew, we are not fit to converse with a holy and invisible God earnestly, frequently, reverently, and delightfully, which is our daily work and business.
(b) In order to our service and obedience to God. Man is unfit for Gods use till he be new moulded and framed again.
(c) In order to our future enjoyment of God, and that glory and blessedness which we expect in His heavenly kingdom; none but new creatures can enter into the new Jerusalem. Application: Use.
1. Of information.
(1) That there is such a thing as the new nature, regeneration, or the new birth, and the new creature. It is one thing to make us men, another to make us saints or Christians.
(2) That by this new nature a man is distinguished from himself as carnal; he hath somewhat which he had not before, something that may be called a new life and nature; a new heart that is created (Psa_51:10), and may be increased (2Pe_3:18). In the first conversion we are mere objects of grace, but afterwards instruments of grace. First God worketh upon us, then by us.
(3) How little they can make out their recovery to God, and interest in Christ, who are not sensible of any change wrought in them. This is a change indeed, but in many that profess Christ, and pretend to an interest in Him, there is no such change to be sensibly seen; their old sins, and their old lusts, and the old things of ungodliness are not yet cast off. Surely so much old rubbish and rotten building should not be left standing with the new. Old leaves in autumn fall off in the spring, if they continue so long; so old things should pass away, and all become new.
(4) It informeth us in what manner we should check sin, by remembering it is an old thing to be done away, and ill becoming our new estate by Christ (2Pe_1:9).
2. To put us upon self-reflection; are we the workmanship of God, created in Christ Jesus? that is, are we made new creatures? It will be known by these things--a new mind, a new heart, and a new life.
3. To exhort you to look after this, that you be the workmanship of God, created in Christ Jesus. You will say, What can we do? This is Gods work in which we are merely passive. I answer--It is certainly an abuse of this doctrine if it lull us asleep in the lap of idleness; and we think that because God doth all in framing us for the new life, we must do nothing. The Spirit of God reasoneth otherwise, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php_2:12-13). This principle can neither be a ground of looseness nor laziness. You are under an obligation both to return to God and to use the means whereby you may return. Your impotency doth not dissolve your obligation. A drunken servant is a servant, and bound to do his work; his master loseth not his right by his default. An insolvent debtor is a debtor, and if he cannot pay all, he is bound to pay as much as he can. Besides, you are creatures in misery; if you be sensible of it, your interest will teach you to do what you can to come out of it; and Gods doing all is an engagement to wait upon Him in the use of means, that we may meet with God in His way, and He may meet with us in our way.
II. The end why we are brought into this estate. Not to live idly or walk loosely, but holily and according to the will of God.
1. The object: good works; that is, works becoming the new creature; in short, we should live Christianly.
2. Gods act about it.
(1) God has prepared these works for us.
(2) God has prepared us for them.
3. Our duty: that we should walk in them. Walking denotes both a way and an action.
(1) Good works are the way to obtain salvation, purchased and granted to us by Jesus Christ. Unless we walk in the path of good works we cannot come to eternal life.
(2) An action. Walking denotes--
(a) Spontaneity in the principle; not drawn or driven, but walk--set ourselves a-going.
(b) Progress m the motion. (T. Manton, D. D.)
New creatures prepared for good works
I. What is meant by good works.
1. The kinds. All acts of obedience.
(1) Acts of Gods immediate worship, both internal and external.
(2) Every man must labour in the work to which he is called.
(3) Works of righteousness and justice; to hurt none, to give every one his due, to use fidelity in our relations (Act_24:15).
(4) Works of charity and mercy; as to relieve the poor, to be good to all, to help others by our counsel or admonition.
(5) I think there is another sort of good works which concern ourselves, and that is sobriety, watchfulness, mortification, self-denial. A man oweth duty to himself (Tit_2:12).
2. The requisites.
(1) That the person be in a good state (Mat_7:17).
(2) The principles of operation must be faith, love, and obedience.
(3) A due regard of circumstances, that it may be not only good, but done well (Luk_8:15).
(4) The end--that it be for Gods glory (Php_1:11).
II. How new creatures are obliged to these good works.
1. With respect to God, He hath ordained that we should walk in them. If you refer to His decree, He will have His elect people distinguished from others by the good they do in the world, that they may be known to be followers of a good God, as the children of the devil are by their mischief (2Pe_1:10). If you take it for His precept and command, surely we should make conscience of what our Father giveth us in charge.
2. With respect to Christ, who died to restore us to a capacity and ability to perform these good works (Tit_2:14).
3. With respect to the Spirit, who reneweth us for this end; we are new made, that we may look upon doing good as our calling and only business. All other things are valuable according to the use for which they serve; the sun was made to give light and heat to inferior creatures, and we are enlightened by grace, and inclined by grace, that our light may shine before men (Mat_5:16).
4. With respect to heaven and eternal happiness, they are the way to heaven. We discontinue or break off our walk when we cease to do good; but the more we mind good works the more we proceed in our way (Php_3:14).
III. How are they fitted and prepared by this new nature that is put into them for good works? There is a remote preparation, and a near preparation.
1. The remote preparation is an inclination and propensity to all the acts of the holy and heavenly life. All creatures have an inclination to their proper operations, so the new creature. As the sparks fly up and the stones downward by an inclination of nature, so are their hearts bent to please and serve God. The inclination is natural, the acts are voluntary, because it is an inclination of a free agent.
2. The near preparation is called promptitude and readiness for every good work, or a ready obedience to every good work. (See Tit_3:1; 1Ti_6:18; Heb_13:1). This is beyond inclination. The fire hath an inclination to ascend upwards, yet something may violently keep it down; so a Christian may have a will to good, a strong, not a remiss will, but yet there are some impediments (Rom_7:18). (T. Manton, D. D.)
A birds-eye view of life
I. The aim of life. Good works. Is it Paul who speaks thus? Is not he the enemy of good works? Is not this the doctrine of the Old Testament? Answer: Paul was the enemy of a certain doctrine of good works, and of a party who took good works as its motto. But it is quite possible to object to a thing in the wrong place, and appreciate it in the right place. The voice of conscience tells a man he shall be justified or condemned by his works. Are the words of our Lord, in Mat_25:35, mock thunder? If not, then it is plain that what we shall be asked for at the judgment seat will be our good works.
II. The line by which this aim is limited.
1. The line of talent. One has ten talents, another has only one. No man can do the work of an angel. A common man cannot do the work of a genius. All have some talent. One has social charm; another, the gift of song; another, moral attractiveness.
2. The line of circumstances. The circumstances and places of our lives are arranged by God, as well as the persons we influence and who influence us. We must see to it that our own plot is well cared for. The invalid cannot do as much as the man of good health, nor the mother of a family as much as she who has no such care.
3. The line of time. How different would our life have been, had we lived in the last century. Now, or never, is our time to work. God has appointed the length of time we are to work.
III. The power by which it is accomplished. We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Our destination to do our good works dates from our new birth. If we have not been born again, we have not begun to do our good works. This change is a creation. It is compared to the change that took place when God said, Let there be light. In Christ Jesus, united to Him, so that we can say, It is no more I that do it, but Christ who dwelleth in me. No man is fit to do the work of life till he is created in Christ Jesus. His life is a failure unless he is a new creature. Let those who are in Christ Jesus remember why they have been so created, and that it is entirely in the power derived from Christ they can do their good works.
IV. The Divine artist behind the human workman. Life is our task, but it is also Anothers. We are His workmanship. The Greek is, Gods poem. Every Christians life is a poem of God. In opening a book of poems we find an elegy, a lyric, an ode of battle, or a love song. There are lives of Christians like all these. This is Gods book of poems. Its name is, The book of free grace, and undying love, Will your life be in it? (James Stalker, M. A.)
The Divine workmanship
I. Its characteristics.
1. Truth.
2. Reality.
3. Thoroughness.
4. When complete, perfection in beauty.
We, beaten and tossed by the stormy waves of circumstance, shall be so perfect as to please God Himself.
II. Its purpose. There are good works here and hereafter. When we lay down our wearied heads and die, we are not done with service. We shall serve God in another world more perfectly than now.
1. Good works have their origin in love, i.e., they are inspired by the Holy Ghost.
2. Good works are ordained of God.
3. How shall we know what we ought to do amongst the multiplicity of good works?
(1) We must be guided to a certain extent by our own predispositions. Some are disposed to self-culture; let them, then, go on and cultivate their natures. Some love to teach. Some delight in practical benevolence. For all there is a work.
(2) We must look at our abilities--what we can do.
(3) We must seek Gods direction. (Thomas Jones.)
Good works are God-inspired
Good works are always inspired by the Holy Ghost, or, to speak more correctly perhaps, He inspires the love, and the love gives existence to the good works. There is none good, save God. Thus the Saviour taught. Goodness in Him is like light in the sun. You meet with rivers, and streamlets, and fountains, and lakes among the mountains, and in the valleys of the earth; but the origin of them all is in the sea, they all begin there. So all goodness in individuals, in the Church, in the world, in the whole universe, is inspired of God, and I wish I could make you feel it as seriously as I do. This gives unspeakable grandeur to our practical religion, to good works. They are inspirations of God, they are beams from the central light, they are streams from the uncreated fountain. Flippantly have men sometimes spoken of good works, contrasting faith with works. They have twisted laurel wreaths of glory round the brows of faith; they have kept good works in the distance. Another day has dawned upon England; we begin to think that the grandest thing of all is to be good. To do good works inspired by love and inspired by Gods Holy Spirit--this is the grand thing. (Thomas Jones.)
Good works prepared
Six ways in which God prepares good works for us to do.
1. In predestinating them (Rom_1:1; Jer_1:5; Isa_54:16).
2. In His commandments He reveals them to us. The law of God rules them out before our eyes.
3. God has set us samples, both His own, and His childrens.
4. God supplies us with the grace, which enables us to do this or that work.
5. He excites the will; for such is our dulness, that we must have our will raised by Him to will.
6. He preserves us; so that now willing we may work. (Paul Bayne.)
Prepared works
It would be impossible to conceive words which could better express at once the dignity and the nothingness of all human works. Their dignity, seeing that for their sake we are both made of God and re-made of Christ. Their nothingness--because both the works we do--and we ourselves who do them--are nothing but a piece of workmanship which God has formed and created. If any man think much of his works, I say, You are only a bit of mechanism, that God has trained to carry out His mind; to evolve those preplanned works. If any man think little of works, I say, It is for works that you were created and redeemed; and God has thought so much of those works of yours, that He designed them before you were born; and you were brought into existence that you might do them. Look at that body of yours--so curiously framed together, and knit, and fitted for action. Look at that mind, so capable and so furnished. Look at that heart, with all its powers of sympathy and affection. Look at that soul, with all that has been done for it, and done in it. And then ask yourself--I do not say--Is not all this prepared for something, and something very great?--but, Must not there be something prepared for it? Must not the preparation be reciprocal? Must not that which is prepared for this complicated and wonderful being of mine, be something worthy Of its structure and its composition? God makes nothing for waste. Surely, every evidence that I am prepared for a work, is a proof that a work is prepared for me. It would, of course, be a great question--concerning every particular work as it comes before you whether it is the work which God has prepared for you. To guide you into a decision in this matter, there should always be at least two vocations to every work: the inward vocation of your own conscience, and the outward vocation of Providence. And if to these two vocations there can be added the vocation of the Church, or of Christian friends, it would be more conclusive still. The three vocations very seldom mislead. Sanctified common sense is the true rule of life. And this brings me to one characteristic of all prepared work. It never goes before God. He must open a door. He must soften a heart. He must give an impulse. For every prepared work has its limitations; and here is the line of the limitation--that Gods footsteps must be there. But once receive anything you have to do--or equally, anything you have to suffer--as a work long ago prepared for you; and then see what a comfort, what an energy, what a power that one single thought will give!
1. In itself it is a token for good. It is a proof of love. Not only that God uses you at all, but that He has been at the pains to arrange long beforehand the exact thing which you are to do for Him.
2. You may be quite sure that any work which God hath prepared for you, will have a particular adaptation to your character, to your position, and to your strength. God never gives His work indiscriminately. To each his own. His works are not suited to everybody alike. You could not do mine; and I cannot do yours.
3. In the fact that the work--whatever it be--is Gods own appointment for you, there is a sure warrant of success. He planned and constructed it before you touched it. What God begins, He always ends. I cannot tell you, in detail, each of you, what your prepared work is. This I know, the prepared work of every one is to believe; and then to live the faith he professes; to be happy, and then to make others happy; to glorify God. But I should sadly narrow my subject if I confined the good works which God has prepared for us to do, to this world. We are created in Christ Jesus to good works in heaven. For assuredly we shall work there. And a part of the work is this, that your work is rest. And the more we grow towards heaven, the more we approach to that--work is rest because we do it restfully. But, be sure of this, there will be work in heaven. More prepared than even the work which we are doing here. And for this reason, that all the work we are doing here is in itself preparatory to that work. We are practising now that we may do it well by and by! (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Good works
1. Good works cannot be judged by appearances. To the eye of man good and bad may appear precisely the same. The eye of God alone can discern, and His judgment alone determine, their character.
2. Hence we must go to His Word to enable us in any measure to judge of them rightly. And that Word teaches us that whatsoever is not of faith is sin; without faith it is impossible to please God.
3. What, then, are good works, as the fruit of faith? Any work done believing with the heart, and done, therefore, to the glory of God, is a good work. Faith purifies the heart; works by love; overcomes the world.
4. We should specially mark that works in no way justify us before God, for we are accounted righteous: only for the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ through faith. But works, as the fruit of a lively faith, justify us before men; and a faith which produces no works is dead. A tree is the same good tree in winter without leaf or fruit, as it is in the autumn when laden with fruit; and the fruit does not make the tree good, but the tree makes the fruit good, and good fruit shows that the tree is good.
5. We should be very zealous in bringing forth the fruit of good works, for we are apt to be slothful and weary in well-doing, and much hindered through world, flesh, devil. (C. J. Goodhart, M. A.)
Good works for believers
The words being opened, enlarge upon--
I. Good works as the things in which Gods people are to walk. Illustrate this in a young convert passing through various connections in life to old age.
II. God as the Author of these good works in them. Shew how the Scripture speaks of this. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean, etc. (Eze_36:25, etc.). Hath not the potter power over the clay, etc. (Rom_9:21). Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Php_1:6). For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php_2:13).
III. Good works wrought in us as consequences of union with Christ. I am the True Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman, etc. (Joh_15:1, etc.). For if thou wert cut out of the olive, tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, etc. (Rom_11:24). But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, etc. (Eph_4:15, etc.).
IV. The commands of God in His Word, and the work of His grace in us, as corresponding; like the seal and the wax. But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, etc. (Rom_6:17). Exemplified in Zaccheus--Paul--Prodigal. Address to the careless--the Antinomian--the self-righteous--the regenerate. (H. Foster, M. A.)
Perseverance in good works
It is not one or two good actions, but a good conversation, which will speak a man to be a right Christian. A true believer, like the heavenly orbs, is constant and unwearied in his motion and actings. Enoch walked with God; it is not taking a step or two in a way which denominates a man a walker, but a continued motion. No man is judged healthy by a flushing colour in his face, but by a good complexion. God esteems none holy for a particular carriage, but for a general course. A sinner in some few acts may be very good: Judas repents, Cain sacrifices, the scribes pray and fast; and yet all were very false. In the most deadly diseases, there may be some intermissions, and some good prognostics. A saint in some few acts may be very bad: Noah is drunk, David defiles his neighbours wife, and Peter denies his best friend; yet these persons were heavens favourites. The best gold must have some grains of allowance. Sheep may fall into the mire, but swine love day and night to wallow in it. A Christian may stumble, nay, he may fall, but he gets up and walks on in the way of Gods commandments; the bent of his heart is right, and the scope of his life is straight, and thence he is deemed sincere. (G. Swinnock.)
The use of good works
God, said a minister to a boy who stood watching a caterpillar spinning a very beautiful cocoon, God sets that little creature a task to do: and diligently and very skilfully he does it; and so God gives us good works to perform in His name and for His sake. But, were the insect to remain satisfied forever in the silken ball which he is weaving, it would become, not his home, but his tomb. No; by not resting in it, but forcing a way through it, will the winged creature reach sunshine and air. He must leave his own works behind, if he would shine in freedom and joy. And so it is with the Christian.
Conversion, the soul, and God
There is produced in a soul an image of God. When does the image of the star start up in the chamber of the telescope? Only when the lenses are clear and rightly adjusted, and when the axis of vision in the tube is brought into exact coincidence with the line of the rays of light from the star. When does the image of God, or the inner sense of peace and pardon spring up in the human soul? Only when the faculties of the soul are rightly adjusted in relation to each other, and the will brought into coincidence with Gods will. How much is mans work, and how much is the work of the light? Man adjusts the lenses and the tube; the light does all the rest. Man may, in the exercise of his freedom, as upheld by Divine power, adjust his faculties to spiritual light, and when adjusted in a certain way God flashes through them. (Joseph Cook.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 10. For we are his workmanship. It is God…
10. For we are his workmanship. It is God who saved us; as new creatures, he had made us through the gospel. We are not saved by works, but are his workmanship, created unto good works, designed henceforth to abound in them. Which God hath before ordained. It is his ordination that all who believe the gospel and are saved should practice good works. God has graciously quickened us, saved us, made us new creatures, and prepared us unto good works.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Eph_2:10. For we are His workmanship.—We get our word…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Eph_2:10. For we are His workmanship.—We get our word “poem” from that which we here translate workmanship, lit. “something made.” Every Christian belongs to those of whom God says, “This people have I formed for Myself, that they should show forth My praise” (Isa_43:21). The archetype of all our goodness lies in the divine thought, as the slow uprising of a stately cathedral is the embodiment of the conception of the architect’s brain.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Eph_2:10
The Christian Life a Divine Creation.
I. The true Christian a specimen of the divine handiwork.—“We are His workmanship.” So far is man from being the author of his own salvation, or from procuring salvation for the sake of any works of his own, that not only was his first creation as a man the work of God, but his new spiritual creation is wholly the result of divine power. Man, in the marvellous mechanism of his body, and in his unique mental and spiritual endowments, is the noblest work of God. He is the lord and high priest of nature, and has such dominion over it as to be able to combine and utilise its forces. But the creation of the new spiritual man in Christ Jesus is a far grander work, and a more perfect and exalted specimen of the divine handiwork. It is a nearer approach to a more perfect image of the divine character and perfections. As the best work of the most gifted genius is a reflection of his loftiest powers, so the new spiritual creation is a fuller revelation of the infinite resources of the divine Worker.
II. The Christian life is eminently practical.—“Created in Christ Jesus for good works” (R.V.). The apostle never calls the works of the law good works. We are not saved by, but created unto, good works. Works do not justify, but the justified man works, and thus demonstrates the reality of his new creation. “I should have thought mowers very idle people,” said John Newton, “but they work while they whet the scythe. Now devotedness to God, whether it mows or whets the scythe, still goes on with the work. A Christian should never plead spirituality for being a sloven; if he be but a shoe-cleaner, he should be the best in the parish.”
III. The opportunities and motives for Christian usefulness are divinely provided.—“Which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Every man has his daily work of body or mind appointed him. There is not a moment without a duty. Each one has a vineyard; let him see that he till it, and not say, “No man hath hired us.” “The situation,” says Carlyle, “that has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy ideal. Work it out therefrom, and working, believe, live, and be free.” There is no romance in a minister’s proposing and hoping to forward a great moral revolution on the earth, for the religion he is appointed to preach was intended and is adapted to work deeply and widely and to change the face of society. Christianity was not ushered into the world with such a stupendous preparation, it was not foreshown through so many ages by enraptured prophets, it was not proclaimed so joyfully through the songs of angels, it was not preached by such holy lips and sealed by such precious blood, to be only a pageant, a form, a sound, a show. Oh no! It has come from heaven, with heaven’s life and power—come to make all things new, to make the wilderness glad, and the desert blossom as the rose, to break the stony heart, to set free the guilt-burdened and earth-bound spirit, and to present it faultless before God’s glory with exceeding joy.
Lessons.—
1. Christianity is not a creed, but a life.
2. The Christian life has a manifest divine origin.
3. The Christian life must be practically developed in harmony with the divine mind.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSE
Eph_2:10. Interruptions in our Work, and the Way to deal with Them.—In proportion to the seriousness with which a Christian does his work will be his sensitiveness to interruptions, and this sensitiveness is apt to disturb his peace. The remedy is a closer study of the mind that was in Christ, as that mind transpires in His recorded conduct. The point in the life of our Lord is the apparent want of what may be called method or plan. His good works were not in pursuance of some scheme laid down by Himself, but such as entered into God’s scheme for Him, such as the Father had prepared for Him to walk in.
I. Notice His discourses both in their occasions and their contexture.—
1. His discourses often take their rise from some object which is thrown across His path in nature, from some occurrence which takes place under His eyes, or from some question which is put to Him.
2. The contexture of His discourses are not systematic in the usual sense of the word. There is the intellectual method, and the method of a full mind and loving heart. The only plan observable in our Lord’s discourses is that of a loving heart pouring itself out as occasion serves for the edification of mankind.
II. Study the life of Christ.—The absence of mere human plan, or rather strict faithfulness to the plan of God as hourly developed by the movements of His providence, characterises the life of our Lord even more than His discourses. Illustrated from Matthew 9. God has a plan of life for each one of us, and occasions of doing or receiving good are mapped out for each in His eternal counsels. Little incidents, as well as great crises of life, are under the control of God’s providence. Events have a voice for us if we will listen to it. Let us view our interruptions as part of God’s plan for us. We may receive good, even when we cannot do good. It is self-will which weds us to our own plans and makes us resent interference with them. In the providence of God there seems to be entanglements, perplexities, interruptions, confusions, contradictions, without end; but you may be sure there is one ruling thought, one master-design, to which all these are subordinate. Be not clamorous for another or more dignified character than that which is allotted to you. Be it your sole aim to conspire with the Author, and to subserve His grand and wise conception. Thus shall you find peace in submitting yourself to the wisdom which is of God.—E. M. Goulburn.
The New Spiritual Creation.—God has kindled in us a new spiritual life by baptism and the influence of the Holy Spirit connected therewith. He has laid the foundation of recreating us into His image. He has made us other men in a far more essential sense than it was once said to Saul—“Thou shalt be turned into another man.” What is the principal fruit and end of this new creation? A living hope. Its object is not only our future resurrection, but the whole plenitude of the salvation still to be revealed by Jesus Christ, even until the new heavens and the new earth shall appear. Birth implies life; so is it with the hope of believers, which is the very opposite of the vain, lost, and powerless hope of the worldly-minded. It is powerful, and quickens the heart by comforting, strengthening, and encouraging it, by making it joyous and cheerful in God. Its quickening influence enters even into our physical life. Hope is not only the fulfilment of the new life created in regeneration, but also the innermost kernel of the same.—Weiss.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 10. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ…
ARGUMENT 8
CREATED FOR THE END
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10. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before prepared, that we may walk in them.” We do not plant two trees simply for their own sake, but for the fruit they produce. Pursuant to this metaphor, God created us for the good works we will perform in this world, and others through the flight of eternal ages. While
God’s plan is to save this lost world through human instrumentality, we must remember that this fleeting probation is but a drop when compared with the boundless ocean of eternity. When God takes me out of this world, I think it will be because he has more use for me in another sphere, where I shall adore his majesty, magnify his mercy and grace, and do his will through all eternity. Methinks he will send me away to preach to the newly-created inhabitants of newborn worlds, and thus fortify them against the liability of apostasy, and establish them in the Divine loyalty. Who would be more suitable for this great and important work than we who have passed through Satan’s flint-mills? This fleeting life disqualifies us for enterprises of illimitable magnitude. When once probation is passed, and immortality supervenes, we can deliberately launch enterprises sweeping on through myriads of ages, as we are assured of our own survival till their completion.
11,12. We now enter upon a beautiful paragraph expository of the Jewish and Gentile correlation to the gracious economy. The Christian Church began all Jews. In a century it underwent a radical somersault, the Jewish element evanescing, and the Gentile coming in, till the latter unanimously preponderated.
“Having no hope and atheists in the world,” reveals the sad condition of the whole Gentile world before reached by the gospel. Where the English says, “without God,” the Greek is atheos, atheists. When we consider the fact that the Egyptians, Hindus, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans were all intensely religious, their cities radiant with the dazzling domes and glittering spires of the gorgeous temples erected to their gods, many of which stand this day, the wonder of the world (I saw them in 1895), a sad conclusion as to the spiritual condition of earth’s millions this day supervenes. All these Gentile worshipers in Paul’s day were the apostasy of the patriarchal dispensation of the Christian religion. So Romanism and many Protestant Churches are now the apostasy of the apostolic dispensation. The legitimate conclusion follows from these utterances of the Holy Ghost, that all the people who are not personally acquainted with the true God in the supernatural birth are in the gross darkness of practical atheism.
13-16. “...Destroying the enmity, the law of commandments in creeds:... slaying the enmity on it.” These verses clearly set forth the fact that when Christ died on the cross, he swept all human authority from the field.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
EPHESIANS
GOD’S WORKMANSHIP AND OUR WORKS
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Eph 2:10
The metal is molten as it runs out of the blast furnace, but it soon cools and hardens. Paul’s teaching about salvation by grace and by faith came in a hot stream from his heart, but to this generation his words are apt to sound coldly, and hardly theological. But they only need to be reflected upon in connection with our own experience, to become vivid and vital again. The belief that a man may work towards salvation is a universal heresy. And the Apostle, in the context, summons all his force to destroy that error, and to substitute the great truth that we have to begin with an act of God’s, and only after that can think about our acts. To work up towards salvation is, in the strict sense of the words, preposterous; it is inverting the order of things. It is beginning at the wrong end. It is saying X Y Z before you have learnt to say A B C. We are to work downwards from salvation because we have it, not that we may get it. And whatever ‘good works’ may mean, they are the consequences, not the causes, of ‘salvation,’ whatever that may mean. But they are consequences, and they are the very purpose of it. So says Paul in the archaic language of my text-which only wants a little steadfast looking at to be turned into up-to-date gospel-’We are His workmanship, created unto good works’; and the fact that we are is one great reason for the assertion which he brings it in to buttress, that we are saved by grace, not by works. Now, I wish, in the simplest possible way, to deal with these great words, and take them as they lie before us.
I. We have, first, then, this as the root of everything, the divine creation.
Now, you will find that in this profound letter of the Apostle there are two ideas cropping up over and over again, both of them representing the facts of the Christian life and of the transition from the unchristian to the Christian; and the one is Resurrection and the other is Creation. They have this in common, that they suggest the idea that the great gift which Christianity brings to men-no, do not let me use the abstract word ‘Christianity’-the great gift which Christ brings to men-is a new life. The low popular notion that salvation means mainly and primarily immunity from the ultimate, most lasting future consequences of transgression, a change of place or of condition, infects us all, and is far too dominant in our popular notions of Christianity and of salvation. And it is because people have such an unworthy, narrow, selfish idea of what ‘salvation’ is that they fall into the bog of misconception as to how it is to be attained. The ordinary man’s way of looking at the whole matter is summed up in a sentence which I heard not long since about a recently deceased friend of the speaker’s, and the like of which you have no doubt often heard and perhaps said, ‘He is sure to be saved because he has lived so straight.’ And at the foundation of that confident epitaph lay a tragical, profound misapprehension of what salvation was.
For it is something done in you; it is not something that you get, but it is something that you become. The teaching of this letter, and of the whole New Testament, is that the profoundest and most precious of all the gifts which come to us in Jesus Christ, and which in their totality are summed up in the one word that has so little power over us, because we understand it so little, and know it so well-’salvation’-is a change in a man’s nature so deep, radical, vital, as that it may fairly be paralleled with a resurrection from the dead.
Now, I venture to believe that it is something more than a strong rhetorical figure when that change is described as being the creation of a new man within us. The resurrection symbol for the same fact may be treated as but a symbol. You cannot treat the teaching of a new life in Christ as being a mere figure. It is something a great deal more than that, and when once a man’s eye is opened to look for it in the New Testament it is wonderful how it flashes out from every page and underlies the whole teaching. The Gospel of John, for example, is but one long symphony which has for its dominant theme ‘I am come that they might have life.’ And that great teaching-which has been so vulgarised, narrowed, and mishandled by sacerdotal pretensions and sacramentarian superstitions-that great teaching of Regeneration, or the new birth, rests upon this as its very basis, that what takes place when a man turns to Jesus Christ, and is saved by Him, is that there is communicated to him not in symbol but in spiritual fact {and spiritual facts are far more true than external ones which are called real} a spark of Christ’s own life, something of ‘that spirit of life which was in Christ Jesus,’ and by which, and by which alone, being transfused into us, we become ‘free from the law of sin and death.’ I beseech you, brethren, see that, in your perspective of Christian truth, the thought of a new life imparted to us has as prominent and as dominant a place as it obviously has in the teaching of the New Testament. It is not so dominant in the current notions of Christianity that prevail amongst average people, but it is so in all men who let themselves be guided by the plain teaching of Christ Himself and of all His servants. Salvation? Yes! And the very essence of the salvation is the breathing into me of a divine life, so that I become partaker of ‘the divine nature.’
Now, there is another step to be taken, and that is that this new life is realised in Christ Jesus. Now, this letter of the Apostle is distinguished even amongst his letters by the extraordinary frequency and emphasis with which he uses that expression ‘in Christ Jesus.’ If you will take up the epistle, and run your eye over it at your leisure, I think you will be surprised to find how, in all connections, and linked with every sort of blessing and good as its condition, there recurs that phrase. It is ‘in Christ’ that we obtain the inheritance; it is ‘in Christ’ that we receive ‘redemption, even the forgiveness of sins’; it is in Him that we are ‘builded together for a habitation of God’; it is in Him that all fulness of divine gifts, and all blessedness of spiritual capacities, is communicated to us; and unless, in our perspective of the Christian life, that expression has the same prominence as it has in this letter, we have yet to learn the sweetest sweetness, and have yet to receive the most mighty power, of the Gospel that we profess. ‘In Christ’-a union which leaves the individuality of the Saviour and of the saint unimpaired, because without such individuality sweet love were slain, and there were no communion possible, but which is so close, so real, so vital, as that only the separating wall of personality and individual consciousness comes in between-that is the New Testament teaching of the relation of the Christian to Christ. Is it your experience, dear brother? Do not be frightened by talking about mysticism. If a Christianity has no mysticism it has no life. There is a wholesome mysticism and there is a morbid one, and the wholesome one is the very nerve of the Gospel as it is presented by Jesus Himself: ‘I am the Vine, ye are the branches. Abide in Me, and I in you.’ If our nineteenth century busy Christianity could only get hold of that truth as firmly as it grasps the representative and sacrificial character of Christ’s work, I believe it would come like a breath of spring over ‘the winter of our discontent,’ and would change profoundly and blessedly the whole contexture of modern Christianity.
And now there is another step to take, and that is that this union with Christ, which results in the communication of a new life, or, as my text puts it, a new creation, depends upon our faith. We are not passive in the matter. There is the condition on which the entrance of the life into our spirits is made possible. You must open the door, you must fling wide the casement, and the blessed warm morning air of the sun of righteousness, with healing in its beams, will rush in, scatter the darkness and raise the temperature. ‘Faith’ by which we simply mean the act of the mind in accepting and of the will and heart in casting one’s self upon Christ as the Saviour-that act is the condition of this new life. And so each Christian is ‘God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.’
And now, says Paul-and here some of us will hesitate to follow him-that new creation has to go before what you call ‘good works.’ Now, do not let us exaggerate. There has seldom been a more disastrous and untrue thing said than what one of the Fathers dared to say, that the virtues of godless men were ‘splendid vices.’ That is not so, and that is not the New Testament teaching. Good is good, whoever does it. But, then, no man will say that actions, however they may meet the human conception of excellence, however bright, pure, lofty in motive and in aim they may be, reach their highest possible radiance and are as good as they ought to be, if they are done without any reference to God and His love. Dear brethren, we surely do not need to have the alphabet of morality repeated to us, that the worth of an action depends upon its motive, that no motive is correspondent to our capacities and our relation to God and our consequent responsibilities, except the motive of loving obedience to Him. Unless that be present, the brightest of human acts must be convicted of having dark shadows in it, and all the darker because of the brightness that may stream from it. And so I venture to assert that since the noblest systems of morality, apart from religion, will all coincide in saying that to be is more than to do, and that the worth of an action depends upon its motive, we are brought straight up to the ‘narrow, bigoted’ teaching of the New Testament, that unless a man is swayed by the love of God in what he does, you cannot, in the most searching analysis, say that his deed is as good as it ought to be, and as it might be. To be good is the first thing, to do good is the second. Make the tree good and its fruit good. And since, as we have made ourselves we are evil, there must come a re-creation before we can do the good deeds which our relation to God requires at our hands.
II. I ask you to look at the purpose of this new creation brought out in our text.
‘Created in Christ Jesus unto good works.’ That is what life is given to you for. That is why you are saved, says Paul. Instead of working upwards from works to salvation, take your stand at the received salvation, and understand what it is for, and work downwards from it.
Now, do not let us take that phrase, ‘good works,’ which I have already said came hot from the Apostle’s heart, and is now cold as a bar of iron, in the limited sense which it has come to bear in modern religious phraseology. It means something a great deal more than that. It covers the whole ground of what the Apostle, in another of his letters, speaks of when he says, ‘Whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, if there be any virtue’-to use for a moment the world’s word, which has such power to conjure in Greek ethics-’or if there be any praise’-to use for a moment the world’s low motive, which has such power to sway men-’think of these things,’ and these things do. That is the width of the conception of ‘good works’; everything that is ‘lovely and of good report.’ That is what you receive the new life for.
Contrast that with other notions of the purpose of revelation and redemption. Contrast it with what I have already referred to, and so need not enlarge upon now, the miserably inadequate and low notions of the essentials of salvation which one hears perpetually, and which many of us cherish. It is no mere immunity from a future hell. It is no mere entrance into a vague heaven. It is not escaping the penalty of the inexorable law, ‘Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap,’ that is meant by ‘salvation,’ any more than it is putting away the rod, which the child would be all the better for having administered to him, that is meant by ‘forgiveness.’ But just as forgiveness, in its essence, means not suspension nor abolition of penalty, but the uninterrupted flow of the Father’s love, so salvation in its essence means, not the deliverance from any external evil or the alteration of anything in the external position, but the revolution and the re-creation of the man’s nature. And the purpose of it is that the saved man may live in conformity with the will of God, and that on his character there may be embroidered all the fair things which God desires to see on His child’s vesture.
Contrast it with the notion that an orthodox belief is the purpose of revelation. I remember hearing once of a man that ‘he was a very shady character, but sound on the Atonement.’ What is the use of being ‘sound on the Atonement’ if the Atonement does not make you live the Christ life? And what is the good of all your orthodoxy unless the orthodoxy of creed issues in orthopraxy of conduct? There are far too many of us who half-consciously do still hold by the notion that if a man believes rightly then that makes him a Christian. My text shatters to pieces any such conception. You are saved that you may be good, and do good continually; and unless you are so doing you may be steeped to the eyebrows in the correctest of creeds, and it will only drown you.
Contrast this conception of the purpose of Christianity with the far too common notion that we are saved, mainly in order that we may indulge in devout emotions, and in the outgoing of affection and confidence to Jesus Christ. Emotional Christianity is necessary, but Christianity, which is mainly or exclusively emotional, lives next door to hypocrisy, and there is a door of communication between them. For there is nothing more certain and more often illustrated in experience than that there is a strange underground connection between a Christianity which is mainly fervid and a very shady life. One sees it over and over again. And the cure of that is to apprehend the great truth of my text, that we are saved, not in order that we may know aright, nor in order that we may feel aright, but in order that we may be good and do ‘good works.’ In the order of things, right thought touches the springs of right feeling, and right feeling sets going the wheels of right action. Do not let the steam all go roaring out of the waste-pipe in however sacred and blessed emotions. See that it is guided so as to drive the spindles and the shuttles and make the web.
III. And now, lastly, and only a word-here we have the field provided for the exercise of the ‘good works.’
‘Created unto good works which God has before prepared’-before the re-creation-’that we should walk in them.’ That is to say, the true way to look at the life is to regard it as the exercising-ground which God has prepared for the development of the life that, through Christ, is implanted in us. He cuts the channels that the stream may flow. That is the way to look at tasks, at difficulties. Difficulty is the parent of power, and God arranges our circumstances in order that, by wrestling with obstacles, we may gain the ‘thews that throw the world,’ and in order that in sorrows and in joys, in the rough places and the smooth, we may find occasions for the exercise of the goodness which is lodged potentially in us, when He creates us in Christ Jesus. So be sure that the path and the power will always correspond. God does not lead us on roads that are too steep for our weakness, and too long for our strength. What He bids us do He fits us for; what He fits us for He thereby bids us do.
And so, dear brother, take heed that you are fulfilling the purpose for which you receive this new life. And let us all remember the order in which being and doing come. We must be good first, and then, and only then, shall we do good. We must have Christ for us first, our sacrifice and our means of receiving that new life, and then, Christ in us, the soul of our souls, the Life of our lives, the source of all our goodness.
‘If any power we have, it is to ill,
And all the power is Thine to do and eke to will.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain (See Scofield "Eph 4:24").
created
(See Scofield "Eph 4:24").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:10 He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,…
2:10 He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us: Good works are the result, not the cause, of salvation. God’s Spirit, working through a transformed heart, produces a good life (Gal 5:22-23).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.